Distance running duplicity, Aussies ruin their fun reputation and ashes at the opera

- Rosie Ruiz she ain’t, but former Chicago and Boston Marathon winner Rita Jeptoo is disgraced all the same now that she’s had her doping ban doubled to four years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Kenyan star had already been stripped of her 2014 Chicago victory, but the story got oh, so much worse for her when  the CAS judging panel stripped her of her 2014 win in Boston, plus results, prize and appearance money dating back to April 17, 2014. That means she won't earn a $500,000 bonus for leading the World Marathon Majors series standings for the combined 2013 and 2014 seasons, which is a risk you run when you inject erythropoietin, a red-blood-cell-boosting hormone, into your body in a blatant attempt to gain a competitive edge. Jeptoo tested positive for erythropoietin in a September 2014 sample given during training for the Chicago race and the CAS panel said it upheld the International Association of Athletics Federations' appeal to increase Jeptoo's original two-year ban, which was imposed by Athletics Kenya and was to expire this week. Now, a woman who won back-to-back Boston and Chicago titles in 2013 is a black mark on the entire sport of distance running, having had her punishment expanded under the condition that athletes can be banned for four years over a first offense if there are "aggravating circumstances.” In explaining its decision, CAS laid the smack down on Jeptoo. “A [It] was obvious to the panel that the athlete used EPO as part of a scheme or plan," the panel ruled, citing evidence such as her long relationship with the unidentified doctor and "multiple visits to see him" that she hid from her manager and coach. Lots of luck never running competitively again anywhere outside of a local Turkey Trot 5K race, Rita……..

- Vindictive much, Australia? The Aussies are generally viewed as a party-loving group of cool people who bring the fun wherever they go, but that’s going to change quickly if the land Down Under keeps up sh*t like this. Over the weekend, the country that doubles as a continent announced plans to ratchet up its tough policy against refugees by banning any asylum seeker who attempts to reach its shores by boat from ever visiting the country. A previous regime introduced a policy on July 19, 2013, banning refugees who arrive by boat from Indonesian ports after that date from ever being resettled in Australia, but things would get kicked up a notch under legislation to be introduced to Parliament next week - legislation mandating that thousands of asylum seekers who have returned to their homelands in the Middle East, Africa and Asia be banned for life from ever traveling to Australia as tourists, to do business or as an Australian's spouse. "You need the clearest of clear messages," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said. "This is a battle of will between the Australian people, represented by their government, and these criminal gangs of people smugglers. You should not under estimate the scale of the threat.” Yes, because banning someone fleeing a tyrannical regime in search of a new life who is then forced to return home but later marries an Aussie should NOT be allowed to breach your shores. Then again, is anyone really surprised, given that Australia has paid the poor Pacific nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep asylum seekers in camps since the 2013 policy came into force? This far-reaching new policy would apply to all asylum seekers who have attempted to reach Australia since July 19, 2013. It’s a punitive measure decried by human rights groups, but Australia seems intent on making it happen……..

- Someone has gotten too big for their reality karaoke TV show roots, eh James Arthur? Arthur, who became a quasi-famous person in the United Kingdom when he won the ninth season of the British version of “X Factor Karaoke” in 2012, apparently feels he’s now too good for the reality genre, claiming that he turned down a “life-changing” amount of money to appear on “Celebrity Big Brother” during the first of his sure-to-be-many career lulls. The Middlesbrough-born singer four years removed from besting a bunch of other aspiring karaoke-ers and his debut single, riding that reality karaoke high and the relentless wave of promotion that record labels put behind it, reached the top of the British pop charts. Unfortunately for him - but fortunately for fans of good music - his reputation as an unreliable prima donna and loudmouth led to him issuing a disingenuous public apology after using homophobic lyrics in a diss track aimed at a rapper called Micky Worthless. “I got offered loads of reality shows including I’m A Celebrity and Celebrity Big Brother,” Arthur said. “They were life-changing amounts of money. The most I got offered was 250,000 pounds for CBB, which I really needed at the time, not knowing if I had a career. I’m a huge fan of those shows but I don’t think there’s any chance I would be back at Number One now if I’d gone down that route.” Tell yourself what you want, J., but ultimately, you are who you are and you can't change where you came from…….

- Sometimes, you have to cause a minor terrorism scare and inconvenience hundreds of people in order to keep a promise to a friend. There is at least one man in the greater Manhattan area who not only knows that truth, but lives it. He’s the person you may know was causing the cancelation of two scheduled performances at New York City's renowned Metropolitan Opera and inciting the NYPD counterterrorism unit to storm the iconic venue because he sprinkled a powdery substance into the orchestra pit during the second intermission of Rossini's "Guillaume Tell," when most of the musicians were not present. According to investigators, the man was in front of the first row of seats when he sprinkled the ashes of a friend who was his mentor in the opera. John Miller, the New York Police Department's deputy commissioner in charge of intelligence and counterterrorism, said several audience members claimed the man told them he was there to sprinkle the ashes of a friend and while the disposal of ashes at an opera house may violate city codes, police don’t believe there was anything criminal in the act. Don’t tell that to the audience for the interrupted show or the canceled one that was to follow. Some audience members booed when the cancellation was announced and one man chanted, "I want my money back, I want my money back." Unfortunately, he was a loser unable to inspire a following and no one joined in. But hey, all anyone missed was an opera about folk hero William Tell that had not been performed at the Met in more than 80 years before this season, so it’s not as if lives were ruined or the course of humanity was irrevocably altered………

Hookers + charity golf events, A Tribe Calls it Quits and Pirates seek Icelandic control

- Ahoy, matey. In this ballot box, there be pirates. In a great electoral twist that could be used to inject a viable candidate or two into America’s current presidential circus, Icelanders are voting this weekend in a national election, one pitting the upstart - and yet very real - Pirate Party against the center-right government. The Pirate Party, founded four years ago by an assortment of hackers, political activists and Internet freedom advocates, has gone from joke to viable threat to the establishment in that time, gaining massive support from Icelanders fed up with established parties after years of financial crisis and scandal. Heading into the weekend, polls had the Swashbucklers in a close race with the center-right Independence Party to become the biggest group in Iceland's parliament, the Althingi. This opportunity to seize electoral and governmental glory came after then-Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned in April amid protests over his offshore holdings, revealed in the Panama Papers leak. For the parties trying to wrest governing control of the fiscally troubled nation, a mere 245,000 Icelanders eligible to vote are all that stand between them and being able to hoist the colors, slap on that eye patch, perch their loyal parrot on their shoulder and chug from a half-empty bottle of rum as they survey the landscape of their nation and set sail for what they hope will be a future filled with plunder, bounty, wenches and chances to make their opponents walk the plank………

- The Tribe is about to call it quits. Hip-hop pioneers and industry legends A Tribe Called Quest will release their final album next month, founding member Q-Tip has confirmed. The hip-hop quartet, have been largely dormant since releasing their most recent album, “The Love Movement,” back in 1998, but were recently thrust back into the spotlight with the bad news Phife Dawg’s passing back in March. They reunited to record new music following an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” – their first televised performance in 18 years – back in November 2015, much to the delight of their devoted fan base. Q-Tip recently posted a message on his Facebook page announcing the final album, to be released Nov. 11, and which has yet to receive an official title. However, Q-Tip did confirm that he, Phife, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White entered the studio after that Fallon performance and laid down an album that “was coming together nicely” when Phife died. He added that Phife left behind “the blue print of what we had to do” and the remaining members of the group continued to finish the album to “complete our paths of rhythm,” an allusion to the group’s 1990 debut, ‘People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm.” The new album will also have some added muscle in the form of contributions from long-term ATCQ collaborators Busta Rhymes and Consequence, so it should be a fitting final chapter for a group that has helped define the hip-hop genre over the past few decades……

