Old guys in baseball, boycotting Katy Perry and presidential frauds

- There are a few tricks a person can use to get out of a speeding ticket or traffic violation, but an über-rich motorist in Silver Springs, Md. may have discovered the best (and most bizarre) method of doing so. The man, who was zooming down the expressway in his black Lamborghini, was headed home from visiting sick children at the hospital when an officer pulled him over for a traffic violation. Upon approaching the car, the officer received quite a surprise: Lenny Robinson dressed as the Dark Knight himself, Batman. Robinson was in full Batman regalia and his car sports Batman logo tags, which were actually the source of the problem. It seems his superhero logo license plate isn't an approved plate in the state and even fake superheroes are not exempt from the law. Robinson had to provide proof that he did have a proper license plate for the car and he was allowed to go on his way with a warning. Before leaving, Robinson can be seen on footage taken from the officer’s dashboard camera shaking the officer’s hand and posing for pictures. This may or may not spur a run on Batman costumes among those with poor driving records in the hopes of superhero-ing their way out of their next ticket, but the incident does raise an obvious question: Since when did Batman downgrade to a Lamborghini? Seriously, the Caped Crusader is supposed to roll in the Batmobile, which is both infinitely cooler and significantly more expensive than some clichéd Italian sports car…………


- Femi-Nazi activist Naomi Wolf deserves credit for blasting pop hack Katy Perry, but Wolf’s reasoning is way off-base. Instead of blasting Perry’s artificial, lyrically inane, talent-deprived “songs,” Wolf objects to the music video “Part of Me,” in which Perry furiously chops off her hair, enlists in the Marines and undergoes rigorous training. The track is supposed to be one of empowerment and it is, as long as a person wants to be empowered to record an entire album with no artistry and no real musicianship. However, Wolf is angry because she believes the video is “propaganda for the Marines.” The author of “The Beauty Myth” and well-known femi-Nazi is calling for a boycott of Perry’s music, which is a brilliant move regardless of its motives. “I really want to find out if she was paid by them for making it . . . it is truly shameful. I would suggest a boycott of this singer whom I really liked — if you are as offended at this glorification of violence as I am,” Wolf wrote on her Facebook page. Would you settle for simply offended by bad music, N.? If so, then millions of fans of good music are with you and wholeheartedly support a boycott of Perry’s music. Perry has actually argued the other side of the debate previously, saying she wanted to “go the strongest route I ever could” with the video, which premiered Wednesday. “Literally, I was like, ‘I’m gonna join the service. I’m gonna join the Marines.’ We used only Marines,” Perry said. “For three days, I was a wanna-be Marine, which was so difficult.” Yes, she complained that being a fake Marine was difficult. Then again, when your usual gig is being a fake musician, faking something else could be difficult…………


- In a time of economic and social unrest in America, the country needs a cause to unite behind….or against. Smoking can (and should be) that cause. Moments like this, when the Food and Drug Administration takes a major step toward implementing pieces of a 2009 law giving the agency the authority to regulate tobacco products, are cause for celebration. Under the new laws, tobacco companies will have to begin reporting the amount of unsafe chemicals in their products and prove their so-called lower-risk alternatives to smoking such as snuff are actually safer. It is still early in the process, as the FDA on Thursday released preliminary guidelines for the industry so it can properly educate the public on all of the toxic garbage in cigarettes, such as ammonia and formaldehyde. Once it can compel tobacco companies to fork over the data, the agency will share information on chemical amounts with the public within a year, explained Lawrence Deyton, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. The new guidelines would establish two categories: one with a higher evidence standard that lets companies claim less harm than cigarettes; and another with a lower standard that permits companies to market products as reducing exposure to unsafe ingredients. “We are forging new territory to ensure that tobacco companies provide accurate information and do not mislead American consumers,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in a statement. “We are committed to stopping such practices that may cause people to start or continue using tobacco products that could lead to preventable disease and death.” No argument there, Marge. Along with introducing the guidelines, the FDA also published a list of 93 chemicals that tobacco makers would have to report the quantity of in their products. “Most people do understand tobacco use is harmful,” Deyton said. “There are also studies that people don’t really understand why to the extent the various chemicals in tobacco are harmful.” Determining the safety of supposed reduced-risk products -- which include electronic cigarettes, tobacco lozenges, snuff and snus – is another focus for the FDA. Unless they can prove their products are safer than tobacco and quantify how much safer, manufacturers won't be able to tout their benefits. Coupled with news that
more than twice as many people called a toll-free number to help them quit smoking a week after the launch of a $54 million ad campaign that shows graphic images of diseased smokers, this has truly been a bad week for smoking and that makes it a good week for America……….


- Can a politician be a total fraud and still hold office? Hang on, stop laughing. Of course a person can be bogus to the core and still be an elected official. If any nation was forced to get rid of all its corrupt politicians and run its government only with honest, upstanding individuals, then no country would have a government. So nations soldier along with liars, criminals and phonies at the helm and do the best they can to keep them in line. Hungary will try to do exactly that now that the rug of phony academic prowess has been pulled out from under President Pal Schmitt. Schmitt, who was stripped of his doctorate on Thursday after he was found to have copied large parts of his thesis, plans to remain in office. He has refused to resign over the plagiarism scandal because he believes there is no link between the case and his role as head of state. Schmitt boldly conducted an interview with a Hungarian television station in which he claimed Budapest’s Semmelweis University had not contacted him over the past 20 years about the allegations. He even magnanimously offered to write a new draft of his thesis on the Olympic Games. Seizing upon the incident to launch another effort to oust Schmitt from office, a sadly small group of protesters from the centre-left LMP party held a demonstration outside the presidential palace calling on him to go. Unless LMP supporters can convince a two-thirds parliamentary majority to remove Schmitt from office or guilt him into resigning, they are out of luck on this one. Given that the governing Fidesz party — of which Schmitt is a member — already holds nearly two thirds of seats in Hungary’s national assembly, neither outcome seems likely and Hungary will continue to be governed by a fraud…………


- The old dudes will not be denied. Two days after it was announced that 45-year-old Omar Vizquel had made the major league roster for the Toronto Blue Jays, the only player older than Vizquel in a spring camp snagged the title of oldest player in baseball. At 49 years old and after a year away from baseball with a career-threatening arm injury, Jamie Moyer is back in the big leagues. Moyer earned a spot in the Colorado Rockies' rotation and will start the team's second game of the season despite not having cracked 85 mph on the radar gun in ages. Asked how Moyer had earned a roster spot over younger pitchers like 22-year-old Tyler Chatwood and 28-year-old Guillermo Moscoso, Rockies managed Jim Tracy praised Moyer’s work ethic. It is still Jamie Moyer. It's the Jamie Moyer that was pitching prior to the arm injury that cost him the entire 2011 season. It's the same guy," Tracy said Friday. "It's the same worker. It's the same professional. It's the same stuff, same velocity, same pitches. When he's right, same type of effectiveness. You're going to venture into this." It will be the 25th major league season for Moyer, putting him one ahead of Vizquel. To earn his chance, the veteran lefty posted a 2.77 ERA this spring. "I was excited. I'm happy. I'm honored," Moyer said. "But in the end, like Jim said, `You earned it.' That was my goal coming here." His first start will be April 7 against the Houston Astros and he can become the oldest pitcher in major league history to earn a victory. Moyer will also become the first player to compete in the majors at age 49 since seemingly ageless infielder Julio Franco, who finished out the season with the Braves in 2007 after turning 49 in August. Not only did Moyer make the roster, but the Rockies will will open the season with a four-man rotation, so he earned one of four spots, making the feat all the more impressive. He missed the 2011 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, which has terminated the careers of much younger pitchers. Moyer rejoins the ranks of the majors as the active leader in victories (267), innings (4,020) and starts (628). "It's an opportunity, and I think it's a great opportunity to try to take it and run with it," Moyer said. "I've looked as my whole career as an opportunity, especially as I've gotten older." How much older? He made his major league debut on June 16, 1986, with the Chicago Cubs………..

Katie Couric is back, how simple the brain is and bad days to be a cop

- Never let it be said that Oklahoma State men's basketball coach Travis Ford and his wife, Heather, are not charitable people. They have taken up a cause that too many people (i.e. everyone but them) ignores or simply forgets about. Every year, a small group of women engage in an effort for anonymous sports success that catches the attention of dozens. This effort is known as the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, or WNIT. The WNIT, the Title IX-fueled equivalent of the equally irrelevant men’s NIT, pits team not good enough to qualify for the women’s NCAA Tournament in the quest to see who is the 65th best team in Division I hoops. This year, Oklahoma State has advanced to the WNIT final, which will be played Saturday against James Madison. Ford, realizing no one would have any interest in buying tickets for a second-tier women’s tournament game, Ford and his wife have purchased 400 student tickets for the Cowgirls' championship tilt. "The Cowgirls are playing great basketball right now," Ford said in a statement released by the university. "They need and deserve all the support they can get while trying to win the WNIT championship. Anything Heather and I can do to help them achieve this goal, we're willing to do. I just hope we can get as many students as possible at the game to cheer on the Cowgirls to victory." Hopefully for Ford’s sake, “anything” doesn’t include actually going to the game because that would be tremendously boring. A win would be meaningful for Oklahoma State despite the game’s irrelevant nature because the team has battled back after coach Kurt Budke, 50, and 36-year-old assistant Miranda Serna died when a single-engine plane transporting them on a recruiting trip crashed in Arkansas just one game into the season. To receive their free ticket, students need only bring their university ID to the table stationed on the north end of Gallagher-Iba Arena starting at noon on Saturday………


- Being a police officer seems like a decidedly non-fun job most days. Rarely, though, would the job be less enjoyable than it was for the officers who responded to a call at the VIP adult entertainment store in Orange, Conn. Thursday afternoon. Why were the police called to an adult entertainment store? Was a drunk, horny customer unruly and causing trouble for employees? Nope. Instead, employees had to call them in around 3 p.m. because one perv, er, customer was stuck in a pair of handcuffs. What he was doing in handcuffs, one can probably imagine (and cringe), but when the time came to take the handcuffs off, they were stuck. For some reason, no one had keys to unlock the cuffs and realizing the reality of their situation, employees dialed up the local police department. Officers showed up, but they too failed to free the man from his chains using keys. They finally used bolt cutters to free the man. Hopefully for the sake of the officers, the perv was fully clothed and, um, decent when they arrived and had to actually come into physical contact with him. And the incident also proves that there is something more embarrassing than frequenting an adult entertainment store: having your community know you frequent adult entertainment stores because the police had to free you from handcuffs at the adult entertainment store once you were done getting your thrills. That is probably not what the responding officers had in mind when they enrolled in the police academy………..


