Canadian syrup theft, stoner gum and Andy Roddick's farewell

- Booyah. At long last, getting baked has become easier than ever dreamed by even the laziest stoner. Because firing up the bong or finding a match or lighter to spark that great fattie you just rolled would be far too much work, allow science to make life easier beginning in October with a cannabis-based chewing gum set to hit marijuana dispensaries in Colorado, California, Arizona and Washington, D.C. The roll-out (pun intended) may not seem that much differnet than the pot brownies, candies and other homemade goodies stoners crank out when they come down with a big case of the munchies, but instead of being made in some ramshcakle kitchen in a single-bedroom apartment, Can Chew is a collaboration of San Diego-based Medical Marijuana Inc., and Can Chew Technologies, a San Diego chewing gum technology company headquartered in the Netherlands.  Yes, the ganja-friendly Dutch are involved. Can Chew is a cannabis chewing gum containing Dronabinol, or THC, and it is supposedly for people suffering from Alzheimer’s, appetite loss, multiple sclerosis and nausea. When chewed – by a stoner or someone who actually needs pain relief – the gum releases fine particles of THC into the oral mucosa – the lining of the mouth – allowing for rapid absorption of the cannabis compound. The company claims this allows for speedy relief from pain, nausea, tension and loss of appetite and Dr. Philip Van Damme of Can Chew insists chronic pain sufferers, early and late-stage cancer patients and even anorexics can benefit from the gum. What makes this development so great for stoners is that concealing gum is much easier than hiding a bag of pot and chewing gum to get stoned in public is much less conspicuous than lighting up a doobie in the break room or lobby. Even if stoners can’t get access to Can Chew, its mere existence could inspire them to learn from the kooks who create homemade gum and come up with a high-quality knock-off. Chew on, stoners……….

- Once the next great hope for American men’s tennis, Andy Roddick will end his career in the very near future at the site of his biggest triumph. The former No. 1-ranked player in the world never reached his supposed potential, winning just one major championship and losing in the finals of the sport’s biggest events four times, all to Roger Federer. Roddick announcer the decision in a surprise news conference on Thursday, picking a unique way to celebrate his birthday. He wasn’t in an expansive mood either. "I'll make this short and sweet: I've decided that this is going to be my last tournament," he said. "I just feel like it's time. I don't know that I'm healthy enough or committed enough to go another year. I've always wanted to, in a perfect world, finish at this event.” While he has only one major win among his 32 career tournament victories, Roddick has been a success in at least one area of his career: money. He has earned $20,540,390 through Thursday in his career and will try to keep the meter running at least a while longer when he takes on Bernard Tomic of Australia in the second round Friday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium. "I think I wanted an opportunity to say goodbye to people, as well. I don't know how tomorrow's going to go, and I hope it goes well, and I'm sticking around," Roddick said. He has had some contentious moments with the media over the past year and maybe walking away now is a wise move. As he walks away, there isn't exactly a long line of aspiring American tennis greats waiting to take up the torch. His win at the 2003 U.S. Open was the last Grand Slam singles title for an American man and right now, Federer, Novak Djokevic, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal – none of them American – are the dominant forces in the sport. As for Roddick, he explained that he has been thinking about retirement for some time and knew for sure that the time now after his 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 first-round victory over 21-year-old American Rhyne Williams on Tuesday. Heading into his match Friday evening, he and his massive serve -- he used to hold the record of 155 mph – have a career record of 610-212 (a .742 winning percentage). It’s not as if he’s stumbling around courts, getting pummeled by unranked opponents and embarrassing himself; Roddick has won titles this year at Atlanta and Eastbourne, England. However, a growing rash of injuries have plagued him as he has aged and in February dropped out of the top 20, then slid to No. 34 in March, his lowest ranking since 2001. He suffered a right hamstring injury and was forced to retire during his second-round match at the Australian Open in January. Rather than limp his way to the finish line and hope for a few more productive years, he’s choosing to walk away with some of his pride intact………

- The jokes and punchlines are plentiful, the stereotypes abound and yet, the news that Quebec police are on the lookout for thieves who made off with a considerable amount of maple syrup from a large warehouse stocking over $30 million worth of the sweet breakfast food topping is still funny. Ask the average person what they think of when they think of Canada and the list will include, in some order, mullets, Royal Mounties, the word “aboot,” Bryan Adams and maple syrup. That fact makes the theft of a huge quantity of maple syrup from the site at St-Louis-de-Blandford, Quebec all the more disturbing. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers discovered the missing syrup during a routine inventory, during which they found dozens of empty barrels. The scale of the theft was so large that Quebec Provincial Sgt. Claude Denis said Friday it was too soon to determine the exact quantity or value of the syrup stolen from the facility where over 10 million pounds are stored. Just imagining the sort of planning, scheming and execution of plans and schemes required to make off with hundreds of gallons of maple syrup is highly entertaining, even if one has to worry that this tale will eventually become script fodder for the next bad Owen Wilson or Eddie Murphy comedy people watch only when bored to death and trapped in the center seat aboard an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean. Police have not identified any suspects in the massive maple syrup theft and are just beginning their investigation, although Mrs. Butterworth’s whereabouts at the time of the theft still have not been confirmed………..

- Say it ain’t say, Hah-vard students, say it ain’t so. At an Ivy League institution where the smartest of the smart are supposed to reside, what are the odds that dozens of Harvard undergrads would be under investigation for cheating after school officials discovered they may have shared answers or plagiarized on a final exam for a spring course? Quick, get a graduate student from the applied mathematics department to figure that one out. On second thought, don’t bother. In a hyper-competitive environment where Type-A personalities and those obsessed with success all compete with one another to be the best, students not cheating would be a more unusual sight. The university dropped its announcement of the investigation Thursday – the same day as students began moving into their dorms. Coincidence? Of course not. Nothing reminds students to operate with integrity in the new semester quite like informing them that school officials are looking into allegations of cheating by potentially 125 in an undergrad class. The alleged cheating was discovered by a member of the other wicked-smaht group on the Hah-vard campus, a faculty member teaching the class who found similarities between several take-home finals. With nearly 250 students in the class and a professor lazy enough to hand out a take-home final exam, cheating was all but guaranteed. Close to half of the students in the class were called in before the administrative board and all of the exams are being investigated to see if they were all cheating off their students or if the answers were plagiarized from a third party. School officials are not releasing the name of the class, the students' names or the exact number being investigated, but insisted in a statement released Thursday morning that they are taking the case über-seriously. “We take academic integrity very seriously because it goes to the heart of our educational mission. Academic dishonesty cannot and will not be tolerated at Harvard,” said Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The investigation is ongoing and under university policies, any student found responsible for cheating will face disciplinary including being asked to leave to college for an entire year……..

- All good things must end. This has nothing to do with MTV’s decision to put down the cash cow of its reality TV enterprise, “Jersey Shore,” but it is a nice quote. Yes, the end has come for the pioneer of mindless, stereotype-pandering, lowest-common-denominator reality series on a network that used to be about music and Thursday it became official as MTV announced that the skanks and meatheads of “The Shore” will fold up shop after the series’ sixth season, which premieres Oct. 4. The show debuted in December 2009 and little did anyone know that a half-dozen fake Italian-Americans (a number that grew as the series progressed) with a combined IQ of 14 would become such a cultural phenomenon with their fist-pumping, GTL-ing ways. The Situation, Snooki, Ronnie and Co. did more than their share of binge drinking, brawling on the boardwalk and even foisting their idiocy on other countries when the show went abroad. The end was obviously coming, as its actors had all begun focusing more on their own brands and careers than on the show and several are now starring in their own spinoffs. Production costs were skyrocketing in large part because of increasing salary demands and with the cast set to make more than $2 million each for the sixth season, there was very little value left in investing further in the series. At the same time, ratings have slipped noticeably after peaking at the start of the show’s fourth season, when it suckered in 8.8 million viewers. An expensive trip to film in Florence, Italy also drove up costs and even the return of “Shore” to Jersey for Season 5 didn’t help revive the ratings. Ratings slipped back down to first-season levels and although the series remains cable’s No. 1-ranked series among ADD-addled 12-to 34-year-olds,

even those numbers are down. With Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino now living with a sober coach and Snooki (disturbingly) now a mom, there was little chance for a turnaround. Instead, MTV will celebrate “Jersey Shore” with an all-day marathon on Sept. 6, chase it with the retrospective show “Gym, Tanning, Look Back” and then gather the entire gang at the red carpet show for the MTV Video Music Awards for one final fist pump of solidarity………….

