Barista strippers, delusional Redskins and Riot Watch! Pakistan

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Pakistan has been on edge for some time now, but the sh*t got real-er over the weekend as protestors challenged police with an attempted bum-rushing of the prime minister's official residence and the adjacent parliament building in Islamabad on Saturday. The uprising was massive in number and plentiful in rage as nearly 125 people were injured in the clashes between police and demonstrators demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, with police charging at the crowd with batons drawn, tear gas canisters a-firin’ and rubber bullets flying.  Thousands of protestors took part in the demonstration, which resulted in clouds of white smoke and mass chaos. Give the ladies credit for leading the way on this one, as they comprised a huge chunk of the crowd carrying hammers and iron rods, breaking down a fence outside the parliament building and clearing the way for hundreds of people to enter the lawns and parking area. Islamabad police chief Khalid Khattak described the protestors as armed with large hammers, wire cutters and axes and made the outlandish accusation that they also had a crane at their disposal. According to the chief, police were eventually able to clear most of the protesters from the parliament building's parking area and lawns. "Now only women and children are there, and they can take shelter there as long as they want,” he said. Following the riot, nearly 125 people -- including women, children and police officers -- were admitted to two government hospitals in the Pakistani capital. Their wounds came courtesy of tear gas shells, batons and rubber bullets, according to medical personnel on the scene. Credit protest leaders Imran Khan and anti-government cleric Tahirul Qadri, for starting the tidal wave of trouble that led to this riveting display, which is hopefully a harbinger of rage to come………

- Anyone who feels like maybe they’re getting too large a dose of Taylor Swift and her sugary sweet image in their life may want to avoid NBC and its ever-expanding menu of reality karaoke programming this fall. Swift, whose country-pop opuses are both radio-friendly and largely devoid of anything other than autobiographical ramblings on the drama and details of her famous person life, will reportedly be an adviser on the upcoming seventh season of “The Voice.” If the rumors are true, Swift will play the same role Chris Martin held last year, advising contestants on all teams. She has reportedly already filmed her segments for the show and not surprisingly, sources close to the series said she had a positive, encouraging rapport with the would-be karaoke-ers she advised. Her addition is part of an overt strategy to distract viewers from the overall pathetic-ness of the wannabe karaoke-ers on the show by surrounding them with boatloads of famous peole with varying levels of actual musical talent. Swift clearly has some skills, as does Alicia Keys and previously announced advisor Stevie Wonder. However, noted hacks like Adam Levine and Gwen Stefani fall on the wrong side of not totally sucking musically and Pharrell Williams is unquestionably stylish and cool, but not exactly reinventing the wheel with innovate sounds musically. The new season will also feature appearances from Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale, who is there because he’s married to Stefani and married guys get dragged into lots of sh*t they otherwise wouldn’t touch. Added star power and all, the new season of “The Voice” premieres Sept. 22 at 8 p.m……….

- The phrase “ringleader of a Washington state prostitution scheme peddling coffee and half-naked women” isn't used often enough. Carmela Panico is doing her part to change that and the world should be thanking her for it. According to police in Everett, Wash., Panico brewed up big bucks through various convoluted scams and laundered more than $2 million and promoted prostitution at her coffee stands. The money passed through fine, upstanding establishments that both served caffeinated beverages and featured stripper poles to put a new twist on an old favorite. Patrons of fine establishments such as Java Juggs Espresso in Everett served up more than just overpriced cappuccinos and surveillance footage captured in 2011 show baristas pole dancing and Panico letting customers stuff cash into her breasts at Java Juggs. With a name like Java Juggs, it’s difficult to imagine anything unsavory going on, but perhaps not from Panico, who used to work with Talents West, an entertainment business that had ties to the Colacurcio crime family who owned strip clubs in Seattle. Talents West was he target of racketeering raids in 2008 and Pancino merely took their sleazeball act and added to it by hiring baristas with stripper or escort experience and fined the women if they didn’t wear high heels, maintain a tan or wear makeup. Mix in some quality money laundering and clearly, this is a criminal enterprise with both class and plenty of ass. Even if their mocha latte was bland or their chai tea too sweet, it’s a shame that Java Juggs won't be around to meet the coffee needs to the Evergreen State in the years ahead……….

- Washington Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall and free safety Ryan Clark may be supportive teammates, but they’re also idiots if they actually believe the words they’re saying/tweeting. Both players felt the need to lash out in support of teammate Brandon Meriweather, whose appeal of a two-game suspension for illegal hits was denied by the NFL. Meriweather is a serial offender in terms of illegal hits and has basically said that he has no intention of cleaning up his act and ceasing with his incessant desire to scramble the brains of opposing receivers rather than simply make a good tackle and bring them to the ground. His most recent offense was an über-violent hit on Baltimore Ravens receiver Torrey Smith in a preseason game and the league hit him with a fine and a two-game suspension for the blow. Knowing that his kill shot was illegal, Meriweather still appealed and that appeal was a failure. He will miss the first two games of the regular season, marking the sixth time he has been penalized by the NFL for a hit. Hall took to Twitter to have his guy’s back, calling the appeal process "a joke” and adding, “Preseason sucks. They want to act like that. I'll be damn if I play another preseason game. For what? Get suspended for a meaningless game. How do you convince a person that says you wrong from the get go. The appeal process Is a joke. Guilty until I feel like you're innocent...” Clark chimed in too, sarcastically noting that, “Game for $1,000 dollars that won't count on you record can cost you two regular season games & pay! Yep, makes total sense!!” It does make sense, R., if you understand that a hit like that concusses a player or possibly ends his career just as much as the same hit during a regular-season game does. Tell your pal to stop trying to decapitate receivers and he won't have any issues with fines or suspensions……….

MLBers fighting scouts, get drunk easier and Jake Bugg lowers the bar

- Seattle Mariners catcher Jesus Montero doesn’t sound like a guy who is on track for a return to a playoff-bound club to help is make a World Series push. Montero, currently rehabbing an oblique injury with the team's Class A Everett AquaSox affiliate, sound a lot more like a drunken idiot in a bar 10 minutes before closing time after being told he needs to get up out of here than he does a focused, dedicated professional athlete getting his body right for a return to the majors. A mid-game altercation with a scout from your own team tends to have that effect. That’s what went down this week when Montero was coaching first base and a scout yelled at him to hustle off the field at the conclusion of the inning. The scout wasn’t nearly done and not close to content with his actions, so he then ordered an ice cream sandwich and had it sent to Montero in the dugout. It was quite the eff-you gesture and one aimed directly at the physical fitness of a player who made news for reporting to spring training 40 pounds overweight this season. It didn’t take Montero long to put two and two together and he soon approached the stands with a baseball bat, screaming profanities and hurling the ice cream sandwich at the scout. Sadly, the team’s pitching coach was there to restrain him before the situation could escalate and Montero and the scout were separated. Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik didn’t want to address the situation when asked about it because he said the team was still “gathering information,” but it’s tough to imagine the Mariners going to battle for a pudgy backup catcher who had only 17 at-bats with Seattle this season and has been in the minors since late May…………

