Liam Gallagher go away, dolphins on a plane and Alabama football's gun show

- And that’s another way to handle the situation. Sure, a supermarket manager who finds a customer shoplifting from their business could react by a) calling store security, b) confronting the shoplifter himself or c) calling police, but where’s the fun in that? A supermarket manager in Berlin knows that sometimes you have to blaze new trails and unfortunately, that’s the precise reason this pioneer is facing criminal charges including bodily harm causing death. See, when a Moldovan man was spotted removing items from the store without paying for them, the manager sprung into action and administered some corporal punishment of his own. According to police, the manager beat the man so severely that the victim died from his injuries. The alleged shoplifter was seized by the market operator on Sept. 17 and accused of shoplifting and received what turned out to be a fatal beating. What’s amazing about this is that the victim waited a full two days to go to a doctor in the capital's Lichtenberg district with serious facial injuries. He was immediately to the hospital and died one day later. At that point, the charges facing the store manager went from assault to bodily harm causing death and honestly, this fool did it for a minimum-wage, low-end job that wasn’t worth risking his freedom and next few years of his life. Worse still, police say they are looking into further similar occurrences at the same store. Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at that managerial training manual……. 

- Dear University of Alabama football players: Please stop trying to buy the ladies of Tuscaloosa two tickets to the gun show. First, it was offensive tackle Cam Robinson facing felony gun charges during the offseason, which he managed to duck because the district attorney declined to prosecute. Now, linebacker Tim Williams has been arrested by campus police on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a pistol without a permit for bumping around campus with his weapon. The University of Alabama Police Department declined comment on Williams’ reported arrest, but it’s a bad look for one of the top prospects for next year’s NFL draft, becoming the second Alabama player arrested for a charge involving a gun this year. Sure, his numbers last season - getting 10.5 sacks despite not starting a game - look great to NFL teams, but having a criminal record tends to be something the league notices because there is a pesky player conduct policy in place. It’s also worth asking why a 6-foot-4, 237-pound linebacker who is revered by many on campus feels the need to pack heat on his way to the dining hall, library or rec center, but too many times, athletes in this position don’t have anything remotely resembling a good reason. Then again, prosecutors in Alabama don’t seem too inclined to prosecute Crimson Tide players for gun-related offenses, so Williams can probably skate on this one anyhow……..

- Maybe next time use UPS (Universal Porpoise Shipping)? Maybe that will placate animal rights activists angry that live dolphins were shipped to a dolphin aquarium in Hawaii via FedEx. Smartphone video of the shipment inflamed tensions, showing several people who appear to be working on and around a stretcher used to carry dolphins when they're out of the water. The video was taken inside a FedEx cargo warehouse in Honolulu, Hawaii and the two animal right activists who filmed the incident ask the workers if they have permits to transport the animals and then, an employee walks toward the activists from within the warehouse, closes a chain link gate, then drops a metal door, preventing them from seeing anything else. "This is how all dolphins are transported from one marine park to another," one of the activists from Animal Rights Hawaii, a nonprofit organization based in Honolulu, says near the end of the video. It’s worth noting that the video appears to show dolphin trainers and caretakers preparing one of three dolphins for a FedEx plane trip, so it’s not as if these are just FedEx dock workers handling animals they know nothing about. A second clip from the scene appears to show a crate containing one of the dolphins on the back of a flatbed pickup truck, bound for Dolphinaris Arizona, a dolphin aquarium located near Scottsdale. "FedEx is one carrier that is experienced at safely transporting animals, and frankly, is one of the best," Dolphinaris general manager Grey Stafford said, adding that three new dolphins arrived at his facility from Hawaii on earlier this week and are doing well. Dolphinaris is a facility set to open next month on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, offering customers a chance to swim with the dolphins…….

- World, we’ve finally learned how to make Liam Gallager go away - forever. The former Oasis and Beady Eye frontman has seen his best band self-destruct due to the egos and megalomaniacal tendencies of both he and his brother, seen his new band call it quits and is now preparing to drop his debut solo album because it appears he’s finally run out of people will work with him and according to Gallagher, he will “probably f*ck off forever” if it fails. The album is due out next year after the rocker inked a deal with Warner Bros. Records. "God, I don't know, it's nowhere near...Good songs, good vocals, rock n' roll, mate, stuff you won't have to think too much about,” Gallagher said of the solo album. "No long guitar solos, no drum solos, no drum solos, no mad wizardy keyboard, just bang-in-your-face. it's good." Straightforward rock actually does sound good, so maybe this will be a solid release. On the topic he his future plans, Gallagher was characteristically blunt. "I've done the Beady Eye thing and that didn't come off and I thought maybe I'll just have a break, but I wrote these songs and I thought, what else can I do?” he asked. “This album, if it does well we crack on and do another one. If it doesn't I don't know what I'll do. I probably will f*ck off forever but we'll see." So all people have to do to make this self-centered rock-and-roll narcissist disappear is ignore his first (and possibly last) solo album……..

Shattering hockey's glass ceiling/wall, Swiss privacy takes a hit and "The Lion King" goes live-action

- It was only a matter of time. Given the success of this year's “The Jungle Book,” Disney was guaranteed to turn to one of its other classic animated films and look to turn it into a live-action remake. The studio’s choice, it seems, is “The Lion King,” a classic tale of a young lion who sees its father murdered by its uncle, goes into self-imposed exile and returns to reclaim its kingdom with the help of a warthog and a meerkat. Just like “Jungle Book,” the new take on “The Lion King” will feature an innovative mix of live action and CGI. To try to further connect the two, Disney has inked “Jungle Book” director Jon Favreau to helm the story of Simba and friends. "The Lion King builds on Disney’s success of reimagining its classics for a contemporary audience with films like Maleficent, Cinderella and The Jungle Book,” Disney said in a statement. “The upcoming Beauty And The Beast, starring Emma Watson as Belle, is already one of the most anticipated movies of 2017. Like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King will include songs from the animated film.” Of course, Elton John and Tim Rice famously scored the original film and the soundtrack was a hit, with 'Circle Of Life' and 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight?,' which went on to win an Oscar for the 1994 film. Favreau actually dropped a hint about his involvement with the movie prior to Disney’s announcement, although no release date or casing has been announced yet for the project……… 

- Are memes capable of hate speech? According to the Anti-Defamation League, they definitely are, even if the centerpiece of that meme is a cartoon frog. Yes, Pepe the Frog has been around for years, lurking online in updated forms and ribbiting his way through life as the star of meme after meme, mostly innocuous and mildly entertaining. But of late, Pepe has taken a dark turn and for that reason, he’s landed one of the coveted spots in the league’s database of hate symbols. Credit that development to a few Internet trolls turning Pepe into an amphibian version of Adolf Hitler, a Ku Klux Klansman and various other racist caricatures. "Once again, racists and haters have taken a popular Internet meme and twisted it for their own purposes of spreading bigotry and harassing users," Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO said in a statement. "These anti-Semites have no shame. They are abusing the image of a cartoon character, one that might at first seem appealing, to harass and spread hatred on social media." Thankfully, the ADL is not blanket-stereotyping Pepe and won't label all Pepe memes as hate speech because most of them are not "bigoted" in nature, the ADL said. Still, it raises the question: If racists will radicalize a cartoon frog, what won't they deface? Keep your eyes peeled, Kermit…….

