#BecauseIdaho, Riot Watch! Greece and a possible new "Donnie Darko" sequel

- That is how you make an impact as a top-notch college football recruit with national signing day approaching. James Robinson, a wide receiver ranked highly nationally in the 2017 recruiting class by most every recruiting service, was paying a late visit to Ohio State because the team lost a commitment from Tyjon Lindsey, a five-star receiver from Last Vegas’s Bishop Gorman. Robinson made his way from Lakeland, Fla. to see Columbus for himself and clearly, he understands that any elite college football program needs guys on its roster who know how to have a good time and are willing to walk the line of breaking the law. That’s why this four-star recruit can remove Ohio State from a list that is believed to include the Buckeyes, Clemson, Florida, Oklahoma and Oregon. His status with Ohio State took a big hit because he apparently likes to take big hits from the nearest bong, a fact he confirmed when he was issued a citation last weekend for marijuana possession during his visit to Columbus. According to Franklin County Municipal Court records, Robinson was found with marijuana at an off-campus apartment. The good news for him is that in Ohio, possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana is considered a minor misdemeanor and violators are cited and fined up to $150. He won't face any jail time, this won't be part of his criminal record and as long as he pays his $93 fine and means what he said when he tweeted an apology for “embarrassing myself, family, teammates, school community and those that support me,” then the biggest loss here should be his chance to play for Urban Meyer in Columbus for the new few years……… 

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Greece is still giving ‘em hell, with them being the government and the international bailout lenders the government is working with to keep their country from total fiscal collapse. The current angry mob raging against the government machine is comprised of angry farmers in northern Greece staging sporadic highway blockades to protest austerity measures imposed as part of the country's commitments to those aforementioned bailout lenders. Using what they have to affect what they can, the farmers used tractors to block highways for several hours at multiple sites, disrupting traffic as well as a commercial transportation route to neighboring Macedonia. Had that been the extent of the demonstration, it would have been a bit of a dud, but the protesters also briefly clashed with police and forced their way through a cordon near the Greek-Macedonian border. The brawl ended with a win-win for all involved as no arrests or injuries were reported, leaving everyone to tractor-block and riot another day. The reason the farmers are so angry right now is that they’ve been bombarded in recent weeks with higher taxes on their income, land and fuel as the government grapples with international pressure to meet ambitious budget deficit targets. The protests have been going strong for a week and are only expected to intensify as those impacted by the new measures continue their fight to have those measures reversed………

- The rumors persist and so “Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly has been compelled to respond to suggestions that there could be more movies made in the franchise. The cult favorite flick was released in 2001 and was something of an introduction for many movie fans to Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jena Malone, along with established stars such as Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze. Kelly was not on hand with a 2009 sequel and yet eight years later, some fans are still clamoring for another addition to the franchise. Kelly sounds like a man who’s either not interested or is subtly lobbying for a bigger payday, saying he has been “working on a lot of different projects” and plans “to be back behind a camera in 2017.” However, he left the door open just enough for a studio to drive a Brinks truck through it. “I think there’s something much bigger and more ambitious to do in that universe. It’s big and expensive and I think there’s time to get to that. I want to make sure we’ve got the budget to do it justice and not to compromise anything,” Kelly said. “Another story in this world needs resources and we need to have that in place. I need to get my next film out of the gate and then we can go back and look at it.” The director previously said he felt “angry and filled with rage” in the wake of the “horribly violating” 2009 sequel, so maybe this is his chance to right what went wrong there and reclaim control of the franchise. He claims to have never seen that first sequel, so maybe he’s trying to pretend it never happened and now, pave right over top of it……….

- #BecauseIdaho. It’s a place where a family can get out of bed on a Sunday morning, stroll down to the basement looking to spend a little quality time together and come face to face with a moose. That’s not happening in a lot of places in America, but in Idaho, it’s just another day in the middle of nowhere - in this case known as Hailey, Idaho. There, a female moose apparently fell into a 3-foot deep window well and made its way into the home, leaving the concerned residents to call the Hailey Police Department for assistance. “The window opened like a door and the latch was loose,” Lt. Steve England said. “The moose pushed her way through and, amazingly enough, the window didn’t even break.” Local police responded to the home along with Blaine County Sheriff deputies and Idaho Fish and Game officers and did whatever the hell people do when there’s a moose loose in the family room. “They put some furniture and mattresses around the room to kind of keep the moose enclosed in one area of the basement,” England noted. “Fortunately she wasn’t hurt and remained pretty calm.” Fish and Game officers got to the home after the moose had been in the basement nearly two hours and tranquilized the animal, with all of the officers on the scene working together to tote the misguided moose up the stairs and out the front door. Once the moose was outside the home, which is located in the Della View subdivision near the Big Wood River, it was slowly woken from its slumber and released back into the wild, hopefully with a payment agreement in place for the damage it caused……….