- Getting drunk typically takes far too much work. A person has to get from their home to a place that sells alcohol in some form, provide identification, pay for said alcohol and find an acceptable place to consume it in their vessel of choice. It’s a laborious process and one that a new service in the Nutmeg State wants to streamline with the idea of getting the most pretentious of alcohol consumers their hooch in the shortest possible amount of time. Ultra, not to be confused with the transportation service Über, partners with stores in Connecticut to deliver wine from their shelves to the front doors of customers within the hour. The service utilizes both phone and Internet ordering capabilities and while the average, pretentious wine drinker likes to pick out their own bottle and debate the vintage, the bouquet and the full-bodiness of the wine in question, there isn't always time to head down to the classy liquor store in your neighborhood and search for the perfect red or white vintage to pair with your dinner for the evening. That problem is a thing of the past now that store owners and Ultra are on the job. Most stores give a specific wind of time for a delivery and Ultra links up with local package stores to make the deliveries happen. Customers enter their zip code, pick their wine and pay, then receive a confirmation email. The one caveat is that they must spend more than $20 to use the service, but given the price of most wines, that shouldn’t be a problem. To ensure that no underage folks acquire wine they aren't old enough to drink, delivery people will snap a picture of the buyer’s driver’s license and if they are unsure it is legitimate, they are under orders to abort the delivery and return to the store………

- Way to set expectations in a vague and ambiguous way that makes it possible for you to disappear, not be heard from and not look like a total flake, Jake Bugg. The British rocker whose second album, “Shangri La,” reached the top 10 on the British charts late last year, is heading back to the studio to begin work on his next project. Before he gets there, he wants everyone to know that the timeline for the album has a wide range and he’s not eager to narrow it down. "It's just demos. It's an experiment – see what happens. Just trying to make it write itself. It could take five years, it could take five months,” Bugg said, adding that he had literally just begun the process. Previously, he said he had started work on a few new tracks and had shown them to über-producers Rick Rubin, with whom he also teamed up on “Shangri La.” The album was well-received and although Bugg’s voice is not overpowering, his sound is solid and his songwriting is a strong asset that will serve him well whenever he finally gets around to completing this project and releasing it to the world. Waiting too long could allow some of the excitement around Bugg to dwindle, but he doesn’t seem too concerned about it at this point. Any artist will insist that he or she needs to go through their process and not be pressured or constrained by the demands and expectations of those around them, so Bugg isn't exactly breaking any new ground here. One surety in the recording process is that Bugg won't be hitting up a lot of concerts to find inspiration, as he said watching other artists perform is a distraction from his own act. Do what you do, Jake, and make sure that new album is quality when you finally finish it………

- This is probably why you want to do a national census more often than once every 30 years. Myanmar, currently in a state of turmoil thanks to a dictatorial regime that refuses to allow dissent from the populace it treats like unruly peasants who need a good smackdown, just finished a flawed census that saw disenfranchised minorities pushed aside and along the way, the nation formerly known as Burma found out that it has only 51 million people — far less than the previously estimated 60 million. State-run television announced the preliminary results from the country's first census in three decades and in the ultimate teaser – assuming one can tease the results of something than 99 percent of the country could not care less about - said complete results would be released next year. The census took place from March 30 to April 10 with help from the U.N. Population Fund and the initial tallies showed 51,420,000 people, far shy of the estimates of 60 million that were loosely extrapolated from the last census, conducted in 1983. The highlight of the census – at least for those who realize how boring censuses are and wish for something interesting to spice up the process – came in remote areas of the western state of Rakhine, where an estimated 800,000 members of a long-persecuted Muslim minority were denied the right to identify themselves as "Rohingya." The government rejects the term, designates the Rogingya and labels them illegal migrants from Bangladesh under the heading of "Bengalis." Additionally, isolated parts of northern Kachin state controlled by ethnic rebels were not counted, but that probably won't add up to the 8.5 million less people in the country than previously thought……….

Audubon kooks v. NFL, Scotland fights for independence and Rivers Cuomo's new TV show

- Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo has never been the spotlight-loving egomaniac that so many lead singers tend to be. He has been downright reclusive at various points during his career and yet, here he is on the verge of becoming a network TV star. Cuomo is set to star in a new comedy based around his own life and the project will air on Fox. It is based on Cuomo’s life story and the series will be written by Steve Franks, who had an über-successful run as the scribe for the former USA network series “Psych.” The as-of-yet-untitled Cuomo-based series will tell the tale of a 30-something rock star who is worried about his success and makes the difficult decision to walk away from music at the apex of his career to rediscover the parts of his life he missed out on when he was becoming famous. It will approach the story from a semi-autobiographical angle, including real events from Cuomo's own life such as him attending Harvard University on and off from 1995 to 2006. In real life, Cuomo took a sabbatical from his successful rock career eight years ago to return to Harvard full-time, living in dorms and dining in the cafeteria with his fellow Harvard smaht kids. In addition to writing, Franks will executive produce the comedy with Tagline Television's Chris Henze. It is the next project in a busy time for Cuomo, who along with his Weezer bandmates just teased the latest track from their forthcoming album “Everything Will Be Alright In The End.” The project is set for release on Oct. 7……….

- The fight for Scottish independence is heating up ahead of the Sept. 18 vote to decided whether to break away from the rest of the United Kingdom. With three weeks to go before the decision is made on staying in the union or going its own way, Scotland is as divided as ever and groups from every direction are banding together to make their final pitch for either side of the issue. That includes 200 business leaders who have offered support for the idea of Scottish independence from Britain, speaking out in response to a letter from other companies contending that there are too many uncertainties surrounding independence to approve the measure. An open letter lays out the case for independence, with the business leaders claiming that the real threat to Scotland's economy comes from the British Conservative Party's willingness to hold a referendum on taking Britain out of the European Union. It’s a bold counterpoint, but at this point, most polls and experts believe that the odds are against Scots having the kahones under their kilts that it will take to strike out on their own and be a free nation. Warring factions of business leaders arguing back and forth isn't likely to sway too many votes and with vital issues such as what currency the country would use still unresolved and Prime Minister David Cameron traveling to Scotland Thursday to campaign to keep Britain together, this fight is a long way from over……….

- Josh Gordon is having himself quite a week. First, the NFL upheld his season-long suspension for a third violation of its substance abuse policy and he had the temerity to chastise the league for not exercising better judgment and discretion in its decision on his appeal. If that wasn’t enough, word leaked later in the week that the troubled receiver was considering playing in the Canadian Football League while serving his ban. The idea of one of the best receivers in the NFL toiling on 120-yard fields in the great white north for minimal money was equally hilarious as Browns fans expecting the league to rule in Gordon’s favor, but the dream of Canadian football fun ended before Gordon could say Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. No sooner than rumors rose of Gordon’s interest in the CFL, NFL sources said that provisions in his Browns contract would prevent him from doing so. CFL officials confirmed that under their rules, Gordon would not be eligible to play because teams are prohibited from signing a suspended player of any league who is under contract with his league. Unless the Browns do an about-face and release their most talented player, that won't change. Instead, arbitrator Harold Henderson decision to uphold Gordon's 2014 season suspension for a failed test for marijuana will prevent Gordon from balling anywhere other than a grassy lot at the local elementary school and he will have to focus on staying in shape, staying out of trouble and dealing with the myriad mountains of sh*t threatening to turn him into the latest über-talented NFLer who weeded, stupid-ed and bumbled his way out of the league despite mountains of raw physical ability………..

