Soccer stars hitting it with hookers, box office results and the Wizards proved they are the DTITHOC

- I owe an apology to Charles Barkley. Before the start of the NBA playoff series between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Washington Wizards, the Chuck-ster called the Wizards the “dumbest team in the history of civilization” for intentionally antagonizing LeBron James and calling him overrated. My feeling going into the series was that the Cavs were one of the most beatable No. 4 seeds in many years, given to uninspired, flat performances against even the most mediocre of teams. I actually thought the Wizards would win the series, not because they’re a great team but rather because the Cavs aren’t all that great. Well, Barkley’s comments about the Wizards have proven to be uncannily accurate to the point that they are literally handing Cleveland a series win on the strength of Washington’s sheer stupidity. All series long, the Wiz have been acting like total ass clowns, trying to bully LeBron and disrespect him for what reason I’m not sure. Guard DeShawn Stevenson, clearly the chief idiot on a team full of them, insists on mimicking WWE wrestler John Cena’s trademark gesture of waving his hand back and forth in front of his face after making a good play, telling LeBron and the Cavs that “you can’t see me” with the gesture. Furthermore, in Game 4 on Sunday, Stevenson proved his worthiness as village idiot further by delivering a flagrant foul to James on a drive to the basket that consisted of D. Stevenson clubbing James in the head with what looked like a closed fist. That came on the heels of teammate Brendan Haywood also getting hit with a flagrant foul in Game 2 for deliberately shoving James to the floor on a drive to the basket. Roughing up James and trash talking him seems to be the Wizards’ comprehensive strategy for the entire series, which only proves that Barkley was 100 percent correct when he called them the DTITHOC (dumbest team in the history of civilization). Fact is, if the Wizards had kept their mouths shut, harnessed their considerable talents and just played basketball, they had an outstanding shot to hang with and maybe even beat the one-man gang that the Cavaliers are with James and their roster of also-rans. Instead, Washington is about to be bounced by Cleveland in the first round of the playoffs for the third straight year. If all of that doesn’t scream DTITHOC, nothing does.

- You always love it when you see lawmakers at any level - local, state or federal - who have their priorities straight. Some issues just cry out for attention and must be addressed because of their importance to the citizens of a particular town, city, state or country. One such issue has come to the forefront in the state Senate of Florida, where lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban - wait for it - metal replicas of bull testicles as bumper ornaments on trucks. Apparently a lot of loser truckers in the state have gotten the misguided impression that slamming a couple of metal replica bull nuts on their bumper is cool, so the practice has spread to the point that state lawmakers are taking time away from issues that actually matter in order to consider banning the practice. Those sponsoring the bill acknowledge that there are more pressing issues but have chosen to ignore that fact so they can waste time on this subject. They passed the bill because they feel that unless they address what they deem obscene displays such as this, more such displays will appear. The bill now goes to the House, but its odds of being passed or sufficiently debated before the legislature’s current session ends this Friday are extremely low. Damn, and this was such a vital issue to have a decision on before the situation gets any worse….

- This may have been the single dumbest box office weekend in the history of box office weekends. When the über-moronic, lame, hack-job Baby Mama is the top-earning film with $18.2 million and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is second best with $14.6 million, let’s just say IQ points were rarer than a truthful statement from Roger Clemens. But the stupid films don’t stop there, no way! Coming in third was the almost-as-moronic action flick The Forbidden Kingdom, last weekend’s box office leader, with $11.2 million in earnings. The fourth and fifth-higehst earning films were leaps and boundsw better than the first two despite one of them being a romantic comedy and the other being a fantasy kids’ film. Forgetting Sarah Marshall ranked fourth with $11 million in earnings and in a distant fifth, Nim’s Island with $4.5 million. Look for every one of these films to get bumped way down this coming weekend with the first summer blockbuster, Robert Downey Jr.’s Ironman, coming out. Of course, no matter what was coming out this coming weekend, it was a surefire lock to be better than either of the top three films from this past weekend.

- Believe it or not, being a cheating, lying steroid user might not be the worst thing you can call former MLB pitcher Roid-ger Clemens. The Pocket Rocket has already soiled a potential hall-of-fame career by inserting himself into the spotlight of the steroids scandal plaguing MLB and by putting on a truly unbelievable, scumbag performance in a congressional hearing on ‘roids. He’s gone from a surefire spot in Cooperstown to a guy who is a walking punch line. That being said, nothing he’s done in regards to steroids is even close to being as utterly reprehensible and despicable as what he’s now being accused of doing nearly a decade ago. According to a story now appearing in the New York Times, Clemens allegedly had a 10-year fling with country music singer Mindy McCready. That’s a problem in and of itself because Clemens is married was during the entire time the alleged relationship with McCready went on. But the adultery issue becomes secondary when you do the math and figure that if the information in this story is accurate, McCready was 15 years old when the relationship began. Can you say statutory rape? Yikes. As bad as cheating on your wife and cheating the game of baseball are, they’re nowhere near on par with inserting yourself into the same category as other child sex freaks like Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Michael Jackson. Clemens is denying the story and saying that while he did have a relationship with McCready, it was not sexual in nature. So far, we don’t know what hard proof the Times has on this one, but Clemens had better be sure on this one because if it’s proven that he was getting after it with a 15-year-old girl, he is D-U-N. I don’t care if it was one time or repeated encounters over 10 years, if you’re a 28-year-old (as Clemens was at the time the alleged affair began), you cannot be hitting it with a minor. In other parts of the world, that might be part of the culture, but not here in the United States or in most other civilized, non-Third World countries. I always thought Clemens was a reprehensible, arrogant piece of crap, but even I didn’t think he was a statutory rapist. So as much as I’d like to see him go to prison and have to deal with all of the other inmates knowing what he’s there for, I’m sincerely hoping this isn’t true. It would just be far too disturbing and disgusting, no doubt about it. For your sake and ours, Pocket Rocket, here’s hoping this isn’t what it appears to be.

- Would someone help me out with this one? Why is it that famous or even semi-famous athletes continually feel the need to get after it with hookers? I’ve always been fairly certain that being an athlete of note at the high school, college or professional level brings a certain amount of tail with it. You’re a good player, you get girls. That’s a given in the world I know, but the more of these stories I see, the more I begin to question it.
One-named soccer loser and world famous athlete Ronaldo got a major shock Monday night when he discovered a prostitute he'd picked up was in fact a transvestite who then allegedly tried to bribe him out of $30,000 in order to keep quiet about the incident. The three time world Footballer of the Year, recovering in Brazil after knee surgery in February, was having a night out in Rio de Janeiro, watching his beloved club Flamengo at the Maracana stadium. After the game, he dropped his girlfriend off at her house, then picked up a prostitute and took her to a nearby motel. Along the way, Ronaldo failed to notice his lady of the night was really a dude of the night, a post-op trannie who was looking to work him over. She was a he, more specifically Andre Luiz Ribeiro Albertino, a 21-year-old transvestite. When my main man Ronaldo realized his mistake, he allegedly threatened to hit Andreia, who in turn accused him of asking her to buy him drugs. Andreia videoed Ronaldo emerging from the motel on his/her mobile phone's camera. Now if that were most people, the story would end there. No matter what happened next, you’d deny the whole thing and do your best to pretend the whole incident never happened. Doesn’t matter what the shim (she/him) did, you deny, deny, deny. That’s the worst night of your life and one you don’t want anyone knowing about. But for Ronaldo, getting taken by a trannie hooker was a no-go. According to Rio police superintendent Carlos Augusto Nogueira, Ronaldo reported to the police “that Andreia had taken his car documents and demanded 30,000 dollars.” As disturbing as all of this is, I have to ask once again: why not just have sex with your girlfriend? She won't do the things you want to do in the bedroom? There have to be thousands of girls who would love to get with the world’s best soccer player (just none in the United States). Sleep with one of them, one you can confirm is in fact a woman and has been from birth and isn’t a lady of the night. This incident, combined with stories from last year in which Notre Dame football player Derrell Hand was suspended from the team after soliciting sex from an undercover police officer posing as a hooker and being hit with criminal charges and then-Ohio State third-string quarterback Antonio Henton was popped for soliciting a prostitute and faced misdemeanor charges, makes me wonder. Is it really that hard for athletes to score girls? C’mon fellas, restore my faith in the order of the world. Stop paying skanks for sex and start picking up girls who are awed by your athletic prowess…..

Greek/One Tree Hill revus, bold SoCal surfers and a heartwarming battle over James Brown's estate

- The heartwarming saga of the battle for the estate of the Godfather of Soul James Brown rages on and it is getting heated in a hurry. Ever since Brown bought the farm nearly a year and a half ago, people who claim to either be children of or have children by him have been coming fast and furious, trying to stake their claim to a piece of his estate. Never mind that these people had no real, personal connection with Brown. Just having a possible biological connection seems to be enough for these people to feel like they’ve earned money from the late singer. In his will, Brown admits to having fathered six children by four different women, but revised estimates put the number at 14 kids by eight women. However, not included among those confirmed ladies Brown knocked up is the humorously named Tomi Rae Hynie, who is claiming that her 6-year-old son is Brown’s. She says he accepted the child as his own and that since the singer’s death, the child has gotten social security benefits from him. Hynie now must present a South Carolina judge with a DNA testing proving that Brown fathered her son before she can be legally entered into the battle royale that the fight for his estate has become. And what better way to honor the memory and legacy of a departed loved one than to turn their will and the distribution of their estate into the biggest freaking circus this side of Barnum & Bailey…..

