The Libertarian Party's Trump-stopper, Nick Saban rages on and Mary Poppins gets a sequel

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- Did you know you were anxiously awaiting a sequel to a movie that came out 52 years ago? If you didn’t, now you know and you can be satisfactorily excited about the “Mary Poppins” sequel, which has an official release date of Christmas Day 2018. The remake of the classic musical starring Julie Andrews as a magical nanny will feature British actress Emily Blunt and “Hamilton” star Lin-Manuel Miranda and will be directed by Rob Marshall, who specializes in film adaptions of Broadway musicals. The original came out in 1964 and Hollywood rarely waits that long to make a sequel to anything at all, but this one has somehow slipped by - until now. It will also have the help of Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe-winning composer Marc Shaiman, who is writing the score and collaborating with Scott Wittman on new songs for the film. “I am truly humbled and honored to be asked by Disney to bring PL Travers’ further adventures to the screen. The iconic original film means so much to me personally, and I look forward to creating an original movie musical that can bring Mary Poppins, and her message that childlike wonder can be found in even the most challenging of times, to a whole new generation,” Marshall said in a statement. The Mary Poppins character first appeared in 1934 in a book by PL Travers, who wrote seven more stories about her adventures and published them between 1935 and 1988. The new film will reportedly be set in 1930s London and will feature Jane and Michael Banks, the children from the first film who are now grown up and they and  Michael's three children will be visited by Poppins following a family tragedy……..

- Oh, those wacky Buddhist monks of Thailand, always such cut-ups. Their wacky stunts never cease to amaze and amuse and they done done it again to kick off the week when they released dozens of tigers at a controversial Buddhist temple in Thailand to delay the process of removing the wild animals from the property even though they are quasi-tourist attractions. It was quite a scene at the "Tiger Temple," in Kanchanaburi Province west of Bangkok, a popular tourist destination where visitors could walk among the tigers and pose for photos. However, Thailand's Wildlife Conservation Office (WCO) claimed the temple's 137 tigers posed a danger to visitors and that they were being mistreated. That led to the government deciding to remove the tigers and that led to some pissed-off monks setting some 137 tigers free in the temple to wreak havoc. “Yesterday was mayhem," said Wildlife Conservation Office (WCO) director Teunjai Noochdumrong. "When our vet team arrived, there were tigers roaming around everywhere. Looks like the temple intentionally let these tigers out, trying to obstruct our work." When WCO staff arrived to remove the tigers, temple officials refused to let them in. That led to an hilarious standoff in which the two sides spent a day in a bizarro hostage crisis situation before wildlife officers finally entered and were able to sedate eight tigers. "We hope to gain more speed capturing them," Noochdumrong said. The temple claims it is  a sanctuary for wild animals, but that probably isn't much solace to the more than 2,000 personnel, including veterinarians, WCO civil servants, provisional police and local military, taking part in the mission to relocate the tigers to a compound in Ratchburi Province. Fight on, all of you tiger-loving Buddhist monks, fight on…….

- Angry Nick Saban is the best Nick Saban. Thankfully, the Nick-tator is often angry an irascible is his default setting, so the world often gets to enjoy his curmudgeon-ly ways and this week provided some real Saban fireworks. At first, the Nick-tator said he didn’t want to talk about satellite camps at the SEC meetings, but that was merely a false front that gave way to a storm of pure, unadulterated rage. The target? Teams being able to host football camps for propsects in far-flung areas of the country. Saban has made it clear that he’s not a fan of such camps, purportedly because he’s worried about third-party involvement. “Anybody can have a camp now and if they have a prospect, they can have a camp," Saban said. "Then you're expected to go to that camp and they can use you to promote their camp because Ohio State's coming, Alabama's coming, whoever else is coming. Somebody sponsors the camp. They pay them the money. What do they do with the money? And who makes sure the kid paid to go to the camp? I mean, this is the wild, wild West at its best because there's no specific guidelines relative to how we're managing or controlling this stuff.” In this case, the micromanaging, dictatorial college football coach has a point. Satellite camps had been previously banned by the SEC and the NCAA Division I Council, but mere  weeks later, the Division I Board of Directors rescinded that ruling and instructed the council to make recommendations on the college football landscape as a whole – satellite camps included. Ol’ Nicky believes the camps contradict the NCAA’s previous stances on third-party involvement in the recruiting process and he made that point at full volume with wild gesticulations. “Why would we be promoting somebody else's camp anywhere? Because it's the same thing I said before. This is the only sport where the high school coach still mattered. What they did at the high school mattered,” Saban ranted. What went unsaid is that Saban is bitter that these camps will allow other schools to steal potential recruits from him……..

- Someone needs to track down James Weeks and ask him if he’s considered running for president. Haters will look at this guy as the kook who was running to be the Libertarian Party chairman and tried to win over the party’s membership by taking to the stage in Orlando and performing a striptease. "We could use a little bit of fun," Weeks told the crowd as well as viewers tuned into C-SPAN, which broadcast the convention. He then busted out his phone to provide music for his soundtrack - where’s the audio-visual help, Libertarian Party? - and began removing his badges and trying to get the crowd into the opportunity to see a flabby, pear-shaped man with a hairy torso taking off his clothes. Instead, he got a few scattered cheers and more than few boos as he removed his suspenders and tie. By the time he tore his shirt, the crowd erupted into loud boos. Sadly, he took that as a sign that people didn’t like what he was selling and he tried to offer an apology that no one on the crowd wanted because there was no way they were ever un-seeing what they had just seen. "Sorry, that was a dare," Weeks said. "I'm gonna go ahead and drop out." Drop out? Why? No one gives a damn that the party made headlines at the convention for selecting former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson to head the party's presidential ticket with ex-Massachusetts Gov. William Weld as his running mate, but that ticket isn't winning a damn thing this November. However, you put a thrill-seeking, crowd-pleasing showman like Weeks in the headlining slot and don’t act like people won't take one look at Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump and decide that Weeks couldn’t be any worse than those two………

Despots on trial, Jeremy Irons owns failure and stripper-on-stripper violence and justice

- Someone needs to tell Tennessee Titans veteran tight end Delanie Walker that the whole grizzled, hard-edged old-timer persona is tired and boring in professional sports. Trying to act like some incredibly accomplished, tenured icon who deserves to be respected and revered simply because you’ve scored a few touchdowns or signed a big contract is as ridiculous as can be and when it comes to Walker’s plans for interacting with his new, rookie teammates is ridiculous with a capital R. "I don't get to know anybody until they make the team," Walker said. "I talk to them, but they might not be here. There ain't too much I need to learn from them till they make the team. That's everybody. Anyone that's a rookie. You've got to earn the right. These rookies come in nowadays, stuff's given to them. I'm not going to be your friend until you make the team." Hey D., you were drafted in the sixth round by the San Francisco 49ers in 2006, so you and your  two-year extension signed this offseason that will keep you with the Titans through 2018 means you have a job, not the task of pretending to be some high and mighty dude who’s simply too busy or too big to be bothered with chatting up a few lowly rookies during offseason activities. Don’t be a jerk, don’t ignore them and quit pretending that being a 10-year veteran means you’re a made man. “They don't talk to me at all. Not at all," Walker said of the rookies. "I'm a good dude, but they know. You've got to make the team first.” Whatever makes you feel special, D……..

