Mein Kampf v. the world, Leo DiCaprio don't need Star Wars and kosher cannabis arrives

- Embattled Phoenix Suns coach Jeff Hornacek is badly rattled and spiraling downward quickly. Hornacek was on the receiving end of a towel toss by pouting power forward Markieff Morris last week and although Morris was suspended for two games, his head coach has been the one in need of a break this week. First, two members of his coaching staff were fired in a shakeup reportedly designed to give the head coach one last shot to salvage his gig leading the 12-21 Suns. But after a 101-97 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers to start the week, Hornacek showed that he’s either totally unnerved or just generally clueless. In the immediate aftermath of the loss, Hornacek ripped Cavs guard Matthew Dellavedova for provoking officials into calling an offensive foul on Tyson Chandler late in the game, a charge that was clearly erroneous because Dellavedova was on the bench during the play, in which Chandler was called for setting an illegal screen on Iman Shumpert. "You see picks all game long that are illegal, and then all of a sudden they're going to call that one, so that was a tough one right there," Hornacek said. "I'm sure whether it was legal, illegal, I can guarantee Dellavedova probably pulled Tyson. It's the trick. You watch these games on tape, he does it all the time. He suckered the guy into calling it." From the bench? Either Dellavadova is so far inside Hornacek’s head that the coach needs some quality couch time with a therapist or Hornacek can't distinguish between a short, white Australian dude and a taller black guy with a soaring flat top, but it’s just a really bad look for a guy who hasn’t looked good at any point this season………

- Kosher cannabis is finally here. Because it’s been far too long for would-be Jewish stoners waiting on someone to provide them with the clean, wholesome hippie lettuce they desire, a New York company called Vireo Health is here to answer the call - sort of. The company says its non-smokable medical cannabis products have been certified as conforming to the Jewish dietary law by the Orthodox Union, marking what it claims to be the first time a medical cannabis product has been deemed kosher. There is the small problem of calling any kind of marijuana non-smokable because regardless of what the laws of physics and chemistry say, stoners are insanely resourceful on a near-Jedi level and can a) fashion a bong out of damn near any remotely cylindrical object and b) can probably manage to smoke ganja in just about any form science can create. According to the Orthodox Union, it awarded certification after inspecting Vireo's facilities to ensure the marijuana was grown and processed according to kosher standards. Where in God’s Word does it spell out the standards for Mary Jane? That’s unclear, but one of the standards is insect-free plants. This seal of approval could mean big money for Vireo, which believes it will help the company cater to patients among New York's Jewish population, the nation's largest. Sales are slated to start next month for patients in New York state with certain qualifying conditions, i.e. anyone who can talk their doctor into approving medical marijuana so either they or a friend they don’t mind breaking the law for can get high, sooo high………

- Why would an A-list actor turn down a role in both “Star Wars” and two superhero movies? Because HE’S FREAKING LEONARDO DI CAPRIO AND HE DOESN’T NEED THAT KIND OF SH*T TO PULL A COUPLE DOZEN SUPERMODELS AT ONCE, MOFO. Yes, Leo has revealed that he once turned down the chance to play Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels and also rejected the chance to play Robin in “Batman Forever” and the title role “Spider-Man” that ultimately went to Tobey Maguire. The man-bun-wearing model magnet, known to exit L.A., Miami and New York clubs with throngs of models in tow, confirmed that he met with George Lucas to discuss taking the Anakin Skywalker role in “Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones” and “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith.” The part was poorly played by Hayden Christensen, who may not have been allowed on a movie set since lifelessly and charisma-lessly bumbling through the part, but it could have been Di Caprio instead. "I did have a meeting with George Lucas about that, yes," Di Caprio said. "I just didn’t feel ready to take that dive at that point." He said that he only met with director Joel Schumacher about the Robin role in “Batman Forever,” but didn’t feel ready for the part - the same thing he said of “Spider-Man.” The Robin rejection was wise because the movie was awful, while “Spider-Man” has been redone multiple times since Maguire’s run and the character has been cast and re-cast during that span. In other words, Di Caprio was just fine without either role and although he doesn’t appear to be keeping himself in top physical shape, his recent turn in “The Revenant” is receiving rave reviews and proving that he’s still one of the most skilled thespians Hollywood has to offer……..

- Forgot to get a Christmas gift for someone on your list who loves to read and might harbor a little anti-Semitic bigotry in the deepest reservoirs of their soul? Life just got better for you, assuming you have access to the German and French literary market. That’s because today is the final day of the 70-year copyright term for Adolf Hitler's autobiography “Mein Kampf,” which as of tomorrow can go on sale in Germany for the first time since his death. Reprinting Mein Kampf - which translates to "My Struggle" - has been banned in Deutschland since the end of the Second World War, but a new edition with critical commentary is being printed by the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History (IFZ). The tome, which will number in the thousands of pages with the commentary, will cost $65 and hit store shelves next week. There will also be a French version of the anti-Semitic manifesto published in France and with those plans comes renewed cries of outrage from those who believe Hitler's 800-page hatemongering work of idiocy should be outlawed. Just as Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria. She believes that even the annotated version carries risks because it "contains the original text” and said that right-wing extremists continue to operate based on the very same ideas. Ditto for Roger Cukierman, the president of the council of Jewish institutions in France, who called his country’s planned reprints "a disaster.” Supporters claim the reprints will help students understand and debunk Hitler's fascist beliefs. One of the worst men to ever live wrote the book in 1924 while in jail for treason in the southern German state of Bavaria, espousing the dual ideas of annexing neighboring countries to gain more room for Germany and the universal hatred of Jews, whom he tried to exterminate in the Holocaust. For 70 years, the state refused to allow the manifesto to be republished out of respect for victims of the Nazis, but the work is now public domain and therefore free to print at will……….

Abating Russell Westbrook's rage, lobster trap Christmas trees and Meek Mill does the inexplicable

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- We now know what iconic “Office Space” office lackey Milton Waddams did after the iconic 1999 Mike Judge-directed comedy ended. Waddams, a man whose work existence was a realm of constant torment featuring everything from his prized stapler being stolen to having his desk moved to the rat-infested basement while being told he technically hadn't work for the company for years and was only being paid due to an accounting glitch, ended the movie by burning the company’s headquarters to the ground and (ostensibly) getting away with it. It appears he now lives in Russia and is still up to his old tricks. What other explanation could there be for an angry retiree going pyromaniac on a regional administration building in Siberia, burning it to the ground in a housing dispute and killing three people in the process? According to the Investigative Committee's branch in the Krasnoyarsk region in eastern Siberia, the unidentified old-timer splashed gasoline in the regional administration building in the city of Dudinka, then set the four-story building on fire. Why was this old man so angry? According to the committee, the man had previously applied to the regional authorities demanding the allocation of housing and was unhappy with the options offered. That was enough to set a fire in which two men and a woman died and eight others were injured. Not that this idiot was thinking rationally, but at least wait until the middle of the night when the building is empty and then go pyro on the place, making the same point without getting arrested on three charges of homicide. Not your smartest move, Vlada-Milton Waddamski………

- Dammit, Meek Mill, the stray bullets in your one-sided rap battle with Drake had finally stopped flying and although you were thoroughly defeated, at least you were able to limp out of the arena alive. The beef began back in July, when Meek Mill fired the opening shot by saying that Drake doesn't write his own raps. Perhaps realizing he had picked a fight he could not win, he soon apologized, saying, "I was upset as a fan,” but Drake had already loaded up his hip-hop Howitzer and responded with a diss track, kicking off a feud that was the musical equivalent of a much older brother giving his little brother an atomic wedgie and shoving his face into a mud puddle while asking him, “Are you gonna cry?” over and over again. Drake pummeled Meek Mill, but eventually everyone got tired of seeing a one-sided fight and turned their attention in other directions. So why the hell does Meek Mill seem to have re-started the battle in a preview for his new mixtape “Dreamchasers 4” with a line that isn't nearly subtle enough to just slide by unnoticed. "When I was saying sh*t about the rhymes you ain't wrote, I can't wait until we run into ya, I'ma put a gun in ya,” he raps in the clip. The previous salvo in the exchange came from Drake, whose song “Back to Back” made reference to Mill's girlfriend Nicki Minaj in the line, "Is that a world tour or your girl's tour?" Instead of starting a new fight with Drake, maybe Meek Mill, a.k.a. Robert Williams, should focus on the fact that he may soon be headed back to prison following various probation violations. He is on probation for a 2007 arrest where he was charged and convicted for carrying an unlicensed gun and according to the judge in his case, he’s not following her instructions and is all but asking to be put back behind bars……….