- Last night’s episode of Greek was both fun and funny, with the blend of humor and drama that makes the show so fun to watch on a week-to-week basis. It was a night of old dogs learning new tricks, so to speak. Everyone’s favorite geek Rusty was doing his best to jump back into the dating game, crushing on a girl named Emma from his literature class. When he was hesitant about asking her out, his über-religious, conservative roomie Dale did it for him. The date didn’t work out quite the way Rusty hoped, with Emma panicking and bringing her roommate Tina along. That led to Rusty bringing Dale as his wing man, which in turn led to Tina and Dale ganging up on Rusty about the Greek system on campus. That debate ruined Rusty’s date with Emma but sparked Tina’s interest in U-SAG, Dale’s lame attempt at a counterculture to oppose the Greeks on the Cyprus-Rhodes campus. From that respect, the evening was a success for Dale, who found a fiery counterpart to help promote his anti-Greek agenda. Rusty and Emma made plans for a date of their own, but when Rusty became overly clingy, showering Emma with gifts including mix CDs, coffee and a new dry erase board for her dorm room door, she freaked out and that proved to be the end of things between them. Dale has problems of his own with Tina, who tried to take over U-SAG as per her overzealous nature. Overzealous wouldn’t be the word for Rusty’s big sis Casey in her approach to mending the rift between her Zeta Beat Zeta sorority and their former social partner fraternity, the Omega Chi’s. Her reluctance is based almost on her strained relationship with ex-boyfriend Evan, Omega Chi’s president. But when her sisters see a chance to resume friendly relations with Omega Chi, they push Casey to take it. She reluctantly capitulates, but not until her best friend Ashleigh goes around her and sets up a mixer with the Omega Chi’s. The night doesn’t end well, though, as Casey and Evan at the same party leads to a major blowup. The night proves to be a bit of a catharsis for Casey, who wakes up the next morning and decides that she’s done being upset about Evan and trying to mend their past disagreements. She’s ready to move on and marches over to the Omega Chi house to inform Evan, who was just on his way to see her and tell her that he wants her back. Those feelings will have to go on the back burner though, because right now she doesn’t want him as anything other than a friend. Taking on an equally unfamiliar role is Rebecca Logan, who ends up in the role of nurse for her ill boyfriend, the ever-funny Cappie, another of Casey’s former boyfriends who is sick with a fever and pink eye. When Casey guilts Rebecca into taking care of Cappie, Rebecca is forced into dealing with an ill Cappie despite being grossed out by sick people. That doesn’t last long, because after realizing how needy Cappie is when sick (demands for chicken noodle soup, heating up his heat pack, etc.), Rebecca uses her family’s wealth to bring in a nanny to take care of Cappie for her. The strategy works, with Cappie making a remarkable recovery and in the process reassuring Rebecca that she doesn’t need to try to be like Casey to win his affections. A good episode from start to finish, continuing a great second season for one of the most fun shows on TV right now…..

- Coming off a monstrously long opening round in last year’s NFL Draft, everyone was in agreement that things needed to change. A first round spanning six and a half hours was excruciating, especially because teams weren’t using their allotted 15 minutes to make a pick by deciding on which player to choose, but rather by figuring out the player they wanted right away and then dicking around the other 14 minutes, 45 seconds trying to get other teams to trade for their pick. The league decided after last year’s debacle that 15 minutes was too long between picks. This year, that time was cut to 10 minutes in the first round. Right off the bat, that was a guaranteed two and a half hours trimmed from the first round. Also, the decision was made to push the start time of the draft back from its usual noon time slot to 3 p.m. The third round of the draft was moved to Sunday, meaning that with a shortened first round and no third round, Day One would be considerably shortened. Just how much shorter was a pleasant surprise, with the second round coming to a close just after 9 p.m. Saturday night. Even ESPN’s broadcast team marveled at the brevity of the draft’s first day despite the fact that it left them with a hole in their evening schedule. From my seat, it was a welcome change and one that needs to stick. I love to draft (maybe a little too much), but not ten-plus hours on its first day. Props on a job well done there, NFL. Another issue from the draft was the selection of defensive back Caleb Campbell in the sixth round by the Detroit Lions. The pick became an issue because Campbell is from Army and as a future West Point graduate, has a commitment to serve in the military following his graduation from the academy. However, a rule recently enacted by the military allows graduates of the service academies to forego their active duty if they are selected in the draft and stick in the pros for two seasons or more. Campbell will still have to serve in the Army, but can do so by acting as a recruiter during his off days from the Lions (provided he makes the team, visiting schools and speaking to students, as well as being a member of the Army reserves. Most people seem supportive of this arrangement, but a few hardcore a-holes (mostly current or ex-military) are ripping it because they think Campbell is shirking his duties to his country. To those people, I point out the comments made by the more intelligent, sensical military or ex-military men and women I’ve heard talk about this topic. Everyone serves in a different way and not everyone goes straight into combat once they graduate from West Point or the Naval Academy. It’s up to the Army to decide when, where and how its personnel serve. If they decide that Campbell playing in the NFL and acting as a high-profile recruiter is the best thing, then who the f*ck are you to argue? I don’t care if you or one of your friends or family members has served or is currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, it doesn’t give you a right to say how the Army should handle situations like Campbell’s. Isn’t the military all about following orders and not questioning them? Why don’t you jerks shut your mouths and follow the protocol for the organization you seem to intent on speaking on behalf of, k?

- Say what you will about SoCal surfers, but they’re either too dumb or too brave to allow a shark attack in their area to deter them from getting back into the water. On Friday, a triathlete was killed in an attack just off he coast near San Diego, but the very next day the waters in that same area had more than a few surfers, all of them choosing to ignore posted signs warning them that a great white shark could be lurking in the immediate vicinity. While the overall size of the crowds was down, dozens of surfers went back out and said that regardless of the attack, being afraid wasn’t an option. Right, because the fact that a triathlete was ripped up and killed by a shark should in no way influence whether or not you want to get into the water. In no way, shape or form should you decide to go and surf elsewhere just because their might be a lethal, aggressive shark swimming around. You go out there and show that shark who’s boss, surfers. Because heaven knows that you possibly getting eaten would prove a point. Of course, you’d be dead and wouldn’t be around to see your point proven, but oh well….

- Last night’s of One Tree Hill managed to follow up the previous week’s solid effort and give the show back-to-back good episodes for pretty much the first time so far this season. With everyone in town to celebrate young Jamie Scott’s fifth birthday, things were bound to be drama-filled and they definitely were. Lucas was anxious about seeing Lindsey again, which tends to happen when a girl runs out on your wedding and then says that even though you still love each other, it’s not enough to get married. Lucas spent hours being a total girl and trying to pick out just the right outfit to wear to the party to impress Lindsey, but in the end, she remained uninterested in reconciliation. Despite a long talk at the party and asking to stop by Lucas’ house afterward, all she wanted was to get the last of her things and head back the New York. Speaking of wanting to get away…I spent a good chunk of the episode wanting to get away from scenes in which Brooke’s new baby, Angie, whom she is housing and caring for while the little girl is in the United States awaiting heart surgery, cried her head off nonstop. I get that babies are noisy, messy and fussy, but the point about her crying driving both Brooke and housemate Peyton crazy was made early on and after that, the incessant crying just became über-annoying. Still, Brooke struggled to find ways to calm Angie and get her work done on new design sketches for an upcoming meeting with Macy’s, which is fast becoming the most whored out entity in the history of television with shameless mentions in each episode that are about as subtle as one of Elton John’s concert outfits. With help from Lucas, who allows her to stop by late at night after the party and work on her designs while he watches the baby, Brooke finally manages to get her work done. Work is also being done on Peyton’s office, where her record label is growing with the addition of a small recording studio that will allow her to have her artists record right there and save on studio costs. With all of the construction going on, Peyton gets a break from the madness while Skillz shows up and demands that she tag along to help him get Jamie’s birthday present, a Wii. It’s also a chance for the two of them to share their guilt and regrets about their recent mistakes; Peyton’s trouble with telling Lucas how she feels in the wake of his failed wedding and Skillz’s guilt over not keeping a closer eye on Jamie when he was kidnapped by his psycho ex-nanny at that same wedding. The party provides a chance for Skillz to set things right about that incident, with Nathan and Haley reassuring him that they’re not angry with him and that they do trust him with their son. Peyton doesn’t get much of a chance to have her own talk with Lucas because he’s wrapped up with Lindsey. Nathan and Haley also spent the episode fending off advances by Nathan’s father Dan, who wanted to stop by the party to wish his grandson a happy birthday. When Nathan shoots him down, then informs Jamie that in spite of the boy’s wishes, his grandpa won't be at the party, Dan won't give up. He stops by and drops off a gift for Jamie despite an icy reception from his ex-wife Deb, who is now Jamie’s nanny (and has a creepy clown fetish, as it turns out when she hooks up with the birthday clown). The gift is the first jersey Nathan ever wore when he started playing basketball. Dan later tells Nathan he found it when cleaning out his house and wanted to pass it along. Dan also revealed that he wants Nathan to have the family’s beach house because…..(big dramatic pause)….his HCM heart condition is worsening and Dan only has six months to live. So there’s your big dramatic impetus for the rest of the season, the terminally ill man trying to make amends with his family. On the lighter side of things, Mouth and girlfriend Millie are adjusting to her living with him and his three roommates in their apartment. The guys do their best to clean up their act with a girl in the house, but Millie figures out they’re changing because of her and doesn’t like it. She shows she can hang with the boys by starting one of their trademark water gun fights and bringing home beer and pizza, the staples of their diet. Not a bad episode for the most part, because it seems like the writers and show execs have figured out that all of the characters don’t have to be going through the exact same thing every episode. That’s all for the OTH talk until next week, though….

Scooping monkey crap, a Mexican legislative blockade and the NBA's biggest d-bag of an owner

- The biggest douche bag among owners in pro sports just might have hung himself out to dry when it comes to trying to rip his team from its home city and move them away. Seattle SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett, a certified piece of crap, was dumb enough to send scores of emails about potentially moving the team from Seattle to Oklahoma City and in the process show that he was lying to everyone involved in this situation. More e-mails involving Bennett’s relocation plan have been revealed that could slow or even stop the move from Seattle to Oklahoma City, with a filing by the city of Seattle this week in federal court in New York including e-mails to and from Bennett that show the NBA was concerned last summer that Sonics owners may be breaching their contractual promise of good-faith efforts to find a new arena in Seattle. In court documents provided Thursday by attorneys representing the city, Bennett clearly wrote in an e-mail to Sonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon last Aug. 13 that the NBA was investigating issues “relative to certain documents that we signed at closing that may have been breached.” Bennett told McClendon in the same email that president of league and basketball operations Joel Litvin was looking into the possible breach. Earlier that same day, Bennett had written an e-mail to McClendon referring to the fallout from McClendon's comments to an Oklahoma business publication that “we didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here. Yes sir we get killed on this one,” Bennett wrote to McClendon. “I don't mind the PR ugliness [pretty used to it], but I am concerned from a legal standpoint that your statement could perhaps undermine our basic premise of ‘good faith best efforts.’” NBA commissioner David Stern, who has proven himself a spineless, gutless weasel on this issue, fined McClendon a mere $250,000 for his comment. The city is now citing it as evidence Sonics owners lied to Seattle when asserting they weren't trying to move the team. Umm…pretty much. The case is now before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where Seattle is attempting to compel the NBA to provide financial records for all of its teams. The city is also attempting to compel Stern to testify as part of Seattle's dispute with the Professional Basketball Club, the Sonics' ownership entity, over the KeyArena lease. It’s been common knowledge this entire season that basketball fans in Seattle were being dicked over, but these emails are one of the only hopeful signs of any significance during their battle to hold onto their team. Bennett’s argument is that he is contractually allowed to write a check to buy out the lease and thus move his team to Oklahoma City for next season, thus enacting a final swift punch to the gut and kick to the package of the fans he’s lied to ever since he bought the team. The only hope for a good resolution now is that the court agrees with the city’ assertion that the lease requires the team to play in KeyArena through the 2009-10 season. The line of thinking the city and its supporters are espousing is that if they can keep the Sonics in town for those two years, it will buy time for a group led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer or some other local buyer to find an arena solution and keep the team in the region long term. If you’re interested in watching as the fate of professional basketball in a city hangs in the balance, the trial is scheduled to begin June 16 in federal court in Seattle.