- There are a lot of dudes in the Columbia, Illinois area who now have a lot of ‘splaining to do to their significant others right now. These dudes recently took part in the Metro East golf tournament, billed as a fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and it appears that there were more than a few golfers who strayed from the fairway that day, right into the embrace of naked women performing sex acts right there on the course. The tournament took place at a golf course in Columbia and apparently raised zero dollars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. A photographer for a local TV station recorded video of women flashing their breasts and getting after it with golfers and smartphone videos of women taking part in sex acts with golfers soon surfaced. According to one golfer, more than a dozen women were at the tournament, with some performing sex acts for cash. The ringmaster for this three-ring circus of sporting freakery was tournament organizer Dennis Daugherty, who insisted that he wasn’t aware of any sex acts taking place and insisted that the event’s skank squad was merely “cute girls in bikinis serving drink.s that's it.” That’s not the story told by one woman Daugherty asked to participate in the tournament. She claimed he wanted her to help find “rich, horny men" who would be willing to take part,” but she refused and told others to do the same. What’s not up for debate is that the Make-A-Wish Foundation received no money from the event, as Daughtery blamed low turnout for the tournament. Oh, and he says he was contacted by the charity the day before the event and told to take their name of the flyer and off any promotion because he was never licensed to use the charity's name for any fundraising activities. Columbia police were called to the course the day of the tournament and Daugherty claims that they saw no evidence of illegal activity……..

- Give the man his car. Matt Kuchar may be one of the highest-earning professional golfers in the world, but that doesn’t mean that Shanghai HSBC Champions tournament should be jamming him up and refusing to give him the car he won for his hole-in-one on the event’s par-3 17th hole. Kuchar was waiting his turn to hit on the 17th, a hole that awards a shiny, new Cadillac to any golfer who can put their first shot in the cup. However, when Kuchar holed out, he didn’t get a car because of fine print on the prize listing situated near the tee box. His caddie noticed the posting, which explained that because the tee had been moved forward Saturday in the third round, the hole played only 193 yards. That meant no prize because the hole had to be at least 200 yards. ''Don't worry about a hole-in-one today. We don't get the car,” caddie John Wood jokingly told Kuchar. In spite of those words, Kuchar hit a perfect shot and it led to a 4-under 68 round - one that left Kuchar bummed out. ''That was probably one of the saddest hole-in-ones I've ever had,'' he said. ''Most of the time, a hole-in-one you're just overjoyed with excitement. But then there's a car sitting there, the most beautiful Cadillac on a tee. I was teased by this beautiful car sitting there that's not to be mine.” He noted that his favorite car at home on Sea Island, Georgia, is a 1972 Trailblazer that has been restored and what better way to take some of the burden off a vintage car than by putting a shiny new Cadillac alongside of it? Thanks for nothing, HSBC Champions tournament……..

Drake's low blow on Cudi, Riot Watch! South Korea and MMA arson antics

- Because #college. A 19-year-old Texas A&M University student didn’t really tread any new ground or reflect too well on herself, but she definitely had a true live-and-learn college moment this week when she decided to mix underage drinking, reckless driving, social media and outright stupidity. It all began for Miranda Rader when she got into her car with an open bottle of wine in a cup holder next to her and based on her actions, she probably consumed some of that wine before what came next. While driving in Bryan, Texas, near the A&M campus about 100 miles northwest of Houston, a possibly intoxicated Rader busted out her phone and decided that driving while (probably) impaired was a perfect time to take a selfie. But not just any selfie - a topless one. Of course. If you’re going to get liquored up, risk your life and the lives of others and do it in the name of social media glory, you need to show some skin. Unfortunatley for Rader, being (allegedly) under the influence of alcohol, trying to take a topless photo and driving is a tough threesome to manage and thus, she slammed into the rear of a stopped police car and was arrested. It was a very literal crash and burn that made the job easy for the Bryan Police Department. The officer who approached Rader’s car got a nice view as when he approached her vehicle, she was trying to put on her blouse. Oh, the fun that must have ensued when Rader called home to explain all of this to her proud parents………

- Sometimes, the rage of MMA cannot be contained inside the cage. Whether what went down this week in the Milwaukee driveway of mixed martial arts fighters Anthony and Sergio Pettis is tied to their UFC careers is unclear, but what police do know is that three vehicles were burned in that driveway and Authorities are investigating after . The fires happened early Thursday morning. Milwaukee police say it appears accelerant was used to set two vehicles on fire, and the fire spread to a third vehicle in the driveway. In the aftermath of the vehicular arson, Anthony Pettis said he was glad no one was hurt and promised he would do everything he could to find out who is responsible and have them prosecuted. "I am a fighter. I won't be defeated by this," he said. His brother Sergio asked the Milwaukee community to come together and stop the violence and in the midst of all of this chaos, Anthony Pettis is scheduled to face Max Holloway in UFC 206 in Toronto in December. UFC is about as violent a sport as there is and Milwaukee isn't typically known as one of America’s more violent cities, but this is a rare exception to that rule. At least this time the carnage was limited to three cars and no lives were lost or irrevocably harmed, but the brothers Pettis seem to be taking this as a call to make a positive impact in their community………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The other Korea, the one not ruled by a megalomaniacal, diminutive despot who stifles the opposition and refuses to allow his people to know what’s actually going on in the world outside their borders, but the democratic one - South Korea. That’s where thousands of citizens took to the streets of the capital, Seoul, calling for increasingly unpopular President Park Geun-hye to step down over allegations that she let an old friend, the daughter of a religious cult leader, interfere in important state affairs. Involving cult leaders in government matters isn't typically a good idea and Park ordered 10 of her senior secretaries to resign over the scandal, but can’t seem to evade her rising lame duck status ahead of next year's election. South Korea isn’t a violent, riotous type of society, so the protest was largely tame, with demonstrators holding candles and signs reading "Who's the real president?" and "Park Geun-hye step down," all while marching through downtown Seoul after holding a candlelight vigil near City Hall. Police estimated that about 9,000 people turned out for the biggest anti-government demonstration in Seoul in months and various leaders took to the stage to address the crowd. "Park has lost her authority as president and showed she doesn't have the basic qualities to govern a country," Jae-myung Lee, from the opposition Minjoo Party and the mayor of the city of Seongnam, told the protesters from a stage. Calls persist for Park to reshuffle her office and Cabinet after admitting that she provided longtime friend Choi Soon-sil drafts of her speeches for editing. A televised apology did little to assuage the rage and she remains under fire for a heavy-handed leadership style that many see as lacking in transparency. Mix in speculation that Choi meddled in government decisions on personnel and policy and exploited her ties with Park to misappropriate funds from nonprofit organizations and it would seem that this whole mess is only going to grow uglier, nastier and more embarrassing from here……..

