- U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Coming on the heels of one of the proudest days in the history of this great nation a couple weeks back when the heroes of the U.S. men’s soccer team failied to qualify for this summer’s Olympics in London in a sport we could not care less about, a group of Secret Service agents and officers sent to Colombia ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama have upped the ol’ Pride-O-Meter once more. What makes Americans prouder than seeing those representing their government and country abroad sent home in a scandal involving hookers, failure to pay said hookers and the sort of general debauchery that we all know and love? Big ups to the Secret Service agents sent home Saturday amid allegations of misconduct that involved prostitution. According to government sources, approximately a dozen Secret Service members are being investigated over allegations that they brought back several prostitutes to the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena and then refused to pay for the, um, services they received. An additional five service members assigned to support the Secret Service in its assignment have been "confined to quarters" in Colombia for violating curfew and possibly being “involved in inappropriate conduct" at the same hotel. All of those involved in whatever the hell this turns out to be were in Colombia for the sixth Summit of the Americas, where the president was to focus on trade, energy and regional security. Now, he’ll also have plenty of questions to answer about why his Secret Service agents don’t pay their hookers, although none of the agents or officers being investigated was part of the president's personal protective detail. While the leader of the command overseeing the mission, Gen. Douglas Fraser, said he is "disappointed by the entire incident and that this behavior is not in keeping with the professional standards expected of members of the United States military," Gen. Foster clearly doesn’t get it. How could every last American not be proud when at least one Secret Service member brings a hooker back to his hotel room and refuses to pay? Of course, the über-conservative Secret Service relieved the accused agents of duty Thursday over "allegations of misconduct." Maybe the Secret Service simply doesn’t realize that prostitution is legal in certain areas of Colombia, or maybe the agency can't get past its own conduct code. Either way, the world has another reason to love the ol’ U.S. of A………….
- Last one out the door for the University of Connecticut men’s basketball program, turn out the lights. After the Huskies stumbled through this past season, lost in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament and received the final verdict on their appeal of a tournament ban for next season, players are bailing on coach Jim Calhoun’s program is rapid-fire fashion. The NCAA ruled against UConn’s appeal of a one-year ban from the tournament, to be served next season, over its failure to meet the organization’s standards for academics and graduation rates. The ink on that decision hadn't even dried when UConn's leading scorer, sophomore Jeremy Lamb, announced he would leave school and enter the NBA draft. Within a few days, center Andre Drummond said he too has declared for the NBA draft after a single season of college basketball. With its two best players already gone, the program was dealt another blow Friday when forward Alex Oriakhi announced that he will transfer to Missouri. The 6-foot-9, 245-pound junior has one year of eligibility and can play immediately because UConn is banned from next season's tournament due to several years of below-standard Academic Progress Rate scores. Oriakhi had plenty of options to transfer and chose Missouri over Kentucky, Xavier, Duke and North Carolina. "This is where I wanted to go from the beginning. It was just a matter of me visiting," he explained. It’s a sweet deal for him, as he was part of the team that won the 2011 national championship at UConn and can now jump ship and chase a title elsewhere because UConn can't do an adequate job of getting its players to graduate. Oriakhi also played with Missouri point guard Phil Pressey when the two were growing up in the Boston area. Oddly, it seems like a lot of players are leaving UConn because they can't play in the postseason next year and not for academic reasons, which are the very reason they’re banned from the NCAA Tournament next year………….
