Movie news, skateboard bans and Knicks crazy

- Now THAT is how the weekend box office earnings race is supposed to look. Not one, but two whole movies cracked the eight-figure barrier and one even crept up on the $50 million mark. That would be newcomer “Hotel Transylvania,” which debuted with $43 million to easily outduel fellow new film “Looper” for the top spot. “Looper” landed in second place with $21.2 million in its debut, well ahead of last weekend’s top movie, “End of Watch,” which fell to third with a modest $8 million weekend to bring its two-week domestic total to $26.1 million. Fourth place belonged to the mediocre, Clint Eastwood-fronted “Trouble with the Curve,” which made just $7.5 million and has managed only $23.7 million domestically in its first two weeks. That was barely enough to hold off horror underwhelmer “House at the End of the Street,” which scared up $7.1 million to rank fifth and has garnered $22.2 million in its first two weeks. The first weekend was a strong one for song-and-dance flick “Pitch Perfect,” which opened in very limited release – 335 theaters – and still managed to place sixth with $5.2 million and the best per-theater average of the top 10. “Finding Nemo (3D)” was seventh as the latest example of Disney shamelessly grabbing for cash by re-releasing old movies in 3-D, making $4 million to up its three-week haul to $36.4 million. “Resident Evil: Retribution” snagged eighth place with $3 million and has $38.7 million overall after three weeks in theaters. Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s latest, “The Master” remained in limited release but managed to finish ninth with $2.8 million for a cumulative bank roll of $9.6 million. Newcomer “Won't Back Down” was a colossal disappointment, managing to barely hold the last spot in the top 10 with $2.7 million. “Dredd” (No. 11) and “The Possession” (No. 12) both dropped out from last weekend’s top 10……..

- Recluses living in the farthest reaches of the United States need a way to connect with the world too and high-speed Internet can be tricky when one lives on the side of a mountain, 20 miles from the nearest town. Satellite TV company Dish Network Corp. is well aware of this fact and looking to cash in by launching a broadband Internet service that’s aimed at rural areas — including in Wyoming — that don’t currently have high-speed Internet. The company announced Thursday that the satellite broadband service, dishNet, will start at $40 per month for people who bundle it with certain Dish’s TV programming packages. Interested parties need not wait long, as the new service goes on sale Monday. Dish’s target market is about 14.5 million Americans who, according to a Federal Communications Commission report, live in rural areas and don’t have access to high-speed Internet. In total, about 19 million people in the U.S. don’t have high-speed Internet service, but that number could shrink if Dish provides a viable service with reliable connections and consistent download speeds. In its official statement, the company said the dishNet service will offer download speeds of up to 10 megabytes per second. That speed is quick enough for common Internet uses such as accessing social networks, music or video streaming and Internet telephone services. Of course, it will also cost $50 per month on top of a Dish TV account, as opposed to $40 per month for download speeds of 5 megabytes per second. Those who have a different cable or satellite provider will also have to chip off an additional $10 per month. This service is available in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, the usual suspects for kooky, über-rural dwellers………

- As if the basketball scene in New York City wasn’t already crazy enough, the city’s primary NBA team is adding a major dose of insanity to the mix. The New York Knicks are seeking to fend off the attempts of the Nets to seize Manhattan’s basketball hearts as they move from New Jersey to Brooklyn this season and to do that, the Knicks will need to be much better than they have been in recent seasons. Perhaps veteran forward Rasheed Wallace, 38, can assist in that endeavor. The always-combustible Wallace has informed the Knicks that he will come out of retirement to play for the team this season. He first worked out for the Knicks last Saturday and had been contemplating a return over the past week to revive a career that supposedly ended when the 15-year veteran retired after the 2009-10 season. Wallace has yet to sign a contract, but the Knicks expect him at the first day of camp Tuesday. Throughout his career, he has always been an enigma with immense talent but a short fuse and questionable commitment to conditioning. He was last seen waddling and jiggling up and down the court with the Boston Celtics more than two years ago and after a run to the

2010 NBA Finals with the Celtics, retired and left nearly $12 million in guaranteed money on the table. He won't be a major factor with the Knicks, but could be serviceable backing up power forward Amare Stoudemire. He will also add to the AARP vibe the Knicks have created in their locker room with Jason Kidd, 39, Marcus Camby, 38, and Kurt Thomas, 39, on the roster. Even if his tenure in New York is an abject failure, Wallace is a cheap (relatively speaking) mistake playing for what will likely be the veteran's minimum of $1.7 million……….

- Give an unidentified Swedish convict credit for creativity and getting over on the system for a little while. Maybe Swedish prison officials should have paid closer attention to a man convicted of smuggling, but how often does a convicted criminal try to outwit his jailers by sneaking in a friend to serve most of his yearlong sentence? Whoever this scammer is, he was nearly able to get away with his crime and his replacement inmate’s identity was discovered only when he'd been released on probation after serving about two-thirds of his friend's sentence, Elisabeth Lager of Sweden's Prison and Probation Service said. How did this dynamic duo pull off their plot? The fake convict came to serve the sentence with a false ID -- a driving license in the name of the smuggler friend but with his photograph. Because Lager selfishly refused to give the name of either the convict or his friend, the world may never have the answers it demands about this unususal plot. For example, what kind of friend willingly serves time in jail for another? Was there money exchanged or did the individual posing as someone else do so in order to pay off some sort of debt? Not releasing the identities of those involved is a weak way for the prison system to avert further embarrassment, but the names will eventually come out somehow. Swedish authorities issued an international arrest warrant

for the real convict earlier this year, mysteriously some three years after the switch. Also left unsaid was whether or not the smuggler's friend would be punished for misleading prison authorities and assuming a false identity. The convict’s original crimes were a series of smuggling offences in southwestern Sweden in 2008. He has supposedly fled the country for Asia and paid his friend to serve his sentence, although those rumors have never been confirmed………

- Duuuuuude, this is totally uncool. The old, boring, out-of-touch residents of Farmingdale, N.Y. are attempting to mimic the ass-hatted ideals of a few other backwards-thinking communities around America by enacting a ban on skateboarding. The town already prohibits skateboarding in three of its parks, but is debating a for wide-ranging ban because (allegedly) officials are worried about injuries and lawsuits. Local dudes and dudettes who enjoy hopping on their board and doing tricks on stairs, ramps and hills are understandbly worried. When they look around and see all sort of great landscapes for skateboarding, the idea that the powers that be might rip their right to shred is downright offensive. The epicenter of the controvery seems to be a place known locally as Lenox Hill, where the time-tested adage that a few morons can ruin the fun for everyone is proving true once more. “It’s a dangerous situation. Sometimes you’re backing out of the driveway and they’re whizzing by. They are smaller than a car so you don’t see them,” resident Joyce Merzbacher said in explaining her reasons for joing the chorus of skate-haters. Farmingdale Village officials have inexplicably hinted that the may kowtow to the complainers and implement a skateboarding ban on the residential hill, with $100 fines for violators. Those on the other side of the debate have pointed out that there are far more hazardous activites going on amongst the town’s youth and perhaps stamping out those happenings should take priority. To win the battle, they will need to win over their own mayor, who seems to have turned against the future X-Gamers of Farmington. “I’d like to see them revisit this when they have their own kids 20 years from now, skateboarding down the street at 30 mph with four intersections and people coming out of the driveway,” Mayor Ralph Ekstrand said. Wrong thinking, mayor. The future is now, not 20 years down the road. Quit being such a square and stand up for those who can't vote or make laws themselves. A public hearing set for Monday night is the next step in the process………