- Top draft picks are expected to make a quick impact on their new team almost regardless of the sport, but maybe Toronto Maple Leafs phenom Auston Matthews could’ve chosen a different route. Matthews, chosen first overall in this year’s NHL draft, skated with his new teammates for the first time and proceeded to show his appreciation for the team that drafted him by wrecking some of its property. A wayward slapshot shattered a pane of glass surrounding the rink after the formal portion of practice and after breaking a glass panel rather than a glass ceiling, Matthews was cracking jokes. “It was a terrible shot, too," Matthews said. "It wasn't even hard, just happened to hit the right spot, I guess, and shattered the whole thing. We were just messing around. It was me, [Mitch] Marner, [Andrew] Nielsen, the last guys on the ice, we were just taking shots and [I] missed the net, broke the glass." He was asked if he thought he would have to pay for the damage and cracked that Maple Leafs general manager Lou Lamoriello “won't be too happy” about the glass. Prior to his property damage, Matthews skated on a line with James van Riemsdyk and Leo Komarov, both of whom had enough respect for the practice facility to not start breaking things. Having played in Toronto during the World Cup of Hockey, maybe the Scottsdale, Arizona native felt a little too at home. Next time, keep the puck skidding along the ice where it belongs. A………

- It’s amazing what fear will do to a populace. No, not the fearmongering, xenophobic followers of a certain American presidential candidate….this time, it’s Switzerland, where voters have granted new powers  to their country's intelligence services, allowing them to track internet activity, snoop on email and tap phones to better fight spies, criminal hackers and violent extremists. Not only did voters give the thumbs up to governmental overreach, but a whopping majority of 65.5 percent voted for the new law in the national referendum. With this mandate, the Federal Intelligence Service and other authorities will be allowed to tap phones, infiltrate email and deploy hidden cameras and microphones to monitor suspects who are deemed a clear threat -- but only if authorized by the federal administrative tribunal and oversight counselors. Previously, Swiss authorities had been barred from using anything more than publicly available information or tips from foreign officials when monitoring threats inside the country and on the surface, that would seem to be a major handicap for an intelligence organization. That’s why supporters of the law argue that it’s necessary to help Switzerland catch up with other countries that have stronger legal arsenals to counter cyber-crime or extremist attacks. Those on the other side are making the argument familiar to privacy advocates around the world, claiming that the law will erode civil liberties and Switzerland's long-vaunted neutrality without actually doing anything noteworthy to combat terrorism. Sadly, only 35 percent of Swiss voters value their privacy and civil liberty enough to vote against this measure, so neutrality will have to take a back seat to paranoia in the land of cheese and chocolate……..

The Gambler folds 'em, MLB fight club injuries and weaponizing hoes

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- As always, at least there’s a good reason a team battling for a playoff spot in Major League Baseball will be missing one of its key players down the stretch. The Toronto Blue Jays lead the American League wild card race in its final week and could probably use reliever Joaquin Benoit as they try to hold on and make the postseason. He has a 0.38 ERA in 23⅔ innings and is 2-0 with one save since the Jays acquired him from Seattle on July 26 and has quickly become an important piece in the bullpen mix. He’s not going to be filling that role in the near future after suffering a torn left calf when he tripped coming out of the bullpen during one of two benches-clearing incidents against the New York Yankees earlier this week. Yes, the baseball fight, where everyone comes off the bench with no intention of actually fighting or doing anything beyond finding another player to hold onto and pretend to be preventing them from throwing some serious haymakers. This guy was essentially jogging a couple hundred feet to stand around and watch other people pretend they wanted to fight, yet he and Jays second baseman Devon Travis were injured in the process. Benoit is expected to be out for at least two to three weeks, meaning he likely won't pitch again unless the Blue Jays make deep playoff run and he is clearly hurting. “It felt like something hit me,'' he said. "I won't be able to get on the mound anytime soon, so personally this is really disappointing.'' Imagine how disappointing it is for the team that traded for you thinking you could help it possibly win the World Series this year……..

- The rest of the world may have moved on from the Salem Witch Trials Era, but it’s nice to know that some people stubbornly hold onto tradition and refuse to allow their society to move forward. A group of socially stunted people in Peru are keeping one of the ugliest parts of the past behind by burning a woman alive after she was accused of being a witch. The accused witch was burned alive on a bonfire in an indigenous community in a remote part of the country's Amazon rainforest and the reason the world is finding out about it is because the government is prosecuting those responsible, figuring they out to act like civilized members of a modern society. According to prosecutor Hugo Mauricio, members of the Shiringamazu Alto community sentenced 73-year-old Rosa Villar Jarionca to death over claims she made people sick through witchcraft. What’s ironic about the responsible parties getting caught for an act straight out of 1780 is that their actions were brought to light because of a cellphone video shot by a witness and given to prosecutors. The low-quality video appears to show Villar with her hands tied amid a pile of dry logs and branches as a man soaks both she and the logs with gasoline and another man throws a lit match onto the bonfire. Whoever filmed this incident may have ultimately helped to ensure that those who went pyromaniac on this poor woman received punishment, but filming another person’s death by fire and doing nothing about it doesn’t make them much better………

- Insert your requisite pun about knowing when to fold ‘em here, because The Gambler is about to exit stage left. Kenny Rogers has announced that he will retire from music next year, ending a run that began in 1958 and which has encompassed 27 solo studio albums - the most recent being 2013's 'You Can't Make Old Friends.’ Rogers recently revealed that he plans to cease recording and performing at the end of his current tour, which is going to crush the spirit of mosh pit participants around the world who love raging in front of the stage at his rollicking shows. "I've done everything I set out to do," Rogers said. "Every goal I've set, I've done that, and there's a point where you have to say, 'I've had my turn. Let someone else have it,' and that's kind of where I am. It's not that I dislike music; it's just that I can't keep doing this and do what I want to do, which is spend time with my family." Citing family is an odd choice for a guy as old as Rogers, but dude does have 12-year-old twins with his fifth wife, Wanda Miller. Yes, five wives might be an indication that being an active, touring musician is a tough gig to pull off, so Rogers wants to leave music before his kids get too old to hang out with a dad old enough to be their great-grandfather. "I have two older boys and I didn't get to spend this time with my older boys, and I resent it because it's a very special time in a kid's age," he said. "My boys are playing football this year, and we went to watch a game and they were so excited about us being there, and that's the kind of thing that as a parent you want to be part of as much as you can." What is now The Gambler’s farewell tour will conclude April 8 in Danville, Kentucky and at that point, he will have played his final hand………

- Weaponizing hoes is generally not an acceptable practice, but every now and then there is an exception. That exception happened recently in Weld County, Colorado, where a woman who was nearly stabbed to death was saved by a group neighbors armed with garden equipment. The neighbors saw the woman being attacked on a large piece of land with a trailer, campers and tents, an encampment that has become a source of concern in recent months. “We just noticed here in the summer that more and more people were down there and we really didn't know what was going on," neighbor Dan Gibson said. No one is quite sure how the attack began, but the suspect stabbed the woman before her neighbors came rushing to the scene and used their rakes, hoes, shears and shovels to subdue Johnny Cordova until police arrived. The victim was airlifted to Denver Health Medical Center and investigators are still trying to determine the exact nature of the encampment. The land is located between two homes and according to the locals, this is not the first time the campers have caused problems. It’s an odd situation to have in a neighborhood, but then again, so is a person being attacked and in danger of being murdered, only to have their neighbors come charging in looking to till the soil of the ass hat who senselessly attacked her, saving the day and proving that the Home Depot can be just as effective in warding off crime as an NRA membership……..