- Katie Couric is back, she and her damn irritating perkiness. After an ill-advised decision to leave NBC in 2006 as co-host of the “Today” show, Couric jumped to CBS as host of the "Evening News." She never caught on with viewers there, as he annoyingly upbeat demeanor never really resonated with a more serious crowd that was actually awake instead of nursing its first cup of coffee in the morning. She is now back where she belongs, in the world of morning shows. ABC announced Thursday that Couric will be guest host next week on "Good Morning America," the biggest rival of “Today.” Couric will be filling in for the vacationing Robin Roberts for a week, teaming with George Stephanopoulos. Maybe she can help “GMA” continue its ratings rise in the same way she contributed to the improved performance of "Today" after arriving in 1995. "Today" has won every week in the ratings since then, but its 850-week winning streak could be in danger. “GMA” has been gaining ground lately and last week, the show was only 137,000 viewers behind "Today" (an average of 4.98 million to 4.84 million). That is as close as the two shows have been since 2008 and “GMA” knows it has a big opportunity at hand. "This has been one of the longest marathons of all time," said Tom Cibrowski, senior executive producer in charge of "Good Morning America." "There will eventually be a time when the No. 1 spot turns over. We strive every day to take over the No. 1 position. We never stop working on that." With 15 years of morning hosting experience, Couric has at least a few fans and could add a curiosity factor for a week. "You kind of wait for these times in morning television, when you get a team together that clicks," Cibrowski said. "We have a team that is on fire. We have the big `C.' We have the chemistry now." NBC doesn’t have that same chemistry at the moment as it was for a decision by its top anchor, Matt Lauer, on whether he wants to continue in the morning. The Peacock should also receive a boost from the Olympics coming up this summer……..


- The threat of nuclear annihilation makes for odd friends. With Iran creeping toward nuclear weaponry, unlikely allies Israel and Azerbaijan have found themselves hurled together. Israel has secured access to airbases on Iran's northern border through a defense alliance with Azerbaijan, tacking another entry on the list of Israel’s recent (alleged) hostilities against Iran. A senior U.S. intelligence official was recently quoted as saying that the Israelis have in essence established the whole of Azerbaijan as an airfield in the region. Predictably, Israeli officials have professed total ignorance of the alleged strategic acquisition and openly questioned the report’s reliability. Sources have suggested that Iran’s hostile reaction to its neighbor’s growing relationship with its mortal enemy may actually be strengthening the bond between Israel and Azerbaijan. ''The more pressure applied by Iran, the more they unveil plots to carry out terror attacks on Azerbaijani embassies, the more they [Azeris] are co-operating with us,'' an unidentified Israeli official said. ''Iran's fear that its considerable Azeri minority may have aspirations for independence is the current bed of its relations with Azerbaijan. As a result, Azerbaijan is very interested in firming up its relationship with Israel.'' The relationship came to light last month when Israel confirmed the sale of drones and anti-aircraft missile defense systems to the former Soviet state for a robust $1.6 billion. A full-fledged alliance between the two countries is unlikely and Azerbaijan’s focus is more likely on strengthening its position against Armenia, which currently occupies 20 percent of its territory. Its economy is dependent on the safe export of oil and that means regional stability, which is difficult in a region with Russia, Iran and Turkey. Ironically, nearly 35 percent of Iran’s population are ethnic Azeris, including Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader. However, attempting to retain friendly relationships with both Israel and Iran could be Azerbaijan’s undoing……….


- Is the human brain as complex as is commonly assumed? After all, “Beavis and Butthead” is back on the air, “Jersey Shore” is still in production and people seem to enjoy both, so can the human brain really be that sophisticated? Scientifically, the brain has been described as "the most complex object in the known universe,” comprised of tens of billions of connecting nerve fibers in a tangled mix. However, a team led by Van Wedeen of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has determined that despite its overall complexity, the underlying structure of the brain itself may be quite simple. Weeden argues that if you unfurl the brain’s folds, brain consists of a three-dimensional grid of fibers. Using magnetic resonance imaging, he and his team discovered the pattern. With their find, they hope to spur additional research that could explain mysteries of brain development and evolution and find the root causes for neurological and psychiatric disorders by linking them to abnormalities in brain structure. Previously, scientists mapping the brain have used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, which tracks the diffusion of water through biological tissues, to follow fibers through the brain, seeing how one region connects to another. Weeden’s team chose to use a related method called diffusion spectrum MRI, which tracks the movement of water molecules and is useful for highlighting where fibers cross. The process revealed sheets of parallel fibers running at 90 degrees to each another, much like a woven fabric. Primates have shown many of the same patterns and the growing intricacy of the folds and curves of the brain with the same underlying grid structure would help explain how brains wire themselves together. Some have likened the pattern to how the grid of New York City's streets functions. Weeden theorized that the discovery of the grid could explain how complex brains evolved. Under the previous model, with brains organized like a tangle of spaghetti, it would be difficult to see how mutations could lead to gradual changes. "Try going into your basement and randomly rewiring your house," Wedeen says. "In a grid structure, it's much easier to imagine changes in the developmental code producing adaptive changes in behavior." The only problem with Weeden’s study is that diffusion MRI can't detect nerve fibers directly. Because it is not a microscope, researchers are merely looking at reconstructed images based on the movement of water molecules in a magnetic field. Still, the findings could at least shift the paradigm of the discussion……….

Omar Vizquel lives on, declaring a new state and rockers leaving L.A.

- Omar Vizquel is the Rolling Stones of Major League Baseball shortstops. He’s been around longer than he should have lasted, isn't quite as effective as he once was, yet keeps doing enough to hang around a little longer. Vizquel, who turns 45 on April 24, will play his 24th season in the majors after playing well enough in spring training to make the major league roster for the Toronto Blue Jays. He found out the good news a month before his 45th birthday, making him the oldest active position player in the big leagues. The 11-time Gold Glove winner signed a minor league contract on Jan. 23 after spending the previous two years with the Chicago White Sox as a utilityman. "We knew what his character was and what kind of guy he was going to be in the clubhouse," Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopolous said. "So that obviously came out the way it was expected. Omar just had a very good camp and he deserved to be on the team." In 15 exhibition games, Vizquel batted .433 and on the day he officially made the roster, he had a bunt single and scored a run in a 9-3 victory over Baltimore. Following the game, the Blue Jays optioned Mike McCoy, Vizquel's primary competition, to Triple-A Las Vegas. "McCoy had to be that much better than Omar and (Luis) Valbuena just because he had options and they had the ability to keep him," Anthopolous said. "Mike knew he didn't have a great camp, he's a lot better than he played. He's going to be back, like he was last year a lot, and I expect him to be back again. It's just one of those things that Omar had the best camp." Vizquel will be used primarily as a backup and utilityman for the Blue Jays and should offer roughly the same sort of production (.251 with eight RBIs) he churned out in 58 games for the White Sox last year…………


- Props to General Motors for attempting to continue its financial resurgence by conning consumers out of $50 for a smartphone application that could replace their dashboard navigation system. GM announced the app, called GoGo Link, Wednesday and showed off its features for the masses. The app will project smartphone navigation systems onto a dashboard touch screen and users can control the system with the touch screen and listen to voice directions through the car's speaker system. Oh, and there will be maps too. The app will work with iPhone or Android systems and it will be available later this year on Chevrolet's 2013 subcompacts, the Spark and Sonic. The concept of smartphones with global positioning systems and navigation apps that give turn-by-turn voice directions is not new, but such apps are difficult to use in a car because the maps are small and it's sometimes hard to hear the voice directions. It may actually have cost-saving value for those who don’t yet have an in-dash car system, which can cost more than $1,000. However, to gain these benefits, consumers will have to own a car with have Chevrolet's MyLink touch screen system, which is coming out in new models. GM has not yet announced how much MyLink would cost the system comes standard on some more costly models but is only an option on lower-level models. The decision to sell the app came after research on potential Spark and Sonic buyers, said Sara LeBlanc, GM's global infotainment manager. GM figures that 90 percent of these potential buyers own smartphones but many of them informed surveyors that they don't have the money to pay for a car system. LeBlanc refused to say if the app will be available in more GM vehicles. "This is new territory for us here at Chevy," she said. "Navigation is going to continue to evolve." In other words, if we can make money off of it, then absolutely………..


