The Pittsburgh Pirates may have just traded you, llamas as caddies and consistency from the Iranian government

- A few weeks ago, Jack Wilson was the outspoken voice in the Pittsburgh Pirates locker room speaking out against the team’s continued practice of trading away its best players to slash payroll in favor of bringing in “promising young talent.” He was the Pirates' longest-tenured player, a veteran leader and a character guy who his teammates liked and respected. When he questioned management’s commitment to winning, the criticisms seemed on point. Now, Wilson has joined the parade out of Pittsburgh after being traded to the Seattle Mariners along with right-handed pitcher Ian Snell for shortstop Ronny Cedeno, first baseman Jeff Clement, and right-handed pitching prospects Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock. Wilson is hitting .267 with four home runs and 31 RBIs, but he’s always been known more as a defensive wizard whose leadership in the clubhouse is a valuable commodity. He should be able to help the Mariners not just this season, but also in 2010, provided the team picks up his $8.4 million option for next season. So add Wilson’s name to the list of players exiting Pittsburgh this season: outfielders, Eric Hinkse, Nyjer Morgan and Nate McLouth and first baseman Adam LaRoche. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that the Pirates were looking to trade their entire starting lineup before this year ends so they can stock up with cheap, minor league-quality talent. Heck, Clement is the only player in this deal who will be heading to a team above the Single-A level in the Pirates’ minor league system. Pribanic, Lorin and Adcock are being assigned to Single-A teams, meaning they wont be helping the big league club win any time soon. The irony in all of this is that right now the Pirates are hanging around about 10 games below the .500 mark and could have their best season in several years……if they have enough players left by the time the front office finishes shipping away everything that isn't nailed down……..

- It only took 18 months, but technology titans Microsoft and Yahoo have finally reached an agreement to join forces and help fight the behemoth that is Google. For as long as there have been Internet search engines, Google has pretty much led the way and the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership hopes to change that reality. The 10-year deal wont merge Yahoo.com and Microsoft’s new Bing.com into one amorphous search giant, but search results on Yahoo.com will say "powered by Bing" and Yahoo will be responsible for attracting premium advertisers. Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88 percent of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo's sites and Microsoft will be granted the rights to integrate Yahoo's search technology into its own existing Web search platforms. Oddly enough, Yahoo is doing this deal even though it will slightly decrease its overall revenue. Yet in a true accounting oddity, it will also increase Yahoo’s operating income by about $500 million annually. If you’re wondering what this deal will mean for you, the average Internet user, there’s no need to panic. The deal wont officially close until early 2010 and U.S. users won’t start to see the change until three months later. For international users, it could take as long as two years to see the full effect. “This deal is really about scale," said Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz. "By combining the ... technology of both companies, we can create a real, viable alternative for advertisers.” Like Yahoo, Microsoft expects to take short-term financial hit of "several hundreds of millions of dollars," but ultimately benefit in the long run from the ability to charge advertisers more for its service based on the increased relevance of search results. "This really is a win-win agreement both for Microsoft and for Yahoo," said Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer. "Consumers will get better products, and it will help the industry as a whole to prosper through our shared vision and shared values." One group this agreement is bad news for is search personnel at Microsoft, who could find themselves replaced by transplanted Yahoo employees in the next year or so. Still, both companies are displaying a unified front in fighting the evil giant that is Google. Ballmer believes that Google will launch an antitrust complaint against the partnership but feels that his company’s new alliance will stand up in court. I guess we’ll see how this plays out, but at least we can stop hearing about Microsoft and Yahoo bitching back and forth as they try to finalize a deal………..

- Word is that the new Tuesday caddies at Sherwood Forest Golf Course in Cedar Mountain, N.C. aren’t all that helpful in club selection, determining yardage to the green or giving you insights on the course. Of course, they also won’t give you any attitude and will never complain about the heat or how slow you’re playing. That would be because the caddies aren’t people, but rather llamas. Every Tuesday golfers can rent a llama for nine holes to carry their clubs. The llamas have been at Sherwood Forest for the past two months and their owner, Mark English, believes they could be used effectively at other local courses as well. He even claims that the llamas can give input on club selection by stomping on the ground if they agree with your club choice. English can’t claim the idea to use llamas to caddie as his own, having been inspired to follow the example of a course in Pinehurst, N.C. that has been putting the exotic animals to use as caddies for years. Renting a llama for nine holes costs $40, but the upside is that two people can share a llama. It sounds like a fun concept and assuming you don’t leave any food in your bag that the llama might want to get into, it might work. Still, I’m going the route of the budget golfer who isn't too lazy and out of shape to carry his own clubs for nine holes……..

- Courtney Love is absolute garbage. She gravy-trained Kurt Cobain and helped turn his life into a nightmare that ended far sooner than it should have. She leeched onto his rising star and sucked all of the juice she could out of it to help fuel her own insatiable appetite for fame. I seriously doubt that her own band, Hole, would have had much success at all if not for her once being married to Cobain. Having said that, isn't it ironic that Love is accusing Australian pop duo The Veronicas them of stealing her look and making "crappy" music. She did so in the place where everyone seems to vent and spew their thoughts these days, Twitter. In a largely incoherent Tweet, Love attacked one half of The Veronicas, Jess Origliasso, as an image thief. 

She wrote: "Why is the blonde one from the verons or whatever they are clled wearing my actual clothes? I will do my job you kids runalong and find your own little jobs whne you can even think that you can play a rock show for 3.5 hrs call me.” In another Tweet, she posted, "The verons girls arent actually playing rock music anyone takes seriousl.” Wow…..bad spelling, terrible grammar, genuine bad blood…nice Tweet, Courtney. Not to quibble with your sound logic, but of course The Veronicas can’t play a rock show, they’re not a rock band. They’re twin sisters who make electro-pop music with very little depth or substance. Of course, that doesn’t mean they wont fight back against a past-her-prime, attention whore like Love. On their own Twitter Page, The Veronicas called Love a "jealous" attention seeker. Jess Origliasso also claimed that Love had asked to come to one of the pair's current U.S. shows just a week prior to making her critical comments on Twitter. "I guess she just wanted my attention by writing s---. She is madly in love with Azaria (Byrne) and she's very jealous I'm dating him," Jess said. “All I really wanted to say to her was: 'Come on Courtney, cut all the bulls--- and release another record already. I loved your music and I know you've got it in you," she said. Love clearly didn’t like Jess’ comments because she had deleted them from her Twitter page the day after they were posted. This is one of those battles where I don’t like either party and would prefer that both just shut up and go away, so here’s hoping…….

- Boy, I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know that the current regime in Iran not only brutally abuses its power and assaults its citizens in the street when they dare to stand up against it, but it consistently applies that same treatment once those brave citizens are wrongfully imprisoned. Those claims come from prisoners who say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, foul-smelling holding pens. Other claims of abuse include the ripping off of fingernails, being forced to licked disgustingly filthy toilet bowls and that sort of heinous abuse. Families have been given the bruised, battered remains of their loved ones and left to wonder just what happened to them before they were killed. The government is trying to smooth things over with hollow gestures like releasing 140 prisoners on Tuesday and hoping everyone would see that and simply gloss over the fact that more than 100 protesters have died since the country’s rigged presidential election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a letter urging the head of the judiciary to show “Islamic mercy” to the detainees and of course he did so in very public fashion so as to make himself appear as magnanimous as possible. Backing him up was the head of Iran’s Supreme Administrative Court, Ayatollah Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, who said more prisoners would be released by the end of the week and promised that a “serious judicial inquiry” was being conducted into the deaths that have occurred in prisons since the June 12 election. Riiiiight. I’m sure that inquiry will be very thorough and in no way a total sham with no hope of ever revealing what truly happened. This is an overt public relations play by the Iranian government and no more, period. Oh, and just as this is a PR ploy for the government, the claim that only 150-250 of the more than 2,500 people arrested in the post-election crackdown remain in prison is a complete lie. If the number is anywhere near that close it’s because so many prisoners have been killed, er, um, died of natural causes while in captivity. Hospitals reporting the receipt of bodies of dead protestors dispute the numbers the government is putting out on how many deaths have occurred from the protests alone, so it’s not a stretch to imagine that the government is lying about the number of people still in prison too. But hey, at least Ahmadinejad and his crew are consistent….consistently abusive and dictatorial, but consistent nonetheless…….

Tanning beds = early death, the Hulkster's nightmare ends and P. Burress' nightmare just beginning

- With a rampaging district attorney baring down on him, Plaxico Burress took a step to fight back yesterday and we’ll have to wait and see if that was a smart play. Burress, a.k.a. Harris Smith (the fake name he gave to an ER doctor when seeking treatment for the bullet wound he put in his own leg), testified testify before a Manhattan grand jury at 10 a.m. yesterday at the urging of his attorney, Benjamin Brafman. Brafman believes that it’s important for the jury to hear Burress’ side of carrying a gun for which he had no license into a public place and being so reckless with it that he shot himself in the thigh. Good call, counselor. "There are many mitigating circumstances in this case," Brafman said. "First, the gun was not used in the commission of a crime. The only victim here was Plaxico Burress. And the gun was registered in the state of Florida, which has reciprocating registration agreements in 32 states. My client was under the impression that the same was the case in the city of New York." A few problems with those assertions, counselor. First, carrying the gun without a permit was the crime and discharging it in a public place was also illegal. Second, it doesn’t matter one damn bit how ill-informed your client was about reciprocating registration agreements and whether he was legally allowed to carry his gun in New York. If you’re going to go to a club strapped, it’s completely on you to know what the law is ans whether your permit to carry is valid in that state. Not knowing what the law is does not excuse you from breaking it, a-hole. I’m not one to side with The Man and the law, but Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau simply has a much better case than Burress. Brafman isn't helping with his act, uttering a nonstop flow of nonsense that is making his client look worse, not better. For example (as if you needed another one), Brafman characterized Burress’ actions as "a lapse in judgment.” Let’s all go ahead and agree that any action which results in a bullet hole being put in a human being is not a lapse in judgment. A lapse in judgment is thinking it’s a good idea to jump off the roof of the garage into the swimming pool and breaking your arm in the fall. A person knowingly carrying a loaded gun into a crowded club and not exercising caution in handling that gun is much more than a lapse in judgment. Speaking of judgment, Burress is showing very poor judgment in the way he and his attorney are handling this case. According to previous reports, Burress was willing to agree to spend a year in jail for shooting himself with an unlicensed gun early on the morning of Nov. 29, but when prosecutors insisted on two, Burress balked. "We've always taken the position that he's going to have to go to jail, whether by trial or by plea," Morgenthau said. For the record, Burress is charged with criminal possession of a weapon and faces up to 3½ years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail, but that doesn’t mean he has a shot of playing in the NFL this season. Should the grand jury indict him, there’s a chance that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell could suspend Burress before he even has his trial. No team wants to bring in a headache like that, especially if Burress could be heading to jail soon. As always, the lesson to be learned is that if you feel like you need a gun to go somewhere, then it’s a place you probably shouldn’t be going to begin with……

- Things are turning nasty in South America and that should shock exactly no one. That Venezuela and Colombia are sniping at one another is a given; it’s merely a question of what the current showdown is over. I’d say that shoulder-launched anti-tank weapons purchased by Venezuela allegedly ending up in the hands of guerrillas is a good reason to go and Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos seems to concur. In a radio interview Monday, Santos talked about weapons seized from members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, being traced to Venezuela. “This is not the first time that this happens," Santos said. "In several operations in which we have recovered weapons from the FARC, we have found powerful munitions and powerful equipment, including anti-tank weapons, from a country that sold them to Venezuela and that turned up in the hands of the FARC.” A pretty powerful accusation, basically implying that one of your neighboring countries is supplying weapons to guerrilla fighters. So what are these weapons, you ask? Apparently the weapons are AT4 shoulder-fired rockets manufactured by Saab Bofors Dynamics. I’m no weapons expert, but shoulder-fired rockets sound like a pretty dangerous weapon. Anything with the work rocket in it sounds like a dangerous weapon, actually. The rockets were seized in 2008 from a guerrilla base, but Venezuela is doing its best to distance itself from any allegations that the weapons came from within its border. "To me it seems that this is a new attack against our government based on lies," Venezuelan Minister of the Interior and Justice Tareck El Aissami said. "We absolutely deny that our government or our institutions are providing assistance to criminal and terrorist organizations. It's laughable, it sounds like a cheap film made by the American government." I’m sorry, but what the heck was that? The United States isn't involved in this little skirmish of yours, so quit sucker-punching us while we stand on the sidelines. I know you hate the U.S., but that doesn’t mean we’re involved in every bad thing that happens to Venezuela. If you want to (almost certainly) lie and say that you didn’t give these weapons to this guerrilla group, that’s fine. Just know that a) it’s not the first time these accusations have been levied against you and b) no one actually believes you. Other than that, keep up the good work……..

- Hopefully this will end Hulk Hogan’s inclinations to channel his inner O.J. Simpson. The Hulkster made those comments about “totally getting” how O.J. must have felt seeing his ex-wife tooling around town with a newer, younger guy and subsequently turning both of them into human Pez dispensers a few months ago as divorce proceedings with his ex-wife Linda Bollea dragged on. While watching her live in the home he built and paid for with her new 19-year-old boyfriend, Hogan was understandably upset. Now, the couple has reached a divorce settlement and all of this can hopefully go away. The announcement was made by the couple's attorneys at a court hearing in Clearwater Tuesday morning. The judge in the case was notified of the agreement Monday night and everything was outlined in court the next day. “We've reached a marital settlement agreement," Ray Rafool, Linda's attorney, told the judge. Amazingly, both the Hulkster and Linda Bollea were seen smiling before the proceedings began and at one point, she even kissed his cheek. Now maybe that was just for show and was a hollow gesture, but at least they weren’t at each other’s throats. After the scene that unfolded at a hearing last month, when Hulk Hogan challenged the way Linda spends the $40,000 in alimony she receives every month, things turned very ugly. The Hulkster’s attorney called in Tracy Morgan, the couple's hair stylist, as a witness and she tore into Linda Bollea. "The client does a lot of drugs and is an alcoholic. She doesn't have a good relationship with her daughter, with her son, and she's wasting a fortune," Morgan said of Linda Bollea. In turn, Bollea’s attorneys attacked Morgan’s testimony and insisted that “Linda never did trust her.” Now this entire soap opera is over and although terms of the agreement weren’t immediately known, one thing is for sure and Linda Bollea said it best following Tuesday’s hearing: “The war is over.” It is over and not a moment too soon……..

- With 2009 being such a Debbie Downer year economically for the United States, who couldn’t use a boost in 2010? We could all use that boost…..it’s just not coming. As bad as 2009 has been, many analysts and observers predict that 2010 will be even worse. “The numbers that states are looking at in terms of their shortfalls is truly staggering. And all of this is happening in an environment where raising taxes is still pretty toxic, and it's pretty explosive," said Sujit CanagaRetna, a senior fiscal analyst for the Council of State Governments. Since they aren’t hiking income and property taxes, states are instead targeting specific items and services with taxes and fees in the hopes of lessening the deficiencies in their budgets. You may recall that a few days ago I detailed the push to legalize marijuana in the state of California in the hopes that the tax revenues from the hippie lettuce would help dig the state out of the red. by Democratic State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is leading that charge on the legislative side with a bill proposing taxing pot by $50 per ounce. If the state legislators in California have the good sense to get behind this proposal, it could bring in an estimated $1 billion a year in state taxes. Of course, taxing the chronic is not an acceptable option everywhere in the country and each state has to stick with what it knows best. In Georgia, that means strip clubs. Republican state Sen. Jack Murphy proposed a "pole tax" would have charged patrons of strip clubs a $5 entrance fee. It’s a bill I could get behind because I am of the firm belief that anyone who patronizes a strip club is a bonafide loser and deserves whatever sort of taxation that can be put on them. However, Murphy’s bill was not approved and now Georgia must look elsewhere for financial answers. For 19 other states, gambling-related proposals have been the option of choice as they look for ways balance their 2010 budgets. In Alabama, that means lawmakers considering bringing more bingo games to their state and legalizing. But like the strip club measure in Georgia, it too was defeated. The most publicized measure by far has been in Delaware, with Gov. Jack Markell signing legislation creating a sports lottery that legalizes single-game betting. That has resulted in no less than four professional sports leagues and the NCAA filing a lawsuit over plans for the lottery. Other interesting financial measures across the country include: Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle's 2010 budget tripling the price of an elk hunting license, even though his state has no elk hunting season, New York Gov. David Paterson proposing a "fat tax" that would to add an 18-percent tax on sugary beverages, New Jersey residents being subjected to a sales tax on health club memberships and state legislators in Virginia voting to increase inmates' daily rent by 500 percent, from $1 to $5, a measure that Gov. Tim Kaine vetoed. So what is your state doing to make ends meet? Odds are it’s wacky, it’s whimsical…..and it won’t work………

- Vanity has a price and for the vain, self-absorbed idiots who willingly jam themselves into tanning beds on a regular basis lest they look like anything other than a person who has just spent two months living at the Equator, that price is a drastically increased chance for skin cancer. Not only an increased chance of skin cancer, but a risk on par with those posed by horrific products like cigarettes and asbestos. That’s according to a study done by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which had previously classified sunbeds as being a "probable" cause of cancer. When it dug a little deeper and did more research, the agency became convinced that tanning machines should be moved to "the highest cancer risk category" and be labeled as "carcinogenic to humans.” I’m not a doctor and I don’t even like playing one here, but that sounds bad – really bad. When something is considered carcinogenic, I’m going the other direction. But it makes sense, right? Spending too much time in the sun over the years is bad for your skin, so how much worse is it to drop into a compact box that basically puts you in direct contact with simulated sun and stay there for prolonged periods of time? Good move! It’s absolutely worth it to get that nice, orange glow for the prom or that wedding you’re the maid of honor for! Never mind the research the IARC based its findings on which declares that the risk of melanoma -- the most deadly form of skin cancer -- was increased by 75 per cent in people who started using sunbeds regularly before the age of 30. No way that happens to you, right? Besides, is that all the IARC has? Actually, it’s not. The agency also says there is evidence of a link between eye cancer and the use of sunbeds. Add all of this up and it’s just not that surprising that melanoma is the second most common cancer in women aged 20 - 29.5, according to the America Melanoma Foundation. So the next time you just have to get tan for an event or to impress someone, take a moment to think back over what we just talked about and ask yourself if you’d like to head to an early grave following a painful, agonizing battle with skin cancer just so you can look a little better for your dance, wedding, etc…………

Goats v. poison ivy, an IHOP celebrity break-up and the scariest dude in the world resides in Nevada

- I may have found the scariest man in the world and it probably isn't surprising to learn that this man resides in the American penitentiary system. Prison is where the scariest of the scary reside, locked up far away from the rest of society so as to remove them as potential threats to the law-abiding segment of that society. However, there is definitely an element of this man’s story that is stunning and it comes from the reason why I believe he’s the scariest dude in the world. This man is a prisoner in Nevada and he is the cellmate of none other than Orenthal James Simpson. Yes, dude is the cellie for O.J., the man who turned his wife and her friend into human Pez dispensers and got away with it only to end up in the hole for an attempted robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas. After being sent away for that conviction, the Juice landed in a Nevada jail cell with a man he is absolutely terrified of – seriously. The guy who committed an extremely brutal and public double murder and then had the audacity to storm a Vegas hotel room with an armored posse while out on that free pass from murdering people is scared of a fellow prisoner. It’s being reported that the Juice has told friends and family that he is scared to death of his cellmate because the man has threatened to kill him because O.J. got away with murder and that cellmate is behind bars for murdering someone. Sharing a cell with a guy who skated on the same charge that got you locked up would be pretty infuriating, especially for a prison inmate. These are guys with notoriously short fuses; they wouldn’t be in prison if they were calm, rational, level-headed guys with loads of patience and understanding. So I’d imagine that having an angry cellie with an eye for offing you would be pretty frightening. After all, you’re sharing a confined space with them for the majority of every day and sleeping in that confined space with them at night. All of that being said, how terrifying do you have to be to scare O.J. freaking Simpson? He’s the worst guy ever, a dude who seemed to have a deal with the devil that allowed him to go Teflon and avoid the ramiprecussions of any crime or misdeed – until that Vegas incident. If you can scare a guy who scares the crap out of the rest of us that badly, you have to be the baddest man walking the face of this or any other planet……..

- Keep shoveling those M&Ms into your FAT faces, America! Well, keep eating the blue M&M’s; the rest of them you can do without. Why the blue ones? Well, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, injecting the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG), i.e. the same blue food dye found in M&Ms and Gatorade, into rats suffering spinal cord injuries allowed the rodents to walk again, albeit with a limp. The idea is clearly that this compound could be used to reduce damage caused by spine injuries, offering a better chance of recovery. It’s a potentially great breakthrough and it’s even better if the person being treated doesn’t mind temporarily turning blue, which was the only reported side effect for the treated mice. Personally I’m okay with turning blue permanently if I have a spinal cord injury and I am able to walk because of this treatment. The findings out the study were published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" and are actually a follow-up on similar research done by the same lab five years ago. In August 2004, scientists revealed how Adenosine triphosphate, which is known as, rushes to the spinal cord soon after injury occurs. Unfortunately, that the sudden influx of ATP kills off healthy cells and makes the injury worse. Researches found that injecting oxidized ATP offsets that effect and in their study, it allowed the injured rats to recover and walk again. However, those findings weren’t as encouraging as they might have seemed for lead researcher Maiken Nedergaard, professor of Neurosurgery and director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and her team. Sticking a needle into the spinal cord of a person who has just suffered a spinal cord injury isn't going to work. Thus, their most recent study. The BBG compound blocks a molecule in the spinal cord called P2X7 that allows ATP to latch onto motor neurons and send the signals which eventually kill them and BBG is extremely similar to a blue food dye approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That gave Nedergaard the confidence to go ahead with the study and the result were pretty amazing. . The rats given BBG immediately after their injury could walk again with a limp, but those that didn't receive a dose never regained their mobility. Nedergaard is quick to point out that her team isn't touting BBG as a cure for spinal injuries, but rather as a tool that it offers a potential improvement in patients' condition. Anything that could help people who have suffered one of the most devastating injuries possible is cool with me, even if it’s also something that is used to make unhealthy, sugar-laden candy more colorful………

- School is different depending on which corner of the world you reside in. For example, here in the United States it would typically be unacceptable to test students’ pupils' karate skills by running over their outstretched arms with a motorcycle. In India…..not so much. A government school in southern India decided that the best way to test the martial arts abilities of its students was to line up in a row and stretch their arms out on the ground, then hold them in place as a motorcyclist drove over the line of arms. Pictures and videos of the event show smiling adults standing behind the children and the stunt was reportedly done with full permission from the parents of every child involved. According to K. Devarajan, the director of elementary education in Tamil Nadu state, the purpose of the event was to show the strength the students had gained from their karate classes. That’s not how state education officials saw things, because no sooner had the exhaust fumes from that bike cleared than officials were descending upon the school to speak with its leaders about what had gone on. Those authorities have now asked schools not to carry out such activities because they violate safety guidelines. Why, if I may be so bold as to ask? What could possibly go wrong when you have a powerful motorcycle being ridden over breakable body parts like the arms of children? Besides, don’t kids between six and 13 love danger? They idolize martial arts, MMA and X-Games competitors and this is their chance to emulate their heroes. Don’t deny them their dream………

- Good Lord, I hope this story is true. Previously I had no interest in the break-up of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and ever-expanding pop tart Jessica Simpson. Celebrity dating stories don’t hold any interest for me; what do I care if Person A and Person B break up if I don’t know either of them, even if they’re famous? However, the fashion in which the break-up reportedly occurred may force me to rethink my approach to these matters. Don’t get me wrong: I still don’t give a rat’s ass who’s dating whom or if they’ve broken up. But if the fireworks explode like they allegedly did in the case of Romo and Simpson, that’s a horse of a different color. Their relationship had been on the rocks for some time and rumors of a break-up were always there, but the relationship came to an end at one of the most awesome places a break-up could ever happen: the parking lot of an IHOP. The story making the rounds is that the two of them were in a car and had been driving for several hours, arguing as people inevitably do when cooped up in a moving vehicle for any length of time. Simpson was supposedly pressing Romo to get married, throwing down ultimatums and making demands. He was in no such hurry and given the fact that his girlfriend seemed to be on the extreme version of the Rosie O’Donnell fitness plan (take two dozen doughnuts, a banana cream pie, a bag of pork rhinds, a box of Twinkies, wash it down with a gallon of YooHoo and called me in the morning), he wasn’t going to be heading that direction any time soon. So this combustible mix was jammed into a too-small car and after a couple hours of arguing, Romo had heard enough. He pulled into the parking lot of a Texas IHOP, stopped the car and demanded that she get out. Her feet had barely hit the pavement when Romo allegedly sped off, leaving here there to wait for two hours while someone else came to pick her up. Yes, it’s almost too good to believe. A needy, wants-to-get-married chick keeps pressuring her boyfriend to commit and not only does he dump her in very public fashion, he does it in the parking lot of a random IHOP. Would you like 12 different kinds of syrup and whipped cream with your break-up, Ms. Simpson? This is a cold-hearted, balls play by Romo and I like it. He dumped her and left her to bawl her eyes out for two hours in the parking lot of a pancake house in the middle of Texas. Part of me wonders whether Romo planned it out this way, driving to the middle of nowhere to leave Simpson after breaking up with her. And to top it off, he has now put up a sign near the front gate of his home declaring a “red alert” and explaining that he’s made changes in his personal life and that Simpson is no longer among the people allowed entry onto his property. In other words, dude has had enough of the drama and is developing a bona-fide mean streak. It’s a solid play, it’s ruthless and I love it……….

- Because I both hate poison ivy and like goats, this story is a real winner in my boo. The good people of Carrboro, N.C. were struggling with the issue of how to best remove poison ivy from the dog park at Hank Anderson Community Park and they arrived at a solution that is fast becoming a lawn care trend in the United States. Carrboro town officials have decided to employ the Goat Patrol to take care of the problem, following in the footsteps of other towns that have turned to goats as a way to cut grass or remove unwanted plant life. “I think this is right up their (the goats') alley,” said David Poythress, Carrboro street superintendent. “From what we understand, they eat most of the day, and one of their favorite foods is poison ivy.” Sold! I don’t need to hear any more. Poison ivy sucks and as someone who grew up in a rural area and got poison ivy nearly every summer as a kid, this is a great idea. Besides, the amusing sight of 14 goats wandering around a park and chowing down on unwanted foliage is always a nice diversion. “What they're really good for is penetrating thick brush, overgrown areas, tackling some of the tougher, tougher plants,” Alix Bowman, owner of the Goat Patrol, said. The town also reaps the obvious benefit of having the work done without causing any damage to the environment by using gas-powered machinery. All of this comes at the low, low price of $10 a day, which is what the town pays Bowman for his goats’ services. Keep up the good work, Goat Patrol, and continue to rid the world of the menace that is poison ivy, one chewy bite at a time…….

Controversial sports figures and their possible returns, piracy season about to kick off and cash-for-clunkers at a dealer near you

- Yesterday was a big day for controversial figures in the world of sports looking to make their return to their respective sports. The biggest name in this trend, as it is every time this guy becomes a topic of discussion, is Pete Rose. Once again, MLB commissioner Bud Selig is said to be "seriously considering" reinstatement for Rose nearly 20 years after the game’s all-time hits leader was banned from baseball for gambling on the sport. Since agreeing to the lifetime ban handed down by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti, Rose has waited through two commissioners for a potential reinstatement. Fay Vincent, who took over as commissioner when Bart Giamatti died eight days after banishing Rose, was never inclined to seriously consider the matter. To hear Vincent, he’s still not a huge fan of Rose. "There is no indication that there's any great support for Pete Rose to get in the Hall of Fame," Vincent said in addressing Selig’s possible consideration of the matter. "If members of the Hall of Fame say we don't want him, you've made a meaningless gesture." Still, Selig has proven before that he’s more open-minded to returning Rose to the game than his predecessor. Five years ago he was on the verge of allowing Rose back into baseball and was prepared to do so if Rose would admit what he had denied for years, that he bet on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Reds. Rose resisted but ultimately decided that he would confess to gambling – in his book that he had written to make a few bucks off of the apology. When Rose issued that terse, disingenuous apology in literary form, Selig decided that maybe ol’ Pete wasn’t as serious about reinstatement as he thought. The issue went away and stayed quiet – until this weekend, when MLB held its annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Several of the current HOF members who attended, including true home run king (sorry Barry Bonds) Hank Aaron, spoke out in favor of Rose’ reinstatement and were reportedly in Selig’s ear about the matter. "I would like to see Pete in," Aaron said. "He belongs there.” Another HOFer, former Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt, has been championing Rose’ reinstatement for years as well. Of course, Vincent is right in pointing out that being reinstated would not guarantee Rose’s entry into the Hall of Fame. If Rose were to become eligible, he would have to be voted into the Hall of Fame by the 65 living members who make up the Veterans Committee. For the first 15 years of eligibility, which begin five years after a player retires, players are voted in on the writers' ballot expires after 15 years. After that, the decision goes to the Veterans Committee. Rose has several friends and former teammates, including Joe Morgan and Frank Robinson, on that committee, but it’s tough to say what would happen if he actually came up for a vote. “I know there are still guys who feel strongly against him," said an unidentified Hall of. "And I don't know if that would change even if Selig clears him.” What I’ve always supported is allowing Rose to be in the Hall of Fame, which his states definitely merit, but not to return to work in baseball in any capacity. The last time this issue came up, Rose was reportedly opposed to that idea and wants to be reinstated so he can work in baseball, possibly even managing again. To me, that’s a bad idea and one that I can’t get behind at all……..

- Meanwhile, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has decided that his own league’s lightning rod for controversy, Michael Vick, can come back to the game he has been out of for nearly two years. Vick was freed last week after serving 18 months in prison for running a dogfighting ring and since his release, speculation over when he would be allowed to return to the NFL has been rampant. Vick and Goodell met Wednesday to discuss Vick’s case and today the commissioner issued his ruling. Vick has been granted a conditional reinstatement, which means he Vick can immediately take part in preseason practices, workouts and meetings and can play in the final two preseason games -- if he can find a team that will sign him. However, once the regular season begins he will not be allowed to play in games until at least the sixth week of the season. He can still participate in all team activities except games, but Goodell won’t consider him for full reinstatement immediately. This is the latest step in a case that began when Goodell suspended Vick indefinitely in August 2007 after Vick admitted bankrolling a dogfighting operation on his property in Virginia. After that, Vick headed off to federal prison in Kansas and was released by the Falcons. His potential return to football has never been far from the sports consciousness, but that’s a double-edged sword. People didn’t forget about him but there is an incredible amount of vitriol and resentment toward him. That includes NFL teams, one of which will have to step up and sign Vick for him to play again. Several teams, including the Dallas Cowboys, a trendy stop for troubled players, have already said publicly that they will not sign Vick. Any team that does sign him will undoubtedly have to deal with all manner of protests and outrage from animal rights groups and animal-loving fans. That team would have to weigh the pros and cons of resigning a Mike Vick who has two years of rust to knock off after being a subpar NFL quarterback prior to his arrest and jail time. As for Vick’s reinstatement, Goodell sent him a letter outlining how the next few weeks will unfold. “I accept that you are sincere when you say that you want to, and will, turn your life around, and that you intend to be a positive role model for others," Goodell said in his letter to Vick. "I am prepared to offer you that opportunity. Whether you succeed is entirely in your hands. Needless to say, your margin for error is extremely limited. I urge you to take full advantage of the resources available to support you and to dedicate yourself to rebuilding your life and your career. If you do this, the NFL will support you." In making his decision, Goodell talked to numerous current and former players and coaches and received responses he described as "very mixed.” Goodell also admitted that he knows some fans and observers will never forgive Vick no matter what he says or does. So as he waits for a team to step up and sign him, what will Vick do? In addition to training and working out, he’s also agreed to counseling. Other than that, it’s a matter of waiting, working and watching………

- Are you ready? Now that the government owns a chunk of the American auto industry and has bailed out the rest of it, the government is looking to jump-start auto sales with its cash-for-clunkers program. As automakers and dealers look out at lots full of cars following months of stagnant sales, this program is a ray of hope. It officially kicked off yesterday after being signed into law in June by President Obama and the cash-for-clunkers program offers $1 billion overall for consumers who agree to trade in their old vehicles for new, more fuel-efficient models. The concept is to stimulate sales while also taking cars low in fuel efficiency off the road. Early projections have the potential sales boost provided by the incentive at by about 200,000 units. In addition to the money being offered by the government, car dealers are tacking on their own incentives to sweeten the deal for customers. Chrysler plans to match the federal rebate dollar for dollar and any consumer shopping for a new vehicle will qualify for the program, which offers up to $4,500 for the purchase of an eligible 2009-model-year Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge vehicle. GM is also staging a direct-mail campaign to promote its own version of the program, which offers specific financial incentives in addition to existing incentives ranging up to $4,000 that GM offers on slow-selling models. All of this comes as nearly every car maker sits on a stockpile of cars will above the While 50 to 60 days' supply of cars that’s considered ideal. Chrysler is sitting on a 71-day supply and GM has an 82-day supply even after keeping most of their factories shut since the beginning of May and foreign automakers are faring no better. Suzuki has a 108-day supply, Jaguar dealers are sitting on a 92-day supply, Mitsubishi stands at 84 days and Mazda has 78 days of supply. Consider those numbers and it’s not surprising that auto sales are currently running at less than 10 million units annually — the lowest level in more than three. With the end of the model year approaching and 2010 models set to hit lots in a few weeks, 2009 vehicles will take an even bigger hit in value if they don’t sell soon. Will the cash-for-clunkers program be enough to entice consumers to take on the financial burden of a new car? I’ll say no because extra incentives or not, the government seems to forget that the American people are still struggling financially and whether a new vehicle costs them $20,000 or $16,000, many of them don’t have a hundred extra dollars to spend, let alone thousands of dollars. Thanks for the effort, though, it’s a nice thought………

- Great news everyone! After ratcheting things down a notch for monsoon season, piracy is expected to pick up in the high seas off in the days ahead. My contemporaries at the Combined Maritime Forces are looking to get out ahead of the curve by urging crews to take up safety measures, including using recognized transit corridors and alerting the proper authorities before making their voyage. "The prior preparation and vigilance of merchant mariners at all times of day and night is more important now than ever," said Rear Admiral Caner Bener of the Combined Task Force. Good advice, rear admiral, but here’s some advice for you: You cannot keep the freaking Somali pirates down no matter what. Think about it: an international coalition has been on these guys’ asses for months now and they aren’t backing down. They’re still hijacking ships, demanding and receiving ransoms and doing their pirate-y best to be the scourges of the high seas they’ve always been. Even with international forces made up of more than 30 ships and aircraft from 16 nations patrolling the specifically to stop them, these pirates will marshal their forces and pillage, plunder and loot their way to success. “While our ability to deter and disrupt attacks has improved over time, we are constantly adapting the way we do our business as the pirates adapt and modify their tactics," Bener said. Keep up that false hope, admiral. There’s a reason the waters off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden have gained a reputation as the most dangerous and pirate-inhabited in the world and it’s the same reason that reputation will stay in place. The pirates will continue to capture dozens of vessels and hundreds of hostages, making millions of dollars in ransom demands and drinking their rum, mateys………

- Umm, is this really something newsworthy, People magazine? I know that People is a publication that’s all about celebrity gossip and reporting on the goings on in Hollywood, but that doesn’t explain what the mag is doing reporting on the love life of a reality TV loser who has never done a damn thing to contribute to the world outside of knocking up his former wife to the tune of eight kids. Jon Gosselin is neck and neck with those idiots Heidi and Spencer in the race for milking the most fame out of the least contributed to the world and they’re leading the pack by a wide margin. So watching People breathlessly report on Gosselin’s trip to Saint-Tropez with Hailey Glassman (who?) and a double date in the Hamptons with Kate Major (double who?) is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying to me. But fear not, People has cleared everything up for us! The magazine reports that Gosselin now says he's happily flying solo. "At this point ... I'm single -- per se," he told PEOPLE. “I'm just a regular guy who just wants to have friendship and good times. And I like meeting people.” Wait a minute, I think this idiot just made a salient point. He IS just a regular guy. He’s a regular, f’d up guy with a failed marriage who is in no way, shape or form a viable celebrity and shouldn’t be part of any coverage of celebrities. Just because TLC has nothing better to do with its airtime than slam Gosselin and his dysfunctional family on TV in "Jon & Kate Plus 8” doesn’t mean the rest of us have to pay any attention to him. Whether it’s because people enjoy seeing someone whose life is more screwed up than theirs or just like seeing others’ drama, I don’t know, but this show has gotten a lot more run that it should have. Because you all couldn’t contain yourselves and gave this tool the impression that he really is a celebrity, he’s now cruising around the Hamptons with Lindsay Lohan’s old man Michael, acting like he belongs. So when “Jon & Kate” returns to TLC on August 3, count on me to not be watching……

Rickey enters the hall of fame, the luxury cell phone market takes a hit and another vote for Ahmadinejad to potentially rig

- Sweeet! Another vote for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to rig, er, win legitimately! After thieving his country’s recent presidential election and setting off riots and protests that have yet to cease, Ahmadinejad may have to face a vote of confidence in parliament for the final few days of his current term after firing two members of his cabinet. Although the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) is following the script and spouting the party line that only one cabinet member was fired, so no such vote would be needed, don’t bet on it. The way this works is that Iran has 21 ministries and to the country's constitution, if more than half the cabinet members are changed in a single term of presidency, a vote of confidence in Iran's parliament is required. Up to this point in his presidency, Ahmadinejad has replaced nine cabinet members. If this report is true and he’s canned two more, that would push him over the magical 50 percent barrier and necessitate that vote of confidence. Now I have no illusions about how that vote would go because clearly Ahmadinejad would not allow it to go against him. I’m not sure how one goes about rigging a parliamentary vote (threats, intimidation, physical violence?), but I’m sure my man Mahmoud does. Multiple news outlets are reporting that Ahmadinejad has indeed fired two ministers, intelligence minister Mohseni Ejeie and culture minister Saffar Harandi. According to one Iranian news outlet, Ahmadinejad was feverishly attempting to convince Harandi in order to avoid a confidence vote. Ahmad Tavakoli, a powerful rightist member of parliament who does not support Ahmadinejad, spoke about the firings thusly: "I advise the president to change his mind. Firing the ministers has no logical reason and creates difficult conditions for the country. This is not a suitable response to the trust of 24 million people who voted for the president." Well, I guess the big problem with that quote is its basis on the assumption that anything the megalomaniacal Ahmadinejad does it based on logic and not on self-serving, power-hungry greed…….

