- Know what we haven’t had enough of lately? Good Ponzi schemes, that’s what. Everyone loves a solid Ponzi scheme, roping people into a total sham business and forcing them to sucker others in as well in order to make back their money, good times. Well, thanks to Andres Pimstein of Miami, Florida, that drought is over. Federal prosecutors have charged Pimstein with 12 counts of wire fraud in connection with the scheme that lured University of Miami employees to help him pull off the multimillion-dollar scheme that cost investors more than $20 million. This came to light after lawsuits filed by an angry investor and a former business partner of Pimstein were filed, alleging that Pimstein -- a University of Miami business school graduate -- recruited university employees and used school facilities to facilitate the scheme. According to the lawsuits, Pimstein used detailed flow charts and fake invoices to persuade would-be participants, telling them his firm would be selling perfumes and electronics to a South American department-store chain with which he had no actual business. Now that is a solid one, a fake perfume-selling scam and an international flavor by involving the South American department-store chain, very nice. Well, nice unless you object to bilking people out of millions of dollars, then maybe not so nice. That could be why Pimstein faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. For those not familiar with the particulars of Ponzi schemes, they work by paying early investors from the principal paid in by later investors instead of from actual profits, which don’t really exist. For Pimstein, things were going along swimmingly until his entire operation collapsed in early 2008 after he was no longer able to pay investors their promised returns of 18 to 36 percent. Hmm, and you don’t think you should be suspicious when a person offers you an 18 to 36 percent return on investment for a murky, vague foreign company? Part of me thinks that the idiots who got suckered in by this scam almost deserve what they got - almost. Look for the prosecution in this one to go quickly, what with Pimstein admitting to the scheme in a taped interview Miami-Dade County police, with the recording turned over to the FBI. But good to see the Ponzi scheme making a comeback, I’ve missed it…..
- Here is something that should never happen in a football game. A player should never be injured because he runs into a wagon left out near the field of play by a band dork. Such is the case of University of Houston wide receiver Patrick Edwards, who broke his leg Tuesday night when he ran into a cart used by band dorks to haul instruments and gear and broke his leg during a game in Huntington, West Virginia against the Marshall. Edwards was going after a pass at full speed in the third quarter when his right shin hit the cart in the back of the end zone. The nearest referee immediately called for help and Edwards was carried off the field and taken to Cabell Huntington Hospital where he underwent surgery on the leg. Talking about the incident, Edwards says he never saw the cart before hitting it. “I just saw the ball in the air and once it came down, I hit the cart and flipped over it,” Edwards stated. Ironically, while Edwards says he doesn’t hold any animosity toward the band dorks who left the carts on the field, his mother, Patricia Edwards, says that she is considering legal action against Marshall. Under the heading of too little, too late, Marshall athletic director Bob Marcum said the carts, will be relocated at future games. Couple that with an apology that does no one any good, with Marcum saying in part, “We are sorry the accident took place and wish Patrick a quick and full recovery," and you have a whole lot of empty words being thrown out. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the game was televised nationally by ESPN and the accident has already been shown thousands of times online. The grisly details of the incident are that Edwards, Houston's leading receiver with 634 yards on 46 catches, suffered a compound fracture and had a rod inserted in his lower right leg. Still, he expects to make a full recovery and be back on the field next season…….
- Thank God. Finally, one of the most ridiculous, retarded and lame shows on television is going to end. Nothing outside of reality shows is as pathetic as adult-oriented cartoons, and chief among those offenders has been Fox’s “King of the Hill.” The show chronicles the life of blue-collar family man Hank Hill of Texas and his family and friends. It is chock-full of humor that would be insulting to a first grader and once again, cartoons are for kids and if adults want to watch cartoons, they can watch the ones designed for kids. So I am ecstatic to hear the Fox is canceling this terrible show and that final episodes of the half-hour series, now in its 13th year, will air during the 2009-10 season. Not soon enough for me, but then again, 13 years ago would not have been soon enough for canceling this certified piece of crap. Sadly, Fox didn’t totally come to its senses, because it has renewed another of its moronic adult cartoons, the equally ridiculous “American Dad,” which will return for a fifth season. The “King of the Hill” cancellation comes after the show has earned relatively flat ratings early this season. I’d be fine with the cancellation of all adult cartoons - The Simpsons, King of the Hill, American Dad - on Fox, the only major broadcast network who standards are low enough to allow them on air, but for now I’ll take what I can get…..
- Not a good week for prominent sports agent Leigh Steinberg, who was arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public on Oct. 22 in Newport Beach, Calif. Steinberg was taken into custody about 8 p.m. on Oct. 22 after police received a report about a man “screaming and attempting to climb a hill” above the Newport Auto Center. They arrived on the scene and found Steinberg, whose speech was slurred even though no alcoholic beverages were found. It’s a sad turn for a guy who has acknowledged a battle with alcoholism, and appears to have relapsed into those bad habits. After his arrest, Steinberg was taken to the city jail, where he was booked for investigation of public intoxication and released on his own recognizance pending a Dec. 8 court hearing. Before being released, he also signed a statement that said police planned to seek criminal charges and promising to appear in court. An interesting twist in the story came later in the day when there was no record of Steinberg's latest arrest in the district attorney's computer, meaning it was not immediately possible to determine whether he had been charged. Bottom line here is that I am definitely rooting for Steinberg, a good guy with a major alcohol problem, to beat his demons. He has represented such big names as boxer Oscar de la Hoya and quarterbacks Troy Aikman, Steve Young and Drew Bledsoe, but all the while he has been battling his addiction, as evidenced by the fact that in April 2007, he was arrested for investigation of drunken driving after his Mercedes hit three parked cars and knocked over a fire hydrant. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. That came a decade after a 1997 incident in which, Steinberg was sentenced to community service after being arrested in Newport Beach for investigation of drunken driving when he hit a car, injuring the driver. Get help and get right, Leigh, because I don’t like where this is heading and if it keeps going that direction, it’s not going to end well…..
- Nobody is a bigger college sports fan than I am, but you’ll have to excuse me for not being down with the Clarke County (Ga.) School District for call off school today, the day before the huge Florida-Georgia college football game in Jacksonville, Florida. The game, which I continue to call by its now-banned name, The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, is a major battle every year, but that doesn’t justify calling off school for a day. Yes, last year 137 teachers last year in the district, which includes the University of Georgia, called in sick the day before the big game, and the district was able to find only 113 substitutes. Looking back after that tough day, school administrators found a pattern -- almost twice as many teachers call in sick the Friday before the annual game in Jacksonville, Fla., about 360 miles away, than on an average school day. Hmm…..I’m guessing that most of them weren’t sick, but maybe I’m just overly cynical. What is garbage here is that it’s the freaking day before the game, not the day of. Show up for work, then if you want to go to the game, you’ve got plenty of time to drive down and be there the night before. If you call of sick that day, you should have to produce a note from your doctor and certified medical proof of your illness, otherwise you are docked two days’ pay. And the district calling off school completely - that’s just crap, period. Like I said, I love college sports and I’m one of the crazies staying up until 2:15 a.m. during college basketball season to watch West Coast Conference games, but even I can’t go along with this one…..
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Smallville recapped, election disasters foretold and idiot comics in England rebuked....good times
- Oh China, you crack me up. Because who doesn’t get a good laugh out of you foisting one toxic, potentially lethal product after another on the world? You put dangerous chemicals in toys, food, toothpaste, into milk power for infants and now into eggs. Your continual pursuit of making the world sick, literally, is hilarious. Who else but the wacky Chinese would even consider such an endeavor? So as you can imagine, I am laughing my butt off at news that health authorities in Hong Kong have found more eggs contaminated with the chemical melamine, and since Hong Kong is part of China, there’s the obvious connection . This particular chemical is at the center of a tainted milk scandal that has sickened more than 50,000 children across China, but you know the Chinese, they can’t be contained to any one product, they’re too big for that. So I guess eggs were the next logical move, with contaminated eggs found in a batch produced by Jingshan Pengchang Agriculture Product Company, located in Hubei province, about 430 miles (695 km) east of Shanghai. And no, I don’t want to hear about how these eggs were allegedly much lower in melamine content than contaminated eggs produced by Hanwei Eggs that were discovered last week in Hong Kong, because the bottom line is that the Jingshan eggs were still above the legal limit. In other words, doses of a
chemical used in making plastics and fertilizer should not be ending up in food that you intend for anyone to consume. So health officials in Hong Kong, quit spinning this by saying that there's little risk to human health and that a child would have to eat perhaps 20 eggs a day for the melamine to have an effect, no dice. Thankfully, at least one major retailer agrees with me on this - Wal-Mart. The company has pulled Hanwei eggs from the shelves of its supermarkets across China. But hey, nothing screams burgeoning global superpower quite like churning out toxic, chemical-laden products at the rate of one or two per month….
- Wonder how MTV feels about its choice of that knob Russell Brand to host its recent Video Music Awards show now? Not only did brand and his lame-ass humor bomb out on the show, this idiot is now at the center of a huge controversy that has the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) suspended one of its best-known stars while Brand resigned Wednesday for broadcasting a series of "gross" and abusive telephone calls. Brand and talk show host Jonathan Ross started this debacle earlier this month when they attempted to contact comedy actor Andrew Sachs for an interview on Brand's radio show. Showing that they are neither smart not armed with an Internet connection and rudimentary knowledge of a search engine, both of these tools failed to realize that Sachs -- who played a Spanish waiter in John Cleese's 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers,” is not around to talk, so instead, they went brain dead and left a series of messages on the veteran actor's phone, joking about Brand's sexual relationship with Sach's granddaughter Georgina Baillie, 23. Nice of you to resign and issue a statement saying you take “complete responsibility” for the incident. “As I only do the radio show to make people laugh I've decided that, given the subsequent coverage, I will stop doing the show,” he said. Thanks for that, R., but you could have stopped doing it a long time ago and most of us wouldn’t have missed you. There’s a definite line between being funny and being an a-hole, and joking
that Sachs might kill himself on hearing the news you were “announcing” was over that line. Oh, and verrrry heartfelt apology the week after the incident, an “apology” in which you said the calls were "funny.” Know who didn’t think you were funny? The 15,000 people pissed enough to call and leave messages of complaint with the BBC. Know who else wasn’t down? Prime Minster Gordon Brown, who called the stunt “inappropriate and unacceptable.” Oh, and maybe stay on your side of the pond and don’t bother coming over to the U.S. anymore, R., we don’t know your brand of entertainment here….
- It’s about freaking time. Former Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin has finally returned fire at that senile, semi-coherent, franchise-ruining corpse Al Davis, officially filing his complaint yesterday to claim his lost salary from the team following his firing. After that pathetic, rambling press conference Davis held where he hearkened back to the 1950s by using an overhead projector to display points of why he was firing Kiffin (didn’t want to draft Jamarcus Russell, whom Davis called “a great player.” Current averages for Russell? A verrrry studly 179.7 passing yards per game, less than one touchdown per game. Yup, that sure is great, Al). Kiffin has taken his sweet time, laying low since being fired on Sept. 30 after the Raiders' fourth game "for cause". It wasn’t until yesterday that Kiffin finally made good on his promise to seek payment for the remainder of his contract, filing the complaint through the NFL Coaches Association. It will now go straight to commissioner Roger Goodell, but there is no timetable set for hearings and the case may not even be heard before the end of the year. Here’s hoping that Kiffin gets what he’s seeking, namely the $2.6 million of salary he is owed under terms of his contract. Davis is a crabby, crotchety, senile old bastard who is choking the life out of his football team and needs to stop changing coaches on a whim. Making him pay the money he owes Kiffin might make him pause and think next time he goes to fire his head coach for the heck of it, in say, six months or so. Maybe no one told Al, but most NFL coaching contracts are guaranteed and none of the bogus claims he made against Kiffin in trying to support the firing should hold up in this case……
- For all the close calls Clark Kent has had during the seven-plus seasons of Smallville, last night was one of the most interesting ones as far as seeing how CK would weasel out of someone exposing his secret. His wave of good Samaritan deeds around Metropolis had provoked a warning from friend John Jones/Martian Manhunter last week that if he wasn’t careful, Clark’s identity and secret could be revealed. That nearly came true when Clark saved Lois Lane’s life after a mugger attacked she and Jimmy Olsen as they walked down a dark city street. The mugger turned out to be less than random by episode’s end, but at the time his identity wasn’t the issue. What was the issue was Jimmy snapping a pic of the scene as Clark super-sped through to save Lois. The picture turned out to be crystal clear except for one detail - the hero was a red-and-blue blur. That didn’t stop Jimmy from pushing the photo and miracle hero story to new Daily Planet/LuthorCorp boss Tess Mercer, who liked its sensationalism. Offered the chance to write the story, Clark declines because he thinks putting himself in the spotlight like that, even if no one knows it’s him who is the blur in the picture, is a terrible idea. But Jimmy continued digging into the story and uncovered miraculous heroic acts dating all the way back to Clark and Chloe’s time in Smallville, back to their days in the ninth grade. When Jimmy travels to the Kent farm to talk to Clark and see if anyone CK remembers from high school might have stood out as a superhero. Things take a turn for the worst when Jimmy spots an old Kent family photo with Clark in red and blue, just like in the picture from the mugging, and puts two and two together. He pegs Clark as the mystery hero and Clark denies it, then super speeds off to Metropolis and tracks down Chloe at the Isis foundation for her help. After initially telling Clark the day before that maybe the public believing that a hero like him does exist, Chloe is amazed Jimmy figured things out and as she and Clark discuss ways to fix the problem, Jimmy arrives after a harried drive from the farm. Seeing Clark beat him there, Jimmy accuses him of super-speeding to the city and points to it as more proof that Clark is a superhero. Then, Jimmy storms off after Chloe and Clark both insist that his theory is wrong, vowing to find tangible proof. That leaves Clark to scramble for a way to throw Jimmy off his trail, a quest that leads him to Oliver Queen’s private jet. Clark finds Oliver readying for takeoff for a vaction to the Bahamas, three uber-hot girls all over him and a drink in his hand. When Clark demands to talk to him in private, he is able to convince Oliver to help with a plan to divert Jimmy’s suspicions. That plan has Clark meeting Jimmy on the street and having Chloe drive a car that nearly runs him over before Oliver swoops in and saves him while wearing red and blue. The plan is thrown a curve when Clark gets a desperate call for help from Lois, who is in a pickle of her own. She has met a guy named Kane, who pretends to be a new reporter at the Daily Planet but is really a meteor freak whom LuthorCorp held at its Black Creek, Montana facility where Chloe was also held captive. Kane can scan people’s entire life history in his mind just from touching them, so Tess is using him to try and find out who stole her Kryptonian crystal she found in the Arctic near where Lex Luthor disappeared. Kane asks Lois out on a date, not knowing she has recognized him as a former Black Creek resident from a jump drive she stole from the Luthor Mansion, a drive containing files on many of the activities and prisoners at the facility. Lois says yes to the date so she can write a story and expose Kane, whose real name is Wilson. But the date goes sour when Kane/Wilson scans Lois, finds she doesn’t have the crystal and is contacted by Tess, who suggests he kill Lois. He tries, first by attempting to get himself invited up to her apartment for a nightcap. When Lois refuses, he follows her inside and attacks her with a gun. Lois is able to find him off long enough to call Clark for help, right in the middle of his plan to fool Jimmy. Clark is forced to abort and go save Lois, then super-speed back to where Jimmy is. As he gets there, Jimmy is being mugged by the same mugger who jumped Lois the previous night, a man working for Tess to abduct people who might know where the crystal is. Oliver, perched on a rooftop nearby, sees the mugging unfold, realizes something is amiss and springs into action. He saves Jimmy, knocks the mugger out and flies onto another rooftop using a zip line attached to one of his arrows he uses as Green Arrow. Clark comes on the scene just after that and when Jimmy accuses Clark of being the hero, CK point to the caped figure on the roof and says that’s the true hero. Jimmy buys it and apologizes to Clark for fingering him to begin with. However, the enthusiastic reaction to the hero and the resulting story makes Clark see that being a figure of hope like that might not be so bad. He has another talk with Oliver aboard his jet and when Oliver says he’s going back to fighting evil instead of jet setting around the world and partying, Clark sounds ready to join in. As Oliver heads off to Europe for a meeting of the Justice League, it seems like Clark is ready to be a part of their efforts. So another crisis of revealed identity averted, and that’s all until next time kids…..
- Remember that whole voting debacle eight years ago in Florida, the one that paved the way for eight years of the worst presidential performance in American history? How would you feel about some more election hijinks and shenanigans as one of the most faithful followers of the policies of that ass hat elected in 2000, W., is running for the nation’s highest office? See, I KNEW you would be excited. Yes, a mere eight years after Florida's hanging hijacked the election and led to voting changes in states around the country, many election observers remain concerned about the accuracy of the electronic voting systems most Americans will use November 4. Actually, those claims have merit already as early voting underway in 31 states, has borne out these problems. In recent weeks, voters in West Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee and Texas have reported that touch-screen machines registered their votes, at least initially, for the wrong candidate or party. Super news, everyone! Never a good sign when a problem with something as important as voting is lampooned in and episode of “The Simpsons,” the one set to air this Sunday which has already been leaked on the Internet and features a scene in which Homer's electronic vote for Barack Obama is recorded for John McCain by an evil voting machine that then devours him. So let’s all look forward to the possibility and near-certainty of touch-screen machines failing or registering votes for unintended candidates, optical-scan systems can having trouble reading paper ballots that are too long or marked with the wrong ink and electronic voting machines being hacked as our nation’s future hands in the balance, good times! And thanks to Democratic Sen. Rush Holt of New Jersey for being there to bolster our confidence in the electoral process by….well, I’ll let him tell you in his own words. Take it away, Senator! Tell us we’re wrong to fear impending disaster. “You can be almost certain that there will be irregularities in some places around the country,” said Rep. Rush Holt, D-New Jersey. Umm…..that’s not inspiring confidence. If anything, it adds fuel to the fire of negativity. But maybe I misunderstood you, so go ahead and clarify. “The problem now is that roughly a third of voters nationwide will use unverifiable electronic machines. So if there are uncertainties, there will be no way to resolve them,” Holt declared. Great, so disaster approaches and there’s nothing we can do about it. Election Day 2008, it’s Faaaaaaan-tastic…….
chemical used in making plastics and fertilizer should not be ending up in food that you intend for anyone to consume. So health officials in Hong Kong, quit spinning this by saying that there's little risk to human health and that a child would have to eat perhaps 20 eggs a day for the melamine to have an effect, no dice. Thankfully, at least one major retailer agrees with me on this - Wal-Mart. The company has pulled Hanwei eggs from the shelves of its supermarkets across China. But hey, nothing screams burgeoning global superpower quite like churning out toxic, chemical-laden products at the rate of one or two per month….