- One thing you can say for the powers that be in Zimbabwe is that they’re not afraid to be oppressive, unfair, unjust and brutal and do so in full view of the world. As the country’s contested election hangs in the balance, police in the city of Harare engaged in vicious raids on the headquarters of the country’s opposition party, rounding up bloodied, battered, frightened men, women and children while also ransacking the offices of independent election monitors. There was exactly zero subtlety as they stole documents validating President Robert Mugabe’s defeat, making Watergate look like a clever, covert and well-planned operation by comparison. Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai maintains that he won the election, as does anyone who has bothered to objectively look at the results and who is not trying to keep themselves in the position of power they currently occupy. More than 250 riot police stormed the opposition’s Harvest House offices in the capital city of Harare, arresting at least 300 people in brute-force fashion. Opposition party spokesman Nelson Chamisa said that those inside the offices tried to stand their ground, but to no avail. “We asked about a warrant and the answer was a baton stick.” Great quote. Nice tactics there, Mugabe and Co. When you lose the election fair and square, don’t actually accept your defeat. Don’t even contest the results through the proscribed means and challenge them in court. No, attempt to use military and physical force to beat the living sh*t out of anyone who tries to go along with the results of the election that they themselves voted in. If that doesn’t make you a beloved and revered leader, I don’t know what does. Trouble now is that we live in a global community and your oppressive, thick-headed actions are being witnessed by the whole world. You’re not going to get away with this one, Mugabe, but by all means keep on trying idiot….

- NBC is all set up for the total departure of good, actually funny humor for its late-night broadcast once 2009 rolls around. It’s then that Jay Leno, who is actually funny a good chunk of the time, will be retiring as per the decision he announced back in 2004. Succeeding him as host of The Tonight Show is a man who is a significant step down in humor, Conan O’Brien. Some people like Conan’s odd slant on comedy; I’ve just never been one of them. In general, I’d venture to say that a lot of people agree with me and aren’t looking forward to the change. However, that decline in funny-ness from one host to another is nothing compared to the one that will take place when O’Brien leaves his current show, Late Night. That spot will be filled by one of the most overrated members of Saturday Night Live history, one Jimmy Fallon. Yes, the dude whose best acting of late has been dancing on the sidewalk in a Pepsi commercial will be taking over from Conan in 2009. Nice of NBC to go ahead and concede that time slot to the other networks, which is effectively what they’re doing with this über-terrible personnel decision. Jimmy Fallon? Seriously? This guy is trying way too hard to be funny and failing miserably, but you want him hosting a show for you? Why not just hand the job to Gilbert Gottfried or Chris Tucker? Was Dane Cook not available? NBC hasn’t officially announced the move yet, but Fallon has reportedly agreed to a contract and will be officially introduced as O’Brien’s successor on May 12. It’s not too late to get out of this, NBC, do it while you still can…..

- Is mopping up monkey poo enough for a troubled young man to turn his life around? I guess we’ll find out in the case of Washington Nationals outfielder Elijah Dukes, who spent 25 hours during the past week cleaning cages and mopping at an area zoo as part of a deal to shorten his probation on a previous drug charge. Dukes has had no shortage of brushes with the law during his short career, but this drug charges were the most substantial of the bunch and definitely aren’t something you want from one of your promising young players if you’re a Major League Baseball team. Dukes’ continual knuckleheaded-ness led the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays to trade Dukes to the Nationals during the offseason after his latest round of criminal activity, which included allegations by his estranged wife that he had threatened her and her children. He hasn’t exactly torn it up with his new team, having been on the disabled list since March 31 with a strained hamstring. But a strained hamstring doesn’t prevent you from serving the community, as you don’t need to run much when shoveling crap from the lion cage. A judge apparently feels that Dukes has sufficiently served the community and agreed to terminate Dukes' supervision on Thursday after seeing his work at the Lowry Park Zoo. That punishment came after Dukes was sentenced to one year probation in September following his pleading no contest to a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge. Could a stint as a pooper-scooper be just the thing to turn Dukes’ life around? Stay tuned and see for yourself….

- Are you paying attention to this, United States Congress? You all have gotten pushed around by our idiot president W. over the issue of war funding for months and months, gutlessly capitulating to his continued requests for more billions of dollars to finance his own personal Vietnam over in Iraq. Maybe you should take a lead from your Mexican counterparts, who just finished up a 16-day blockade of their group because they were unhappy with their president’s proposed energy-reform bill. Leftist lawmakers in our neighbor to the south decided that the best way to take a stand against a bill they believed was bad for their country was to set up a blockade of their own legislative body. That blockade came to an end this past week, but those behind it are hoping that the two-plus weeks it lasted will be enough to stimulate debate on the issue and prevent this bill from becoming law. Now I’m just talking hypothetical, crazy talk here, but why couldn’t our own Congress have staged a blockade on Capitol Hill at any point the past five or so years this debacle of a war has dragged on and refused to even discuss funding for the Mess O’Potamia? W. might not be able to spell or pronounce blockade (Blo-…Blah….heh, heh, this is a hard one…), but even in his limited mental capacity he would have to understand that Congress was refusing to do anything and it was because of his own colossally poor decisions. My advice is free and available to you any time, Congress, you know where to find me.

Dallas Cowboys = America's Felons, I help you evaluate riots and Wesley Snipes idiotic friends

- In the history of letter-writing campaigns, this might be the single worst effort ever. With the immortal Wesley Snipes, he of epic films such as the Blade franchise, facing federal prison for failure to pay several million dollars in back taxes, so of Wesley’s Hollywood buddies decided that penning notes of support to the judge in his case might help his cause. Denzel Washington compared Wesley to a “mighty oak planted by a stream….with leaves that never wither.” Huh? I’m not sure what metaphor you’re reaching for here Denzel, but maybe leave the writing to the professionals. Woody Harrelson also penned a letter, a rambling, what’s-the-point soliloquy that seemed to be a random note the Wood-man could have been sending to just about anyone and which had no apparent bearing on this case. His letter talked about he and Snipes working on their first movie (Wildcats) with Goldie Hawn and having birthdays a week apart. Umm, great….what the hell does that have to do with anything, Woody? Judge Joe Brown also wrote a letter which referred to Snipes as Dr. Snipes. Sorry to correct you, Your (fake) Honor, but to the best of my knowledge Snipes is not a doctor of any kind. He doesn’t even have an honorary doctorate from any college or university. Does TV judge and all-around tool Joe Brown even know who he’s writing on behalf of? Does he think this is his dentist or orthopedic surgeon Dr. Snipes? Hard to see why the judge in Snipes’ case wasn’t swayed by this capable, well-crafted letter-writing effort and sentenced my man Wesley to three years in prison. Next time get some smarter, less loopy friends and their attempts to help you might actually work W. Oh, and pay your freaking taxes too, that would also be really helpful.

- It’s about f’ing time, NFL. After dragging things out for months and months, the league has finally reached an agreement with former New England Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh, who has told ESPN.com he has potentially damaging information about the team's taping practices, that will allow him to meet with league officials and turn over any videotapes he might have to support his allegations. Walsh was employed by the Patriots from 1996 through the 2002 Super Bowl, which seems like about the same length of time it took to negotiate this freaking agreement. He’s now living a tragically hard like as an assistant golf pro in Hawaii and is expected to travel to New York and interview with commissioner Roger Goodell and other NFL officials on May 13. Prior to the meeting, the agreement calls for Walsh to provide the league with any tapes or materials he possesses from his years with the Patriots. “Commissioner Goodell will meet with Mr. Walsh ... on May 13, the earliest date that Mr. Walsh, who lives in Hawaii, will be available on the East Coast,” the NFL said in a statement released Wednesday. “The agreement also requires Mr. Walsh to return any tapes and other items in his possession that belong to the Patriots. In return, the NFL and the Patriots have promised not to sue Mr. Walsh. They also will indemnify him for any expenses, including legal fees that he incurs in connection with the interview.” So we finally will learn whether there’s any truth to allegations that the Patriots’ illegal tactics of taping other teams included not only video of their defensive signals, but also included a walk through for the St. Louis Rams prior to the 2003 Super Bowl. The irony here is that I’m one of the people who sincerely hope that Walsh has the goods on New England because I despise that smug, arrogant, terse, classless bore of a coach Bill Belichick and his team of automated robots who spout the same brainwashed drivel and generally sap all of the fun out of watching football games, but it’s been such a prolonged ordeal to reach this deal that I and many other just got tired of waiting. It’s almost anti-climatic at this point…but if the Patriots and Beli-cheat do get punished further, I suppose it will still be worth it. So on with the show…..

- Props to you, India, for saying to the United States what so many countries around the world have wanted to say to our overbearing government for so long. With our inexcusable policy of international intrusion that has led to American forces and leaders butting in all over the globe in places where we have no business being (cough….IRAQ….cough….), we have finally overstepped our bounds and had another country tell us to f’off. India is that country, with the situation being our insistence that they press Iran to cease development of its nuclear program. The Indian government tersely told the U.S. that it does not need “any advice” on how to handle its own foreign relations. With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set to visit India this week, negotiations between India and Iran over a proposed $7 billion gas pipeline are expected to be one of the primary topics and the U.S. government is pissed about the idea. Our government opposes the idea and also suspects Iran of running a covert nuclear weapons program. Hmm, sounds familiar….accusing a Middle East nation of having secret weapons of mass destruction, setting up a pretext for an unjustified war….where have I heard that one before? Fortunately for all of us, our warmongering, a-hole idiot of a president has only a few months left in office and probably not enough time for even a trigger-happy moron like himself to start a new war. Thanks for telling us to butt out, India, if only the rest of the world would follow your lead.