Dwyane Wade v. his team, My Bloody Valentine v. quiet rock and roll and Riot Watch! Barcelona

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Barcelonians have been an angry lot in recent years, largely centering on their desire to break away from the rest of Spain and turn their home region of Catalonia into an autonomous place that stands on its own. But with that push apparently stalling out a bit, the locals have found a new target and it’s one that amounts to biting a hand that feeds so many of them. Yes, hundreds of Barcelona residents held a massive protest over what they view was an out-of-control tourism boom that has damaged their ability to live and work in the northeastern Spanish city. According to protestors, the booming tourism business has spurred higher prices for rent and property sales, leaving many of the city's 1.6 million residents priced out of the city center. They take umbrage with visitors being able to live in the core of their beloved city when they can't afford to do so and it’s why protestors toted a large banner reading, "Barcelona is not for sale," and read a manifesto in which they denounced the tourist boom has overtaken the city. According to local police, over 1,000 people demonstrated in the famed central walkway of Las Ramblas, which leads to the city’s harbor and is a center of tourist attractions. However, protesters estimated the total as closer to 2,000. "This march is a way to portray the fact that we have lost our city, and are hoping to claim it back. Rent and property prices have risen back to what they were in 2008, before the economic crisis, and residents can no longer afford them," Camilo Ramos, a representative of the Barcelona Neighbors Association, declared at the uprising. The protestors also expressed displeasure that the city council merely agreed to curb the number of rooms for tourists in the city, denouncing the move as not enough……….

- Rock and roll ain’t what it used to be. So says My Bloody Valentine drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig, who recently sent out a letter in which he opined about the fact that concerts simply aren't as loud as they once were. In his letter, Cíosóig complained about the “acceptance of muted culture” and called it a “dangerous place to be,” citing a pair of  gigs at Dublin’s 3arena where he was disappointed with the volume. “I have been to two very expensive gigs there recently and have experienced annoyingly cheap and thin-sounding representations of what should have been all-engulfing wonderful realities,” he wrote. “The 3Arena is an example of this new reality that is castrating culture and charging a fortune for it. The decibel- limiting on the PA system is very sad indeed. When upfront at a gig you are supposed to feel the drums and bass rattle your bones, and the music should fill your head to the extant that it can bring you to an ecstatic place.” He reflected on seeing recent shows by Black Sabbath and Neil Young and despite the two acts being vastly different musical acts, he “had to deal with the fact that the volume would not be turned up and the likelihood of reaching ecstasy was slim.” Cíosóig didn’t reference My Bloody Valentine or the volume at which they usually play, but his band is routinely cited as one of the loudest bands in the world.……

- This will teach people to leave appealing edibles laying around in their homes without a suitable security system. A Waldo, Kansas couple are dealing with all the drama that comes with a home burglary after an intruder broke into their home, stealing several items from the property and in a truly over-the-line act, helping themselves to a snack from the kitchen. Homeowner Connor Allen called 911 after discovering the theft and said officers who responded to the scene told he and his girlfriend were told that police have seen a lot of similar crimes in the area in recent months. He came home to find that the home’s glass screen door was still closed, the couple’s pets were still there and yet, the sanctity of the home had been violated. He came home about 9:30 p.m. to find the house a mess, although no doors or windows were broken. The thieves appeared to have pushed the window unit air conditioner inside the house, from outside and used the opening to gain access. Allen’s live-in girlfriend, Katie Hough, came home immediately once she learned of the theft and was shocked to see what had happened to the home she and Allen had moved into just three months ago. The thieves went through the couple’s laundry and also consumed - or took for the road - a pan of Rice Krispie treats left on the counter in the kitchen. The missing laptop, tablet, video game system, jewelry and personal information are all upsetting, but to be expected him this sort of home invasion. What no one could expect - or should have to deal with the emotional fallout from - is some intruder bursting into their kitchen and taking advantage of unprotected, incredibly tasty, snacks that the homeowners expected to be able to enjoy after a long, hard day of work………