- Low blow, Drake. You can take a run at Meek Mill because Meek Mill was happy to start a fight with you even though he was claearly fighting out of his weight class. But firing unprovoked shots at Kid Cudi, who checked himself into rehab earlier this month for ‘depression and suicidal urges,’ that’s just not cool. Yet the most famous fan of the loser of last year’s NBA Eastern Conference finals - hooray for second-best, eh Toronto Raptors? - decided recently to mock Cudi in a new song, ‘Two Birds, One Stone’, rapping: “You were the man on the moon / Now you just go through your phases / Life of the angry and famous.” It was a track Cudi fans rightly took as an insult in very poor taste. Drake hasn’t said much since then and Cudi has limited his social media activity during his time in rehab, so this hasn’t blown up much - until now. Kid Cudi took to Twitter to send Drake a message: “Say it to [my] face, pussy,” Cudi wrote. “You think it’s a game. I wanna see you say it to my face. I’ll be out soon. Promise.” He went on to thank his fans for the “unfathomable” love he’s received since he revealed his mental health problems and in all honesty, this is one Drake needs to let go. He’s not going to go to rehab and talk junk to a guy dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts and keeping this one going just makes him look bad. Go back to pounding Meek Mill because while it’s depressing to see that one-sided fight, at least the Mill isn't dealing with serious mental health issues………

SoCal real estate pranks, Riot Watch! Pakistan and grandstanding NBA fatty fans

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- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Pakistan is trying to destroy itself, or at least cause a whole lot of hell in the wake of a government-imposed ban on demonstrations. That sort of ban is basically an open challenge to anyone with a soul and a spine to rise up and fight back and that’s precisely what happened this week when stone-throwing supporters of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan who are rallying in Islamabad in defiance of the demonstration ban rose up in the face of The Man and Pakistani police charged with batons and fired tear gas in response to the gathering. It all went down as supporters of Khan's opposition party were making their way toward his residence in for the rally, so technically the sh*t hadn’t even gotten real yet when the sh*t got real. In response to the clashes, Khan boldly proclaimed that he will go head will a planned "million men" march on Nov. 2 in Islamabad to force the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign. It’s not as if this is some renegade movement created by ragtag outsiders with no hopes of affecting change; pressure has mounted on Sharif to quit since his family members were named as holders of offshore bank accounts in leaked documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. While promising to prove he and his family aren't involved in corruption, Sharif has refused to quit and sounds very much like he’s digging in for a fight - one he hopes to win by using military and legal muscle to suppress the voices of those who want to see him face justice………

- Does it strike anyone else as bizarre that the iconic frontman of one of the greatest rock bands ever is touting modern day rappers as “the “only people saying things that matter” in music these days? Seeing The Who frontman Roger Daltrey take a few minutes out of his visit to the Desert Trip festival in California, a two-weekend event held at the same site as Coachella and headlined by The Who, and fellow musical icons Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Roger Waters, and reflect on the reality that rock and roll is dead is equal parts sadness and weirdness. “The sadness for me is that rock has reached a dead end… the only people saying things that matter are the rappers and most pop is meaningless and forgettable,” Daltrey said. “You watch these [new pop stars] and you can’t remember a bloody thing.” On the surface, it could be construed as yet another person denouncing the vapid, shallow and glossy nature of modern pop music as it fills up with songs all about parties, being rich, going the club, being really attractive and not much else, but hearing a rock icon like Daltrey praise rappers as the only ones actually speaking out on subjects that matters is hard to absorb even though he said back in 2014 that most mainstream musicians these days lack “angst and purpose.” At least the old dude is staying consistent(ly bitter) in his final years……..

- Well played, real estate prankster of Orange County, California. You figured you would jerk with a bunch of other people’s lives and turn one woman’s existence into a temporary hell and so it appears you have succeeded. The target of this prank is an Orange County resident who found out the hard was that someone had posted a fake ad online trying to rent out the home in which she lives. That much became clear when three people showed up at her door on three separate occasions over the last two days asking to see the house they read about on Zillow.com, a popular real estate website. Wondering what the hell was going on, this woman went online and found an ad offering the home listed at her address for $1,000 per month with all utilities included. Funnier still, the prankster included directions for those interested in seeing the home to enter through the backyard and knock on the back door. The current resident has two young girls living in the home, so that was a particularly vicious twist in the prank. She checked with her landlord, who confirmed that he did not post the ad. Since this all began, the woman has posted a note on her front door warning people they're responding to a false advertisement. One of the inquiring minds who came to see the home told the woman that the number he called to respond to the add was from a Tennessee extension. The Orange County Sheriff's Office said it can only take action if the landlord files a complain and at that point, detectives can begin tracking down the man pretending to be renting out her home…….

- Go ahead and assume that Richard Harkaway, a.k.a. Double-Birding Philadelphia 76ers Fan, a.k.a. North Philadelphia urologist/wannabe stand-up comedian, got exactly what he wanted from his 15 minutes of fame and that his sham-tastic apology means about as much as a free ticket to one of his comedy shows. Harkaway became the star of one of the last great Vine videos before Twitter killed the video sharing service, flashing double middle fingers at Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook after Westbrook’s fast break basket in the first quarter of both teams’ season opener earlier this week. Harkaway was sitting in the second row of the baseline seats when he stood up and put his middle fingers directly toward Westbrook's face during the first quarter and said, "F--- you!" and Westbrook looked incredulously at the nearby referee with a confused look and said, "Can he do that?" It was bizarre to see a fat, gray-haired dude in a throwback Allen Iverson jersey that enraged at a relatively meaningless play in the first quarter of the first game of the season, but now that we know Harkaway is an aspiring comedian with an uninspiring day job, it all makes sense. Dude wants attention and he’s getting a lot of it now, including a statement he released through - and this is true, he does have one of these for some reason - a personal representative. "In this instance, after standing up to boo and being provoked by Russell Westbrook calling attention to my being overweight, my action in response was clearly inexcusable and I am embarrassed. I sincerely apologize to my fellow Sixers fans, the Sixers organization, my colleagues and patients, and to Mr. Westbrook for my behavior," Harkaway said in the statement. It’s a vague statement that insinuates that one of the best players in the NBA is calling some suburban urologist with season tickets a fat ass in the middle of a game, which seems like a reach. But maybe if you’re a grossly overweight person with extreme sensitivity about their girth, maybe you want to do much less to draw attention to the fact that you’re a grossly overweight person with extreme sensitivity about their girth………

Buffalo Bills bullsh*t, a show business mom who's right and reviving "Knight Rider"

- Open the cage door and let the bird fly away. That’s all it would have taken for an unidentified Kuwaiti man to avoid a whole lot of unnecessary marital drama - assuming that keeping it in his pants and keeping his hands off the hired help wasn’t an option. Unfortunately for this (alleged) philanderer, his parrot spilled some covert news with his wife, revealing its owner’s affair with the housekeeper. The trouble began - well, aside from a married dude getting some with the housekeeper - when the bird began repeating flirty conversations between the man and his lover. The wife apparently didn’t recognize those words as any her husband had said to her and since she was already suspicious about her husband’s relationship with their maid, so the pet gave her the evidence she needed - or so she thought. Much like in other countries, adultery is illegal in Kuwait, the irate wife grabbed the blabbing bird and made a beeline for the police station to report her man’s illicit activity. Unfortunately for her and in a lucky break for her wandering husband, police didn’t feel like the bird was sufficient evidence for extramarital sex. Had the bird’s word been believed, the man could have faced a jail sentence for his indiscretion. Instead, police totally took the man’s side by claiming that the bird could have simply overheard the flirty banter on the TV or radio. Parrots have narced out cheating spouses before, including a 2006 incident in which Chris Taylor discovered his girlfriend’s infidelity when his talkative pet squawked “I love you Gary.” The lesson, as always, is that a bird is a lame-ass pet……..