Riot Watch! Yemen, man banders rip off The Clash and MLBers giving up $3 million

- One of the most unusual scenes in recent Major League Baseball history unfolded Friday as the Minnesota Twins  released Japanese infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka. The nove didn’t come as a bit surprise as Nishioka spent most of 2012 with the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings, batting .258 with two home runs and 34 RBIs in 392 at-bats. After the Twins bid more than $5.3 million to his Japanese team to gain negotiating rights and signed him to a three-year, $9.25 million contract before the 2011 season, he broke his lower left leg just five games into his rookie year and played in only three games for the Twins this summer, making two errors plus several other mistakes in the field and going 0 for 12 with one sacrifice fly. His release came at his own request, which is unusual but not unprecedented, but what made it so rare was that Nishioka accepted blame for his failure to produce at the plate or play capable defense at shortstop and second base and waived his right to his $3 million salary for the 2013 season and a $250,000 buyout. That means the Twins don't owe him any more money and he is now a free agent. "I would like to thank the Twins organization for helping me fulfill my dream of playing in Major League Baseball,"  Nishioka said. "I take full responsibility for my performance which was below my own expectations. At this time, I have made the decision that it is time to part ways. I have no regrets and know that only through struggle can a person grow stronger. I appreciate all the support the team and the fans in Minnesota and Rochester have shown me." Some of his odd approach could be ascribed to the culture he comes from and the differences between the United States and Japan when it comes to money, duty and personal responsibility. For a small-market team like Minnesota, the financial blessing is immense, even if it means admitting failure after signing a player who was the Nippon Professional Baseball batting champion in 2010 and won the equivalent of a Gold Glove award for his defense………

- If anyone had forgotten that hackers can take down or access just about any site they want if they are talented enough, the plight of the websites of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and PNC Bank since Sept. 19 should serve as a nice reminder. All five sites have suffered day-long slowdowns and been sporadically unreachable for many customers during that span. Bank of America was the first target and the attacks were sequential and methodical. Security experts characterized the attcks as one of the biggest cyberattacks they've ever seen. The “denial of service” attack is predicated upon directing massive amounts of traffic at a website to crash it. Banks are common targets for hackers, but this time their sizeable defenses were simply overmatched. Many experts seemed flabbergasted by the scale of the attacks, calling them unprecedented and at as much as 20 times the volume usually seen in such hacking operations. To fuel their sinister plot, the attackers seized thousands of high-powered application servers and pointed them all at the targeted banks. Bank of America and Chase's servers crashed on Sept. 19 and Wells Fargo and U.S. Ban went down Wednesday, followed by PNC on Thursday. PNC confirmed only that a high volume of traffic on Thursday was affecting users' ability to access the website, but refused any further comment. Denial of service attacks are incredibly simple and don’t involve any actual hacking, so no data or personal information from customers was stolen. Instead, the goal appears to have been temporarily knocking down the banks' websites. To carry out the plot, the attackers would have needed months of planning to acquire the servers and tie them together into a network called a "botnet." Those launching DNS attacks typically have much simpler plans and use malware installed remotely through viruses on the hard drives of unsuspecting users whose machines are turned into virtual zombies at the control of hackers. There is one primary culprit in the bank attacks, but researchers are divided over how seriously to take claims of responsibility by the Islamist group Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters. Determining who was responsible would be a quality first step to preventing such an attack from happening again……….

- One Direction may be a hack-tacular attempt to revive the man-band era, but it’s the British pop twits’ rip-off of a classic British punk rock band’s work that has earned Louis Tomlinson and his fellow man banders a massive wave of condemnation. The group’s current horrible single is “Live While We’re Young” and it sounds suspiciously (exactly, to be more accurate) like The Clash’s iconic track “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.” When two songs sound that much alike, there are only two viable options. The first is to pull a Vanilla Ice when asked why the opening bars of his one and only hit “Ice Ice Baby” sounds like a carbon copy of the opening bars of David Bowie’s famed “Pressure.” When confronted, Vanilla Ice denied the two songs had identical beginnings and claimed that one small octave change allegedly used in his song makes the tracks completely different. The second option is to do what Tomlinson did and admit that his group ripped off Joe Strummer’s crew, but argue that they really didn’t have an option because there are only so many unique riffs possible in music. "I assume it must be quite difficult to do a unique riff now because there have been so many songs - surely there's only so many riffs you can pull out?" Tomlinson asked. Fellow One Directioner Harry Styles admitted that the similarity between the two songs was no accident. “It was kind of on purpose though. It's a great riff,” he said. Yes, it is a great riff and it was two-plus decades ago when The Clash came up with it. Twitter users lit One Direction up for their blatant musical thievery, suggesting the man banders should start paying royalties to The Clash. That wouldn’t be too difficult, given that the members of the newest incarnation of 98 Men Street Town Sync have made around $150 million collectively in the last two years and will undoubtedly rake in more from the musically clueless masses when they release their second album “Take Me Home” on Nov. 12…………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The rage continued Friday in Yemem, where thousands of protesters marched in the capital city of Sanaa on Friday, demanding the return of millions of dollars that were allegedly stolen by the country's former dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Stealing millions of dollars from an impoverished nation is a great reason to riot and Friday’s uprising came a week after several nations backing Yemen's political transition pushed for sanctions against Saleh's loyalists for undermining the country's shift to democracy after a year fraught with bloodshed and turmoil. Saleh managed to accumulate significant wealth during nearly 30 years in power in Yemen, which coincidentally happens to be the poorest country in the Middle East. A popular uprising forced him from power earlier this year and Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was elected president in February, but that didn’t cause the people to forget about Saleh’s alleged crimes. Protests againt Saleh have raged regularly over the past few months and opposition groups have demanded that he members of his family be tried in court on corruption charges and over killings of protesters during the revolt. Protestors released a statement Friday calling on Hadi and his western allies to help trace and retrieve Saleh's alleged stolen millions. Both Hadi and Yemeni opposition groups agree that Saleh and his supporters are sabotaging the country's transition process, which should lead to a new constitution within a year and general election by early 2014. Some sanctions were hinted at last week when diplomats from several Western nations and Gulf states that brokered Yemen's power transfer deal recommended international sanctions against Saleh's loyalists, the country southern secessionists and members of the largest Islamist group. As the transition progress has ground to a halt, nearly everyone involved has grown increasingly frustrated. Al-Qaeda has increased its presence in Yemen and done plenty to escalate the violence. Hadi has feebly tried to battle the group and has the United States’ support, but opposition groups worry some of the new president's opponents may support the terrorist group. In other words, it’s a ginormous clusterf*ck, so why not add a well-timed riot to the mix………

- New and exciting developments are happening in the world of implanting artificial components into the human body. For example, on Friday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a heart defibrillator that helps to restore regular heart rhythms with leads that can be implanted just under the skin instead of connected directly into the heart. Implantable defibrillators constantly monitor a person’s heart rhythm and can deliver a therapeutic dose of electricity to restore the rhythm when it senses the heart is beating dangerously fast (tachycardia) or erratically (sudden cardiac arrest). This subcutaneous version is different than other implantable defibrillators on the market, which require a physician to insert one or more electrical conductor wires into a vein in the upper chest and guide them into the patient’s heart using X-ray fluoroscopy, a real-time imaging method. The Subcutaneous Implantable Defibrillator (S-ICD) System has the green light to hit the market and it relies on a lead that is implanted just under the skin along the bottom of the rib cage and breast bone. Physicians can implant the device without accessing a patient’s blood vessels or heart and without the need for fluoroscopy because the lead is placed under the skin rather than through a vein into the heart. “The S-ICD System provides an alternative for treating patients with life-threatening heart arrhythmias for whom the routine ICD placement procedure is not ideal,” said Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation at FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Some patients with anatomy that makes it challenging to place one of the implantable defibrillators currently on the market may especially benefit from this device.” The overall purpose of the device is the same as other implanted defibrillators, but it is approved only for patients who do not require a pacemaker or pacing therapy. The FDA granted approval after reviewing a 321-patient study in which 304 patients were successfully implanted with the S-ICD System. The S-ICD System was successful at converting all abnormal heart rhythms that it detected back to normal rhythms, which was good enough for the U.S. government to sign off on the idea………

The Killers on the moon, Germany taxes the faithful and a great Mets story

- The Curiosity rover isn't just wasting time and taxpayer money exploring Mars, a place where no one but Newt Gingrich would ever want to live. It is also revealing fascinating facts like the existence of water in the red planet’s distant past. The 2,000-pound super-rover, which arrived on Mars on Aug. 6, has discovered stones in conglomerate rock, suggesting that water must have flowed there in the past. The rocky outcropping is named Hottah, after Hottah Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories. John Grotzinger, lead scientist for the Curiosity mission, announced the find at a news conference Thursday. The consensus is that "this is a rock that was formed in the presence of water," Grotzinger said. "We can characterize that water as being a vigorous flow." Curiosity has come across rounded gravels, which appear to have been subjected to a sediment transport process, carried by either water or wind. Because the pebbles appear too large to have been carried by wind, water is the only plausible option. A second outcropping shows similar evidence and along with other finds, Curiosity has allowed scientists to enhance their understanding of the area. Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley speculated that the water flowing in these rock formations was probably somewhere between ankle and hip deep. Project researchers believe the water and sediment flowed down the crater into an alluvial fan -- a geological formation created by material that water transports. It’s difficult to say how long ago the water flowed, but Dietrich speculated that it was  "thousands to millions of years.” Despite other evidence of water on the planet, this is the first direct observation of streambed material. Curiosity is now three-quarters of the way between Hottah and Glenelg, its next official stop, where the rover will examine three types of terrain, including layered bedrock, making it a potentially interesting place for Curiosity to try out its drill. Its last stop will be Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-high mountain with layers of sediment that will offer opportunities to search for organic molecules. Did someone say party time? Heck yes…….. 