Sugar in space, vampire-happy rappers and peace in Colombia

- Could big, not so bad Eddy Curry possibly land on his massive feet once again? Eleven years ago, Curry was the fourth overall pick in the NBA draft and landed in Chicago with a massive contract and even bigger expectations. Ultimately, neither of those entities was larger than Curry himself came to be, ballooning to well north of 300 pounds and eating his way out of the league while also being diagnosed with a serious heart condition. He played just 10 games from 2008-10 and missed the entire 2010-11 season, eventually finding his way back to the NBA last season and playing sparingly while gravy-training his way to a championship sitting on the end of the bench for the Miami Heat. His weight is (allegedly) under 300 pounds and although the Heat have moved on and found other options for backup centers to their backup center, Curry just might find himself a new gig with the team that has been the biggest spender in the free agent and trade markets this offseason. The Brooklyn Nets have splurged to re-sign free agent guard Deron Williams, re-signed promising young center Brook Lopez and traded for Atlanta Hawks star shooting guard Joe Johnson and they are also moving from New Jersey to Brooklyn and into the sparking new Barclays Center. They have a mysterious, Russian billionaire owner in Mikhail Prokhorov and are flush with cash, some of which may find its way into Curry’s wallet. He worked out with the on Wednesday and if he can beat out free agent center Hilton Armstrong, who played in France last season, Curry will jump from a champion to a team that is widely considered to be one of the four best squads in the Eastern Conference. A gig backing up Lopez wouldn’t be so bad for Curry, who will never live up to his hype as the fourth overall pick in the draft, but could still have a few more years of making millions of dollars to play basketball……….

- The battle over chickens is threatening to tear Hampton Township, Pa. apart. On one side is resident Max Rosarius, who is heading off to common pleas court to fight for his right to keep chickens on his property that isn’t really a farm even though he likes to pretend it is. Hampton Township officials rejected his appeal of two zoning violations after several neighbors complained about the noise made by the 50 chickens he keeps on his property. His neighbors claim the birds are disruptive to everyone who lives nearby and several of them raised the issue at a township meeting Tuesday night. Rosarius insisted that he raises the chickens and that he's not violating any zoning rules. "Do you think that's destructive? I mean how far do you think it carries? 50 feet to 100 hundred feet at the most," said Rosarius. One has to be impressed by Rosarius’ scientific knowledge when it comes to how far the noise of a chicken’s cluck carries on a warm summer evening when neighbors are attempting to sleep or relax with a good book. The issue with now be decided by the court, which will have the responsibility of determining whether Rosarius’ claim that his property is considered a farm under state law is valid. Whatever the final outcome may be, there is no disputing how sad it is to see neighbors in a small town have their relationships fractured and possibly even gone foul by a few loud, dirty fowl…….

- Sugar in outer space? Amazingly enough, the answer is yes after astronomer Jes Jørgensen of Denmark's Copenhagen University announced the discovery of simple sugar molecules floating in the gas around a star some 400 light-years away. In the scientific community, the term sugar is used to loosely refer to organic molecules known as carbohydrates, which are made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. An optimist might hail the find as evidence of life on other planets, but scientific realists would counter that the discovery proves no such thing and merely implies that there is no reason it could not. Either way, the discovery shows that the carbon-rich molecules that are the building blocks of life can be present even before planets have begun forming. Jørgensen’s team found molecules in space that are the simplest form of sugar, called glycoaldehyde. Glycoaldehyde is also found on Earth, typically in the form of an odorless white powder. It is not a type of sugar used to sweeten foods or beverages, but scientists suspect it plays a key role in the chemical reaction that forms ribonucleic acid (RNA), a key biomolecule present in all living cells. Its role in space or where it originates in the heavens isn't yet known, but evidence collected in the study suggest that it forms on ice-covered dust grains in the dense, cold parts of interstellar molecular clouds. Sugar has never been found this close to a sunlike star and has previously been found in only two other places in space: near the center of the giant cloud of gas and dust at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, and in a massive star-forming region 26,000 light-years from Earth. "Both of these regions are much further away and were observed with much worse resolution, [so] it was not possible for the astronomers to pinpoint the location of the molecules," Jørgensen explained. He and his team made their find while observing a young star called IRAS 16293-2422. With that as motivation, the researchers plan to go out and look for other, possibly more complex, molecules in regions where stars and planets are forming…….

- Every athlete wants to be a rapper or rock star, every actor or musician wants to be a professional athlete and so the cycle goes. Rapper Jim Jones, a member of The Diplomats, a.k.a. Dipset, has a solid enough rap career and has risen from the hip-hop hotbed of Harlem to recording success. He also seemingly harbors an affinity for and/or a desire to be vampire, although auditioning for a role in the “Twilight” films doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind. However, he did drop his first “Vampire Life” mixtape last year and in May, he delivered the sequel, which featured the local New York hit "60 Rackz." To further cash in on the blood-sucking approach, he has also launched a Vampire Life clothing line and even stumbled into a Twitter beef with fellow rapper Azealia Banks over the origins of the term "vamp" earlier this month. Jones put an end to the beef by releasing the dis track “Succubi.” But the vampire-ness doesn’t end there for Jones, who has announced plans to star in "Vampire Life: The Movie," an upcoming action movie. He has reportedly signed a multimillion dollar deal with the little-known CMG Entertainment, a multimedia company/record label that was founded in 2010. In an attempt to expand its brand, the company will produce the movie and an accompanying soundtrack. Filming is scheduled to begin next month and with his clothing line and mixtapes, Jones’ fans already associate him with the Vampire Life brand. It has been a big week all around for Jones, who continuing to wallow in the filthy world of reality television by appearing in his second reality how on VH1. The cable network released the first trailer of the rapper's new reality show, "Chrissy & Mr. Jones," earlier this week and the series launches Sept. 24. It is a sort of sequel to the original "Love & Hip Hop" show, in which both Jones and his wife-to-be Chrissy Lampkin starred. No word on whether vampires will play a prominent role in the reality show…………

 

- Could there really be peace between Colombia's government and the country's biggest rebel group, the FARC? The two sides have been feuding for nearly 50 years, but the government has changed its stance and President Juan Manuel Santos announced Monday in a televised address from the presidential palace that his administration is seeking peace with the FARC and could consider also holding talks with a second guerrilla movement to end five decades of war. “(W)e have had exploratory conversations with the FARC to seek an end to the conflict,” Santos said during his speech. Securing a peace deal with cement Santos’ position in history as the bold leader who ended a conflict that has killed tens of thousands over the years and delivered one hit after another to Colombia’s reputation in the international community. If his words are more than empty political rhetoric, if he really is telling the truth when he says his government has learned from the mistakes of so many previous leaders who failed to negotiate a lasting cease-fire with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, maybe that boost in status would be deserved. During his address, he declared the military would continue its operations "throughout every centimeter" of Colombia while talks continued and offered no further details on any potential negotiations. Negotiating with a drug-funded group is always dicey and Santos was adamant that he would consider peace talks with the FARC only if he was certain the group would negotiate in good faith. The last round of talks ended in disaster, so restarting them will be challenging. To grease the wheels, Santos suggested that the nation's second biggest rebel group, the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, could also be involved in the peace talks. “Today the ELN has expressed, via an international news agency, its interest in participating in conversations to put an end to the violence," the president said in his speech. “I tell that group that, within the same framework, they too can be part of the effort to end the conflict.” As for the FARC, the group continues to represent itself as "the people's army" defending peasant rights. It has battled about a dozen governments since appearing in 1964, when its founder, Manuel Marulanda, and 48 rebels famously fought off thousands of troops in jungle hide-outs. Life has been tough for the FARC in recent years as U.S.-trained special forces and their sophisticated technology have joined the fight. Maybe peace talks wouldn’t be such a terrible idea…………

Finding WWII bombs, reasons to exercise before it's too late and keeping Michael Vick's ribs safe

