New York City v. smoking, digital dinosaurs and David Bowie's uber-arrogance

- Eccentric billionaires get to say and do a lot of stupid sh*t that would get the rest of us fired and/or committed to a mental ward at the nearest psychiatric hospital. New York Knicks team owner and Madison Square Garden executive chairman James Dolan is one such individual. Aside from hiring the blatantly inept Isaiah Thomas, allowing Thomas to ruin his historic franchise and then trying to hire Thomas back after firing him in the wake of many losses and a sexual harassment lawsuit, Dolan may have finally reached his zenith of crazy at the outset of the 2013-14 season. Out of a recent meeting with the coaching staff and some team executives comes the story of Dolan telling the assembled crowd that he believes the Knicks have enough talent to win a title and that he expects them to do so this season. In Dolan’s defense, the Knicks did win  54 games last season, finish in second place in the Eastern Conference and win a playoff series for the first time in 13 years. Working against him is the fact that a team that could not even reach the conference finals and made only minor additions while many of its Eastern Conference rivals upgraded substantially. The nearby Brooklyn Nets overhauled their roster with veteran talent, the Chicago Bulls get former MVP Derrick Rose back after missing all of last season with an injury and the Miami Heat won the title last year and added big man Greg Oden to their rotation. Most experts predict the Knicks will finish no higher than fifth in the East and many within the organization seem to agree, because sources said many in the room when Dolan made his proclamation were stunned and rattled. Sure, a temperamental billionaire who is footing the bill for the second-highest payroll in the league expects results, but so does Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who has publicly stated his expectations for his team to win the title this season. Knicks coach Mike Woodson has said several times that he thinks the Knicks have enough talent to compete for a title, but saying that is much different than the owner letting everyone know that he expects it to happen………

- The world needs to brace itself because there is a new (extinct) king of the dinosaur would. Researchers at the University of Manchester have created a digital Argentinosaurus robot that digitally demonstrates how the diplodocus was the biggest dinosaur to walk the Earth. Their 80-ton behemoth would have left the mighty T-Rex at its knees, leaving science to figure out how such a hulking creature would have moved its vast bulk. The immense size of sauropods – of which the Argentinosaurus was a member – has always presented a quandary for biologists because they push animal bones and muscles to their limit. The long-necked, tree-trunk-legged titans of the Jurassic period seemed to be too big to move effectively. The questions were numerous: How did their muscles and bones support and move their big bodies? How could their digestive system fuel that movement? "The biggest elephants weigh around six or seven toes," said Dr. Bill Sellers, of the University of Manchester, who led the digital robot study. "So Argentinosaurus was at least 10 times bigger than the biggest elephant. s you get bigger your weight goes up by the cube of your height, but the force your muscles can generate only goes up by the square, so your strength-to-weight ratio gets much worse." The reconstruction was based on a rather limited fossilized combination of bones, as only the Argentinosauruss legs and part of its spine have been unearthed. Sellers and his colleagues scanned a reconstructed skeleton housed at the municipal museum in Carmen Funes municipal museum in Argentina and formed their digital dinosaur from there. Sellers admitted that with such projects, there is always a temptation to make a reconstruction a bit bigger than the dinosaur was simply to say yours was the biggest. To make the digital dinosaur walk, the researchers used a beefy computer with a souped-up processor and the results showed that to move effectively, the Argentinosaurus’s movements at its joints had to be very restricted. That would have made getting very high off the ground impossible, but when you can squash the other dinosaurs underfoot, that matters a little less………

- Way to be, New York City Council. When you’re not doing ass-hatted things like telling the world-famous Madison Square Garden that it has one decade to move so you can expand Penn Station, you can actually accomplish something worthwhile. For example, the council is the verge of raising the minimum legal age to buy cigarettes in New York City from 18 to 21 after a vote Wednesday evening. City lawmakers approved raising the age in a 35-10 vote at City Hall and while the measure still must be signed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the mayor has pushed for the bill as part of his efforts to target the cigarette industry. In a statement released after the vote, Bloomberg expressed strong support for the bill. “Between 2001 and 2011, New York City cut the proportion of public high school students who smoke by more than half. However, the decline in youth smoking in our city has stalled. We know that tobacco dependence can begin very soon after a young person first tries smoking so it’s critical that we stop young people from smoking before they ever start,” Bloomberg said in the statement. “By increasing the smoking age to 21 we will help prevent another generation from the ill health and shorter life expectancy that comes with smoking.” The bill itself is laudable, even if the belief on the part of supporters that it would discourage young people from starting early is total crap. Those who want to smoke are always going to find a parent or older sibling to steal a cancer stick from or a friend to bum one off of, but anything that prevents even one child from smoking is still solid. If only ass-hatted Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-32nd) realized this. “I think the city council made a big mistake today, what we are doing is essentially empowering a black market,” Ulrich said. “We are hurting small businesses that rely on cigarettes to bring people in to the stores.” Yes, way to pick death by lung cancer or emphysema over taking some money out of the pockets of convenience store owners. Under the proposed law, sellers who violate the law would be fined up to $1,000 for each violation found in a single day and up to $2,000 for a second violation. Repeat offenders could eventually lose their license to sell tobacco products……….

- David Bowie continue to be quite possibly the most pompous a-hole in all of rock and roll. The man who was too big to show up live for the London Olympics closing ceremonies despite being invited and the event being in his home city and who rarely shows up in public anywhere these days could likewise not be bothered to attend last night’s Mercury Prize ceremony. The British music prize was handed out and Bowie was considered the fourth favorite to win the prize with odds of 7/1, according to oddsmakers. Most musicians would be honored to be one of the nominees and therefore would show up for the ceremony, but Bowie is not most musicians. Instead of a live appearance, he debuted the (literally) dirt-cheap music video he made for “Love Is Lost,” featuring a James Murphy remix of a track from Bowie’s album “The Next Day.” The video was played in full during the event, where Bowie was a nominee alongside Disclosure, Arctic Monkeys, Foals and Jake Bugg. It was shot in simplicity on a home camera with the help of assistant Jimmy King and best friend Coco Schwab and the Spartan effort features a pair of puppets from Bowie's archives. The project has been described as a "strangely moving gothic inflected story line perfect for Halloween” and the entire effort was shot and edited in the singer’s office in Manhattan. The total cost was $12.99 (plus tax), which was the amount needed to buy a USB flash drive to download the finished video onto………

- What the hell is going on down under, Australia? Since when can a government employee who was injured while having sex in a motel room during a business trip NOT receive ? If that’s the kind of world we now live in, maybe it’s time to find a new world. The Australian High Court ruled 4-1 that the woman's employer did not induce or encourage her to participate in the sex, so the federal government's insurer, Comcare, was not liable to compensate her. Sadly, the court’s ruling is final and could have ramifications for other federal employees who claim compensation for unconventional work-related mishaps. The woman could rightly have argued that sending her on a business trip and footing the bill for her hotel room plus (theoretically) plenty of alcohol she would pass off as a work-related expense, her employer did encourage her to take it off and get some. Sadly, this working-class hero cannot be identified for legal reasons, but her case has dragged on for six years. She was a federal civil servant in her 30s when she was hospitalized for the injury in 2007 after she was injured during a romp with an unidentified man in her hotel room. The woman was injured while she and her new special friend were having sex and a glass light fixture above the bed fell onto her face, injuring her nose and mouth. After her coitus-related mishap, she suffered depression and was unable to continue working for the government. Comcare initially approved her claim for workers' compensation, but after what had to be some very uncomfortable investigation, the company rejected the claim. The High Court had a chance to play hero, but found the sex was "not an ordinary incident of an overnight stay," such as showering, sleeping or eating. Clearly, none of the judges have ever been on an extended business trip. Comcare is reportedly considering its options for recouping the compensation it previously paid to the (not a) victim……..