- Even rich golfers and major corporations aren’t exempt from the economic crisis gripping the United States nowadays. Apparently this week's Buick Open, one of the oldest events on the PGA Tour, will be the final version of the event. As financially-bumbling General Motors lurches through its many monetary issues and trials, the company has announced that it is pulling its sponsorship of the event after 51 years. However, it is believed that a new sponsor will be formally announced and a new venue for the to-be-renamed event will be announced some time next week. Well at least the Buick Open will go out on a high note, a Tiger Woods is in the field for the tournament, which starts Thursday at Warwick Hills Golf Club in Grand Blanc, Mich. "Buick doesn't have the finances; GM can't afford it," Tom Pernice Jr., a member of the Tour's Player Advisory Council, said. "From a perception standpoint, you can't lay off all those people and then sponsor a golf tournament.” Duly noted and 100 percent on the mark. The fact is that sponsoring a golf tournament is exactly the sort of wasteful spending that a company that has been bailed out by the government and taxpayers can’t afford. It’s sure as heck not a solid choice to spend advertising dollars. Larry Peck, Buick-GMC's national promotions manager, admitted last week that the company was facing some difficult financial decisions ahead but at the time maintained that no decision had been made about the Buick Open. He was likely doing what executives do, namely stonewalling and not giving up valuable information, because you can bet this decision has been in the making for some time. The discontinuation of the Buick Open also raises questions about the Buick Invitational, which is held early in the season at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego. Buick has sponsored that tournament since 1992 and like the Buick Open, its sponsorship contract with the automaker runs through 2010. Not that fans give a crap who sponsors a tournament, but this simply proves that every sport on the American sports landscape is in dire financial straits going forward………

- Big ups to a bunch of animated gerbils for kicking the cinematic sh*t out of that tool Harry Potter and the lame-tastic romantic comedy attempt of Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. Yes, Disney's family comedy "G-Force," produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Will Arnett, and Penelope Cruz, was tops at the box office this weekend. The team of gerbils saving the world banked made an estimated $32.2 million in its debut to knock off last weekend’s No. 1 film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which brought in $30 million, bringing its total to $221.8 million. Better still, “G-Force” did so by pulling 55 percent of its viewers from the under-18 crowd, which should be where “Potter” pulls most of its fans from (it should be, but sadly I’m guessing it isn't). Despite finishing second this weekend, 'Half-Blood' is already the fifth biggest hit of the year domestically. When you factor in its overseas take, the movie had banked an additional $236 million. For adults with the good taste not to go see a dorky movie about a bunch of wizards, there was…..um, a really awful raunchy R-rated romantic comedy? Super. Yes, it’s likely that a lot of guys out there were dragged to see "The Ugly Truth," starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler in a battle of the sexes. Thus, the movie opened with a respectable $27 million take. Another newcomer was Warner Bros' creepy "Orphan" -- starring Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga – with $12.8. One of the more profitable movies in theaters continues to be Fox Searchlight's "(500) Days of Summer" (at No. 11 with $3 million) which averaged $19,176 per site and scored a 95 percent increase over its debut last weekend. Not exactly a weekend of exciting summer blockbusters to feast your movie-going eyes on, but I’ve seen worse….I think………

- At the top I mentioned the toll the country’s economic woes are taking on rich golfers and car companies. Sadly, Average Joe Wealthy Guy is taking a hit as well. No longer can AJWG afford to spend $3,000 for a luxury cell phone. Yes, makers of luxury phones, such as Motorola, Bang & Olufson, LG and Vertu are finding that their clientele is no longer interested in shilling out megabucks for with exclusive devices that carry designer logos and promise craftsmanship from materials such as sapphire and stainless steel. Those companies are taking the hint and scaling back their tacky, over-the-top phones. Last week, Motorola canceled the Ivory E18, a device tentatively priced around $3,000 due to a lack of interest from telecom carriers. The decision stands in stark contrast to Motorola’s approach just 10 months ago, when it Motorola offered a $2,000 phone, called the Aura, which was fashioned out of stainless steel and sported a 62-carat sapphire crystal lens. Not to be outdone, Samsung launched the M75500 Night Effect phone, which carried the Emporio Armani insignia, last September. Yet these are different times for Motorola, Samsung and Vertu, a company that makes true luxury phones, the cheapest of which costs about $6,000. They are hard timed for companies like Bang & Olufsen, which shut down its cell phone business and $1,500-plus phones recently. Ironically enough, luxury phones have never been a huge seller in North America, where you’d think American consumerism and penchant for excess would make them a hit. However, luxury phone makers have typically found much more success in emerging markets. Finding that success becomes much tougher when the entire free world is in an economic freefall and your phones can retail for as much as $70,000, which is what one can expect to pay for a Vertu device, wrapped in platinum. You know it’s a luxury phone when it’s designed in collaboration with luxury jewels house Boucheron, which some of Vertu’s more expensive models are. Those factors may make luxury phones unique, but one thing they have in common with the average flip phone carried by a soccer mom in suburban Dallas is that they become obsolete quickly as newer, glitzier phones come on the market. Just don’t tell all of this to Vertu, which is hunkering down and looking to prove that luxury phones are still a viable product. The company will launch the Carbon Fibre Ascent Ti in August, a phone made of high-gloss carbon fiber with a sandblasted titanium surface, all for the low, low price of $9,800……….

- Never had I been more pumped for a hall of fame induction in any sport than I was for Sunday’s Baseball Hall of Fame ceremonies to welcome freaking Rickey Henderson to the game’s most elite club. I don’t have time to recount all of the classic tales of Rickey being Rickey, but my favorite has to be him approaching teammate John Olerud while playing in Toronto and informing the laconic Olerud that he had previously playd with a teammate who wore a plastic batting helmet while playing in the field as opposed to the normal baseball cap other players wear, a practice Olerud was well-known for. Upon hearing Rickey’s insight, Olerud promptly replied, “I know Rick, that was me.” Freaking awesome. The two had played together in New York but Rickey being Rickey, he had no idea. Bearing all of these stories in mind, I was jacked for yesterday’s ceremony. Unfortunately, Rickey decided to dial it down and approach his speech with a modicum of respectfulness and humility, which totally sucked. "My journey as a player is complete," Henderson said. "I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time, and at this moment I am very humbled." Not what I wanted to hear, Rick. What I wanted was some new version of you stealing second base to become baseball’s all-time leading base stealer, ripping the base from the ground and holding it aloft over your head as you announced to the crowd via the provided microphone, “Lou Brock was a great base stealer, but today I am the greatest of all-time,” as Lou Brock looked on from the front row of the stands. This was not the time for humility, even if Henderson’s speech did include an amusing anecdote about how his lifelong dream was to play pro football for the Oakland Raiders. "My dream was to play football for the Oakland Raiders," Henderson said. "But my mother thought I would get hurt playing football, so she chose baseball for me. I guess moms do know best." Rickey also shared a funny story about to a trick played by his former Babe Ruth coach, Hank Thomasson. "He tricked me into playing by coming to pick me up with a glazed donut and a cup of hot chocolate," said Henderson. "That was the way he would get me up and out of bed.” Thanks to Thomasson’s help, Henderson went on to Henderson lead the American League in steals 12 times and set the records for steals (1,406), runs scored (2,295), unintentional walks (2,129) and homers leading off a game (81). He was drafted by the Oakland Athletics on the fourth round in 1976, made his major league debut with Oakland in late June 1979 and went on to play for a total of nine teams in his career. Remembering his major league debut, Henderson cited it as a day he would never forget. “That was the most thrilling time of my life. Charlie (former Oakland owner Charles Finley), wherever you're at, and that donkey, I want to say thank you for that opportunity.” Also inducted yesterday was former Boston Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice, who was actually in his final year of eligibility to be voted into the Hall. He was much quieter and more reclusive than Henderson during his career, so I didn’t look forward to Rice’s speech nearly as much. However, I also didn’t get as much of Rickey being Rickey as I had hoped for either……..

The renwed drive to legalize the hippie lettuce in California, making much of nothing in college football and things not to say in Saudi Arabia

- Here is the ultimate illustration of why nothing that happens before the first snap of the college football season matters at all. As the Southeastern Conference held its media days (yes, days as in plural, more than one), the big “controversy” was which SEC coach had the audacity to not vote for All-Everything University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow as first team preseason all-SEC. Only one coach committed this horrific offense, but it led to a freaking witch hunt that occurred with a frightening intensity and scrutiny. Coach after coach took to the podium and denied that he was the one who voted Mississippi's Jevan Snead as the first-team quarterback, and not Tebow. Every coach in the conference said on the record or confirmed through a spokesperson that he voted for Tebow - except for former UF coach and current South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier. The Old Ball Coach finally solved the mystery by admitting that he was the one who snubbed Florida's Tim Tebow in the coaches' voting on the preseason All-SEC team. However, the OBC then tried to pass it off as an innocent mistake that happened because his director of football operations had filled out the ballot and brought it in to him rather than Spurrier filling it out himself. It seems wrong that some staffer would fill out the ballot for a coaches’ poll, but the reality is that it’s done that way by nearly every coach in every sport at every school who votes for one of these polls or teams. Spurrier shoved his director of football operations under the bus before then trying to step back in and deflect some of the blame on himself. "I take full responsibility," he said, emphasizing that he believed Tebow to be one of the best quarterbacks in Florida history. "I'm embarrassed about it, I feel badly about it ... I apologize to Tim Tebow." He explained that he glanced at the ballot quickly before approving it, but that he didn’t realize the mistake of omitting Tebow until later. Spurrier then called SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom and asked that his ballot be changed to include Tebow as the first-team quarterback. All of this…..well, it couldn’t be more ridiculous. These preseason teams are the most ginormous waste of time, a meaningless exercise based solely on reputation. Unless these coaches somehow have become clairvoyants and can predict the future, who they think is the best player at the start of the season could not matter less. I realize that there are no games to talk about yet and everyone is raring to get their football fix, but perhaps it’s time to take it down a notch so that we don’t end up wasting time talking about things as absurd and irrelevant as this……….

- It’s a sad day for both beer drinkers and for people in Lawrenceville, Pa. After nearly 150 years, the Iron City brewery has closed its door and will no longer be bottling beer. Friday marked the final day of kegging at the Lawrenceville location, where production started in 1868. The plant’s 51 workers will soon be without a job once the plant winds down operations, cleans up and turns out the lights. "Everybody is just kind of down. Because not only did a lot of the guys work here, but their brothers worked here and their fathers worked here. And there's a couple their grandfathers (who) worked here," said Don Conners, an employee who has worked for the company for 30 years. The plant will now relocate to the City Brewing Company plant in Latrobe, where president and CEO Tim Hickman feels it will be more financially viable. "For us to keep these brands alive we had to move. If we would try and stay on this plant, those brands would go away," Hickman said. By making the move, Iron City will be able to increase production from 170,000 barrels a year to 1 million. Hickman also said that staying in Lawrenceville would have meant spending millions of dollars to keep the plant running. For its final act as an operating plant, the Lawrenceville facility processed 120 half kegs for its last batch of beer. Over the next few months, the company will undertake the process of decommissioning the plant -- turning off the power and sanitizing the equipment. “(After) 147 years it's going to take us awhile to go square foot by square foot, room by room, to shut this place down,” Hickman said. Sympathies to the people of Lawrenceville and especially the plant’s former employees for what has to be an incredibly difficult loss, let’s everyone toss back a cold one in their honor…….

- Reality TV, ruining lives the whole world ‘round. It’s true in the United States and it’s certainly true in Saudi Arabia, where a Saudi man was arrested after bragging about his sex life on television. Mazen Abdul Jawad went on a show called "Red Line" on Lebanese channel LBC, where he shared "graphic details about his sexual conquests.” A segment of the show has made its way to YouTube (of course it has) and the clip shows Abdul Jawad talking about sex and foreplay. He also shares a very charming story about losing his virginity to a neighbor while he was 14. That was probably a bad play in Saudi Arabia, an extremely conservative nation where pre-marital sex is illegal and unrelated men and women are not allowed to mingle. When asked about the situation involving Abdul Jawad, Ahmad Qasim Al-Ghamdi, director of Mecca's branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, sounded a wee bit upset. "It is wrong to host people on television to speak publicly about vice and issues against our religion," said Al-Ghamdi, one of the top officials for a group also known as the country’s religious police. "The program presents anomalies and deviancy in society that are unacceptable and immoral, and should be punished according to Shariah." Amazingly, more than 100 people have filed a complaint against Abdul Jawad, alleging among other things, that he violated a principle of Shariah law by "publicizing his sinful behavior." In other words, these people are actively looking to narc out one of their own because of something he said on a TV show in another country. Way to stick together and look out for one another, Saudis………….

- All aboard the gravy train! “Batman: The Dark Knight” was a ridiculously successful smash at the box office and once it went to DVD/Blu-Ray, so why wouldn’t the video game world try to cash in on the money-making? Emmy-winning TV writer Paul Dini is the man making that push after creating "Batman: Arkham Asylum," a video game coming out in late August. He’s taken the popular characters from the movie and incorporated them into a dark, movie-like game that is already creating a lot of buzz among fans. They’re clearly eager to enjoy the adventure of Batman and his most notorious nemesis, the Joker doing battle. “This is the Batman movie I would have liked to have written," said Dini. "This is him with all the good stuff." He drummed up some additional buzz for the game by taking part in the Legion of Dorks, er, Comi-Con convention in San Diego over the weekend. According to Dini, the game pits Batman against Joker after the villain traps him inside Arkham Asylum, which played a key role in “Batman Returns,” which preceded “Dark Knight” in the revival of the previously tired “Batman” franchise. Of course, Arkham is Gotham's psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. In the game the Joker first traps Batman inside the asylum and then releases the inmates, including some of Batman's most ferocious enemies: Bane, Harley Quinn, Mr. Zsasz, Poison Ivy and Killer Croc. Video games are nothing new to the Batman franchise, as there have been numerous projects over the past two-plus decades. However, "Arkham Asylum" is by far the most detailed and ambitious attempt to this point. It will be released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows by Rocksteady Studios. Although the game does draw from the last two movies and characters made popular in previous films, Dini has no direct tie-in to any one movie and was thus allowed to craft an original story from his own imagination. He had plenty to draw from, having worked on Batman comic books and written episodes of "Batman: The Animated Series" and later, "Batman Beyond." Oh, and he’s also written for the ABC’s hit "Lost," so he has that going for him as well. Dini has channeled some star power for his game too, with the Joker voiced by Mark Hamill, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker in the "Star Wars" franchise. So will the game live up to the hype once it officially debuts? The jury is still out on that one, but Dini definitely has the credentials to create a winner……..

- Richard Lee is my kind of guy. The resident of Oakland, Calif. is one of the leaders of the charge to legalize pot in the state of California and he’s not shy about promoting his cause. He’s the founder of Oaksterdam University, which he describes as a trade school that specializes in how to grow, market and consume the hippie lettuce. Lee claims some 3,500 graduates from his stoner school and also owns a medical marijuana dispensary, a coffee house, a large indoor marijuana plantation, and a museum/store devoted to the cause of legalizing marijuana. “I really see this as following the history of alcohol. The way prohibition was repealed there,” Lee states. To that end, Lee is spearheading a petition drive to place a marijuana legalization measure on the ballot in 2010. Furthermore, he is confident that such a measure has an excellent chance of being approved by voters and he just may be right. A recent California Field Poll showed that more than half the people in the state would approve of decriminalizing pot. See, I knew there was a reason I loved Californians. It’s the biggest win-win of all-time, because legalizing the chronic could generate an estimated $1 billion a year in state taxes and weed would instantly become California's No. 1 cash crop. It could even inspire other states to follow suit and in a short time, we could be a nation of stoners. Lee has a kindred spirit in Democratic State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who is driving a cannabis legalization bill in the California Assembly. His primary motivation appears to be the tax revenues, which is a) not surprising given him being a politician and b) totally irrelevant. I don’t give a damn why someone supports legalizing pot as long as they support legalizing pot. But what I also love about Ammiano is that he has a grander vision for bringing pot to the masses. “It could be a Walgreens, it could be a hospital, a medical marijuana facility, whatever could be convenient. Adequate enforcement of the rules. Nobody under 21. No driving under the influence,” he explained. I’m choosing to overlook that comment about no one under 21 and strictly enforcing rules, because we all know those things will fall by the wayside anyhow should this bill pass. Those who want tree will get tree whether they are old enough or not. So what does the Gover-nator, Ah-nold Schwarzenegger, think of the idea? Amazingly, he says legalizing marijuana deserves serious consideration. “I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana," Schwarzenegger says. Hmm, so if the governor is on board and there is a legislator willing to introduce the bill, what’s the hang-up? According to Ammiano, legalizing the hippie lettuce is tough because his fellow legislators worry about what the public would think if they publicly supported such a bill. “If we held the vote in the hallway, we'd have it done," Ammiano says. "But people are necessarily cautious. They are up for re-election.” For that reason, he believes there is a much better chance of voters pushing the issue through than there is of their elected representatives getting the job done. Still, Paul Chabot, president of the Coalition for a Drug Free California. This ass-hated square is standing up against this wonderful idea and claiming that promises of economic benefits are pipe dreams. “It's their way of sort of desensitizing our communities, our state and our nation to a drug problem that we clearly need to put our foot down on, and say, 'No more. Enough is enough.'” Sorry Paul, maybe you should try taking that stick out of your ass and saying that again, because I didn’t understand you. Don’t ruin something beautiful with your overly conservative, behind-the-times thinking. You and your views are antiquated and out of touch, period. Embrace that view that most of your fellow Californians have come to accept, namely that herb is not going away and it’s time the state made some money from it………

Attacking zebras, a magnanimous decision by Nike and the joy of the Lebowski Fest

- How freaking magnanimous of Nike to finally return those tapes of LeBron James getting dunked on by Xavier recruit Jordan Crawford to the two accredited journalists who filmed them. The dunk itself proved to be a huge dud, a decent dunk that was blown up to be much more than what it was precisely because Nike went all Big Brother/censorship and ripped the tapes to begin with so the world wouldn’t see some kid fresh out of high school throwing down on LBJ, er, uh, because of its media guidelines that no pickup games be filmed. Whatever you say, Nike. You can give back the tapes now and issue a lame statement trying to explain away your actions, no one is buying it. "It was never about the play or the player, it was always about our media policy," Nike said. "The interest in the tapes has greatly overshadowed the focus of the camp, which is to help young athletes improve their skills, and that is regrettable. It was Nike's decision to take these tapes based on our media guidelines, which we will continue to enforce." Thanks for taking the time to issue a canned statement lying to us all, we appreciate it. But finally Nike has given the tapes back to their rightful owners, which is an utterly meaningless gesture now that the footage has been leaked to the Internet and we’ve all see Crawford dunking over James during a pickup game at James’ camp in Akron. Nike also did its best to downplay what was on the two tapes, saying only one of the tapes captured the dunk. In the end, it was merely James coming over as a help defender and getting there at the last minute when Crawford was driving to the basket to throw one down. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before in NBA games when other pros have thrown down over the King. As has been accurately observed, had Nike not tried to channel its inner North Korea and enforce unjustified censorship in the first place, this whole thing would have blown over almost instantaneously and would never have become anywhere near as big a deal as it has turned into……

- There have to be some very unhappy fanatical kooks out there right now. How do I know that? Because when I first touched on the case against evangelist Tony Alamo and the multiple felony charges against him a few months ago, I heard from a few of those fanatical kooks. Despite overwhelming evidence that Alamo had indeed done unspeakable things to young girls, those fanatical kooks were adamant that Alamo was a good man and that I was waaaay out of line for daring to rip him. I’ll take your apologies now, fanatical kooks, you know where to find me. Of course, you morons might still believe that your boy T. Alamo is innocent and simply the victim of some vast government conspiracy even after a jury in Arkansas convicted him on Friday of 10 federal counts of taking minors across state lines for sex. Those charges were the reason for the September raid authorities staged on Alamo’s 15-acre compound near Texarkana, Arkansas. Jurors took all of eight hours to deliberate, which I’m guessing included a power nap or five and a few bathroom breaks, because it couldn’t have taken that long to agree that this scumbag was guilty. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, so let’s just say that Alamo should join Bernie Madoff in having no hope of getting out of prison for the rest of his natural life. That’s exactly what you deserve when between March 1994 and October 2005, you transport five girls younger than 18 across state lines for sex. That cannot be the work God would want from the founder and leader of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, right? T he case relied heavily on the accounts of three of the girls Alamo was ultimately convicted of sexually assaulting, two of whom were 17 when the complaint was filed last year and one who was 14. All three girls bravely testified that Alamo sexually abused them. Oh, and come to find out that Alamo’s real name is Bernie Hoffman. Bernie Hoffman? What, can’t do God’s work with the name Bernie Hoffman? That’s pretty absurd that an alleged man of God feels that he has to change his name like a Hollywood star in order to get the job done. Perhaps nothing was more haunting during this entire ordeal than Alamo/Hoffman trying to liken himself to Jesus Christ, claims that seem to have -5,000 percent truth to them. Yes, negative 5,000 percent. "Why were they after Jesus," Alamo/Hoffman asked in an interview. "It's the same reason. Jesus is living within me." Yes, but Jesus didn’t sexually assault any young girls and then lie about it, T……...

- Now here’s a festival/convention I can get with. As opposed to all of those pale, basement-dwelling dorks at Comi-Con, the hearty souls who gathered recently just outside Seattle, Washington, for the Lebowski Fest, are my kind of people. When the Coen brothers classic "The Big Lebowski" hit theaters in 1998, it was a critical and box office flop. No one seemed to get the movie or its unique brand of humor, but as it moved to VHS/DVD, the movie found a rabid cult following. Actor Jeff Bridges’ brilliant portrayal of the “The Dude,” a sliding-along slacker who wanted to do little more than bowl, sleep, get high and find the rug that was stolen from his home (“It just tied the room together”) became legendary. The movie became such a cult favorite that it spawned the Lebowski Fest outside of Seattle, where co-founders Scott Shuffitt and Will Russell launched their idea after coming up with it in 2002 while quoting lines from the movie during a slow day selling T-shirts at a tattoo expo in Louisville, Kentucky, where they live. This year, the Seattle Lebowski Fest drew about 200 attendees to watch the movie, bowl, drink the film’s signature white Russians and of course quote their favorite lines from the film. I like this event so much that I’m going to waive my normal rule that it’s unacceptable for adults to dress up like characters from a movie any time other than Halloween. Seeing images of a dozen guys dressed like the Dude or his gun-toting, ‘Nam-flashback-having buddy Walter (player by John Goodman) is freaking hilarious. I am also confident that these guys aren’t going around year-round dressed like this or completely consumed in the world of Lebowski the way Star Wars or Star Trek dorks are engrossed in their little fantasy worlds. "These guys are not the 'Star Trek' fans, they are not the 'Star Wars' fans, they are a different class. They are not the nerds. They are the slackers," said attendee Scott Glancy. Well put, Scotty. "There's a certain community thing that goes on when you hang out and watch your favorite film," said Shuffitt. "When you are watching it with 700 people who love it just as much as you do and everyone's quoting from it, it's just a really nice community." The Lebowski Fest has actually been held 25 times in the United States and overseas since its inception. This year alone, the roving party will visit 15 cities, including Chicago, Illinois, New York and Washington. And what’s the most important lesson to be learned from this? As always, the Dude abides……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This is a freaking awesome edition of everyone’s favorite watch of social dissidence around the world, if I do say so myself. If giant slingshots are involved, you know it’s good. This edition emanates from Seoul, South Korea, where a group of 500 workers and 200 sympathizers remained holed up at a Ssangyong Motor Co. factory complex. After being canned, the workers took over the complex in suburban Seoul on May 31 and shut down production. They’ve remained entrenched for seven weeks and on Thursday proceeded to use giant slingshots to fire nuts, bolts and other projectiles at police. Are you freaking kidding me? That is….AWESOME! How can you not get with a group of fired workers commandeering their former place of employment, shutting it down and waging an intense war against The Man using giant slingshots to fire nuts and bolts at the police? Sure, Ssangyong Motor Co. has been hit hard by the global recession and letting these workers go was likely a tough decision, but that doesn’t mean the workers can't fight back. This small army actually started the standoff in the main factory but has since been driven to the South Korean auto maker's painting facility on the premises. However, that game them the chance to spray-paint a message on the building that said, "If you are not going to talk, kill us all." Hmm…..dramatic, fatalistic, borderline insane….I like it. I also enjoy the fact that these workers are ignorning the South Korean government’s efforts to persuade many companies and unions to avoid confrontation during the economic downturn. Even though the government pressed companies to use pay freezes, job-sharing and other methods rather than layoffs, Ssangyong Motor Co. decided to do its own thing. Suffering your second-biggest loss ever -- 710 billion won, or about $567 million -- in 2008 can do that to a company. Also, the company is actually owned by Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp. of China, so there isn’t exactly a strong bond there in terms of national interests. But I digress, because the real story here is these awesome workers who have held off police for nearly two months with makeshift weapons and willpower. When the number of holdouts began to dwindle, they were reinforced by about 200 people from other unions and companies. Even after suffering a setback on Monday when more than 2,000 police in riot gear moved in to the complex and cleared the way for several thousand other workers to restart assembly lines, the fired workers hung tough by finding a new home base in the paint facility. They’ve begun fortifying it and forced police to use metal barricades to shield themselves. Police are hesitant to enter the building by force because it’s filled with flammable liquids and based on their act thus far, these crazies are likely to light something on fire. "We're waiting, for the time being," a police spokesman said Thursday. Go ahead, keep waiting, just as long as that means more giant slingshot and crazy spray-painted messages for the rest of us……..


- Don’t mess with the zebras. It’s true for college football players on the field and it’s obviously true off the field as well. Don’t believe me? Just as Joe Windscheffel, a linebacker/safety for NCAA Division II power Pittsburg State, who will miss the 2009 season after throwing down with a zebra at his summer job. Windscheffel was working on a farm near Lawrence, Kansas for the summer and was told to paint a fence along a pasture line. No big deal, painting a fence in a remote pasture should be a relaxing task and a chance to enjoy the summer sun while getting some work done, right? It would have been if not for the four zebras Windscheffel had to move in order to paint the fence. The three female zebras complied and gave Windscheffel no trouble, but the lone male zebra in the group was having none of it. The animal charged Windscheffel and bit his arm. Not satisfied with the damage it had inflicted, the zebra dragged the 6-foot-2, 225-pound man until two fellow farmhands came to his aid. The incident left Windscheffel with a compound fracture that is likely to sideline him for the upcoming season. "You only see zebras on television getting eaten by lions, but they are stronger than they look," Windscheffel said. "It was just a freak deal." A freak deal and a valuable life lesson for us all, my man. I do wonder what the heck zebras were doing in Kansas. Seriously, was this Kansas or were you painting a fence in the Serengeti? This is why I avoid working with wildlife if at all possible……..

Places with 16-year-old strippers, major corruption in New Jersey and the monster that is the NFL draft grows again

- Doesn’t the sight of clergy, elected officials and civil servants collaborating and cooperating to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen money just warm your heart? What a sight is unfolding in New Jersey, where at least three New Jersey mayors, other public officials and five rabbis were among 44 people arrested Thursday in a federal investigation of public corruption and money laundering. Included in that tally were luminaries such as Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III and New Jersey Assembly members Daniel Van Pelt and L. Harvey Smith. Other sleazy, integrity-free individuals included in the sting were Secaucus, New Jersey, Mayor Dennis Elwell, Ridgefield, New Jersey, Mayor Anthony Suarez and Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, representing the ladies. But what would a story like this be without a little involvement from the clergy? As it turns out, five rabbis, were also in on the indictment party. Included in those 44 arrests was the national leader of the Syrian Jewish community and four fellow Jewish leaders accused of laundering more than $3 million. This is just a crazy story, with all sorts of dirty money flying and flowing around. A total of $650,000 in bribes were paid to New Jersey public officials and one man was charged with conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for transplant for the handsome price of $160,000. Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn is the kind soul who allegedly offered to obtain a kidney for an undercover FBI agent for that $160,000 fee. All told, investigators searched about 20 locations in New Jersey and New York to recover "large sums of cash and other evidence of criminal conduct.” They also executed 28 seizure warrants against bank accounts for individuals they believed to be a part of the conspiracy. Cammarano was clearly a greedy S.O.B., allegedly accepting $35,000 in bribes from a government witness posing as a real estate developer. Other officials allegedly took bribes "to help get approvals from high-level state agency officials for building projects,” which is always a solid way to get things done. Those bribes were then labeled as “consulting fees” in order to sanitize them and make them appear slightly less criminal. Oddly enough, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine seemed upset by the arrests and said in a statement: "Any corruption is unacceptable -- anywhere, anytime, by anybody. The scale of corruption we're seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated." Somebody’s a tad cranky today, eh? But that’s the sort of thing that will happen when the FBI conducts a large-scale operation over the course of three years into rampant corruption. Personally I like the incorporation of individuals from a wide range of fields and professions into corruption of this scale, so there’s something positive to take from this tale after all……..

- Are you a huge fan of The Simpsons? If your answer is the same as mine - namely, no - then this may not be of much interest to you. If you are a fan, you might be interested to know that an open casting call for The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special — In 3-D! On Ice! will be held tomorrow at Comic-Con in San Diego. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me), who will direct the anniversary special, is looking for some of the show’s more gung-ho fans to drop in and try to earn a spot on the show. "I hope we find some of the most incredible super-fans that the world has ever seen," Spurlock said. Be careful what you ask for M., because I have a feeling some really bizarre, scary freaks are going to be heading your way. Ironically, the show, which will air in January, will be neither in 3-D nor on ice. What it will be is a chance for an über-fan or two to live their dream of being a part of one of the longest-running shows on television. "Maybe there's people who want to tell stories about how it changed their life...but we hope we get great people who have great stories to tell,” Spurlock added. How an animated show with low-rent humor changed their life? Now that I would have to hear. So how to go about preparing for the auditions if you’re planning on going? Spurlock suggests dressing up like a favorite Simpsons character, or transforming yourself into some sort of "billboard" for the show. Other than that, plan on showing up really early and camping out with the rest of the losers at the Marriot Hotel & Marina in San Diego. The casting call kicks off 10 a.m. EST and ends that night at 8. Best of success to anyone planning on going, I have a feeling you’ll be in for a long day…….