- Congrats, kooks of Minnesota’s Audubon Society. You’re slowly but steadily backing down an NFL franchise worth hundreds of millions of dollars after it muscled the people of your fine state for the tax dollars to build itself a shiny new football palace. The Audubon fools already convinced the Minnesota Vikings to turn off stadium lights at night during migration season for birds getting the hell out of their frozen tundra of a state, but that wasn’t enough for these avian-loving losers. No, their next demand is for specially glazed bird-safe glass installed in the stadium to protect the lives of thousands of birds. According to the Audubon Society, thousands of people are concerned about birds hitting the large glass windows that will be in the new Vikings Stadium. To make its case, the organization delivered a petition containing 70,000 signatures – no word on how many are legit - to Gov. Mark Dayton’s office. “Gov. Dayton has called it the people’s stadium,” a spokesman for the organization said. “These are the signatures of the people and now we want the people’s government to make the stadium safe for the people’s birds.” The people’s birds? Hey ass hats…..they’re not YOUR birds. They don’t belong to you, you didn’t raise them, they don’t live in your home and they don’t know who the hell you are. They’re just birds and while they shouldn’t be abused or tortured, they also can't hold the world hostage with ridiculous demands to protect their tiny-brained selves from the harsh realities of a modern world. Yes, the Audubon Society says adding bird-safe glass to the $1 billion stadium will add about $1 million in extra costs and that seems like a small amount, but this isn't about money. It’s about the cost of capitulating to the whims of people whose idea of a fun weekend is crouching in some soggy marsh land with their high-powered binocular in the hopes of spotting some rare winged creature……….

Tim Lincecum falls down, Yemen rises up and Marty Scorsese goes small screen

- Who knew Marty Scorsese had small-screen ambitions? The famed director with plenty of movie credits to his credit is stooping down to the world of television to direct the pilot episode of a spin-off of his 2010 mystery thriller “Shutter Island.” He will team up with HBO and Paramount to bring the Dennis Lehane-scripted story to the small screen, but the project will take shape under a new name. The television take on the idea is tentatively titled “Ashecliffe” after the name of the isolated island mental hospital in Boston's harbor where the film took place. Its premise is that of a prequel, opening before the events of Shutter Island with a focus on the hospital's past secrets, the misdeeds of its founders and their development of brutal methods to treat mental illness in the early 20th century. Both movie and show are based on Lehane's best-selling novel. In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio starred as a U.S. marshal who visits the hospital – reserved for the criminally insane – to investigate the disappearance of one of its patients. So far, Scorsese’s involvement is just about the only major detail known about the TV show, as it has no set date for production to start. Scorsese is currently busy working on historical drama “Silence” starring Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson, his gangster thriller “Revenge Of The Green Dragons” is due for release this fall. Toss in the untitled rock-and-roll drama set in 1970s New York he's co-producing with Mick Jagger and there’s a lot on the plate of one of the most acclaimed directors around………

- Yemen’s president don’t clown around. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi may be two names past what is necessary, but he doesn’t have any sympathy for Shiite rebels leading mass protests in the country's capital. In an effort to silence the haters and return the Middle Eastern nation to some semblance of peace and quiet, he’s issuing threats and trying to bully the rebels into backing down by telling them that various world powers oppose their demonstrations and therefore, they need to cease and desist immediately….or else. Coincidentally, the president’s threats came right around the same time as Hawthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi vowed to continue the demonstrations until his demands are met. What do the protestors want? That would be the entire Yemeni government to step down immediately and whoever it put in their place to restore the fuel subsidies that made their life so much easier. Tens of thousands of Hawthi supporters have set up shop in the capital city, Sanaa, for nearly two weeks. They have set up tents near ministries and gone so far as to position armed men on rooftops to ensure that they have firepower in place should anything go horrendously wrong and need to be rectified by shooting and killing people. The whole snipers on the roof concept was enough to alarm security authorities and spur Hadi to order deployment of special forces to the capital. The precursor for all of this was Hawthis defeating conservative Sunni tribesmen in northern cities several months ago and tensions have been higher than normal ever since………

- Never turn down an opportunity for a good publicity grab/creation of a tourist trap. The powers that be in Springfield, Oregon don’t need anyone to tell them this truism and they proved it by taking a truly pointless stance in an even more pointless debate over an inexplicably popular adult cartoon. Fans of “The Simpsons” will undoubtedly realize that this story is about their favorite show and a town in Oregon making a thinly veiled grab at national attention by pretending that unveiling a new mural on the side of a downtown building signifies that it is the namesake of the fictional town in which Homer Simpson and his yellow-skinned cartoon clan reside. Hundreds of losers with nothing better to do and nothing more interesting to fill their Instagram feed showed up for the dedication ceremony and to snag some of the free doughnuts that were given out in a tribute to Homer Simpson’s favorite food. “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening gave his blessing for the mural, which is purportedly to celebrate the 25 years the show has anchored the airwaves for Fox. Groening is an Oregon native and for that reason, some have surmised that the Springfield in which the show is set is in fact that one from Oregon and not one of the dozens of other places named Springfield around the United States. Groening has said previously that he chose the name for the fact that it is such a common name, but that hasn’t stopped bickering towns from trying to lay claim to being the real Springfield that inspired a made-up world of weirdos………

- Big Time Timmy Jim has become mop-up guy Tim Lincecum once more. Right-hander Tim Lincecum has been here before and the results were great. The question now is whether those results can be duplicated for he and the San Francisco Giants as they struggle to get back to the postseason. Lincecum was sent to the bullpen back in 2012 and pitched well there in helping the Giants win the World Series. The two-time Cy Young winner has accomplished much in his career and has won two world championships, but even a no-hitter earlier this season was not enough to keep manager Bruce Bochy from demoting him to the bullpen this week as he tries to work through his latest struggles. Lincecum was bounced in favor of Yusmeiro Petit, but Bochy insisted his veteran right-hander was cool with the decision. "He's fine," Bochy said before his team opened a four-game home series with Colorado. "He's going to work on some things. It's no problem with him." It’s no problem with him? Here’s guessing otherwise, both in terms of problems with Lincecum’s performance and how he feels about the move. At 10-9 and two months removed from his second career no-hitter, Lincecum has been struggling of late and was battered on Saturday for six runs, four earned, on six hits with four walks in 2 2-3 innings. It was the second-shortest start of his career and he has now lost four out of his last five decisions with just one win in his last seven starts. One has to wonder how Giants ownership feels about the $35 million, two-year contract they inked their former star pitcher to back in October. If this year’s script can replicate that of 2012, then Lincecum will pitch out of the pen as opposed to starting and winning the Game 5 World Series clincher at Texas in 2010 as the franchise won its first championship since moving West in 1958. According to Bochy, his future in the bullpen beyond this week is dependent upon how he and Petit perform……….