- The New York Mets are one of the worst teams in baseball this season, but their pitching staff has arguably the best individual tale in the sport. R.A. Dickey had the dubious honor of being the first player cut from major league camp by the Mets during spring training in 2010, he pitches without a key ligament in his eblow because he was born without it, prior to the season he released a book detailing his history of sexual abuse as a child and struggles with substance abuse and yet, the 37-year-old knuckleballer is the first 20-game winner on a sub-.500 team since Roger Clemens with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1997 and a legitimate National League Cy Young Award contender. He asked to start the Mets' home finale and used the opportunity to garner his 20th win by limiting the Pittsburgh Pirates to three runs in 7 2/3 innings Thursday before departing with a three-run lead. His team held on for a 6-5 win and Dickey improved to 20-6. He admitted after the game that it was an emotional day for him. "It was as hard as it's ever been to not get emotional, that's for sure," Dickey said. "I mean, from the get-go, from the introductions to the last pitch." Dickey broke out the heat against the Pirates, throwing his hard knuckler at about 78 mph, and tied his career high with 13 strikeouts. His feat is all the more remarkable because he had never had won more than 11 games in any previous season. He became the sixth Met to win 20 games in a season, fitting to end a year in which rotation mate Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in Mets history. Only Washington Nationals Cy Young candidate Gio Gonzalez (21) has more wins than Dickey, who also became the first knuckleballer to win 20 games since Houston's Joe Niekro in 1980. The crowd of 31,506 – buoyed by $10 tickets to boost attendance for the matinee – was loud throughout Dickey’s time on the mound and gave him repeated standing ovations. After Travis Snider in the eighth and being taken out of the game, he tipped his cap to the excited fans, exchanged high-fives with teammates in the dugout and took a seat on the bench. The joy he displayed despite it being a disappointing season for his team made the day that much better and at least Mets fans will have two good memories from an otherwise forgettable season………

- Pay up or you can’t send your prayers upward, German’s 24 million Catholics. Access to the Almighty certainly seems like it should be free, but it won't be in Deutschland for Catholics who don't pay their religious taxes. A decree issued last week by the country's bishops threw down the faith gauntlet, putting rules in places barring religious tax delinquents from receiving sacraments, including weddings, baptisms and funerals. The decree highlighted a longstanding practice in Germany and a handful of other European countries in which governments tax registered believers and then hand over the money to the religious institutions. Germany administers a surcharge of up to nine percent on the income tax bills of Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Apparently giving Jews a break after the torment they suffered at the hand of the Third Reich just doesn’t work, so instead they and other religious groups are taxed about 56 euros a month for a single person earning a pre-tax monthly salary of about 3,500 euros. The taxes make it even more difficult for religious institutions to keep their congregations together, but the Catholic Church in Germany receives about $6.5 billion annually from the surcharge. Protestants fork over $5.2 billion in taxes a year, standing in stark contrast to American churches, which run on donations. Many church members have taken to declaring themselves no longer members of their church in order to avoid taxes, even if they still attend regularly. The Catholic Church has lost about 181,000 tax-paying members in 2010 and 126,000 a year later, according to official figures. Protestants have fared poorly as well, losing 145,000 registered members in Germany in 2010. Many Germans are weighing being able to take nice vacations and afford other luxuries against the cost of being a church member. Germany's Catholic bishops know this and they are clearly targeting Catholics who still want to be a part of the church but don’t want to declare it officially because they don’t want to pay their taxes. "This decree makes clear that one cannot partly leave the Church," the bishops said in a statement. "It is not possible to separate the spiritual community of the Church from the institutional Church." In other words, pay us our money. Protestants have been kinder, saying non-taxpayers are still welcome to attend services and take communion. Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland all have faiths that tax church members, but the issue in those places has not become as contentious as it has in Germany……..

- What the f*ck is going on in the Northeast with mayors and their attacks on the common folks’ enjoyment of their local park? First, the mayor of Hardtford, Conn. puts a moronic ban in place on pickup games of flag football and Ultimate Frisbee unless players apply for a permit in advance. Now, Rutland, Vt. Mayor Chris Louras is stepping his idiocy game up by ripping most of the benches out of Depot Park. Park benches are typically synonymous with parks, but Louras believes the ability to sit down and relax in the park isn’t as important as stamping out lawbreaking. How are the two connected? The mayor and his sycophants have decided that the disorderly and sometimes illegal behavior in the park is tied to people being able to sit down on a bench while they buy or use drugs, get drunk in public or commit a lewd or perverse act. Clearly, drug dealers won’t sell drugs if they have to do it standing up and buyers won't want to go through the hassle of having to conduct their drug purchases while on their feet. Oh, and hookers never solicit johns while standing up either. The idea to yank the benches from Depot Park allegedly came from by some residents who say they no longer use the park because they don't feel comfortable. Most cited drug use as the primary hazard and rather than use some simple logic and realize that removing benches isn't going to solve the problem Louras feebly capitulated to the demands. He also suggested the powers that be have laid the law down for the troublemakers who have turned the park into an unappealing place to be. "We're also going to engage some of the young adults who've been problematic," Louras said. "We want you here, but we want everyone to feel welcome as well.” Wait….who doesn’t feel welcome in a place where 8-balls of coke are readily available and one can pick up a dime bag of weed while their child plays on the monkey bars? Oh, and not having benches should also play very well on Saturdays, when the park is host to the local farmers market. Good thinking, Mayor Ass Hat, good thinking………

- The Killers’ music may not be out of this world, but the Las Vegas rockers would like a future concert to be. Brandon Flowers’ outfit, which released its new album “Battle Born” earlier this month and had it hit No. 1 on the Official UK Album charts, would like to play a concert…on the moon. Drummer Ronnie Vannucci revealed that he wants his band to play a gig on the moon. "Lunar rock, that is the way forward," he said. "If there was a gig on the Moon we'd be there. I figure we're so heavy-handed as a band we could probably be heard in space anyway." Playing on the moon seems absurd because no one is going to be able to attend the show in person, but it is important for a band to have goals. Playing a show in Hollywood and paying tribute to late singer Andy Williams is fine, but playing a cover of “Moon River” is simply not the same as rocking out on the actual moon. Williams passed away Tuesday at the age of 84 and although he would seem to have little to do with a glitzy, polished rock band that is all about modern style, he definitely meant something to The Killers. “Battle Born” is the group’s The Killers' fourth studio album and the follow-up to their 2008 effort “Day & Age.” Flowers has also been busy and released his first solo album, “Flamingo,” in 2010. Bassist Mark Stoermer also released a solo project, “Another Life,” last November and Vannucci recorded and released his debut solo album under the Big Talk name earlier in the year. Before they can set their sights on the moon, The Killers are set to tour the United Kingdom in November, including two shows at London's O2 Arena. Maybe they can hook up with NASA and find some zero-gravity space to practice in after their U.K. run so they can begin preparing for their outer-space concert in earnest……..