- Great, this is just what we needed. Already the NFL draft was a two-day monstrosity consuming the better part of 36 hours on the second-to-last weekend in April. The draft has become an increasing target for criticism and mocking among those who argue that it has become a bloated, oversized festival of excess that drags on and on fueled largely by filler content and wasting of time. With that in mind, I can only imagine what the reaction will be now that the league has expanded the event from two to three days. Commissioner Roger Goodell has notified teams that the draft will bloat to three days in 2010, starting at 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 22 and running late into the day on Saturday, April 24. “We continue to look for ways to make the draft more accessible to more fans," Goodell said in a statement. "Moving the first round to prime time on Thursday night will make the first round of the draft available to fans on what is typically the most-watched night of television.” Either that or you’re looking to expand the league’s presence by another day and take up even more of the sports calendar than you already do. I’m not saying it’s wrong from a business standpoint, I’m simply saying it’s tending toward excess. I’m a huge football fan and watch a lot of NFL action, but three days is just going too far. Yes, ESPN and the NFL Network will televise the event from start to finish as they always do, but just because someone will televise it doesn’t mean you should do it. The first day of the draft will consist only of the first round, with second and third rounds starting at 6:30 p.m. ET on April 23 and rounds 4 through 7 starting at 10 a.m. ET on April 24. But you can see where the NFL, feeling its oats after a total of 39 million viewers watched the draft this year, thought this was a good idea. This is the third major format change to the draft in the past 16 years, as the NFL held its draft on Sunday-Monday two-day blocks from 1988 to 1994 and changed it to a Saturday-Sunday event from 1995 to 2009. Next step after this? How’s about a whole week of draft madness, one round per day? It’s only a matter of time…….

- Caravan time! Although I’m upset that no one invited me to join, but I’ll overlook that and enjoy the attempted return of deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya to the country he was elected to govern. Zelaya climbed into a sport utility vehicle yesterday and kicked off his journey from Managua, Nicaragua, to the country's border with Honduras. Joined by a caravan of supporters and reporters, Zelaya headed north to the city of Esteli, close to the Honduran border. His plan is to stop there, finalize his border-crossing plans and then do some border crashing. The actual plan to return to Honduras was announced earlier this week, but observers on both sides of the current crisis in Honduras worry that Zelaya going home could spark off more unrest. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley said, “Any step that would add to the risk of violence in Honduras or in the area, we think would be unwise.” He already attempted a return via air on July 5 and found the Honduran military waiting on the runway to block him from getting off the plane. Nearly a month has passed since the June 28 military-led coup that deposed Zelaya, but tensions are clearly as high as ever. Regular demonstrations by both sides in the debate have taken place across the country since the coup. Some demonstrators have marched in support of interim President Roberto Micheletti, but the majority of them have backed Zelaya. Asked about the reception he expects to receive at the border, Zelaya optimistically declared that he hopes border guards in Honduras will recognize him as president and commander in chief and allow him to cross. "We go with a white flag, with a flag of peace," Zelaya said. In response to Zelaya’s attempted return, Micheletti's government renewed its pledge to arrest Zelaya on charges of violating the constitution and announced a curfew in the border area with Nicaragua from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Meanwhile, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias continues his attempts to play peacemaker in the conflict. Arias has presided over two rounds of unsuccessful talks between the two sides and offered a peace agreement Wednesday called the San Jose Accord. The agreement calls for Zelaya's return to power, the creation of a unity government, and early elections. Don’t expect Micheletti’s governent to accept it, but it’s a nice thought anyhow. Also, don’t expect the Honduran supreme court to roll out much of a welcome mat for Zelaya. The court has gone on the record as saying it would not accept Zelaya's return under any circumstances. Outside forces like the United States and the Organization of American States continue to push for both sides to sign the San Jose accord, but their wishes don’t carry much weight here. All of this because the guy wanted to give voters a chance to decide on extending term limits and keeping him in office longer………..

- Learning about obscure state laws that allow or prohibit random actions, behaviors or practices is always a fun exercise. Whether it’s your town that has a law banning more than three lawn gnomes five inches tall or taller or someone else’s town, these laws are always good for a laugh. Maybe not so much in Rhode Island, which may be the smallest state in the union but is leading the way with one unique, controversial law. This week, the Providence Journal revealed a loophole in state law allowing minors to work as strippers as long as they are home by 11:30 p.m. Yes, 16 year olds can take it off for the sleazy, greasy losers at their local strip joint as long as they don’t stay out too late. In fact, Rhode Island has no laws on the books to stop teenagers as young as 16 from going so far as to work as "indoor hookers,” whatever that means. No one would have even been aware of this law if not for a case involving a 16-year-old runaway who had been working at a strip club in Providence. Police investigating the case finally found the girl but found they could not prosecute because there were no local or state laws to stop teens from working in the adult entertainment business. When Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts heard about this, she was curiously upset. She lamented the lack of such laws in her state "mind-boggling." What’s your beef, Liz? So some high school sophomore wants to peel off her clothes, put on translucent high heels and work a greasy brass pole while 40-something stockbrokers shove $1 bills down her G-string. Kids want to earn money so they can buy a car, get that cute pair of jeans at the mall or buy the latest Jonas Brothers album. If these girls want to make that money in the most disgusting, depressing, deplorable and unsanitary places to work, who are you to stop them? And so what if most states around the country have a minimum age requirement that prohibiting minors from entering strip clubs? Don’t be a follower, I always say, be a leader………..

Bad news for Big Ben, Microsoft's latest lame version of Windows and Jay-Z's 2009 U.S. festival debut

- This may not have been what the defending world champions had in mind as they prepare to open training camp. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger finds himself in the crosshairs of a nasty lawsuit by a woman who claims he raped her at a Lake Tahoe hotel-casino a year ago. Although the woman never filed a criminal complaint, she’s suing Big Ben after he supposedly assaulted her during a celebrity golf tournament last July while she was working as an executive VIP casino host. The alleged incident took place at Harrah's Lake Tahoe, where the woman claims the Super Bowl winning quarterback raped her in a hotel penthouse across the street from the golf course. To be fair to Roethlisberger, his attorney maintains that he has never sexually assaulted anyone. Additionally, law enforcement officials in Nevada have no intention of opening a criminal investigation into the allegations because the victim is the only one who can initiate that by filing a criminal complaint. What she has done is file this lawsuit that alleges Harrah's officials, including the casino's chief of security, staged a cover-up of the incident after she reported it to him the next day. The woman, unidentified for obvious reasons, is a native of Canada who had worked at Harrah's Lake Tahoe hotel-casino since 2003. Roethlisberger’s attorney questioned why she would wait nearly a year to file a lawsuit and it’s a fair question, but her contention, at least as far as not filing a criminal complaint, is that she feared the casino would side with Roethlisberger because of his friendship with the hotel-casino's regional president John Koster and she’d be fired. Furthermore, she claims that Harrah’s security chief, Guy Hyder, told her she was "overreacting," that "most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger" and that "Koster would love you even more if he knew about this.” I certainly hope that’s not true, because if it is then it’s one of the most reprehensible things anyone has ever said. Also included in the lawsuit are claims that this woman was treated for depression and anxiety stemming from the alleged assault at five different hospitals between last August and December. A trigger for the suit may have been this woman’s claim that Harrah's officials told her Roethlisberger was invited to play in the 2009 celebrity golf tournament and ordered her to take a paid two-week leave during the event, the lawsuit said, "to accommodate her assailant." None of the involved parties will comment on the lawsuit for obvious reasons, but what is known is that it seeks a minimum of $440,000 in damages from Roethlisberger, at least $50,000 in damages from eight Harrah's officials and an unspecified amount of punitive damages "sufficient to deter" Roethlisberger and the others "from engaging in such conduct in the future.” At this point it’s not clear how much truth are in these allegations, but at this point I’m rooting for there to be none because at least it’s better than the alternative, that Roethlisberger is another scumbag athlete who assaults women………

- Depending where you fall on the political spectrum, news that Mexican immigration to the United States has dropped sharply since 2005 is either the best news ever or not-so-great news. But according to a study released Wednesday by mis amigos at the Pew Hispanic Center, immigration from Mexico to the United States slowed at least 40 percent between 2005 and 2008. The study is based on national population surveys in the United States and Mexico, as well as Border Patrol apprehension figures. According to data from the Mexican side of the border, some 1 million Mexicans left for the United States in a 12-month period beginning in 2006. A mere three years later, that number decreased to 636,000. “The size of the drop has been quite remarkable in such a small span of time,” Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center and author of the study, declared. And why are less people looking to crash the border these days? Well, as with all happenings in this day and age in this country, it’s like because of the economy. Yes, the economy here is so bad that even poor-ass Mexicans don’t want to come to the United States. Increased border patrols could also be a factor, but I kinda doubt it. With the decreasing numbers of Mexicans entering the U.S. and the number exiting remaining relatively steady, dropping to only 433,000 between 2008 and 2009, a small drop from the 479,000 who returned three years earlier. Personally I’ve always found our Mexican visitors to be affable, hard-working and a welcome addition to this country, but I realize that not everyone feels that way. Some of you are small-minded, anti-immigration cultural imperialists who would like nothing better than to erect that 100-foot-tall security fence around the entire country that our last president, that ass hat W., was all for. Decide for yourself whether this trend of Mexicans crossing our border in smaller numbers is good or bad, but ponder carefully………

- All hail, all hail! Microsoft has finished off the code for the latest version of its subpar operating system and all is good to go for the October 22 launch of Windows 7. With the final hurdle cleared, Windows 7 will hit retail shelves and new PCs on time, which is good news for exactly no one. For some odd reason Microsoft is hoping that this latest incarnation of its troubled OS will miraculously not suck and give users a never-ending supply of infuriating problems as they try to use it. The last installment of Windows, Windows Vista, bombed out so quickly that users rushed to downgrade back to whichever other crappy version of windows they were using before Vista hit the market in January 2007. Microsoft is claiming that Windows 7 has been receiving positive feedback along the way and hitting all of its deadlines too. “That is our final engineering milestone in what has been a three-year journey,” said Mike Angiulo, general manager for planning in the Windows unit. What should concern users is that Windows 7 relies on most of the same basic platforms as Vista and simply adds features to it. Beta testing has allegedly shown that Windows 7 is much more appealing visually than Vista and that the new taskbar is much more user-friendly. Perhaps the most dubious claim is that it boots up and shuts down faster and is less prone to freeze and crash - uh huh, sure. All in all, Windows 7 hasn’t changed much since it was presented in October at a developer’s conference. Microsoft plans to offer Windows 7 in several different shades of crappy, from low-end "starter edition" to an ultra-high-end "ultimate version." In what has been a rough, rugged year for the economy and specifically for the technology market, Microsoft and retailers are hoping that Windows 7 will provide a needed boost to the system. To put it differently, they are building their house on a foundation of sand with walls made of toilet paper as a hurricane, earthquake and tsunami bear down on it. "Our customers are very excited about Windows 7," Dell's Jim Ginger said. "We know because they tell us." In other words, don’t believe a word anyone from Dell says, because they are either liars, morons or both. I look forward to hearing stories of how you are grossly disappointing everyone very soon, Windows 7……….

- If you’re looking to see the best rapper in the game make his 2009 U.S. festival debut, this is for you. Jay-Z will make his first U.S. festival appearance at the 2009 All Points West Music & Arts Festival, to be held July 31-Aug. 2 at Liberty State Park in New Jersey. He’ll be taking the spot vacated by the festival’s previous opening night headliner, the Beastie Boys, who had to pull out because member Adam "MCA" Yauch was recently diagnosed with cancer and will undergo surgery. It’s definitely a sad story for a group that has been a hip-hop pioneer for so long and I definitely want to send out thoughts and prayers to Yauch for a successful surgery and full recovery. Beastie Boys were also forced to cancel other summer tour dates and delayed the release of its forthcoming album, "Hot Sauce Committee Part 1." In a classy move, All Points West organizers are offering refunds at point of purchase for July 31 single-day tickets for anyone who was going mainly to see Beastie Boys. However, I can't imagine how anyone would want a refund when they had a chance to see a legendary artist like Jay-Z live. Last year, he appeared as a headliner at the Pemberton Festival in Pemberton, British Columbia. This year, he’ll be leading off a pretty solid festival lineup that will include personal favorites like Coldplay, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, Echo & The Bunnymen, MGMT, , the Black Keys, Fleet Foxes, Neko Case, the Ting Tings, the National, Silversun Pickups and Arctic Monkeys. The festival takes place just across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan. so you can attend and not be that far from all the action and excitement of NYC. With the lineup I just mentioned, I’d definitely recommend it………

- Now this is what I like to see: cities telling people to stop doing annoying, useless things like trying to help the homeless. No one wants, needs or appreciates people trying to do nice things for the down and out, I feel confident in saying. So props to the city of Phoenix for telling a local church they are no longer allowed to hold a Saturday service on their lawn during which they feed the homeless. What the congregation and leadership of Crossroads United Methodist Church was thinking when they began holding the Saturday events in January, I’ll never know. Seriously, having homeless people come for a worship service on your lawn and feeding them breakfast is pretty reprehensible. Seeing these poor vagrants walk, bike or take the bus all the way across town just for a free meal and some love from the CUMC congregation is a sign of what’s wrong with our society, no doubt. “We have been feeding the homeless since (the church) began. It’s part of the mission of the church. It’s part of who we are,” said Dottie Escobedo-Frank, pastor at the church. “This is our mission. This is who we are. This is what we do.” Not anymore, it’s not. The city of Phoenix has stepped in and told the church to cease and desist after residents from a neighborhood across the street complained about the event, specifically the noise and the trash that result from it. Because the church is in a residential zone, it cannot operate and sort of charity dining hall. To operate such a facility, a group or organization must be in a commercial or industrial zone. But the city did give the church a nice two-week grace period, allowing them to feed the homeless for the next two Saturdays before shutting it down. The church isn’t laying down and giving up, though; Escobedo-Frank maintains that CUMC is a church first, not a charity dining hall, so the ordinance does not apply to them. “You can’t tell us we’re something that we’re not,” Escobedo-Frank said. “Our argument is that we are not a charity dining hall, so they are defining us incorrectly.” Led by their pastor, the church has appealed the city’s decision. Should the city deny that appeal, the church may also attempt to have the ordinance amended to allow their service/breakfast or move the event to a different location. Personally I’m applauding the city for shutting down this offensive effort, because no one needs to see a church or any other group trying to help downtrodden, oft-overlooked people by feeding them……

The curse of the Clippers snags Blake Griffin, learning that you're dead when you're not and a fun strike in Canada

- Have you ever wondered what it would be like to learn that you’re dead? It happens to individuals every now and then. News of their death is erroneously reported and that person is left to deal with the flood of emotions that must come when people in your life think that you are deceased when in fact you are not. That’s exactly what happened to former mixed martial arts fighter Kim "Kimo" Leopoldo, who was reported dead by several MMA Web sites on Tuesday. The reports stated that Leopoldo, 41, had died of complications from a heart attack on Monday. Other news outlets picked up on the story and next thing you know, Kim Leopoldo’s death is being accepted as fact by many in sports. "According to the media, you're dead," his manager, Ron Kort, recalled telling Leopoldo after hearing the news. Then, in a truly awkward moment, Leopoldo checked the Internet and learned of his reported demise. "When I saw the sites, it scared me," Leopoldo said. "I wondered, are they predicting the future or am I cursed?" As someone who doesn’t believe in curses or being able to predict the future, can’t say as that would bother me, but everyone is different. So what was Leopoldo doing Monday when he was reported to have died? He was actually sentenced to 10 days of community service and referred to a drug diversion program in connection with a February arrest in which he was found in possession of marijuana and wearing a Long Beach police officer jump suit. I’d love to hear the story of how that came about, but it’s always interesting to hear of a person in the state of California arrested for possession of the hippie lettuce because of its limited legality there. But hey, when you were allegedly dead, I suppose that even being sentenced to community service and a drug diversion program is better than those reports of your demise being true……

- Who says Sonia Sotomayor isn’t an inspirational figure? As she winds her way through the confirmation process in the Senate, a case with something of a similarity to Sotomayor’s most well-known case has come before a federal court in New York. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled that the New York City Fire Department used recruitment exams that discriminated against African-American and Hispanic applicants. It was Sotomayor who heard a case involving a lawsuit by white firefighters from New Haven, Conn. who sued after their test results were thrown out by the city because not enough minorities scored high enough to earn a promotion. In this case, Garaufis ruled Wednesday found that the written tests for the FDNY had "discriminatory effects and little relationship to the job of a firefighter." Furthermore, he decreed that the "examinations unfairly excluded hundreds of qualified people of color from the opportunity to serve as New York City firefighters," thus, he said, constituting employment discrimination. The case encompassed nine years of alleged discrimination, 1999 to 2007. It finally came to a head in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against the city of New York, with the suit challenging whether the city's written fire-department exams disadvantaged would-be African-American and Hispanic firefighters. Oh, and the humor quotient of the lawsuit was filled by the Vulcan Society. I don’t mean to belittle their cause, but the word Vulcan always brings to mind those never-kissed-a-girl, basement-dwelling Star Trek dorks speaking Trekkie and attending Star Wars conventions as their primary form of socialization. But I digress…..it was actually the Vulcan Society that complained about the entry-level firefighter tests initially and spurred the fire department to revise the written test early in 2007. This is an important case because the New York City Fire Department is the largest fire department in the United States, employing about 11,000 firefighters. Currently, only 3 percent of that number are black and 4.5 percent are Hispanic. Hopefully those numbers will change to better reflect the number of minorities who make NYC one of the country’s most diverse cities…….

- Dorks, this is your week, go ahead and take it over. If you’re a dork or have a dork in your life, you know what I’m referring to. Yes, it’s Comic-Con in San Diego, California, the place where dorks from around the world make their annual pilgrimage to celebrate their dork-dom with other losers who slam on costumes from their favorite comic book and graphic novels and parade around a convention center doing whatever it is that dorks do at Comi-Con, which I’m guessing doesn’t include kissing any girls, holding any girl’s hand or having any physical contact with girls at all (and with guys for the female dorks). But this year, there will be an added layer of dork-dom in the form of hundreds of losers attending the convention who will transform into zombies tomorrow for a "zombie walk" through the San Diego Convention Center to promote Woody Harrelson's new comedy, "Zombieland.” When you have more than 125,000 nerds on hand, as Comic-Con is expected to attract, sparing a few hundred dorks for a zombie walk is no big deal. You could even argue that these people are always zombies, at least when it comes to the normal things that functioning people with a rudimentary sense of cool engage in. Comi-Con attendees are dead to almost all of these things as they instead plunge themselves into lives of comic book and science fiction film and TV, anime, toys and video games. And no, comic book dorks, just because celebrities show up to promote their work and mingle with you doesn’t mean that your convention of dorks is cool. It simply means that major movie studios and TV networks want to launch their new projects and know you’re their target audience. That’s the case with "Zombieland," where living people are infected by a fast-spreading virus that turns them into "this other being" that is fast, ferocious and flesh-eating. The movie itself required 500 extras to be zombies, which has in turn led to the Comi-Con zombie walk to replicate that impact. Sony has even hired makeup artists to get the volunteers for the walk ready. Instructions for the zombies include no talking and fast, aggressive movement. Whether this stunt will generate substantial interest for "Zombieland" -- which hits theaters October 9 -- I don’t know. What I do know is that for this weekend, San Diego will go from a very cool place to visit to a decidedly dorky one thanks to 125,000 very pale, socially awkward nerds who love them so comic books and graphic novels……..

- Strikes are fun. A group of workers going on strike and refusing to work because they want a raise and/or better working conditions inevitably provides some quality fun in the form of picketing outside business, angry confrontations and striking workers looking to get in front of television cameras and shout anti-management slogans. When a strike involves government workers, it’s that much better. Toronto is in the midst of just such a strike now, with civic workers in the midst of a strike that has now hit the 30-day mark. Mayor David Miller said attempting to provide as many regular services as possible during the strike is vital. “This is possible because we've been able to re-assign some of Toronto Building's management back to their normal duties as union staff return to work at other locations,” he said. I do have some concerns about this strike because it appears that the strikers are somewhat less than unified and committed to their cause. Already, some 600 strikers have applied to return to work. The city and its two unions, CUPE Locals 416 and 79, which represent outside and inside workers respectively, continue to negotiate a new contract agreement. Negotiations are reportedly creeping along at a snail’s pace, leaving those involved with little hope for a quick resolution. “I continue to be frustrated at the slow pace of the negotiations," Miller said. The mayor also stated that he will not seek back-to-work legislation to end the strike, so this thing could rage on for some time. The sticking points for any potential deal remain wages and the sick day plan remain, with the city looking to end the practice of allowing union members to bank sick days and get a payout of up to six month's wages upon retirement. To reinforce the city’s stance on the issue of sick days, Miller hit the unions with a nice 21st century blast, saying the city’s new plan is the way “businesses and governments operate in the 21st century.” Impacts of the strike can be seen around the city, including garbage collection, childcare and permit applications and in the cancellation of activities including camp, swimming pools and ferry service to the Toronto islands. During the strike, some workers have been picketing in Nathan Phillips square, but not nearly enough. Obviously the non-collection of garbage has been the biggest issue for Torontonians who have had to make do with temporary dump sites being set up in several neighborhood parks. A Web site has also been set up to recruit volunteers to help with the temporary garbage collection need, which I don’t anticipate a huge response. I do feel bad for the people of Toronto, having their city turn into a giant dump, but I am also loving this strike and the back-and-forth sniping between the government and the workers. Either way, whether the dispute rages on or ends soon, I think we’re all winners here - those of us outside of Toronto, anyhow…….

- That certainly didn’t take long. The Los Angeles Clippers have been so chronically inept since moving to L.A. some three decades ago that many fans and experts theorize that the team is cursed. An inordinate number of career-ending injuries, botched draft picks and other bizarre happenings seem to support that theory, although I don’t believe in curses. However, if the mysterious negative energy circulating around the Clippers can affect even a surefire star like No. 1 draft pick Blake Griffin, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the notion of a curse. Griffin, the clear-cut top pick in this year’s draft, was playing for the Clippers’ Las Vegas Summer League team and was off to a great start. He averaged 19.2 points and 10.8 rebounds during summer league play - right up to the point he suffered a strain to his right shoulder that will sideline him for the next three to four weeks. This isn’t exactly a career-threatening injury and the Clippers are claiming that this is merely a precautionary measure to ensure that their new franchise player fully recovers from what is a minor injury. That may be true, but the fact remains that before he has played so much as one regular-season game, Blake Griffin has already been injured and forced to miss a significant amount of court tine. He also will not participate in Team USA's minicamp starting today as a precaution after being examined by Clippers team physician Dr. Steven Shimoyama and specialist Dr. Lewis Yocum. Does this portend a disastrous career filled with injuries and missteps for Griffin? No, because he’s only contractually obligated to be a Clipper for three years. If he can survive those three years and become a free agent, he’ll have a shot to enjoy the rest of his career elsewhere, with a non-cursed team that actually has a chance to win something……..

American music fans bring further shame to themselves, why not to cross Tony Bernazard and good news for "24" fans

- Well lookee here, one sucky artist and their crap-tastic album replacing another sucky artist and their crap-tastic album at the top of the Billboard 200 chart. After three weeks of Michael Jackson owning the top selling album in the U.S. despite being one of the most overrated musical acts of all-time, former American Karaoke contestant Daughtry has taken the top spot with "Leave This Town," which tops after selling 269,000 units. Compounding the errors of idiot, no-taste music fans, this is the second time this clown has had an album at the top of the Billboard 200. No, this hack also had his self-titled debut make it to No. 1 nine weeks after its release in November 2006. I cannot even begin to communicate how utterly and completely disappointed I am in you, America. I felt like we had established that ANYONE who ever participated in AK forfeited ALL of their musical credibility for the rest of time. I don’t care if someone appears on that ridiculous show that bastardizes music as we know it and then writes an album full of songs that put John Lennon and Pete Townshend to shame, they get no credit or respect (not that such a thing has happened or ever will come close to happening). It just shows that by and large, America is filled with musically clueless morons who are the ultimate sheep. These fools will follow along with the rest of the herd, right off the cliff and into the musical abyss below. Because of that, the first single off Daughtry’s new album, "No Surprise," is the act's sixth-straight top five hit on the Adult Top 40 radio airplay chart. But fear not, fans of the late freak known as Jack-O, your man is still hanging around. For the tracking week that ended on July 19, his "Number Ones" hits collection was his best-seller, shifting 192,000 units. That makes the 2003 release No. 1 on the Catalog chart and No. 2 on Top Comprehensive Albums. There is some hope on the Billboard Top 200 if you scan down a bit to the No. 6 spot, where Jack White’s latest musical project, The Dead Weather, checks in with its album "Horehound." The band consists of White (of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs), Alison Mosshart (of the Kills), Dean Fertita (of Queens of the Stone Age) and Jack Lawrence (of the Raconteurs and the Greenhornes). This marks the sixth top 10 album for White, counting his three top 10s with the White Stripes, two with the Raconteurs and the new Dead Weather set. Other than that, the only bright spot in the top 10 is Kings of Leon's "Only By the Night" (up four to No. 10 -- 33,000 units). So there are signs of hope for you, American music fans, but not nearly enough……

- My position on governments persecuting drug cartels and other organizations looking to provide pot, crack, heroin, ice, X and other drugs to the good, kind drug users of this world has long been that governments need to back off and stop persecuting drug users who never did anything directly to them. That remains my take, but I may have to issue myself a temporary reprieve based on the announcement by U.S. authorities that they are offering up to a $50 million reward for the arrest of leaders in the northern Mexico-based Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels. With the announcement of that handsome reward, the government also released new details about the so-called Gulf Cartel's operations and its leaders. All of this is a result of the unsealing of a federal indictment which charges Miguel Trevino Morales, a leader of the northern Mexico-based Gulf Cartel, of operating a criminal enterprise, cocaine distribution and firearms violations. In other words, they’re prosecuting this guy for being a hard-working entrepreneur. A separate indictment also charges three other top leaders of the Gulf Cartel: Antonio Cardenas Guillen, Jorge Eduardo Costilla and Heriberto Lazcano, for drug trafficking related crimes, along with fifteen other suspected cartel members. "We have learned that the most effective way to disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations is to prosecute their leaders and seize their funding," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a statement. So let’s see, I have my disdain for The Man weighed against the fact that $50 million is a freaking lot of money. Where do I come down, on the side of my principles in opposing all efforts of The Man to keep people down or on the side of my bank account? Well, seeing as I don’t have much of a hankering to travel to Mexico right now and thus won't really be able to gain the information necessary to garner that reward, let’s stick with principle. I appreciate the offer, U.S. government, but I’m not selling out. You can do what you want to attack the Gulf Cartel and its ruthless enforcement arm, known as Los Zetas, just don’t count on any help from me. These guys are smuggling coke and weed into the U.S. and as we all know, that helps my friend, Joe Pot Head and his amigo Joe Coke Head. I cannot and will not turn my back on them and you can designate the cartel’s leaders as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers and freeze any assets they hold in the United States if you want, I don’t care. In the end, sticking to The Man is better than any $50 million reward that I have absolutely no shot at collecting……………

- I don’t think that this is what Chasity Erbaugh of Tyler, Texas had in mind when she picked up some greens from the frozen foods section of her local supermarket to serve her family for dinner. Erbaugh purchased a package of Great Value brand steamable green beans from the local Walmart and brought them home to cook up for her kids. She was preparing the meal when she discovered something odd in the bowl where she had dumped the beans. "Thank goodness I had put butter in the bottom of the bowl," said Erbaugh. "I went to stir it and there's this brown clump." The “brown clump” turned out to be the whole front end of a frog, with the spinal cord and everything attached, in her green beans. The frog's tongue was even hanging out. "That's a frog!" she said. "Or worse than that, it's part of a frog - 75% of it. They didn't even give me the frog legs with it." Ba-dum-CHEE! Thanks for coming, please tip your waitress. But seriously, that is truly a pretty revolting story. It’s revolting enough that the store pulled all bags of Great Value frozen vegetables from its shelves as a precautionary measure. Great Value should be on its knees thanking Walmart for that, because if any sort of animal or non-food item had been found in any of those other packages, the company would have taken a freaking ginormous hit. A formal complaint will now be sent to the Food and Drug Administration and the appropriate punishment for Great Value will be decided. As for Erbaugh, she has elected to go the safe route and use fresh vegetables only from here on out. Probably a safe move, unless those fresh veggies were sprayed with pesticides or grown using some other kind of chemical……..

- Memo to everyone in the New York Mets organization: Do not cross vice president for player development Tony Bernazard under any circumstances - ever. He has proven twice in the past two weeks that he will go anywhere, at any time even though he’s a 52-year-old front office executive. The first likes-to-fight incident came when Bernazard was visiting the team’s Double-A franchise, the Binghamton Mets, after the team had stumbled through a 1-6 homestand and had lost three of those games by at least seven runs. On top of that, there were allegations of regular underage drinking on the team, so my man T. Bernazard felt compelled to step in. He convened a meeting with the team, ripped into them for their poor play and underage consumption and then ripped off his shirt and challenged the entire team to a fight. He also called out middle infield prospect Jose Coronado and hit him with a female anatomy blast that I’m sure you can figure out, one that begins with a “p.” That aside, how awesome is it for some 52-year-old former player who is now an executive with an MLB team being so enraged and out of his mind that he’s willing to not only scream down an entire minor league team, not only challenge them all to a fight, but to go all Hulk Hogan and tear off his shirt while doing so? This guy needs to be running his own team and/or have his own reality show immediately. Any time someone is acting like a knucklehead, T. Bernazard can swoop in, berate them and tear off his shirt before challenging them to a fight. Honestly, the Binghamton Mets probably deserved everything they got from Bernazard and then some. As of today, the team was 37-58 and in last place in the Eastern League Northern Division. Oh, and any of the players and their friends who weren’t down with this guy’s act, you’re just wrong. "It's ridiculous that anyone in a professional baseball environment thinks it's acceptable," a friend of several players said. No, friend of the players, you’re the one who is ridiculous and unacceptable. A grown man ripping off his shirt and challenging an entire minor league baseball team to a fight is not only not ridiculous, it’s awesome. As to whether or not this actually happened….go ahead and assume it did. Mets GM Omar Minaya admitted as much when he said that Bernazard spoke to the minor-league team in a "stern voice," but said he had no knowledge of the particulars. "I know he did have a team meeting with them. It was not a 'you-guys-have-been-great meeting,'” Minaya admitted. In other words, yes it happened and I’m fine with it. But wait, Bernazard wasn’t done, not by a long shot. While attending a recent Mets-Diamondbacks game at Citi Field, Bernazard had his eyes on a seat behind home plate that was occupied by an Arizona Diamondbacks scout. I don’t know if he had any right to that seat, but when Bernazard informed a subordinate that he wanted to sit there and that the scout should be relocated, he didn’t like the response he received. That subordinate suggested the wait until the half-inning was over to take the seat, but knowing my man Tony, he wasn’t waiting for anything. He then unleashed a profanity-laced tirade against that subordinate and I’m guessing he was sitting in that seat sooner rather than later. Bottom line here: Don’t f**k with Tony Bernazard. Let that be a warning to all of the Mets’ other minor-league teams, because you don’t want this guy coming to see you……….

- There’s just a beautiful synergy in the fact that the Manhattan district attorney will not pursue the head-butting case against 24 star Kiefer Sutherland, I must admit. With the eighth season of Fox’s hit drama set in the Big Apple, it would just be bad karma to have the city’s top law enforcement official pressing a case against the show’s star. "We declined to prosecute after a full investigation," Alicia Maxey Greene stated. "That included speaking to the complaining witness, who was quite uncooperative." That witness would be fashion designer Jack McCullough, who had an altercation with Sutherland at a charity event in May. McCullough accused Sutherland of breaking his nose by head-butting him after an argument broke out about an incident between McCullough and Brooke Shields. Somewhere along the way, Sutherland and McCullough were able to resolve their differences outside of court, with my man Jack Bauer issuing an apology that McCullough accepted. I don’t know what K. Sutherland said or did, or how much he paid McCullough to make the case go away, but I suspect he did so because keeping this case out of court means Sutherland also no longer faces a violation of his five-year probation term following a DUI conviction in 2007.

"Based on the evidence and information received from New York officials, as well as our own independent review of the evidence, we will not be seeking a violation of Sutherland's probation," Los Angeles city government spokesman Frank Mateljan explained. So there’s one less potential bump in the road for the next season of 24, but I’m sure there will be a few more along the way………

A new look for Yahoo, our military hates drug addicts and my beef with the USA network

- Dammit. As you all know, I get extremely angry when self-righteous, overbearing government around the world do anything to interfere with or disrupt the many links in the supply chain to provide drugs to all my drug addict amigos around the world. So a big no-thanks to the U.S. military for bombing about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan. Sure, you can argue that this excessive display of force is designed to break up the Taliban's connection to heroin and I’m all for opposing terrorism, but you know who suffers here? The average drug addict, that’s right. When you stage a mid-day air strike in Helmand province, what you’re basically saying is f’you, drug addicts. We don’t care about making your life miserable by reducing supplies, driving up costs and taking money out of your pocket. No, we’re going to drop a series of 1,000-pound bombs from planes on the mounds of poppy seeds and then follow that with strikes from helicopters. Apparently this is some sort of a strategy shift for the military to stop the Taliban and other insurgents from profiting from drugs, i.e. the opium and heroin made from poppy seeds. Worse still, the U.S. Agency for International Development is attempting to coerce Afghan farmers to swap out their poppy plants for wheat crops by offering them seeds, fertilizers and improved irrigation. Wheat? Seriously? You can’t smoke, shoot or snort wheat (I don’t think) and wheat doesn’t get you high? Who exactly are you helping by trying to convince these farmers to grow wheat? I’m guessing they’ll make less money growing wheat than drugs, not more. All of this comes as observers have noticed a significant decline in the opium trade in Afghanistan, with the number of poppy-free provinces increasing from 13 in 2007 to 18 in 2008. In other words, there’s already a major problem here and the U.S. military is only making it worse. Opium cultivation in the country has dropped by about 20 percent in a year, which is clearly going to creat a lot of problems. Opium and heroin have long served as a major source of revenue for the Taliban movement that once ruled Afghanistan and without that revenue, who knows what they’ll do. But more importantly, what is the average drug addict going to do? Answer me that, U.S. military……..