- Evaluating a riot can be difficult unless you are a trained, professional riot evaluator like myself. There are so many factors to consider and so many variables in any riot that deciding which ones are good and which ones are just a letdown. Thankfully I’m here to help with that and I can illustrate the point by talking about riots that took place this week in Santiago, Chile. To the untrained, unsophisticated eye, the fact that these riots over proposed education reforms were smaller and less widespread than riots under similar circumstances back in 2006 would indicate that these modern day riots weren’t as good. But for a veteran riot watcher like myself, digging deeper and moving past those superficial facts is key. I see violent marches in Santiago and several surrounding provincial cities and I see that these intrepid rioters were loud enough and belligerent enough to force the police to break out both tear gas and water canons. If you can achieve both of those standards, you’ve got yourself a Level 3 riot at worst. Then you factor in that at least 250 rioters were arrested in a single day you start to see that this really was a quality event of social dissidence. Thousands of angry students took part, speaking out against educational reforms they believe will be detrimental to them. So while armchair, Monday morning riot analysts might look down on these demonstrations, I hope you will join me in recognizing a quality, well-executed effort that deserves your respect.

- Mark this past Wednesday down at the day when the Dallas Cowboys officially became America’s Felons instead of America’s Team and traded for the single most idiotic, stupid player to ever step onto an NFL field. The Dallas Cowboys and Tennessee Titans agreed in principle on a trade on Wednesday for suspended cornerback Adam Jones. Under the terms of the deal, Dallas sent its fourth-round pick (the 126th overall) in Saturday's draft to the Titans for Jones. Of course, because Jones is still under suspension and a sure bet to do something stupid and get himself suspended again even if he’s eventually reinstated, there are also conditions attached to the trade. If he plays a significant amount of time in 2008, the Titans will get an additional pick from the Cowboys in 2009. If he doesn't get reinstated by the NFL, the Cowboys get the Titans' fourth-round pick in 2009. In order to extricate himself from Tennessee, Jones will also forgo the $1.25 million performance bonus that he earned in 2005 and in lieu of repaying the Titans a portion of his signing bonus, will also make a $500,000 donation to a charity of the Titans' choice within the next two years. Just a word of advice on this one for Jones: going to the strip (or “scrip” as Jones pronounces it) club and making it rain on the strippers is not an acceptable way to distribute that money. It might seem like overkill to point that out, but for a guy who has tallied six arrests and 12 incidents where police were called since being drafted, it’s very much necessary. Those bonehead moves led to his suspension by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in April 2007 for the season. As Jones continued to parade around doing pro wrestling appearances and going to “scrip” clubs even on the eve of his hearing with Goodell about the potential continuation of his suspension, the commissioner declined to ease that punishment when Jones appealed to return after sitting out 10 games. Even now, that reinstatement is not guaranteed - far from it. Even as he’s being traded, more negative details surrounding the Vegas “scrip” club incident are surfacing. News surfaced earlier this week that the cornerback had paid money to a 29-year-old man arrested for a Las Vegas strip club shooting in February 2007 that left a club employee paralyzed. A police report said that in the weeks after the shooting, Jones paid $15,000 to the man, who threatened to hurt the cornerback, his daughter and his mother. Jones picked the man out of a police lineup last Friday, helping fulfill part of the plea deal he agreed to last December when reducing two felony counts of coercion to conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct. Yessir, you’ve got yourself a real winner, Dallas. Clearly this is a guy who lacks class, intelligence, education and diction. That’s truly hitting for the cycle, so I’m sure this will work out verrrrrrry well for you.

Being truly pirate-y, murder in Chicago and the FSU Criminoles return

- I think we can all agree that churches around America and the world would be better off if men like Phillip Miles were their pastor/leader. Assuming that by better off you mean worse off, of course. Miles, 57, is the pastor of Christ Community Church in Conway, S.C. - for now. He’s been sentenced by a Russian court to three years and two months in prison for smuggling rifle rounds into the country for his hunting partner. When Miles flew into Moscow on Jan. 29, the rounds of ammo were found during his pass through airport security. He was hit with charges of illegal possession and smuggling of ammunition, which is a significant crime in Russia. Nothing like going to Russia to visit a friend and ending up in the slammer for three-plus years. Guess the Christ Community Church in Conway will be looking for a new pastor. It is, after all, tough to present a sermon while locked in the gulag a couple of continents away. Maybe next time you’ll want to select a pastor who is a) not a moron, and b) not subject to criminal tendencies in foreign countries. I’m here if you need any other helpful tips in your search process….

- God bless you, Preston Parker, for keeping the tradition alive in the Florida State football program. I don’t mean the tradition of winning or of having players end us as high draft picks in the NFL. No, I’m referring to the legacy of criminal behavior at FSU that led many to gloss them the Florida State Criminoles. Parker was jailed in Palm Beach County Jail early Tuesday morning after, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, he was arrested on charges of carrying a concealed firearm and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana. For years FSU built a rep as a renegade program, stocked full of felons who also ran a 4.4 40-yard dash. For some reason, people in and around the program have demanded that they clean up that habit. Preston Parker is making a stand for the FSU football felons, past present and future, by taking advantage of his status as the team’s best player and its leading felon and landing himself in jail on a completely moronic charge. He held on $4,500 bail for the firearm charge - a felony - and $500 bail for the marijuana charge before being released Tuesday afternoon. The incident that landed him in jail began when a Palm Beach Gardens police officer, according to the probable cause affidavit, became suspicious at around 10:42 p.m. Monday night after spotting Parker's Dodge Charger. The subsequent search of the vehicle turned up a loaded Springfield Armory XD .45 handgun and a bag of marijuana weighing 4.81 grams "wedged" into the vehicle's dash. Dude, any good stoner knows that’s not where you hide your pot. You put in in the center console for easy access, amigo. I do have to wonder when Parker will bust out the standard “It wasn’t my weed” excuse, because without fail every athlete or celebrity found with the hippie lettuce plays that card at some point during their case. For right now Parker is going with a different excuse, telling the arresting officer that a friend bought the gun for him at a gun show but said he did not know about the marijuana. There were three other people in the car, so he does appear set up well to blame one of them for the weed. Actually, one of those three will probably take the fall for him on this one, even if the weed is his. Regardless of the outcome, great thinking by rolling with a loaded gun and a bag of pot in your car, idiot. As if there haven’t been enough athletes involved in shootings recently, so you think it’s smart to roll with a piece? The arrest continues a run of illegal behavior for FSU that will force them to enter the 2008 season without at least six starters available for the first three games after suspensions were handed down for academic misconduct. On top of that widespread breaking of university academic rules, now the Criminoles are breaking gun laws as well. Maybe they really are on their way to reclaiming their status as an elite national program….

- That trip to Chicago for Lollapalooza in August is looking like a dangerous proposition right about now. Over the course of this past weekend, a whopping 36 shootings took place, with nine people killed in those shootings and dozens more injured. City leaders and police are blaming the rash of shootings on a breakdown in discipline among gang members, which seems like one of the all-time great oxymorons. If you’re relying on gang members to stay in their shoes, remain level-headed and do the responsible thing, you’re begging. They’re freaking gang members, after all. They don’t exactly abide by the same rules, norms and laws as the rest of us. There has been a sustained crackdown on gangs in the Chicago area over the past few years, but local leaders now fear that even though many prominent gang leaders have been put behind bars, the violence is making a comeback. Just to be safe, alongside those $10 personal pan pizzas at Lollapalooza, let’s add the $99.95 bulletproof vest as a top item for sale at the festival….

- In case you missed the memo, the phrase “vocal problems” is now code for “I’m a lame karaoke hack with no musical talent of my own and I just plain suck.” Making good use of the code is the publicist for former American Karaoke contestant Jordin Sparks, who has pulled out of upcoming stops as an opening act on Alicia Keys’ current tour, citing the aforementioned “vocal problems.” If only those same “vocal problems” had been properly identified a few years ago, we could have all been saved a lot of trouble. Come to think of it, pretty much every one of those karaoke losers on AK have “vocal problems,” yet not one does anything about it. The tour kicked off over the weekend in Hampton, Va. (still one of the scariest, most ghetto places I’ve ever been), but did so without Sparks and her karaoke act. A spokesman for the record label dumb enough so sign her said it’s so she can take proper care of her voice, but I think she’d be better served by figuring out that her brand of music absolutely blows and trying something new. Sparks plans to rejoin the tour in May, which means the month of April is the best time to catch this tour…..

- God love the Somali pirates, because those guys are back at it, wreaking havoc on the high seas and proving themselves to be truly pirate-y to the core. Just this week, a crew of Somali pirates operating off the coast of what military officials are labeling a “lawless” area hijacked a ship carrying food to their desperately starving country. In the end, Somali military forces were able to recapture the ship and the food, but the ill will from this incident is being directed straight at the U.S. of A. Yes, Somali military officials are accusing our military of failing to combat growing piracy in their region. Seven pirates were arrested in this instance, but apparently the Somali military is on some sort of hell-bent crusade to wipe out pirates. Why, because they steal tons of food earmarked for starving people? Maybe you don’t like their swashbuckling ways, their parrots, peg legs, wenches and making of people to walk the plank? What did pirates ever do to you, Somali military, other than steal food intended to feed your starving citizens? Shiver me timbers, mateys, have a heart and embrace your inner pirate….what is this world coming to when a pirate can’t earn a (dis)honest living without some military bullies trying to harass and arrest him? C’mon, people……

Highway of Death strikes again, Lost and Smallville reviews and riots by Tibetan exiles

- See what happens when you make the regrettable decision to appear on Dancing With the (D-List) Stars? Even while he is still appearing on the über-crappy chick-flick reality show, Miami Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor has been placed on the trading block by his team. The Dolphins, who own the top pick in tomorrow’s NFL Draft, are trying to land another first-round pick in order to choose a player they're believe won't be on the board when they start the second round with the No. 32 pick overall. Of course, the ‘Fins are spinning this as a football move, which is fine. In truth, you know they are ashamed to have a ballroom dancer wannabe on their team. Unfortunately for Miami, being on some loser reality show not only makes Taylor undesirable to his own team, it also makes him less appealing to other teams. This trade is far from a done deal, though; team president Bill Parcells continues to deny that the team has any interest in dealing the 11-year veteran and team captain. “The only way Jason Taylor doesn't play for the Dolphins in 2008 is if he retires,” Parcells said March 3. “The team is not going to trade him.” That was before Parcells had to suffer the indignity of watching his best defensive player make a fool out of himself ballroom dancing on national television. We’ll all understand if you’ve changed your mind since then, Bill. Unload Taylor before it’s too late……