Candy bar technology, Mona Lisa disputes and Gene Simmons' legacy continues

- Exciting news is here, America! No, the presidential election isn't going to take place one month early so those damn robo-calls will stop and you can answer your phone or sit through a commerical break during your favorite TV show without seeing a barrage of natsy campaign spots. The recession isn't over either, but something even better could be on the horizon. Some 37 years after his mysterious disappearance, Jimmy Hoffa (or at least his remains) could be on the verge of being discovered. The former Teamsters boss disappeared in 1975 and theories on his whereabouts have raged on ever since. Being buried under the former Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands in New Jersey was the most common theory, but a new tip given to law enforcement authorities places Hoffa’s remains a long way from the swamps of the Garden State. Police in Roseville, Mich. will drill Friday beneath a concrete slab at a suburban Detroit-area residence after a tipster claimed a body was buried there at the same time as Hoffa’s disappearance. Police Chief James Berlin said the tipster's information is "credible" and confirmed that radar has detected an anomaly beneath the ground at the home. Crews will take a core sample from the ground and test it for human remains to determine whether further digging is necessary. If remains are discovered and they are Hoffa’s, there will be plenty of disappointed conspiracy theorists who will need to find another famous missing person to fill out the three-man posse formerly populated by Hoffa, Elvis and John F. Kennedy. Hoffa was once one of the most powerful union leaders in America, but was sent to prison in 1967 before President Richard Nixon pardoned him in 1971 on the condition that he not attempt to get back into the union movement before 1980. There is plenty of reason for skepticism about whether Hoffa is buried in Roseville. The tipster didn’t claim Hoffa was buried in Roseville, but he did tell police that the burial happened around the time Hoffa vanished, Berlin said. The body could be a random person no one was looking for or as Berlin pointed out, “It could be a dog.” This isn't the first time the search for Hoffa has moved into Michigan, but the last time was an unsuccessful 2006 search of a large horse barn in Milford Township. The barn was torn down, but nothing was found beneath its foundation. Maybe this time will be different………

- The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Orange County Near The Pacific Ocean made two big splashes last offseason. They gave a nine-figure deal to free-agent pitched C.J. Wilson and handed future Hall of Fame slugger Albert Pujols 10-year, $254 million contract. They clearly intended to make a World Series run with their new pieces and when Pujols and Wilson weren’t enough, they made the biggest move at the trade deadline in July by acquiring starter Zach Greinke. Still, they’re on the outside looking in as the postseason looms just one week away and an unlikely source is calling them out for the deal they gave to Pujols: the slugger’s former manager, Hall of Famer Tony LaRussa. LaRussa is an unabashed fan of Pujols, but even he believes giving a player who is now 32 a 10-year deal worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars is a foolish move. "I don't think 10 years was a smart move for the Cardinals," La Russa said, alluding to St. Louis’ decision not to offer Pujols a matching deal to keep him from leaving for the West Coast. LaRussa doesn’t fault the Angels for signing Pujols, but believes any deal longer than six years is unwise. "I think Albert is perfect -- I call him Albert P. Pujols for Albert Perfect Pujols -- but I don't think that I would ever endorse a contract beyond six years, tops,” LaRussa explained. He was actually answering a question about soon-to-be free agent Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers, who carries more baggage and doesn’t have as impressive a track record as Pujols. For LaRussa, such decisions are a thing of the past. He retired after last season following a 33-year managerial career in which he won three rings, two with St. Louis and the other with Oakland. Clearly, even his loyalty has its limits………

- International art intrigue? Let’s dive in because few stories are more exciting than the world’s most famous work of art being at the center of a legitimacy dispute. The Mona Lisa currently hangs on its own wall in a massive, high-ceilinged wall at the Louvre in Paris, but a Zurich-based foundation claims to have proof that Leonardo Da Vinci painted an earlier version of the famed painting. The Mona Lisa Foundation, which owns the "Isleworth Mona Lisa," has spent the past 35 years researching its version of the painting and now feels confident enough in its experts and their findings to proclaim that the Isleworth Mona Lisa predates the famed 16th-century masterpiece by about a decade. The Isleworth version features the familiar portrait of a young woman with an enigmatic smile, but it is slightly larger, painted on canvas and features has brighter colors than the famed Louvre Museum masterpiece, which is painted on wood. The foundation made its case to the media Thursday in Geneva and to further document the evidence it has accumulated, will release an accompanying book claiming the Isleworth Mona Lisa received a high amount of attention and coverage in the early 20th century despite spending decades in storage. Predicting what effect this revelation will have on either painting’s value is difficult because art is supremely subjective and the “real” Mona Lisa isn't going on sale any time soon, but one could easily imagine that if the Mona Lisa Foundation is correct, the Isleworth version of the painting would take a leap in worth. Hopefully that means it ends up at the center of a high-end robbery involving an international art-theft ring, leading to a terrible movie starring Pierce Brosnan or Catherine Zeta-Jones………

- Gene Simmons has never been shy about whoring out his band, his career and anything having to do with what KISS has done over the years. There isn't a more commercialized band in all of rock and roll and Simmons has done reality shows, proudly displayed KISS figurines, lunchboxes, clothing and other swag on which his empire has been built. He has now passed that approach to music on to the next generation and it was on display for the world Wednesday night on an early-season episode of the crap-tacular Fox reality series “X-Factor Karaoke.” Simmons rolled up on “X-Factor Karaoke” auditions in Providence, R.I. in support of his daughter, Sophie, who was there to audition along with all of the other aspiring karaoke-ers in the hopes of having a long and un-distinguished run singing terrible versions of other people’s songs on an unwatchable reality show. “It’s a big shadow. I really want to step out from being the daughter of the guy from KISS,” Sophie told the judges during her audition. When she rolled out onto the stage, she was quickly identified for her famous family connections and seemed genuinely disappointed. “They didn’t know I was doing this till yesterday and they’re pretty upset with me,” Sophie said in response to judge Demi Lovato’s observation. She then showed she knows how to play the bad reality karaoke show game by uncorking her version of Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love.” A majority of the show’s judges liked her/thought she could bring in better ratings and after receiving the approval of musical abortionist and show creator Simon Cowell, Sophie advanced in the audition process and will get to continue the family tradition of selling out musically………..

- Technology is a wonderful asset. When scientists and researchers spend years or even decades developing a piece of technology and it is put to use to make the world a better place, it is truly beautiful. Nestle understands this and it’s why the candy maker is using GPS inside of its candy bars to track its customers for a sweepstakes in the United Kingdom. The company recently launched its "We Will Find You" campaign in the U.K., which sounds very creepy and stalker-ish, but is actually a giant barrel of fun because it will use tracking devices placed inside six winning candy bars. When a person unwraps their winning candy bar, the device will go off and company officials will be able to determine their exact location. To really hype up the contest and make it seem more dramatic, the Nestle commercial says that the candy unwrapping "will alert a secret control room who will scramble a crack team of highly trained individuals. They will board a helicopter, find the special bar and give the owner 10,000 pounds ($16,145)." That’s right, a candy bar company SWAT team will then pile into a helicopter, speed to the prize winner’s location and interrupt them no matter where they are or what they are doing, hopefully kicking down the door even if they are at home, nestled safely in bed after a late-night raid on the kitchen, or at work sifting through a stack of TPS reports after finishing their lunch break. If having a Nestle SWAT team speeding at you like a heat-seeking missile sounds extremely appealing, just head to the U.K., start buying Kit-Kat, Aero and Yorkie bars and wait for the magic to happen……

Hubble does work, Lady Gaga defends her FAT and self-driving cars in Cali

- Everything Lady Gaga does is to seek attention and get more people to pay attention to her, so why not mix a little laziness and some terrible eating habits in while also creating a little drama as her normal kooky antics start to get a little old? That may not be the story she’s selling, but Gaga has chunked up and taken plenty of heat for her, um, fuller figure. She doesn’t like the blowback and is taking a stand against critics of her recent weight gain, posting photos of herself in just her underwear on her official website. She is billing her weight gain and purported pride about it as  “Body Revolution 2013,” conveniently ignoring the fact that it’s still 2012 and challenging her female fans to send in their own photos of themselves. Gaga said she’s struggled for years to accept her body image, which might be true but also might be another one of her ploys to build her brand, give her public image some depth and get people to pay more attention to her. The heat she has taken online for FAT-ting up probably does sting, but having scores of people kissing your ass every day, bowing to your every whim and telling you how great you are because they’re paid sycophants probably helps salve those wounds. The pop hack credits her boyfriend, actor Taylor Kinney, and her fans for giving her the support she needs to feel happy with her shape. “My weight/loss/gain since I was (a) child has tormented me. No amount of help has ever healed my pain about it. But you (fans) have. My boyfriend prefers me curvier, when I eat and am healthy and not so worried about my looks, I’m happy. Happier then I’ve ever been,” she wrote on her official website. “I am not going to go on a psycho-spree because of scrutiny. This is who I am. And I am proud at any size.” Just as long as she’s proud of how she looks and not of that unlistenable garbage she calls music……….