- Yes, it turns out that it is possible to vandalize a Christmas tree fashioned out of lobster traps. It seems unlikely on the surface, but according to the powers that be in Gloucester, Massachusetts insist that it’s so. The historic Massachusetts fishing city's popular Christmas tree has been set up on Gloucester's Main Street for 16 years running, assembled from more than 300 lobster traps and decorated with 700 buoys hand-painted by local schoolchildren, artists and adults. The tree stood in its traditional spot for weeks and given that it made it to Christmas, it appeared to be only a matter of time before it was taken down, put away or used to capture some nice, fat lobsters to be served up in one of the town’s seafood restaurants. Instead, over the weekend, unidentified hooligans tore off a number of the tree's decorative, hand-painted buoys and ripped off a portion of its lights. Not content with wrecking a treasured local tradition, the vandals also extended their chicanery to a nearby building, but their efforts to quench the holiday spirit have failed, as the vandalism has mostly been cleaned up and the tree has been re-lit. Police Chief Leonard Campanello called the vandalism "an assault on what Gloucester is all about and while it’s a bit sad to think that a tree of lobster traps embodies the spirit of a city, the police department is treating it as a crime against the community. Sounds like it’s time to go to war, Mass-holes……..

- Is the rage of Russell really a thing of the past? If you believe the proclamations of one of the NBA’s most combustible players - both his game and his emotions - then the answer is yes. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook claims he’s done with the days of picking up an NBA-high 17 technical fouls in a season, a number that led the Association last season. "I'm done with those days," Westbrook said. “I learned in the summertime, once they make a call, they ain't changing it. Took me a while, but I learned it." Had he not had several techs rescinded last season, including one against the Indiana Pacers on April 12 that would've resulted in a one-game suspension, Westbrook’s games missed total could have been much worse. To address the problem, over the summer he reviewed film on each of his technicals and drew a vital conclusion. "I watched film. I watched all my techs and all the dumb sh*t I was doing, so I decided to tell myself, there's no need to argue," Westbrook said. "They're not changing it, so move on." Amazing. He finally realized that players can't yell, cajole or argue their way out of a bad call and that epiphany has overhauled his basketball world view. The new, mellowed Westbrook has still has been hit with four technicals this season, which is tied for ninth in the league, but has clearly been more under control on the floor and that has slowed his pace on techs, a number that stands at 52 since the 2011-12 season. Whether he can keep this up is another matter, but it looks as if someone may have finally growed up and realized he needed to stop hurting his team with his lack of self-control………

Seven tries to be a firefighter, Miko Grimes is relevant because ??? and Condom Machine 1, German Idiot 0

- In this corner, Spanish-born, U.S.-based pop singer Enrique Iglesias, an object of desire for women the whole world ‘round. In the opposite corner, fighting mad and looking to wield his executive power against the forces of evil and seduction contained in Iglesias’ songs and hips, is Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena. The man in charge of the tiny island nation is enraged in the wake of a few of his nation’s ladies removing their bras and hurling them at Iglesias during his recent concert in the country. The gig was in support of Iglesias’ 10th album “Sex and Love,” so maybe the powers that be should have surmised that there would be some heavy sexual overtones involved. Hell, Iglesias’ entire act is based very little on talent of good music and heavily on his sex appeal, so this was all but guaranteed to happen. Yet after video surfaced of the undergarment tossing, Sirisena called the bra-throwing "uncivilized behavior that goes against our culture" and then took it a step further by suggesting that the concert’s promoters should be "beaten with poisonous stingray tails.” Dude, if you’re bringing deadly stingray tails into the mix, ish just got real. In conclusion, Sirisena said "these indecent concerts should never receive authorization again in Sri Lanka” and ripped the expensive ticket prices for the shoe as well. He’s actually right about the tickets, which cost between 5,000 and 50,000 rupees (about $70 to $700). Those ducat costs are the true outrage and yet in a statement after the show, all promoters addressed was the gates for the concert opening later than expected an inconveniencing many fans. Just a farce all around on this one………

- Condoms are meant to prevent unwanted population growth. Condom machines themselves generally don’t play such a final role in the process. A machine minding its own business in the German town of Schoeppingen, near the Dutch border, was forced to play a much bigger part than it was ever intended to play over the weekend when a trio of ass hats decided that the best way to kick off their weekend was to rob said condom machine. It’s unclear whether the machine’s product supply or its cash supply was the primary target, but what is clear is that a man died after he and two others blew the machine, sending debris flying in all directions. The suspect who died was hit in the head by a flying piece of metal because all three men apparently got into a car after triggering the explosion, but this dimwit didn't close his door and was hit by debris when the machine exploded. Yes, killed by condom machine shrapnel. What a way to go out, in a hail of shrapnel, cash and condom packets. Police who were called to the scene found the money and rubbers lying on the ground apparently untouched after the two suspects who survived brought their friend to a hospital. These geniuses came up with quite a story, telling emergency personnel that he had fallen down stairs. That story quickly unraveled and one of the men later admitted the victim's injuries were related to the explosion. The good news is that while condoms are never foolproof and therefore the victim could have still become a father, the finality of this situation permanently removes this moron from the gene pool. Problem solved………

- If the Miami Dolphins were as good at football as cornerback Brent Grimes’ wife Miko is at running her mouth, the New England Patriots wouldn’t be the AFC East champions this season. Miko Grimes draws more attention than her husband ever will based on his play on the field and in the past, she has proven why social media is a loaded gun capable of serious self-inflicted damage by ranting about topics such as her husband not winning MVP honors at the Pro Bowl, how the Atlanta Falcons mistreated him, what she perceives as greed and sexism by the NFL and even the New England Patriots for releasing defensive tackle Vince Wilfork. In fact, Miko Grimes - a woman who has no real reason to be any sort of semi-famous figure - is such a loudmouth that she has her own local radio show. Oh, and there was that time she was arrested on charges of battery on a police officer, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct outside of Sun Life Stadium before a Bills-Dolphins game. Those charges were eventually dropped, just like the nuke she dropped this week on Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill. Miko Grimes has targeted Tannehill before and to be fair, dude is a popular object of scorn based on his six-year, $96 million contract and 28-35 record as a starter. Still, it took Miko Grimes about five seconds to go off on Tannehill after the Dolphins lost 18-12 to the Colts on Sunday. Prior to making her Twitter account private, she wrote,  "I knew this qb stunk the minute we signed to this team but I tried to keep quiet so I didn't discourage bae from believing in his team.” Aww, how sweet. Look at the narcissist with rage issues and no self-control wanting to prop up the apparently feeble self-confidence of her millionaire, professional athlete husband……….

