- Just make us a promise, Carmelo Anthony: Promise that come next summer, you won't be popping up on ESPN with your own one-hour special to announce that you too are taking your talents to South Beach. Anthony, the star forward for the Denver Nuggets, finds himself in the same position that the Clown Prince LeBron James was in at this time last year, as the prime free-agent-to-be who will be able to command a max deal from the team of his choice once free agency begins in the late spring. And like James and his former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Anthony already has an offer on the table from his current team to stay right where he is. The Nuggets have offered Anthony a $65 million, three-year extension that's been on the table all summer, but Anthony is in no rush to make a decision on it. He said during his annual basketball camp that he has no timetable on when he'll decide whether to sign the extension and feels that he's displayed his loyalty to Denver and the Nuggets over the last seven seasons. "I'm just taking my time, figuring out if I want to take that extension or not," he stated. Asked if the team's search for a new general manager and the identity of the new GM will influence his decision, Anthony dismissed that notion. "I think my decision is my decision," Anthony said. "I don't think it's based on who is in the front office or anything like that. I'm going to make my decision based on my feelings." Should he reject the offer or choose not to exercise the option on his current contract, which would pay him $18.5 million in 2011-12, Anthony will undoubtedly become the prize of the next free agent class. "I could wake up tomorrow and they could snatch it off the table," Anthony said of the extension. "I don't know. I don't know what their mind-set is." Also factoring into that decision is the fact that the league could well be headed for a work stoppage after the coming season should the owners and the players' association be unable to reach a new labor agreement before next summer, which most observers expect them to not accomplish. Anthony's handling of his decision is already showing marked departures from James' self-centered, arrogant and publicity-starved handling of his choice. Anthony is at least sounding like a guy who wants to stay right where he is, even if he's not rushing to sign an extension. "We want to come to an agreement," Anthony said. "We just want to go about it the right way. There's a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel now." If nothing else, that at least sounds like a guy who won't be hijacking an hour on ESPN to sit down with Jim Gray and rip the heart out of a city he once loved and do so on the most public, humiliating stage possible……….
- I knew North Korea and its maniacal, pathological liar of a dictator Kim Jong Il were scary - I just didn't know they were this scary. Just a few weeks ago, South Korea was accusing North Korea of sinking one of its naval ships, the Chenoan, on March 26, killing 46 sailors and raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. An investigation pointed directly toward North Korea and other nations backed up South Korea in accusing the North of launching the attack. Of course, North Korea denied the allegations and threatened to unleash unbridled rage on anyone who tried to exact revenge. Now, just a few weeks later, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has proposed a plan to reunite his country with North Korea and went so far as to suggest a tax to prepare for the costs expected if the two countries come together. "Today inter-Korean relations demand a new paradigm," Lee said in a speech to mark the 65th anniversary of Korea's independence from Japanese rule. "It is imperative that the two sides choose coexistence instead of confrontation, progress instead of stagnation. The two of us need to overcome the current state of division and proceed with the goal of peaceful reunification." So now South Korea wants to build a "peace community" with the same country that just torpedoed one of its ships and killed dozens of its sailors? Sounds like someone got pulled into a dark alley and had a gun shoved in their face, accompanied by threats to shut up and back down, right? Now, if South Korea is able to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea as a part of this reunification effort, then the world will be a better place for it. Perhaps Myung-bak is looking to generate support after his Grand National Party was curb-stomped in recent local elections, which observers characterized as a referendum on his response to the sinking of the Cheonan. Gotta wonder how his constituents will react to his further kowtowing to their neighbors to the north and seeking peace and unification rather than revenge………
- Are you ready for a technological throwdown of potentially epic proportions? In one corner, we have tech giant Oracle, which is looking for a piece of a company it claims has infringed on Oracle patents and copyrights related to Java. In the other corner, it's Google, the Web behemoth that has hit it big with its new Android OS for smartphones. It's that operating system that Oracle has a beef with, claiming that its creation included multiple patent violations on Google's part. "In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement," Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman said in a statement. The complaint lays out numerous allegations against Google, including claims that "Android (including without limitation the Dalvik VM and the Android software development kit) and devices that operate Android infringe one or more claims of each of United States Patents Nos. 6,125,447; 6,192,476; 5,966,702; 7,426,720; RE38,104; 6,910,205; and 6,061,520." As I'm sure you're all aware what those patents numbers refer to, I don't need to hash them all out one by one, but Oracle's suit claims that the violations were intentional and to a certain extent, systematic. "Google has been aware of Sun's patent portfolio, including the patents at issue, since the middle of this decade, when Google hired certain former Sun Java engineers," the suit alleges. The central figure in the suit appears to be Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a man who led the development of the Java programming language while he was at Sun in the 1980s and 90s. Oracle acquired Sun in January for $7.4 billion, which is the reason they are now fighting this battle. Oh, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison seems to be in a fightin' mood this week, as he was one of the most outspoken critics of Mark Hurd's ouster at HP. Just to be safe, you may want to avoid any actions that could cause you to run afoul of Oracle in the near future, because clearly, this is a company that likes to fight…….