The Gambler folds 'em, MLB fight club injuries and weaponizing hoes

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- As always, at least there’s a good reason a team battling for a playoff spot in Major League Baseball will be missing one of its key players down the stretch. The Toronto Blue Jays lead the American League wild card race in its final week and could probably use reliever Joaquin Benoit as they try to hold on and make the postseason. He has a 0.38 ERA in 23⅔ innings and is 2-0 with one save since the Jays acquired him from Seattle on July 26 and has quickly become an important piece in the bullpen mix. He’s not going to be filling that role in the near future after suffering a torn left calf when he tripped coming out of the bullpen during one of two benches-clearing incidents against the New York Yankees earlier this week. Yes, the baseball fight, where everyone comes off the bench with no intention of actually fighting or doing anything beyond finding another player to hold onto and pretend to be preventing them from throwing some serious haymakers. This guy was essentially jogging a couple hundred feet to stand around and watch other people pretend they wanted to fight, yet he and Jays second baseman Devon Travis were injured in the process. Benoit is expected to be out for at least two to three weeks, meaning he likely won't pitch again unless the Blue Jays make deep playoff run and he is clearly hurting. “It felt like something hit me,'' he said. "I won't be able to get on the mound anytime soon, so personally this is really disappointing.'' Imagine how disappointing it is for the team that traded for you thinking you could help it possibly win the World Series this year……..

- The rest of the world may have moved on from the Salem Witch Trials Era, but it’s nice to know that some people stubbornly hold onto tradition and refuse to allow their society to move forward. A group of socially stunted people in Peru are keeping one of the ugliest parts of the past behind by burning a woman alive after she was accused of being a witch. The accused witch was burned alive on a bonfire in an indigenous community in a remote part of the country's Amazon rainforest and the reason the world is finding out about it is because the government is prosecuting those responsible, figuring they out to act like civilized members of a modern society. According to prosecutor Hugo Mauricio, members of the Shiringamazu Alto community sentenced 73-year-old Rosa Villar Jarionca to death over claims she made people sick through witchcraft. What’s ironic about the responsible parties getting caught for an act straight out of 1780 is that their actions were brought to light because of a cellphone video shot by a witness and given to prosecutors. The low-quality video appears to show Villar with her hands tied amid a pile of dry logs and branches as a man soaks both she and the logs with gasoline and another man throws a lit match onto the bonfire. Whoever filmed this incident may have ultimately helped to ensure that those who went pyromaniac on this poor woman received punishment, but filming another person’s death by fire and doing nothing about it doesn’t make them much better………

- Insert your requisite pun about knowing when to fold ‘em here, because The Gambler is about to exit stage left. Kenny Rogers has announced that he will retire from music next year, ending a run that began in 1958 and which has encompassed 27 solo studio albums - the most recent being 2013's 'You Can't Make Old Friends.’ Rogers recently revealed that he plans to cease recording and performing at the end of his current tour, which is going to crush the spirit of mosh pit participants around the world who love raging in front of the stage at his rollicking shows. "I've done everything I set out to do," Rogers said. "Every goal I've set, I've done that, and there's a point where you have to say, 'I've had my turn. Let someone else have it,' and that's kind of where I am. It's not that I dislike music; it's just that I can't keep doing this and do what I want to do, which is spend time with my family." Citing family is an odd choice for a guy as old as Rogers, but dude does have 12-year-old twins with his fifth wife, Wanda Miller. Yes, five wives might be an indication that being an active, touring musician is a tough gig to pull off, so Rogers wants to leave music before his kids get too old to hang out with a dad old enough to be their great-grandfather. "I have two older boys and I didn't get to spend this time with my older boys, and I resent it because it's a very special time in a kid's age," he said. "My boys are playing football this year, and we went to watch a game and they were so excited about us being there, and that's the kind of thing that as a parent you want to be part of as much as you can." What is now The Gambler’s farewell tour will conclude April 8 in Danville, Kentucky and at that point, he will have played his final hand………

- Weaponizing hoes is generally not an acceptable practice, but every now and then there is an exception. That exception happened recently in Weld County, Colorado, where a woman who was nearly stabbed to death was saved by a group neighbors armed with garden equipment. The neighbors saw the woman being attacked on a large piece of land with a trailer, campers and tents, an encampment that has become a source of concern in recent months. “We just noticed here in the summer that more and more people were down there and we really didn't know what was going on," neighbor Dan Gibson said. No one is quite sure how the attack began, but the suspect stabbed the woman before her neighbors came rushing to the scene and used their rakes, hoes, shears and shovels to subdue Johnny Cordova until police arrived. The victim was airlifted to Denver Health Medical Center and investigators are still trying to determine the exact nature of the encampment. The land is located between two homes and according to the locals, this is not the first time the campers have caused problems. It’s an odd situation to have in a neighborhood, but then again, so is a person being attacked and in danger of being murdered, only to have their neighbors come charging in looking to till the soil of the ass hat who senselessly attacked her, saving the day and proving that the Home Depot can be just as effective in warding off crime as an NRA membership……..

GoFundMe-ing a hot dog vendor, Rom Zombie hate and Rex Ryan thinks he's funny

- Maybe national air travel security agencies need to take a closer look at their list of banned items for passengers to bring aboard planes. Most nations ban anything weapon or weapon-like in carry-ons and heavily restrict how such items can be brought on board even in checked baggage, along with restricting any chemicals or other substances that could be combined to make a bomb on board the flight. However, regulatory agencies have definitely lagged behind when it comes to policing human body parts and especially internal organs in luggage and because of that fact, Austrian customs officials are dealing with a very peculiar problem that could have been avoided had they bitten the bullet and banned people from traveling with human intestines. Over the weekend, customs officials in the central European nation discovered the organ parts packed tightly in plastic containers and formaldehyde in a Moroccan woman's baggage. The find came at the airport of the southern city of Graz, so at least it didn’t gum up the works of customs and security at one of the country’s major airports. As to why someone was traveling with human intestines….the woman told police that she had brought the intestines of her dead husband to Austria to have them examined because she thought he had been poisoned. Perhaps giving her exactly what she wanted, the tissue is being subjected to a pathological analysis and Austrian medical officials said authorities in Morocco where the man died gave the cause of death as intestinal obstruction, a diagnosis they believe is plausible………

- Sooooo….not everyone is a Rom Zombie fan. The heavy metal icon and White Zombie frontman has largely shifted from edgy rocker to aspiring filmmaker in recent years and it’s safe to say that his dark, often morbid musical tendencies have carried over to his films. That would seem like a good thing for a guy who once remade a classic horror flick like “Halloween” back in 2007, but the man who led the original version of the film doesn’t sound too enamored with what Zombie did to his movie. Horror movie legend John Carpenter, speaking his mind in a video that surface recently, claimed in the footage that Zombie not only 'lied about him', but tarnished the legacy of the franchise.  “He said I was very cold to him when he told me he was going to make it," Carpenter said in an address to the New York Film Academy. "Nothing could be further from the truth. I said, ‘Make it your own movie, man. This is yours now. Don’t worry about me.’ I was incredibly supportive. Why that piece of sh*t lied, I don’t know.” But it wasn’t all accusations of lies, deceit and half-truths. Carpenrter also believes Zombie “took away the mystique of the story by explaining too much” about Michael Myers, the iconic character at the center of the story. In Carpenter’s view, Myers is supposed to be a virtually supernatural force of nature and Zombie ruined that with his presentation of the character. Zombie’s verison of the film didn’t go over well with many fans and critics and had a relatively poor showing at the box office, so maybe Carpenter is right……..