- Just because a person has always been FAT and out of shape doesn’t mean they have an excuse to remain that way. A new study led by Dr. Jarett Berry, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, is a call for those getting up in years who are resigned to their flabby state of being and have no plans to start exercising. The project found that people who are fit in their  mid-30s through 50s are more likely to avoid chronic illness in their later years and it goes beyond the normal benefits of boosting health and extending life expectancy. Berry and his team found that increased fitness may also lower risk of getting lung cancer, colon cancer, heart problems, obstructive pulmonary conditions, stroke, kidney disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. "We've determined that being fit is not just delaying the inevitable, but it is actually lowering the onset of chronic disease in the final years of life," Berry said in a written statement. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults between 18 and 65 get at least two and a half hours of moderate-intensity aerobic activity every week or one hour and 15 minutes of vigorous -intensity aerobic activity and it turns out the CDC weren’t just blowing smoke up America’s butts. For the study, researchers analyzed 18,670 participants in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study, which contained records of more than 250,000 patients over 40 years. By comparing the data with the participant's Medicare claims between the ages of 70 to 85, Berry’s team found that individuals who were able to increase their fitness levels by 20 percent in their midlife years were able to decrease their chance of developing chronic illness by 20 percent in their later years. The effects of fitness (or a lack thereof) began to show up more emphatically when subjects reached the age of 50, at which point the part of the group in the lowest 20 percent of the fitness scale had almost twice as many chronic illnesses than the people in the highest 20 percent. Those with the highest fitness levels at midlife had 34 percent more time with one or no chronic illness than those who were the least fit and were more likely to live their last five years with fewer chronic diseases. The one silver lining for the lazy and out of shape, at least in the context of this study, is that people who were more fit were no less likely to die earlier than those who were least fit. To put it bluntly, their quality of life was simply much better while they were alive. Those who wish to read more about the study need only peruse the online version of the August 2012 edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine………

- Being former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash seems like it would rarely be boring. Whether the day’s schedule includes getting your own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, engaging in another round of verbal sparring with the increasingly obese Axl Rose, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, touring the world or just promoting your new solo album, Slash’s daily existence would appear to be consistently interesting. That trend may have started much earlier than the first time Slash picked up a guitar or played on stage, assuming his claim that t he once discovered his mother naked with David Bowie is true. He made the revelation during a recent radio interview and told the tale of walking in on his costume-designer mother Ola Hudson and the rock icon who was too big-time to deign to appear at the Olympic closing ceremony in London, and the alleged incident took place when Slash was eight years old. His mother, who passed away in 2009, worked with Bowie in the mid-1970s and designed his outfits during his period with his 'Thin White Duke' persona. Bowie has created scores of personas over the years and this particular one covered his “Station to Station” album and the movie “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” Slash laid out the entire story and explained how his mother came to be shagging a rock legend. “My mum started working with David professionally at first. I'm pretty sure that’s how it started. Then it turned into some sort of mysterious romance that went on for a while after that. She did his wardrobe for his whole Thin White Duke period and The Man Who Fell To Earth movie that he did,” he said. “He was always over – they were always together. I caught them naked once. They had a lot of stuff going on, but my perspective was limited. Looking back on it, I know exactly what was going on. When I look back on that whole combination of people, I can only imagine how freaky it was.” Freaky is probably a mild way of describing it and if Slash, who has likely seen more backstage freakery than most, calls activity freaky, there is no need to question it. There will probably be some of that freakery when he tours the United Kingdom in October………..

- Score one for reverse Darwinism. Those who manage to remove themselves from the gene pool in particularly moronic fashion should be both applauded and laughed at for their sheer stupidity, maybe none more so than Randy Lee Tenley of Kalispell, Mont., or as he will be known from here on out, the ass hat who died while wearing a Sasquatch suit and after being struck by two cars Sunday evening on U.S. Highway 93 south of Kalispell. The Flathead County Coroner had the unenviable job of peeling off the suit and identifying the idiot underneath as Tenley, whom Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Jim Schneider says was wearing a military-style camouflage ghillie suit in hopes of creating a Bigfoot hoax. Individals brave enough to admit they were friends with Tenley explained his rationale for the idiotic prank to troopers, who said Tenley was first hit by a 15-year-old driving in the right southbound lane who said she couldn't get out of the way, then struck by again by another teen's car as his body lay on the road. "It's still a crash involving vehicles and a pedestrian. So we're still doing the same investigation, but once we started speaking to parties, then someone involved in it, trying to ascertain exactly what brought that gentleman out to Highway 93 ... I would not guess that would motivate anybody to be out on Highway 93," Scheider said. The obvious guess is that Tenley had been drinking, but police are waiting to get toxicology reports to confirm that theory. Alternate explanations include repeated kicks to the head, a steady diet of lead paint chips as a child or massive quantities of various illegal narcotics. Either way, painting anyone other than Tenley as the author of his demise is rather impossible………

- Considering that the fate of the Philadelphia Eagles’ season rests almost entirely on the health of starting quarterback Michael Vick, anything that will keep the injury-prone signal caller on the field is a welcome addition to the team’s training room repertoire. Vick, who missed multiple games last season with a rib injury and suffered both a bruised hand and another rib injury in his first two games this preseason, will have new protective gear to wear when he starts in Philadelphia's season opener against the Cleveland Browns on Sept. 9:  a new protective vest created by Unequal Technologies. After suffering an injury to his rib cage when he sustained a hard hit during the Eagles' second preseason game, Vick sat out the Eagles third preseason game and has taken only 12 snaps this preseason. He believes he is ready to start the year in spite of his lack of reps. "I'm looking forward to it … to give me more protection and just to see what comes out of it," he said. Similarly, the CEO of Unequal Technologies is certain that the new vest will keep Vick’s ribs safe this season. "I guarantee he will not get hurt," Rob Vito proclaimed. The vest will be custom-fitted and fitted to protect all across Vick’s sternum and ribs.” Keeping Vick’s midsection safe against the barrage of brutal hits he is sure to face this season would be a huge boost for Unequal Technologies, a 3-year-old Pennsylvania-based company, that uses who Vito called a military-grade, battle-tested composite material that has DuPont Kevlar to protect athletes from on-field injuries. "What Michael is wearing was born on the battlefield and forged on the gridiron," Vito said, spouting his best corporate tagline. Vick is a spokesman for the product and Unequal Technologies was the first company to offer him an endorsement deal after he returned to the league following his prison sentence. The marriage could be extremely profitable for both sides if the Eagles have a successful year……….

                        


- Hearing that construction workers found an undetonated, 550-pound World War II bomb in your city certainly could be slightly unnerving. Residents of Munich, Germany received that disturbing news Monday after construction crews stumbled across the bomb, which was likely left behind when Allied forces dropped nearly 2 million tons of bombs on Germany during World War II. As experts estimate that between 5 to 15 percent of the bombs did not explode, there are a few leftovers and one of them has been resting beneath the ground in Munich for nearly seven decades. A bar (shocker) currently sits over the location and experts from the Munich bomb disposal squad examined the bomb Monday night and determined that the explosives were not equipped with a “normal mechanism,” but a chemical, delayed-action detonator. "It is an extremely dangerous device," Roman Leitow, a Munich fire department spokesman said. Nearly 3,000 residents were evacuated from the heart of Munich before the bomb was safely detonated at 10 p.m. Tuesday, sending a large fireball rising into the sky. Burning debris from the controlled explosion reportedly caused fires in several nearby buildings that had been evacuated after fire officials went door to door to enforce the evacuation order. That ordeal was for anyone defiant enough to ignore a scene slightly reminiscent of the era of Nazi tanks and jeeps cruising streets to proclaim the fate of residents in conquered cities, this time in the form of fire trucks passing through the streets, instructing residents with loudspeaker announcements to leave their homes immediately. Before detonating the bomb, experts from Munich fire department spent most of Monday night shielding the bomb with sand, bales of straw and other insulating material to catch shrapnel and muffle the shock wave in case of an uncontrolled explosion. There may not have been enough buffering based on the resulting fires, but a small fire always beats being blown to pieces…………

Execution enthusiasm in Gambia, a mini iPad and victory for a giant cock in Indiana