- You just hate to see it end like this, but stripper-on-stripper crime is just a reality of this harsh, cruel world in which we live. Sometimes, one pole-working skank with a drug habit and daddy issues not only commits an act of violence on one of her fellow G-string-wearers, but she also flees the country and tries to take her skin-bearing act on the run to stay a step ahead of the law. Meet former Providence, Rhode Island, resident Katherine Pimental, who was arrested last week and returned to Massachusetts, where she's facing charges stemming from a July 2007 stabbing of a fellow dancer at a Dartmouth strip club. Following her stripper shanking, Pimental allegedly fled the United States more than six years ago on the eve of her trial for armed assault and when she didn't show up for court on the day her trial started in December 2009, it didn’t seem like the sort of fugitive tale that would take police the better part of a decade to solve. Yet a woman who made her living letting strangers stuff $1 bills down her underwear was able to successfully evade the long arm of the law for seven long years. Now, she’s back and facing new charges in addition to those from attacking her old co-worker, leaving her with severe injuries to her face and arm. It’s a messy situation and it brings some tarnish to what is a truly valued and respected profession that brings so much joy to so many people on a daily basis………

- Thank you for your honesty, Jeremy Irons. Admitting that “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice” deserved its poor reviews is a solid gesture - just not as solid as offering to personally refund the ticket purchase of every person who forked over $12 to see that cinematic tire fire. The Oscar-winning Irons plays Batman's butler Alfred Pennyworth in the superhero mash-up , which has banked an amazing $870 million globally despite totally sucking on nearly every level. In response to its 27-percent Rotten Tomatoes rating and general hatred from critics and movie fans like, Irons called the movie "muddled" and "overstuffed” and owned the fact that critics have panned nearly everything about the movie, including his performance. "Deservedly so. I mean it took $800 million, so the kicking didn't matter but it was sort of overstuffed,” Irons said. “It was very muddled. I think the next one will be simpler. The script is certainly a lot smaller, it's more linear." Oh, so the first one that people already paid to see sucked, but you’re totally going to make up for it next time - and yes, there will be a next time because #Hollywood and because Irons also confirmed that he will appear in future installments of the franchise. “I'm tied into The Batman at the minute, which is nice because it's a bit of income,” Irons said, adding that nice dose of honesty that comes with owning the fact that you took a sh*tty role in a terrible film because they paid you a hell of a lot of money to do so. Irons can  next be seen as Pennyworth in “The Justice League Part One,” which is due out next year………

- Who saw this coming? Could anyone have predicted that a judge would find Chad's former dictator Hissene Habre guilty and sentence him to life in prison for crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture? It’s not as if there was ample evidence that Harbe was responsible for some 40,000 deaths during his rule, other than 40,000 people dying during his rule, a truth commission report and plenty of witnesses. Sure, the  ex-dictator has denounced his trial on war crimes charges as being politically motivated, which is actually fitting because so was his mini-genocide of the people who opposed his oppressive regime. Judge Gberdao Gustave Kam delivered the verdict and sentence inside a packed courtroom, most of which was not exactly a cheering section there to root for an unlikely upset victory for the former despot as he tried to avoid accountability for his crimes against humanity. It was indeed a landmark trial and result, as it’s the first time one country has tried the former leader of another for crimes against humanity. The Extraordinary African Chambers was formed by Senegal and the African Union to try Habre, who has lived in Senegal's capital since fleeing Chad in 1990, and Senegal deserves credit for delivering a swift kick in the ass for the sake of justice to a man who showed incredibly little regard for human life, fairness, common decency and respect for his fellow man for so many years. Habre may not have liked how it turned out, but he’s still receiving a far fairer deal than the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives at the hands of his regime during his tyrannical reign of terror…….

Paying Ludacris in rubbers and Grey Goose, 100-mile yard sale headaches and Turkey in denial

- Step down the persecution complex, Turkey. Your country has an ugly, blood-stained history and the fact that you’re still overly sensitive about it decades later isn't an indication that you’re fighting against the villainization of your past or the twisting of the facts of history….it’s just an ugly reminder of the power of denial. So why are we here? Because the in-denial doofuses who run Turkey have decried d plans by Germany's parliament to recognize the World War I killings of Armenians as genocide. See, virtually everyone whose nation wasn’t responsible for the killings of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks recognizes this situation as the first genocide of the 20th century, but Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, insists that the toll was inflated and says those killed were the victims of civil war and unrest. That sort of refusal to admit the truth isn't even found in places that have been the scene of much bigger acts of genocide, so it really is jaw-dropping how far Turkey has its head in the sand on this one. The issue sprung back up as Germany's parliament is to hold a vote on a motion describing the deaths as genocide this week. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus tried to puff out his government’s collective chest by warning that Germany — home to a large Turkish community — should "act with caution." Kurtulmus tried to spin it as parliaments not deciding on history and asking all countries to make documents available to historians so they can shed light on the killings, which is a convenient way of trying to duck this entire situation once more………

- He’s in every big movie hitting screens in the next two years - or so it seems - and thus, it was probably inevitable that Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson would confirm that he will be playing Clark 'Doc' Savage in an upcoming movie. The movie, for those who don’t know, is a precursor to much of the superhero culture gripping Hollywood to this day, as Savage is cited as the inspiration for Superman and appeared in  American pulp magazines throughout the ’30s and ’40s, where he fought evildoers as a physician, surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, researcher and musician.  Johnson is the sort of ass-kicker who could pull off the necessary heroics and has been known to carry a tune from time to time. Johnson posted an image in Instagram with a caption in which he said he was "excited to become Doc Savage" because "HE'S A F*CKING HILARIOUS WEIRDO!" The Savage character was created by Lester Dent, Henry Ralston and John Nanovic and was also known as the Man of Bronze. The film will be directed by Shane Black, with Black co-writing the script alongside Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. Its star, Johnson, is currently appearing in “Central Intelligence” alongside Kevin Hart and has “Baywatch,” “Fast & Furious 8” and two “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sequels on the way, plus the movie “Shazam” for DC Films. Black is set to begin filming “The Predator” in October, so he’s busy right now too, but having The Rock on board guarantees that this train is going to keep rolling down the track and probably make a ton of money in the process……..

- Yard sales suck. They’re one person selling a chipped monkey lamp and an incomplete set of Superman-themed dinner plates to another loser and the two of them haggling over whether that sweet package deal is worth $4.75 or $5.10. That makes what happened over the holiday along Highway 25 in southeast Missouri an even bigger nightmare. It was the 31st-annual incarnation of the 100-mile headache masquerading as a yard sale, where people from around the country flock and according to the Dexter Chamber of Commerce, its occurrence was promoted by fliers sent out to people as far away as California. The yard sale stretches from Jackson, Mo. to Kennett, Mo. along Highway 25 and according to the chamber, it boosts business for companies all along the sale route as well as boosting the blood pressure of everyone JUST TRYING TO GET TO THE DAMN FAMILY BARBECUE SO THEY CAN PUT IN THEIR TIME AND NOT HAVE TO TOLERATE ANY MORE UNCLE TERRY FOR ANOTHER FEW MONTHS, DAMMIT! In other words, the constant sight of elderly, thrifty bargain seekers pulled halfway off the road to amble up someone’s driveway to look at that 500-pound, dented bird bath that they only want to pay $10 for is at the heart of this mess.  “It’s a fun weekend that people look forward to each year,” said traffic engineer Craig Compas of the Missouri Department of Transportation, “but we want people to remember that there’s more traffic and more congestion along Route 25 this weekend.” Say what you really want, C., that these yard sale saps are a major nuisance and you wish they’d just go the hell away………

- Why apologize for trying to be one of the cool kids, University of Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity? Just because you and your crew paid three-time Grammy winner Ludacris $65,000, plus premium liquors and prophylactics to perform at the school's spring football game for 15 minutes is no reason to apologize to your school’s athletic association's board of directors. Sure, buying top-end booze and condoms for a rapper to come in, sex some local ladies and get his drink on before and after a truncated set before 93,000 fans looks bad, but you were just trying to put on a show and get people to like you. Yet there was McGarity, falling on his sword at the board's quarterly meeting. "I do want to take this opportunity to apologize to our board for mistakes we made with certain aspects of the details of an entertainment agreement," McGarity said. "Few things in my professional life have bothered me more than this situation. There are no reruns in life so we need to turn the page, learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to make sure errors of this nature do not reoccur.” Really, few things? Because if giving $65,000, a few boxes of rubbers and some Grey Goose to a Grammy-winning rapper is the worst thing you do, then you clearly need to live more and experience the world. Then again, McGarity didn’t have much of a choice after University of Georgia President Jere Morehead ran him under the bus, saying the contract, revealed through open-records requests,  should have been more closely reviewed and some items should have been removed. Some of this could be due to the fact that Luda didn’t exactly give the crowd a full show and when people learned how well he was paid for that mail-in job of a performance, people were bound to get angry………