- Sometimes, social media doesn’t totally suck. Yes, most of the time it’s a hangout for trolls, idiots and hatemongers who get to hide behind the anonymity of their cloaked social media identity while spewing all manner of hate, idiocy and bile, but every now and then, someone uses their Instagram account to share the story of an 89-year-old popsicle salesman in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago who suddenly found he and his wife in dire financial straits because the adult daughter on whose income they depended heavily for their support passed away suddenly. When a well-intentioned citizen learned of Fidencio Sanchez’s story and shared it on social media, two men who didn’t know Sanchez at all decided to raise money to support he and his wife. They started a GoFundMe that quickly picked up steam and eventually raised far more than anyone would have dared to dream when the effort launched. By the time the campaign ended, $384,290 had been raised for the Sanchezes and the men who started the online fundraising effort were finally able to meet the stranger they stepped up to help when they presented him with a check for that amount in a ceremony held at the intersection of 25th and Pulaski. It’s more than a hot dog vender would make in a lifetime and the fact that all of that money was raised in the span of just nine days is uplifting. Now, social media trolls can go back to hate-memeing their lives away……….

- It’s kind of cute how Rex Ryan either a) still thinks he’s funny or b) has that much swagger after winning a single game to up his team’s record for the season to a whopping 1-2. Ryan has always been full of bluster and swagger and early in his head coaching career, it seemed for a brief moment he might have the coaching aability to back up. We’ve since learned otherwise, as he’s failed to break the .500 mark the past five seasons and has become more of a carnival barker than a good NFL head coach. His biggest struggles have come against Bill Belichick, who owns an 11-4 record against Ryan. The two men are a stark contrast in style, with the reclusive, mumbling Belichick on one side and the loudmouthed Ryan on the other. With their teams to meet on Sunday, Ryan kicked off the week one day after his team defeated Arizona 33-18 by poking fun at the Hoodie by doing Belichick’s signature mumbling delivery of generic, cryptic comments to the media.  "We're gonna start with the injury report," Ryan mumbled as he opened his news conference. "You'll get it on Wednesday. Simple as that. You'll get it [when we] turn it in." But Ryan, ever the aspiring comic with the thoughtful side, then said his “admiration is really for Belichick more than anything,” adding that in the NFL, “that's the guy.” That part is actually true, as Belichick is a thousand times the coach Ryan will ever be, a fact of which we’ll all be reminded five days from now when the Hoodie turns his bombastic adversary inside out against despite possibly starting his fourth-string quarterback to start the season 4-0 once more. It’s the way of the football world and it’s nice to know that there are constants on which to rely………

The 76ers get wood, Bosnian Serbs vote in defiance and bypassing Benedict Cumberbatch

- Horses and crap tend to go together - just not this way. In the rural town of Bunnell, Florida, an unfortunate 24-year-old female horse named Mercy found itself in an ugly spot recently when it was found stuck up to its neck in a Flagler County septic tank for a couple of hours. Apparently Mercy fell into the septic tank, which was covered with fiberglass while walking through the yard where she and her owner had lived for the past six months, not realizing that a simple piece of fiberglass was not strong enough to hold the weight of a large quadruped. Thankfully, the horse’s owner, Barbara Jones, realized what had happened and was able to call several agencies, including the Flagler County Sheriff's Office and a large animal rescue team from St. Johns County, to the scene. Crews were able to cut off a portion of the tank covering to gain access and after sedating the agitated horse, they were able to safely remove Mercy from the tank after almost two hours of work. After being rescued from the depths at a tremendous cost of time, manpower and taxpayer dollars - none of which that horse is ever going to repay, dammit - Mercy was assessed by a veterinary team and appeared to have only minor injuries. In a true horsey miracle, the beast suffered only a few cuts and will be treated with antibiotics and pain medication rather than being shipped off to the glue factory. The septic tank is specific to the Jones residence, so no one else will be affected by having to cut it open, although the county  health department plans to inspect the scene because #bureaucracy…….

- For some, Benedict Cumberbatch has the most punchable face in Hollywood. To others, he’s a talented, versatile actor who is the leading man in Marvel's “Doctor Strange.” Yet Cumberbatch almost didn’t land the role, as Marvel initially wanted to start shooting the hotly-anticipated superhero movie last fall at a time when the actor was already contracted to appear on stage in a production of Hamlet at London's Barbican theater. Director Scott Derrickson approached Cumerbatch about the role, but was told at the time that the actor simply couldn’t bail out of his Hamlet commitment, having given his word. Forced to go further down his list of candidates for the role, Derrickson met with Joaquin Phoenix, Jared Leto and Ryan Gosling to discuss the role, but Marvel executive Kevin Feige decided that it simply had to be Cumberbatch, pushing back the start of production in order to accommodate his top choice as the good doctor. "If you can't jump on board when the ride's going past, that's usually it, so the hugest compliment they paid me was to come back to me. It motivated me to try to fulfill their faith in me,” Cumberbatch said of having a second chance at the part. As a result, he will star in the forthcoming superhero movie as Doctor Stephen Strange, a neurosurgeon who discovers the hidden world of magic and alternate dimensions following a serious car accident. He’ll be joined by a big-name cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen and Michael Stuhlbarg………

- The idea of voting being an act of defiance is a very foreign one to those living in developed nations around the world. For most, it’s an act of inconvenience, one that they really don’t want to make time for in their busy lives and therefore leave to others. But in Bosnia, it was a bold step for Bosnian Serbs voting in a referendum banned by the country's constitutional court, risking Western sanctions against their autonomous region and criminal charges against their leaders. What’s interesting about this vote is that it wasn’t some major ballot sparking a total overhaul of the government, but rather a vote on whether to keep Jan. 9 as a holiday in Republika Srpska — commemorating the day in 1992 that Bosnian Serbs declared the creation of their own state and ignited a devastating 1992-95 war. It’s noteworthy because it comes despite the top court's ruling that the date discriminates against Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats in Bosnia, who were persecuted and expelled by the Serbs. The vote has even drawn the interest of the West, which has urged the illegal referendum not to be held. The Bosnian Serbs have the backing of Russia, so this is another front for the fight of Russia v. the West, which has suggested it might consider halting projects in the mini-state or impose travel bans on leaders and freeze their assets if the vote were held and if it passes. It’s the fight that just won't die………

- The Philadelphia 76ers may not win many games these days, but that doesn’t mean they can't have nice things. For example, the Perpetual Tankers in Philly, who looked last season like they would break the NBA’s single-season mark for worst won-loss record,  have just opened a new, state-of-the-art practice facility, and as is fitting for a team that hasn’t been any good in a long, long time, the coolest part of the new space is something marking a special moment from 54 years ago. That would be the reception desk in the lobby of the building, which is made out of part of the court from Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game on March 2, 1962. Chamberlain is one of the greatest players in NBA history and given that no player on the team’s recent roster should even be allowed to buy a ticket to the Basketball Hall of Fame at the moment, honoring him rather than something of a more recent vintage is a wise move. The desk is the first thing visitors will see when they enter the building and that’s a much better first impression that anything referring to the Sixers’ 10-72 mark from last season. They could always build the receptionst’s chair out of the crutches former top draft pick Joel Embiid has used after any of the multiple foot injuries and surgeries that have kept him from ever playing a game in his two seasons with the team, or maybe recycle the stat sheets from one of their 72 losses last season to use as note paper at that front desk, but otherwise, it’s best to keep all eyes on the distant past in Philly at this point……..