- All things that are old will become new (cash grabs) again in Hollywood and so it is that “Knight Rider” will be revived next year. The action/adventure series, which was originally broadcast from 1982 to 1986, starred iconic German pop music sensation David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, who fought crime with his talking car, KITT. Bringing back this particular show is dicey because replacing The Hoff is a herculean undertaking, but “The Fast and the Furious” franchise and “Star Trek Beyond,” has partnered with digital network Machinima to produce the reboot and that consortium is seeking a digital stream service as the preferred broadcast destination for the show. The target date is some time next year, so Lin and his crew had best get busy, as no casting decisions have yet been made and there are no distribution agreements in place. Still, Machinima CEO Chad Gutstein called the show an “iconic franchise” and sounds thoroughly excited about the chance to try to squeeze some more profits out of yet another unoriginal concept. “Knight Rider‘s concepts of AI and autonomous vehicles were science-fiction in the 1980s and are now science fact,” Gutstein said. “Justin is one of the leading storytellers of his generation and we couldn’t be more excited to work with him on reinvigorating Knight Rider for a new generation of fans.” In other words, we hope to make a hell of a lot of money out of this and better still, we don’t even have to have a single original thought or come up with any new concepts in order to make that happen……..

- Normally, the tale of a mother going full-on stage parent and berating a talent agent for not giving her child a chance to shine would be a reason to groan, lament what Honey Boo-Boo hath wrought in our society and keep prepping that doomsday bunker. But on this rare occasion, it’s not such a bad thing. Megan Nash is going to battle because a talent agency turned down her 15-month-old son for a very specific reason: he has Down syndrome. Her son, Asher, was among those whose parents expressed interest over the summer when a local talent agency put out an open casting call for a children's clothing store. A local photographer took some great pictures of Asher and Megan Nash sent the photos to the agency, which told her it wouldn’t be submitting them to the store because they didn't fit the casting criteria. The Georgia mother wondered why and asked the agent if the casting call specifically said no children with special needs. The agent said no, but added that he assumed the company wouldn't want a child with special needs. In response, Megan Nash

posted Asher's pictures on the Changing the Face of Beauty Facebook page with a message: "We aren't giving up! This handsome boy is ready to show the world what #changingthefaceofbeauty is!" she wrote. The post was shared by popular page called "Kids With Down Syndrome" and from there, the story spread quickly, quite possibly making Nash the first-ever show business parent to become irate about her child being passed over for a gig and have a legitimate beef………

- Stay in your lane, Buffalo Bills. You may have muscled up on the Tom Brady-less New England Patriots four weeks ago, shutting out of a shell of the AFC’s best team when it had the lowly Jacoby Brissett at quarterback, but now that Brady is back from his four-game NFL suspension, the Bills are about to get got and they need to stop running their mouths and making it worse. Yet there were several Bills defensive backs, saying that they will retaliate if a Patriots player runs through their pregame drills again Sunday  at New Era Field. Bills safeties Robert Blanton and Aaron Williams and cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman already netted themselves fines for a pregame scuffle Oct. 2 that erupted when Bills players felt "disrespected" by Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett jogging through their warm-up drills at Gillette Stadium, but they chased that with a 16-0 win, so maybe it felt worth the expense. The outcome is going to be drastically different this time around with Brady and his team on their 2016 Scorched Earth/F*ck You Goodell Tour, look for these words to come back to haunt the Bills. "It's gonna be the same reaction that they got last time," Robey-Coleman said. "There ain't no other way around that situation, you know? Just respect each other's sideline and move on." Actually, there is another way. Become the AFC East first team in more than a decade to sweep its regular-season series with the Patriots, move to within one game of them in the standings with the tiebreaker in hand and prove that your late-game collapse in Miami last week was an aberration and not a harbinger of yet another season-ending meltdown by a tragically overhyped Rex Ryan-coached team……….

Sweden v. drones, college hoops funds education and rap beefs go to court

- There are quality senior pranks…and then there are felonies that cause hundreds of thousands of dollars and could ruin the next few years of your life. This falls into the latter category for those responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to an Oregon high school, a crime that is blamed on vandalism. Roosevelt High School’s basketball coach discovered the chaos left behind when water was left on, causing liquid refreshment to pour  down the new hallways, down its elevator and into offices and classrooms. The flood burst through multiple floors of the school’s new wing and Roosevelt principal Filip Hristic said that the six classrooms and six bathrooms will be unusable for a few weeks. Classes will be held in a food pantry and in a conference room for now and the flooding damage is estimated to cost the North Portland school $300,000. The chief suspects are teens from a visiting basketball camp, as surveillance footage shows the campers turning on an emergency shower in a science room, defacing a whiteboard and spraying a fire extinguisher in a classroom. These amateur hooligans were at the school for a basketball camp that the school hosted and school officials believe the damage was done on purpose. The timing could not have been worse, as the school recently completed the new wing as part of a $92 million bond-funded overhaul of the building that was long overdue. For the time being, the school will have to grind out a day-to-day existence in what remains of its shiny, new wing of its made-over building……….

- The college basketball preseason is proving to be a profitable time for student bodies across the United States. First, Kansas director of basketball operations Brennan Bechard made a half-court shot for the second straight year to earn a student $10,000 from Jayhawks coach Bill Self and now, East Tennessee State is getting in on the action. ETSU players Devontavius Payne and T.J. Cromer made back-to-back half-court shots to win free spring semester tuition for a pair of students, but only after students Garrett Pack and Jeremiah Pearson missed their half-court attempts. Ever the giving man, athletic director Richard Sander then allowed each to pick a player to take a shot. Pack chose wisely, tabbing Payne, who made his shot. Pearson selected Cromer, who also made his shot. I've never seen two guys hit consecutive shots like that before," ETSU coach Steve Forbes said. "Never. I hadn't seen Payne make one before in practice, but I've seen Cromer do it time and time again. So when Payne made his, I knew Cromer was going to do it. "Giving away free tuition to college students scraping by on ramen and Keystone Light and waiting for the next infusion of cash to come from home so they can finish out the semester is a smart idea and maybe when these schools need a little extra energy from their student section at a key conference game late in the season, these fiscal gestures will inspire plenty of yelling and noise……..

- Drones are becoming a point of contention all around the world. The skies over Sweden are the latest battleground as a Swedish industry group tries to fight a court ruling that drones with cameras must have a license under the country's surveillance laws. Gustav Gerdes, head of Unmanned Aerial System Sweden, denounced the decision by the Supreme Administrative Court as  a huge blow" to recreational and commercial users, one that could put 5,000 jobs in danger — from drone operators to those handling footage. According to ol’ Gus, Sweden is among the first countries to ban camera drones with no surveillance license. He and his drone-loving friends lament the fact that permits can be expensive and difficult to get. Not helping matters, the European Aviation Safety Agency recently released a rough, non-binding text for drone regulation, leaving it up to EU members states to decide whether to require licenses for drones with cameras. It was a smart move for the EU to not try to enforce strict new policies at a time when the union has experienced plenty of tension, infighting and drama, lest any member nations rebel and make drones the tipping point for the eventual demise of the EU. Sweden has maintained a certain degree of autonomy from the union as one of the few member nations to keep its own currency and this drone decision furthers that general philosophy………

- This is a (sad) new twist on the idea of rap beefs. Most of the time, there are dis tracks, brawls at clubs, shade being thrown via social media….but not so many lawsuits. Suge Knight is taking things in a new direction and for a man with scores of iconic stories about him bullying, menacing, threatening and nearly killing various rivals, it’s sad to see. Knight has filed a lawsuit accusing Dr. Dre of hiring a hitman to kill him. In fact, Knight claims Dre was responsible for two attempts on his life, a belief that in Knight’s mind stems from the fact that he claims Dre agreed to pay him 30 percent of his earnings for life, including his share of Apple’s 2014 $3 billion purchase of Dre’s Beats products. That would be powerful motivation to try to kill a person in order to keep all of that money, but the ability to prove it in court will be tough. According to the lawsuit, Knight alleges that Dre had contacted a man who shot him seven times at Chris Rock’s pre-VMA party in the summer of 2014 and then paid a man $300,000 to finish the hit in January 2015. In the old days, Knight would have gone and finished the job himself, but now he’s seeking unspecified damages, punitive and otherwise, for the alleged hits  and a few other claims. In response, one of Dre’s attorneys claimed that his client has had no interaction with Knight since leaving Death Row Records in 1996 and suggested that Knight and his legal team had best have malicious prosecution insurance. Oh, and Knight is pursuing this case while in jail awaiting trial for murder for allegedly running over and killing industry colleague Terry Carter in January 2015 in a Los Angeles parking lot, so maybe this is about getting money to pay his mounting legal bills………