Citizen paving projects, a singing/dancing James Bond and MLB self-pity

- Maybe Major League Baseball needs to start some type of weekly support group or counseling program for slumping players wallowing in self-loathing. The trend of high-paid MLB stars publicly owning their suckage on the field has picked up speed of late and after Kansas City Royals All-Star Alex Gordon professed his terrible play while speaking to the media earlier this week, Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman made sure he did not stand alone by refusing to make excuses for his offensive free fall that has caused his batting average to drop dramatically. "Right now, I suck. There's no getting around it," Freeman said. "I feel great. I've had a pretty horrible season so far. There's no sugarcoating it, I'm just not getting hits. The hits I do get are obviously not with guys in scoring position, but obviously that needs to change. If it doesn't happen soon ... I'm already getting frustrated. Usually my track record's pretty good with guys on base." The fact is, he’s right. This guy is hitting just .186 in his past 14 games and is 1-for-26 with runners in scoring position and after leading the majors in batting average with runners in scoring position in 2015, he’s been a tire fire at the plate this year. Sure, he went on a 12-game tear, hitting .422 with five home runs during that span, but that uptick has been surrounded by shortcomings and yet, he’s not making excuses. "I feel good, I'm not doing anything different. There's nothing I can really do but keep going out there and swinging,” Freeman said of finding a solution at the plate……..

- When government is that inept, sometimes a citizen has to open up his or her own wallet and take charge. For one Jackson, Mississippi resident, that meant facing a problem literally outside his front door because the powers that be in his city refused to address the issue. This homeowner is telling those who ask - while asking to remain anonymous - that he decided to personally pay to have a bad part of his street paved because the city would not do so. This man claims he and his neighbors say they waited over nine months for the city to respond to calls to the mayor’s action phone line, which is either ironically named or is the place the mayor asks women to call if they want to hook up with him, because nine months of calls did nothing and that prompted this deep-pocketed citizen to hire his own contractor who came and paved the street this week. His neighbors were thrilled at the sight because their street problems have persisted for years and a quick Google Maps search turns up a 2014 image shows the street with a large gravel section next to a newly paved area. This civic hero isn't saying how much it cost to have the street paved or whether he intended to seek reimbursement from the city, but a local television station contacted the city to inquire about what officials thought about having a citizen clown them by doing their job for them and received no response, so don’t expect a prompt reply to any of this. If the city is as bad at responding to inquiries as it is about fixing pothole-pocked streets, then an official statement on this situation will be coming in about three to five years……

- You don’t typically associate the singing, dancing and theatrics of Billy Elliot with the suave, debonair bad-assery of 007, but in the quest to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond, it just might be a natural fit. “Billy Elliot” actor Jamie Bell reumored to be the leader in the race to take over as Bond. Word on the street is that Bell has been in talks with 007 production firm Eon about taking on the role, although it’s still unclear if Craig really is done or not. He reportedly turned down a $100 million offer to play 007 for another two movies, but is now double-clutching because there is a chance he woul come back if he got a director and script over which he had approval. Coming back as Bond would also have to fit around Craig’s new hole in a 20-part TV adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s comic novel “Purity.” Should those things not pan out, then it appears Bell would be the leader in the pack to take over as Bond and if he does, he would become the youngest actor in the role since George Lazenby starred in 1969’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” As for Craig, he has played Bond in four films, most recently “Spectre” in 2015. Installing Bell in the role would actually be a smart move for the studio, which could theoretically have itself a solid Bond for two or more decades. Then again, he could be a terrible Bond like Pierce Brosnan and everyone could hate him and want him to go away immediately so they could forget all of his Bond movies forever…….. 

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! France has often been thought of as a docile place full of people who haven't won a war in centuries and are terrible at fighting, but times are a-changin’ and evidence of that was on display when irate union activists disrupted the Marseille airport and halted activity at half of the country's oil refineries in protests over changes to France's labor system. Despite their actions, nationwide gasoline shortages eased slightly after government intervention and overall, tensions lessened a bit to end the week  after one-day strikes and protests pitting unions against the Socialist government left drivers around the country in a real bind. This all centers on a labor bill that would loosen rules on France's 35-hour work week and make it easier for employers to hire — and fire. You know, so they can get rid of the crappy employees that unions like to protect. Several unions continued the strike as the week came to a close and France's main oil company Total said four of its eight refineries were at a standstill. The oil terminal in Le Havre on the English Channel also remained shut by strikes, yet pressure on gas stations eased, with fewer lines visible at stations in the Paris region. Maybe the unions are losing steam because earlier in the week, they had 30 percent of stations out of gas or running low and Frenchmen panic-buying as many liters of fuel as they could get. At the forefront is the CGT union, which has been leading the protests, and which focused its attention on a trial of Air France union members accused of tearing the shirts off airline executives in a violent protest last year. Petrified of what an actual trial could mean, the judge in the trial in Bobigny outside Paris postponed the proceedings until September "It's the beginning of a revolution. This is about the future of our country," defendant Sri Colbert said of the mayhem as union activists rallied outside the courthouse. Mix in unrest across the country, including union members blocking entrances to the Marseille airport in solidarity with the Air France workers, and it appears that France is no longer the laid-back land of baguette-eaters the world sees them as…….

Traffic ticket quota battles, football player v. Caterpillar and Paul McCartney rejects reality karaoke

- Because….he’s freaking Sir Paul McCartney, that’s why. What the hell were the producers of the British version of the reality karaoke show “The Voice” thinking when they asked one of the greatest songwriters ever to become a coach on their pathetic excuse for a singing competition? Sure, actually having an icon like Sir Paul on the air would be great, but there’s a 0 percent chance he’s saying yes and that number is probably too generous. McCartney has a million better things to do and even if he didn’t, he should never lower himself to this level. According to multiple sources, the show - which is moving to ITV from BBC1 for its next season - was desperate to sign McCartney to be one of its four coaches, but he turned them down outright. Not that McCartney needed any additional reasons beyond, “I’m Paul McCartney, dammit!”, but when Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson and Paloma Faith have already said they won’t return as coaches, it’s safe to say that a member of the Beatles won't be taking part. Others who may make the transition are pop music hacks Boy George and will.i.am. and hosts Emma Willis and Marvin Humes, while Robbie Williams and Jennifer Hudson have also been linked with coaching roles on the show. There’s also the not unusual - pun intended possibility that Tom Jones will return to the panel despite being axed by BBC1 following the 2015 edition of the show. But in the end, all that matters is finding a worthy karaoke successor to someone named Kevin Simm, who won the most recent season of the show and has set the music world afire with, umm, never mind……….

- Ah, the illegal timber black market of Senegal…at it again. It’s clear that this problem isn't going away, at least according to a former Senegalese environment minister. Now an ecologist, Haidar El Ali said illegal timber sales from Senegal to Gambia could see the Casamance forest depleted significantly in the next two years. Deforestation in the southern Casamance region has picked up speed in the past six years due to illegal sales and aerial footage taken during a research trip shows thousands of rosewood logs being collected in Senegal and deposited in neighboring Gambia, where depots operate about half a mile from the border. According to El Ali, much of that wood is then sold to China. That’s a problem because timber exports from Senegal are illegal and to fight deforestation those illegally chopping trees in Senegal, environmental advocates believe punishments must be enforced and more severe, exportation licenses need to be checked and international sanctions on the export of wood from Gambia need to be considered. Senegal mostly surrounds Gambia and has a larger portion of forest , especially in the Casamance region, which has 74,000 acres of forest remaining, while Gambia has just 9,800 acres left, according to watchdog group Global Forest Watch. In spite of those numbers, Chinese rosewood import volumes from Gambia were second only to Nigeria in all of West Africa, according to Chinese customs data gathered by El Ali. More than half of China's imports of such wood came from Africa, so fighting the battle in Africa is hitting the situation at its root. Then again, given the level of corruption and overall ineptitude among governments in such underdeveloped nations, identifying the problem and fixing it are drastically different endeavors……….