- What a season it should be for David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy. You may recall that Becks came to Major League Soccer last season because he received an absurd 5-year, $250 million contract that was based largely on endorsement money. He and his wife have an insatiable desire to be celebrities and being in L.A. was seemingly an ideal location for that. Becks abandoned international soccer to play in a second-rate league in a country where soccer is a second-class citizen. His arrival was hailed by soccer nuts who want to believe that soccer will ever be truly relevant here and for all of one game, they were kinda, sorta right. After that first game, everyone went back to not caring about soccer and Beckham toiled in anonymity. The Galaxy missed the playoffs and he spent the offseason playing internationally for club team AC Milan. When it became clear how much he’d missed soccer at its highest level, Beckham began looking for ways to get out of his MLS deal so he didn’t have to come back to the U.S. When the league wouldn’t budge and because it had the hammer in his hand, Beckham, AC Milan and the MLS hammered out a deal under which he would play for both and be able to get out of his MLS deal sooner than originally allowed. Under that agreement, he made his way back to L.A. last week after the Galaxy were already more than a dozen games into their season. Beckham wasted no time in making an impact, assuming that by “impact” you mean he nearly got into a brawl with some of the team’s hardcore fans, the L.A. Riot Squad, who apparently aren’t down with how he’s treated their team. Stories on exactly what happen have varied, but what is clear is that Beckham engaged one or more fans in the stands and went up on a barricade surrounding the field. He claims that he was merely looking to act as a peacemaker and have a fan who had been riding him come down and shake his hand to diffuse things. What the fan in question is alleging is that Beckham challenged him to come down and fight the overpriced soccer prima donna. Either way, this was a bad move. The fans are already on edge, they’re unhappy with Beckham and see him as a spoiled a-hole who thinks he’s too good for them and their team. This was only the first game back for Beckham and if it’s already going this way and he’s getting hooked by some idiot fans, this thing is only going further off the tracks in the weeks ahead. Look for this to get worse, uglier and thus much more interesting going forward………..

- I’ve got a beef with you, USA network, and I think you know why. Previously I took time out to praise a couple of your summer shows, Burn Notice and Royal Pains, and while I still enjoy those shows, you need to help me out here. From time to time, I’m unable to get to a TV to catch the shows when they originally air. Like many networks, USA puts its shows up on its Web site so viewers can watch them in case they missed an episode the first time around. At least I think USA puts its shows up online, because the online episodes of Burn Notice have been exceptionally tardy, to say the least. See, the show airs on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and last week, I was unable to see the show. No problem, I can just track it down online and see what I missed, right? Wrong, at least so far. Four freaking days after the episode aired, USA still hasn’t gotten around to putting that episode up. Can I ask why? I mean, Fox has episodes of one of the biggest shows on TV, 24, up the next day. Same goes for ABC and its hit show Lost. Yet the mighty USA network can’t get around to throwing up an episode of one of its shows for nearly a week? Get over yourselves, USA. People may like your shows and some of them may be good, but not that good. I shouldn’t be able to see a rerun of a show the hour before a new episode airs and have that be my first chance to see said episode after its original air, not if the network goes around claiming you can watch its shows online. In other words, step your game up, USA network. Stop jerking me around, stop dicking around and just put the episodes online in a relatively timely fashion and we won't have this problem…….

- Here is lesson #761 in my ever-expanding seminar for aspiring-yet-stupid criminals: before getting a tattoo, which tends to be a fairly permanent thing, make sure that a) you are sober, b) definitely want that ink and c) your new tat isn’t in a place that will make your appearance distinct and easily identifiable for a witness in any crime you might commit. This is a lesson that Sean Roberts of Tampa, Fla. would do well to learn. Roberts and a female accomplice entered a Tampa home and threatened the residents, forcing the victims into a bathroom. They proceeded to rob the home, taking prescription drugs, a DVD player, a CD player and $120 in cash. Yet less than a week after the robbery, Roberts was in custody and charged with armed home invasion. How did the cops find him so quickly? It may have had something to do with the fact that Roberts sports an outline of the state of Florida tattooed on his face. Oh, and he also has the words "Crazy Cracker" tattooed on his head. Hmm, think that might make him easy to pick out? Bro, I know you’re not all that smart (or else you wouldn’t be robbing homes for $120 and some small-time electronics), but even you should realize that with a distinctive tat like that on your face, you need to wear a ski mask any time you’re going to commit a crime. Either don’t get the tattoo or cover it up, amigo. I do thank you for giving me more fodder for my seminar and another great how-not-to example to use in that seminar, but for your sake you need to be a little smarter when committing your crimes……..

- Tomorrow is a big day if you’re a Yahoo user, as many Internet users are. The popular site is giving users a chance to personalize their Yahoo home page beginning tomorrow. "We're pulling together everything about the user they care about, be it on Yahoo or off, to create a personally relevant experience," said Tapan Bhat, Yahoo's senior vice president for consumer experiences. "In a world like this, Yahoo needs to make the user experience come first." The resdesign will allow users to not only incorporate Yahoo tools into their homepage, but also sites like Twitter, Facebook and eBay. Yahoo clearly hopes this new-look homepage will help it close that gap with Google, which has been kicking Yahoo’s ass for the past few years with utilities like Google Earth. As you’d expect, the hopes on the business end are that advertisers will be willing to pour more dollars into Yahoo if the resdesign can increase site traffic and help the company regain market share. Personally I’ve never been one of those people who runs everything off of a Yahoo or AOL homepage; I get my email from one site and anything else I need, I simply go to those sites as needed and that’s that. However, I can see where pulling everything together under one umbrella could be helpful for users who are either a tad lazy or just not that Internet-savvy, so I’ll be interested to see how this plays out for Yahoo…….

How to care for your giant cheese sculpture, Venezuela's place in the world and Congress v. the NBA

- The NBA’s minimum age requirement for players has struck me as more than a little fraudulent ever since the league put the measure in place. The rule, which is part of the league's collective bargaining agreement with the players union, requires that players be at least 19 years old and a year out of high school before entering the league. The reason I say it’s bogus is that it’s unfair from a labor standpoint to tell guys that they can’t earn a living playing in the NBA simply because of their age when a) they are legal adults and b) physically capable of doing so. The arguments for and against are well known, with incredible tales of straight-to-the-NBA success like LeBron James and Dwight Howard on one side and the scores of failed careers for players whose appetite for success and the NBA lifestyle vastly outreached their game. There are too many names to mention on that second list and for the most part, those guys are either out of the NBA or out of basketball altogether. However, the fact that some have tried and failed miserable should not preclude others from making the attempt in the future. That’s what the NBA is trying to do with the minimum age rule, to prevent these failures and play the role of God in deciding when players are eligible for the NBA. For that reason, the NBA currently finds itself defending its minimum age requirement to Congress and so far, the league isn’t faring too well. Last month, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., urged the league and union to scrap the requirement in the next collective bargaining agreement, calling it unfair. At the time, NBA president Joel Litvin told Cohen in a recent letter the purpose of the requirement is to promote the league's business interests by "increasing the chances that incoming players will have the requisite ability, experience, maturity and life skills" to perform at a high level. Litvin also said that the policy is strictly a business measure and not one designed for force players to attend a year of college against their wishes. He also noted that many employers require job candidates to have post-high school experience, and that the U.S. Constitution sets minimum ages for House members, senators and the president and as such, the NBA just didn’t understand Congress’ beef with its rule. Cohen isn’t backing down either, having send a letter to Litvin maintaining that players should have the "economic freedom" to make their own decisions. He pointed out that even if the policy helps the league in its scouting and hiring decisions, there are other issues. "However, my concern is that the players who must abide by this rule are harmed by the league's pursuit of these business interests," Cohen wrote, adding that the "age discrimination" prevents players from supporting their families. He went on to ask for a meeting with Litvin and commissioner David Stern and threatened to consider both hearings and legislation if the requirement remains. All in all, this should make for a very interesting showdown in what has become the latest intersection of sports and legislature in our society……..

- Every nation needs its place in the world, that key thing it brings to the table that no one else can supply. For the United States, it’s competitive eating, FAT people and reality TV (what can I say, we’re overachievers). For China, it’s a systematic repression of basic human rights like nobody’s business. And as for Venezuela…..well, let’s just say that Venezuela's role as a transit point for South American cocaine bound for the United States and abroad has significantly expanded in recent years and I think we all know how proud they must be of that fact. According to a U.S. government report released Monday, The Venezuelan government contributed to a more than fourfold increase in cocaine flow between 2004 and 2007. Four-freaking-fold? That is incredible and I can see where that would be an immense source of pride for any nation. This study alleges that Venezuela has been able to accomplish this in large part by providing a safe haven for Colombian drug traffickers while reducing counternarcotics cooperation with U.S. officials. As you might expect, Venezuelan dictator/despot/President Hugo Chavez shot down the report. Even so, the findings could throw a new hurdle in the way of the Obama administration's attempts to improve relations Venezuela. But let’s not focus on that little detail and instead on the fact that the total amount of cocaine shipped from Venezuela jumped from roughly 60 to 260 metric tons over the four years, a total representing approximately 17 percent of cocaine produced worldwide. Apparently the United States remains the primary market for most cocaine going through Venezuela, but distribution to other countries has increased as well. Also in the report are allegations that the drug trade in South America has benefited from the Venezuelan government's decision to actively assist several illegal armed groups. A group like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, accounts for 60 percent of the total cocaine exported from Colombia to the United States. Chavez’s administration has reportedly given FARC extensive support as it battles the Colombian government. This cocaine is being smuggled "aboard maritime vessels" departing from "Venezuela's long coastline or aboard suspicious aircraft that take off and land from hundreds of clandestine airstrips." Sounds good to me, what’s the problem? The world’s coke heads need their fix and Venezuela is doing its part to make that happen. So I’d advice my man Hugo Chavez to stop disputing this report and labeling it as "a new lie from the government of the United States." Embrace what you’re good at and who you are, Hugo. Your country is a key cog in the machine to bring the world its blow. You’re clearly good at it and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Stop the guise of making alleged increased efforts to stop drug traffickers and be true to yourself. The world, like professional wrestling, needs its villains. You are one of those villains and I’ll be extremely disappointed if you ever stop filling that role……..

- This was only a matter of time. Because she’s quickly become a sex symbol for the testosterone-fueled world of sports in her role as a sideline reporter for ESPN, sooner or later Erin Andrews was bound to end up online in a revealing video of some sort. Of course, the ideal path for this sort of thing, assuming a person is going to wind up online without their clothes on, is of their own volition. In other words, they decide that they no longer have any personal dignity or standards and pose for a skin magazine or post the revealing images themselves. Heck, even making a sex tape that they allegedly never intended to become public is better than what happened to Andrews. She was merely minding her own business in a hotel room when some perverted freak snuck up to the door and taped her undressing through the peephole. Right, because that’s what those things are intended for, some freak with no soul and no conscience to creep up with a video camera and secretly film an unsuspecting woman undressing in the privacy of her own room. To whoever the freak is that committed this crime (and it a crime), you are a piece of crap. Making matters worse, Internet hackers are seizing upon this video as a way to infect computers worldwide with a brand new virus. According to anti-virus and security company Sophos, links purportedly to this creepy video are actually portals that allow hackers to infect the computers of unsuspecting pervs with their virus. Now I could aruge that anyone with so little class and integrity that they are looking to view a video of a woman being surreptitiously and really, violated, deserves whatever happens to their computer as a result. Marshall B. Grossman, Andrews' attorney, issued a statement Friday condemning the video and threatening to press charges against those responsible. "While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent. She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future. Although the perpetrator or perpetrators of this criminal act have not yet been identified, when they are identified she intends to bring both civil and criminal charges against them and against anyone who has published the material. We request respect of Erin's privacy at this time, while she and her representatives are working with the authorities," the statement read. Great, but what else can she do to protect her privacy? She was in her hotel room and the door was closed and locked. Short of taping a piece of paper over the peep hole and hanging blankets over any windows in the room, I’m not sure what else she can do. According to the chief purveyor of these types of salacious celebrity stories, TMZ, the video is being shopped to the highest bidder, but the site has stated that it will not publish or purchase the footage. Nice to know that even TMZ has its standards…..sort of…….

- Here’s hoping your iPod doesn’t go up in flames any time soon. That seems to be a growing concern among users of Apple’s popular MP3 (actually MP4) devices, according to an investigative report from a local television station in Seattle. The investigation found that a remarkably high number of iPods have suddenly burst into flames and smoke in recent months, injuring people and damaging property. Documents from the Consumer Product Safety Commission took a full seven months to gain access to because Apple continued to battle their release in court. Gee, why would they do that? Perhaps because there’s a serious issue with their product and they don’t want to see their market share take a hit? In the end, the CPSC released more than 800 pages of documentation showing that there have indeed been scores of incident in which iPods have suddenly burst into flames, started to smoke and even burned their owners. Customers who contacted the company were told that theirs were isolated incidents and not a widespread problem. Those claims seem to be contradicted when you go online and see bloggers posting photos of their charred and melted iPods. Heck, the Japanese government even issued a warning to consumers citing "a number of accidents in which iPod Nanos" overheated and sparked. Federal records show that Apple has known about problems with its iPod batteries causing fires and burns for some time, including one incident in which an iPod overheated, “causing damage to home and harm to minor son” in Pennsylvania in 2005. These incidents have come from across the country and seem to indicate

- Here’s a valuable lesson for one and all: when making a life-sized replica of an astronaut out of cheddar cheese, always make sure your statue is in a temperature-controlled setting where the conditions aren’t going to change. I know this should go without saying, but clearly no one told officials at the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio. They commissioned the gigantic cheese creation and artist Sarah Kaufmann of Cincinnati spend 59 hours carving the spaceman as part of the weekend festivities at the museum. It was set up in the museum’s main hall for all to see as hundreds of visitors descended on the museum to celebrate the 40th anniversary of man the landing on the moon. A fitting gesture for a landmark event, no doubt. I have no doubt when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, the first thought going through his mind was that some day, someone would think enough of his accomplishment to immortalize that moment in some sort of processed dairy product. However, no sooner did Kaufmann finish her statue than the museum’s air conditioning system automatically shut off overnight and the "heat" caused the sculpture to soften and slip off its base, causing damage to the artwork made from nearly a ton of cheese. Apparently no one thought ahead and realized that cheese needs to be kept at a certain temperature lest it soften and become unstable in terms of being able to stand up in statue form. It’s a bit like ice in that respect, except that ice is considerably less tasty. So an important life lesson learned by one and all here for, you know, the next time you have a hankering to create a ginormous cheese sculpture to commemorate a monumental moment in world history……..

Riot Watch! in Iran, T.O. mistakenly believes reality TV has some ties to reality and yet another way "American Karaoke" upsets me

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! In case you thought that the post-election rioting and protesting in Iran had gone dormant, think again. Maybe those riots and protests aren’t as frequent and perhaps the news cycle has tired of spitting out on day after another of stories about opposition groups in Iran taking it to the streets to protest their nation’s recent sham of a presidential election, but that doesn’t mean opposition groups aren’t still standing up for what they believe in. Over the weekend, opposition candidate and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karrubi, who ran last in the June 12 election, lambasted what he labeled the "thoughtless and clear lies" of the country's security forces. As Karrubi made his impassioned speech, students mounted new demonstrations at a university in Shiraz. Let me tell you something, Iran. If the guy who finished dead last in your election is still publicly ripping that election more than a month after it happened, there is likely some shady sh*t going on. A month after an election anywhere else in the world (at least any place that holds a legit election), the guy (or lady) who finishes last has, to quote the immortal Mike Tyson, faded into Bolivian. Yet there was Mehdi Karrubi, drawing a parallel between the Iranian government’s claims that it had not attacked his supporters to the statements that came out of the Iranian monarchy in the days before the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic republic. “How do they try to say that they do not confront people violently or to blame others? All of this took place in front of people's eyes,” Karrubi told supporters. “They kill the youth in front of people's eyes and then say that they didn't have firearms. As a member of this system, I am embarrassed of these thoughtless and clear lies.” Hmm….someone sounds a tad angry. Could that be because here were reports Friday that Karrubi himself was roughed up by members of the Basij, the paramilitary force loyal to Iran's hardline leadership? So far those reports haven’t been verified, but Karrubi said he was "assaulted" and that his turban was knocked off. Because I want those reports to be true and for there to be more reasons to protest and riot in Iran, I’m going to go ahead and assume that they are true. Nothing makes me prouder than a good protest/riot, which is also why I’m thrilled that more than a month despite the certification of the official results from the presidential race, there are still regular demonstrations raging on. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a fraudulently elected dictator and as such, he should be protested every day of the week. There is not a snowball’s chance in a Middle East desert that he actually, legitimately won re-election by a 2-to-1 margin over his closest rival, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi. Several social networking sites currently have videos up showing a protest by students at Ehsan University in Shiraz on Sunday in which they can be seen and heard demanding the release of political prisoners and singing songs from the 1979 revolution. Nothing wrong with channeling a little of the old-school revolutionary spirit in your protest, kids. The Man is still refusing to accede to the will of the people in overturning the results of this sham election, so riot on……….

- Maybe no one told Terrell Owens this, but reality television is not the place to go if you want people to “get to know the real you.” For anyone who feels misunderstood or wrongly portrayed in the public, appearing on anything labeled reality TV is the polar opposite of the right move. After being seen as an arrogant, me-first, attention-whore blowhard during his13 NFL seasons, Owens is taking his quest for public approval to one of the least-respected names in cable television, VH1. In an eight-episode reality series set to premiere Monday on VH-1, Owens claims that viewers will meet the real Terrell Owens. "Terrell you'll see pretty much on this show," Owens said. "It's pretty much to the 'T' of how I am. I mean, it's reality." Yeah, because nothing is more real than reality TV, where surgically enhanced strippers vie for the affections of has-been rockers, random groups of strangers are picked to live in a pimped out condo in Cancun and have their lives filmed for two months and hack karaoke singers compete for the chance to be crowned America’s best karaoke singer by that man-blouse-wearing, tip-frosting freak Ryan Seacrest. Look, I’m all for people getting their true selves out their if they have been misrepresented, but that’s not what this is. This is a guy who loves himself and loves the spotlight and is making a grab for more of it under the auspices of allowing his fans to get to know him better. I’m even okay with Owens being an egotistical, arrogant prima donna if that’s what he is. If that’s not what he is, then I’m cool with that as well. I’m simply saying reality TV is one of the biggest blights on our society and the odds of anything good coming out of it are slimmer than the odds of Rosie O’Donnell turning down a triple cheeseburger with mayo and bacon on top coupled with a giant chocolate milkshake. But I’ll give T.O. and his crew this, they are selling the crap out of this show as a vehicle to show his true character to the world. "He's human. He has feelings. He has a life story," his publicist Monique Jackson said. "There are all these layers that you don't understand, and all you see is this crazy body with phenomenal athletic abilities and this character.” Sure, but the name doesn’t exactly imply “road to self-discovery and character revelation.” No, the "The T.O. Show" basically implies that he is the show and that all of the focus should be on him. As for the show, it’s partly based in Buffalo, where Owens signed a free agent deal with the Bills this offseason. Since then, he’s been welcomed with open arms and a tad too much adulation from Bills fans and the city of Buffalo as a whole. One event had Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown presenting Owens with a key to the city at a ceremony that included a high school marching band on the steps of an art gallery. His search for a place to live in Buffalo has also been extensively covered, which is overkill if I’ve ever seen it. In the end, what I’m saying is that this show is a) an ego project for Owens and b) a total waste of time for everyone else……..

- Rarely have I followed a piece of proposed legislation closer and been more pumped to see the outcome of its journey through Congress than I am with the proposed health care legislation the Obama administration is currently pushing. Ironically, it has nothing to do with the goal of the bill, which is reportedly to provide better national health care coverage and cheaper coverage options for the poor. All of that is great and those are admirable goals; I’m simply more interested in how the administration plans on going about reaching that goal. Namely, I’m psyched about their plan to place a tax surcharge on Americans making more than $350,000 annually. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called a tax surcharge on wealthy Americans is "a legitimate way to go forward.” Well said, K., well said. But what I’m more interested here is at what point the crusade against the rich will piss these people off so much that they actually start to battle back. How far must we push and tax the wealthy before they go gangsta and get violent in the streets? Is an additional income tax to fund health care for the poor enough to unify the wealth and send them out into the streets protesting and rioting (or at least hiring illegal immigrants to go out into the streets to protest and riot on their behalf)? So if the crusade for health care reform is indeed President Barack Obama's top domestic priority, then it’s a fine setting in which to settle this issue of how far the rich can be pushed before they snap. At this point, both the House and Senate are working on proposals that would create a government-funded public health insurance option intended to drive down costs of private coverage. Both are also controlled by Democrats, which should mean a favorable setting to drop this debate into. Sure, the naysayers in the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the measures currently under consideration in both chambers would not pay for themselves and would increase the budget deficit, but let’s not sweat the small stuff. Let’s continue seeking new ways to tax and persecute the rich until they finally decide that they’ve had enough and start rioting. Who wouldn’t love seeing people in $5,000, three-piece suits marching through Manhattan with protest signs and banners and clashing with police? Maybe a group of wealthy businessmen can stage a sit-in in Washington and even a hunger strike until President Obama agrees to meet with them. These rich, mostly-white people have the Republicans arguing on their behalf that the government is over-reaching by seeking to reform the whole system, but nothing says opposition like getting socially dissident with it yourself. The fact is that right now, the health care system has left 46 million Americans uninsured. Changing that fact should be a priority and with the added bonus of pushing the wealthy further toward the brink of snapping as a side benefit, there’s no downside to this. Let’s keep this up and see if we can’t make good on Sebelius’ threat that the new tax could cause employers who provide coverage for 180 million Americans to change or drop their programs, which could "dismantle the private market." I’m enjoying this thrill ride and hoping it doesn’t end any time soon……

- Like that mentally unstable freak Paula Abdul, I too am greatly upset by American Karaoke. We may be upset for entirely different reasons, but I choose not to focus on our differences but rather our similarities. Sure, she’s the insane, heavily medicated judge on a reality karaoke show that I have rightly dubbed the single biggest abortion and abomination in the history of music and I am merely s snarky, sarcastic blogger who loves good music, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find common ground. So with Abdul "hurt," "angry" and unlikely to return to American Karaoke unless the show's producers make her an offer soon, I will unleash my own anger. Like Abdul, I am angry. I’m angry and I’m hurt that there is even an AK for her to be hurt and angry at and threatening to not return to. “It does not appear that she's going to be back on Idol," her agent David Sonenberg declared. That’s one thing, but the problem is that there is still an American Karaoke at all. Furthermore, this monstrosity is handing out $45 million contracts to ass hats like Ryan Seacrest and paying a ridiculous salary to a guy whose shtick is to be a bitter, surly killjoy who hates everyone and everything, Simon Cowell. Oh, and that tool is reportedly in talks to inflate his own annual paycheck to $100 million-plus. One-hundred million dollars? For who? For what? To sit at a desk with a catch-phrase-spitting, fat black due and a mentally ill former L.A. Laker girl and pass judgment on a bunch of hack karaoke singers doing abysmal versions of songs that either sucked to begin with or have now been rendered musically dead by the performances of those aforementioned karaoke-ers? That makes me both hurt and angry, just like Abdul. The main differences are that I’ve never flipped out on a commercial flight and nearly committed a criminal assault on a fellow passenger because the airline wouldn’t give me an extra seat for free and also that I’m not hopped up on probably a half dozen prescription medications. As for the show itself, I couldn’t care less whether Idol producers FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment offer a new contract to Abdul or not. I simply find it disturbing in the highest degree when I hear that her contract expired at the end of last season, which was the eighth for this nightmare. For any losers out there who are AK fans (honestly, I’d prefer you not read this blog if you are one of them, I don’t want to associate with your kind), apparently resolving the Abdul issue is important to the show because the karaoke freaks who have waited in line for hours because they have no life and auditioned around the country are set for audition callbacks next month. Why the show can’t just find some other plastic surgery-enhanced, drugged up former pop singer to take Abdul’s place, I don’t know. Hollywood is full of freaks like her, so it shouldn’t be that hard……..

- So a former California police officer sexually assaulted a motorist during a traffic stop? Shocker. What with the impeccable and unimpeachable integrity displayed regularly by law enforcement (cough, Rodney King, cough) in this country, how could such an atrocity occur? Our sexual deviant/a-hole in this case is Feliciano Sanchez, a former deputy for Los Angeles County's Bell Police Department who admitted in court Thursday that while on duty on May 16, 2007, he pulled over a female driver in a traffic stop and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Sanchez pleaded guilty in federal court and now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison upon sentencing. On that fateful May day, Sanchez stopped a woman for speeding and weaving down the road. Upon pulling her over, he learned that the woman, identified as R.H. in court documents, did not have a driver's license with her. Seeing a chance to abuse his power and get his freak on for a little afternoon delight, Sanchez told the woman he suspected her of drinking and her car would be towed. He then offered to drive R.H. to her job, but instead drove her to the parking lot of an auto repair outlet in Bell. Once they were in a fairly secluded location, Sanchez placed his hand on his gun and forced her to perform sex on him in his patrol car. What kills me is that afterward, Sanchez drove R.H. to her work place as if nothing had happened and what he’d just forced her to do was no big deal. Nothing like grossly abusing your power to coerce a sexual favor out of someone and then acting like it’s no big deal. That’s the way to dispel the perception that law enforcement officers are bunch of arrogant, pretentious a-holes, Sanchez. Federal prosecutors charged Sanchez with a civil rights violation, which was followed by Thursday’s guilty plea and will be topped off with Sanchez's sentencing, which is scheduled for November 18. Here’s hoping my man Feliciano Sanchez ends up with a very nice cellmate in the clink who shows him how vile sexual assault can be…….

A new name for the Sears Tower, technology etiquette tips from Brad Pitt and wondering why anyone would wanna play for the Pittsburgh Pirates

- In case your life has just been incomplete without social etiquette tips from a famous actor whose life has little to no correlation to the reality that you and I encounter on a daily basis, here you go. Brad Pitt is here to help in the form of a cover story from Wired Magazine. "How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans" hits newsstands July 21 and will help you address issues like whether you should talk on the phone while using the restroom. "No, you can't talk on the phone!" Pitt tells the magazine. "Do you want the guy next to you to hear your entire conversation? "That's why you should only text in the bathroom. Just be sure you don't hit the wrong button and end up putting a photo of your junk on Twitter. Trust me, you don't want those followers." Umm, thanks for that…I think. Pitt isn’t actually pretending to be a tech expert, but with the help of “Wired” founder Conde Nast, he’s giving some semi-serious pointers to the 18 dorks who actually read the magazine. Oh, and by that logic, no one should ever talk on a cell phone anywhere because someone can always hear their conversation. The magazine’s cover features Pitt wearing a Bluetooth device in his ear. The picture actually ties into one of the article’s rule, Rule No. 52: " Ditch the headset. He can barely pull it off -- and you are not him," the magazine says. But fear not if you’re not a cell phone degenerate, because Pitt has advice for other issues too. One question asks if a person who exaggerated his or her salary on an online dating profile should confess. "Hell no," Pitt writes. "Everyone lies online. In fact, readers expect you to lie. If you don't, they'll think you make less than you actually do. So the only way to tell the truth is to lie." He also weighs in on viewing porn at work. "Don't just look at it at work, bring in your old porn mags and scan them there!" Pitt writes in the magazine. "It's like converting your vinyl to MP3s. Fill up your hard drive, and when you need a break from spreadsheets, just open a favorite pictorial." I’m thinking that advice is tongue-in-cheek, but I guess you never know." Overall, a curious project for Pitt to lend his time to, but I guess having sex with Angelina isn’t something you can do all day, every day……

- Hmmm, who saw this coming? Could it be me after hearing the absolute outrage in the voices of various Pittsburgh Pirates players a couple of weeks ago after the team traded away yet more of its most talented, experienced players in an effort to slash payroll, er, make more money, er, build a foundation for the future by acquiring promising young players? Shortstop Jack Wilson was one of the most outspoken critics of trading away players like Nate McLouth and Jason Bay, all-stars and cornerstones of the team. He publicly ripped the team after the most recent trades that sent away two-thirds of the team’s starting outfield, then doubled back and couched his comments the next day after someone from the front office clearly got in his ear and convinced him to quasi-apologize. However, Wilson may get the last laugh on the Pirates. He and second baseman Freddy Sanchez were both offered multiyear contract extensions this week and both turned the extensions down. Why, I don’t know. These guys watch their team trade away its best players year after year, basically admitting it can’t or won't spend the money to compete, and they don’t want to stick around? Curious. The true irony is that by rejecting their respective contract extensions, Wilson and Sanchez have almost certainly increased the odds that one or both of them will be dealt before the July 31. Because both potentially could become free agents after this season and the Pirates have no top-level prospects at either position, the team could decide to ship them out now and get something in return to restock their system. They’ve reportedly had multiple trade discussions involving Sanchez in recent weeks, but no deal has been made -- partly because Sanchez's 2009 salary is guaranteed at $8 million if he makes 600 plate appearances. He allegedly rejected an extension that would have been worth $10 million over two seasons. As for Wilson, he’s been through the ups and downs of trade speculation before and knows what’s in store. "I've been through this the last couple of years," Wilson said. "Until they call me in that room and say I'm not a Pirate, I'm here.” As for trading away two more all-stars and a guy in Sanchez who was the 2006 NL batting champion…..that’s why these guys are the Pittsburgh Pirates, owners of the longest current streak of sub-.500 seasons in all of the four major U.S. professional sports (17 seasons). General manager Neal Huntington claims that the team offered both Sanchez and Wilson fair market value, which may be true. However, money isn’t the only factor in play. As much as athletes love the cash, most of them want to play for a team that at least gives off the illusion of trying to be competitive and contend for a championship every now and then. The way things are going in Pittsburgh, I can’t see why anyone would want to play for the Pirates……

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Any time you can give a salute to a group of Africans rioting in China, of all places, you best take the chance. I can count on no hands the amount of times in my illustrious riot-watchign career that I’ve seen Africans rioting in China. Yet there they were, a group of 100 Africans protesting outside a police station in southern China on Wednesday afternoon following the reported death of an African merchant during an alleged police raid. It all started in the same place that every good riot starts, namely with The Man looking to come down on the little guy. In this case, it meant police checking the passports of Africans who were operating stalls at a shopping mall in China's Guangdong Province. Police claimed that they were conducting routine checks at the mall and a man who injured while trying to flee the building. Later, they doubled back and said that another man had been critically injured after falling from the building. Protestors told a different story, namely that a brawl broke out after at least one African merchant was killed. That’s as good a reason to go as any, no doubt. The Man kills one of your fellow protestors, you thrown down then and there. News of the incident spread quickly and within five hours a large crowd of Africans gathered at a nearby police station and protested. Many of the protestors have been identified as Nigerians, which would make sense because a leader in the Nigerian community in Guangdong said the Nigerian community would meet with Chinese authorities to discuss preventing similar incidents. All of this comes as China has steadily begun investing more and more money in African countries and more Africans have immigrated to China. This is also a fairly prodigious period of rioting in China, as you might recall from my report last week about ethnic Uyghurs in Urumqi, Xinjiang, taking it to the streets to speak out against what they feel is unfair treatment by China’s Han majority……..

- William Petersen may have left CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, but his love interest on the show is making a return. Jorja Fox has inked a deal to return to CSI as Sara for multiple episodes after leaving at the same time as Petersen early last season. The storyline involving the two lovebirds had them riding off into the sunset together, ostensibly never to return. Laurence Fishburne came in to take the place of Petersen’s Gil Grissom character as head of the Las Vegas crime lab, marking the start of a new era for one of the longest-running dramas on TV. However, Fox’s return would appear to indicate that, at least in the world of CSI, Grissom and Sara aren’t living so happily ever after. Fox’s return will come without Petersen, so now the question is what became of their relationship and what the conditions of Sara’s return are. According to executive producer Carol Mendelsohn, Fox will reappear in the Sept. 24 episode when viewers will "discover where life has taken Sara Sidle and what brings her back to the CSI team in Las Vegas." I’m not a huge fan of any of the numerous versions of the CSI franchise (except occasionally in reruns), but this should generate some good buzz among fans for the new season and drum up some of the interest that may have been lost when Petersen and Fox left the show…….

- So the Sears Tower is history - technically. Like famous sporting venues whose naming rights are sold to the highest bidder, the most famous building in Chicago has seen its long-standing name go by the wayside in favor of its new moniker, Willis Tower. As of Thursday, the iconic skyscraper is now named Willis Tower, named after international insurance broker Willis Group Holdings. The company is the main tenant of the 110-story skyscraper and they have bought the right to call it whatever they want. However, don’t expect Chicagoans to follow suit and begin calling the building anything but the Sears Tower. Many of these people have gathered on the most popular place for individuals to go when they want to bitch, moan, complain and make idle threats without actually doing anything about their problems: Facebook. More than 90,000 people have joined the group "People Against the Sears Tower Name Change," on the social networking site. “This name change is absurd," one member wrote. "Would Paris change the name of the Eiffel Tower? Or London change Buckingham Palace? Or New York, the Statue of Liberty? I believe the Illinois Congress needs to proclaim the Sears Tower a recognizable landmark that is known all over the world by people who have traveled to Chicago.” To that end, the group has gathered more than 34,000 signatures on an online petition against the name change. That’s great, just don’t expect the powers that be to give a damn about this online petition. Yesterday, a renaming ceremony was held with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. The skyscraper's Web site also features the new name, so don’t expect it to officially be changed back. Still, I have to admit that it is bizarre to see an official new name bestowed upon a building that has been the Sears Tower ever since it opened in 1973 with its original occupant, Sears Roebuck & Co. Still, those who oppose the name change have the best weapon of all in their power: calling the building the Sears Tower and convincing those they know to do the same. If politicians and Willis employees are the only ones calling it the Willis Tower, nothing will really have changed………

Same old same old in Iran, babysitters you wish you'd had and idiots seeing miracles in bird crap

- One of the constant sources of humor in this world is the never-ending string of idiots who think they see Jesus or the Virgin Mary in completely bizarre objects like a pile of grass clippings, the bark of a tree or some mayo they spilled on the kitchen counter. I’m by no means mocking their faith or their religion, because I have no problem with either. What I have a problem with is these morons thinking that God is appearing to them courtesy of his image in the face of some dog droppings in their backyard. Not likely, you tools. For the latest illustration of just who these tools are, let’s turn to Bryan, Texas, where the Pachuca family says a pile of bird droppings on the driver’s side mirror of their pickup truck is actually an image of the Virgin Mary. Salvador Pachuca spotted the bird crap on the mirror on July 12 when he returned to the home for the home since having an accident there four months ago. "I told my brothers come over here and see what this is and they say this is the Virgin," he explained. Like the mindless sheep she seems to be, Cristal Pachuca proceeded to take pictures and began making calls to invite others to see. I feel strongly that anyone who heeded her call should be shipped off to Antarctica and forced to live the rest of their pathetic life eating snow and communing with the great white abyss at the South Pole, far away from civilization, but I digress…..the bottom line here is that God does not work through bird droppings on car mirrors. These idiots in the Pachuca family may consider this occurrence a “miracle,” but that merely underscores their own stupidity. "We just all feel protected. It's a blessing to our family and to everybody that comes to see it," Cristal Pachuca said. Mmmm hmm, sure it is. Sadly, there have actually been people showing up to pray to this pile of bird excrement on a truck mirror. Just because a truck that is rarely used was moved outside to be washed and some random bird flying by dropped a deuce on its driver’s side mirror doesn’t mean anything other than someone needs to get a hose out and wash off that freaking mirror……..