- The Chicago Bulls are slowly but reliably imploding. The brand of basketball they put on the court isn't very entertaining, but at least their soap opera off the floor is worth watching. Most of the team’s drama centers on three veteran players, one of whom is the team’s unquestioned star, one of whom is an aging former star being held together with duct tape and one who’s not giving the team a damn thing right now. The biggest problem, it seems, is the second entry on that list. While prickly backup guard Rajon Rajon and his not-so-subtle social media warfare on some of his teammates is a problem and star guard Jimmy Butler publicly cracking his younger teammates doesn’t look good, the primary source of strife right now is aging Dwyane Wade, who along with Butler ripped younger Bulls players following Wednesday's loss to the Atlanta Hawks, saying that losing doesn’t bother the younger players enough. But it appears that Wade, in his first season with his hometown franchise, isn't very popular with those younger teammates he wants to motivate. Fellow veteran Taj Gibson admitted that the fresher faces on the roster would like to see more of Wade on the practice floor, apparently chafing at the standard head coach Fred Hoiberg set prior to the season when he said that Wade, three and a half centuries into his time on this planet, would receive extra rest both in practice and games in an effort to keep him as fresh as possible. "That's one of the things in the meeting: Young guys just want a little bit more from him," Gibson said. What they got, at least in Wade’s first game after the Atlanta fiasco, was Wade and Butler coming off the bench as punishment from their coach for airing their grievances publicly……..

Boxing sheriffs seek cash, so-so NBA Twitter beefs and "Black Panther" enters production

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The temperature might be freezing in the middle of a long, bitter and intolerable winter in Mongolia - “We’re more than just great barbecue! - but that won't stop thousands of angry Mongolians from rising up for the second time in recent weeks to demand that their inept government do its job and address the growing issue of air pollution. The most recent protest drew an estimated 7,000 people, many of them wearing air masks underneath thick winter hats and creating some unintentionally comical visuals in what was otherwise an angry and inspiring get together. Protestors rose up and spoke out despite temperatures that fell below minus-4 Fahrenheit in the city's central square as they toted black balloons and protest signs. Solving the pollution problem is a big challenge anywhere in the world, but it’s doubly true in Ulaanbaatar, which is one of the world's coldest capitals. Plagued by poverty and in many ways defining what Third World living is all about, more than half of the city's 1.3 million residents rely on burning raw coal, plastic, rubber tires and other materials to stay warm and cook meals and life is even tougher in impoverished neighborhoods that ring the city. There, residents live in traditional round tents without heating, leaving them to burn polluting fuels. Protestors want the government to come up with viable solutions to change these subpar conditions while also keeping everyone from freezing to death, a task to which the powers that be have not risen to this point……..

- Let the spinoff parade continue. Marvel has announced the start of production on its “Black Panther” spinoff, an offshoot of the Marvel universe that takes place after the events of “Captain America: Civil War” and stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira and Martin Freeman. The studio posted a photo of a director’s chair with ‘Black Panther’ written across it on its Instagram account, teasing a project that follows protagonist T’Challa who, after the events of “Captain America: Civil War,” returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to assume the throne as king. The problem, believe it or not, is that the story doesn’t go smoothly and a mysterious conflict draws the king into some drama that puts the fate of not only Wakanda, but the whole world at risk. As fanboys know, the movie is based on the Marvel comic character who first appeared in Fantastic Four, Vol. 1, Issue 52, published in 1966. Boseman played the role in “Captain America: Civil War,” so fans have seen him in the role before and the film is directed by “Creed” director Ryan Cooglar. It nicely continues Marvel’s ongoing quest to give at least one standalone project to literally every character who grabbed more than four seconds of screen time in “Civil War,” because clearly this superhero gold mine has real estate left to be exploited and Marvel isn’t about to let any of it go unexplored…….

