Cows wreck a cemetery, Google maps the Grand Canyon and a German Cookie Monster

- What the eff, German vandals? Defacing public property is one thing, but stealing and using a children’s television icon as a scapegoat? That is the definition of bush league. The theft in question took place outside a Hannover factory belonging to cookie maker Bahlsen, which has had a 44-pound metal cookie as part of a statue outside the facility since 1913. The ginormous cookie was part of a display that has become something of a local landmark, but it went missing on Jan. 21 and company officials and law enforcement were baffled as to who would steal it and why until a clue finally emerged this week. In a truly clichéd move straight out of a bad TV drama, the cookie kidnapper sent a ransom note made up of letters cut from newspapers and signed by the "Cookie Monster" to a local newspaper. As part of his or her ransom demands, the cookie kidnapper demanded that a shipment of cookies be sent to a local children’s hospital. "The ones with milk chocolate, not the ones with dark chocolate or without chocolate," the letter read. Right, because nothing less than the best is acceptable when hijacking a giant metal cookie and using it to extort dessert foods for sick children. Should the demand be ignored, the thief warned that, "The golden cookie would be sent to the trash can of Oscar the Grouch.” A photo accompanied the ransom note, showing someone dressed up as the famous "Sesame Street" character taking a big bite from a golden cookie. Investigators still are not sure whether it is the actual metal cookie missing from Bahlsen or just a hoax. "The ransom note and the photo have been forwarded to criminalists for investigation," a police spokesman in Hannover said. The only tip in the case came from two witnesses who reported having seen two men with a ladder working at the statue two weeks ago. Investigators suspect the theft could be linked d to rising thefts of metal across Germany due to the value of bronze, iron and other metals skyrocketing. Bahlsen has offered a reward of more than $1,300 for any information leading to the recovery of the historic golden cookie, but this case is just getting interesting so hopefully it isn’t found just yet……….

- Being David Beckham is still not too bad. You’re internationally famous, you have a hot, famous wife and even though you’re well past your prime and no longer a part of your national team or one of the world’s best players, teams still line up to throw money at you when you become a free agent. Beckham came free and clear last year after wasting, er, spending the last six years playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. The 37-year-old former Manchester United star bolted MLS in December and quickly began fielding offers from teams around the world. He has finally chosen his new home and in typical Beckham fashion, he’s going to Paris. Of course he’s going to the City of Lights, one of the most amazing cities in the world and he goes there as one of the few people even more arrogant than Parisians. Beckham has joined French Ligue 1 powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain Thursday on a five-month contract after passing a physical and said he truly believes in the direction the team is headed. "It's something I'm excited about and now it has finally happened," Beckham said. "I am very lucky because I got more offers than I had in my career. I chose Paris because I can see what the club are trying to do. Now there is a club that is going to have a lot of success over the next 10, 15, 20 years. To be part of something with this growth is exciting to me." In joining PSG, Beckham becomes part of a team that is already in the Champions League knockout stage, gift-wrapping a chance for him to win a league title in a fourth country. Signing Beckham is no shocker for the team, which has been the highest-spending club in Europe in the past year. Along with Beckham, PSG has inked Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Brazil's Thiago Silva and Lucas and Argentina's Ezequiel Lavezzi. Those four were signed last summer for a total of $140 million and not so coincidentally, PSG currently leads French Ligue 1, in search of the club's first league title in 19 years. Beckham is nowhere close to the difference-maker he used to be, but he should still be able to help the cause…….

- Want to go to the Grand Canyon but are too lazy to actually travel there? That’s what the Internet was invented for, of course. Google has done the hard work for you since you’re too lazy to book the ticket or rent the car and make the drive to the middle of nowhere (Arizona) and see one of the world’s greatest natural wonders for yourself. Delivering on a promise it made some time ago, the tech titan has added more than 9,500 panoramic images of the Grand Canyon to its Maps service, with the images covering more than 75 miles of trails and surrounding roads. "Take a walk down the narrow trails and exposed paths of the Grand Canyon: hike down the famous Bright Angel Trail, gaze out at the mighty Colorado River, and explore scenic overlooks in full 360-degrees," Google Maps product manager, Ryan Falor, wrote in a blog post. Using the new images, users can view the steep inclines of the South Kaibab Trail or virtually travel a few hours away to explore the amazing Meteor Crater. To compile the pictures, the Google Street View team used Trekker, a 40-pound wearable backpack with a 15-camera system on top, to snap 360-degree views of the expansive national monument. Team members used an Android phone to control the Trekker, which automatically snapped photos as wearers walked the narrow ridges and steep trails of the famed Canyon by foot. "So no matter where you are, you don't have to travel far or wait for warmer weather to explore Grand Canyon National Park," Falor wrote. Along with the Grand Canyon project, Google launched a project last fall that represented the biggest-ever Street View update, adding 250,000 miles of roads worldwide and providing expanded coverage in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Macau, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Denmark and Norway………

- Beware the cows. These grazing, mooing menaces may seem slow and stupid (and they are), but they can also inflict some serious damage even if they aren’t in a Chick-Fil-A commercial assaulting people for eating beef. Just ask officials at Southampton (Mass.) Cemetery how much harm cows can cause after several bovines got loose in their cemetery and destroyed more than three dozen flags and grave markers. Cemetery commission members are still working to come up with an estimate of the damage, but a storm front and foggy conditions have made it difficult to see well enough to make an accurate assessment. Right now, officials know only that the attack took place Monday morning, when resident Christopher Clark witnessed a herd of at least seven cows escape from the pasture across the street from his house on High Street. “I'm on my way to my first appointment, and I see the cows over there by my mailbox and they were walking down the street,” Clark recalled. “I happened to know the owner of the cows, his name is Henry.  And I gave him a call and I told him they were on their way down to Cedarherst.” After their jailbreak, the renegade cattle traveled less than a mile to the Southampton Center Cemetery and began wreaking havoc on the property, leaving hoof marks all over the ground in addition to the aforementioned destruction. They chowed down on plantings, damaged 40 American flags and just as many bronze markers. Passersby worked to corral the animals before police arrived and the cows are now back in their pasture, clearly unconcerned with the damage they’ve done. Southampton Police say that roaming cows looking for greener pastures is an "ongoing problem,” but so far they haven’t offered any concrete solutions.  Cemetery Commissioner Robert Floyd said he plans on asking the owner of the cows to pay for the damaged property once an estimate is compiled………

- This season, it’s “The Office.” Next year, it will be CBS’ long-running sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” Both are long-running and successful sitcoms and both will come to an end after nine seasons on the air. “Thr Office” is winding down its ninth and final season with its final run of episodes currently airing. “How I Met Your Mother” will go through the same experience next year after CBS announces Thursday that it has officially renewed the show for a ninth season. Unlike “The Office,” which lost Steve Carrell after its seventh season, “How I Met Your Mother” will return all of its series regulars — Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan — for its last run, along with series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. “Through eight years, How I Met Your Mother has mastered the art of leading-edge comedy, emotional water-cooler moments and pop culture catch-phrases,” said Nina Tassler, President, CBS Entertainment.  “We are excited for Carter, Craig, Pam Fryman and this amazing cast to tell the final chapter and reveal television’s most mysterious mother to some of TV’s most passionate fans.” Fans had been nervous about the show’s fate because the cast’s contracts expire at the end of the current eighth season. Segel was reportedly reluctant to return, but a mountain of cash being dropped in your lap can change those feelings quickly. When it does end in 2014, “How I Met Your Mother” will conclude a run that saw it break through CBS’ usual sitcom formula of family-based comedies with younger, more contemporary format that felt more like the “single-camera” show that “The Office” received so much credit for being. It has also enjoyed its success in the always-difficult opening slot of CBS’ Monday comedy block and is currently averaging 7.8 million viewers and a 4.0 rating among adults 18-49………