- High-class espionage was the them of last night’s episode of Smallville, with Jimmy Olsen and Chloe Sullivan doing most of the James Bond-esque work. The episode began in the present, then we zoomed back in time 14 hours to catch up, after which we returned to the present and kept on going. At the episode’s outset, a mystery man in a black burglar’s outfit was shimmying through the ventilation of a downtown office building. The mystery man dropped from the ceiling, Tasered an unsuspecting man in a suit and copied some information from a high-end cell phone in the man’s briefcase. That mystery thief then hopped in an elevator, ripped off his disguise and revealed a tuxedo underneath as he stashed a bag with his stolen information on the roof of the elevator. The mystery man’s identity: none other than Jimmy Olsen himself. Following that backwards time travel, we headed back to Chloe’s apartment where Jimmy was making her breakfast earlier that same morning. After Chloe passes on a homemade breakfast because she’s late for a meeting, we see a spying stranger on the roof across from Chloe’s Talon-top apartment, taking pics of Jimmy with a telescopic lens. Downstairs in the Talon, the same woman interrupts Jimmy as he’s getting a cup of coffee, sits him down and explains that the feds have tracked access to confidential government files to his computer. When Jimmy protests his innocence, his visitor informs him that the feds know that it’s Chloe, not him that has been hacking into government files. The agent convinces Jimmy to spy on Chloe, installing spyware on the computers at the Isis Foundation offices, which Chloe has taken over with Lana Lang in a coma at a mental hospital. While Clark searches for ways to reverse her condition, Chloe suggests he look to the journals of deceased scientist, known Veritas member and the man who helped Clark connect ho his home planet of Krypton, Dr. Virgil Swann. As Clark searches the journal, he asks Chloe to help him find BRAINIAC, the being who put Lana in her coma and who disappeared with Clark’s cousin Kara from a Metropolis rooftop two episodes ago. Chloe’s search leads her to a satellite that can only be accessed through the secure server at a building in Metropolis that happens to be the same building where the Ace of Clubs nightclub is located. While Chloe sneaks off to access the satellite server, Jimmy sneaks off on his mission to help the feds, who have convinced him that Chloe is a terrorist, working with a secret terrorist cell. Jimmy jumps the man in the hallway, downloads the information and hands it over to the feds…who tell him he’s been duped by Chloe, who ran a misdirection and led him to worthless information. Jimmy is hauled off by an agent while Chloe is apprehended by the female agent Jimmy has been working with. Chloe is beaten, interrogated….and saved by Jimmy, who uses the same high-tech gadgets the feds gave him to free himself and save Chloe, knocking out the last two agents holding her and escaping into the night. Back at her apartment, the two of them have a special moment together and Jimmy promises that he’s taken care of the feds, who are no longer following them. His solution, unfortunately, was to call Lex Luthor, who obliged and pulled the strings to get the arrest warrant for Chloe rescinded. Lex doesn’t do anything for free, though, and reminds Jimmy that some day he’ll ask for a favor in return. There are other, bigger fish for Lex to fry right now, though. He finally made the trip to Zurich, used the two keys to open the safety deposit box and found a weird gadget inside. It was a rectangle-shaped device with four or five compass-like wheels on it. By lining up each of them in the right way, a small cutout on each wheel lined up in the center and formed a rectangle. What’s in the rectangle appears to be the focus of the device, but what that something is remains a mystery. For the time being, Lex returned to Smallville and will try to figure things out there. Meanwhile, Clark managed to figure out where BRAINIAC and Kara went thanks to three things - a visit to the Fortress of Solitude, a page in Swann’s journal and the satellite images Chloe tracked down. While at the fortress, a radio transmission from Kara told Clark the she was on Krypton and that BRAINIAC was trying to kill him. The page in the journal, which also turned out to be from Kara, urged him to save Lana right away. Chloe then found a satellite image showing two blurs exiting Earth’s atmosphere, then disappearing into a vortex in the middle of out space that then disappeared. Piecing together the clues, Clark and Chloe figured out that BRAINIAC and Kara managed to travel back in time to 1989, where Krypton still exists prior to its destruction. BRAINIAC’s plan appears to be to kill Clark as an infant so he never exists on Earth. Now it’s up to Clark to find a way to Krypton circa 1989 so he can save his own life. That sets the stage for next week, so until that time…..

- Welcome back, Lost…..and goodbye Lost…..and welcome ba- wait, goodbye again, Lost…no, no welco- dammit, can we get this fixed? After several weeks off, Lost returned with a new episode last night, only to have a completely maddening hour. The show was broke up into 5-6 minute segments with way too many commercial breaks. There was no flow, no smoothness to the show, just a bunch of short segments that ended abruptly just as they were getting going. When there actually was action in between the 500 commercial breaks, we found out that the cliffhanger from the last episode where Ben’s daughter Alex was in the middle of a shootout in the jungle was actually her being kidnapped by men with guns who had come onto the island from Charles Widmore’s freighter. In the present, Ben, Locke, Sawyer and Hurley are in a house in the barracks area when Alex is forced to disable the security fence around the area, which sends a distress code through a phone call. When the message is relayed to Ben, he immediately directs everyone to prepare for an invasion by barricading windows and doors and readying their guns. When the attack team from the freighter arrives at the barracks, they start shooting everyone in sight. Sawyer is stuck outside because he had gone to rescue Claire, whose house is his with a rocket and blown up before Sawyer can get there. He does manage to unearth Claire in the rubble and take her to the house where Locke, Ben and Hurley are barricaded. Moments later, Miles, the ghost whisperer who was also a member of the freighter crew and who has been on the island for a few days now, knocks on the door of the house and when he’s let in, he presents Ben with a radio that the attack team wants to use to communicate. When Ben is told his daughter has been captured, he’s clearly rattled. When the leader of the attack team demands he come out and surrender in order for Alex to be set free, Ben refuses and counters that the freighter crew should just leave the island and never return. He gambles that they won't really kill Alex as they threaten to do, but he’s proven wrong when she’s shot in the head and is killed. At that point, Ben mumbles that, “They’ve changed the rules.” That cryptic comment then leads him to go through a secret door in the house to a secret room where he somehow summons the black smoke monster that roams the jungle of the island, terrorizing people. The smoke monster pours into the barracks area, kills the members of the attack team and allows Locke, Ben, Hurley, Claire, her son Aaron and Miles to escape. During the escape. Sawyer decides he’s had enough of the drama and announces that he, Claire, Aaron and Hurley will return to the beach camp. Locke and Ben are set on going to visit Jacob, the supernatural, mythical guru of he island, but they need Hurley to help them find Jacob’s cabin because he’s the last one to have seen it. At gunpoint, Hurley relents and decides to go with Locke. At the beach camp, tensions are also high as the satellite phone is finally fixed and Daniel Fairaday of the freighter crew manages to tape out a Morse code message to the freighter, asking about the ship’s doctor, who has oddly washed ashore on the island with his throat slit. When the message comes back, Daniel claims that the content is that everything is fine on the ship and that the helicopter will be returning to the island the next day. But Bernard, the science teacher and survivor of Oceanic 815 who has been one of the island’s most annoying residents since Season One, knows Morse code and knows Daniel is lying. He calls him on it and announces to the group that despite what Daniel said, the message does address to the question about the doctor and claims he’s fine. Bernard also says the message did not mention the helicopter, so Daniel is obviously lying. When Jack confronts him by choking Daniel, Daniel admits that he and the freighter crew were never really going to help any of the Oceanic 815 survivors to get off the island. Jack seems prepared to press the issue further, but a stomach ailment that plagued him throughout the episode and will apparently take a turn for the worse next episode stopped him in his tracks. The episode also contained a flash-forward that filled in some blanks from previous flash-forwards earlier in the season. We knew that after getting off the island as one of the Oceanic Six, Sayid became a sort of traveling assassin, killing people for Ben Linus. Now we know why…because after getting off the island, Sayid finally married his beloved Nadia, only to have her killed by a mercenary employed by Charles Widmore. Sayid returned from California to his hometown of Tikrit, Iraq to bury his wife there. Ben heard about her death on a news broadcast after he somehow was traveling in the Sahara Desert, moved into a city in Tunisia and was checking into a hotel there under the name Dean Moriarti. He turned around, chartered a flight and made his way to Tikrit. There, he identified the man who killed Sayid’s wife and when Sayid identified Ben and confronted him, Ben showed Sayid a photo of the mercenary from a traffic camera in Los Angeles five days prior, a camera at an intersection just three blocks from where Nadia was killed. When Ben manages to find the mercenary in Tikrit and follows him through the city streets and an open-air market, Sayid is close behind. He shoots the man at least five times, killing him and in Ben’s mind, bringing the matter to a close….or so it seems. He tells Sayid as much but Sayid replies that because of all he’s gone through and because of losing Nadia, the battle against Charles Widmore is his to fight as well. So that’s how he got into being Ben’s traveling assassin, question answered. At the end of the episode, also in a flash-forward, Ben is in London to visit Charles Widmore himself. Ben sneaks into Widmore’s apartment in the dead of night in typical creepy Ben fashion and accuses Widmore of killing his daughter. Widmore replies that Alex’s death wasn’t his doing and that it’s really Ben’s fault because he took the island from Widmore and brought it on himself. Widmore insists the island belongs to him and that he will get it back. Ben’s answer is that he’s now going to hunt down Widmore’s own daughter, Desmond from the island’s beloved Penny, and kill her so Widmore will know what it feels like to have a daughter killed. Widmore’s reply is that Ben will never find her, but Ben says with a smirk that Widmore will never find the island he wants. In the end, both vow that the race is now on for each of them, then Ben vanishes into the night. Overall, a good episode, one of the better ones this season because it didn’t exclude too many characters, just those on the freighter. Tune back in next week for more great Lost action….

- Tibetans have become a reliable source of violent, angry social dissidence in recent months and with good reason. They’ve been oppressed for too long by the Chinese, so the outpouring of angry rioting and protests was long overdue. Those efforts continued this Tuesday as 50 Tibetan exiles marched on the Chinese Embassy in Katmandu, Nepal, which has become a popular target for protests of late. Among the protestors were, of course, Buddhist monks, with their red robes mixing with the blood spilled as police brawled with the protestors, bloodying at least a half dozen of them. The protestors were upset about the ongoing Chinese crackdown in their homeland, so they made a beeline for the Chinese Embassy and were met by baton-wielding police. The fight ensued, with the valiant protestors fighting the good fight and inflicting a little damage of their own. You have to be proud of these people, standing up for what they believe in with the full knowledge that they’re going to come face to face with a bunch of overzealous, abusive cops and have to thrown down. Keep it up, Tibetan protestors, you guys rock.

