Georgia football is the gift that keeps giving, Google's mystery balls and two asteroids buzz Earth's tower

- Ah, University of Georgia football. It’s the gift that keeps on giving……or selling, as the case may be. But either way, plenty of people are receiving things from UGA football these days and the hits just keep on coming. Whether it’s one of the nine (nine!) Bulldogs arrested so far this year or the knucklehead I’m about to talk about, coach Mark Richt has quite the bunch of characters wearing the red and silver these days. Local police in the Athens area certainly receive plenty of business from the Bulldogs and their victims receive some great memories to treasure for a lifetime, memories like having their moped helmets ripped in broad daylight. Media members receive the perpetual gift of easy headlines and stories to write, courtesy of the latest UGA player to end up in the silver bracelets. Ironically, the latest indiscretion by a Georgia player doesn’t involve a single crime, at least not in the eyes of the law. Georgia wide receiver A.J. Green is the man at the center of this storm because he’s the one who allegedly sold one of his own game-worn jerseys. Yes, dude took university property and fenced it for some extra spending money. The allegation first broke late last week and Green will be held out of the No. 19 Bulldogs' games until the NCAA determines whether he broke its rules by selling that game-worn jersey. Georgia officials are hoping for a ruling on Green's eligibility a this week, although the Bulldogs did just fine without him in their 55-7 rout of Louisiana-Lafayette in their opener. The opposition becomes significantly tougher this weekend when Georgia takes to the road to for its SEC opener at No. 25 South Carolina. The known facts of the case are that Green did not sell his jersey on eBay and received less than $1,000 for it. Of course, neither of those absolves him from wrongdoing, as pawning your jersey for cash is against NCAA rules no matter how you sell it or for how much. Further complicating the matter is that, according to a source close to the investigation, there have been "some twists and turns" involved with the case. Regardless of how this turns out, Green clearly doesn’t get it and likely won't catch on any time soon. He was already accused of attending the agent-sponsored party in Miami over the summer that resulted in alleged improper contact with agents by players at Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina. Green denied those accusations, but even having his name linked to that situation should have been enough to keep him on the straight and narrow path this season. Heck, he should have great insight into the NCAA’s rules that prohibit players from selling memorabilia because those rules were put in place as a result of a previous NCAA case involving Georgia players selling their 2002 SEC championship rings. And I know that players get squeezed when it comes to their schools and the NCAA making a lot of money off of them, yet never seeing a single cent of that money in their own bank account. Having said that, you can't just take matters into your own hands and decide to start auctioning off your gear to cash in. So get those game-worn pants off Craigslist, stop trying to sell your old cleats to that dude in your geology class and back away from the potential eBay listing for your chinstrap from last year’s game with Florida………..

- If you thought you saw something go whizzing by the Earth this morning when we were just minding our business and orbiting around the sun, you were correct. That something was a small asteroid that passed within the moon's distance from the Earth on Wednesday morning. Another small asteroid was expected to do so at some point later in the day, making for a very unusual occurrence that NASA points to as evidence of the need for closer monitoring of near space for Earth-threatening encounters. While neither of the asteroids posed a threat to Earth, said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Program, they are still an indication of possible dangers. Yeomans’ program tracks potentially hazardous asteroids and comets within 28 million miles of Earth. These objects look like tiny specks of light and can be seen with the help of moderately sized amateur telescopes. The first asteroid to buzz Earth’s tower was asteroid 2010 RX30, which is estimated to be 32 to 65 feet in diameter, and passed within 154,000 miles of Earth at 5:51 a.m. ET Wednesday. Hot on its heels (assuming asteroids have feet and/or heels) was 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20 to 46 feet in diameter, passing within 49,088 miles of Earth at 5:12 pm ET. Doing some space math…..that means the two asteroids will pass within 0.6 and 0.2 lunar distances from the Earth, respectively. Just to put things in perspective, some 50 million objects pass through near-Earth space each day, according to Yeomans. These two asteroids stand out from the pack because NASA spotted them so far in advance. "Things like this happen every day that we simply don't know about because we don't have the telescopes large enough to find them or surveys that are looking full-time," he said. "This demonstrates the system's working on some level, but we need larger telescopes and more of them to find objects that are coming this close." Credit for discovering the asteroids goes to the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, which identified both objects Sunday morning during a routine monitoring of the skies. Yeomans labeled the discovery as a warning shot in a field of study of low-probability events with global, high-impact consequences. He added that scientists have known about this threat since they began looking for near-Earth objects in the 1990s. "We have only recently appreciated how many of these objects are in near Earth's space and [it's] best that we keep track of them and find them," he said. "I think this is Mother Nature's way of firing a shot over the bow and warning Earth-based astronomers that we have a lot of work to do." Fair enough. We’ve seen your warning shot, so be prepared for us to return fire, M. Nature………

