Too FAT for the roller coaster, Gold Glove injustice and Riot Watch! Turkey

- Hello, America. You’re FAT. That message is harsh, but it’s true and extremely necessary. The same came be said for the not-so-sutble reminder an obese Utah woman received recently when she visited a local amusement park and was informed by the filthy carney running one of the rides that she was too FAT to ride. The West Valley City woman headed to the Lagoon theme park near Farmington and tried to board a ride called “The Bat.” Unfortunately, Mary McBroon has not been able to push away from the buffet table often enough or find five minutes to bang out a few crunches or push-ups and the ride’s safety features made it impossible for her to get on board. According to McBroon, the chest restraint fit her just fine but not the lap belt. The frazzled carney called a co-workers for help wedging McBroon into her seat, but she said it quickly became uncomfortable. “He just said ‘I’m sorry, it’s just not gonna work.’ The girl then said ‘yeah it will, I’ve helped bigger people,” McBroon said. “I went to guest services, explained I was too fat for the rides and got a refund. The whole experience was just mortifying and disappointing.” She left the park and is somehow angry at the park because it wasn’t explicit enough in making it known before her visit that grossly obese people may not be able to ride all of the park’s rides. “I understand,” says McBroon. “But couldn’t they have said, ‘hey did you read the sign?’ ‘Did you read the disclaimer.’ That would have been much better and more discreet.” Sorry lady, but there is no discreet was to tell someone they are too FAT to ride a roller coaster. The only mistake the park made was backing down or issuing any sort of apology when clearly, all of the blame goes on the FAT person in question. “We’re sorry for any embarrassment or discomfort this lady experienced, we’re not in that business. We’re in the fun business,” said Dick Andrew, vice president of marketing at Lagoon. According to park officials, their rides are designed for 95 percent of the population, but there are several that have larger seats for bigger customers. Lagoon’s website even spells out the reality that safety restrictions mean guests with unusual/ginormous body proportions may not be able to ride some rides. Losing weight is always an option and one these chunkers may want to explore……..

- America may not possess the level of space dominance it once did, but it will be a 155-degree day in Saskatchewan before the United States is not more of a presence in the great beyond than America’s Hat, a.k.a. Canada. The Obama administration has drastically reduced NASA’s budget to the point where hitching a ride with the Russians at $60 million an astronaut seems like a viable option, but when the maple syrup chuggers to the north need to get equipment into space, they still turn to the good ol’ U.S. of A. See the Canadian Space Agency initiating talks to launch a rover beyond Earth orbit aboard NASA's huge new deep space rocket if you have any doubts about this fact. According to CSA's Gilles Leclerc, a senior Canadian official, Canada recently unveiled seven rover prototypes that cost a total of $60 million and a few of those rovers have even been field tested. Furthermore, these field-tested rovers have included work with NASA and have impressed officials with the U.S. space agency, according to Leclerc. Having put in their work and done their due diligence, CSA and NASA are reportedly considering flying a rover on the latter’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is slated to become operational in the early 2020s. Next week’s U.S. presidential election could throw a wrench in these plans because four more years of Obama would likely be four more bad years for NASA funding. And yes, that means Newt Gingrich’s moon colony is still very much in danger………

- Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City's Adam Young crafted the poppy, over-produced, talent-free exercise in Top 40 excess that is “Always a Good Time” and it became one of the mindless songs of the summer and helped elevate sales of Owl City’s “The Midsummer Station” album. How funny would it be if the song were stolen from some anonymous scrub who received none of the rewards for penning a horrifically bad song that struck a chord with the tone-deaf masses? Such is the claim from someone named Allyson Nichole Burnett, an Alabama-based singer and songwriter who authored the 2010 song, "Ah, It's a Love Song." Burnett has filed a lawsuit California federal court against Jepsen, Young and several publishing companies, alleging copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that Young, Matt Thiessen and Brian Lee copied a prominent motif of her song to create “Good Time,” which was released in June and reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also played repeatedly during NBC's broadcast of the 2012 Summer Olympics and was used as a soundtrack inclusion for TV shows such as "90210," "Parks and Recreation" and "The Office." Song-theft lawsuits are not uncommon, but this one is different because it is rife with details about musicology and contains other idiosyncrasies. The suit references a hook in Burnett's song that is labeled a "unique vocal motif" that is repeated throughout the song and "has a catchy pop vibe that both draws people in and sticks in people's heads." The latter part of that description seems highly subjective and psychologically based, making it more difficult to prove in court. Burnett’s version of the song appeared on her totally-ignored 2010 album "The Takeover" and has been licensed to MTV for the shows "The Hills" and "Friendzone." In its wealth of page space, the lawsuit claims: "Defendants' extensive access to 'Love Song' is sufficient to trigger the 'inverse ration rule,' whereby a reduced standard of proof of substantial similarity is required when a high degree of access is shown. However, the substantial similarity between the Original Motif and the Copied Motif... is striking under any standard of proof." It goes on to lay out chord structures and progressions, detailing how Burnett's song is in the key of F while "Good Time" is in the key of E flat, but Burnett’s attorneys insist in the filing that other key features are similar, including an identical pitch sequence (5-3-5-3-2), melodic contour (down, up, down, down), rhythmic construction (8th rest, 8th note, 8th note, 8th note, 8th note, 8th rest, quarter note) and timbre (textless vocals). If Burnett hopes to win the lawsuit, she probably should do everything within her power to make sure the court doesn’t find out that she sometimes performs as Ally "Cupcake" Burnett because while the American legal system is a complete joke in many senses, people who rock the nickname “Cupcake” are generally not taken all that seriously in a court of law……

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Turkey hasn’t calmed down and its angry secularists aren't backing down despite the continued show of force by the country’s oppressive government. The battle continued Monday when Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse thousands of protesting at a banned rally in the capital city of Ankara. A mass of chanting men and women draped in Turkish flags and carrying banners portraying the country's founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk showed up to voice their opposition to The Man and riot police were having none of it. Increasingly authoritarian actions from an Islamist government are a reason to riot and the showdown highlighted the continued division in Turkish society between staunch secularists and more conservative religious Turks. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan won a third term in power last year with 50 percent of the vote, but secular Turks are adamant about forcing he and his socially conservative AK Party from power and ridding Turkey of its Islamist tendencies that threaten the secular republic founded by Ataturk. Protestors – before they were tear gassed, of course – expressed concern that Erdogan’s regime is turning their country into another Iran or some kind of neo-Ottoman Empire. It was the local government in Ankara, also controlled by Erdogan's AK Party, that banned the rally citing "intelligence" it would be used for "provocation." Protestors smartly saw through the lie being used in an attempt to silence government opponents and showed up to riot anyhow. These flag-waving patriots gathered outside the old parliament building in the city center to try to march to Ataturk's mausoleum to mark the 89th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. "Resign government! Damn you Tayyip!" the crowd chanted. Sadly, the protestors didn’t bring enough weaponry and were turned away by a barricade of riot police who began firing tear gas and water cannons into the crowd, drenching a group that included children and elderly men and women. A few brave souls attempted to storm the police blockade, but to no avail……….