- So, this is one way to clear some space in a country’s prison system. Gambia, which maybe 2 percent of Americans can successfully locate on a map, doesn’t exactly have a massive death row population, as one might expect to be the case in a nation of less than 2 million people. Still, government officials in the West African nation have a plan in the works to execute every prisoner on death row next month, wiping the slate clean and offing  47 people awaiting death sentences. Of that number, 11 are political prisoners and eight are suspected of having severe mental health problems. The longest-tenured death row inmate has been awaiting execution for more than 25 years and for some reason, this mass execution plan is upsetting to the African Union and civil rights groups. “CSAG is strongly convinced that most of those who were convicted to death for treason went through unfair trials and considers their convictions politically related,” said the Civil Society Associations Gambia in a written statement. “Given that the Gambia Government uses the death penalty and other harsh sentences as a tool to silence political dissent and opposition, CSAG believes that any execution is a further indicator of the brutality with which President [Yahya] Jammeh’s regime is bent on crushing political dissent.” Wait….just because the government haphazardly hands out the death penalty for something as simple as not agreeing with the government and speaking out about their views, that means executing people condemned to die is wrong? Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi, chairman of the African Union, shares that point of view and urged Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 coup, not to go ahead with the executions. Jammeh has so far remained steadfast on the issue and insisted the executions would be carried out within the next few weeks. "By the middle of next month, all the death sentences would have been carried out to the letter; there is no way my government will allow 99 percent of the population to be held to ransom by criminals," he said. While the idea of prisoners somehow holding the country ransom seems like a huge stretch, Jammeh does not appear to give a damn about fairness, logic or reality on this matter. Among the potential executees are eight top military officials, including the ex-deputy head of the police force, who were given death sentences for treason last year. It has been five long years since Gambia’s last execution, so there is a certain blood thirst to satiate as well. If the executions are carried out as planned, the event will have a definite international flair as 39 Gambians, three Senegalese, two Malians, two Nigerians and one Guinea Bissauan will be put to death……….

- The massive wave of hype sweeping through the lives of tech junkies and Apple fanboys over the impending release of the iPhone 5 has reached comically absurd heights. There will be massive corporate launch events, losers camping outside Apple stores for days and all to mark the release of a phone more expensive than just about any other smartphone on the market that isn’t diamond-encrusted and made of solid gold. The upcoming iPhone event, which is rumored to be scheduled for Sept. 12 with a release on Sept. 21, is the next big target on the corporate calendar for the company recently certified as the largest ever in terms of its worth, but it may not be the only one of importance before the end of the year. Although the next incarnation of the iPhone is certainly worth talking about, there is also growing buzz for the possible revelation of a smaller version of Apple’s popular iPad tablet. Various rumors and reports have pegged the mini-iPad announcement for some time this fall or winter, with some overly geeked-up Apple dorks claiming the new iPad would be announced at the same event as the new iPhone. The smaller iPad has been dubbed the iPad Mini by some and is rumored to have a screen size of approximately seven inches. That would make it comparable in size to tablets such as Amazon's Kindle Fire, but speculation has put the new iPad with the aspect ratio of the current-generation iPad, meaning it should be slightly wider than competing 7-inch tablets. By having two separate launch events for its two new items, Apple is clearly looking to maximize its time in the spotlight and knock the Kindle, Droid and every other tablet or smartphone even further off the radar in order to ensure that it builds upon its newfound status as the most valuable company ever……….

- The Miami Dolphins and New York Jets are desperate. Neither has a realistic chance of beating out the New England Patriots and winning the AFC East this season and judging by the Jets’ incompetent offensive performance so far this preseason, they are more likely to be battling the Dolphins to stay out of last place in the division than they are to win it. Yet as desperate as both teams are for help at wide receiver to improve their anemic passing games, neither are interesting in picking up the recently discarded Terrell Owens. The six-time Pro Bowler was recently cut by the Seattle Seahawks because at age 38 and after a year out of the NFL, he showed up in Seahawks camp with the same set of unreliable hands he has always possessed. Mix in his baggage as a disruptive force in the locker room and Owens couldn’t even beat out butter-fingered Braylon Edwards for the third receiver spot in Seattle. Given that Owens didn’t even make it to the final round of roster cuts in Seattle, the logical question for a player once a surefire hall-of-famer in the making was whether this would be the death knell for Owens’ football career. Maybe, just maybe, the Jets, Dolphins or other receiver-starved team would give him a chance…..or not. Less than a day after Owens his the waiver wire, both teams made it clear they have no interest in him. The Dolphins have already released one aging, baggage-saddled, formerly great receiver this preseason in Chad Johnson, so their lack of interest in Owens makes sense. On the other hand, the Jets are already a football circus with the nonstop media fawning over Tim Tebow, the bombastic coaching of Rex Ryan, the drama around embattled quarterback Mark Sanchez and the general buzz that surrounds any New York sports franchise (except for the city’s Major League Soccer team because America doesn’t give a damn about soccer). Adding Owens to the mix, a guy who has a history in the reality television world, could only make the Jets more entertaining, even if he wouldn’t actually make them a better football team……….

- That didn’t take long. After the revelation that Avril Lavigne and Bickelnack frontman Chad Kroeger are engaged, the odds of a worse musical combination ever joining forces seemed less than zero. Of course, anyone who believed that overlooked the possibility that Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am would follow through on his threat, er, promise to release an album in October. How anyone distinguishes who the frontman or woman is for the Hack Eyed Peas is unclear, but will.i.am has released the track list for his October album release, “#willpower,” and has clearly enlisted as many big-name artists as he can even if they have no musical talent whatsoever. He has Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Ne-Yo, Rihanna, Chris Brown, David Guetta, Eva Simons, Redfoo and Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Skanks, er, Dolls. But wait, those musical misfits are the ones who populate the standard version of the album. Those who want to torture themselves with the “deluxe” version (which is like the deluxe model of a 1970 Ford Pinto) will get appearances from Jennifer Lopez on "T.H.E (The Hardest Ever)" and "It" with Cheryl Cole. Literally, it’s as if will.i.am sat down, thought about who the biggest pop hacks in the world are right now and tried to book them all. Asked about working with the Biebs for the first time, will.i.am said, "You'll have to hear it. I like him because he's going to be around for a long time.” Hopefully not and considering that will.i.am clearly knows nothing of good music, probably not. As for the album as a whole, will.i.am was curiously positive considering he abysmally sucks. "There's classical sh--, like just me and a guitar and an orchestra or me with just an orchestra and a kid's choir," he said. . "There's some ghetto, ugly, dirty stuff. And then there's dance stuff, global world stuff and, like, avant-garde, left-of-center, for-art's-sake music that has nothing to do with getting played on the radio. I'm just art-ing out. It's pretty diverse." Whatever you say, W………..

- Score one for a giant cock in Indiana – literally. A ginormous rooster stationed outside the Liberty Bell restaurant in Liberty, Ind. will be allowed to stay after the town’s zoning board voted Monday night to allow the 28-foot-tall wood-and-metal sign to stay in its spot near the side of the road. Liberty Bell owner Andy Pitcher put the sign up earlier this year after local artists created it to help draw attention to the business during a street construction project. As so often happens with seemingly innocuous displays of all types that eventually become cult favorites, the massive rooster wasn’t intended to be anything iconic but quickly became a novelty people wanted to see. “We wanted to put something out here so when customers say to us, 'How do we get to your place?' We tell them to look for the big chicken," Pitcher explained. A few complainers proved once more than a small number of idiots can ruin it for everyone when they lodged complaints with County Planning Director Jeff Mathews and after hearing a dozen complaints, Mathews took the issue before the zoning board. He explained that the 16-foot-wide sign is closer to the street than allowed under the zoning rules even though it doesn't obstruct drivers' views and also voiced concerns that the rooster may tip over in high winds, leaving its fate in the hands of the Union County Board of Zoning Appeals. The board voted Monday to allow the sign to stay and the decision was met with an enthusiastic response from restaurant patrons and the artists who built the giant rooster. "About three months ago he asked us to build a chicken for the restaurant. We started out with a drawing about 8-by-10 and we ended up with a 16-foot chicken," artist Teresa Lucas said. Another classic case of effective government in action…….