- In their big rivalry game with Ohio State the past few seasons, the Michigan Wolvers have ended the game feeling like they just got run over by a scarlet-and-gray 18-wheeler. Now, one member of the team knows the literally feeling of getting trucked by a piece of heavy equipment - and he survived to tell the tale with just a little bit of discomfort. Michigan running back Drake Johnson was run over by a forklift in a freak accident at the Wolverines' indoor track building, making the fatal mistake of being on the ground stretching in a place where stretching and fitness are the norm. The forklift driver felt a bump and thought he'd run over some kind of track equipment, but turned around and realized he'd run over Johnson. Head coach Jim Harbaugh said during a teleconference that Johnson was "doing well" and shouldn’t miss much time and it appears the coach was correct, as Johnson, an Ann Arbor native, is on the road to recovery and competed s in hurdle events for Michigan in the spring. The sad part is that Johnson has rushed for just 641 yards in the first three seasons of an injury-plagued career and has twice torn his anterior cruciate ligament, so he really doesn’t need any assistance when it comes to getting injured. The mere fact that he survived his close encounter with a Caterpillar and didn’t sustain a life-threatening injury caused Harbaugh to describe the situation as “a miracle right up there with Easter,” which at this point would also be a good description for the Wolverines staying within four touchdowns of Ohio State on the final Saturday of November one of these seasons………

- I fought the law and the law got pissy and started tossing around angry words. That fight is real and it is snarky in South Carolina, where the state legislature is working on a bill to ban police departments from having ticket quotas. The idea of ticket quotas is one of those unspoken, dirty little secret/unwritten rules for the law because we all know it exists, yet no one is going to put it down on paper. What the legislature does want to put on paper, led by Rep. Justin Bamberg, is a ban on quotas in light of the fatal shooting of Walter Scott by North Charleston police officer Michael Slager. Bamberg said the reason Scott was stopped was because of pressure put on Slager and other officers to write tickets and hey, if an officer uses excessive force or a person overreacts to being stopped by an officer, the natural answer is to find ways to reduce the number of officer-public interactions rather than expect either side to act rationally or responsibly in the event such an encounter occurs. The bill has already passed the House and this week, it moved out of the Senate Judiciary Committee headed by Pickens Senator Larry Martin. "I fully expect the Senate will take it up tomorrow and I hope we can get it passed," Martin said. That doesn’t sit well with Union County Sheriff David Taylor, who remains in denial that ticket quotas exist at all. "It's the most ridiculous legislation that has ever been introduced that I can remember," Taylor said. "I don't know of anyone that runs quotas." In that case, what’s the problem, sheriff? If you’re right, then this bill shouldn’t faze you at all. So you keep on pretending that quotas don’t exist and the rest of the world will keep on reacting to the fact that they do…….

Detroit cop goes pizza delivery boy, a John Belushi documentary and Riot Watch! Spain

- Score another one for professional athlete honesty. Kansas City Royals outfielder Alex Gordon is not bringing a lot to the diamond this season and even before a recent wrist injury, he was a train wreck at the plate. Maybe landing on the 15-day disabled list after fracturing his right wrist in a collision with teammate Mike Moustakas will be beneficial for a guy who is hitting .211 with four homers and 10 RBI. For someone who has been an All-Star the last three seasons, it has to be tough to be such a letdown so far and Gordon was asked in the wake of his injury whether the time off might be a good thing for him.  "Because I've sucked so far this year?" Gordon said. "Pretty much." With one of their regular All-Stars struggling, the Royals recently lost 11 of 14 games to fall seven games behind the Chicago White Sox in the Central Division. "Obviously, I haven't played the way I've wanted to this year so far," Gordon said. "But the unfortunate part is, in baseball you always have tomorrow, and right now, I don't have that. I just got to keep my head up. And hopefully when I come back, I'll be feeling a little bit better at the plate and hopefully will help this team out a little bit more than I have so far this year." Of late, the Royals have rallied to within two games of Chicago, but Gordon hasn’t been much better. He’s no stranger to time on the disabled list, having only played 104 games during the regular season last year, in large part due to a groin strain suffered in July. He and his four Gold Gloves will now have some much-needed time off to ponder where it’s all gone so wrong………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Spain has been an unusually angry place of late, with everything from royal family financial scams to the possible elimination of the traditional midday siesta causing the masses to rise up, but the most recent incidence of violence was something much different. This anger was touched off because demonstrators were lashing out in support of squatters they want to see allowed back inside a vacant bank branch they occupied for years and used as a "community center" until they were evicted earlier this week. With protesters pledging to hold five consecutive nights of demonstrations, the second night of uprisings was an inspiring sight that saw some 200 demonstrators overturn 12 street trash containers and set one alight to illuminate the Catalan night. According to police, six officers were slightly injured in their battles with rioters, but sometimes people have to take a few cuts and bruises in order for the world to enjoy the sight of dumpsters ablaze and storefronts smashed. The beauty of all of this, despite the relative chaos, is that no arrests were made. The unrest came one day after 14 officers and a detained demonstrator were injured in confrontations that ensued when police baton-charged protesters who threw rocks and set containers and vehicles ablaze. Maybe the second night of riots wasn’t quite as potent as the first, but the week isn't over yet and there’s still time to put on a great show in the name of the local, unofficial homeless community center before the week concludes………

- It seems like something that should have happened before now, but at long last, a feature-length documentary about the insane, raucous life of iconic comedian John Belushi will soon go into production. The project, to be directed by RJ Cutler and produced by John Battsek, is being cranked out by Showtime, with an assist from British channel Sky Atlantic. Producers have convinced Belushi’s widow Judith Belushi Pisano to be a part of the project and that’s a major thing because it represents the first time she's authorized or agreed to cooperate with a documentary concerning her late husband. “Belushi was one of my very first heroes. At a time when film, television, and music were undergoing tectonic shifts within American culture, he was at the center of it all,” Cutler said. “At that moment, he had the number one show on television, the number one film at the box office, and the number one record on the charts. We plan to explore his unique genius and how his creative influence is still making an impact to this moment.” Battsek said he has wanted to do the movie for years and cited Belushi as a personal hero. “We plan to assemble a deep and three-dimensional look into the life of a man of great complexity and talent who went on to become an American comedic icon,” Battsek said. Belushi famously died in 1982 at the age of 33 after an overdose of cocaine and heroin and was to have previously been depicted in a 2013 biopic produced by his close friend Dan Ackroyd and starring Emile Hirsch, but the project never materialized and now, it seems destined to be forgotten entirely………

- Are we sure that Detroit’s crippling financial woes haven't impacted the police budget and officers’ salaries to the point that cops are now “helping” pizza delivery guys complete their route and score some tip money in the process? On the surface, it looks like a simple, feel-good tale of a suburban Detroit police officer filling in after a pizza delivery driver was injured in a car crash and taking the greasy, piping-hot pie to its final destination, but let’s dig deeper. As Lincoln Park Police Cpl. Joe Sparks tells it, he responded to a call involving a collision that sent the Jet's Pizza driver to a hospital with bruises and a sore head. As he dealt with the aftermath of the crash, the officer spotted an oven bag in the wrecked car before it was towed and realized the delivery address was nearby. Having been a police officer for 16 years, his keen law enforcement spidey sense clued him in to the fact that it was “the right thing to do" because somewhere out there, "someone on the other end was waiting for their food." That someone has a name and his name is Carl Babink, who received his pizza along with a major scare. Babik, upon spotting a police officer on his doorstep, initially thought that he had done something wrong when Sparks brought his pie on the final leg of its journey. No word on what kind of tip the officer received, but given Detroit’s terrible financial situation, even a few dollars would be welcome……..