Kevin Durant's rage, zombies have their day and the world's new biggest airport

- This is the time of year for zombies – assuming undead beings even have any need for time. They’re starring in a hit cable series, they’re all the rage on magazine covers and they’re über-popular on college campuses. That much is evidenced by  “Undead U: A Zombie Symposium,” set for Friday from 7-9 p.m. on the campus of Michigan Technological University. The wealth of zombie information and exploration is the creation of Syd Johnson, assistant professor of philosophy at Michigan Tech. “’Night of the Living Dead,’ a low-budget movie in the 1960s, started it all,” Johnson said. “Back then, there were fears about nuclear disasters. We still have fears of plague, disease and death. There have always been worries of losing control and losing our minds.” The professor believes zombies go hand in hand with those fears. Johnson previously taught an ethics class using zombies to help students think about what it means to be human and probe the depths and other angles of life’s moral dilemmas. “If zombies used to be human, are they still human?” she posited. “And how do we treat them if they are? How can you kill something if it’s already dead?” All of this might seem absurd because zombies don’t really exist, but Johnson refuses to allow herself to be constrained by the confines of reality. She asks vague, apocalyptic questions hinging on issues like what happens when there is no government and no society, but everything eventually leads back to the topic at hand: Are zombies people, and what is it to be a person? Maybe these zombies are just severely brain-damaged people…like most humans you encounter during rush hour traffic on an average day. The symposium is conveniently scheduled the day after Halloween, in the midst of Mexico’s Day of the Dead observances. It will bring together experts on various zombie-related topics and attempt to figure out why zombies are so damn appealing. Best of all, it’s free and open to the public and afterward, visitors can hang around and find a bitchin’ Halloween party just off campus……..

- Can a professional athlete be too focused on winning a championship? Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant believes so and he’s of the opinion that he was so obsessed with leading his team to a title last season that it affected him personally to the point that he took it out on others. "Last year, I was obsessed with it," Durant said of winning a title. "Like, I wasn't going to sleep because I wanted to win so bad. I was screaming at my teammates, at the refs, at the coaches. I got mad because I thought, 'If we have a bad game here, we're not going to win a championship.'" The hyper-competitive type of person might suggest that is the very reason greats such as Michael Jordan won titles and Durant won't, but it’s difficult to be too critical of a season in which a player scored 28.1 points per game and joined the 50-40-90 club (50 percent field-goal shooting, 40 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent on free throws. Durant is on point when he argues that he was more assertive and aggressive on the court last season as he was called for 12 technical fouls -- surpassing his total from the previous five seasons combined. Many observers hailed the technicals as evidence that he was finally developing an edge to his normally goofy persona, but it’s the feeling that he needed to play perfectly each night and holding his team to that same standard that seemed to bother Durant the most. "Like, for me, when I was coming in I was like 'If I miss a shot, I'm going to miss this shot in Game 6 of the Finals,'" he said. "'If we don't play defense this game, we're not going to play defense in the Finals.' Like, I was thinking like that.” Higher standards and added pressure or not, losing starting point guard Russell Westbrook to injury left the Thunder woefully underequipped to go deep into the playoffs and Durant shouldn’t be too bitter about that……..

- Go big or don’t go home to Dubai. A nation built on excess received quite a boost for its ego this week when its new airport welcomed the arrival of its first commercial flight. Oh, and this just so happens to be on the fast track to becoming the world’s largest airport. The emirate's new crown jewel is located in Jebel Ali and is part of Dubai World Central, an "aviation city" that the government launched as a free economic zone. Al Maktoum International Airport is not to be confused with the emirate's main airport, Dubai International Airport, located 31 miles to the north. Al Maktoum International Airport is owned by the government of Dubai and operated by Dubai Airports Company and its starting date for full commercial passenger services is 2017…or at least it was until the project was delayed for years due to the regional financial crisis. The revised start date is 2027 and the government estimates that it will ultimately cost 120 billion dirhams ($32.67 billion). All of that is the bad news, but the airport has been open for cargo flights since 2010. Low-cost Hungarian airline Wizz Air (real name) as the first airline to be welcomed at the new passenger terminal. The customary festive water salute on that day was almost enough to make the airline not feel like a total loser for being all alone in a ginormous airport. The only other two carries now operating out of the facility are Kuwait-based low-cost carrier Jazeera Airways and Bahrain's full-service Gulf Air, which made its inaugural flight to the new airport on Sunday. Some time in the next 14 years, the UAE's state-owned carrier Emirates is expected to operate entirely out of the new hub. Other airlines are reportedly interested in operating flights into and out of the facility, but right now Al Maktoum boasts just one working runway. When fully finished, it will offer five runways with an annual capacity of 160 million passengers and 12 million tons of cargo. Those numbers – should they come to fruition – would dwarf those of the world's current busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which serviced approximately 95 million passengers in 2012…….

- Emile Hirsch is about to take on a heck of a role. Hirsch has signed on to star in a forthcoming biopic of late comedian and actor John Belushi, who died at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont hotel in 1983 following what is known to junkies as a speedball: a combined injection of cocaine and heroine. Belushi, one of the original “Saturday Night Live” cast members, was just 33 when he passed away. His “Blues Brothers” co-star Dan Aykroyd will serve as an executive producer for the project, so it should be true to form and accurate if nothing else. Additonally, the screenplay will be based on the book “Belushi” by Judith Belushi Pisano, the late actor's widow, and Tanner Colby. There is no official title yet for the project, which is being written and directed by Steve Conrad, who also penned the script for Ben Stiller's forthcoming film “The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty.” Hirsch has played a wide range of roles and although the success of his recent films has varied substantially, his performances in projects such as “Milk,” “The Girl Next Door,” “Speed Racer,” “Into The Wild” and “Taking Woodstock” have generally been well-received. Though the script may not yet have a title, Conrad is targeting next spring as a starting date for shooting, with the project appropriately set in New York. In between now and then, Hirsch would do well to get in character by living a life of excess, full of drugs, overeating and spending every waking hour either face-down in a pile of cocaine or in a club with hot women, trying to convince one of them to go get face-down in a pile of coke with you…….

- Great news from Google. The company has somehow hired a whopping 110 million new employees in the past few months. That number may seem shocking and not possibly true, but there is no other way to explain things if the tech giant’s claims that its social network Google+ has seen a 37-percent jump in users in recent months. Everyone knows that no one outside of Google’s employ actually uses the black sheep of the social networking world and that employees only use it under compulsion by The Man, so Google+ going from 190 million users in May to 300 million monthly active users six months later has to be the result of more employees inside Google’s empire. Vic Gundotra, head of social networking at Google, claimed that a whopping 540 million Google+ members have interacted socially with any of Google's services in the past 30 days up from 390 million in May. Also, Google is also uploading 1.5 billion photos per week and that number is increasing at "an amazing rate," Gundotra. Perhaps realizing that letting out too much information rather than collecting information on users to sell to advertisers is unwise, Google did not say how many of those photos are being shared on Google+. Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product management at Google+, would say only that it was a "very big number." Inflated numbers or not, Google remains über-light years behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, MySpace and every other social networking site ever conceived and probably always will. Google+ has value beyond social networking because it helps the company identify and authenticate users across all its services, including search, Gmail and YouTube. Obviously, the ultimate goal of this is to help Google serve better ads - the core of its business……..