- In a year of great albums (just not the ones that have received the most attention), veteran rockers Pearl Jam will join the fray later this year with their ninth album, "Backspacer," due Sept. 20. I’m pretty pumped for this album, having long been an Eddie Vedder fan. If you watched Fox's broadcast of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game Tuesday night, you heard a small chunk of "The Fixer," the album’s second single. The track officially goes to U.S. radio and digital retailers on Monday, with Target being the exclusive big-box retailer in the United States for “Backspacer” once it’s released in September. Fox only used a few seconds of “Fixer,” but Vedder has one of the more recognizable voices in music and it was clear who was singing “something's gone, I want to fight to get it back again.” The band debuted the album’s first single, "Got Some," June 1 on "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien." Coincidentally enough, the All-Star Game plug timed up nicely with the start of the band’s official Web site taking pre-orders for CD and vinyl versions of "Backspacer" as well as a 7-inch single for "The Fixer,” something that began yesterday. Also, Pearl Jam has confirmed the 11-track contents of "Backspacer," which features three songs recently premiered during Vedder's U.S. solo tour: "Unthought Known," "Speed of Sound" and "The End." Pearl Jam will take to the road Aug. 8 in Calgary, Alberta, and has dates on tap through Oct. 30 in Philadelphia in support of the album. As for the track list for "Backspacer": "Gonna See My Friend,” “Got Some,” “The Fixer,” “Johnny Guitar," "Just Breathe, " "Amongst the Waves, " "Unthought Known," "Supersonic," "Speed of Sound," "Force of Nature," "The End.” I know that having not heard the overwhelming majority of those songs at all, the song list might not mean much, but hopefully it will be backed by a great album come Sept. 20………..

- That didn’t take long. Less than an hour after signing a contract with the Philadelphia Phillies to officially make his return to Major League Baseball, pitcher Pedro Martinez has landed in a very familiar place: the disabled list. After inking a one-year contract with the Phillies on Wednesday, Martinez was subsequently placed on the 15-day disabled list with a mild shoulder strain. At some point in the next couple of weeks, he’ll start a minor-league rehabilitation assignment, although the particulars haven’t been decided yet. Reports have the value of Martinez’s contract at $1 million, not a bad bargain if the three-time Cy Young Award winner has anything left in the tank. “They said he was throwing much better than he was last year and that he was in tremendous shape," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said after managing the National League in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game. "Then I also hear today that he took a physical. That's about the extent of what I've heard.” Depending on how he performs, Martinez can earn up to $1.5 million in incentives. The question is whether he can bounce back from an extremely uncharacteristic 2008 season in which he went 5-6 with a 5.61 ERA for the New York Mets. He also pitched for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic before this season. Now, he will need to make at least a few starts in the minors before he's ready to join Philadelphia's beleaguered rotation. No. 2 starter Brett Myers had hip surgery in June and is done for the year. His replacement, Antonio Bastardo, made all of five starts before joining Myers on the disabled list. A good measurement of the depth of the Phillies’ injury woes is that they have already have used nine starters through 86 games after using only seven starters all of last season. So which Pedro Martinez are they adding? Is he the guy who has gone 214-99 with a 2.91 ERA in 17 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal, Boston and the Mets, or merely the broken-down veteran who was battered for the Mets last year? For the sake of Philly’s hopes of repeating as World Series champions this year, they’d better hope it’s the former…….

- Where was Summer Nelson of Post Falls, Idaho when I was a little kid? That’s always the question to ask when news of a babysitter being arrested for sexing it up with a kid half her age comes out. There are actually a lot of bizarre angles to this story, not the least of which is that this boy’s mother felt the need to hire a babysitter for a child who was 14 years old at the time. Seriously, kids as young as 10 are often allowed to stay home by themselves if a parent can’t be there when they get home from school, yet this kid’s mother feels her teenage son needs a babysitter. In some sense, this woman was almost asking for trouble. You put any 14-year-old boy alone with a reasonably attractive older girl and you should count on something bad happening. That’s exactly what went down here, as Nelson and the boy allegedly had sex at least four times after she was hired to watch him in August 2007. She watched him, all right, just a little too well. It wasn’t until this past December that the abuse was reported. The boy's mother, a friend of Nelson’s, grew suspicious of Nelson's attention toward the boy. Once police investigated, they discovered that Nelson also told the boy's siblings that she was in love with their brother. That’s another disturbing aspect of the story, the always-creepy profession of love by an adult female towards a underage boy. Also, not a good sign that Nelson was dumb enough to confide in kids about her alleged love for their brother, knowing full well she was putting her criminal secret in the hands of the worst secret-keepers of all-time, kids. Now, she faces charges of four counts of lewd conduct with a child, one for each of the alleged encounters. Obviously the identity of the boy is being kept quiet because he’s a minor, but you can bet that at age 16, he’s still a freaking hero to his peers and quite the ladies man around school….

- Here’s the ultimate “so what” in international political news. The commander of Iran's nuclear program for more than a decade has resigned. Reza Aghazadeh said in an interview that he submitted his resignation 20 days ago and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now accepted it. Great, like that’s going to do a damn thing to impact Iran’s nuclear policies. They’re going to develop nuclear capabilities and weapons and look for the first chance to use them no matter who the head of their nuclear program is. Besides, everyone knows that it’s Ahmadinejad who is calling the shots anyhow. Whichever rubber-stamp bureaucrat/sycophant he puts in this position, the dictator is the one in charge of it all. As for Aghazadeh, he was promoted to Iran's vice president of atomic energy in 1997 under reformist President Mohammad Khatami. As head of Iran's atomic program, Aghazadeh was practically handpicked by the senior figures in Iran's clerical establishment and fully trusted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. He did a decent job of keeping out of the country’s party politics and the ongoing showdown because Ahmadinejad and the opposition groups from whom he stole the most recent presidential election. Aghazadeh gave no reason for his decision, but maybe he wanted to get out of government in a country that is slowly but surely imploding under the weight of its leader’s rampant corruption. Whoever takes his place will like keep up Iran’s policy of refusing international calls to suspend its production of enriched uranium, which it insists will be used to fuel civilian nuclear power plants. In other words, look for more of the same that you’ve come to expect from your pals in Iran over the years, good times……..

Hookers fund one Olympic dream, another reason Americans are FAT and more friendly U.S.-Cuba chats coming

- Increasingly warm relations between the United States and Cuba are one of those things that you truly need to see happen before you can buy in. Yet as talks about issues such as mail travel and communication between the two nations begin to heat up, the Obama administration and the Cuban government actually seem to be serious about all of this. Talks on migration between the two countries resumed Tuesday in New York after being suspended in 2003 during the W. administration. It took Obama all of four months in office to offer to renew discussions. Yesterday, talks were held to begin addressing issues related to the easing of family travel and financial restrictions between the United States and Cuba. The two nations agreed to regulate travel between their countries in agreements from 1994 and 1995 that are collectively known as the "Migration Accords," which seek to prevent unsafe departures from Cuba. However, the U.S. government (W. administration) suspended the accords in 2003 after accusing Cuba of denying some Cubans permission to travel to the United States and declining to let the United States open a new avenue of legal migration for Cubans who want to migrate to the United States. Since then, the two have squared off over allegations of not allowing certain people or groups of people to cross one another’s borders and each side denied the charges made by the other. In 2007, Cuba tried to finger the U.S. for all of the drama. “The Ministry rejects any attempt to hold Cuba responsible for failing to comply with the Migratory Accord, when in reality it is our country that faces intensifying hostilities and provocations from the United States government as part of your useless efforts to defeat the legitimate government elected in a sovereign way by the Cuban people," the country’s government said in a statement then. Uh huh, sure thing Cuba. The Obama administration is willing to overlook a lot of your crap and try to move forward, but don’t allow that to delude you into thinking you can start bumping your gums and running blame smack again……….

- For a guy who has had a lot of success on two extremely popular television shows, Lost star Matthew Fox sure doesn’t seem to have a lot of love for the small screen. Fox, who has previously described the ending of Lost as a "relief," said recently that after the impending final season of ABC’s über-drama he plans on never, ever doing TV again. “I am not going to do television again," Fox said. "That is not because I think film is better than television. Not at all, in some respects some of the best story telling is happening on television. I have done two TV shows — Lost and Party of Five — that have each run for six years. When you add it all up it is in the vicinity of 300 hours of television. I want to find a way to have more control over when I am working and when I'm not. I'm looking for more flexibility.” Of course, Lost will begin its much-anticipated final season in January and theories as to how it will all end are running rampant. As for Fox, he believes that flexibility will give him more time to spend with his wife and kids. "I am (43) and a father of two children, and I don't want to miss them growing up," Fox said. "I don't want to find myself 10 years from now feeling like I was an absentee father because I was so focused on my career.” To that end, he plans to take six months off when Lost wraps its final season and then go back to doing one or two movies a year. His most recent big screen roles include We Are Marshall, Vantage Point, and Speed Racer, none of which has exactly set the cinematic world on fire. Best of success to you in your new life plan, Matt, hope you know what you’re doing……..

- Good news everyone! You know that sport that 99.97 percent of American sports fans don’t give a rat’s ass about, the one that is built on orange wedges, Capri Sun pouches, fake injuries and rampant hooliganism? Well, the sport of soccer’s grandest event is back on track after construction workers in South Africa ended a weeklong strike that threatened to derail the completion of already tightly-scheduled projects for the 2010 World Cup. Workers agreed on a pay increase of 12 percent, below the earlier demand of 13 percent, and work at sites across South Africa resumed Thursday. “The strike is over," said Lesiba Seshoka, spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers. "We got a good offer.” Gee Lesiba, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but not holding out for that last one percent makes you look a bit soft. But hey, the raise from $1 a day to $1.12 a day is going to make a huge difference for your union, so way to go. About 70,000 workers began striking last Wednesday, stopping work on stadiums, airports, freeways and Johannesburg's new high-speed rail link, all to pave the way for the World Cup next summer. The projects that are scheduled to be finished by December, but this strike has obviously put them behind schedule. Negotiations went on all last night and an agreement was signed this afternoon. What amazes me is that even as the deal was about to be signed, dozens of workers converged at the venue in downtown Johannesburg and professed that they were not happy with the deal. As you’d expect, the powers that be for the World Cup applauded the new deal. "Let the construction restart in earnest," Danny Jordaan, the head of the World Cup organizing committee, said in a statement. Oh, and it may technically be more than a 12-cent raise these workers were fighting for. Supposedly they earn about $300 a month but some casual laborers can take home less than $100. Unions have also been whining about rising fuel and food costs that are making it harder for workers to make ends meet. Great, but last I checked a cost of living doesn’t mean your employer has to pay you more to help you make ends meet. However, one outstanding outgrowth of this dispute was a nice little batch of protesting, including protesting workers marching around the stadium at Soccer City, a World Cup finals venue near Soweto, several hundred, brandishing sharpened sticks and singing. Reports of violence and intimidation have also been circulating, so big ups to those involved if that’s true. Ultimately, everyone wins here. The workers get their raise, soccer fans will still get their World Cup and we all got some protests and violence out of it…..

- Hmm, wonder why America is so FAT? I’ve got four words for you: bacon-flavored ice cream. No one food can fully account for our national girth issues, but ice cream flavored like salted, fried strips of pig meat seems like as good a symbol of the problems as any. For this revolting, fattening treat, travel with me to Bakersfield, California. There, the Moo Creamery is busy feeding all sorts of unhealthy, disgusting culinary curiosities to customers under the care of owner Jessica Pounds (a more appropriate name has never existed). The Moo Creamery is a restaurant famous for wacky flavors of ice cream and unusual takes on typical dietary staples. From bacon shakes to beer-flavored ice cream, the Moo Creamery is always trying out new flavors. Its menu has included jalapeno cream cheese with a raspberry swirl as an ice cream flavor, among others. "Playing around in the kitchen or when we're making pastries, coming up with different flavor combinations and turning into ice cream,” Pounds declares. “A friend of mine loves bacon on everything, so she had asked me to make bacon ice cream. So I had a home ice cream maker and I made it and thought it was a terrible idea. So she had me try it and after three days of tasting it I finally thought it was good.” I’m not sure what’s more disgusting and stomach-churning: that the restaurant offers bacon-flavored ice cream or that it sells nearly 100 gallons a week of its disgusting, homemade concoctions. The ice cream starts off as a custard like consistency made of cream, milk, egg yolks and sugar. It's then poured into an ice cream maker, and 10 minutes later, it comes out like soft serve ice cream. After that, additional ingredients are added and mixed it is put in a freezer at 20 below temperatures for a few hours. After that, it is put in another freezer to soften so it's scoopable. Now I’ve never been to Bakersfield, but I can say with certainty that if I do, one place I will not be eating is the Moo Creamery. The sight of my fellow Americans wolfing down ice cream flavored like a fatty breakfast meat would simply be too much to take…….

- I think I’ve found my favorite Olympic athlete and a guy I can root for all the way from now until the 2012 Summer Olympics. He embodies all that an Olympic athlete should be, showcasing the can-do, don’t quit spirit that only the truly great ones have. When forced with a cash-flow problem that threatened to curtail his training for the 2012 Games, taekwondo competitor Logan Campbell came up with an ingenious solution that we can all admire. The cash-strapped Olympic hopeful from New Zealand has opened a brothel to fund his bid for glory in 2012. By turning into a pimp, Campbell hopes to raise the money to continue his training. The brothel is located in Auckland and Campbell says he needs it to raise $190,000 over the next two years. "There is no point me going to the Olympics to make up the numbers if I go I want to be a medal contender," Campbell declared. In other words, if you aren’t preparing and training to be the absolute best, why go? I like that attitude, but what I like even more is an Olympic athlete using hookers turning tricks to fund his bid for the gold. Campbell isn’t just some publicity-seeking idiot with no game, either; he finished in the top 16 in Beijing after losing his first match of the tournament. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the backwards-thinking idiots who run New Zealand’s taekwondo federation from acting like the typical, small-minded bureaucrats who can’t get behind a truly revolutionary idea. “It may be unlikely that he will be selected because of his involvement," Taekwondo New Zealand's Secretary General Matt Ransom said of Campbell’s brothel. I wholeheartedly concur with Campbell, who insists he should be entitled to compete as his Auckland business does not violate New Zealand liberal laws on prostitution. "This is perfectly legal, so I do not see why I would wreck my chances,” he rightly declared. Heck, Campbell admitted that if there were other ways to raise the large amount of money he needs, he would consider them. See, the man has pored over every possible option and decided on the best one. Don’t fault him for that and get behind the idea that all sorts of kinky, perverted and deviant sexual acts performed for money could send one athlete to the Olympics……..

How not to go about flag burning, an entertainment industry pay raise that has me livid and a texting teen gets what she deserves

- Here’s to getting what you deserve. Cheering for a teenage girl falling several feet into an open manhole might seem cold and calloused - until you hear why Alexa Longueira fell into a manhole in Travis, N.Y. She was walking along, texting on her cell phone and didn’t see the open manhole when she took the fall. "I fell in a hole," Longueira said. "Like, there was no warning about a big, open hole." Umm, would you have seen it if it had been there, chica? Were you not so concerned with the text from your BFF about some OMG moment that happened at the mall, you could have seen a freaking open manhole. Longueira is actually fortunate that a) she only had a six-foot fall and b) that she only landed in four inches of raw sewage. She suffered cuts across her arms and down her back, but is otherwise okay. Had she hit her head or landed in a bigger pile of sewage, things could have been worse - or smellier. "A manhole. My kid falls down a manhole," Alexa’s mother, Kim Longueira, said. "She was smelly.” And what a proud moment it must have been for Mrs. Longueira, learning that her daughter is so clueless and oblivious that she falls into a manhole and lands in human waste. Here’s a good rule of thumb: texting while driving is illegal in some places, but texting while walking is also something you should avoid. Unless walking on a treadmill, there is still a world around you going about its business and you are in an ever-changing environment with potential dangers all around you. For example, workers might be flushing a high-pressure sewer one evening and have a manhole cover open. So unless you are in training for the world texting championships, which ironically enough were won by a teenage girl again this year, save the texting for times when you are stationary or not in danger of falling into an open manhole…….

- Bad idea, Los Angeles Clippers, bad idea. From a franchise that seems to have an entire department devoted to coming up with them given their proficiency in the practice, signing washed-up, shoot-first/second/third/fourth guard Allen Iverson is one of the worst ideas the Clips have had in recent memory. In his prime, AI was a prolific scorer whose toughness and fearless attitude allowed him to defy his diminutive stature and lead the league in scoring several times. Now that he’s more than a decade into his career, his athletic ability is starting to decline and yet the trigger-happy mentality and cantankerous attitude he’s had all along the way remain. He’s a malcontent who can’t come to grips with the fact that he’s no longer an elite player. That much was evident when the Denver Nuggets traded him to Detroit just four games into last season and proceeded to make it all the way to the Western Conference finals. By comparison, the Pistons had a terrible season, finishing eighth in the Eastern Conference and being swept out of the playoffs by a wildly overrated Cleveland team. By the time the playoffs rolled around, AI was long gone. He was such a bitter man about being relegated to a reserve role that the Pistons created a fictitious back injury he’d supposedly suffered and used it as an excuse to have him not be with the team as the regular season neared its end. Now that he’s a free agent, Iverson has drifted along on the open market for two weeks and counting, receiving only tepid interest from a motley crew of teams looking to offer him a one-year deal. No one wants to invest heavily in the guy because of his attitude problems and propensity to wreck a team’s offense with his gunner mentality. However, leave it to the Clippers to think that signing AI is a great idea. His agent, Leon Rose, was traveling to Las Vegas to arrange a meeting with the Clippers as the next step in the process of finding a new home for the former MVP. Other teams reportedly interested include the league’s second-most inept franchise, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Miami Heat. The Clippers are reportedly intent on finding out whether Iverson would accept a reserve role before signing him, which would actually be the only smart part of this deal. Still, how are you going to take the word of a guy looking to sucker a team into giving him a contract over his own actions when asked to take on a similar role last season with a better team? Plus, how would signing AI impact the development of second-year guard Eric Gordon, coming off of a promising rookie campaign? The black hole that is AI on offense would surely suck up some of Gordon’s touches and shot attempts, and for what? The Clippers aren’t going to contend for anything next year, not even if No. 1 draft pick Blake Griffin is the second coming of Karl Malone at the power forward spot. Signing Iverson is simply a bad idea for any team right now, but especially the Clippers. Of course, that means one thing: it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen soon…….

- Few things in the entertainment industry have the potential to truly, truly anger me. After all, it’s the entertainment industry and often has little to no bearing on the day-to-day life of the average person. However, this is one of those stories that has that potential to not only anger me but to make me livid to the point of throwing large household appliances around and inflicting senseless violence on inanimate objects. If you’ve read this space for any time now, you know exactly where I’m going with this. That teeth-bleaching, tip-frosting, man-blouse-wearing tool Ryan Seacrest had pulled off one of the most absurd and infuriating bank robberies of all-time by scoring a new three-year, $45 million deal to extend his run as American Karaoke’s host. Yes, dude is going to earn $15 f&#$ing million dollars a year to stand on a giant stage, introduce a bunch of hack karaoke singers as they prepare to belt out gawd-awful karaoke version of songs that either sucked to begin with or ruin songs that used to be good. He’s making $15 million to red crappy, stiff dialogue off a teleprompter and tell no-life-having losers the phone number to call if they want to throw away their money just to vote for which ass hat will win the world’s biggest karaoke contest. The three-year contract with Idol producer 19 Entertainment's parent company, CKX, Inc., more than triples his current salary and will give this clown the highest salary of any reality TV host. It does mandate that Seacrest can only appear on prime-time broadcast television for CKX, although he does have a separate contract to anchor E! News for Comcast. I’m not even sure what part of this deal makes me the angriest. For one, it basically ensures that the menace to music and society that is American Karaoke will be around for another three years. True, that does give me plenty of targets to mock for those three years, but AK is one thing I could do without mocking if it meant that it was dead and buried. If I had my way, everyone ever associated with the show in any way would be banned from the entertainment industry for life. Sadly, the idiots at 19 Entertainment are too ignorant to realize this and instead they’re handing out absurd pay raises to the lamest metrosexual in the history of television……..

- I loves me a good war crimes trial. When the international community posses up to put a despotic, dictatorial former leader on trial for alleged crimes against humanity, count me in. As such, I’d like to welcome former Liberian President Charles Taylor to the international stage as our latest despot on trial. Taylor is playing the part well, already expressing incredulity at the testimony against him. As his trial rolls on at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, established by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, Taylor appeared as the first defense witness at a trial that began two years ago. He mustered some solid fake incredulity, saying "there is no way" he is guilty of any of the charges. That’s right, Chuck. Everyone just made up that bloody civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone that led to widespread murder, rape, and mutilation and fabricated all of the evidence suggesting you fueled that war. “I am not guilty of all of these charges, not even a minute part of these charges," Taylor, president between 1997 and 2003, said. This whole case is a case of deceit, deception, lies.” Not to nitpick, Chuck, but what is a minute of criminal charges? My man, this is a criminal case, not a prepaid phone card or cell phone plan. The metaphor you’re reaching for is an ounce or a shred of the charges, not a minute. As for those charges, the war in Sierra Leone centered on the explosive issue of blood diamonds and was fought largely by child soldiers who were forced to kill, given addictive drugs to provoke violent behavior, and often instructed to rape and plunder. For his alleged role in the conflict, Taylor is charged with five counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, sexual slavery and violence, and enslavement. He also faces five counts of war crimes, including acts of terrorism and torture, and one count of other serious violations of international humanitarian law. He is selling his innocence hard, pleading not guilty and acting downright insulted at the implication that he had anything to do with a war he clearly had a lot to do with. “It is quite incredible that such descriptions of me would come about. Very, very, very unfortunate that the prosecution -- because of this information, misinformation, lies, rumors -- would associate me with such titles or descriptions," he said. “I am a father of 14 children, grandchildren, with love for humanity.” Riiiiight. This trial has actually been quite a circus ever since it kicked off in June 2007. Taylor boycotted the first session, saying he could not expect a fair trial and calling the proceedings a "charade." The prosecution began its case in January 2008 and finished in February this year. Taylor is also making history as the first African head of state to go on trial for war crimes before an international tribunal, but he clearly doesn’t appreciate that milestone. Oh, and it would help his case of not fueling a massive civil war in Sierra Leone if he weren’t also blamed for fueling a lengthy civil war in Liberia when he was president. Still. props to Chuck Taylor for putting up a good front by lamenting that he just can’t understand how witnesses "can come and in an organized fashion lie -- lie and lie and lie." Keep it up, Chuck, you’re making this a very enjoyable experience……..

- Let me first and foremost say I’m not against people having the right to burn a flag as a means of protest. If you want to torch a flag because you wish to make a statement against your government, so be it. That’s not a popular position to take, but oh well. Having said that, what some idiot in the Dallas area is doing by going around and anonymously burning other people’s American flags is chicken sh*t. The incidents have occurred in a north Dallas neighborhood where a home in the Preston Valley Villas has had his American flag burned by an unknown invader twice in the past two weeks. Two weeks ago, Ed Jordan came home to find his American flag in ashes on his front yard. This week, it happened again. "It makes me sick to think about anybody having that sort of disrespect," said Jordan. "Soon as I looked at it and touched it, I could tell it had been burning." After the first incident, an Iraq war veteran donated a special flag just days later. That flag flew over a base the soldier served at. Fortunately that flag was not flying Sunday night when Jordan’s classless mystery arsonist struck again. Another Pine Valley Villas resident has also been victimized by the cowardly flag burner, but has yet to replace her flag. Other residents are now getting their inner vigilante on and making threats of what they’ll do if they catch the arsonist, which is actually pretty funny. Ultimately, this ass clown is deserving of a beatdown, but these villa dwellers won't be the one to give it to him or her. The bottom line is that if you want to burn a flag, it had better be your flag and you had better be willing to stand behind your actions. To do it the way this a-hole is going about it is absolute garbage, period…….

Places I don't want to see snakes, Africans are apparently huge texters and the weekend box office race won by a bomb of a movie

- Good to know that a) even though you’re the most impoverished nation in the world, you still have money to afford cell phones with text plans, b) you have nothing better to do than text the president of a country thousands of miles away. On the heels of President Barack Obama visiting Africa last week and inviting people from around the continent to get at him with text message and emails, Africans have responded in force. More than 5,000 messages came rolling in from Ghana, Sudan and South Africa during his first visit as president to sub-Saharan Africa. Administration officials said they set up different numbers across the continent for citizens to communicate with Obama. Showing that they too can exercise horribly inaccurate grammar on text messages, people sent Obama texts saying, “U r a huge encouragement” and “Dear president, Darfur firing again...waiting for peace through the change u promised.” Now I’m all for our president visiting places like Ghana and looking to improve our relationships with the rest of the world, even taking his wife and two daughters along for the ride. The people of Ghana and surrounding nations have shown genuine excitement in the wake of the visit, which is also cool. What befuddles me is how Africa is home to some of the world's poorest nations yet has a vibrant cell phone market. In fact, industry analysts consider it to be among the fastest-growing markets worldwide. So you can't afford to adequately feed, clothe and house your family, yet you can afford a cell phone? How does that work? Look kids, I know you’re eating two inadequate meals a day and our home is a ramshackle dwelling with a leaky roof and substandard sanitation, but what I really need money for right now is a cell phone so I can text American President Barack Obama, so your basic needs will have to wait. Oh, and as for all of those questions submitted to Obama, they will be collected and vetted by three journalists from South Africa, Senegal and Kenya, who will then provide a few for Obama to address on African radio stations and via a Web video today. Way to keep those priorities straight, though, Africa…….

- Quite a recruiting class you have coming in to your men’s basketball program, University of Cincinnati. Because forward Lance Stephenson, who has committed to play at Cincinnati this fall, has agreed to a plea deal and will not serve jail time in his sexual assault case, you don’t have the stigma of having a guy who has done hard time on your team. Granted, Stephenson is ranked No. 12 in the ESPNU top 100 of incoming freshman and in the world of high-level college hoops, that tends to trump being a bad guy and having criminal tendencies. However, it’s always better to avoid jail time, gives those pesky critics who say you overlook bad character in favor of on-court talent. Thus, Stephenson pleading guilty to a charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct on Friday, agreeing to seek counseling and perform three days of community service is a good deal both for he and Cincinnati. Stephenson and another player from Lincoln, Darwin Ellis, were charged after being accused of groping a 17-year-old girl near the high school in early October 2008. Perhaps because he doesn’t have a long criminal record, the prosecutor was willing to give him this deal and hopefully Stephenson takes it and doesn’t look back. "Mr. Stephenson is looking forward to transitioning to college life and is pleased to put this matter behind him," his lawyer, Alberto Ebanks, said. That’s great, counselor, but there’s also the matter of Stephenson’s eligibility and amateur status, at least in the NCAA’s eyes. The NCAA is expected to look into Stephenson's amateur status after he was part of a documentary, called "Born Ready," and a tour of the Under Armour factory while visiting Maryland earlier this year. Cincinnati reportedly isn’t concerned with either the assault case or the eligibility issues, which isn’t surprising. If they were concerned, there’s no way they would admit it and they probably figure they can find a way around all of this and get this guy on the court anyhow. After all, he’s a 2009 McDonald's High School All-American who was considered the top high school player in New York state last season and averaged 28.9 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 3.9 assists. In college basketball, you find ways to get guys like that on the court no matter what……..

- Big ups to the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, you all are worthy of a lot of praise and admiration for joining the battle against the menace to the world that is smoking. These two teamed up to commission a study that recommends a complete ban on tobacco, which would end tobacco sales on military bases and prohibit smoking by anyone in uniform, not even combat troops in of battle. Now as far as I’m concerned, the story could stop right there. I don’t need a detailed explanation or any data to back up that decision. You want to ban smoking, you’ve got my approval. Still, this study does have findings to back up it’s suggestions. According to the study, tobacco use impairs military readiness in the short term and over the long term, it can cause serious health problems, including lung cancer and cardiovascular disease (duh). The study also addresses the revolting menace that is smokeless tobacco, which it claims can lead to oral and pancreatic cancer. Now that the study is complete, the Defense Department's top health officials will review it make recommendations to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. I do have one issue with the study, namely that it doesn’t recommend the immediate banning of all tobacco products but rather phasing them out gradually over a five- to 10-year period. Predictably there are some a-holes who don’t like the ban and are fighting the idea, namely retired Gen. Russel Honore, best known for coordinating military relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina-affected areas. He was known for rocking a nasty cigar everywhere he went and he feels that soldiers at war need to add an additional way to kill themselves to the ever-growing list of agents of death in battles. “When you're tired and you've been going days on end with minimum sleep, and you are not getting the proper meals on time, that hit of tobacco can make a difference,” said Honore. Thankfully the Pentagon supports the goal of a tobacco-free military, according to spokeswoman Cynthia Smith. “However, achieving that goal will depend on coincident reductions of tobacco use in the civilian population," she said. Yeah, whatever you say, C. I say that we do everything we can to promote the health and fitness of those we entrust with defending our country and our freedom and that means no smoking. Smoking is for losers and that applies whether you’re a stockbroker, baseball player, bus driver or soldier……

- The more I see of Sacha Baron Cohen, the less I think he’s funny and entertaining. That’s saying something because I never thought dude was funny to begin with and basically hated his act from day one. However, the rest of America seems to feel differently, at least those who hit their local theater last weekend to take in a movie. Cohen’s alleged Bruno finished first at the box office by grossing $30.4 million, after topping the charts on Friday with an imposing $14.4 million. However, there was a ray of hope on Saturday when the movie saw a 39 percent drop in earnings to come in third place on Saturday. In other words, a lot of people rushed out to see the movie on opening day but once people heard about it a little more, they weren’t so eager to see it. The comedy scored a putrid "C" rating from CinemaScore moviegoers even though it bested Cohen’s last lame-ass comedy, Borat, which opened to $26.5 million in November 2006. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was No. 2 with $28.5 million and it dropped only 32 percent from last weekend. So far, the film has made $120.6 million in two weeks. Finishing third for the weekend was Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, scoring $24.2 million in its third weekend, bringing its total to $339.2 million. Public Enemies (No. 4 with $14.1 million) and The Proposal (No. 5 with $10.5 million) round out the top five, with the latter being noteworthy because it marks Sandra Bullock's first $100 million picture since 2000's Miss Congeniality. One of the other highly anticipated new releases, I Love You, Beth Cooper, opened at No. 7 with $5 million. Some indie films also had decent opening weekends, including Blood: The Last Vampire ($103,000 from 20 theaters), Humpday ($30,000 on just two screens) and the music documentary, Soul Power ($25,000 from six screens). Sadly, all of those films were bested back a hack-job, crap-tacular comedy with bargain-basement humor and one of the most overrated comedic stars of this era……

- I hate snakes. No, check that: I freaking hate snakes with a passion. They’re slimy, they’re scaly and some of them a freaking deadly. I don’t like seeing them, I don’t want to be near them and because of that, I’m glad to not live in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. The Lebanon County community got a unwelcome surprise when a 10-foot albino burmese python was found abandoned in the town of Annville. Someone spotted the creepy crawler Friday morning near the Annville Laundromat on Main Street, just hanging out and doing his snake thing. Although he measures 10 feet in length, the snake weighed in at a mere 20 pounds when caught by employees from Zoo America in Hershey, Pa. The Forgotten Friends Reptile Sanctuary in Lancaster County took the python in and Sanctuary employee Jesse Rothacker said the snake was in bad condition, malnourished and weak. It is believed that the snake is an escaped or abandoned pet, which Rothacker says raises issues that many people fail to consider when they consider getting a large snake as a pet. "A lot of people take them home and they're not prepared for the long haul and the message is if you want to get a big reptile, that it's a big commitment," said Rothacker. However, this snake found a little bit of fame in spite of its misfortune. The python was later featured as a part of "Reptile Week," which was held at Nixon Park in York County. Personally I couldn’t be happier…..that this snake is where it belongs, namely in an animal sanctuary, far away from me……

Unusual places for a church, a flower box thief gets bailed out and the rich get dicked over again

- The tale of a convicted bank robber who inadvertently robbed New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will have a happy ending after all. Dennis Paiva was driving past Brady's Boston condominium in May 2008 and spotted what he thought were two flower boxes left out as trash. The flower boxes were near a dumpster, so Paiva assumed they were being thrown out and stopped to pick them up. A security camera caught him throwing the flower boxes in the back of his truck and driving off. A few days later, Paiva received a call from the police demanding that he return the flower boxes. Initially he denied any wrongdoing, but officers informed him that he had been caught on tape and needed to return to stolen items immediately. Problem was that by that time, Paiva had sold the flower boxes for scrap metal. As a recently paroled felon who is unable to work due to the effects of a recent surgery, Paiva was unable to mount much of a legal defense when charges were filed against him for stealing the flower boxes. A judge ruled that he must pay $4,000 to the real estate trust owned by Brady that in turn owns the condo. Because of the ownership arrangement, it’s unlikely that Brady knew about the situation or was heavily involved, but that didn’t make Paiva any less screwed. His story became public this week and that development turned out to be Paiva’s salvation from what had turned into a life of panhandling and begging in order to pay his debt. Dan Greenwald, the owner of a Burlington ad agency, read about Paiva’s tale of woe and decided to pay the restitution for him. Greenwald said it seemed as if Paiva, who says he can't work because of got "the rawest of raw deals." His act of kindness allows the 61-year-old Paiva to get out from under a financial burden he couldn’t shoulder and for that, Greenwald should be saluted. Paiva called Greenwald's gesture "a dream come true." Nice to know that there are still people out there doing good things for strangers…….

