A good Pro Bowl idea, a bummer of a story for my stoner friends and the state of polygamy in South Africa

- Count me among those who can’t generate much self-interest in watching the NFL Pro Bowl. When more than one-third of the stars elected to the game pull out with fake injuries or schedule conflicts, how can the NFL expect fans to be excited about the contest? Thankfully, one of the stars remaining in the game is Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco. Ochocinco is almost always entertaining, he has plenty of personality and even if you deem his antics self-promoting and juvenile at times, he still makes you laugh and pay attention, which is more than I can say for the glorified exhibition game that is the Pro Bowl. So of course Ochocinco has an idea that might make Pro Bowl more interesting and of course it involves more of him on the field and in the action. Ochocinco is an avowed an international soccer fan and practices kicking during the season, so he wants to tee it up in some form during the Pro Bowl. "Yesterday was punting, today was kickoffs, tomorrow will be field goals," Ochocinco said. "I don't know. We'll see what happens. It shouldn't be a problem. If they're going to let me do it, I'm going to do it early in the game before they get serious and they start to play for real." He actually did kick this past preseason in an August game against the New England Patriots in Foxborough when Bengals kicker Shayne Graham was bothered by a sore groin in practice. Ochocinco kicked an extra point and had a deep kickoff as Graham's replacement in Cincinnati's 7-6 victory. After the game, he dubbed himself "Esteban Ochocinco, the most interesting footballer in the world." Hopefully he can live up to that moniker because we need the most interesting footballer in the world to salvage the Pro Bowl at this point. The game’s biggest names won't be on hand and if the game is going to feature a bunch of also-rans and second-tier players instead of names like Brees, Manning, Brady, Favre and Rivers, then the least the NFL can do is have Ochocinco out there kicking extra points and kickoffs, showing off his varied skills. Memo to the AFC coaching staff: Give Ochocinco the green light to kick as early and often as he wants. If he tries and succeeds, so much the better. If he tries and fails, at least it will be entertaining…………

- Dudes, this next story is a total bummer. Some intrepid businessmen/potheads were attempting to transport more than 700 pounds of marijuana stuffed in a septic tank truck full of human waste and a bunch of square cops had to ruin things by busting them for drug possession and confiscating the hippie lettuce. An officer pulled over the septic tank truck Wednesday after a check of the license showed it was invalid and from there, things just went downhill in a hurry. The traffic stop occurred on I-19 northbound stopped about 35 miles south of Tucson, Arizona. Apparently that particular stretch of highway is notorious for human and hippie lettuce trafficking, so the cops patrol it heavily. But what kills me is that had the fools driving this truck merely taken a few minor precautions, both they and their precious cargo could have gotten away undetected. Either have a valid license for your vehicle or stay off the roads, fools. Even with the invalid registration, there was still a chance to avoid the pot being discovered. See, the officer who made the stop discovered that the commercial vehicle markings on the truck were also invalid. From there, he began poking around and found the bales of marijuana in red and orange packages amid the waste. "It just shows how desperate these drug cartels are," Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said. "They'll go to any lengths to conceal their product. We've seen it concealed [among] watermelons, bell peppers. This is the first time we've seen it concealed in human waste.” Well no freaking kidding, a-hole. Of course 743 pounds of the chronic is valuable cargo. That’s a street value of about $409,000, give or take a few weed-smoke-drenched dollars. Do you have any idea how many stoners 409 pounds of tree could supply? That could be enough for an entire Willie Nelson or Snoop Dogg North American tour, for God’s sake. So if that ganja needs to be hidden in human waste in the back of a sewage truck, so be it. The driver of this truck Leonard Salcido, of Tucson, was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of marijuana. And lest police begin patting themselves on the back for this one, just keep things in perspective. This wasn’t even close to the largest drug bust for Arizona police; in 2008, police found more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana in a fake UPS truck. But the most vital, bottom-line fact here is that once again, my stoner buddies around the country, specifically in the Southwest, are going to suffer because of this bust and I don’t like that one bit. Stop persecuting stoners, police, and allow them to have their weed and get baked. They aren’t hurting anyone and you all just need to relax…………