Rich people fight in Vermont, lame sports tradition revived and Netflix + Marvel again

- Montenegro done made a mistake. No, not believing that Russia was involved in an alleged coup attempt on the country's election day. That most likely happened because Russia loves to meddle in the affairs/invade/annex various countries that used to be part of its evil empire back in the days of the U.S.S.R., so thinking that they tried to covertly enable a coup to overthrow your legitimate government is a fair belief. No, the problem is when Montenegro's prime minister has the temerity to actually voice those suspicions and give Russia a reason to hulk up and try to crush his country. So while it was intellectually honest for Milo Djukanovic to say there was "a strong connection of a foreign factor" in the Oct. 16 vote, which was marked by the arrest of 20 people — including a former commander of Serbia's special police forces — suspected of planning armed attacks against Djukanovic and his supporters after parliamentary election results were announced, it was not smart. Everyone knows that Russia has strongly opposed Montenegro's bid to join NATO and that opposition leaders have made frequent visits to Moscow, but proving Russia’s involvement in the alleged coup attempt will be dicey. Djukanovic said authorities will investigate the extent of that involvement both on Russia’s part and on the part of those within his country. In the meantime, his party has won the vote, but will need coalition partners to continue ruling……..

- Marvel keeps rolling and Netflix keeps on building. Marvel is expanding its universe almost daily and Netflix is trying to do the same. Together, the two are working on “The Punisher,” the latest TV series featuring Marvel characters. They’ve announced five cast members for the forthcoming series, including some classic Marvel favorites. Those who know know that Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, is a popular antihero who made his Marvel Comics debut in 1974 and has previously been played on screen by actors including Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson. This series will mark the sixth Marvel adaptation that’s been put together for the streaming service, following “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage” and the still-to-be-launched “Iron Fist and The Defenders.” There are a few early cast entries for “Punisher,” including “24” actor Paul Schulze as Rawlins, a CIA agent who often comes into conflict with The Punisher’s one-man war on crime, Jason R. Moore as Curtis Hoyle, a close friend of The Punisher and among the few who know he’s actually still alive, Daniel Webber as war veteran Lewis Walcott and Michael Nathanson as Homeland Security agent Dinah Madani’s partner Sam Stein. Add in Jaime Ray Newman portraying Punisher ally Micro’s wife Sarah Lieberman and it’s a solid mix so far. “We couldn’t have asked for a more talented group of actors to round out the cast of Marvel’s The Punisher. It’s a thrill to watch them each bring their characters to life with such layered, nuanced performances,” producer Steve Lightfoot said. There is still time to go for the rest of the cast, as the show will air some time next year on Netflix…….

- Rich people fighting over several Gilded Age mansions the rest of us could never dream of owning…it’s the kind of legal battle that warms the heart. It’s going on before Rhode Island's highest court, which heard arguments earlier this week in a battle that has pitted dozens of members of the Vanderbilt family against a nonprofit that owns in Newport. On one side of this skirmish is the nonprofit Preservation Society of Newport Count, which surely counts plenty of affluent folks among its membership, and they want to build a visitors center on the grounds of The Breakers, a spectacular mansion built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II. On the other side of the battlefield are dozens of preservationists, as well as designer Gloria Vanderbilt and nearly four dozen Vanderbilt relatives, who contend that the center as planned would "permanently mar" the national historic landmark. To bolster the case of those opposed to the center, two members of the Vanderbilt family attended the arguments before the Rhode Island Supreme Court over two separate lawsuits. However, those arguments involved zoning and licensing issues raised by neighbors and the city, not the family's objections and the question of whether the center would hurt the historical integrity of the site. The simple story is that the Preservation Society wants to build the center to give visitors a place to buy snacks and sandwiches, use accessible restrooms and buy tickets indoors. Their argument is that The Breakers is a museum, and museums should be allowed to serve food Daniel Prentiss, a lawyer for the neighbors' group, told the Supreme Court that The Breakers is in a residential zone in "one of the most famous neighborhoods in the country,” i.e. it’s home to a lot of rich people in their mansions and bordered on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and Cliff Walk. He wants to shut down the new structure and following the arguments, the court is expected to  issue a decision within 90 days……..

- The tradition that has never given anything of value to anyone just won't stop giving. Ahead of the World Series, various elected officials from the represented cities and states in baseball’s biggest event did what previous practice dictated that they do, namely engage in the sort of inane, moronic “bet” with their counterparts based on whose team wins the series. You know, blowhard politicians trying to get a quicj chuckle and some publicity out of betting something native to their city or state against a similar item from the other state or city, to be won or lost based on the play of athletes whose performance said politicians have no control over. Enter the Republican governors of Illinois and Ohio betting cases of beer, pizza and other ballpark favorites on the World Series beginning Tuesday between the Cubs and the Indians. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner started the wacky hijinks by posting a tweet in which he wagered a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza and microbrew beer from Chicago if Cleveland wins, to which Ohio Gov. John Kasich returned the challenge by promising to send Rauner "fan favorites" if Chicago wins. According to a spokeswoman for the failed Republican presidential candidate, those would include items such as local beer and ballpark mustard from Cleveland. Not to be outdone, the states' two Democratic U.S. senators also made a beer wager with one another, as did their Republican counterparts. The Ohio lawmakers get Chicago beer if the Indian win, which their Illinois counterparts get beer from Cleveland if the Cubs win. In the end though, with lame-ass bets like this, everyone loses………

Kanye v. Grammys, Venezuela v. its dictator and Browns v. healthy quarterbacks

- Cleveland hasn’t been a city known for its great jobs over the years. However, working in a city with a (allegedly) very corrupt police department where the river once caught on fire and where the terms Rust Belt and industrial decay have never felt more at home has never been more hazardous than when it pertains to attempting to quarterback the NFL’s lone remaining winless team in 2016. On Sunday, rookie quarterback Cody Kessler became the latest Cleveland Browns signal caller to end up in the hospital and fellow rookie Kevin Hogan took his place, becoming the team’s sixth starting quarterback on the season. Kessler suffered  a concussion with 7 minutes, 27 seconds left in the first half of Sunday's 31-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals and in came Hogan as lucky No. 6 to run the offense. He followed in the pain-medication-enabled footsteps of Robert Griffin III, Josh McCown, Terrelle Pryor, Charlie Whitehurst and Kessler and finished 12-of-24 for 100 yards and two interceptions in the Browns' loss, which kept Cleveland (0-7) winless this season. "These quarterbacks only have so many these hits in their body, you know? Pretty soon, guys don't get up all the time, and that's what's been happening. It's unfortunate. It's just been happening way too much," Browns coach Hue Jackson said. It’s hard to determine if having used as many starting quarterbacks as your team has losses is a bad thing or a terrible thing, but given that one of the quarterbacks the Browns managed to sniper was Charlie “Clipboard Jesus” Whitehurst, it really might take a miracle to turn this dumpster fire of a season around………