Every day France is shuffling, Justin Bieber goes hack on the Man in Black and Manchester United implodes

- Louis van Gaal is NOT finding a lot of early success in his efforts to breathe life back into the most vaunted soccer team in the world. The Dutch bench boss came on to lead Manchester United this season with the idea of taking their overpriced roster and returning it to the top of the English Premier League and eventually, the Champions League. Those goals seem further away than ever after a truly humiliating defeat Monday at the hands of third-tier English club MK Dongs, which stepped onto the pitch with Man U and b*tch-slapped the titans in a 4-0 result that may as well have been 400-0. It was easily one of the most humiliating defeats in the franchise’s long and storied history and left van Gaal without a win in three matches. The loss knocked United out of the Capital One Cup and while that’s not exactly a loss in the Champions League final, the odds of getting to the CL with anything other than a very expensive seat in the stands just got very long for the Red Devils. Will Grigg and Arsenal loaner Benik Afobe scored a goal apiece as United were humbled by a team that began the night 38 places below them in the league ladder. For longtime United fans, the loss undoubtedly resurrected painful memories of their last League Cup second-round fixture in 1995 when they lost to York. On the heels of an uninspired 1-1 tie with Sunderland in its previous game, United showed zero heart and even less effort to roll over for a team from the lowly League One. Captain Jonny Evans made a glaring mistake to set up the first MK Dons goal and it was a giant clusterf*ck of ineptitude for the Red Devils from there………

- What does a sumo wrestler do to get his cardio in on the weekend? For Rigby, Calif. native Kelly Gneiting, the answer was simple: swim the width of mighty Bear Lake twice. Gneiting realized his quest would seem insane and impossible for a man tipping the scales at over 400 pounds, but he completed the 14-mile swim against the windy and stormy conditions. "I just hope that people everywhere don't let their weakness or their perceived weakness stop them from fulfilling their dreams and reaching their goals," Gneiting said. "That's what this was all about." To make his feat even more badass, Gneiting started at 1 a.m. Monday and finished by 5 p.m. Getting up to swim in chilly waters at 1 a.m. takes balls and so does swimming for 16 hours straight without a break as three people guide you in two boats to ensure that you don’t become fish bait. The swim was so dangerous that two people have drowned in Bear Lake this year and park officials try to discourage anyone from attempting a similar swim. Gneiting conceded that what he did was dangerous and that he wondered at times if he had aimed a bit too high, but that he kept going because he felt compelled to finish the challenge for everyone else who feels as if they aren't able to accomplish what they deem to be impossible. "I feel like I represent fat people everywhere and when I can come out here and succeed at swimming something like this, through a miracle, then hopefully it changes the way people think about big people," he added. For a man who bested the world record in 2008 as the heaviest man to have completed a marathon and has set his sights on swimming the 21-mile-wide English Channel, maybe Bear Lake is just the start………..

- Step the hell back, Biebs. Justin Bieber has already pissed on all manner of American society with various crimes, misdemeanors and utterly unlistenable music, but the pop-singing Canadian chick desperately trying for street cred by tatting himself up like a biker with a sugar mama needs to dial it down because his latest stunt is his most egregious and offensive yet. While many a pop hack has ventured outside their very limited skill set and tried to glom onto an artist with actual talent and credibility – inevitably with disastrous results – Bieber’s foray into the world of Johnny Cash cannot go unpunished. The Man in Black has cranked out more iconic songs than Bieber has ill-advised tats, but his classic track “Ring of Fire” is never going to be the same again thanks to a hack-tastic cover by Bieber and his pal Khalil. The duo posted a truly heinous video on Instagram showing Bieber playing guitar and singing the 1969 song alongside Khalil, neither of them showing even a shred of the requisite amount of shame they should feel for what they were doing to one of the best-known tracks in the past century of music. The video was posted alongside a message which reads: "We wake up singin good ol johny cash @khalil came with with the crazy tone lol." No one else is laughing, ass hat, nor should they be. Next time you want to take a giant piss on a piece of musical history, count to 10 and then, for the sake of the artist whose tune you’re about to assassinate and anyone unfortunate enough to hear it, just don’t………..

- Every (Tuesday) France is shuffling. On this particular Tuesday, the shuffling was with the explicit intent of silencing dissidents who had openly criticized Socialist President Francois Hollande's economic policy as he tries to pull the nation out of stagnation and steer it toward growth. Hollande has taken aim at various wealthy individuals and businesses with his controversial policies, but his most recent agenda ruffled enough feathers to create a massive outcry that apparently had to be stifled. Arnaud Montebourg, who had publicly railed against government policy as being too austere and even unjust to the French, was ousted as head of the Economy Ministry in favor of Emmanuel Macron, who had earlier served as top adviser in charge of economy. Other lower-ranking officials were also forced out, although Finance Minister Michel Sapin stayed in place and other dissenting voices such as Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius and Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also kept their jobs. The changes came less than five months after the ambitious and popular Prime Minister Manuel Valls took office with a burning passion for promoting Hollande’s agenda at all costs. Those costs have been clear in a short amount of time, as Hollande is the most unpopular president in recent French history, with ratings below 20 percent. Macron and his pro-business ideas could be a boost for the economy and also send a positive signal to European Union partners, but Hollande isn't exactly in a position of power with most of his country wanting him gone. This is how heads eventually end up on pikes, paraded through the capital……….

Bigfoot + the Civil War, Prince doubles the fun and Steelers stoner mania

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- If an NFL team is going to be without one or both of its top running backs when they open the regular season, it had damn well better be for a good reason. If and when Pittsburgh Steelers running backs Le'Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount are suspended for their team’s opener against the visiting Cleveland Browns, their absence will most definitely not fall under that heading. Both players were arrested on marijuana possession charges Wednesday, shortly before the team flew to Philadelphia for a preseason game the following night. Bell famously told the arresting officer that he had smoked his chron several hours earlier and was totally not high at the time, which combined with being arrested for pot possession alongside a man named Blount made for the highest of high comedy. So far, neither player has been disciplined and both player in the game against the Eagles. Still, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said the Steelers have not ruled out suspending Bell, who was also charged with driving under the influence, and Blount. "Everything's on the table," Tomlin said. Tomlin’s boss, Steelers president Art Rooney II, suggested that the team will take its time and allow the league to handle the matter before taking action. It makes sense because the team would love to not have to show any spine and let the NFL play the role of the heavy in the case, then nod its head and issue a strongly worded statement of support letting the world know that it does not tolerate such behavior from its players. Bell and Blount apologized Thursday night in the weakest possible manner for “causing a distraction,” but their apology has been far from the only weak aspect of this mess……….

- Bizarre real estate listings are quite the gold mine for the right realtor. For example, just imagine that you are the person hired to sell a gold mining ghost town surrounded by majestic snow-capped peaks in Canada’s westernmost province. You could view this as a hellaciously difficult assignment that is better left for someone else…or you could view it the way John Lovelace does. This is a man who is selling the abandoned 50-acre town of Bradian, one of many towns built during British Columbia’s gold mining heyday. The current asking price is a mere $907,000 and that modest sum will get you streets, vacant lots and 22 empty homes that were built 80 years ago. Toss in breathtaking views, nearby lakes and rivers and piles of snow in the winter and you have a truly idyllic setting….that is in a state of total disrepair. “If you expect to go up with a can of paint, forget it,” Lovelace said of Bradian. He initially set the price for the town at $1.3 million all the way back in 2010, but it has generated little serious interest and remains unsolved. “We have gotten quite a great response from as far away as Australia,” Lovelace lied. “If somebody went in there with some money and they got the services up to speed and created those (vacant) lots, they’d make a crap load of money. But that’s a five to 10-year process.” Bradian’s history is much sunnier than its present, as it cropped up in the 1930s as a small bedroom community for the neighboring Bralorne mine. For decades, the mine churned out a study supply of gold and Bradian produced 4 million ounces of gold over a 40-year stretch until the mine closed in 1971, when gold dropped to $35 an ounce and the mine’s operators could no longer turn a profit. The mine reopened on a drastically smaller scale in 2011, but the town itself has been own by Vancouver couple Tom and Katherine Gutenberg, senior flight attendants for Air Canada, since 1997. The Gutenbergs time in town and brought their two children to help with repairs to the homes there, but their children are grown and there is little reason to return to an abandoned town in the middle of a frozen tundra. Act now, folks……….