Angry Carolina Panthers, wedding thieves and poor kids suffer even more

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- Now THIS is the kind of TA college dudes want in their math class. A TA who shows a little T&A is just what the doctor(al) candidate in the making ordered when slogging through that über-boring algebra or trigonometry class and that’s precisely what a University of Iowa teaching assistant “accidentally” did when sending out an email to the entire class last week. The female TA sent still shots from what appear to be a sexting session with a male special friend as attachments to an e-mail she mass emailed to the entire pre-calculus class she helped teach to business students. The e-mail reads: “Hi Class, I attach the solutions for number 76 and 78 in this email.” And no, she did not include the solution for problem No. 69, so don’t even ask. As would be expected, the images created an immediate stir on social media sites and the embarrassed TA informed university officials what she had done. Oddly enough, she is no longer assigned to their class and has been tasked elsewhere in the department. University spokesman Tom Moore confirmed the assignment change and called the incident unfortunate for all involved, which is of course blatantly untrue. It’s fair to say that virtually all guys in the class would describe the incident as anything but unfortunate and yet, the woman told university officials she regrets her mistake. She is far from the first person to accidentally attach the wrong file to an email, but she is also a shining example of the reality that if you don’t take or keep nude pictures of yourself, then nude pictures of yourself will never end up online. The best part of the entire story is the TA trying to conduct class the next day as if nothing had happened, a solution that obviously didn’t last long……..

- As if poor people didn’t already have enough to worry about……now this? A new study led by Dr. Joan “Feel Good News” Luby of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that exposure to poverty in early childhood is linked with smaller brain structures later in life. Yes, nurturing can offset poverty's negative effect, but can poor folks really afford enough nurturing to sufficiently overcome their low-class status? Luby and her team conducted MRI exams on impoverished children and found that these children had smaller white and gray matter volumes compared with normative values in early adolescence. The researchers also found that poverty was a significant predictor of left hippocampus volume and left amygdala volume. They discovered that something as simple as supportive parental language during a laboratory task conducted with preschool age children positively influenced left and right hippocampus volumes later in life and therefore benefitted brain growth. The education level of parents did not have any influence on brain development in the study, meaning well-educated parents who pick crappy professions that pay them little money don’t help their children’s brains. While all of this might seem very abstract, the results should benefit future research into how early adversity can influence human development throughout a life span. It may not be on the same level as childhood exposure to lead, alcohol or drugs, but is clearly matters. The 145 children in the study were all ages 6 to 12 and they had all been followed since preschool. They were all culled from a pool of children who participated in a preschool depression study. Parents were also involved in the study and they were evaluated annually regarding stress during preschool years. Both parents and children were interviewed when the children reached the age of 9 and he assessment of supportive or hostile parenting was made after evaluating parent/child interactions during a task. "The finding that the effects of poverty on hippocampal development are mediated through care-giving and stressful life events further underscores the importance of high-quality early childhood care-giving,” the authors concluded………

- There is always a use for the most abhorrent and mind-numbingly bad music…as proven by the past few years at Guantanamo Bay. Don’t even bother asking how many terrorist confessions – both legit and those fictional ones created solely to avoid more torture by song – have come out of cranking Bieber, One Direction and Katy Perry to Gitmo’s captives…it’s a lot. But perhaps no use of terrible music is more inspired than the efforts of sailors who are using the song stylings of none other than Britney Spears to scare off Somali pirates off the coast of east Africa. These intrepid protectors of the high seas are spinning the likes of Spears’ ear-assaulting “hits” “Oops! I Did It Again” and “Baby One More Time” to ward off new-age swashbucklers and keep ships safe. Merchant Navy officer Rachel Owens, who works on supertankers off the east coast of Africa, explained how the original concept came about. "Her songs were chosen by the security team because they thought the pirates would hate them most,” Owens succinctly stated. “These guys can’t stand Western culture or music, making Britney’s hits perfect. As soon as the pirates get a blast of Britney, they move on as quickly as they can.” It’s a great riff on the ol’ retail store trick of playing classical music to send annoyed teenagers scurrying to the exists and while Spears has made plenty of awful music since those two songs and a more modern slant would be nice, what works is all that matters. "Pirates will go to any lengths to avoid or try to overcome the music,” said Steven Jones, of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry, before dropping a real zinger. "I’d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention." Hey-oh! Look at Steve-O, dropping comedic bombs on the masses. If the sailors need more ammo, Spears will drop her new album, “Britney Jean,” on Dec. 3……….

- For anyone who has ever been invited to a boring wedding involving two people they barely know and has therefore been compelled to drop $25 on a wedding gift for two near-strangers, an unidentified (and sorta masked) man in Cyprus has exacted a measure of revenge. This maniac, wearing a stocking over his head, dashed into a Cyprus wedding reception in the town of Limassol and - in plain view of the stunned newlyweds and their guests - made off with a bag filled with cash and checks from guests. Cypriot brides and grooms, like their American counterparts, often count on such sacks of loot to help them get off on the right foot in their new life. What’s interesting is that with security at weddings decidedly lax virtually anywhere in the world, very few thieves ever attempt to burst into a reception and Electric Slide their way through the crowd, pilfer the cash and Chicken Dance their way out the door before anyone can stop them. In Cyprus, such bags often contain thousands of euros and with the island mired in a deep economic crisis, they are more important than ever. No suspect has been officially identified, but police spokesman Andreas Angelides said authorities have detained a man who fits the culprit's build and other general description and are still investigating. However, they have not yet found the bag of money, raising the possibility that the thief either hid it somewhere nearby or was working with an accomplice who made off with the cash unseen……..

- The Carolina Panthers are an angry bunch this season. Considering their three-game winning streak and sudden status as NFC playoff contenders, Ron Rivera’s crew should be much happier. Instead, combustible receiver Steve Smith is vowing to punch opposing defensive backs in the mouth if he sees them on the street and safety Mike Mitchell is calling out the commissioner for allegedly making him a target for fines. Mitchell lobbed a verbal scud at NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday after he was fined $7,875 for taunting on a fourth-quarter play in which St. Louis Rams quarterback Sam Bradford  suffered a season-ending knee injury. Mitchell doesn’t sound like a fan of the commish’s push to take some of the über-violence out of football. Roger being Roger, I guess," Mitchell said. "To be honest, I think there is a little bit of a targeting system they have out. I think I'm one of the guys they'd been looking for, but I'm OK with that." According to Mitchell, this is his fifth fine of the year, including the preseason, totaling close to $45,000. Although monies from fines are generally distributed to local charities across all American professional sports leagues, Mitchell believes his payments went elsewhere. Right in Roger's pocket. Right in his pocket. On camera, right in his pocket is where it's going,” Mitchell deadpanned. He then noted that two of his fines came on plays in which he wasn't penalized, including his shove that sent Bradford out of bounds. He was fined for standing on the sideline with his arms spread wide after the hit, unaware that Bradford was injured. In his world view, the fine came because it involved a "big-name quarterback." Mitchell is in his first year with the Panthers and he’s working on a one-year deal, so perhaps some of his anger comes from paying fines out of a salary much smaller than many of his teammates. "I'm just being targeted because I play football and am physical," Mitchell said. "I'm not out here cheap-shotting guys or doing dirty plays like you've seen people from Detroit do. I'm not going to name any names, but I'm not out here doing those things, so why I'm getting fined I have no idea.” Fines or not, Mitchell has a definite reputation around the league for being a borderline dirty player but insisted he has made an effort to cut back on the personal fouls that hurt his team……..

