Monks lighting themselves on fire, Brookport, Illinois' unique tradition and another A-Fraud mea culpa

- Why so sensitive, New York Yankees? Sure, Yuri Sucart is the sleazy, scumbag cousin who allegedly provided A-Fraud with performance-enhancing drugs obtained in the Dominican Republic and helped administer those drugs, but why should that cause you to drop a ban on Sucart preventing him from being around A-Fraud when he’s with the team? You act like your highest-paid star getting into a SUV driven by his drug supplier/cousin when the entire baseball world is watching him because of his recent revelation as a user of performance-enhancing drugs is a bad thing. Team Steinbrenner clearly feels very strong about this, as it took all of a day for them to get to A-Fraud and inform him that he needs to keep his cousin away from ballparks. The message was delivered on Thursday, although the team did not make an announcement. The message applied both to spring training and the regular season, but all Yankees general manager Brian Cashman would say was that the matter of Rodriguez being picked up from his spring training opener Wednesday by his cousin "has been handled." Of course, all of this will go away if A-Fraud posts another MVP-caliber season, but for now it’s just another headache from a guy who is causing no shortage of them. Very big of A-Fraud to admit to the Yankees that having the cousin meet him at the ballpark in Dunedin was a mistake, which he reportedly did. A-Fraud is getting very experienced at this apology thing, even if he’s insincere, disingenuous and dishonest while doing it. I anxiously await his next apology for a transgression TBD, maybe he’ll get the apology right one of these times………

- Traditions are nice. Some towns have parades, festivals and fairs that are annual rites of passage, whereas the town of Brookport, Ill. has a very different tradition to hang its hat on. For the sixth straight year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has declared that the Brookport levee is unacceptable and that this deficiency places the town and those who live there in jeopardy. To underscore just how dire this situation is, consider the comments of the town’s mayor, Ada Copley. "There's nothing that would be left if we have a major flood, nothing would be left here in Brookport,” Copley said. Now that is something for your town to be proud of, that it could be virtually wiped from the map by a big flood. Plus, you can boast that for six straight years, this problem has existed and you haven’t done a damn thing to address it. That, my friends, is consistency. That is an entire town and its government banding together and saying, “We could be destroyed by a flood unless we put time, money and effort into building up our levee, but doing nothing is easier, so screw it.” What unity, resolve and commitment to doing nothing that shows on that part of all citizens of Brookport! I don’t know why the Corps of Engineers even bothers inspecting the levee at this point; just slap an “unacceptable” stamp on that bad boy and keep moving. That levee has been around since 1940, and like many old things that have been around longer than the people tasked with caring for them, it has fallen into disrepair. You can try explaining the two main problems with the structural integrity of the levee - drainage pipes installed during construction rusting out and the numerous trees that have grown up along the levee banks over the years - but why bother? The city has had control over operation and maintenance of the levee in 1949, and clearly they’ve been tired of worrying about it for a while now. "Both of those issues must be corrected before the agency will be able to declare the levee's ability to hold back flood waters to an acceptable level," said Dan Franks with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District Office. Yeah, whatever you say, Danny boy. The city of Brookport ponying up the more than estimated $1 million needed to fix the problems with the drain pipes in the levee is just not going to happen. Don’t believe me? Just ask Mayor Copley, who sounds verrrrry concerned with the survival and safety of her town and its residents. “They're wanting us to put new pipes in which we don't have the money to do. And with a population of just over 1100 people we don't have the tax base to even consider selling bonds to cover the repair problems with our levee," said Copley. Right now, Mayor Copley’s plan basically sounds like it consists of getting down on her knees and praying that 1) either $1 million falls from the sky soon, or 2) a flood never, ever comes near her town again. Best of success with that plan, Ms. Mayor………

- Shed a tear for the many rich, arrogant, spoiled millionaires of the NBA during these tough economic times. Wipe your teams with the few $1 bills you have handy as you think of the fact that old, rich, (mostly) white dudes who live in mansions, own companies and have more $2,000 suits than you have pair of socks who will now need to take advantage of the NBA’s offer to loan up to $11.66 million to 15 teams that responded to a league survey gauging interest in the money, which will be loaned by JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Oh, and also factor into your grief the fact that these owners are paying players as much as $20 million a year to freaking play basketball, that’s why they’re struggling. Pardon me if I don’t feel bad for these owners, who dug their own graves with their golden shovel of greed. Had they possessed a modicum of self-control and testicular fortitude, they wouldn’t have forked over contracts spanning eight or nine years and guaranteeing nine figures to players who almost certainly wouldn’t live up to said contracts. But now that ship has sailed and the NBA had to wrangle a $175 million loan from two lenders to keep half of its teams financially solvent. If you’re like me, you probably never thought you’d hear the names of professional sports leagues lumped in with the struggling industries receiving a swift ass-kicking from the failing economy, but I guess I was wrong on that one. Many teams around pro sports are laying off staffs and cutting ticket prices in an attempt to lure in fans who just can’t swing the cash for ducats because they too are hit hard by the nation’s economic woes. But hey, at least the Association was smart and secured the loan at a fixed rate. In this case, the interest rate is 8.27 percent for the first $100 million; 7.45 percent for the remaining $75 million. There are no conditions for how teams can use the money, but does it even matter? Experts and observers in the basketball world worry that the league’s financial crisis is only starting and that possible cessation of operations for teams, relocations and other cost-cutting moves are on the way, not to mention an all-but-certain lockout by the owners when the current collective bargaining agreement with the players runs out in 2011. The NBA, where “We’re freaking broke and may need to take out a second mortgage on our multiple homes, yachts and businesses in order to continue operations for another year” happens……

- Setting yourself on fire certainly is one way to kick things up a notch when your group is looking to make its voice heard with a massive protest. Doing so tends to be painful and potentially deadly, but sometimes you simply have to throw caution to the wind, douse yourself in gasoline and light the match. So I salute the unidentified Tibetan monk who set himself ablaze, took up a Tibetan national flag and was heard shouting slogans in south-central China on Friday. In predictable overreactive fashion, police then shot the man three times and it wasn’t immediately known if he survived the attack. This whole mess began when around 1,000 monks trying to observe the Monlam Festival gathered at Kirti Monastery in Aba County about 40 minutes before the shooting. These monks, as so many bold monks before them in this very same area of the world have done, refused to allow The Man to hold them down. So they approached the gates of a prayer hall in defiance of an order by authorities that barred them from observing the Monlam Festival, which is part of the Tibetan new year. When the cops prevented the monks from entering the prayer hall and told them to go back to their rooms, the monks actually took the path of least resistance and did as they were told. However, a lone monk, going by the single name of Tabe, left the monastery a little later and walked the short distance into town, shouting slogans and holding a self-drawn Tibetan national flag above his head. Clearly Tabe wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and so he proudly flew that flag containing a picture of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. All of that was well and good and it’s not the first time any of us have seen that sort of activity. That all changed when my man Tabe arrived in town, doused himself with fuel and set himself on fire. That quickly drew the attention of armed police, who surrounded him but were not able to get near him because of the flames. What to do with a flaming monk who you have surrounded and who clearly isn’t attempting to harm anyone? Ooh, ooh, I know! I know! Shoot him three times, right? Because I think we all know that the quickest way to extinguish flames is shooting the object that is burning, right? Well done, Chinese police! Eventually, the cops were able to extinguish the flames and the monk was placed in a van and driven away to an undisclosed location, the witnesses said. How shooting my man Tabe was even an option, I don’t know. Kinda screams abuse of power and textbook example of unnecessary use of force, no? But don’t let this discourage you, Tibetan monks. Keep up your battle to force China to recognize Tibetan claims of independence and demands for greater autonomy and claims sovereignty over the area in which you live……..

- Boy, here’s when you know the economy is really bottoming out. Porn companies are offering brain-dead octuplet moms $1 million to act in adult films and dudes in Vassalboro, Maine are opening topless coffee shops to make ends meet. Donald Crabtree opened his new business venture, Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, on Monday. At the shop, waiters and waitresses serve their customers topless. Not exactly the type of business you’d expect to thrive in a small town setting, but the owner's brother, Paul Crabtree, describes business so far as "fantastic.” He adds that, "It's just been crowds mobbing in." I’ll hold off on calling this a rousing success, given the fact that this coffee shop is counting on a town with fewer than 4,500 residents to sustain it. Predictably, Donald Crabtree faced initial opposition to his plan, but he won the right to go ahead in a planning board hearing last week. While many locals were angry over the idea of combining coffee and nudity. Crabtree saw the chance to combine two passions in his life. "I know what people want," he said. "People like nudity, and coffee is profitable. Sure, I'd start a coffee shop, but I'd be out of work in a week." Here’s where the tough economy really factors in; the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop received more than 150 job applications. Of those 150, about 10 percent landed a gig - 10 women and five men. If you believe Crabtree, he actually had strict standards for who he hired and they weren’t what you’d expect at a nude coffee shop (if anyone has a freaking clue what to expect at a nude coffee shop). He judged the applicants on friendliness and also on their ability to "treat everyone equally." Furthermore, Crabtree claims he didn’t simply hire the best-looking applicants. “We didn't hire '10s,' " he said. "We hired everyone from skinny to big-boned women.” Wow, nice way of saying you hired some FAT chicks, bro. But I guess if you can help people who have been laid off from other jobs in the past few months by allowing them to serve coffee sans clothing on the upper half of their body, it’s something……maybe. Then again, maybe the economy’s not so bad in Maine, not if waitresses are making about $30 a table at the shop and one waitress received a $100 tip for a cup of coffee. I guess is true what they say, perverts make great tippers. So if you’re road tripping through Vassalboro, Maine (and God only knows why you would be) and have a hankering for a cup of probably mediocre coffee served by a topless server, now you know where to go………

A very cool teen beauty queen, the first of many Jimmy Fallon late-night train wrecks and the amazing, imploding Detroit Pistons

- Takin’ it to the streets, booyah! Riot Watch! is back, believe it. Journey with me to Islamabad, Pakistan, where supporters of Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif took to the streets Thursday, burning cars and damaging shops after the Supreme Court ruled that he and his brother cannot hold elected office. I’ll stop for a minute so both you and I can savor those beautiful words and the mental images they conjure up, burning cars and damaging shops…………………okay, enough savoring. Let’s get down to the details of the case, because the Supreme Court ruling wasn’t the only thing that precipitated these great riots. The demonstrations also resulted from President Asif Ali Zardari imposing governor's rule in the state of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous state. Because Punjab is the power center for Sharif's party, and his brother, Shahbaz, was chief minister there, you can see where the people might react angrily to Zaradri’s decision. Imposing executive rule there for two months, suspending the state's parliament and the Supreme Court ruling were enough to ignite this powder keg. Thankfully, the trio of inciting factors sparked thousands of people to take it to the streets in cities in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan. Thousands of people are getting their riot on, even as Zardari's spokesman tried to justify the need for executive rule because "an unprecedented and unique constitutional void had been created" when the court stripped Shahbaz Sharif of his post. Zadari and Sharif are bitter, bitter rivals and when the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif because of a criminal record that dates to the late 1990s, when he refused to allow an airliner carrying then-military chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf to land, the sh*t hit the fan. Sure, Sharif was ultimately convicted of hijacking and treason AND also was convicted of corruption that year. Rather than go to prison, he went into exile but returned to Pakistan to challenge Musharraf's rule. Honestly, who can’t get with a guy like that? Clearly he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, and I do mean whatever it takes. If your leader will hijack, commit treason and engage in rampant corruption, you know this guy will not take no for an answer and that’s the kind of man you want leading your country. So riot on, Sharif-heads (my name for his supporters, like the Cheese-heads are Green Bay Packers fans), riot on……..

- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, it really got out of hand. It jumped up a notch, didn’t it? I am, of course, referring to the sudden and amazing implosion of the Detroit Pistons, formerly one of the NBA’s best teams and now a shell of their former selves, rocking a 27-29 record and eight-game losing streak. For a team that has reached the Eastern Conference finals for seven straight seasons, this sort of collapse is totally bizarre. Sure, the Pistons were expected to take a slight step back this season with an aging roster of mostly past-their-prime stars, plus trading venerable point guard and team leader Chauncey Billups four games into the season in a salary cap-motivated move. In return, the Pistons received shoot-first, tough-as-nails guard Allen Iverson, a former league MVP who still has quite a bit left in the tank. Ultimately, the trade robbed Detroit of their leader, their floor general and apparently any chance of remaining a title contender. With Iverson, they are 23-29, with literally no hope of a division title and a tenuous grip on the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race. Of course, if they continue at the robust .227 winning percentage (5-17) they’ve been putting up the past 22 games, that grip will slip away. Perhaps no one player better illustrates the Pistons’ demise better than noted hothead Rasheed Wallace, who is once again leading the NBA in technical fouls. He’s led the league in T’s nearly every year of his career and in Wednesday night’s loss at New Orleans, Wallace received two more techs, one for arguing with the officials following a non-call on a Hornets’ offensive rebound and a second one (resulting in his ejection) for ripping a towel from a ball boy and knocking it into the crowd. After that temper tantrum, Wallace hurled a towel in the direction of Pistons coach Michael Curry, completing an infantile behavior trifecta that only he could pull off. It was believed that those two techs would result in a suspension for Wallace, as he had accrued the 16 T’s necessary for an automatic one-game suspension from the league. However, Wallace temporarily avoided that punishment because the league revealed that the technicals Wallace received Dec. 23 and Feb. 7 were rescinded. That leaves Wallace with 14 this season, so go ahead and figure he’ll pick up those final two needed for a one-game vacation within the next week or so. When he does, it’ll be just another black eye for the Pistons in a season that has become a total disaster and looks to be getting worse by the day…….

- Aspiring artists and attention-starved people of the world, your chance to shine is here. The famous "empty" fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square has been filled by a parade of artists chosen by the Mayor of London's Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group since 2005. Now, artist Antony Gormley has an idea for how the space can be filled for the next 100 days: by volunteers. For 100 consecutive days, 24 hours a day, Gormley plans to line up volunteers to be a part of his work "One & Other," will run from July 6 to October 14 and involve 2,400 people who will stand on the plinth for an hour each. While at their post, volunteers can do anything they like to entertain, be it tell jokes, sing, dance, tell a story or take a nap. Gormley is known for iconic works which include "The Angel of the North," but this will be an interesting piece of performance art quite unlike anything he’s done before. It should also spice up the atmosphere at Trafalqar Square, which is one of London's landmarks. Over the years, it’s become the place for Londoners to celebrate sporting victories, hold national occasions or stage demonstrations. The fourth plinth has gained notoriety because it’s the only one not to hold a statue. It was built in 1841 to hold a tribute to King William IV, but apparently old King Willie wasn’t very popular because the fundraising efforts for the project fell well short of the mark. The plinth remained unoccupied until 1999, when it was decided that a rotating series of artworks should occupy the space. Past pieces to have occupied the space in the past have included a life-size statue of Jesus, an inverted replica of the plinth and a colored glass hotel for the square's famed pigeons. Gormley’s idea is being hailed as “outstanding” and “a public demonstration of democracy in action. "Through putting a person onto the plinth, the body becomes a metaphor, a symbol. In the context of Trafalgar Square with its military, valedictory and male historical statues, this elevation of everyday life to the position formerly occupied by monumental art allows us to reflect on the diversity, vulnerability and particularity of the individual in contemporary society,” Gormley said. “It's about people coming together to do something extraordinary and unpredictable. It could be tragic but it could also be funny.” Should you want to take part, applications will be taken from April, with the winning volunteers randomly selected. Once this interesting exhibit ends, the next display will be artist Yinka Shonibare’s whose scale replica of Lord Horatio Nelson's ship, HMS Victor. Nelso was the hero of the famed 1805 British naval victory against the French for which the square is named. I look forward to seeing how this exhibit turns out…..

- Before I knew who Jimmy Fallon’s first guest would be as host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, I rightly figured that the show would be an absolute train wreck. Actually, I’m pretty sure the entire stint of Fallon hosting the show is going to totally blow, given the fact that he’s a) not funny and b) really, really annoying. Losing Jay Leno, replacing him with Conan O’Brien and replacing O’Brien with Fallon is a massive downgrade on all fronts, but now the we know the identity of Fallon’s first guest, things have gotten worse - much worse. Weasel-voiced, Michael Jackson rip-off, former man bander Justin Timberlake will be that inaugural guest for Fallon, reuniting the members of a truly forgettable Bee Gees-themed skit for Saturday Night Live. Should you be looking to avoid this debacle, either go to bed early Monday night or just turn to any channel but NBC. Actually, this should be your policy until you have official confirmation that someone funny is actually hoting Late Night, which isn’t going to happen as long as it’s Fallon’s show. Fallon is clearly aiming for the teenage girls demographic early on, as he’ll also have Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford as a first-week guest. Musically, he’s actually off to a good start with indie rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and somehow Fallon also managed to Jedi mind-trick Robert DeNiro into coming on as well. Should you care for an early look at how bad this whole train wreck is going to be, you can find a series of online-only clips, on NBC’s website, but I’d advise you not to inflict that sort of pain on yourself………

- Rachel Ramonas of Wolcott, Conn. is my kind of beauty queen. Not only does her last name sound a lot like one of the greatest punk bands in history, the Ramones, my girl Rachel is doing her part to keep the tradition of misbehaving beauty pageant contestants alive. She’s doing so by throwing bitchin’ drinking parties for herself and her underage friends, one of which resulted in 24 minors being charged with underage drinking. That’s the kind of act that’s going to show you deserve the title of Miss Connecticut's Outstanding Teen, Rach. The Miss America organization, of which the Miss Outstanding Teen pageant is part, has to be proud to have one of its winners having a cop-raided party while her parents were out of town. "It's just a judgment call, a poor judgment call," Ramonas' mother, Denise Ramonas said. "This is what happens." No, Mrs. Ramonas, it’s not poor judgment, what it is is awesome. You may think it’s out of character for your daughter, but I’m guessing you just don’t know her as well as you thought. You may think of her as the pretty, sophisticated girl who won a $2,000 scholarship when she won the Miss Outstanding Teen Connecticut title at a pageant last summer, but I’m guessing her friends know her a little differently. You don’t just throw a kegger for a couple dozen underage friends and have it be a one-time deal. What’s ironic is that after winning the pageant, Rachel Ramonas described the experience as “really indescribable,” adding, “I had so much fun that week, it was the best week of my life.” No, this current week has to be the best week of your life. This is the week where you should be saying, “I am so proud of myself,” because this week, you showed your true colors and carried on an ages-old tradition of beauty pageant contestants getting wild. Whether it’s drugs, underage drinking, making out with other girls at clubs or posting revealing pictures online, beauty pageants know how to get a little crazy. Heck, I’ll even give you a green light to continue promoting awareness of eating disorders during the week, but on the weekends you need to be trying to throw bigger and better parties. As far as I know, there were no brawls and no major property damage to the house from this party, so there’s room for improvement. You did well this time, especially the beer pong table the cops found, but one thing you do need to clear up is your parents’ ridiculous claims that you yourself didn’t consume any alcohol at the party. No one throws that kind of party and then just sits off to the side saying, “No, you all drink as much as you want, I need to take the high road here.” I’m just hoping that the Miss Connecticut Scholarship Corp. doesn’t overreact and do something stupid like try to strip Ramonas’ title, because it sounds like they might. "This is a very sad day for us today," said Gail McCool, spokeswoman for the Miss Connecticut Scholarship Program. Gail, either you’re misguided, you have a distorted perspective on this or you’re just not very cool, because let’s face it, all the cool people know that this is a great day and that Rachel Ramonas will forever be cemented as a legend among her friends…..