- Mike Trout has come up just short for a second time. After the rookie stud who played a stellar center field for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Near the Coast Adjacent to Newport Beach and led off for a lineup that came up just short in its push for the postseason, Trout’s number still stood out. Being a part of a team that spent huge on free agents and trades but could not make the playoffs had to sting, even with Trout hitting .326 with 30 home runs and stealing 49 bases even though he wasn’t called up to the majors until one month into the season. Because Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera won batting’s Triple Crown, the first player to win it since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, Trout’s chances to win the American League MVP award are not as high as they should be. Still, his long list of highlight-reel catches and outstanding plays in the outfield had to make him the favorite for a Gold Glove, right? The award that recognizes fielding excellence has to go to the best center fielder in the AL, right? Umm….no. Trout had his Gold Glove ripped from him by Baltimore center fielder Adam Jones, who was one of three winners for the Orioles, who also grabbed one of the two wild-card spots that eluded Trout’s Angels. Ironically, one of Trout’s best catches came at Baltimore’s Camden Yards in June, when he robbed Gold Glove-winning shortstop J.J. Hardy’s bid for a game-changing home run by bringing it back from over the fence. Trout brought several home runs back during the year, but was stoned when the first major awards of the offseason were announced. Major League Baseball feebly attempts to prolong its moment in the sun by announcing one award per day for what seems like four straight weeks and when the AL MVP is announced in the near future, Trout will get stiffed all over again………

Wu Tang and Genghis Khan, hating on Halloween and the Knicks in disaster mode

- The Marion County Sheriff’s Office may want to spend some of its meager budget on driving safety classes for one of its deputies – assuming he is ever allowed behind the wheel on the job again. Deputy Erich Gephart has now crushed not one, but two pedestrians with official vehicles in the past year. His latest pedestrian plastering occurred Sunday night on an interstate ramp in Indianapolis, where he struck and killed a person along the side of the road. Gephart was driving the Marion County Jail transport vehicle with one inmate inside when he struck Adam McCarty, who was using a gas can to fill the tank of a pickup truck on the southbound Interstate 65 ramp at 29th Street, according to police reports. McCarty was pronounced dead at the scene and although his truck did not have lights or emergency flashers on, and there were no flares, reflective triangles or other safety devices used to alert other motorists, the spotlight is bound to be bright on a deputy who also hit a pedestrian last fall. The fact that McCarty's driver license had been suspended indefinitely in December 2011 is also irrelevant because at the time of the incident, he wasn’t driving anything. Police insisted they were not trying to divert the public’s focus away from Gephart’s terrible driving record on the job and were only attempting to inform everyone about the facts of the case. “We are not trying to shift the blame. We are just putting the facts out there,” Chief Deputy Eva Talley-Sanders said. After the accident, Gephart was taken to Wishard Memorial Hospital to submit to a blood test and he reportedly passed. He was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. Almost exactly one year ago, he was also behind the wheel of a transport vehicle that struck a pedestrian on the near north side of Indianapolis, near Kessler Boulevard and Spring Mill Road. In that accident, he struck Charles Hill, who was critically injured and whose family sued the county in April. Amazingly enough, the Hill family believes that it would be wise to prevent Gephart from ever driving another official vehicle again……..

- Hope dies hard, but hope is in critical conditions in New York City as the Knicks prepare to begin their 2012-13 season. As Hurricane Sandy slams Manhattan and threatens to postpone the Knicks’ season opener against the Brooklyn Nets, the Knicks could use a delay of more than a few days now that forward Amar'e Stoudemire will miss at least the first six weeks of the season after reinjuring his surgically repaired left knee. Stoudemire, who wisely accepted a five-year, $100 million contract as a free agent in 2010 when the Knicks foolishly offered it to him even though no one would insure his deal because of his chronic knee problems, was initially expected to miss two to three weeks after he ruptured a popliteal cyst behind the knee during the Knicks' exhibition game against Toronto on Oct. 19. However, the pain persisted and after Stoudemire received a second opinion over the weekend from Dr. Thomas Carter, the Phoenix Suns team doctor, he was informed that he will need more time to heal. Stoudemire formerly played for the Suns and Carter performed microfracture surgery on his left knee in 2005. Sources confirmed that Stoudemire will need approximately twice as much recovery time as initially expected but it was unclear if he will need another procedure or will use the extra time for rest and rehab. The high end of the estimate is eight weeks, which would keep him out until late December. These are the very issues that scared the NBA’s other 29 teams off from courting Stoudemire in 2010 and they are the reason many observers winced in anticipatory pain when then-Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni played his new start forward ridiculous minutes in his first season. For the Knicks, Stoudermire is the latest example of their reckless and just plain stupid free-agent spending in the past decade………

- Mosquitoes are one of the most-despised members of the insect community. They just became that much more of a pest after a new report by the World Health Organization revealed that in the last 100 years, the world has warmed by approximately 0.75 degree Celsius and because of this change, the disease-carrying pests we know as mosquitoes have become even more dangerous. Already known for carrying vector-borne diseases like dengue and malaria, mosquitoes are now an even bigger hazard than they were a quarter of a century ago. The report, published Monday, explained that in the last 25 years, the rate of global warming has accelerated, at over 0.18 degrees Celsius per decade. Researchers pegged the cost of this change at between $2-4 billion annually for the next two decades and blamed resulting illnesses from climate-related issues for a big chunk of that cost. "Many of the major killers such as diarrhoeal diseases, malnutrition, malaria and dengue are highly climate-sensitive and are expected to worsen as the climate changes," the report stated. "Malaria is strongly influenced by climate. Transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, malaria kills almost one million people every year. The Aedes mosquito vector of dengue is also highly sensitive to climate conditions. Studies suggest that climate change could expose an additional 2 billion people to dengue transmission by the 2080s." Yes, malaria. Even though the surface area on which malaria remains a risk has been reduced from half to a quarter of the earth's landmass in the last century, demographic changes have caused to the amount of people exposed to malaria to increase exponentially over the same time. An estimated 1 million people die annually from malaria and mosquitoes are the culprits in many of those deaths. "Infection could range from a mild flu-like fever to the potentially fatal severe dengue, which particularly affects individuals who are exposed to one of the four different strains of the virus as a secondary infection. Heavy rainfall can cause standing water, while drought can encourage people to store more water around the home, both providing breeding sites for Aedes mosquitoes,” the report said. Older people and those already battling other illnesses are in even greater danger from malaria, which can contribute directly to deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Climate change factors in because higher temperatures also raise the levels of ozone and other pollutants in the air that exacerbate cardiovascular and respiratory disease. In short, the world is a jacked-up place with a deteriorating ecosystem in which hazards are everywhere and their numbers are rising rapidly. What a wonderful world………

- Wu Tang and Genghis Khan? Believe it because RZA, a founding member of the iconic rap outfit, has signed on to direct two new movies, including a biopic of Genghis Khan. Wu Tang Clan, which includes RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard, has been a staple on the music scene for 20 years and RZA is using their success to branch out into movies. He has already appeared in guest spots in “Due Date” and “Repo Men” and also in an episode of HBO’s hit series “Californication.” His biggest acting role to date is set to hit screens next year when he stars alongside legit action heroes Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson in “GI Joe: Retaliation.” Acting is one thing, of course, but directing is another level entirely. RZA has shot and produced numerous music videos over the years and now he’s extending his reach to the big screen. His first directorial effort, “The Man With The Iron Fists,” hits theaters Friday and RZA also co-wrote the film and stars in it with Russell Crowe. After “Iron Fists,” RZA’s next film is expected to be “No Man’s Land,” an action film about a man who steals a priceless diamond from a dangerous criminal. Action films seem to be in RZA’s wheelhouse, but a biopic about the legendary 13th century warrior and founder of the Mongol Empire doesn’t fit in the same vein. Profiling Genghis Khan will be a very different challenge, but the project already has a script by John Milius, whose impressive resume includes “Apocalypse Now.” The Genghis Khan project is projected to begin filming next year in China and if that weren't enough, RZA also revealed recently that he wants to reunite Wu-Tang Clan to mark the 20th anniversary of their debut album “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).” Maybe after that he can host his own radio show or morning show on network television……..