Beijing's lethal air strikes again, cats are killers and college athletes want TV money

- Maybe money really does ruin some of the better things in life. Back in the day, rap outfit G-Unit was young, hungry….and dirt poor. Today, its members have achieved varying degrees of success in the rap game, ranging from 50 Cent’s superstardom to his right-hand man Tony Yayo’s more modest success. Yayo believes that his life, along with those of 50 Cent, a.k.a. Curtis Jackson, and fellow G-Unit member Lloyd Banks, was better when the three of them weren’t rich and famous. "You know what's crazy? It's like when we didn't have any money, things were better," Yayo said. Together, the group made an impact on rap's underground mixtape scene in the early 2000s and at one point, the group expanded to five members with Young Buck and Game joining. However, along the way, Jackson’s fame eclipsed that of the group and by the time they released their sophomore album “T.O.S: Terminate on Sight” in 2008, Game at odds with the group and Buck was on his way out. Even in recent months, there still seems to be drama simmering between Jackson and Banks and Yayo believes money is at the heart of their troubles. "When everybody got money, it's like things just went downhill, so it's like, I dunno, egos," Yayo said. "I would love to see a G-Unit reunion. I would love to see me, Banks and 50 definitely onstage." Just don’t count on Game getting back with the original three members of the group, not if Yayo has anything to say about it. "My problem with [Game] is that once he got to the point where he wanted to be, when he sold 5 million records, it was G-Unot," he said. Some of Yayo’s discontent could stem from the fact that he has largely fizzled as a solo artist, releasing one album on a major label and a handful of mixtapes that have received a tepid response…….

- Breathing is still hazardous in Beijing, in case you were wondering. Passing the toxic crap the Chinese try to pass off as breathable air through one’s nostrils has long been hazardous to health, but Tuesday was an especially sh*tty day in the capital city as über-thick, off-the-scale smog shrouded eastern China for the second time in about two weeks. Airlines canceled dozens of flights because of poor visibility and Beijing temporarily shut factories and curtailed fleets of government cars. An omnipresent white haze cloaked the entire city and pedestrians donned face masks to guard against the caustic air. Canceling flights was an unwelcome development with this being the first week of the country's peak, six-week period for travel surrounding the Chinese New Year on Feb. 10, but you can't land in place you can't see. Reports on the ground showed an hourly peak level of PM2.5 — tiny particulate matter that can penetrate deep into the lungs — at 526 micrograms per cubic meter, or "beyond index," and more than 20 times higher than World Health Organization safety levels over a 24-hour period. Flights were canceled in Zhengzhou, Beijing, Qingdao and Jinan. Ripping air travel from the mix at a time of the year when China's transport system is consistently overwhelmed with those visiting for the Lunar New Year holiday is a sign of just how bad the air truly is. Because shutting a few factories is clearly going to fix the problem, Beijing's city government ordered 103 heavily polluting factories to suspend production and told government departments and state-owned enterprises to reduce their use of cars by a third. The government also advised residents to stay indoors as much as possible. A lack of wind meant the smog was unlikely to dissipate quickly. Maybe newly elected mayor Wang Anshun’s plan to remove 180,000 older vehicles from the city's roads and promote government cars and heating systems that use clean energy will be the answers Beijing seeks………

- It’s time for college athletes to start cashing in on a chunk of the money their universities and the hypocrites at the NCAA rake in every year based on their efforts. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled against the NCAA's motion that players in an antitrust suit led by former UCLA star Ed O'Bannon should be precluded from advancing their lawsuit to pursue a cut of live broadcast revenues. Judge Claudia Wilken dismissed the motion, which would have prevented football and men's basketball players from pursuing that money, rejecting it on procedural grounds. The motion argued against players being able to amend their lawsuit last year to claim a share of all television game revenues, not just those from rebroadcasts. "Now the (NCAA and its co-defendants) are facing potential liability that's based on the billions of dollars in revenue instead of tens or hundreds of millions," said Michael Hausfeld, interim lead counsel for the plaintiffs. "It's a more accurate context for what the players deserve." The O’Bannon suits addresses the fact that college athletes do not have a union or similar body to negotiate a share of revenues from media and other licensing contracts and does so through class-action legal activity. Two legendary names in college basketball, Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson, have joined O'Bannon on behalf of all Division I players in football and men's basketball. The case is moving at a snail’s pace and Wilken on Tuesday set the hearing on that motion for June 20. At that time, the NCAA will be called upon to make its arguments against class certification on the merits rather than procedural objections such as the one she just rejected. "Although our motion to strike was denied, the judge has signaled skepticism on plaintiff's class-certification motion and recognized the plaintiffs' radical change in their theory of the case," NCAA general counsel Donald Remy said. Keep telling yourself positive things, Remy………

- Dammit world, how did so many of us miss the threat that was right before our eyes…..lurking in the corner, playing with a ball of yarn. Cats are ruthless killers and most of you had no idea. Maybe your eyes will be opened now that scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service have dropped some knowledge on us all. These forward thinkers have discovered that domestic cats in the United States kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year. Sure, most of these deaths are from native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles, but these estimated kill rates are two to four times higher than mortality figures previously tossed around. To put the death total in perspective, more birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other such causes. Simply put, the domestic cat is one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. “When we ran the model, we didn’t know what to expect,” said Dr. Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and an author of the report. “We were absolutely stunned by the results.” Because this is the first serious estimate of just how much wildlife America’s vast population of free-roaming domestic cats manages to kills each year, the numbers should shock everyone who hears them. For their research, the scientists on Marra’s team sifted through the existing scientific literature on cat-wildlife interactions and standardized the findings from the 21 most rigorous studies. Anyone trying to argue that free-roaming cats, i.e. strays, are the real threats needs to know that this study showed that free-roaming pets account for only about 29 percent of the birds and 11 percent of the mammals killed by domestic cats each year. Looks like it’s time to clamp down on cats, y’all………..

- Quit complaining, Carlos Rivas. Why do people always complain when their bank gives them counterfeit $100 bills and leaves them wondering how they will be able to pay their bills or feed their family? Rivas is the latest example of this trend of entitlement after his Westborough, Mass. bank took his paycheck and in return, gave him 18 $100 bills, 14 of which just happened to be counterfeit. Sovereign Bank in Westborough gave Rivas $1,800 in cash and just because a mere $400 of that was legitimate legal tender is no reason to complain, but here Rivas is, complaining. His story is slightly twisted because he cashed the check at Sovereign Bank, but 45 minutes later he attempted to deposit the same money at Citizens Bank, where he has an account. He says that it’s the same routine he has carried out on a bi-weekly basis for more than a decade, but the routine was thrown off track Saturday when a teller at Citizens Bank informed him that 14 of the bills he attempted to deposit were bogus. A Citizens Bank spokeswoman spoke about the incident, saying, “We are required by law to confiscate and report to the United States Secret Service any suspected counterfeit notes that are presented to us. The Secret Service determines if the notes are counterfeit or if they are legitimate and can be returned.” Sovereign Bank promised to “begin an internal review immediately and assist authorities in their investigation.” Rivas remains in financial limbo while the ordeal is sorted out because his counterfeit money remains in the hands of law enforcement until the Secret Service figures out where the bad bills originated and how they arrives at the bank………