- A few months ago, I caught a special on the History Channel about the so-called “Highway of Death” in Bolivia, a stretch of mountainous road so treacherous that you literally have to sign a waiver to do so. Anyone looking to bike, drive or traverse it in any way receives strict warnings from the Bolivian governmental agencies responsible for the roadway. Those warnings are not just for show, as evidenced by the recent death of American tourist Kenneth Mitchell while biking down the highway last Saturday. Mitchell, 56, lost control of his mountain bike and plunged some 230 feet to his death. Hundreds of people die on the road each year, a total that is extremely plausible if you’ve ever seen video of what it looks like. There is even a group of volunteers who stand at especially dangerous turns and corners in the road and have homemade stop/go signs to let motorists coming from the opposite direction know when there is oncoming traffic. In many stretches, the road is so narrow that only one vehicle can pass through at a time along steep cliffs, extreme drop-offs and perched above deep ravines. Thoughts and prayers to Mitchell’s family, along with a warning to anyone considering attempting a “Highway of Death” trek of their own.

Ocho Cinco troubles, a pot drive thru and Pennsylvanians f'up

- Of all the possible results from the Pennsylvania presidential primary, this is the second-worst of all possibilities. The absolute worst would have been for Hank Clinton to crush Barack Obama by such a wide margin that she actually closed the delegate gap enough to have a chance to win this election. That didn’t happen, as Obama was able to do enough in the Keystone State to keep himself on a smooth, straight path to the Democratic nomination. However, Hank’s win in Pa. was by enough of a margin that political analysts are now predicting that the race between the two candidates will forge on for another few weeks at the very least. I’m disappointed in you, Pennsylvanians, because America was counting on you and you let us down. Now North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Guam and Puerto Rico are left to clean up your mess. You couldn’t strike the death blow to Hank’s campaign, so now others have to do it for you. Don’t forget, Hank is like the mythical hydra, a creature that keeps sprouting new heads when you lop off their current one. Hank is that dragon-like beast, the one that will not die despite being so horrifying that everyone wants it dead. The final margin in Pennsylvania will be around 10 percent, give or take a few votes, when all of the ballots are counted. Thanks for nothing, Pennsylvania, you all are about as worthless as the voters in my own home state of Ohio.

- Isn’t it ironic that people who play the “Do you know who I am?” card always seem to be forgetting who they really are? Take Indianapolis Colts running back Kenton Keith as a prime example of this trend. My man K. Keith was getting after it at an Indy nightclub recently and when things started to wind down, he decided that hanging out in the parking lot was a good idea. Right, because nothing bad ever happens late at night in clubs and club parking lots, especially when athletes are involved. No one ever gets shot, Tasered, arrested or assaulted in these situations, right? Either that or one or more of those things happen pretty much every weekend. So it turned out for Keith, who was around when the cops showed up to deal with a disturbance. Keith did what I’m sure any of us would have done…yup, he busted out his cell phone and started taking video of the cops as they came in his direction. When he became belligerent and unruly, the cops clamped down on him and that’s when he went to the “Do you know who I am?” play. He was heard yelling, “I’m a Colts player! I’m a Colts player!” Actually bro, you’re a backup running back, that’s what you are. You’re not Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison or even Dallas Clark. Of course, none of those guys are big enough idiots to be out at clubs at that time of night and hassling the cops while they’re at it. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why those guys have been so successful in the NFL and why you’re merely a second stringer. Why don’t you try emulating your more successful teammates and stop trying to get YouTube footage of cops arresting you and your buddies, amigo? I may not be an NFLer like you, but I’m 100 percent sure that if you follow those guidelines it will improve your career significantly while simultaneously curbing your chances of getting arrested, win-win.

- Why is it that the really cool, innovative businesses never are located in my area? Why is it that business innovators like Aaron Massey live in places like Fort Smith, Ark. and not in my town? What makes Massey such a business revolutionary? Because he took what seemed like an ordinary drive-thru window at a seemingly ordinary Pizza Hut restaurant and turned it into a place where the stoners of his community could come to buy their pot, that’s why. Some rat fink tipped police off to Massey’s operation and they went to the restaurant and found six ounces of the hippie lettuce and a scale in the manager’s office. Massey has been charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Maybe I’m just being difficult, but I think we should leave him alone and allow him to experiment with this a bit. I mean, who wouldn’t love a weed-and-cheese pizza with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese over the top? Instead of baking cheese into the crust, why not bake something into the crust that would in turn allow the eater to also get baked? Sorry the small-minded, conservative, law-abiding people of your town don’t appreciate your business ingenuity, A. Massey, it’s a loss for all of us.

- Never did I think that I would actually consider the traditional definition of cruelty to animals to be an improvement over anything, but I have to reconsider that stance because of this next story. While hurting animals in any way, shape or form is offensive, awful and reprehensible, a person hitting, kicking or otherwise assaulting an animal is still not quite as sick and perverted as the actions of Burlington County (N.J.) police officer Robert Melia Jr., who has been charged with four counts of animal cruelty after allegedly engaging in sex acts with cows between June and December of 2006. Yup, dude was having sex with farm animals. Thankfully the graphic details haven’t been made public, but does anyone really need to hear anything beyond the words “sex acts with cows”? Didn’t think so. Of course, this isn’t Melia’s only problem when it comes to sexually assaulting others. He and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis, were previously charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of criminal sexual contact with three girls in his home from 2003 until 2006. Just as I said with traditional cruelty to animals, never has sexual assault on human beings seemed like a less disgusting alterative to anything like it does here. Is there anything or anyone this freak job won’t rape? Young girls, farm animals…is nothing safe? Melia is being held on $510,000 bail, but that’s not nearly enough. Sick puds like this guy need to be in prison for a long time so they can find out what it’s like to be on the other end of the assaulting, if you catch my drift. You make me (and everyone else with a soul) sick, Melia, you freak….

- Apparently the Cincinnati Bengals are confident that Chad Johnson will cave in and relent on his trade demands. Either that or they are so fed up with him that they’re prepared to play next season without Ocho Cinco, because the fact that they rejected a trade offer from the Washington Redskins that could have netted the Bengals two first-round draft picks speaks volumes about the team’s stance on this issue. Even for a great receiver like O.C., two first round picks is a good haul. You could fill a big need with an extra first-round pick each of the next two years, especially for a mediocre, perennially underachieving team like the Bengals. The Redskins offered their first-round pick, No. 21 overall, and a conditional third-rounder in 2009 that could escalate to a first rounder if Johnson and the Redskins hit certain performance levels, sources said. All along, the team had been adamant that they won’t capitulate to the trade demands and that if Johnson plays in 2008, it will be for them. Head coach Marvin Lewis piled on O.C. after the rejection of the trade became public, saying Ocho Cinco was “a man of his word” and since he promised to sit out if the Bengals didn’t deal him, he should follow through and sit out the season. The Redskins aren’t the only teams pursuing a trade for the disgruntled wideout, with their NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles also making a bid for O.C. However, these teams have been informed by Cincinnati that there has been no change in the team's position that Johnson will not be traded. Personally I think the Bengals are doing the right thing, because for too long they’ve let their players run amok, which has included repeated brushes with the law, substance abuse and other misconduct that has embarrassed the franchise and the city. While Ocho Cinco hasn’t done anything along those lines, his act is just a different slant on the “me first” mentality that has made the Bengals into an NFL punch line. The team needs to take a stand at some point and demand that guys show character and a commitment to the team rather than a commitment exclusively to themselves and their self-interests. Trading Johnson also would mean Cincinnati would take an $8 million salary-cap hit, but that amount could be split over the next two years. So dig in your heels, Bengals management, and let Ocho Cinco keep throwing his temper tantrum until like all petulant children, he tires himself out and quiets down.

The best/weirdest job ever, an irrelevent accomplishment for Danica Patrick and weekend box office numbers

- Congrats to Danica Patrick on winning a race in a “sport” that next to no one gives a crap about and which isn’t even a sport to begin with. Danica managed to beat a bunch of other losers driving tiny cars around in circles over the weekend, securing her place as the first woman to win an Indy Car race. She took first in the Japan 300, a race in which a bunch of non-athletic schlubs hop into small cars and drive round and round a big oval for hours on end. Enjoy the win, D., and I guess celebrate the fact that you’re the first woman to accomplish the feat, just realize that a) it’s not a sport, b) you’re not an athlete and c) to the overwhelming majority of American sports fans, your little driving competition is not even in the top ten sports stories for the weekend. You can try to score this one as a victory for gender equality if you want, but I’d like to believe that women have far more important arenas in which to strive for equality with men than in driving funny-looking cars around in a giant loop for a few hours. Not quite on par with fighting for equal pay, the right to vote or becoming the country’s first female president, is it? So enjoy your success D., just realize that in the grand scheme of things it is totally and utterly inconsequential and irrelevant.

- A solid weekend at the box office in terms of money made, with the action flick Forbidden Kingdom taking first place with an estimated haul of $20.9 million. Proving that people would rather see nig names with marginal to poor acting ability than a good movie, Jackie Chan (avowed Olympic torch protector) and Jet Li teamed up to take the top spot for the weekend with their pedestrian, lame action flick that’s basically a string of fight sequences strung together by horrible dialogue. Coming in second was a superior movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And no, I’m not just saying it’s a better movie because I’m a huge fan of über-hot Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Heroes). Rounding out the top five are last weekend’s crappy top movie Prom Night, psych thriller 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino and kid’s flick Nim’s Island. If you’re going to see any of those five, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is your best bet, unless you’re under the age of 12, then go with Nim….

- Maybe it’s time to find a new stunt driver for the upcoming James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. It could just be me, but when the dude who’s supposed to be the stunt driver for a movie is entrusted with delivering a $240,000 Aston Martin to the set of the film and ends up submerging it in a lake, my confidence in said stunt driver doesn’t exactly soar. The driver was navigating a winding road in the rain and took a wrong turn around a sharp corner, sending the expensive whip careening into Lake Garda in northern Italy. This tool got out of the accident with only minor bruises, but the state of the car wasn’t immediately known. Reportedly it was the only one of its kind available for the movie, so this guy had better hope it’s still usable. I have to imagine that it was a verrrry pleasant phone call when this guy had to dial up the movie’s producers and explain to them that the car they’re paying good money to use and which is extremely rare was now swimming in a lake in northern Italy thanks to the incompetence of the driver who was supposed to not only deliver it to the set but also drive it once filming began. The movie is scheduled to shoot in several locations including stops in Spain, Panama, England, Chile and Mexico. For the sake of the film’s execs, let’s hope there are actual competent stunt drivers in those countries.