- Wonder how MTV feels about its choice of that knob Russell Brand to host its recent Video Music Awards show now? Not only did brand and his lame-ass humor bomb out on the show, this idiot is now at the center of a huge controversy that has the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) suspended one of its best-known stars while Brand resigned Wednesday for broadcasting a series of "gross" and abusive telephone calls. Brand and talk show host Jonathan Ross started this debacle earlier this month when they attempted to contact comedy actor Andrew Sachs for an interview on Brand's radio show. Showing that they are neither smart not armed with an Internet connection and rudimentary knowledge of a search engine, both of these tools failed to realize that Sachs -- who played a Spanish waiter in John Cleese's 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers,” is not around to talk, so instead, they went brain dead and left a series of messages on the veteran actor's phone, joking about Brand's sexual relationship with Sach's granddaughter Georgina Baillie, 23. Nice of you to resign and issue a statement saying you take “complete responsibility” for the incident. “As I only do the radio show to make people laugh I've decided that, given the subsequent coverage, I will stop doing the show,” he said. Thanks for that, R., but you could have stopped doing it a long time ago and most of us wouldn’t have missed you. There’s a definite line between being funny and being an a-hole, and joking
that Sachs might kill himself on hearing the news you were “announcing” was over that line. Oh, and verrrry heartfelt apology the week after the incident, an “apology” in which you said the calls were "funny.” Know who didn’t think you were funny? The 15,000 people pissed enough to call and leave messages of complaint with the BBC. Know who else wasn’t down? Prime Minster Gordon Brown, who called the stunt “inappropriate and unacceptable.” Oh, and maybe stay on your side of the pond and don’t bother coming over to the U.S. anymore, R., we don’t know your brand of entertainment here….
- It’s about freaking time. Former Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin has finally returned fire at that senile, semi-coherent, franchise-ruining corpse Al Davis, officially filing his complaint yesterday to claim his lost salary from the team following his firing. After that pathetic, rambling press conference Davis held where he hearkened back to the 1950s by using an overhead projector to display points of why he was firing Kiffin (didn’t want to draft Jamarcus Russell, whom Davis called “a great player.” Current averages for Russell? A verrrry studly 179.7 passing yards per game, less than one touchdown per game. Yup, that sure is great, Al). Kiffin has taken his sweet time, laying low since being fired on Sept. 30 after the Raiders' fourth game "for cause". It wasn’t until yesterday that Kiffin finally made good on his promise to seek payment for the remainder of his contract, filing the complaint through the NFL Coaches Association. It will now go straight to commissioner Roger Goodell, but there is no timetable set for hearings and the case may not even be heard before the end of the year. Here’s hoping that Kiffin gets what he’s seeking, namely the $2.6 million of salary he is owed under terms of his contract. Davis is a crabby, crotchety, senile old bastard who is choking the life out of his football team and needs to stop changing coaches on a whim. Making him pay the money he owes Kiffin might make him pause and think next time he goes to fire his head coach for the heck of it, in say, six months or so. Maybe no one told Al, but most NFL coaching contracts are guaranteed and none of the bogus claims he made against Kiffin in trying to support the firing should hold up in this case……
- For all the close calls Clark Kent has had during the seven-plus seasons of Smallville, last night was one of the most interesting ones as far as seeing how CK would weasel out of someone exposing his secret. His wave of good Samaritan deeds around Metropolis had provoked a warning from friend John Jones/Martian Manhunter last week that if he wasn’t careful, Clark’s identity and secret could be revealed. That nearly came true when Clark saved Lois Lane’s life after a mugger attacked she and Jimmy Olsen as they walked down a dark city street. The mugger turned out to be less than random by episode’s end, but at the time his identity wasn’t the issue. What was the issue was Jimmy snapping a pic of the scene as Clark super-sped through to save Lois. The picture turned out to be crystal clear except for one detail - the hero was a red-and-blue blur. That didn’t stop Jimmy from pushing the photo and miracle hero story to new Daily Planet/LuthorCorp boss Tess Mercer, who liked its sensationalism. Offered the chance to write the story, Clark declines because he thinks putting himself in the spotlight like that, even if no one knows it’s him who is the blur in the picture, is a terrible idea. But Jimmy continued digging into the story and uncovered miraculous heroic acts dating all the way back to Clark and Chloe’s time in Smallville, back to their days in the ninth grade. When Jimmy travels to the Kent farm to talk to Clark and see if anyone CK remembers from high school might have stood out as a superhero. Things take a turn for the worst when Jimmy spots an old Kent family photo with Clark in red and blue, just like in the picture from the mugging, and puts two and two together. He pegs Clark as the mystery hero and Clark denies it, then super speeds off to Metropolis and tracks down Chloe at the Isis foundation for her help. After initially telling Clark the day before that maybe the public believing that a hero like him does exist, Chloe is amazed Jimmy figured things out and as she and Clark discuss ways to fix the problem, Jimmy arrives after a harried drive from the farm. Seeing Clark beat him there, Jimmy accuses him of super-speeding to the city and points to it as more proof that Clark is a superhero. Then, Jimmy storms off after Chloe and Clark both insist that his theory is wrong, vowing to find tangible proof. That leaves Clark to scramble for a way to throw Jimmy off his trail, a quest that leads him to Oliver Queen’s private jet. Clark finds Oliver readying for takeoff for a vaction to the Bahamas, three uber-hot girls all over him and a drink in his hand. When Clark demands to talk to him in private, he is able to convince Oliver to help with a plan to divert Jimmy’s suspicions. That plan has Clark meeting Jimmy on the street and having Chloe drive a car that nearly runs him over before Oliver swoops in and saves him while wearing red and blue. The plan is thrown a curve when Clark gets a desperate call for help from Lois, who is in a pickle of her own. She has met a guy named Kane, who pretends to be a new reporter at the Daily Planet but is really a meteor freak whom LuthorCorp held at its Black Creek, Montana facility where Chloe was also held captive. Kane can scan people’s entire life history in his mind just from touching them, so Tess is using him to try and find out who stole her Kryptonian crystal she found in the Arctic near where Lex Luthor disappeared. Kane asks Lois out on a date, not knowing she has recognized him as a former Black Creek resident from a jump drive she stole from the Luthor Mansion, a drive containing files on many of the activities and prisoners at the facility. Lois says yes to the date so she can write a story and expose Kane, whose real name is Wilson. But the date goes sour when Kane/Wilson scans Lois, finds she doesn’t have the crystal and is contacted by Tess, who suggests he kill Lois. He tries, first by attempting to get himself invited up to her apartment for a nightcap. When Lois refuses, he follows her inside and attacks her with a gun. Lois is able to find him off long enough to call Clark for help, right in the middle of his plan to fool Jimmy. Clark is forced to abort and go save Lois, then super-speed back to where Jimmy is. As he gets there, Jimmy is being mugged by the same mugger who jumped Lois the previous night, a man working for Tess to abduct people who might know where the crystal is. Oliver, perched on a rooftop nearby, sees the mugging unfold, realizes something is amiss and springs into action. He saves Jimmy, knocks the mugger out and flies onto another rooftop using a zip line attached to one of his arrows he uses as Green Arrow. Clark comes on the scene just after that and when Jimmy accuses Clark of being the hero, CK point to the caped figure on the roof and says that’s the true hero. Jimmy buys it and apologizes to Clark for fingering him to begin with. However, the enthusiastic reaction to the hero and the resulting story makes Clark see that being a figure of hope like that might not be so bad. He has another talk with Oliver aboard his jet and when Oliver says he’s going back to fighting evil instead of jet setting around the world and partying, Clark sounds ready to join in. As Oliver heads off to Europe for a meeting of the Justice League, it seems like Clark is ready to be a part of their efforts. So another crisis of revealed identity averted, and that’s all until next time kids…..
- Remember that whole voting debacle eight years ago in Florida, the one that paved the way for eight years of the worst presidential performance in American history? How would you feel about some more election hijinks and shenanigans as one of the most faithful followers of the policies of that ass hat elected in 2000, W., is running for the nation’s highest office? See, I KNEW you would be excited. Yes, a mere eight years after Florida's hanging hijacked the election and led to voting changes in states around the country, many election observers remain concerned about the accuracy of the electronic voting systems most Americans will use November 4. Actually, those claims have merit already as early voting underway in 31 states, has borne out these problems. In recent weeks, voters in West Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee and Texas have reported that touch-screen machines registered their votes, at least initially, for the wrong candidate or party. Super news, everyone! Never a good sign when a problem with something as important as voting is lampooned in and episode of “The Simpsons,” the one set to air this Sunday which has already been leaked on the Internet and features a scene in which Homer's electronic vote for Barack Obama is recorded for John McCain by an evil voting machine that then devours him. So let’s all look forward to the possibility and near-certainty of touch-screen machines failing or registering votes for unintended candidates, optical-scan systems can having trouble reading paper ballots that are too long or marked with the wrong ink and electronic voting machines being hacked as our nation’s future hands in the balance, good times! And thanks to Democratic Sen. Rush Holt of New Jersey for being there to bolster our confidence in the electoral process by….well, I’ll let him tell you in his own words. Take it away, Senator! Tell us we’re wrong to fear impending disaster. “You can be almost certain that there will be irregularities in some places around the country,” said Rep. Rush Holt, D-New Jersey. Umm…..that’s not inspiring confidence. If anything, it adds fuel to the fire of negativity. But maybe I misunderstood you, so go ahead and clarify. “The problem now is that roughly a third of voters nationwide will use unverifiable electronic machines. So if there are uncertainties, there will be no way to resolve them,” Holt declared. Great, so disaster approaches and there’s nothing we can do about it. Election Day 2008, it’s Faaaaaaan-tastic…….
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The season finale of Greek, an entire town at the mercy of a stupid cat and another reason not to watch Dave Letterman's show
- The color red seems to have a lot of power, depending on whom you believe. Some say drivers red cars are more likely stopped by police, while a new study done by researchers at the University of Rochester in New York has found that men find women sexier if they're rocking a red outfit rather than a color such as blue or green. The effect seems to apply only to this one specific quality, as red won't make you look smarter or more competent, says study author Andrew Elliot, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the university. “We only found the effect for attraction, so males don't rate females in red as more intelligent, more likable, or as having a better personality; they only rate her as sexier and more attractive,” Elliot states. And what were the aims for this study? Basically, men were tested to see if they were more likely to want to have sex with a woman or be willing to spend more on a date if she were in red. To test these concepts, 150 heterosexual subjects were put through a series of five studies, in which they rated photographs of women framed in red, white, gray, green, or blue, or with the woman in a red or blue shirt. Their responses were measured on a 7-point scale, with 1 being the least sexy and 7 a smoking-hot chick. Ultimately, the color red added about 1.25 points to the rating, says Elliot. So ladies, if you want a nicer date that costs more, now you have your answer on how to accomplish that: just wear red. So why the heck is red so sexy? Why is that? Among the theories proposed by the researchers include the fact that red is the universally recognized sign of romance, so men may subconsciously associate the color red with sex. Whatever you say, researchers. All I know is this: an ugly, overweight chick is still fat and ugly in red, white, orange, chartreuse, burgundy, almond or teal….
- Never been a big Dave Letterman fan, and I’m not likely to become one is Dave keeps piling on tired, played topics that the rest of us have already been kicking around for months or years and trying to get laughs out of them. And what is more tired than ripping on the vapid, shallow, intellectually stunted reality TV actors on MTV’s The Hills? This cast of characters already had the depth and intrigue of a paper clip the moment they appeared on the air, so now that they are three, four or however many unwatchable seasons into their run they are, this crew has worn out their welcome big time. Yet there was the show’s chief offender of being famous for no real reason, Lauren Conrad, appearing on The Late Show with Dave. Of course, Letterman went for the obvious topic, Conrad’s ongoing feud with surgically enhanced, nearly-engaged-to-a-total-knob, musically talentless Heidi Montag, Conrad’s response to the question was, “Yeah, it’s a little bit of everyone … Throughout the show we have always had problems with each other.” Apparently suffering from one of his regular delusions of being Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes or freaking Barbara Walters, Letterman countered, “That raises the question, maybe you’re the problem. You think?” Amazingly, being the future Mensa candidate she clearly is, Conrad didn’t have an answer. Dave also teed off on reality TV’s biggest tool, a man who brings nothing to the world while taking so much from it - Montag’s boyfriend, Spencer Pratt, telling Conrad, “Spencer, what a weasel. He’s just the worst, that guy.” Weasel? That’s the best you’ve got, Dave? You’re paid outrageous sums of money top make people laugh and that’s all you’ve got. Thanks for reminding me why I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central instead of your lame show…..
- With the rash of NFL players getting popped for performance-enhancing drugs the past couple of weeks, it was only a matter of time before one of the guilty players decided to turn things around and finger someone else for their own mistake. That someone would be New Orleans Saints offensive guard Jamar Nesbit, who filed suit Tuesday against the maker of a weight-loss supplement that caused his positive test. Nesbit is alleging that the supplement was improperly spiked with a diuretic that is banned by the NFL. His lawsuit against the makers of StarCaps, an over-the-counter product, was filed in federal district court in New Jersey. It comes after Nesbit returned last week from a four-game suspension by the NFL after he tested positive for Bumetanide, a substance that helps rid the body of excess water and salt. Under its steroids policy, the NFL considers the substance a possible masking agent for steroids, even if it is allegedly used for weight-loss purposes. It’s the exact same substance that has led to positive tests and possible suspensions for eight Nfl players in the past couple weeks, including three other Saints: running back Deuce McAllister and defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant. Those three remain on the team’s active roster pending a consolidated appeal of their suspensions. According to Nesbit, he never appealed his suspension because he did not expect to win. Instead, he sat out his four games and went about trying to recoup his $235,294 in lost salary from StarCaps. Through his attorney, Nesbit explained that he is going after the makers of StarCaps because
“under NFL rules, you are strictly liable for what is in your body. They don't care how it got there, contaminated supplements or otherwise.” As such, there is no way to sue the league, because their policy is a Catch-22 preventing exactly that. Instead, players like Nesbit must sue the makers of the products themselves and look to recoup things like lost salary, money for damage to their reputation and for the alleged intentional, undisclosed spiking of the product with products like Bumetanide. Depending on who you believe here some of Nesbit's leftover pills were tested and found to be contaminated with Bumetanide, which is not listed as an ingredient on the product bottle and packaging. I would be more inclined to side with Nesbit here, but the fact is that pro sports leagues have pre-approved lists of substances that are safe and acceptable, and if you take one of those products and something like this happens, then you have a case. When you go off the board and take something you buy at the local pharmacy, you take this chance and sometimes it comes back to bite you…..