Chris Brown and Jesus, leafy green dangers and Egypt in chaos

- My prediction for the fight? Pain. That seems to be the philosophy for General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's armed forces chief, when it comes to the country’s current political crisis. Speaking about the crisis, al-Sisi warned that the crisis "could lead to a collapse of the state.” He posted those words on the military's Facebook page and cautioned that such a collapse could "threaten future generations.” Before the words became public, the military deployed a large number of troops in three cities along the Suez Canal where a state of emergency has been declared. So far, more than 50 people have died in recent weeks as a result of protests and violence. Port Said is the current flashpoint for much of the drama because of death sentences handed down to 21 participants in soccer riots last year that left 74 dead and many more injured. President Mohammed Morsi imposed a curfew to slow the violent reaction to the sentences, but thousands of people in Port Said, Ismailia and Suez ignored the curfew and took to the streets Monday night to rage against the machine. In response, al-Sisi attempted to both threaten those rising up and instill a sense of confidence in Egyptians about the capability of their military. "The continuing conflict between political forces and their differences concerning the management of the country could lead to a collapse of the state and threaten future generations," said al-Sisi, who is also Egypt's defense minister. He added that the challenges facing Egypt represent "a real threat to the security of Egypt and the cohesiveness of the Egyptian state.” Despite being not-so-covertly threatened by a high-ranking military leader, Egyptians can undoubtedly feel reassured to know that  the military deployment along the Suez Canal is meant only to protect the key shipping route, one of Egypt's main sources of foreign revenue, according to al-Sisi. Arguably the most humorous part of an otherwise humorless situation is the fact that the current unrest stems from a soccer match. Granted, it is a soccer match in which fans of the local club al-Masry brought weapons to a game, were allowed to carry them by security officials also sentenced to death and then attacked when stadium workers shut off the lights over the section housing fans from rival club al-Ahly, but it’s still soccer. Oh, and feel free to view this as further proof that Americans are wise when they purposefully have nothing to do with the sport……..

- That didn’t last long. Rob Ryan looked like he had himself a new gig last week when the St. Louis Rams reportedly decided to hire him as their defensive coordinator. Ryan, who boldly (and foolishly) proclaimed after being fired by the Dallas Cowboys on Jan. 8 that he would “be out of work for like five minutes,” seemed to have landed a new gig running the defense for head coach Jeff Fisher. Multiple media outlets ran with the story and there seemed to be no reason to doubt it…until today, when the Rams changed their mind and reversed field on Ryan. After a second meeting with the bombastic Ryan on Monday, the team’s coaching staff determined that his addition was not a good "scheme fit," according to Fisher. The veteran coach pointed out that the team never made an official announcement on the hiring of Ryan, but it’s rare that a coach is all but hired only to have that chance yanked away like Lucy pulling the football back from Charlie Brown’s right foot. Never mind Ryan’s faulty math about being unemployed for five minutes; he wasn’t able to keep his new job that he never officially had for five seconds. Ryan may have been one of the scapegoats in Dallas after owner Jerry Jones said he would make major changes to a team that finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs, but the fact that he has now gone three weeks and counting without finding a new job suggests that there is something off-putting about him. The Rams didn’t even have a defensive coordinator this season after defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended by the NFL for his role in the New Orleans Saints' bounty scandal. The Rams broke Williams off earlier this month and judging by the way they dispatched Ryan, no team in the NFL is more proficient at turning away unwanted coaches than St. Louis……..

- FAT people, here’s some evidence for you to use in your never-ending effort to avoid eating healthy food items. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leafy greens such as lettuce, spinach and kale accounted for the most food-borne illnesses nationwide from 1998 through 2008. While dairy products accounted for the most hospitalizations and the most deaths were linked to poultry, obese folks who prefer Taco Bell or the local all-you-can-eat buffet over a salad and grilled chicken breast will undoubtedly point to the dangers of leafy greens as another reason they can’t stop consuming unhealthy sh*t. Even though CDC food-borne disease expert and lead study author Patricia Griffin said the study isn't meant to be a "risk of illness per serving" list for consumers, 687 percent of people tend to make up facts and statistics and use them for whatever serves their purpose. Whether or not regulators and the food industry use the findings to improve food safety remains to be seen, but Griffin insisted most meals are not a health hazard. "The vast majority of meals are safe," she said. "Eating them (leafy greens) is so important to a healthy diet. They're linked to reduced risk of heart attacks, stroke and cancer." For the study, Griffin and her team examined 4,887 outbreaks that caused 128,269 illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths when the food that caused them was known or suspected. CDC epidemiologists found that leafy greens accounted for 23 percent of illnesses and dairy products 14 percent. Leafy greens received a boost when the study’s focus shifted solely to hospitalizations, where dairy products were responsible for 16 percent of hospitalizations followed by leafy vegetables at 14 percent and poultry 12 percent. A total of 277 people died from food-borne illnesses linked to poultry and 140 from illnesses linked to dairy products during those years. Combined with the ongoing implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, which requires the Food and Drug Administration to focus its regulatory efforts on the highest-risk food products, the study should create some traction in gaining a greater focus for food-borne illnesses, which tend to have their spotlight stolen by more high-profile maladies…….

- Add another entry to the list of kooks who believe they have seen the Almighty in a random place in nature or on a piece of breakfast food. Rebecca Archer of Albuquerque, N.M. is the latest fool to delude herself into believing that heaven has come down to Earth on a piece of toast or in a pile of grass clippings. Archer was doing yard work with her husband outside their northeast Albuquerque home when they found what they (delusionally) believe to be an image of the Virgin Mary inside one of the tree limbs they were clearing. "I see a picture of Mother Mary. No mistake,” Archer said. "It almost became a split log for the fireplace. I am so grateful that it didn't.” The Archers believe the (non-existent) image of the mother of Jesus was hanging over their house for years without them even knowing. As with so many gullible fools who fall for this sort of nonsense, Archer is facing various stressful life situations and latched on to the supposed miracle as a positive sign in her search for a job as well as encouragement after her mother passed away a few weeks ago. She views the (not really there) image as a positive sign for her job search and a source of hope in a time of personal loss. As Archer tells the story, the image is complete with a halo, veil and a well-known likeness of a sacred heart. "I think it's because she knows, she needs to be here for us right now," she said in explaining the (fake) appearance of Mary. Rebecca Archer plan to keep the log on the fireplace mantle next to her mother's urn and she and her husband plan to build a special box to store the branch in. Lots of luck finding in the many miracles that sawed-off piece of lumber will bring, kook……..

- The last thing a person wants to do in a difficult time in their life is to lose perspective and make outrageous claims or statements. A bad day is no reason to say something regrettable that may haunt you for the rest of your life. No one understands this better than pop singer Chris Brown, who occasionally takes time away from assaulting women the feud with other musicians the very way he’s beefing with fellow pop singer Frank Ocean at the moment. Brown and Ocean reportedly got into an altercation over a parking space at a recording studio in West Hollywood Sunday night and Brown is accused of punching Ocean during the resulting fracas. Aside from serving as proof that famous people are just like the rest of us and fight over stupid sh*t, the incident has yielded yet another forgettable public moment for Brown. In response to the heat he is taking for the fight, Brown took to Instagram on Monday and posted a photo of Jesus on the cross with the caption, “The way I feel today,” later adding, “Focus on what matters!" What should matter to Brown, aside from possibly violating the terms of his probation for beating up on-again, off-again lady friend Rihanna in 2009, is that he now appears to be a delusional kook who believes that he is being persecuted like the Son of God. Brown does not appear to have been tried and wrongly convicted for crimes against the Roman Empire and crucified on a cross alongside two common criminals, so his Instagram photo seems off base. Instagram users were largely divided over the image Brown posted, with some mocking his use of Christ-centric imagery in response to a fight over a parking space while others asked for patience and understanding for their favorite singer. Police say Brown was one of six men involved in the brawl at the Westlake Studio around 8 p.m. and he allegedly became enraged after Ocean refused to shake his hand after the two had a verbal pissing match over parking lot protocol. Ocean allegedly laughed at Brown and in response, Brown punched him in the face. "Got jumped by chris and a couple guys. lol. I only wish everest was there," Ocean later wrote on Twitter, referring to his dog. The beef between the two is long-running and Ocean, a member of the rap duo Odd Future, hasn’t backed down from Brown in the past. Brown’s habit of fighting with his peers is becoming disturbingly frequent and his fight at a Manhattan club last year with Drake nearly left San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker blind in one eye. At least this time, no one nearly had an eye put out………