Laotian tiger farm promises, MLB backup catcher Twitter racism and Drake appeals to hipsters

- Yes, world, there are tiger farms and no, Laos won't continue having them as a feeder system for the illegal trade in the endangered animals' body parts. According to conservation groups, the Asian nation has promised to phase out tiger farms, which could help protect the depleted population of tigers in Asia. Laotian officials made the announcement in South Africa, one day before the start of a meeting of the cumbersomely named Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. Tigers, like elephants and rhinos, are a target for kooks who believe that various parts of the animals’ bodies have tremendous medical and health benefits. Tiger parts are used in traditional medicine in some Asian countries, but that doesn’t sway the Wildlife Conservation Society, which works with Laos on tiger protection. These big-cat lovers are urging other Asian countries with commercial tiger breeding centers to close them and they and their friends in the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency claim that Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese criminal networks are involved in tiger farming and trading. Yes, not only black market trading in tiger parts, but there are apparently tiger part cartels running roughshod over the wildlife kingdom, pulling out suitcases of tiger paws from the trunks of cars and exchanging them for briefcases of cash at some shady warehouse in the middle of an abandoned industrial park somewhere in Asia. Getting Laos to stop fueling that world is one small step forward for tigers and their supporters……..

- Wanna like the popular rapper of the present while still keeping your hipster cool? Now you can, thanks to Drake making a solid cash grab by releasing his three most recent recorded projects on vinyl for the first time. Yes, Drake is ubiquitous when it comes to sports and pop culture and seems to show up on a new collaboration with one of his hip-hop friends on a daily basis, but he’s also found time to release his fourth studio album, 'Views,’ back in April and he’s now prepared to drop that project, along with the Future collaboration 'What A Time To Be Alive' and the surprise-release mixtape 'If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late' (both released in 2015), on vinyl. Fans don’t have much advanced warning, as the trio of vinyl releases is slated to drop Oct. 7. As always, you can pre-order them and in this case - unlike a digital album release - it might make sense. While there is no numerical limit on digital copies, these vinyl offerings have a fixed quantity. Coincidentally, 'What A Time To Be Alive' was a digital-only release until now, so fans of having an actual physical copy of their favorite music in their hands should enjoy this idea. Then again, most people who collect vinyl copies of albums merely like to fill the shelves of their homes with them and impress their visitors with how cool and retro their music collection is. But whatever the reason, pony up that cash and reserve your copy now………

- Question: Did you know who Seattle Mariners backup catcher Steve Clevenger was before right now? The answer for everyone not currently related to Steve Clevenger is clearly no, which means that his sudden notoriety comes from him either doing something awesome or something awful and in his case, it’s the latter. Clevenger, like many Americans, has thoughts on the ongoing unrest following the fatal shooting of a man by police in Charlotte, North Carolina. His thoughts are hateful and ugly, mind you, but he still has thoughts. Specifically, he thinks - according to one of his tweets - that, "Everyone involved should be locked behind bars like animals!" So everyone involved on those protests should be locked up in a cage? Verrrry progressive, Steve-O. Predictably, the tweet and a subsequent offensive tweet did not go over well and within hours, the Mariners issued a statement denouncing their backup catcher’s words. "While he is certainly free to express himself, his tweets do not in any way represent the opinions of the Seattle Mariners," general manager Jerry Dipoto said in a statement. "We strongly disagree with the language and tone of his comments." The team said it is reviewing "all internal options" for dealing with Clevenger and he actually took that cue and issued a non-believable statement in which he said he was "sickened by the idea that anyone would think of me in racist terms." Yeah, just because a guy posts a racist tweet, why would anyone think he’s racist? On the upside, Steve, now people know who you are even though you’re a  journeyman who has spent time with the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs over parts of six seasons since 2011 and has played in a mere 22 games this year in his only season for the Mariners, batting .221 with one home run and seven RBIs in 68 at-bats……….

- Stealing pumpkins in the fall is bad enough. Stealing pumpkins from an elderly, widow farmer in rural Connecticut is another level of scum-baggery entirely. So whoever you are that thieved more than 100 pumpkins from 88-year-old farmer Teddy Randall, here’s hoping your proud of yourself. This badass old lady has worked on farms for more than 80 years and her farm in Lebanon is a place she clearly takes tremendous pride in. "You know it gives you a lot of satisfaction to put a little seed in the ground and get this," she said of her crop of pumpkins. "It's always something new every day.” She runs Our Acres Farm and has for years, doing most of the work herself even though it takes longer and tires her out more than it used to. When an unidentified thief rolled up on her roadside stand, which runs on the honor system and offers all manner of goodies from the garden, and stole between $200 and $300 of Randall’s pumpkin crop, that thief left no tip and make off with one-third of her crop. Randall says she’s never had such an issue before and that people typically leave anywhere between a $1 bill and $10 bill when they stop to pick up produce. She’s run the produce stand for 30 years and losing a huge chunk of her supply in a single night was a blow to the farm. "It was very disheartening," Randall said. "You know, to think somebody would do that. I feel sorry for them. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes and I wouldn't want to have a conscience about what I had done." Ever the optimist, Randall plans to continue using the honor system and hopes the thief will return the pumpkins or put money in the can at her stand. Odds are, some good Samaritan will even if the thief doesn’t grow a conscience………

Another Star Wars one-off, Goodwill perv photographers and attacking USA Hockey

- Most Americans seem to have no idea what the World Cup of Hockey is, that it’s going on or where it’s happening. Team USA coach John Tortorella would probably like to keep it that way given that his squad handily lost its first two games of the tournament by a combined 7-2 margin to be eliminated from contention to move on to the next round. Thus, Torts is not enthused that former U.S. players -- including Pittsburgh Penguins forward Phil Kessel -- are lighting up the current team for its failure to advance. “Just sitting around the house tonight w my dog. Felt like I should be doing something important, but couldn't put my finger on it,” Kessel tweeted after a 4-2 loss to Team Canada that dropped the U.S. to 0-2 and kept them from advancing out of the three-game preliminary round. Kessel was on both the silver-medal U.S. team at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and the team that didn't medal at 2014 Games, so anyone looking to fire back at him would have plenty of ammo against a guy who just looks bitter that he was left off the roster for the World Cup of Hockey. Needless to say, Torts had a thought or two. "To me, it's a little self-serving, and quite honestly, it doesn't make USA Hockey look any better either," Tortorella said of the criticism. "It's self-serving, and I think the people that are doing it, it really doesn't help them either. I just wish he didn't say anything because it makes him look bad." True, and right now USA Hockey doesn’t need anyone else associated with the team in any way, past or present, making themselves look any worse than they do…….. 

- Never say that rich people don’t give of themselves to help the common man through highly publicized charitable efforts that make them look good in the process. For example, when you hear that Rome's iconic Spanish Steps have officially reopened to the public after a cleaning and repair job, you might think it’s great that luxury jeweler Bulgari financed the effort. Of course, Bulgari being a luxury jeweler, it had some elitist demands that had draped the reopening in controversy, namely its insistence that the city better protect the newly pristine monument from drunks, tourists and others by fencing off the staircase at night. That seemed like an awfully exclusionary approach to take for what is a very public space and Mayor Virginia Raggi responded by saying she didn't think a fence was needed and that the city would make sure the steps aren't abused. She tagged those comments by saying that it is "fundamental to let people use cultural heritage sites" but responsibly and noted that Bulgari's flagship store is on the glitzy street that leads to the Piazza di Spagna. The company’s argument in favor of a fence that could be put up and taken down each night - because that would be a really sturdy and imposing deterrent - was damage to the steps and the piazza's fountain by visiting soccer hooligans. Of course, if Europe shut down major monuments and historical sites every time they were in danger from soccer hooligans, then none of them would ever open to begin with……..