The Octo Mom with a porn offer, a recap of last night's Lost and a quandry for stoners

- Wow. What an awesome, amazing episode of Lost last night. “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” was a mind-blower, to be sure. It was all about how John Locke/Jeremy Bentham lived and died once he left the island in an attempt to find the Oceanic 6 and convince them to return to the island. First, Locke was standing on a beach on an island (The Island, as it turned out), surrounded by a bunch of strangers. Around him, two people from the group stood out. One, a woman named Ilana, went to find a man named Caesar, who was inside a nearby building, searching through a lab/office for something and perusing a binder with a Dharma Initiative logo on it. Ilana informed Caesar that a man had been found who wasn’t “on the plane.” It turned out that the wreckage of Ajira Airways flight 316 was the plane in question and Locke was the unknown man. As he sat on the beach, Locke was approached and questioned by Caesar, but wasn’t able to offer much information. The next morning, when Ilana brought Locke a mango for breakfast, she asked him who he was and how he came to be on the island - in a nice suit, no less. Locke replied cryptically that he was wearing the suit “they were going to bury me in.” After that, it was flashback time. Locke turned the mysterious wheel on the island, deep inside the cave where Christian Shephard was urging him on, and landed in the middle of the Tunisian desert, the same desert we once saw Ben Linus in, wearing a Dharma Initiative coat. As Locke lay there with the compound fracture in his lower leg pulsing with agonizing pain, he noticed a surveillance camera and hundreds of yards of electrical wiring leading from it. For the rest of the daylight hours, Locke lay on the ground in pain, pleading for someone to come and help him. It wasn’t until after dark that a truck full of men speaking Arabic came hurtling toward Locke, stopping a few feet from the spot where he lay, lifting him off the ground and dropping him into the bed of the truck. From there, it was off to some sort of basic, Spartan hospital where a doctor gave Locke some sort of sedative, put a bite bar in his mouth to keep him from biting through his lip from the pain and then reset the bone in his leg. Weirdly enough, Locke also saw Matthew Abbadon across the room, the same man who was an orderly in the hospital back in L.A. when Locke was hospitalized after his dear old dad threw him out of a window and left him crippled and wheelchair-bound. Abbadon also told Locke he should go on the Australian walkabout that led to him ending up on Oceanic 815 to begin with. With the bone reset and the sedative kicking in, Locke goes out like a light and wakes up to find none other than Charles Widmore bedside. Widmore explains to Locke that he remembers meeting Locke on the island when he was 17, but to Locke all the years in between have been only four days because of the time travel factor now in play on the island. Widmore also explains that he was once the leader of the Others before Ben Linus booted him from the island and that he wants to help Locke gather the Oceanic 6 so Locke can return and take his rightful position as the Others’ new leader. Widmore also reveals that he’s been watching the Oceanic 6 and provides Locke with a passport as Jeremy Bentham (named after a British philosopher), plus all of the money and supplies he’ll need to track down his friends. Abbadon is to go with Locke to protect and assist him and although his broken leg means a temporary return to a wheelchair for Locke - a jarring moment to be sure - Locke and Abbadon set off, first for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. There, Locke finds Sayid, working on a volunteer building project with a group called Build A World. Locke tries to talk Sayid into returning to the island, an attempt that fails. Sayid says leaving the island allowed him to spend nine months with the woman he loved, Nadia, before she was killed (which we saw happen last season. Locke leaves, but not before telling Sayid that if he changes his mind, he can find Locke at a hotel in L.A. From Santo Domingo, it’s off to New York, where Locke visits Walt, son of Michael Dawson who escaped the island at the end of Season 2 with his dad and never returned. We saw Walt last season, visitng Hurley at the mental hospital. Walt now attends a private school in Manhattan, but Locke doesn’t try to recuit him back to the island because “he’s been through enough.” Locke only checks to make sure Walt is okay, telling the boy that the last he knew of his father was on the freighter near the island. After visiting Walt, who told Locke he’d been having dreams about him back on the island, it was off to Santa Rosa, where Locke also visited Hurley at the mental hospital and after convincing Hurley that he was real, was trying to talk the big guy into returning to the island when the sight of Abbadon nearby sent Hurley into a panic. Hurley recognizes Abbadon as the man who came to visit him posing as an Oceanic rep and trying to find out information about the island. With Hurley down firmly in the “no” column, Locke goes to L.A. to visit Kate, who also turns him down and says Locke fought to remain on the island because he didn’t have anyone he loved to come back to. That comment causes Locke to reflect on his former lady friend Helen and to direct Abbadon, his driver/confidant to take him to Helen. However, the proves to be a disappointment when Abbadon takes him to a grave in Santa Monica where Helen was buried after dying of a brain aneurysm. That leads to a discussion of fate, with Abbadon saying Helen’s path led her to that grave, while no matter what Locke does, his path leads back to the island. As the pair gets into the car to leave, Abbadon is shot and killed, leaving Locke, broken leg and all, to drive away in a panic. A couple of blocks later, he’s in a massive car accident and ends up at the hospital where Jack Shephard works. Jack recognizes Locke and confronts him about what he’s doing in L.A., leading to another of their patented debates about science vs. faith. The only way Locke can get through to Jack is relaying the message that Jack’s dad Christian gave Locke in the cave right before he left the island: “Say hello to my son.” A message from his deceased dad jars Jack, but he still says no to retuning to the island. Feeling he’s a failure, Locke returns to his hotel room and tries to hang himself after penning the suicide note to Jack we saw in last week’s episode. Before Locke can off himself, Ben bursts into the room and stops him, telling Locke he’s willing to help him get back to the island and that Charles Widmore is just using him. After talking Locke literally out of his own noose, Ben coaxes him into a wheelchair so ostensibly they can go talk to the Oceanic 6 again and try one more time to win them over. But the instant Locke gives Ben the name of Eloise Hawking, the woman who we now know has the scoop on getting back to the island, as the person he must go see for help, Ben turns on Locke and kills him. Ben chokes him out using the same extension cord Locke was about to hang himself with, then wipes the room down and stages it to look like Locke did actually hang himself. That ends the flashback portion of the show, and back in the present Locke tracks down Caesar in the same lab/office where the episode began. Caesar asks Locke to explain how he came to be on the island, detailing the flash of light that hit the plane and how some of the passengers - including Hurley and the other members of the Oceanic 6 - were eerily calm during the duress. Because Locke was dead at the time, he isn’t sure how to explain things. He says he must find his friends to know for sure what happened, but when Caesar tells him about those who were injured in the crash and takes Locke to see them, a surprise awaits. It’s Ben, in bad shape on a cot in the makeshift infirmary, not conscious. Locke recognizes him and that’s where it ends, setting up some drama for next week….I hope. The show has shown an irritating tendency to set up great drama one week and then have an episode that has nothing to do with that drama the next week. So tune in next Wednesday to see how this plays out……

- Here’s a good rule for life: if you’re not strong or tough enough to steal a laptop and printer from a 75-year-old man, you deserve whatever punishment and humiliation you can get, doubled. Samuel Dallas Jarvis OF Stuart, Fla., I’m looking right at you. You may stand 6’1 and weigh 230 pounds, but you proved no match for an elderly man nearly five decades older than you and for that reason, you should be ashamed. See, Jarvis was lurking outside of the Best Buy at 2555 N. Federal Highway in Stuart when Joseph Kohl, 75, was coming out of the store with his new laptop and printer, waiting for his wife to pick him up at the curb. He was standing at those big concrete pillars in front of every Best Buy to keep people from driving through the door opening for any reason and set his new lapper and printer down on the ground beside him. That’s when Jarvis seized the chance to run in and snatch the items, but the old man had a little something for the would-be thief. He ran about 8 feet, grabbed the thief and tried to get back his items. “I have no idea what computers are about, but I didn’t want him taking my first one,” he said. Great, so you’ve got some technologically clueless senior citizen who finally makes the plunge, overcomes their irrational fear of all things computer and ponies up for his very first laptop. They want to email their grandkids, get all those lame pictures of the kids playing in the backyard on the swing set and what not, so they buy their computer, come out of the store and some idiot tries to rip it from them before they even get in the car. Unfortunately for Jarvis, off-duty Martin County Sheriff’s Office deputy Don Kelly was coming out of the store and jumped in to assist Kohl. “It was over in a minute,” said Kohl. “Having the off-duty cop there ended the situation right there. He showed his badge and the kid gave up.” Still, Jarvis didn’t give up easily and was still scrapping with both Kelly and Kohl when Stuart Police arrived. Jarvis was arrested and charged him with robbery and battery on a person over age 65. Kohl plans to enroll in computer classes and learn how to use his new computer, which is probably a good idea because clearly he doesn’t need to waste time or money on self-defense classes…….

- Here’s another issue where I’m just torn. I love stoners - some of my favorite people in the world - and the idea of placing an added financial burden on these good citizens is troublesome. At the same time, the concept of legalizing marijuana in the state of California beyond medicinal use is also appealing. So where to come down on the idea of taxing weed in order to provide a much-needed financial boost for the state’s flagging economy? Assemblyman Tom Ammiano from San Francisco, a member of California's state assembly, is the man introducing legislation to make California the first state to tax and regulate recreational marijuana. Ammiano says the measure would boost state revenues while putting a damper on drug use by teens, cutting police costs and even helping the environment. “I know the jokes are going to be coming, but this is not a frivolous issue,” said Ammiano, a Democrat elected to the assembly in November. “California always takes the lead.” Unfortunately, the squares who are a part of various anti-drug groups in California and nationwide are doing their best to ruin a possible landmark day for potheads. “Legalizing drugs like this would create a whole new set of costs for society,” whined Calvina Fay, executive director of Save Our Society From Drugs. First off, C., how narcissistic and self-absorbed was your old man, so set on naming you after himself even though you were a girl that he just slammed an “a” on the end of your name and gave you a horrible moniker like Calvina? But I digress….if implemented, Ammiano's measure essentially would apply the same the regulatory structure used for alcohol to pot, i.e. stoners under the age of 21 would still have to get baked illegally. Ammiano’s point, one I agree with, is that this new measure would allow police to focus on more serious crimes. Also, he feels that legalizing the hippie lettuce would eliminate the many destructive pot plantations that negatively impact fragile ecosystems, thus helping the environment. Of course, the one figure that politicians have to like regarding this proposal is the $1 billion (yes, with a “b”) that such a tax could bring in based on an estimated $14 billion pot industry in the state. All politicians like the idea of more money for them to waste, right? With their state posting a $42 billion budget deficit last year, the state’s legislators need to be actively seeking out new sources of income and a tax on the chronic just might be part of the answer. “Generating new revenue is crucial to the state's long-term fiscal health", said Betty Yee, California's Board of Equalization chairwoman. She and her board support Ammiano's proposal. That being said, I do feel bad for all my stoner buddies, because while not being thrown in jail for sparking up would be nice, the added price of pot with a tax on the product might be too much for the lowly stoner to afford. So I’m not sure where to come out on this, but I think for right now I’m going to advocate keeping pot illegal so potheads can maintain their outcast, renegade image……..