Togo sex strikes, suing Scorsese and X-ing out X Games events

- Maybe Martin Scorsese has been too busy filming damn freaking ubiquitous iPhone commercials to remember all of the projects he has committed to over the past couple of decades. The acclaimed director has become one of the most annoying presences on television with his inescapable taxicab conversations with Siri during every commercial break of seemingly every show, but it’s a place he isn't showing up that is casuing him trouble at the moment. A man who has directed too many great films to list is catching heat from the production company behind a film project the Oscar-winning director allegedly promised to make more than two decades ago. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court by Vittorio Cecchi Gori, alleges that his company, Cecchi Gori Pictures, entered into several agreements with Scorsese and his Sikelia Productions for him to direct a project named “Silence,” which is based on a Japanese novel by Shusaku Endo about missionaries who are sent to Japan in 1683 to investigate reports of Christians being tortured by the emperor. According to the lawsuit, Cecchi Gori invested $750,000 to develop the property under the premise that Scorsese agreed way back in 1990 to direct it. The project was repeatedly pushed back and in  2004 and 2011, Scorsese and his company allegedly signed deals to postpone Silence so he could direct “The Departed,” “Shutter Island” and “Hugo.” To secure those deals, Scorsese allegedly agreed to pay "substantial compensation and other valuable benefits, for the right to direct these three other films prior to Silence.” However, Cecchi Gori Pictures claims the director never paid the $1 million to $1.5 million per film he agreed to in exchange for the postponements and now he must pay, or so the lawsuit says. The breaking point seems to be Scorsese signing on to direct “Wolf of Wall Street” with Leonardo DiCaprio leading an all-star cast instead of “Silence.” In response to the lawsuit, Scorsese’s representatives released a statement claiming a “amicable working relationship existing between Martin Scorsese and the principals of Cecchi Gori Pictures” and expressing shock over the suit…………

- Ah, the tried and true sex strike tactic to fire up a revolution. Nothing fires up a group to affect change quite like not getting any at home. Following election protests last week in which police arrested about 120 opposition supporters, a Togolese opposition leader is calling on women to go on a weeklong sex strike to demand the freedom of those detained protestors. Government officials claimed all but eight had been released and insisted those still in custody were in possession of knives at the rally. "You don't go demonstrate with these," security minister Damehane Yark said of the blades. Her words did not seem to placate Isabelle Ameganvi, leader of the opposition Let's Save Togo. Ameganvi’s group has led protests in the streets in the capital of Lome for weeks to protest new electoral reforms they believe are biased in favor of the ruling party was elections conveniently scheduled for October. Protests raged on Saturday and later in the day, Ameganvi called for sex strikes starting Monday. "I am inviting all women to observe a one-week sex strike, fasting and prayers to set our arrested brothers and husbands free," she said before unleashing one of the worst sexual metaphors in the history of sexual metaphors. "So all you ladies have to keep the gate of your 'motherland' locked up to all men from Monday up to Sunday." Better still, Ameganvi explained that her challenge was inspired by Nobel laureate and current President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who in 2003 called on women in her nation to observe a sex strike to press for peace amid a raging war. Such strikes have become a common form of social dissidence in recent years throughout Africa and Asia, including a 2009 Kenyan sex strike to demand cooperation among coalition government officials and a 2011 strike by women in a violence plagued area of the Philippines to demand an end to violence in their region. To futher communicate the point of the strike, Ameganvi called on women to wear a special color during a demonstration Thursday. "You all have to be dressed up in red pants to show your anger," she said to a crowd of demonstrators. Opposition members declined a government invitation for negotiations Friday, insisting it would not hold any discussions with the government except those aimed at negotiating President Faure Gnassingbe's departure from power…………

- SEAL Team Six putting a bullet between Osama bin Laden’s eyes and dumping is lifeless body into the ocean clearly was not enough closure for some Americans. For the gun-toting kooks in the greater New Hope, Minn. area, the opportunity to put their own burning slug between bin Laden’s eyes is required. The Sealed Mindset Firearms Studio will provide them that opportunity and all they ask is $325 for gun owners to secure their spot in a role-playing game. “Start your Navy SEAL adventure with a mission briefing where you will learn that your target is mysteriously named GERONIMO,” the center’s website says. The man behind the game is Sealed Mindset Firearms Studio owner Larry Yatch, a former Navy SEAL. The game begins with players being briefed on the Navy SEAL Team Six mission that resulted in bin Laden’s death in May 2011. From there, they head to a firing range and take target practice at pictures of bin Laden using real, live assault rifles. Yatch’s instructions fall under the heading of shooting "anything above the moustache to below the turban.” But wait…there’s more. To finish up their pretend elite combat experience, players rush off to their final stage, grabbing a paintball gun made to look like an assault rifle, moving through hallways and rooms modeled after bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound and shooting an actor dressed like bin Laden. Clad in a robe, turban and fake beard, the actor wears rubber padding and a helmet underneath to protect himself from bruises. What is the purpose of all of this? According to Yatch, it is to teach self-defense skills. You know, the sort of self-defense skills one needs if attacked by paper targets or dropped into a fake foreign country to kill the world’s most-wanted terrorist………

- Smoking and being a runner are typically mutually exclusive. Running any further than the small smokers’ area outside the office where all the leathery-faced, gravelly-voiced, noxious-smelling cancer stick users gather to choke down their heaters is simply too much to ask of those with voluntarily reduced lung function and drastically increased chances for lung cancer and emphysema. However, British medical researchers being a study on smoking and exercise have suggested that smokers who are trying to cut down or quit may want to try a little distance running the next time a cigarette craving overcomes them. The study combined the data from 19 previous clinical trials and found that an exercise session generally helped would-be quitters reduce their nicotine cravings. While the potential for that short-term gain to translate into a greater chance of quitting was not proven by the study, the results were enough for its authors to endorse exercise for smokers who want to abandon their habit. "Certainly, exercise seems to have temporary benefits, and as such can be strongly recommended," said lead researcher Adrian Taylor, a professor of exercise and health psychology at the University of Exeter in Britain. Trials used for the study randomly assigned smokers to either exercise in the form of brisk walking, jogging or biking, or to some kind of "passive" activity, such as watching television or sitting quietly. Taylor’s team found that participants had less desire to smoke after working out than they did before, although the reason was not clear. There is the possibility that exercise served as a distraction, that the adrenaline rush from physical activity boosted a person’s mood or that exercise simply put them in a better frame of mind. At a minimum, the research begs for more dollars to be thrown at the topic so the questions it raised can be answered…………

- Duuuuuuuuudddde, this is NOT cool. For as long as the Winter X Games have existed, Snowboarder X and Skier X have been part of the festivities. That will not be true when the X Games return to Aspen in January 2013, as event organizers have cut them from the schedule. ESPN decided to cut the events, as well as Mono Skier X, and will not build the X Course for the first time in history, meaning competitors like Lindsey Jacobellis will lose their signature event at the biggest event in extreme sports. X Games debuted in 1997 and both Snowboarder X and Skier X were staged alongside Snowboard Superpipe and Slopestyle. Snowboarder X was one of three events that had taken place every year since debuted in 1997 and Skier X had been staged 15 of those 16 years. In defending the indefensible, Tim Reed, senior director of content strategy for ESPN X Games, tried to explain his rationale. "These decisions are never easy, obviously. We understand the ramifications these things bring. We come up with what we believe are the best events to showcase to our fans on-site and obviously the networks, too,” Reed said. "There wasn't one single factor that led to this decision. It just comes down to filling the schedule with how much we believe we need to make the event enjoyable to the fans and deliver on what we need from a product standpoint." Just to be clear, ESPN X Games wants to make the event better by taking two of its premier competitions out of the mix. In place of Snowboarder X and Skier X in Aspen will be Snowmobile SnoCross and Speed and Style, two events that were dropped last year. The news  landed with a heavy thud in the extreme sports world this week as athletes heard the news. "It's a devastating blow to our sport and skiercross, too, because X Games has been our Super Bowl for years," said Nate Holland, who has won six of the past seven gold medals in Snowboarder X. "I have sponsors that put a value on X Games and the exposure I get there. Basically, my stock went down as soon as that news came out." Daron Rahlves, the 2008 Skier X gold medalist, cited the event’s presence at X Games as a reason it was able to gain status as an Olympic event. Reed left the door open for the discontinued events being added back to the X Games schedule in the future, but the prospects don’t seem bright……….