- Hey, I didn’t know the Mormon religion was big in South Africa! After all, what other explanation could there be for South African President Jacob Zuma having three wives? Just kidding, Mormons, calm down. I know that a) your church has supposedly denounced polygamy and b) other religions do practice polygamy, not just the Mormon church of the past. But whatever religion he ascribes to, Zuma faced stiff questioning Thursday about his trio of wives during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It should be noted that polygamy is legal in South Africa, but there is an ongoing national debate about the practice. All told, Zuma has married five times (three remain current), but his critics say that polygamy is a thing of the past and that the president is behind the times and being unfair to women. Questioned by Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria on the second day of the WEF, Zuma explained that it is part of his culture. "People interpret cultures differently," he said. "Some people think their culture is superior to others, that it is the only one accepted by God. That is a problem and one we need to deal with. We (South Africa) follow a policy that says we must respect the cultures of others." The topic came up because Zuma married third wife Tobeka Madiba earlier this month in a traditional Zulu ceremony at his rural homestead in the Zululand area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In what had to be a tad awkward of a scene, Zuma's first wife, Sizakele Khumalo, was among those in attendance to see her husband marry Madiba. In Zuma’s defense, he did sit patiently on the two-wife level for all of two years, having married his current second wife Nompumelelo Ntuli two years ago. Two of his previous marriages ended in two different fashions, with Zuma divorcing home affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini and another wife, Kate Mantsho, committing suicide in 2000. Among the president’s critics is Reverend Theunis Botha, the leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Party, who labeled the latest ceremony a "giant step back into the dark ages." Zuma maintains that being a polygamist does not influence his political beliefs or his views on female equality. Asked if he treated his three wives equally, he replied: "absolutely," which drew chuckles from the audience. I suppose that to some out there, he is a hero for being able to have three wives and get away with it while others figure that as miserable as they are with just one wife, this guy must be insane to triple his misery. As for me, I realize and accept that it’s a different culture and one I don’t completely understand. I think it would be odd and awkward to have three wives, but maybe my man Zuma can handle it…………

- Oy. I wish I could say I expected better, but this is reality TV, this is MTV and this is the United States of America. We pander to the lowest common denominator, sink to the lowest level and prefer entertainment that is neither thoughtful nor worthwhile. In other words, we like Jersey Shore. Yes, a bunch of self-described “guidos and guidettes” with a combined IQ of 42, a combined annual tanning bill of approximately $158,500 and exactly zero ounces of class between them has so enraptured America that MTV announced late Friday that it has ordered a second season of the show. Sure, state lawmakers have denounced the show. And yes, activists have urged MTV to cancel the series because of the extremely negative and stereotypical way it depicts Italian-Americans. Oh, and the town where the first season of the show was filmed went out of its way to repeatedly remind everyone that it had nothing to do with the show other than being the setting for its depravity. Yet enough brain-dead fools watched JWoww, The Situation and Ronnie for MTV to continue to lower the bar for its programming and bring these fools back for a second season. The network has ordered 12 more episodes, with the plan being to follow the same cast of ass clowns Vinny as they “escape the cold northeast and find themselves in a new destination.” In other words, let’s soil another town’s reputation and give these surgically- and steroid-enhanced freaks even more chances to throw on their bathing suits or go shirtless in order to show off their oiled-up, ‘roided-up , over-tanned physiques. “Our audience has fallen in love with Jersey Shore and its amazing cast who have really grown together as a family,” said Tony DiSanto, MTV’s president of programming, in a statement. “That bond gives the show its heart, and we’re thrilled to reunite these friends.” Heart? This show has a lot of qualities – not good qualities, but qualities nonetheless – but heart is not one of them. The new episodes will begin airing this summer, seeking to capitalize on the momentum Jersey Shore built as the No. 1 original cable series in January among persons 12-34. The deciding moment may have been the season finale on Jan. 21, which attracted a 4.8 rating in the key demo — a 30 percent jump over the previous series high. For those who missed any of the first season (I missed all of it and am so much better for it) and are into self-abuse via crappy reality television, MTV will air the complete first season before the Super Bowl kickoff on Feb. 7, beginning at 9 a.m. Or you can throw away your money by pre-ordering the entire season — including some uncensored moments —online. As always, thanks for making our world a dumber, less classy, more ridiculous and generally worse place to be, MTV and Jersey Shore cast members………….

- I knew there was something I liked about the Obama administration. That something would of course be its willingness to look into the legality of the absolute abortion that is college football’s Bowl Championship Series. The Justice Department said this week that the administration the is considering a number of steps to delve deeper into the BCS mess. Assistant Attorney General Ronald “BCS Buster” Weich wrote in a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch Friday informing him that the department will soon decide to launch an investigation into whether the BCS violates antitrust laws, as Hatch had requested. Hatch is on the case because the University of Utah Utes are regularly one of the non-BCS conference teams trying to crack the stranglehold that the six power conferences have on the extortion racket that is the BCS. Of course, Brigham Young University is also trending in that direction with its continued success on the field and with two teams in his home state in a position to be screwed over by the BCS on an annual basis, Hatch definitely has an impetus to act. According to Weich, the administration is looking at several other options, including asking the Federal Trade Commission to review the legality of the BCS under consumer protection laws. My thought on that is simply this: Whatever it takes. Consumer protection laws, anti-trust laws, criminal laws, civil laws, declaring nuclear war on the bozos who run the BCS, it doesn’t matter. Just get rid of that giant turd of a system, shift to a playoff like every other division of college football outside of D-1 and let’s get it on………….