- Arizona law enforcement takes all kinds of suspects into custody, ones that hail from many different countries and speak different languages in committing all sorts of crimes. This past week brought an unusual suspect to that collection, as Arizona State Troopers sprung into action to corral a long-legged big bird wandering the highway. Officers were called into action after an emu was spotted on the Interstate 10 and ever the comedian, Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Quentin Mehr hopped on the department’s Twitter feed to let the world know what was happening. "Wild day on I-10 west of Phoenix. Emu on the loose!!” Mehr tweeted. According to authorities, the animal crossed the median and onto the dirt shoulder of the roadway, helping calm the situation down rather than continuing its flight (#emuhumor) and evading police further. Eventually, a state agricultural official used a lasso to capture the bird and placed it into a transport trailer. "And the emu, and motorists are safe," Mehr tweeted. The bird may have been grounded, but it’s still a mystery how the emu got loose and onto a busy highway in the first place. "We do not know where the emu came from. I am unaware of any emu farm in that area and, I believe, the Phoenix Zoo is the nearest zoo," Mehr said of the incident. The real question is whether this was an illegal Mexican emu that could have been stopped if only Donald Trump’s massive border wall truly existed outside of his fragile, deluded little mind………

- Threat or promise, Kanye West? The egomaniacal rapper has said that he’ll boycott the Grammys if Frank Ocean‘s recent album isn’t nominated and while Ocean’s release is a quality one that should be strongly considered, the possibility of keeping an attention whore like West away from the Grammys is awfully enticing. He’s currently on his Saint Pablo tour and took time out of a recent performance in Oakland to comment on the Grammys. “The album I listen to the most this year is Frank Ocean’s album,” he said. “I’ll tell you this right now: If his album’s not nominated in no categories, I’m not showing up to the Grammys.” That could just be a guy who’s up on stage talking out his backside and doesn’t intend on following through on his words, but West did work with Ocean on the track “Wolves” and noted that he has worked with the singer previously. He also addressed Ocean’s reported falling out with Def Jam, which led to Ocean releasing a smokescreen visual album one day before he dropped the project he really wanted to release independently. “They get smacked in they face over political bullshit,” West said before encouraging the head of the Grammys to “come and holla at Ye.” Ocean recently gave his first interview in three years and hasn’t really done much to promote his album “Blonde” or its visual companion album “Endless,” creating an extra air of mystery around both releases as he moves forward from his critically acclaimed 2012 album “Channel Orange.” If Kanye has his way, Ocean will be speaking at length about his latest work when he accepts his Grammy in a few weeks…….

- And the battle heats up. Control of Venezuela hangs in the balance and after a court killed opposition lawmakers’ chances for staging a recall referendum to throw out unpopular President Nicolas Maduro this year, the legislature is swinging back. Opposition legislators gathered at a special session as pro-government militia members rallied outside the capitol building, with the legislature plotting ways to strike back at the court and the corrupt members of the government doing all they can to stifle dissent and keep the country’s increasingly unpopular dictator in power. Lawmaker Julio Borges said the opposition-held congress is now in open rebellion against a government it says has no respect for the constitution and in their not-so-secret meeting, the lawmakers debated a variety of measures to force a political change, including an effort to replace national elections officials and Supreme Court judges, and a move to take legal action against Maduro for what they call his disregard of constitutional order. They have plenty of international support in their quest, as the court’s controversial ruling drew condemnation from the U.S. State Department and the Organization of American States. None of that is going to pry power from Maduro’s cold, despotic hands, but the quest to oust a dictator and the hand-picked successor to the late dictator Hugo Chavez simply has to start somewhere……

Jessica Jones gets lady director, Congress has been warned and the wrong kind of teamwork

- Its star is a talented lady, so one of Netflix’s top shows is turning to a crew of talented ladies to help guide its second season. “Jessica Jones” built a lot of momentum and a loyal fan base in its first season and its second installment will be helmed entirely by Melissa Rosenberg, the show runner for the series, revealed that all 13 episodes of the forthcoming second season will be directed by women. Exactly who those women will be hasn’t been announced, but clearly Rosenberg and those who help run the show have a solid list and a strong belief that those they ask will say yes, or else she wouldn’t be breaking this news now. What we do know is that filming is expected to begin in early November. In Season 1, three of the nine directors were female for the show, which stars Krysten Ritter as a private detective with superhuman abilities. There is no official air date for the second season and while those around the show are working hard to keep the plot lines a secret, Rosenberg previously said it will see Jones continuing to deal with the sexual assault she suffered in Season 1. The Jessica Jones character was previously a part of the “Alias” story in the early 2000s and its sequel, “The Pulse,” but back in July, Marvel announced the original “Alias” creative team were working on a solo Jessica Jones comic, following last year’s Netflix series centered around the private eye. So far, it’s been a rousing success and this latest publicity grab, er, opportunity for female advancement should help it along on the road to grab more eyeballs for upcoming seasons………

- Hey United States Congress, are you paying attention? The corruption solution being applied to a Chinese provincial legislature one month after allegations of electoral fraud would be useful in dealing with the same sort of chicanery in its American counterpart and if the U.S. could get rid of 450 members of its bicameral legislature on account of fraud, corruption, ineptitude, incompetence, etc., then the 85 remaining members might be inspired to do better. In China, nearly 525 people have been yanked out of office and state media reported Saturday that elections this week added 447 deputies to the Liaoning Provincial People's Congress, which nominally oversees a northeastern China province that borders North Korea, though all key decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party. With this mass replacement, the provincial congress now has 594 deputies, although it was just one month ago that oOfficials announced in September the disqualification of 523 deputies. Forty-five deputies representing Liaoning were also expelled from China's national legislature, so this scamming reached the highest level. Head communist despot/Chinese President Xi Jinping has made fighting corruption a hallmark of his administration as a means of boosting his party’s legitimacy and placate rising public discontent over graft. Having said that, a hell of a lot of corruption remains and that won’t change any time soon……..

- This isn't the sort of teamwork a coach wants to see from his players. Five Minnesota football players missed Saturday's home game against Rutgers because they were (allegedly) working together earlier this season to sexually assault a woman. Cornerbacks KiAnte Hardin and Ray Buford, safety Dior Johnson, running back Carlton Djam and defensive lineman Tamarion Johnson were benched fter a woman involved in Golden Gophers game-day operations filed the orders stemming from a September sexual assault allegation. "It would not be appropriate for the University to comment on this matter to the extent it relates to University students," university spokesman Evan Lapinska said in a statement. "The University reaffirms, however, that it will honor and comply with court orders." Hardin, Buford, Johnson and Djam each were suspended for three games earlier this season while the Minneapolis Police Department investigated the allegations and while the Hennepin County Attorney's Office decided not to pursue charges in early October due to insufficient evidence to prove an assault occurred, the restraining orders kept them off the field. Oh, and this also wouldn’t be the first time football players for a major Division I university were allowed to skate on a possible crime by a local court, in the event that’s what happened here. The players' attorney, Lee Hutton, called the restraining orders a "calculated move,” so maybe this accuser is a Rutgers alum who waited for just the right moment to strike……..

- Don’t step to granny unless you’re prepared to get run down. That lesson was learned the hard way by a Lake Charles, Louisiana man who made the near-fatal decision to step onto the front porch of one Ella Reed. According to police,  Reed was traveling on Pear Street when she saw the man standing on her front porch, recognizing the man as her next-door neighbor. Apparently the two haven’t been feeling very neighborly to one another of late, because the 75-year-old Reed attempted to run the man over with her car. The good news for the man is that he was able to move, but the bad news is that as he fled, Reed backed up, threw it into drive again and ran her car into his residence. She went from old lady out for a drive whose only damage is to the collective patience of everyone around her on the road on account of driving 15 miles per hour below the speed limit in the left lane while not being able to see over the top of her steering wheel to being charged with attempted second-degree murder, according to Lake Charles Police Department spokesman Lt. Richard Harrell. As much rage as Reed apparently had, she displayed none of it in the aftermath of her crime, as arriving officers found her still sitting in her vehicle. Maybe the reality of what she had just done and almost done finally hit her, just like that attempted murder charge and a possible jail stint in the twilight years of her life might hit her in the coming months……..