- Everyone needs a second chance…and a third….and a fourth….and a fifth, sixth and seventh. That’s where would-be New York City firefighter Wendy Tapia comes in. Tapia badly wants to be a firefighter, so much so that she has taken the test six times and keeps coming back for more even though it’s pretty clear she doesn’t have what it takes to be a first responder. She was allowed to conditionally graduate from the Fire Academy on May 17, 2013, despite being unable to run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes or less because she used the excuse that a foot injury slowed her down. Either than is one nagging foot injury or this lady was lying because she’s been unsuccessful in five additional attempts despite the department’s magnanimous attitude in giving her try after try after try. Following her sixth failed attempt, in November 2013, Tapia resigned and returned to EMS never having worked a full-fledged shift, but she clearly never gave up on that dream of getting in shape/not being slow as hell and will now receive a seventh opportunity to become a full-fledged member of the department. She applied again and is among a group of EMTs promoted to probationary firefighters. Her group started an 18-week training academy Monday and you won't believe this, but some within the department believe Tapia will be allowed to pass the running test by FDNY brass because officials  fear a gender discrimination lawsuit. Rubber stamping someone for a job they’re in no way qualified for simply to avoid a lawsuit and placate a person in denial about their own shortcomings? Bureaucratic organizations never, ever, ever do that sort of thing. "All who enter the academy must meet the same requirements in order to graduate," FDNY spokesman Jim Long said in trying to diffuse a potentially ugly situation………

Marine uniform changes, Swedes v. Christmas goats and Miranda Lambert v. animal rights kooks

- The Marine Corps is not typically known as a fashion-first outfit. But for the bravest and finest who defend the United States against so much danger on a daily basis, it’s worth giving those men and women a say in the gear they don when they’re at work. With that very thought in mind, significant changes for Marine Corps uniforms are in the works. The final decision hasn’t been made, but switching to “bravos” or “charlies” as the uniform of the day and doing away with desert camouflage utility uniforms are two proposals currently on the table. The changes come in the wake of  a survey of Marines conducted over the summer by the Marine Corps Uniform Board and Marines’ input will be taken into account, according to board manager Mary Boyt. “The survey results will be briefed at the formal Uniform Board meeting during the deliberation phase of the process and will be briefed to the commandant and his staff in conjunction with the formal Uniform Board recommendation on the issues,” Boyt said. In addition to uniform changes, the board has also authorized the wear of lock and twist hairstyles for women and mandated that under sleeve-rolling regulations for desert MARPAT cammies, the rolls must be “snug to the arm.” The uniform survey asked Marines to vote on three potential uniform changes: adopting a new seasonal uniform policy, removing desert cammies from the required gear list and adopting a new dress blue coat for women. Within the seasonal policy, there are three recommendations being considered. One is giving force-level commanders authority to make the call on which uniform of the day their Marines should wear based on the climate in their area of operation, while the second would delegate the decision of which uniform to wear to local commanders based on climate and training requirements and the third would scrap combat utility uniforms as the uniform of the day in favor of the service uniform. In that case, “Bravos” or “charlies” would become the universal daily uniform, versus the weekly “service uniform Fridays” Marines currently enjoy……….

- Vermont Catamounts guard Dre Wills has both a lot of free time on his hands for the near future and the least badass story of athlete misconduct ever for a college athlete. Wills has been suspended for eight games, but not for smashing a bar stool over someone’s head in a fight at an off-campus watering hole or because he was pulled over by campus police with a giant bag of weed in his car, but rather for reselling textbooks. The university's athletic department banned the junior guard for violating its student-athlete code and NCAA rules regarding his athletic scholarship by selling the books. For those who don’t know, scholarship athletes get their books for free and must return them at the end of each quarter or semester, but Wills decided to make a little extra cash by selling his books from the fall semester. Wrong? Technically yes, but in the scope of all the unsavory business that goes on in college sports, probably the least offensive wrong that was committed in the past month. Wills, who is averaging 6.8 points and 5.0 rebounds for the Catamounts, has already served three games of his ban but won't be eligible to play until Jan. 18, when Vermont hosts UMass Lowell. Beyond sitting out several weeks of action, Wills must also pay back an unspecified amount of money and perform community service. To his credit, he has already apologized and said he realizes his actions were wrong, but for future reference, he may want to spice this story up for re-tellings of the tale if he wants to use it to up his street cred………

- Ah, those wacky Swedes. They have various weird traditions and even weirder food preferences - pickled herring, anyone? - but perhaps none wackier and more pyromaniacal than the one that went down over the weekend. In what has become a true hallmark of the holiday season, a giant decorative goat made of straw was set ablaze in the city of Gavle, in central Sweden. The straw goat is a beloved Christmas symbol in the city, but it’s also become a yearly staple to have someone take a torch to it and burn that mo-fo down. Maybe the powers that be should have simply appreciated the fact that this year's edition lasted nearly a month on a downtown square before going up in flames, but instead they’re pressing the case against the accused perpetrator. Police arrested a man suspected of arson, saying they detained a suspect wearing a balaclava and clothes reeking of lighter fluid. Oh yeah? What other evidence do you have against this dude, who just happened to be wearing a piece of clothing often worn to disguise one’s appearance and with the scent of lighter fluid on his person in what may have merely been his own unique, distinctly Swedish take on the idea of cologne? Other than his face being covered in soot and his hair - allegedly - damaged by fire at the time he was apprehended, of course. That’s all circumstantial evidence and maybe we all need to avoid rushing conclusions and wait until after this lush sobers up and can be questioned by police about (allegedly) burning down a straw version of an ancient Scandinavian Yuletide tradition that preceded Santa Claus as the bringer of gifts……….

- The only amazing thing about country music singer Miranda Lambert posting a photo of her wearing a floor-length fur coat she received as a gift from her grandmother is that she didn’t anticipate the blowback she’d receive from her animal rights-obsessed fans and critics. The singer showed off the present from her grandmother, whom she refers to as Nonny, with an Instagram photo that was equal parts rich a-hole and appreciative granddaughter and the reaction was swift, snarky and outspoken. "'I'm so fancy... You already know' my Nonny gave me two of her fur coats! I definitely know where I got my love for DIAMONDS, FUR and WHISKEY! #familytradition #grandmastreasures #besthandmedownever #wandathewanderer #bringitwinter,” Lambert wrote. Some fans enjoyed the post and expressed approval of the gift, but not everyone was down. Haters called the image “absolutely disgusting” and “cruel,” even though Lambert has been open about her love for animals. Hell, her Christmas card this year even featured all five of her dogs and that wasn’t enough to quell the hate. Critics called the self-described animal lover hypocritical, suggesting that all animals are the same and that there isn't a difference between a domesticated animal and a wild one killed and used to make a stylish fur coat. Lambert later posted a photo of she and her grandmother smiling in front of a Christmas tree to flesh out the story a bit. "Her name embroidered inside is priceless," Lambert's caption read. "A family heirloom I will cherish forever. I'm so thankful for her and all the things I have learned from her. Nonny is strong, beautiful, feisty and most of all, loving." But according to animal rights kooks, Nonny is also an evil soul with a blatant disregard for God’s creatures……….