Privacy in California, neo-Nazism in Deutschland and movie news

- Most of the United States is reeling from this summer’s drought, bracing for skyrocketing food prices and watching rather helplessly as farmers in their states and communities suffer massive financial hits they may never recover from. But this being a land of opportunity, at least a few industrious souls are making something positive out of the national lack of rainfall. Granted, these people are gold-digging kooks hoping to strike it rich with America’s heartland 136 days into the drought, but give them credit nonetheless. The kooks in question have descended upon Tower Rock in Perry County, Mo. Tower Rock is a landmark island in the Mississippi River and has long been a popular area for tourists and locals. These days, the tourists who visit the island are largely hunting for treasures, hoping to find fossils and other historic junk now that the receding waters have exposed ground that normally is buried beneath a few feet of water. The drought has exposed a few historic items already, including an old, mysterious boat that was uncovered in New Madrid County. "People have been going up and down the Mississippi for hundreds if not thousands of years so we have no idea what's on the bottom," said Dr. Frank Nickell, director of the Center of Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University. "If the Corps of Engineers are correct we may see bottom areas of the Mississippi River that have not been visible in modern times.” Nickell pointed out that the river bed near the island is “a section of river that has not been seen for a very long time.” So far, no amazing historical artifacts have been found and odds are, none will. There is a solid shot that someone will ignore wildlife officials’ warnings to stay off of sandbars because they could collapse under the weight of a person, meander out onto a weak sandbar and suffer a nasty spill, which would at least be entertaining……….

- The Chicago White Sox are locked in a heated pennant race with the Detroit Tigers and there is a better-than-average chance that whichever of the two American League Central rivals does not win the division will miss the playoffs entirely. Players on both sides are feeling the pressure, but they’re not the only ones amped up by the intensity of the race. White Sox television announcer Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, renowned as the biggest homer announcer in Major League Baseball if not all of professional sports, was reprimanded by commissioner Bud Selig earlier in the season when he ranted on air about home-plate umpire Mark Wegner during a May 30 game in which Wegner had ejected  White Sox pitcher Jose Quintana after Quintana threw behind a Tampa Bay Rays' hitter. White Sox manager Robin Ventura also was ejected from that game, prompting Harrelson to exclaim that Wegner knew "nothing about the game of baseball." After the heat he took for his over-the-top homerism, Harrelson expressed contrition for his remarks and said he would try to never let it happen again. "(Selig and team chairman Jerry Reinsdorf) just both (chewed me) out, which they should have," Harrelson said. "I'm a big boy, and I'm a tough guy. I don't want to go through that again. I'd rather fight Rocky Marciano. It's done, it's over, I said what I said and we're going to move on from there. It's not going to happen again.” And when Hawk Harrelson says it’s over, you can count on it being over….for less than three months. That’s how long it took Harrelson to launch into another reprimand-worthy tirade, this one directed toward home-plate umpire Lance Barrett on Saturday after Barrett ejected White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski and manager Robin Ventura for arguing Barrett's strike zone. Both men were booted from the game after Quintana's first delivery to Seattle Mariners hitter Justin Smoak in the third inning was called a ball. Harrelson saw a replay and went off, offering up gems like, “Lance Barrett has been absolutely brutal. Brutal," and "Lance Barrett has just stunk the joint up is all he's done. That's all he's done. He's terrible." Harrelson went on to say the game was one that should be sent “back to the American League office to show how bad he is" and suggested that Barrett had different strike zones for the two teams and threw Ventura and Pierzynski out of the game “because he's brutal." Hey Hawk, you may want to get your phone that’s ringing right now because the commissioner would like to speak with you…..again………

- A sequel full of has-beens had a sequel triumph at the box office this weekend, with “The Expendables 2” strolling its way to a win in an extremely low-dollar run at the local multiplex. With a mere $13.5 million that would barely crack the top five many weekends, the action movie featuring geezer action stars of days gone by bested the über-disappointing “The Bourne Legacy,” which held in second placed but managed only $9.4 million in its third weekend. Through its first two weeks, “Expendables 2” has managed $52.4 million in domestic earnings, while the Bourne-less “Bourne” flick has conjured up a meager (for the franchise anyhow) $85.5 million in three weeks of release. Third place went to kid-friendly flick “ParaNorman,” adding $8.6 million to its bank account for a two-week tally of $28.2 million and counting. Overachiever “The Campaign” ranked fourth with $7.4 million and has managed a solid $64.5 million in its first three weeks. Moving up one spot from last weekend was “The Dark Knight Rises,” which inched closer to the $500 million mark in domestic earnings with $7.2 million, bringing its six-week haul to $422.2 million. “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” also moved up one spot from last weekend, earning $7.1 million to elevate its cumulative total to $27 million through two weeks. Newcomer “Premium Rush” debuted in seventh place with $6.3 million, in the process giving Joseph Gordon-Levitt two movies in the top 10. “2016 Obama's America” jumped up to snag the eighth slot in its seventh weekend of release with $6.2 million in earnings, more than doubling its earnings in its first six weeks. It has now made $9 million and counting. Geezer romantic comedy “Hope Springs” checked in at No. 9 thanks to a $6 million weekend and its three-week haul now stands at $45 million. The final top 10 spot belonged to newcomer “Hit and Run” which could not capitalize on Kristen Bell’s über-hotness and only managed $4.7 million in its first weekend for a tenth-place finish. “Sparkle” (No. 11), newcomer “The Apparition” (No. 12) and the bastardized, diluted remake of “Total Recall” (No. 14) all dropped out from last week’s top 10…………

- That any sort of Nazi philosophy or ideology still exists anywhere in the world is disturbing. That these entities still exist in Germany, where so much as performing a Nazi salute is grounds for jailing, fines and prison time, is even more unnerving. Yet Nazism is sadly alive and kicking in Deutschland, as evidenced by the fact that nearly 1,000 police officers raided clubhouses and apartments of known neo-Nazis in western Germany on Thursday after a ban was placed on three violent far-right groups in the country's most populous state. Ralf Jaeger, interior minister of the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, announced the crackdown on neo-Nazis in the industrial state as police searched 146 properties, confiscating weapons, hard drives and even election posters belonging to the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). "(The objects seized) expose the tight bonds within the far-right scene,'' Jaeger said. He was alluding to the relationship between the NPD and groups of violent militants known as "Kameradschaften," which loosely translates to  "comradeships." Not mincing words, Jaeger deemed the groups impacted by the ban "xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic.” He criticized them for “employing fists and knives against their political opponents.'' There were no arrests made during the raids, but the efforts to ban the NPD and its racist, anti-Semitic has managed to evade all previous attempts to quash it. "We will continue to crack down on these enemies of the state and tread on their black leather boots,'' Jaeger said, referring preferred footwear of the group’s ass-hatted skinheads. The NPD does not have any representatives in the federal parliament, but uses violence to promote its agenda based on blaming immigrants for crime and unemployment. State authorities in North-Rhine Westphalia set up a new unit in Dusseldorf in December aimed at curtailing neo-Nazi activities after disclosures that a secretive neo-Nazi cell based in the eastern state of Thuringia had murdered 10 people between 2000 and 2007. The fight is a necessary one, but that does not make its necessity any less discouraging……….