- If there’s any way to make money off the Star Wars franchise that Disney doesn’t eventually exploit, it will be a truly stunning moment. The principal revival of the franchise began with “The Force Awakens” last year and will continue with Episode VIII in December 2017, but numerous other projects for various characters in the Star Wars universe are also in the works. The first of them is “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” which will be released on December 16, but there are two other confirmed projects in the works. After the as-yet-untitled Han Solo film in 2018, Disney chief executive Bob Iger has confirmed, thee will be a third film in the stand-alone "anthology" of Star Wars films released in 2020. Speaking at a Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference, Iger confirmed that he'd hired a writer for the film, which is in its infancy. Iger has already tried to downplay expectations for “Rogue One,” saying it likely won't match the box office sales generated by “The Force Awakens” last year. He added that "interest [in the film] is high. We love what we've seen [because] it doesn't fit neatly into the Skywalker saga,” which is basically him saying that Star Wars dorks will go see anything tagged with the Star Wars name and the studio loves making money. Don’t expect the stand-alone films to end with these three, because clearly there are still hundreds of millions of dollars to be made……….

- Perverts about. It’s just rare that someone catches them in the act and confronts them before they can escape. The rare exception happened earlier this week in Simpsonville, South Carolina, where good Samaritan Mark Morgan was shopping at the Goodwill on South Street when he saw a scene that just didn’t look right.  “I came across this isle and I noticed this gentleman with his arm stretched out taking a picture, up this lady’s dress… and I was like oh my God,” Morgan said. “Oh my God, could this be happening? Cause there’s kids and there’s people everywhere.” Morgan was shopping for a dresser with his mother when the man noticed him and moved to another part of the store. He asked the woman of whom he believed the creeper to have been taking pictures if she realized what had happened and she said she had no idea. At that point, he pursued the perv, yelling at the man to come back. He caused quite a scene, confronting the man and asking why he was snapping shots up under a stranger’s dress. The man denied it, but Morgan told him the store had his evil act on security camera. The good news is that police were able to identify the suspected photographer as Jose Anastacio Ontiveros-Aguila and issue an arrest warrant stating that “the defendant did for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire photograph a female underneath her dress using a cell phone without her consent and knowledge of the victim while the victim had a reasonable expectation of privacy.” The bad news is that Ontiveros-Aguila left the store and vanished before police could arrive and arrest him, so he remains at large and could be lurking out there in some other discount clothing outlet looking to creep on other unsuspecting women with his phone and total lack of character…….

WWE's next stars, fair food year-round and Kings of Leon learn to love their music

- Some nations use their independence day to celebrate the past, appreciate the rights and freedoms they have as a country or to recognize all who have fought and continue to fight for that independence. Armenia chose none of the above, using its independence day to host a military parade in which it proudly showed off state-of-the-art Russian ballistic missiles capable of striking targets up to 186 miles with high precision. This was no coincidental show of force, as the Iskander missiles displayed during the parade were rolled out specifically to show the force of the Armenian military amid tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh. For the geographically ignorant, Nagorno-Karabakh is officially part of Azerbaijan, but since a separatist war ended in 1994 it has been under the control of forces that claim to be local ethnic Armenians. However, Azerbaijan claims those forces include regular Armenian military, essentially accusing Armenia of cheating in the conflict. As we all know, when someone accuses you of cheating, the only correct response is to arm yourself to the nth degree and prove that you are ready, willing and able to blow them to bits in order to win. The most recent outbreak of fighting took place in April and killed about 75 soldiers from both sides. Believe it or not, given Russia’s stellar track record of staying out of regional conflicts in which it isn’t technically involved, Russia has a military base in Armenia and counts Armenia as a member of Moscow-dominated economic and security alliances. Yet Russia also has sold weapons to Azerbaijan, so it seems to cool with whoever wins this one……..

- Bands grow to hate some of their most popular songs in ways fans can't fathom. When the world knows your first and foremost for a single track and that track becomes so ubiquitous that it borders on oppressive, then the artists responsible for writing and performing it can grow weary of hearing it. When fans demand that you play said track at every concert you ever hold, the song almost begins to hold you hostage….and such was life for Kings of Leon when it came to their track “Sex on Fire.” Six years ago, the band described the song as a "piece of sh*t” and said they considered dropping the track from their live set. "I just had this melody and I didn't know what to say. Then one day I just sang "This sex is on fire" and I laughed,” frontman Caleb Followill said. “I thought it was terrible, but the rest of the band were like, 'It's good, it's got a hook'. I was like, 'F*ck off!' but I ended up writing it.” The song became a huge hit, fans were enamored with it and in a sense, Kings of Leon were stuck with it. Somewhere along the way, amidst trips to rehab and intra-band drama, they seem to have gotten OK with the song and now, Followill has done an about-face. "I love 'Sex On Fire' at this point. It doesn't matter where we play in the world, as soon as that starts, the place is gonna go nuts,” he said of the song. "To see how successful it became was like, 'Whoa, this is not what I expected.' But I look back now with nothing but pride." It’s funny how a song that helps you keep making lots and lots of money can win you over……..

- Fair food is the devil, culinarily speaking. It’s essentially built on finding new ways to deep fry and add cholesterol, calories and fat to already-grossly-unhealthy food, but the (sort of) good news is that for most people, this fair food is only available in a very limited portion of the year, typically late summer and early fall. In other words, your chance to sending your cholesterol levels skyrocketing to unheard-of degrees is confined to a few weeks….unless you happen to live in or around Plano, Texas. Residents and visitors to this area can now dine on elephant ears, deep-fried Twinkies and the like all year round thanks to a new restaurant, State Fair Treat. “I love our Texas Blue Bonnet, think of a scone with blueberries and chocolate topped with whipped cream and more blueberries and white chocolate," said Isaac Rousso, the man behind the concept. “In 2013 we won with our deep fried Cuban roll, last year we won with our Smokey bacon Margarita and this year it’s the cookie fries.” Fittingly, these lard-laden purveyor of heart-attack fodder will be located inside the Plano Walmart, which is really the perfect place for it. “Pulled pork sandwich on a pretzel bun, we'll have our cowboy corned crunch, we’re going to have deep fried mac and cheese,” Russo added in discussing the menu. Yes, he has won three state fair awards and he doesn’t have to pay the medical bills of those who end up with diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-related maladies caused by eating the types of food he serves, but deep frying mac and cheese is excess in a way that humanity should never have to suffer……..

- Suspend them? If United World Wrestling was smart, it would make Tserenbaatar Tsogbayar and Byambarinchen Bayaraa its star attractions. You might remember their actions at the Rio Olympics, but not their names, so to refresh that memory, Tsogbayar and Bayaraa are the two rock star Mongolian wrestling coaches who stripped to their underwear to protest an officiating call at the Olympics last month, flying into a rage just moments after referees awarded a match to Uzbekisatn's Ikhtiyor Navruzov against Mandakhnaran Ganzorig. They were upset that the fined 50,000 Swiss francs, which is about $51,000. The protest by the Mongolian coaches came The Uzbek, trailing 7-6, was awarded a late point after the Mongolian wrestler fled a hold and celebrated too early, with less than 10 seconds left. When they protested the call and lost, the judges gave another point to Navruzov to make it an 8-7 final. What resulted was an epic scene in which Ganzorig rolled around the mat in frustration, one of his coaches stomped to the judges' table and slammed his hands on the mat and ripped his shirt off so he could flex his muscles and the second coach came over, pulled his shirt off and then dropped his pants. The second coach then picked up his pile of clothes and dumped them on the judges' table. For those “infractions,” the coaches have been suspended for three years. A letter sent to the Mongolian federation by United World Wrestling details the ban, which is clearly the wrong call. The UWW should be promoting these amazing entertainers, not banning them. But in the meantime, they clearly have an obvious new home in WWE, where their talents could be more fully appreciated………..