Euro Beer Wars, Eddie Lacy's self-esteem and the original "Halloween" director returns

- Hawaii is supposed to be a chill, laid-back place people go to escape the cares of everyday life. It’s not normally thought of as a pioneering state tackling important social issues and setting the tone for the other 49 states. Yet here we are, with the Aloha State on the verge of becoming the first state in the United States to enter gun owners into an FBI database that will automatically notify police if an island resident is arrested anywhere else in the country. Stephen Fischer of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division noted that the majority of those entered in the "Rap Back" database elsewhere in the U.S. are those in "positions of trust," such as school teachers and bus drivers, but so far no one has added gun owners. Supporters of Hawaii doing so claim it would make Hawaii a leader in safe gun laws, while opponents argue that they shouldn’t have to worry about Big Brother peering over their shoulder wherever they go in these here United States. State Sen. Will Espero introduced the bill and has some big fans in the Honolulu Police Department, men and women who want to see their state drop the hammer on those who want the right to carry a firearm while also breaking the law wherever they go. Legal experts believe the bill could face challenges, but would probably hold up in court. For now, the bill will undergo a legal review process by departments including the Attorney General's Office, which supported the bill, before Gov. David Ige decides if he will sign it into law. On the upside, it’s a great excuse for the gun-hugging kooks who run the NRA to write off their next tropical vacation as a trip to fight anti-gun injustice wherever it lurks………

- How addictive are sequels, remakes and continuing established movie franchises to anyone even tangentially connected to them? Addictive enough that “Halloween” director John Carpenter is returning to be executive producer on a new film in the franchise, marking his first association with the franchise since 1981. Carpenter will team with “Black Swan” executive producer David Thwaites for a reboot of the ‘chise, having directed and co-wrote the original “Halloween” film in 1978 and co-produced “Halloween II” but smartly going his own way after the first sequel. Six more movies continued in what became a continuing saga, which n introduced masked slasher Michael Myers, played by Nick Castle, with veteran horror actor Donald Pleasence as Myers’ arch enemy Dr. Loomis. “Thirty-eight years after the original Halloween, I’m going to try to make the tenth sequel the scariest of them all,” Carpenter said of his cash grab/comeback. Miramax previously vowed to find a director to fast-track the project and who better to expedite the process than the guy who set this ship sailing in the first place. Getting the fracnhsie back on track is important because Myers didn’t even appear in “Halloween III: Season Of The Witch” and more recently, there were two simply regurgitated versions of the original two “Halloween films,” directed by heavy metal singer Rob Zombie. Handing the franchise back over to someone who has a clue what he’s doing is typically a solid choice, so props to Miramax on this one……..

- Beer is a big freaking deal in Europe. Germany has actual, legally established standards for what can be called beer and places such as Denmark, England and Ireland all take their brews seriously, so the European Union's regulator giving a thumbs-up to the proposed merger of Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller definitely matters. The approval removes another hurdle for the combination of the world's two biggest beer makers and although the deal is conditional on selling practically the entire SAB beer business in Europe, that’s a mere formality with this much money on the line. The approval from European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager apparently will "ensure that competition is not weakened in these markets and that EU consumers are not worse off,” but this is little more than another instance of governments doing what’s best for big business and figuring that will ultimately benefit everyone else. Supporters of the change believe that it will ease concerns that AB InBev, which makes Budweiser, would have a stranglehold on the European market. For those who don’t know, SABMiller owns brands such as Miller, Peroni, Pilsner Urquell and Grolsch and with Europeans buying around 125 billion euros ($140 billion) worth of beer annually, there are so many late-night drinking sessions to be fueled that companies are going to do everything they possibly can to conquer the market and boost their bottom line with whatever they can pass off as beer……..

- In the end, isn’t self-esteem what this is all about? Sure, Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy ripped running back Eddie Lacy after last season for being overweight, suggesting that his portly ball carrier  "cannot play at the weight he was at [last] year," but is Lacy’s slimmed-down look at offseason team activities really about shedding pounds to pleas his coach and win football games?  The real motivation behind Lacy dropping as many as 20 pounds so far and likely more to come through the magic of P90X should be Lacy looking at himself in the mirror and feeling good about what he sees….right? If that’s the true metric, then this weight-loss journey is already a success. "I think I look good," Lacy said after the Packers' first open organized team activity of the year. It was the first time he’d put his new-look physique on display for the world to see and after playing somewhere near 260 pounds last season, he seemed to be moving much better. After seeing his production drop to 758 yards after consecutive 1,100-yard seasons to start his NFL career, Lacy said he changed his eating habits and sought the guidance of P90X founder Tony Horton. Doc Horton worked his magic and Lacy took his - and McCarthy’s words to heart. "At the end of the day, we're all grown men," Lacy said. "Whether he calls me out, I just have to take care of that responsibility. You don't get mad or [lash] out or anything like that. You just take it as it is what it is and make it go away. If he can continue on his current trajectory and resemble an NFL running back instead of an offensive tackle, then the Packers just might have themselves some realistic Super Bowl hopes for the season ahead…….

Bovine inspiration in Hungary, karma at a North Dakota zoo and Toronto's baseball rage

- Mooooooove, b*tch, get out the way….of angry Hungarian dairy farmers demanding that their government lower taxes on all dairy products while claiming that support from Hungary and the European Union is insufficient and ineffective. That’s a mouthful of demands and one the enraged farmers punctuated by marching with some 50 cows near parliament and hand delivering a petition to an official from Prime Minister Viktor Orban's office, demanding more talks with the government and complaining that authorities had broken earlier agreements. The government has sought to placate these unhappy dons of dairy products with a plan to cut the sales tax (VAT) on fresh milk from 18 percent to 5 percent from 2017, but farmers want the lower tax rate to apply to other dairy products, too. It’s a moo-ving plea and farmers in any society are generally a sympathetic lot because they rise incredibly early, toil insanely long hours, earn little money for their comprehensive efforts doing physical, dirty labor and are seen as the humble folks who quietly provide the food we need, but this is still an uphill battle. According to one of the protesting farmers, Imre Hegedus, he and his peers are getting 60 to 65 forints ($0.21-$0.23) per liter of raw milk from processors, covering just over half of their production costs. Spanish farmers have a tradition of parading with their sheep to bring awareness to their own causes, but cows in Hungary are a nice twist on the trend and a sign that these farmers have bovine inspiration………

- Canada is supposed to be a calm, chill and overly apologetic place, drowning in politeness. Either that stereotype is off by a million kilometers or there is something polluting the protein powder in the Toronto Blue Jays clubhouse because right now, there is no an angrier team in all of Major League Baseball. Directing this circus of seriously angry dudes is Blue Jays manager John Gibbons, who was ejected from the Blue Jays' 3-1 victory over Minnesota to cap the weekend, adding another chapter to this exceptionally irate tale. The ejection came one day after Toronto's Josh Donaldson was ejected by umpire Toby Basner in the first inning, as Gibbons was tossed by crew chief Joe West in the fifth. The most recent melee began when Donaldson homered in the first inning Sunday and stared at the Twins' dugout as he crossed home plate. Minnesota starter Phil Hughes childishly responded in the fifth inning, throwing  two pitches to the AL MVP in the fifth, one inside and one behind him. When Donaldson expressed his displeasure to plate umpire Mark Ripperger, Gibbons defended his player by rushing out of the dugout and arguing with Ripperger and West. "The guy's a strike-throwing machine. And then there's a tight pitch, and then he throws behind him," Gibbons said. "I thought they were going to chuck him. But you never know what's going to happen nowadays, if you want to know the truth. Whether it's warnings, the guy gets thrown out or nothing. You never know." Toronto then petulantly retaliated when starter Marcus Stroman hit Kurt Suzuki with a pitch in the bottom of the inning. "Major League Baseball has to do something about this," Donaldson fumed regarding the beanball war. "My manager comes out to ask what's going on, and he gets ejected for it. That's what happens. I just don't get the point.” The point, at this point, seems to be Toronto starting fights on the regular and pissing people off wherever they go………