- It wouldn’t be Halloween if someone, somewhere in the world wasn’t decrying the occasion on health/moral/societal grounds. Poland is one of the places Halloween is a reason to rage this time around and even though it’s not a real holiday and merely an excuse for women everyone to skank it up as a slutty nurse/cop/librarian/French maid/pirate/ballerina and drag their significant other to a costume party and for children everywhere to solicit absurd amounts of candy from total strangers and hope there are no razor blades inside, Halloween has some Catholic bishops in Poland very upset. The bishops oppose Halloween because it is allegedly harmful on account of promoting "diabolical" behavior. Archbishop Andrzej Dziega in Szczecin, in the northwest, is leading the charge and penned a letter to his parishioners explaining that under the guise of fun, Halloween can be "destroying the spiritual life." He warned that its  "tricks" hide "diabolical attitudes" by encouraging readiness to harm others. It all sounds bizarre, cryptic and paranoid…..and it is. Clearly, Archbishop Dziega was never invited to the cool kids’ Halloween party growing up and the slutty nurse he had a crush on when he was 16 and wanted a Halloween hook-up never even looked his way. Asking the faithful not to observe Halloween for those reasons is bogus and selfish, even with support from Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz, who wrote in a blog post that Halloween goes against the teaching of the Church by promoting the "occult and magic." Great, so now king-size Snickers bars are occult and magic………

Bitter about Linsanity, dogs in the Supreme Court and Arnold Schwarzenegger back as Conan the Barbarian

- Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking this whole has-been action star desperately grasping for continued relevance thing seriously. After sharing screen time with his fellow has-been, geezer action stars in “Expendables 2,” the Gover-nator is seeking to grab the glory all for himself by reaching back to 1984. He is officially set to play Conan The Barbarian for the first time in nearly three decades and will reprise the role in “The Legend Of Conan,” which is being lined up for a summer 2014 release. The Austrian-born bodybuilder turned incompetent and philandering governor of California played the hulking swordsman in 1982's “Conan The Barbarian” and 1984's “Conan The Destroyer.” Fantasy writer Robert Howard originally created the character, but it was Schwarzenegger’s lack of ability to fluidly deliver dialogue or accurately portray and emotions other than rage that really brought Conan to life. The new film will be produced by Fredrik Malmberg, whose company Parallox owns the rights to the character. Screenwriter Chris Morgan, the creative mind behind low-IQ, poorly executed films like “Wanted” and several of the “Fast & Furious” movies, will pen the script after coming up with the general concept for “Legend of Conan” last year. Maybe Morgan and Malmberg should take a hint from the fact that a 2011 reboot of the franchise starring Jason Momoa, called “Conan the Barbarian,” failed miserably, but this is Hollywood and those lessons are always ignored. "This movie picks up Conan where Arnold is now in his life, and we will be able to use the fact that he has aged in this story. I love the property of Conan so much that I wouldn’t touch it unless we came up with something worthy. We think this is a worthy successor to the original film. Think of this as Conan's Unforgiven,” Morgan said. Uh-huh, sure………

- Finally….. Franky the chocolate Labrador retriever and Aldo the German shepherd will have their day in court – the U.S. Supreme Court, that is. The two canines are police dogs as the heart of a case that has wound its way through the legal system and arrived at the nation’s highest court. The Supreme Court is scheduled on Wednesday to hear Florida's appeal of two decisions by that state's highest court that found the detection of drugs by trained police dogs had violated the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. At the heart of the cases are two diverse issues: whether a dog can sniff outside a home without a warrant, and how qualified a dog must be to do a legitimate sniff. Both present the court with an opportunity to limit or extend prior decisions giving police significant leeway to use dogs, including for suitcases at airports and cars stopped at checkpoints. A decision in favor of law enforcement in these cases could extend the right of police to use dogs in a great capacity. Florida is arguing that dog "alerts" are not searches because they uncover illegal activities that deserve no privacy protection. Retired Justice David Souter belittled that idea in a dissent from a 2005 pro-sniff decision, arguing it supposes that a trained canine becomes an "infallible dog" that never errs. At least 23 states have joined in Florida’s appeals in a show of support, claiming that drug-detecting dogs are "essential weapons" in the fight against illegal drug production and sales. One of the cases before the court, Florida v. Jardines, concerns a December 5, 2006, search outside Joelis Jardines' home near Miami. A tip to police about marijuana being grown inside led a detective and Franky the Labrador to approach the home. The dog sniffed the base of the home and sat down, indicating it has found the scent of drugs. Police obtained a search warrant based on that result and found marijuana plants inside the home. Jardines was arrested for possessing more than 25 pounds of marijuana, but Florida's highest court voided the find and called Franky's sniff an "unreasonable government intrusion into the sanctity of the home." The second case involves the search of Clayton Harris' pickup truck near Bristol, Fla. on June 24, 2006 in which Aldo the German shepherd was led around the truck for a "free air sniff.” Aldo barked near the driver's door handle and the officer then searched the truck's interior, finding 200 pseudoephedrine pills and 8,000 matches, both ingredients for methamphetamine. Now, both cases are before the (no pun intended) high court and decisions are expected in about six months………

- Arrrrggghhhh mateys, the news be bad when it comes to piracy on the high seas. Shiver me timbers, sea piracy worldwide fell to its lowest level since 2008 over the first nine months of this year as navies and shipping companies continued their crackdown on attacks off the coast of Somalia. The International Maritime Bureau, an international maritime watchdog, recorded 233 attacks in the first nine months of this year, down from 352 in the same period last year. According to the IBM, 24 vessels were hijacked worldwide between January and September 2012, with 458 crew members taken hostage and six killed. Figuring out the reason behind the decline isn't difficult, as the number of pirate attacks Somalia's coast plummeted from last year to this one, down from 199 to a measly 70. Worse still, the past three months have been anemic for Somali pirate attacks, with just one reported in the entire third quarter of 2012. Piracy enjoyed a sort of golden age off the coast of Somalia in 2009 because of a lawless atmosphere that spawned increasingly daring acts of pirate-y goodness. However, the pushback from international navies has been severe and these days, pirates are more likely to be camping out in unfurnished rooms, hiding from creditors. The kooks at the IMB aren’t helping the cause by labeling the pirates as heinous criminals who must be brought to justice. "We welcome the successful robust targeting of pirate action groups by international navies in the high-risk waters off Somalia, ensuring these criminals are removed before they can threaten ships," said IMB director Pottengal Mukundan. There is hope for piracy on the horizon in Africa's Gulf of Guinea, ranging from Benin to Togo, where 34 attacks have been reported so far this year. It’s a rare slice of good news in dark times for the terrors of the high seas………

- To the cynic, it might appear that Brooklyn Nets All-Star Deron Williams still has a chip on his shoulder after involuntarily serving as the launch point for the phenomenon that was Linsanity. Williams was the opposing point guard on Feb. 4 when then-Knicks backup point guard Jeremy Lin came off the bench, torched the Nets, breathed life into his own moribund team and incited a nationwide phenomenon that spawned bad puns, ridiculous headlines and more than a few inappropriate Asian-centric remarks from those unable to handle the topic responsibly. Lin cored 25 points in a 99-92 victory over the Nets at Madison Square Garden and went on a scoring binge in the ensuing weeks that vaulted him to celebrity status in Manhattan and beyond. He rode that wave of hype to a  $25.1 million deal with Houston this offseason and has proceeded to stink up the joint so far in the preseason. Williams still seems a little bitter about it all and went out of his way to say Saturday that current Knicks point guard Raymond Felton is a better playmaker than Lin. "I would say Raymond Felton is a better point guard than Jeremy Lin, in my opinion," Williams said. Williams stopped short of suggesting that the Knicks are a better team without Lin, but rationalized his choice by pointing to Felton’s track record as a starter in the NBA. "He is just proven," Williams said. "You'll have to see Jeremy Lin. He had a heck of a run. The numbers he was putting up were All-Star type numbers when he was starting, so we'll see how he does this year. But going off of track record, you know I'm going to go with Raymond Felton and Ray probably had his best year that half season he was there. I guess he likes the bright lights." Felton may live up to Williams’ words of praise and it would help if he showed up in shape, something he has admitted he didn’t do in Portland last season after the lockout. Based on Lin’s sub-40 percent shooting in the preseason, being better than him this season shouldn’t be hugely challenging for anyone who is in shape……….