- Hell Week was upon us in last night’s season finale of Greek. Capping a great third season, the focus was on the roughest week of all for the pledges at the three Greek organizations on the show. For the Kappa Tau’s, it was humiliation at the start and a fight at the finish. Their week kicked off with being forced to dressed up in two-piece bathing suits and make ridiculous poses as the brothers snapped embarrassing pictures. They were also ordered to leave the house only to go to class and to come straight back without stopping to eat or do anything else. Rusty managed to sneak in a pit stop to talk with Omega Chi pledge and good friend Calvin Owens, but when the first big test of Hell Week came up later in the day, Rusty was nervous because he had received a warning from KT president Cappie that every year, a few pledges are weeded out during Hell Week. So when the pledges are called out to the back yard of the KT house and one by one, handed plastic cups with goldfish in them, Rusty jumps the gun and believes the pledges are supposed to drink the cup of water, goldfish and all. However, the horrified looks of the brothers indicate otherwise and Cappie informs him that the “bib” he has on is really a goldfish papoose that was to be used to carry around and care for the fish. That was strike one against Rusty, with strike two coming before some sort of weird tribunal/judgment ceremony in which the brothers basically ripped him a new one for everything he’d done during his pledge period, all just for amusement. The brothers sent Rusty out with a warning that he needed to do something great to prove that he belonged at KT. Inspired and terrified, Rusty first sought out the advice of his sister Casey, a Greek system veteran herself. Using her advice, Rusty hatches a plan to break into the Omega Chi house, the biggest rivals for the KT’s, and steal the same pledge paddle he hit Omega Chi president and noted tool Evan Chambers with in Season 1. Sneaking in and getting the paddle prove doable, but escaping isn’t. Rusty is spotted and chased by the entire Omega Chi membership. His KT brothers, just about to begin their initiation ceremony, hear the commotion out in the street and rush outside to help Rusty, resulting in an all-out brawl in which Evan manages to get ahold of the stolen pledge paddle and smash Rusty in the face with it. Cappie comes to the rescure, cold-cocking Evan to even the score. The brawl also caps a wild week in the Omega Chi house, which had been thrown into controversy because Evan was going easier on his little bro in the fraternity, Calvin, than he was on the other pledges. When the other pledges take note as they prune rose bushes with their bare hands and have smelly, poop-like concoctions poured on them as Calvin merely has to clean the house’s honor room and hold a fan to cool the other pledges while they prune, he is forced to make a choice: go against his big bro or risk alienating his fellow pledges. Calvin elects to talk to Evan and ask to have the preferential treatment stopped after the pledges are forced to spend the night sleeping in the back yard while he is allowed to sleep inside. Confronting Evan also leads him to challenge Evan about having a showy, pretentious attitude ever since being given access to his cushy trust fund. Evan accepts the criticism and in response, during initiation he forces Calvin to hold the pledge manual straight out in front of him, arms straight out at shoulder level, for three hours. Calvin gladly accepts the challenge and passes with flying colors. Of course, the ceremony is nothing like the one at Kappa Tau, which is a lot less stuffy but ends with the same result, the induction of the new brothers. Rusty goes through the ceremony with a busted-up face because of the fight, but he’s happy to be a brother. Also, Cappie reveals that the story about pledges washing out each year is a lie and that the only pledge ever to not make it through was Evan, who was a KT pledge but left voluntarily. Doing things voluntarily wasn’t on the agenda for Rusty’s sister Casey, who was forced with a tough choice when her boyfriend of a month and a half, Max, revealed that he had been accepted to grad school at Cal Tech, 2,200 miles away. As the two debate having a long-distance relationship, Casey turns to BFF Ashleigh for advice, then heads to Dobler’s to play pool and clear her head. There, she runs into Cappie, flashing back to their memorable meeting at Dobler’s for pool in Season 1, after which they ended up hooking up. This time, all Cappie imparts is advice, that advice being to accept an internship offer with Paula, the Zeta Beta alumnus Casey met at the ZBZ convention and who is a U.S. congresswoman for the state of Maryland. Casey mulls her choices and ends up telling Max that rather than spend the summer together and then possibly do the long-distance thing, she is taking the internship and leaving in two weeks. That leads Max to make a call to the professor he is going to Cal Tech to work with, a call whose fallout we will have to wait until next season to see. But Max wasn’t Casey’s only problem; because she was distracted, she also neglected her duties as big sister to Rebecca Logan at ZBZ, not getting Rebecca a gift for the big/little gift exchange and blwoing her off repeatedly when Rebecca tried to talk to her. While Casey was shirking her sisterly duties, arch-nemesis Frannie was busy planning a coup to get revenge for losing the recent ZBZ presidential election. As the ZBZ’s are holding their own induction ceremony, with the sisters in black in the pledges wearing white, Frannie storms in wearing a red dress, turns in her sorority pin and deactivates from the sorority before announcing that she is leaving to start her own sorority. Nearly half of the sisters and pledges follow her out, with Rebecca left hanging in the middle, her decision to be made, as the season ends. So that wraps a fantastic Season 3, one I would say is the best of the series so far. Thankfully, Greek will be returning in 2009 for a fourth season, so there is something great to look forward to for next year in television……
- Best of success pinning your town’s economic hopes on a 9-year-old calico cat, people of Kishikawa, Japan. Kishikawa is an isolated town of just a few thousand people, the last stop on what had been a failing train line that is, until they were “rescued” by Tama the cat. Tama used to live a simple life hanging out at the train station next to her home at the grocery store. So how did she become a national star? By adding a freaking hat. Yes, someone dropped a hat on the cat, tilted it to the side and inspired a sensation. The Wakayama Electric Railway decided to use Tama as a mascot, even giving the cat a ridiculous nickname, calling her a “Super Stationmaster,” making a promotional poster for train carriages and dressing her in that stationmaster's hat. And has this shameless ploy worked? Sadly, yes. Tourists now visit Kishikawa to see the cat and to snap a picture. “It's a chance to take a break from the problems facing Japan,” said Haruto Maeda, who took the day off work to see Tama. Yes, Haruto, it is a break - to take a picture with a freaking cat in a tiny hat! Wooo! I bet that made your day so, so much better. It would be that much greater of Tama could come up with a new economic policy, smooth over international relations and figure out a way to solve the population and overcrowding issues facing cities like Tokyo. How much is one stupid, annoying cat worth to this small town anyhow? According to study at Osaka University, Tama IS responsible for pumping $10 million into the local economy. The money flows in from Tama merchandise abounds and formerly empty train carriages that are now full. The train line was on the verge of bankruptcy, but no longer. The town of Kishikawa is enjoying an economic turnaround. As for the star of the show, Tama now lives full-time at the station, with her owner and a friend. Great, but what happens when another town slams a talking parrot into their station and gives it a vest? Enjoy your time in the sun, Kishikawa, just know it says nothing good about you or your town……
- Never been a big Dave Letterman fan, and I’m not likely to become one is Dave keeps piling on tired, played topics that the rest of us have already been kicking around for months or years and trying to get laughs out of them. And what is more tired than ripping on the vapid, shallow, intellectually stunted reality TV actors on MTV’s The Hills? This cast of characters already had the depth and intrigue of a paper clip the moment they appeared on the air, so now that they are three, four or however many unwatchable seasons into their run they are, this crew has worn out their welcome big time. Yet there was the show’s chief offender of being famous for no real reason, Lauren Conrad, appearing on The Late Show with Dave. Of course, Letterman went for the obvious topic, Conrad’s ongoing feud with surgically enhanced, nearly-engaged-to-a-total-knob, musically talentless Heidi Montag, Conrad’s response to the question was, “Yeah, it’s a little bit of everyone … Throughout the show we have always had problems with each other.” Apparently suffering from one of his regular delusions of being Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes or freaking Barbara Walters, Letterman countered, “That raises the question, maybe you’re the problem. You think?” Amazingly, being the future Mensa candidate she clearly is, Conrad didn’t have an answer. Dave also teed off on reality TV’s biggest tool, a man who brings nothing to the world while taking so much from it - Montag’s boyfriend, Spencer Pratt, telling Conrad, “Spencer, what a weasel. He’s just the worst, that guy.” Weasel? That’s the best you’ve got, Dave? You’re paid outrageous sums of money top make people laugh and that’s all you’ve got. Thanks for reminding me why I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central instead of your lame show…..
- With the rash of NFL players getting popped for performance-enhancing drugs the past couple of weeks, it was only a matter of time before one of the guilty players decided to turn things around and finger someone else for their own mistake. That someone would be New Orleans Saints offensive guard Jamar Nesbit, who filed suit Tuesday against the maker of a weight-loss supplement that caused his positive test. Nesbit is alleging that the supplement was improperly spiked with a diuretic that is banned by the NFL. His lawsuit against the makers of StarCaps, an over-the-counter product, was filed in federal district court in New Jersey. It comes after Nesbit returned last week from a four-game suspension by the NFL after he tested positive for Bumetanide, a substance that helps rid the body of excess water and salt. Under its steroids policy, the NFL considers the substance a possible masking agent for steroids, even if it is allegedly used for weight-loss purposes. It’s the exact same substance that has led to positive tests and possible suspensions for eight Nfl players in the past couple weeks, including three other Saints: running back Deuce McAllister and defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant. Those three remain on the team’s active roster pending a consolidated appeal of their suspensions. According to Nesbit, he never appealed his suspension because he did not expect to win. Instead, he sat out his four games and went about trying to recoup his $235,294 in lost salary from StarCaps. Through his attorney, Nesbit explained that he is going after the makers of StarCaps because
“under NFL rules, you are strictly liable for what is in your body. They don't care how it got there, contaminated supplements or otherwise.” As such, there is no way to sue the league, because their policy is a Catch-22 preventing exactly that. Instead, players like Nesbit must sue the makers of the products themselves and look to recoup things like lost salary, money for damage to their reputation and for the alleged intentional, undisclosed spiking of the product with products like Bumetanide. Depending on who you believe here some of Nesbit's leftover pills were tested and found to be contaminated with Bumetanide, which is not listed as an ingredient on the product bottle and packaging. I would be more inclined to side with Nesbit here, but the fact is that pro sports leagues have pre-approved lists of substances that are safe and acceptable, and if you take one of those products and something like this happens, then you have a case. When you go off the board and take something you buy at the local pharmacy, you take this chance and sometimes it comes back to bite you…..
- Hell Week was upon us in last night’s season finale of Greek. Capping a great third season, the focus was on the roughest week of all for the pledges at the three Greek organizations on the show. For the Kappa Tau’s, it was humiliation at the start and a fight at the finish. Their week kicked off with being forced to dressed up in two-piece bathing suits and make ridiculous poses as the brothers snapped embarrassing pictures. They were also ordered to leave the house only to go to class and to come straight back without stopping to eat or do anything else. Rusty managed to sneak in a pit stop to talk with Omega Chi pledge and good friend Calvin Owens, but when the first big test of Hell Week came up later in the day, Rusty was nervous because he had received a warning from KT president Cappie that every year, a few pledges are weeded out during Hell Week. So when the pledges are called out to the back yard of the KT house and one by one, handed plastic cups with goldfish in them, Rusty jumps the gun and believes the pledges are supposed to drink the cup of water, goldfish and all. However, the horrified looks of the brothers indicate otherwise and Cappie informs him that the “bib” he has on is really a goldfish papoose that was to be used to carry around and care for the fish. That was strike one against Rusty, with strike two coming before some sort of weird tribunal/judgment ceremony in which the brothers basically ripped him a new one for everything he’d done during his pledge period, all just for amusement. The brothers sent Rusty out with a warning that he needed to do something great to prove that he belonged at KT. Inspired and terrified, Rusty first sought out the advice of his sister Casey, a Greek system veteran herself. Using her advice, Rusty hatches a plan to break into the Omega Chi house, the biggest rivals for the KT’s, and steal the same pledge paddle he hit Omega Chi president and noted tool Evan Chambers with in Season 1. Sneaking in and getting the paddle prove doable, but escaping isn’t. Rusty is spotted and chased by the entire Omega Chi membership. His KT brothers, just about to begin their initiation ceremony, hear the commotion out in the street and rush outside to help Rusty, resulting in an all-out brawl in which Evan manages to get ahold of the stolen pledge paddle and smash Rusty in the face with it. Cappie comes to the rescure, cold-cocking Evan to even the score. The brawl also caps a wild week in the Omega Chi house, which had been thrown into controversy because Evan was going easier on his little bro in the fraternity, Calvin, than he was on the other pledges. When the other pledges take note as they prune rose bushes with their bare hands and have smelly, poop-like concoctions poured on them as Calvin merely has to clean the house’s honor room and hold a fan to cool the other pledges while they prune, he is forced to make a choice: go against his big bro or risk alienating his fellow pledges. Calvin elects to talk to Evan and ask to have the preferential treatment stopped after the pledges are forced to spend the night sleeping in the back yard while he is allowed to sleep inside. Confronting Evan also leads him to challenge Evan about having a showy, pretentious attitude ever since being given access to his cushy trust fund. Evan accepts the criticism and in response, during initiation he forces Calvin to hold the pledge manual straight out in front of him, arms straight out at shoulder level, for three hours. Calvin gladly accepts the challenge and passes with flying colors. Of course, the ceremony is nothing like the one at Kappa Tau, which is a lot less stuffy but ends with the same result, the induction of the new brothers. Rusty goes through the ceremony with a busted-up face because of the fight, but he’s happy to be a brother. Also, Cappie reveals that the story about pledges washing out each year is a lie and that the only pledge ever to not make it through was Evan, who was a KT pledge but left voluntarily. Doing things voluntarily wasn’t on the agenda for Rusty’s sister Casey, who was forced with a tough choice when her boyfriend of a month and a half, Max, revealed that he had been accepted to grad school at Cal Tech, 2,200 miles away. As the two debate having a long-distance relationship, Casey turns to BFF Ashleigh for advice, then heads to Dobler’s to play pool and clear her head. There, she runs into Cappie, flashing back to their memorable meeting at Dobler’s for pool in Season 1, after which they ended up hooking up. This time, all Cappie imparts is advice, that advice being to accept an internship offer with Paula, the Zeta Beta alumnus Casey met at the ZBZ convention and who is a U.S. congresswoman for the state of Maryland. Casey mulls her choices and ends up telling Max that rather than spend the summer together and then possibly do the long-distance thing, she is taking the internship and leaving in two weeks. That leads Max to make a call to the professor he is going to Cal Tech to work with, a call whose fallout we will have to wait until next season to see. But Max wasn’t Casey’s only problem; because she was distracted, she also neglected her duties as big sister to Rebecca Logan at ZBZ, not getting Rebecca a gift for the big/little gift exchange and blwoing her off repeatedly when Rebecca tried to talk to her. While Casey was shirking her sisterly duties, arch-nemesis Frannie was busy planning a coup to get revenge for losing the recent ZBZ presidential election. As the ZBZ’s are holding their own induction ceremony, with the sisters in black in the pledges wearing white, Frannie storms in wearing a red dress, turns in her sorority pin and deactivates from the sorority before announcing that she is leaving to start her own sorority. Nearly half of the sisters and pledges follow her out, with Rebecca left hanging in the middle, her decision to be made, as the season ends. So that wraps a fantastic Season 3, one I would say is the best of the series so far. Thankfully, Greek will be returning in 2009 for a fourth season, so there is something great to look forward to for next year in television……
- Best of success pinning your town’s economic hopes on a 9-year-old calico cat, people of Kishikawa, Japan. Kishikawa is an isolated town of just a few thousand people, the last stop on what had been a failing train line that is, until they were “rescued” by Tama the cat. Tama used to live a simple life hanging out at the train station next to her home at the grocery store. So how did she become a national star? By adding a freaking hat. Yes, someone dropped a hat on the cat, tilted it to the side and inspired a sensation. The Wakayama Electric Railway decided to use Tama as a mascot, even giving the cat a ridiculous nickname, calling her a “Super Stationmaster,” making a promotional poster for train carriages and dressing her in that stationmaster's hat. And has this shameless ploy worked? Sadly, yes. Tourists now visit Kishikawa to see the cat and to snap a picture. “It's a chance to take a break from the problems facing Japan,” said Haruto Maeda, who took the day off work to see Tama. Yes, Haruto, it is a break - to take a picture with a freaking cat in a tiny hat! Wooo! I bet that made your day so, so much better. It would be that much greater of Tama could come up with a new economic policy, smooth over international relations and figure out a way to solve the population and overcrowding issues facing cities like Tokyo. How much is one stupid, annoying cat worth to this small town anyhow? According to study at Osaka University, Tama IS responsible for pumping $10 million into the local economy. The money flows in from Tama merchandise abounds and formerly empty train carriages that are now full. The train line was on the verge of bankruptcy, but no longer. The town of Kishikawa is enjoying an economic turnaround. As for the star of the show, Tama now lives full-time at the station, with her owner and a friend. Great, but what happens when another town slams a talking parrot into their station and gives it a vest? Enjoy your time in the sun, Kishikawa, just know it says nothing good about you or your town……
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Unsanitary food, a Heroes recap and World Series scheduling turmoil
- Here’s hoping you had this moment in your history videotaped, photographed, notarized and witnessed by no less than four dozen individuals who then signed court-approved, certified statements as to what they saw, University of Michigan football program. It sounds extreme, but them are the breaks when you sign a noted liar, deceiver and all-around douche bag to be your new head football coach. The D-bag in question would be none other than Rich-er Fraud-riguez, who nearly left West Virginia University in 2006 to become the head coach at Alabama, reversed field when the move was universally ripped, signed a new deal with WVU while proclaiming his love for the school, then bolted a year later and tried to get out of paying the $4 million buyout in his deal to become Michigan's head coach. Yes, Fraud-riguez has been the coach at UM for eight games now, posting a stellar 2-6 record, but it wasn’t until this past week that he actually signed his new deal, worth at least $2.5 million a year even if he’s not. Nothing like waiting nine months to sign a contract after terms have already been agreed upon, R. Given your performance so far and the fact that your lackluster season forced your new athletic director to publicly give you a vote of confidence to calm the unrest, you should have put your John Hancock on that deal the instant your plane landed in Ann Arbor. A couple of provisions in the deal are laughable at this point, with Fraud-riguez standing to receive
an extra $300,000 for each national championship that he wins or $200,000 for his team getting to the Bowl Championship Series title game. Yeah, teams that fire out of the gate 2-6 and have members of the squad jumping ship less than a month after the new coach takes over to transfer to the program’s most bitter rival don’t tend to get BCS invites as a general rule……
- What the heck is wrong with you, New York City cops? Not that long ago, there were videos circulating on YouTube of you assaulting innocent civilians, even knocking one harmless protestor off his bike near Times Square in a blatant display of abuse of power. However, those incidents seem tame when you contemplate the charges being levied against five NYPD officers by a Brooklyn man accusing them of sodomizing him with a radio antenna. Michael Mineo alleges that he was jumped by five officers inside a Brooklyn subway station and sodomized with the antenna of a police radio, a claim that investigators with the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau are now investigating. They are conducting DNA tests on equipment taken from the lockers of five police officers, with NYPD chief spokesman Paul J. Browne taking up for his guys by saying that several people who were near Mineo when he was arrested “do not support Mineo's story that he had been sodomized.” Instead, police are contending that Mineo was smoking weed when two officers approached him. Mineo allegedly tried to escape into the subway, but when he got downstairs and saw no train approaching, he jumped back over a turnstile, where he was grabbed and surrounded by other officers.
Here is where the alleged sodomy comes in: Mineo, who was wearing baggy pants and had to be wrestled to the ground before screaming he was being Tasered and sodomized. Just a question, but are you sure it was pot he was smoking? Pot doesn’t make people hallucinate and agitated; it mellows them out. You don’t see stoners twitching and seeing things; those tend to be losers peaking on PCP and LSD. This is one story I hope isn’t true, because it’s just a really bad mental image and would give me yet another reason to not be a fan of law enforcement…..