- Rarely are the day-to-day actions of Congress interesting. Boring speeches, self-important blow-hardeness and general incompetency simply are not compelling. That was not the case Wednesday as Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, was removed from the House floor Wednesday after giving a speech about Trayvon Martin while wearing a hoodie. Rush, a former Black Panther who was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, told his fellow House members that "racial profiling has to stop." He then channeled his inner gangsta, taking off his suit jacket, pulling a gray hoodie on over his head and putting on sunglasses. "Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum," he said. He spoke during the morning session, in which members are allowed to address any issue. Rush’s issue of choice was saluting young people across the country who are wearing hoodies to make a statement about Martin, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt when he was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla. Rep. Greg Harper, R-Mississippi, who was presiding over the House floor, was having none of Rush’s social consciousness. He immediately began to gavel Rush down, saying he was out of order. To Rush’s credit, he gave Harper a psychological middle finger and continued to speak, citing the Bible as Harper continued to bang the gavel. "The gentleman will suspend. The member is no longer recognized," he said. "The chair must remind members that clause 5 of rule 17 prohibits the wearing of hats in the chamber when the House is in session." Harper apparently does not realize the distinction between a hat and a hoodie and so a floor clerk approached Rush as he finished his remarks and led him away from the podium. Rush understood the difference and later remarked, "this is not a hat, this is a hoodie.” Rush remained defiant afterward, pointing out that he was wearing a tie and was thus was appropriately dressed for the House floor. His message, he explained, was for young people "to stand their ground, stand up and don't stand down." He went on to liken the public debate over Martin's death to the movement in which he participated during the 1960's. "This is just another part of the struggle. I've never left those days. Those days are deep down in my soul. I don't mind being out of order if it means standing up for truth and justice." In a noble gesture, Rush conceded that Harper and the clerk who moved him off the floor were doing their jobs and did allow him to finish his speech. It was the first of two possible times this week Rush would don a hoodie this week, as he and Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, are gathering of House members wearing hoodies on the East Front of the Capitol later this week…………


- Los Angeles-based indie rockers The Submarines released an album in 2006 titled “Declare a New State.” A Libyan tribe apparently took that album to heart. The Tabu tribe in southern Libya has threatened to declare its own state after days of bloody battles. Fighting between Tabu and the Arab Abu Seif tribe led to the proclamation from Tabu leaders, who along with other African tribes are the original inhabitants of south Libya. Their skirmishes are the latest example of the chaos that has gripped Libya after the fall of longtime despot Muammar Qaddafi last year. The fighting has left scores dead in the southern city of Sabha and Tabu leaders believe unless they break away and form their own state, the violence and killing will continue. Eissa Abdul-Maged, a Tabu leader, spoke Wednesday about the "genocide" his tribe is subjected to without any help from the Libyan government in Tripoli. Paris-based Tabu leader Jomode Elie Getty piled on from afar, accusing the National Tribal Council of siding with Arabs in attacks on Tabu. Getty called for U.N intervention, which seems unlikely given how long it has taken the U.N. to make any real efforts in other conflicts across Africa and the Middle East. Regardless of whether or not international forces intervene, the idea of secession is always an inspiring one because a group of people breaking away to declare their own state is a move of boldness, assertiveness and eff-you-edness………….


- Speaking of Los Angeles-based rockers…..the All-American Rejects are no longer Los Angeles-based rockers. With the release of their new album, "Kids in the Street," the Rejects have broken free of the plastic world that is SoCal and it was apparently frontman Tyson Ritter's "lost weekend" that led him "far out in every aspect to make this record." Ritter admitted that escaping L.A. (eat your heart out, Snake Plischkin) led him to the darker, edgier sound of “Kids” and helped the creative process immensely. “Self-discovery is such an important thing," Ritter said. "I feel like in music you're a virtual Magellan as you discover new, vast territories, sonically and lyrically. If you're not discovering something new, you're not doing it right. I knew we needed to find a different place, and I guess in this accidental sort of...I don't know man, in the journey I found a different way and a new voice for our music and even a new voice for me to sing with. He actually moved to Los Angeles after the group finished touring in support of 2008's gold-certified "When the World Comes Down" and fell into a cycle of women and excess... getting into trouble... pouring too much Jameson's into the ol' noggin, a lot of people I could've done without.” In other words, he lived like a rock star without actually having the cred and chops of a real rock star. For the writing of the new album, guitarist and co-writer Nick Wheeler brought him up to the Sequoia mountains in northern California. The resulting sound is very dark and autobiographical, but it also has a totally poppy and non-rock edge with guest spots from pop hacks like Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson and OneRepublic. Ritter admits keyboards (never a good sign for a rock band) played a much bigger role on the album but insisted the Rejects are "still a rock band. There's still guitars all over this thing. Whatever you say, bro. The Rejects say the recorded nearly 25 songs for "Kids in the Street,” but they made a typically bullsh*t band move by including only 11 on the album so they can jam fans later for a re-release with previously unreleased bonus tracks. To promote the album, they will kick off a spring tour on March 31…………

Oppression in India, questioning Peyton and eat chocolate to get thin

- Before dismissing the criticism of Jennifer Lawrence's weight in "The Hunger Games" as another example of the unrealistic expectations of female beauty in Hollywood, take a second look. On the surface, critics writing that a few years ago “Lawrence might have looked hungry enough to play Katniss, but now, at 21, her seductive, womanly figure makes a bad fit for a dystopian fantasy about a people starved into submission” might seem harsh. Another penning an observation about her "lingering baby fat" could also seem unduly harsh. However, the reason Lawrence’s size and weight are an issue is not because she is being called FAT or unattractive, but rather because the movie's plot involves a starved nation in which people are hunting for their very survival. Oddly enough, Lawrence herself admits she knew that playing Katniss meant having a fierce, hunter-esque look and yet she purposely did not diet for the film in order to make Katniss a more fearsome competitor. "Katniss is meant to be a hunter; she’s meant to be scary," she said." "Kate Moss running at you with a bow and arrow isn’t scary." No, but Kate Moss on coke wielding a salad fork toward the one piece of lettuce she can eat for the day might be. Predictably, defenders of the fragile psyche of women who cannot possibly endure criticism that they don’t look the way others expect them to have risen to Lawrence’s side and wondered why only actresses are subjected to this type of criticism and not their male counterparts. As that theory goes, Liam Hemsworth may have been a bit too muscular for the famine-tastic world of “The Hunger Games.” Lawrence’s co-star, Stanley Tucci, also came to her defense. "Big-boned? (Those critics) should go make their own movie … that's ridiculous," he opined. Glad that’s all been settled…………


- Oppression of Tibetan exiles: It’s not just a Chinese thing. India enjoys the hobby too and after a Tibetan exile set himself on fire in Delhi earlier this week and later died, Indian police and paramilitaries have launched a sweeping security crackdown to prevent further protests or self-immolations during the visit of the Chinese premier, Hu Jintao. Yes, the simple truth that one person – in this case Tibetan exile Jamphel Yeshi – can ruin it for everyone holds true. Yeshi suffered burns over 90 percent of his body after dousing himself with gasoline during a protest on Monday and alarmist local officials worry that more Tibetans will follow suit to protest at Chinese policies in their homeland. Yeshi’s death brings the total number of Tibetans who have died via self-immolation to about 30 and another dozen have been seriously injured in the past 13 months in similar protests, mainly inside China. Hu is visiting Delhi for a two-day summit of emerging nations, along with leaders from Brazil, Russia and South Africa. In explaining the oppressive crackdown prior to his arrival, senior police official Dharmendra Kumar cited "international security concerns" to justify a ban on protests and press conferences by Tibetan activists in Delhi. "The law and order shouldn't deteriorate in the capital during the Brics summit," Kumar said. Right, because protests and riots are going to ruin your perfect society. To combat any possible demonstrations, hundreds of armed security personnel patrolled areas of the Indian capital where Tibetans live. They erected barricades and barred people from leaving their homes. However, a police spokesman was quick to deny hat thousands of Tibetans were under effective house arrest. "There is no confinement. We are just keeping watch to make sure they are not coming into [the area] where the summit is happening," Rajan Bhagat said. Right, make sure they don’t enter that area by placing them under de facto house arrest. The irony is thick because India offered a haven to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, when he fled after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. More than 100,000 exiles currently live in India. China still blames the Dalai Lama, who is based in the Indian town of Dharamasala, of creating unrest among the Tibetan population in China. India seems to subscribe to the same theory, at least when it’s convenient…………


- A week or so ago, the Denver Broncos felt great about their quarterback position. They signed free agent and future hall of famer Peyton Manning, found a trade partner to take the Tim Tebow headache off their hands and had every free agent receiver and tight end dialing them up to ask for a job because playing with Manning sounded great. It’s worth wondering if the Broncos still feel that way given the growing speculation that several teams around the league have had serious doubts about Manning’s arm strength and overall physical strength and have expressed those doubts dating back to well before the four-time MVP underwent four procedures on his neck. Sure, Manning turned in a 33-touchdown, 17-interception, 4,700-yard season in Indianapolis the last time he set foot on a field, but reports surfacing this week indicate that teams around the AFC have noted a significant decline in his flexibility and velocity in recent years, perhaps due initially to age but likely compounded by his neck injuries. “The falloff was significant on film,” one scout from an AFC rival said of Manning’s performance circa 2010. “He showed stiffness and lost athletic traits.” The same scout pointed out Manning’s diminished velocity and said that while his throwing motion remained solid, the speed on his throws was down significantly. “His rotation was fine, his accuracy was fine. But as far as the ball getting from Point A to Point B, and how much time he was giving defensive backs to drive on the football, there was enough there for concern.” Other scouts and team executives have expressed similar concerns and although the Broncos obviously felt good about what they saw when they worked him out and what their doctors told them after examining Manning, there remain serious questions about how a 36-year-old who was already fighting a losing battle against age is going to be better or even as good as he once was following multiple procedures on his neck and a season away from the game. Enjoy the ride, Broncos fans…………


- Is having two weirdos of questionable sanity living in a home with 125 square feet of living space sound from a health-and-well-being standpoint? This question seems relevant in the case of Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller, two self-professed minimalists who pent the last 10 months building the tiny home of their dreams. The result of their grand designs on minimizing their housing footprint is, well, small. “It's 19 feet long wall to wall,” Smith said. “The interior square-footage is about 125 square feet.” The interior of their Boulder, Colo. Home consists of a sitting area, kitchen and bathroom. A vaulted ceiling allows for a sleeping loft that can accommodate a queen-size mattress. “The interior looks a lot bigger than the exterior,” Mueller said. No, no it does not. The obvious query for anyone looking at the humble dwelling from outside its cramped confines is why, as in why would someone choose to live that way? “When we set out it was to show that a normal person, who never built anything before, can take on a project like this and finish it," Smith said. Their design incorporates several sustainable elements, including: reclaimed windows, beetle-kill lumber, solar power and a composting toilet. "It’s just a five-gallon bucket that you put peat moss and sawdust in,” Smith said. “You'd be surprised how well it works and how much it doesn't smell.” When a person finds themselves defending the relative absence of odor from their composting toilet, reassessing the direction of their life seems like a wise move. Prior to building their mini-home, Smith and Mueller lived in a townhouse with approximately 90 percent more room. They originally designed it as a second home to be placed on land they purchased. During the building process, they visited other tiny homes and their perspective changed. Theirs and other tales of tiny domiciles have been documented for a film called “Tiny: A Story About Living Small", which is scheduled for release this spring………….