- How bad could it be to allow self-driving cars on the road in a state full of people completely self-absorbed in their iPhone conversations, urgent texts on their Droid, applying their makeup, checking to make sure their new boob job is properly displayed by their halter top or using their BlackBerry to schedule an appointment with their plastic surgeon for a nose job? California will soon find out after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the autonomous-vehicles bill into law Tuesday afternoon alongside Google co-founder Sergey Brin and State Sen. Alex Padilla, who authored the bill, at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The law makes California is the latest state to allow testing of Google's self-driving cars on the roads, but such vehicles will still need to have a human passenger along as a safety measure. The bill, SB 1298, will also set up procedures and requirements for determining when the cars are road-ready. Brin is setting high expectations for the effort and hopes that self-driving cars will be able to drive on public streets in five years or less. Brown also sounded confident when asked about how the public will react to self-piloted cars on the highway. "Anybody who first gets in the car and finds the car is driving will be a little skittish. But they'll get over it,” Brown said, adding that the California Highway Patrol is on board with the plan. The cars operate using a combination of technologies, including radar sensors on the front, video cameras aimed at the surrounding area, exterior sensors and artificial-intelligence software that helps steer. Artificial intelligence would probably help cars with IQ-deficient drivers, so maybe that should be Google’s next project. Other organizations, including Caltech, are also working on self-driving cars. Google has already tested the cars on the road in Nevada and the vehicles have accumulated more than 300,000 driving miles. More than 50,000 of those miles were without any intervention from the human drivers, according to Google. There have been no reported accidents while the cars were controlled by the computer and Brin believes the cars could address a number of key transportation issues. He suggested that the self-driving vehicles could be a great, independent transportation option for people who are usually unable to drive, such as blind people. "Some people have other disabilities, some people are too young, some people are too old, sometimes we're too intoxicated," Brin said. Ah, the self-driving car for that special lush in your life who doesn’t have enough self-control to call a cab or hand their keys over rather than drive home while rocking a .15 blood-alcohol level. So far, Google’s self-driving fleet includes Toyota Prius Hybrids and the Lexus RX450h. Many legal and technical problems must be resolved before the vehicles are ready for public use, but it’s all part of Google’s continued quest for world domination…………

- Beringia: It’s a real place and not a region in the most remote corner of Narnia. That very real place is an ancient land consisting of 2,800 miles stretching from Siberia, across the Bering and Chukchi seas, through Alaska and into Canada's British Columbia. It’s also a place that appears to have magical powers in that it is actually bringing the Communist hellhole that is Russia together with the United States. The two world powers have united to provide additional protection for Beringia. For thousands of years, the region sported a 1,000-mile-long land bridge that emerged when sea level dropped. It has a real heritage of people divided by borders but united culturally and a wealth of wildlife diversity including whales, polar bears, walruses and seals. Animal rights and wildlife protection groups are hopeful about the future of those creatures following a meeting and announcement by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, earlier this month. Both nations pledged to work toward "a transboundary area of shared Beringian heritage" by 2013 and groups such as the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are fired up by the news.  "From the diversity of its Arctic wildlife, both on land and within its waters, to the bounty it provides that sustains cultures on both sides of the U.S.-Russian border, Beringia is home to a kingdom of wildlife and cultural riches, deserving of protection in perpetuity," Cristian Samper, the group’s president. "This announcement brings us one step closer to that reality." If the region does receive an official designation, it would more closely link two U.S. national parks -- the Bering Land Bridge Natural Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument -- with Russia's soon-to-be-designated Beringia National Park. Clinton explained that park managers and researchers from both countries will share the responsibility for conserving Beringia’s “unique ecosystem.” The U.S. has long maintained a program to promote and maintain Beringia, a term that was first used in 1937. Current protection efforts are focused on issues such as how shipping in formerly ice-covered seas will affect marine life and indigenous people, the threat walruses face from shrinking sea ice and the impacts of human development on birds from around the world that nest and breed in the Arctic tundra………..

- The two primary reasons the NFL is king on the American sports landscape are gambling and fanstasy football. While fans love the action on the field and on their flat screens, they love the action they have with their sports book of choice even more. As much as they care about their favorite team winning, they’re just as passionate about their fantasy team emerging victorious in a given week. Monday night's mangled, botched touchdown call by a team of replacement officials that gave the Seattle Seahawks a 14-12 victory over the Green Bay Packers had a major impact on both fronts. Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s Hail Mary pass was intercepted by Packers safety M.D. Jennings, but the inept scab officials working the game inexplicably blew the call on the field by ruling that Seahawks receiver Golden Tate caught the ball despite barely touching it with his fingertips as it was tucked in Jennings’ arms. The officials then blew their chance to correct the call on replay and in the process, they jammed hundreds of fantasy owners and may have swung as much as $200 million in bets on the game worldwide. Had the correct call been made on the field, Green Bay -- 3½ point favorites -- would have won by five, covering the spread. Instead, the Seahawks were victorious and director of the race and sportsbook at one of Las Vegas’ best-known gambling operations believes the impact of the blown call was in the nine-figure range. "Most of the customers in the sportsbook were not happy with the final call," said John Avello of the Wynn in Las Vegas. "The shift was 100 percent. After the (Seahawks) score, all bets were reversed." He put the number north of $150 million and others sportsbook operators estimated that the outcome shifted as much as $15 million in Nevada alone. Mix in the worldwide number, including offshore sportsbooks and in Europe, and the number could inch past $200 million. Most betting sites and sportsbooks took more bets on the Packers, so those people lost a lot of money based on a few terrible replacement officials. It would also be interesting to know the total damage caused by angry fans and fantasy owners who damaged or destroyed laptops, tablets, televisions and remote controls after witnessing one of the worst calls in NFL history. Another casualty of the mishap was the Packers' odds of winning the Super Bowl, which dropped from 7-1 Monday to 9-1 Tuesday………

- Sometimes forgotten as newer, shinier space technology is launched into outer space, the Hubble Space Telescope is still hard at work in the cosmos and making an impact. The telescope has captured the farthest-ever view into the universe, snapping a photograph revealing thousands of galaxies billions of light-years away. The image already has a name, eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, and is actually a composite of 10 years of Hubble telescope views of one patch of sky. Only by accumulating images of light gathered over so many observation sessions can one see such distant objects, some of which are one ten-billionth the brightness that the human eye can see. This mosaic of the stars is a sequel to the original "Hubble Ultra Deep Field," a picture the Hubble Space Telescope produced in 2003 and 2004 using light collected over many hours to reveal thousands of distant galaxies in what was the deepest view of the universe to that point. The XDF takes it a step further, looking back many years into the universe's past. "The XDF is the deepest image of the sky ever obtained and reveals the faintest and most distant galaxies ever seen," said Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz, principal investigator of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2009 program. "XDF allows us to explore further back in time than ever before." The image truly is remarkable, detailing a wide range of galaxies, from spirals that are Milky Way-lookalikes, to hazy red blobs that are the result of collisions between galaxies. Illingworth suggested that the small, barely visible galaxies could be the seeds from which the biggest galaxies around today grew. Hubble has revealed 5,500 galaxies so far and is expected to continue functioning through at least 2018……..