Al Sharpton's rage, movie news and protecting prairie chickens

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Thousands of ethnic Hungarians know where it’s at and that’s why they have begun holding a series of vociferous rallies in Romania to demand autonomy in the areas where they live. Sure, their logic sounds bat-sh*t insane given that they’re living in a foreign country, but the sight of these marches is still inspiring. Thousands upon thousands of angry folks singing, waving Hungarian flags and riding horses and carriages is uplifting no matter where in the world the rally takes place. Sunday’s gatherings just so happened to take place in 14 communities of Transylvania, including the town of Targu Secuiesc. Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until after World War I, at which point the ethnic Romania majority in Transylvania created Romania. Even now, seven decades later, ethnic Hungarians make up about 6 percent of Romania's population. Their leader, Kelemen Hunor, explained the purpose of Sunday’s rallies, saying that the Hungarians he represents want territorial autonomy to maintain their ethnic identity and grow economically. The goal seems like a modest one, but again, THEY’RE LIVING IN SOMEONE ELSE’S COUNTRY. Oddly enough, Romanian officials have expressed opposition to granting a foreign ethnic minority that privilege and based on the response so far, it’s going to take more than a few rallies to make this pipe dream a reality. Any time the Hungarians want to kick their dissidence up a notch and mix in a few Molotov cocktails, a slew of overturned and burned police cars and storefronts left in shambles by rioters and looters, it would be a welcome sight. Such demonstrations tend to be very effective in communicating all sorts of points…….

- It’s safe to say that $35 million doesn’t buy what it used to in Major League Baseball. Tim Lincecum looked nothing like a two-time NL Cy Young Award winner in either of the past two seasons, going 10-14 with a 4.37 ERA and 193 strikeouts over 32 starts this year, his third straight season with a losing record. Somehow, that was enough to earn him a new two-year, $35 million contract with the San Francisco Giants. Giving that kind of money to any player is a huge investment, but one no-hitter (July 13 at San Diego) amidst a season of dreadful starts doesn’t seem to be enough to justify that kind of payday. Needless to say, Lincecum was thrilled to sign the contract. "It gives you that freedom that I've done it with this group before. I feel like we can do it again, and personally I feel like I can succeed there again," Lincecum said. "As a group, I feel like we have the right tools to make another push. Those are the kind of things you look for when going after an organization. When I'm already plugged into one, I don't have to look too far to see what they've done and what I've been able to do with them." Not only did a pitcher with a combined 33-43 record the past three season score major coin here, but he also received a full no-trade clause and can earn an additional $250,000 each for 210 innings pitched and 220 innings. Oh, and Lincecum will also get a hotel suite on the road. "This was targeted as a baseball signing," CEO Larry Baer said. "This was the right thing for the Giants to keep the rotation strong and keep the team's chances of winning strong. ... Timmy is a very popular guy but I don't want it to be misinterpreted that this was done because he's popular." Popular, sure. But is popularity and the faintest whiffs of past greatness enough to justify $17 million this season and $18 million next season? Probably not……..

- Finally….someone is stepping up to protect the national treasure that is the lesser prairie chicken. Federal wildlife regulators and five states where the rare grouse is found have agreed on a voluntary conservation plan laced with financial incentives for landowners who manage their property to benefit the species. The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies' plan would provide a boost for the lesser prairie chicken, which has been a candidate for federal protection for years and is now proposed for inclusion under the Endangered Species Act. The plan also provides a framework to minimize the effects of development activity, such as oil and gas drilling, throughout the bird's range, which spans Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe said the agency will consider the plan's effectiveness when it makes a final decision in March 2014 on whether to give the lesser prairie chicken protected status under the Endangered Species Act. Additionally, the agency will weigh the continued struggle of a bird that was once abundant across its five range states in Great Plains. A large part of the lesser prairie chicken’s decline has been the 84-percent reduction of its historical range of grasslands and prairies. "The prairie chicken's decline tells us native grasslands in the Great Plains are in trouble," Ashe said. "And by helping the lesser prairie chicken, we'll also be working to restore the health of our native grasslands — which support many hundreds of other species but also support the local economies in the communities of that region of the country." The plan would collect money from enrollments and impact fees to pay landowners who implement conservation practices. Its ultimate goal is a population of 67,000 birds as an annual spring average over a 10-year time frame. Wildlife officials believe this is a reachable goal, as the lesser prairie chicken population was above this level as recently as 2006, he said. The number had dipped to less than 45,000 by last December and a recent survey counted a mere 18,000 lesser prairie chickens across the bird's range……..

- Upscale department stores, be forewarned. Al Sharpton is coming for your ass and the over-the-top rhetoric is already flying. Sharpton has loudly announced that his National Action Network plans to picket Barneys if the store does. Additionally, the self-promoting Sharpton is seeking a meeting with the CEO of Barneys in the wake of racial profiling claims by two shoppers at its Manhattan location. All of this comes after two black shoppers accused Barneys last week of detaining them after they made expensive purchases at the store. Trayon Christian, 19, of Queens, appears to be the angrier of the two, as he has filed a lawsuit over an incident in which he said he was wrongfully detained after making an expensive purchase simply because he is a young black man. According to his lawsuit, Christian went to Barneys on April 29 and purchased a $350 Ferragamo belt. Upon exiting the store, he was allegedly accosted by undercover NYPD officers, who said someone at the store had raised concerns over the sale. In his lawsuit, he argued that he showed the receipt from the purchase, the debit card he used to make it and identification to the officers, but officers insisted his identification was false and "that he could not afford to make such an expensive purchase." As Christian tells it, he was held at a precinct in a cell for more than two hours before being released with no charges filed against him. He is therefore claiming "discrimination based on plaintiff's race and age as he was a young black American male." Barneys has boldly denied that it was involved in any detention, saying "that after carefully reviewing the incident of last April, it is clear that no employee of Barneys New York was involved in the pursuit of any action with the individual other than the sale." It has since added an official statement courageously condemning any type of discrimination. "Barneys New York has zero tolerance for any form of discrimination and we stand by our long history in support of all human rights," the statement said. Amazingly, once news of Christian’s lawsuit broke, Kayla Phillips, 21, of Brooklyn stepped forward and claimed she had a similar experience after purchasing a $2,500 Celine handbag at the store in February. Don’t be surprised if these stories keep rolling in………

- News flash: People still love Johnny Knoxville dressing up and pulling absurd stunts on unsuspecting victims. That’s the only explanation for “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” ending up at the top of the weekend earnings list with $32 million in its debut. That was enough to bump “Gravity” down a notch as the three-time box office champion fell to second with $20.3 million and has made $199.8 million domestically through four weeks. “Captain Phillips” also declined one spot to rank third, banking $11.8 million for a three-week haul of $70.1 million. The second newcomer in the top five was the flop-tastic “The Counselor,” which could not ride the star power of Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz any higher than fourth place with its weak $8 million intake. “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” remained in fifth place, adding $6.1 million to its overall total to raise the number over the $100 million mark domestically at $100.6 million and counting. The subpar performance continued for “Carrie,” which earned $5.9 million for the weekend and has totaled $26 million through two mediocre weeks. Geezer prison drama “Escape Plan” finished seventh in its second weekend, rolling up $4.4 million to elevate its extremely modest overall earnings total to $17.4 million. The much-acclaimed, Oscar-contending “12 Years a Slave” somehow managed to claim the eighth spot despite showing in a mere 123 theaters. With $2.2 million, the period drama has now made $3.4 million in two weeks of very limited release. “Enough Said” only said enough to earn $1.6 million, good for ninth place and also enough to raise the project’s total to $13 million in six weeks. The final spot in the top 10 went to “Prisoners,” the owner of $1.1 million in weekend earnings and $59.1 million overall since its release six weeks ago. “Insidious Chapter 2” (No. 11), “The Fifth Estate” (No. 15) and “Runner Runner” all dropped out of last weekend’s top 10……..