- Tsunamis and Switzerland usually aren't synonymous. Landlocked nations in the middle of Europe that are covered almost entirely by mountains usually skew that way, but environmental researchers at the University of Geneva have suggested otherwise. According to their findings, an ancient tsunami in a Swiss lake triggered by an Alpine landslide suggests that cities now on the lake's shore may face dangers more commonly associated with large oceans. To qualify as a tsunami, a wave must reach a height of 100 meters and this typically occurs as a result of a major seismic event such as an earthquake, or possibly a landslide. Geological researcher Guy Simpson and his team believe that a landslide was the cause of the landlocked tsunami and theorized that the lake may have been hit by a landslide. Such a wave could also occur after a collapse on the flank of a volcano. "People think that, to be affected by a tsunami, you have to live on seacoasts and in a region not too far away from major seismic activity," Simpson said. “We think we have a counterexample.” He and his team analyzed Lake Geneva in Switzerland, a body of water with more than 1 million people living in its immediate vicinity, including 200,000 of them in Geneva, the second-most populous city in Switzerland. The event Simpson’s team studied was a rock fall that occurred in 563 A.D. more than 45 miles from Geneva, according to two historical accounts — one from St. Gregory of Tours, the other from Marius, bishop of Avenches. The rock fall was named the Tauredunum event after a nearby fort and brought boulders crashing down near where the Rhone River enters Lake Geneva. Several villages were destroyed and the disaster went on to generate a tsunami in Lake Geneva that drenched everything on the lake's shore, wiped out more villages and demolished the Geneva bridge and mills. Researchers surveyed the deepest part of Lake Geneva seismically to see how this event might be relevant to modern residents of the region and calculated that a wave about 25 feet high could have reached Geneva approximately 70 minutes after the rock fall, traveling at about 45 mph. Simpson believes a similar event is not only possible, but likely in the future. "Tsunamis have happened in Lake Geneva in the past, and in all likelihood, will probably happen at some stage in the future," he theorized………

Music videos for Wisconsin, movie news and what to do when you stage a coup

- The No. 1 rule of leading is a coup to topple your government is to succeed at all costs. Those who lead coups and fail are either killed in the attempt or arrested, imprisoned and eventually killed by those they attempted to overthrow. No coup leader ever swings and missed on their power grab and calmly returns to the normal life they led prior to their ill-fated endeavor. Just watch the fate of the soldier who led a failed coup attempt last week in Guinea-Bissau and these harsh lessons will become clear. Pansau Ntchama was arrested Saturday outside the capital, Bissau, and the government confirmed that he worked with the country's ex-army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Zamora Induta. Together, the two men led the Oct. 21 coup attempt. For Ntchama, who was a commando and Induta's bodyguard before the ex-army chief fled Guinea-Bissau in the wake of the last coup in April, blame over the coup won't be shared with his co-conspirator because the government believes Induta is now in Portugal. Government spokesman Dahaba Na Walna added that Ntchama had sought exile in Portugal after allegedly carrying out the 2009 assassination of Guinea-Bissau's former president, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he tried a proxy coup on behalf of his former boss and failed miserably. "It was an attempt from the outside," Walna said. According to the government, Ntchama traveled a meandering route last week from Portual to Gambia to Angola, where he picked up weapons and crossed over into Guinea-Bissau to carry out the attack. He and his supporters attacked a military base near the airport in Bissau on Oct. 21, and six soldiers were killed in the clash. At least four of them were assailants from the Djola ethnic group who working with Ntchama. The target of the coup was the military junta that itself seized power in April, so clearly those leading the nation now know what it takes to stage or fend off a hostile takeover. As always, coup successfully or don’t coup at all………

- Amazingly enough, Microsoft’s supposed savior of an operating system has landed with a dull thud among consumers. The reigning maker of the world’s worst computer operating system since……well, however long it has been churning out the giant pile of monkey turds it calls Windows, is clearly counting on the visually reworked Windows 8 to help it regain the market share that is rapidly slipping through its fingers. The results of a nationwide survey in the United States suggest that isn't going to happen. A phone poll of nearly 1,200 adults in the U.S. found 52 percent hadn't even heard of Windows 8 leading up to Friday's release of the redesigned OS. Somehow, billing Windows 8 as a "re-imagining" of the company’s operating system hasn’t caused everyone to forget what a ridiculous joke Windows is, was and always will be. Of the 48 percent of respondents who had actually heard of Windows 8, 61 percent had little or no interest in buying a new laptop or desktop computer running the system. Worse still, just one-third of those same respondents believed the new system will be an improvement over previous versions. That is akin to saying that a new Pauly Shore movie is going to be worse than “Bio-Dome,” and that might be too kind of a comparison. Microsoft typically releases a new version of Windows every two or three years and the new version inevitably has some of the terrible qualities of the previous one while finding new ways to suck as well. This time is different because Windows 8 is radically different than its predecessors while sucking just as much as they do. Just because Bill Gates’ brainchild is aimed at the growing number of people embracing the convenience of smartphones and tablets doesn’t mean it will succeed. In the same poll, 70 percent of those surveyed had no interest in buying Microsoft’s new surface tablet, which runs Windows 8. Even with a looming $1 billion marketing campaign that will include an onslaught of television commercials to promote Windows 8 to a wider audience, hope is not exactly abundant for the project’s success. Yes, the system can be controlled by touching a device's display screen and presents users with an array of dynamic applications instead of the old start menu and desktop tiles, but in the end…..IT’S STILL WINDOWS AND IT’S STILL MADE BY MICROSOFT. Case closed………

- Attention, aspiring music stars and music video directors of Wisconsin: Your ship has finally come in. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Madison Mayor Paul Soglin believes making a music video to promote a city is a good idea. Either he hasn’t seen the train wreck of a music video Cleveland put together when a bunch of local weathermen, radio DJs, politicians and former Real World-ers tried to sing “Please Stay LeBron” to the tune of “We Are the World” and keep LeBron James from bolting to Miami or Soglin posses an irrational confidence in the fried cheese curd-eating people of his city. In brutal economic times, the mayor wants to spend $50,000 to produce a music video promoting arts and culture in Madison. For some reason, he believes the video could go viral and generate big business for the city. His inspiration came from a YouTube video that went viral in Grand Rapids, Mich., when city leaders and residents lip-dubbed a 9-minute video singing "American Pie." No one wants to go to Grand Rapids even after watching the video, but it did receive some minor attention. "I took a look at (the video) and said, 'There's a couple things wrong with it, and we could do better,'" Soglin said. Maybe the next Romain Gavras really is waiting to churn out an epic five-minute video about a city best known for pounding brats and beer, but someone needs to check the mayor because his expectations are already out of control. "When there's a potential for getting 5 million hits on YouTube, what it says about our city when it comes to marketing, I can't think of a better way of spending our money," Soglin said. He will have to convince city and civic leaders about his vision because some of them have sounded concerns that the video would take money away from projects with more tangible and immediate rewards. "It's priorities. It's what comes first, and for us, the funding for the Overture Center comes first," said Susan Schmitz, of Downtown Madison Inc. Maybe Soglin’s ulterior motive for the video is to one-up former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's cameo in the Madison-based Web series "Chad Vader" a few years back. To attain his impossible (and moronic) dream, Soglin must win over a few more members of the Madison Common Council because right now, there aren't enough who support the mayor's proposal to make the video happen. Looks like it’s time to find the nearest community college student with a video camera and access to Final Cut Express……….

- Maybe the looming threat of a hurricane along the East Coast is enough to scare off would-be moviegoers, or maybe an uninspiring slate of new films and a stale group of returnees is what kept people from the local multiplex this time around. Either way, the earnings totals were unimpressive and the most-hyped film of the weekend could manage only a third-place finish. “Argo” jumped up to the top spot in its third weekend, making a so-so $12.4 million for a cumulative domestic total of $60.8 million. Another resurgent film was second as “Hotel Transylvania” rose two spots in its fifth weekend, bringing in $9.5 million to up its overall tally to $130.4 million and counting. Tom Hanks’ heavily publicized new project “Cloud Atlas” was either too convoluted or lacked enough sex and explosions to draw in big crowds because it limped to third place with $9.4 million in its debut. “Paranormal Activity” was solid in its second weekend, undoubtedly boosted by Halloween, and added $8.7 million in the frame for a two-week total of $42.7 million. Newcomer “Silent Hill: Revelation (3D)” nudged its way into fifth with $8.1 million, elbowing past “Taken 2.” Liam Neeson’s ass-kicking “Taken” sequel made $8 million and has banked $117.4 million in one month of work. “Here Comes the Boom” secured seventh place with $5.5 for a three-week bank roll of $30.6 million, followed by “Sinister” in the eighth spot on the strength of its $5.1 million take. With $39.5 million in three weeks, the project is at least meeting expectations. “Alex Cross” is not and finishing ninth with $5 million and having made a meager $19.4 million in two weeks is not what Summit Entertainment had in mind. “Fun Size” claimed the tenth spot in its first weekend by earning $4 million, while “Pitch Perfect” (No. 11),  “Frankenweenie” (No. 12) and “Looper” (No. 14) slid out from last weekend’s top 10 and newcomer “Chasing Mavericks” fell three spots short of this week’s list……..