Carly Rae Jepsen + "Fuller House," Spain v. Francisco Franco and NFLer v. Moen

- His reign of terror has been over for decades, but much of Spain is not yet ready to let go of the tyrannical reign of the late Gen. Francisco Franco. Franco, a despised dictator who was sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and did various things to aid the Nazi cause behind the scenes despite promises of neutrality, led an army uprising that crushed the republican Spanish government in 1939. He ruled by force for more than three decades and while republican atrocities were "processed" by Franco's regime — with many summary executions taking place — those within his government who allegedly committed crimes were covered by an amnesty granted in 1975. Yet this week, Zaragoza has become the second city in Spain to call for an investigation into crimes allegedly committed within its boundaries by his dictatorship, which came to abrupt and welcome end with Franco’s death in 1975. The northern city's council approved a resolution asking a local magistrates court to investigate "crimes against humanity" by Franco's regime, one month after Pamplona - best known as the site of the San Fermin festival and the running of the bulls - became the first city to push for a probe. The reason cities feel the need to launch this push is because Spain never officially investigated crimes under the rule of Franco, preferring to act as if his death pretty much swept everything under the rug and allowed it to move forward as if nothing bad actually happened. Good on you, Pamplona and Zarazoga, for doing what your national government should have done long ago…….

- The buzz for the upcoming “Full House” reboot on Netflix may not have Star Wars-worthy levels of hype, but it’s safe to say that fans of 1990s TV sitcoms are excited to see the Tanner family and their wacky San Francisco existence brought back to life. “Fuller House” may be good or it may be terrible with original cast members Jodie Sweetin, Andrea Barber, Candace Cameron Bure, Bob Saget, John Stamos, Dave Coulier and Lori Laughlin back to reprise their roles, but fans’ re-introduction to the show will begin with the show’s theme song. That theme song won't be the series' iconic original opening track, "Everywhere You Look," which featured scenic shots of San Francisco during the show's run from 1987 to 1995. The revived show will get a redone title track and it will be sung by none other than pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen, best known for the irritating, gimmicky and borderline stalker-ish track “Call Me Maybe.” Jepsen broke the news of her involvement with the project on Twitter, writing, "Butch Walker and I re-did the theme song for @FullerHouse together and I can't wait for you to hear it! Check it out on Netflix Feb. 26th!!" Netflix has cranked out several critically acclaimed original shows and revived a few old shows as well, so its ability to do justice to the “Full House” franchise - decidedly campy and cheesy in its original existence - isn't really in question, even if its choice of theme song singers is a bit shaky……..

- Aren't martial arts teachers supposed to be the wise, responsible masters of the dojo, the men and women who explain to those eager to channel their inner Bruce Lee that they’re training not to kick ass, but to learn self-discipline, how to avoid fights and only use their fighting skills if they absolutely need to defend themselves? No one communicated that message to Justin Patrick Branick, who doesn’t appear to possess the necessary patience quotient to instruct those new to martial arts, at least not based on his act last week. According to Prince William police spokesman Nathan Probus, Branick was teaching a taekwondo class in Bristow, Va. when he became angry with one of his students. That student happened to be a 5-year-old boy who was probably doing what overly energetic, immature 5-year-old boys do, making noise, goofing off and failing to follow directions. Whatever the boy did, it sent Branick over the edge and the instructor responded not by F-bombing the poor kid or even kicking him out of the class, but by picking the boy up by the ankle and throwing him over his shoulder. Probus said the boy fell and lost consciousness after being hoisted and hurled by his teacher and it didn’t take long for authorities to arrest Branick on a charge of felony child abuse. Branick better be damn good at using martial arts to defend himself whenever he’s a free man again because it’s not hard to imagine the boy’s parents tracking him down and looking to administer some corporal punishment of their own to the ass hat who nearly killed their child……..

- The NFL season can't end soon enough for the Atlanta Falcons. A 5-0 start to the year has careened over a cliff and tumbled downward for the past two months, leaving the ATL 7-7 and barely hanging on in the NFC playoff race as it awaits the inevitable finality of its downfall ending in a fiery ball of failure seven days from now when the Falcons miss the postseason entirely. No one embodies the ignominy of how the season has gone more than rookie running back Tevin Coleman, who has entered the NFL's concussion protocol not because he got his melon cracked by a 250-pound linebacker running the ball up the middle, but be he was done in by Moen. Yes, that Moen. The one that manufactures hardware for showers, as in the shower in which Coleman slipped and hit his head, leaving the third-round draft pick with a brain bruise that could sideline him for the rest of the season. Like his team, Coleman’s season started on a high note as he tallied  80 yards on 20 carries in a Week 1 win against the Philadelphia Eagles. Also just like his team, his mountaintop moment was short-lived as he suffered a fractured rib the following week against the New York Giants, causing him to miss two games. Even after Devonta Freeman became a breakout star for the Falcons in Coleman's absence, scoring six rushing touchdowns in the two games Coleman missed, the rookie roared back in Week 12 with first career 100-yard rushing game in a 20-10 loss. That, as it turns out, may have been the last good moment of Coleman’s season and his inability to successfully navigate a simply personal hygiene task that millions of ordinary people complete safely every day is the reason Coleman can get a one-week head start on his teammates when it comes to his offseason plans……….

Rich assholes sue to defend their Chanel, NBA star or spoiled kindergartener and Radiohead's Bond diss

- Here’s hoping the karma police find a way to b*tch-slap the producers and anyone else associated with the latest James Bond film, “Spectre,” for stiffing one of the best rock bands in the world. The theme for “Spectre” was ultimately done - capably so - by British pop singer Sam Smith, but it could have been even better had Bond producers done the smart and honorable thing by allowing Radiohead to soundtrack the film’s lead song the way Thom Yorke and Co. had been asked to do. That’s right, kids, Radiohead have revealed that they were previously asked to write the theme song for the umpteenth - and arguably most uninspired - Bond movie and later had that offer yanked off the table. Yorke revealed the news on Twitter, writing: “As the year closes we thought you might like to hear it. Merry Christmas. May the force be with you.” On their Soundcloud page, Radiohead detailed how it all went down.  “Last year we were asked to write a theme tune for the Bond movie Spectre. Yes we were. It didn’t work out, but became something of our own, which we love very much,” the band explained. That track, titled “Spectre,” is now available to download for free and honestly, it’s a much better song than what Smith ultimately came up with. It’s unclear whether the Radiohead tune will factor into the band's forthcoming ninth album, the follow-up to 2011's 'The King Of Limbs,' but the rockers have confirmed that they are in the studio working on the project and hope to go on tour in support of the album at some point next year…….

- Some may argue that migrants who successful make it from war-torn, impoverished African nations to slightly less turbulent nations in Europe have already won the lottery. Those people may not be happy to learn that African migrants, including at least one rescued at sea from a rickety wooden boat, are among the top prize winners of Spain's Christmas lottery. Yes, Spain has a Christmas lottery because as everyone knows, the holiday season is to the best time of year to get your gamble on and not only when you take the risk of eating Uncle Larry’s undercooked Christmas ham and risking a trip to the emergency room to end the day. The lucky migrant is a Senegalese man named Ngame, who claims that he and his wife were saved by Spain's coast guard in 2007 when their overcrowded boat was traveling from Africa's western coast toward Spain's Canary Islands. According to reports from Espana, Ngame and his wife bought their winning ticket  in the southern coastal city of Roquetas de Mar, where more than 1,000 tickets worth $438,000 each were sold. Ngame, buoyed by his newfound wealth, decided to do an interview in which he proudly thanked Spain for saving his life and for giving him the opportunity to win the lottery. In news that will likely infuriate the more jingoistic, anti-immigrant among us all, the lottery agency owner who sold Ngame his winning ducat claimed that about 35 African migrants won. Then again, given Spain’s current economic woes, anyone within its borders having some extra disposable income is probably a good thing………