- Things were not going well for intrepid hero Peter Petrelli on last night’s episode of Heroes. Having been robbed of his powers by his back-from-the-dead father Arthur upon storming the offices of Pinehearst Industries last week, Peter is now being held prisoner by his dad, locked in a room and told that he is going to help his father’s quest to save the world and defeat the efforts of Peter’s mom Angela and her company, Primatech, whether he likes it or not. Without his powers, Peter can't fight back, but fortunately for him, his mom has his back. Even though she’s in a coma, Angela can still use her powers to send a mental message to one of her other sons, Sylar, who is being held at the Company’s Level 5 facility. Angela tells Sylar to go rescue Peter, which he does. Sylar raids Pinehearst, saving Peter just as he is about the be the target of a dangerous experiment. The man experimenting on him is Dr. Mohinder Suresh, who has joined up with Pinehearst after an encounter with Peter’s other brother, Nathan, and Nathan’s new friend Tracy Strauss. Last week, Mohinder poisoned Nathan and Tracy when they came to him for help removing their abilities because Mohinder believed they could help his sick, misguided and dangerous quest to find his own cure to remove the abilities of his new love Maya, whom he had imprisoned along with several other victims in weird cocoons on his apartment wall as part of his weird evolution into some sort of bug-man. When Nathan and Tracy get free from their restraints and refuse to help Mohinder in his quest, he frees Maya from her cocoon, takes off and flies away, straight to Pinehearst. There, he asks Arthur to take Maya’s powers (killing people after making their eyes turn black and using some sort of weird telepathy), just like she wants. Arthur agrees to do so and takes Maya’s power just as he took Peter’s. Maya is thrilled to be free, but instead of embracing Mohinder, she rejects him because of the monster he has become. She leaves and says she is off to make amends for all the evil she has done, suggesting that Mohinder do the same. Instead, he decides that rather than have Arthur take his powers that he self-administered with his hack-job formula, he will stay at Pinehearst and work on their formula that accomplishes the same thing he was trying to do on his own. That’s where Peter comes in, as Arthur volunteers him to be the test subject for the newest version of the formula. Sylar arrives just in time, storming the operating room and freeing Peter. But as they try to escape, Mohinder attacks and captures Sylar. With Sylar in custody, Peter has to escape on his own. That becomes harder once Arthur talks to Sylar and tells him the truth about his mother Angela, that when he was born, she saw the future, saw what he would become and tried to kill him just after his birth. Armed with that knowledge, Sylar appears to change sides. He encounters Peter and instead of trying to escape with his brother, Sylar throws Peter out the window. Without his powers, the multiple-story fall should have killed Peter, but he survives, a fact that is curious to Peter and to Arthur, who wonders how he was able to survive the fall. Waiting for Peter at the end of his long fall is Claire Bennet, who has come to Pinehearst with former nemesis Elle. After Elle was fired from the Company early this season, she has been a lost soul and has now also lost control of her power to shoot electrical currents from her body. Seeking the help of Claire’s father H.R.G., Elle arrives at the Bennet home in Costa Verde, California only to be confronted by Claire, or as Elle calls her, “Cheerleader.” After an initial skirmish, both realize that they have been contacted by Pinehearst and might be able to find answers there. Following a tense flight in which Elle’s electrical powers nearly crash the plane, they arrive and head to Pinehearst, where they pull up just in time to see Peter falling. He lands and while Claire rushes over and immediately notices he isn’t healing and using his powers, Elle has other things on her mind. When she hears Peter say Pinehearst took his abilities, she runs inside for help because that’s what she wants too. Claire and Peter escape, but now that he has no power, things are much different. Also, Peter is left to ponder why the fall didn’t kill him and theorizes that Sylar threw him out the window the save him and help him escape, using his telepathic powers to slow Peter’s fall so he didn’t actually die. Death was exactly what Arthur had in mind for Matt Parkman, or so it seemed, after Parkman refused an offer to join Pinehearst. Arthur orders Daphne Millbrook to go and kill Parkman and when Mat’s father and Arthur’s aide Maury objects, Arthur kills Maury and hands Daphne a gun. She is unable to carry out her orders after Matt continues to insist that they are meant to fall in love and will be married in the future, so Arthur sends along Knox, the villain whose power is gaining strength from others’ fear, to finish the job. But using his power to control people’s mind and make them see and believe anything he wants, Matt makes Knox see a scene in which he kills both Matt and Daphne, leading Knox to leave, believing his mission has been accomplished. That leaves Matt and Daphne alone, apparently together. However, a phone call from Arthur to Daphne seems to indicate that the whole thing was a ruse, a ploy to plant her close to Matt and make him believe that she is on his side. The last bit of news this episode was way over in Africa, where Hiro Nakamura and pal Ando are still hanging with “Mr. African Isaac,” future painter/pre-cognitive Usutu. With Hiro refusing to time travel any more to battle the evil forces and impending doom encroaching on the world, Usutu inveigles him to try a different path, eating the same nasty paste made from plant roots that Usutu himself and also Matt Parkman have used to put them into a trance where they can see the future. At episode’s end, Hiro is in the same glassy-eyed trance, having visions of the world to come. And that’s where things end for now, so until next ime…..
- Well this isn’t awkward at all. Once again, Major League Baseball finds itself with a bizarre scheduling situation/ending of a big game thanks to commissioner Bud Selig. The first such occurrence was in 2002, when the All-Star Game ended in a tie for the first (and hopefully last time) ever because good ol’ Bud said it was so after 15 innings. This time, it’s the freaking World Series, with Game 5 of the Fall Classic abandoned in the middle of the sixth inning with the score tied 2-2. The game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays could decide the World Series, as the Phillies lead the best-of-seven 3-1, but the specter of bad weather hung over the game from the start. Rain was forecast, but after talking with the umpires, teams, ground crew and even weathermen, Selig elected to try and play the game. The rains came early on and didn’t let up, leaving the field an increasingly muddy, soggy mess that made for both a sloppy game and a dangerous environement for the players to play in. Normally, baseball games become official after five innings, so with the Phillies leading 2-1 after the fifth, it looked like they might steal a win. However, the decision had been made by Selig and his MLB cronies that the World Series would not end on a shortened game, so when the Rays pushed across the tying run in the top of the sixth inning and the weather became too much to bear in the bottom half of the frame, action was suspended. The intent was to play the game tonight, but we were told earlier that that wouldn’t happen. Furthermore, with shi**y weather on tap for Wednesday, there is no telling when this thing might actually get back on track. Worse still, when it does, it could be for a mere 45 minutes or so if the Phillies win and only three innings need to be played. The game is tentatively set to resume at 8:37 p.m. Wednesday night, but I highly doubt that happens. The suspended game left the Rays in a lodging bind because win or lose Game 5, it was to be the last game of the series in Philadelphia and so they had checked out of their hotel, knowing that regardless of the outcome, they would be on a plane back to Tampa afterward - or so they thought. Now forced to stay in town, they couldn’t get back into their previous hotel and were forced to find a hotel in Wilmington, Del., about 25 miles away. In other words, this has turned into another train wreck under Selig’s watch, and the sad thing is that it’s not the least bit surprising…..
- Who among us hasn’t thought about putting a little something unsanitary and disgusting into the food of our local police chief? Unless you are a totally law-abiding, goodie-two-shoes type, odds are you are not a huge fan of John Q, Law. However, there is a fine line between cursing the stupid local cops among friends, making fun of their portly physiques and referring to them by various derogatory names and actually trying to make them ill. Meet Jaime Perez, the man who trampled all over that subtle, yet important line in the sand when he allegedly wiped himself with a hamburger bun he was serving Police Chief Paul Nelson at Andy's Landing, a Burnet, Texas eatery. Perez also said he put the veggies in his mouth before placing them on the burger, then capped off his disgusting display by spitting and blowing his nose on the burger. Perez, cook at the restaurant, was arrested Monday after Nelson who filed a complaint with the Burnet County's Sheriff's Office. Perez had to brag about his dirty deed, with word getting back to Nelson, who also recalled seeing Perez along with another cook standing behind the counter watching him eat his food that day. Very discreet, fellas, very discreet. I have to say, I don’t feel too good about eating at Andy’s Landing, not after this and no after hearing Perez’ boss defend his act. “Jaime is our best cook,” said Andy's Landing General Manager Tiffany Tappe. “It's the last thing we ever expected.” He’s your best cook? How the hell do you people stay open if that’s the case? It really can't be good for business, especially not when Burnet County investigators walk right into your kitchen and arrested Perez, as they did yesterday. Today, they were back to arrest cook James Ledesma at the restaurant. Both men have been charged with tampering with consumer product, a second degree felony. Ironically, Nelson believes this isn’t the first time his food was contaminated by Perez. A Burnet police officer's dash cam video picked up the voice of a disorderly Perez Oct. 11, on which Perez can ranting about the chief and stated that he spat on the buns and rubbed the buns “on his buns.” Nice establishment you’ve got there, Andy’s Landing. I’ve heard of cooks spitting in food before when customers are being a pain in the ass, but never wiping the food on their own backsides……
an extra $300,000 for each national championship that he wins or $200,000 for his team getting to the Bowl Championship Series title game. Yeah, teams that fire out of the gate 2-6 and have members of the squad jumping ship less than a month after the new coach takes over to transfer to the program’s most bitter rival don’t tend to get BCS invites as a general rule……
- What the heck is wrong with you, New York City cops? Not that long ago, there were videos circulating on YouTube of you assaulting innocent civilians, even knocking one harmless protestor off his bike near Times Square in a blatant display of abuse of power. However, those incidents seem tame when you contemplate the charges being levied against five NYPD officers by a Brooklyn man accusing them of sodomizing him with a radio antenna. Michael Mineo alleges that he was jumped by five officers inside a Brooklyn subway station and sodomized with the antenna of a police radio, a claim that investigators with the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau are now investigating. They are conducting DNA tests on equipment taken from the lockers of five police officers, with NYPD chief spokesman Paul J. Browne taking up for his guys by saying that several people who were near Mineo when he was arrested “do not support Mineo's story that he had been sodomized.” Instead, police are contending that Mineo was smoking weed when two officers approached him. Mineo allegedly tried to escape into the subway, but when he got downstairs and saw no train approaching, he jumped back over a turnstile, where he was grabbed and surrounded by other officers.
Here is where the alleged sodomy comes in: Mineo, who was wearing baggy pants and had to be wrestled to the ground before screaming he was being Tasered and sodomized. Just a question, but are you sure it was pot he was smoking? Pot doesn’t make people hallucinate and agitated; it mellows them out. You don’t see stoners twitching and seeing things; those tend to be losers peaking on PCP and LSD. This is one story I hope isn’t true, because it’s just a really bad mental image and would give me yet another reason to not be a fan of law enforcement…..
- Things were not going well for intrepid hero Peter Petrelli on last night’s episode of Heroes. Having been robbed of his powers by his back-from-the-dead father Arthur upon storming the offices of Pinehearst Industries last week, Peter is now being held prisoner by his dad, locked in a room and told that he is going to help his father’s quest to save the world and defeat the efforts of Peter’s mom Angela and her company, Primatech, whether he likes it or not. Without his powers, Peter can't fight back, but fortunately for him, his mom has his back. Even though she’s in a coma, Angela can still use her powers to send a mental message to one of her other sons, Sylar, who is being held at the Company’s Level 5 facility. Angela tells Sylar to go rescue Peter, which he does. Sylar raids Pinehearst, saving Peter just as he is about the be the target of a dangerous experiment. The man experimenting on him is Dr. Mohinder Suresh, who has joined up with Pinehearst after an encounter with Peter’s other brother, Nathan, and Nathan’s new friend Tracy Strauss. Last week, Mohinder poisoned Nathan and Tracy when they came to him for help removing their abilities because Mohinder believed they could help his sick, misguided and dangerous quest to find his own cure to remove the abilities of his new love Maya, whom he had imprisoned along with several other victims in weird cocoons on his apartment wall as part of his weird evolution into some sort of bug-man. When Nathan and Tracy get free from their restraints and refuse to help Mohinder in his quest, he frees Maya from her cocoon, takes off and flies away, straight to Pinehearst. There, he asks Arthur to take Maya’s powers (killing people after making their eyes turn black and using some sort of weird telepathy), just like she wants. Arthur agrees to do so and takes Maya’s power just as he took Peter’s. Maya is thrilled to be free, but instead of embracing Mohinder, she rejects him because of the monster he has become. She leaves and says she is off to make amends for all the evil she has done, suggesting that Mohinder do the same. Instead, he decides that rather than have Arthur take his powers that he self-administered with his hack-job formula, he will stay at Pinehearst and work on their formula that accomplishes the same thing he was trying to do on his own. That’s where Peter comes in, as Arthur volunteers him to be the test subject for the newest version of the formula. Sylar arrives just in time, storming the operating room and freeing Peter. But as they try to escape, Mohinder attacks and captures Sylar. With Sylar in custody, Peter has to escape on his own. That becomes harder once Arthur talks to Sylar and tells him the truth about his mother Angela, that when he was born, she saw the future, saw what he would become and tried to kill him just after his birth. Armed with that knowledge, Sylar appears to change sides. He encounters Peter and instead of trying to escape with his brother, Sylar throws Peter out the window. Without his powers, the multiple-story fall should have killed Peter, but he survives, a fact that is curious to Peter and to Arthur, who wonders how he was able to survive the fall. Waiting for Peter at the end of his long fall is Claire Bennet, who has come to Pinehearst with former nemesis Elle. After Elle was fired from the Company early this season, she has been a lost soul and has now also lost control of her power to shoot electrical currents from her body. Seeking the help of Claire’s father H.R.G., Elle arrives at the Bennet home in Costa Verde, California only to be confronted by Claire, or as Elle calls her, “Cheerleader.” After an initial skirmish, both realize that they have been contacted by Pinehearst and might be able to find answers there. Following a tense flight in which Elle’s electrical powers nearly crash the plane, they arrive and head to Pinehearst, where they pull up just in time to see Peter falling. He lands and while Claire rushes over and immediately notices he isn’t healing and using his powers, Elle has other things on her mind. When she hears Peter say Pinehearst took his abilities, she runs inside for help because that’s what she wants too. Claire and Peter escape, but now that he has no power, things are much different. Also, Peter is left to ponder why the fall didn’t kill him and theorizes that Sylar threw him out the window the save him and help him escape, using his telepathic powers to slow Peter’s fall so he didn’t actually die. Death was exactly what Arthur had in mind for Matt Parkman, or so it seemed, after Parkman refused an offer to join Pinehearst. Arthur orders Daphne Millbrook to go and kill Parkman and when Mat’s father and Arthur’s aide Maury objects, Arthur kills Maury and hands Daphne a gun. She is unable to carry out her orders after Matt continues to insist that they are meant to fall in love and will be married in the future, so Arthur sends along Knox, the villain whose power is gaining strength from others’ fear, to finish the job. But using his power to control people’s mind and make them see and believe anything he wants, Matt makes Knox see a scene in which he kills both Matt and Daphne, leading Knox to leave, believing his mission has been accomplished. That leaves Matt and Daphne alone, apparently together. However, a phone call from Arthur to Daphne seems to indicate that the whole thing was a ruse, a ploy to plant her close to Matt and make him believe that she is on his side. The last bit of news this episode was way over in Africa, where Hiro Nakamura and pal Ando are still hanging with “Mr. African Isaac,” future painter/pre-cognitive Usutu. With Hiro refusing to time travel any more to battle the evil forces and impending doom encroaching on the world, Usutu inveigles him to try a different path, eating the same nasty paste made from plant roots that Usutu himself and also Matt Parkman have used to put them into a trance where they can see the future. At episode’s end, Hiro is in the same glassy-eyed trance, having visions of the world to come. And that’s where things end for now, so until next ime…..
- Well this isn’t awkward at all. Once again, Major League Baseball finds itself with a bizarre scheduling situation/ending of a big game thanks to commissioner Bud Selig. The first such occurrence was in 2002, when the All-Star Game ended in a tie for the first (and hopefully last time) ever because good ol’ Bud said it was so after 15 innings. This time, it’s the freaking World Series, with Game 5 of the Fall Classic abandoned in the middle of the sixth inning with the score tied 2-2. The game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays could decide the World Series, as the Phillies lead the best-of-seven 3-1, but the specter of bad weather hung over the game from the start. Rain was forecast, but after talking with the umpires, teams, ground crew and even weathermen, Selig elected to try and play the game. The rains came early on and didn’t let up, leaving the field an increasingly muddy, soggy mess that made for both a sloppy game and a dangerous environement for the players to play in. Normally, baseball games become official after five innings, so with the Phillies leading 2-1 after the fifth, it looked like they might steal a win. However, the decision had been made by Selig and his MLB cronies that the World Series would not end on a shortened game, so when the Rays pushed across the tying run in the top of the sixth inning and the weather became too much to bear in the bottom half of the frame, action was suspended. The intent was to play the game tonight, but we were told earlier that that wouldn’t happen. Furthermore, with shi**y weather on tap for Wednesday, there is no telling when this thing might actually get back on track. Worse still, when it does, it could be for a mere 45 minutes or so if the Phillies win and only three innings need to be played. The game is tentatively set to resume at 8:37 p.m. Wednesday night, but I highly doubt that happens. The suspended game left the Rays in a lodging bind because win or lose Game 5, it was to be the last game of the series in Philadelphia and so they had checked out of their hotel, knowing that regardless of the outcome, they would be on a plane back to Tampa afterward - or so they thought. Now forced to stay in town, they couldn’t get back into their previous hotel and were forced to find a hotel in Wilmington, Del., about 25 miles away. In other words, this has turned into another train wreck under Selig’s watch, and the sad thing is that it’s not the least bit surprising…..
- Who among us hasn’t thought about putting a little something unsanitary and disgusting into the food of our local police chief? Unless you are a totally law-abiding, goodie-two-shoes type, odds are you are not a huge fan of John Q, Law. However, there is a fine line between cursing the stupid local cops among friends, making fun of their portly physiques and referring to them by various derogatory names and actually trying to make them ill. Meet Jaime Perez, the man who trampled all over that subtle, yet important line in the sand when he allegedly wiped himself with a hamburger bun he was serving Police Chief Paul Nelson at Andy's Landing, a Burnet, Texas eatery. Perez also said he put the veggies in his mouth before placing them on the burger, then capped off his disgusting display by spitting and blowing his nose on the burger. Perez, cook at the restaurant, was arrested Monday after Nelson who filed a complaint with the Burnet County's Sheriff's Office. Perez had to brag about his dirty deed, with word getting back to Nelson, who also recalled seeing Perez along with another cook standing behind the counter watching him eat his food that day. Very discreet, fellas, very discreet. I have to say, I don’t feel too good about eating at Andy’s Landing, not after this and no after hearing Perez’ boss defend his act. “Jaime is our best cook,” said Andy's Landing General Manager Tiffany Tappe. “It's the last thing we ever expected.” He’s your best cook? How the hell do you people stay open if that’s the case? It really can't be good for business, especially not when Burnet County investigators walk right into your kitchen and arrested Perez, as they did yesterday. Today, they were back to arrest cook James Ledesma at the restaurant. Both men have been charged with tampering with consumer product, a second degree felony. Ironically, Nelson believes this isn’t the first time his food was contaminated by Perez. A Burnet police officer's dash cam video picked up the voice of a disorderly Perez Oct. 11, on which Perez can ranting about the chief and stated that he spat on the buns and rubbed the buns “on his buns.” Nice establishment you’ve got there, Andy’s Landing. I’ve heard of cooks spitting in food before when customers are being a pain in the ass, but never wiping the food on their own backsides……
Monday, October 27, 2008
Pimpin' gets harder, Navy sets football back 100 years or more and a kids' movie leads the box office
- Jeez…..I know some people aren’t fit to be parents and typically I applaud those who realize this and give up their child to be raised by someone more capable, but this one pushes the limits of that thinking. This unidentified mother really wanted to be rid of her son, so she drove all the way from the Atlanta, Georgia area to Omaha to drop off her….wait for it….wait for it….12-year-old son and take advantage of Nebraska's safe haven law. Yes, it took this woman 12 years to figure out that she couldn’t or didn’t want to be a parent. Nice move, lady. I’m sure your son won't have any emotional scars or trauma from being so unwanted as to be driven halfway across the country and dumped like an unwanted puppy on the side of the road. And why did this mother make the decision to abandon her son like that? According to Capt. Jim Davidsaver of the Lincoln Police Department, the boy's mother told police she was unable to discipline her son and dropped him off at Bryan LGH East Hospital. Yes, she felt her son was too unruly and instead of, I don’t know, making the effort to actually parent him and administer some parental discipline, she decided to drive hundreds of miles to take advantage of Nebraska's safe haven law,which took effect in July and allows parents or guardians to drop off children up to 18-years-old at the state's hospitals without fear of prosecution. The boy has been placed in residential shelter care for the time being and he is the 20th child to be dropped off under the Safe Haven law since the law went in effect. Not sure this is what Nebraska state officials had in mind when they enacted this law. If it were, Governor Dave Heineman wouldn’t be saying that if more out-of-state children are dropped off, it may prompt him to call a special session of the legislature to fix the law. Nor would forty of the 49 state senators have agreed to change the age limit on children who can be left at hospitals to 3-days-old. So in trying to decide if this mother is a good parent for letting go of a child she can’t adequately care for or a total douche bag, I’m going with the latter…..