- The clock is ticking, their sport is nowhere to be found either on the ice or in the headlines of sports media outlets and so the NHL and NHL Players’ Association have to be feverishly working toward a new collective bargaining agreement to salvage what remains of their 2012-13 season, right? Umm…no. After the NHL's self-imposed Thursday deadline for its latest offer to the players to be accepted came and went, any remaining hope for a full 82-game season died. All games through the end of November were canceled and the cancellations were accompanied by news that negotiations have stalled and no new talks are planned at present. Don Fehr, NHLPA executive director, said in a statement Friday that the news of the cancellations "comes as no surprise." Not only has the first month of the season been axed, but the league may soon cancel its marquee regular-season even, the Winter Classic. The annual outdoor game may be canceled as early as next week, according to sources. Players are either competing abroad or taking part in charity games and neither Fehr nor commissioner Gary Bettman are displaying any sense of urgency to restart negotiations. The league weakly offered a written statement Friday saying that the league accepts "that there is joint responsibility in collective bargaining" and "deeply regrets having to take this action." Its estimate for the total loss in hockey-related revenue for the season through Nov. 30 would be $720 million, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. Fehr blasted the league Friday night and didn’t sound like a man willing to make concessions to reach an accord. “Somebody has to be willing to talk about things seriously," Fehr said. 'We've got billions of dollars from the players last time, we've had nothing but record revenues ever since, let's try and get another billion or two.' That's hard. That's really hard to do." Yes, but it isn't nearly as difficult as it will be for the league to win fans back in late 2013 (if and) when it returns from missing an entire season………

When to stop smoking, line drives off pitchers' skulls and the world hates Fatsel Rose

- Is everyone lining up to take a shot at Fatsel, er, Axl Rose? The line definitely is growing and after Rose’s abysmal performance earlier this week at a benefit show in San Francisco organized by Neil Young in which an out-of-shape, gasping-for-breath, cherubic Rose huffed, puffed and mumbled his way through the single worst rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle” ever performed – including karaoke versions – the Axl jokes and memes were flying around the Internet like enchiladas flying into Rose’s pie hole at a Mexican restaurant. Perhaps no one hates Rose more or has blasted him more over the years than former Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash, who sounds like he wants to fight Axl every time he talks about him. The Axl hate seems to run through the Slash family, at least based on an interview this week by Perla Hudson, Slash’s wife. Following Rose’s emabarrasing on-stage effort and subsequent appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Hudson lined Rose up in her crosshairs and hit him below the belt. Granted, Rose helped her and every other joke maker out by bringing an entire burger truck to Kimmel’s studio to feed the host and his audience, but Hudson still went further than most. 
“I was waiting for something enlightening and all I got was promotion for a show and his evident affinity for a chili burger,” Hudson joked. "Where is the love Axl? And I stayed up for this? Sex, drugs and chilli dogs. Long live Axl Rose." For the record, Rose answered questions about the early days of Guns N' Roses in Hollywood and Kimmel asked him what it felt like to be just a few minutes from the iconic band’s old rehearsal space. Rose admitted he hadn't been by the building in some time, but when he was asked if he remembered it at all, he replied bluntly, "Unfortunately." Hudson had the last word, commenting on the lineup of the bastardized version of GNR Rose now plays with. "He's had a Slash, a Buckethead and a Bumblefoot and evidently way too many Tommy's chili burgers!" Hey oh, Perla………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Let this be a warning to anyone who would dare to attempt to move Peru’s biggest wholesale market to another part of the capital, Lima. A second attempt in three days to relocate the market did not go well for the Peruvian government, which didn’t move any markets but did move plenty of local police to the market’s current location to deal with hundreds of angry food merchants who have no intention of giving up their current location. Anyone doubting how serious the merchants are about staying put need look only at the two deaths and 27 injuries from Saturday’s uprising after a similar battle on Thursday resulted in the deaths of two civilians and injuries for 68 police officers. For those who are a bit slow on the math, that’s four people dead and at least 95 injured from two attempts to close the ginormous La Parada food market, which sprawls over 7.4 acres in Lima's downtown. Government officials ordered vendors to move to a new market in the eastern part of the capital by mid-September, but their demands were refused and the government either had to step its efforts up or live down the shame of being b*tch-slapped by a group of food sellers. It chose the former and installed huge concrete blocks to impede entry by cargo trucks into La Parada on Thursday. That action led to Thursday’s violent clashes between vendors and police and the food-based raged continued Saturday. With any luck, it will stretch into next week and hopefully beyond………

- Player safety is a major point of focus in the NFL right now, but another major American professional sports league is extremely concerned about the well-being of its players and the threat of head injuries: Major League Baseball. Baseball’s issue has nothing to do with players leveling each other while running at Olympic sprinter-like speeds and instead centers on the players who are the initiator of every single play in every game. Pitchers are the focal point of ongoing discussions within MLB’s hierarchy because of the rising number of them being struck in the head by line drives off bats being swung 60 feet away. A prime example of this phenomenon came Thursday night in Game 2 of the World Series, when San Francisco’s Gregor Blanco blasted a fastball back through the middle and off the side of Tigers pitcher Doug Fister’s skull. Fister remained in the game and worked into the seventh of a 2-0 loss, but the moment was still terrifying and it has commissioner Bud Selig and his cronies thinking. The league is now looking at ways to protect pitchers from being injured by batted balls and MLB senior vice president Dan Halem said Friday night that hat liners are a possibility in the minors next year. The issue is now on the "fast track," Halem said. “Hopefully, we can come up with something," he said. "We're making progress." One possible option, according to Halem, is the idea of protective headgear for pitchers MLB medical director Dr. Gary Green has been talking to companies about. That could include borrowing an idea from the NFL, where players are now wearing both helmets and protective flak jackets made with high-impact, military-grade Kevlar. A Kevlar-lined cap could be on the horizon and MLB has been exploring all possible solutions for months, even before Oakland pitcher Brandon McCarthy was hit in the head by a line drive last month, causing a skull fracture and brain contusion. "After that, it kind of pushed up our timetable," Halem said. "We decided to fast track it." The ball that struck Fister ricocheted about 150 feet, reaching Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson on one hop and underscoring how fast it was traveling. At least one participant in the World Series sounded receptive to the idea. "I definitely think it's something worth exploring," Game 1 winner Barry Zito said. "We've had high-profile examples of those injuries lately, what happened with Brandon and then here in the World Series." McCarthy sounded a similar tone after his incident, saying he would be willing to listen to ideas about protective headgear, provided it didn't impact his pitching. How does a pitcher wearing a souped-up batting helmet on the mound sound……….

- New Mexico has a problem. Okay, so New Mexico has a lot of problems, but it is focusing on one in particular right now and that problem is the $30 million it spends annually to collect more than $130 million in child support from deadbeat parents. No matter how much money the state spends, though, one group of deadbeats never pays up: the incarcerated ones. Prison inmates and the 10 cents an hour they make cleaning trays in the prison kitchen do a poor job of financially supporting their children outside the prison walls and some state lawmakers don’t like that one bit. “I am a little surprised,” said Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, who is co-chair of the state legislature’s Corrections Committee. “I pay for my kids, you pay for your kids. Everyone should pay for their kids.” He’s referring to inmates like convicted murderer Michael Guzman, who is in prison for kidnapping and raping two women in 1981 in Tijeras Canyon and murdering one of the women after he raped her. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but a life in prison hasn’t prevented him from being married twice and fathering four children while incarcerated. He received an assist in procreating from then-Gov. Toney Anaya, who commuted Guzman’s death sentence in 1986, which allowed the inmate out of the maximum security facility and into a facility where he could earn conjugal visits through good behavior. Those visits consist of as many as 12 hours alone with a legal spouse in a specially constructed portable building. Only 254 inmates out of about 6,500 across the state have earned the privilege and New Mexico is one of six states that allow the practice. Park wonders if ripping inmates like Guzman’s rights to conjugal visits might not be the most direct route to preventing more unsupported children like the four unfortunate sons who belong to Guzman……….

