- The fighting spirit was on display across the NBA on Wednesday. There was the resurfacing story of Chicago Bulls forward Carlos Boozer renting out his house to Prince and having the Freaky One purple the place up with monogrammed carpet in the bedroom, a new paint job that included purple stripes on the sidewalk outside and other bizarre touches, with the revelation that Boozer wanted to fight Prince once he found out about the remodel before the Freaky One scratched him a $1 million check to cover the “damages.” In Washington, D.C., 6-foot-4 Wizards point guard John Wall took two elbows from 7’3 Miami Heat Center Zydrunas Illgauskas and responded with a closed fist to Illgauskas’ chest that got him ejected from the game. But the best fight of the night took place in Atlanta, where Hall of Famer and Atlanta Hawks television analyst Dominique Wilkins being attacked by a fan at the Hawks’ game against the Orlando Magic, a fan who was actually a former NBA referee turned clothing designer who claimed that Wilkins owed him money for suits purchased several years ago. Rashan S. Michel was arrested and charged with two counts of simple battery after storming press row where Wilkins, a vice president and broadcaster with the team, had just finished working Atlanta's 85-82 victory Wednesday night, and punching Wilkins. Michel claimed he was approaching Wilkins to confront him about a $13,000 debt for suits purchased several years back. After landing one punch, Michel then morphed into a human speed bag as Wilkins worked him with multiple punches to the face and head, leaving his attacker with a left eye that was swollen shut and in the custody of the Atlanta police department, wearing a pair of the silver bracelets. Wilkins was not injured, unless you count bruising his fists on Michel’s face as an injury. Police said Michel also struck a security guard before hitting Wilkins, who probably would have sent him to the hospital instead of the local precinct had arena security not finally gotten around to doing its job and restraining Michel, who was released from jail early Thursday morning on $1,000 bond. Michel worked as an NBA referee between 1997 and 2001 as Wilkins’ NBA career was winding its way to an uneventful end in between stints playing professionally in Europe. He also owned his own custom clothing company, but if he had as much trouble collecting from the rest of his clients as he supposedly did from Wilkins, it’s no wonder he wasn’t a success in the fashion world. All in all, an entertaining night of rage in the Association…………
- While not as familiar with the geography and demographics of India and its population as I’d like to be, it doesn’t take a trained sociologist to know that Haryana, which has become something of an economic success story in a struggling nation and has produced some of the country’s best female role models in sports in recent years, is not a good place for a single Indian fella to move if he’s looking for a new lady friend. Haryana may be an economic and gender-achievement success, but it also has one of the worst male-to-female ration of any state in the country. At 877 females per 1,000 males, Haryana has the second lowest sex ratio among the states. That ratio is worse than the 861 females per 1,000 males in the last such survey, conducted in 2001, and was nearly enough to hold off Haryana Delhi (with the lowest sex ration of 866 to 1,000) for the lowest in all of India, according to the early results of the 2011 national census released by the registrar general and census commissioner C. Chandramauli said on Thursday. The future isn't any brighter for Haryana, as it has reported the worst sex ratio of 830 girls per 1,000 boys in the 0-6 years age group, Haryana, followed by Punjab with 846. Haryana also has the two districts - Jhajjar and Mahendergarh - with the lowest sex ratio of 774 and 778, respectively. The numbers are not a huge surprise in a state where the people show a marked preference for sons and killing of unborn girls continues unfettered. Still, hope can be found in the increasing sex ratio, making Haryana one of just seven states and union territories recording an improvement in the last decade. The child sex ratio (which sounds really bad if taken out of context) has shown a decline over the 2001 census in the remaining 27 states and union territories. On a more positive note, the census also showed that the effective literacy rate in the state has also gone up to 76.6 percent from 67.9 percent in the 2001 census, with women recording a higher percentage of growth. Still, better-educated ladies in Haryana doesn’t translate to more available ladies and for Indian dudes looking for the love of their life, there are simply better options…………
- In its rush to beat Google and Apple to the punch in debuting its new "music locker" service this week, Amazon may have actually undercut its effort by opening the door to a litany of new copyright challenges. Amazon’s new cloud-based music service known as Cloud Drive is based on the principle of allowing users store the songs they purchase on Amazon's servers and play them from almost anywhere, which is a smart way of including cloud computing into the digital music world. However, doing so may not be entirely legal under copyright law, hence the copyright issues. The dispute over whether a service that offers consumers access to music via the cloud must first acquire licenses from the music labels that control the copyrights on that music is predictably heated given the amount of potential licensing fees to be paid or ignored. Amazon has insisted that is needs no such license and company spokesperson Cat Griffin stated that "the functionality of saving MP3s to Cloud Drive is the same as if a customer were to save their music to an external hard drive or even iTunes." Surprisingly, some power players in the recording industry agree with Amazon’s stance. Others, like Sony, are noncommittal when it comes to a possible lawsuit to prevent Amazon from moving forward with Cloud Drive. Sony spokeswoman Liz Young cryptically stated that the company is "keeping all our legal options open." A bit player in the digital music scene, startup company MP3Tunes, has been fighting a similar legal battle that has yet to be resolved, so the outcome of Amazon’s case is likely to have an impact far beyond the Cloud Drive project. If Amazon proceedings unencumbered, then Apple and Google would essentially have a green light to launch similar projects that each has been working on. The MP3Tunes case centers on a specific record label, EMI, and it could also affect