- Phoenix Suns forward Markieff Morris is quite literally the bratty 5-year-old kindergartener who shows up to school pissed at the world, gets even angrier when he find out he’s not in the same reading group as his twin brother and spends the rest of the day being a Grade-A asshole. Except in Morris’ case, the rest of the day has become the entire first third of the NBA season and his temper tantrum is being witness by the whole world. Morris has been angry at his team since the offseason, when it traded his twin brother Marcus to Detroit, daring to not abide by the unwritten rule that if a pair of twin brothers really want to play together, even though you’re a professional sports franchise free to trade players as it sees fit, you cannot break up their brotherly union no matter what. Yes, the Morris brothers struck a bizarre contractual arrangement with the team, agreeing to take a specific amount of money and split it between the two of them to stay together, but the Suns had every right to trade one of both of them to different teams and yet after the deal, Markieff Morris tersely demanded to be traded as well and vowed to hold out if need be. He ultimately caved and showed up, but has not been happy since and with the Suns 12-19 and out of the playoffs at present, his dissent boiled over in the fourth quarter of the Suns' 104-96 home loss to the Denver Nuggets. The Suns lost their third straight game and with 9:47 to play and Denver leading 84-75, Morris went spoiled brat. He was taken out of the game and hurled a towel at coach Jeff Hornacek, earning himself a two-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team.  "He's mad about not playing," Hornacek told. "I look at the stat sheet. He's a minus-13 in 12 minutes. So there, I took him out. ... He thinks he's better than that. Show me." Wow…if your coach throws you under the bus that quickly, you know there’s no defending what you did………

- Rich people are assholes. Not all of them, but a certain group of the wealthiest among us undeniably suck and mistakenly believe that having more money makes them better than other people - it only means they have more money, of course, and has no impact on the quality of their person. But these rich d-bags do things like file lawsuits seeking $4,600 for the designer clothes they were wearing at the time they were struck by a drunken driver in a crosswalk. Meet Susan Layne, a Portland (Oregon) resident who deserves a little sympathy because she was indeed hit while walking by a drunken moron who in no way, shape or form can be defended. Layne sued the driver for the cost of her medical bills and that part of her lawsuit is both logical and wholly justified. Anyone in her shoes - Prada, as it turns out - would do the same regardless of their socioeconomic status and would be right to do so. But while we can all get with medical bill compensation for someone who was the victim of a collision that left her with bruises, scratches and pain, not everyone would top off their lawsuit with an addendum demanding an additional $4,600 to cover the cost of an (allegedly destroyed) Chanel handbag, Prada boots and Burberry trench coat. No one involved with the case seems to recall anyone ever suing for compensation for designer clothes, but again, rich people are assholes and feel entitled to wring every last cent out of a poor, possibly uninsured sap with much bigger life issues than a rich lady and her Chanel bag that need replaced. Maybe a crash victim with high-priced clothing is entitled to payment much like someone whose camera or laptop was damaged, but that extra $4,600 on the lawsuit just seems punitive for a woman who easily could have just asked for a nice, round $1 million to cover her general pain, suffering and the feeling of sheer terror that will strike her every time she sees a crosswalk for the rest of her life………

Rome is the new China, Nick Saban's about to bolt and Republicans try to ruin Festivus

- Would Republican presidential candidates please stop ruining fun sh*t the rest of us actually enjoy? It’s fine that these 766 ass hats all vying for the same lousy nomination are trashing their own party and its already tarnished reputation while simultaneously making mockeries of themselves in the process, but trashing other parts of society and pop culture is a step too far. That goes for fringe candidate Rand Paul, who kept up what has become his unfortunate holiday tradition of hijacking Festivus, the fake-yet-real holiday created by the iconic 1990s sitcom “Seinfeld.” Part of Festivus, created by Frank Costanza on the show, is the Feats of Strength, with a second being the Airing of Grievances. It’s the Airing of Grievances the Paul seems to love and for the third straight year, the senator took to Twitter to ring in the season with a special Airing of Grievances against political opponents and government waste. Paul let his followers know that the fun was about to begin and first targeted frontrunner Donald Trump, who somehow is still a thing.  "Where else to start but @realDonaldTrump. If you bring the Yiddish, know what it means. But I guess that's more of a kvetch than a grievance,” Paul tweeted. “After the debates, @realDonaldTrump always trying to give us parting gifts of his made in China ties. Weird. #Festivus." Up next, it was Ted Cruz, a man lacking both charisma and a pulse. "My friend Ted Cruz has still not pledged to issue exec order declaring Canadian 'bacon' is not real bacon. Makes me suspicious. #Festivus," Paul tweeted of Cruz, born in Calgary, Canada but a U.S. citizen. Oh, and there was the perpetually comatose Ben Carson to attack. "I have no grievances against my fellow doc @RealBenCarson because I have not heard a word he has said in any debate. #Festivus," Paul wrote. Stop it, Rand, you’re killing us. No seriously, stop………..

- Alabama, you had a good run. Nick Saban led you to three national championships, coached you for nine seasons and has you in the running for a fourth title this season, but it’s over. That seems like a leap in logic, but it’s really a simple exercise in analytical thinking. See, any time the Nick-tator sits down with the media and informs them in no uncertain terms that he loves his current job, is committed to it and won’t be leaving for any other gigs, you can lock it in: He’s gone and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Since the dawn of time, Saban has been the preeminent liar in football when it comes to staying in jobs and not looking for new ones, as so wonderfully chronicled by the news conference while he was head coach of the Miami Dolphins and answered a question about taking the Alabama job by saying, “I’m not going to be the next head coach at Alabama. I don’t even know why I have to talk about this. I’ve said it over and over and over again.” Within a few days, he was headed to Tuscaloosa with his pants afire. So when Saban says that he won’t leave Alabama, it’s pretty clear the opposite is true. "No, I really don't. I don't see it ever happening, and I know every year somebody has me going somewhere else," Saban said. "I think a lot of it isn't just about the coaching part. What people don't understand is they forget you're a person. They forget you have a wife and two kids and a grandbaby, and they all live in Birmingham.” Great, so you’re a human being whose mother lives in Birmingham and who has grandchildren. You had those things in Miami and you left, you had a family when you left Toledo, you had one when you left Michigan State, you had one when you left LSU….there seems to be a pattern here and it’s definitely not one of you telling the truth………..

- Anyone visiting two of Italy’s most popular cities during the holidays should enjoy a stroll around town even more than normal. Rome and Milan have ordered no-car days next week to combat pollution, taking the decidedly unwelcome step of doing something that sounds like sh*t China would do because it’s essentially one giant smog cloud with the occasional historical or cultural site to stumble blindly into because you can’t see more than six inches in front of your face on account of its rampant pollution. The pollution levels in Milan and Rome have hit unhealthy levels for weeks mainly because no rain has fallen to wash away the smog, thus a six-hour ban on cars this coming Monday and Tuesday announced by Rome and  Milan's anti-pollution measure six-hour bans each of those days plus Wednesday. The chief culprit in Rome is believed to be home heating is blamed along with heavy traffic, a potent mix creating throat-irritating, eye-stinging air. Along with the temporary driving bans, thermostat settings in Rome's homes and office cannot exceed 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit), measures that will be difficult to enforce unless police plan to go door to door with a portable thermometer measuring whether Romans have their living rooms heated a few degrees too warm. Oh, and the total hours a day furnaces can run is being reduced from 12 to eight, with schools and hospitals the exceptions. Believe it or not, many Romans ignore the rules and leave the heat on all day and with warm, dry weather worsening pollution, it’s a recipe for obscured skies………..