Jared Leto's new weird role, a five-times-a-day car thief and Rutgers can't get sports right

- Europe views smoking much differently than the United States. In Europe, it can often feel like two-thirds of the people you pass walking down the street or dining beside at the nearest café are choking down cancer sticks like they’re sticks of gum, while every place worth being in the U.S. has a ban on smoking within its confines. In other words, it should surprise no one that an Italian man required surgery for head injuries after being punched and kicked in the head in a Rome subway car by two men he asked to stop smoking. Maurizio Di Francescantonio was riding the subway, with his mother no less, when he approached two fellow passengers puffing away on their lung darts and polluting the air inside the confined space for all condemned to ride with them until they could bolt from the subway car at the next stop. According to Di Francescantonio’s mother, no passengers came to her son's aid after he was attacked, electing to watch him beaten within inches of his life. Prosecutors are investigating the two men, who come from the Caserta area in southern Italy, for attempted murder, so this was definitely not your ordinary beating. Oh, and smoking is forbidden on Rome's public transport system, so there’s also that, and yet no one other than Di Francescantonio was willing to stand up and demand that these two ass hats stop forcing them to ingest toxic air and increase their chances of lung cancer, emphysema and all other manner of smoking related maladies. Step your game up, Roman mass transit passengers……..

- No matter what Rutgers does, it can't seem to get the whole athletics thing right. There was now-former men’s basketball coach Mike Rice being fired for being abusive toward players and staffers, current football coach Curt Flood being suspended for three games last season for trying to influence a professor to do an academic favor for a football player struggling in class and now, athletic director Pat Hobbs is creating trouble for himself by downing a beer at Rutgers' school-sponsored tailgate party prior to last weekend’s home football game against New Mexico. Hobbs stopped by a student tailgating event, "The Alley,” that the school launched back in August. By the time the AD made his appearance at the event, the tailgate was in full swing at its home close to the stadium and Hobbs apparently felt the crowd was a bit too rowdy - college students, beer and an enclosed space, imagine that. He climbed a riser and began addressing the crowd, crediting the police for their actions in keeping things calm. "My first concern is always for the safety and well-being of our students,'' Hobbs said after the fact. "Anyone who was at the [student tailgate] Saturday knows that I was acting to ensure that.'' He showed his concern for the students’ safety and well-being by taking a beer handed to him by someone in the crowd, telling the chanting mob that he “can’t drink that right now,” then doubling back, laughing and saying, "I am of age. If they card me, I'm OK. All right, go RU." In the video’s climactic final scene, Hobbs begins chugging the beer….and now he’s issuing an apology and the school is canceling The Alley. Lesson learned? Awesome…….

- If at first you don’t succeed and police don’t keep you in custody for your alleged crime, then give it another shot and see if you can make your stop in the clink stick. That philosophy definitely worked for an accused female car thief arrested twice in one day by Jefferson County Sheriff’s officials for stealing or attempting to steal five vehicles. According to detectives, the woman stole a 1995 Chevy Suburban in the Arnold area on September 13 and then abandoned it in front of a home on Pearl Drive. Perhaps she should have kept driving rather than go on foot because a short time later a deputy spotted a woman matching the description of the thief provided by the SUV owner and arrested her. Amazingly, after being booked into the jail on suspicion of car theft, the woman was released pending application of warrants and upon exiting the jail, she allegedly stole a pickup and drove to the 7000 block of Old Highway 21. Either she really enjoys stealing cars or she’s the most ADD car thief ever because at that location, police say she abandoned the pickup and stole a Ford Focus. To cap off her busy day, the woman showed that she doesn’t give a damn who she steals from by attempting to jack a GMC Yukon and a Chevy Suburban owned by her daughter. In a final stunning twist given the tenacity for thievery she’d shown, when the Suburban wouldn’t start, authorities say the woman got out and walked away. Walking was once again her downfall as she was spotted by a Highway Patrolman who was helping sheriff’s officials investigate the vehicle thefts and arrested for the second time that day………

- If playing one eccentric, possibly brilliant weirdo works well, then why not try it again? Jared Leto received mostly rave reviews for playing The Joker convincingly in last month’s “Suicide Squad,” a film in which he says he stayed in character the entire time he was on set, pulling all manner of weird tricks on his co-stars and generally embodying creepy as well as a person possibly could. That could serve him well now that he’s set to star and co-produce an Andy Warhol biopic after acquiring the rights to play the art icon. Warhol, an artist, music promoter and performer known for his bizarre Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia events and urinating on canvases and calling it art, was profiled in the 1989 book 'Warhol: The Biography' by Victor Bockris and Leto has acquired the rights to that tome. So alongside “The Social Network” and “Moneyball” producer Michael De Luca and “The Wolf of Wall Street” screenwriter Terence Winter, Leto is plugging ahead with the new film, which will reportedly be titled “Warhol.” Leto hasn’t exactly been the busiest man in Hollywood of late, as his next movie, “Blade Runner 2,” will be just his second role since his Oscar-winning performance in 2013's “Dallas Buyers Club.” Playing Warhol will require him to go to an eccentric place once again, but he’s clearly proven that he has the ability to do so and odds are he’ll find his Campbell’s soup can of a muse somewhere along the way…….

Solving the NBA's free-agent mystery, Riot Watch! India and burglar + meth = pizza and a shower?

- Drugs are a powerful thing. Sure, police aren't saying that meth, cocaine or some other mind-altering substance was a factor in a Palm Bay, Florida man’s recent, very peculiar break-in, but if this guy wasn’t peaking on something illegal, than he’s simply a far bigger moron than we should ever allow to walk among us. Timothy Tomlinson smashed his way into a house on Emerson Drive by breaking a kitchen window, but it’s his actions once inside the house that left everyone wondering what the hell he had just shot, snorted or ingested. Upon breaking and entering, Tomlinson elected not to do what most burglars do by stealing items of value from inside the house. Instead, he headed  straight for the bathroom and because no one likes a dirty, smelly criminal, he took a nice, long shower. After making sure he was clean and fresh, he then made his way to the kitchen, where he raided the fridge and found a leftover slice of pizza. Pizza is great when you’ve worked up a solid hunger with some mid-day breaking and entering, but you need something to wash it down and Tomlinson accomplished that by downing two bottles of water. At that point, he apparently had what he came for and left the house without actually stealing a single item of value. Amazingly, he was soon tracked down by police and charged with burglary for unlawfully entering the residence with the intent to commit petit theft and criminal mischief for damages to the window. The good news is that he can probably earn himself a nice, long trip to a place where he won’t have to break in and can regularly receive free food and water, along with a daily shower………

- Former child stars with delusions of musical grandeur have feelings too. Corey Feldman has been bouncing around the reality television world and trying to fashion some sort of musical career for years now, given that his roles in '80s films “The Goonies,” “Stand by Me” and “The Lost Boys” don’t have a lot of fuel left in them at this point. His most recent musical endeavor isn't going very well for him and as it turns out, appears to have left him with a tremendous amount of emotional pain. Feldman has spoken out after his musical performance on the “Today” show went viral for all the wrong reasons last week. He played his song 'Go 4 It' with his band Corey's Angels, a performance that was equal parts bad and bizarre, and the effort earned him all manner of social media scorn and derision. Apparently under the impression that his music is actually good, Feldman reacted angrily in now-deleted Facebook Live video in which he broke down in tears while addressing the backlash to the performance. "We just wanted to tell everybody that, like, it's been really painful," Feldman said. "We put ourselves out there and we did the best that we could. And, like, I've never had such mean things said about me. Like constantly. All we can say is that we tried really hard. Because we love our fans and we just wanted to give them the best show that we could. But we don't deserve... these things that are said about us are awful." It’s all part of the artist’s life, C., and by now you should know that when you perform, people will criticize…….. 