- Still choking down cancer sticks, turning your skin an ugly shade of green, your skin a nice leathery consistency and your voice into the equivalent of someone talking while chugging a jar of razor blades, ladies? Now is the time to quit and if you can stop downing death darts, you just might dodge some major health issues commonly associated with the filthy habit of smoking. Researchers in the United Kingdom have found that women who give up smoking by the age of 30 will almost completely avoid the risks of dying early from tobacco-related diseases and even those who stopped by the age of 40 lose an average of one year from their lifespan. The researchers studied more than a million women in the UK and overall, they discovered that lifelong smokers died a decade earlier than those who never started. Stopping by age 30 meant women lost just one month off their life. What lead researcher Richard Peto of Oxford University and his team want women to take from their findings is that this was not a license for young women to smoke. Peto’s comprehensive study followed the first generation of women to start smoking during the 1950s and 60s and found that oddly enough, women suffer from the effects of smoking just as much as men when they smoke as much as men do. "What we've shown is that if women smoke like men, they die like men," Peto said. “More than half of women who smoke and keep on smoking will get killed by tobacco. Stopping works, amazingly well actually. Smoking kills, stopping works and the earlier you stop the better.” What was interesting among the study’s results was the fact that the amount of time smoking mattered more than the sheer number of cancer sticks consumed. Either way, more proof that death darts are vile and disgusting is always a positive development for the world………

Face-slap massages, Aerosmith loves love and Mariano Rivera waffles

- Steven Tyler has done four things in his life at a far greater rate than almost anyone else on the face of the planet: put drugs into his system, have copious amounts of sex with near-strangers, sell albums and play to sold-out arenas. He believes the world would be an infinitely better place if people of all races, creeds and cultures emulated his lifestyle in one of those four areas: getting laid. Tyler, who has gone off the deep end in the past two years as a credibility-bastardizing stint as a reality karaoke show judge and an aged-out rock icon who falls off stages in a drug-induced stupor, recently argued that the world would be a much better place if people made more time to get laid. "What's missing in the world is that people don't get laid enough," Tyler said. "It's not just about coming and effing – it's about making love and unbridled passion. The world doesn't make love enough." So he’s not talking about mindless, quickie sex with a groupie backstage after a concert, although he has undoubtedly had plenty of that. No, Tyler wants the world to make LOVE and that tidal wave of love will then sweep the globe and turn it into a much more habitable place. So would him ceasing to be a pathetic caricature of himself, but that may be a step further than he’s willing to go. In the meantime, Aerosmith is set to release its 15th album on Nov. 6 and “Music from Another Dimension!” will feature guest spots from the likes of actor Johnny Depp and John Lennon's eldest son Julian. Tyler was asked to expound on the idea of love in two of the album’s tracks, “Love Three Times a Day” and “Lover a Lot,” and he actually went to a (slightly) deeper place for a moment. “I was reading the lyrics upstairs and I was thinking, there's a lot of love,” he added. “And I got shameful for a minute and thought, We should be more socially relevant…I'm not socially relevant but I write about love and passion – and it's fun. It's what I think a rock n' roll band should be." No, your band is definitely not socially relevant, Steve……….

- A living baseball legend and the best closer in Major League Baseball history may be done after all. Last the world saw New York Yankees bullpen stalwart and MLB career saves leader Mariano Rivera, he was tearing his ACL in Kansas City in early May while shagging fly balls before a game and vowing after the injury to come back in 2013 for one more season. "I'm coming back," an emotional Rivera said in Kansas City a day after the injury. "Put it down. Write it down in big letters. I ain't going down like this." It was a great moment and the epitome of a proud, legendary athlete who was too proud to go down in a crumpled heap on a warning track in Kansas City. Now that the season is over and the idea of being a 42-year-old pitcher trying to rehab for one final season on a flawed team is sinking in, Rivera’s mindset may be changing. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said in an interview this week that Rivera has informed him that he is unsure if he will play again or retire. A 19th season in pinstripes is now in question as Rivera nears his 43rd birthday next month and as he rehabs and works to get back on the field, he reportedly is torn between staying at home with his family and returning to the Yankees. If he does return, there is still the issue of working out a new contract with the team. He made $15 million last season, but it is unclear what sort of offer the team is willing to make as it seeks to tighten its budget in anticipation of trying to lower payroll by 10 percent to $189 million for 2014. Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner has mandated change to take advantage of MLB’s new system of luxury tax breaks. Even if Rivera decides to retire, the Yankees’ closer situation isn't crystal clear. While Rafael Soriano thrived as the team’s closer in Rivera’s absence, converting 42-of-46 save chances, Soriano could opt out of the final season of his contract. With despised über-agent Scott Boras representing him, odds are Soriano won't be back at the price he’ll be seeking………

- Global warming deniers, this one is for you. Now that the ozone hole above the Antarctic has hit its maximum extent for the year, scientists have done their calculations and discovered that the opening in the Earth’s protective atmospheric layer is the second smallest it has been for 20 years. At its apex this year, the hole stretched 8.2 million square miles, an area roughly the size of all of North America, on Sept. 22. That is signficantly smaller than the record holder, an 11.5-million square mile opening in 2000. What makes ozone unique is that it is a pollutant when found on the Earth’s surface, but in the stratosphere, it reflects ultraviolet radiation back into space, protecting humans from skin cancer-causing UV rays. The hole is caused by chlorine from man-made chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were created in the early 20th century and used in products like spray cans and even though use of these chemicals has lessened over the years as environmental consciousness has risen, they are believed to linger in the stratosphere for decades. Temperature is a factor in the process because increased air temperature adversely affects the rate at which these CFCs break apart ozone molecules. Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spoke about this year’s ozone hole, which forms in September and October, and explained that it was smaller this year because of warmer air temperatures high above the South Pole. "It happened to be a bit warmer this year high in the atmosphere above Antarctica, and that meant we didn't see quite as much ozone depletion as we saw last year, when it was colder," said Jim Butler with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. The ozone hole over the Antarctic was first discovered in the late 1970s and grew steadily during the 1980s and 90s. Its pace of growth has slowed over the past decade, but NOAA scientists believe any real ozone recovery is still at least a few years off………

- Who’s down for a good slap massage? If there is any place in the United States where something freaky like getting slapped across the face to soothe and relax your soul is going to take place, it’s going to be either Las Vegas or San Francisco, right? They’re two of the most free-wheeling, liberal cities in the United States and so it makes perfect sense that an ancient Thai tradition has come to the new Tata Massage parlor in San Francisco. Mawin Sombuntham and his wife Tata run the massage parlor and for those will to drop $350 for the chance to get b*tch-slapped for relaxation, the opportunity is there and it is officially licensed by the state of California. In a city with plenty of massage parlors the Sombuntham’s have something unusual and the reactions from people who see their adds tend to go the same way. “Of course the first reaction is, ‘What? Face slapping?’” Mawin Sombuntham said. “It’s from ancient Thai wisdom that’s been passed down from generation to generation, and it’s a secret technique.” Tata Sombuntham is the masseuse at the parlor and has been face-slapping customers for two years. She uses music and dance in her massages as well and explained that the slapping technique is about improving circulation as well as optimizing the fat and tissues and muscles that are in the face. She and her husband believe that because the “treatment” is non-invasive and chemical-free, people will be willing to spend their food budget for three or four weeks on it. With any business that is in the cutting (or slapping) edge, the big question is always what the next big thing will be. Mawin Sombuntham believes he has that idea and it is known simply as butt punching………

- Behold the power of the protest. The people have made their voice heard and the chorus has grown loud enough that The Man has been forced to respond. After proposing a plan to sell state-owned land in a duty-free zone on the Panama Canal, the Panamanian government was hit with a week of violent, combative protests in which a 10-year-old boy and two adults died. In light of the uprising, the government has backed down and conceded defeat to the opposition. Credit has to go in a number of directions, including the construction workers who have blocked roadways in Panama City and staged marches in sympathy with the protests in Colon. Thanks to the revolt, Roberto Henriquez, the chief of staff for President Ricardo Martinelli, announced Friday that Martinelli’s regime will repeal a law passed a week ago that allowed the government to sell land it currently leases to companies in the duty-free zone. Much of the outrage this week has taken place in the port city of Colon, where the affected land is, but the protests have also spread to Panama City. Seeing the power of the protest cause change in a short span of time is inspiring and if Henriquez is to be believed, Martinelli's cabinet will meet Sunday and "the law will be repealed." On the heels of this impressive victory, the real question for Panamanians is what national issue or crisis they will tackle next because clearly, their influence is greater than they ever realized………