- The list of foods a person can eat to supposedly become or remain thin has two new entries: ground green coffee beans and chocolate. The first of the two entries comes from a study led by Dr. Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton. Vinson and his team studied people 22 to 46 years old for 22 weeks and found that 16 overweight men and women lost an average of 17 pound when they took the green (unroasted) coffee beans in supplement form. Participants did not change their diet and were physically active. During the study, they also received a placebo for a time and lost more while on the supplements than while on placebo. The higher their dose of coffee beans, the greater their weight loss. Why? Vinson isn't sure. "We don't think it's the caffeine in it," he admitted. The study’s viability is also called into question by the fact that it was funded by Applied Food Sciences, which makes the green coffee antioxidant supplement. Vinson shared his findings Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, right around the time a study led by Dr. Beatrice Golomb of the University of California at San Diego showed that people who eat chocolate regularly tend to be thinner. Golomb’s study examined 1,000 participants and measured calorie intake and body mass index. Participants who ate chocolate a few times a week were, on average, slimmer than those who ate it occasionally. Researchers believe this could be due to ingredients that promote weight loss in spite of the loads of calories found in most chocolate products. For this study, regular chocolate consumption was related to lower BMI despite consumers’ elevated calorie intake. Even when other factors, like time spent exercising, did not alter those results. A key distinction to be made in terms of the benefits derived from eating chocolate in the study is that the frequency of consumption was more important than the amount eaten. For chubby folks looking for an excuse to plow through a whole box of Russell Stover’s or king-size Snickers bar and feel good about doing so, Golomb’s team said there is only a 1 percent chance that their findings could be explained by chance alone. For the other side of the debate, the study is good in that it proves only that a link exists and not exact causality. "Our findings appear to add to a body of information suggesting that the composition of calories, not just the number of them, matters for determining their ultimate impact on weight," Golomb said. Whatever you say, doc. Now stop excusing FAT people on account of antioxidant compounds supposedly improving lean muscle mass and reducing weight. For more on the research, dig in to the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine………..

Snake guys, avoiding big pimpin' charges and robotic jellyfish

- There is good news for former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and there is bad news. On the negative side, was charged in France on Monday with "aggravated pimping" for his alleged participation in a prostitution ring, prosecutors said. Additionally, he is forbidden from having contact with other people involved in the investigation, nor is he permitted to talk to the media about the case. However, those seeking a silver lining need not look far. While he was charged with aggravated pimping, Strauss-Kahn did skate on the fare more serious charge big pimpin’ and that is always a reason to smile. Being released under a 100,000-euro bail may also cloud his mood, but considering his spate of legal troubles in the past year or so, this is just another blip on the radar. Prior to his release, he was questioned by a judge about his alleged involvement in the ring. The meeting was moved up one day by the judge, although no reason was given. Strauss-Kahn was held for more than 24 hours by police in Lille last month and questioned in-depth about his alleged involvement in the prostitution ring. Clearly, the statement his attorneys released in November calling the allegations against their client "unhealthy, sensationalist and not without a political agenda" did not convince much of anyone. The case even has a nickname, having been dubbed the "Carlton Affair" by the French press. The case centers in the city of Lille, where prosecutors first delved into allegations that luxury hotels were being used as the operations base for a high-profile prostitution network. Strauss-Kahn’s own Strauss-Kahn's attorney, Henri Leclerc, admitted in an interview that his client attended sex parties, but claimed he did not know that the women in attendance were prostitutes. That they were dressed in slutty, low-cut outfits with fishnet stockings (maybe) and were willing to skank it up at a moment’s notice apparently did not tip him off. A cynic might argue that a man who stepped down from the top job at the IMF after a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault and attempted rape and was once accused of attempted rape by a young French writer should know hookers when he sees them. Of course, prostitution is not illegal in France, but profiting from the prostitution of another person is against the law. Prosecutors are investing whether corporate funds were used in the alleged prostitution ring……….


- What’s in a name for a band? Album sales, market recognition and t-shirt sales, without a doubt. For San Francisco indie band the Morning Benders, all of those components and the desire for increased name recognition. For their entire existence, they had been known as the Morning Benders. As of this past weekend, they are officially known as Pop Etc, a change made because the band learned that the word "bender" doubles as a derisive slang term for "homosexual" in the UK and parts of Europe during its 2010 tour. "We found out about it when we went to the UK for the first time," frontman Chris Chu explained. "The meaning that I knew was just going out all night and partying -- we did it kind of tongue-in-cheek, we thought it was funny at the time." While overseas, the name became a distraction and the band said it kept them from being taken seriously on radio and television outlets. It also created confusion over the group's message among fans. "We simply cannot go on using a name that is demeaning to the gay community. The reason we are making music is to reach and unite as many different kinds of people as possible, and the idea that our name may be hateful towards anyone makes us sick," Chu said in a letter posted on the band's website. Why the change to Pop Etc, a name that implies the one genre that bands with any musical credibility want nothing to do with? "We wanted a name that was short and simple. Secondly, we wanted a name that was descriptive of the sound," Chu said. "It's our band name, but it's also the kind of music we play, pop, etcetera." With new names came a new website and a free mixtape for fans containing material which may make its way onto the group's third album, the follow-up to 2010's "Big Echo." Chu said the album is nearly finished, to be released under a (bad) new moniker………


- Living jellyfish are such an energy drain on the world. They need food to survive and fuel their activity, but thankfully scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas and Virginia Tech have addressed this issue by building a jellyfish-inspired robot that can refuel itself. Technically, the robotic jellyfish are designed for perpetual ocean surveillance, but the jellyfish energy drain has to be the bigger issue. The Robojelly, as the machine is called, is similar to Slugbot, a robot designed to be able to hunt garden slugs and devour them for fuel. “We've created an underwater robot that doesn't need batteries or electricity," Yonas Tadesse, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UT Dallas. "The only waste released as it travels is more water." To function, the Roborelly extracts hydrogen and oxygen gases from the sea. If successful, the robot could address the issue of operational limitations imposed by the need for frequent refueling, which has made the development of autonomous exploration machines difficult. An apparent breakthrough came last year when scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and Northrop Grumman concluded that nuclear power would extend the capabilities of aerial drones but couldn't be implemented due to political considerations, but having nuclear-powered devices roaming unmanned was unpalatable. However, a self-sustaining surveillance bot that doesn't involve hazardous materials and doesn't pollute would be a much easier sell – and cheaper to produce. Robojelly looks like a gimmicky umbrella hat adorned by two hemispherical canopies, stacked one on top of another. Its bell-like structures are made of silicone and are connected to artificial muscles that contract when heated. The contractions mimic the movements of a real jellyfish and propel the device. With nickel-titanium alloy “muscles” encased in carbon nanotubes and a chemical reaction arising from contact between the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, Robojelly generates heat, causing those muscles to contract and move the silicone canopies while expelling water. The next step for the project is redesigning the device's legs so it can move in different directions. Robojelly is funded by the Office of Naval Research…………


- U.S.A.! U.S.A.! A potential national sporting nightmare has been averted thanks to the U.S. men’s soccer team, which came through in the clutch and allowed a stoppage time goal to El Salvador to officially fall out of contention for a spot in this summer’s Olympic Games in London. Some credit also goes to El Salvador’s Jaime Alas, who scored the goal to oust the Americans from Olympic qualifying Monday night with a 3-3 tie. It appeared the U.S. was on its way to Saturday's semifinals in Kansas City, Kan., thanks to Joe Corona's goal in the 68th minute that staked them to a 3-2 lead. But Alas ripped a tie from the jaws of defeat with a goal off the hands off keeper Sean Johnson to stun the Americans. With their elimination, the Americans will miss the Olympics for the second time since 1976. Following the final whistle, many American players dropped to the field in exhaustion and disbelief. Meanwhile, millions of American sports fans – whenever they heard the news from a media outlet because Lord knows they weren’t watching or following online – raised their arms in jubilation upon learning that the sport they could not care less about and which is a national embarrassment for the country will not be a part of America’s Olympic experience this summer. Coming off a shocking 2-0 loss to Canada, the U.S. needed a win over El Salvador to advance. A meager crowd of 7,889 watch the game, which put El Salvador a win away from its first Olympic berth since 1968. American sports optimists can point to the fact that their soccer team has failed to qualify for two of the last three Olympics, also missing in 2004. The man presiding over the proud moment for the entire non-Capri Sun-chugging, orange slice-eating was U.S. coach Caleb Porter, who needs to be praised for his part in guiding a nation away from a place it most definitely did not want to go. Well done, coach Porter and every member of a team that will go down as a huge source of pride in American sports history……….