Pirate Mike Leach's $10,000 purchase, Phil Collins fans need a mirror and Venezuela = still a dictatorship

- This is how a true dictatorship rolls. Venezuelan despot Nicolas Maduro has been increasingly unpopular during his reign of terror and these days, with even basic necessities in scarce supply in the South American nation, there is a recall drive against the socialist leader - or at least there’s supposed to be. The Venezuelan opposition's campaign to oust their current dictator has hit a major pothole with elections officials' decision to suspend the effort a week before it was to start. Working in tandem with the government, a Venezuelan court issued a ruling blocking key opposition leaders from leaving the country. The government just might be working to halt the recall effort because most polls suggest Maduro would have lost by a wide margin and the ruling comes just days before critics of the socialist administration were to start gathering the one-fifth of voters' signatures needed to place the issue on the ballot. The three-day signature collection period was expected to be a busy time, but now observers are coming to the obvious, overdue conclusion that Venezuela isn’t really a democracy at all. To justify their unjustifiable decision, election officials cited alleged fraud in a preliminary effort to get 1 percent of voters' signatures as justification for blocking the opposition from proceeding to the next stage of the referendum on Maduro's removal. Maduro seems more and more like the chosen heir of late dictator Hugo Chavez by the way and the opposition immediately blasted the decision as unconstitutional. "The government is pushing toward a very dangerous scenario," former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said on Twitter. If the opposition can find a way to make the recall happen and Maduro is ousted, it would trigger a presidential election and give the opposition a good shot at winning power………..

- Time to look in the mirror, Phil Collins fans. You can choose to be angry that tickets for the singer’s five-night residency at London’s Royal Albert Hall in June, followed by dates in Cologne and Paris, sold out in a matter of seconds and that many of those who bought ducats apparently did so to make a quick buck by reselling them. Or you could really consider your life, realize that you’re way too into a well-past-his-prime-quasi-rocker while hordes of better, newer bands are on the scene and currently being ignored by you. Right now, Collins devotees are clearly choosing the former with their hero coming out of retirement to perform and having tickets for his first live shows in a decade snapped up in record time. Within minutes, those tickets showed up on secondary ticket sites and would-be buyers looking for tickets on Ticketmaster are now redirected to its official ticket reselling site Get Me In, where prices range from $400 to $3,000. Many angry fans took to social media to denounce the opportunists who are trying to use the occasion as a way to pad their bank accounts. Some took their anger to another level by urging the Royal Albert Hall to discourage reselling by honoring its stated, yet-always-ignored policy of rendering any resold tickets invalid for events. Right now, there appears to be no help for the disenfranchised, but they can bide their time reading the cash grab, er, autobiography, “Not Dead Yet: The Autobiography,” which Collins published as a way to bank extra cash along with his sizeable income from the tour……..

- This is not a new story. A town is struggling with water issues, sees its supply drop to precarious levels and mandates that residents keep their usage to a bare and necessary minimum in order to avert total disaster. What’s weird about this one is that the story doesn’t come from some drought-ravaged town in California or Arizona, where rock lawns are the norm and rain is a rarity. No, it’s Bristol, Connecticut, where residents are being told to stop using water outside of their homes immediately or risk having their water shut off by the city. According to Mayor Ken Cockayne's office, the city's reservoir levels dropped below 50 percent capacity, which prompted the ban. What that means for residents - and this may not be a huge problem in mid-October when the weather is often inhospitable to outdoor activity and when lawns are getting ready to shut down on the growth process for the year - is that they cannot water lawns, use sprinklers or wash cars. . "We've had a beautiful summer, you can't complain about the summer," Cockayne said. "We've had no rain so now we're paying for it." City officials warned that anyone caught violating the mandatory water restrictions could have their water shut off and service could stay off for a minimum of 24 hours, according to Robert Longo, the superintendent for the Bristol Water Department. "These restrictions apply to all customers and unfortunately any customer who has recently planted new grass must also stop all outside use," Longo said. "Due to the severity of the levels and no major precipitation in the forecast, we must conserve all the water we can." For now, no one knows how long the water crackdown will last……..

- Pirate Mike Leach bought exactly what he wanted with his $10,000. The quirky, cantankerous Washington State football coach is known for his affinity for pirates, history and other random topics, but there was nothing random about comments he made about Arizona State earlier this week. As his team readied to take on the Sun Devils, Leach threw shade Arizona State’s way in not-so-subtle fashion. "I think they still steal signs, and we'll have to keep an eye on that," Leach said. "That is a very unsavory practice they have, so we'll have to do what we can to defend against it." He made similar comments last year about the Sun Devils' attempts to steal signs, though stealing signs isn't illegal in college football. What is illegal, according to Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, is what Leach did in casting aspersions on Arizona State. "Conference rules prohibit Pac-12 member institutions from disparaging each other and discrediting other institutions," Scott said in a statement. "Information or accusations relative to rule violations must be handled by institutions filing those concerns with the conference office through a formal process, and institutions must refrain from discussing those concerns publicly." The simple fact is that Leach knew exactly what he was doing and he knew full well he would be fined for his words, but his real goal was getting attention on an issue he believes is real. "They have a whole command center," he said, explaining that he’d heard rumors about Arizona State has microphones and cameras specifically designated to facilitate its spying operation……….

Hiter's words in Austria, Kendrick Lamar makes 'em wait and idiots on planes

- What’s the best way to spend that spare $583,500 you have lying around? If you’re the wealthy, anonymous soul who just picked up a sweet piece of sports memorabilia at Christie’s auction house, the answer is you buy a used "Shoeless" Joe Jackson game bat that you’re probably going to slap inside a display case and never actually lay hands on. This unidentified online bidder made their big buy on the first of a two-day auction of baseball memorabilia from the National Pastime Museum, an online museum based on a private collection of baseball artifacts, photographs and memorabilia. The bat even has a name, “Black Betsy,” and is one of two existing bats from Jackson’s career - but the only one with his full signature in script stamped into the barrel. Jackson was famously was accused with other Chicago White Sox teammates of accepting payments for throwing the 1919 World Series and even though he was acquitted, he was acquitted but still banned from the sport. The good news for the bidder who paid more than half a million dollars for this bat is that should his or her significant other or family complain that he or she spent that much money on a display item to impress guests, all this person needs to do is point out that the auction record for a game-used baseball bat is a 1923 Babe Ruth bat that sold for $1.2 million in 2004. This bidder paid less than half of that amount, allowing him or her to classify it as an outright bargain……..