- Remember rapper Kreayshawn? Probably not, but as a refresher, the Oakland, California native was the typical one-hit wonder in 2011 with her viral single “Gucci Gucci” and since then, it seems like her life has gone just the way you’d expect for a marginally talented musician who suddenly became famous for five seconds and had a flood of cash sent her way by virtue of her short-lived success. In other words, she’s broke and looking for someone to blame for her dire financial state as the holidays roll around. Kreayshawn claimed that her bank account has been "wiped clean" by the Internal Revenue Service after she was accused of not paying her taxes. She responded to those claims by taking to Twitter to suggest that she was "robbed" by her accountant, whom she accused of keeping the money she intended to use for her taxes for himself instead. "Can’t believe the day came,” Kreayshawn wrote in a series of now-deleted tweets. “The IRS wiped my whole bank account clean. Four days before X-mas. I’m completely devastated. I did pay my taxes [except] instead of my accountant paying them, he took the money for the taxes and never filed and robbed me. So now I have to pay taxes from 2011 [to] now.” See, but you didn’t pay your taxes, K. You (allegedly and foolishly) turned the money over to someone who you trusted to pay your taxes, which isn’t the same as actually paying them. As Kreayshawn noted, her attorney is now trying to work out a payment plan with the IRS, but she deleted that and the other tweets on the subject because of Internet trolls who mocked her for her misfortune. The amazing thing is that she was foolish enough to expect a different response from the masses………..

D.C. police v. pot brownies, Courtney Barrett v. world awareness and one of Canada's loves ruins another

- The New York Jets have become one of the NFL’s best stories this season, cobbling together a 9-5 record and pushing for a playoff berth despite a castoff quarterback and recycled running back corps that they pulled off the scrap heap. It’s only fitting that as the Jets make a push for the postseason in the final two games on their schedule, they do so with another awesome story in the fold. Joe Anderson, a man with an average name but an outstanding will to succeed, is a down-on-his-luck receiver who was signed by the Bears as an undrafted free agent out of Texas Southern in 2012 and played in nine games, mostly on special teams, for parts of two seasons. An abdominal injury and later his release by the Philadelphia Eagles prior to the 2014 season left him balling in the Canadian Football League, but he spent this season as a civilian, working out and seeking a way back into football. Six weeks ago, he found his in, standing outside the Houston Texans' stadium for several days with a sign asking for an NFL job. He  Anderson posted on Instagram a picture of himself holding a piece of cardboard box with the words, "Not homeless ... but STARVING for success. Will Run Routes 4 Food. #Whateverittakes, #UnderDog, #Hungry and #IBelieve.” Fans embraced his one-man campaign and the post went viral, but it wasn’t until former Chicago teammate and fellow wide receiver Brandon Marshall took notice that Anderson’s chance materialized. Marshall saw the post and wrote, "Wow, this is humility right here,” adding that Anderson was "one of the hardest-working guys I've had the pleasure of playing with" while they were with the Bears. The Jets took the cue and this week, signed Anderson to their practice squad. Now, the married father of two who insists that, “It's bigger than just collecting a check to me, straight up!," has a chance to prove himself and earn a bigger opportunity in the league going forward……….

- Don’t f*ck with Canada’s true religion: hockey. There are other important facets of life in the Great White North, namely denim, round bacon and the dulcet tones of Bryan Adams, but nothing stirs the Canuck soul quite like puck and when an idiot several six-packs of Molson into the tank wrecks a chance to see soccer on ice played, that’s a big problem. The culprit in this case is an unidentified and soon-to-be-unemployed alcoholic Zamboni driver who was arrested this week and charged him with impaired driving, resisting arrest and refusing a breathalyzer after he wrecked an ice rink in Manitoba. "On his first lap he struck the gate where the Zamboni drives onto the ice, and broke the boards and also broke pieces off the actual Zamboni," said Martin Kintscher, manager of the Seine River Snipers bantam team. "One piece got stuck under the Zamboni, which left a ridge on the ice with every lap." Amazingly, when Ste. Anne authorities arrived and arrested the man, Zamboni driver insisted that the rink was in great condition and was subsequently found to be both a liar and extremely hammered. Officials had little choice but to cancel the game and tell the 13 to 14-year-old boys on the team that the driver “had issues” and “maybe he is impaired.” Maybe he’s impaired? These kids are in junior high, which means they’re old enough to know what a drunk person looks and acts like. It’s just sad that one of Canada’s other loves, beer, ruined their true love for one night………

- Awards shows haven’t mattered for pretty much as long as awards shows have existed. Those shows have something in common with Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett, who is among the finalists for the Best New Artist prize at next year's Grammy Awards. The 2016 Grammys will be held Feb. 15 and Barrett will vie for the top newcomer award alongside the likes of British rocker James Bay, pop favorite Meghan Trainor, Sam Hunt and Tori Kelly. When Barrett shows up for the ceremony, someone may want to a) hand her photos of her fellow nominees or b) introduce her to them, because she claims to have no clue who any of them are. "I don't know who they are," Barnett said of her fellow nominees. "I probably won't [check them out]. I listen to music when my friends recommend it to me, I don't often just go out and buy a record because it was in a magazine or it was on a list or something. So, yeah, I probably won't.” How very honest and utterly dismissive of you, C. Why would you care so little that you won’t even fire up Spotify and take a listen to the people you’re competing against for a prestigious prize? “I feel like there's so much music in the world that I haven't listened to yet that I want to listen to,” Barrett added. “You just live in your own little bubble, like, or I do anyway... I don't know much about anything really. I don't really follow that much.” We all live in our own little bubble, Court, but most of us at least pretend to give a damn about the people around us from time to time………

- Prepare to be stunned, world. A pair of Washington, D.C. stoners have been arrested for actions that, to understate it just a bit, showed a decidedly large lack of good judgment. Meet Nicholas Cunningham and Evonne Lidoff, who are somehow associated with a burgeoning business enterprise in the District known as Kush Gods. Kush Gods, as its name suggests, is a ganja-based business looking to carve out a niche now that possession of marijuana for personal use has been legal in the District of Columbia since February. Cunningham and Lidoff recently hit the streets to promote their brand and did so by dishing out pot brownies on the streets of Washington in exchange for "donations." The use of the word donations is essential because while a person can legally possess the hippie lettuce in D.C. and it is also legal to grow pot and to give it away, a pesky technicality means it is still illegal to sell the dank. That's why Kush Gods advertised that the business accepted "donations” and yet that wasn’t good enough for District of Columbia police, who announced that they had arrested this enterprising THC tandem on a charge of distribution of marijuana. Not only that, Johnny Law also seized three vehicles painted with marijuana leaves that advertised the business, leaving Kush Gods without any way to get around to run the business they probably are too baked to get off the couch to work for most days of the week. Not exactly showing off your understanding of the Christmas spirit this week, D.C. police…………

China hearts Starbury, two ass hats v. blind Salvation Army bell ringer and Soulja Boy tells 'em about face tats

- Nothing says innocent, wrongly accused former elected official quite like fleeing the country and announcing from abroad that you are being targeted politically and will stay outside the country while fighting charges that you illegally spied on opponents. We see you, former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, hiding somewhere in Florida and flouting your country’s Supreme Court’s orders that you be detained for allegedly intercepting the communications of 150 people during your 2009 to 2014 administration. This is merely one of a half-dozen investigations against the supermarket magnate for alleged corruption and with all of those cases stacking up against him, Martinelli fled Panama in January after the election of his arch-rival Juan Carlos Varela and is believed to be living in Florida. The process of actually having a trial is being held up until Panama requests his extradition and that request is granted, but maybe we should simply stop all of this nonsense now because after all, Martinelli has denied any wrongdoing and former despots who preside over peripheral nations with little global significance never lie when accused of abusing their powers, violating the human rights of opponents and those under their power and anyone else who dares to disagree with them. Martinelli issued a statement magnanimously announcing that he would return to Panama when a fair trial could be guaranteed or when Varela leaves office in 2019, whichever comes first. Stay classy, Ricky……….