- Everyone knows at least one creepy snake/reptile guy in their life. Usually, it happens during college and the snakes are in a poorly lit room with black light posters in a crappy off-campus house that smells like foot fungus, stale Mexican food and cheap beer. For Coon Rapids, Minn. Resident Scott Nellis, that time is right now and although he is well past his college years, this freak still owns more than 400 snakes, geckos and lizards. His bizarro take on the neighborhood crazy cat lady is causing problems in Coon Rapids, where city officials want Nellis to downsize his sizeable critter collection. While his home looks normal from the outside, on the inside it looks like a low-rent zoo. “You mention snake and 95 percent of people go ewww, snakes. I can understand that,” said Nellis admitted. He picked up the animal-collecting hobby 15 years ago and it has morphed into a full-fledged business breeding snakes and lizards. Nellis owns 60 lizards and 363 snakes and must keep ample supplies of insects and rodents on hand to feed them all. Oddly enough, the city is not down with his attempt to recreate Jim Fowler’s Animal Kingdom in his home. “It’s very frustrating,” he said. On the opposite side of the issue is Coon Rapids City Attorney Stoney Hiljus, who says the snakes are the issue. “It could pose a risk for public safety if there is an emergency,” Hiljus said. The issue came to light in October when one of Nellis’ neighbors complained to the city. City inspectors search Nellis’ home and questioned its livability. They asked him to reduce the number of animals in the home and he agreed, but has failed to comply in the past few months. He argues that having a lot of snakes is sometimes part of his business. Unfortunately, during the October search inspectors also found snakes that are illegal in Coon Rapids. In his quest to keep his slithery pals around, Nellis has argued that some of the boa constrictors and pythons are pets. “I have snakes that are favorites, that I handle two three times a week,” he said. “It would be devastating [to lose them].” According to Nellis, his day job is boring and coming home to his reptiles makes his day liveable. Find another habit that’s not so creepy and off-putting, kook…………

Companies' Facebook hijacking, L.A.'s NBA drama and reviving Communism

- That Los Angeles has been the center of an overwhelming chunk of the drama in the NBA this season is fitting. The SoCal lifestyle, Hollywood being close by and a litany of other factors were already in place. When the upstart Clippers added stud point guard Chris Paul (after commissioner David Stern jammed the Lakers by rejecting their rade for Paul from New Orleans) to the mix and instantly sparked title hopes and talk that they were about to blow right by the Lakers, the season took on a different slant. Two teams that share the same building and feuded over what could be the missing piece for a championship run set a testy tone for the year. For the first half of the season, the Clippers seemed like they might actually live up to the hype. Lately they have come back to earth, losing 8 of 13 as rumors of a locker room mutiny against coach Vinny Del Negro surfaced. Last Thursday, the drama went up another notch when New Orleans center Jason Smith delivered an all-time dirty body block to Clippers forward Blake Griffin that could have ended Griffin’s season and nearly sparked a brawl. Perhaps seeing the Clippers grab too many headlines, the Lakers and their improved play of late decided to throw a curveball and succeeded in doing so Sunday in a 102-96 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. Not only did the Lakers lose at home to a struggling Memphis team, but they did so with Kobe Bryant being benched in the fourth quarter. Coach Mike Brown sat Bryant down the stretch against the Grizzlies and the future hall of famer was none too happy about it. "Of course I was," Bryant fumed when asked if he was angry. "It's his decision to make. He makes the decision. He's the coach. If you guys are looking for a story, I'm not going to give you one. I can't sit here and criticize his decisions. In leading this ballclub, that's something I can't afford to do.” The benching came when the Lakers called timeout midway through the fourth quarter after falling down by double digits. Bryant struck a chair on the bench and was subbed out of the game in favor of Metta World Peace. He remained out of the game until 1:51 remaining and reentered with his team trailing by nine. Brown didn’t offer much of an explanation for benching his star. "I just felt like I needed to make a sub at the time, so I did," Brown said. "It's not one particular thing.” He said he didn’t plan to discuss the situation with Bryant and didn’t feel it would be an issue moving forward………


- Keeping Communism alive is a key pursuit in China. Nothing illustrates this point more clearly than Chongqing Satellite Television, which is available across mainland China. The station was the standard bearer for Communist Party ideals, airing shows with insanely absurd titles such as "Everyday Red Songs," "Liberation" and "Moving Ahead for New China." Other classics like "Sounds of Gunshots on the Plains" filled the days on CST, which was vital because commercials were banned and all prime-time serials were canceled. Unfortunately, the station is reported to have lost $48 million during the country’s "Red" drive back toward its Communist ideals and because of its financial woes, the martial music and Communist propaganda shows have been scrapped and sitcoms and variety shows have returned with commercials to boot. Questions remain about the programming change, but most observers believe it is not because of poor ratings, but rather more likely a casualty of the murky world of Chinese politics. Local Communist Party Chief Bo Xilai was the mastermind behind the "Red" TV shows and he has been steadfastly pushing for a revival of Communist ideals from his base in the southwestern city of Chongqing, know as China's Chicago. Along with an insurgence of Communist Party programming, he also supported the party by sending officials to work on farms and pushing workers to sing revolutionary tunes, which went out of style years ago. Bo seemed intent not only on pumping life into Communism, but in elevating his own national profile as well. Some believe he is angling for a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. His quest took a major hit when his former friend, the local police chief in Chongqing, reportedly sought to defect by entering the local U.S. Consulate a few days after Bo fired him. Unfortunately for the police chief, his asylum attempt was rejected, but footage of him exiting the building surrounded by police cars became a national story. Bo was ousted by China's leadership and his run of bad luck continued when a British businessman described as a friend of his died from apparent alcohol poisoning. The British are pushing for an investigation and all the while, no one knows the full story of Bo’s demise. As the son of one of China's most-revered Communist revolutionary figures and a one-time rising star in the party, his downfall has been stunning. Maybe hitching the ol’ wagon of fortune to Communism isn't the wisest play…………


- There are so, so many reasons to despise Madonna. Her awful, gimmicky music is one. The fact that she seeks to skank things up as much as possible to distract folks from her lack of musical talent is another. The disastrous halftime show she turned in at Super Bowl XLVI could be a factor as well. But for Deadmau5, one of the world's most famous DJs, there is an even better option. After the Material Skank took the stage at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami over the weekend and greeted the crowd by cracking a joke about ecstasy use, Deadmau5 wasted no time cracking the MS for her ignorance. "How many people in this crowd have seen molly?" she asked the crowd of musically clueless sycophants. "Molly" is a slang term for MDMA, one of the key ingredients in ecstasy, a drug many of her fans were probably peaking on because X is huge among techno, dance and electronic pop music fans – i.e. Madonna fans. Ironically enough, her new album drops this week and is titled “MDNA.” The crowd responded raucously to the prompt, but Deadmau5 was not impressed and took to Facebook to light the Material Skank up. "Very classy there madonna. 'HUR DUR HAS ANYONE SEEN MOLLY???' such a great message for the young music lovers at ultra," he wrote. "Quite the f'n philanthropist. but hey, at least yer HIP AND TRENDY! f*cking cant smack my head hard enough right now." While Deadmau5 doesn’t have a ton of credibility musically, it is noteworthy that a DJ who makes a living spinning the very sorts of tunes X users love would crack someone for promoting the one drug that makes that sort of garbage music remotely listenable…………


- Who’s down for a good rape analogy with their vodka ad? Belvedere Vodka understands this well and that’s why it smartly posted an ad online that showed a smiling man grabbing a woman, who appeared to be in fear, from behind. "Unlike some people, Belvedere always goes down smoothly," the ad's caption read. It was a brilliant link between the smooth flavor of its vodka and the abrupt, painful experience of sexual assault and there was no way it could miss, right? Right? Sadly, not everyone understood or appreciated the humor. As a matter of fact, the ad drew hundreds of negative comments after it appeared Friday on the company's Facebook page and Belvedere Vodka marketing Senior Vice President Jason Lundy posted an apology on the page Friday afternoon, shortly after the ad appeared. Recognizing that many page visitors believed the image appeared to depict a rape, Lundy wrote that the ad also offended "the people who work here at Belvedere." Why it offended them after it was posted but not before, Lundy did not say. "The post is absolutely inconsistent with our values and beliefs and in addition to removing the offensive post we are committed to making sure that something like this doesn't happen again," Lundy said. The gaffe was significant enough that company president Charles Gibb also chimed in with an apology Saturday. "It should never have happened," Gibb said. "I am currently investigating the matter to determine how this happened and to be sure it never does so again. The content is contrary to our values and we deeply regret this lapse." To further convince everyone that it understood the error of its ways after gaining the very attention from the ad it was seeking in the first place, the company also made a donation to RAINN -- the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network -- "as an expression of our regret," Gibb said. RAINN posted a message on its Facebook page accepting the apology. That should keep the relationship copasetic until Belvedere’s next ad showing a woman getting roofied at a bar with a witty caption underneath…………


- For once, Congress is tackling an issue that is both timely and extremely relevant. With a growing number of reports that companies are either asking for job candidates' Facebook passwords or watching as candidates login to their accounts and click through photos, wall posts, comments and other items, the offices of Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have announced that they have called for an official probe. Wait a minute…….employers asking for the Facebook passwords of job applicants is against the law? What a shocker. “Shoulder surfing” or extorting an applicant for their social media password is about as offensive an act and as egregious a violation of a person’s privacy as can possibly happen. Asking someone about their sex life or net worth is less offensive than asking them to surrender their Facebook password. Even Facebook has taken an official stance on the practice, calling it a violation of privacy and pointing out that it could also open up employers to accusations of discrimination, as well as other liabilities. "This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user's friends," Facebook's chief privacy officer, Erin Egan wrote in a blog post. "It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability." According to Facebook, the practice is a direct violation of its legal terms, which states that "you will not share your password… let anyone else access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account." Joining Facebook and Congress on the right side of the battle is none other than the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has also publically condemned password requests following revelations that the Maryland Department of Corrections (DOC) was using "shoulder surfing" to screen candidates. Blumenthal and Schumer plan to determine whether the practice breaches the Stored Communications Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which bans intentional access to digital information without permission and the second prohibits intentional access to a computer without authorization to gain information. "In an age where more and more of our personal information – and our private social interactions – are online, it is vital that all individuals be allowed to determined for themselves what personal information they want to make public and protect personal information from their would-be employers," Schumer said in a statement. Well said, Chuck………..