- Here it is, finally a job offer worth of Nadya Suleman, a.k.a. the Octuplet Mom. What’s a fitting gig for a moron who deliberately got pregnant despite already having six kids she couldn’t support and ended up bringing eight more into this world, kids taxpayers will end up supporting via welfare? How’s about $1 million from some sleazeball porn producer to appear in an XXX-rated film? Sounds like a perfect match for me, since both are the dregs of society. On the one hand, you have a selfish, stupid, small-brained fool like Suleman, who clearly cares for no one but herself and about nothing but her selfish desire to accumulate more kids like most of us collect t-shirts, baseball cards, etc., and on the other hand you have a despicable, filthy scumbag like Vivid Video cochairman Steven Hirsch. Hirsch is offering Suleman "up to $1 million to act in one movie." This may surprise you, but I think Suleman should jump on this offer. Clearly with her uber-limited IQ, she’s not qualified to do much of anything else. Anyone with an IQ above 15 would look at the six kids they already have trouble supporting and think, “Whatever I do, I can’t have any more.” Not Suleman, and for that reason I think she deserves the humiliation of lying on her back and taking some on film with a total stranger so thousands of degenerate freaks can watch it over and over. Hirsch had made a public offer and Suleman needs to accept. As Hirsch accurately put it, she “obviously needs income to assure that her children are secure.” As sad as it sounds, I’d rather see this pathetic wench accept this offer than see her set up a website for contributions and bilk sympathetic people out of their money. Oh, and Vivid's deal would also furnish Suleman with a year of health insurance for her family. “There is a tremendous amount of interest in Nadya,” adds Hirsch. "We can help her capitalize on that interest and put some real cash in her bank account.” Sign the contract, Nadya, and follow in the dirty, slutty footsteps of Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian and former soap star/Miss USA Kelli McCarty, all of whom have appeared in Vivid productions. It’s not like there’s any way you can actually lower people’s perceptions of you at this point…….

- Spring training has barely begun, but already it hasn’t been kind to Major League Baseball’s most perpetually inept franchise, the Washington Nationals. The Nats already had a nasty split with pitcher Odalis Perez, who signed a minor league contract for $850,000 and a shot to make the big league roster, then refused to show up for camp because he wanted a better deal. Now the franchise is reeling from an age-changing scandal regarding one of its top prospects that has forced the Nats to restructure their operations in all of Latin America. Less than a week ago, it was discovered that prized prospect Esmailyn Gonzalez, who received a $1.4 million signing bonus in 2006, was actually Carlos Daniel Alvarez Lugo and was four years older than originally thought. The situation became more complicated because prior to signing with the Nationals, Gonzalez/Lugo had trained at the baseball academy of Nationals special assistant Jose Rijo and was represented by trainer Basilio Vizcaino, a childhood friend of Rijo's. Inking a prospect to a fat contract, handing him a signing bonus and then learning that he lied about his age and who he was to get that deal tends to piss teams off. Having one of their own employees involved in said scam would seem to compound that anger, and so it is with the Nats. They have decided to fire Rijo and will shut down the team's academy in the Dominican Republic, which operates out of a complex owned by Rijo in San Cristobal. Also, the Nationals are restructuring their entire Latin American operation, with assistant general manager and vice president Mike Rizzo arriving in Santo Domingo on Tuesday to look for alternative sites for the team's Dominican academy. For the time being, the Nats will use a facility in San Pedro owned by former major league pitcher Balvino Galvez while they look for a long-term solution. Rizzo has also wasted no time in replacing Rijo, barely waiting before he landed on the pavement outside the Nats’ front door before interviewing Fernando Ravelo, general manager for the Dominican Winter League Tigres de Licey, about replacing Rijo as the team's director of Dominican operations. To be fair to alleged cheaters and liars Vizcaino and Rijo, both have both denied any wrongdoing or any knowledge of the Gonzalez/Lugo's actions in regards to the altering of his age. Rijo’s claims might be slightly more believable if the Nationals had not previously acknowledged that general manager Jim Bowden and Rijo are both the subject of a baseball investigation in the Dominican Republic concerning the skimming of bonus money from amateur signees. So Rijo is first suspected of skimming cash from the signing bonuses of young players he’s supposed to be helping and now one of the guys in his academy shaves four years off of his age to bank a fat deal with the team Rijo works for? Sounds pretty suspicious to me, no doubt. Whatever other revisions the Nationals make to their Latin American operations, I’m thinking better background checks before signing prospects would be a good change to make…….

Yet another teacher-student affair, monks looking to rebuild an 800-year-old building in Cali and a liar on "Survivor" - shocking

- What a great plan "Survivor" contestant and former Southwest Baptist University women’s soccer coach Ben Wade has for his life. He had a pretty good gig as soccer coach at SBU, where he had posted a 32-27-15 record in four seasons before deciding that his best career move was applying for CBS’ most popular reality show, landing a spot on the cast and lying to the school about why he needed time off. When Wade left SBU, he did so mid-season and told his players he had health problems. Rather than tell the truth, which would have almost certainly gotten him fired on the spot, he left the team mid-season with a phony excuse according to SBU freshman Rhiane Mitchell. "He said he was going for tests," Mitchell said. "We took it the wrong way. It turned out not to be.” The explanation seemed plausible because previously, Wade was told by doctors that he may have a brain tumor. He tried to explain his side of the story to the SBU campus paper, saying of his team, “I told them 'I've got to leave; you know I would not leave if it weren't an emergency. Then, they jumped to conclusions that it was tied into what I went through with my brain tumor.” He said in another interview that he knew his players thought he was sick, but CBS prohibited him from saying he was on the show. “I haven't let the cat out of the bag," Wade said. "And I could and maybe should with my girls who think that I'm in a hospital somewhere dying, essentially.” Oddly enough, the administration at SBU wasn’t thrilled with what Wade had pulled and released a statement saying its board of regents was beginning the search for a new women’s soccer coach. Although unable to specifically comment on Wade’s case entirely, athletic director Brent Good did say that Wade lied to him about his leave of absence. “He didn't come to me and say, 'I need to leave because I'm going on 'Survivor,'” Good said. “He wasn't truthful to me as the director of athletics on why he needed to leave.” Can you blame him, though? After all, Wade has big plans. He intends to use “Survivor” as a springboard to an acting career, of course. “I’m going to be the next big thing on the big screen,” he arrogantly declared. Either that or you’re going to throw away a good job to be a reality TV loser, get in line with all of the other failed actors and look like a lying, deceiving ass in the process. After all, you did tell your athletic director that you would be gone a week but then didn't return for two months. Nothing like bailing on your team with six games remaining in the season when they’re third in the conference and ninth in the region at the time, eh coach? What’s incredibly ironic and funny is that I caught a few minutes of a recent “Survivor” episode and I specifically remember Wade on camera declaring, “I make a living by getting people to trust me.” Yes, and then you take that living and turn a blowtorch on it by abusing that trust, lying to them and bailing on those who depended on you. But at least players like Rhiane Mitchell aren’t too broken up over the loss of Wade. “I'm still a bit disappointed, but I'll get over it," Mitchell said. I have a feeling you won't be the only one, R…………

- Look at you, angry Mexican truckers and transport drivers! While your efforts might not technically qualify you for my Riot Watch!, it was still impressive to see hundreds of you converge on your nation’s capital yesterday to hold slow-speed caravans in protest of high diesel prices and other concerns. It’s the second transporters' protest in Mexico in little more than a week, so clearly these guys (and gals) are pissed off and I like it. They’ve already staged one heck of a protest, on February 16, when 500,000 commercial and public vehicle drivers took part in a one-day strike that affected 16 of Mexico's 31 states and the federal district. I realize that when those drivers parked their vehicles on highways, choking off the flow of traffic and infuriating motorists, it was a huge headache. Unfortunately, there sometimes must be headaches and inconveniences in order to get The Man to listen. As for this most recent act of protest, it showcased drivers making their way around some of Mexico City's major highways at a blazing 9 mph before gathering in front of the national Capitol in the city's central district. For you whiny, inconvenienced motorists out there, you did have some warning of what was about to take place. Authorities did state which roads and streets would be affected and urged motorists to find other routes until at least mid-afternoon, so if you were paying attention, you had time to adjust. All told, some 300 trucks participated in the display, all of them looking to reinforce demands to drop the price of diesel 7.63 pesos (about 52 U.S. cents) per liter to 5.96 pesos (about 40 cents). But that’s not all these truckers are fighting for, no sir. They are also taking a stand against toll fees and a special tax, plus want the government to do a better job of fighting vehicle theft and to stop allowing junk cars from the United States into Mexico. Just a word of advice for these protestors, since I am somewhat of an expert in this field. You all are off to a nice start, as your strike last week affected about 50 million Mexicans and this most recent act of dissidence impacted many more. But do not rest on your laurels, because the work of a true social dissident is never done. There is always something more to strike back at The Man for, so keep it going………

- Nothing like a new construction project resulting in what will become your state’s oldest standing structure. Where else would this happen but California, where monks in the town of Vina are beginning to piece together stones from an 800-year-old building that will eventually become California's standing building of any kind. Monks from the Abbey of New Clairvaux (in Tehama County) have been slowly putting together stones from a pre-Gothic meeting house built in Spain during the Middle Ages. The stones for the building actually came to California in 1931, when millionaire newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst bought the original building, had it dismantled and shipped to California. It was to be part of Wyntoon, his estate near the McCloud River. Nothing like rich people buying up entire buildings from foreign countries, having them shipped to where they live and re-erecting the building, that’s not wasteful or ugly American-like at all. Thankfully, the Great Depression delivered a nice dose of karma to Hearst and for decades, the stones sat moldering in Golden Gate Park. In a solid gesture in the 1990s, San Francisco gave the stones to the monks. In turn, the monks began trimming the stones, fixing broken pieces and reinforcing the building with concrete and steel to meet modern earthquake codes. Over the past five years, the monks have began putting many of the stones together and now they stand behind the walls of the Abbey of New Clairvaux. The vaulted ceilings for the building currently sit on wooden supports in a nearby warehouse, but soon they too could be put in place. "There is a spiritual experience seeing it the way it is now," brother John Cullen said. One factor slowing the project is that it’s being funded entirely through private donations. Because of the ongoing recession, the monks aren’t sure when they will be able to complete construction. Sadly, about a quarter of the monks are more than 80 years old, so odds are that not all of them will see the project to the end. "As long as it's finished and we had a start in getting it begun ... that's enough for us I think," Cullen said. Even in its unfinished state, the building is already open for guided tours on Saturdays. Hopefully those visits will spur people to give toward the project, which has raised $5.5 million so far and needs another $1.5 million to finish the building this year. Support the project if you can and help out these monks, everyone, especially Californians. Put off that extra Botox injection or liposuction surgery and chip off a few dollars for something worthwhile……