- Soulja Boy tell ‘em… that getting inked up on your grill is a bad idea. Actually, one second thought, don’t tell them, because the video you just posted online tells the story perfectly all by itself. The mid-level rapper who has that one song you know and not much else has long been a big proponent of tatting up and as a hip-hop star, having lots of body art is a legit part of your look. There aren’t a lot of rappers with clean canvases and having badass ink definitely commands a certain amount of street cred, but as Soulja Boy found out recently, there comes a time in a man’s life when having a symbol of anything at all permanently pounded into the subdermal layer of your forehead isn't that desirable. After what had to be some deep Soul(ja Boy) searching - pun intended - he managed to arrive at the difficult decision to have his face tats blasted off his grill and in a brief video, the whole world can enjoy the sight of the rapper's Gucci symbol being wiped from his forehead with the aid of a removal gun. Hell, Soulja Boy even turned part of the procedure into a vine so it can be watched over and over and over again, like a six-second loop of warning messages for every square of a parent who wants to warn their child about the evils and dangers of having images tattooed into your skin. Here’s hoping this wasn’t merely a temporary canvas cleansing to clear the way for a new forehead tat, but rather a permanent change to a better visage……..

- Walking by a Salvation Army bell ringer or shooting them a disdainful look as you exit or enter a store because you find their incessant ringing of that damn bell and irrepressible cheerfulness freaking annoying is one thing and even that probably makes you a pretty crappy human being, but at least those responses don’t leave a sightless bell ringer lying on the ground with a possible head injury the way a dastardly New York duo did this week. Enter Juan Rodriguez and Audrianna Wignal, a pair of alleged ass hats who were procuring some low-end grub at a burger restaurant in White Plains when the day went horribly south in a hurry. While waiting for their heart attack on a bun with a side of sliced potatoes drenched in grease, the pair accused a blind bell Salvation Army ringer of cutting in line and given the demonstrated lack of IQ by Rodrgiuez and Wignal, they were either too stupid or utterly clueless to the fact that the person with whom they were having a dispute could not see. Either way, Rodriguez knocked the man to the ground and punched him while Wignal kicked him, police say. That beating probably should have sufficed, but of course these two tools weren’t done. To cap things off, Rodriguez rung the victim’s bell - again, pun intended - by hurling the kettle and striking this poor guy in the head. Doctors treated the victim at a nearby hospital for injuries to his head and face, while his assailants were thankfully arrested on assault charges. As always, at least they had a good reason for their actions……….

- China is infamous for its knock-offs and rip-offs of pop cultural phenomena and characters from the West, with everything from cheap Mickey Mouse replicas to bootleg Paulie Shore DVDs on Beijing street corners a commonality in the communist hell hole. However, even China wouldn’t bottom out with a low as low as immortalizing mentally troubled former NBA star and U-Stream Vaseline eater Stephon Marbury, right? Oh, but it’s true and depressingly real. The man once glossed Starbury before tumbling out of the Association and hitting rock bottom in China has been immortalized with his own statue and postage stamp in his adopted homeland and as of this week, he’s the star attraction of a 300-square foot museum in Beijing. Yes, Marbury has led the Beijing Ducks to three of the past four Chinese Basketball Association championships and averaged 29.7 points per game in winning the finals MVP award last season, but dude has spent five years in China and they suddenly love a guy who is the best player in a fourth-rate league full of never-weres in the basketball equivalent of Siberia? Marbury, clearly caught up in the moment/pandering to his current surroundings, said that of all the uniforms he’s worn, his Beijing uniform means the most. "My Beijing jersey means more to me than any of them. I don't [say] that because of the championship, but just because I'm here at home and I've had a support system," Marbury said. Even for a dude who once used a live video streaming site to broadcast himself consuming petroleum jelly, that’s just crazy talk………

Ukraine refuses to do it for the nookie, Lithuanian lushes ride in the back seat and college dining hall food indignities

- Rather than be insulted and offended, international students at Ohio's Oberlin College should a) feel welcomed to the club and b) gain a much better understanding of the exceptionally low culinary standards in place for your average school cafeteria. The stink started when the campus dining hall decided to reach out and attempt to make the international students feel welcome by serving different dishes from their respective home lands. Any sane, reasonably life-experienced person would conclude that minimum wage-earning cafeteria workers at a small college would do terribly at replicating the authentic cuisine of a foreign country, yet when the food was served, a Vietnamese student thought the effort at replicating a beloved Vietnamese street food was “ridiculous,” while a snotty Japanese student called the undercooked rice use in sushi "disrespectful." Hey foreigners, here’s a heaping helping of reality for you: All of the rice served in that dining hall is undercooked, regardless of what kind of dish in which it’s served. Plain white rice, brown rice, instant rice, long-grain rice…..all of the damn rice isn't cooked well because IT’S AN F’ING COLLEGE DINING HALL, NOT RUTH’S CHRIS STEAKHOUSE. The fact that you were served underwhelming approximations of what you would otherwise expect when ordering those same dishes at an actual restaurant should make you feel like you’re a true member of the club to which every American has joined at some point in their lives. Instead of b*tching to the school newspaper and having your whining turn into a national story, just shut your mouth, eat what you’re given or spend the money to go to a real restaurant where you can have food that tastes at least somewhat like it’s supposed to taste………

- Raise your hand if you don’t understand the purpose of a one-year suspension from your high-paying job as a professional athlete, suspended Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Justin Blackmon. Blackmon, banned from the NFL for 12 months after repeated legal troubles that included two DUI arrests, doesn’t seem to be using his year off in a productive manner - productive in either the sense of getting his job back or avoiding the prospect of his life careening over the edge of a very steep cliff and into the infinite abyss of desolation below. That conclusion is based on the fact that, according to an Ardmore (Oklahoma) Police Department arrest report, police performed a traffic stop on a 2015 Jeep Wrangler that Blackmon was driving because of a non-working brake light at 3:46 a.m. and found that both Blackmon and his passenger, identified as Reginald Thompson, seemed to be extremely intoxicated. The arresting officer asked the obvious question about whether the pair had been drinking and Blackmon said he had "just two drinks." Unless those two drinks were 40-ounce glasses of Everclear, he may have been underestimating his alcohol consumption because the embattled receiver proceeded to fail several field sobriety tests as well as a preliminary breath test. At that point, perhaps tired of failing at other things in addition to life, he refused to take a breathalyzer test, became  angry and refused to give officers his phone number when he was booked at the Carter County Jail for DUI. He has now racked up three alcohol-related arrests and four overall, with the previous once coming just 17 months ago. Mix in a misdemeanor marijuana possession arrest and you have a five-year span in which a promising, physically gifted professional athlete has flushed his life down the toilet in extremely emphatic fashion………

- Speaking of lushes who need to stop and re-evaluate their lives, meet an unidentified Lithuanian mother who made one colossally bad choice, chased it with a slightly less terrible choice and is now facing a fine of 115 euros ($125) for allowing a minor to drive a motor vehicle. This late-arriving candidate for Mother of the Year started her chain of terrible life decisions by climbing so far inside a bottle of the strongest stuff she could find that by the time her day ended with her in the back of a police car, her blood-alcohol content was measured at more than four times the legal driving limit, a local police statement said. Yet it’s the how of her ending up in police custody that’s making the most noise, largely because after getting extremely hammered, this woman chased that bad call with having her 10-year-old son take the wheel of her minivan and drive her wherever the hell a woman on the precipice of alcohol poisoning needs to go - another liquor store run? - and that decision led to border police spotting a slow moving minivan on a country road near the southern town of Kybartai. Local police stopped the van and found the young boy behind the wheel and his liquoured-up mother in the back seat. Situations like this are probably why Lithuania's road safety record is among the worst in the European Union, with 15 fatal accidents per 100,000 vehicles in 2014. A truly proud day for you, Lithuania………