National anthem hijinks, China's new organ supply chain and movie news

- China is looking to cut its exports…..of organs harvested from death row inmates, that is. The communists are still exporting lead-paint-laden products and other hazardous items, but they are no longer going to harvest organs from death row inmates to serve those in need of transplants. Chinese officials announced a plan to phase out the practice and in the process, overhaul a transplant system that has for years relied on prisoners and organ traffickers. Huang Jiefu, China's vice minister of health, announced the new plan Thursday and explained that Chinese officials plan to abolish the practice within the next five years and to create a national organ donation system. "The pledge to abolish organ donations from condemned prisoners represents the resolve of the government," The state-controlled Xinhua News Agency quoted Huang as saying. How the system will work remains a mystery, as the Ministry of Health didn't respond to requests for comment and no one is quite sure how the world's most populous country will eliminate its dependence on executed prisoners as its main source of organ supply for ailing citizens. Of course, China wouldn’t be China without a sinister plot to strip its people of their rights and dignity, so the new system should be equally shady and mysterious. Human rights groups have long denounced the sinister influences of organ harvesting on the pace of China's executions and claimed that the rights of death-row prisoners have been overlooked to provide organs for those in need. With an estimated 1.5 million people in China in need of organ transplants annually and only 10,000 receiving them, odds are the new means of procuring livers, kidneys and hearts will undoubtedly be just as stomach-churning………


- “The Hunger Games” was competing against history in its opening weekend and in that respect, the film fell just short. With $155 million made from the wallets of swooning females of all ages, the film based on the popular novel blew away its immediate competition but fell shy of an all-time record by posting the third-best opening weekend ever behind “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” and “The Dark Knight.” On the positive side, “21 Jump Street” was the closest competitor for the weekend with $21.3 million to finish second. Down one spot from its opening weekend, “21” boosted its two-week total to $71 million. “Dr. Seuss' The Lorax” was third with $13.1 million and has compiled $177.3 million in domestic earnings through four weeks. “John Carter,” on its way to the undesirable title of biggest box office bomb ever, was fourth with $5 million and has amassed $62.3 million in three weeks of work. Holding strong in fifth place was “Act of Valor,” which remained fifth in its fifth weekend, adding $2.1 million to its cumulative tally for a five-week haul of $65.9 million. That was enough to edge out the quickly fading “Project X,” which dropped to sixth on the strength of $2 million in earnings for a four-week total of $51.7 million. Fading even faster is the abysmally awful “A Thousand Words,” seventh for the weekend and making a mere $1.75 million to raise its meager three-week total to $14.9 million. “October Baby” managed an eighth-place finish despite extremely limited release (just 390 theaters nationwide) and made $1.7 million in its debut. Ninth place went to “Safe House” with $1.4 million, raising its overall total to $122.6 million for six weeks. “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” rounded out the top 10 with $1.3 million, while “Casa De Mi Padre” (No. 11) and “This Means War” (No. 12) fell out of the top 10 from last weekend……….


- Earthquakes are a laugh riot. Not only that, they are an opportunity to cash in and market that most who “suffer” through them completely miss. Clintonville, Wis. Mayor Judy Magee is not one of those people. Mageee, the mayor of an eastern Wisconsin city that's been dealing with unexplained booming sounds believed to be linked to small earthquakes in the area, has found a way to cash in on the mystery bumps in the night. She is planning to order T-shirts that say, "I Survived the 1.5," a reference to the 1.5-magnitude earthquake that federal geologists confirm struck Tuesday just after midnight. The minor earthquake could explain some of the mysterious sounds residents reported overnight from Monday night into Tuesday. However, the majority of the booms occurred in the pre-dawn hours Sunday and Monday. Unless a mysterious, as-of-yet-undetected earthquake struck the region during that time, then the mystery remains. What doesn’t remain, however, is Magee’s respect for the destruction earthquakes produce. With her overwhelming respect for natural disasters, she should be mayor of New Orleans or any number of Southern California cities that suffer hurricanes, floods and earthquakes on a regular basis. City administrator Lisa Kuss insisted the shirts are intended to show unity, not to make light of the situation. That may be a lie, but no one can deny that in a town of 4,600, Magee’s marketing genius is operating on far too small of a scale………


- Living alone: It’s not just depressing for old people who have Drew Carey hosting “The Price is Right” as the highlight of their day. New research shows that living alone can also lead to depression for younger, working-age adults. A study of nearly 3,500 men and women ages 30 to 65 found that people who lived alone were more likely that their peers to receive a prescription for antidepressant drugs. Finnish researchers studied their subjects over a period of seven years and found that one quarter of people living alone filled an antidepressant prescription during the study, compared to just 16 percent of those who lived with spouses, family or roommates. "Living alone may be considered a mental-health risk factor," said lead author Laura Pulkki-Råback, Ph.D., a lecturer at the University of Helsinki's Institute of Behavioral Sciences. The primary drawback for the study is that it shows only an association, not cause and effect. Left unanswered is the question of whether living alone causes depression or if depressed (or depression-prone) individuals are more likely to live alone because of their temperament, preference, or difficulty with relationships. Surveys of participants showed that living alone tends to weaken social networks and produce "feelings of alienation from society" that would push a person toward depression. "People living alone were more cynical in their attitudes," Pulkki-Råback said. "Being cynical and living alone may predispose to hopelessness and negative feelings, ultimately leading to depression." However, she hedged her bets by laying out the opposing line of thought as equally viable. "Cynical people may also have ended up living alone because they are difficult to deal with,” she added. For the study, Pulkki-Råback and her colleagues interviewed each person about their living arrangements, overall health and work life. At the start of the study, 15 percent of participants reported living alone, with only 40 percent of that number citing divorce or widowhood as a reason. Seventeen percent of participants filled at least one antidepressant prescription during the study, but those living alone were 81 percent more likely to do so. Extenuating factors accounted for only a small portion of the elevated risk for depression. One flaw in the study was researchers’ inability to distinguish between those who preferred to live alone and those for whom the arrangement was involuntary. Critics have also pointed out that antidepressant prescriptions are an inaccurate measure of depression rates because not everyone who is depressed seeks professional help. Flawed or not, the study was published in the most recent edition of the journal BMC Public Health………….


- Stadium and arena DJs around the world are idiots and wannabe comedians. Not everyone can be the comedic genius who blasts Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Down on the Corner” the way Heinz Field’s sound guy did when then-Ravens running back Willis McGahee suffered a serious knee injury and was laying on the turf during the 2009 AFC Championship game. However, that doesn’t stop these wise-cracking musical maestros from giving their best effort. The pursuit extends as far as Kuwait, where the sound guy at the Arab Shooting Championships seized upon a golden opportunity that presented itself when a shooter from Kazakhstan won a gold medal. When the moment arrived to hatch the hilarious hijink, this kook got off an all-timer by substituting t the spoof anthem from the 2006 movie "Borat" in place of the actual Kazakh anthem. The “Borat” version of the anthem is, for some odd reason, a sore point with many Kazakhs on account of it portraying their country as backward and degenerate. Thus, playing the spoof anthem is a reason to fight and for the Kazakh government to call the incident "a scandal" and demand an investigation of the incident. The drama began after Maria Dmitrienko won a gold medal for Kazakhstan on Thursday in Kuwait, only to have the medal ceremony marred when the joke anthem was played. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov called the incident “a scandal” that “demands a thorough investigation, which we intend to conduct.” Asian Shooting Federation President Sheikh Salman al-Sabah’s apology to the Kazakh team clearly did not soothe tensions, not did his explanation that the awards ceremony was conducted by a firm under contract. According to Kazakh coach Anvar Yunusmetov, tournament organized told him they had downloaded various countries' national anthems from the Internet. In other words, they were either too lazy or unprepared to have the anthems ready in advance and hurriedly downloaded them at the last minute, weren’t smart enough to make sure they downloaded the correct anthem or had a wannabe comedian running the PA and sound systems. Very classy, Kuwait………….

Guns in Michigan pews, clueless reality skanks and spring training strife

- Church is about much more interesting in Michigan. No, members of the clergy won't be working cartoons into their sermons or handing out cash instead of expecting the faithful to place their own scratch in the offering plate. Rather, a state senate committee on Thursday approved changes to Michigan’s concealed weapons law that include allowing people to carry concealed guns in churches, schools and sports arenas. While allowing rage-aholic sports parents already pondering the best way to accost their child’s coach for a lack of playing time or the referee for daring to call a foul in the fourth quarter on darling little Tiffany to come to games strapped sounds dangerous, why not hear the senators out? After all, the law still must be voted on by the full Senate. The new law would allow citizens to carry their weapons into churches, schools and sports arenas while also eliminating the state’s 83 county gun boards and transferring the power to issue CCW permits to local sheriff’s departments. “Basically it’s a pretty huge rewrite of the concealed weapons permit law,” said WWJ Lansing Bureau Chief Tim Skubick. Technically, the law would allow “highly trained” permit holders to carry in the gun-free zones. To qualify, a person would have to complete hours of training and fire more rounds at a shooting range than those looking to meet the current basic requirements. State Sen. Arlan Meekhoff made his support of the amended law emphatically clear with a visual example, pulling back his jacket in a committee hearing to reveal his holstered gun. He illustrated what he calls the “absurdity” in Michigan’s current concealed weapons law by pointing out that he could openly carry in schools and churches, but it would be illegal if he covered the pistol with his coat. “What we’re trying to do is to have the most highly trained citizens who are CPL holders to … give them the opportunity to defend themselves even in these areas, and carry concealed,” Meekhoff said. Yes, and where is there more of a need to defend oneself than in the pew or sitting in the bleachers at a youth basketball game…………..


- Qualifications to be a cast member of any reality show are not rigorous. Qualifications to be a cast member for a “Real Houseskanks” franchise are lower than normal: be rich, be cougar or cougar in training and be willing to act like a spoiled, entitled b*tch in every situation. Notice that one entry missing from that list is intelligence. Being a Houseskank doesn’t require a person to be all that bright and perhaps no one drives that point home more emphatically than "The Real Houseskanks of New Jersey" cast member Teresa Giudice. Giudice, who is also a contestant on the current season of Donald Trump’s “The Celebrity Apprentice,” seems to have no clue what being a vapid, upper–tax bracket houseskank is all about or that there is nothing less real in the world than reality television. For Giudice, people acting differently on camera than they do when no one is filming is shocking. 
"I am still saddened by what transpired. There are a lot of hurtful and shocking moments," she said of filming for the most recent season of the show. , "One thing I have noticed is that some people tend to change when the cameras are rolling." Whoa. So people narcissistic and self-absorbed enough to allow TV cameras to film their daily lives in a futile attempt to become a real celebrity would act fake on camera? That is an Earth-shattering revelation. Giudice has drama with sister-in-law Melissa Gorga and former friend Caroline Manzo on the show, but with that overwhelming smarts and savvy she clearly possesses, it’s difficult to imagine that she won't figure out a solution soon enough………..