- Law enforcement officials around America are familiar with the problem: not enough money and manpower to sufficiently police their communities. Everyone approaches the quest for a bigger budget differently, but no one has taken quite the tact that Angelina County (Texas) Sheriff Greg Sanches has taken to convince county commissioners to accept his request for more manpower and increased pay for existing employees. Sanches, a former amateur boxer, looked to use his past to promote his present by posting two videos to his department’s Facebook page, one showing him talking to an employee about the pay situation as he is working out on a speed punching bag at the sheriff’s office. He claims that he’s been waiting patiently for four years for his request to be approved and in the commissioners court's meeting room, he’s been forced to remain respectful. He didn’t have that issue in the first where one of his department’s administrative assistants, Libby Parrish, asked him, “What are you doing?” Her convincing acting set the sheriff up to deliver his message in equally stilted fashion. “I’m kind of mad today,” Sanches said. “We had commissioner’s court yesterday, and it didn’t go so good. It hasn’t gone good for about four years. Our deputies are underpaid, and they’re putting their lives on the line out there.” He goes on to lament low pay for good deputies and concludes by letting everyone know that Angelina County Sheriff’s Office deputies are going to train and try to be prepared for what they have to deal with on a daily basis. The second video is more conventional and was shot in front of the Angelina County Peace Officer’s Memorial in front of the downtown courthouse, during which Sanches notes that the sheriff’s office hasn’t had any kind of significant manpower increase since 1996. Unfortunately, he doesn’t punch anything in the second clip………

- Two good players on two teams that don’t matter this season in the NBA are engaging in a social media feud that also does not matter. Meet Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum and Memphis Grizzlies forward Chandler Parsons, who are both quality NBA players, but who play for teams that have no hope of winning a championship this season. The social media scrap started during the Trail Blazers' 112-109 victory in Portland when Trail Blazers' official account trolled Parsons by posting a video of him shooting an air ball on a 3-point attempt, sarcastically noting that the NBA 3-point line is a long way from the basket. Rather than focus on the fact that his team lost the game and worry about getting ready for the next one, Parsons fired back with a tweet in which he wrote, “@trailblazers good luck in the lottery show this year.” Ah, a clever reference to the fact that his team will probably make the playoffs and get eliminated in the first round while Portland is on the outside looking in when it comes to the postseason. That inspired McCollum, one of Portland’s best players, to respond by telling Parsons that his team "hit the lottery by not signing you." Smacking a guy who signed a four-year, $94.4 million deal with the Grizzlies in July but has appeared in just 20 of Memphis' 48 games this season because of knee injuries is a surefire way to provoke a response and so Parsons fired back, “@CJMcCollum stop it. Technically, I hit the lottery.” Just imagine how good this beef would be if it were between players for two great teams instead of the seventh- and ninth-best teams in the Western Conference………

Ganja at the drive thru, an Olympic doping double cross and "Apocalypse Now" for gamers

- This is a new twist on breathing more life into an old movie. Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola is out to make some extra cash/make one of his most iconic films relevant for a new generation by turning it into, of all things, a video game. Coppola wants to turn “Apocalypse Now” into the next big craze for gamers, taking the 1979 action movie into “an immersive, psychedelic horror RPG.” As rich as he may be, the director is also trying to bilk a bunch of crowdfunding supporters into helping him by donating $900,000 to make the game, for which he has teamed up with “Wasteland 2” video game producer Montgomery Markland and “Fallout: New Vegas” producer Lawrence Liberty. This game will take some time, as it isn't expected to be completed until 2020. “Forty years ago, I set out to make a personal art picture that could hopefully influence generations of viewers for years to come,” Coppola said. “Today, I’m joined by new daredevils, a team who want to make an interactive version of Apocalypse Now, where you are Captain Benjamin Willard amidst the harsh backdrop of the Vietnam War. I’ve been watching videogames grow into a meaningful way to tell stories, and I’m excited to explore the possibilities for Apocalypse Now for a new platform and a new generation.” Players will be able to control Captain Willard (Martin Sheen’s character in the movie) in his mission to assassinate renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando’s character). According to a description of the game, the emphasis is “not choosing dialogue, but rather actions and postures” and wants to make it clear that this game is “not Call Of Duty in Vietnam.” No, because clearly that would be an outright insult to an iconic film………