LMFAO takes a break, Notre Dame kills a rivalry and China gets an aircraft carrier

- Among all of the anti-aging secrets and miracle cures being pushed and promoted on television and across the Internet, castration is rarely among the ideas suggested to extend one’s stay on this planet. Maybe it’s time for that to change in light of the results of a study of eunuchs in Korea's royal court. In short, the study showed that men without testicles live longer. Researchers examined the court of the Chosun Dynasty and found eunuchs lived to 70 on average, or 14 to 19 years longer than "intact" men of similar socio-economic status in their culture. Furthermore, three of the 81 eunuchs studied lived to 100 or more, giving the group a centenarian rate some 130 times that in developed nations. Sure, the study is a bit dated because the dynasty ran from 1392 to 1910, but that doesn’t make it irrelevant. As part of the dynasty, boys in Korea sometimes underwent castration in order to serve as eunuchs and gain access to the privileged life of the palace. Some might argue that having one’s junk sliced off and not being able to enjoy quality time alone with the ladies is missing out on a truly privileged life, but sex just isn't for everyone. Eunuchs have been employed through history as guards or servants in harems across the Middle East and Asia. Ironically and somewhat cruelly (both to themselves and their lady loves), eunuchs in the Chosun court were allowed to marry and had families through adoption. Researchers Kyung-Jin Min of Inha University and Cheol-Koo Lee of Korea University theorized that the eunuchs’ longer lifespan was attributable to more than just their privileged lifestyle. "Except for a few eunuchs, most lived outside the palace and spent time inside the palace only when they were on duty," Min said. By comparison, the kings of the dynasty spend their entire lives inside the palace and had an average lifespan of just 47 years. Findings from the study were published in the always-riveting journal Current Biology…………

- The end is near for one of the longest-running rivalries in college football. Notre Dame and Michigan have done battle on the gridiron since 1887, but the series will reach an abrupt end after 2014 as the Fighting Irish enter a new arrangement with the ACC. Notre Dame has long been a member of the now-downtrodden Big East, but will join the ACC in every sport except football and hockey, but the football team will play five ACC foes every season as part of the agreement. Those five mandated games mean less schedule space for the many rivalries the Irish have developed as an independent over the years and Michigan is the first casualty after Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick sent a letter to Michigan AD David Brandon, canceling the games from 2015 to 2017. The two schools extended their contract in 2007, taking the series through the 2031 season, with a provision allowing either side to opt out with three years’ notice. Both schools announced this summer that a two-year break is coming in the 2018 and 2019 campaigns, but said they planned to resume the series in the years following. "The decision to cancel games in 2015-17 was Notre Dame's and not ours," Brandon said in an official statement. "We value our annual rivalry with Notre Dame but will have to see what the future holds for any continuation of the series. This cancellation presents new scheduling opportunities for our program and provides a chance to create some new rivalries." Jettisoning Michigan will allow Notre Dame to hang on to rivalry games with the likes of Navy, Stanford and USC while still fulfilling their ACC responsibilities. Notre Dame won the most recent game with Michigan last weekend, besting them 13-6. Brandon claimed he was handed Swarbrick’s letter on the field in South Bend, Ind., about an hour before Saturday night's game. "I put the letter in my pocket and didn't bother to read it right away because I was focused on the game we were about to play," Brandon said. "I read it on the way home Sunday morning." What a fun ride home that must have been for Brandon and his traveling party…………

- “Animal House” lives on at the University of Tennessee…which apparently isn’t a good thing, even if the 1980s cult classic college comedy is still beloved to this day. The wrath of the university is raining down upon the Phi Kappa Alpha fraternity at UT after an alleged "alcohol enema" incident at the chapter's house on campus over the weekend. The university has already suspended the fraternity for 30 days or until a decision is made about the chapter's future and the fraternity can not operate at all during that time. Additionally, the Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity said Monday that it had also placed the chapter under immediate administrative suspension. What exactly is the problem here? The drama seems to stem from student Alexander Broughton being dropped off at UT Medical Center around 1:30 a.m. Saturday in critical condition and unresponsive, rocking a blood-alcohol content level greater than 0.4, which is a) five times the legal limit for driving, b) considered toxic and c) potentially deadly. Investigators showed up at the PIKE house Saturday morning and found several other people, including three men, passed out – the sure sign that a great night was had on Friday. After a diligent search to find witnesses sober enough to participate in interviews, investigators determined the fraternity members had used rubber tubing to give each other alcohol enemas, which expedites the process of alcohol entering the blood stream because it bypasses the liver's filters. Simply put, you get drunk faster. Showing that university police truly are a clueless and toothless entity, the UT Police Department said this is the first incident on campus that they are aware of which involved this process. Smart money is on this being far from the first time the practice has taken place on the campus. Lost in all of the uproar is the skill exhibited by the fraternity in throwing this rager because the university police department said it did not receive any complaints or tips about a large party or event at the PIKE house on Friday night or Saturday morning. No charges are pending in the case at this time and the university only issued an official statement letting everyone know it is “are currently conducting an investigation into allegations involving the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity chapter and incidents that occurred over the weekend.” Amazingly, this is not the first time that UT's PIKE chapter has run into trouble.  The last incident was a rather pedestrian 2008 mini-scandal in which pledges were allegedly asked to do push-ups on broken glass and the Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity investigated and kicked out 25 of the chapter's active members…………

- Welcome to the club, China. The other eight members of the club may not be happy to welcome their newest member, but China doesn’t really give a damn. The Communist hellhole brought its first aircraft carrier into service Tuesday, raising the country’s military capability while simultaneously pouring premium gasoline on the burning fires of dissent raging between it and its regional neighbors. The carrier was christened Liaoning -- after the port where the carrier was significantly overhauled after being bought from Ukraine – and although it is significantly smaller than America’s super carriers, size doesn’t matter….that much when aircraft carriers are the topic. Large or small, the newest addition to China’s navy could still potentially have an impact on territorial disputes in the region. China's settlement of islands disputes within the region could become more difficult with other nations even more wary of what the Chinese are capable of. The most contentious dispute has been with Japan, which is locked in a bitter battle with China over ownership of islands claimed by both countries. The Japanese government upped the ante earlier this month by purchasing the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from their private owner. Chinese military observers believe the new aircraft carrier will play an important role in and defense of its maritime rights and interests and the China News Service, speaking as a zero-credibility government mouthpiece, wrote that the Liaoning would have “far-reaching influence on protecting China’s territory, safety and development and to make the world more peaceful.” Joining the nine-nation club of carrier-equipped navies was met with plenty of pomp, circumstance and fanfare. Dictator/President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao presided over the ceremonies and China's Ministry of Defense welcomed the new ship, declaring that it would "raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese navy." The carrier can reportedly hold 30 fixed-wing fighters, one-third of the total American Nimitz class carriers can carry. On a somewhat positive note for Chinese dissidents within the country, the aircraft carrier cannot be used to run over protestors in Tiananmen Square……

 - Great news has leaked in the music world, where the glorified club dancers who go by the handle LMFAO are taking a hiatus from making terrible music together. The news would be even better if Redfoo and nephew Sky Blu were taking time away from music entirely, but they are only going their separate ways for the time being to pursue solo projects. Redfoo announced the hiatus, explaining the duo have no immediate plans to record together. "I feel like we've been doing this for so long, five or six years,” he said. "And we're kind of like saying, well, let's just do what's natural and just kind of explore that, instead of like forcing it all the time." Trust us, R., we feel like we’ve been suffering through the insipid musical idiocy of “Party Rock Anthem” for at least six or seven years. On the charts, LMFAO has been successful since the release of their 2011 sophomore album "Sorry for Party Rocking," notching a pair of No. 1 hits on the Hot 100, "Party Rock Anthem" and "Sexy and I Know It." Both songs are musically juvenile and imbecilic and therefore naturally appeal to the lowest-common-denominator musical masses. Further cementing their status as musically worthless doofuses, LMFAO also appeared alongside Madonna at the Super Bowl halftime show in February. The pulled a worthless win for Billboard's Song of the Summer in 2011, performed at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards and never exhibited a shred of actual musical talent at any of those places. But wait….there’s more. Redfoo also co-produced the pop-crappy Carly Rae Jepsen's new single "This Kiss,” so maybe LMFAO not recording together will actually inflict more damage on music than them working on a new album as a group. Even with LMFAO on the back burner, Redfoo insists he’ll keep on party rocking. "I was really passionate about bringing party music to the world, so I will always be making some kind of party music,” he promised…………