- Remember the good old days, a time when a prince of England could take a military helicopter for a ride and land it at the home of his girlfriend’s parents without anyone b*tching about it? Prince William, currently not following the example set by America’ Idiot in Chief W. and actually serving in the military when his number was called, finds himself the target of intense criticism from British military leaders after landing a helicopter he was flying as part of his training in a field on a farm owned by the family of Big Willy’s girlfriend Kate Middleton. While the British military often seeks out private property to use for training exercises because of a dearth of suitable land of their own, the ongoing engagements of British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (hey, another country involved because of the sheer stupidity of W. to start an unjustified, unnecessary war, super!) have put the use of military resources under closer scrutiny. As such, William taking a helicopter to visit his girlfriend’s family farm seems like a waste. Ah, if only the U.S. of A could have military “problems” like that. No, we get to deal with our men and women in uniform being forced to serve tours of duty longer than what rules were supposed to allow, a debacle of a war that should never have started and now won't end and which our current president has no plan or intention to pay for. You should be thankful that this is a big concern for you, British military, because look across “the pond” and you’ll see it could be far worse….or as W. would say, way more worser…….

- All hail Isaiah Thomas, holder of the weirdest and possibly best job in all the world. With the New York Knicks still on the hook for $18 million to Zeke, he is out as coach and general manager but still with the organization in a mysterious, ambiguous role that is becoming weirder by the day. Now, not only is Thomas in a position with no official title and where no one reports to him, but as part of his reassignment agreement with the team, he has been banned from having any contact with members of the team. Allegedly it’s because new Knicks president Donnie Walsh feels like contact with player could undermine the team’s new coach. Right, either that or you’re keeping this guy around because you don’t want to pony up the cash to buy him out and at the same time you don’t want him having a damn thing to do with the actual day-to-day operations of the team, one or the other. With that being the case, I get it, the guy has been replaced as both coach and GM thanks to season’s like this year’s 23-59 disaster, the franchise's seventh straight losing season. All I ask it that you be honest with us and explain that you feel compelled to keep Zeke around but that he’s basically being paid $18 million to do nothing. Face the trtuh, Knicks: Isaiah Thomas doing nothing for your team is actually a marked improvement over what he’s been doing for the team the past few years. If Zeke had started not having any contact with players and made no personnel decisions two seasons ago, the team probably would have doubled its win total. The current rumor is that ESPN NBA analyst and former Knicks guard Mark Jackson is the front-runner to succeed Thomas, which is about the best coaching job you can get. Yes, there are acres of scorched earth to deal with, but you’re a major upgrade just by showing up and having more than two working brain cells, plus not sexually harassing female employees. Yes, this is going to be a fun ride for the Knicks and their fans…..

One Tree Hill, Greek and offending the Chinese, good times

- Perhaps it’s time for CNN to devote more air time to Richard Quest, who currently stars in CNN Business Traveller and Quest on the cable news giant. Clearly the network is not tapping the full potential of this man, not when he’s busted for violating the 1 a.m. curfew in Central Park and found to have a bag full of meth when he’s found to be violating that curfew. Quest was picked up around 3:45 a.m. in my favorite spot in Manhattan and when police searched him following that arrest, they found his meth supply in a jacket pocket. That act earned him two misdemeanor charges but no prison time, assuming he stays out of trouble and completes a six-month drug treatment program. Wait, what about the treatment program for park lurking after 1 a.m.? But I digress….I really think CNN needs to exploit this chance to expand its viewer base and score with demographic groups it typically doesn’t do well with. Promote that you have a confirmed tweaker on your network and give Quest ample airtime and support to talk about his love of meth, CNN. You can pick up all those stoners, meth heads and druggies who are getting baked, high or peaking on LSD while they’re laying on their couch in a daze, staring at the ceiling and munching on a combo platter of Funjuns, Doritos and Cheetos. Don’t be ashamed of this, don’t try to sweep it under the rug and look at it as a positive, CNN. Meth heads deserve to have their voice heard on your network just like everyone else, dammit….maybe it’s time for I’m a Meth-head and Here’s How You Can Be One Too on CNN, y’know, to open the network up to a wider audience. I have a sneaking suspicion that not very many stoners, meth heads, tweakers, crack addicts and heroin junkies are tuning in to CNN right now, but that could all change if the network figures out how to utilize Richard Quest and his considerable talents. Make it happen, CNN execs….

- Last night’s of One Tree Hill was all over the place, covering all sorts of ground and mixing happy endings with problems, positive with negative. In other words, the show actually had some depth and diversity in its plot for once and didn’t feel the compulsion to weave the same basic plot theme into the life of every character. There was Lucas, returning from a month long sabbatical to re-immerse himself into Tree Hill life. Without him, his Tree Hill Ravens basketball team had slumped to a 4-8 record under the leadership of assistant coach Skillz Taylor. The hand injury suffered by the team’s best player Quentin earlier this season wasn’t helping, as Q just wasn’t at 100 percent. When Lucas and Skillz called him on it and made him go back to the doctor, Quentin called Skillz and Uncle Tom for ratting him out to Lucas, an accusation that pissed Skillz off like few things have. Lucas was also put face to face with Peyton for the first time since the words of his new book that were inspired by her and her car ended up ruining his wedding. They had a heart-to-heart talk in which Peyton did her best to be supportive and Lucas continued to profess his love for his now ex-fiancée Lindsey. Lucas also had a pep talk with Brooke, who got good news when the adoption agency that had rejected her as an adoptive parent last episode gave her a second chance by allowing her to be a host for a little girl coming over from a foreign country to get surgery to correct physical deformities and in need of a home for her tiem in the United States. Brooke went nuts buying toys, clothes and other gifts for the baby but didn’t give a lot of thought to how it would affect those around her. Owen, they guy she was seeing, decided that he couldn’t handle the kid situation and his buddy Chase, Brooke’s former boyfriend from Season Four, delivered the bad news for him. In the end, Brooke picked up the baby at the airport and her day was made. Haley also had her day made when she decided to start pursuing her music career again and Peyton agreed to produce and record her new album on Peyton’s label. After sifting through piles of crappy demos trying to find her next artist, Peyton was relieved to have the chance to work with Haley. Pursuing her own dream also led Haley to push Nathan to chase his again, which meant a return to basketball. The return didn’t go well, though, with Quentin showing Nathan up in an impromptu game of one-on-one at the Tree Hill gym despite playing with a cast on his hand. Nathan left the gym in disgust when he couldn’t even make a free throw. His mood wasn’t helped by repeatedly running into his father, convicted killer Dan Scott, throughout the episode. Dan was going through a tough time as well, looking back over all of the mistakes he’d made and regretting that what had once been in his life was now ruined. Nathan and Haley also spent time searching for a new nanny to replace psycho Carrie, the stalker nanny they fired for flirting with Nathan and who also kidnapped their son. After rejecting several applicants because they were too hot, Haley found a suitable choice in Nathan’s returning, now-sober mother Deb. Apparently Deb has totally exorcised her demons of drug and alcohol addiction, because she’s now the nanny for her grandson. Another person making new living arrangements was Mouth McFadden, who had an offer for an on-air reporting job with a TV station in Omaha but rejected the offer to stay in Tree Hill with his girlfriend Millie. She got a promotion of her own from her boss Brooke, which meant she wanted to look for a new, more permanent place to live. Mouth offered to let her move in to his apartment, an offer she initially rejected before finally accepting when Mouth reassured her that he wouldn’t be pressuring her on the sex issue. Like I said, this was an episode that was all over the place, but it was still a good one and you can’t always say that about One Tree Hill, so until next week…..

- This season of Greek continued to be great on Monday night, with Flashback Night providing a look back in time and filling in details of how things got to where they are today. Probably the best and most humorous part of the flashbacks was seeing preppy, proper Evan Chambers as a freshman with a vintage concert t-shirt, a scraggly goatee and a baseball cap. As it turns out, Evan and Cappie weren’t just friends when they came to Cyprus-Rhodes, they were freshman roommates and friends since they were kids. They went to camp together, their families were close and so were they….until Evan talked Cappie into rushing a fraternity. They made the rounds during rush week and settled on Kappa Tau, ironically at Evan’s urging. There, they met the mythical Egyptian Joe, a slacker who is truly an inspiration to one and all. It soon became clear that the party-centric Kappa Tau was the perfect fit for Cappie, who blended in from the start. Evan didn’t fit quite as well, earning the nickname Bing and deciding that he would be better suited for the conservative, proper atmosphere at the Omega Chi house. The decision started a rift between he and Cappie, but that rift exploded into an all-out war when Cappie, who at the time was dating Casey Cartwright, developed an annoying habit of leaving his girlfriend hanging in order to hang out with his frat brothers. Casey reached her breaking point when Cappie forgot to show up to pick her up for the Greek Ball, at which point Evan, with whom she had become close friends, stepped in and offered to escort her to the dance as a friend. When Frannie, Casey’s big sister at Zeta Beta, saw Casey being stood up, she stormed the Kappa Tau house, berated Egyptian Joe (she made Joe cry, as Cappie said in recalling the day) and tore Cappie a new one. He showed up to the dance, found his girl dancing with Evan and a fistfight broke out between the two guys. That brawl, which expanded to include other members of the two fraternities, led Dean Bowman to cancel the Greek Ball for the following year, then return the event to the social calendar this year. Back in the present, Cappie and the Kappa Tau brothers decide not to attend the ball, a decision that upsets Cappie’s current girlfriend, Rebecca Logan. In the end, he caves in and agrees to attend, picking her up after a last-minute change of heart. Rusty Cartwright, on the other hand, skips the big event and wasn’t much of a part of the episode in general. Other than digging up information to find out what really happened at the Greek Ball two years ago and a couple of scenes with roommate Dale in which Dale tried to talk Rusty into attending his U.S.A.G. (United Students Against the Greek system) party, Rusty was mostly AWOL. Same goes for his pal Calvin, who decided to be the sober brother for Omega Chi for the event. The ball caused a drama at the Zeta Beta house as well, with Casey and Ashleigh both unable to find dates for the event. They took had flashbacks to their freshman year when they met doing laundry in their dorm, were recruited to the sorority by now-nemesis Frannie and went through the pledging process. One thing from the past Casey didn’t know htat she found out thanks to Cappie was that two years ago, Frannie made her invasion of the Kappa Tau house to hunt down Cappie for standing up Casey. That revelation led Casey to drop her grudge against Frannie and invite her to attend the ball with her and Ashleigh. An interesting episode for sure, a lot of laughs and also, any episode with Egyptian Joe is cool with me. That’s all for now, though…..