- It was a day for the chalk this past college football Saturday, with the top-ranked teams around the country coming through when it counted and depriving us of the upsets that always add the bulk of the intrigue to fall Saturdays. For starters, No. 1 Texas did its job in setting up an in-state clash of the titans next Saturday, downing No. 7 Oklahoma State in an exciting duel, 28-24 thanks to a late-game defensive stand. It wasn’t the offensive shootout that we’d hoped for, but Oklahoma St. did prove that they are legitimate and a player on the national scene despite the loss. Meanwhile, the nation’s No. 2 team, Alabama, trounced hapless Tennessee by a 29-9 count, winning easily and adding gallons of lighter fluid to the “Fire Phil Fullmer” bonfire at UT. Third-ranked Penn State won a battle of boring, defeating Ohio State in Columbus in a 13-6 barn-burner that may have set college football back 20 years. Other than this snooze fest, most of the other top team played high-scoring, fast-paced affairs, with Oklahoma (58-35 over Kansas St.), Florida (63-5 over lowly Kentucky) and Texas Tech (63-21 over No. 23 Kansas) lighting up the scoreboard at a record pace. The one interesting non-Top 25 game of the weekend featured Navy, which defeated Southern Methodist 34-7 without throwing a single forward pass. Yes, 49 runs, zero passes, thanks for a real lesson in 19th century football, Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo. I know you were down to your third-string quarterback and all and that you run the overwhelming majority of the time even when you do have your starting QB on the field, but NO forward passes? Feel free to mix in a pass or two next game, either that or suit your guys up in leather helmets with no face masks and keep score on a hand-operated scoreboard. The other development from the weekend that has me excited is that non-BCS unbeatens and threats to crash the BCS party such as Ball State, Tulsa and Boise State kept on winning, inching closer to the top 12 of the idiotic BCS rankings and a guaranteed slot in the BCS system. On the whole, not the best Saturday of the college football season, but there were a few bright spots and enough oddities to make it a good one……
- So is Ted Stevens more qualified or less qualified to be a United States senator now that he has been found guilty Monday of all seven counts in his federal corruption trial? On the surface, it might seem that being a felon seven times over would be a negative in terms of someone having a job with serious responsibilities, but let’s remember that we are talking about the U.S. Congress here, people. So when Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska is convicted by a jury of “knowingly and willfully” scheming to conceal on Senate disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from an Alaska-based oil industry contractor, I tend to think it makes him more capable of being a true senator. What is the U.S. Senate if not a haven for liars, cheaters, manipulators and criminals who try to squeeze every possible dollar and perk out of their position for every day they are in office? Thus, I like to think of it as a minor detail that Stevens faces a maximum sentence of up to 35 years in prison -- five years for each of the seven counts - because I like to think positive, not focus on the worst-case scenario. After all, the judge has the discretion to give Stevens as little as no jail time and probation when he is sentenced, so there’s no reason he can’t keep right on passing pork barrel legislation, sexually harassing staffers and enjoying bribes from all sorts of lobbyists. Besides, even though he’s been convicted and mountains of evidence exist against him, my man Ted Stevens isn’t giving up, saying after the verdict, “It's not over yet.” Now I don’t know if that’s just because dude is old and senile, but he and his legal team are in fact pushing for a new trial. So don’t let this little matter of a criminal conviction and possible prison time sway your vote, Alaskans, as you decide between Stevens and his Democratic challenger, Mark Begich, in next week’s election. Don’t turn your back on a man who has served you in a marginally ethical manner since1968. Never has Ted Stevens been more qualified to be a United States senator, so don’t let him down now……
- Not a tremendous surprise here, that Disney's “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” clawed its way to the top of the weekend box office class with $42 million, easily outdistancing the horror sequel “Saw V”. A G-rated film that teens and pre-teens love is bound to out-earn an R-rated, lame sequel to a horror movie franchise that ran out of actual intrigue three installments ago. As the creators of the “Saw” franchise continue to whore out their concept and show a total lack of creative and cinematic credibility by trotting out the same tired crap five times in a row, it was actually funny to see them get their ass kicked by a bunch of singing, dancing teenagers. “Saw V” brought in $30.5 million and finished in second place, which is fitting because it’s a second-rate movie at best. The overall picture for movies this weekend was good, as the top 12 films took in $120.5 million, up 41 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Saw IV", equally moronic to its most recent sequel, led the weekend with a $31.8 million debut. Adding to the positive news for HSM 3 is the fact that the film also pulled in $40 million in 19 other countries where it has opened, among them Great Britain, Germany and Spain. Here is how the top 10 shook down from the top to the bottom: 1) "High School Musical 3," $42 million, 2) "Saw V," $30.5 million, 3) "Max Payne," $7.6 million, 4) "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," $6.9 million, 5) "Pride and Glory," $6.3 million, 6) "The Secret Life of Bees," $5.9 million, 7) "W.," $5.3 million (yes, Oliver Stone, you are still a drug-addicted kook), 8) "Eagle Eye," $5.1 million, 9) "Body of Lies," $4.1 million, 10) "Quarantine," $2.6 million. A pretty diverse group of films overall, but the one common them for at least half of them? They absolutely suck……
- Welcome to Lynwood, California, or as I like to call it, the home of Hooker Cam. Seems city officials in Lynwood have gotten a little tired of women plying the world’s oldest profession on their streets, so they have enlisted the help of a new tool in the fight against prostitution - surveillance cameras. Officials have installed four Advanced Surveillance and Protection, or ASAP, cameras on major roadways throughout the city in hopes of shutting down pimps, ho’s and johns. “We have had problems for a long time, and the businesses and residents that reside in that area said, `you know, we need to do something about it,"” Lynwood Mayor Maria Santillan said. The cameras are up and running 24 hours a day and are monitored around the clock, so it’s just become a lot harder to score a decent hooker in the area. “Don't come to Lynwood if you're looking for a prostitute, they're aren't going to be any around,” Sheriff Lee Baca said Saturday. Yeah, either that or they are going to find ways around this new system, move to new locations and away from the eyes of your cameras, Sheriff, one or the other. You may feel confident because your new cameras cam zoom in on individuals soliciting prostitutes and take a picture of them or videotape the incident, but it won't be long before the affected parties learn where the cameras are and make adjustments, it’s just human nature. When one choice is taken away, people will always seek out another means to get their freak on, period. So while you may hope to install nine more cameras by early December, by no means are you ever going to stamp out this skanky profession for good. But hey, at least you can feel good about placating the citizens who just five months ago marched down Long Beach Blvd. -- a notorious area for prostitution -- amongst used condoms on the street, demanding the city take action. The result was the new cameras, which cost about $20,000 each, for a total of about $250,000. Best of success with this new approach, Lynwood, may your streets be hooker-free…..although I wouldn’t count on it…..
- It was a day for the chalk this past college football Saturday, with the top-ranked teams around the country coming through when it counted and depriving us of the upsets that always add the bulk of the intrigue to fall Saturdays. For starters, No. 1 Texas did its job in setting up an in-state clash of the titans next Saturday, downing No. 7 Oklahoma State in an exciting duel, 28-24 thanks to a late-game defensive stand. It wasn’t the offensive shootout that we’d hoped for, but Oklahoma St. did prove that they are legitimate and a player on the national scene despite the loss. Meanwhile, the nation’s No. 2 team, Alabama, trounced hapless Tennessee by a 29-9 count, winning easily and adding gallons of lighter fluid to the “Fire Phil Fullmer” bonfire at UT. Third-ranked Penn State won a battle of boring, defeating Ohio State in Columbus in a 13-6 barn-burner that may have set college football back 20 years. Other than this snooze fest, most of the other top team played high-scoring, fast-paced affairs, with Oklahoma (58-35 over Kansas St.), Florida (63-5 over lowly Kentucky) and Texas Tech (63-21 over No. 23 Kansas) lighting up the scoreboard at a record pace. The one interesting non-Top 25 game of the weekend featured Navy, which defeated Southern Methodist 34-7 without throwing a single forward pass. Yes, 49 runs, zero passes, thanks for a real lesson in 19th century football, Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo. I know you were down to your third-string quarterback and all and that you run the overwhelming majority of the time even when you do have your starting QB on the field, but NO forward passes? Feel free to mix in a pass or two next game, either that or suit your guys up in leather helmets with no face masks and keep score on a hand-operated scoreboard. The other development from the weekend that has me excited is that non-BCS unbeatens and threats to crash the BCS party such as Ball State, Tulsa and Boise State kept on winning, inching closer to the top 12 of the idiotic BCS rankings and a guaranteed slot in the BCS system. On the whole, not the best Saturday of the college football season, but there were a few bright spots and enough oddities to make it a good one……
- So is Ted Stevens more qualified or less qualified to be a United States senator now that he has been found guilty Monday of all seven counts in his federal corruption trial? On the surface, it might seem that being a felon seven times over would be a negative in terms of someone having a job with serious responsibilities, but let’s remember that we are talking about the U.S. Congress here, people. So when Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska is convicted by a jury of “knowingly and willfully” scheming to conceal on Senate disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from an Alaska-based oil industry contractor, I tend to think it makes him more capable of being a true senator. What is the U.S. Senate if not a haven for liars, cheaters, manipulators and criminals who try to squeeze every possible dollar and perk out of their position for every day they are in office? Thus, I like to think of it as a minor detail that Stevens faces a maximum sentence of up to 35 years in prison -- five years for each of the seven counts - because I like to think positive, not focus on the worst-case scenario. After all, the judge has the discretion to give Stevens as little as no jail time and probation when he is sentenced, so there’s no reason he can’t keep right on passing pork barrel legislation, sexually harassing staffers and enjoying bribes from all sorts of lobbyists. Besides, even though he’s been convicted and mountains of evidence exist against him, my man Ted Stevens isn’t giving up, saying after the verdict, “It's not over yet.” Now I don’t know if that’s just because dude is old and senile, but he and his legal team are in fact pushing for a new trial. So don’t let this little matter of a criminal conviction and possible prison time sway your vote, Alaskans, as you decide between Stevens and his Democratic challenger, Mark Begich, in next week’s election. Don’t turn your back on a man who has served you in a marginally ethical manner since1968. Never has Ted Stevens been more qualified to be a United States senator, so don’t let him down now……
- Not a tremendous surprise here, that Disney's “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” clawed its way to the top of the weekend box office class with $42 million, easily outdistancing the horror sequel “Saw V”. A G-rated film that teens and pre-teens love is bound to out-earn an R-rated, lame sequel to a horror movie franchise that ran out of actual intrigue three installments ago. As the creators of the “Saw” franchise continue to whore out their concept and show a total lack of creative and cinematic credibility by trotting out the same tired crap five times in a row, it was actually funny to see them get their ass kicked by a bunch of singing, dancing teenagers. “Saw V” brought in $30.5 million and finished in second place, which is fitting because it’s a second-rate movie at best. The overall picture for movies this weekend was good, as the top 12 films took in $120.5 million, up 41 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Saw IV", equally moronic to its most recent sequel, led the weekend with a $31.8 million debut. Adding to the positive news for HSM 3 is the fact that the film also pulled in $40 million in 19 other countries where it has opened, among them Great Britain, Germany and Spain. Here is how the top 10 shook down from the top to the bottom: 1) "High School Musical 3," $42 million, 2) "Saw V," $30.5 million, 3) "Max Payne," $7.6 million, 4) "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," $6.9 million, 5) "Pride and Glory," $6.3 million, 6) "The Secret Life of Bees," $5.9 million, 7) "W.," $5.3 million (yes, Oliver Stone, you are still a drug-addicted kook), 8) "Eagle Eye," $5.1 million, 9) "Body of Lies," $4.1 million, 10) "Quarantine," $2.6 million. A pretty diverse group of films overall, but the one common them for at least half of them? They absolutely suck……
- Welcome to Lynwood, California, or as I like to call it, the home of Hooker Cam. Seems city officials in Lynwood have gotten a little tired of women plying the world’s oldest profession on their streets, so they have enlisted the help of a new tool in the fight against prostitution - surveillance cameras. Officials have installed four Advanced Surveillance and Protection, or ASAP, cameras on major roadways throughout the city in hopes of shutting down pimps, ho’s and johns. “We have had problems for a long time, and the businesses and residents that reside in that area said, `you know, we need to do something about it,"” Lynwood Mayor Maria Santillan said. The cameras are up and running 24 hours a day and are monitored around the clock, so it’s just become a lot harder to score a decent hooker in the area. “Don't come to Lynwood if you're looking for a prostitute, they're aren't going to be any around,” Sheriff Lee Baca said Saturday. Yeah, either that or they are going to find ways around this new system, move to new locations and away from the eyes of your cameras, Sheriff, one or the other. You may feel confident because your new cameras cam zoom in on individuals soliciting prostitutes and take a picture of them or videotape the incident, but it won't be long before the affected parties learn where the cameras are and make adjustments, it’s just human nature. When one choice is taken away, people will always seek out another means to get their freak on, period. So while you may hope to install nine more cameras by early December, by no means are you ever going to stamp out this skanky profession for good. But hey, at least you can feel good about placating the citizens who just five months ago marched down Long Beach Blvd. -- a notorious area for prostitution -- amongst used condoms on the street, demanding the city take action. The result was the new cameras, which cost about $20,000 each, for a total of about $250,000. Best of success with this new approach, Lynwood, may your streets be hooker-free…..although I wouldn’t count on it…..
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Riot Watch! returns, Isaiah Thomas throws his daughter under the bus and more Tony Alamo fallout (other than his name sounding like a porn name)
- Think video gamers are just wasting time and their few functioning brain cells by vegging out on the couch and playing X-Box, PS3or Wii? Think again. Over the weekend, hundreds of games gathered at the University of Connecticut for the EA Sports NCAA Football 2009 Challenge Prelimaries. The even kicked off on the UConn campus at noon on Friday, with the 16th and final spot in the tournament is up for grabs. Those who qualify for the big showdown will compete in January at the 2009 Rose Bowl, where EA Sports will give away $10,000 to the most skilled X-Box 360 gamer. EA Sports Marketing Director Brian Movalson, seems very excited and possibly disturbingly so as he is discussing a video game. “The EA SPORTS NCAA Football Challenge presented by Coca-Cola Zero brings the competition and excitement college football players feel every week to gamers in college towns across the nation.” Umm, no. You may be offering video game degenerates who spend more time on their couch than the Doritos and beer stains that also reside there, but don’t mistake that moment in the sun for these slugs as the same type of rush actual players who aren’t overweight, gorged on junk food, incapable of breaking 7.0 in the 40-yard dash and sporting skin whiter than Casper the Friendly ghost get out on real football fields. And oh yeah, girls may be lining up to get with star football players on campus, but I don’t think the same can be said for the top video gamers. Oddly enough, chicks don’t dig guys who are a wiz with the controller…..
- Boy, the hits just keep on coming for evangelist/(alleged) pedophile and polygamist Tony Alamo. As Alamo himself is in jail awaiting trial on charges that he, among other things, transported a minor across state lines for the purposes of having sex, the man identified as the chief enforcer in Alamo’s shady organization/cult is now under fire for the crimes he is alleged to have committed in service of the megalomaniacal Alamo. John Erwin Kolbeck is alleged to have beaten Alamo's followers for even minor infractions like playing with a spray bottle, with victims like Seth Calagna recalling nightmares of lying on the Fort Smith warehouse floor, feeling a wooden boardf crashing into backside as blood oozed onto the winter-cooled concrete. In an interview with detectives, Calagna told detectives months later that, Kolbeck even paused after 20 strikes to order another ministry member to pull off the 17-year-old's pants and thermals. Gee, hard to see why Kolbeck faces an arrest warrant on a second-degree felony battery charge, isn’t it? Of course, before the charges can be put into motion against Kolbeck, he’ll need to be found first. Yes, dude hasn't been seen since federal agents and state troopers raided one of the ministry's Arkansas compounds more than a month ago. But that doesn’t look at all suspicios, right? Police raid the compound where you (allegedly) did your vile, reprehensible work and you suddenly disappear into thin air. Then again, what do you expect from a scumbag whom Tony Alamo sometimes introduced by mimicking Jack Nicholson's menacing "Here's Johnny!" from "The Shining"? Or from a guy who was nearly arrested by the Fort Smith Police Department in March 2006 after allegedly performing a wedding ceremony between a 13-year-old girl and a 34-year-old man at Alamo's church. Just no shortage of quality individuals around this organization, eh?.......
- We have a Dawson Leery sighting. James Van der Beek hasn’t been seen much since the end of teen soap pioneer Dawson’s Creek in 2003, having only bit parts in smaller projects since then, but he’s popping up this season on another teen drama that films in the same area, One Tree Hill. Van der Beek, who spent much of time as a teenager in North Carolina working on Dawson's Creek, is heading back to the state to guest star on One Tree Hill. At present, he’s only scheduled to appear in one episode, airing Nov. 24. Ironically, he will be playing a filmmaker who wants to put one of Lucas Scott’s novels on the big screen, which is ironic because on Dawson’s Creek his character was an aspiring filmmaker, bordering on obsessive when it came to movies. “The specter of Dawson's Creek is always around us,” Tree Hill boss Mark Schwahn admits while also pointing out that his series films on the same lot that DC used to. “So I thought it would be cool to get James.” Other than this guest spot, Van der Beek's most recent TV credits include short-lived visits to Ugly Betty, Criminal Minds and How I Met Your Mother, none of which I actually saw. So welcome back to the teen drama world, Dawson Leery, we’ve missed you…..