Tasmanian devils, pimping moms and soccer Nazis

- Reality TV attention whore/actress Julianne Hough is extremely ignorant, extremely stupid, an outright liar – or perhaps all three. Hough is the latest public figure to fall victim to the ol’ “dress up for Halloween as your favorite character who happens to be black and paint your face to look like them in an incredibly offensive display of outdated racism” trick. Hough (allegedly) thought she was doing nothing more than repping her favorite character in the Netflix prison series “Orange Is the New Black” for a Halloween party when she donned an outfit comprised of an orange jumpsuit and blackface makeup. Her story is that her costume was styled after actress Uzo Aduba's inmate Crazy Eyes on the show and in her defense, she did rock a very fitting nametag with Crazy Eyes’ moniker scrawled on it. However, Hough’s outfit quickly made its way online and spread across social media platforms, where people weren't exactly feeling her attempted tribute to a fictional television inmate. That led Hough’s publicist, er, Hough herself to issue a carefully crafted apology for the incident. "I am a huge fan of the show Orange is the New black, actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created. It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize," Hough said. As for “Orange is the New Black,” Netflix renewed the Jenji Kohan-created series for a 13-episode second season back in June and Hough will next be seen (theoretically sans blackface) alongside Russell Brand in Diablo Cody's latest film, “Paradise,” which opened in limited release on Oct. 19……..

- LinkedIn remains the most boring social networking site around, but perhaps this will add some intrigue. After debuting its new Intro functionality, launched by CEO Jeff Weiner earlier this week, LinkedIn is clearly hoping to make its business networking services more mobile-friendly. That’s actually not the interesting part, not if worries that the changes will make LinkedIn more attractive to hackers prove accurate. Multiple online security firms expressed immediate concerns that LinkedIn is essentially putting up a neon sign asking hackers to take their best shot. James Lyne, Global Head of Security Research for anti-malware company Sophos, wrote in a blog posting that LinkedIn has "put up a big sign advertising to cyber criminals, nation states and others 'Hack here, we've got loads of juicy data.’” Intro links into Apple's iOS native e-mail application and works by reconfiguring a user’s email to proxy through LinkedIn servers. Yes, that means funneling important emails through specific servers that hackers will be well aware of and inspired to target. By redirecting those emails, LinkedIn will be able to insert a banner that appears to be integrated with the application natively. That makes LinkedIn a middleman for users’ email services and this opens up all manner of tantalizing possibilities for seedy souls around the Internet. Julie Inouye, LinkedIn's corporate communications director, insisted the company has taken extensive security and privacy precautions. "We take the privacy and security of our members' data very seriously and have taken a thoughtful approach to ensure we've put the right security precautions in place for the LinkedIn Intro product," Inouye said. She went on to lay out the security features, including isolating the Intro environment as a separate high security segment from the rest of LinkedIn systems and retaining an outside vendor to review the code dealing with transmission of credentials and handling email content……..

- Nice try, Manchester United. The world’s most famous soccer club is also the world’s biggest bunch of closeted racists – or so it would appear after a Swastika-style logo appeared on a weekly email sent to fans. Club officials have launched an internal investigation and vowed to find out who is responsible for an email headed by a logo in the shape of the infamous Nazi emblem formed by the words “New Order.” The logo appeared atop an email with the same title. Given that both the words and the image have direct and lasting Nazi connotations based on a reference to Adolf Hitler's speech calling for a European New Order, a professional sports franchise or any other organization with both a pulse and a collective IQ above 14 would never use them on any internal or external materials. The club’s head of media, David Sternberg, apologized for the “mistake” after fan backlash on social media and promised that the truth would be found out. In other words, some entry-level flack in the marketing department or an intern will take the fall and be fired, with that firing tagged with a lame-o apology stating that there was no ill intent at all and that the organization is wholeheartedly sorry if its “mistake” offended anyone. Heck, that apology may even come complete with the suggestion that the reference to New Order was actually intended to play off the famous Manchester band of the same name and not an allusion to the atrocities and heinous inhumane acts of the Nazi regime. The irony is that racism and bigotry – usually among fans – is rampant in soccer around the world and the odds of this month ending without another incident involving hatred, bigotry and/or racism in the sport are much lower than the odds that Manchester United will actually come clean about what happened in this particular incident……..

- Some people are simply not meant to be parents. Colombian mother Margarita de Jesus Zapata Moreno probably should have taken a pass on procreating in light of allegations by local police that she was pimping out her own daughters for about $200 a piece to make ends meet. Granted, she has 13 daughters and therefore might feel like she can spare one or two every now and then to be forced to have sex with total strangers so their mother could make some extra cash, but that just seems a bit shady. Moreno was arrested this week along with a 51-year-old contractor accused of impregnating one of the young girls. Police in Bogota learned of the alleged sex trafficking after the 14-year-old girl refused to get an abortion and reported the pair to authorities. "Being a minor, she was brave to come forward and to reject and avoid an abortion," said Bogota police Col. Carlos Menendez. "That's where the investigation started." When they investigated, detectives found that Moreno began prostituting her daughters when reached the ripe old age of 12, offering men who had a “favorable financial situation” about $200 per minor. One silver lining from the case is that police uncovered the prostitution ring before the youngest daughter -- at 9 years old – could be forced into the same sickening lifestyle as her older sisters. One decidedly non-silver lining is the fact that Moreno allegedly plied the girls with drugs and alcohol to get them to comply and the combination of booze, pot, coke and forced sex with strangers for their mother’s profit has left many of the girls as drug addicts who live on the streets as prostitutes. While Moreno and the contractor, Tito Cornelio Daza, both deny the accusations, they have been charged with carnal abuse of a minor and enforcement of prostitution and face up to 25 years in prison. Police are searching for men who may have been with the girls in the hopes of arresting them as well………

- Hide the valuables and get ready for the indecipherable screaming and mumbling, visitors to the San Diego Zoo. Wait….that’s not how real-life Tasmanian devils behave? It’s just a silly Warner Bros. cartoon depiction of these elusive creatures? Well, scratch the part about the screaming and mumbling, but visitors to the zoo can still see four Tasmanian devils brought in from Australia. The animals made their public debut at the zoo late last week, giving fans a chance to catch their first glimpse of Bradley, Bixby, De-Vos, and Usmar. The quartet arrived at the zoo last month, but they were placed into a mandatory 30-day quarantine and were finally allowed to move to their new home Thursday. The San Diego Zoo is the only one in the U.S. to have the endangered species and will house the animals in its Australian Outback exhibit. Usmar is the lone female in the group, meaning the other three will have to compete for the alpha male/devil title. The devils are nocturnal hunters known for their keen senses of smell and hearing and their distinctive snarl and high-pitched scream. All four came from the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Australia. Tasmanian devils are native to the island state of Tasmania, but they face extinction in the wild due to devil facial tumor disease, a rare, contagious cancer found only in devils. Known as DFTD, it is transmitted from one animal to another through biting, a common behavior among devils when mating and feeding. When it strikes, the disease kills all infected devils within 6-12 months because there is no known cure or vaccine. All four of the Tasmanian devils at the San Diego Zoo are free of the disease and their presence makes the zoo part of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program, a government initiative established 10 years ago to fight the condition……..

Bringing light to Norway, Portland goes rogue and why men walk fast

- Norway is a place where winter is life. Even in summer, temperatures don’t venture too far north of 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so snow, ice and skis are staples of the culture. In Rjukan, Norway, this wintry way of living goes a step further. Rjukan is located in the bottom of a valley between steep mountains in Telemark County, about 90 miles west of Oslo. The town is renowned for its extreme darkness in winter and that much darkness can be depressing even for alcohol-loving Norwegians. After suffering through years and years of this darkness, artist and resident Martin Andersen decided to do something about it. He picked up on an idea that was first conceived in 1913 to use mirrors to reflect sunshine during the winter. Although the concept was first thought up a century ago, the ability to execute it lagged behind – until now. When it launches on Oct. 31, the system will use computer-driven mirrors to “follow the sun's movement over the horizon and reflect its rays into Rjukan's market square." The computer-driven heliostats have been placed at the top of a mountain wall some 1,300 feet above the town. Dubbed the Solspeil, or sun mirror, it is being hailed by town officials as a project that will strengthen the identity and attraction of the town that is the gateway to the Hardangervidda. The Solspeil itself is 2,200 feet above sea level. The founder of the town, Sam Eyde, first pitched the idea of a “Solspeil,” or sun mirror, above Rjukan. Eyde recognized the importance of the sun to resident during the winter and realized the need to give his workers the opportunities for sunlight in the winter. He was never able to bring the idea to fruition and rather than pick it up, his successors built a gondola in 1928 to transport Rjukan’s inhabitants to the winter sunshine. The gondola, called Krossobanen, remains a functional connection between the town and the mountains. Behold the power of mirrors……..