- With today’s über-important Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, it’s a good time to break down the 10 remaining primaries and caucuses that will hopefully deal the death blow to Hank Clinton’s presidential campaign. Other than today’s Pa. primary, the other top contest is North Carolina, with 115 delegates at stake. Thankfully it’s a state Obama is projected to dominate thanks to a wealth of minority and liberal voters. Also voting on May 6 along with North Carolina is Indiana, a state I am loving right now because it’s one where Obama boasts a double-digit lead in the polls. It’s proximity to his home state of Illinois helps, especially since he’s won every state that shares a border with Illinois. Oregon is another state where Obama is projected to win thanks to its liberal, hippie, pothead tendencies (you know it’s true, Oregon, so don’t deny it, embrace your inner stoner). States like Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia will be tough ones for Obama. He has far too many teeth to relate to West Virginians (just kidding, West Va.) and he doesn’t rate well with sheep, goats and cows, whose large numbers in South Dakota and Montana will play a big role in deciding the primaries in their states (just kidding with you too, Montana and South Dakota). But combined, those states have only 59 delegates, so not much to worry about there. Then there are places like Guam and Puerto Rico, U.S. territories that boast four and 55 delegates, respectively. Hard to put much effort into campaign on Guam, as much fun as it might be to kick it on the beach. I might make a campaign stop there if I were running, small delegate count be damned. Puerto Ricans can’t actually vote in the general election because the live in a commonwealth and not a state, but they can help choose who will run in that general election. So far, Clinton has maintained a slight edge with Hispanic voters in this election, but Obama is fighting hard in Puerto Rico to rip some of its delegates from Hank’s manly clutches. In summation, even though Hank may score a victory in Pennsylvania, don’t allow her positive rhetoric on the heels of this win dissuade you from the fact that in the end, the right candidate will be chosen and we will have kept the angry femi-Nazi that is Hank Clinton out of the White House.

- The hits just keep on coming for CNN. Aside from the aforementioned sitch with Richard Quest, the network is now dealing with outrage from Chinese-Americans who have taken umbrage with comments made by CNN talking head Jack Cafferty calling China’s goods “junk” and its leaders “a bunch of goons and thugs.” Dozens of protestors rallied outside of CNN’s Hollywood offices late last week to make their feelings about Cafferty’s comments known. They called for his firing and said that if he had made those comments about any other ethnic group, he in fact would have been axed. I’m sorry angry protestors, but are you pissed because Cafferty said what he said or because it’s true? If I’m remembering recent months correctly, your country has exported toxic toothpaste, tainted vegetables and toys covered in lead paint. Its government has brutally oppressed the people of Tibet, failed to provide clean, breathable air for the upcoming Olympics and continued to trample on the basic human rights of its own citizens. The toothpaste, vegetables and toys would certainly qualify as junk and the preceding sentence would seem to qualify the country’s leaders as goons and thugs. No one loves protests, riots and social dissidence more than I do, but you getting yourself all torqued up because someone had the sheer audacity to speak the truth about the country you came from is ridiculous and out of line. Take it down a notch, angry Chinese-Americans, take it down a notch…..

Building more walls, an Album to Avoid and an excruciatingly long baseball game

- I love baseball. On a professional level, it’s my favorite sport to follow and the one whose championship (the World Series) is the most exciting and intense from start to finish. However, even my unwavering love for the game has its limits and those limits were surpassed somewhere after the midway point of Thursday night’s Padres-Rockies game that dragged on for 22 freaking innings. The Rockies finally eked across a run in the 22nd inning and won 2-1 on Troy Tulowitzki's two-out RBI double bringing in Willy Taveras with an unearned run in nearly empty Petco Park. The game lasted 6 hours, 16 minutes, beginning at 7:05 p.m. PST and not ending until 1:21 a.m. when Padres pitcher Glendon Rusch took a called third strike. The game featured 658 pitches, 42 players used, 15 pitchers used, was scoreless through 13 innings and put countless scores of people to sleep. One of the worst comments about the game came from Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who offered this gem: “It's definitely better to win in a 22-inning game than lose, I'll tell you that," Tulowitzki said. Thanks for that, T. I know you’re tired after that long of a game, but that’s just pathetic. It was the longest game since Aug. 31, 1993, when Minnesota beat Cleveland 5-4 in 22 innings. The game mercifully rolled to a close in the 22nd when Rockies outfielder Willy Taveras reached on a two-out grounder following Padres shortstop Khalil Greene's throw that pulled 6-foot-7 first baseman Tony Clark off the bag. Taveras stole second and took third on catcher Josh Bard's throwing error. Tulowitzki doubled to left-center of Glendon Rusch (0-1), the seventh Padres pitcher. Taveras set a club record with 10 at-bats. Nothing like having three games’ worth of at-bats in a single contest. Not surprisingly, only a fraction of the crowd of 25,984 (read here: a couple hundred or so) was around to see the final out. That’ll happen when your game has a seventh-inning stretch, a 14-inning stretch and finally, a 21st-inning stretch. How ridiculous was this game? It got to the point that some Padres players amused themselves in the 18th by taping up the head of a stuffed ram and placing it on the front bench in the dugout. When guys get so punchy that they’re doing stupid sh*t like that, it’s a surefire sign that your game has gone on too long. Another high point for amusement came after the 18th inning, shortly after midnight, when the sprinklers came on in the Park at the Park, a grassy knoll beyond the bleachers in right-center. Too bad there wasn’t the mythical second shooter on that grassy knoll, because he could have put a bullet in this game and brought it to a merciful ending. Again this is from a huge baseball fan, but let’s try and keep games under 15 or 16 innings for the rest of the season, k? Thanks…..

- Just when you thought they might be losing steam in their fight against their government, Argentinean farmers are back and better than ever. These guys have gone from creating massive roadblocks on the highways around the country’s agricultural center to now lighting fires that are disrupting flights over their country. In continung to wage their battle against the government over taxes (what else?) farmers in the area in and around Buenos Aires are suspected of starting massive fires that sent smoke pouring across the city, interfering with air travel, highway traffic and also choking millionss of Argentines. According to the government, more than 270 square miles have burned the past few days. That’s the way to be, Argentinian farmers! Destroy the very land you work in order to show the government that you won't stand for them oppressing you! Props on creating enough smoke to f’up air traffic, highway traffic and cause breathing difficulties for millions of your countrymen. As I always say, burning and property destruction are keystones of any good social dissidence, so a tip of the cap to those responsible for this solid effort.

- Hang on, hang on….just yesterday I said that I hadn’t come across a good Album to Avoid recently, but gosh darn it, I have one. Mariah Carey, in all of her insanity and trying to squeeze her chubby self into slinky outfits four sizes too small for her, is back with a new album titeld E= MC2. I could say this is an album you need to avoid and be done with it, but where would the fun be in that? Carey is the prime example of why just because a person has great musical or vocal talent, it doesn’t mean they make good music. Carey has an eight-octave range, but the pop/dance crap she’s churned out over the years rivals the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. Preditably, that’s what you’ll get plenty of on this album, with way too many overproduced, glitzy, synthesized dance/club music numbers rolling out of the speakers from the instant you press play. Jermaine Dupri and Carey have combined to produce an all-too-slick, glittery, bouncy album with all the punch and fizz of week-old Pepsi. Songs like I’m That Chick and Migrate are perfect illustrations of what’s wrong with this alubm, both showing a crap-tacular pop touch combined with a dance/party/club vibe that anyone with even moderate musical sensibilities and taste would despise. Anyone can make this kind of music if you slam them in the studio with a decent producer and plenty of synthesizers and gadgets to craft the sound. So thank you to M. Carey for giving me the perfect album to revive the Albums to Avoid feature, good times all around…..

- Well this should get interesting. With the Olympic torch being met with angry, violent protests and attempts to put out its flame during nearly every stop of its world tour, clashes between law enforcement and protestors have been the norm. However, as the torch nears Asia and begins to wind its way toward the capital city of the world’s largest oppressor of human rights, Beijing, the tension looks to be building even further. First, Chinese action hero and maker of lame-duck comedies Jackie Chan vowed to guard the torch along the final stages of its journey and to unleash his martial arts hijinks on anyone who tries to mess with it. No word on whether Chris Tucker will fight alongside him and engage in barely decipherable, lame dialogue, so stay tuned. Now we have confirmation that soldiers and police in Nepal have been cleared to open fire to stop any protests during China's Olympic torch run to the summit of Mount Everest. In other words, for trying to put out the Olympic flame, you could be putting your life on the line. Of course, Nepal's Home Ministry says the use of deadly force is only authorized as a last resort, which is what The Man always says beforehand when paving the way for the unjustified use of lethal force. The following is the alleged (and I do stress alleged) protocol for dealing with protestors. The troops will first try to persuade protesters to leave during the torch run and will arrest those who stay. If demonstrators defy all nonviolent means of restraint, troops have the option of using weapons. Umm….sure. Everyone is going to stick to that in the heat of the moment? Doubtful. Nepalese police and soldiers are already preparing for battle, with twenty-five soldiers and policemen having established camps on the mountain. Climbers will be banned from the mountain's higher elevations during the torch run. The climb up Everest, on the border between Nepal and Tibet, is planned for the first few days of May, so mark your calendar for some fireworks around that time. When you combine this debacle with the putrid air quality in Beijing, the city’s massive water shortage, bans on live news broadcasts from Tiananmen Square and widespread concerns over the safety and integrity of food to be served to athletes, this is going to be an awesome Olympic experience!

- The United States of America, building ginormous walls as means of curbing political unrest the whole world ‘round. Aside from W.’s insatiable quest to slam a huge section of wall along the Mexican border to keep those darn Mexicanos out of our country, we are also incurring the wrath of followers of radical Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad by announcing plans to construct a huge wall through their stronghold in the Sadr City section of the nation’s capital. The wall will be made of thick concrete and will vary in height, reaching as high as 12 feet in some areas. U.S. military officials hope that the wall will restrict the mobility of rebels around the city, because God forbid people who don’t want us occupying their country without justification have the ability to fight against us. Other similar walls have gone up around Baghdad in other trouble neighborhoods, so clearly wall-building is one of our go-to policies. Shiites in the Sadr City area have become problematic after crackdowns by our military and Iraqi forces, so this wall should successfully escalate tensions in the area. I have another possible solution, one tghat is admittedly radical but would curb any and all fighting between U.S. forces and militant groups: get every damn one of our men and women in uniform out of a country they never should have been in to begin with. Yes, pull all American military personnel out of Iraq and I guarantee we won't have a single problem with another Iraqi militant group ever again. That thinking is waaaaay too complicated and sophisticated for W. and his cadre of ass hats/advisors, though, so of course it will never happen as long as that idiot is in the Oval Office…..