Russia v. gay people, porn invades Vine and bizarre baseball injuries

- Bizarre baseball injuries know no offseason and free-agent pitcher Carl Pavano is (barely) living proof of that fact. Pavano, who was on the radar for several teams despite going 2-5 with a 6.00 ERA in 11 starts last year with the Minnesota Twins and not pitching after June 1 because of a strained right shoulder, added the latst chapter to a book that already dwarfs “War and Peace” when he was hurt in a mid-January accident at his home in Vermont in which he fell while shoveling snow and ruptured his spleen – really. Pavano was taken to the hospital a few days after his fall because he didn't feel well following a workout a few days later in Connecticut and his spleen was removed last week. He has remained in that Connecticut hospital for nearly two weeks and according to his agent, he was very nearly in life-threatening danger. "He lost a lot of blood. It was very, very serious," agent David Pepe said. "He felt bad enough that he went to the hospital and he ended up getting admitted, and they realized he had a lacerated spleen. They tried to control the bleeding. They did all they could to not take it out and, unfortunately, he didn't stop bleeding and he's been in the hospital since." Pepe expressed hope that Pavano will be released from the hospital this week but said there is no timetable for the pitcher’s return to baseball. When he does get back on the mound, the 37-year-old right-hander  will have a lot of work to do to get back to the pitcher who went a combined 31-23 pitching for Cleveland, Minnesota and the New York Yankees in 2010-11 before sliding to 9-13 in 2011 and becoming an even bigger disappointment last season. Get well and protect your internal organs, Carl………

- Rest assured, if there is a new technological innovation that is unknown to most of the world, eventually porn will find a way to infiltrate that innovation and it will happen sooner rather than later. Porn is everywhere, it dominates the tech world and it has managed to infect the newly-launched video app Vine already. The app has only been around for a matter of days and the first six-second clips to filter through the app were relatively benign: a simply steak tartare recipe, banana animations and two young children holding hands. Anyone with more than two seconds of familiarity with the Internet realized that pattern was not going to last and sure enough, it was only a matter of time before the porn-valanche began. It happened over the weekend as hashtags such as #sex and #porn began popping up on the app, featuring several adult videos that quickly drew the attention of both pervs and Twitter, the latter of which released a statement encouraging users to flag any inappropriate content. "Uploaded videos that are reported and determined to violate our guidelines will be removed from the site, and the user that posted the video may be terminated," the statement reads. In spite of that strongly worded statement, the Vine porn issue ramped up a notch Monday morning when an adult clip appeared as one of the Editor's Picks. Vine quickly removed the offending video from the list and Twitter insisted its inclusion was due to "human error." Yes, human error or a human who happens to like his or her porn a little bit too much. Regardless of the culprit in this case, the obvious winner, as always, is porn as it triumphs over yet another leap forward for technology……….

- Don’t bring any of that “Brokeback Mountain” garbage to Moscow, y’all. Russia's parliament is having none of the push for greater rights for homosexuals and in that spirit, on Friday the legislature backed a draft law on Friday banning "homosexual propaganda.” Cynics may argue that the bill is nothing more than a transparent attempt to shore up support for President Vladimir Putin in the country's largely conservative society, an idea that is mildly laughable because Putin doesn’t need support in a nation where he is the de facto dictator. A whopping one deputy in the State Duma lower house voted against the bill and there was actually more exciting outside the chamber, where 20 people were detained after scuffles between Russian Orthodox Christians and gay activists who staged a "kiss-in" protest. Supporters of the law hoisted pictures of Russian Orthodox icons and crosses, cheered and threw eggs as police hauled away gay activists. "We live in Russia, not Sodom and Gomorrah," United Russia deputy Dmitry Sablin proclaimed ahead of the 388-1 vote in the 450-seat chamber. "Russia is a thousands-years-old country founded on its own traditional values - the protection of which is dearer to me than even oil and gas." Hear that, gays? Keeping your pro-homosexual propaganda out of Russia is more important than the oil and gas that form the backbone of Russia’s economy. Sure, human rights activists described the draft law as "medieval” and warned that it will only deepen divisions in society under Putin’s tyrannical rule, but who are you going to believe here? Do you side with the reputable, upstanding despot who rigs elections and imprisons those who dare to speak out against him or do you cast your lot with the latest targets of that despot? Putin has sought closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and emphasized what he and his supporters see as conservative, traditional Russian values. To go into eeffect, the law must be passed in three readings by the lower house, be approved by the upper house and then signed by Putin. If that happens, it would officially become illegal to promote gay events across Russia with fines of up to 500,000 roubles ($16,600) imposed on organizers. Well played, Russia………

- There aren't many directors or movie producers willing to role the dice on the potential on-set disaster that is a Lindsay Lohan casting. Maybe Tina Fey, who is about to have some extra free time on her hands once “30 Rock” concludes its run on NBC on Thursday, has an idea that could suit Lohan perfectly. The last role anyone remembers Lohan for in anything remotely resembling a positive fashion is her 2004 cult favorite “Mean Girls” and Fey, who wrote the screenplay for the film, said Sunday night at the SAG Awards that a musical version of the movie is on her to-do list. “I’m trying to develop it with my husband, who does all the music for ‘30 Rock’ and I think Paramount’s onboard,” Fey said during a red-carpet chat before the ceremony in which she won for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. In her acceptance speech, Fey gave a shout out to “Parks and Recreation” SAG nominee Amy Poehler, who played the mother of Regina George, the meanest of the mean girls, in the film. Poehler’s character took great joy in prancing around in tight-fitting pink track suits and showing off her amplified chest. “I just want you to know, if you ever need anything, don't be shy, OK? There are NO rules in the house. I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom,” Mama George said at one point. Fey has brainstormed who might fill Poehler’s role in a musical take on the franchise and floated the idea of the always-insane Mariah Carey. Carey even took umbrage to fellow “American Karaoke” judge Nicki Minaj comparing her to Regina George during a recent taping of the show. A Lohan-Carey pairing on the big screen? Someone expand the film’s insurance budget because that one could go way off the rails………

- Did someone start filming for the fifth “Bourne” movie Sunday in Stoneham, Mass. and not tell anyone? If not, then a car just exploded and caused massive destruction in the middle of a packed parking lot for no good reason. Sadly, the answer appears to be the latter and the culprit is not Jason Borne, Pamela Landy, Noah VosenX or any of the usual “Bourne” suspects, but rather shopper Jackie Sugrue whose ride went boom moments before she was about to get into it. “I unlocked my car. I popped my trunk then my car exploded all over the parking lot,” Sugrue said. The resulting explosion sent shrapnel flying through the parking lot, leaving many shoppers badly rattled and unsure what had just happened. Some described it as “like a war zone” and most people fled the parking lot for the safety of the store as police and the bomb squad rushed to the scene and cordoned off the area. Investigators delivered the sad news that the explosion was not the result of someone planting a bomb in the rear driver’s side wheel well of Sugrue’s car or tampering with her engine block, but rather the result of Sugrue’s remote key igniting vapors coming from plumbing equipment in her trunk. The explosion was loud and forceful enough to shake nearby houses, but a man who was spotted near the car by witnesses at the time of the explosion was not harmed. Two cars in adjacet spaces were damaged, but Sugrue emerged unscathed. “My trunk went flying over this whole row of cars. I’m just thankful no one got hurt because it could have turned out really bad,” she said……..