- #Karma. Life doesn’t always get it right when it comes to paying back those whose d-baggery/idiocy/outright stupidity warrant a swift and painful kick in the ass, but in the case of the two morons who snuck into a North Dakota zoo about six hours after it closed over the weekend, the invisible force of repaying good for good and evil for evil in the universe appears to have hit it head on. These two fools climbed the fence surrounding Roosevelt Park Zoo in Minot shortly before midnight and while you might be able to defend them in the sense that there is damn near nothing to do in North Dakota around midnight, getting liquored up (probably) and breaking into the zoo, where your first move is to intentionally antagonize one of the bears by sticking your right arm through the enclosure's bars is a thousand steps beyond stupid and indefensible. Thankfully, for this ass hat’s future good, his act of stupidity did not go unpunished and one of the bears came over and bit his hand. At that point, the man and his friend went to the Trinity Hospital emergency room, where emergency personnel both treated him and notified police they were treating someone for injuries sustained in a bear attack. After getting the medical help he needed, the man and his friends were arrested on suspicion of felony trespassing. It was a disturbing reminder that there are more idiots out there in the world than any of us care to realize and every day they’re on the precipice of doing something imbecilic that puts themselves and sometimes others in danger……….

- And another brick in the man-band wall cracks, crumbles and falls to the ground of shattered fangirl dreams. Zayn Malik is gone and now, man-bander Harry Styles is planning to ditch Simon Cowell’s record company and strike out on his own. One Direction man-bandedly decided to go on hiatus in January and since then, Styles hasn’t said much publicly about what he plans to do next in his career built on songs others write for him, dancing in unison with four other dudes and wearing sequined outfits with overpriced designer jeans. But now, the word is that Styles wants to cut ties with Cowell’s record label Syco, which has represented One Direction since the band were first put together on Cowell’s show ‘The X Factor’ in 2010, and in the process spark a potential  bidding war between two major record labels. Styles left One Direction’s management firm Modest in February, bolting a company that also represents Little Mix and 5 Seconds Of Summer. His teeny-bopper-pop ass is now represented by American manager Jeff Azoff, whose firm Full Stop Management oversees the careers of Meghan Trainor and Lukas Graham. In other words, he’s not really rolling with someone who represents legit, substantial artists whose songs aren't over-crafted pop offerings from a cadre of professional songwriters. The top bidders for Styles’ overly coiffed services are rumored to be Sony and Universal, the latter through Capitol Records, which is home to Katy Perry, Beck and The Beach Boys. Wherever he goes, look for him to bring his hordes of shrieking teenage girl fans with him to his next, sure-to-be-wildly-overrated musical venture of awfulness……..

Arizona paintball justice, Marvel finally casts a lady villain and a retired NFL star goes day job warrior

- Lots of former professional athletes struggle with the transition to life after sports. Former Pro Bowler Patrick Willis doesn’t seem to be one of them, even if he’s making a fraction of what he used to earn when he was cracking skulls and sacking quarterbacks playing middle linebacker in the NFL. Willis elected to walk away from football at the age of 30 and now, he’s gone from balling for the San Francisco 49ers to grinding away Monday through Friday with a Silicon Valley tech startup company. The 11th overall player drafted in 2007 and a veteran of eight NFL seasons, Willis is now in a life of staff meetings, cubicles and break room doughnuts, working at a company called Open Source Storage. "For me, this is an opportunity to be able to tell young kids that you can be more than just a physical specimen to be great," Willis said. "I'm a person that can't speak about something until I've done it myself." His new career stemmed from a chance meeting with tech entrepreneur Eren Niazi, who launched Open Source Storage in 2001, when Niazi spotted his neighbor trying to haul some trash bags to the curb, hampered as he recovered from yet another injury-related surgery. Two years later, Willis joined the company as a board member and executive vice president for partnerships. "A lot of guys come in with a big ego, but Patrick’s not like that," Niazi said. "He's just a total pleasure to work with." Fans may have been stunned when a great NFL player in his prime chose to walk away from the game and tens of millions of dollars, but Willis had been planning the move for some time, not wanting to end up as a beaten-down former player barely able to physically function on a day-to-day basis………

- Most people have no idea where Tajikistan is or how to spell Tajikistan, but that ignorance isn't going to help the poor, oppressed souls who call this Asian nation home. Not much is going to help the Tajikistani people, not in the wake of the dubious passage of a referendum on changing the Constitution to allow their authoritarian president to run for the office indefinitely, effectively allowing him to rule for life. No one expected anything different under 63-year-old President Emomali Rakhmon, who has iron-fistedly ruled the former Soviet republic in Central Asia since 1992. During 24 years in power, this despot has crushed or bullied all opposition to his rule. For that reason, the referendum was expected to pass easily and while official vote totals in matters such as this are more of a punch line set by those in power than an actual, legitimate count of how people voted, as the day wound down on Sunday, the official turnout for the referendum was about 80 percent. The proposed changes were clearly made with one eye on keeping the current, tyrannical regime in power and the other on the future by lowering the minimum age for presidents from 35 to 30 years. Thus, Rakhmon's son, now 29, can run in the (sure-to-be-rigged) presidential election in 2020 and succeed him as leader of the country. It’s great to be an obscure, Third World nation to which the world pays little attention and in which the rules of fair elections are wholly irrelevant……..

- It’s awesome to see that Marvel isn't totally woman-hating when it comes to dishing out prime roles in its films. In the wake of  “Iron Man 3 screenwriter” Shane Black claiming that Marvel barred him and co-writer Drew Pearce from making the film's villain female because that character wouldn’t sell enough action figures, the studio is doing its best to save face by adding Oscar winner as the lead villain for the next Thor film, titled “Thor: Ragnarok.” Blanchett, who has won Oscars for “The Aviator” and “Blue Jasmine,” will play a “powerful new villain” called Hela, portrayed in Marvel comics as the Asgardian goddess of death. The cast is shaping up as a talented, eclectic one, with “Jurassic Park” and “Independence Day” star Jeff Goldblum also a part of the cast as the eccentric Grandmaster, an ancient and supernatural character with mysterious powers. Mix in Tessa Thompson (“Selma”), who will play Valkyrie, and Karl Urban (“Lord of the Rings”), who plays Skurge, and you have a promising recent quartet of additions alongside a big-name cast that includes Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk and Anthony Hopkins as Odin. The film will build on the stories of 2011's “Thor” and 2013's “Thor: The Dark World,” both of which also starred Hemsworth and Hiddleston, with the third chapter scheduled to hit theaters next November……..