Fake Italian pilots, batting title quitters and highway beer cleanups

- The choice was a tough one for disgraced San Francisco Giants slugger Melky Cabrera: win a tainted batting title no one would view as legitimate or take the unprecedented step of self-ejecting from the National League batting average race. Cabrera had the last 50 games of his season ripped by Major League Baseball after testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance. He admitted his mistake, accepted his punishment and quietly went away. However, he remained eligible for the NL batting title and he r entered Friday with a league-leading .346 average, seven points ahead of Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen. Being suspended for a positive test for testosterone and missing the final 45 games of the regular season as well as the postseason (because the Giants don’t want him back even when he is elgible to return) didn’t disqualify him from the race and Cabrera had 501 plate appearances, one short of the required minimum, but would have won the title under section 10.22(a) of the Official Baseball Rules if an extra hitless at-bat were added to his average and he still finished ahead. Rather than accept the tainted title that now looks to be a sure thing, Cabrera was disqualified from the NL batting honor at his own request when Major League Baseball and the players' association agreed Friday to a one-season-only change in the rule governing the individual batting, slugging and on-base percentage champions. His agent, Seth Levinson, sent an email to union head Michael Weiner with an attached letter from Cabrera in English and Spanish asking for the change. "I ask the Players Association to take the necessary steps, in conjunction with the Office of the Commissioner, to remove my name from for the National League batting title," Cabrera wrote in the letter. "To be plain, I personally have no wish to win an award that would widely be seen as tainted, and I believe that it would be far better for the remaining contenders to compete for that distinction.” No credit for any of the above because MLB should have already had a rule in place for this very situation, what with PEDs being omnipresent in the game despite increased testing. After making plenty of wrong choices, it’s nice to see a disgraced cheater making the right one……..

- Some problems have easy solutions. The overturning of a beer truck on the I-35 southbound exit ramp onto I-10 west in San Antonio this weekend was one such problem. According to San Antonio police, the accident was as simple as the driver taking the exit too fast, causing the truck to overturn and spill most of the 7,990 pounds of Bud Light, Natural Light and Busch beer that it was hauling. The crash left blue cans of booze all over the highway and cleanup crews worked quickly to clear the site, but the real answer authorities should have selected would have been much more effective and beneficial for everyone. Instead of cordoning off the exit ramp and having a bunch of government employees and civil servants, why not place a call to the fraternity council for any one of the dozens of colleges and universities in the greater San Antonio area and ask if any of their frats would be interested in a community service project. The rules would be simple: You keep all the beer you clean up. Those cans would have been removed from the highway in less than an hour and the only possible problem would have been the beer-loving frat dudes potentially causing traffic accidents in their rush to get to the site. Of the many food and beverage items that have been spilled on highways across America – milk, fruits, vegetables, yogurt – this was arguably the one spill that should have created the most eagerness among the masses to volunteer their time, effort and talents to help clean up the mess and provide an assist to their community………

- Movies have the potential to inspire. Movies starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio can definitely challenge individuals to step their life game up and attempt extraordinary feats. For one intrepid Italian man, the film “Catch Me If You Can” was just the source of inspiration he needed to attempt a stunt most people would never have the kahones to try. For anyone who has never seen the movie, it is based on the real-life tale of a man named Frank Abagnale, who ran away from home as a teenager and became one of the best forgers and con artists the FBI has ever encountered to support himself and build an extravagant lifestyle. He was eventually captured in a small town in France on Christmas Eve and was eventually released from prison to serve out his term as special consultant for the bureau. That example led an unidentified Italian man to pose as a pilot and gain free access to the cockpit and a free trip from Munich, Germany, to Turin, Italy in April. He was arrested Saturday at Turin's airport after police received a tip on his whereabouts. When he was arrested, the man was once again wearing a pilot's uniform, but investigators say it was unclear if he intended to try the ruse again. In April, he allegedly used fake IDs, a cap and uniform to convince an Air Dolomiti flight he was a pilot and let him fly for free inside the cockpit. Two real pilots flew the plane that day, but having a fake pilot of questionable mental stability in the cockpit for the flight, free to potentially wreak havoc, would seem to pose something of a hazard. After his aerial hijinks, this brave man was able to get off with only a citation. Police did not release his identity and let him off with a slap on the wrist. Contrast that with the absolute panic and uproar that would have resulted if this incident had occurred in the United States and it’s clear that air security is not taken at quite the same level of seriousness everywhere in the world……….

- Being a gamer dork is an expensive and often lonely existence. Spending hours in a man cave or dark basement playing online first-player shooter or fantasy games with like-minded, friendless dorks tends to cost a solid chunk of change for games, new consoles and Internet connections. There aren't many hours left to hang out with real, flesh-and-blood friends, which is good because gamer dorks tend not to have many of those. Being a loyal gamer is about to become more expensive for Nintendo devotees after the company revealed that its upcoming Wii U system will be region locked, meaning that Wii U games will only work on hardware sold in the same region. That means gamers need to be prepared to buy multiple international editions of the Wii U if they want to play every game available for the system worldwide. Nintendo made the announcement after reports of the change surfaced online in Japan. While the policy is nothing new for Nintendo, its portable systems have historically been able to play games from all regions. All of its home consoles since the original Nintendo Entertainment System has featured a similar region lock, though various hardware and software workarounds exist for users looking to “jail break” many of those systems. A similar lock went into place on the Nintendo 3DS when it launched last year. The policy is slightly different than the ones in place for Microsoft and Sony, which both allow publishers to decide whether to implement a region lock on specific game discs for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Because of that relaxed standard, almost every PS3 game is sold without such a lock, while international compatibility for Xbox 360 titles varies. Region locks became a huge issue among gaming dorks last year among when Nintendo refused to release North American versions of Xenosaga Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower.  A grassroots effort eventually led to the first of those two games becoming available in the North American Wii library………

- You didn’t need to say a word, Gwen Stefani. Thanks for letting everyone know that your solo albums were "never meant to be taken seriously,” but we all kind of knew that. How? Because most of us were subjected to listening to part or all of them, that’s why. We saw the terrible music videos, were heard the abysmal singles while sitting helplessly in restaurants where we regrettably had no control over the music and we were pissed because of it. For anyone fortunate enough to miss them, Stefani recorded two of what could loosely be described as albums with high-profile producers such as Dr. Dre and the Neptunes while her equally crappy band, No Doubt, was on a decade-long hiatus. Coincidentally, the band recently admitted it really doesn’t have a clue what it is doing when in the studio making albums and with Stefani’s admission that her solo efforts amounted to an extended "art project,” the clear message here is that no one involved with the musical abortion that is No Doubt has any clue what they are doing and that the world would be better off without their music, be it their five previous albums or their sixth studio album, “Push and Shove,” which drops this week. "It just feels so much more natural being back in this mode. The solo records allowed me to indulge my girly side but it was never meant to be taken seriously,” Stefani said of the new album. "It was just like an art project that kept going longer than I expected. The group never ended – we always knew we’d come back to make this album.” And the world always dreaded the day you would, G. Do you want to know who else feels that way? Stefani’s own husband, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. Stefani admitted her better half isn't a fan of hers or No Doubt’s music. “Oh, he's never been a fan of what we do," she said. "He's more into dark, indie stuff. But I’m not saying he doesn't think I'm amazing," she said. Umm…hot, sure. A talented fashion designer? Maybe. But nothing about Stefani’s or No Doubt’s music is amazing………

Decoding cat genes, making Mexicna history and Tebow's unparalleled ability to create drama