Glaciers on the run, Irish drunk dtiving licenses and movie news

- If nothing else, Kerry County, Ireland deserves credit for being original. No one has ever accused the Irish of being too friendly with sobriety and with that in mind, the Kerry County Council, which governs an area with a population of more than 120,000, is planning to formally ask the Irish government to allow some drivers to have the equivalent of up to three pints of beer before getting behind the wheel. These pre-DUI permits would allow people to drink alcohol then drive and should be issued to make it easier for those in isolated, rural areas to visit the pub, according to a motion passed by the council. The vote was a close one, 5-3 with seven abstentions, but the majority explained that the measure would “greatly benefit people living alone looking at four walls and may also prevent depression and suicide.” It’s an honest assessment and ridiculous solution for a common problem and predictably, the idea has been condemned by leading politicians, including Ireland's Transport Minister Leo Varadkar. Sadly, that means the measure is unlikely to be adopted. The country's justice department reminded everyone in the aftermath of the vote that Kerry does not have the power to change the law itself. Danny Healy-Rae, the councilor behind the motion, would not be deterred. He coincidentally runs a pub in the village of Kilgarvan and claimed that current laws were hurting his business, er, that because people couldn’t drink alcohol in pubs then drive home, they were instead buying it in supermarkets and drinking at home. Following his convoluted and self-serving line of thinking, this pattern could lead to a downward spiral that ended with some taking their own lives. “I know of instances where the local garda [police] have to call out to these people to see if they are all right, to see if they are still there,” he said. Even though Healy-Rae’s plan called for permits to be issued only to people in isolated rural areas who use narrow country roads where it is difficult to travel faster than 25 or 30 mph, fighting to give drunk people the right to drive to the pub “to meet…and to discuss the topics of the day, the price of cattle and whatever” just doesn’t seem like sound logic, even if the number of people who died on Irish roads is at a record low, with 161 people killed in 2012…….

- A souped-up, gun-toting modern retelling of the old children’s story Hansel and Gretel blasted its way to the top of the box office earnings race this weekend, with “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” seizing the No. 1 slot with $19 million in its debut. Last weekend’s top film, the horror flivk “Mama,” slid to second with $12.9 million and has banked $48.6 million in domestic earnings in two weeks. “Silver Linings Playbook” continued to build off its Oscar buzz with a second straight weekend in third place, making $10 million for a cumulative domestic tally of $69.5 million in 11 weeks. Fourth place belonged to “Zero Dark Thirty” and its $9.8 millio outing for a six-week haul of $69.9 million and counting. The weekend was not so kind to the latest movie starring Jason Statham doing the exact same thing he does in every damn one of his movies; kicking everyone’s ass and having sex with hot women. “Parker” could do no better than fifth place with $7 million in its first weekend, which was just enough to edge out “Django Unchained,” which chugged along in sixth place to the tune of $5.1 million for a six-week total of $146.3 million. The overall star power of the supposedly funny “Movie 43” fizzled in seventh place as the project debuted with a mere $5 million. “Gangster Squad” claimed eighth place with $4.2 million and has a so-so $39.6 million in domestic earnings in three weeks of release. The disappointment continued for “Broken City” in its second week as the Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe-led film staggered to a ninth-place ranking with just $4 million. In two weeks, the box office bomb has made a measly $15.2 million. “Les Miserables” completed the top 10 with $3.9 million, good for an overall domestic take of $137.3 million. “A Haunted House” (No. 12), “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (No. 13) and “The Last Stand” (No. 16) all dropped out of the top 10 from last weekend……..

- A gaping hole has appeared in the community fabric in Waterbury, Conn. Monsignor Kevin Wallin had been a staple in the city for years, but he’s been ripped from his post and gone from respected religious leader to suspended Roman Catholic priest arrested on federal drug charges for allegedly having methamphetamine mailed to him from co-conspirators in California and making more than $300,000 in drugs sales out of his apartment in Waterbury in the second half of last year. Functioning like the Catholic Church’s version of “Breaking Bad” protagonist Walter White, Wallin allegedly used his drug profits to buy a small adult video and sex toy shop named Land of Oz & Dorothy's Place in the nearby town of North Haven and used the store to launder all the money he was making. The good news is that he has pleaded not guilty, so he obviously didn’t do it and will be acquitted when his trial takes place later this year. Some have dubbed Wallin as "Monsignor Meth," which is fine because he’s not going to be the monsignor of St. Augustine Parish in Bridgeport ever again. Wallin actually resigned in June 2011, citing health and personal problems, after previously serving six years in the same capacity at St. Peter's Church in Danbury until 2002. Perhaps seeing the trouble ahead, the Diocese of Bridgeport suspended him from public ministry last May. The diocese reportedly became concerned about Wallin in the spring of 2011 after complaints about his appearance and erratic behavior, which makes sense for a meth dealer who launders his drug profits through an adult video store. "We became aware that he was acting out sexually with men in the church rectory," diocese spokesman Brian Wallace said. Feel free to insert your best rectum/rectory joke here before proceeding…..and then move on. Federal agents arrested Wallin on Jan. 3 and a grand jury indicted him, along with four alleged co-conspirators, on drug charges on Jan. 15. Wallin is also charged with six counts of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and also faces the same single count of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of a substance containing methamphetamine and 50 grams of actual methamphetamine as his four cohorts……..

- So….good news for anyone who has been hankering to get rid of those pesky glaciers of the Andes Mountains. Those glaciers are going away quicker than anyone realized and in fact, they have retreated at an unprecedented rate in the past three decades, with more ice lost than at any other time in the last 400 years. According to a new review of research that combines on-the-ground observations with aerial and satellite photos, historical records and dates from cores of ice extracted from the glaciers, this glacial retreat is worse than the average glacier loss around the world. “Tropical Andes glaciers have lost on average between 30 to 50 percent (depending on the mountain ranges) of their surface since the late 70s," said study researcher Antoine Rabatel, a scientist at the Laboratory for Glaciology and Environmental Geophysics in Grenoble, France. That’s a problem with the Andes Mountains of South America are home to 99 percent of tropical glaciers. These permanent rivers of ice at high enough elevations are not affected by the types of balmy temperatures usually associated with the tropics, but they are particularly sensitive to climate change because there is little seasonality in temperatures in the tropics. "Glaciers of the tropical Andes react strongly and more rapidly than other glaciers on Earth to any changes in climate conditions," Rabatel said. He and his team analyzed historical records from early settlements, ice core data taken by drilling down into the annual layers of ice that make up glaciers, aerial photographs dating back to the 1950s and satellite imagery from as far back as the 1970s and direct, ground-based observations, to compose their gloomy picture. The current melt dwarfs the period of accelerated melt in the late 1800s and since the 1970s, the glaciers have followed a pattern of periods of accelerated melt with two to three years in between of slower retreat and occasional advance. Glaciers at lower altitudes (17,700 feet above sea level or lower) are melting twice as fast as those at higher elevations and the overall average has been permanently negative over the past 50 years, according to the study…….

- So….how was your Saturday? Do anything historic? The Northern Illinois Huskies did. In fact, they were so historical that they shattered a record they already held and just set about seven weeks ago. The Huskies, who are currently masquerading as a Division I men’s basketball team, broke their own NCAA Division I record for futility Saturday by scoring just four points in the first half at Eastern Michigan. That was enough to best the record the Huskies set for fewest points in a first half in the shot clock era with five against Dayton on Dec. 1. The first half was the place Northern Illinois did most of its damage…to the backboard, the side of the rim and the collective psyche and sanity of its fans. In the opening 20 minutes, an atrociously offensive display of offense that had Dr. James Naismith puking in his grave saw the Huskies trail 18-4 after shooting 1 for 31, including 29 straight misses. The lone field goal came one minute into the game when Abdel Nader miraculously converted a fast-break layup to put his team ahead 2-0. Little did NIU fans know their team would not convert a field goal for the rest of the half and make just two free throws before intermission. On the day, the Huskies set three Division I records, none of them positive. Their 3.2 percent field goal percentage in the first half Saturday bested (or worst-ed?) Savannah State's 4.3 percent against Kansas State on Jan. 7, 2008 and their lone first-half field goal also tied a Division I record set by Savannah State in that game. Their third record was a robust 13.1 (8 for 61) shooting percentage for the game. Sadly, the Huskies narrowly avoided the record for fewest points in a game -- 20, set by Saint Louis in January 2008, by finding their scoring touch late and managing 21 second-half points in a 42-25 loss. Easily the most uplifting moment of the day was NIU ending a 24-minute, 32-second drought without a field goal with a layup with 14:27 left to close the Eastern Michigan lead to 23-7.……….