- Prince remains one of the most overrated artists in modern music. His supposed genius continues to be wildly overblown and his talents are far too hyped, but it’s still nice when an established artist goes above and beyond in delivering new music to his or her fans. The Bizarre One will do exactly that on Sept. 29, when he releases not one, but two new albums. He will drop his 37th album, “Art Official Age,” that day in coincidence with he and his new band 3rd Eye Girl releasing their very first album, “Plectrum Electrum.” The solo album will contain previously released tracks “Breakfast Can Wait” and “Breakdown” and feature psychedelic artwork that will thrill anyone who is stoned enough to buy two Prince albums in one day. The artwork is already viewable on the album’s official website and it represents Prince's return to Warner Bros. Records, the label with which he acrimoniously split 18 years ago. That spat led to the infamous changing of his stage name from Prince to simply a bizarre symbol in an attempt to sabotage his contract, but that didn’t stop Warner Bros. from loudly trumpeting his return like nothing ever happened. "Prince is one of just a handful of visionary artists who have truly reshaped and redefined modern music and culture,” said Warner Bros. Records Chairman and CEO Cameron Strang in a statement. “For the past 35 years, he has never stopped evolving, challenging himself, reinventing his sound, and pushing boundaries. In true Prince fashion, he has just given us not one, but two extraordinary albums that express the incredible range and depth of his talent." All might not be totally well in the relationship, as Prince ripped major labels as recently as May and suggested that executives of such companies were getting too rich off his immense musical talents………

- Kooks are everywhere. Some of them live near Civil War battefields and rather than telling the world they see the ghost of Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson riding through their backyard, they insist on proclaiming that they are the latest to see the elusive and nonexistent creature known as Bigfoot. Meet David Childers, co-founder of the Delta Paranormal Project, who claims he was in the woods of an abandoned playground near downtown Vicksburg when he saw a living, breathing sasquatch strolling through the woods of an historic town. As Childers tells it, he was taking pictures last November looking for ghosts or paranormal activity when he was startled by an unknown beast. He kept tabs on the area and his theory received some totally worthless support on Aug. 12, when local resident Peyton Lassiter was strolling along nearby Wisconsin Avenue and spotted a giant footprint that he returned to make a mold of. Knowing Childers’ search for the bizarre, Lassiter reached out to Childers about his find. The two men linked up and returned to the woods to poke around. "I just happened to turn around real quick. I saw this creature. It was about six , seven foot tall, and it's hard to exactly get the correct height because of the distance away from me but it stood up and just jetted off and you know it happened so quick, but I know it was like a grayish brown color. I know for a fact it wasn't a bear or a deer," Childers said. Sadly, Childers never got a picture of Bigfoot because the sighting happened so quickly. If only his reactions were quicker or his brain bigger………

Michael Phelps is back, movie news and smack-talking grannies

- Its numbers for the weekend were not overwhelming, but “Guardians of the Galaxy” still hit a milestone this frame as it became the biggest movie of the summer with $17.6 million in earnings. That gave the outer-space romp $251.8 million in domestic earnings, good for a first-place finish on the weekend and the summer earnings crown. Last weekend’s champ, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” dropped to second place with $16.8 million for the frame and has now banked $145.6 million domestically in its first three weeks of release. Newcomer “If I Stay” earned third place with a $16.4 million debut, more than making back its $11 million budget. “Let’s Be Cops” continued its profitable run through two weeks in theaters by adding another $11 million for an overall hail of $45.2 million. Jim Caviezel’s uplifting football flick “When the Game Stands Tall” didn’t exactly tower over the competition in its first weekend, making $9 million to finish fifth and earn back about 60 percent of its scant budget. “The Giver” was next in sixth place thanks to its $6.7 million performance this weekend, good enough to push it to the brink of profitability with $24.1 million in earnings after two weeks of release. Next was “The Expendables 3,” seventh this time around with $6.6 million in domestic earnings and $27.5 million overall. The biggest disappointment of the weekend was “Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” which opened to $6.5 million despite immense hype and promotion and fell well short of expectations. Critical darling “The Hundred-Foot Journey” earned ninth place and $5.5 million in movie goers’ dollars and has now amassed $32.7 million in three weeks. “Into the Storm” snared the last spot in the top 10 with $3.8 million to place its three-week tally at $38.3 million. “Hercules” (No. 17) and “Step Up: All In” (No. 18) both tumbled significantly from their spots in last weekend’s top 10……….

- Wow…this is shocking. Iran, a noted do-gooder in the international community, is not pulling a hamstring sprinting onto the scene to assist a troubled nation in need. With Iraq teetering on the verge of collapse in its battle with militant kooks ISIS and the world hemming and hawing about what to do, Iran's foreign minister says his country sees no need to send fighters to help the Iraqi government battle the Islamic State group. Sure, Sunni militants are inching closer to the Iraq-Iran border, but that doesn’t bother Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, who said "we do not believe that we need to be present inside Iraq to help our Iraqi brothers. They are very capable of doing that themselves." My, what great confidence you have in a government that seems to have little capability to handle much of anything on its own at this point. Iran can’t honestly look at the offensive by the Islamic State group across northern and western Iraq, see how it has plunged Iraq into its biggest crisis since the U.S. military pulled out in 2011 and believe that Baghdad will be cool if left to its own devices, but give Zarif credit for his ability to boldly and blatantly lie to the world. ISIS has pushed eastward in recent days, taking control of the town of Jalula in Iraq's Diyala province, located some 30 kilometers from the Iranian border, so Iran may have to take action sooner or later, but now might not be the time. Then again, those nukes Tehran is (allegedly) not developing could come in handy if this escalates any further………..

- Putting down the bong and picking up the swimming goggles is a wise idea for Michael Phelps. When he walked away from competitive swimming following his eight-medal performance at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps seemed to be a man destined for a life of getting baked, continuing his 10,000-calorie-a-day diet and coasting through his existence without much of a care for the world. Somewhere along the way, the competitive itch crept back in and the most decorated Olympian in history decided he wanted to come back and swim at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. The comeback was rocky at first, with losses in events he once dominated, but Phelps’ first foray back into international competition ended on top Sunday as he nabbed a gold medal in the medley relay at the Pan Pacific championships. Phelps narrowly lost to Kosuke Hagino in the 200 medley to start the night, be gained a measure of redemption by swimming the butterfly leg of the medley relay and helping the U.S. continue its domination of the event. After finishing the meet with three gold medals -- the 100 butterfly, 4x200 and medley relays -- and silvers in the 200 IM and the 4x100 relay, Phelps deemed the outing a great success. "It was, I think, a successful year," Phelps said. "Obviously I'd like to win every single race I swim in. But, (that) doesn't always happen. It was a learning experience, that's most important." After 1 ½ years in retirement, getting back into the water and looking like anything close to his former self is something of a victory for Phelps, but there is a long way left to swim if he hopes to show up in Rio in two years and compete with the best the world has to offer……… 

- Smack-talking grandmas are the best. People like Richland, Wash. resident Becky Powell make this world a better place and not just because they tackle accused criminals on the street to prevent those criminals from escaping the long arm of the law. No, folks like Powell are a positive force in the world because in addition to stopping would-be criminal escapees, they take a moment to stand up, pop their jersey - metaphorically speaking – and talk some junk so their victim and the world around them knows who they are and that dammit, they were there. Powell and her husband were driving through Richland last week when she spotted a suspect who was running from the police. Rather than assume the radios, cruisers and foot speed of the cops would ultimately prevail, Powell directed her husband to drive faster so they could get out ahead of the suspect. She then leapt from the car and bum-rushed the man to confront him. According to Powell, the man attempted to stiff-arm her, but despite being twice his age, she was able to take him down thanks in large part to pulling down his shorts. After taking the suspect to the ground, Powell stood up and let fly with Grade-A smack that included asking the man how it felt to be taken down by a mother of five and a grandmother of three. Richland Police Capt. Mike Cobb noted that while the department was happy to have an assist from Powell, it does not recommend that citizens get so involved in the law enforcement process. In this case, the man ran because he had an outstanding warrant. It’s too bad his speed wasn’t equally outstanding……….