- The game of inmate release roulette is on at the Genesee County jail in Flint, Mich. The jail is overcrowded and while this might hint at the fact that the American legal and correctional systems are doing a bang-up job at arresting, convicting and holding criminals who trespass against society, it also creates a problem for the men and women tasked with housing and policing those criminals during their time behind bars. Life is even more unpleasant than usual at the Genesee County jail, where there are currently 123 more inmates than are supposed to be housed at the facility. "This jail was established for 580 people, that was for maximum capacity, our today's count right now is 703, and these are folks that are just packed into cells and there's standing room only by all means," said Genesee County Undersheriff Chris Swanson. Being so far over capacity has caused a jail emergency and state law requires the sheriff's office to do something about it. "We're required to reduce our population down by about 95 percent max capacity, which is about 175 inmates we have to release," Swanson explained. That means convicted criminals will be getting an early release and one man who was released Wednesday told stories about sleeping on the ground or on benches with no blankets and inside freezing-cold cells. The early releases began Tuesday and Swanson said those who have served 85 percent of their term or those who have a $5,000 bond are the first to be let out. After that, it will be up to the county's chief judge to decide who else gets to head home earlier than expected. For some odd reason, a few locals are concerned about this unexpected development. Swanson promised that the most violent offenders will not be among those released and suggested that the Genesee County Sheriff's office has also contacted surrounding counties to see they have room to help with the jail emergency in order to prevent the need for any additional releases…………

- There may not have been any great new movies out this weekend, but the three highest-profile newcomers did wage a close battle for the top spot on the weekend earnings list. “End of Watch” and horrible horror flick “House at the End of The Street” ended the frame in a virtual tie, with “Watch” eking out a victory by a few dollars as both films landed at $13 million and change. Each made its debut with a so-so showing, but on a lackluster weekend that was enough to share the top of the chart. Clint Eastwood’s latest movie that isn't any good, “Trouble with the Curve,” was close behind with $12.8 million in its own debut. Fourth place went to Disney’s shameless cash grab of re-releasing “Finding Nemo” in 3D, which earned $9.5 million in its second weekend back in theaters and has garnered $29.9 million in domestic earnings so far. Last weekend’s top film, “Resident Evil: Retribution,” fell four spots to fifth in its second weekend and plummeted 68 percent from its debut to make a mere $6.7 million for a two-week tally of $33.4 million. The fourth new movie in the top 10, “Dredd,” managed just $6.3 million in its first weekend for a less-than-inspiring open. “The Master,” led by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and offering a mildly terrifying look at the cult-ish world of Scientology-like organizations, did well in very limited release with $5 million to earn seventh place in its second weekend. “The Possession” continued its freefall, tumbling to eighth place in its fourth weekend after an emaciated total of $2.7 million to up its four-week haul to $46 million. “Lawless” claimed ninth place and made $2.3 million. The Shia LeBouf-led project has grossed $34.5 million domestically through four weeks. “ParaNorman” claimed the final spot in the top 10 with $2.2 million and has brought in $52.5 million in six weeks of release. “The Bourne Legacy” (No. 11 and out of the top 10 for the first time), “The Odd Life of Timothy” (No. 12), “The Expendables 2” (No. 13) and “The Campaign” all dropped out from last week’s top 10………..

- Even when he’s not on the field, Tim Tebow stirs up the drama wherever he calls home. His legions of sycophantic fans will clamor for him to get on the field any time he’s relegated to anything other than a starring role and his “haters” (anyone who doesn’t think he’s God in cleats) are equally adamant that he is nothing more than a great athlete who can’t throw the freaking football. The New York Jets knew what he was when they traded for him and they voluntarily opened that can of worms because theoretically, the potential benefits outweighed the potential risks. Two weeks into the 2012 season, Rex Ryan’s crew may be asking themselves if that theory is holding true. After two games, Tebow has not thrown a pass from his backup quarterback role and has only recorded six runs for 33 yards – oh, and he fell on an onside kick while playing special teams. Facing those numbers, media members challenged Jets offensive coordinator Tony Sparano Thursday about his offense’s poor showing against the Pittsburgh Steelers and why he didn’t use Tebow more. Sparano snapped at the reporters, tersely telling them the thought of using Tebow never crossed his mind in the first half when the offense was playing well even though that directly contradicted his philosophy in Week 1. "We averaged almost six yards per play (5.3) in the first half of the game," Sparano said. "I can't really worry about anything that's not going through my mind at that point. Things were going well." Unfortunately, the Jets didn’t score in the second half and wound up on the wrong end of a 27-10 beatdown. Tebow didn't enter the game until the third quarter and when he did, the offense went three and out. Rex Ryan has maintained that he won't let the media dictate how much he plays Tebow and Sparano was in even less of a mood to discuss the issue. "If you want to talk about Miami, I'll talk about Miami. I don't want to talk about that game. I can't help you with that. My mind's in a different place," he snapped, referring to Sunday’s matchup with his former team, the Dolphins. Sparano coached the Dolphins from 2008 to 2011 and was fired with three games left last season after compiling a 29-32 record. Maybe the pressure of going back to the place he was fired, combined with the added burden of working Timothy Richard Tebow into the mix, was simply too much……….

- One of the biggest mysteries of life has finally been explained. The world now knows where a tabby cat gets its stripes. The riddle-like answer is from the same place cheetahs get their spots. The non-riddle answer is that the same gene that is responsible for the cheetah's color patterns causes a tabby's stripes. Researcher Stephen O'Brien of the National Laboratory for Cancer Research led a study to identity mutations in this newly identified gene, which transforms a tabby's typical striped pattern into a less familiar "blotched" look. In cheetahs, similar genetic mutations smear spots into thick stripes. “What this is, is the first connection of a gene involved in pattern formation in cats to their molecular status," O’Brien said. The project allowed he and his team to discover where the mutation is in this particular gene and thereby pinpoint the reason for the pattern changes. O’Brien’s crew also contributed to the original sequencing of the domestic cat genome, which was completed in 2007. Determining the reason for coloring on a cat’s fur might seem like a colossal waste of time, but O’Brien believes the study may help researchers understand human disease and genetic development. The question of how cats have come to have such varied coats in a wide range of shades and patterns has long perplexed researchers and O’Brien’s effort was prompted by the question of what turns the mackerel pattern into a "blotched" tabby pattern, seen more often in European cats than American felines. Using a map of cat pedigrees, he and his crew were able to narrow down the genetic culprit to one region of the chromosome containing three large genes. From there, they sequenced the genomes of two groups of tabbies, one with blotched coats and the other striped ones, and narrowed the culprit further to a gene called Taqpep. The Taqpep gene has three separate mutations in the domestic cat and another in the same gene in the king cheetah, meaning the gene has mutated multiple times across cats’ evolutionary history. There may be more research ahead on the Taqpep gene, which O'Brien suspects has other functions. Surely, those other functions will shake the scientific world to its very foundation, just like this one………

- Accomplishing something that has never been done before is awesome…usually. This is not one of those occasions, even if Mexico sending soldiers to patrol a suburb of Mexico City for the first time to combat a rise in drug-related violence is a history-making occurrence. The violence is creeping ever closer to the capital and bearing that in mind, the government sent a combined force of around 1,000 soldiers, federal police and local police to the streets of Nezahualcoyotl on Mexico City's eastern flank, which has been overtaken by a dispute between two rival drug cartels. President Felipe Calderon has in many ways had his legacy defined by the fight against drug gangs and as he prepares to leave office in December, the battle appears no closer to being over than it has ever been. His successor, Enrique Pena Nieto, takes office in December and it is Nieto’s home state that is at the center of the current area of conflict. The law enforcement force was deployed at the request of the local government in the sprawling municipality in the State of Mexico after the murder there this weekend of Jaime Serrano, a local state congressman and member of Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Locals reported being extorted by criminals identifying themselves as members of the La Familia drug gang. Tales of being forced to pay up or test threats that one’s family would be murdered have become commonplace in the region as the bloody turf wars between drug gangs escalate. Resulting clashes with security forces have pushed the estimated death total over the past six years to around 60,000 people. Those types of numbers are easier to ignore when they are happening on the other side of the country, but they are now creeping up on Mexico City and the neighboring State of Mexico, where just over half of the population of the capital's urban area live. Kidnappings are also skyrocketing through the first eight months of 2012, also in the battle for control of narcotics and illegal goods between the Zetas and La Familia cartels. Local leaders expressed doubt about how effective the crackdown would be, but offered no alternative ideas for dealing with the problem………