- Technology is a wonderful thing, right up until the point when The Man uses it to spy on and invade the privacy of citizens. At least in theory, that is the very sort of activity California legislators are looking to curtail with the passage of SB 1434, a bill that would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a search warrant when they want to collect location information from electronic devices, such as data from GPS devices and GPS on cellphones. The bill was passed by the California Assembly this week and those behind it alternated between giving themselves credit for the new law and hailing the bill’s potential impact. "Location privacy scored a victory," wrote Hanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which co-sponsored the bill along with the ACLU of Northern California. Fakhoury drew a link between the bill and the U.S. Supreme Court decision last January that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. Policing how and when law enforcement collects data from GPS vehicle tracking, cell phones, tablets and the like is a fast-rising issue that police departments and agencies around the United States will be forced to deal with in the near future and the EFF wrote a few weeks back that the information "should be available to police when it's appropriate." Police knowing when a person goes to church, visit the hospital or meet with a friend is creepy, to say the least, especially if no illegal activity is involved. The ACLU has pointed to data showing that "law enforcement agencies across the country are collecting location data without a warrant or any court approval." "We shouldn't have to choose between using our smartphone and protecting our privacy," said Chris Conley, technology and civil liberties policy attorney for the ACLU of Northern California. Before supporters of the bill get too excited, they must wait for California Gov. Jerry Brown to approve the legislation, no sure thing after he vetoed a privacy bill last year, SB 914, that would have required police to get a search warrant before searching the contents of an arrested person's cellphone. Hopefully the governor will be smarter this time around………

Gambling mountain lions, men biting snakes and UFC's fighting champion

- Thursday was not a good day for the Ultimate Fighting Championships. Dana White’s organization is the undisputed king of mixed-martial arts and rapidly gaining ground on boxing in terms of popularity with combat sports fans, largely because every month UFC delivers a great pay-per-view event full of fights fans want to see. That changed for the first time on Thursday, as White was forced to call off UFC 151 after an injury forced light heavyweight Dan Henderson off the card and his opponent, champion Jon Jones, turned down a replacement fight against Chael Sonnen. White blasted Jones for rejecting the fight even though the man nicknamed “Bones Jones” is the fastest-rising star in UFC and a huge draw. Taking a fight on eight days’ notice may have been too much for Jones to accept, but it was obviously not too much for UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva to accept. Silva, whose last fight was a thorough beatdown of Sonnen, offered to accept a light heavyweight fight on eight days' notice if it would salvage UFC 151. Ed Soares, Silva's manager, confirmed that his fighter asked him to inform UFC he was willing to headline the card as a light heavyweight even though he has not been training or preparing the way he would if he were getting ready for a fight. White ultimately turned the offer down, saying it was too late to save the card.  "Anderson called me, said he heard about the event getting canceled," Soares said. "He goes, 'Well dude, tell Dana I haven't been training and I'm not in the best shape. I wouldn't be able to make 185 pounds, but if he could find another 205-pound fighter willing to take the fight on eight days' notice, I'd be willing to take the fight to save the event.” Jones said he didn’t want the other fighters on the card to suffer or for the fans to miss out. He had planned to take the rest of 2012 off after a win over Sonnen at UFC 148 in July, but showed himself to be a fighting champion nonetheless……….

- Don’t f*ck with Nepalese villager Mohamed Salmo Miya. Miya, who lives in a village some 125 miles southeast of the Nepali capital of Kathmandu, doesn’t take kindly to being hassled by anyone, especially not some slimy snake slithering through his rice paddy. He was out in his paddy, working hard and doing what Nepalese villagers who farm rice paddies do, when a snake snuck up and bit him. The snake, called "goman" in Nepal, is also known as the Common Cobra, is not deadly to bite victims but this particular bite victim was deadly for the snake. After it bit Miya, he didn’t panic, run for home or sit down and have a good cry. Instead, an enraged Miya pursued the snake and when he tracked it down, he exacted revenge in emphatic fashion. Deciding the best way to convey his anger was to make the snake feel his pain, Miya bit the snake back and continued biting it until he killed it. Biting a snake seems a tad dangerous and more than a little insane, but Miya didn’t flinch even though he could have picked up a garden tool or stick and gotten the job done just as well. "I could have killed it with a stick but bit it with my teeth instead because I was angry," Miya said. Police official Niraj Shahi confirmed that Miya would not be charged with killing the snake because the reptile was not among snake species listed as endangered in Nepal. He was treated at a village health post and released back into the wild to terrorize the snakes of his remote village………..

- If there isn't enough hydrogen in the world, maybe it’s time to manufacture some. With several major automakers hard at work developing hydrogen fuel cell projects, pilot projects underway and mountains of money to be made for those who win the race, competition is fierce. There are also significant cost and sustainability considerations to resolve. At the same time, scientists in Cambridge are working on their own solution to the challenge and this week, they were able to achieve significant progress toward figuring out at least one part of the dilemma: the need for a sustainable and cost-effective source for hydrogen. The Cambridge team used a cobalt catalyst instead of expensive platinum and conducted their tests in the "industrially relevant" conditions in which air was present, and at room temperature. “Until now, no inexpensive molecular catalyst was known to evolve H2 efficiently in water and under aerobic conditions. However, such conditions are essential for use in developing green hydrogen as a future energy source under industrially relevant conditions,” said researcher Dr. Erwin Reisner, an EPSRC research fellow and head of the Christian Doppler Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. “Our research has shown that  inexpensive materials such as cobalt are suitable to fulfill this challenging requirement. Of course, many hurdles such as the rather poor stability of the catalyst remain to be addressed, but our finding provides a first step to produce ‘green hydrogen’ under relevant conditions.” While this approach is still early in the developmental process and not ready to be used to produce affordable cars, these findings are noteworthy because cobalt, which is available in large supplies, worked after previously being shown to be ineffective. “A H2 evolution catalyst which is active under elevated O2 levels is crucial if we are to develop an industrial water splitting process – a chemical reaction that separates the two elements which make up water,” Reisner explained. The next steps in the process are addressing the poor stability of the catalyst and developing a solar water-splitting device in which the hydrogen and oxygen are simultaneously produced. The Cambridge team hopes to develop a sunlight-driven water splitting system soon and team leaders Fezile Lakadamyali and Masaru Kato believe a sunlit-driven method could yield “green and sustainable H2 instead of not-green and not-sustainable processes presently used to produce H2 from fossil fuels.” More on their work can be found in the latest edition of the must-have journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition…………

- Damn. There isn't any other way to respond to the news that Johnny Depp will reportedly make in the neighborhood of $90 million to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a fifth installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. Depp, the only one of the series’ stars who has appeared in a central role in all four of its previous four movies, made just north of $50 million for his role in the most recent movie in the franchise, 2011's “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” While some might argue that the franchise has run out of stories totell and should simply end rather than make a blatant cash grab with a fifth film, there is no disputing that such a film will make hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide based largely on brand recognition. As the central cog in that machine, Depp can command virtually any amount of money he wants and the push for nine figures is apparently part of his new long-term career plan. According to sources, Depp has studiously watched the terrible career arcs of actors like John Travolta or Nicolas Cage and has seen them become overexposed by doing too many films and having audiences grow tired of them. By accepting a massive contract for a new “Pirates” film, he can be much more selective about future roles. Of course, this ignores the fact that he just made $50 million for stranger tides and has made tens of millions more for the other roles he’s played throughout his career, but greed is greed and the Hollywood lifestyle doesn’t come cheap. Playing Captain Jack Sparrow over the past decade has substantially boosted his profile, allowed him to work with the man he based the character off, Rolling Stones frontman Keith Richards, and kept him relevant with younger fans as his career has progressed. Oh, and considering he recently split with the love of his life, Vanessa Paradis, after 14 years together and the couple have two children together, 12-year-old Lily Rose and 10-year-old Jack, $90 million should help Depp properly support his children………

- Even mountain lions like to gamble every now and then. Sometimes, they like to gamble by attempting to sneak into a casino in downtown Reno, Nev., ahead of the breakfast rush and snag some free waffles, pancakes, eggs and bacon. Friday morning was not so different from any other morning in the world’s “Biggest Little City,” except that a 100-pound cat attempted to walk through the front door at Harrah’s. A predator that could have mauled and killed most anything in sight could have conquered the casino’s breakfast buffet – if only it could have figured out the building’s revolving door. Guests spotted the young male cat trying to walk into the casino, but when the animal couldn’t negotiate the revolving door, it hid under an outdoor stage in a nearby plaza. Nevada Department of Wildlife officers were called to the scene and were able to capture the cat without any further incident. NDW spokesman Chris Healy didn’t cut the animal much slack, suggesting its behavior was “almost the equivalent of being a stupid teenager.” According to Healy, young mountain lions are often displaced after being chased out of a territory by adults. After officers tranquilized the roughly 2-year-old cat, they planned to tag it and release it into the wild for participation in a University of Nevada, Reno study. Like many runs to Las Vegas or Reno for a little gambling, the mountain lion’s trip went horribly sideways and ended with him unconscious, being hauled off by law enforcement and dumped somewhere they don’t know. The only difference here is that the mountain lion didn’t end up on the roof of an unfamiliar building or with a fuzzy memory of an encounter with Mike Tyson or a small, angry Asian man………..