- Score one for testosterone at the box office this weekend. As two new films from opposite ends of the cinematic spectrum faced off this weekend, the manly action flick The Expendables won easily, grossing $35 million and pummeling chick-flick competitor Eat Pray Love in the process. In so doing, Expendables lived up to expectations for its star-studded film and got off to a solid start, especially because it's appeal would seem to almost exclusively to men. Second place went to Julia Roberts' estrogen-fueled Eat Pray Love, the story of one woman's journey to escape her moribund life and find herself by traveling the globe, which made $23.7 million for Roberts’ highest opening since 2001′s America’s Sweethearts. Third place went to one of last weekend's holdovers, Will Ferrell's The Other Guys, which lost less than 50 percent of its value for a take of $18 million and a cumulative total of $70.5 million. Inception, another returner, landed the fourth spot with a tally of $11.3 million, pushing it near the $250 million mark. Fifth place was the landing place for the Michael Cera-starrer Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which failed to parlay its strong Comic-Con buzz into box office success and fell far short of expectations by making a mere $10.5 million, which is not what the studio was hoping for from a movie with a $60 million budget. Not to go all Jim Cramer on you, but those numbers would seem to indicate that this film is not going to make a ton of money. The film right behind Pilgrim on the earnings list and kicking off the second half of the top 10 is a very different story, as Despicable continued its strong run by losing just 27 percent of its value, making $6.8 million and raising its overall take to a very solid $222 million. The rest of the top 10 was filled out by: Step Up 3D, which fell substantially in its second weekend, losing 58 percent from its opening frame ($6.6 million for total two-week take standing at $29.5 million), Salt (eighth place with $6.3 million to surpass the $100 million mark), Dinner for Schmucks (ninth place after losing less than 40 percent of its value for an additional $6.3 million and a running total of $58.8 million after three weekends) and Cats and Dogs (tenth with $4 million for a cumulative total of $35 million). On tap for next weekend are two movies that aren't likely to threaten the top of the standings: Piranha 3-D fares against the return of Nanny McPhee. Tune in seven days from now to see how that race shakes out………
- I have a lot of great ideas about how to make the world a better place, so it's great when someone adopts them or recommends their widespread acceptance and/or implementation. As a crusader against the FAT and obese around the globe and everything that causes these conditions, I am no fan of unhealthy fast food. Greasy, oily, cholesterol-filled burgers, fries, burritos and enchiladas are no friends of mine and that means I wholeheartedly support the suggestion made in a new report in the American Journal of Cardiology suggesting that fast food restaurants should offer statins – a popular class of cholesterol-lowering medications – as a sort of chaser for their unhealthy food options. "We propose that the fast food industry is well placed to offer advice and supplements to counteract the cardiovascular harm arising from the foods they purvey," the report said. "These companies already have an infrastructure for providing a variety of condiments... A generic statin could be added to the panoply of items in the self-service tray at little additional cost." Now, them are some fancy medical terms there, but the gist of the idea is that a basic cholesterol-lowering medicine could be easily included among the offerings at any fast food eatery. Personally, I'd imagine that simply not eating at these establishments would be easier than trying to combat the poor health impact of a Big Mac with extra cheese by adding statins, but maybe I'm just being impractical. If you read the study, it makes taking a station sounds extremely simple, much like putting on a bike helmet before biking. The research was based on analyses of other scientific studies, leading to the conclusion that taking the drugs could offset the risk of eating fast food just enough to render the food harmless. "Most of the primary prevention statin regimes we examined, with the exception of pravastatin, had the strength to counteract the increase in risk caused by an unhealthy diet; or eating an additional 36 g[rams] of total fat or 2.8 g[rams] of trans fat per day – approximately equivalent to a Quarter Pounder with cheese and a small milkshake," researchers said in the study. Lining up against this proposal, surprisingly, is the American Heart Association. Dr. Ralph Sacco, president of the AHAH, says that adding statins to the fast food mix could be extremely dangerous. "There are other things regarding obesity that are important that a statin won't neutralize, such as diabetes and high blood pressure," Sacco said. "Even though we agree statins have a lot of good evidence in reducing cardiovascular and stroke risk, there are certain risks with any medications." Those risks are known to include, in relatively infrequent instances, liver damage, muscle cramps and long-term muscle damage. But hey, it's a small price to pay for a slimmer, trimmer America. And the authors of the study contend that statins aren't dangerous at all, especially not compared to eating fast food without them. "Statins have been shown to be safe even at high doses," the report says. "The documented safety record of statins is substantially better than that of fast foods, which carry not only direct cardiovascular risks, but other risks due to obesity." I say go for it, risks be damned, because the sight of chubby, flabby Americans waddling around on the street and other public places just isn't something any of us need to see……..
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