- Is a “Wedding Crashers” sequel in the works? If the script isn't already written, someone clearly needs to get Vince Vaughn on the phone because this story is too good not to tell with an over-the-top production full of B-listers who can convey the true hilarity emanating from Thailand, where authorities have arrested a gang of wedding crashers led by a Buddhist monk who scammed couples by pretending to be officials with royal links and demanding money for their hallowed presence at the festivities. Police Col. Phumin Pumpanmuang noted that the eight suspects — the monk and seven relatives — set up an elaborate ruse in which the monk would attend weddings as an honored guest with his relatives pretending to be high-ranking figures presenting him with offerings. Seeing that display, the scammers hoped, would make it difficult for the members of the wedding party to refuse when asked for donations. It was a nice scam for as long as it held up, but eventually someone began asking the right questions and the scheme quickly unraveled. For claiming that they were royals, the faux wedding crashers were charged with offending the monarchy, which is punishable by three to 15 years in prison, which is a new twist on a criminal charge typically applied to people accused of insulting the monarchy. Clearly, Buddhist monks are not living up to the same ethical standards the once held…….

- Rest easy, world. The long-running mystery of where everyone’s favorite Belarusian weightlifter went at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has finally been solved. Yes, we now know that the reason Belarusian weightlifter Stanislav Chadovich was suddenly withdrawn from competition with no explanation at the Olympics is because he tried to deke drug testing officials by using substitute urine in a pre-Olympic doping test. As a result, he’s been banned for four years and won't be able to try to pass any drug tests using substitute urine for a while. The International Weightlifting Federation announced that Chadovich has been found guilty of trying to tamper with a doping test sample in an out-of-competition check and although the federation didn’t specify the exact strategy Chadovich used or how authorities were able to uncover his deception, does it really matter? Clearly it wasn’t a good plan and clearly it wasn’t well-executed, so the only fact that matters is that he was found out and will be punished for it. Other athletes have attempted to use hidden tubes to fill their sample with clean urine, while some have used artificial, prosthetic devices to try to haul in clean urine so they can pass their test. The only piece of good news for Chadovich is that his four-year suspension is backdated to July 29, shortly before the Olympics began, so the former European championship silver medalist really only has about three and a half years to go before he can chalk up and get back to competing………

- Fast food wages have gone up in recent years, but clearly not enough to finance the lifestyle to which some workers aspire. Thus, a few workers at a Burger King in New Hampshire have been arrested for operating one of the more unique pot distribution operations in recent memory. According to police, the ganja would be sold using a very specific buying method that remotely resembled asking to enter your older brother’s treehouse or trying to get into that one club in town everyone wants to go to, but isn’t quite cool enough to make it past the bouncer. Buyers would pull up to the drive-thru speakers and ask if "nasty boy" was working, which was the super top secret nickname for the ringleader of this operation, Garrett Norris. If Norris was working, buyers then knew to ask for "fries extra crispy," which didn’t actually mean digging out those fries that got stuck in the cooker a bit too long and had that extra-special crunch to them, but instead meant ordering a small quantity of the hippie lettuce. Buyers would then pull up to the window and Norris would deliver their illicit purchase to them disguised inside some sort of normal restaurant container. In a sting operation, an undercover officer he received a coffee cup with a small amount of marijuana. In the sting, police arrested both Norris and the shift manager, Meagan Dearborn, who had taken the order. According to the restaurant’s general manager, the two rogue employees were fired after the sting, which is a bummer because few things pair more perfectly together than cheap fast food and marijuana. The only way it could have been better is if this pot business was operating out of the kitchen at Taco Bell……..

Indonesian legal corruption, Elton John + Prada and leaving the Seahwks for a holy calling

- Not every NFL assistant coach who leaves a team does so in search of a more prominent position with another franchise. Sometimes, a higher power points them in a new direction and so it is with Seattle Seahawks assistant head coach/defense Rocky Seto, who is bolting Pete Carroll’s staff to pursue a career in ministry. Seto, a Christian, coached with Carroll at USC and made the jump to the NFL in 2010 as a quality control coach on defense, beginning a fast rise through the ranks. He was soon promoted to assistant defensive backs coach, working with the Seahawks' safeties, before jumping to offense as the passing game coordinator. He proved his versatility once more after Kris Richard took over as defensive coordinator, flipping back to the other side of the ball as assistant head coach/defense. One of his biggest contributions was the implementation of the Seahawks' rugby-style tackling. "Rocky has been most integral," Carroll said of the effort.  "He has been really the bell cow for us on this one. He is the one that does all of the teaching [of] it in the meetings. He's got a real passion for making the point, and he's always been involved with it with us.” He’s commented in the past about wanting to keep his family as a priority and not become so consumed by coaching that he forgot to be a good husband and father and apparently, he and his family will now be heading in a new direction, one that will pay considerably less - and presumably involve a hell of a lot less profanity - than his previous gig………