Ruining great art, concerts at -40 degrees and Republicans should stop talking

- Republicans might want to stop talking for a while, maybe sit the next few plays out….either that or administer sanity tests to their candidates before allowing them to run for elected office. Republican House of Representatives Todd Akin of Missouri kicked off the most recent round of verbal gaffes with his indefensible remark about pregnancy rarely resulting from “legitimate” rape. But as insane as Akin’s words were, they pale in comparison to the sheer kook-ery of Tom Head, a Republican county judge in Lubbock, Tex. who is reaching all the way back to 1860 for his poor reasoning and mixing in a healthy dose of apocalyptic nuttiness. Head has put the nation on notice that America could descend into civil war if President Barack Obama is reelected. Head conducted interviews for both radio and television this wek in which he called for a trained, well-equipped force to battle the United Nations troops that he said Obama would bring in if the civil war actually occurs. He explained that as the county's emergency management coordinator he has to "think about the very worst thing that can happen and prepare for that and hope and pray for the best." Head believes "in this political climate and financial climate, what is the worst thing that could happen right now? Obama back in the White House. No. God forbid." His insanity is based on unexplained "executive orders" and other documents that Obama and "his minions have filed” and the belief that "regardless of whether the Republicans take over the Senate, which I hope they do, he is going to make the United States Congress and he's going to make the Constitution irrelevant. He's got his czars in place that don't answer to anybody." Head worries Obama will cede the United States’ sovereignty to the United Nations and believes a popular uprising will result. “I'm talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator. OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens? He is going to call in the U.N. troops, personnel carriers, tanks and whatever,” Head ranted. He also referenced a conversation with Lubbock County Sheriff Kelly Rowe in which Rowe allegedly promised to back Head should this doomsday scenario unfold. Unfortunately, Rowe denied any such conversation ever took place. Democrats have predictably called for Head’s ouster and even Republicans are running the other direction from this crackpot………….

- Fightstar frontman and former Busted singer Charlie Simpson has low goals – really low. In fact, his aim is so low that he’s looking to enter the Guinness Book Of World Records later this year. Simpson, who released his debut solo album “Young Pilgrim” last summer, wants to set a record by playing the world's coldest gig. For that reason and in the hopes of joining the loon with the world’s longest fingernails and the loser with the world’s largest ball of aluminum foil, in November he will fly to the Russian town of Oymyakon in Siberia, which has a population of 472 and has no running water or electricity. People who would probably be happy to see a 10-year-old with a yo-yo perform for entertainment will watch him attempt to play a show in the town in temperatures of around -40 degrees. Oymyakon is so cold that mobile phones cannot function and boiling water can be turned to ice in under five seconds when exposed to the air, so Simpson will face plenty of challenges in getting any of his gear to function or stay unfrozen long enough for him to get it indoors. If he successfully carries out his mission, he has been assured that he will enter the Guinness Book Of World Records. "The gig is by far one of the biggest challenges of my career, but I’m really excited to get out there and see a part of our planet that very few people will ever get to visit. It’s not really an option to play my guitar wearing gloves, so I just hope my fingers don’t freeze," Simpson said. As he readies for his sub-zero show, Simpson has also been busy completing for the British comedy film “Everyone's Going To Die,” which is due for release later this year. Depending on how well his show in Oymyakon goes, he may just live up to the film’s title………

- Dear science: Please stop giving people more excuses not to exercise or to exercise less. What happens when you suggest to the world that 30 minutes of daily exercise provide an equally effective loss of weight and body mass as 60 minutes? Nothing good. Sure, the research team at the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences may have meant well when they followed 60 heavy - but healthy - Danish men in their efforts to get into better shape. It seems like a solid concept and maybe some medical help would do the cherubic Danes some good. In the study, 30 of the men exercised for an hour a day, wearing a heart-rate monitor and calorie counter, while the second group worked out for just 30 minutes. The men who exercised 30 minutes a day lost a measly 8 pounds in three months, while those who exercised for a whole hour only lost an average of just under 6 pounds. The reduction in body mass was about 9 pounds for both groups, according to researcher and PhD student Mads Rosenkilde. Rosenkilde then stuck another dagger in the back of exercise discipline when he pointed out another “benefit” for the men who worked out for just 30 minutes a day. “Participants exercising 30 minutes per day burned more calories than they should relative to the training program we set for them. In fact we can see that exercising for a whole hour instead of a half does not provide any additional loss in either body weight or fat,” Rosenkilde said. “The men who exercised the most lost too little relative to the energy they burned by running, biking or rowing. Thirty minutes of concentrated exercise give equally good results on the scale.” His theory on the results is that 30 minutes of exercise is so doable that participants in the study had the desire and energy for even more physical activity after their daily exercise session. He also postulated that the study group that spent 60 minutes on the treadmill probably ate more, and therefore lost slightly less weight than anticipated. In other words, they figured that since they were working out more, they could eat more and still lose weight. Wrong idea, fatties. Not that this sort of nonsense about exercising less should be allowed to infect the mind of the obese worldwide, but the results have just been published in the American Journal of Physiology……….

- Talks for a new arena in California’s capital city have not gone well for the Sacramento Kings. A few months ago, the team and the city seemed to have settled on the parameters of a deal and Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star himself, presided over a celebration complete with chants from fans and high-fiving in the streets. That was in March, but August is a different story and as summer begins to wind down, the new tale is one of Kings ownership and officials from Comcast and concert promoter Live Nation traveling to Virginia Beach, Va. On Tuesday to discuss a new stadium and relocation of the NBA franchise. So far, the trip is only a rumor and one the Kings were eager to dismiss. "We haven't talked to Virginia Beach," co-owner Joe Maloof said. It was he, along with co-owners Gavin and George Maloof, who pulled out of the plan to help finance an arena in Sacramento earlier this year, saying it didn't make financial sense for the franchise. Anaheim had been mentioned as a logical spot for the franchise to move without having to relocate too far, but if Virginia Beach is in play, the scope of the search has clearly expanded. What the Kings are not denying at this point is their quest to find a new place to play. "The Kings have been approached by numerous cities interested (in) buying the team and relocating it," Kings spokesman Eric Rose said. "We are not going to discuss which cities have approached the team and are not going to comment on every rumor. I can tell you that the Kings are 100 percent focused on putting a winning team on the court." The latter part is reassuring because it’s sad to imagine how a team that finished 22-44 last season would have fared if it weren’t 100 percent focused on putting a winning team on the court. Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms confirmed meetings with Comcast, Live Nation and Global Spectrum next week, but did not respond to a request for comment on the Kings…………

- Restoring an historical work of art is an incredibly delicate task. Whether the art is a painting, sculpture or mural, reversing the hands of time and taking it back to its original form is a job best left to an expert. Cecilia Giménez, a parishioner at the Sanctuary of Mercy at Borja near Zaragoza, Spain, is not an expert and probably shouldn’t be anywhere near a work of art for any reason. Giménez offered her services to restore a 120-year-old fresco on a column inside the church after the painting, titled Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), was donated to the Center for Borja Studies from one of artist Elias Garcia Martinez, who crafted the depiction of Jesus Christ with a crown of thorns in the late 19th century. It was painted on a wall of the Sanctuary of Mercy at Borja and after being notified of the donation, members of the center’s staff went to the church to photograph the fresco. They realized it was in bad shape and Giménez was reportedly asked by the church to “fix things up.” Why she was asked is unclear, but she insisted the church knew exactly what she was doing. “The priest was aware … he knew,” she said. “Of course I did it because I was told to do it." From theere, the artistic sh*t hit the fan. Giménez went to work and the result was so ugly and hideous that many who saw it actually wondered if she had drawn inspiration from the 1997 Rowan Atkinson film "Bean." In the movie, Atkinson’s titular character accidentally sneezes on the masterpiece "Whistler's Mother" and attempts a crude repair that is little more than a line drawing. Giménez’s renovation looks more like a crude concept sketch for a costume in the next “Planet of the Apes” movie and Garcia's granddaughter, Teresa Garcia, is livid. "Everybody that came into the church saw me. I never tried to hide,” she is quoted as saying. "Clearly, she has destroyed the painting," Garcia said. The center addressed the controversy on its blog and didn’t exactly have Giménez’s back, expressing "astonishment" that "an intervention was done" on the painting. Officials are uncertain if the "restoration" can be fixed, but Giménez said her work was done in the open and nobody tried to stop her………