Lohan family hijinks over ice cream, Apple upgrades MobileMe and Venezuela asks Interpol to do its dirty work

- All right, now Dina Lohan has crossed the line. Raising a hellion who is quite possibly the biggest lush of her era is one thing and having a second child heading that direction is one thing, but abusing a Carvel Ice Cream black card belonging to her daughters is something else entirely. That’s right, Dina Lohan is thieving her kids’ Carvel Ice Cream black card to feed her double chocolate chunk addiction. The popular ice cream chain issued “black cards” to 75 celebrities last year, including Lindsay and Ali Lohan, to celebrate its 75th anniversary. Some way, somehow, one of those black cards found its way into Dina Lohan’s grimy paws and she attempted to use it when she went into an East Meadow, N.Y., Carvel store to pick up a cake for her son Cody's birthday. The pimply faced kid who assisted her asked for her I.D. and then confiscated her card. On its Web site, Caravel stated that only the individual whose name is on the card can receive the freebies - up to $25 in ice cream products per week. Sounds like a great deal and based on how Lindsay Lohan looks most of the time, she’s not eating a lot of fatty desserts, so maybe her mother thought she could use the card and no one would notice. Caravel also said in its statement that although Lindsay and Ali are the only two members of their family issued promotional cards, “their extended family has repeatedly used the card without either present. At first, we graciously honored their requests while explaining that the Black Card was not a carte blanche for unlimited Carvel Ice Cream for the extended Lohan family and friends. After more than six months of numerous and large orders for ice cream, we finally had to cut off the card and take it back.” Wow. I guess that sense of entitlement runs deep and strong in the Lohan family. Making matters worse, Dina Lohan didn’t take the confiscation of her pilfered black card well and things became so heated that police were called to the store, where Dina was demanding her card and her cake and the store manager was refusing to give it to her. Lohan claimed that multiple police cars arrived, along with a police helicopter. Officers had to warn her not to use the card again. All right, ma’am, we’re only going to tell you this once. Put the Caravel black card down and do NOT attempt to use it again. We don’t want to have to get our weapons out, but we will if necessary. Seriously, is this an American Express black card or a glorified gift card for an ice cream shop? Way to show that your lush of a daughter isn’t the only misfit in the family………

- The riots may have been full-scale after the Los Angeles Lakers won their 16th NBA championship by beating Boston Thursday night, but the parade to celebrate the win will be on a much smaller scale than last year’s championship celebration. The parade will be entirely funded by the Lakers and the route will avoid the city's downtown core and leave out the huge rallies that have drawn tens of thousands of fans in previous years. Team and city officials both pointed out that the Lakers would pick up the tab for the -- estimated at $1.5 million by city managers and $2 million by the Lakers -- after last year's parade led to complaints about excessive spending for the cash-strapped city. "I want to applaud the L.A. Lakers for their good corporate citizenship for sponsoring the parade," mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a news conference Friday. "It will be a great cause for celebration." The revised parade route will spend two miles extending from the Staples Center to the edge of the University of Southern California campus and an estimated 500,000 and 2 million people are expected to attend. Lakers players will speak to fans from a float moving along the parade route and double-decker, open-air buses will transport the team's coaches, staff members, owners and cheerleaders along the same route. That may seem like quite a show, but compared to past celebrations that began with kickoff rallies at City Hall or the Department of Water and Power building, parades through the downtown business district and huge rallies at Staples Center, it’s fairly modest. Eliminating the rally will make the event easier and less expensive, while skipping downtown for the parade makes the day more manageable for police, fire and other city agencies. . Last year's parade was along a similar route south of downtown but was capped by a rally at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that drew more than 95,000 fans. The outcry over the cost of the event was swift and severe, ultimately leading to the Lakers and others eventually paying for most of $2 million cost. But scaled-down parade or not, the riot that took place in the streets of L.A. in the hours after the Game 7 win to clinch the title was full-tilt. There were 42 arrests and three assaults on police officers, one of whom had to fire a warning shot to avoid being seriously injured, 40 calls to the fire department to report incidents, 16 reported fires, hooligans throwing rocks, bottles and other objects at officers, those same officers retaliating by firing beanbags into the crowd and 15 people arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, narcotics possession, disturbing the peace and other violations. Police will now sift through surveillance video and other evidence gathered Thursday night and get warrants based on that evidence. So for me, the lingering image of this title will not be the championship parade through the city, but rather jacked-up Lakers fans jumping on top of a cab leaving the arena, rocking the car, ripping a door open and terrorizing those inside before the cabbie was able to make his getaway…………