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It got real in a hurry over the weekend near a national park in northeastern India as police clashed with angry locals protesting the demolition of their homes. Police spokesman Mukesh Aggarwal said authorities ordered the demolition of 300 houses in three villages to evict people living on the periphery of the Kaziranga rhino sanctuary to stop rampant poaching of the rare animal, but the reasoning behind tearing people’s homes down typically takes a back seat to the fact that those people are about to become homeless, at least in their minds. Thus, you have enraged villagers hurling stones at police in an effort to stave off the inevitable and police responding in totally logical fashion by firing their guns into the crowd. That oh, so predictable turn to use of excessive force turned out to be a deadly choice, as two people were killed and several others injured in the chaos. This battle is happening because an estimated 2,500 out of the world's 3,000 one-horned rhinos live in Kaziranga and those animals are a target because powder made from their horns is coveted in many Asian countries as a medicine or an aphrodisiac. Protecting them is an important issue, but maybe one that you don’t want to handle by displacing hundreds of people and then shooting them dead when they rise up against your short-sighted plan. This one isn't over and it also isn't going to end well for anyone involved……

- The mystery surrounding the NBA’s next great free-agent target has been diffused before it could even begin. Rudy Gay, like actual elite players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant before him, realized there might be questions about where he would take his talents when he became a free agent following the coming seasons, so he moved to eliminate the mystery. Gay, who averaged 17.2 points and 6.5 rebounds for the 33-win Sacramento Kings last season, has given the Sacramento Kings advance notice that he plans to depart from the franchise as a free agent next summer. He’s a good player to be sure, but has never developed even a decent ability to shoot from deep and won't ever be mistaken for one of the best in the league. So while it’s nice that he has informed the Kings that he will exercise a clause in his contract to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2017 and bolt a team that has not made the playoffs in 10 years, it really wasn’t necessary. The Kings suck, they keep cycling through coaches and general managers at an alarming rate and while Gay will make $13.3 million next season and has a $14.3 million player option for the 2017-18 season, he clearly sees the salary cap going up, players getting paid far more than their skills actually warrant and he figures that he can get some extra cash while also escaping one of the true outposts of the Association. "It's not rocket science," Gay said about his decision. No, and that’s probably why the Kings have let teams around the league know that Gay is extremely available in a potential trade any time now……..

Riot Watch! Ukraine, a Mad Max prequel and cops v. (Xbox controller)-armed suspects

- Hard to see how George Washington University ever felt like it had to fire men's basketball coach Mike Lonergan. He sounds like such a quality guy, yet the school broke him off over the weekend and issued a statement that just doesn’t make any sense. "The university recently conducted a thorough investigation into allegations concerning Coach Lonergan," university provost Forrest Maltzman said in a statement. "The university concluded that Coach Lonergan had engaged in conduct inconsistent with the university's values." Wait….telling a player he belonged in a "transgender league" and demeaning another by saying his son would have to depend on welfare his whole life don’t fit with the university’s value system? What about having a former player say that he needed therapy to cope with the post-traumatic stress disorder of playing for Lonergan? The university clearly overreacted to multiple former players and staff members claiming that Lonergan routinely abused his players verbally and emotionally in his assessments and critiques of them, creating an offensive environment and causing many of them to leave the program as a result. So what if the team went on an international trip to Japan this offseason without him and reportedly developed a great camaraderie sans their emotionally abusive coach? Clearly, the world has gone soft when a loud, abrasive coach with no soul cannot engage in hate speech, belittle and dehumanize his players and assistant coaches in the name of winning basketball games and get away with it……..

- This is certainly a new twist on the idea of confrontations between police and armed civilians. There have been far too many instances of cops shooting unarmed civilians or children with BB or toy guns, but this is quite possibly the first instance of an armed kook with a video game controller holding the law at bay for four hours at a gas station. Police in Rehoboth, Massachusetts say a man who engaged them in a four-hour standoff at a Cumberland Farms store and gas station did so not with a gun, but what turned out to be an Xbox controller. Of course, no one tipped them off to that fact when officers were called to the Cumberland Farms at the intersection of Routes 44 and 118 around 7 a.m. after the man allegedly threatened the clerk. Witnesses claimed the suspect, Benjamin Kimball, appeared to have a gun tucked into the waistband of his pants, but when he was arrested shortly before noon, there was no weapon found. There is the obvious question of who rolls with a video game controller tucked into their pants, but Kimball hasn’t explained that yet. What we do know is that after threatening the clerk, Kimball went back outside to his SUV, which was parked at the gas pumps, and locked himself inside. “He ran toward his vehicle and told the officer he had to back off, that he had a gun and a bomb and he was going to blow the place up,” Rehoboth Police Chief Jim Trombetta said. “Two other officers arrived on scene and he pulled the gas hose off of one of the pumps.” The pumps were turned off, the store was evacuated and police surrounded the area, eventually moving in and apprehending Kimball when it became clear he was unarmed……….

- The reboot of the Mad Max franchise was a critical and commercial success, so of course the powers that be behind the film are going to find a way to crank out another film in the series, be it a sequel, prequel or straight-up rip-off of an existing film. Thus, a Mad Max prequel movie reportedly in development, with its purported focus being the backstory of Charlize Theron’s character, Imperator Furiosa. Last year’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” revived the franchise and starred Tom Hardy and Theron. It was directed by George Miller, received positive reviews and has grossed more than $375 million at theaters worldwide. Word on the street is that pre-production on the new project, with a working title of “Mad Max: The Wasteland,” is underway. Miller is on the record as saying he’s planning on making more Mad Max films and already has two possible ideas lined up. Of course, making either of them is going to mean dealing with the issues Theron and Hardy had with each other while making “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Theron said the tension may have actually made the movie better, but odds are everyone would like a calmer set next time. Maybe the movie is what it is because we struggled so much with each other, and those characters had to struggle so much with each other," Theron said. "If we were chum-chum, maybe the movie would have been 10 times worse." Either 10 times worse or fodder for 10 more sequels, prequels and spin-offs, and more likely the latter……..

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It’s not over in Ukraine for those who want to believe that living in Ukraine means people should act and live as Ukrainians and not as Russians, even though Russia is clearly determined to slowly and not-so-subtly absorb/hijack/annex Ukraine to expand Bad Vlad Putin’s evil empire. It may not have been a massive uprising, but the weekend was marked by dozens of right-wing activists blocking the entrance to Russia's embassy in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, where a polling station has been set up for Russian citizens who wish to vote in their country's parliamentary elections. It could have been a disappointingly boring demonstration if not for one demonstrator who was not going to be pushed around by John Q. Law and scuffled with police when they tried to step to him. The nationalist Svoboda party helped make this entertaining gathering happen and one of its leaders, Igor Miroshnichenko, was among the demonstrators. Miroshnichenko boldly proclaimed that Ukraine should "not allow the enemy and state aggressor that stole Crimea to conduct illegal elections in Ukraine” and there’s really nothing inaccurate in his remarks. Lest the world forget, Russia “annexed” Crimea in 2014 following the months of unrest that drove out Ukraine's Russia-friendly president, a move denounced before, during and after the territory-thieving by Putin and his crew. Since then, the world at large has moved on to other various conflicts and crises around the globe, but it’s clear that not everyone believes Ukraine v. Russia is a finished fight………