- I’ve been holding off commenting on the ongoing saga involving former New York Knicks coach/GM/franchise killer Isaiah Thomas, but this is getting too good to hold back any longer. After authorities were called early Friday to Thomas' Westchester County home, because a 47-year-old man was taken to the hospital and treated for an overdose of sleeping pills, Thomas and his family were quick to throw his 17-year-old daughter Lauren under the bus as the Thomas rushed to the hospital. And no, it’s not just me accusing Zeke and his family of tossing Lauren under the bus, the local police chief in the case said the same thing - literally. Harrison Police Chief David Hall likened the conflicting accounts of an accidental overdose at Thomas' home to a “cover-up. It wasn't his daughter, and why they're throwing her under the bus is beyond my ability to understand,” Hall mused. So the police are saying it was Thomas, a 47-year-old male, and Thomas is saying it was a 17-year-old girl. For some reason, Hall seems to disagree with Thomas’ characterization of the event. “My cops ... know the difference between a 47-year-old black male and a young black female,” Hall fumed. For good measure, he added a Richard Nixon blast, saying, Thomas and his family should “learn something from Richard Nixon -- it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.” That return volley didn’t sit well with the Thomas clan, as Zeke’s 20-year-old son, Joshua, was quick to refute Hall’s comments. “Saying that someone is being thrown under the bus when you are talking about health issues is disrespectful,” Joshua Thomas fumed in a text message. “I love both my sister and dad and am glad that both are doing well.” Boy that was a cleverly worded non-denial denial, J. To be fair, he later did argue that
it was his sister, not his father, who required treatment. Whatever you say, Thomas clan. What we know is that an ambulance and two police officers responded to a 911 call that came in from your home a couple minutes after midnight and the victim was taken about 5 miles from the home to White Plains Hospital Center, where officials declined to identify the overdose patient, citing privacy laws. While they still can’t identify the patient, it’s clear that they feel confident it was Isaiah Thomas and not Lauren. Honestly, this is a really jacked up situation and I just hope that whoever the involved parties were that they receive the treatment and counseling they so obviously need…..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Because nothing fills me with joy quite like relaying news of riots, protests and social dissidence worldwide, I am happy to tell you about a great event held yesterday in Taipei, Taiwan. There, tens of thousands of opposition supporters marched through the country’s capital to protest an upcoming visit by a senior Chinese envoy. These great Taiwanese citizens believe that the trip is part of Chinese efforts to assert control over the self-ruled island. In other words, they’re accusing The Man of trying to hold them down, the most anti-establishment claim of all. Adding a touch of panache and spirit to the proceedings were the T-shirts donned by many protestors, their message proclaiming the slogan “Defend Taiwan.” And as with any good riot or protest, these intrepid souls mixed in a healthy dose of accusations directed at their own leader, pointing the finger at Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou for making too many concessions and moving too fast in relaxing restrictions on trade and investment with China. “The government has not done enough to protect our own interests when opening up to China,” said protester Karin Hsieh. Well said, Karin, well said. The minds behind this beautiful act of social dissidence are the progressive thinkers at the opposition Democratic Progressive Party. They have blasted Ma's efforts to seek stronger ties with the mainland since he took office in May, a policy that stands in stark contrast to the one espoused by his predecessor, the DPP's Chen Shui-bian, who had pursued a strict anti-China and pro-independence policy. All told, the march wound for several miles through Taipei, quite a sight to see for those who love a good protest like myself. Whether this demonstration will have any effect on Ma's initiative to resume talks in June between the two nations following a hiatus of almost 10 years is unclear. Honestly, accomplishing that objective might necessitate stepping it up a notch, say a pinch of property destruction, a cadre of clashes with police and a nice dose of general mayhem and chicanery. Burn a few buildings, overturn a few cars, smash windows with rocks and clash with riot police and you might have a shot at putting a halt to the second round of high-level talks is to be held in Taipei in early November. In other words, take the lead of pro-independence supporters in southern Taiwan who were able to disrupt a visit by a Chinese official this past week by clashing with security. The official was pushed and knocked to the ground by a small number of protesters who shouted “Taiwan does not belong to China.” Now THAT is what I’m talking about, Taiwan. You need to exert a little muscle and knock some heads to get things done in the world of protests and riots. Meek ain’t getting it done, people. Your country split from China in 1949 for a reason (civil wars tend to do that), but Beijing continues to claim the island as part of its territory and has threatened to attack if Taiwan moves to formalize its independence. Don’t let them intimidate you, Taiwan! Don’t take their smog-riddled, poison-water, lead-paint-toy having bullsh*t! Take it to the streets early, often and with a bad attitude……..
- Boy, the hits just keep on coming for evangelist/(alleged) pedophile and polygamist Tony Alamo. As Alamo himself is in jail awaiting trial on charges that he, among other things, transported a minor across state lines for the purposes of having sex, the man identified as the chief enforcer in Alamo’s shady organization/cult is now under fire for the crimes he is alleged to have committed in service of the megalomaniacal Alamo. John Erwin Kolbeck is alleged to have beaten Alamo's followers for even minor infractions like playing with a spray bottle, with victims like Seth Calagna recalling nightmares of lying on the Fort Smith warehouse floor, feeling a wooden boardf crashing into backside as blood oozed onto the winter-cooled concrete. In an interview with detectives, Calagna told detectives months later that, Kolbeck even paused after 20 strikes to order another ministry member to pull off the 17-year-old's pants and thermals. Gee, hard to see why Kolbeck faces an arrest warrant on a second-degree felony battery charge, isn’t it? Of course, before the charges can be put into motion against Kolbeck, he’ll need to be found first. Yes, dude hasn't been seen since federal agents and state troopers raided one of the ministry's Arkansas compounds more than a month ago. But that doesn’t look at all suspicios, right? Police raid the compound where you (allegedly) did your vile, reprehensible work and you suddenly disappear into thin air. Then again, what do you expect from a scumbag whom Tony Alamo sometimes introduced by mimicking Jack Nicholson's menacing "Here's Johnny!" from "The Shining"? Or from a guy who was nearly arrested by the Fort Smith Police Department in March 2006 after allegedly performing a wedding ceremony between a 13-year-old girl and a 34-year-old man at Alamo's church. Just no shortage of quality individuals around this organization, eh?.......
- We have a Dawson Leery sighting. James Van der Beek hasn’t been seen much since the end of teen soap pioneer Dawson’s Creek in 2003, having only bit parts in smaller projects since then, but he’s popping up this season on another teen drama that films in the same area, One Tree Hill. Van der Beek, who spent much of time as a teenager in North Carolina working on Dawson's Creek, is heading back to the state to guest star on One Tree Hill. At present, he’s only scheduled to appear in one episode, airing Nov. 24. Ironically, he will be playing a filmmaker who wants to put one of Lucas Scott’s novels on the big screen, which is ironic because on Dawson’s Creek his character was an aspiring filmmaker, bordering on obsessive when it came to movies. “The specter of Dawson's Creek is always around us,” Tree Hill boss Mark Schwahn admits while also pointing out that his series films on the same lot that DC used to. “So I thought it would be cool to get James.” Other than this guest spot, Van der Beek's most recent TV credits include short-lived visits to Ugly Betty, Criminal Minds and How I Met Your Mother, none of which I actually saw. So welcome back to the teen drama world, Dawson Leery, we’ve missed you…..
- I’ve been holding off commenting on the ongoing saga involving former New York Knicks coach/GM/franchise killer Isaiah Thomas, but this is getting too good to hold back any longer. After authorities were called early Friday to Thomas' Westchester County home, because a 47-year-old man was taken to the hospital and treated for an overdose of sleeping pills, Thomas and his family were quick to throw his 17-year-old daughter Lauren under the bus as the Thomas rushed to the hospital. And no, it’s not just me accusing Zeke and his family of tossing Lauren under the bus, the local police chief in the case said the same thing - literally. Harrison Police Chief David Hall likened the conflicting accounts of an accidental overdose at Thomas' home to a “cover-up. It wasn't his daughter, and why they're throwing her under the bus is beyond my ability to understand,” Hall mused. So the police are saying it was Thomas, a 47-year-old male, and Thomas is saying it was a 17-year-old girl. For some reason, Hall seems to disagree with Thomas’ characterization of the event. “My cops ... know the difference between a 47-year-old black male and a young black female,” Hall fumed. For good measure, he added a Richard Nixon blast, saying, Thomas and his family should “learn something from Richard Nixon -- it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.” That return volley didn’t sit well with the Thomas clan, as Zeke’s 20-year-old son, Joshua, was quick to refute Hall’s comments. “Saying that someone is being thrown under the bus when you are talking about health issues is disrespectful,” Joshua Thomas fumed in a text message. “I love both my sister and dad and am glad that both are doing well.” Boy that was a cleverly worded non-denial denial, J. To be fair, he later did argue that
it was his sister, not his father, who required treatment. Whatever you say, Thomas clan. What we know is that an ambulance and two police officers responded to a 911 call that came in from your home a couple minutes after midnight and the victim was taken about 5 miles from the home to White Plains Hospital Center, where officials declined to identify the overdose patient, citing privacy laws. While they still can’t identify the patient, it’s clear that they feel confident it was Isaiah Thomas and not Lauren. Honestly, this is a really jacked up situation and I just hope that whoever the involved parties were that they receive the treatment and counseling they so obviously need…..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Because nothing fills me with joy quite like relaying news of riots, protests and social dissidence worldwide, I am happy to tell you about a great event held yesterday in Taipei, Taiwan. There, tens of thousands of opposition supporters marched through the country’s capital to protest an upcoming visit by a senior Chinese envoy. These great Taiwanese citizens believe that the trip is part of Chinese efforts to assert control over the self-ruled island. In other words, they’re accusing The Man of trying to hold them down, the most anti-establishment claim of all. Adding a touch of panache and spirit to the proceedings were the T-shirts donned by many protestors, their message proclaiming the slogan “Defend Taiwan.” And as with any good riot or protest, these intrepid souls mixed in a healthy dose of accusations directed at their own leader, pointing the finger at Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou for making too many concessions and moving too fast in relaxing restrictions on trade and investment with China. “The government has not done enough to protect our own interests when opening up to China,” said protester Karin Hsieh. Well said, Karin, well said. The minds behind this beautiful act of social dissidence are the progressive thinkers at the opposition Democratic Progressive Party. They have blasted Ma's efforts to seek stronger ties with the mainland since he took office in May, a policy that stands in stark contrast to the one espoused by his predecessor, the DPP's Chen Shui-bian, who had pursued a strict anti-China and pro-independence policy. All told, the march wound for several miles through Taipei, quite a sight to see for those who love a good protest like myself. Whether this demonstration will have any effect on Ma's initiative to resume talks in June between the two nations following a hiatus of almost 10 years is unclear. Honestly, accomplishing that objective might necessitate stepping it up a notch, say a pinch of property destruction, a cadre of clashes with police and a nice dose of general mayhem and chicanery. Burn a few buildings, overturn a few cars, smash windows with rocks and clash with riot police and you might have a shot at putting a halt to the second round of high-level talks is to be held in Taipei in early November. In other words, take the lead of pro-independence supporters in southern Taiwan who were able to disrupt a visit by a Chinese official this past week by clashing with security. The official was pushed and knocked to the ground by a small number of protesters who shouted “Taiwan does not belong to China.” Now THAT is what I’m talking about, Taiwan. You need to exert a little muscle and knock some heads to get things done in the world of protests and riots. Meek ain’t getting it done, people. Your country split from China in 1949 for a reason (civil wars tend to do that), but Beijing continues to claim the island as part of its territory and has threatened to attack if Taiwan moves to formalize its independence. Don’t let them intimidate you, Taiwan! Don’t take their smog-riddled, poison-water, lead-paint-toy having bullsh*t! Take it to the streets early, often and with a bad attitude……..
Saturday, October 25, 2008
How to successfully disappear a dog, prison inmates in the college football recruiting process and an idiot in the spotlight
- Council Bluff, Iowa: irony and hypocrisy live here. Yes, I also thought that irony and hypocrisy made their homes elsewhere, but news out of the heartland seems to indicated otherwise. When you think of drunk driving and the police, you get mental pictures of cops pulling over hammered motorists, running sobriety checkpoints and administering field sobriety tests, right? I’m guessing that none of you thought of a police officer being the one getting plastered and driving, but allow me ton introduce to you Council Bluffs police officer Terry Cozad. It seems Officer Cozad likes the drinky drinky a little too much, because he has been on paid administrative leave following his arrest Sunday night by a Mills County sheriff's deputy for suspicion of drunk driving. That tends to happen when you are driving erratically and refuse to take an alcohol breath test when you are pulled over. Adding to the irony is that Cozad, who has been with the Council Bluffs police department since 1999, was named officer of the year earlier this year. Wow, if that’s your best officer, I’d hate to see some of your lesser ones. This is a case that has to be offensive to all of us, because cops are the ones always talking about the tragedies they see out on the roads as a result of drunken driving, and here’s a guy who has seen that for nearly a decade and yet he still has the total deficit of intelligence, responsibility and judgment to get behind the wheel all boozed up? Well done, T. Cozad, well done…..
- For some inexplicable reason, Curb Your Enthusiasm has been a celebrated, respected show for nearly all of its six seasons on the air. I’ve never been a fan and have gotten precious few laughs from the show when I have watched it, but maybe that’s just me. It is a distant second in Larry David-led projects in my book, light years behind Seinfeld, but for those of you who do enjoy it, Curb will be back in no time. HBO is looking at a December start date for production on the seventh season of the series. It won't be a long season; the new campaign will consist of 10 episodes and premiere next year. Rumor is that the producers are shooting for a return to air at the beginning of 2009, which would make for a 24-esque 18 month hiatus since Season 6 wrapped up. However, when you compare it to the 21-month drought between the fifth and sixth seasons, it isn’t so bad. Were this a show I actually liked and followed, I would probably be really upset to have to wait that long between seasons, but like I said, Curb Your Enthusiasm has never inspired much enthusiasm in me….
- College football recruits receive all sorts of mail and communication from coaches, schools and sometimes even fans of programs that are recruiting them. But it’s not often that a prized recruit receives a letter from someone in the pokey. Prison inmates don’t tend to be a vital part of the recruiting process for obvious reasons, what with being convicted criminals, being confined to small cells most of the day and not having that much of an active role in the day-to-day operations of college athletics programs. To be fair, many inmates are former athletes who have gone knucklehead and ruined their lives and careers by going thug at the worst possible time, but even those guys tend to be far removed from the recruiting process. Thus, it had to come as a major surprise to a couple of highly ranked football recruits in Arizona, including Devon Kennard, son of former Wolf Pack player Derek Kennard, when they received multi-page letters from an inmate in the California State Penitentiary system. And who was this convicted felon urging them to sign with? That would be the University of Notre Dame. Yup, Charlie Weis and staff are getting a nice boost from California inmate #5409101. I’m sure Coach Weis is ecstatic to have a prison inmate thousands of miles away besieging some of his recruits with letters. “Dear Devon, I realize that you do not know me and I am a convicted felon living in another state, but bro, you need to sign with Notre Dame. It’s a great school and you’d like it there….and oh yeah, at some point I’m going to get parole and if you don’t sign with them, I know who you are and where you live…….”
- See, this is what happens when you put an idiot in the spotlight of a major political campaign. No, I’m not talking about W., although this could definitely apply to him as well. Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, the most famous drain un-clogger in America thanks to John McCain and Sarah Palin, has seized upon his 15 minutes of fame to score a spot on conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham’s show Friday and used his undeserved platform to announce that he's considering a run for Congress in 2010. And where would a totally unqualified, unfit individual run for Congress? That would be against longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur for Ohio's 9th district, which includes Toledo and Sandusky. “I'll tell you what, we'd definitely be in one heck of a fight, Marcy Kaptur definitely has a following in this area,” Wurzelbacher said “But, you know, I'd be up for it.” Would you, Joe? Awful magnanimous of you, what with you having no qualifications to run and only saying this because you’ve gotten the mistaken impression that because of s chance encounter with a presidential candidate that was caught on camera, you’re an important person. Also, very big of you to say that it’d be a a heck of a fight, considering it would be no fight at all because you wouldn’t even be chosen as your party’s candidate. Just appreciate the moment in the sun you’ve been given after challenging Barack Obama on his tax plan earlier this month and don’t push it. Doesn’t help Laura Ingraham’s credibility much when she says that she would immediately volunteer for his campaign and help him with campaign advertising and PR. Not that I know who you are or care, L., but you want to throw your support behind some dude who spends most of his days snaking drains, yanking hairballs from sinks and unclogging toilets, that says nothing good about you. So make the most of what remains of your 15 minutes, Joe the Glorified Handyman, and then just go away……
- We’ve all been here. Who among us hasn’t lived next to or near that neighbor with the uber-annoying pet, usually a dog, that causes nothing but trouble and annoyance for everyone in the neighborhood? Whether the dog digs in your bushes, poops in your yard, runs out of its yard to try and bite you when you walk by or just barks incessantly at all hours of the night, the bottom line is that the pooch is a nuisance that needs to be dealt with. But almost inevitably, the owners of these dogs seem either oblivious or indifferent to the trouble their pet causes. So I’m going to go contrarian here (shocker, right?) and side with Diane M. Brown of Hemet, Calif. after she was arrested and accused of stealing her neighbor's noisy dog and abandoning it 15 miles away. According to Riverside County Animal Services officers, a notoriously untrustworthy group, Brown had filed multiple complaints about her neighbor's dog, saying “Spike” was too noisy. Predictably, The Man didn’t have her back, with a Riverside County judge ruling that the barking dog claims were unfounded. So what’s a person left to do when the law won't do its job and take the necessary steps to silence an annoying pet? The answer is that you have to do, namely make the fluffy, white Maltese disappear. Brown’s mistake wasn’t (allegedly) taking the dog and dumping it; her error was dumping the dog without taking the dog’s collar and ID before dumping it and also dumping the dog in an error where THERE WERE SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS!!! You don’t need to be a criminal mastermind to know that you need to dump the dog in as secluded, wooded area with no one around, Diane. But no, she stopped in the town of Beaumont, took Spike out of the trunk of her car and leaving the dog by the Cherry Valley Water District building before driving away. Not only that, she forgot to remove Spike’s collar the first time around and a surveillance camera caught Brown when she returned to the scene to remove the collar. After that, a local veterinarian called the dog's owner, Lora Young, saying they had Spike. Looks like I need to make this another one of the available courses at my upcoming seminar for aspiring criminals striving to overcome subpar IQ’s: How to successfully disappear an annoying dog……..
- For some inexplicable reason, Curb Your Enthusiasm has been a celebrated, respected show for nearly all of its six seasons on the air. I’ve never been a fan and have gotten precious few laughs from the show when I have watched it, but maybe that’s just me. It is a distant second in Larry David-led projects in my book, light years behind Seinfeld, but for those of you who do enjoy it, Curb will be back in no time. HBO is looking at a December start date for production on the seventh season of the series. It won't be a long season; the new campaign will consist of 10 episodes and premiere next year. Rumor is that the producers are shooting for a return to air at the beginning of 2009, which would make for a 24-esque 18 month hiatus since Season 6 wrapped up. However, when you compare it to the 21-month drought between the fifth and sixth seasons, it isn’t so bad. Were this a show I actually liked and followed, I would probably be really upset to have to wait that long between seasons, but like I said, Curb Your Enthusiasm has never inspired much enthusiasm in me….
