Frat dudes take a political stand, the UVA lacrosse tragedy is stunning and Brazil takes on a huge challenge

- Know how you can tell when a political issue is really serious? When a group of frat dudes change the place where they will get together and booze because they feel the need to take a stand on that issue. The current hot-button issue in the nation is the new immigration policy in Arizona, with illegal immigrants being singled out and even legal immigrants possibly subjected to racial profiling by police courtesy of Gov. Jan Brewer. Protests have been held outside pro sports venues, teams have made wardrobe changes to show their position on the issue and now the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity will make a huge sacrifice and cancel Phoenix as the site of its annual convention because of its opposition to the immigration law and will instead send its 40,000 members to Las Vegas. Yes, the 104th meeting of the nation's oldest predominately African-American fraternity will go to Sin City instead of Phoenix. Way to fall on that grenade, guys. The convention was scheduled for Phoenix from July 21 to July 25, but Alpha Phi Alpha feels that the immigration act is discriminatory/wanted to go party in Vegas and decided to make the switch. Arthur Williams, president of Epsilon Lambda, St. Louis' graduate chapter, spoke about the change. "We have members, such as Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Dubois, Thurgood Marshall, Paul Robeson; just many, many guys who have come through this organization and have all stood for something; you know -- something positive." Right, and you also wanted to go get your gamble on, make a Vegas roadie and hit up the Strip. Please don’t tell me this is about immigration policy because I might believe that claim from another group, but not a fraternity. I’d also have an easier time believing your story if you were moving your convention to Tacoma or Wichita as opposed to Vegas. Regardless, hope you guys are able to make your voice heard against discrimination as you hit the craps tables, the blackjack tables and the all-you-can-eat buffets on the Strip………..

- The true horror of the murder of University of Virginia women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love by UVA men’s lacrosse player George Huguely is only now coming clear. We know that Huguely is accused of beating Love to death in brutal fashion, but the more details of the murder that come out, the worse things get. Love's roommate and the roommate's boyfriend found her battered body early Monday, bruised, bloodied and lifeless. Huguely and Love were involved in a relationship at one time, but police have learned that relationship had ended a while ago. The specifics of the alleged murder......wow, they are horrific. According to a search warrant affidavit, Huguely kicked in her bedroom door and told them her head hit a wall several times as he shook her. How his attorney, Francis Lawrence, can call Love's death an accident is beyond fathoming, but his client was arrested Monday and Huguely was charged with the killing just days before he and Love were to graduate and play in the NCAA tournament for their respective teams. Their stunned teammates were left to piece together what happened and decide if they wanted to continue their seasons. For the time being, the two squads are holding team meetings together and both seem intent on playing their games as scheduled. A memorial for Love took place Wednesday night at the Charlottesville, Va. campus. Also on Wednesday, police said they had looked in the Huguely's apartment and found a crimson-stained Cavaliers lacrosse jersey and a letter to Love. Those who know Huguely best say they have no idea how the likeable, well-mannered guy they thought they knew could commit such a terrible crime. They do recount stories of him engaging in inappropriate behavior toward women, including a wisecrack about "a good-looking EMT" who treated him in 2005 for heat cramps. He said his teammates "wanted to see if I could get her number." At UVA, he was majoring in anthropology and was vice president of a student branch of Operation Smile, a charity that helps fund reconstructive surgeries for children with deformities such as a cleft palate. However, he did have a history of unruly behavior and issues with authority, having been hit with Taser blast by an officer after resisting arrest on public intoxication in Lexington, Va., about 70 miles from Charlottesville. Now, it appears his rage issues have resulted in a truly horrific crime for which there will never be a good explanation and which will take Love’s and Huguely’s teammates years and even decades to come to grips with…………