Germany recognizes gypsy suffering, Tampa's rogue monkey captured and musicians who love chickens

- Take a deep breath, relax and put down that collapsible riot baton you’ve been carrying with you for protection, Tampa Bay residents, because the elusive “Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay” has finally been caught. The mischievous member of the rhesus macaques species has been tormenting the collective psyche of this quiet community for weeks, but a local veterinarian finally snagged the elusive creature. Dr. Don Woodman finally corralled the monkey Wednesday and fired the tranquilizer dart that brought the primate down. For three long years, the threat of this terrifying money has been hanging overhead in Tampa Bay and now, the nightmare is over. 
"We know he's been hanging around the Tampa area for roughly three years," Woodman said. "We've been chasing him for three years." As Woodman exited the facility where the mystery monkey was taken, local media swarmed around him with questions and members of the community also stopped by to see if they could catch a glimpse of the critter. Woodman plans to take blood from the monkey and test to make sure the animal is healthy and not suffering from any diseases. Part of the reason for the testing is to make sure that a woman who was scratched by the monkey after it jumped her doesn’t have anything to worry about from a health standpoint. Once the testing is complete, animal tracker Vernon Yates and Woodman plan to find the monkey a good home. Neither man believes there is any reason to put the monkey down, but after the reign of terror he has carried out in the past three years, it may be a good idea to reconsider that plan……..

- A small number of successful athletes – especially boxers – have long had ties to the dirty – literally – and lowbrow “sport” of cockfighting. Taking two roosters, strapping razorblades to their feet and betting on which one of them will peck and slash the other one to death has appealed to a handful of boxers, including multi-time champions Roy Jones Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. Jones said a few years ago that he raised roosters and fought them as a way to relax away from the ring and Pacquiao renounced the sport earlier this year as part of his efforts to clean up his life and save his marriage. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is going the other direction and raising chickens not to fight them, but because he likes them and wants to keep them safe. As Radiohead tours the United Kingdom in support of their latest album, “The King of Limbs,” Greenwood sat down for an interview and admitted that he enjoys looking after chickens in his spare time. He expressed anger over the damage a local fox has done to his animals in recent years and said that although his chickens are reliable egg-layers, rogue foxes can inflict “crime scene” if they get into the coup. “The chickens are OK. Pretty good layers. Eggs taste great," Greenwood said. “We get foxes every few years and it all goes a bit ‘crime scene’ when that happens – lots of burials.” The good news is that unlike Jones and Pacquiao’s interactions with chickens, at least Greenwood’s fowls are merely dying when nature runs its course………

- Flipboard is turning over a new leaf in its quest to become the next big “must-have” app for smartphones. Known as the app that turns news items into more visually appealing content, Flipboard has evolved by adding audio support to its Android version. Beginning Thursday, the app's users will be able to add audio content from sources like National Public Radio and Public Radio International to their news mix. The app can also be connected to a SoundCloud account so sounds can be shared with others and after launching the Android version Thursday, the Flipboard development team announced in a blog post that the audio feature will be added to versions of Flipboard for the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle "in a few days.” Flipboard first dinged the technological radar when it debuted for the iPad in 2010, but it didn’t debut for the Android OS until June of this year. It is also integrated with Google's social network, which means users’ Google+ activity – for the five Google employees who use Google+ and only then because they are corporate forced to – also appears in Flipboard's magazine-style format. If anyone actually used Google+, they would be able to interact directly with Google + from within the app and perform tasks such as +1-ing a posting (the Google+ equivalent of a Facebook "like") as well as share, comment or reply to postings. Flipboard’s audio component was introduced to Flipboard's iOS apps in May and adding that new aspect isn’t just a blatant cash grab on Flipboard’s part – although it is that. The change also makes the app accessible to visually impaired users when they turn on the VoiceOver features in an iOS device and the gestures to control Flipboard change and everything on pages is read aloud. Simply tap a title on a page and it would be read aloud. Maybe this isn’t such a terrible idea……….

- Someone should tell Washington Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall that it’s a terrible, delusional and just plain pathetic look for nine-year veteran and former Pro Bowl starter to refuse to give credit to an opponent who flat-out beat him. Hall was one of a trio of Redskins defensive backs left grapsing and air and attempting futilely to bring down Giants receiver Victor Cruz after Cruz hauled in a 77-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Eli Manning and making a house call that gave the Giants a 27-23 lead with 1:13 left in the game. Manning’s long bomb to Cruz came just 19 seconds of game time after Washington's Robert Griffin III put his team on top with an excellent TD pass of his own to receiver Santana Moss. Manning responded with a great throw, Cruz made the catch and then simply outran Hall and the other Redskins chasing him and recorded the game-winning score. Hall remains unconvinced that anything special happened. "We tried to vary it as much as possible," Hall said. "I feel we gave him that play. We just had one guy set his feet and one guy not do this. I could have thrown that ball and he would have scored. It wasn't something where he was a rocket scientist and he figured something out. We just played that as bad as possible." In other words, we beat ourselves and the Giants didn’t beat us. It sounded eerily like the sour grapes spewed earlier this year by Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews, who said the Packers beat themselves during their playoff loss to the Giants last season and refused to give the Giants credit. Hall, who has been burned dozens of times during his career and should be used to it by now, followed suit and Manning had a little something for him when those comments got back to him. "I appreciate him giving it to me," the two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback deadpanned. "Thank you. No, I didn't think it took a rocket scientist to figure it out, either. We had a guy running open and you hit him. It doesn't bother me. If that is the way they want to put it in their heads, then that is fine." Manning is funny that way because he’s so low-key that even when he’s insulting and disrespecting someone who is clearly being an idiot and a sore loser, he barely raises his voice or cracks a smile. Maybe Hall should take notes………

- Berlin already had one Holocaust memorial, the Memorial to the Murder Jews of Europe, but Germany’s capital city now has another one after Chancellor Angela Merkel and other dignitaries gathered on Wednesday to christen a memorial in the heart of Berlin to the 500,000 ethnic Sinti and Roma murdered by the Nazis. With the official opening of the memorial, Germany remembered the Holocaust's forgotten victims. A violin soloist played a mournful song and political leaders and survivors approached a dark pool close to the German parliament building, the Reichstag. "This memorial commemorates a group of victims who, for far too long, received far too little public recognition — the many hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma who were persecuted by the Nazis as so-called gypsies," Merkel said. "The destiny of every single person murdered in this genocide is one of unspeakable suffering. Every single destiny, fills us, fills me, with sadness and shame."  Her reference to gypsies made note of the designation the Roma have been given by many across Europe as they show up in major cities and around popular tourist attractions begging for money. The memorial is something of a living entity, as a fresh flower will be placed on the triangular surface at the center of the reflecting pool every day. Israeli artist Dani Karavan designed the memorial and a chronology of the Nazis' extermination campaign appears next to the reflecting pool. The Nazi regime not only persecuted Jews, but also took discrimination against Sinti and Roma to alarming levels during the 19300s. These groups were sent to concentration camps and from 1934, subjected to forced sterilization as a result of the Nazis' "racial purity" laws. When they were sent to death camps, they were forced to wear uniforms bearing a "Z" for "Zigeuner" (the German word for "gypsy"). It wasn’t until 1982 that a German recognized Nazi persecution of the Roma on racist grounds leader even , more than 30 years after West Germany acknowledged the murder of 6 million Jews and began to pay compensation to Israel. Both German politicians and Roma leaders attended the ceremony and many spoke about the discrimination social exclusion and abject poverty Europe's 12 million Roma face today………

Japan's mobster justice minister, death by energy drink and Counting Crows age out