- Uh oh! Rich people, prepare to be dicked over again, this time by the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee. Not that I have any love for either group - rich people or Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee - because I’m not a huge fan of either. As such, I think I’ll merely sit back and enjoy this showdown as the Dems prepare to introduce another measure sure to be hailed as the encroachment of socialism on our nation. On Friday, the committee proposed a graduated tax on wealthy Americans to pay for health care reform. In other words, penalizing the richer and more successful among us in order to help the poorer and less successful, something I know rich people absolutely LOVE. So just what is the threshold for wealth when it comes to this new “Robin Hood” tax to rip money from the rich and put it in the hands of the poor? Well, the new tax would apply to individuals who make more than $280,000 a year and married couples who make more than $350,000. But wait….there’s more! That’s merely the threshold for the tax; the more you make and the richer you are, the more this tax would sting your bank account. Individuals making up to $400,000 and couples making up to $500,000 would be assessed a 1 percent tax on their adjusted gross income and an even higher rate would apply to individuals making up to $800,000 and for couples making up to $1 million per year, and an even higher rate would apply to individuals and couples with higher incomes! Now that is what I like to call sticking it to the rich and I LOVE it. Now, would I feel differently if I were rich? Might I be less eager to see the wealthy forced to subsidize health care for the poor if I were wealthy? Perhaps, but I’m not rich (nowhere near it) and never will be. As such, I’m going to revel in the rich getting a raw deal here. And to be fair, committee Democrats did consider other ideas to pay for the reform, including new taxes on sugary drinks or an increase in Medicare payroll taxes, but those were rejected. On the bright side, the new tax is expected to bring in $540 billion over 10 years. When you combine that figure with approximately $500 billion in projected savings from health care reforms, it should help offset the roughly $1 trillion that the House Democrats' bill is expected to cost. An official announcement of this legislation is expected to come tomorrow, so plan your bill introduction parties accordingly, unless of course you’re really, really rich……..

- Millions of people across the United States attended church this morning, but a growing number of them filed in to their place of worship in an unusual location: their local movie theater. In places like Edgewater, New Jersey, churchgoers file past signs announcing "The Proposal," the latest Sandra Bullock bomb, and sit down in stadium seating for their Sunday service. At Edgewater Multiplex Cinemas, some 200 people come each Sunday for Joy Christian Fellowship’s regular service. The church has a six-piece worship band for its music and senior pastor Danny Han preaches the weekly message. "It's not a traditional church setting," said Han. "But we turn this theater auditorium into a worship place.” Joy Christian Fellowship is one of about 200 churches renting theater space under a one-year contract with National CineMedia, a nationwide multiplex cinema chain. The concept began with a mere three churches six years ago and has grown steadily since then. “The economy has had clearly a positive impact," said Kurt Hall, the CEO of National CineMedia. "As churches have found it more difficult to raise money to build their own buildings.” The practice especially appeals to never churches that don’t have the finances to afford their own building, but larger churches looking for additional locations or branches are also embracing the idea of worshiping in a theater. Joy Christian Fellowship leases two theaters at $1,000 for 3 1/2 hours each Sunday. Heck, National CineMedia even offers "Worship Solutions" packages with negotiable rates. But it isn’t only churches with building issues or funding issues that have turned to movie theaters as churches. Rev. Ethan Maple is a pastor in Indianapolis, Indiana, who saw sagging attendance at his church and decided that since people weren't filling the church pews, he would go to them. In March he started The Movie Theater Church and it has turned into an unconventional-yet-popular place of worship. Congregation members eat popcorn and drink soda while worshipping, the offering is collected in popcorn buckets and sermon notes are put up on the screen for everyone to follow along. If nothing else, this is an interesting trend and a good way to show that churches aren’t the same stiff, stuffy and boring places they have often been seen as……..

- Looking to see Kate Winslet do a nude scene in a movie and you’re tired of re-watching the train wreck known as Titanic? Is The Reader simply too boring and snooze-inducing for you? I don’t know what to tell you, but the days of Winslet taking off her clothes on screen appear to be coming to an end. In a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar (which I didn’t know was still published), the actress says she’s getting ready to cease and desist with nude scenes once and for all. “If people are noticing my boobs in a movie and saying they do what real boobs do, then that’s great. I’ll be 34 in October. I can’t keep getting away with it. There was much of it in ‘The Reader’ because the story required it, but people have seen enough of my bum and my boobs. I have to put them back,” Winslet stated. Having said that, she is happy to have done a full-frontal or two in her career. So for those of you out there who have had otherwise crap-tacular movies saved by seeing this chick take off her clothes, just know that you won't have that crutch to lean on going forward. If your wife or girlfriend drags you to a Kate Winslet movie in the future, you’re going to have to suffer through it without this sort of payoff. Should you be looking to read the Harper's Bazaar for yourself, it’s in the August issue of the magazine, which lands on newsstands July 21……

- Maybe I’ve been lackadaisical in holding regular meetings of my seminar for aspiring-yet-stupid criminals looking to add a dash of professionalism and success to their endeavors. Perhaps that’s been the case, but it would still not excuse the moronic behavior of a guy like Michael Fagan, an escaped suspect in Longview, Texas who was discovered by police hiding between a box spring and a mattress in the home of his girlfriend, Shalonda Demetrie Jones. Fagan, a drug suspect, managed to break free from a Gregg County deputy at the jail right before he was booked into the facility. When breaking free from the cops, there are obviously a few things even the most amateur of criminals need to keep in mind. The first and most important thing, assuming the goal is not to be arrested again, is to stay away from family, friends and anything familiar. See, the cops are smart enough to surmise that those are the places a suspect is escaped criminal is most likely to go. In times of crisis, we all revert to the familiar and safe, so those are the first places the authorities look. Fagan may or may not have remained free if he hadn’t decided that between the box spring and mattress of his girlfriend’s bed was a good hiding place, I don’t know. What I do know is that his odds would have been far better if he had run to a less predictable place. Now, his bond has been set at $100,000 for two counts of evading arrest plus an additional $5,000 for possession of a controlled substance. Hope that was worth it, you tool……

The entertainment drunks provide, AIG finds new ways to make us hate them and Fujifilm goes 3-D with digital cameras

- Times have not been great for Fujifilm. The Japanese film giant was riding high in the ‘80s, but as the digital camera revolution swept across the technology world, Fujifilm gradually fell behind its competitors. Even though the company developed the world's first fully digital still camera in 1988 and held 30 percent of the digital camera market as late as 1999, competitors such as Nikon, Olympus and Canon have passed Fuji by of late. At this point, the company holds just a 6.7 percent market share. Now, Fujifilm is hoping that it can recapture the magic of 1988 with another new invention: the world's first 3-D digital camera for consumers. The camera, tentatively named the FinePix Real 3D System, will be the first device of its kind available to consumers when it’s released later this year. While the camera is slightly larger than the average digital camera, it’s not too cumbersome and bulky. The 10-megapixel camera employs two lenses, spaced about the same distance apart as human eyes, which allow for the taking of simultaneous photos of the same scene from different angles. Obviously, this is where the 3-D technology kicks in. Ordinarily, when your brain receives two similar images, one from each eye, it blends them into a single image and you get the illusion of depth to that image when there is none. To get the effect, you need something like 3-D glasses. The magic of the FinePix Real 3D System is that it offers two viewing options, one of which is a 3-D digital picture frame — an eight-inch (20 cm) LCD screen that directs the dual images to the left and right eyes, creating the 3-D effect, and the other being is 3-D prints made with a clear plastic overlay. To aid customers in making their 3-D prints, Fujifilm will launch an online service that will make the prints. I have no doubt that the novelty of pictures in which the central subjects appear to pop off the screen or print will catch people’s attention, but I doubt how much staying power the concept is going to have once people see the cost. The camera will debut in Japan this summer and elsewhere in September with a cost of around $600. With the price of traditional digital cameras constantly dropping, I have a feeling people aren’t going to shell out the money just for 3-D. Oh, and the picture frame will cost several hundred dollars, too. Perhaps seeking to spread out the sticker shock, Fuji isn’t yet saying what the cost will be for 3-D prints. With the worldwide economic troubles and the expected decline in digital camera sales, I can’t see many people doling out nearly a thousand dollars just for the novelty of some 3-D pictures. Don’t get me wrong, 3-D digital cameras are a cool concept, just not that cool…….

- What would our world be without the humor added by drunken idiots doing random and moronic things? Just think of how much less interesting your life would be if you didn’t have drunken friends to laugh at or random drunken strangers to mock at the bar on karaoke night. There are drunk idiots everywhere, but for this particular occasion, our drunken idiots will come courtesy of Louisville, Ky. After a night of drinking, an unidentified drunk in the Louisville area was apparently wandering around the countryside and looking for something to do. When this lush happened upon a llama farm, the perfect opportunity seemed to be presenting itself. Seizing the drunken day, this clown decided that it would be really funny to release the llamas from their pens and allow them to run free (do we have confirmation that this tool isn’t a member of PETA?). Authorities believe the llamas got loose just before 8:00 a.m., escaping from their home in the highlands. Following their escape, the llamas made a break for it and in the hours that followed they were spotted on Yale Drive, Waterdale and Dundee Road. Animal control was called and was eventually able to capture the llamas without incident. They were returned to their owner, who was inexplicably cited because the animals got out. Right, because you want to penalize someone for not anticipating that some knob would get drunk off his (or her) ass, happen across the llamas and open the gate to their pen. But at least the citation is all the owner received, because rather than have this individual pay a fine, the city’s animal services office wants to have the owner show them how to catch llamas in case of future incidents. So once again, thanks to whoever was responsible for downing a beer or nine and setting these llamas free. You provided some solid laughs and hijinks in your drunkenness, well done…….

- It may clock in at less than 40 minutes and have only 10 songs, but Coconut Records’ newest album Davy is one of the best indie rock albums of the year from where I sit. People from other walks of public life - actors and athletes - tend not to do so well when they venture into the music world, but actor Jason Schwartzman has followed up on 2007’s “Nighttiming” with another great album. His style isn’t complicated or revolutionary, but Schwartzman’s lyrics are introspective, thoughtful and tell a great story. Most of the songs on the album rely on methodical pacing and acoustic guitar, which is fine by me. The standout single thus far has been “Microphone,” a slow, folksy song in which Schwartzman’s vocals are nicely understated and calm. Another favorite song of mine on the album is “Wires,” a song with some funky, rhythmic acoustic guitar but a great chorus in which Schwartzman sings, “I can’t believe it’s already tired, go and cut all my wires.” The song has a bit of a vintage feel to it, but also the same simplistic, quirky style that is present thoughout. For the most part, the songs don’t rock out or send a lot of bass blasting from your speakers, but that isn’t what indie rock is about anyhow. Schwartzman is able to do what a lot of actors-turned-musicians can’t do, namely show off solid musical talent, great songwriting and an awesome sense of storytelling and thoughtfulness in his lyrics. Other favorite songs on the album include “Saint Jerome” and “Wandering Around,” but out of the 10 tracks, at least eight are must-listens every time through, which makes this one of 2009’s best albums in my book……

- Too few nations are keeping the practice of heavy-handed censorship alive these days, don’t ya think? Sure, there are some things that are censored even here in the United States, but by and large people are allowed to say what they want and cross most any line they want to cross. Not so in one of the last bastions of Communism, the frozen tundra known as Russia. There, making fun of the current or former dictator, er, leader of the country is a major offense. Now if I were to tell you that an American television show was the offending party in a case of Russian censorship, how long would it take you to guess that the identity of the show in question was “South Park”? Two seconds? Three? Depending on how slow your cognitive processes are, within a few seconds you would be uttering the name of Trey Stone and Matt Parker’s always-tasteless cartoon comedy from Comedy Central. An episode of the show appeared to mock former president and still power-behind-the-throne Vladimir Putin, so the Russian TV channel "2X2" cut material from the show. The offending episode aired Tuesday and a short segment of it portrayed Putin as a greedy and desperate leader. What’s funny is that this episode was more than four years old, having originally aired in the United States in 2005. Asked about the Putin scene being cut, channel spokesman Andrei Andreyev said it was the third time the edited version of the episode had been shown this year, although he refused to give a reason for the censorship. Honestly, this is the sort of blatant censorship that most onlookers felt that Russia would move away from following the demise of the U.S.S.R. in the 1990s, but my boy Vlad Putin has clearly inspired something in the way of a revival of that sort of antiquated thinking. The editing of “South Park” is far from the only example of Russian censorship in recent years. The channel NTV was forced to pull its satirical puppet show "Kukly" in 2002 after the Kremlin objected to the show’s repeated digs at Putin. Now that he’s “prime minister” and “no longer president,” (please not the use of quotation marks as signs of my disbelief of the claim that he’s no longer in charge), Putin is supposedly focused on returning economic stability to Russia, but if you think his reach no longer extends into every reach of the government….then you’re an idiot. Reaction to this act of censorship has been outspoken and angry in Russia, but don’t expect those complaints and criticisms to do one bit of good with the Communists running the country…….

- Oh AIG, how you continue to find yourself in deep financial sh*t, I’ll never know. You may recall how the ass hats at AIG decided to pay out $165 million of retention bonuses to executives even after receiving a massive bailout from the government. The public didn’t seem too enthused about that for some odd reason. Yet the ever-worsening condition of our economy means new tales of woe and idiocy on a weekly basis, so the outrage toward AIG has waned somewhat in recent months. That clearly didn’t sit well with AIG, which must take some perverse delight in having the ire of the American people focused squarely on its inept shoulders. See, the company plans to pay $2.4 million in executive bonuses next week even as it struggles to find a way to pay roughly $235 million still owed to employees of its crippled financial products division. Because of its status as a government charity case, AIG must receive the government's consent to make the performance bonus payment of $2.4 million to 43 of its top-ranking executives. Combine that with the $235 million in retention bonuses owed to about 400 employees of AIG's Financial Products (FP) division, the very bonuses at the heart of that March debacle, and AIG is doing its best to curry public disapproval. Approval for the ill-advised $2.4 million in bonus payments to executives will have to come from Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's pay czar. He’ll also be reviewing the $235 million in bonuses for AIG-FP, the very division that wrote insurance contracts on shaky derivatives that were the main culprit in the company's near-collapse. That’s when the government bailed out AIG with funds now worth up to $182 billion, only to have the ass hats who run the company turn around and attempt to use much of that money for bonuses. Following the public outcry in March, FP employees returned about a third of their bonuses, and a dozen workers resigned. Because of pressure from Congress and the Obama administration, AIG actually restructured its bonus payments for the top 50 executives and in one of the least-noble gestures ever, the top seven AIG executives opted to forgo their bonuses. Thanks for falling on that grenade, fellas. I’m sure you would have done the same thing even if no one had bitched you out and vilified you, right? It is reassuring to know that no matter what twists and turns come our way in this world, idiots like those running AIG can always be counted on to do enough stupid things to keep life interesting…….

A summer tradition to cherish, the Amazing Disappearing Batrolo Colon and Riot Watch! in Peru

- Never a good sign when a Major League Baseball team is unsure of where a player is and if that player will show up for his minor league rehab appearance. Actually, it’s a bad sign any time an employer in any business can’t find an employee and doesn’t know if he or she will show up for work. The fact that it’s a professional athlete being paid a lot of money to show up just exacerbates the situation a bit, that’s all. The athlete in question is Chicago White Sox pitcher Bartolo Colon, who was scheduled to make a minor league rehab start for Triple-A Charlotte yesterday. Leading up to the game, the team had no idea where Colon was. They attempted to contact him through his agent, but his agent didn’t know where Bart was either. "I know where he is supposed to be right now. He's supposed to be in Charlotte, preparing to start Thursday," White Sox GM Ken Williams said Tuesday.. "Efforts to contact his agent have been successful. Their efforts to contact their client have not been so successful.” Now if it’s me looking for the cherubic Colon, I’m checking a few specific places first: all-you-can-eat buffets, doughnut shops, county fairs with copious quantities of fatty foods and any other place where large supplies of unhealthy eats can be had for a cheap price. As it turned out, the Sox were worried about nothing. Colon joined the team’s Triple-A affiliate in Charlotte and made his scheduled injury rehab start. Furthermore, he was pretty effective in his time on the mound, going five innings and allowing two hits and an earned run for the Knights in their 7-1 victory against the Norfolk Tides. Colon got the win and although there’s no guarantee he will ever get anywhere close to the form that made him the 2005 AL Cy Young Award winner, at least the injured left knee he’s been rehabbing appears better. Colon injured the knee after starting the season 3-6 with a 4.23 ERA in 11 games, but the White Sox have remained in the thick of the AL Central race without him. According to Williams, making yesterday’s start could keep Colon on track for a return to the majors later this month. "If he's in Charlotte on Thursday and he starts, then we have him on the program we want him to be on and he'll be a candidate for [our] doubleheader July 24," Williams declared. So while I haven’t heard any details of where the heck Colon was the past few days, at this point it becomes largely irrelevant. Not that it’s irrelevant to the all-you-can-eat buffet he nearly put out of business during his disappearance, but even so…….

- What kind of lowlife do you have to be to rob a church and its parishioners during their Sunday morning service? Sure, a church full of people focused on their worship might make for an easy mark if you’re looking to break into a few cars and score some loot. I have a special helping of contempt for the two a-holes who robbed the Hillcrest Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Nashville this past Sunday. Pastor Melvin Warfield was in the middle of a baptism when he stopped and was forced to address the congregation because of what he saw going on out in the parking lot. Warfield stopped mid-baptism during a packed, midday service Saturday to spread another message. "If you had anything open, if your windows were down, if your car was unlocked, somebody's out in the parking lot walking around," Warfield said he told the congregation. "I think we baptized 12 that morning, and so I was actually standing in the water. It's kind of bold to see individuals coming out and robbing you during worship.” Warfield actually spotted the men using a wheelbarrow owned by the church to carry hundreds of dollars worth of the church's equipment, such as electrical equipment and DVDs, from the church's multi-purpose building. The thieves were able to escape and although the pastor says these two tools are already forgiven, the church plans to prosecute if the men are found and arrested. Good for Pastor Warfield and the Hillcrest Seventh-Day Adventist Church, because being forgiving and showing compassion to people doesn’t mean you have to allow them to trample all over you. “We do want to redeem them and we do want this to be a life-changing experience for them, but they do have to kind of own up to what they have done," Warfield said. Not that I’m a huge fan of law enforcement, but this is one case where I’ll be rooting for the cops to win…….

- Jon Heder’s career hasn’t exactly taken off the way it should have following his brilliant performance in one of my all-time favorite movies, Napoleon Dynamite. I could watch that movie hundreds of times and it would still be funny….but I digress. While Heder did make an appearance in a 2008 episode of the now-defunct My Name Is Earl, he hasn’t exactly become one of Hollywood’s leading men since his breakout role. Maybe that will change now that he’s inked a deal to star in a new Comedy Central sitcom described by the network as "groundbreaking.” The show will team Heder up with his Blades of Glory co-star Will Ferrell, who will write and produce the project. I’m not sure what to make of this whole mess, but it will star Heder as an unemployed IT specialist who moves back in with his parents and younger brother in their small hometown. It won't debut until next year, but so far Comedy Central has ordered 10 episodes with the option to pick up the series for 90 more depending on how successful the show is. Who knows, maybe Comedy Central is looking to add a good show to its airwaves outside of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The USA network has done a solid job of developing original, quality series as a basic cable network, so perhaps Comedy Central can do the same. I’m not willing to put any money on it, mind you, I’m just saying that it’s (theoretically) possible……..

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It’s been too long since we’ve visited with our riot-loving friends in Peru, so I thought it was high time to journey back south of the Equator for some social dissidence, stick-it-to-The-Man action. As fate (which I don’t believe in) would have it, a massive national strike led by unions and civil groups is now in full swing. The country's largest workers union, along with the teachers and transportation union, among others, are spearheading a fantastic protest effort that has already necessitated the dispatching of thousands of police and military forces were dispatched in the streets of the capital city Lima Wednesday. The protests are against the free-market policies of President Alan Garcia, which Peruvians apparently aren’t down with for some reason. To be honest, it really doesn’t matter what the policies are or why the people of Peru don’t like them. As long as they spark protests and riots, it’s all good in my book. However, I know that some of you actually like to know why these riots are taking place and being the kind host I am, I’ll oblige. See, during his three years in office Garcia has forged a free trade agreement with the United States and used decree powers to make it easier for companies to gain concessions in the Peruvian Amazon regions. Those concessions in the Amazon have drawn serious outrage from indigenous groups. The clashes between indigenous people and governments looking to take their land and make a profit off of it are as old as time, but always fascinating. Often, the government merely seizes the land it wants by force, screws over the indigenous people and barely compensates them for their loss (think United States v. Native Americans). In this case, indigenous groups staged a large protest near the Amazonian city of Bagua in northwest Peru on June 5 and things escalated quickly, leaving at least 35 dead. This week’s protests were smaller but equally contentious, spurred by Garcia's announcement Tuesday that a shakeup of his Cabinet is imminent. Meanwhile, the Peruvian government is seeking to entice workers to return to their jobs by offering bonuses of 20 soles, or about $7. The protests in Lima were far from the only demonstrations taking place around Peru this week. Other demonstrations caused the cancellation of school in the city of Ayacucho and a highway was blocked in Arequipa. Not the best protests/riots I’ve ever seen, but a solid effort by the Peruvian people and for a good cause……..

- Nearly everyone and every place has summer traditions, things without which it just wouldn’t feel like summer. For some, it’s the county fair. Other places, it’s a trip to the beach or the family’s cabin on the lake. However, I have a hard time imagining that any of those traditions are more special and meaningful than a great annual rite of passage we here in the United States have come to know and love. Of course, I’m speaking about Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Operating Nationally), an annual sweep that teams the U.S. Marshals Service with local law enforcement in a summer arrest bonanza. Operation FALCON has become an annual staple of the summer calendar and this year, more than 35,000 fugitives across the United States were arrested in June, including 2,356 fugitive sex offenders. “This might be considered the cream of the crop for the most violent felons that are out there. For example, we arrested 433 murder suspects,” said U.S. Marshals director John F. Clark. Anything that takes murderers and sex offenders off the streets is cool with me, I just hope the marshals and cops making the most arrests in the sting were those on my Operation FALCON fantasy team. I really felt like my FALCON draft was strong this year, as a I focused on veteran U.S. marshals in the southeastern U.S. in the early rounds and….well, I digress. The bottom line is that thousands of dangerous criminals were apprehended and marshals also confiscated 82 firearms and 2,400 kilograms of narcotics. The operation mainly targets felony sex offenders, but clearly law enforcement doesn’t discriminate in what type of criminal it will bust as part of this operation. Its success can be illustrated by the results obtained in cities like Cleveland, where the operation resulted in 1,211 arrests in a 30-day period, including five for homicides. Typically, the U.S. Marshals office in Cleveland arrests about 100 fugitives in any given month. So while you may want to hang on to that boating trip or week at the beach as your summer tradition to cherish, perhaps it’s time to make some room at your summer table for the tradition of Operation FALCON……..

The PETA idiots strike again, the iPhone goes the way of all IT devices and why gamblers and smokers will always be losers

- Gambling in any form was, is and always will be a tax on the stupid. Just because the occasional random shmuck hits it big doesn’t mean that you aren’t still a tool if you throw away your money on the lottery or at a casino. So while it’s nice to see 88-year-old Rebecca Berry of Hawaii win more than $1.3 million playing a $1 progressive slot machine at Mystic Lake Casino in Minnesota, let’s not get too pumped about it. Berry was on vacation in Minnesota (you’ve got about a one-month window to enjoy what passes as summer in the state, really) visiting two of her daughters and decided to hit up the casino to throw away some of her money. "I would play, walk away, play, walk away, and I kept coming back to the same machine for two days,” she said of the machine she ultimately won on. With her newfound wealth, Berry plans to finally quit her job as as a secretary for U.S. district court judge back in Hawaii. "I was planning on retiring early next year but I'm going to call him and say I quit," she said. That’s great for Rebecca Berry, but not great news for all of the other degenerate gamblers out there who will see her story and have a renewed hope that they too can strike it big playing keno, progressive slots or blackjack at the nearest casino. The fact remains that casinos aren’t able to build gaudy, skyscraper monstrosities because they give away so much money to customers. They can construct those hideous, tacky structures in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and other places because the odds are stacked in their favor to an insane extent. So if you’re reading this story and you feel even the slightest tinge of hope for your own gambling habit, stop immediately and make sure that your money is some place where it is safe from you and your gambling jones. You are not going to win $1.3 million playing progressive slots, period. Deal with it and with the fact that if you are intent on becoming a millionaire, you’re going to have to earn it……..

- Every day I get so many inquiries about where former United States figure skating champion and World Figure Skating Championship bronze medalist Nicole Bobek has been and what this former ice queen is up to now. Bobek is an understandably compelling figure, given the fact that she never won or was in serious contention for an Olympic medal in a sport that no one in America cares about outside of the three or four days it takes place every four years during the Winter Olympics. To answer those many questions, my girl N. Bobek has apparently been occupying a key role in a meth distribution ring in New Jersey, although she’s not going to be doing much meth distributing in the near future. Now that the cops have busted Bobek and her partners, their business venture will have to be put on hold. Late last week, Bobek made her first appearance in a Jersey City court on the charge of conspiracy to distribute meth. “She played a significant role in this operation. She was actively involved in the upper echelon of this ring,” said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio. Well of course she did, Ed, she’s Nicole Freaking Bobek. Nicole Bobek isn't going to even consider being a part of a meth ring unless she has a prominent role. When you’ve garnered a 17th at the 1998 Winter Olympics at Nagano, Japan, you don’t take a back seat to anyone at any time. Police received information about the operation and set up a probe that ultimately resulted in more than a dozen arrests, including Bobek's. She was actually arrested in Jupiter, Fla. at one of her two homes, the other being in Manhattan. She was arrested in Florida as a fugitive from justice but did not fight extradition back to New Jersey. As she made her court appearance via video link from the Hudson County jail in Kearny, Bobek looked drastically different than most fans remember her from her days as a competitive skater. In place of the long, blonde ‘do she sported on the ice, Bobek is now rocking short, dark hair that is honestly just more befitting of a prominent player in a meth distribution ring. If convicted of the charges against her, Bobek faces up to 10 years in prison. Now that we’ve covered all of the details, hopefully that will put an end to the deluge of Nicole Bobek-related emails I am swamped with on a daily basis………

- Who could have seen this coming? The iPhone, a supposed hallmark in the history of technology and a quantum leap forward in the world of smartphones, has gone the way that every other piece of information technology ultimately goes: porn. Sooner or later, every single innovation in the IT field is ultimately going to be used extensively for the distribution and consumption of porn. It has gone that way with television, the Internet and now the smartphone. Slowly but surely, nude photos and other potentially objectionable materials have been popping up in Apple’s apps store. Obviously, any device that can access the Web will have this problem, but Apple appears intent on waging war with those who would turn its apps store into a virtual meat market. However, that hasn’t stopped app developers from churning out a series of applications featuring nude pictures and other objectionable images in recent weeks. In the most recent example, a nude photo of a young woman, reported to be 15 years old, showed up on an iPhone application called "BeautyMeter.” The image was submitted by one of the photo-sharing app's users, but it was only up for a few hours before Apple took the entire application down. Funnymals, maker of the BeautyMeter app, actually issued a statement on its Web site declaring that it agrees with Apple's decision to yank the phone application from its online store. As with other appearance-centric apps, BeautyMeter allows users to upload and posts photos of people and then rank them based on "hotness." Its removal from the online store comes a week after another iPhone application, "Hottest Girl," was ripped from the apps store because it featured a photo of a topless. "Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography," an Apple company spokesman said when “Hottest Girl” was yanked. The question now is whether Apple can sufficiently police the iPhone app store, which contains more than 50,000 applications. It is Apple’s most popular marketplace and the company has used it to polish its image as a trendy and family-friendly company. Having porn apps would seem to run contrary to that image, which is probably why Apple is fighting so hard against the degenerates who want to turn the apps store into yet another place for freaks and misfits to access online porn. Porn isn't the only issue when it comes to applications being allowed or disallowed in the Apple store, but it certainly is the most interesting. The most-notable non-porn application issue for the store was the removal of a Nine Inch Nails application, because it streamed a song with offensive lyrics. NIN frontman Trent Reznor lashed out against Apple on his Web site, calling the company hypocritical and pointing out that the song in question also was available on iTunes. However, I doubt that any of you heard about that incident and I’m guessing that most everyone has heard of the porn problems in the apps store. Thanks for giving us something to talk about, porn-loving degenerates……..

- Smokers are losers. I’ve said it over and over and I’ll say it again because I stand by it. Anyone who willingly jams cancer sticks into their pie hole, pays ridiculous amounts of money to do so, drastically ups their chances of lung cancer and emphysema, harms the health of anyone in their immediate vicinity, turns their face into a green-ish, leathery catcher’s mitt and is happy to do all of those things is a loser. So if the average smoker is that big of a loser, how on Earth do I even begin to describe a person so desperate to feed his smoking habit that dude actually leases land and sets out to grow his own tobacco? Sadly, this individual also comes from the same county where I spent most of my childhood, which makes this story even more regrettable. Don Carey is a man with a smoking habit and rather than look to kick that habit, save his health and his money in the process and make the world a better place, the Portage County (Ohio) resident bought 33 types of tobacco seeds and will now plant them on a plot of farm land he is leasing from his sister. He was inspired to new heights of stupidity and new levels of pathetic because of the increase in the federal tax earlier this year. Carey calls his decision part protest and part economics. That might piss me off more than anything, because you all know how much I love protests and I don’t want them associated with smoking now or ever. After buying his seeds, Carey recruited 15 imbecilic volunteers and got his tobacco crop planted. However, there is still a chance for this little experiment to fail and it all depends on my new best friends in nature, crop-eating pests. Tobacco is a labor-intensive crop anyhow, but it requires constant attention to keep pests from destroying it. Needless to say I’m rooting for all pests in and around the Portage County area to do their best in destroying Don Carey’s tobacco crop. And to think, all of this because some loser has to choke down a pack of cancer sticks a day and needs about 17 pounds of tobacco a year for his own cancer sticks. Under ideal growing conditions, Carey believes the yield from his tobacco crop could bring 2,000 pounds. He also wants to spread his disease of tobacco growing to others, saying, “I’m planning on selling plants and seeds and instruction manuals. I want to help anyone that wants to grow tobacco. Also, Carey has even managed to infect the mind of his daughter Lisa, a non-smoker. She’s helping pops grow his product of death because of the principle involved. "I think he's doing a good thing showing people there are other options besides spending so much money," said Lisa Carey. I’ve got two words for you, Lisa: sell out. That’s what you are and you should be ashamed of yourself…….

- Oh you not-so-loveable freaks at PETA, you’re at it again. Allow me to finish the last bite of my juicy steak, set aside my chicken wings, hot dog and turkey leg, take off my leather coat, get up off my bearskin rug, take off my alligator skin boots, sit down in my plush leather chair and respond. Seems that the PETA freaks, also known as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is pissed over a Texas Lottery television ad featuring an elephant. No one is riding, taunting or harming the elephant in any way during the ad for the lottery's $500 Million Blockbuster scratch-off game, but still the ass clowns at PETA are upset. The elephant merely appears on screen as the announcer talks about the “huge payouts and big prices” and declares the game “is just too big to ignore.” Sadly, 75 people with no lives and no friends were so upset by the sight of an elephant standing on a sound stage for a commercial that they allegedly called PETA to complain. PETA then called the Texas Lottery Commission claiming that the ad exploits elephants. “Elephants used in the entertainment industry are traumatized when they are taken from their mothers as babies, and they are then trained through domination, fear and punishment,” PETA said in a press release. Are you freaking kidding me? You a-holes are what traumatizes people. Someone needs to dominate, push and put fear into you, PETA. Seriously, get a hold of yourselves. It’s one thing if the animals are being subjected to painful things, deprived of food and water or some similar tactic, but they’re not. You freaks think you understand the psyche of an elephant and how horribly traumatized it is by being trained to appear in TV commercials. Thankfully the Texas Lottery Commission shot down PETA’s moronic demands to stop airing the ads and to promise to never use exotic animals in its commercials in the future. “The American Humane Society was on site the whole time the commercial was being shot,” said Bobby Heath, with the Texas Lottery Commission. Hear that, PETA idiots? The Humane Society, which to the best of my knowledge is actively looking to protect and care for animals and their rights, was on hand the entire time and they had no issues whatsoever. Take that as a cue to shut your mouths, take a hike and never be heard from again……..