- What the eff, Portland? Isn't the Pacific Northwest supposed to be a friendly, warm place full of flannel-wearing, free-spirited do-gooders who don’t jaywalk, help their neighbors and care about the people around them? Then why are Brooklyn rockers San Fermin now trying to figure out how to keep going on their tour after some creep stole $20,000 worth of their equipment? The band posted the news to their website earlier this week, explaining that their entire trailer was stolen. Inside was a collection of equipment including guitars, drums, saxophones and microphones. Having all of its gear ripped could pose a problem for a band that, you know, plays music with that gear, but San Fermin have vowed to continue their tour. Their plan involves calling on fans to help them replace the equipment by donating to their Paypal account. "Everything was going so well on the road. It was definitely speed bumps and the mood was subdued for a while, but now we are raising funds to purchase new instruments and we are hopeful for the future,” member Ellis Ludwig-Leone said. “We discovered the trailer missing when we woke up in Portland on Saturday, but we cobbled together instruments and equipment in Seattle and played the show. We didn't want anything to stop us. It's been a challenge but we are hopeful." The trailer heist took place in the Red Lion Hotel parking lot and after waking (presumably after noon, rock star style) to find their gear gone, the band begged and borrowed for equipment to play their next gig in Seattle and are asking people in the Portland area to keep an eye out for the equipment and the white and orange U-Haul with a license plate GDX 050……….

- Science is back to its usual tricks, namely researching weird and largely unhelpful topics that won't do much good for anyone. Today’s revelation is that men walking by themselves generally walk faster than women, but those men slowed their pace significantly to match their female partners' speeds when walking with their wives or girlfriends. All of those in the study were heterosexual couples and their friends and when lead researcher Cara Wall-Scheffler, a biologist at Seattle Pacific University, monitored their pace she found that while the men slowed down, the woman barely sped up at all. "It's really men who do all the compromising," Scheffler said. She and her colleagues invited 11 couples, along with some male and female friends of the pairs, to walk several times around a track solo and in various pairings. They found 36 people willing to participate and when the men walked alone, the guys traveled at 1.53 meters per second and women at 1.44 meters per second. Those numbers made sense because men are generally taller and have longer legs, but when the participants walked with their significant other, the men slowed down regardless of whether or not they held hands with or were in direct contact with their special lady. Scheffler’s theory about this change is that men in roving hunter-gatherer groups not wanting to push women to walk too fast, lest the females over-exert themselves and harm their fertility. It’s a caveman-influenced theory that sounds like total bullsh*t, which is probably why she also tagged it with a psychological component based on the idea that men will slow down to "get that shoulder bumping, hip-bumping intimacy" with women they love. This seems to make sense because when men were paired with female friends in the study, they did not slow down and when they walked with other guys, they actually sped up. Score one for the inherent competitive spirit amongst dudes……..

- One of the most worthless court cases in forever will go on – for now. The city of Detroit is seeking to prove that its perilous finances qualify for a turnaround in bankruptcy court. The city’s attorneys promised to l present a “mountain of evidence” to show the validity of their case before Judge Steven Rhodes. Rhodes has set aside several days to hear evidence and decide whether the city met many key steps, including good-faith negotiations with creditors, before taking drastic action three months ago. If approved, it would be the largest public filing in U.S. history. One could argue that Rhodes need only walk through downtown Detroit for five minutes to see the hellscape of abandoned buildings, foreclosed homes, drug dealers, stray dogs and pothole-riddled streets that the city has become in order to realize it is indeed bankrupt. Amazingly, there is no guarantee that the filing will be approved. “There’s nothing left to do here. There is no revenue solution. … Chapter 9 is more needed here than another other possible scenario you could think of,” attorney Bruce Bennett said in his opening remarks, adding that no one can credibly argue that Detroit is solvent. Witnesses “will present a mountain of evidence showing the insolvency of the city,” Bennett said. “This is one of those cases where the data speaks very clearly and persuasively on its own. It needs no gloss.” It may not need gloss, but Detroit could definitely use a dozen or more layers of gloss right about now. The outcome of the case will have a heavy influence on how the city ultimately solves its debt problems and gets back to business. Unions and pension funds are the ones challenging Detroit on the eligibility question in spite of the city not paying its debts and being heavily blighted. The crux of the opposition’s case is that emergency manager Kevyn Orr, appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, was not genuinely interested in negotiating when they met with his team in June and July. In short, they believe Orr had made up his mind well before that meeting. The trial s is expected to last several days, with testimony from Orr, Police Chief James Craig and financial consultants. Even Snyder will get a chance to take the stand Monday and all in all, it should be a feel-good few days full of tales of financial mismanagement, a collapsing economy and a city on an unstoppable decline……….

- Not that Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook asked for it, but Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose has some advice for him as he makes his way back from knee surgery: Take your time. Rose, who missed close to a year and a half after ACL surgery, is advocating that Westbrook follow his example as he recovers from a torn meniscus. "Take his time," Rose said after Wednesday night's win over the Thunder in an exhibition game. "He's the only one that knows his body. There's no need to force anything. And attack every day of rehab like it's your last day. Get everything you [can] get out of it every day." On one level, Rose is correct. He didn’t feel he was ready to play last year and decided to sit out, which turned out to be the right move because he has looked great so far this preseason. However, Westbrook would be wise not to conduct his rehab process the way Rose did in terms of off-the-court activity. From the hype videos Rose and his agent/brother Reggie put out teasing a return that wasn’t coming to the vague answers Rose gave when asked about his return and the constant pre-game warmups in uniform that created even more drama around his refusal to play, D-Rose could not have handled the rest of the situation worse. Even when he was cleared by team doctors, he refused to play. Rose is confident that like himself, Westbrook can come back and be as dominant as ever. "For sure," Rose said. "He has that type of will. His frame, his body, I think [the rehab] is just going to help him become a better player." He admitted that he hadn't been able to talk with Westbrook in person, but is confident in his comeback nonetheless. For his part, Westbrook began participating in some drills with the Thunder earlier this week and is on the road to a return this season………

Dating service scams, a galaxy far far away and a heavyweight champion for president

- Anyone who has paid even remote attention to the boxing career of heavyweight titleholder Vitali Klitschko knew that what the well-spoken Ukrainian did Thursday was inevitable. Klitschko, a three-time world titleholder and older brother of fellow heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, has always been extremely thoughtful and eloquent, and he has also been heavily involved in politics for a while now. He has served on the Kiev city council and won a seat in the 450-person parliament in the elections last fall. With his star power and charisma, it was only a matter of time before he aimed higher politically. "I have decided to run for president of Ukraine [in] 2015," Klitschko said during a speech in front of the Ukrainian parliament. He is the leader of the UDAR political party in Ukraine and running for the nation’s highest office could well mean the end of his boxing career. Klitschko has hinted at retirement in favor of politics for the past few years and he has not fought since making a ninth successful defense of his world title in September 2012, when he stopped Manuel Charr in the fourth round on a cut in their fight held in Moscow. A scheduled mandatory title defense against Bermane Stiverne this fall was called off after Klitschko said he suffered a right hand injury in August. Stiverne demanded that Klitschko be stripped of the title, but the WBC elected to hold off on a decision until 2014. Politics became a much bigger part of Klitschko’s life when he and his family left Los Angeles, where they had been living, and returned to Ukraine. A failed run for mayor inspired him to found the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms (UDAR), a political party he said was determined to clean up government corruption and give ordinary people fair treatment. "We want to build democracy in Ukraine," Klitschko said last year. "In Ukraine, you can buy everyone. You can buy every position, every judge, you buy every court decision. The biggest enemy to democracy is that there are no clear rules and so much corruption.” Oddly enough, both boxing’s heavyweight division and his native country are troubled and in need of his services, but Klitschko seems to have made his decision……