- Teach these kids how to fish, anonymous Johnston, Iowa do-gooder. This good Samaritan thought he or she was really making an impact and changing the lives of children in need by paying off the negative lunch account balances for every elementary student in the Johnston Community School District, but did they really? "Seeing an act like that come forward, and knowing it affected almost 150 students is something we haven't experienced here in this district," said district communications director Laura Sprague. Affected, yes. Positively? Maybe not. Chipping off $13,250 to clear the debts for nearly 150 students district-wide sends a message and that message is that if you just wait patiently, someone will come along and take care of that which you do not take care of yourself. As Sprague noted, there are few anonymous donations of this sort to the district, which is probably because a) people are inherently selfish and b) those who have the spare cash know that if they bail these kids out now, it’s only a matter of time before they’re bailing them out as hapless adults who never learned to fend for themselves. The school clearly can't afford to foot the bill for every student whose family can’t afford to pay for lunch each day, but the children are still allowed to eat because for some reason, turning away a hungry child isn’t fair. According to the district, one in five of its students comes from a food insecure home, so there are plenty of people who could receive temporary assistant from these anonymous donor types. But in the end, the kids are going to have to learn a hard lesson eventually……..

- Rarely has there been a better match of writer and project. The eternally sequined, bedazzled and neon-colored Elton John is co-writing the new musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada” for the stage, reinventing the project once more after the film adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel – which starred Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway – was a surprise success story both critically and at the box office back in 2006. That success was bound to inspire another take on the idea and after more than a decade, that new take is happening courtesy of Fox Stage Productions, which is now helping take Weisberger’s work to the stage in the form of a musical. The company announced that they have inked the auteur of “Tiny Dancer” to co-write the script for the production alongside playwright Paul Rudnick. The entire effort is in its early stages and is cloaked in a bit of mystery at this point; no casting choices have been announced and other than having John and Rudnick on board to write it, the rest of the musical is a massive work in progress. The addition of John makes a lot of sense, as he penned the music for the stage adaptation of “The Lion King” following his acclaimed work with the 1994 Disney film. He also contributed to stage versions of “Billy Elliot” and “Aida,” so he has a solid base of experience in working on theater projects and clearly has an appreciation for the medium……….. 

- To quote George Costanza, was that wrong? Seriously, is it an issue when your country’s anti-graft commission arrests one of the nation’s most senior judges on suspicion of taking a bribe in a Constitutional Court case? Indonesia, you seem to have a bit of an issue if the judges tasked with administering the law and helping maintain order by way of justice are being caught "red-handed" along with 10 other suspects in an anti-graft sting. Such is the fate of Constitutional Court Judge Patrialis Akbar, whose arrest was announced by the deputy chairwoman of the independent Corruption Eradication Commission, Basaria Panjaitan, after the judge allegedly received $161,000 from a meat importer in connection with the court's judicial review of a revision to a law on animal husbandry. This is one of the first and possibly only times animal husbandry will be associated with the takedown of a top legal official, but amazingly, Akbar, a deeply conservative former law and human rights minister, is actually the second judge on the Constitutional Court to be arrested in a corruption case. The first was Akil Mochtar, chairman of the court's nine-member judge panel, who was arrested in October 2013 and later sentenced to life imprisonment. To the untrained legal outsider, it would appear that this particular court doesn’t have a firm grasp on the law it is tasked with applying, or it’s simply staffed by dishonest scumbags wholly and sorely lacking in any sort of integrity or a moral compass………

The threat of a Nickelhack album, the longest of long cons and Nazi hate lives in Ukraine