- Duck and cover, International Space Station crew members. With a large a piece of space junk hurtling towards the path of the ISS, crew members scrambled into escape capsules ready to fire off for an emergency return to Earth. NASA officials spotted the remnants of a discarded Russian satellite, but not until it was too late to maneuver the space station into a safer orbit. The crew currently consists of three Russian, two American and Dutch astronaut, all of whom were ordered by ground control to take shelter in the emergency Soyuz spacecraft. The debris ultimately passed the ISS within an estimated nine miles. Although nine miles seems like a sizeable distance, it’s not such a steep margin in space, where both the station and the junk were travelling at 17,500 miles an hour in orbit. Although the danger was averted in this case, it does highlight growing concerns about a collision in space as a growing volume of such junk floats to and fro. NASA is actively tracking some 22,000 pieces of space debris, but those are merely some of the millions of objects left over from decades of space travel drifting in Earth's orbit. The debris ranges from ridiculously small (less than one centimeter in diameter) to large chunks of rockets, defunct satellites or discarded fuel tanks. The National Research Council warned recently that the increasing volume of space debris has become a significant hazard. Still, the incident is only the third time in 12 years that ISS astronauts have had to seek shelter from space junk. Following the near-miss, the astronauts were allowed to return to the main spacecraft at 2:38 a.m. GMT. "Everything went by the book and as expected, the small piece of cosmos satellite debris passed the international space station without incident,” a NASA spokesman confirmed. Barring any additional theatrics, an unmanned cargo vehicle is due to dock with the space station next week………


- It may sounds cynical, but Russia’s lower house of parliament passing a law that will make it easier to register political parties seems fishy for some reason. The law is an attempt to placate the angry masses jammed by the rigged March 4 presidential vote that returned the despotic Vladimir Putin to power. Massive protests in Moscow and across the country demanded Putin’s ouster and the holding of legitimate elections, but instead parliament will allow parties with at least 500 members to be registered. The legislation still needs approval by the legislature, but that is assumed to be a mere formality. Presently, 40,000 are needed to legally form a party and as a result, there are just seven recognized parties in Russia. Sergei Udaltsov, a leader of December’s demonstrations, recognized the reform an “important first step” but knows the fight is far from over. “If further steps are not made, this will be an imitation aimed at preserving the monopoly of power,” Udaltsov said. A cynic might argue that with Putin’s United Russia party in power and willing to use voting fraud and strong-arming tactics to keep their iron grip on the country behind the former Iron Curtain, an “imitation aimed at preserving the monopoly of power” is all this law will ever be. Some opposition groups don’t even like the bill, arguing it makes no allowance for creating multi-party blocs and could confuse voters. That the bill was introduced in January by Putin’s puppet and current “President” Dimitry Medvedev does give reason for pause. Way to keep up the illusion of freedom and choice, Russia………


- New Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine is determined to start a fight with the rival Yankees. His first attempt was taking a run at Yankees icon and future hall of famer Derek Jeter for his decision-making on a play that happened a decade ago. Valentine threw another punch in the fight Thursday when he cracked Yankees manager Joe Girardi's decision to tell the umpires his team did not want to play extra innings in a 4-4 tie between the two rivals in a spring training game in Ft. Myers. Girardi decided his team did not need to play into extra time and in spring training (and Major League Baseball All-Star Games), a tie is allowed. However, Valentine was irate about the decision and claimed it was because he had instructed reliever Clayton Mortensen to warm up for the 10th. "It was regretful that Mortensen warmed up and we were told we were not playing any extra innings," Valentine said. "I didn't think that was very courteous. I have to answer to a pitcher trying to make the team.” When informed that Girardi said he wanted to preserve his pitching and the Yankees "had a long day tomorrow," Valentine quipped, "They had plenty of pitching. Probably too long of a ride." For the record, the bus ride from Fort Myers to the Yankees' complex in Tampa takes about two hours. Girardi also could have used the fact that the Yankees' scheduled starter, David Phelps, had been scratched after his wife went into a labor. The Yankees used five pitchers in the game, including three in the last two innings, when the Red Sox rallied from a 4-0 deficit to tie the score. Valentine was clearly playing to win and his team tied the game on a suicide squeeze executed by outfielder Jason Repko. The only pitchers the Yankees would have had for extra innings were situational lefty, Mike O'Connor, and five extra pitchers called up from minor-league camp. "I used a lot in the last two innings," Girardi said. "We've got a long day tomorrow too. We need pitching. I don't want to run out." Many of the 9,595 fans in attendance booed when the game was called and Valentine was just as upset about the outcome. Joe knows better than I," he said sarcastically. “Not very courteous.” Sounds like a long year is in store for baseball’s two most bitter rivals…………

Alabama is its own place, the Pope tries to KO communism and a dirty Steeler retires

- Plenty of football fans were sorry to see longtime Pittsburgh wide receiver Hines Ward announce his retirement this week. Ward, who admitted he chose retirement over playing with another team after the Steelers waived him following 14 seasons in the Steel City, said his goodbyes at a press conference. "I just wouldn't feel right," Ward said of playing for another franchise. "I can say I'm a Steeler for life and that's the bottom line, that's all I've really ever wanted.” He leaves holding every significant franchise receiving record, including receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns and is eighth on the all-time NFL receptions list with 1,000 career catches. Although other teams contacted him about playing next season, Ward explained, his heart remained in Pittsburgh. However, his heart wasn’t enough when combined with declining skills that left the Steelers unwilling to pay him the $4 million he was due for next season. Instead, the Steelers will find someone else to fill the void of a physical, hard-blocking receiver willing to do all the dirty work. Ward won two Super Bowls during his tenure with the Steelers and will be fondly remembered by most fans for his 14-year career….just not by all of his peers. Bengals safety Chris Crocker played against Ward numerous times and took all of five minutes to allow his retirement to sink in before taking a run at him for being a dirty player. Speaking in an interview with the Bengals’ website, Crocker ripped Ward as a dirty player whom the league will be better off without. “He tried to end people’s careers and that’s not the way the game is supposed to be played,” Crocker said. He accused Ward of punching him in the face during a 2009 game and revisited Ward’s brutal block on Cincinnati linebacker Keith Rivers in 2008, which broke Rivers’ jaw. “Stuff like that, it’s just not right,” Crocker said. “And I’m not the only guy that thinks it.” He conceded that Ward belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but didn’t sound like he would be in the front row waving a terrible towel when Ward is inducted………….


- The controversy over "pink slime" continues. Pink slime may sound like some cheap toy your child buys from the quarter machines at the front of the supermarket, but it’s actually an ammonia-treated meat with a colorful nickname that has been in the deli case of those same supermarkets. Major grocery chains have begun to take a stand against the altered meet, with BJ's Wholesale Club, Giant Food Stores and Wal-Mart all dropping pink slime. The controversy stems from added ingredients in the meat. The so-called slime is a low-cost ingredient made from fatty meat trimmings left over from other cuts. Those leftovers are heated to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit and spun to remove most of the fat. The resulting mixture is then compressed into blocks for use in ground meat. Along the way, it is exposed to ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella. If not for a meddlesome federal microbiologist who is critical of the product and bestowed its unfortunate nickname upon pink slime, the reaction could have been much different. Instead, the pejorative nickname is being blacklisted by one grocery chain after another. BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. said it will stop selling beef products with the additive, starting April 7 for fresh products and April 20 for frozen. Giant Food Stores LLC based in Carlisle, Pa., quickly followed suit in a decision that will affect the 144 Giant stores in Pennsylvania and the 39 Martin's food stores it owns in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. Giant spokesman Chris Brand rationalized the decision by saying customers made it clear pink slime "was not something that they wanted to purchase.” Other chains refusing to sell ground beef that contains the filler include Supervalu, Food Lion and Safeway Inc. Kroger is the nation's largest traditional grocer with 2,435 supermarkets in 31 states and losing it as a market for their product is a major blow to companies using the pink slime additive. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for a Hail Mary. Oprah Winfrey nearly ruined the beef industry a few years ago when she railed against its practices and standards on her talk show. Now that her fledgling Oprah Winfrey Network is hemorrhaging money and on the decline, maybe companies selling slime-infused beef should reach out to her, offer their support and pray she returns the favor………..


- Attention, world: Communism in Cuba is about to end. Anyone who doubts that the political and economic systems that have ruled the island nation for decades will soon meet their demise clearly does not understand the power of the Pope. That’s right, Pope Benedict informed the world Friday communism no longer works in Cuba and offered to help the island find new ways of moving forward without "trauma.” On board a flight from Rome to a trip to Mexico and Cuba, the head honcho of the Catholic church explained his position on Cuba’s government. "Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality," he said. "New models must be found with patience and in a constructive way." Tearing down a communist bastion 90 miles off the coast of the United States that has lingered as a thorn in the side of the U.S. and president after president sounds like a herculean task, but the Pope is convinced his church can help in achieving a peaceful transition on the island. Trauma has been the buzz word for the Roman Catholic church in recent months when speculating on what may happen in Cuba, particularly after the death of ailing revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who supposedly handed over power to his brother Raul in 2008. "We want to help in a spirit of dialogue to avoid traumas and to help move forward a society which is fraternal and just," Pope Benedict said. He hopes his visit will be successful in piggybacking on the historic 1998 visit to Cuba of his predecessor, Pope John Paul, which "opened up a path of collaboration and constructive dialogue, a road that is long and calls for patience but moves forward." That visit intensified the reconciliation process between the Church and Cuba's communist rulers, who have been at odds for many years following the 1959 Cuban revolution. The two sides still differ substantially on issues such as Church’s use of the media and religious education. Human rights are also an issue and the recent slight increase in property rights for individuals probably won't change the Church’s stance on communism too much. In preparation for the pope’s visit, Cuba released 70 members of the dissident Ladies in White group detained during the weekend but cautioned them not to attend activities related to the pope’s visit. Oddly enough, there are no meetings with Cuban dissidents on the pope's agenda for his visit. Perhaps the pope curried some favor with Cuba last week when the Vatican re-stated its condemnation of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. The blockade hit its 50th anniversary last month and isn't likely to end any time soon. In that sense, it has a lot in common with communism in Cuba…………