- Tens of thousands of people use online dating services and if their omnipresent, overly sappy and power-pop-scored TV ads are to be believe, such services are an amazing gift to modern daters. That logic doesn’t seem to fit with the picture being painted by Vernon, Ct. resident Alison Champagne, a woman who is trying to find love while also attending graduate school and working. She sought help with her love life from a matchmaking service for working professionals called It's Just Lunch and that help turned into a continuation of her string of rejections and letdowns. Now, Champagne is seeking sweet revenge in the form of a refund and some freaking answers. "Everyone said it was worth a shot," Champagne said. Her shot came on the promise of It’s Just Lunch taking care of everything from finding a potential suitor to arranging a lunch date to making the reservation. She signed up for a plan that cost $2,600 for one year of matchmaking, 10 dates, whichever came first. Champagne’s first date was set for Labor Day, but her scheduled date stood her up. The dating service told her that the man called the previous weekend to cancel, but because it was a holiday weekend, no one was working and therefore, no one processed it. It’s Just Lunch also claimed Champagne’s date called the restaurant, but the hostess must not have told her. "Right after that I started looking up scams, and things like that," Champagne said. "And I saw a lot of shady things... a lot of people who had been stood up on their first date." Fearing she might be getting scammed, Champagne began doing research on the company but also decided to try another date with the same guy. However, the company claimed it was unaware of her desire for a second date and offered to set her up with a different date when the original one wasn’t available. Amazingly, the second date canceled just a couple hours before the date. At that point, Champagne reached out to a local TV station’s investigative team and they were told that the company had offered her another date, but not a refund. By this point, maybe she should just see if her story can engender any sympathy trying to get a date on her own……….

- They’ve played every other continent, so Metallica has decided to complete its around-the-world musical cycle by playing a gig in Antarctica. The veteran rockers have confirmed a show to take place inside a dome at the Argentine Antarctic Base Carlini on Dec. 8, with the audio transmitted to the crowd through headphones. That audience will be comprised of the winners of a competition in Latin America and those lucky winners will travel on an Antarctic cruise from Dec. 3-10, stopping at Carlini for the gig. Playing Antarctica will be a tough task, especially given the only other artist to play the frozen tundra to the south of….everything. That other and would be a group of musical scientists, called Nunatak, who performed in 2007 at British Antarctic Survey's Rothera Research Station as part of the Live Earth climate change awareness concerts. "We'll be playing inside a dome on the base and in another twist, the show will be transmitted to the audience via headphones with no amplification... a real first for us,” Metallica wrote in a post on its website. “The show will also be streamed live for our friends in those Latin American countries who cannot join us at the base and filmed to share with everyone at a later date." The concert, as would be expected, has a corporate sponsor: Coca Cola Zero, which will run the contest for folks living in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica or Mexico. Once they finish their frozen set from the bottom of the world, Metallica may turn its attention to a long-awaited set at Glastonbury, which remains the biggest festival they have yet to play. Drummer Lars Ulrich recently said the band would love to play Glastonbury, but worried the chances of it happening were slim. "Every year there's probably less chance of us doing it than the previous year, but it just looks like it would be a fun night out," Ulrich said……

- In a galaxy far, far away…..who knows what’s there? An international team of astronomers is aiming to find out after discovering the most distant galaxy yet. This riveting new find is about 30 billion light-years away and could shed light on the period that immediately followed the alleged Big Bang. The researchers found the galaxy using the Hubble Space Telescope and its distance was subsequently confirmed by the ground-based Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Due to the unfortunate length of time required to travel from the outer edge of the universe to Earth, the galaxy appears as it was 13.1 billion years ago (its distance from Earth of 30 billion light-years is because the universe is expanding). "This is the most distant galaxy we've confirmed. We are seeing this galaxy as it was 700 million years after the Big Bang,” lead researcher Steven Finkelstein said. Finkelstein, who sounds like a character from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” is a researcher at the University of Texas. He and his team of astronomers were able to measure how the galaxy – named z8_GND_5296 – is from Earth by analyzing its color. Due to the aforementioned expansion of the universe, light waves are stretched, making objects appear redder than they actually are (Note: This may or not may explain John Boehner’s absurd skin coloration). The phenomenon is know as redshift and this new galaxy has a redshift of 7.51, beating the previous record-holder, which had a redshift of 7.21. While the new galaxy is small – about 1-2 percent as massive as the Milky Way – it is rich in heavier elements and is unique in its ability to turn gas and dust into new stars at a remarkable rate, churning them out hundreds of times faster than our own galaxy can. Way to be, science, you’ve actually done something interesting………

- If you’re going to restore an historic fresco, you had damn well better do it right. Those words would have been helpful to the unfortunate person tasked with restoring the historic frescoes in Chaoyang’s Yunjie Temple. When sent to bring faded, dilapidated art back to life, this sucker instead turned them into vivid, colorful new works of art that don’t look a thing like the originals. Instead of a restoration, the artist painted new images directly onto the nearly 300-year-old original ones using bright colors and bold lines. Once a graduate student visiting the temple saw the botched restoration and posted photos online, public outrage ensued and the officials responsible for green-lighting the job were fired. Destroying cultural relics is not uncommon in China, but for some reason to practice still pisses a few people off. The man who photographed the paintings and posted them originally visited the temple in 2011 and liked the ancient frescoes so much that he took some friends back to see them during the National holidays at the beginning of October. Commenters on his post mused that their children could do better work and that the new frescoes are no longer real Chinese relics. The mangled frescoes were housed in the Yunjie Temple, which was built in 1734 and is considered a heritage site for Liaoning province. Inside the temple is a pagoda that has also been designated a national heritage site. When restoration work on the frescoes began in May, the manager of the temple insisted the effort was based on original frescos and had been conducted by a professional fresco artist. He added that he was happy with the result, possibly thinking that no one would ever see the finished product and realize what had happened – because he is a ginormous idiot. Instead, the mess came to light and the official in charge of temple affairs and the head of the city’s cultural heritage monitoring team have been fired. Li Haifeng, the Chaoyang government deputy secretary-general, has since said the restoration was not approved by the government and was carried out by a local company that was not qualified. In a world full of understatements, that may be the biggest……..