- No matter how far the world moves from one of its darkest, ugliest and most sinister eras, there will apparently always be ignorant, anachronistic ass hats who insist on trying to keep it - and its hateful legacy and principles - alive. Some of those ass hats clearly live in Ukraine, where unidentified vandals have spray-painted Nazi graffiti at a memorial cemetery where some Poles are buried. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin addressed the vandals' action at the Bykivnia memorial on the outskirts of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, denouncing their message of hate in a locale that is a burial place for victims of the Soviet secret police, including some Poles, who were executed in the 1920s-1940s. In a display of asininity from a bygone era, the vandals spray-painted the name of SS division Galicia, a Nazi unit consisting of Ukrainian volunteers, on one tombstone at Bykivnia, along with the name of UNA-UNSO, a Ukrainian far-right nationalist organization. The ironic part of this incident is that Poland and Ukraine have friendly ties even though there remain some in Poland who retain bitter memories about the killings of up to 100,000 Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in 1943-1944 in Volyn and the eastern Galicia regions, which are now part of Ukraine. There’s been more than enough ugliness in Ukraine in recent years thanks to their overbearing, overreaching and downright oppressive neighbors in Russia, but thanks to a small group of tools with access to the paint section of a local hardware store for proving that there’s always more hate to be brought to the table…….

- At long last, good news relating to college football bowls has arrived. The number of bowls has been unnecessarily trending upward for years, to the point where 40 bowls exist, the problem being that there aren’t 80 teams with winning or even .500 records on an annual basis. That means bowls have opened their doors to only the best 5-7 teams in America, but two of those teams will have to stay home next season because at long last, the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl is finished after 12 years. The demise of the Poinsettia Bowl comes in the wake of the San Diego Chargers bolting down in search of solidifying their status as the third most popular NFL team in Los Angeles, meaning their former home of Qualcomm Stadium is likely to close down soon. San Diego’s original bowl game, albeit with a different sponsor, is the Holiday Bowl and it might need to move to baseball's Petco Park to survive. However, the  San Diego Bowl Game Association announce that it is dropping the Poinsettia Bowl to focus on the Holiday Bowl and is talking with the San Diego Padres about the possibility of  playing the game at Petco Park if Qualcomm Stadium closes after 2018. The city is weighing the very real possibility of closing the aging Qualcomm Stadium after 2018 rather than pay to maintain it, but noted liar Mark Neville, executive director of the bowl game association, insisted the choice to axe the Poinsettia Bowl was not related to the Chargers leaving. "This is purely a decision made for our organization," he lied………

- There are long cons and then there’s what Cynthia Mills is accused of pulling off. Mills is accused of a massive con in which she’s suspected of stealing $14 million while working for Matthews International Corp. from 1999 to 2015, bilking the Pittsburgh monuments and engraving firm out of enough money to purchase a life of luxury that apparently included a $645,000 yacht, two Mercedes automobiles and a Ford Focus prosecutors are now attempting to seize from her as part of the case. The real outlier here is the Ford Focus because who the hell steals eight figures’ worth of cash over a decade and a ahlf, buys a freaking yacht and two Mercedes and thinks, “You know what? I need a fuel-efficient, reasonable daily driver to round out my fleet.” According to prosecutors, Mills cashed checks made out to Matthews or had them routed to a bank account of a bogus company she controlled and her attorney, Phil DiLucente, isn't exactly claiming his client’s innocence. He claims his client has and will continue to cooperate with the federal government and the company and will "continue to right the situation by relinquishing any interest she owns, including valuables and money.” Yes, but you can't simply right the situation by surrendering dozens of Louis Vuitton handbags, a yacht and 19 fur coats you bought thanks to tax evasion and money laundering. You also have to “make things right” by going to jail and surrendering your freedom for a while as well……..

- Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Take cover, world. Anyone with working ears needs to be warned because noted Canadian poseur rockers Nickelhack could be set to announce their ninth album as early as next week. There are nasty rumors circulating that guttural-voiced frontman Chad Kroeger (a.k.a. the Former Mr. Avril Lavigne) and his merry band of hacks, who last released an album in 2014 with ‘No Fixed Address,” are ready to torment the music fans of the world once more. After it was confirmed that the group has signed a new worldwide record deal with BMG, who are distributed by Warner Music Group, the threat became that much more real. It’s great news for Republic, a division of Universal Music Group, with whom Nickelback released their last few records, because their association with the worst band in the world is now over. The bad news is for everyone else, as Nickelhack has a “major announcement” planned for Feb. 1, prompting very valid fears that the news will be a new album. It’s been confirmed that the band are currently in the studio working on material for a new full-length album and a recent statement from the ‘Hack doesn’t allay those fears. “We are honored to partner with the global BMG team and look forward to releasing new music for our fans. Sharing our vision and passion with such a dedicated team while being surrounded by some of the greatest music artists of all time is very humbling and we couldn’t be more excited,” the statement reads/threatens. Time to duck and cover, all, duck and cover……..