- A game that doesn’t matter and whose score is forgotten as soon as it ends is getting a minor facelift. The NBA, which stages an annual exhibition game each February in which it gathers 24 of its best players and calls it the NBA All-Star Game, is tweaking the mechanism by which players are selected for a meaningless contest where defense is frowned upon and the And-1 Tour is embarrassed by players’ lack of effort to stay in front of their man. Previously, players were picked according to normal positional designations: guard, forward and center. Operating within those lines made the selection process muddy because some players don’t play one specific position and there might not be a worthy choice at center, given that there are half as many of them as there are guards and forwards. To fix this minor problem, the league is doing away with position designations for forwards and centers and instead asking fans to vote for three "frontcourt" players. The announcement came down Wednesday and according to an official statement by vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson, the change is based on the more amorphous definition of player positions in NBA lineups. The San Antonio Spurs and future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan are a case study for why the change is being made, as Duncan is listed as a power forward but has mostly played like a center. "It makes sense," Jackson said. "It made sense to our competition committee. Having a center is the only specific position that was singled out on the ballot. It just seemed a little outdated and didn't represent the way our game has evolved. The 2013 All-Star ballot will be released on Nov. 13 and the All-Star Game is slated for Feb. 17 at Houston's Toyota Center. Now if only the league could find a way to actually make players give a damn about playing defense in the contest………

- Something about the idea of making moonshine legally in a government-approved distillery just feels wrong. For decades, residents of the southeastern United States have made, transported and sold their own homemade brand of the drinky-drinky, all while trying to avoid the long arm of the law. Outrunning the police and souping up car engines was the impetus for the official “sport” of rednecks, after all - NASCAR. Making a special brand of ‘shine in a still out behind an abandoned barn on the side of a small mountain somewhere in the Deep South just feels right (if not legal), in contrast to a change in Tennessee law that allows for small craftsman distillers to make moonshine legally. Businesses like the Piney Flats distillery are taking advantage of the law and in the process, turning an old corporate garage into Sullivan County's first and only distillery. That renovated garage is the point of origin for Roberson's Tennessee Mellomoon, a100-proof Tennessee moonshine. The concept itself sounds fine: a group of friends sitting around the kitchen table, dreaming big. "We've got a lot of rich history in east Tennessee and moonshine is a big part of it. It really just kind of fell into place," said Byron Reece, one of the founders of the company. He and his pals talked about the idea for more than a year and then, in the prime example of a dream gone horribly wrong, the group formed an LLC and made their moonshine business official. They worked to meet all of the requirements on the federal, state and local levels and filled out mountains of paperwork. After that, they scoured recipes online – another cheating tactic – and combined a number of recipes using corn, sugar and rye. With all of those steps completed, they launched their business and in the process, took a leak on years of moonshine-ing tradition. Let the world know when you all grow a pair, find a rusted old barrel or five and start brewing in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night on the side of a hill, fellas……….

- Amazingly, the mainstream pop-rock stylings of Adam Duritz, his epic dreadlocks and Counting Crows have been around for more than two decades. With the band’s seven-times platinum debut "August and Everything After" set to turn 20 next year, fans might think Duritz and Co. would be doing something typically cash-grabby like working on a re-mastered version of the album to make some more money without having to actually write or record new music. Not so, Duritz says. Instead, he would much rather celebrate Counting Crows' sophomore release, 1996's double-platinum "Recovering the Satellites." "Everyone says we should do something for 'August'...but, honestly, a group of years seems like a particularly lame reason to revisit a record," Duritz said. "I can see why, the commerce of it. But it would be like just taking money from the fans.” He pointed to a live album and DVD featuring “August” in 2011 as enough of a tribute to the project. So should the Crows revisit all the mainstream poppiness of “Satellites” and find some way to honor it? Hell no. It’s still not that good of an album even if Duritz insists it’s a really good listen. "That's a truly great album a lot of people missed," he added. "I don't think it necessarily got the credit it deserves 'cause there was a bit of backlash after 'August.' It was a huge step forward for the band.” Ah, the ol’ “never got enough credit” lament that athletes and recording artists have long kept as a tried-and-true statement. What actually is interesting about “Satellites” is that the original recordings for the album are AWOL. "Geffen lost all the (master) tapes," Duritz explained. "What exists is the digital tapes that they transferred to do the mix; those still exist, but it's only the songs mixed for that record. Anything not mixed for the record is gone.” In other words, no B-sides, no lost tracks that didn’t make the original cut….maybe it’s time to forget this album just like music fans have forgotten most everything else Counting Crows have released and will forget this year's covers album "Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation)” in about two second………

- Waaaaait a minute……sugar-laden energy drinks loaded with unhealthy amounts of caffeine can wreck a person’s health? Because that fact has not been hammered into society’s collective consciousness often or emphatically enough, there is a wrongful death lawsuit pending against Monster Beverage Corp. and the Food and Drug Administration is piling on by releasing incident reports indicating that Monster Energy drinks might have been responsible for five deaths since 2009. The issue of death by caffeine is back in the spotlight and although toxicologists typically peg the amount of the stimulant necessary to kill a person at 5-10 grams, the 14-year-old Maryland girl at the heart of the lawsuit consumed 480 mg of caffeine over two days, or less than a gram. Anais Fournier’s parents are suing on the ground that caffeine caused her death even though most experts asked about the case have said that dose would not be expected to be fatal in a normal person of that age. Factors such as weight, medications and underlying health conditions also play a role and according to a 2003 Journal of Toxicology article, a 41-year-old woman lived after consuming 50 grams of caffeine, 10 times more than what's considered a lethal dose. Caffeine sensitivity varies from person to person, so knowing whether Fournier downing two 24-ounce cans of Monster Energy during two consecutive day trips to the mall last December caused her to go into cardiac arrest at her home on Dec. 17 or not. She never regained consciousness and now her family has reached across the country to see justice from California-based Monster Beverage Corp. in a criminal complaint filed in California Superior Court last week. They seem to have shaky a case on the grounds that medical examiners determined that Fournier died of "cardiac arrhythmia due to caffeine toxicity complicating mitral valve regurgitation in the setting of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome," meaning the caffeine caused her irregular heartbeat, but Fournier had a heart valve that was already leaking because of an underlying genetic disorder. Simply put in lingo any insurer has loved hiding behind for years, pre-existing condition you should have known about. Also, doctors never analyzed the caffeine in Fournier's blood, according to the autopsy in her case. Besides, the company issued an official statement expressing sympathy for the tragedy while simultaneously rejecting any responsibility for the death. What more could a family want……….. 

- Maybe it isn't traditional political thinking, but maybe Japan's justice minister should not be resigning while using the lie of health concerns to obscure the real story that he has past ties to an organized crime syndicate. Keishu Tanaka is 74 years old and “health concerns” is a plausible excuse for any 74-year-old man, but when the truth is that you were once liked to the Japanese mob, the narrative changes. Not only should Tanaka not have resigned, but he should have used the accusations to boost his street cred and give his image a certain badass slant. His resignation is another blow to unpopular Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and the second resignation by a minister since Noda took office in September 2011. Let’s all agree to collectively reject Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura’s claim to the media at a news conference that Tanaka stepped down for health reasons, bypass Tanaka checking himself into a Tokyo hospital with chest pains, irregular heartbeat and high blood pressure and celebrate the fact that someone who was recently linked to the Yakuza organized crime syndicate by a magazine article actually made it to a high-ranking government post. Even if Tanaka continues to claim that he merely acted as a matchmaker at a mobster's wedding and attended a party thrown by the head of a crime group about 30 years ago and was not aware of the groom's mob connections or the nature of the event at the time, who cares? Odds are he’s lying anyhow because he’s a politician, so why not fabricate, er, discover wild stories of him ordering mob hits and running racketeering scams? When you factor in Tanaka’s admission shortly after his appointment that his party branch accepted more than $5,000 in donations from a company run by a foreigner while knowing that accepting funds from foreign nationals is illegal, this guy has all the makings of a shady, integrity-free badass not to be trifled with. Otherwise, he’s just an old dude whose body is breaking down and who is stepping out of the public eye. Support for Noda's cabinet has fallen to 18 percent, making a regime change very likely in the near future. But what if the mobster justice minister were still around to crack skulls and strike terror into the hearts of the administration’s enemies? That might shift the paradigm………