- While we’re talking about poor decisions made by Eastern European nations, let’s give credit to Ukraine for not making one. While Limp Bizkit may have done all for the nookie, the former Soviet Bloc nation has told the band’s frontman that he can take that cookie and shove up his yeah, shove it up his yeah, shove it up…you get the point. That point is that Fred Durst has been banned from the Ukraine for a period of five years, a decision confirmed by both state media sources and Interfax security services. According to sources close to the situation, Durst hasn’t been banned for the obvious reasons - making terrible music he attempts to pass off as some badass nu-metal/rap fusion - but rather in the interests of guaranteeing the security of the state. How a crappy rap/metal “singer” threatens national security is unclear, but if Durst expressing a desire to move to the Crimea region earlier this year in order to make Russian reality TV magic, then here’s hoping that Durst threatens to move to every state in the United States soon and maybe even Canada, just to ensure that he’s kept far, far away from us all. Saying that he'd like to obtain a Russian passport likely didn’t help Durst’s case, not when Russian stole the Crimea region from Ukraine by force and gave a middle finger to foreign policy standards in the process. Durst has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about invading Ukraine in recent months, including the revelation that his wife Kseniya Beryazina is teaching him Russian. Prior to Durst’s threat, er, suggestion, Crimean authorities called on Western celebrities to obtain residence in the territory to further what Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov described as his vision of the region as "the new Beverly Hills." It’s funny, but while Beverly Hills residents have their problems and issues, recognizing the awfulness of Durst’s “music” has never really been one of them………

Amazon acid trip murders, UFC + Star Wars lameness and Birmingham city council meets WWE

- Thank God that the release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is over and all of the nonsense can stop. No, not the incessant and overwhelming promotional push for a movie that set all sorts of box office records in its debut weekend, nor the slew of toys, clothing items and more being sold in stores around the world to further cash in on the Star Wars name. All of those things are fine, if not a bit overdone. No, the true ass-hattery that should come to a close is the losers who try to gravy-train the Star Wars hype by hijacking the movie, its characters and its ideas into everything from car commercials to sports radio shows to what they wear to work on casual Friday. Nowhere was it clearer that this awful trend had jumped, re-jumped and re-re-jumped the shark than at the UFC Fight Night weigh-ins in Orlando prior to Saturday night’s bouts. Featherweight fighters Cole Miller and Jim Alers, former teammates, stepped on the scale and while both made weight for the fight, neither made a good choice when it came to how they handled the stereotypical weigh-in showdown, the one in which fighters mean mug, bump chests, act as if they’re about to throw hands and wait for officials to separate them and stop the fight that was never going to happen anyhow. Miller and Alers went a different route, channeling their inner Star Wars dorks by staging a brief lightsaber battle. Miller was wielding Anakin Skywalker's original blue lightsaber, while Alers countered with the new broadsword lightsaber belonging to Adam Driver's character, Kylo Ren. It was every bit as ridiculous as it sounds, maybe even more so……….

- When you book a trip to the Peruvian Amazon and that trip includes drinking a hallucinogenic plant brew at a “spiritual retreat,” you have to accept the fact that there’s a strong chance the whole experience is going to end disastrously. It’s still sad that Briton Unais Gomes is dead because he was stabbed to death by Canadian Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens, but much like jumping into the lion’s cage at the zoo while wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress, the risks of tripping out on a powerful hallucinogenic with weapons in the immediate vicinity are pretty obvious. Stevens is in custody after killing Gomes in apparent self-defense, with witnesses saying Gomes attacked Stevens with a knife after suffering a bad trip. The two men had been hitting the ayahuasca at a spiritual retreat near the jungle city of Iquitos before sh*t went south. Ayahuasca, which is a combination of an Amazonian vine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), gives users a psychedelic experience that it seems neither man could handle. Accoring to local police, Gomes used a knife from the kitchen of a nearby alternative health center to attack Stevens, who foiled the attack and allegedly used the same knife to kill Gomes, stabbing him in the chest and stomach. Ayahuasca, also known as yage, is used by Amazonian tribes in Peru and Brazil as a spiritual or medicinal tool and many jungle retreats offer the brew to tourists, but much like a strong cocktail or an especially potent beer, it’s clearly not for everyone and consuming it can lead to disastrous consequences…………

- Count Metallica among the group of aging, past-their-prime rock bands from whose cold, dead hands you’ll have to pry their instruments in order to get them to walk away from the music industry. Alongside geezer rockers like The Who and Rolling Stones, James Hetfield and his merry band of metal men don’t plan to quit any time soon even though the frontman is somewhat wary of the various vagaries of the modern music industry.  "Look, musicians never retire," Hetfield said. "They just become less popular. People think you've retired, but no, I'm still writing. It's a part of me. It's what I do on this planet. That's why I've been put here, I believe. And if I stop that, part of me dies. There's no retirement. So we do what we do until physically we can't do it." Yes, much like aging boxers who can't defend themselves and are a danger to their own health in the ring, aging rock stars find it hard to bid adieu to the limelight and walk away to life off stage.  "As much as we've talked about the landscape of the music business not being what it was, I'm excited about the fact that it's different,” Hetfield added. So with all of that in mind, it won't be very long before Metallica cranks out the follow-up to their most recent album, 2008’s “Death Magnetic,” right? Umm, no. Hetfield is adamant that at the band won't be rushed into their next album, although the fact that it has been nearly eight years without one - rapidly creeping up on the interminable wait for Guns N’ Roses über-disappointing dud “Chinese Democracy” - pretty much negates any notion of being rushed into anything by this point……….

- Merry F’ing Christmas, Birmingham, Alabama. If anyone had a doubt that your fine city’s leadership would forget what the true spirit of the holiday season was, consider those doubts erased by Mayor William Bell and councilman Marcus Lundy. These pillars of civic pride put on the sort of display at a council meeting that lights up the holidays with no electricity required, turning a closed-door discussion in a room behind city council chambers into a closed-fist slugfest that left both men hospitalized with minor injuries. A typical, boring meeting was taking place when the brawl broke out for reasons that are still unclear, leaving Bell with bruising on the right side of his neck and swelling in his left knee, while photos of scrapes on the back of Lundy's left leg were on full display when council president Johnathan Austin spoke at a news conference in the wake of the incident. Who did what during the fight depends on who you ask, as Bell accused Lundy of putting him in a chokehold and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The mayor later withdrew his complaint and said he did so out of concern about the overall good of the city, followed by both men publicly apologizing at a news conference in which they were flanked by ministers at city hall. In a totally lame and extremely cheesy display, these two elected officials hugged it out twice in front of cameras and said they love each other like brothers. "We're family and we're gonna start acting like family," Lundy said. Lost in that statement is a key point, namely how families treat each other and a key opportunity being missed here. Simply put, families fight. Furthermore, council meetings are boring as hell. If residents knew that a discussion over zoning ordinances or stormwater runoff could turn into a WWE-style no-holds-barred brawl with chair shots, brass knuckles and barbed-wire 2x4’s, meetings that typically attract single-digit attendance would turn into standing-room-only affairs that would transform local government into a national sensation……….