A punk rock icon is back, a heroic Detroit Lion and a riot letdown in Greece

- One of the godfathers of punk rock is back with the band that helped him rise to fame four decades ago. Iggy Pop, still going strong into his 60s, has reunited with the Stooges and together they have completed a new album, “Ready to Die.” Iggy And The Stooges are a seminal proto-punk act and although they have recorded together occasionally over the years, they last released a new album in 2007. The new project was mixed by Ed Cherney, who described the follow-up to 2007's “The Weirdness” by saying, “It's old-time Stooges. It's raw. They're great songs, but not necessarily big choruses. They're the Antichrist of anthems.” Iggy Pop has always been socially and politically-minded in his music, speaking out for various causes over the years. Cherney called the lyrics very timely, saying of Pop, “"He knows what he wants to say. He's watching the world around him."
Some of the album’s track listing has already leaked, including the tracks “I Got A Job But It Don’t Pay Sh*t” and “Gun.” Guitarist James Williamson produced the album at Fantasy Studios in San Francisco, though Iggy Pop recorded his vocals in Miami. It’s a disjointed way to record an album for sure and can take away much of the chemistry and cohesiveness for a project, so the album will be interesting to listen to for that reason alone. The project is Williamson’s return to the band for the first time since 1973’s “Raw Power.” He returned to the fold following Ron Asheton's death in 2009. Iggy Pop has kept himself busy, releasing a solo covers album last year and recording a song for an upcoming pirate-themed compilation album, “Son of Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys.”

For old-school punk fans, though, there’s nothing quite like the raw aggression of Iggy and the Stooges……..

- Kooks abound in the world around us. Sometimes those kooks chain themselves to trees, sometimes they collect 25,000 signatures for  an online petition for the government to build its own Death Star and occasionally, they perform random acts of household cleaning and maintenance without homeowner permission. The latter is the current news of the weird in the greater Cleveland area, as a woman dubbed “The Cleaning Fairy” by police has resurfaced after a few months off the grid and is now shoveling total strangers’ sidewalks in the city of Elyria. The Cleaning Fairy earned her nickname because police say she broke into a home in Westlake back in May and cleaned the house without the homeowner’s permission. She left behind a $75 cleaning bill on a napkin, which was at least courteous if not totally bizarre. For eight months, this household servant for unwilling hire remained under the radar, but she showed back up Thursday in Elyria. Police were called to Andrew Smith’s nwighbor’s home on Branston Avenue when Smith noticed a person shoveling a driveway without the homeowner’s permission. “Without being approved ahead of time, that’s really weird. Scary,” Smith said. The mystery shoveler was Susan Warren, an Elyria woman who was arrested and taken into custody, not for shoveling snow, but for violating probation. Warren was sentenced to one year of probation for breaking into the home she cleaned in May and may now face prison time for what would seem to be a harmless act of help. “We looked out Tuesday and saw our walkway was shoveled. I really didn’t understand why, but it was,” Smith added. “I guess I can thank her for shoveling the sidewalk.  And not having to pay a bill,” added Smith. No bill was left behind this time, probably because it’s tough to write a bill when you’re handcuffed in the back of a squad car…….

- Dammit, Greece. If riot police are showing up, then there had damn well better be an actual riot going on. Instead, the riot in question was nothing more than Greek riot police storming a subway train depot in Athens early on Friday to disperse striking subway staff who defied a government order to return to work for a ninth consecutive day. Police officials confirmed the incident, which included brawls that broke out when police forced their way through a metal gate shortly after 4 a.m. and scuffled with striking workers, detaining at least 10, with one woman taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Riots have been commonplace in Greece in recent months, mostly on account of austerity measures that have included wage reductions and other financial changes that have provoked the warth of unions across the country. The strike is another major challenge for Greece's fragile coalition in its battle with the unions over the austerity measures, which have been mandated by foreign lenders as the price for bailout funds. In bold fashion, the striking subway workers have flipped a giant middle finger in the direction of the government order to return to work. The order was issued under emergency legislation by the conservative-led government on Thursday in an attempt to end a week-long walkout that has paralyzed the city’s subway system. While the workers won't actually do their jobs, 90 of them were willing to stage a sit-in overnight at the train depot in protest. They oppose being included in a unified wage scheme for public sector workers that would slash their salaries and on Friday, bus and railway workers joined the walkout. The emergency law stipulates that the workers can face arrest and up to five years in jail, but no arrests have been made so far, according to police officials…….

- Paranoia is a more valuable asset than ever, if Google's biannual Transparency Report is to be believed. Technological privacy and security are growing issues for anyone with Internet access and according to Google, The Man is growing increasingly nosy about users’ data. According to the report, since 2009 Google has seen a more than 70 percent increase in requests from governments worldwide for information about its users and their possible criminal activities. The report shows that for the six-month period ending Dec. 31, 2012, Google received 21,389 government requests for information about 33,634 users, including 8,438 requests involving 14,791 users by the United States government. Richard Salgado, legal director of Google's Law Enforcement and Information Security unit, explained the data in a Jan. 23 post on the Google Public Policy blog. "Today we're releasing new data for the Transparency Report, showing that the steady increase in government requests for our users' data continued in the second half of 2012, as usage of our services continued to grow," Salgado wrote. The tech giant has released the reports every six months to ensure the process remains transparent for users of its services so they can have insights into what is done with the data stored by Google. "We've shared figures like this since 2010 because it's important for people to understand how government actions affect them," Salgado added. There is no question that the U.S. government is among the worst offenders when it comes to prying into the personal information of Google users. The number of requests from the government in the most recent report is up significantly from the 7,969 total requests involving 16,281 users in the preceding edition of the report. Another interesting portion of the report is a new section detailing what legal procedures U.S. government agencies took to seek the information. An impressive 68 percent of the requests Google received from U.S. government entities for the period from July through December 2012 were through subpoenas, Salgado explained. "These are requests for user-identifying information, issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and are the easiest to get because they typically don't involve judges." Twenty-two percent were through ECPA search warrants, typically ordered by judges, and the remaining 10 percent mostly involved other court orders………

- Detroit Lions wide receiver Titus Young is the best. No other player in NFL history has waited for a teammate to take off his helmet during a practice before punching that teammate in the head, been benched and ultimately put on injured reserve for being a me-first malcontent who purposefully ran the wrong routes and lined up in the wrong place because he wanted to get the ball thrown his way, laid out his team on Twitter by saying if he wasn’t going to get the football “i don’t want to play anymore” and then come back for another social media assault on his franchise. Young’s first Twitter rant had him saying, "Like I said I never been selfish but if I'm not going to get the football i don't want to play anymore." Some athletes might tweet that out, realize how bad it looks and delete the tweet before replacing it with an apology for their poor choice of words. Not Titus Young. Young went right back at the Lions with his Twitter account, once again voicing his displeasure with the organization. "Oh I'm not done, if y'all going to cut me let me go. I'm tired of the threats," Young tweeted. It’s unclear who was threatening him or what they were saying, but he made it clear he wasn’t afraid of their threats and wasn’t after more money; only more passes thrown to him. "Never needed the money Give me a dollar and a ball bet I come back #HallofFame," Young added. Those are pretty bold claims for a receiver who had just 33 catches for 383 yards this past season and until now was best known for punching teammate Louis Delmas during an offseason workout program and n suspended twice for repeated insubordinate behavior. Head coach Jim Schwartz addressed Young's tweets earlier this week at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. "Every offensive player wants the football, and there are good ways to go about getting that and not so good ways about trying to get that done. This is a pretty good example of a not-so-good way," Schwartz said. "We obviously still have some ground to cover there." Right now, that ground looks more like scorched earth………