Riot Watch! in rural China, Lyle Lovett looking to rip people off and dissension in Milwaukee

- How dare Ryan Braun have the audacity to say that his team isn't good enough and needs to add pitching if it’s going to contend this season? This guy has a lot of nerve to stand up and say that he wants the team’s front office to make moves that give the Milwaukee Brewers a chance to contend for a World Series title. It never ceases to amuse me when players make a comment to the media cracking back on some aspect of their team and then the team reacts like the player just delivered a copy of the playbook or scouting report to their biggest rival on the eve of a huge game. Braun royally pissed off Brewers general manager Doug Melvin with comments he made following a key series in Chicago which saw Milwaukee lose three of four to the rival Cubs. "[The Cubs] starting pitching is a lot better than ours. They threw the ball a lot better than our starters did. They certainly swung the bats better than we did. Clearly they were the better team. It's nice to get the one win but they clearly outplayed us and outperformed us all series,” Braun fumed. “We're at the point right now where it would be important for us to go out there and acquire somebody.” Hearing what one of his star players had to say, Melvin wasted no time firing back. “It was inappropriate for him to say what he said, and I'm not happy about it," Melvin shot back. “To make the statements he made and also get on his teammates like that, it was irresponsible on his part. It just ticked me off.” Personally I like Braun’s comments, and not just because I’m a Cubs fan and am all for anything creating internal tension with one of their biggest rivals. No, I like the comments because Braun is one of the leaders on his team, a guy who is one of the best outfielders in the National League and whose words should carry some weight in that locker room. He didn’t name names or call out anyone specific, but he did indict his team for their poor play. He also tried to put pressure on his general manager to make trades to improve the team. Will Braun’s words make it easier for Melvin to acquire players or make it more likely for guys on other teams to want to come to Milwaukee? Not really, but it lets the players and fans know how much Braun cares and that he’s not afraid to be honest and speak his mind. Sure, the comments might have been better if shared directly with Melvin in a face-to-face meeting, but general managers and coaches always wildly overreact when a player dares to speak up in the way that Braun did, so I get a good laugh out of it. Stop acting like the guy has been spying for China for the past two decades and sharing crucial state secrets, guys. It’s professional sports, not a matter of national security………

- Quite a country you’ve got there, Honduras. Not that the world was lacking for international political intrigue, but a military coup that leads to a sitting president being escorted from his own country and banned from returning is always welcome in my book. Deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya has become quite the international celebrity in recent days, what with trying to push through a public referendum that would allow him to run for re-election, having the Honduran military forcefully stop the vote, getting evicted from his country and going into exile. On Sunday, things kicked up another notch when Zelaya attempted attempt to return to his homeland and was turned away by the military. His jet was denied permission to land Sunday evening in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, where military vehicles were stationed on the runway. Thousands of pro-Zelaya protestors ringed the airport in anticipation of his return, but they were disappointed in more ways than one. Not only was Zelaya’s plane refused permission to land, but police also opened fire on the crowds gathered at the airport and hit them with repeated blasts of tear gas. At least one person was killed and eight in the melee, although protest leaders put the death toll at three. After being turned away from Honduras, Zelaya's plane refueled in Nicaragua's capital, Managua and while there, he met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. He also paused to comment on the scene at the airport, claiming that his supporters were merely attempting to remove obstacles from the runway in Tegucigalpa when troops opened fire. “I call on the Honduran armed forces to lower their weapons against the people," Zelaya said. "I want to express my sincere solidarity to the families that made sacrifices during a peaceful march, that the people organized voluntarily to welcome their president, who was elected out of the sovereign will of the Honduran people.” The country’s interim government issued a contradictory statement alleging that the troops fired when the crowds attempted to push their way onto the airport grounds. Things have gone this way since the provisional government took power after the military deposed Zelaya on June 28, with the powers that be looking to defame and sully the reputation of their ousted presidente at every turn and Zelaya claiming that he is following the will of the people of Honduras. The Organization of American States, a 35-nation hemispheric organization, has sided with Zelaya in the dispute and Saturday suspended Honduras' membership for refusing to reinstate him. The U.N. General Assembly has done the same and the United States and World Bank have gone so far as to withhold some aid from Honduras until the situation is resolved. Provisional President Roberto Micheletti is leading the country in Zelaya’s absence and he is spewing non-stop bullsh*t in trying to justify the actions of those now in power. He claims that Zelaya's return could create unrest and chaos in the streets. "I don't want a single drop of blood to be spilled in Honduras," Micheletti said. Either that or you know that Zelaya is the legally, rightly elected president of your country, that you are now heading up a bogus regime using military force to hold power and that his return could mean the end of your fraudulent reign, one or the other. I have a feeling this is going to get worse for you and not better if you keep your borders closed to my man Zelaya, so just welcome him home and let the healing begin……..

- Been seeking just the right photo op with a camel and haven’t been able to find it? Yes, lining up just the right shot with just the right camel can be tough, but I may be able to help you out. Today, Josh, a dromedary camel from Lempster, N.H., will attempt to become the first camel to trek to the summit of Mount Washington, located in Pinkham Notch, N.H. Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeast, so climbing it is no small feat. The climb began before dawn and it is actually the latest in a series of odd attempts to scale the mountain. Other weirdos looking to summit the mountain have included a dude on a unicycle, a freak on a Segway and a man pushing a wheelbarrow containing 100 pounds of sugar. I’m not sure what inspires these odd balls to make such curious attempts, but Josh the camel just might be the biggest-name celebrity to do so. The camel has appeared on the Discovery Channel's "Wreckreation Nation,” so he does have some name value. Josh and his its handlers reached the summit before the auto road to the top of the mountain opened to private vehicles. For the rest of the day, Josh will chill at the summit, posing for photographs and presumably doing a lot of spitting, standing and thinking. Hopefully someone reading this is in the vicinity of Mount Washington and has a chance to join in on the festivities, let me know if you do……

- For my money, Lyle Lovett is still the funny-looking dude with weird hair that once married Julia Roberts and has put out a few albums over the years. I’m not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of his music. With that in mind, I’m not planning to order an advance copy of his next album, which is due out Oct. 20. The album will feature both originals and songs "by some of my favorite Texas singer-songwriters," as Lovett explains it. Here’s a good lesson for all you aspiring musicians out there, a sign that maybe you shouldn’t be recording an album. If the quote I’m about to share from Lyle Lovett rings true for you, consider finding a new profession. “I had a few new songs I was really eager to record, but I just didn't have enough new songs I liked to do an entire album of my songs, to be honest," Lovett stated. If you can’t come up with enough of your own songs for a new album, you should not be releasing a new album. One or two covers is fine on an 11- or 12-song album, but if you are going with a half-and-half blend of your and other artists’ songs for a new album, you are nothing more than a glorified cover band/act. It doesn’t matter if you are covering some truly great songs that are widely known and loved; your albums should be able your material, point blank. For example, Lovett’s as-yet-untitled project will feature songs by Eric Taylor, Vince Bell and Tommy Elskes, as well as Townes Van Zandt's "Loretta," but how good (or mostly bad) those songs are is irrelevant. Fact is, Lovett released "It's Not Big It's Large" in 2007 and he didn’t need to put out another album this year. If he didn’t have enough material for a new album, then put some effort into writing and shoot for a 2010 release. Don’t try to pass off a half-yours, half-someone-else’s album as some sort of tribute to artists you admire. Call it what it is: you looking to make money on album sales and a possible tour without having to put in the full effort of writing an entire album. I’d love to track down my man Lyle during his upcoming summer tour with the Large Band, which begins July 14 in Memphis, and share these thoughts with him myself. However, I’m not inclined to waste any money buying a ticket for one of his shows, so hopefully Lyle will read this and get the message that way. Step your game up, L.L., and either write enough songs for a full album or don’t release one at all……

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! I have a special place in my heart for rural, off-the-beaten-path riots. Rioting/protesting in the big city, where people will definitely see you and you’ll receive a lot of attention, that’s one thing. Doing the same things in a remote, rural locale where you face all of the same dangers and can reap less of the possible rewards is something altogether different and considerably more admirable. So big ups to my peeps in Urumqi, China, who staged a new protest on Tuesday. Several hundred of these brave souls stood tall to demand the release of relatives detained in connection with weekend demonstrations by ethnic Uyghur residents in China's far western Xinjiang region. Better still, the protestors were mostly women and elderly, yet they had the chutzpah to stand up to The Man. The protest shaped up quickly, w. an estimated crowd of 200 to forming as local authorities were taking members of the media on a tour of a neighborhood that was heavily damaged during riots over the weekend. The protestors shouted out the names of their loved ones in custody, but riot police moved in quickly to shut them down. The protest continues a run of social dissidence in the Xinjiang capital, where some bitchin’ recent demonstrations have caused a significant amount of unrest. As you would expect, the authorities in the region are completely overreacting and seeking to keep their iron-fisted, Communist rule intact. They have detained 15 suspects in connection with an incident that may have sparked the rioting in Urumqi – mmm hmm, sure. There are actually a lot of supposed points of origin for the current unrest, but my favorite has to be the incident that took place late last month at a toy factory in Guangdong province. How can anyone not love an outburst of racial violence that has its genesis at a freaking toy factory? This particular outburst of racial violence that has its genesis at a freaking toy factory occurred at the toy factory in Guangdong province after a massive brawl broke out between workers of Uyghur and Han nationalities. Because two Uyghurs reportedly died in the fight, the Uyghurs were understandably upset. To quell the violence, soldiers and riot police have been out in force of late. Curfews have also been put in place in major districts of the capital. As is its custom, the Chinese government is going so far overboard that overboard needs to be redefined. At least 1,434 suspects have been
detained so far, but expect that number to continue rising. Fact is, the Uyghurs are pissed and they show no signs of calming down any time soon. Sunday, thousands of them took it to the streets and were so angry in their chanting and screaming that there was a police lockdown of the city. In a show that only a true riot-lover like myself can appreciate, rioters attacked passersby, burned public buses and blocked traffic. Even police barricades were not enough to contain these angry Uyghurs, nor should they have been. When you’ve got an angry Uyghur on your hands, you know the type of unrelenting fury you’re in for. Because they’re one of China’s minority groups and feel constantly disrespected by the majority Han, Uyghurs need to have an edge to them. If that means roaming the streets in posses, carrying pipes, sticks and cleavers, so be it. I like what you’re doing, Chinese Uyghurs, so keep it up and I’ll see you back here in Riot Watch! again sooner rather than later…….

Where you and your dog can go to church, the happiest country on Earth and finally, a politician I can support

- I’ve finally found a politician I can wholeheartedly throw my support behind and it could not matter less that he is a state legislator who isn't from my home state. New York Rep. Peter King is a hero to me because he’s the first public figure I’ve heard who has the kahones to say what I’ve been saying all during the complete circus that has ensued since Michael Jackson’s death, namely that people need to stop celebrating what a great person he supposedly was and how much his “genius” had made the world a better place. As someone who is not at all a fan of Jack-O’s music and especially not of the life he led outside of his music career, I’ve found it disturbing and revolting to see the flow of unbridled adulation flowing from every direction since news of Jack-O’s death became public. Rep. King is stepping up to back me up, calling on the media to "knock out the psycho-babble" and stop covering Michael Jackson because "this guy was a pervert. He was a child molester. He was a pedophile. And to be giving this much coverage to him day in and day out, what does it say about us as a country.” His comments came in front of the American Legion Hall in Wantagh, or as I like to call it, a haven of truth in an otherwise dishonest world. “We're too politically correct. No one wants to stand up and say, 'We don't need Michael Jackson.'" King, a nine-term Republican representative from New York's Third Congressional District, declared. I’m going to overlook your unintentional sleight of me, Rep. King, because I know you were simply too caught up in your anti-Jack-O vitriol to recall that I have been adamant in not praising, honoring or lionizing this guy. And sure, Rep. King did perhaps play the clichéd, people-are-dying-in-battle card that individuals often like to use when pointing out how out of perspective our society has become in some respect, but don’t hold that against him. “There are men and women dying today in Afghanistan. Let's give them the credit they deserve,” King added. Don’t let that tired cliché obscure the fact that King is right on the money. Whether you believe, as I do, that Jackson is wildly overrated musically and is not in any way the musical genius he’s made out to be, or whether you simply believe that people who (allegedly) molest children and then pay off their families with a $20 million settlement are scumbags through and through, join Rep. King and I in our battle. Should Rep. King follow through on his previously stated plans to run for the Senate next year and take on Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who replaced Hank Clinton as New York's junior senator, support him in that as well. Anyone who has the courage to stand up and take the right side in the Jack-O battle is worth supporting in my book………

- People of Seattle, how would you like to relive some of the most painful moments in your city’s history and do so on the big screen? If that sounds like your sort of torture/fun, then filmmaker Jason Reid is the man for you. One year after owner/douche bag Clay Bennett hijacked the team formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics and moved them to Oklahoma City, Reid is looking to chronicle the Emerald City’s loss of its NBA franchise in a documentary. “Now I think the time is right, a year later, to start going over everything that happened and try to figure out why we lost our team,” Reid said. He has interviewed former players, politicians and citizens who were involved in the messy situation that went to court numerous times. Brian Robinson, the co-founder of the “Save Our Sonics” group that staged a grassroots effort to keep the Sonics in Seattle, is also participating in the documentary. “It's really, I guess, therapeutic in a way for me now," Robinson declared. “Tell some people what we did, what we tried to do and where we went wrong.” The documentary is a labor of love and in Reid’s estimation, an effort to examine what went wrong and how other cities in similar situations could prevent a similar situation from happening in their city. "And maybe figure out why it happened and why it shouldn't happen again," Reid observed. The film will first premiere for the people of Seattle some time in September or October, after which it will be released for free on the Internet on October 12. Not that any of this is going to make basketball fans in Seattle feel any better; a piece of crap who was dishonest and disingenuous at best ripped their NBA team from them and moved it for purely financial reasons, so anything short of having a new team in town to root for probably isn't going to salve those wounds. However, the film could be a unifying force to pull the fans together one final time and give them a bit of closure on what is quite possibly the saddest thing to ever happen on the sports scene in their city……..

- There was no one film that won the box office earnings race over the weekend and I’m not just saying that because I’m a bitter, jaded misanthrope who hates most of the garbage that passes for movies in the local multiplex these days. No, there was no one film that could declare itself the winner because two movies tied for the top spot: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I stated how underwhelmed I was by Transformers when it debuted last weekend, so needless to say I’m not all that thrilled to see it earn an estimated $42.5 million to finish in a tie for first place during its second weekend. For Ice Age, it was a solid opening weekend and the $42.5 million brings its total to $67.5 mil since opening last Wednesday. Sadly, the $42.5 million Transformers made pushes director Michael Bay’s bloated blockbuster over the top as the year's highest-grossing movie with a running total of $293.5 million to date in gross. That nudges it past Pixar's Up ($264.8 mil to date), which was actually a much better film even though it’s a kids’ movie. The rest of the top five movies for the weekend were and Christian Bale's Public Enemies ($41 million), The Proposal ($12.8 million – or as I like to say, $12.9 million more than it should have made) and The Hangover ($10.4 mil). Also, Hangover remains the most singly divisive movie in recent memory, pushing everyone who sees it to the extreme of either loving it and thinking it’s the funniest movie ever or hating it with a passion and believing that it’s the most overrated piece of cinematic crap they have ever watched. Stay tuned this coming weekend to see if our cinematic senses continue to be dulled enough to keep Transformers at the top of the earnings race……..

- Where is the happiest place in the world (and no, guys, hiding in the closet in the master bedroom at Megan Fox’s home is not an option)? According to a new survey, the answer to that question is none other than freaking Costa Rica – yes, that Costa Rica. The study ranked 143 countries around the world nations using the "Happy Planet Index," which seeks countries with the most content people. In addition to happiness, the index by the New Economics Foundation considers the ecological footprint and life expectancy of countries. Using the index, the independent research group found that Costa Rica had the happiest citizens of any country. "Costa Ricans report the highest life satisfaction in the world and have the second-highest average life expectancy of the new world (second to Canada)," the organization said in a statement. So what is it that makes Costa Ricans so freaking happy? Well, there is the abundance of lush rain forests and pristine beaches, which would brighten anyone’s day. Then there’s the bitchin’ locale, wedged in between Nicaragua and Panama. Maybe Costa Ricans are jazzed about their nation having an extremely modest carbon footprint, meaning they are doing much less damage to the environment than the countries around them. Actually, Latin America dominated the study overall, with Latin American nations in nine of the top 10 spots. The Dominican Republic finished second in the rankings, followed by Jamaica, Guatemala and curiously enough, Vietnam. I guess that if you live in ‘Nam rather than invade it in a misguided, unjustified war spanning the better part of a decade, you tend to enjoy the country much more. More developed nations didn’t fare as well, with the United States coming in waaaaay down the list in the 114th spot. Why so low with all of our technology, entertainment and luxury? Well, because of our hefty consumption and massive ecological footprint, the NEF felt that Americans aren’t all that happy by and large. Worse still, the U.S. was greener and happier 20 years ago than it is today, the report said. I suppose that in the end, a study can’t tell you how happy and satisfied with your life you should be, but I really don’t have time to sit around and debate. After all, I’ve got a plane to Costa Rica to catch…….

- If you’re coming to the City Community Church in Austin, Tex., bring two things: your Bible and a pooper scooper. See, City Community Church is a place where both you and your pet are welcome. Pastor Robby Forsythe and his congregation throw open their doors to one and all when they meet meets at the La Zona Rosa bar on Fourth Street in downtown Austin every Sunday morning. "That's part of our philosophy," said Forsythe. “We want to be a blessing. Everyone is welcome. We decided people can bring their dogs too.” The church has even come up with a name for its unique approach to worship: the Canine Christ Connection. The Connection began started when church members began handing out snacks and dog treats to joggers and their pets on Sunday mornings. When those pet owners asked if they could bring their dogs to the service, the church decided that it was a good idea. "It's fun to be able to have a church that incorporates your lifestyle and what's important to you," said Jamie Patterson, a church member. I suppose it’s not surprising that people who can turn a bar into a church every Sunday and feel comfortable worshiping there would be accepting of something as unconventional as bringing dogs to church. So far, no problems have been reported from having the dogs on hand during services. The church meets meets at La Zona Rosa at 11 a.m. every Sunday, so if you’re in the area with your dog and in the mood to worship, you know where to go…….

Hedo Turkoglu's blatant cash grab, when trannie hookers invade and Joe Perry slummin' it for an album name

- The Portland Trail Blazers are quite angry right now and I can’t say that I blame them. The Blazers felt they had a deal with free agent forward Hedo Turkoglu and there were numerous reports that the two sides had agreed in principle on a contract. Although NBA free agents can’t officially sign contracts until July 8, Turkoglu and Portland were all but a sure thing – until my man Hedo decided to pull the rug out from under the Blazers and sign with Toronto. After opting out of his deal with Orlando, which reached the NBA Finals this past season, Turkoglu was clearly looking to get paid and wasn’t all that concerned with winning a championship. If he were, he would have signed with a team that made the playoffs last season and has a shot to make them this coming season, neither of which pertains to the Toronto Raptors. Had he gone through with that deal to play in Portland, he would have joined a team that won 54 games last season and is stocked with a lot of young, developing talent. Instead, he strung Portland along long enough to convince them he was coming and then make a U-turn to a Toronto team that won all of 33 games and was the third-worst in the Eastern Conference. Recent reports had Turkoglu seeking a long-term deal worth at least $10 million annually, so I’m guessing he squeezed something in that range out of the Raptors. For their part, the Blazers are reportedly livid and that’s completely understandable. They felt that they had locked up a key addition that could help push them into the upper echelon of the Western Conference, only to have him change his mind/make a cash grab at the last minute. Teams target players they want in free agency and once they’ve locked in on a target, they tend to focus all of their energy and efforts on that player. In other words, once they began recruiting Turkoglu and believed that they had agreed to a deal, they didn’t spend time chasing other free agents. That means they likely fell behind or missed out on other guys they would have pursued if the 6-foot-10 free agent greed bag they had targeted had been honest and up front about his intention. I am certain that when Toronto hosts Turkoglu’s introductory press conference, he’ll say all the right things about this not being about the money and how he feels that he can be that final piece of the puzzle to make the Raptors a contender. All of that will be a lie and for that, Turkoglu deserves all of the ire and contempt that the Trail Blazers and their fans can muster……..

- Here’s an invitation I wouldn’t be too eager to accept if I were a head of state of a major world power. When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he wants to sit down and talk with you, there are many reasons to be skeptical and cautious. According to Ahmadinejad, he wants to engage President Obama in "negotiations" before international media. He made those comments while speaking to a meeting of medical school deans in Iran. He phrased it in very political fashion, declaring that his government “will soon pursue a new round of diplomatic activity” now that he has stolen, er, rigged, er, won Iran’s presidential election. “I will go to the United Nations and will invite Obama to negotiations,” Ahmadinejad said. Actually, the Obama administration has already sought dialogue with Iran, so maybe this will actually happen. The fact that Obama has been among those openly criticizing the Iranian government for its brutal crackdown in the wake of its rigged/disputed presidential elections may not help matters, but don’t expect a few critical comments to stand in the way of these meetings. Perhaps such talks would help silence loud-mouthed idiots like Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who have ripped Obama for taking a "timid and passive" tone in speaking out against the fashion in which Iran has trampled all over pro-democracy and opposition groups. Unsurprisingly, Ahmadinejad has made it clear that he wants others to stop "meddling" in the internal affairs of Iran. My man Mahmoud, I completely get where you’re coming from. If I were the fraudulently elected dictator of a rogue nation looking to develop serious nuclear capabilities, I’d want other nations to stay out of the way too so I could continue ruling with an iron fist of terror and consistently oppressing the most basic human rights of my people. You don’t want “outsiders” getting in the way as you look to work your way to the top of the list of the world’s worst dictators. Chasing down established names in the dictator game like Kim Jong Il and Hugo Chavez isn't easy and you don’t need other nations piping in with their take on how you’re running your own country. So maybe I’ve done a 180 on these possible talks between Obama and Ahmadinejad. Now I think I’ve talked myself into them and am pumped to see them happen. Let the diplomatic and political fireworks flow……

- If I’ve heard this story once, I’ve heard it hundreds of times. The residents of a less-than-upper-class neighborhood in a large, East Coast city fight the good fight against transgendered prostitutes. This particular case takes place in the Old Goucher neighborhood of Baltimore, where residents say trannie hookers flock every night. The problem of prostitution is a citywide one in Baltimore, but only in Old Goucher are residents citing the influx of trannie hookers as a huge concern. Old Goucher is just north of North Avenue and near Baltimore's main north-south streets -- Charles and St. Paul – which run right through the area. That makes the neighborhood a hot spot in terms of drawing potential customers for the trannie hooker trade. Residents say that police do next to nothing to address the problem and that the area is suffering economically as a result. “We believe that it's a network,’ said Peter Duvall, vice-president of the Old Goucher Community Association. ‘They have several vehicles and phone connections.” Duvall and fellow members of the OGCA believe that those running the trannie hooker operations in their area have a fairly sophisticated organization, including handlers listening to police scanners. Worse still, the area’s reputation as a trannie hooker hotbed draws in men travel from Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia to work there. Having a glut of trannie hookers can also pose problems for clueless johns who think they are picking up a female hooker and are less than thrilled when they find out that the she is a he. “There have been several incidents of people thinking they've hired a woman and then finding out it was a man and the customer beating the prostitute up,’ Duvall said. To be fair to the police, they have conducted sting operations, catching hookers and their customers in the act. However, residents feel that the police presence needs to be more overt and visible in order to scare off their unwanted ladies/dudes of the night. Security cameras are one idea the OGCA has proposed, with additional ideas pitched by members of the community association when they met with police and members of City Council last week to discuss their concerns. On Saturday, the group also hosted a block party and fund-raiser to try to establish what they're calling a prostitution-free zone in the neighborhood. On the one hand, I do sympathize with these people and wouldn’t be cool with trannike hookers infesting the area where I live. On the other hand, trannie hookers need somewhere to call home too, so it’s a tough situation either way……..

- Here’s how you know that you are officially a) incredibly lazy and b) perilously close to running out of creative juices as an artist: you officially open up the naming process for your upcoming album to your followers on Twitter. And yes, I’m talking directly to you, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. As he wraps up the follow-up to 2005's Grammy Award-nominated "Joe Perry" (also a very creative, imaginative album title), Perry is looking to the losers with nothing better to do than follow the inane, mundane thoughts of others via what amounts to a mass text message for help in naming the new project. Perry is he's holding a contest via Twitter, letting fans make suggestions. If one of the fans’ suggestions is chosen, the winner will receive a guitar. "It's tough, obviously, without having heard the record for people to name it," Perry explains, "but we may find something really good. There've already been a bunch that are possibilities.” Yes, there are lots of possibilities, including the possibility that you’re a lazy bum who doesn’t want to put the effort into naming his own album. Hard to see why Aerosmith's next album is "on the bench, in pieces," according to Perry, what with the sort of hard-grinding, attention to detail effort Perry is showing here. As for the to-be-named-on-Twitter album, expects it to be mastered this week and to release a single in late July or early August, with the album coming out this fall. Better still, he states that the album will be a departure from the straightforward rock style of his debut. “It's a lot different than the last one," Perry admits. "The last one was a straight-ahead rocker. This one's got some different things on it.” In other words, I’m Joe F’ing Perry and I can do any sort of bizarre, off-the-wall sh*t I want at this point in my career. And when I say bizarre, I mean bizarre. On the album, recorded in about seven weeks at Perry's home studio, he shares lead vocal duties with a German singer his wife discovered on the Internet. I have no idea what the album will sound like, but factoring in everything I’ve heard and outlined here, I’m not holding out a lot of hope that it’s going to be “Abbey Road,” “Nevermind” or “Dark Side of the Moon”……..

- Prepare to be stunned. I’ll give you a minute to get yourself in the right frame of mind because what I’m about to share will send shockwaves through your world. Ready? Okay, here goes. A carnival in Ashville, Ohio has fired one of its carneys because he is a convicted sex offender. I know, it’s a lot to take in and completely unexpected, but try to breathe and I’ll continue. See, hired Clyde Reed, a Tier 2 sex offender, had been hired to work during the 4th of July Celebration in Ashville, a festival that lasts for an entire week. It includes carnival rides and games that attract children from throughout Pickaway County. A festival goer snapped a picture of Reed and somehow recognized him. That individual contacted a local television station’s investigative unit, which dug into the matter and found out the truth about Reed. The station confronted the festival’s organizers and he was summarily fired. Triple Treat, the amusements company that hired Reed, claims that it does background checks on all employees. However, because his employment at the fair was scheduled to last fewer than 14 days, that Reed was not legally required to reveal his status as a Tier 2 sex offender. Still, I can’t imagine that any of the parents taking their kids for a ride on the carnival's fun slide would have been willing to place their child under the supervision of a convicted perv like Reed, even for a few short minutes. What I can’t get over is the fact that a carney would also be a convicted sex offender. Those guys are always such clean, upstanding and law-abiding members of society. Never in my worst nightmares would I have imagine that someone who works for minimum wage at a dirty, ramshackle town fair would also be a sex offender……

The kinship 'twixt stoners and sea lions, "Don't Tase my pastor, bro!" and Diana Taurasi forgets she's Diana Taurasi

- Don’t Tase my pastor, bro, don’t Tase my pastor! Never thought anyone would have a need to utter that sentence, but welcome to Webster, Texas, where pastors are Tased after scuffling with police. Jose Moran of for the Iglesias Profetica Peniel Church is the pastor in question and he was Tased by police in Webster morning after interfering with the duties of a public servant in the parking lot of his church. Members of Moran’s church were also hit with pepper spray blasts by the cops for their role in the incident. According to police, Moran and his flock interfered with a traffic stop. According to Moran’s son, Omar, said his father was merely trying to help. Moran allegedly rolled up on a cop who was making a traffic stop in the church’s parking lot. He identified himself as the church's pastor and began yelling at the officer. The officer predictably responded by telling Moran to leave, an order the pastor refused. So much for following the part of the Bible that says to be obedient to those in authority, eh pastor? After hearing Moran bump his gums for a minute, the officer decided that he’d had enough and attempted to arrest him. At that point, Moran reacted like a third grader on the playground who didn’t want to get busted by the teacher for fighting. He shoved the officer and ran back into the church building. This is where it gets really interesting; the officer proceeded to kick in the church door and hit Moran with not one, but two Taser blasts. Members of the congregation were summarily pepper sprayed for interfering, but accounts of how it all went down are conflicting. Omar Moran insists that his father was only trying to help, although he didn’t explain how a pastor was going to help a police officer with a traffic stop. Police contend that Moran not only shoved the first officer, but also a second officer who arrived on the scene for backup. They also say that when Moran emerged from the church initially, dozens of members of the congregation came with him and surrounded the officer. Honestly, I don’t know what happened here and I don’t care. This is a surreal and hilarious scene, one in which a Taser was definitely used and one in which a church congregation apparently morphed into a bizarro Texas posse, good times all around…….

- Dear Diana Taurasi: Please remember that you are, in fact, Diana Taurasi and start acting accordingly. Here’s a hint of what that entails, since you don’t seem to understand. For starters, while other professional athletes in real, non-charity case leagues that aren’t kept afloat entirely by the unwarranted financial support of the NBA may drive drunk and even kill people while driving drunk and get away with little or no real punishment, you cannot do so. Donte Stallworth and Leonard Little play in the NFL, a league that people actually care about. That they get away with horrific drunken-driving related crimes is offensive and wrong, but it happens and our society allows it for some reason. However, when a WNBA player like yourself gets busted for DUI, Diana, the same doesn’t hold true. When a Phoenix police officer stops you early Thursday for speeding and smells alcohol on your breath, you are in big trouble. The cop isn't going to say, “Oh my God, I know you! You’re Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury! Listen, I’m not supposed to do this, but since you’re a huge star and I’m a big fan, I’m going to let you off with a warning and follow you to make sure you get some safe, okay?” No, that officer is going to administer several field sobriety tests and when you fail them, that officer is going to drive you driven to a mobile DUI van, take a blood sample and arrest you for driving drunk. Look, I realize how much of a high you must have been on after that all-important night's 93-81 win over the Seattle Storm, but you need to tone it down. The five fans who vote for the WNBA All-Star Game (I believe fans must vote a minimum of 500 times so the league looks like people actually care about it and it’s pathetic all-star game) may have made you the WNBA's leading fan vote-getter for the July 25 All-Star Game, but those same fans aren’t going to be so psyched about voting for you once they learn that you are out on the roads, all molared up and speeding around in a position to seriously injure or kill them or a loved one in a horrific accident. Check yourself, remember who you are and where your place is and act accordingly, D………..

- I suppose it was only a matter of time before this happened. Heck, just a few days ago I ruminated on the terrible idea that is Dance Your Ass Off on the Bravo network, featuring FAT people trying to lose weight by dancing. Apparently this is the summer of the FAT people on television, because Fox is joining in on the flabby fun with a reality show called More to Love. Because the FAT need love too, Fox has collected a couple dozen chubby chicks and a guy who likes portly women and jammed them into a reality series. The promos have just started running, but in short order you’ll be able to see overweight, lazy, no-willpower-having FAT chicks who can’t push away from the buffet vie for the “affection” of a guy to “love them the way they are.” Let me tell you something, FAT chicks…..the idea that being flabby, obese and unhealthy is beautiful is something that you all tell yourselves because you lack the discipline, work ethic and dedication to eating less and exercising more that it takes to lose weight. Don’t tell me that if getting thinner were as easy as staying FAT that you wouldn’t do it. You convince yourselves that being 5’8, 250 pounds is beautiful because you’re not willing to pay the price to shed those 70-80 extra pounds and since you have to live with that added girth, you tell yourself what you need to hear in order to be able to live with it. On top of that, reality dating shows for the FAT are no less a fraudulent charade than any other sort of dating show. No one finds love by being dropped into a tricked out mansion with two dozen other attention-starved losers and engaging in contrived competitions to win the “love” of the show’s central character. There is nothing real or genuine about these shows and nothing in the world is going to change that. So while you might be celebrating the fact that there are finally some FAT people representing their kind on TV, just know that no one other than FAT people will think this show is cool, fresh or interesting…….

- Pretty much everything North Korea does these days is considered provocative and threatening. Kim Jong Il could blow his nose and eat a cheese sandwich and the rest of the world would spend days debating what the aims and motives of the actions were. It has become almost comical to watch the United States, South Korea and their allies fly into a full-fledged panic every time the North so much as has a thought about any sort of military activity. The latest news is that North Korea fired several short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Saturday as the U.S. kept a close eye on the proceedings. The North fired fired seven short-range missiles in less than seven hours, although that could have merely been their Fourth of July fireworks display. The missiles were apparently Scud-type, estimated to have a range of about 310 miles. Estimates by South Korean intelligence puts the numbers of such missiles in North Korea’s arsenal at about 700. The missiles were followed up four similar missiles launched by North Korea off the east coast Thursday. These test-firings aren’t exactly a surprise; North Korea issued a warning to mariners to avoid an area in the Sea of Japan at certain times between June 24 and July 9 because of a "military firing exercise.” I suppose it could be coincidental that the North is conducting so many “tests” of its arsenal at the same time that the U.S. and the United Nations Security Council are coming down harder on it in terms of economic sanctions, but that seems unlikely. Since May, the North has conducted a nuclear test, and threatened U.S. and South Korean ships near its territorial waters and now this round of missile tests. I did get a kick out of one U.S. official saying that, “This type of North Korea behavior is not helpful.” Interesting way to describe it, not helpful. I prefer to think of not helpful as someone standing in your way when you’re trying to carry a heavy object down the sidewalk, but I suppose you can label actions that could touch off World War III as not helpful as well. Thanks for livening things up, North Korea, I can always count on you for that……

- As we’ve all known for some time, the sea lion is a friend of stoners the whole world ‘round. That is the valuable lesson I took from a story that came out of Newport, California late last month. Two Orange County sheriff's deputies, James Slikker and Tracy Sizemore, decided that it would be a good idea to harass some kids allegedly spotted firing up some joints on a dock in Newport Harbor. Instead of allowing these stoners to get baked, play hackey sack and listen to Phish on their iPods, the deputies answered the call of some do-gooder and made life miserable for the kids. However, their night became much more complicated when they returned to their boat. On the dock, the deputies found an angry young sea lion (aren’t they all), snapping at people walking past. Slikker and Sizemore thought they would be smart and lure the sea lion onto their boat, release it in a safe area away from people. However, the sea lion had no intention of cooperating with cops who had just finished up harassing some innocent stoners who weren’t hurting anyone. This intrepid, stoner-friendly sea lion got onto the boat and waited until Slikker and Sizemore ventured into the boat's main control area. Then, Sparky (what I’ve chosen to call this particular sea lion on account of both alliteration and its friendliness toward stoners) snuck into the foul-weather station, which has a secondary steering wheel and set of controls. The boat’s emergency lights, deck lights and various other equipment began flickering on and off, and the deputies realized that the boat was moving without them steering it. Being the brilliant law enforcement minds they are, the deputies went to investigate and found Sparky in the driver's seat "randomly flipping switches," sheriff's spokesman John McDonald explained. "He tried to bite the Deputies when they attempted to shoo him away. They managed to bring the boat to Marine Operations Headquarters despite the unruly sea lion.” Damn straight they needed Marine Operations Headquarters to help diffuse the situation. Eventually Slikker and Sizemore were able to shoo Sparky from the boat by spraying him with a hose long enough to annoy him. Sparky scampered across the deck and jumped into the water, but not before having extracted a little bit of revenge for his stoner friends back on the dock. Well done, Sparky and stoners, keep it up……..