Chelsea players called lazy, Portland v. homelessness and "True Detective" gets "less dark"

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Normally, Germans and Poles don’t team up for uprisings against any cause given their shady history in terms of attempted genocides, concentration camps and the like. But for at least one day this weekend, the dark days of the past were left behind as several thousand people formed a human chain across the German-Polish border to protest the expansion of open-cast mining for brown coal in the region. The uplifting display saw more than 7,500 people linked up in a 5-mile chain between Kerkwitz, Germany, and Grabice, Poland — two villages that activists fear will be evacuated to make way for further brown coal mines. Organizers hailed the event as a success and who can fault them after aquatically minded protestors waded into the Neisse river, which divides the two countries, as part of the chain. As one would expect in a fight against brown coal, also known as lignite, the event was heavily attended by members of environmental groups including Germany's opposition Green party. Coal and lignite both play significant roles in the energy mix of both Germany and Poland, but they are often denounced as dirty fuels by bleeding heart, liberal environmentalists who would prefer the world be powered by sunshine, positive feelings and rainbows. The answer likely lies somewhere in between and if there are more protests with kooks wading into rivers along the way to finding that solution, then maybe everyone can emerge from this muddled mess of environmental issues with a smile on their face………

- What the hell is HBO thinking? One of its current hit dramas succeeds because it exists in a dark, twisted, f*cked-up place where insane things happen with hot people at the center. So why is HBO programming director Michael Lombardo saying that Season 2 of “True Detective” will be “less dark” than its predecessor? Lombardo addressed a crowd at the Guardian International Television Festival in Edinburgh and revealed the show is due to start shooting next month and air next summer with final casting announcements to be made soon. He suggested that the second stanza will not be as inherently dark as the first, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. “It’s still dark," Lombardo said. "It’s not as dark, but it’s not a light ride. Nic likes looking into the crevices of the soul.” Nic would be show creator Nic Pizzolatto, who has been working to add Vince Vaughn and “Mad Men” starlet Elisabeth Moss in leading roles for the new season. According to Lombardo, the second season will begin shooting next month and it will shift to a new setting. "It’s set in California, all of California,” Lombardo added. “There are three cops. One of the characters is female. I think that’s probably all I’m allowed to say.” Along with Vaughn and Moss, Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch are reportedly in the mix and who can blame them with the show nominated for five Emmy Awards, including best drama series and best lead actor for both Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey? Whether the show wins those awards or not, its next installment will arrive with an immense about of hype and attention………

- Portland is a bizarre place full of hippies, liberal policies and relaxed social norms. Sometimes, that curious culture yields creative solutions to pressing problems. This could be one such occasion. City officials know they have an issue to deal with when it comes to the number of homeless people in their city and as such, those officials are considering a plan to build tiny houses for the indigent to help get them off the streets. These modest abodes would be about 200 square feet and look a lot like the ones at The Caravan Tiny House Hotel in northeast Portland. Creating micro communities is the brainchild of Michael Withey of Micro Community Concepts. Withey pitched the concept to the city council. He suggested that the houses be built on surplus land owned by the city, with a monthly rent of between $250 and $350. In this working model, the entire idea is self-sustaining. "Half the rents we collect from these homes will go into a fund to fund the next microcommunity that will help the next set of people that need help," Withey said. While that may theoretically be possible, getting the project started is expected to require $1 million – just the sort of money cities are loathe to spend on projects such as this. Mayor Charlie Hales and his administration are unsure how they would fund the effort. "Whether it's city money, state money or federal money, we're going to try and get creative and figure out all the places where we can bring money into this to try different kinds of pilots for different kinds of housing needs," said Josh Alpert, the city’s strategic initiatives director. The concept for micro communities remains in the early stages, but there is enough merit in the idea to plow ahead with it for now, at least in the eyes of the powers that be………

- “Austin Powers” villain Dr. Evil’s father infamously called chestnuts lazy. Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho must be a fan of that movie because he did the exact same thing to his players after they struggled to beat Premier League newcomers Leicester at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. Mourinho was not content with the three points his side earned from the win and didn’t seem impressed by second-half goals from Diego Costa and Eden Hazard to keep the Blues perfect through two games. Initially, Mourinho fingered the mild late-August London weather for his side's lethargy in the opening 45 minutes, but eventually shifted his focus to what he saw as a lack of effort from his roster. "We were lazy in the first half and I told them it was not enough to win the game," Mourinho said. "In the second half, we were more aggressive, we won the second ball, the possession of the ball was good, it was fast.” From there, Mourinho went on an extended and meandering rant in which he accused his side of sleepwalking through the first half and mused on the fact that he prefers to train in the morning, but switched to afternoons this week because “I suspected this would not be the best weather to play football.” It was all a bit confusing and seemed like a coach who hadn't gotten enough time to sort out his frustrations from a lackluster performance, so maybe a few more hours to cool down and ponder the final result will do Mourinho good. A long Premier League season awaits and there will be many more chances to accuse Chelsea players of laziness and other crimes against humanity………

Kooks + guns + presidential visits, making "Sandman" into a movie and the fightin' Buffalo Bills

- The Buffalo Bills don’t always put up the best fight in games. Their intra-squad rage, however, is in top form. Head coach Doug Marrone may not appreciate it, but his team is boiling over with a fighting spirit and it showed at practice this week. After an intense fight near the end of Wednesday's practice, a few small scuffles broke out early in the Bills' morning practice Thursday. The tension led to Marrone demanding an end to the fighting and excoriating his players like a bunch of second graders on the sideline. Defensive end Jerry Hughes decided that was a great time to talk back to his coach and that led to Marrone asking Hughes if he wanted to remain a member of the Buffalo Bills. In short order, the Bills were running sprints in what looked suspiciously like disciplinary action. The best part of it all is that Hughes wasn’t even involved in the fight that set Marrone off. He still felt compelled to yell a few things from the sideline, including: "Twenty-one days in pads and counting. I love it!" That comment was laced with a hint of sarcasm. The fight that set it all off came Wednesday when rookie defensive end Bryan Johnson ripped off the helmet of center Eric Wood and then connected with several punches. Thursday’s fights were more muted, but by that point, everyone was on edge. Marrone and Hughes later spoke on their own after practice and the coach insisted his comments were directed at the team and not Hughes. "That's directed at anyone who doesn't want to be part of the team," Marrone said. "I told Jerry that I love the way he practices and I love the way he plays special teams and how he goes about it. And we've got to get some other guys who are starters to do that." Ah, the old “love the passion” defense. The theories on the value of practice fights are varied, but when it reaches the point that your practice becomes a circus sideshow, maybe it’s time to dial it down………