- Many of us suspect - rightly so - that a lot of our fellow travelers at the airport are morons. Fernando Giron, a business traveler flying from Sacramento to Los Angeles, proved as much when he managed to evade the multiple airport security and administrative measures designed to prevent people from not getting on flights for which they are not a ticketed passenger and board the wrong plane. Instead of flying to LAX, he got on a bird bound for DFW and didn’t realize his mistake until it was far too late. “I did look at the monitor. I saw the gate and I thought I was in the clear,” Giron said. “When the pilot made the announcement that the weather was going to be clear and a smooth flight to Dallas … everybody was shocked, the crew, the people at the counters, the people at the doors; they had no explanation for what happened.” As a business traveler, Giron has often traveled the one-hour path from Sacramento to LAX, so he apparently does now how to find and go through the correct gate. Sure, the gate for his actual flight and the one he actually boarded are right next to each other, but it’s unclear how he managed to get diverted to the incorrect plane.  “What I don’t understand is that they scanned my boarding pass and that I was able to go all the way to the plane,” Fernando said. What say you, American Airlines, about this disconcerting error? “We are aware of the incident and we are investigating with our Sacramento team how it occurred. Our customer relations team will contact the passenger directly,” the airline said in a statement. Thanks for talking and saying nothing at all, AA, just like the true corporate titan you are………

- Speculating on when popular hip-hop artists will drop their new album has become an unofficial sport within the music business. Frank Ocean and his peers have taunted fans and critics with extended waits for their latest projects, often taking a year or more beyond their original (rumored) target date for a release and if Kendrick Lamar is to be believed, he’s trending in the same direction. The rapper has suggested that his new album may not be ready for some time, which is even worse news because his previous release was something of a rip-off. “Untitled Unmastered” consisted simply of demos and improvised songs from the recording sessions from his critically acclaimed “To Pimp A Butterfly,” so Lamar really didn’t give the world much of anything new. When asked about the actual, legitimate successor to “Butterfly,” he said the new album is still at the planning stages and that it’s too soon to hint at how it might sound. “I have ideas, and I have a certain approach. But I want to see how it manifests. I want to put all the paint on the wall and see how that goes,” Lamar said. “‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ will always have some type of DNA in my music. But me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. That’s a gift and a curse, but more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box. My ability to express and still make the connection wherever I go, that’s my high point. That’s something I pride myself on.” All of that sounds like a recipe for a nice, long creation process and an extended wait for the masses…….

- Anyone who’s been in Germany, Austria or the other countries most directly affected by the atrocities of the Third Reich during the World War II era knows there are certain things you just do NOT do. You don’t espouse the hatefulm genocidal beliefs of Adolf Hitler and his crew, you don’t do the Nazi salute with your arm and hand and you don’t say the words, “Heil Hitler” for any reason. That lesson has been administered the hard way for an Austrian police officer found guilty by a court in the eastern city of Eisenstad of saying "Heil Hitler" while on duty at the border to Hungary. The officer, who was not identified in line with Austrian confidentiality laws, denied uttering the phrase, but the court still found him guilty of contravening anti-Nazi laws by and sentenced him to a suspended nine-month prison term. He was convicted on the basis of testimony from fellow officers, one of whom said he heard him speak the words, while the other testified that he was present when he later apologized for saying them. If your co-workers are narcing you out, either you’re a bad guy and they don’t mind seeing you go down or you’re a really bad guy and they’re willing to make sh*t up just to see you go down, but either way, it’s not a positive sign. Prosecutor Christian Peto told the court that after stopping a car on the border with Hungarian license plates earlier this year, the accused officer literally started his official observational duties by uttering the offending words, so he either has a really warped sense of humor or he harbors a rather discomfiting love for Austria’s most evil native son……..

Keeping "Black Mirror" fresh, storage unit finds and Dez Bryant's hands

- The world’s newest country isn't doing too well with the idea of a cease-fire. South Sudan became the world’s newest nation a few years ago, but has been an unstable nation-state since then and it doesn’t appear to be improving. According to the monitor of South Sudan's peace deal, there are "near-daily violations" of the cease-fire and says fighting could "trigger an uncontrolled escalation of violence." The awesomely named Festus Mogae said both sides have perpetrated "egregious violations of human rights" including gang rape and killing of civilians, which is war at its worst in any corner of the world. The news wasn’t good from U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous either; he told the U.N. Security Council behind closed doors that South Sudan's government is delaying "as much as possible" the deployment of an additional 4,000 peacekeepers. Not only that, but Ladsous also called for an arms embargo, saying "the economy is bankrupt, yet money is spent on arms" and calling it unacceptable. Wanna guess who was the wrench thrown into the works of putting such an embargo in place? That would be Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, Petr Iliichev, whose country is a permanent council member and holds veto power, and who made it clear that his country does not support an arms embargo. Russia opposes damn near anything that the rest of the world wants most of the time, but the truth is that even an arms embargo isn't going to fully solve this mess……..

- For an NFL wide receiver, his hands are two of his biggest assets. That doesn’t mean those hands are equally skilled at tasks off the field as they are at snagging overthrown passes on the field, as evidenced by Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant’s latest injury setback. He has missed the past three games with a tibial plateau fracture in his right leg, but has been hopeful of playing after his team’s bye week this Sunday. He still has a good chance to do so, but there is a big question mark after Bryant (allegedly) cut the middle and ring fingers on his right hand while cutting carrots for some soup. Bryant called the cut "extremely, extremely minor” and he was on the practice field Wednesday for the Cowboys' lone practice of the bye week, but didn’t catch any passes. Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett addressed the issue after practice. "He's got a cut on the inside of his hand, so he wasn't able to catch balls today," Garrett said. "He did a good job moving around, though. I think he's feeling better and better and better." When asked if the team should hire a chef to make sure its star receiver could avoid slicing and dicing his hands, Garrett joked that, "We've got to address that somehow." That’s assuming Bryant really did cut his hand slicing carrots in the kitchen and didn’t do what so many other professional athletes do, getting injured in a suspicious scenario and then making up a kooky story to cover up what really happened……..

- Ever seen a basic cable reality show where a bunch of would-be gold-diggers bid on some abandoned storage unit after having five minutes to inspect the interior but not really see what’s inside? Sometimes, those bargain hunters strike gold, sometimes they strike out and other times, they strike it weird. It’s in the eye of the beholder which of those three best describes a man who paid $150 for a storage container at a Long Island auction and upon exploring his new purchase, found two freezers filled with 40 dead cats. "Some were just on the top, some were inside," the man, identified only as Carlos, said. He found one lone cat skinned and laying atop an aluminum tray and since he clearly doesn’t value a bunch of dead, frozen cats, he told American Self-Storage, the company that held the auction, and the company immediately contacted police and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). An investigation is underway and the ASPCA will conduct necropsies to find how the cats died - once the cats that out. The storage unit was put up for auction by American Self-Storage after the previous owner stopped paying rent in July. "Self-Storage companies do not examine the items which tenants store in their rented units, the way apartments landlords do not study each item which tenants bring into their rented rooms," the company said in statement. "But we join in feeling the shock at the mistreatment of animals.” Woah, woah, woah. Hang on there, A.S.S. Seeing as the person who rented the unit previously is a 66-year old woman who could easily have been crazy cat lady, there’s a solid chance those cats died by natural means and nothing amiss happened……..

- Charlie Brooker is looking to line up the big names for the next season of “Black Mirror” and hoping to make one of Netflix’s most-popular shows even more enticing to fans. The Brooker-created anthology series, which explores the darker side of technological advancement, is about to launch its third season on the streaming service, but the ever-optimistic Brooker is already recruiting  famous faces for Season 4 and has confirmed that Jodie Foster will direct an episode of “Black Mirror” next year. All six episodes of the brief third season can be seen on Netflix starting tomorrow, but Brooker was looking ahead when he responded to a rumor that Foster would direct an episode that will also star Rosemarie DeWitt – who is set to make an appearance in an episode of the upcoming third season of the show. Foster has previously directed films like  “The Beaver” and “Money Monster,” as well as an episode of “House of Cards” in 2014. As for breaking new ground in Season 3, Brooker said there could be some new innovations. “You could potentially break the fourth wall or randomize scenes, so that different people would watch what was fundamentally the same episode, but with a different ending or slight plot variations,” he said. Anything to keep the show new, fresh and a step ahead of its Netflix rivals……..