Another season of doom for the Pittsburgh Pirates, what throwing a pig says about you and the Hack Eyed Peas have a crappy new album, shocker

- You just can't blame Pittsburgh Pirates players for being angry at the team’s front office. For the second year in a row, the Pirates are jettisoning their best players mid-season, once again running up the white flag on the year before it’s halfway over and telling everyone – players, fans, etc. – that this year just won’t be the one where their team makes a push to be better than terrible. Last season, the team traded star outfielder Jason Bay to Boston just before the trading deadline, getting the requisite slate of young, quasi-talented players in return but ultimately achieving their primary goal: dumping salary. This year, the Pirates are getting an early jump on dumping salary and conceding the season as a lost cause. Even though they were within five games of first place early in the week, Pirate management made not one, but two trades to deal way starting outfielders and valuable young players from a team bidding to give the city of Pittsburgh its first season of non-losing baseball in 18 years. Needless to say, the reaction from the players was less than enthusiastic after the team sent starting outfielder Nyjer Morgan and reliever Sean Burnett to the Nationals and utility player Eric Hinske to the Yankees. "It's not our job to understand the big plan, I guess," first baseman Adam LaRoche said. We've got to do the same thing we did after Nate left, try to keep it together." Not exactly a vote of support for management, eh Adam? Oh, and thanks to my man Adam LaRoche for referencing the trade of starting centerfielder Nate McLouth to Atlanta, almost forgot that one. That trade actually took place last month, so it was obscured by this more recent wave of moves. Shortstop Jack Wilson doesn’t sound like he’s any more enthused than LaRoche, declaring that he was "beyond, beyond tired" of the Pirates' deals the past few seasons. "We know that they're looking to the future, which doesn't say much about 2009," Wilson said. "That's probably what's so shocking. We're five games out, and we lost two or three of our everyday players. They're businessmen. They're trying to achieve winning baseball in Pittsburgh. The biggest question is: When is that going to be? When do things start turning around?” Honestly? Do you really want an answer to that or was it a rhetorical question? Because I think you and everyone else knows the answer and it isn't the one you want, J. The reality is that the “when” for the Pirates turning things around is never, at least not as long as the current group of clowns owns the team. They could not care less that the Pirates are trying to avoid a major league-record 17th consecutive losing season and were just six games out of first in the tightly packed National League Central on Wednesday. They like the idea of owning a team but can’t afford to pay what it would take to be competitive on a regular basis, not in a small market like Pittsburgh. So they’ll continue to jettison promising players in exchange for cheaper ones and hope they can string the fans along indefinitely, good times………

- Attention all Panamanian shoppers/citizens, there is now a sale on both potato chips and federal funding in aisle 4! Okay, so perhaps electing the multimillionaire owner of a supermarket chain doesn’t necessarily mean that Panama is going to turn into one giant supermarket, but a guy can dream. Who wouldn’t love the idea of a double coupon day allowing for a steeply discounted Panama Canal crossing? What’s not cool about a special where buying a 10-pack of Ramen noodles gives you half off on the price of a building permit for your small business? These ideas are all things I’d love to discuss with Ricardo Martinelli, who was inaugurated as president of Panama on Wednesday. The Panamanians do it up right, so National Assembly President Jose Luis Varela performed the swearing-in and placed the presidential sash on Martinelli, who won the election in May and has promised the citizens of Panama who "want things to be done differently" that “an attitude of change starts today.” Exact change, hopefully, to continue the supermarket metaphor, but I digress. In his first presidential speech, Martinelli promised a smaller government budget but raises for public workers. He also vowed to address public safety, which was a huge problem under the previous administration. I’m not quite as pumped up about Martinelli’s pledges to work with Mexico and Colombia to combat drug trafficking in the region, because as you all know, I have scores of pot head, crack head and other drug-using amigos around the world and I’m not for anyone looking to harm them. But who knows, perhaps being chairman of the Super 99 supermarket chain, one of the largest private companies in Panama, is great training for running a country. Lots of success to my man Ricardo Martinelli on everything except is whole drug-fighting idea. I’m here if you need any other ideas, Senor Preisdente……….

- I freaking hate you, American music-buying public, and I have no qualms about saying so. When I touch up billboard.com and see that those freaks the Hack Eyed Peas currently top the Billboard 200 (albums), the Billboard Hot 100 (singles) and the Billboard Hot Digital Songs charts with material from their crap-tacular new album, I’m just angry. Think of any synonym for angry in your handy thesaurus and know that those words all apply to my current state of mind. I warned you about this garbage before it came out, I am sure that you have plenty of evidence as to how gawd-awful the “music” from these losers is based on their previous “songs” and yet you buy it anyhow? People, I am trying to help you here and you are just making my job impossible. Not to rehash all of my arguments, but I can go back over the basics for you. The H.E.P. are no-talent hacks who dress like a blend between aging hipsters, fashion-dense golfers, faux punks and retirement home grandparents. Musically, their offerings are thinner than a sheet of the cheapest single-ply toilet paper, complete with inane lyrics, shallow vocals and more over-production and synthesizing than almost anything you’ll ever heard. They don’t play instruments, they just “sing” their moronic lyrics while dancing around like a bunch of robotic chimps on X and acting like they don’t suck. Whether they are together as a group or doing their own thing as solo acts, their music sucks equally bad. Their music is so bad that I would consider buying a sawed-off shotgun (though I hate guns, have no permit and have no idea how to use one), walking into my local music store and systematically blasting every copy of the album into a billion tiny pieces even though I would head straight to jail or a long time. It would be worth it to rid the world of a few copies of that crap, but with digital music being the main source of distribution and copies being sold worldwide, this is a menace that one man alone cannot wipe out. So I am counting on you to wake up, wise up and do your part. If you see a copy of this album, destroy it. If you see someone listening to it, take their music-playing device and destroy it. It is for their own good and sooner or later, they will realize it and thank you for it………

- In different parts of the world, a simple gesture can be perceived very differently. For example, at a bonfire in the southeastern portion of the United States, throwing a dead pig in someone’s general direction would be greeted with a heartfelt thanks. You would have brought a delicious treat to be cooked up over an open pit, a nice, juicy slab of pork to be consumed and enjoyed by one and all. However, repeat that same gesture in southern India and you just might spark off a massive religious riot. That appears to be exactly what happened in Mysore Thursday after somebody threw a dead pig into the compound of an under-construction mosque. After the pig toss, the entire town more or less broke out into a full-scale riot. Muslims and Hindus went at it like…..well, whenever the last time Muslims and Hindus had a major dust-up over thrown animal remains. City police commissioner Sunil Agarwal and his officers tried to restore peace using some traditional methods (tear gas) and some local twists on riot gear (bamboo sticks, the riot baton of Middle Asia), but more than a dozen people were injured before things settled down. In typical, overreactive government fashion, local authorities responded by banning assembly of five or more people on the streets of the troubled area. For the geographically-challenged among you, Mysore is a city in Karnataka, India's only southern state governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. It is also a place where you want to think carefully before choosing which animal carcass you are going to heave into an ongoing construction project……

- Only in the freaking United States of America could things like the International Federation of Competitive Eating and Nathan's International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest exist – and that’s a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of “food athletes” cramming ginormous quantities of often-disgusting foods down their pie holes in short amounts of time. Seeing these freaks parade out from backstage in their homemade costumes, sporting their championship belts won in various eating contests and playing to the crowd like they’re freaking Lennox Lewis at a heavyweight title bout is hilarious. Having freak shows like Joey Chestnut pull apart and consume more than five dozen hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes is both sickening and riveting at the same time, but I’m also glad that this phenomenon hasn’t caught on around the world. Today’s Nathan's International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest was fun to watch, but think for a moment what would happen if other countries felt compelled to emulate it. The world already hates us enough for force-feeding our culture down their throats in the form of fashion, language, music, etc. Can you imagine how they would feel if their country suddenly saw a surge of “food athletes” decide to eat mass quantities of food and quasi-food products just for the sake of seeing who could consume the most in a given time period? While we may have ridiculous supplies of food to waste on crap like competitive eating, many places in the world don’t have sufficient food to meet the needs of their people on a daily basis. Second, with America being the fattest nation in the world, I have to think that eating habits like those promoted by competitive eating are at least a part of what makes us so collectively FAT. If other countries embraced the concept of competitive eating as we have, they too might see their national waistline expand rapidly. They would then have the U.S. to blame for yet another blight on their culture and I for one do not want to facilitate that. So while I was right there with you watching today’s festivities emanate from Coney Island, let’s all agree that this is a phenomenon that belongs in the United States of America and nowhere else……

The recruiting circus of college hoops, rabid foxes on the prowl in Worcester and how to get your drugs from an ATM

- Quite a freaking circus that the recruiting battle for much-ballyhooed recruit Xavier Henry has become. Henry is the No. 2 shooting guard and No. 3 overall player in the 2009 ESPNU Top 100 rankings of this year’s incoming class of college freshmen basketball players. Henry and his brother C.J. might be the most indecisive recruits in years, jumping back and forth between commitments to schools and doing so in very public fashion. The Henry brothers first committed to Memphis when John Calipari was the coach of the Tigers. Calipari left Memphis after last season when the top job at the University of Kentucky opened up and the Wildcats threw absurd amounts of money his way. With the coach they had agreed to play for gone, the Henrys decided that Memphis was no longer the place they wanted to be. Guess they weren’t all that fond ot the school and/or were only going there because of the coach, because they reneged on their commitment to Memphis and switched to the University of Kansas. That in and of itself wasn’t unique; the Memphis class of DeMarcus Cousins, Darnell Dodson and likely Memphis signee John Wall all turned away from Memphis once Calipari left and followed the coach to Kentucky. Xavier and C.J. Henry were the lone exceptions, electing to head to Kansas because of its proximity to their hometown of Oklahoma City. C.J. is 23 and hasn't played organized basketball in four years, but he’s still a valuable basketball commodity because a) he was a highly-ranked recruit coming out of high school and b) he’s Xavier’s brother. So the Henrys made the decision to go to Kansas and everything seemed settled….until this week, when their father went on the radio in Kansas City and began bumping his gums about his sons possibly following Calipari to Kentucky after all. Bringing in Xavier Henry would give the Wildcats the No. 3, 4 and 5 players on the ESPNU top 100, plus adding C.J. Henry would allow them to add a talented player with having to give him a scholarship, as C.J. has the money he made playing professional baseball in the New York Yankees’ farm system and wouldn’t need a scholarship. All of this has played out very publicly and clearly the Henry family has done nothing to quell the storm. Recruiting in high-profile college sports like football and men’s basketball is enough of a circus already, with recruiting services ranking kids from junior high on up, blanket coverage of national signing days and all sorts of nonsense about kids who, for the most part, will never become the megastars that they are being treated like. Ultimately, the Henrys have come to the conclusion - for now - that they will be staying at Kansas. That announcement was finally made and I’d love to believe that’s the end of it….but somehow I know better……..

- Of all the potential hazards of gardening (more than you think), I can’t say that I’ve ever thought of being attacked by a belligerent, borderline-homicidal fox as a possible danger when spending time in the garden. Now I know better, thanks to the cautionary tale of 76-year-old Wenyu Chen of Worcester, Mass. Chen was minding her own business, tending to the vegetable garden at her Mount Hope Terrace apartment when she was ambushed by the angry fox. No one is quite sure what provoked the fox, but fortunately two men working at a pest control job nearby heard Chen’s screams and came running. Leo Dupont and Robert Ford sprinted to the scene and saw Chen with the fox hanging from her arm and yelling her head off. Dupont called the police and Ford attempted to help Chen rid herself of her furry arm candy. “I ran over and I kicked the thing as hard as I could and it went against that wall and I grabbed that woman by her bloody hands and I said, 'Come with me, come with me,' and I dragged her over to this car," Ford said. Oh, a quick aside: expect for Ford to get plenty of hate mail and a possible lawsuit from those freaks at PETA for having the audacity to kick the fox, even if it was attacking a human being. However, the kick didn’t do enough damage to keep the fox down for long. As Ford hurried Chen to safety inside of his vehicle, the fox turned on him. "I hear him yelling to her, 'Go in the house, go in the house.' It wasn't but two seconds after that, the thing came after Bobby," Dupont said. This was a cold, calculating fox, because it systematically backed Ford up onto the roof of the car. The fox then leapt up onto the roof, where Ford delivered another big boot to the head. Even that wasn’t enough to deter the fox, which came back for more. “I kicked him in his head and he flung off and he got even madder and he came back and he jumped up again," Ford said. This time the fox latched onto Ford's shin as he was trapped on the top of the car, but officers eventually arrived at the scene and fired three shots at the fox. Gunshots proved to be enough to ward off the kamikaze fox, which was later euthanized by animal control officers. "That thing was so aggressive and it was out to kill. There's no doubt about it," Dupont said. The animal was being sent to a state lab for rabies testing, although for Chen and Ford’s sake I hope those tests come back negative. Just to be safe, though, all residents of Worcester should probably not do any gardening without either an a) gun or b) gardening buddy until we’re sure this was an isolated incident……

- Here’s a novel (no pun intended): a rock star penning a book in large part because he says he wants to help people. Typically a rock star writing a book is looking to help people, but those people are the rocker himself and his family in the form of the money he’ll make from writing that book. If you believe Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer, his motives for writing "Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top" aren’t financially based, at least not entirely. Kramer insists that he wrote the book in order "to be entertaining, but at the same time to...help people." The book officially published Tuesday, the result of a four-year process with writers William Patrick and Keith Garde. The book’s foreword was written by Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx, so that should make for interesting reading as well. Among the topics covered in the tome are Kramer’s well-known substance abuse problems (I don’t think you can be an official member of Aerosmith if you don’t have a detailed history of drug problems), his trouble relationship with his father and the long-running troubles and battles for control of the band that he’s had with Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. I’m not sure how those issues from the life of a rock drummer will translate when it comes to ordinary people making a connection to them, but Kramer seems to believe that the connection will be there and that people will benefit from hearing his tales of woe. “My desire to help people plays a strong part in my character," Kramer says. "Because I've been allowed to do what I've done via Aerosmith, I'd like to be able to carry it on as I get older, on another level. Whatever that may be is really unbeknownst to me -- maybe some sort of a lecture series or circuit or whatever -- but I know that it will come.” Tyler is also writing his own autobiography, "Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?," which has been pushed from an October publication date to the summer of 2010. The band has a group autobiography as well, 1997's "Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith," written with help from author Stephen Davis. At present, Aerosmith is going back in time and touring with ZZ Top until mid-September, playing its 1975 album "Toys in the Attic" during the shows. Once the tour wraps, the band plans to return to working on its next album with producer Brendan O'Brien after the tour. Work on the album was delayed by health issues facing various members in the months leading up to the tour, so who knows when the final version will be ready. What is known is that you’ll be able to learn a lot more about the stories behind the music in the next year or so from Kramer’s and Tyler’s books. Happy reading……..

- Is it just me, or is it odd to hear talk about the American military looking to make its "don't ask, don't tell" policy "more humane"? My stance on homosexuality hasn’t changed and I still feel it’s wrong morally, but that doesn’t mean I have any qualms about allowing gay and lesbian soliders, sailors, pilots, etc. to take part in our military operations. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has always been curious from where I stand, given that I agree that a person’s sexual leanings shouldn’t be public fodder but also because I marvel at how someone being gay or straight is such a huge part of determining their fitness to serve in the military. Now, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is sketching out potential ideas that would allow the Obama administration to enforce the rule selectively so that some gays could serve in the military. Changes could include allowing people serve who may have been outed due to vengeance or a jilted lover. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are also getting behind this idea of an amended policy. Capt. John Kirby, spokesman for Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the chairman "supports the idea of a less draconian way of enforcing the policy." Bonus points for working the word draconian into your answer and to whoever broke open the thesaurus and helped you out with that one, Captain. In case you’re not familiar with the history of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, it was instituted in 1993. Prior to that, it was routine practice to ask potential service members if they were gay. The policy also requires the dismissal of openly gay service members. Gates indicated that he has discussed the policy with Obama on multiple occasions and the issue of protecting service members who may have been outed with vengeance or blackmail in mind. A change in the current law would have to come through Congress, which would undoubtedly mean months and months of heated debate. However, Obama is undoubtedly looking to get the process started because he has come under heavy fire from the homosexual community for not doing enough about promises he made to it during the campaign last fall. This isn’t the first time a president has attempted to lift the ban on gays in the military; President Clinton tried when he took office, but the military leadership at the time would have none of it. That actually led to Congress stripping Clinton of his power to change the policy and making the "don't ask, don't tell" policy a law that only Congress can repeal. Now it remains to be seen if legislators, with a Democratic-led Congress, have an interest in doing so…….

- Automation can indeed work in your favor. Personally, there are few things I love more than self-checkout lines at the supermarket. Not having to deal with people when I’m not in the mood for it and make small talk with a cashier I don’t know and have no interest in the life of is fantastic. Plus, the old people who pull out their change purse and attempt to pay for everything with coins and exact change tend to avoid auto checkout lines like the plague because technology scares the crap out of them. In other words, it’s a win-win. So I’ll also applaud the arrival of vending machines that dispense prescription medication, which are now making their debut in Oklahoma. The Instymed Machine is a fully automated ATM style machine that dispenses medications to patients within minutes. It is the first of its kind in Oklahoma and looks to address the dilemma of some 20-30 percent of prescriptions that doctors write that are never filled because it’s simply too inconvenient for patients to pick them up. The first machines are now operational in the town of McAlester and so far, the response has been mostly positive. Picking up your medicine from the machine is relatively simple: a medical provider enters a prescription electronically, a patient enters a special code on a touch screen, puts in their birthday and insurance information, pays for it and out comes the medication. On average, the machines contain nearly 50 different types of commonly used medications and although they can't completely replace pharmacies, they are especially useful in more rural areas where there are no drug stores. Of course, there are abound to be depraved, drug-addicted losers looking to hit up the medicine ATM for some free drugs, so what security measures are in place? Well, the Instymed Machine has several security safeguards in place, including electronic monitoring. Let’s go ahead and score this as a good thing for now, although I reserve the right to revisit this down the road…….

Minnesota finally picks its second senator, T.R. Knight goes to Broadway and Kelvin Sampson is still a douche bag

- Homophobia has a new home and ironically enough, that home is Broadway. Noted bigot and big mouth T.R. Knight will be making a temporary departure from the small screen and heading to the Great White Way. Knight, who confirmed last month that he was leaving ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (not sure if he was McDreamy, McSteamy or one of the other Mc’s), which came after a tumultuous run in which he managed to hurl an anti-gay slur at co-star Isaiah Washington and piss off many fellow cast members and fans in the process. Now, he will go to a place where he’ll likely encounter more homosexual individuals than he ever did on television, Broadway. He will be playing the role of Max in the upcoming Broadway revival of Lend Me a Tenor. Stanley Tucci will direct the production, which is scheduled to open in February 2010. The rest of the cast hasn’t yet been announced, but names should begin surfacing in the next few weeks. In the meantime, Knight will be able to polish his stage skills by headlining a production of Jason Robert Brown's Tony-winning Parade at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. Not that I have ever had any interest in the theater/Broadway, nor do I expect to develop such an interest any time soon, but it should be interesting to see how Knight makes the transition and blends into a new place where there are bound to be quite a few people who weren’t all that thrilled with the anti-gay comments he made not that long ago. Keep your head down, work hard and avoid any bigoted utterances and you should be fine, T.R. I’m here if you need any further advice, though……

- DE-NIED. Sorry Kelvin Sampson….wait, no I’m not…you didn’t deserve any lessoning or lifting of the multitude of penalties you incurred from the NCAA for being a total and complete douche bag and thankfully, you didn’t get either. He’s basically on the NCAA’s sh*t list for the next five years because of penalties from the case against him during his time as the head men’s basketball coach at Indiana University, after which the NCAA touched him up for unethical conduct, failure to monitor his program and to promote an atmosphere of compliance after committing similar, excessive phone violations at two NCAA institutions in succession (Oklahoma and Indiana). He was fired at Indiana and were he to attempt to coach at any NCAA institution between now and 2013, the show-cause penalty applied the Sampson would force any institution that wants to hire Sampson must submit a report to the committee on infractions within 30 days of hiring him to see if any further penalties will be given. Why any school would want to hire him, I don’t know. As part of his punishment, Sampson is prohibited from engaging in any on- or off-campus recruiting or interaction with prospective student-athletes from Nov. 25, 2008, to Nov. 24, 2011. He can’t conduct any phone calls or any other electronic correspondence with recruits either, so he’s even more useless than normal at this point. I could not be happier to see the NCAA deny Sampson's appeal of the penalties and it could not happen to a more appropriate guy. After he was a completely sleazy and disreputable recruiter and coach at Oklahoma, he moved to Indiana with promises of being a changed man, only to pick right back up on the sort of dishonest, illegal behavior that ruined his career at OU. At present, Sampson is an assistant coach with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, which is a much better fit for him. In the NBA, he doesn’t have those restrictions on who he can call and how much of a douche bag he can be, more or less. I’m not sure if he thought that having the penalties lifted or lessened would make him appealing to any school, but he’s highly delusional if that’s what he believes. Dude is freaking radioactive at this point on the college level and no one in any position of authority would consider hiring Kelvin Sampson as their school’s head coach, now or ever……..

- So the state of Minnesota finally has its second U.S. senator. This is the kind of thing you don’t want to rush, so I for one am glad that Minnesota waited more than seven months to officially decide the winner of its second seat in the Senate. Other states may rush ahead and actually decide the victor in an election within days of the vote, but I applaud Minnesota for not being rushed or pressured. Now, at long last the Minnesota's Supreme Court has shot down former Sen. Norm Coleman's challenge to the state's November election results and declared Democratic challenger Al Franken the winner. In light of the court's unanimous, unsigned opinion, Coleman dropped his challenge and will accept the result. In its opinion, the court stated that Franken "received the highest number of votes legally cast" and is entitled "to receive the certificate of election as United States senator from the state of Minnesota.” The decision in Fraken’s favor comes as a major boost for the Senate Democratic caucus, giving the Dems 60 seats in the Senate, a filibuster-proof majority, at least on paper. While Franken might not be a legendary former professional athlete like Steve Largent from Oklahoma or Bill Bradley from New York, Minnesota can now say that it has a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer representing it in the Senate. This end a back-and-forth affair in which Coleman led Franken on election night by a razor-thin margin of 206 votes out of more than 2.9 million cast. However, that was a close enough to trigger an automatic recount and when the recount was finally completed in January, Franken had edged ahead by an equally narrow 225 votes. That led to Coleman’s attempted legal end-around, which will officially end once Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty signs Franken's election certificate and makes him the official winner. Nice of you to finally getting around to picking your second senator, Minnesota……….

- The beauty pageant community is quickly becoming even more unstable than I’ve always assumed it was. When Donald Trump isn’t firing various beauty queens for their many indiscretions and alleged contractual breaches, the pageant winners themselves are hitting the eject button on their reign. Pageant officials in Georgia thought they had their winner in Gwinnett County school teacher Kristina Higgins, who was named Miss Georgia Saturday night at the annual pageant in Columbus, but she didn’t even last a full day in the role. The next morning, Higgins relinquished the post, leaving the runner-up, Marietta law student Emily Cook, to take over as Miss Georgia. Higgins’ explanation for her decision was truly bizarre, as she claimed that her responsibilities as a middle school would not leave her time she would need to serve as Miss Georgia. That may well be, but you’re telling me you didn’t know that before you entered? Was it your intention all along to pull out if you won? Maybe Higgins felt that there was no way she would win and so taking part and enjoying the experience would do no harm. I’m no defender of beauty pageants or the sort of person who lectures others about wasting people’s time, but that’s exactly what Higgins did. Unless you intend to fulfill the obligations of the winner should you be chosen as such, don’t take part. I’m sure that Cook is thrilled to be chosen as the new Miss Georgia, but imagine how much more thrilled she would have been to win at the actual pageant and have the thrill of hearing her name called and receiving her crown on stage. Instead, Kristina Higgins ends up looking like the stereotypical ditzy, blond beauty queen who flaked out and couldn’t handle the pressure of winning. In other words, you’re not helping the bad image of beauty pageants, Kristina, you’re hurting it, and you shouldn’t be entering them and then bailing out once you win, man………

- The Man is attempting to put his iron fist down in China and now all companies making personal computers must decide whether to capitulate and allow The Man to hold them down or forego a shot at one of the world’s fastest-growing technology markets. After announcing that it would require all personal computers sold in the country to be accompanied by a controversial content-filtering application, China is temporarily backing off that stance, but likely not for long. On Tuesday, the Chinese government announced that it would postpone the deadline for the filter, which it claims is mostly a way for parents to protect children from pornography. Of course, everyone knows that’s a lie and that the government is really looking to impose censorship on its people to prevent them from viewing anything that might spark the slightest hint of independent thinking or revolutionary tendencies. Regardless, China's central government announced in May that the Green Dam software package must accompany all new computers in China. More than 20 technology groups and business associations including the Business Software Alliance and Consumer Electronics Association have lined up against the implementation of the software and sent a letter directly to Premier Wen Jiabao on June 26 to voice their opposition. Why is all of this such a huge issue? Well, with the world’s largest population, China also surpassed the United States in 2008 as the world's top user of the Web. PC makers must decide whether to kowtow to the Chinese government in order to gain access to a country that accounted for 14 percent of the world's PC sales last year, a figure that is expected to increase to almost 16 percent by 2012. However, giving in would make them appear to be accessories to censorship and restriction on freedom of speech. Critics of the application say it is capable of causing glitches when a PC user types or encounters "forbidden" political content - shocker. Furthermore, a study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that because of security vulnerabilities, "any Web site a Green Dam user visits can take control of the PC.” Perhaps the route to go for Chinese citizens is to follow suit with U.S. counterparts who don’t want a subpar computer and operating system and simply buy a Mac. After all, the Green Dam software is for Windows only. Look for a final decision on a date for the implementation of Green Dam to come sooner rather than later. Industry observers are nearly unanimous in stating that the decision to postpone the deadline will not lead to its complete elimination. In other words, Green Dam is coming to China, it’s just a matter of when……

The Amazing Baldwin brothers in Portland, a grunting epidemic in tennis and things I don't want to see FAT people do

- The grunting epidemic in women’s professional tennis has grown exponentially in the past few years, to the point that it sounds like a low-budget porno half the time when the players are exchanging backhands and serves at a tournament. The reason these chicks need to grunt so loudly and so often is….well, I don’t know. I don’t know and neither do some former greats in women’s tennis who are stepping up to call out today’s players and their need to UGGGGGHHHHH! every time they hit the ball. Chris Evert has joined former rival Martina Navratilova and a litany of others in saying that the grunting in women’s tennis has gotten out of hand. "Grunting is one thing but the shrill sound that you hear with players nowadays, and especially they get louder when they hit a winner, that's the thing that I observe as a player," Evert explained. "It comes before they hit the shot. That's the first thing you hear and you are kind of like thrown off guard as a player and then before you know the ball gets past you. It is distracting when you are hearing this and I think the grunts are getting louder and more shrill now.” I do have to take issue with Evert on one thing: she had the audacity to attack my girl Maria Sharapova, the beacon of hotness for all of women’s tennis. Evert questioned Sharapova’s need to grunt or shriek every time she looks to set up a winner, but I’ll be honest - I haven’t noticed a thing. Perhaps that’s because I’m content to put the mute on my TV and simply watch Sharapova move around the court…..but I digress. Ultimately, Evert admitted that she just doesn’t “understand the philosophy of it.” Navratilova has expressed similar sentiments in recent weeks and outgoing WTA chief Larry Scott seems to agree. “I agree, we started hearing about this and reading about it in a way we hadn't before outside Wimbledon,” Scott said of the noise-making. “Based on that we have started a process of looking at it more carefully," he said. He will be leaving his post soon, but the inquiry into ways to reduce the amount of grunting and shrieking on the court should go on once Scott leaves office. It is undoubtedly a bizarre and unnecessary part of the game, so any change would be a welcome one. The bottom line is that you do not need to make any noises with your mouth and vocal cords to hit a tennis ball, or any other kind of ball for that matter. More hitting and less grunting will be a good thing - except for in the case of my girl Maria Sharapova. She can continue to do whatever the heck she wants…….

- Someone has a healthy helping of judicial egg on her face, and yes, I’m looking right at you, Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor. Seems that the very judicial body you could be on the verge of being admitted to has issues with at least one of your previous rulings. In a split 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court sided Monday with white firefighters in a workplace discrimination lawsuit, a case that Sotomayor heard on her federal appeals court last year and sided with the city. The case pitted the white firefighters against the city of New Haven, Connecticut in a case of alleged reverse discrimination. The Court ruled that the city improperly threw out the results of promotional exams that officials said left too few minorities qualified. Sotomayor had her shot at the case and sided with the city, ruling that they could scrap the results of a test because there weren’t enough minority candidates smart enough to pass. One Latino and no African-American firefighters qualified for promotion based on the exam, so the city decided not to certify the results and issued no promotions. Never mind the fact that New Haven isn’t exactly a huge rife with minorities, let alone minority firefighters. The case went to court because a group of 20 mostly white firefighters sued, claiming reverse discrimination. At the heart of the case was the question as to whether there was still a need for special treatment for minorities, or if the existing laws have become obsolete. "The city rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.” Taking up for the minority was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had the kahones to question the fairness of the test, which was 60 percent written and 40 percent oral. "Relying so heavily on pencil-and-paper exams to select firefighters is a dubious practice,” Ginsburg wrote. As with many cases that come before the Court, this one is more than a few years old. The actual promotional exams took place in 2003, so this has been six years in the making. The Senate is expected to question Sotomayor extensively about her role in the case once her confirmation hearings begin. And although she is expected to eventually be confirmed and join the nation’s highest court, it should be interesting to see how she meshes with the five justices who just shot down her vote in the most high-profile case of her career to this point…….

- Maybe the Bravo network got the wrong idea from all of the support that NBC’s has received. Biggest LoserBiggest Loser has now had several seasons of success showing über-FAT people losing massive amounts of weight by living on a compound and training daily with professional trainers. I myself have enjoyed the show because as I always say, anything that helps FAT, unhealthy people lose weight and gain increased fitness is good in my book. However, the new Bravo series Dance Your Ass Off isn’t going to find that same level of support for me or from most people, I’m guessing. It’s not that I’ve changed my stance on helping FAT people lose weight; I just don’t need to see flabby, jiggling physiques “dance” to terrible songs in an attempt to lose weight. Seeing a FAT person run, lift weights, ride a bike or some other sort of workout activity is one thing and even that can be jarring at times. However, putting these people in dance outfits that are going to inevitably be far too revealing and having their chubby, cellulite-laden selves doing dance moves to songs that are quite honestly going to suck and suck hard (dance music, by definition, blows, sorry) isn’t going to be good TV. No, it’s going to be horribly scarring and frightening for the retinas and minds of anyone who dares to tune in. Truthfully, the concept of dancing to help lose weight could even work and work well - as long as no one puts it on TV. Take the FAT people to any dance studio, gym or ballroom in the United States and let them dance their way to a thinner version of themselves, just don’t film it. Sorry Bravo network, but this is a patently awful idea and it’s time someone was honest with you…….

- If there was anyone celebrating the Tuesday deadline for American troops to leave towns and cities in Iraq harder than Iraqis themselves, it would be me. Sure, the Iraqi people may have held a street festival in Baghdad to mark the occasion. And yes, my one-man street festival may have not had quite the color or pageantry (but some killer cotton candy), but don’t let that diminish your opinion of my enthusiasm for this day. Seeing American troops contractually obligated to leave a place they never should have been sent and forced to put their lives on the line in in the first place is awesome, no doubt about. The Iraqi government called it "National Sovereignty Day" and newscasters on the state television network Al-Iraqiya draped Iraqi flags around their necks as an onscreen clock counted down to midnight. There were scenes of hundreds of people dancing and singing in a central Baghdad park. “I feel the same way as any Iraqi feels -- I will feel my freedom and liberation when I don't see an American stopping an Iraqi on the street," said Baghdad resident Awatef Jwad. No problem there, A. Most Americans don’t want to see any of our soldiers in your country any more than you want to see them there. Missing as the clock ticked down toward the official withdrawal deadline was the sight of massive American troop pullouts. Those pullouts had been going on gradually over the past few weeks and by the time the weekend hit, virtually all U.S. troops were out of Iraqi cities. The fear now is that insurgents will seize upon the opportunity to attack still-learning, relatively inexperienced Iraqi security forces now that they don’t have their American counterparts there to back them up. “Without the Americans, we were afraid of each other," said Hanaa Abdul Hassan, a Baghdad resident. "And now that the Americans are leaving, we will be more afraid. We knew the Americans were holding them back, so now I don't know what's going to happen.” The worrywarts among us would have you believe that the series of attacks taking place across Iraq over the past week and a half, attacks that have killed more than 200 Iraqis, are a sign of things to come. Yes, Saddam Hussein's former deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, is still at large and believed to be a leading figure in the insurgency. And yes, there will undoubtedly be tension and many difficult moments for the Iraqi government in the days ahead. However, those days will come no matter when American forces pull out of Iraq, whether it’s now or five years from now. To get to the stated end goal of a free, democratic nation, there will be the requisite growing pains. Not pulling out would only postpone those growing pains, not eliminate them. Once again, this is a place the U.S. had NO RIGHT to invade to begin with, so there can’t be a wrong time to withdraw. It is still not our place to rule Iraq or to tell the Iraqis how to run their country. So even though my one-man street festival may have seemed slightly comical, it was definitely in celebration of something meaningful…….

- Hear this and hear it well, America: the Baldwin brothers are not only good for appearances on lame-ass reality shows like I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. They can also gain weight (obviously) and now we know that they can do bizarre things like open a TV and movie production company in Portland, Oregon of all places. Daniel Baldwin would be the Baldwin brother involved in this one, as he and production partner Charles Wall announced plans for a major production company in Portland on Sunday. Baldwin explained the curious choice by declaring that he's ready to leave Hollywood and its bizarre culture behind. He and Wall would like to shoot three movies in Oregon to be produced by their yet-to-be-named production company within the next year. For years, Vancouver, B.C., Canada has been the hotspot for TV and movie production in the region and Portland has been little more than a place to stop for coffee on the way to or from Vancouver for those involved in such projects. Baldwin and Wall hope to change that and to do so for a state that Daniel Baldwin is confident in. He’s a huge fan of University of Oregon sports and cites the recent success of the movie "Coraline" and the TNT show "Leverage" as examples of what a great setting Portland can be for the entertainment industry. “We will not only make the film from pre-production and post-production, we will sell the film from Oregon," Baldwin said. He expects the state of Oregon to see millions of dollars in revenue from his business venture. Already, he and Wall have hosted a movie premier at the Morrison Bar. Their plans call for three movies, a Portland-based reality show and a documentary to be shot in and around the city in the next year. Who knows, this could be the start of something great and perhaps other D-list stars will be inspired to start their own production companies in non-traditional entertainment industry cities……