- This can only end one way and that is badly. While nearly the entire world outside its borders lines up to crack Iran and penalize it for its growing nuclear program and arsenal, Brazil has stepped up and offered to mediate Iran’s stalled nuclear fuel swap. According to state media in Iran, dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has agreed "in principle" to Brazil’s offer. He made the announcement in a phone conversation with fellow dictator/despot Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez (the League of Fascist Dictators lives!) and Brazil will now go to work on the technical details. At the heart of the issue is enriched uranium. Iran claims it was enriching uranium from its current 3.5 percent to 20 percent -- the threshold for uranium capable of setting off a nuclear reaction and thus a key step in the process of building the nuclear bomb it wants so badly to develop. Now, the country must find the enriched uranium to fuel a research reactor (if you believe that tale), which produces isotopes for cancer patients and which is running out of fuel. The West views that story as a lie and insists that Iran is looking to create nuclear weapons while using a civilian energy program as a front. The five permanent U.N. Security Council members tried to broker a deal with Iran last October: send the low-level uranium out of the country to be enriched elsewhere in exchange for fuel for its reactor. Astonishingly, Ahmadinejad rejected the offer immediately and made a counteroffer: make the swap a simultaneous one and carry it out on Iranian soil. That didn’t sit well with the U.S. State Department, which called the proposal a stall tactic and said world powers would not "front" the fuel to Iran. That left the two sides at an impasse and thus we have Brazil, looking to step in and succeed where others have failed. Can they make it happen? I’m voting no and will be stunned if this ends any way other than disastrously………

- Perfect marriage of two musical atrocities or perfect recipe for disaster? Yes. The answer to that question is “both” when American Karaoke and Lady Gaga are the two factors in the equation. AK is the single biggest atrocity to happen to music the past four decades at least and Lady Gaga is a walking, talking, computer-aided musical freak show with no music artistry to speak of. So it was basically inevitable that at some point, these two train wrecks would come together into one fantastic disaster. That happened Wednesday night in something called the American Karaoke result show in which one loser karaoke-er was told he or she just didn’t have what it took to become the next great karaoke-er to receive a recording contract they don’t deserve and could never deserve. The fashion freak show that is L. Gaga tweeted about the appearance to her followers (and what a Twitter feed that must be to follow: “Should I dress up like a giant drop of blood or a ball of yarn on steroids?”), writing “I'm performing ALEJANDRO tonight on American Idol! Tune in little monsters, Paws up! I dedicate this performance to u, u make me strong.” Sorry L.G., but there aren’t enough Twitter followers in the universe to make you strong enough that your music won't absolutely suck. Your vocal skills are suspect, your songwriting is horrific and your beats and notes are synthesized heavily. Bringing you together with AK may be appropriate and it may be the most perfect marriage of suck-tacular music outside of the Hack Eyed Peas performing on the show, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an absolute musical travesty and that I don’t wish the entire studio had been sucked into a giant black hole while you performed whichever of your God-awful songs you “sang” Wednesday night……….

- Dorks, are you prepared to pay through the nose to get in on the ground floor of 3-D gaming? Now that 3-D has hit big in movies with blockbusters "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland," game designers and developers are looking to capitalize on the trend and the ever-dropping price of large-screen TVs to make their own mark. The major players in the video game market - Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo - are all inching toward 3-D games in their own ways. Sony has already pushed through software changes to allow games in 3-D on its PlayStation 3 system, while Microsoft claims to be able to do 3-D on the Xbox 360 even though the company prefers to wait. Nintendo is swimming in the shallow end of the pool for now, not doing much on the 3-D front but planning bigger things for the future. Those plans seem more realistic with Panasonic and Samsung both introducing home 3-D television systems this year, with Sony is prepared to issue its own 3-D TV models next month. Other TV manufacturers will soon follow suit and graphics companies are now working to make the necessary adjustments to facilitate 3-D gaming. Digital graphics maker NVIDIA has developed technology that duplicates an image twice on computer monitors and incorporates shuttered eyeglasses to produce it in 3-D inside the user's brain. Because of the intricate technology needed for 3-D gaming, the games and system would obviously be very costly. To display 3-D images, computer monitors will need to refresh at a rate of 120 hertz, an upgrade from current models. The current cost of 3-D monitors in both high definition and standard definition is in the $500-600 range. On top of that, a high-end video card would also be needed to handle the extra rendering load and that would add as much as $300 to the equation. Oh, and don’t forget the shutter glasses that connect to the computer via an infrared beam - another $200. Those are all computer-related gaming issues, but obviously many users will play games on their independent consoles and 3-D games for those consoles are expected by the end of this year. The only involved party with a real upside is developers, who wouldn’t need to do much to make their games work in three dimensions. There may also be upside for video game dorks who will achieve a certain cachet among their dork friends by being the first to own a 3-D system………..