- College football recruits receive all sorts of mail and communication from coaches, schools and sometimes even fans of programs that are recruiting them. But it’s not often that a prized recruit receives a letter from someone in the pokey. Prison inmates don’t tend to be a vital part of the recruiting process for obvious reasons, what with being convicted criminals, being confined to small cells most of the day and not having that much of an active role in the day-to-day operations of college athletics programs. To be fair, many inmates are former athletes who have gone knucklehead and ruined their lives and careers by going thug at the worst possible time, but even those guys tend to be far removed from the recruiting process. Thus, it had to come as a major surprise to a couple of highly ranked football recruits in Arizona, including Devon Kennard, son of former Wolf Pack player Derek Kennard, when they received multi-page letters from an inmate in the California State Penitentiary system. And who was this convicted felon urging them to sign with? That would be the University of Notre Dame. Yup, Charlie Weis and staff are getting a nice boost from California inmate #5409101. I’m sure Coach Weis is ecstatic to have a prison inmate thousands of miles away besieging some of his recruits with letters. “Dear Devon, I realize that you do not know me and I am a convicted felon living in another state, but bro, you need to sign with Notre Dame. It’s a great school and you’d like it there….and oh yeah, at some point I’m going to get parole and if you don’t sign with them, I know who you are and where you live…….”
- See, this is what happens when you put an idiot in the spotlight of a major political campaign. No, I’m not talking about W., although this could definitely apply to him as well. Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, the most famous drain un-clogger in America thanks to John McCain and Sarah Palin, has seized upon his 15 minutes of fame to score a spot on conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham’s show Friday and used his undeserved platform to announce that he's considering a run for Congress in 2010. And where would a totally unqualified, unfit individual run for Congress? That would be against longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur for Ohio's 9th district, which includes Toledo and Sandusky. “I'll tell you what, we'd definitely be in one heck of a fight, Marcy Kaptur definitely has a following in this area,” Wurzelbacher said “But, you know, I'd be up for it.” Would you, Joe? Awful magnanimous of you, what with you having no qualifications to run and only saying this because you’ve gotten the mistaken impression that because of s chance encounter with a presidential candidate that was caught on camera, you’re an important person. Also, very big of you to say that it’d be a a heck of a fight, considering it would be no fight at all because you wouldn’t even be chosen as your party’s candidate. Just appreciate the moment in the sun you’ve been given after challenging Barack Obama on his tax plan earlier this month and don’t push it. Doesn’t help Laura Ingraham’s credibility much when she says that she would immediately volunteer for his campaign and help him with campaign advertising and PR. Not that I know who you are or care, L., but you want to throw your support behind some dude who spends most of his days snaking drains, yanking hairballs from sinks and unclogging toilets, that says nothing good about you. So make the most of what remains of your 15 minutes, Joe the Glorified Handyman, and then just go away……
- We’ve all been here. Who among us hasn’t lived next to or near that neighbor with the uber-annoying pet, usually a dog, that causes nothing but trouble and annoyance for everyone in the neighborhood? Whether the dog digs in your bushes, poops in your yard, runs out of its yard to try and bite you when you walk by or just barks incessantly at all hours of the night, the bottom line is that the pooch is a nuisance that needs to be dealt with. But almost inevitably, the owners of these dogs seem either oblivious or indifferent to the trouble their pet causes. So I’m going to go contrarian here (shocker, right?) and side with Diane M. Brown of Hemet, Calif. after she was arrested and accused of stealing her neighbor's noisy dog and abandoning it 15 miles away. According to Riverside County Animal Services officers, a notoriously untrustworthy group, Brown had filed multiple complaints about her neighbor's dog, saying “Spike” was too noisy. Predictably, The Man didn’t have her back, with a Riverside County judge ruling that the barking dog claims were unfounded. So what’s a person left to do when the law won't do its job and take the necessary steps to silence an annoying pet? The answer is that you have to do, namely make the fluffy, white Maltese disappear. Brown’s mistake wasn’t (allegedly) taking the dog and dumping it; her error was dumping the dog without taking the dog’s collar and ID before dumping it and also dumping the dog in an error where THERE WERE SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS!!! You don’t need to be a criminal mastermind to know that you need to dump the dog in as secluded, wooded area with no one around, Diane. But no, she stopped in the town of Beaumont, took Spike out of the trunk of her car and leaving the dog by the Cherry Valley Water District building before driving away. Not only that, she forgot to remove Spike’s collar the first time around and a surveillance camera caught Brown when she returned to the scene to remove the collar. After that, a local veterinarian called the dog's owner, Lora Young, saying they had Spike. Looks like I need to make this another one of the available courses at my upcoming seminar for aspiring criminals striving to overcome subpar IQ’s: How to successfully disappear an annoying dog……..
Friday, October 24, 2008
Phony assaults, proof that pro soccer in America is still a joke and rich people getting evicted.....good times
- I never like wishing bad things on people, even ones I don’t especially like. However, I make exceptions when it comes to country music artists, mostly because of the pain and suffering they have foisted on society with their putrid excuse for “music.” Under that principle, I don’t mind relaying news that country singer Lorrie Morgan has filed for bankruptcy for primarily business related debts in a Nashville court. Morgan filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in federal court, listing her estimated liabilities between $1 million to $10 million, which tends to be a problem when you report having assets of $500,000 to $1 million. I’m not an accountant, but the debts seem to be much larger than the assets, which is generally considered a bad thing. Morgan, living in the Nashville suburb of Lebanon, released a statement calling the bankruptcy “an unfortunate yet necessary part of the restructuring of my business.” Let me translate that: I’m broke, I’m washed up and I was still living like I was a successful artist with a steady income while my career declined. You might be trying to sell everyone on the fact that you’re okay, L., but most people’s definition of okay isn’t owing money to the Internal Revenue Service, banks and lawyers. Being down to the IRS is a big problem, because as I’ve stated over and over, there are lots of things you can get away with in this country - even double murder of your ex-wife and her waiter boyfriend - but trying to get over on the IRS is not one of them. This isn’t the first time Morgan has filed for bankruptcy, either; in 1992, she repaid her creditors in full and withdrew a bankruptcy petition after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing more than $846,000 in debts. Not exactly a banner couple of years for her, either; last year, Morgan filed for divorce from country singer Sammy Kershaw. He was Morgan's fifth husband, and five failed marriages and two bankruptcy filings are about five failed marriages and two bankruptcy filings too many for one lifetime…..
- I may not be someone who is a stickler for drinking age laws, but I’m still going to err on the side of caution here and say that sixth grade is too early in life to start boozing it up. You wouldn’t think I would need to say that at all, but given the fact that several sixth-grade students at a Fort Collins (Colo.) elementary school have been disciplined after school officials caught them drinking alcohol at the school, it may be time to reconsider. According to Poudre School District spokeswoman Ellen Laubhan, the incident happened Friday at the school after one student brought alcohol to school and shared it with other students. Ah, the joys of peer pressure. The school district isn’t disclosing what discipline will be imposed on the students, but the sight of several 12-year-olds attending AA is a bizarre and amusing one. But leave it to a school district official like Laubhan to state the obvious, saying, “We do have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to alcohol.” Thanks for that, E. A junior high has a zero tolerance policy for alcohol? Given that none of your students, even the dumber ones who have been held back once or twice, are within seven years of the legal drinking age, is that a rule you really need? Some key details are also missing here, such as what kind of booze the kids were drinking, how much was consumed and how many students were involved. But if nothing else, this is a solid preview of your future Keg Stand All-Stars, America. Look for these kids at the University of Colorado, Colorado State or Northern Colorado in five or six years…..
- Here is yet more proof that soccer is not a legit, major professional sport in this country. European club team AC Milan is close to signing David Beckham on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy, the Italian club said Wednesday. AC Milan is looking to lock up Becks during the Galaxy’s offseason, which makes it only slightly less ridiculous. I don’t remember the Bulls allowing Michael Jordan to sign with a Greek team during his offseason, nor do I recall the Yankees leeting Alex Rodriguez pick it for a Japanese team during his offseason. Under the terms of the proposed deal, Beckham would join the Serie A club in January and play there until the end of the season. Becks wants to play because doing so would keep him active and in the running for England’s World Cup qualifying team. In a hilarious twist, Beckham's spokesman, Simon Oliveira of 19 Management in Los Angeles, acknowledged talks are taking place for a short-term loan but "nothing is confirmed at present." Yes, a soccer player in the U.S. has a spokesman and representation. Know your place, soccer player. Your sport at the professional level is at best the seventh or eight most popular sport in this country, so in other words, you don’t matter here. The fact that one of your alleged biggest stars could be loaned out to a foreign team during the offseason is yet another piece of evidence that speaks to this fact loudly and clearly…..
- Being a human rights advocate and working to better the world apparently does not buy you and goodwill in the American legal system, at least when it comes to real estate and residency matters. New York's top court made the decision this week to uphold Bianca Jagger's eviction from a rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment, concluding that foreigners on tourist visas can't claim New York dwellings as their primary residence. Jagger, ex-wife of Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger, is a British human rights activist and ex-who was evicted in December from the Upper East Side apartment she had rented for 20 years. Why she’s fighting so hard to keep this place, I don’t know, because she hasn't lived in the apartment for the past few years because of a dispute over asbestos and fungus contamination. Said issues led to a lawsuit against landlord Katz Park Avenue Corp., but in the end it’s Jagger who felt the sting of the law. “There are still claims for legal fees and unpaid rent and use and occupancy,” said attorney Magda Cruz, the landlord's lawyer. In other words, Jagger not only didn’t live in the apartment, she clearly felt that her dispute over fungus and asbestos meant that she didn’t need to pay her rent. Jagger was renting the 18th-floor Park Avenue space for (at least in New York) a surprisingly low $4,614 a month when a judge imposed a fine in 2006 and ordered her to pay months of back rent. She continued to argue that the apartment was uninhabitable, but no one bought that line of B.S. That didn’t take away Jagger’s sense of privilege and entitlement, as she fought her eviction and dragged this matter out in court. But hey, she still has a nice apartment in London, so no worries……
- Nothing like faking an assault to show your support for your favorite presidential candidate. Allow me to introduce Republican campaign worker Ashley Todd of College Park, Texas, who will be charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and may face more charges after telling police she was assaulted by a man angered by a John McCain sticker on her car, then admitting she made up the report. Todd was in Pittsburgh, Pa. at an ATM in Pittsburgh's East End, when the phony assault allegedly occurred. She told police that a man approached her Wednesday night at the ATM, put a blade to her neck and demanded money. However, when police (shocker!) got around to investigating, they found “several inconsistencies” in Todd's statement. When they also could not find her in surveillance videos taken at the ATM, the suspicions of her story heightened. By the way, nice move there, Ashley. You may or may not know this, but ATM’s tend to be highly photographed locations, what with people liking to rob them or rob others using them, etc. To confirm their suspicions that Todd was, in fact, lying, police asked her take a polygraph test this morning and while the results weren’t made positive, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what they were. In the end, when Todd came to the police station to help work on a composite sketch of the alleged attacker she caved and said she “ just wanted to tell the truth” -- that she was not robbed, and there was no attacker. No attack? That’s quite a departure from being punched in the back of the head, knocked to the ground, punched and kicked some more while while threatening to teach you a lesson for being a McCain supporter. And let’s be honest, McCain supporters don’t need to suffer a blow to the head - they already have suffered enough brain damage as is, otherwise they wouldn’t be supporting John McCain. So as much as it pains me, I’m going to have to agree with Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant, who said, “This has wasted so much time. ... It's just a lot of wasted man hours.” But nice move by the Obama campaign, wishing also Todd a "speedy recovery." This campaign just can’t end soon enough so these shenanigans will be over….
- I may not be someone who is a stickler for drinking age laws, but I’m still going to err on the side of caution here and say that sixth grade is too early in life to start boozing it up. You wouldn’t think I would need to say that at all, but given the fact that several sixth-grade students at a Fort Collins (Colo.) elementary school have been disciplined after school officials caught them drinking alcohol at the school, it may be time to reconsider. According to Poudre School District spokeswoman Ellen Laubhan, the incident happened Friday at the school after one student brought alcohol to school and shared it with other students. Ah, the joys of peer pressure. The school district isn’t disclosing what discipline will be imposed on the students, but the sight of several 12-year-olds attending AA is a bizarre and amusing one. But leave it to a school district official like Laubhan to state the obvious, saying, “We do have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to alcohol.” Thanks for that, E. A junior high has a zero tolerance policy for alcohol? Given that none of your students, even the dumber ones who have been held back once or twice, are within seven years of the legal drinking age, is that a rule you really need? Some key details are also missing here, such as what kind of booze the kids were drinking, how much was consumed and how many students were involved. But if nothing else, this is a solid preview of your future Keg Stand All-Stars, America. Look for these kids at the University of Colorado, Colorado State or Northern Colorado in five or six years…..
- Here is yet more proof that soccer is not a legit, major professional sport in this country. European club team AC Milan is close to signing David Beckham on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy, the Italian club said Wednesday. AC Milan is looking to lock up Becks during the Galaxy’s offseason, which makes it only slightly less ridiculous. I don’t remember the Bulls allowing Michael Jordan to sign with a Greek team during his offseason, nor do I recall the Yankees leeting Alex Rodriguez pick it for a Japanese team during his offseason. Under the terms of the proposed deal, Beckham would join the Serie A club in January and play there until the end of the season. Becks wants to play because doing so would keep him active and in the running for England’s World Cup qualifying team. In a hilarious twist, Beckham's spokesman, Simon Oliveira of 19 Management in Los Angeles, acknowledged talks are taking place for a short-term loan but "nothing is confirmed at present." Yes, a soccer player in the U.S. has a spokesman and representation. Know your place, soccer player. Your sport at the professional level is at best the seventh or eight most popular sport in this country, so in other words, you don’t matter here. The fact that one of your alleged biggest stars could be loaned out to a foreign team during the offseason is yet another piece of evidence that speaks to this fact loudly and clearly…..
- Being a human rights advocate and working to better the world apparently does not buy you and goodwill in the American legal system, at least when it comes to real estate and residency matters. New York's top court made the decision this week to uphold Bianca Jagger's eviction from a rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment, concluding that foreigners on tourist visas can't claim New York dwellings as their primary residence. Jagger, ex-wife of Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger, is a British human rights activist and ex-who was evicted in December from the Upper East Side apartment she had rented for 20 years. Why she’s fighting so hard to keep this place, I don’t know, because she hasn't lived in the apartment for the past few years because of a dispute over asbestos and fungus contamination. Said issues led to a lawsuit against landlord Katz Park Avenue Corp., but in the end it’s Jagger who felt the sting of the law. “There are still claims for legal fees and unpaid rent and use and occupancy,” said attorney Magda Cruz, the landlord's lawyer. In other words, Jagger not only didn’t live in the apartment, she clearly felt that her dispute over fungus and asbestos meant that she didn’t need to pay her rent. Jagger was renting the 18th-floor Park Avenue space for (at least in New York) a surprisingly low $4,614 a month when a judge imposed a fine in 2006 and ordered her to pay months of back rent. She continued to argue that the apartment was uninhabitable, but no one bought that line of B.S. That didn’t take away Jagger’s sense of privilege and entitlement, as she fought her eviction and dragged this matter out in court. But hey, she still has a nice apartment in London, so no worries……
- Nothing like faking an assault to show your support for your favorite presidential candidate. Allow me to introduce Republican campaign worker Ashley Todd of College Park, Texas, who will be charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and may face more charges after telling police she was assaulted by a man angered by a John McCain sticker on her car, then admitting she made up the report. Todd was in Pittsburgh, Pa. at an ATM in Pittsburgh's East End, when the phony assault allegedly occurred. She told police that a man approached her Wednesday night at the ATM, put a blade to her neck and demanded money. However, when police (shocker!) got around to investigating, they found “several inconsistencies” in Todd's statement. When they also could not find her in surveillance videos taken at the ATM, the suspicions of her story heightened. By the way, nice move there, Ashley. You may or may not know this, but ATM’s tend to be highly photographed locations, what with people liking to rob them or rob others using them, etc. To confirm their suspicions that Todd was, in fact, lying, police asked her take a polygraph test this morning and while the results weren’t made positive, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what they were. In the end, when Todd came to the police station to help work on a composite sketch of the alleged attacker she caved and said she “ just wanted to tell the truth” -- that she was not robbed, and there was no attacker. No attack? That’s quite a departure from being punched in the back of the head, knocked to the ground, punched and kicked some more while while threatening to teach you a lesson for being a McCain supporter. And let’s be honest, McCain supporters don’t need to suffer a blow to the head - they already have suffered enough brain damage as is, otherwise they wouldn’t be supporting John McCain. So as much as it pains me, I’m going to have to agree with Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant, who said, “This has wasted so much time. ... It's just a lot of wasted man hours.” But nice move by the Obama campaign, wishing also Todd a "speedy recovery." This campaign just can’t end soon enough so these shenanigans will be over….
Thursday, October 23, 2008
A Smallville recap, Miss Teen contestants run wild again (yay!) and an East Carolina football player blasting people with beer bottles
- It took a little while, but the spirit of the bad girl is back with a vengeance in the world of beauty pageants. From Bossier City, Louisiana, it’s the story of Miss Teen Louisiana, who lost her crown 11 days early after being arrested on charges of leaving a restaurant without paying and carrying marijuana. Lindsey Evans, 18, of Blanchard, La., was arrested after Bossier City police were called to a Posados Cafe restaurant Saturday evening because a group had left without paying $46.07. Yes, it all started with a dine-and-dash, always great to get caught up in much more serious charges because you skipped out on a dinner bill of less than $50. But theoretically, if you are going to dine and dash, one thing you don’t want to do is leave behind your purse with your ID in it, as Evans reportedly did. The manager at the restaurant found a pocketbook at the table and inside police found Evans' driver's license and about 2 grams of suspected marijuana in it. Uh-oh! That can’t be good. I’m now waiting for Evans to go with the requisite “not my pot” defense and try to push this off on one of her friends, so keep an eye peeled for that. It’s a given any time a famous or quasi-famous person is arrested for drug possession; the weed or blow is never theirs, it’s always a friend’s drugs. As for dining and dashing, the story Evans and her friends are going with is that the three women with Evans had paid her bill. At least that’s the story the three friends are selling; someone should have told that to Evans, because she admitted to police that she had not paid and neither had her friends. In spite of that, I find it offensive that RPM Productions Inc., the sponsor of the Miss Teen Louisiana pageant, took back the title on after learning that Evans had been arrested. She will have to return her sash and crown, but at least she won't have to return any other prizes or cash equivalents. Those winnings should be helpful as she fights theft charges, drug charges and drug paraphernalia charges. Her crown will be awarded to the next Miss Teen Louisiana November 1 at a pageant in Lafayette. Personally, I’m glad to see this element back in pageants, because otherwise who the hell cares about over-makeup-ed girls in expensive dresses reciting poetry, singing and talking about how they want to make the world a better place by helping orphans in far-off nations? Bring me the Tara Conner’s, the Caitlin Upton’s and other pageant contestants who make out with other girls at clubs, take drugs and go to rehab, because that’s the only way you’re keeping me interested….