- Hulu.com billed itself as the place for no-life-having losers to watch Super Bowl commercials after the big game (as if anyone watching those $3 million wastes of time and money needed to see them again), and for a year the site has been working to become the go-to destination for television-watching on the Web. But with ever-increasing numbers of viewers tuning into the Web for their favorite shows, the competition is becoming fiercer and more combative. Hulu is apparently developing a bit of a ‘tude after its run of success, yanking all of its content from CBS's revamped video site TV.com on Feb. 17 removing programming from Boxee, an open source social media player that lets users watch Internet video on their television sets, several days later. With the backing of News Corp. (NWS, Fortune 500) and NBC Universal, the so-called "YouTube killer" launched a year ago with ten advertisers and a whole lot of doubt from outsiders. In spite of that, the site had strong early growth. Viewers watched Hulu clips 232 million times in January, a 63 percent jump from September. The site's CEO, former Amazon executive Jason Kilar, attempted to create the Internet’s best media player and cram his site with more content than anyone else. He added Fox, NBC and hundreds of other shows and movies. The flow of shows wasn’t just unidirectional, either; Kilar reached distribution deals that allowed Hulu videos to play on other sites. Of course, all of that wasn’t enough to push Hulu any higher than fourth in the web video distributor race, behind YouTube, Yahoo and MySpace (of course, MySpace is still the runaway winner in pervert quotient among its users, not even close). Hulu made its money by pimping out space in the videos on its site to advertisers, who pay top dollar to have their ads embedded in 15 and 30-second clips incorporated into the programming. The estimate for its 2008 profits is $12 million in 2008 profits, but now traditional media content and distribution companies are fighting back against Hulu. Studios and networks are venturing into the online video arena themselves and thus not so eager to partner up with sites like Hulu. CBS is trying to get TV.com to compete as a major video site that would draw the same advertisers who have paid to put their ads on Hulu.com. While TV.com is still far behind Hulu, it did see a 263 percent increase in viewers last month. Personally I just watch videos of my favorite shows on the sites of the networks on which they air, so I have no use for Hulu, but clearly for the networks, their use for it is now as a target……..

- It happens over and over and over, but every freaking time it amazes me. Of course, I’m talking about the phenomenon of teachers (usually female) absconding with underage male students/lovers. In and of itself, it’s odd because for a long time, the image of the lecherous teacher has always been a male educator jonesing for a hot high school girl, but recent examples have shown women are just as capable, if not more so, than their male counterparts. Witness the case of Lisa Lavoie a teacher from Holyoke, Massachusetts, who is in custody after allegedly leaving town with a 15-year-old student. Lavoie and the male student were found in Morgantown, West Virginia, Monday night after apparently being together for a week. Investigators have charged Lavoie with enticement of a child, which just doesn’t seem like enough for anyone who is enough of a creep to get with a 15-year-old student. Ironically, the relationship between Lavoie and her young lover was exposed on February 13, one day before Valentine’ Day, when the student's parents informed school officials of a possible relationship between the teacher and their son. That meeting occurred late on a Friday afternoon, and when officials went to the school to question Lavoie, she was gone for the day. Because the next week was a vacation week for the school, there was a nice opening for Lavoie and the boy to disappear and that’s just what they did. The boy was reported missing on February 16, at the start of the vacation week. It took a little longer for Lavoie to be reported missing, as she is obviously not a minor. She wasn’t officially missing until she didn't show up for school Monday. During the past week, officials believe that the pair were before showing up in West Virginia on Monday. No details were offered as to how their movements were traced, but knowing stupid criminals the way I do, I’m guessing it was because Lavoie and/or the boy were dumb enough to use credit, debit or ATM cards when they needed cash. Investigators still had to wait to take Lavoie and her teen lover into custody until after gathering enough evidence to obtain a warrant from the district attorney's office. They got their warrant Monday and asked police in Morgantown to arrest Lavoie. Weirdly enough, the school has placed Lavoie on administrative leave pending conclusion of the investigation. May I ask why? Just because she was getting after it with a student, she can’t teach other kids? Sure, she could lose her teaching license in Massachusetts if convicted, but that’s waaaaay down the road. Of course, Lavoie could have really helped herself by (well, aside from not having an affair with a student in the first place) waiting to pull this sort of crap until she had been with the school a little longer five months and until her job was protected under contract. Now, she’s just another creepy, pervy teacher who sexed it up with a student and ruined her life. Get in line, L………..

Looking at last night's 24, guns in neutral Switzerland and fish pedicures are out in Florida

- Great episode of 24 for Jack Bauer and friends, solving the mysterious conspiracy plaguing all branches of the American government and saving the day…..but you knew it was too good to be true. I’m not sure if the show’s producers expect us to really buy into the good times when we’re in the tenth episode of a 24-episode season and plenty more twists are surely ahead, but let’s go ahead and rehash the good news anyhow. The hour kicked off with Jack and FBI Agent Renee Wheeler released from police custody to continue their pursuit of Sangalan terrorist Col. Ike Dubaku. Dubaku was supposedly planning to kill his girlfriend Marika because she had turned on him and was working with the FBI now, but he elected to keep her alive once she agreed to still come with him to Belize. They set out on the road with Jack and Agent Walker in pursuit and the chase turned high speed when Dubaku’s driver realized they were being followed. A traffic accident in front of them kept Jack and Renee from continuing their pursuit, but Marika took matters into her own hands by assaulting Dubaku’s driver, causing a horrific crash that killed her and left Dubaku badly injured. Before Dubaku could leave in the ambulance, the EMTs picked up a weird electromagnetic force from his body preventing their defibrillator from working properly. That came after Jack forced them to revive Dubaku so Jack could question him. Thinking over Dubaku’s words about the list he had of names of people involved in the conspiracy, Jack had the paramedics pinpoint the source of the electromagnetic energy and slice open a spot on Dubaku’s right side, near the middle of his ribcage. There, Jack found some type of flash memory device containing the list. He sent it to Larry Moss and Chloe O’Brien at the FBI field office via helicopter, with Chloe copying the data once it arrived. The caveat was that the memory device had a self-erase function that meant its contents could only be downloaded once, then they were wiped out. That doesn’t appear to be a problem until Dubaku mole and all-around douche bag/FBI analyst Sean Hillinger hears about the files through the bugs he’s set up around the office and meets in the women’s restroom (good comedy) with Erin, the woman with whom he both having an affair and taking part in an international espionage scheme. He explains his plan to cover their asses (their names are in Dubaku’s file) by initiating a total reformat of the entire server and data base in the office, which would erase all of the files Chloe downloaded from the chip. The plan works, with Sean and Erin working their magic in the server room and starting the reformat. However, once the program is up and running, Sean shows his true weasel-ly colors by shooting and killing Erin, then shooting himself in the arm and putting the gun by her body to make it appear that she was the one who was involved in the wrongdoing and he was the one who tried to stop her. Larry Moss is first on the scene and believes Sean’s story….until Chloe is able to recover the lost files from some sort of system mirroring program she had used many times to safeguard data when working on projects for other agencies or organizations. Once she recovers the file, fingering those involved in the conspiracy takes no time at all. Sean knows this and tries to flee, only to by caught by security and slammed up against a wall by Moss. He refuses to talk and demands his lawyer, a weasel to the bitter end. President Allison Taylor is dealing with drama of her own, waiting for her husband Henry to get out of surgery for the gunshot wound he sustained during his rescue by Jack last week. With surgery slated to go on several more hours, Bill Buchanan convinces her to return to the White House to keep working while she waits. There, she meets her daughter Olivia, who we met last week and who is estranged from her family. Olivia is eager ot hear details of who shot her dad, but because of national security concerns, the president can’t tell herr much and actually bans her from going to the hospital, confining her to the White House for her own safety. President Taylor then is briefed again by Bill, who tells her about the discovery of the list and the arrests already being made. He also urges her to speak to Sen. Blaine Meyer on Jack’s behalf, as Jack is to resume testimony before Meyer’s Senate committee the next day and likely be prosecuted as the scapegoat for the misdeeds of CTU in his prior life and time there. President Taylor agrees to consider the request, but Jack has much more on his plate than a Senate hearing. As he sits on the steps of a plaza near the hospital where Dubaku was taken and is in critical condition, Tony Almeida approaches and informs Jack that even with Dubaku out of the picture, Gen. Benjamin Juma’s crusade against the U.S. continues. With American forces now in Sangala and quickly taking control of the country, Juma has plans to set off a bomb somewhere in D.C. His point man for the attack appears to by Ryan Burnett, Sen. Meyer’s chief of staff and the man we saw last week making arrangements for Dubaku to exit the country. The senator has no idea what Burnett is up to, but as Meyer prepares to leave his office for meeting with the president at the White House, he orders Burnett to join him. As they leave, Burnett receives a text message telling him that everything is in place and the mission is a go. The last bit of information from this show is Agent Walker’s trouble in coping with Marika’s death after promising to keep her safe while she helped lead the FBI to Dubaku. The devastated reaction of Marika’s sister Rosa, which included angrily blaming Renee for Marika’s death, hit Agent Walker hard. She in turn berates Jack for being able to easily shrug off the loss of life as being part of the job. Jack suggests she either learn how to do the same or quit. Walker is becoming annoying very quickly, but sadly I think she’s going to make it through the season alive. Tune back in next week and we’ll learn a little more on that matter and everything else…….

- I don’t care if the Denver police department has reviewed the alleged street fighting incident involving Tennessee Titans running back LenDale White and decided that the case "is closed." Nor do I give a crap that Denver police lieutenant Matt Murray said of White, "He has not been charged and will not be charged." Why don’t I care? Because the details of the alleged assault are just too good to let go of. According to a police report, White and another man were involved in a minor traffic accident and when they got out of hteir respective vehicles, a verbal altercation occurred. White then allegedly turned things physical and according to the report, White, listed as an unknown suspect, "began striking the victim with a belt and belt buckle" before the parties got in their vehicle and fled. Yes, dude went all drunk, abusive stepfather and broke out his belt on the other guy (allegedly). I don’t care if it’s true or not, the thought of 275-pound LenDale White jumping out of his whip and beating some random dude with a belt is awesome. What I really want to know is whether White was yelling, “Boy, I’m gonna give you a whipping! Don’t make me take my belt off!” before breaking it out. According to the report, the man White (allegedly) beat required hospitalization for lacerations. However, evidence found at the scene seemed to contradict some of the statements made by the involved parties, so the case is sadly over. Good thing for White, I suppose, as he is currently on probation after pleading guilty to disturbing the peace during an incident in Denver last March. As part of his probation he was required to attend an anger management class and stay out of trouble for 12 months to be dismissed as part of a deferred judgment, which any sort of charges in this case would have violated. The March incident originally led to charges of municipal code violations of interference, resistance, refusal of an officer and destruction of property. LenDale, I don’t know what your connection is to Denver, but bro, you may want to find somewhere else to spend your offseason, some place like the gym, a fat camp, that sort of place……….