Amazon’s own battle. The EMI v. MP3tunes case is pending in the Southern District of New York and is over EMI’s contention that MP3tunes is directly liable for copyright infringement for allowing users to publicly perform, reproduce, and distribute their copyrighted works. MP3Tunes countered that it actually maintains a separate copy of each song for every user that uploads it. "What is retrieved from the system is the user's own unique copy--that is a copy of the music file that was created as a result of that user's direction to store the original file on the MP3tunes system," the company’s lawyers from Duane Morris wrote in their brief. "To our knowledge, no court has ever ruled that rudimentary software storage functionality constitutes copyright infringement..." The copyright issue is one of first impression for the courts and appears destined for a protracted and costly legal battle. Digital music services are pinning their hopes largely on a Second Circuit's ruling in the 2008 Cablevision case that determined a DVR system that allows cable viewers to record their favorite shows does not violate copyright law. Similar principles apply in the case of digital music, although the two cases are not identical. But if Amazon’s service - storing separate copies of every song purchased and uploaded to the locker - is deemed by the court to be similar to Cablevision’s, Cloud Drive should enjoy the same immunity from liability under copyright law. That could lead to record labels challenging the decision in court and initiate a legal battle that could drag on for years as copyright law in the area of digital content continues to be defined…………
- Still with the Betty White fascination, America? Has the goodwill from her wildly overrated Snickers commercial during Super Bowl XXIV not worn off yet? Not to rain on your entertainment parade, but White isn't that funny and honestly, she never was. The Golden Girls was never a good show and never anything but a ridiculous caricature of how bad a sitcom can truly be when you center it around a bunch of kooky, geriatric women. As for anything White has done since her Snickers spot, including her current sitcom Hot in Cleveland for TV Land, none of it has been great either. Yet there is NBC, the same network that handed her a chance to host Saturday Night Live even though her comedic skills are amusing only because they’re so bad and laughable, giving White her own show as the octogenarian version of Ashton Kutcher. Even Kutcher has long since moved past the Punk’D phase of his life, pranking unsuspecting celebrities with over-the-top stunts like stealing their luxury cars, framing them for theft or other costly missteps. NBC clearly feels there is life left in the hidden-camera comedy show genre and announced Wednesday that it will broadcast Betty White's Off Their Rockers, a new hidden-camera comedy show hosted and executive -produced by White. The show’s initial run will consist of 12 half-hour episodes following a band of seven senior citizens who play pranks on unsuspecting younger people. Of course, most everyone on the planet is younger than White, so she could conceivably roll up on a retirement home and hide patients’ wheelchairs and swap out their medications for kicks. "People have been telling me that I'm 'Off My Rocker' for years -- now I can prove it," White cracked in a news release put out by NBC. With this surefire gem hitting the air soon, Hot in Cleveland having been picked up for a third season and her new book If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won't) to be released by Penguin on May 3, White is busier now than she’s been at any point since Golden Girls left the air and honestly, it makes no sense at all because SHE’S NOT THAT FUNNY. Apparently the power of Super Bowl candy bar commercials is stronger than anyone realized…………
- All U.S. Navy personnel looking for a good time while on land in the Hampton Roads area now have one less option on their plate. The Navy announced Wednesday that is has placed the Atlantis Gentlemen's Club in Virginia Beach off-limits to all Navy personnel in the area due to recent news reports and history of illegal activity at the establishment. That’s right, alleged illegal activities at a strip club, it is shocking indeed. And no, illegal activities does not refer to the questionable food offerings at any strip club that may or may not meet health code standards or the standards for what qualifies as actual food. Believe it or not, Atlantis was the scene of a major police operation when a search warrant regarding drug distribution was executed at the club on March 25. Drugs at a strip club? Wow. By wow, I mean that the police in any town could roll into any strip club in their zip code and find plenty of illegal narcotics simply by searching the lockers of the “aspiring law students” donning G-strings and pasties and shaking their moneymaker on stage for dozens of lecherous losers who can’t find a woman to take her clothes off for them of her own volition as opposed to being paid in $1 increments for doing so. Doesn’t every stripper have a coke habit? Thus, police could make a bust at every strip club in their precinct every day if they chose to do so. During execution of the search warrant, Virginia Beach police also issued summonses to two individuals inside the club - one for possession of marijuana, the other for indecent exposure and yes, a person can indecently expose themselves in a place where others are paid to expose themselves. The bust followed in October incident in which Norfolk police officer Victor Decker was last seen alive at the club before later being shot and killed just a couple hundred yards away from the club by a passing motorist. Because of those incidents, the business at 446 Oceana Boulevard, near Naval Air Station Oceana, has been placed off-limits to naval personnel as of March 28 by Rear Adm. Mark S. Boensel, Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic (CNRMA). Naval officials say the commander has the authorization to temporarily place civilian establishments off-limits based on situations that are considered dangerous to the health and well-being of Navy members. The order applies to all active-duty Navy personnel and Navy Reserve personnel on temporary active-duty, although enforcing that ban could be difficult. The Armed Force Disciplinary Control Board of Southeastern Virginian and Northeastern North Carolina will now review the matter and determine if the business will be formally placed off-limits to all military personnel………….
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