- This is one of those situations where you wait so long for something that builds up so much hype that it can’t possibly live up to expectations….or can it? For more a freaking decade, we’ve been hearing rumblings about Guns N’ Roses’ amazing new album, Chinese Democracy. But because its members are all alcoholics, drug addicts and/or a-holes who can’t co-exist with one another, the album’s release has been delayed time and again. Well, we’ve finally gotten a look at the album, at least the first single, “Chinese Democracy,” released this week. It’s the group’s first official single since “Oh My God” in 1999, and obviously the title track of their first album of original material since Use Your Illusion I and II in 1991. You can listen to the track here and judge for yourself whether it lives up to the hype. I will warn you that the first minute of the nearly five-minute track is basically sound effects designed to warm things up, and it isn’t until a minute and a half in, that you get a patented Axl Rose scream. The refrain is decent at best, but it’s not the amazing payoff that the song seems to be building up to. At present, the track isn’t yet available for official download (like that’s going to stop anyone), having only been released to radio with mixed reactions. But I guess that when you’ve waited this long for something, it is virtually impossible for it to live up to expectations, so just be glad that if nothing else, we can finally stop hearing all the postulating about when this album is going to happen…..
- Now this is getting good. Weeks after being arrested on charges that he took a minor across state lines for sex, evangelist/pedophile Tony Alamo’s prosecution is really getting interesting. and by interesting, I mean sick, perverted and pretty darn freaky. A federal magistrate in Little Rock, Ark. called Alamo a flight risk Wednesday and ordered the evangelist held without bail until his. This ruling came after Alamo's former followers testified at a hearing that they were often beaten at his instructions and that Alamo practiced polygamy with several females, including a 9-year-old girl. That is just disturbing on a lot of levels, and I’m not even talking about ordering his followers to be beaten. Never thought I would see the day when someone would order people to be beaten down and it would be the least offensive thing that person was charged with, but the polygamy that included a 9-year-old girl is just stomach-churning awful. How do you even get to the point where you find enjoyment in that sort of disgusting behavior? Thankfully, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant noted that Alamo is charged with a violent crime, which is why he won't be allowed bail. HAlso factoring into Bryant’s decision is the fact that Alamo fled a California child-abuse charge in 1989 and was arrested two years later in Tampa, Florida, living under an assumed name. Thus, it makes sense that he would be considered a flight risk, especially given that he now controls businesses and ministry locations in several states. “There is serious risk (Alamo) will flee or fail to appear,” Bryant said. So it hasn’t been a banner month for Alamo, beginning when he was arrested five days after a September 20 police raid on the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound in the southwest Arkansas town of Fouke. Things didn’t get better when witness Jael Sprinkle testified that she was taken as Alamo's wife at age 17 and that Alamo had five other wives at the time, one of which was t a 9-year-old girl. That is just jacked up but not totally surprising when you consider that Alamo is an advocate of allowing girls to marry when they reach puberty. But hey, what’s statutory rape without some straight-up physical violence too? There was plenty of that, with
Sprinkle saying that she, her parents and others were beaten, one of whom was a 12-year-old boy was paddled to the point of bleeding. Was Sprinkle done? Heck no. She went on to allege that included in Alamo's control over people in his organization was the fact that even inconsequential expenses such as toilet paper and toothpaste had to be approved by him and him alone. This just sounds….yikes. It sounds like a very violent, perverted cult and one I am glad to see being broken down and hopefully dismantled with its megalomaniacal, disgusting leader heading to prison…..
- Boy, the season really came off the tracks quickly for the East Carolina football team, didn’t it? It doesn’t seem like that long ago that the Pirates fired out of the gate 2-0 with wins over then-Top 25 teams West Virginia and Virginia Tech. They were the early season darlings of college football, looking ahead to an underwhelming Conference USA schedule that could give them a chance to go undefeated….and then it all came undone. The team has now lost 3 of 4 and sits at 4-3, plus its starting running back has decided that the middle of the season is a great time to go Animal House at an off-campus party. East Carolina running back Jonathan Williams finds himself facing new charges after two people said he hit them with a beer bottle outside a Greenville apartment complex last weekend. But hey, at least Williams turned himself in to Greenville police Tuesday evening at Pitt County Detention Center, that has to count for something, right? Maybe, but it didn’t prevent him from being arrested and charged on two misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Something about this gives me the sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, my man J. Williams is not learning his lesson about criminal behavior. Why, you ask? Perhaps it’s because less than a month ago, he was arrested and charged with resisting a public officer for a separate incident. Nothing like stacking up arrests one on top of the other, bro. The East Carolina athletic department doesn’t seem enthralled with Williams’ behavior either; they have suspended him indefinitely from the team until his legal matters are resolved. The two alleged victims in the case, Douglas Robert Edwards, 20, and Bailey Hattem, 19, both of Greenville, say they were attempting to go back into a party at the apartment complex early Sunday morning when four men confronted them. As the story goes, one of the men hit Edwards in the neck and Hattem in the arm with a beer bottle and one of the victims said he recognized Williams from his days playing football at J.H. Rose High School in Greenville. The incident followed a very similar one outside the same apartment on the same day, when. Tyler James Kelly, 20, of Washington, N.C., was grabbed by four men who struck him several times on the head with a beer bottle until the bottle broke. Look, I know I’m always the guy saying that if you want to be an elite college football program, you need your share of felons and scumbags on the team, but I didn’t mean that you need one guy racking up tons of arrests all by himself, as Williams is doing. Heck, dude was charged in April for driving while impaired and underage drinking, so this is three in a six-month span. My man, allow your teammates to help you out. You get popped for underage drinking and let one of them get arrested for resisting arrest while another hits guys over the head with beer bottles at parties. It’s all about teamwork, because the way you’re going about it right now isn’t helping anyone, it’s hurting them……
- Tonight’s episode of Smallville featured the most scenes of Clark Kent acting like an a-hole that I can remember in the history of the show. With a mysterious killer wreaking havoc around Metropolis, CK was busy playing good Samaritan and helping those in need, whether they were the intended victim of a major crime or a small one. However, his good deeds also placed him at a major attack at the Ace of Clubs, where he found chaos, people injured, crushed, bleeding and unconscious. Under some of the rubble was Davis Bloom, a.k.a. Doomsday, the paramedic with whom Chloe has become close over the past few episodes. Amazingly, a bloodied Davis refused medical care and went back to the hospital, where he showered up and was stunned to find that he didn’t have a single scratch on him. Coupled with his recent rash of blackouts and the string of similar murders ravaging Metropolis, Davis worried that he might be the one behind the killings. He took his suspicions to Chloe, who refused to believe him and insisted that he couldn’t have done something this terrible. Clark wasn’t so trusting, confronting Davis later at the hospital and implying that because he had been the first paramedic on the scene at every one of the murders, maybe he was responsible. Davis shot back that Clark had also been spotted at every murder scene and had been there before anyone could have known about them. The two parted ways with tension in the air, but Clark wasn’t done throwing around accusations. He also went to Chloe’s revived Isis Foundation, where she had started support meetings for people with meteor powers. After one of the group’s members was among the murder victims and it happened the same night as one of their meetings, Clark stormed into the Isis office and demanded that Chloe give him the names of the people in her support group. She refused, but not before Clark got a look at the sign-in sheet from the last meeting and was able to speed-read through it. Chloe refused to provide an official list, vowing to protect the privacy of her group, but Clark had seen enough to pass names along to the Martian Manhunter, his other-worldly friend who lost his powers helping Clark stay alive earlier this season and is now working as Detective John Jones of the Metropolis Police Department. The detective visits the members of the Isis support group and questions them, leading them to accuse Chloe of selling them out to the cops. She then confronts Clark because he’s the one who is responsible, but he turns around and asks Chloe to use her supercomputer mind to read lab results he snagged from the hospital that Davis was looking at. The results show that Davis’ skin was under the fingernails of all of the murder victims, not a good sign. At that exact moment, Davis is out on patrol with Jimmy Olsen, who is hell bent on catching the mystery murderer. The two respond to an emergency call at a shady building in the ghettos of Metropolis and Davis heads inside, where he is attacked by a mysterious shadow creature. Jimmy calls for help on the ambulance’s radio, a call that brings Clark speeding to the scene. The Man of Steel fends off the creature from attacking Davis and choking him to death, but it then attacks Jimmy behind a dumpster. Clark thinks fast, uses his X-ray vision to see what’s going on and hurls a spare tire at the phantom, knocking it out and saving Jimmy. Clark goes to help Jimmy and finds the attacker as well, who turns out to be one of the members of Chloe’s group, just as Clark suspected. But life isn’t all bad for this bad guy, as when he is in police custody, one of Tess Mercer’s flunkies comes and offers him the chance to join the group of meteor-powered bad guys Mercer is assembling as the new CEO of LuthorCorp. It appears that the offer is accepted, adding another enemy to the anti-Justice League. As for the good guys, Clark and Chloe make amends, but Chloe and Davis have a problem when it becomes clear that he wants more from her than friendship. She wisely decides that the two of them need to not see much of each other for the time being, leaving Davis behind at the café where they met up. And that, amigos, is how things ended this week, so until next time….
- This is one of those situations where you wait so long for something that builds up so much hype that it can’t possibly live up to expectations….or can it? For more a freaking decade, we’ve been hearing rumblings about Guns N’ Roses’ amazing new album, Chinese Democracy. But because its members are all alcoholics, drug addicts and/or a-holes who can’t co-exist with one another, the album’s release has been delayed time and again. Well, we’ve finally gotten a look at the album, at least the first single, “Chinese Democracy,” released this week. It’s the group’s first official single since “Oh My God” in 1999, and obviously the title track of their first album of original material since Use Your Illusion I and II in 1991. You can listen to the track here and judge for yourself whether it lives up to the hype. I will warn you that the first minute of the nearly five-minute track is basically sound effects designed to warm things up, and it isn’t until a minute and a half in, that you get a patented Axl Rose scream. The refrain is decent at best, but it’s not the amazing payoff that the song seems to be building up to. At present, the track isn’t yet available for official download (like that’s going to stop anyone), having only been released to radio with mixed reactions. But I guess that when you’ve waited this long for something, it is virtually impossible for it to live up to expectations, so just be glad that if nothing else, we can finally stop hearing all the postulating about when this album is going to happen…..
- Now this is getting good. Weeks after being arrested on charges that he took a minor across state lines for sex, evangelist/pedophile Tony Alamo’s prosecution is really getting interesting. and by interesting, I mean sick, perverted and pretty darn freaky. A federal magistrate in Little Rock, Ark. called Alamo a flight risk Wednesday and ordered the evangelist held without bail until his. This ruling came after Alamo's former followers testified at a hearing that they were often beaten at his instructions and that Alamo practiced polygamy with several females, including a 9-year-old girl. That is just disturbing on a lot of levels, and I’m not even talking about ordering his followers to be beaten. Never thought I would see the day when someone would order people to be beaten down and it would be the least offensive thing that person was charged with, but the polygamy that included a 9-year-old girl is just stomach-churning awful. How do you even get to the point where you find enjoyment in that sort of disgusting behavior? Thankfully, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant noted that Alamo is charged with a violent crime, which is why he won't be allowed bail. HAlso factoring into Bryant’s decision is the fact that Alamo fled a California child-abuse charge in 1989 and was arrested two years later in Tampa, Florida, living under an assumed name. Thus, it makes sense that he would be considered a flight risk, especially given that he now controls businesses and ministry locations in several states. “There is serious risk (Alamo) will flee or fail to appear,” Bryant said. So it hasn’t been a banner month for Alamo, beginning when he was arrested five days after a September 20 police raid on the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound in the southwest Arkansas town of Fouke. Things didn’t get better when witness Jael Sprinkle testified that she was taken as Alamo's wife at age 17 and that Alamo had five other wives at the time, one of which was t a 9-year-old girl. That is just jacked up but not totally surprising when you consider that Alamo is an advocate of allowing girls to marry when they reach puberty. But hey, what’s statutory rape without some straight-up physical violence too? There was plenty of that, with
Sprinkle saying that she, her parents and others were beaten, one of whom was a 12-year-old boy was paddled to the point of bleeding. Was Sprinkle done? Heck no. She went on to allege that included in Alamo's control over people in his organization was the fact that even inconsequential expenses such as toilet paper and toothpaste had to be approved by him and him alone. This just sounds….yikes. It sounds like a very violent, perverted cult and one I am glad to see being broken down and hopefully dismantled with its megalomaniacal, disgusting leader heading to prison…..
- Boy, the season really came off the tracks quickly for the East Carolina football team, didn’t it? It doesn’t seem like that long ago that the Pirates fired out of the gate 2-0 with wins over then-Top 25 teams West Virginia and Virginia Tech. They were the early season darlings of college football, looking ahead to an underwhelming Conference USA schedule that could give them a chance to go undefeated….and then it all came undone. The team has now lost 3 of 4 and sits at 4-3, plus its starting running back has decided that the middle of the season is a great time to go Animal House at an off-campus party. East Carolina running back Jonathan Williams finds himself facing new charges after two people said he hit them with a beer bottle outside a Greenville apartment complex last weekend. But hey, at least Williams turned himself in to Greenville police Tuesday evening at Pitt County Detention Center, that has to count for something, right? Maybe, but it didn’t prevent him from being arrested and charged on two misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Something about this gives me the sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, my man J. Williams is not learning his lesson about criminal behavior. Why, you ask? Perhaps it’s because less than a month ago, he was arrested and charged with resisting a public officer for a separate incident. Nothing like stacking up arrests one on top of the other, bro. The East Carolina athletic department doesn’t seem enthralled with Williams’ behavior either; they have suspended him indefinitely from the team until his legal matters are resolved. The two alleged victims in the case, Douglas Robert Edwards, 20, and Bailey Hattem, 19, both of Greenville, say they were attempting to go back into a party at the apartment complex early Sunday morning when four men confronted them. As the story goes, one of the men hit Edwards in the neck and Hattem in the arm with a beer bottle and one of the victims said he recognized Williams from his days playing football at J.H. Rose High School in Greenville. The incident followed a very similar one outside the same apartment on the same day, when. Tyler James Kelly, 20, of Washington, N.C., was grabbed by four men who struck him several times on the head with a beer bottle until the bottle broke. Look, I know I’m always the guy saying that if you want to be an elite college football program, you need your share of felons and scumbags on the team, but I didn’t mean that you need one guy racking up tons of arrests all by himself, as Williams is doing. Heck, dude was charged in April for driving while impaired and underage drinking, so this is three in a six-month span. My man, allow your teammates to help you out. You get popped for underage drinking and let one of them get arrested for resisting arrest while another hits guys over the head with beer bottles at parties. It’s all about teamwork, because the way you’re going about it right now isn’t helping anyone, it’s hurting them……
- Tonight’s episode of Smallville featured the most scenes of Clark Kent acting like an a-hole that I can remember in the history of the show. With a mysterious killer wreaking havoc around Metropolis, CK was busy playing good Samaritan and helping those in need, whether they were the intended victim of a major crime or a small one. However, his good deeds also placed him at a major attack at the Ace of Clubs, where he found chaos, people injured, crushed, bleeding and unconscious. Under some of the rubble was Davis Bloom, a.k.a. Doomsday, the paramedic with whom Chloe has become close over the past few episodes. Amazingly, a bloodied Davis refused medical care and went back to the hospital, where he showered up and was stunned to find that he didn’t have a single scratch on him. Coupled with his recent rash of blackouts and the string of similar murders ravaging Metropolis, Davis worried that he might be the one behind the killings. He took his suspicions to Chloe, who refused to believe him and insisted that he couldn’t have done something this terrible. Clark wasn’t so trusting, confronting Davis later at the hospital and implying that because he had been the first paramedic on the scene at every one of the murders, maybe he was responsible. Davis shot back that Clark had also been spotted at every murder scene and had been there before anyone could have known about them. The two parted ways with tension in the air, but Clark wasn’t done throwing around accusations. He also went to Chloe’s revived Isis Foundation, where she had started support meetings for people with meteor powers. After one of the group’s members was among the murder victims and it happened the same night as one of their meetings, Clark stormed into the Isis office and demanded that Chloe give him the names of the people in her support group. She refused, but not before Clark got a look at the sign-in sheet from the last meeting and was able to speed-read through it. Chloe refused to provide an official list, vowing to protect the privacy of her group, but Clark had seen enough to pass names along to the Martian Manhunter, his other-worldly friend who lost his powers helping Clark stay alive earlier this season and is now working as Detective John Jones of the Metropolis Police Department. The detective visits the members of the Isis support group and questions them, leading them to accuse Chloe of selling them out to the cops. She then confronts Clark because he’s the one who is responsible, but he turns around and asks Chloe to use her supercomputer mind to read lab results he snagged from the hospital that Davis was looking at. The results show that Davis’ skin was under the fingernails of all of the murder victims, not a good sign. At that exact moment, Davis is out on patrol with Jimmy Olsen, who is hell bent on catching the mystery murderer. The two respond to an emergency call at a shady building in the ghettos of Metropolis and Davis heads inside, where he is attacked by a mysterious shadow creature. Jimmy calls for help on the ambulance’s radio, a call that brings Clark speeding to the scene. The Man of Steel fends off the creature from attacking Davis and choking him to death, but it then attacks Jimmy behind a dumpster. Clark thinks fast, uses his X-ray vision to see what’s going on and hurls a spare tire at the phantom, knocking it out and saving Jimmy. Clark goes to help Jimmy and finds the attacker as well, who turns out to be one of the members of Chloe’s group, just as Clark suspected. But life isn’t all bad for this bad guy, as when he is in police custody, one of Tess Mercer’s flunkies comes and offers him the chance to join the group of meteor-powered bad guys Mercer is assembling as the new CEO of LuthorCorp. It appears that the offer is accepted, adding another enemy to the anti-Justice League. As for the good guys, Clark and Chloe make amends, but Chloe and Davis have a problem when it becomes clear that he wants more from her than friendship. She wisely decides that the two of them need to not see much of each other for the time being, leaving Davis behind at the café where they met up. And that, amigos, is how things ended this week, so until next time….
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