Kidnapping Jimmy Kimmel, a U.S.-Mexico border moat and DNA as digital storage

- Because there just weren't any truly important uses for human DNA, science has finally figured out a way to make use of the double-helix design and four-protein structure that contain all of the relevant information for everything relating to the human body. Specifically, EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) researchers Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney have come up with the concept of using DNA for media storage space. Deoxyribonucleic acid already stores the code that makes us humans instead of aardvarks, so why not use it as storage for digital information? Goldman and Birney concede that it is über- difficult to encode efficiently and reliably using artificial means, but scientists have already figured out how to read the data stored in long dormant DNA, so why not take it a step further? In the latest issue of the journal Nature, the two men explain that their breakthrough could make it possible to "store at least 100 million hours of high-definition video in about a cup of DNA." That number might actually represent the entirety of porn videos available on the Internet, so it’s definitely impressive. "We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from wooly mammoth bones, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it. It's also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy," Goldman said. Before this study, it was only been possible to create short strings of DNA and even then, the repeatability of DNA letters in a string can make it difficult to both write and read. With assistance from bio-analytics instrument maker Agilent Technologies, Goldman and Birney were able to synthesize DNA from encoded digital information, including an MP3 of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, a .txt file of Shakespeare's sonnets, a .pdf file containing James Watson and Francis Crick's original paper describing the structure of DNA and a final file describing the encoding itself. "We knew we needed to make a code using only short strings of DNA, and to do it in such a way that creating a run of the same letter would be impossible," Goldman explained. The finished product, according to Agilent's Emily Leproust, was "hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNA" that looked "like a tiny piece of dust." That dust was sent back to EMBL-EBI (theoretically, in a very small package), where researchers sequenced it and said they decoded the files without errors………

- Way to admit the obvious, even if you did still mostly miss the point, former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Cam Cameron. Cameron was fired on Dec. 10, at which time the Ravens were 9-4 and averaging 344.4 yards on offense. However, they are struggling after a 9-2 start and needed someone to take the fall for a downturn that led to them finishing the year losing four of five and backing into the playoffs with a 10-6 record. The Ravens replaced Cameron with quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell and since then have averaged 406.2 yards over the final three regular-season games and 424.7 yards during their run to the Super Bowl. Faced with such obvious evidence that the change was needed, Cameron magnanimously admitted that the team made the right call in dispatching him from his post. "It was a brilliant move," Cameron said. "Everyone on the team took a look in the mirror after that." Hmm…interesting idea. Cameron being fired forced everyone else to do some soul-searching and that introspection led to their turnaround. Of course, it’s total bullsh*t. The Ravens have started winning and scoring more points because Caldwell has balanced the running and passing games much better than Cameron did and the offense’s running yardage has increased by nearly 50 percent under his leadership. With that balance, quarterback Joe Flacco has played better and turned in some of his best games. Ravens coach John Harbaugh did call the decision to fire Cameron "the hardest thing I've ever had to do as a coach," but it was clearly a wise choice that has yielded big returns for the Ravens. It’s good that Cameron has a good attitude, but his misguided perspective overexaggerates his importance to the team’s turnaround and ignores the improvement of the defense as another contributing factor with stars Terrell Suggs and Ray Lewis back on the field. Stay strong and oblivious, Camn………

- A golden opportunity has emerged for the U.S. Border Patrol. For too long, the moat stocked with genetically engineered, steel-jawed alligators has been a dream of border-control enthusiasts and not the reality it should be. Installing a 25-foot-wide moat backed by a sturdy castle wall topped by archers and warriors with pots of boiling oil to dump on would-be intruders would definitely improve border security and the USBP has a chance to put just such a setup in place now that it has announced that a stretch of old fencing along Arizona's border with Mexico will be replaced. The agency is in charge of protecting America’s borders and in assessing the wall around the Naco port of entry, south of the city of Bisbee, officials found weaknesses that necessitate an overhaul of the existing fence. Much of that pathetic excuse for a fence is made of solid steel sheets that were once landing mats for military aircraft. A simple glance at the fence shows many sections of the structure visibly rusting and an agency spokesman suggested that the new fencing could look like the vertical, see-through-style posts in Nogales. "Tucson Sector Border Patrol constantly evaluates its tactical infrastructure to ensure upgrades occur as needed and as funding becomes available,” the department wrote in a statement. There is no timeline for the project and if the window for completion is open-ended, there is definitely time to get work genetically engineering those angry gators and sketching out the blueprint for that moat………

- People under the age of 45 don’t watch late-night network talk shows much these days and with good reason (they’re typically not that interesting), but Jimmy Kimmel’s move to 11:30 p.m. on weeknights has generated a few headlines. Maybe not enough headlines, because Kimmel went for another ratings grab Thursday night when he and longtime fake nemesis Matt Damon culminated their 10-year feud by having Damon “kidnap” Kimmel in the morning and then take over as host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” later in the day. The plot was part of a running gag between Kimmel and Damon that centered around Kimmel bumping Damon off of his show more than 1,000 times. Damon gained his revenge by seizing control of the show and hanging out with a group of A-listers that included Jennifer Lopez, Nicole Kidman, Robin Williams, Andy Garcia, Gary Oldman, Reese Witherspoon and Demi Moore. "I am in command of this ship," Damon told the audience, which was clearly fired up to see more than a half-dozen big-name stars even if it meant they wouldn’t be seeing Kimmel himself. "Just for starters," Damon added, "let me ask you guys this: As an audience, is it weird to see a person with actual talent host this show?" Kimmel didn’t have to watch the show on a 40-year-old TV in some poorly lit basement in an abandoned house in some dead-end neighborhood while sitting in a creaky chair with his mouth taped and hands bound. He watched the charade tied to a chair, a gag in his mouth, at the back of the stage. "I've been waiting for this moment for a long, long time," Damon joked. "This is like when I lost my virginity, except this is going to last way longer than one second." The gag seemed to work, as the show won the network late-night ratings battle for its time slot…….

- Germans value one thing above all else: beer. The Internet may be a close second, judging by a ruling handed down Thursday by the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. The court has ruled that the Internet is as much of a necessity for daily life as a refrigerator or a vehicle. The specific case before the court involved a man who was unable to use his high-speed Internet connection, which also offered a telephone and fax line, for two months from late 2008 to early 2009. Based on the ruling, s Germans now have the right to claim compensation from service providers if their Internet access is disrupted. "Most people in Germany use the Internet daily. Thus, it has become an essential medium in the life of German society, the disruption of which has an immediate impact on the course of everyday life," the court wrote in its decision. Even though the man’s service provider had already compensated him for the cost of having to use a cellphone, this greedy bastard wanted to be compensated for not being able to use the Internet. German law stipulates that the loss of use of essential material items can be compensated and a court spokeswoman explained why that statute applied specifically to this case. "The Internet plays a very important role today and affects the private life of an individual in very decisive ways. Therefore loss of use of the Internet is comparable to the loss of use of a car," the spokeswoman said. Internet access joins a list of necessities - including cars, refrigerators, beds, chairs or other basic furniture – that cannot be repossessed even if debts are unpaid. Paragraph 811 of the country's "code of civil procedure" – a great bathroom read, by the way - protects "items that are necessary for daily personal needs." "The rights of individuals are well secured in our country," said Detlef Huermann of the Association of German Bailiffs. "In our field, German lawmakers are continuously expanding the protection of debtors, for example, and compared to legislation in other European countries, our laws are very humane in that respect." Humane and protective of a person’s ability to readily access quality porn online………