- The United States isn’t the only country where gun control is a major issue. No, our gun whackos might be the most vocal and crazy, but the debate over the right to have a gun is also raging on in Switzerland, where the country’s part-time soldiers could lose their famous right to store their weapons at home. A petition drive spearheaded by a coalition of by the country's Social Democrat party, the Greens and 72 other groups has collected nearly 120,000 signatures to force a national referendum on whether the weapons should be stored at military bases. The coalition claims that the weapons are involved in too many suicides and murders in the country and tighter controls are needed. Agreed and agreed. You gun rights whackos can argue all you want about self-defense, your rights to strap and what you do with your guns, but the fact is that the world would be better off with much stricter controls on who can have guns, when and where. Besides, the Swiss are a neutral people, so why do so many of them need to pack heat? Their armed forces consist of just a few thousand permanent full-time for men aged between 19 and 31. In between call-ups, these men store their weapons at home. Right now, there are around 220,000 conscripts, which means about 220,000 weapons in home from these men alone. Already, the anti-gun coalition has been able to affect significant change in regards for firearms in the country, driving a 2007 law change that banned the storage of ammunition in homes. With their latest effort, the coalition is looking to extend the law to control the purchase of military weapons and set up a national gun register. Here’s hoping this new law is put in place and Switzerland becomes a safer place for all its citizens……

- Jeez, seems that the Turks are awfully sensitive about what language people speak in when addressing their parliament. At a parliament session in Istanbul, the head of a Kurdish nationalist party in Turkey addressed parliament Tuesday in the Kurdish language -- which is illegal -- which led the national broadcaster to pull the plug on the live broadcast. Democratic Society Party leader Ahmet Turk kicked off his speech in Turkish, addressing the value of a "multilingual culture" and also lamenting the fact that the Kurdish language is not protected under Turkey's constitution. "We have no objection to Turkish being the official language, yet we want our demands for the lifting of the ban on Kurdish language to be understood as a humanitarian demand," he said. In that spirit, Turk then announced he would deliver the rest of his speech in Kurdish. Rather than allow such a “rebellious” act to go on, state broadcaster TRT cut the broadcast. “Since no language other than Turkish can be used in the parliament meetings according to the constitution of the Turkish Republic and the Political Parties Law, we had to stop our broadcast,” the TRT announcer stated. "We apologize to our viewers for this and continue our broadcast with the next news item scheduled.” This issue has been at the forefront of the national consciousness in recent months, as Turkey began a new Kurdish language state television channel, TRT6, on January 1. Turk pointed out a double standard in the law, nothing that “(Politicians) get punished for speaking Kurdish while Prime Minister (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan speaks Kurdish during rallies. Therefore, Kurdish is forbidden to Kurds yet free for (the ruling party) and the state.” Oh, and if you think this issue isn’t going to be a big one heading into the intense, hotly contested elections scheduled to be held on March 29, you’re kidding yourself. Yanking this speech from the air isn’t going to help Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish acronym AKP, in its quest to gain votes in the Kurdish southeast, the strongest base for the Democratic Society Party, or DTP. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, but any time someone’s right to speak out is abridged, be it in the U.S. where free speech is protected, or abroad, count me in for the fight……..

- Some people (largely women, sorry for that ladies) will subject themselves to damn near anything in the name of beauty. Whether it’s chemical peels, slamming yourself into a cancer box, er, tanning booth, mud baths, facial wraps or one of the other scores of disgusting procedures designed to beautify various parts of the body, these methods are sometimes effective but almost always revolting. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in the state of Florida, where the state’s Cosmetology has put a stop to one of the more bizarre and nasty beauty procedures to date. Ladies have been lining up for fish pedicures, but no more. Yes, you read that right. Pedicures by fish, consisting of women dipping their feet into tanks filled with tiny crap that would eat away the dead skin on their feet. Customers swore by the method, saying their feet were very smooth afterward. I’ll take their word on that, but that won’t stop me from getting with the Florida Board of Cosmetology’s decision to ban the pedicures. At issue is a mandate of cleaning utensils used in any procedure between customers, something the board felt wasn’t possible with animals. Also, there's a state rule that prohibits animals or pets in cosmetology salons. Whatever it takes to keep people from paying $35 to have fish eat off their feet is fine with me. Not that I stop into any beauty parlors, but if I happened to be in one any time, ever, I don’t want any sea creatures in there with me, I’m just weird like that. Find some other way to revitalize the skin on your feet, freaks. Heck, buy some carp of your own, slam them in your bathtub at home and do your own procedures, just keep it behind closed doors……

Recapping Heroes, wondering what Odalis Perez is thinking and another toxic food product

- Tonight’s Heroes was billed as a major landmark show, an episode with lots of dramatic reveals and amazing moments. In that respect, it was a colossal failure. It was a good episode, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t exactly live up to its hype. All of the action centered on Peter Petrelli, Matt Parkman and Mohinder Suresh, who kidnapped H.R.G. at the end of last week’s episode from a hotel bar after drugging him. This week, we immediately learned that Mohinder wasn’t totally on board with the plan to drug H.R.G., but Peter and Parkman prevailed. The trio make the pickup at the bar, took H.R.G. back to their motel room and tied him to a chair so Parkman could use his powers to pry into H.R.G.’s mind and find out who is hunting PWP (People with powers) and why. Oh, and before I go on, very annoying and bizarre that all of H.R.G.’s memories played in black and white, not sure why that was. The first memory Parkman pries out is of H.R.G. meeting on a nondescript park bench in New York with none other than Angela Petrelli five weeks prior. She handed H.R.G. an envelope contained his “pension” for his service to the Company and a nice gold watch as a thank you gift before telling him that their mission to find PWP and apprehend the dangerous ones was over. This memory ends and Parkman, also woozy from prying into H.R.G.’s mind, relays what he has seen. Back in D.C., H.R.G.’s disappearance is sending up red flags. The Hunter is alarmed that H.R.G. has not checked in for more than three hours, a clear break from protocol, and a search is initiated. The Hunter also makes it clear to Nathan Petrelli, who he pulled from a state dinner because of H.R.G.’s disappearance, that everyone who has anything to do with their program is under constant surveillance just like H.R.G. - even Nathan. Back in Costa Verde, Mohinder is demanding that Matt stop looking into H.R.G.’s mind, partially because of the damage it might do to H.R.G. and partially because he was allegedly worried that H.R.G.’s memories might have been distorted and diluted by time and not be totally accurate. But back in Matt goes, digging up a memory from four weeks ago in which Nathan visited H.R.G. at his home in Costa Verde and explained his plan to hunt, capture and eventually “cure” everyone with powers. Nathan promised to protect his daughter and H.R.G.’s adopted daughter Claire from the hunt - as long as H.R.G. agreed to be a part of his team. H.R.G. then takes Nathan to a storage unit he has been keeping for all of his 20 years hunting PWPs, a storage unit stocked with weapons of all sorts (plenty of guns) and information. After pulling out of H.R.G.’s memory, Parkman writes down the address of the storage unit and the combination for the lock to prove to Mohinder that the information he’s tracking down in these memories is legit. Mohinder alleges that Parkman is just looking to make H.R.G. suffer because of the death of Matt’s lady friend Daphne, but Parkman insists that’s not true. Meanwhile, Peter takes the address and lock combination and flies away to the storage unit to test Parkman’s promise and finds everything just as Parkan said. Unfortunately, a hidden security camera in the storage unit tips off an analyst back at Building 26, the headquarters for Nathan’s PWP hunting operation, and the Hunter assembles a team to move in and capture him. Peter anticipates the move and when the team arrives, they open the door top the storage unit and Peter flies out, drops a smoke grenade to distract them and keeps on flying, right back to the motel. Nathan wanted his brother taken in alive, but it turned out that he wasn’t taken in at all. At the motel, Parkman ignores H.R.G.’s warnings to escape now while he still can, before the Hunter’s agents move in and capture him. Parkman goes back inside his nemesis’ mind and finds a memory from three weeks ago in which H.R.G. went to Building 26 and met the Hunter for the first time. The Hunter was not inclined to hear H.R.G.’s suggestions about incorporating principles from his time at Primatech when it came to hunting PWP and instead chose to assert his position as the man in charge. H.R.G. was stunned to learn that the Hunter was in charge and not him, especially because the Hunter viewed PWP as targets, terrorists and nothing more. Shortly thereafter, H.R.G. ends up in the back of the cab that Mohinder was driving after ceasing his work for the now-defunct Pinehearst labs and offers Mohinder a proposition. H.R.G. believes Nathan’s plan is doomed to fail and wants Mohinder to help him with a plan of his own that H.R.G. believes will save lives. As this memory ended, Parkman angrily attacks Mohinder. He realizes that Mohinder didn’t want him inside H.R.G.’s head because he didn’t want Parkman finding the memory he’d just found. Mohinder argues that he didn’t believe what H.R.G. told him in the cab anyhow and even if he had, there was nothing he could have done to stop what had happened since, including Daphne’s death. During the brawl that follows, which leaves the motel room looking like Axl Rose just trashed it, H.R.G. seizes the chance to escape. He manages to jimmy the lock to a car in the parking lot and is trying to hotwire it when Peter arrives back from the storage unit and stops him. H.R.G. is captured, taken back inside and Parkman goes back inside his head to one week ago, when H.R.G. visited the Hunter at his apartment to try to mend fences with a bottle of scotch. The Hunter is again unyielding in his refusal to consider H.R.G.’s ideas, and after both men reveal that they have been digging into one another’s past and know the other’s record to a “T,” H.R.G. reluctantly concedes that in the end, he’s willing to take orders and fall in line. Now that he knows where the Hunter lives, Parkman exits H.R.G.’s brain, gives the address to Peter and again Peter flies off into the night. He goes to the Hunter’s apartment, pulls a gun on his nemesis and is about to kill him when the Hunter tries some reverse psychology by arguing that killing him would sign Peter’s death warrant because it would prove that PWP are as dangerous as the Hunter has been arguing. Throwing another variable into the equation is Nathan, who watched the showdown via security camera in the Hunter’s apartment (literally everyone is being watched, it’s true) and rushes to the scene to intervene. Peter pulls the trigger anyhow, but he only shoots the Hunter in the arm. After that, Peter flies off, back to Costa Verde, because Nathan informs him that Parkman and Mohinder are about to be captured. Before Peter can get back, agents storm the motel. Mohinder volunteers to hold them at bay so Parkman can go into H.R.G.’s mind one more time to investiage H.R.G.’s claim that Daphne is still alive and being held at Building 26. Parkman takes the invite and finds out that the claim is true, unearthing a memory of Daphne in agony, on a stretecher, heavily sedated. As the memory ends, Mohinder is being captured in the motel parking lot and agents rush the room to take down Parkman as well. H.R.G. demands to be the one to walk him out, but a sedated Parkman is rescued by Peter, flying onto the scene and swooping down to pick up his friend. Peter drops another flash grenade and then the pair flies off, their destination unknown. Mohinder isn’t so fortunate and finds himself locked up in Building 26 just like we saw Tracy Strauss last week, chained to a chair in a dark, dank room. Nathan tells him that unless he helps Nathan’s efforts, he will allow Daphne to die. Not only that, Nathan claims all of Mohinder’s pals - Peter, Parkman, etc. - will also die. Back in Costa Verde, H.R.G. and the Hunter walk down a city street, talking about “taking off the kid gloves” and doing whatever is necessary to defeat PWP. The Hunter receives H.R.G.’s word that he will do just that, then gets into the back of an SUV and heads off. H.R.G. waits all of five seconds before turning around, walking to a nearby park bench and sitting down with…..Angela Petrelli, recreating the scene from his earlier memory, some five weeks ago. Their conversation is very interesting, as they discuss the fact that, “all things considered, the day went well.” In other words, everything that had happened that day was part of their plan, it was all a setup. Angela then warns H.R.G. that the Hunter trusts no one, and will continue to test him, forcing him to make tough choices to prove his loyalty, to which H.R.G. replies, “I’m comfortable with being morally gray.” He then walks off, leaving his retirement watch on the bench as he goes. There’s nothing gray about what Peter and Parkman are up to, returning to the scene of so many key moments in the series, Isaac Mendez’s loft. There, Parkman paints more prophetic images of the future, two of which show him strapping a bomb to himself. Then, as Peter tries to reassure him that he’s not capable of such destruction, the camera pans out and Parkman asks Peter to explain the image he has painted on the floor. It’s a ridiculously ginormous mural of Washington, D.C. in flames and burning to the ground, just like the image of New York blowing up that Isaac Mendez himself painted in Season 1. That’s how things end, but you have to wonder where Hiro, Ando, Sylar and Sylar’s new buddy Luke were this week. Coupled with the aforementioned failure to totally deliver on the promised drama of the episode and deep revelation of H.R.G.’s true self, this was a good episode that could have been great. So until next week…….