- Redundancy reigns at the box office once more. “The Hunger Games” scored its fourth win in four weeks of release, beating back the competition with a $21.5 million effort that is its lowest yet. Still, the haul pushed the film to $337 million in domestic earnings so far. Newcomer “The Three Stooges” was second despite a huge promotional push, raking in $17 million in its debut. Another new film, horror flick “The Cabin in the Woods,” ranked third for the weekend with a debut effort of $14.9 million. The resurfacing “Titanic (3D)” tortured moviegoers with four more unwatchable hours of crap to the tune of $11.6 million for a fourth-place finish and has made $44.4 million in two weeks of re-release. “American Reunion” continued to underwhelm with a fifth-place finish and $10.7 million take, giving it $39.9 million in two weeks in theaters. “Mirror Mirror” continued to struggle struggle in its third weekend of release, making a mere $7 million, finishing sixth and upping its cumulative total to a paltry $49.4 million. “Wrath of the Titans” dropped three spots to seventh with $6.9 million and has made $71.2 million so far. “21 Jump Street” was eighth on the strength of its $6.8 million weekend and has brought in $120.5 million in domestic earnings to date. Perhaps no film disappointed as much in its debut this weekend as the Guy Pearce-led “Lockout,” which made a measly $6.2 million and ranked ninth in its opening weekend. Even with a modest $20 million budget, that result is disappointing. “Dr. Seuss' The Lorax” rounded out the top 10 with $3 million, while “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” (No. 12) and “John Carter” (No. 18) dropped out of the top 10 from last week……….
- Men, feel free to start fist-bumping and chest-bumping one another and cracking open a cold one because as it turns out, doing so makes you smarter. Courtesy of the smart minds in lab coats at the University of Illinois in Chicago comes research showing that men with a couple beers in their system are actually better at solving puzzles and problems involving cognitive reasoning. Their find came from a bar game in which 40 men were given three words and told to come up with a fourth that fits the pattern. They were asked to match words like “cheese” with a partnering word like “blue” or “cottage” or “Swiss.” In a study for which it was probably not difficult to find volunteers, half of the players were given two pints of beer, while the other half had to do the challenge sober. Oddly enough, the ones who had a good buzz working solved 40 percent more of the problems that their sober counterparts. Better still for those looking for any excuse to get drunk, the drinkers finished their problems in 12 seconds while it took the non-drinkers 15.5 seconds. “We found at 0.07 blood alcohol, people were worse at working memory tasks, but they were better at creative problem-solving tasks,” lead researcher Jennifer Wiley said. “We have this assumption, that being able to focus on one part of a problem or having a lot of expertise is better for problem solving. But that’s not necessarily true. Innovation may happen when people are not so focused. Sometimes it’s good to be distracted.” Notorious literary lush Ernest Hemingway would be thrilled at that revelation if he were around to hear it and it may go a long way toward explaining why he was able to not only function, but pen some great stories while on a lifelong bender. Thankfully, there are plenty of dudes who are still living that can benefit from this discovery……………
- Don’t do it, Russian opposition candidate Oleg Shein! Being on hunger strike in south Russia’s city of Astrakhan over the alleged voting fraud at the local mayoral elections is a bold move, but agreeing to travel to Moscow to meet with the Russian election chief is a foolish one. Shein, A Just Russia party member, has led a number of supporter in a hunger strike since March 16 in a protest against allegedly rigged Astrakhan mayoral elections where he was outrun by Mikhail Stolyarov, a candidate from the ruling United Russia party. Allegations of fraud against newly elected dictator/President Vladimir Putin on a national scale have drawn plenty of attention, but the fraud was apparently perpetrated on a local level as well. Shein hinted Saturday that he may travel to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Churov, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, to discuss the alleged voting fraud at the Astrakhan mayoral elections. Churov suggested on Thursday that he would agree to view webcam footage of alleged fraud at polling stations in Astrakhan if Shein called off his hunger strike and came to Moscow to watch the footage. The trip would be a horrible mistake for Shein because Lord knows what Gulag he’ll end up in after arriving in Moscow. Siberia is just one long train ride away for all who oppose the Kremlin and Shein has done so in very public fashion for a month. Shein hesitated to make the trip because he wanted doctors to examine his health condition so that he could decide on whether he was able to travel, but they should also determine his sanity before he departs as well. Sitting down with one of Putin’s cronies is likely to be the last thing any opposition member does and if Shein is never heard from again, at least we’ll know why……….
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