- Maybe some Arizona residents are ironing out their own ideas for ways to help future President Donald “Orange Julius” Trump supplement that beefed-up immigration policy he’s promising to enact. Sure, Trump wants that 50-foot wall, but if he has a posse of paintball-gun-toting idiots roaming one of the states most affected by the steady stream of illegals flowing across the border, then maybe Mexicans and others fleeing Central and South America for the United States will think twice about border crashing. Then again, there’s a decent chance that the group of friends who randomly got paintballed walking along East Broadway Boulevard in Tucson late last week were merely victims of a low-IQ d-bag with access to a paintball gun and an abundance of free time. The group was near the corner of Park Avenue when something shot past the four friends and hit the fence next to them, according to one member of the crew, Devon Salter. As Salter remembers it, he and his friends were headed downtown when they heard a shot and the fence next to them shook. "I had no idea, like, what it was," Salter said. "If that were to have been a gun, like, that would've been it for us." The attack left a pink splotch of paint on the fence and Salter saw someone pulling what looked like a barrel of a paintball gun into a silver sedan that fled the scene. A similar attack was reported soon afterward on a Tucson News Now vehicle near Tucson High School on North 2nd Avenue and East 6th Street. These attacks came days after an unidentified woman was hit by a paintball on her left ankle, sustaining a bruise and a healthy dose of fear in the process. According to Tucson police, they are aware of the paintball incidents, but needs more information from witnesses and victims in order to boost its ongoing investigation………

Mayoral Elevator Thunderdome, Olympic sexing is all set up and Ewan McGregor's split "Fargo" personality

- Don’t do it, local Chilean fishermen. Don’t go through with the deal you’ve allegedly agreed to with the Chilean government to end your blockade of the Chiloe archipelago after a toxic algal bloom put your livelihoods at risk. The government claimed late in the week that it had reached a deal with the small-scale fishermen who had blocked access to the island chain, removing the hindrance of  the last remaining group of protesting fishermen, but this is a weak-ass deal and these fishermen can do better than the $1,000 in compensation they will reportedly receive as part of this accord. Sure, the government aid also extends to other non-fishing families who depend on the sea, including algae gatherers and divers, but it’s simply not enough. If you’re going to spend days of your time blocking the island from the mainland to demand more compensation from the government, you cannot cave in the second The Man waves a few measly dollars in your direction. Just remember, brave fishermen, that Chile's worst-ever red tide of toxic algae led the government to declare an emergency zone along the southern coast including Chiloe, and remember how that made you feel. You’re still fighting for your bottom line/the string of islands’ renowned wildlife, stilt houses and historic churches, so do an immediate U-turn on this deal while you still can and up your demands to double or triple what the government is offering. Bleed them for every dollar you can get while you still have a semblance of leverage on this one…….

- Twice the work, twice the pay? The Screen Actors Guild should probably make sure Ewan McGregor gets what he has coming to him now that he’s signed up for a rather unique role in Season 3 of crime drama “Fargo.” Rather than play one character with multiple sides to his personality, McGregor will take on the dual role of twin brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy, who are at odds with one another and will be at the center of the plot for one of FX’s more successful shows.  "Emmit Stussy is the Parking Lot King of Minnesota. A handsome, self-made, real estate mogul and family man, Emmit sees himself as an American success story,” the network’s official synopsis reads. “His slightly younger brother, Ray Stussy, on the other hand is more of a cautionary tale. Balding, pot-bellied, Ray is the kind of guy who peaked in high school. Now a parole officer, Ray has a huge chip on his shoulder about the hand he’s been dealt, and he blames his brother, Emmit, for his misfortunes.” Details about the season are fair sparse at this point, but producer Noah Hawley previously claimed that it would be set in 2010, only a few years after the events of Season 1. The third season is set to begin filming later this year, but the finished product won't hit the air until some time next year, giving McGregor plenty of time to find out how to split his personality and jump between two very different roles at the same time…….

- It has all the makings of a great reality competition show - if only there were weapons involved. Take three ineffective elected officials, jam them into a small, portable space and strand them there for an indefinite period of time. Such was life last week for Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, Millvale Mayor Vincent Cinski and Leetsdale Mayor Pete Poninsky, who found themselves stuck in the Westin Hotel elevator in downtown Pittsburgh while attending a meeting of the Allegheny League of Municipalities. The three mayors were stuck inside the elevator for about 40 minutes and initially, they wondered how they were going to get out or even amuse themselves while they were stuck because they and a few others stuck in the elevator with them were unable to get cell phone service inside their small metal prison. Fortunately, one of those stranded in the elevator was a hotel employee who was able to summon maintenance crews and first responders using a walkie-talkie. While they waited, the mayors used their non-communicating smartphones to snap selfies and make light of the moment. They were soon rescued and could go back to their grab-assing conference full of breakout sessions, brainstorming sessions, committees and other nonsense that achieves nothing but takes up a lot of time. In their wake were the remains of a great idea: Take three mayors from neighboring cities, trap them together in an elevator, mix in a few crude weapons and a Thunderdome mindset in which three mayors enter and only one leaves and them position a few cameras around the elevator to capture all of the magic/carnage. It’s a winning concept and clearly better that most of the other reality show nonsense currently populating basic cable and network television these days……..

- Not enough. That’s the obvious response upon hearing that Olympic organizers will distribute about 450,000 condoms to athletes during this summer’s Rio de Janeiro Games, even though that number is three times more than for the London Games four years ago. The International Olympic Committee announced the big rubbers contribution to the Athletes' Village for the Games, noting that the number of condoms is higher this time in part because 100,000 female condoms will be available for the first time, along with 350,000 condoms for men. Mix in about 175,000 packets of lubricant that will also be supplied and you have the totality of the IOC’s latest effort to encourage 10,500 athletes and staff to practice safe sex. The fact that the athletes always manage to blow through the entire supply of prophylactics every Olympics is no longer surpising and it’s almost impressive because the rate at which these world-class athletes and sex-havers grab free rubbers from dispensing stations and vending machines is so high. There is a complication in these Olympics because of Brazil's outbreak of the Zika virus, which is carried by mosquitoes, but can also be transmitted sexually. Athletes will have to weigh all the normal risks of sex with a virus that is linked to microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with undersized brains and skulls, when picking up their free condoms from a clinic in the Athletes’ Village, which opens on July 24 for the Games, which open  on Aug. 5. Between 100,000 to 150,000 condoms had been supplied at Olympics since 2000 in Sydney, but this time around truly embodies the Olympic motto of, “Faster, Higher, Stronger, More Amorous” in a big way……..

More "Arrested Development," McDonald's apple pie brawls and MLBer v. Colonel Sanders

- This is why you don’t want to join the club, Belarus. You’re not part of the 28-member European Union and while that might sting from time to time, occasions such as this one are an excellent reminder why sometimes it’s OK to be on the outside looking in. That’s because the EU is b*tching out the former Soviet Bloc nation on account of its uptick in death sentences over the past few months. The United Nations has already piled on Belarus for reneging on its international commitments, including a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and now the EU is jumping into the fight, noting that Belarusian courts had already passed three death sentences so far this year. Again, it’s important to note that BELARUS IS NOT PART OF THE EU, so it is under no obligation to give a damn about what the union thinks. Sure, European-based companies have created problems for various municipalities in the United States by refusing to sell them drugs that are used in executions in order to prevent the death penalty from being carried out, but this is Belarus, where you can certainly still get away with more rudimentary methods of offing a human being. Still, the EU issued a snarky statement in which is said the EU nations "expect Belarus, the only country in Europe still applying capital punishment, to join a global moratorium on the death penalty as a first step toward its abolition." Let them in your little economically troubled club and then maybe you can have that conversation, European Union………

- The Atlanta Braves are losing enough to teams on their schedule right now. They don’t need to take more defeats from the value menu at KFC. The worst team in baseball this season just fired manager Fredi Gonzalez  by email when he received a flight confirmation in his inbox for his flight back to Atlanta while the team was right in the middle of a long road trip, but the bad news kept rolling when shortstop Erick Aybar was removed from the starting lineup for Thursday night's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates after a chicken bone got stuck in his throat. On the upside, he didn’t notify the team of the problem by email, but he did have to get a quick assist from new manager Brian Snitker, who said Aybar arrived at PNC Park in discomfort and was taken to a doctor, sedated and had the bone removed. Aybar was in the lineup, but was replaced by Daniel Castro, who went 0-for-4 in Atlanta's 8-2 loss. "That poor guy had to be scared to death," Snitker told. "He looked OK when he left, but I don't think he's feeling very good. Let's just hope everything works out all right." Aybar reportedly had blood coming from his mouth and was unable to lift his shoulder because the bone had caused so much discomfort. His season, like that of his team, has been a total dumpster fire, as he’s hitting just .174 with five RBIs and a .412 OPS. His team is an MLB-worst 10-31 and continues to find ways to make itself a punch line by virtue of its organizational ineptitude and embarrassments at the hands of Colonel Sanders………