Tom Brady dinged, a mass crocodile escape in South Africa and more happy smoking news

- New England Patriots fans now have another reason to hate Baltimore Ravens safety Bernard Pollard – not that they needed one. Pollard, playing with the Kansas City Chiefs, Houston Texans and Ravens, Pollard has ended the seasons of Patriots stars Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Rob Gronkowski with vicious hits to various parts of their anatomy over the past six years. On Sunday, he obliterated running back Stevan Ridley with a massive hit that caused a fumble and left Ridley woozy on the ground as the Ravens celebrated a turnover that led to a game-icing score. But that wasn’t Pollard’s only lasting mark left on the Pats from the game as immediately after it ended, Pollard began crusading for the NFL to discipline Brady for a play during the final minute of the first half when the quarterback slid to the ground to end an impromptu run and had one leg raised a few feet off the ground. That leg struck Ravens safety Ed Reed, who emerged from the play without injury. The NFL has now fined Brady $10,000 for the slide, an amount that may not placate Pollard but definitely gives New England fans all the more reason to despise the veteran safety. Reed wasn’t running his mouth about the play afterward, but his defensive backfield mate certainly was. "If you want to keep this going in the right direction, everyone should be penalized for their actions," Pollard said. "(Brady) knew what he was doing. It has to go both ways." Brady actually reached out to Reed to apologize and clearly realized that regardless of his intent, the play looked bad for him. "I told him -- you know, we talked," Reed said. "We talked actually not too long ago; we talked on the phone. He actually reached out to me, texted me. I tried to text him back, but the message exploded after 12 seconds, so I had to call him ... and he just apologized and what not. But I told him, 'You know, it's good, man.'" Maybe Reed should pull Pollard aside (and off of the Patriots) and pass that message along…….

- Swimming in the Limpopo River is not an entry to cross off the ol’ bucket list any time in the next few months. That long-awaited trip to dip into the pleasant waters of the South African river will have to wait…unless, of course, possibly being eaten by one of the suddenly large number of crocodiles now swimming in the river is also on your bucket list. A slight mishap at a South African reptile farm during a flood this week has resulted in the escape of some 15,000 crocodiles and about half of them are still on the loose in and around one of southern Africa's biggest rivers. "There used to be only a few crocodiles in the Limpopo River. Now there are a lot," said Zane Langman, whose in-laws own the farm in the northern part of the country. Langman confirmed that only half the escaped crocodiles from the Rakwena Crocodile Farm close to the Botswana border had been recaptured and explained that the reptiles escaped after the farm gates were opened out of fear the rushing flood water would crush the crocodiles. The plan seems faulty on account of crocdiles being wild and dangerous animals unlikely to hang around during the flood and line up politely at the door to be put back in their pens once the floodwaters subsided. Farm officials have not commented on the incident, but reports had one crocodile apparently from the farm being captured about 75 miles away at a school rugby field. The flooding that has bombarded Mozambique and South Africa in recent weeks has led to heavy rains and flooding that have claimed at least 20 lives in and led to the evacuations of thousands of people………

- America, are you finally catching on to the fact that “American Karaoke” is a ridiculous musical abortion of a show that embodies much of what is wrong with the music industry? Let’s not go that far, but there is always joy to be found when Fox’s long-running reality karaoke shows sees its ratings dip even after a completely manufactured and overdramatized fight between two of its pop hack judges, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj. The tension between the two manufactured pop personalities has been built up by the network and the show’s producers for weeks now, but their interpersonal theatrics did not translate into big ratings for “AK” on Wednesday night. Its ratings dipped 10 percent from last week’s 12th season premiere, bringing in 16 million viewers and a 5.4 rating. That was still enough for Fox to win the ratings battle for the night as ABC and its lineup of mediocre sitcoms fronted by “The Middle” and “Suburgatory” and CBS’ lineup built around two episodes of “Criminal Minds” both improved this week in the adult demographic but could not run down a terrible reality karaoke show. In the “American Karaoke” episode, viewers were exposed to the same contrived dispute between the judges, a debate sparked by a question over whether a contestant should feel “forced” to “do the country thing.” Maybe Fox could have generated more buzz and interest among viewers had it not chosen to edit out most of the profane exchange that followed, but it is network television and the FCC probably would have hammered “American Karokae” if it had aired the exchange without heavily editing it. Carey and Minaj will simply have to script their next “argument” with fewer gratuitous profanities if they want it to reach the on-air version of the show………

- Put down that cancer stick, ladies. Reasons to hate smoking are plentiful, but here’s one more just for the hell of it: Women smoking nowadays are far more likely to die as a result of their habit than they were in the 1960s. That’s according to a new study carried out by researcher Dr. Michael Thun and his team, a study showing that women starting their smoking habit earlier and consuming more cigarettes has unsurprisingly led to a massive uptick in the fairer sex’s risks of lung cancer. While women may not have caught up with men in some areas of business and society yet, their death rates from smoking certainly have, according to Thun and his team’s findings. Their research examined more than two million women in the United States, reach back to the first generation of women smokers, who typically started choking down lung darts during the 1950s and 60s. At that time, women who smoked were nearly three times more likely to die from lung cancer as people who had never smoked. By examining medical records from women who smoked between 2000-2010, researchers discovered that these lucky ladies were 25 times more likely to die from lung cancer than their non-smoking friends. Men reached those levels in the 1980s, but their lady friends have run them down and that probably is not the sort of progress feminists like Gloria Steinem want to see. "The steep increase in risk among female smokers has continued for decades after the serious health risks from smoking were well established, and despite the fact that women predominantly smoked cigarette brands marketed as lower in tar and nicotine,” Thun said. "So not only did the use of cigarette brands marketed as 'Light' and 'Mild' fail to prevent a large increase in risk in women, it also may have exacerbated the increase in deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease in male smokers, since the diluted smoke from these cigarettes is inhaled more deeply into the lungs of smokers to maintain the accustomed absorption of nicotine." Thanks for the positive, life-affirming news, science…….

- In an era when too many of America’s college and universities are teaching meaningless fluff courses on subjects like the television legacy of Pee Wee Herman or Nickelback’s cultural impact, it is refreshing to see a school instilling vital knowledge with real-world relevance in its students. Hinds Community College, in Raymond, Miss., deserves a wealth of praise because it has become one of the few institutions of higher learning in the country offering courses in the flying and maintaining drones. Sure, drones could be described in many cases as oversized radio-controlled airplanes, but they are growing in popularity and have been used with deadly efficiency by the CIA. They come in various shapes and sizes ranging in costs from $130 to millions of dollars and as anyone who has been paying attention to the war in Afghanistan knows, they can be used to efficiently blow sh*t up even when the attacker is hundreds of miles away. In the instance that a person wants to wage war on their neighbor for allowing their dog to poop in someone else’s yard or let their leaves fall over their property line, an unmanned aerial vehicle is the perfect way to gain some sweet revenge. The nine HCC students in the drone class for the current semester attend class at the John Bell Williams Airport north of Raymond and learn from instructor Dennis Lott, who is also a consultant for the school and has spent his entire life flying remote controlled airplanes. "The last U. S. manned fighter is the F-35," said Lott. "All future development is unmanned." Lott and drone program leader Randy Pearcy believe their students will see a wealth of job opportunities open up for them because of their skills piloting drones, which are limited to 400-foot altitudes unless they belong to the military or law enforcement. However, Congress has ordered the FAA to change that, allowing domestic use, by 2015, so bombing your neighbor’s backyard barbeque is about to become that much more realistic. It’s good to know that America will have people trained to take advantage of that opportunity……..