- What to do with your time and money when you’re co-founder of the Internet’s most well-known search engine and have millions of dollars just sitting around, taking up space? If you’re Scrooge McDuck of Duck Tales fame, you put your money into a giant, rectangular-shaped vault and swim in your money. However, for those bound by the constraints of living in a non-cartoon world, the options are a little more limited. So it is that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has elected to pony up $5 million for a seat on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which is slated to head into outer space in 2013. The flight will be operated by Space Adventures Ltd. and will feature no in flight movies, no complimentary snacks and a five-hour layover on Neptune. Okay, so maybe I made some of that up, but the flight will indeed by operated by Space Adventures Ltd., the same company that will also host the first private space flight to the international space station in a couple of years. The company will be making two seats available to the public for that trip, and by “public” I of course mean multi-millionaires with nothing better to do with their time than visit a space station with a toilet that may or may not be working when 2011 rolls around. Start saving your pennies now if you are a thrill seeker who wants in on this flight, although it might be a bit too late to start your own Internet search engine and still make enough money in the time available to you. Enjoy the final frontier, Sergey, hope it’s worth $5 million….
- It’s about freaking time that someone, somewhere took steps to protect homeowners who shoot idiot burglars who try to rob their homes, so props to the state of Ohio for doing just that. For too long, the law has absurdly been tilted in favor of criminals who could break into a house, get hurt in the process and then sue the homeowner for their injuries sustained while committing a crime. Thanks to a new law signed into effect by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, the law in his state is now swinging back the other way and people who shoot intruders are much more likely to be in the right legally speaking. Strickland called the measure “common sense legislation” and I have to agree. I may not support gun rights, but that tends to go more to people carrying concealed weapons in public than keeping them in their homes. Under the new law, it will be presumed that anyone who shoots an intruder in their home or car will have acted in self-defense. Prosecutors worry that the law will allow drug dealers to claim self-defense when they shoot someone in a drug deal gone bad, but that’s just a weak excuse on this issue. You can’t protect the rights of criminals breaking into people’s homes just because you think a few drug dealers might try to use it as a loophole for killing people. If juries and judges aren’t smart enough to understand this law and correctly enforce it, then that’s a problem for another day. Fact is, homeowners should never, ever, ever be liable for anything that happens to a burglar who breaks into their home. When you break the law and are in the midst of committing a crime that puts the lives of innocent people in danger, you’re forfeiting your own rights in the process. Sucks for you, Ohio burglars…….
- I felt bad about bringing bad news for stoners worldwide yesterday when I relayed news that police in Afghanistan had seized a stash of more than 261 tons of hash and had thus negatively impacted the lives of potheads around the globe. So today I felt compelled to bring some good news for those of you who love getting baked, downing mass quantities of Cheetos and brownies and watching Planet Earth DVDs. I think I’ve found exactly that kind of news because quite frankly, nothing should excite stoners more than news that the potency of pot in the United States was at its highest level in 30 years in 2007. A report released by the White House contains those claims, claims that I’m sure most potheads have no idea about and would be indifferent to if they were informed about them. Even with the subdued nature of your average stoner though, the revelation that the hippie lettuce they are purchasing and smoking (or baking into brownies) is, on average, 30 percent more potent is a major positive. Not that stoners are big on math, but with increased potency, you could actually purchase and smoke less of the chronic and get the same high. I can’t say for sure whether more potent weed increases the intensity of your case of the munchies after getting high, but rumor has it that Cheetos sales have been soaring this past year, so you never know…..
- David Stern used to be the most respected commissioner in all of professional sports. He used to be viewed as a stand-up, forthright leader who ran his league smartly and successfully. The National Basketball Association had made a massive climb from the outskirts of the sports scene in the 1980s when the NBA Finals were actually broadcast on tape delay in the middle of the night. The Association has had a resurgence the past few years, especially this year, when the regular season was as competitive as its been in a long time. The league’s Most Valuable Player race was heated and featured four stellar candidates, but all of that positive momentum has led to a mostly underwhelming postseason, highlighted by a so-far lackluster Finals between two teams, the Celtics and Lakers, who were supposed to rekindle a classic rivalry from the ‘80s. Now comes the worst news of all for the Association, with disgraced former referee Tim Donaghy making allegations that the league intentionally altered the outcomes of playoff series in 2002 and 2005 through shady officiating that came under a league mandate. Donaghy, who has already pleaded guilty to gambling on games he officiated and is awaiting sentencing in a federal gambling case, claims that the series between the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets during the 2005 playoffs and the Western Conference Finals series between the Lakers and Sacramento Kings in 2002 had their outcomes altered by officials calling phantom fouls or refusing to call actual fouls, all in an attempt to put more marketable teams from bigger media markets into the Finals. Those allegations were a problem for the NBA no matter what, because until; they’re proven false, the league is under a cloud of suspicion. However, the problem has now mushroomed because of the fashion in which Stern has handled it and things appear to be getting worse for the NBA by the hour. Stern continues to sarcastically and arrogantly attack Donaghy as “one rogue criminal” and imply that he’s only making these claims in an attempt to shorten his impending prison sentence. Stern steadfastly refuses to concede that what Donaghy is alleging might be true, saying that the league spoke to all of its officials following the initial news about Donaghy’s betting habits. He insists that Donaghy and only Donaghy was involved in this practice, ignoring the fact that as he so comprehensively absolves every other referee of wrongdoing now, the same would have been said about ALL referees, Donaghy included, prior to the revelation that he was a degenerate gambler. Also, if the allegations that Donaghy and his lawyer are making through their filings this week in federal court, the league itself is complicit in the fixing of games via bad officiating. If that’s true, then of course Stern isn't going to own it publicly unless and until he has a gun to his head in the form of tangible, incontrovertible proof. I don’t know who is telling the truth here, but what I do know is that there needs to be a thorough investigation to determine exactly that. Of course, such an investigation won't come nearly in time to ward off the black cloud that now hangs over an already subpar Finals. Not exactly the marquee postseason the Association was hoping for, I have to imagine…
- Who doesn’t love a good “26 of your classmates were killed in car accidents this past weekend” hoax? Nobody, that’s who. What’s not fun about rolling into first period on Monday morning and having state highway patrol officers come to your class and inform you that more than two dozen of your classmates were killed in car crashes over the weekend? That’s just what happened as El Camino High School in the posh suburb of Oceanside, Calif. one Monday last month. Students came to school and received word that their classmates had died in car accidents, only to learn several hours later that the whole thing was a hoax designed to hammer home the dangers of drinking and driving with prom and graduation party season in full swing. Those responsible for the hoax went so far as to have 26 students held out of class and use them as the ones allegedly killed in the accidents, further driving home that jolt of emotional damage and despair with their friends and classmates. Many students didn’t know what was going on until they saw their supposedly deceased classmates walking the halls near the end of the day. I bet that wasn’t emotionally scarring or anything, so thanks to the ass hats in the El Camino HS administration for that. Oddly enough, many students and parents weren’t down with the hoax. Some students spoke out via signs displayed at subsequent school assemblies that contained messages like, “Death is real. Don’t play with our emotions.” Yeah, I’m going to have to agree with those who thought this plan was a load of bullsh*t. Do what you need to do to reinforce the message of not drinking and driving….as long as you don’t fake the deaths of students and allow their classmates to spend most of a day thinking that their friends are dead. Have assemblies, show graphic pictures of crashes, bring in the wreckage from drunk driving accidents, just don’t pull crap like this. I’d put the odds at even money for the parents of a student who was subjected to this stunt suing the school district for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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