- At least we finally found two McDonald’s employees who can be bothered to give a damn at work. Granted, these two minimum wage-earners were brawling over apple pie, but passion is passion and these two grease-soaked idiots have plenty of it. The two female employees got in a physical fight at a Chester County (Pa.) McDonald's during an evening shift, with the younger employee arguing with the older employee about some pie-related issue. That exact nature of the dispute is unclear, but eventually the older employee told her younger counterpart to leave the restaurant, saying she would cover her shift. Rather than take a few hours off, the younger employee refused to leave and the dispute escalated to the point that her co-worker called the police. Then, and only then, did the younger employee get in her older co-worker’s face and inform her that "if she went to jail she would beat her ass," according to the police report. A third employee tried to covnice the younger employee to leave, but that too failed and instead, the woman approached the older employee and struck her in the face, knocking her glasses off, the report alleges. A full-on kitchen brawl ensued and was eventually broken up by other employees. Police are still investigating and deciding whether to file charges, but this can’t rank too high on their priority list. Meanwhile, the McDonald’s corporate office released a statement about the fight and video. "We take the care and safety of our employees very seriously and have zero tolerance for violence. At this time, we are cooperating fully with the police during their investigation into this matter," said Chris Sparks, McDonald’s director of operations. Thanks for saying nothing at all, C………

- The cult following of one of the ultimate fan favorite shows in recent TV history continues to power the Bluth clan to additional air time. “Arrested Development” could be getting another season, according to creator Mitch Hurwitz, marking the umpteenth time the show has been counted out but bounced back. It was literally a decade ago, way back in 2006, that the show was canceled by Fox after three seasons. Yet Netflix commissioned a fourth season in 2013, consisting of 15 original episodes. Most agreed that season didn’t quite live up to the colossal expectations that most fans had for them after a seven-year wait, but they were still solid and fans have spent three more years clamoring for a fifth season. Hurwitz is on the record as saying that a fifth season will "definitely happen” and that Netflix is fully on board with the plan. "It'll happen. It'll definitely happen. Not before the election, but it's definitely going to happen," he said. "I say that because the actors want to do it, the studio wants to do it, Netflix wants to do it, I want to do it. It's just making it happen. There's no one resisting.” Hurwitz added that Season 4 had been re-cut and that the redo was "like the old Arrested Developments," explaining that they "redid all the narration and reshot a few little things. Now we have 22 episodes, and they're delightful to watch and they're much less work than the Netflix series.” It’s unclear where those will air, but producer Brian Glazer revealed that he and Hurwitz were planning to make "another 17 episodes" of the show, which means there’s plenty of time to build the hype up to absurd levels that those episodes have no actual chance of ever living up to no matter how well they’re done……..

Swiss currency showdowns, Liam Gallagher wants to be relevant and Scottish golf misogyny

- Augusta National’s European branch remains committed to its bass-ackwards social stances and now, the British Open is acting accordingly. Muirfield, one of golf’s most iconic venues and entrenched firmly in the birthplace of the sport, has been removed from the host venue rotation for The Open because its socially stunted, misogynist members have voted against allowing women to join. The stuffily-named, thoroughly pompous Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which owns Muirfield, will remain a men-only club after failing to reach the two-thirds majority required to change the club's membership policy. When that happened, it took about two seconds for the Royal & Ancient, which runs golf's oldest major championship, to announce Muirfield will no longer be considered to host the tournament. "We have consistently said that it is a matter for the Honourable Company to conduct a review of its membership policy and that we would await their decision, the organization said in a statement. “The Open is one of the world's great sporting events and going forward we will not stage the Championship at a venue that does not admit women as members. LPGA commissioner Michael Whan, who makes a lot of money governing a sport no one pays any attention to, applauded the R&A's decision on Twitter, which is probably the one publicity the LPGA will receive this week or this month. As for Muirfield, way to lag behind even Augusta National, which was slow to admit women and minorities, but finally came around a few years ago. Your turn, Scots…….

- Internal combustion muscles are the worst. Much like trolls sitting behind a keyboard or on their phone suddenly feel empowered to mock, ridicule or berate total strangers on social media because they don’t have to face any consequences for their words, a-holes behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle have a definite air of superiority when it comes to pedestrians and cyclists on the road. If a person isn't driving, then they’re lesser than to most motorists and for idiots like the one who stars in a YouTube video posted by a bicycle shop owner in Tempe, Arizona, seeing someone pedaling on two wheels is an affront to all that is good, holy and right. This unidentified gas bag clearly did not want to share the road with a cyclist and decided to unleash a profanity-laced exchange that he may regret if he finds out that the incident was captured on the bicyclist's camera. The scene begins with cyclist Jim Anderson, the manager of Landis Cyclery in Tempe, being blasted by the horn of a driver who then begins berating him. "Use the (expletive) sidewalk," the driver can be heard saying in the video. The two-minute confrontation reaches its apex when the driver opens his door and angrily asks the cyclist, "You got something to (expletive) say to me, bro?" Anderson posted the video on YouTube, calling attention to what went down as he rode into the left turn lane at the intersection of Curry Road and Mill Avenue. "It gets pretty crazy out there sometimes," Anderson said. You basically follow the same rules you would in a car. Usually, people who react negatively to cyclists kind of always react negatively to cyclists and don't feel like they should be on the road.” The bad news is that there was no criminal activity in this mess because if there had been, this video would have been exhibit A in a winning case for the prosecution……..

- Has anyone missed the pompous former co-frontman of British rockers Oasis? Anyone? At all? Didn’t think so. But that doesn’t mean that Liam Gallagher isn't still desperate to matter and therefore, he dropped a very cryptic, obviously attention-seeking tweet in which he hinted that he may return to music soon. There were rumors not long ago that he had retired from music following the end of his most recent band, Beady Eye, which he formed after Oasis broke up in 2009 along with every other member of Oasis - sans his estranged brother Noel. Having dropped off the map after two uninspired Beady Eye albums, Gallagher is trying to grab a share of the spotlight with a series of tweets that began with, “Lots of exciting things happening time to get back in ring give us a call ROVER," before chasing that gem with one that says, “Groove is in the art.” What any of that means is unclear, but one thing it apparently does not mean under any circumstances is that Gallagher will put out a solo album. He was recently asked about that possibility, seeing as he doesn’t currently have a band, but he was having none of it. "Solo record, are you f*cking tripping dickhead?" Gallagher wrote on Twitter in response to that query.” He added that he would not release solo material as he is "not a c*nt." How a solo album makes one a derogatory term for a piece of the ol’ anatomy is unclear, but maybe Gallagher feels like he simply doesn’t have the musical chops to carry an album all on his own. That means he needs to find himself a new band and quickly if he hopes to make a comeback from wherever the hell he’s been………

- Switzerland may be militarily neutral, but that doesn’t mean it can’t stick its Alpine-chilled middle finger in the air to the entire European Union over the topic of currency. While the eurozone is scrapping its 500-euro ($564) note in the name of security, Switzerland sees no need to kill off its own 1,000-franc bill — currently worth $1,018. The EU is making the move because its 500-euro bill is exceedingly popular with money launderers, but that decision doesn’t affect the Swiss because they, like Denmark, Sweden and Norway, never adopted the euro and wisely elected to keep their own currency. When center-left lawmaker Margret Kiener Nellen referenced the EU move and wondered if Switzerland would do the same with its big bill, the government said authorities know of no money laundering cases in which the huge bill was a relevant factor. Swiss authorities said they have already taken measures to limit the risk of cash being used for criminal purposes including terror financing, and argued the franc doesn't have anywhere near the euro's global significance. Despite Switzerland’s popularity as one of the top banking options for the world’s financial elites due to its privacy and secrecy, the government is accurate on that point and when it writes in a statement that, "Switzerland is a country with a high wage and price level and also has a marked culture of cash use, which justifies a higher denomination." It’s a fair point for a country that claims pricey places such as Geneva and Zurich as its own and further evidence why staying fiscally clear of the EU mess is typically a wise choice……….