- Freaking do it yourself if you want to blatantly oppress your people and trample on their rights of free speech, Venezuela. And if you can't manage the arrest of the owner of the only TV station still openly critical of malevolent dictator Hugo Chavez, then don’t go asking Interpol to do it for you. For the record, Chavez and his posse want Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision, arrested for a ticky-tack, supposed crime of illegally storing vehicles with the intent to sell them for a profit. The government is trying to apprehend him but can’t seem to track down Zuloaga, so it has asked Interpol to arrest him in its stead. The arrest warrants for Zuloaga and his son, also named Guillermo, were issued last week. The senior Zuloaga is rumored to have left the country, hence the government’s appeal for Interpol’s help. The international police agency has not made any public statement about the request just yet, but the Venezuelan government isn’t going to let this one slide. "This is a gentleman who has committed a crime, and he should have to answer to Venezuelan justice," Venezuelan Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said Friday. "We have already started the process. We have generated an Interpol alert for the capture of this fugitive, wherever he is. He and his son are sought by a Venezuelan justice tribunal." The charges against Zuloaga stem from a May 2009 raid on one of his properties in Caracas, when authorities found 24 vehicles allegedly being kept there in violation of existing law. Zuloaga had a good explanation for the vehicles, saying they were stored at his house as part of his business, which includes multiple car dealerships. But good explanations mean nothing when a repressive, hostile and insane dictator is looking for any reason to silence those who dare to criticize him and so Zuloaga was charged with a crime. That came on the heels of his detention in March, when he was accused of criticizing the government during a public forum outside the country. Many international human rights groups have criticized the legal action against Zuloaga and with good reason. This is a clear case of persecution by prosecution for a man who has the courage to stand up against an unfair, totalitarian regime that needs to be toppled………

- Apple is always tweaking and changing up its hardware and software, so announcements about new apps and devices come fairly often. However, few changes come at no charge to users and as such, the makeover for the tech giant’s MobileMe service is noteworthy. The improvements include the ability to use an iPhone to find a lost iPad and vice a versa (nice because of the enormous sales numbers for the iPad). In spite of the additions, the price for Apple's cloud-based service is still $99. In truth, it would have been difficult for Apple to justify a price hike when Google and Microsoft offer many comparable services for free, even if Apple fans are willing to pay for a premium service that offers more for people with multiple Apple devices. As any Mac user knows, if you go the Mac route, you go all-in and don’t straddle the fence with both Mac and Windows-based devices. The improvements to MobileMe were announced Thursday and for the most part, they are minor alterations rather than a complete overhaul. In addition to the iPhone-iPad location app, Apple has given the Me.com Web site a new user interface and navigation features, including a new login page. That "Find My iPhone" app, which previously did not include the iPad, can now be used to find a lost iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. You’ll be able to locate your own devices or use a friend's Apple device to do so. Should you be completely unable to locate your device and in fear that someone will find it and access sensitive information, you can also use MobileMe to remotely wipe out all the data on a lost device. The deletion can be reversed if the owner later recovers the device. Users can login to Me.com via Web browser to locate any one of the three devices. In order to utilize the location feature, users must have iOS 3.1.3 (the name of the operation system for the iPhone) or later on their device. But wait, there’s more! E-mail via MobileMe has also been upgraded with widescreen and compact views for the iPad and iPhone, respectively, making messages easier to view depending on your device, along with single-click archiving and new rules to keep email organized across devices. The upgraded MobileMe will also feature more streamlined performance, support for SSL for better security when using a browser, improved junk mail filtering, support for sending from external e-mail addresses and an online file-sharing service is to synchronize data across Apple hardware and a PC. In short, MobileMe is integrating more Apple devices for Mac junkies who can’t help but buy every gadget that Steve Jobs and Co. releases…………

- Uh oh, don’t eat your SpaghettiOs! Campbell Soup Co. is recalling nearly 15 million pounds of canned SpaghettiOs with meatballs (the good kind, if you ask me) because the pasta may be undercooked. As a brief aside, how would anyone know if SpaghettiOs were undercooked? They’re not exactly fine gourmet cuisine, ya dig? But due to possible under-processing, the U.S. agriculture department and Campell Soup Co. are recalling 14.75-ounce cans with a use-by date between June 2010 and December 2011 of three varieties of the product: "SpaghettiOs with Meatballs," "SpaghettiOs A to Z with Meatballs" and "SpaghettiOs Fun Shapes with Meatballs (Cars)." Great, now my entire dietary plan for the next two months if f**ked. SpaghettiOs Fun Shapes with Meatballs (Cars) are my favorite food and now I can’t eat any of them? Super. If you’re like me and you purchased those products with a plant code of "EST4K," you are advised not to eat them and should return them to the store where they were purchased for an exchange or full refund. In a written statement, the company said it was voluntarily recalling the products "in an abundance of caution," and that there was "no information indicating that any under-processed product has reached consumers." I love how companies that recall potentially hazardous products are always quick to say that they are doing so as a precautionary measure and that there is no reason for concern. Uh huh, sure. If there’s no problem, why are you recalling anything? Just shoot straight, that’s all you need to do. To offending SpaghettiOs were produced in Paris, Texas, between December 2008 and June 2010, and shipped to retail customers nationwide. Campbell Soup discovered the problem during a routine warehouse inspection and investigation, the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said. Here’s hoping this recall reaches each and every SpaghettiOs eater out there before anything untoward happens because of undercooked SpaghettiOs Fun Shapes with Meatballs (Cars)………