- Singing greeting cards are amusing…for all of five seconds. Arizona Republican District 23 state Senate candidate Jeff Schwartz should keep this in mind the next time he has a great idea for his campaign. Rather than send out a boring mailer that his would-be constituents would ignore and toss in the trash, Schwartz ripped a page from Hallmark’s book and sent out a singing campaign card featuring the voice of his opponent, longtime state politician John Kavanagh. The audio was culled from a controversial roast for Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the card was sent to many of the voters in Scottsdale and Fountain Hills. "If you were in the Korean War, how come you aren't rounding up Asians?" the voice inside the card asks, followed by raucous laughter from the crowd. Kavanuagh insisted the card was ridiculous and not what voters want, but Schwartz isn’t backing off. "This isn't an attack ad. This is just a reminder of who Mr. Kavanagh is. Our team thought this would be the best way to allow people to hear what Mr. Kavanagh had been saying,” Schwartz said. What he won't do is say whether he has let voters know that the sound bytes contained in the card are from a roast and not intended to be taken seriously. 
"It's real simple. When you offend the big power brokers ... they can throw everything but the kitchen sink at you," Kavanagh said. The two-term legislator has faced criticism for supporting several controversial bills and one could argue that if a candidate is willing to plunk down a ridiculous amount of money for lame singing cards that won't work anyhow, it’s a nice way to liven up an otherwise uninteresting race………

- Joseph Gordon-Levitt wants to hit the next home run for adapting a comic book to the big screen and with dollar signs and adoring fanboys dancing in his mind, “The Dark Knight Rises” star says he has made significant progress on the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel “Sandman.” Levitt said the project is still in the early stages of development, but seems enthused by his work with Gaiman and “Batman Begins” scribe David S. Goyer. “Right now we’re working on a script. It’s me and Goyer and the screenwriter and Neil Gaiman, as well as the good folks at DC and Warner Bros," Gordon-Levitt said. "It’s a really cool team of people. It’s a lot of the same people who worked on the Nolan Batman movies. It’s really exciting." The process is slow in the early going largely because unlike other literary tales that have made their way to the silver screen, “Sandman” has existed solely in the realm of comic book shops and plastic sleeves up ‘til this point. "There’s not a script yet, we’re still kind of working it out because it’s such a complicated adaptation because 'Sandman' wasn’t written as novels. Sin City was written as a novel. 'Sandman' is 75 episodic issues,” Levitt said. “There’s a reason people have been trying and failing to adapt 'Sandman' for the past 20 years.” It’s a fair point, but is also worth pointing out that turning comic book characters into movie heroes is more lucrative now than it has ever been and thus, a person such as Levitt has a ton of incentive to make it happen. “Sandman” doesn’t have the long comic book history like Batman or Superman, as it was first published by DC Comics in 1989 and ran until 1996. The comic books told the story of Dream of the Endless, the ruler of the world of dreams. With the alternate moniker Morpheus, the main character Dream is one of the seven Endless also including Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium and Destruction. This saga has all the makings of a big-budget film that will polarize audiences based on how true to the original it is perceived to be, so it should be fun to watch it develop……..

- Everyone should visit their country’s undisputed leader packing heat at one point in their life. An unidentified Filipino woman can check that entry off her bucket list after she allegedly attempted to enter the Philippine presidential palace with a pistol and demanded to see President Benigno Aquino III. According to Commodore Raul Ubando, head of the presidential guards, the woman was immediately disarmed Friday and turned over to Manila police for investigation. Her plan was admittedly short-sighted and overly simplistic, so its chances for success weren't great. Still, the sprawling Malacanang palace has several entrances, so maybe she was hoping there was that one entrance no one uses and everyone forgets to guard most of the time. As is, she ended up going to a gate far from Aquino's office and living quarters and never got anywhere close to the president. In spite of the fact that she was armed and looking to see the president, this kook later insisted had no intention of hurting anybody but wants Aquino to step down because Filipinos were getting poorer under his administration. Nothing sends the message that you don’t want to hurt someone quite like toting a gun to a potential meeting with them, so kudos to this classy lady for her foolproof plot. Ubando said no one was hurt and the Manila Police District would decide whether to file charges after an investigation – and a mental competency examination to determine if the woman has any psychological disorder………

Cows on the highway, Andy Roddick on the comeback trail and casting "Gotham"

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Chile is heating up and rising up and as so often happens with burgeoning revolutions, this one is being led by a mob of angry young folks who are pissed off at The Man and want both answers and change. The sh*t got real Thursday in Santiago, where thousands of young people unhappy with the pace of education reform under President Michelle Bachelet participated in a march to make their voices heard. Sadly, their march was relatively peaceful for the most part. Happily, that tranquility did not last for too long as dozens of unidentified people wearing masks interrupted the march, damaging traffic lights and signs, starting fires in trash containers and throwing sticks and stones at police. These heroes took what was a boring, ineffective protest into an all-out riot fueled by crude implements and sheer rage. How many people took part in the gathering depends upon whom you ask. Protest organizers say about 80,000 people took part in the march, while Interior Undersecretary Mahmud estimated the number of participants at 25,000. The actual number undoubtedly lies somewhere in between, but the number of people involved is not the point. The fact that dumpsters were set on fire and public property was destroyed makes this all worth while, as does the fact that police fought back with a tear gas truck and water cannons. Those scenes and images become burned into the minds of the public and they cement the reality of any revolution, as well as providing inspiration for the wallflowers unsure if they really want to join in the mayhem. Along with the resulting carnage from the riot, there was also major traffic jams around Santiago's center. This was the third major demonstration in Chile this year and hopefully, there are many more to come………

- Batman’s universe continues to take shape. The small-screen version of the Caped Crusader’s tale will air this fall on Fox and while the Batman franchise is dormant cinematically thanks to Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan walking away, “Gotham” is one of the promising new shows set to his network television this season. Fox has released another trailer for the show, this one introducing several well-known characters in Batman’s universe who will have roles on “Gotham.” The show’s premise is to shine a light on Bruce Wayne’s life before he ever thought of becoming Batman and so its nefarious villains will also be depicted before they reached their respective evil apexes. Among the famous and villainous faces will be a young Poison Ivy, The Penguin, Catwoman and The Riddler. All will be a part of the tale as the young Commissioner Gordon's rises through the ranks of the police department and the focus locks in on “the unlikely friendship Gordon forms with the young heir to the Wayne fortune." Fox will reach into its past for Gordon’s portrayer, as Ben McKenzie of “The O.C.” fame will play the young detective, who was so ably played by Gary Oldman in Nolan’s trilogy of films. In addition to McKenzie, Jada Pinkett Smith will star as the town’s crime lord Fish Mooney and Sean Pertwee (“Elementary”) as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred. Gordon will find himself fighting the layers of corruption that secretly rule Gotham City as its iconic villains take form. Producer Bruno Heller (“The Mentalist”) will helm the project, which debuts Sept. 22……….