- And a perfect match goes by the wayside. No one has less credibility or less of an edge when it comes to original, creative, artfully crafted music than Sarah Ferguson, a.k.a. Fergie of the Hack Eyed Peas. She and her HEP cohorts writhe around on stage in semi-futuristic gear that would make Dr. Evil wince, lip-syncing to horrible pop songs they “sang” with minimal or non-existent vocal talent, hoping the world pays more attention to the show than their lack of musical skill. With that in mind, who would be a better choice to judge the aspiring reality karaoke-ers of "The X Factor" than Ferguson? Rumors linking her to the show had been circulating since Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger were fired from the show in January. Ferguson and fellow pop hack Britney Spears were among the big names mentioned in connection with the show and Spears was reportedly offered a $10 million to be a join Cowell and L.A. Reid on the judging panel. Spears foolishly turned down an opportunity she was perfectly suited for and now Ferguson has done the same despite spending much of the show’s time on the air in talks for an on-air role. Yet she pretended (maybe) to be clueless as to why her name was continually linked to the show. "It's kind of funny why this keeps coming up about 'The X Factor.’ I mean, I love Simon and I love the show. It's just that last year, nor this year, do I have the time to commit to that sort of commitment because I would be somebody who would really throw myself into it, as I do with all my projects." Other names mentioned as possible reality karaoke judges have been Pink, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and the late Whitney Houston. "I think whatever they do ... Simon's a genius and he'll make the right decision," Ferguson said. "And it will all work out." Ah, the blessing of a talent-less pop hack whose sole asset is how hot she is. Sounds like just the boost a growing reality karaoke show needs………….


- Alabama is one of those states that can seem like an entirely different country at times. It’s neither a knock on Alabamans or praise for what they’re all about, merely an observation. That point could be re-emphasized when the Alabama House and Senate return from spring break April 3 and begin considering a bill to establish a "covenant marriage" in their fine state. At its core, the bill’s aim would be to make it harder for couples to get divorced. How? Save the jokes about requiring a literacy test before filing for divorce because calling a state backwater, back woods and redneck and claiming its citizens don’t read so good hasn’t been fresh or acceptable in decades. Actually, the covenant marriage bill would require couples to go to counseling before they could obtain a marriage license and go through more counseling before a divorce can be granted. The Alabama Senate judiciary committee will reconsider the bill lawmakers return from spring break, but critics have decried it as intruding into a married couple’s rights and an attempt to force conservative values on the masses. Its supporters say it wouldn't be required, but merely an option engaged couples could choose. That defense is asinine because if there are no teeth to the bill and it doesn’t mandate anything, how is it any different from the way the world works now, a world in which couples can get pre-marital counseling and seek marriage counseling if their relationship is struggling. Three other states have a bill similar to the covenant marriage option on their books, the most recent being Louisiana, which passed a covenant law in 1997…………..

Noise harms nature, UFC rises fast in Brazil and NBC finds a show people actually like

- The last supposed sighting of the Almighty in a random public place is much too far in the rearview mirror, so props go out to an unidentified trailer park dweller in Clermont, Fla. for stepping up to fill the void. Unlike kooks who have seen Jesus in a slice of toast or the Virgin Mary in a pile of grass clippings, this woman claims she spotted Jesus in something with a bit more voltage – literally. The woman, who lives in a mobile home at the Torchlite RV Park at 10201 U.S. Highway 27, told a local television station she first spotted the likeness on Sunday. She attributed it to an early Easter miracle with the holy holiday just a couple weeks away. "I came out on the patio and I was praying and I just looked over back towards the woods and I seen this here," the woman said. "And it was like a comfort to me." Her idiocy quickly spread to her fellow trailer park dwellers, who began snapping cell phone pictures of the supposed supernatural sighting. "I have heard that he does appear in many places at many times," the woman said. "Maybe it's a sign of his soon-coming, or maybe it will help lift other people up." Or maybe it will serve at the latest example that folks dwelling in trailer parks a) have too much time on their hands or b) do too much meth. Either way, it is reassuring to know that there are still people at various socioeconomic levels are delusional and mentally suggestible enough to believe they see a religious figure in a completely random public location……….


- UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships for the non-combat sport-savvy) is growing bigger by leaps and bounds. It is quickly ripping market share from boxing on account of the one fight in boxing that anyone wants to see (Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao) is never going to happen (and other factors), but perhaps nothing illustrates UFC’s (and mixed-martial arts’) growth quite like the hype building around the highly anticipated rematch between UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen. On Wednesday, UFC president Dana White revealed the promotion's plans to host a June meeting between the two inside a soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The bout will pit Sonnen against the man he verbally degraded and nearly beat in August 2010 before Silva locked in a choke hold in the final two minutes of the fight to retain his belt. Since then, Sonnen has served a suspension for a positive drug test and continued running his mouth. He’s also fought well enough to earn another title shot and while UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta said a deal hasn't been finalized for the event, it could be pending. "It's not locked down 100 percent," Fertitta said. "But close." Estadio Olimpico Joao Havelange, also known as Engenhao, has been mentioned as a possible site for the bout, which White believes could draw as many as 80,000 based on Silva’s Brazilian heritage and the skyrocketing popularity of the sport in the country. "This thing's going to be in a soccer stadium in Rio," White said. "Over 80,000 people are going to be at this event." That number would break the company's attendance records last set at UFC 129 in April 2011, when a crowd of 55,724 packed the Rogers Centre in Toronto and pulled a live gate of $12.075 million. It just might be time for UFC haters to hop on board the bandwagon…………


- The Peacock actually does find shows that work every now and then. Sure, NBC green lights shows that bomb out after only three episodes (“Playboy Club,” anyone?) and axes its best shows after shuffling them to various nights of the week and making them all but impossible to follow by refusing to air episodes online after they show on TV (“Chuck”), but every now and then the network’s suits stumble across an idea that works and they get to feel smart for a while. Today is one of those days, as the network announced it has picked up its musical drama series “Smash” for a second season. Marketed as the grown-up version of “Glee,” the show stars Debra Messing, Anjelica Huston and Katharine McPhee as players in the unforgiving world of Broadway theater. The hourlong drama blends backstage procedural goings-on and song-and-dance numbers and debuted on NBC last month after the Super Bowl. While it hasn’t been a ratings darling so far, it has earned a fair amount of critical praise and has built a loyal fan base, averaging 7.7 million viewers. As one of NBC’s returning shows next season, it will have to contend with the network’s sure-to-suck slate of new shows being its supporting cast and find a way to convince viewers to stay up on the show while not watching any of its other shows because they are complete and total garbage. But hey, “Smash” should be just fine because McPhee is beautiful and people love singing and dancing shows……….


- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Mali is the place and this particular uprising is unusual because the dissident shoe is on the other hell-raising foot. Instead of the oppressed masses rising up against their overbearing government or rights-trampling military, it is the country’s military that is rising up. First, angry troops started a mutiny at a military base near the presidential palace. Soon after, soldiers stormed state TV and radio stations and forced those stations off the air. A few hours later, soldiers reported that young recruits had started rioting at a military base located outside the strategic northern town of Gao. Gunshots echoed in the capital, Bamako, and fearful citizens mostly stayed off the streets. Gao saw much of the day’s violence, as a military student on the base reported the mutiny beginning around sundown when recruits began shouting and shooting into the air. They captured a half-dozen officers and kept them sequestered while other members of the uprising went house to house looking for the commander of the camp, who was MIA at the time of the uprising. While the specific aims of the revolt have not yet been spelled out, the day was nonetheless full of inspiration and rage that will hopefully spark a new wave of dissidence across Africa and beyond, everywhere disenfranchised people aren’t happy with how the sh*t is going down in their life…………


- Waaaaaaait a second. Science wants us to believe that noise from traffic, oil drilling, Navy sonar and other technology can make nearby animals scatter or change their behavior? No freaking way. The smart people in lab coats point to new research into the question of how noise affects natural communities and results indicating that noise has the potential to trigger cascading effects that could alter the structure of these communities, known as ecosystems. As the theory goes, a change in one animal’s behavior tends to affect an entire group and that ripple effect can spread on a large scale. For this study, researchers looked at pollination and seedling establishment of plants growing near natural gas wells in Rattlesnake Canyon Habitat Management Area in northwestern New Mexico (a notorious party haven). Because of compressors running nonstop at the wells creating a droning sound, scientists wondered how the noise affected species in the area, specifically hummingbirds. At study sites, they compared the noise with the sound of a lower-pitched vacuum cleaner several feet away, said lead researcher Clinton Francis, postdoctoral fellow at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in North Carolina. When compared with other sites farther away, where there were no compressors and noise was much more infrequent, the researchers found noticeable effects. While man-made noise does not negatively impact all animals, creatures that play important ecosystem roles, such as pollinating plants, dispersing seeds or preying on other species showed significant effects from the noise. First, the research team put out artificial flowers resembling a common flower, the scarlet gilia, which by black-chinned hummingbirds pollinate at noisy and noise-free sites. They discovered that hummingbird visits were five times more common at the noisy sites, and more pollen was also transferred among fake flowers at the noisy sites. The findings confirmed results of previous studies showing that hummingbirds actually prefer noisy sites. Ornithologists believe this is because some of their main predators actually flee human noise. The news was not so positive for one of the dominant trees in the ecosystem, piñon pines. In the study, seedlings at quiet sites were four times more abundant than at noisy ones, a difference researchers attributed to differences in the animals picking up the seeds. Because environmental changes tend to take place gradually, Francis worries they may be overlooked. "The problem is that the full effects of noise exposure may not be felt by the ecosystem for many decades, perhaps even long after gas wells are gone," he said. To form your own opinion, peruse the copy of the March 21 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B in your magazine rack and decide for yourself………