- Maybe after Alabama left guard Andre Smith gets himself drafted in the late first or even second round of this year’s NFL Draft, he should consider writing a book. I already have the title for him: “How to throw away millions of dollars and the chance to be the first overall pick in the NFL Draft: The Andre Smith story.” See, my man Andre was projected as one of the top picks in the draft even though there were a few concerns about his character amongst NFL personnel people. He was suspended for the Sugar Bowl this past season because Alabama coach/noted liar Nick Saban for improper contact with an agent, for one. But in spite of those concerns, Smith’s immense size and talent at a prime position had him at or near the top of most teams’ draft boards. That was until he showed up at the NFL Combine out of shape, disinterested and clearly unprepared for the drills, tests and interviews he would face at the event. Smith never even participated in any drills, probably because he knew how bad he would look in them, and rather than at least stick around to meet with individual teams for interviews to perhaps allay some of those character concerns, dude bolted town Thursday morning, leaving Indianapolis as a projected late first-round pick as opposed to a top selection. His excuse for leaving early was a need to get back to Atlanta to work with his personal trainer. Just a thought, Andre, but maybe you should have done some of that working out before going to the combine, then you wouldn’t have shown up FAT, slow and unable to show off your skills. Oh, and bailing on the combine without telling anyone is a chickensh*t move as well. As classless as leaving early is, at least tell people you’re going. Some analysts have done the math on what Smith’s likely draft freefall could cost him, and from the guaranteed $30 million he could have potentially received as the No. 1 pick of this year’s draft, Smith could now be looking at the $6 million or so in guaranteed money that the Nos. 26-28 picks received last year. And oh yeah, he’ll be going to a team that now has even more reason to doubt his character, work ethic and heart than they had before the combine. Well done, Andre, let me know if you want to do that book project together, I think it could be a real hit……..

- Why don’t we just save some time and stop listing food products that aren’t tainted instead of those that are? Every other freaking day we seem to have another hazardous food item foisting potentially lethal dangers on us, with the dreaded peanut being the most recent villain of the culinary realm. But the peanut can step aside, because the potato is here for its time in the dubious sun of recalled food products. Two grocers have issued a recall on some potato products because they may be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes, a bacteria that can cause flu-like symptoms, such as high fever, severe headache, neck stiffness and nausea (is it wrong that I’m relieved that those are the symptoms and not something more severe?). Giant Food and Stop & Shop have pulled 20 oz. bags of Simply Potatoes Shredded Hash Browns, Simply Potatoes Homestyle Slices and Simply Potatoes Red Potato Wedges from their shelves after the products were recalled by Northern Star Co., a subsidiary of food processor Michael Foods Inc. You can tell if your potato product is potentially hazardous to your health if 1) it attacks you with one of your kitchen knives, but more likely if 2) it has a "use by" date on its packages ranging from March 29 to April 3, 2009 and came from North Star Foods. Oh, and the bacteria can be very damaging for pregnant women or those with weakened immune systems, so if you’re knocked up or sick, you want to be especially careful about avoiding these foods. Should you have purchased these products, you are being advised to discard any unused portions (preferably in a bio-safe container - just kidding) and bring the receipts to their stores for a full refund. Also, this recall doesn’t effect the entire country, as Giant Food operates 182 supermarkets in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia and Stop & Shop operates stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Maine. So if you’re not on the eastern seaboard, you should be okay on this one. But fear not, I’m certain there will be another tainted food scare in a few days that will impact you, so don’t feel excluded……..

- So now it’s wrong to accept bribes to throw kids in prison for minor, non-felonious offenses? What the heck is this nation coming to when a judge can take money under the table to commit criminal miscarriages of justice and get away with it? Clearly, Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella and former Luzerne County Senior Judge Michael Conahan were also operating under the impression that such activities were perfectly acceptable, otherwise why would they have engaged in things such as fraud and other tax charges? Luzerne County residents are now digesting the reality of a kickback scandal involving two elected judges who essentially jailed kids for cash. The way the scheme worked as that Ciavarella and Conahan would corruptly and fraudulently "create the potential for an increased number of juvenile offenders to be sent to juvenile detention facilities," according to federal court documents. Children would be placed in private detention centers, under contract with the court, to increase the head count. In exchange, the two judges would receive kickbacks. Problem was that these offenders were kids like 14-year-old Phillip Swartley, who pocketed change from unlocked vehicles in his neighborhood to buy chips and soft drinks. It was stupid, immature and it landed Swartley in court, but his mother assumed that hiring an attorney was unnecessary because she was led to believe that at most, the judge would slap her son with a fine or community service. Unfortunately, his case was heard by Ciavarella and with his need to pad the number of kids in the private detention centers from which he was receiving kickbacks, he sentenced Phillip Swartley to youth detention center, after which he was was shipped to a boarding school for troubled teens for nine months. Like Swartley, many of the other victims of this criminal operation appeared before judges without a lawyer, presumably because like Swartley, their crimes were very minor and were expected to net nothing more than probation as a punishment. All told, some 5,000 children appeared before the two corrupt judges over the past five years, with Ciavarella and Conahan raking in a cool $2.6 million for their efforts. Other examples of their misconduct included 15-year-old Hillary Transue, sent to a wilderness camp by Ciavarvella for mocking an assistant principal on a MySpace page, 13-year-old Shane Bly, accused of trespassing in a vacant building and confined to a boot camp for two weekends and Kurt Kruger, 17, sentenced to detention and five months of boot camp for helping a friend steal DVDs from Wal-Mart. Thankfully, all of this is over now, with both judges having resigned from their positions and disbarred. Ciavarella pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal criminal charges and under the terms of their respective plea deals, both former judges have agreed to serve 87 months in prison. On top of that, the Juvenile Law Center said it plans to file a class-action lawsuit this week representing what they say are victims of corruption. Here’s a thought…..why not revoke the plea agreements of these two judges, ship them off to a maximum security prison with hardcore thugs and give them a taste of their own medicine? Sounds fair and appropriate to me…….