Cuban currency overhaul, dreadlocks v. The Man and NFL madmen

- How do conservationists go about saving rhinos in a country engaged in a bitter fight against increasingly sophisticated poachers? In Kenya, the latest tactic is to implant microchips in the horns of the country's rhinos. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) plans to use the chips - along with DNA records - to track the country's dwindling rhino population, which is thought to be around 1,000. In addition to protecting rhinos while they were alive, the KWS hopes the chips will provide evidence when it comes to bringing poachers to justice in court. “This is the first time have used technology or done anything like this to try to preserve the rhino population,” said Robert Magori, Kenya’s spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which donated the microchips to the KWS. “It is a unique way of tackling our increasing problem with poachers.” In a very fancy ceremony, the WWF delivered more than 1,000 microchips and five scanners, allowing the KWS to deploy tracking systems to monitor every rhino in Kenya. The relatively modest cost of the equipment was $15,000, but tranquilizing the rhinos and fitting the technology will cost considerably more. “This will serve to strengthen rhino monitoring, protect the animals on site and also support anti-trafficking mechanisms, nationally and regionally,” the KWS said in a statement. How will the system function? By placing one microchip in the rhino’s horn and one in its body and tracking the chips if the part of the body they are attached to is removed. The trackers will function around the world, which sounds good, except for the part where poachers now know about the trackers and will be looking for ways to remove them. Poaching has skyrocketed in Kenya in recent years and horns can sell for $65,000 per kilogram -- more expensive than gold. Demands for horns has surged because of a ridiculous fable that a Vietnamese politician cured his cancer by eating rhino horn, which has replaced the role of key ingredient in Chinese fever medicine as the lamest reason to kill a rhino solely for its horn……….

- Great news, fans of good music! Noted pop hack Lana Del Rey has revealed major struggles in writing the sure-to-suck follow-up to her terrible 2012 debut album “Born to Die.” Because of those struggles, Del Rey said recently that she may not be able to cobble together enough musical crap for a second release. "When people ask me about it, I just have to be honest - I really don't know... I don't want to say, 'Yeah, definitely - the next one's better than this one,' because I don't really hear a next one,” Del Rey said before channeling into full diva/temperamental artist mode. “My muse is very fickle. She only comes to me sometimes, which is annoying." Further confusing fans, Del Rey recently referred to her forthcoming short film “Tropico” as her “farewell project.” She announced the project this summer with a tweet that read: "TROPICO - a 30 minute film coming to a city near you." A short time later, Del Rey unveiled a poster for the film crediting director Anthony Mandler, who worked with her last her for the music video for her song “Ride.” The poster also credited four well-known music producers, including industry icon Rick Rubin. In August, Del Rey posted a new poster for “Tropico” and tweeted: "I can't wait to see you at our premiers for Tropico at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and in NYC. Looking forward to seeing you for the farewell project. I adore you and thank you for inspiring me. TROPICO.” The latter tweet drew a slew of worried responses from fans who clearly forgot that they could find dozens of other equally untalented, disposable pop hacks to crank out the same drivel as Del Rey should she choose to walk away from music. Perhaps sensing an opportunity for some drama and publicity without having to show any actual talent, Del Rey has tried to heighten the tension by going into Twitter silence ever since. "It's Elvis and Jesus and Marilyn and extraterrestrials all in one,” she said during a subsequent interview about the film. Beyond that, Del Rey has suggested that a series of song leaks over the summer exposed songs she said were intended for the album could put a possible second release in danger……..

- The words “death wish” come to mind in multiple senses when Washington Redskins safety Brandon Meriweather is discussed. Meriweather, who appealed his two-game suspension for illegal hits against the Chicago Bears on Sunday and got the penalty reduced to one game, is clearly the most out-of-control player in the NFL right now and that’s a big problem for him, his team and especially his opponents. He will still miss Sunday's game against the Denver Broncos, but the halving of the suspension will also halve the $141,176 Meriweather would have lost had he missed both games. The suspension and lost salary aside, the real problem is the seemingly homicidal tendencies Meriweather shows weekly on the field. He was flagged twice for personal fouls in the Redskins' 45-41 win over the Bears, once for a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit on receiver Alshon Jeffery at the end of a 28-yard catch late in the third quarter and once for a deliberate and dangerous blow to receiver Brandon Marshall after he dropped a pass in the end zone. After the game, Marshall did what virtually no NFLer will do: He argued that the league should consider kicking out Meriweather because of the way he plays. Players generally aren’t looking to rip food off of other players’ tables, so suggesting a player should be banned from the league is a significant thing to say. Bears tight end Martellus Bennett, normally a jovial soul who makes up raps about Cap’N Crunch, was even angrier. "I still want to punch him in the face," Bennett said. "We don't get any of his money." Marshall actually reached out to Meriweather to discuss the situation, but the two still didn’t see eye-to-eye after their chat. Meriweather’s history with fines for dangerous hits is lengthy and because of that, Marshall’s theory doesn’t sound absurd. Meriweather was fined $42,000 for two hits in a Week 2 loss at Green Bay, $50,000 for a hit in 2010 with New England and accrued $45,000 in fines a year later with Chicago. Asked about the big hits in Sunday’s game, he said bluntly that there was “nothing” he could change about the way he plays. Hey B, don’t confuse can change with not willing to change……..

- Many people are deeply tied to their personal appearance. Ashley Davis is one such person and she has lovingly cultivated her dreadlocks for more than 10 years. The hairstyle is so ingrained in her family that everyone in it has the same dreadlocked appearance and Davis views the ‘do as part of her culture and identity. Her employer feels otherwise and that’s why a manager at Tower Loan in St. Peters, Mo. recently informed her that her hairstyle was no longer acceptable. Davis was told to cut it and she refused, citing the fact that she has worn her hair the same way ever since she was hired. She even admits to having bad dreams about her dreads being cut off. “My worst nightmare is I wake up and all of my hair is gone. As far as cutting it goes, no way it’s like cutting me open I can’t do it. My supervisor saw me two weeks after she hired me and said I was doing a great job,” Davis said. According to Davis, the company’s lame-ass new policy bans virtually every cool hairstyle: dreadlocks, braids, mohawks, mullets and other “non-traditional” ‘dos. It was conveniently implemented on Sept. 21 just weeks after Davis started her job as a secretary. Since she is the only person in the office with dreadlocks, she feels as if she’s being singled out. “I’ve only been there for two months, and they came up with a policy. I feel like it’s degrading,” she said. Tower Loan is hiding behind a lame-o official statement saying it “does not comment on individual personnel matters,” but has a clearly stated appearance policy that “is necessary for the success of the company.” Davis continues to fight the establishment and hopes the battle can be resolved amicably………

- Hooray for plans to phase out Cuba’s confounding dual currency system as part of reforms aimed at fixing the island’s economy…right? Based on the reaction from ordinary Cubans, not so much. The official Granma newspaper printed a government advisory announcing the beginning of the end of the twin system of domestic pesos (CUP) and "convertible” tourist pesos (CUC) - which are 25 times more valuable and are tied to the U.S. dollar. Cubans expressed skepticism over the announcement, but most have shown enthusiasm for the plan if it actually proves to be true. The dual currency system has existed since 1994, when the collapse of the Soviet Union ended lucrative trade deals and compelled Cuba to reluctantly open its economy to tourism while trying to preserve its centrally-planned ethos. Under this shady system, workers are paid in the less valuable domestic pesos, which means that even professionals such as doctors and teachers must often moonlight as cab drivers or private tutors to supplement their state salaries. The more valuable tourist pesos are used for foreign trade, including imported electrical goods and upscale restaurants. The one characteristic both currencies have in common is that neither is legal tender outside Cuba. Because many imported goods can only be bought in CUCs, a large wealth gap and resulting social divide exist between ordinary Cubans and those with access to the much more valuable currency. Presidente/dictator Raul Castro has denounced the current system as a major hindrance to the country's development since he took over from his brother in 2008. Making the change caries the risk of high inflation, but it will also bring Cuba closer to the rest of the hemisphere in terms of being able to operate as a market basis. According to the government, it will give notice of any devaluation of the CUC, providing a short amount of time for folks to convert their stockpiles. The first step is to retool the country's computerized accounting system and records-keeping even though 4 million state workers on the island – total population just over 11 million - will continue to be paid in Cuban domestic pesos. The government has already begun pricing more goods and services in pesos and collecting taxes in pesos, so the change of course is already underway………