- Cows on the highway are rarely a positive. Bovines tend not to respect the rules of the road or the basic needs of those using them to get where they are going in a timely fashion and that reality was on full display Thursday morning in Roseville, Calif. That’s where a herd of lost cows ran amok and blocked multiple lanes of traffic on Interstate 80 after the truck hauling them off for slaughter crashed into a guardrail and spilled its precious cargo out onto the road. The crash happened along eastbound I-80 between Riverside Avenue and Douglas Boulevard just before 2 a.m., according to California Highway Patrol, leaving the truck heavily damaged. According to the CHP, the driver of the truck swerved to avoid an obstruction in the roadway, causing the back end of his trailer to hit the guardrail, knocking open the back doors. At the time of the crash, there were approximately 20 cows in the trailer. A few got loose, while some of their peers were not so fortunate and did not survive the crash. Passing motorists helped to corral the loose cows, but it took several hours to get the scene under control, as it was the middle of the night and drivers were few. “We got lucky, there were some people that were familiar with handling farm animals that came and helped us out,” said Sgt. Steve Pellegrino of the CHP. A local veterinarian showed up to help deal with the injured cows and the affected lanes of the highway were reopened around 4:30 a.m………

- Andy Roddick has quietly faded from the professional tennis scene. He would like to make a limited return to the scene, but the byzantine powers that be in the men’s tennis world aren't so accommodating. Roddick, at one time the next big hope for American men’s tennis, wanted to make one more appearance at the US Open, but his efforts were rebuffed by tournament officials. The request for a return was shot down because Roddick, who has been retired for two years, has not been involved in the sport's drug testing protocols. He wasn’t coming back for one more shot at individual glory, but rather to help out his friend Mardy Fish. Fish has been suffering from an anxiety disorder and playing with his pal Roddick in the doubles portion of the event could have been both a heartwarming story and a chance for Fish to work through some of his mental issues. He and Roddick tried to enter this year's doubles field with a wild card, but their entry ran into a brick wall. Roddick played in an exhibition match with James Blake on Thursday at the Connecticut Open and said prior to the match that his sole intention with applying for a wild-card entry was to give Fish a proper send-off from professional tennis, or perhaps a jump-start to a doubles career. He added that he has no plans to become a full-time player again and given the low profile he has kept tennis-wise since walking away from the sport, there seems to be little reason to doubt his sincerity at this point. Unless, of course, you’re the US Open and you believe that a retired tennis star has spent the past two years ‘roiding up in the hopes of making a victorious comeback in doubles play and hoisting a tainted trophy that will besmirch the integrity of your fine, upstanding event………

Strippers on the boardwalk, Bush seeks handouts and guaranteeing college athletic scholarships

- Ah, the good old days of letter writing….with bombs inside. The Irish Republican Army can never be accused of forgetting from whence it came, not when four of its anachronistically inclined members are organizing an letter-bomb campaign designed to maim, harm and kill various targets in Northern Ireland and England. According to police in Northern Ireland, two men and two women were arrested Wednesday in Londonberry in conjunction with a plot to blow up the city’s police headquarters. A few hours after the arrests, masked men loaded a suspected bomb on to a truck and ordered the driver to park it outside the city's police headquarters. Police moved quickly to evacuate a nearby school and businesses but could not confirm whether the threat was legitimate. Either way, the four suspects are thought to have mailed at least 10 bombs over the past year. Either these wannabe killers were terrible at disguising their bombs or people are simply better at identifying incendiary mail than they used to be, because all 10 of those bombs were detected and dismantled safely before they had a chance to harm anyone. The targets for this ring of mischief-loving miscreants included police commanders, a prison governor, a state prosecutor's office, British Army recruitment centers and Northern Ireland's secretary of state. Aiming high is about the only respectable quality the suspected bombers possess, but give them a few points for persistence. They are believed to be members of one of several small IRA factions that remain active in Northern Ireland, but their numbers are quickly dwindling through both sheer stupidity and the fact that the IRA is an outdated mechanism of an extremist movement very much on the decline……..

- The University of Maryland is standing behind its athletic scholarships. Taking advantage of a change in NCAA rules allowing members of the five power conferences in Division I to make their own rules in some aspects of athletics, Maryland plans to start guaranteeing scholarships to students-athletes until they graduate, regardless of injury or on-field performance. Previously, scholarships were one-year renewable agreements between athletes and their schools, but UM athletes will now be able to rest assured that as long as they keep their grades up, they won't have to worry about whether the coach will bring them back next season. Haters have long used the argument that allowing scholarships to be renewed on a year-to-year basis and reduced or canceled for any reason undercut the NCAA's argument that revenue-generating athletes should not be paid and guaranteeing the scholarships for athletes in all spots, not just the so-called revenue sports of football and basketball, gives Maryland a chance to be a trend-starter in a sense. The decision follows a decision by a federal judge earlier this month to allow future college football and basketball players to get monetary compensation. According to UM officials, they are among the first Division I schools to guarantee scholarships for athletes in all sports. Ensuring that athletes stay on point academically and don’t cheat in their classes is still a problem spot for many big-time football and basketball schools, but it is nice to see at least one institution of higher learning fix one problem area……..

- Strippers are genuinely not considered entertainment fit for mass consumption. Chelsea Plymale (potentially a fictitious name given her chosen trade) is challenging that concept by taking her stripping to the boardwalk in Ocean City, Md. She’s gone from taking off her clothes for strangers with dollar bills to disrobing for the public right on the boardwalk. She doesn’t actually get fully naked, as that would put an abrupt end to her new act, but her performances have nonetheless incited outrage from parents, tourists and business owners. “I mean, I knew people were going to be shocked but I didn’t know I was going to be pushed into the spotlight like this,” Plymale said. Nice try, C. You knew exactly what you were doing and you did it for the very reason you claim has caught you completely off-guard. Dancing in skimpy clothing aroud a brass pole on the boardwalk is guaranteed to shine a bright, bright spotlight on a person and anyone with an IQ above 22 would know that. Plymale has been plying her trade on the boardwalk all summer and the response has been loud, pointed and vitriolic for visitors and locals alike. Many have pointed out that the boardwalk is a place built around family entertainment and a few of those offended by Plymale’s act have placed complaint calls to Ocean City police. The police, it turns out, can’t do a damn thing about it. “Basically, the street performers can go up there as long as they aren’t breaking any other laws and they’re performing and exercising their first amendment rights. They have every right to be up on the boardwalk,” Mayor Rick Meehan said. Plymale is sticking with a bad cliché in explaining why there shouldn’t be a problem with what she’s doing. “They can keep watching. They don’t have to let their children watch me perform,” she said. “I’m completely tasteful. I don’t really dance around too much. I just do pole tricks.” Well said, skank……..

- Gavin Rossdale is not well-liked among rock fans. Keep this in mind while considering the following. Rossdale and his band, British rockers Bush are looking for financial assistance to release their new album. More accurately, they want their fans to pay for said album and they are willing to hand out bribes to make it happen. Bush have set up a page on PledgeMusic offering rewards for fans that want to help with the new record, which would be their first since the largely ignored “Sea of Memories” dropped in 2011. In order to entice fans to contribute beyond merely overpaying for a record that likely won't be an all-time classic, Bush is dangling behind-the-scenes footage and regular updates on the album to fans who pledge money in exchange for t-shirts, instruments, DVDs and more. "Your support has always meant everything to us, and we’re incredibly excited to bring you this music in a direct and unique way here on PledgeMusic. By ordering anything here, you’ll get the new album digitally the moment it’s released – in fact, you’ll be the first to know all about it,” Rossdale wrote in a post on the band’s website. "And by joining us here, you’ll also have access to videos, previously unreleased music, exclusive photos, and the chance to have some amazing experiences and interactions with Chris, Robin, Corey and me. It’s an exciting way for us to share the process of releasing our new music. Thanks always for the continued support. We couldn’t do this new thing without you. Big love." Yes, big love and hopefully, big bucks coming for a band that can most definitely afford to release the project without and charity……….