- Did you find yourself wondering what was up with the random mish mash of bouncing balls on Google’s homepage when you went to search for the latest copy of Paris Hilton’s mug shot or the link to the most recent video clip of New York Jets coach Rex Ryan F-bombing his team on HBO’s Hard Knocks? If so, rest assured in the knowledge that you are not alone. Google has a tendency to mix up its logo to match the theme of a specific day, i.e. a holiday like Easter or Halloween, with the appropriate graphics. Normally the additions are cheesy and don’t make much impact, as the average user just blows right by them and uses the page like normal. But logging onto the site and seeing dozens of colorful, bouncing balls pinging from one point to another before eventually congealing to form “Google” in the usual spot on the page had a lot of people asking, “What’s the point?” Those questions flew early and often at Google and so far, the company hasn’t given a straight answer as to the underlying message. All company officials have said thus far is that it’s “fast, fun and interactive, just the way we think search should be.” Smart money is on the new design being linked to Google’s big media event tomorrow, where the company vows to unveil its “latest technological innovation.” Based on the homepage design, the new innovation is going to be something along the lines of Google Balls, although part of me thinks that the company doesn’t have the, um, balls to pull something like that off……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Okay, so technically no protests took place in this story, but the mere threat of massive protests was enough to convince former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to cancel a launch party for his new book in London Wednesday. Blair’s own spokesman confirmed the cancellation and amazingly enough, it’s his second London cancellation this week. Blair "did not want to put guests through the unpleasant consequences of the actions of demonstrators of what should have been an enjoyable evening for friends and family," the spokesman said. "The party has been postponed indefinitely, (and) will be held sometime in the future. Guests were informed yesterday evening." Uh-huh, sure. Whatever you want to spin it as, anonymous PR flack. Either Blair didn’t want to subject guests to that scene or he didn’t want major egg on his own face when hundreds showed up to protest because they despise both he and his politics so much. But hey, if you can’t show up to protest a book that praises the worst president in American history (W.) and contains nuggets of sound political wisdom like saying that Bono would make an excellent head of state, then what can you protest? So make no mistake about it; the book signing was postponed due to the "inevitable hassle" protestors would cause, but Blair’s concern had very little to do with potential guests. Then again, I wouldn’t put up with any hassle at all to procure a signed copy of Blair’s new autobiography "A Journey," so who am I to talk? But part of me - no, make that all of me - wishes the signing had gone forward because I desperately want to see another scene like the one Saturday in Dublin, Ireland, when police made some arrests near a location where Blair was scheduled to sign his book. Most of the protestors were anti-war activists who showed up to protest Blair's role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I particularly loved the reports of eggs and shoes being thrown at Blair, a la W. in Iraq, and especially laughed at Blair’s attempted spin job on the scene. "I very much enjoyed meeting my readers in Dublin and was looking forward to doing the same in London," Blair said in the statement Monday. "However, I have decided not to go ahead with the signing as I don't want the public to be inconvenienced by the inevitable hassle caused by protesters. I'm really sorry for those -- as ever the majority -- who would have come to have their books signed by me in person. I hope they understand." I doubt any of them are too broken up by it………

- That arrogant, conserva-Nazi Glen Beck and his pompous morality did it on Aug. 28, so could one of the best fake newsmen in the business pull off his own rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the name of the principle he holds to so dearly? Fans of Comedy Central funny man Stephen Colbert are hoping for just that, urging their guy to host to emcee a “Restoring Truthiness” rally, designed as a retort to Glenn Beck’s Aug. 28 “Restoring Honor” rally. So far, the effort has some 32,000 Facebook fans and the number is rising rapidly. They all want the host of the Colbert Report to hold his own rally to spoof and fire back at a man who is a frequent target of Colbert’s. The entire push began with a simple post on social news site Reddit and has grown to include a Facebook page and web site promoting Oct. 10, 2010 as the target date and the Lincoln Memorial as the location. Organizers already have a plan in place to pay for the event and that plan is to fundraise and sell merchandise to cover costs, and donate the remaining money to a charity of Colbert’s choice. He is well-known for his fundraising efforts on behalf of various causes, typically those benefitting the military. So far, Colbert hasn’t responded to the campaign, but it’s a safe bet to say that it will end up as a topic on his show at one point or another. In the meantime, fans plan to continue their deluge of Colbert’s staff with phone calls and emails as part of their efforts in “restoring truthiness.” That term topped Google Trends for a while Tuesday — the result of a concerted effort by supporters dubbed “Operation Strike of Truthiness.” Count me in on this effort because if a self-important blowhard like Beck can bring out tens of thousands of supporters in the nation’s capital, then Colbert should be able to muster at least that many, probably more………