- I kicked off this post with a story of an athlete quitting (Andre Smith, who bolted on the NFL Combine for those of you without enough short term memory to recall something from four paragraphs ago), so why not finish it with a tale of an athlete quitting by not even showing up in the first place? Meet my main man Odalis Perez, a now-former member of the Washington Nationals. Perez signed a minor league contract with Washington on Feb. 5 that would have paid him $850,000 if he made the team, but getting a shot to earn a spot on the roster when no other team cared to sign him just wasn’t enough. In the days leading up to the start of training camp, which kicked off last week, Perez began making noise about wanting a better contract. When he didn’t show up at spring training by the mandatory reporting deadline on Sunday, the Nationals released him. O.P., I realize that you’ve had some solid seasons in the past and are a 10-year veteran, but in case you didn’t get the memo, you’re not very good anymore. You went 7-12 with a 4.34 ERA in 30 starts for the Nationals last season. Let me do the math for you and tell you that you had a 36.8 winning percentage and gave up 22 home runs in 159 innings, neither of which are good stats. The Nats saw your act firsthand, so they know that you’re not very good. Yet they offered you a contract and a chance to show that you could still pitch, which would inspire most competitive athletes to bust their balls and try to earn a spot on the roster. Instead, you hunkered down in your home, refused to take phone calls from general manager Jim Bowden or manager Manny Acta and let the 7 p.m. Sunday deadline pass without reporting.
"We left messages yesterday for his agent, we left messages for him, I left messages again this morning, and they made their point really clear," Bowden said. "We've got a lot of pitchers here in camp who are committed to helping us win, and we want players here who want to be here." "It's disappointing because you'd at least like him to talk to us in person,” Bowden said. Clearly, Odalis didn’t want any of that, Jimmy, so go ahead and give his possible roster spot to someone who actually gives a crap and wants to be on your team……

Hank Clinton a sellout, the failing economy causes one man to turn against his own yacht and Riot Watch! is back

- Attaboy, Hank Clinton. Don’t you dare let a small issue like human rights interfere with the bigger picture. Forget that was U.S. Secretary of State you should probably be concerned with other nations blatantly trampling human rights and focus on the world economic and other crises that you deem to be more pressing and immediate priorities. For his part, Hank did allegedly broach the issue of human rights with Chinese leaders Saturday, but in the end it was Hank and not the Chinese who short-circuited those talks. Hank emphasized that, "Human rights cannot interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises.” Sure, and why would they? The suppression and annihilation of the most basic human rights of hundreds of millions of people is nothing when compared to making sure that the world’s top economic powers are doing well. Look, I realize that China was the last stop in Hank’s Asia trip, but if you’re going to mail it in and not even make a real effort on the biggest issue regarding China, why even bother? Whatever the new China policy is that the Obama administration is looking to craft, confronting the Chinese on their abysmal, atrocious human rights record is a must. It’s the sort of issue you want to raise more than in passing when meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, I’ think. "It is essential that the United States and China have a positive, cooperative relationship," Clinton said afterward. Not at the expense of continued, unfettered abuses of human rights, it’s not. You can address the world economic crisis, regional security and the environment for sure and those are important issues, but human rights must be on the table as well. Claiming that both nations will “continue to hold frank discussions on crucial human rights issues” just doesn’t cut it, not when the people of Tibet are still being so brutally oppressed. What happened to all your past criticism of China's human rights stance, Hank? Not that I want to forge how utterly and completely thankful I am that you didn’t become our 44th president, but now I’m finding that I may end up regretting you as Secretary of State almost as much…….

- Just an awesome display by various groups and individuals around the world of tennis in response to the indefensible decision by the United Arab Emirates to deny a visa to Shahar Peer, the 45th-ranked women's player in the world, so she could compete in this week's Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. Andy Roddick, one of the top men’s players in the world, pulled out of the event and said publicly that it was because of the way Peer was treated. Also, the Tennis Channel has canceled it plans to broadcast the tournament in Dubai because Peer was banned. The network had planned to air parts of the tournament, but now will air none of it and made a point of saying why. “Tennis Channel recognizes that this exclusion has been made by state authorities and neither the tour nor tournament directors themselves," said a statement posted on the channel's Web site Wednesday. "However we also honor the role and proud tradition that tennis has always played as a driving force for inclusion both on and off the courts. Preventing an otherwise qualified athlete from competing on the basis of anything other than merit has no place in tennis or any other sport, and has the unfortunate result of undermining the credibility of the very nature of competition itself.” Well said. Sponsors for the event don’t seem thrilled with the decision by the UAE either, as The Wall Street Journal Europe announced it is dropping its sponsorship of the tournament. “The Wall Street Journal's editorial philosophy is free markets and free people, and this action runs counter to the Journal's editorial direction," the Journal said in a written statement. The one hilarious thing in all of this is the event's organizers said Peer was barred from the tournament for her own protection. They claim that because of Israel's recent military offensive in Gaza, she just wouldn’t be safe. As evidence for this bogus claim, the organizers cited anti-Israel protests before one of Peer's matches at a recent tournament in New Zealand. Peer seems genuinely touched by the shows of support, issuing a statement to the Tennis Channel saying in part, “I was very moved and excited to hear about your decision not to broadcast the Dubai tournament following their denial to allow me to participate in the event. You at Tennis Channel were the first ones to add action to the words and this is leading the way to other organizations as well. All I want is to play tennis and do well. I believe you are helping me to do exactly this.” I second those sentiments and hopefully this message will be heard loud and clear by the UAE and all other small-minded nations……..

- Owning a boat can be a burdensome experience, what with dock and stoage fees, fuel costs, maintenance, etc. However, most people elect to sell their boat before they go the route of sinking it and engaging in insurance fraud to get out of a tough spot. Brian Lewis of Seattle chose to go the latter route, allegedly sinking his own yacht because of "financial pressure and frustration with the maintenance" of the vessel and finding himself charged with insurance fraud because of that choice. On March 22, 2008,Lewis scuttled the Jubilee in the Puget Sound Bay, then rowed a borrowed dinghy back to shore. Prosecutors in King County, Wash. allege that later that day, Lewis boarded a flight to take him to his job in Kodiak, Alaska, as a petty officer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He waited three days, then filed an insurance claim with USAA Insurance reporting the Jubilee sank accidentally "due to unknown causes." At that point, Lewis had to figure that he was in the clear, as his boat was sunk, hundreds of miles from home no less, and who’s going to spend a lot of time digging into it? As it turns out, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources was that who, salvaging the vessel due to environmental concerns and doing so at a cost to the state of $2,866. When inspectors looked at the boat, they found a hole had been drilled into the bottom of the Jubilee, and that two main engine sea strainers appeared to have been broken with a hammer.
Hmm, curious. What to make of these odd details? “The vessel appeared to have been deliberately sunk," authorities said in their probable cause affidavit. Armed with their analysis and facts, investigators confronted Lewis, who then admitted he intentionally sunk his vessel, saying the financial strain "caused him extreme anxiety and frustration.” When pressed to give further details, Lewis told investigators "the engine trouble he experienced caused him to lose his temper. In his rage, he smashed the sea strainers with a hammer and drilled the hole to sink the vessel," according to the affidavit. In other words, dude is arguing that he was pissed off about a malfunctioning boat and not looking to commit insurance fraud. Uh huh, sure. Because the fact that Lewis was trying to sell his boat through Mahina Yachts for $28,500 prior to its sinking and was unsuccessful had nothing to do with sinking it. No way a quality, high-character guy like that gets frustrated with not being able to unload his pricy, 1967 Chris Craft Cavalier when he’s struggling financially and decides that sinking it intentionally and filing a bogus insurance claim is the way to go. The King County Prosecutor's Office doesn’t seem to buy what he’s selling and has charged Lewis with making a fraudulent insurance claim. How and why a guy who filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2004 is still rocking a vintage yacht five years later is also weird, so I’ll be interested to see where this thing goes…….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This edition takes us to beautiful Dublin, Ireland, where hundreds of thousands of workers filled the streets of Dublin on Saturday to protest the government response to Ireland's economic downturn. Estimates place the number of people getting in on the social dissidence fun at 120,000 people. And even though it was a peaceful demonstration (my least-favorite type of protest), there was a march from Parnell Square to Merrion Square, which is cool. The fact that not a single arrest was made is disheartening for a riot lover like me, but I’ll take any protest I can get. Organizing this wonderful act of protest-dom was
the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). Leading the way for this massive march were workers from Waterford Crystal and SR Technic, two companies facing economic problems amid the recession, led the march. As a quick aside, what are rich people going to buy to jam into their expensive, mahogany formal dining room display cases to impress their fellow millionaire dinner guests if Waterford Crystal vases aren’t being churned out….but I digress. The Irish economy is no different than the struggling economies of other nations around the world, although unlike the U.S. economy, the Irish economy was booming until last year
when the current downturn hit with a vengeance. Addressing the reasons for an hopes of the protest, David Begg, general secretary of ICTU said he hopes "the government is looking at what's happening here today and will conclude indeed that it does have a strong measure of public support and will engage with us and try to deal with what is an unprecedented problem with our country." Also, Bern posted a message on ICTU's Web site, Begg saying this was the first action in the union group's campaign "and other action will follow around the country, as required." Just a word of advice, Dave, but mix in a little violence, some burning of cars, storefronts, throwing of rocks, Molotov cocktails, clashes with police, etc. It’ll help you get your point across more forcefully, but more importantly it will make me happy and give me some great riots to talk about. Besides, the government is maintaining that the steps it is taking, the ones you are so vehemently against, are fair and necessary. In other words, they’re antagonizing you and belittling your efforts. Don’t stand for that, ICTU, keep up the social dissidence and make yourselves heard….

- Never have I been more ashamed of you, American movie-going public. Sure, you’ve shown up in big numbers to watch atrociously bad flicks before, but making an absolute bomb like Tyler Perry's "Madea Goes to Jail” the weekend’s top film with a take of $41.1 million is embarrassing. The rest of the world can rap us for being FAT, self-absorbed, warmongers and arrogant, but this might be our most embarrassing faux pas yet. What you’re doing is encouraging Tyler Perry to make more of these “Madea” films, as this is the biggest opening yet for one of these steaming, stinking piles of monkey poo. It bested the $30 million debut of 2006's "Madea's Family Reunion,” which indicates that we as a nation are not doing a good job of dealing with the plague that is “Madea” movies. Let’s just move on to the rest of the top few movies for the weekend and pretend everything I just talked about never happened. Coming in second was a far, far superior movie, Liam Neeson’s kidnapping thriller “Taken,” which brought in $11.4 million to bring its four-week tally to $95.2 million. In third place was kiddie movie "Coraline" with $11 million, followed by the quintessential chick flick, "He's Just Not That Into You," dropping off a sharp 56 percent to earn a meager $8.5 million on its third weekend. On its final weekend before the inevitable onrush of idiots who will see it just because it won the Oscar for Best Picture, “Slumdog Millionaire" rounded out the top five with $8.1 million, raising its domestic total to $98 million. It was a pretty crappy weekend for the reigning box office champ, slasher movie “Friday the 13th,” which rightfully saw its takes drop a stunning 81 percent once people knew how bad it actually was. The movie finished in sixth place with $7.8 million. Newcomer cheerleader comedy "Fired Up!" ninth with $6 million on its opening weekend, so expect it to be on DVD in about a month or so. The overall weekend take was up nearly 30 percent over the same frame a year ago, which keeps up a trend that has held strong since the start of the new year……….