Chili-dog-related murders, Tom Hardy loses millions and Gambian chaos averted

- Is it really over, Gambia? It’s been about a week since chaos truly began to reign in the impoverished African nation and at long last, Gambia's lawmakers have lifted the country's state of emergency and quashed defeated leader Yahya Jammeh's final attempts to cling to power. Parliamentarians imposed the state of emergency just a week ago, the latest move in an ongoing chess match in which they also revoked the three-month extension of Jammeh's term they approved last week. It’s all connected to the election of new President Adama Barrow, who was excited to be selected to lead his country but then had his celebration cut short when the guy who had the job before him refused to leave office, forcing Barrow to cross the border into neighboring Senegal amid fears for his safety. Hanging out in the next country over  rather than taking the position of power to which you’ve been elected doesn’t exactly come across as presidential, but Barrow is expected to return home in the coming days after being inaugurated last week in Senegal. Jammeh, meanwhile, finally caved to international pressure and ceded power to high rightfully elected successor before fleeing fled into exile over the weekend. All in all, it’s a true African rarity in the form of a leader who relinquishes power - albeit only when compelled by force from within and outside his borders -  and allows someone else to take over the nation, steering it in a new direction……..

- How does a star actor lose nearly $3 million from his critically acclaimed new television miniseries? Ask Tom Hardy, who has reportedly squandered that much cash on account of “Taboo,” his new eight-part period drama that follows the mysterious James Delaney’s (played by Hardy) return to London after many years in Africa to claim his father’s inheritance. The series was co-created by Hardy’s father Chips and “Peaky Blinder” creator Steven Knight and has received a mostly warm response from fans and critics. However, the high ratings haven't been enough to help Hardy offset the cost he incurred when he founded the production company Taboo Productions Ltd. to handle the finances of making the series. Word on the street is that the company spent about $13 million on making Taboo, but it has banked just $10.5 million so far. That $2.5-million net loss is a bitter bite to swallow for any actor, even a successful one with plenty of big roles to his name, although Hardy reportedly hopes to recoup some of his losses through the sale of DVD, Blu Ray and digital copies of the show, as well as syndication rights. That’s a hell of a lot of discs and downloads sold in order to just break even, so Hardy had best hope that ratings for his show on FX in the United States and the BBC in the United Kingdom get higher so he can close the income gap a bit and avoid making this one of the very few nasty blights on what has otherwise been a very strong career for him so far……

- As always, at least there’s a good reason that someone lost their life. In this case, the good reason is apparently an argument the night before over a chili dog, which was apparently enough to prompt a Port Orange, Florida man to fatally shoot his adult stepson. According to a Volusia County charging affidavit, Danny Holder faces charges of first-degree murder in the death of his stepson, Randall Lowen, at a home on Shahab Lane after the two clashed the night before over a hot dog covered in chili. Holder is attempting to hide behind the claim that the shooting was nothing more than self-defense. "There’d been physical violence against my client that morning," Holder's attorney, Matthew Phillips said. Unfortunately for Holder, his wife Jackie told police officers that her husband and Lowen, her adult son, had an argument over said chili dog and during that argument, Holder then threatened to shoot Lowen. Apparently his threat scared his wife enough that she hid her husband's firearm. Still, the argument rolled on and the next morning, as Lowen explained to his mother what they were arguing about, Danny Holder pulled out a firearm and his wife pleaded with her son to run. She heard what sounded like two gun shots, but told police she only knew of one gun belonging to her husband - the one she’d hidden. However, investigators found multiple guns inside the home and Danny Holder was eventually taken to Volusia County Branch Jail on no bond. Here’s hoping that if and when he lands in jail, fights over food are something he learns to avoid……..

- No credit for not doing the wrong thing, San Francisco 49ers. You just compiled the second-worst record in the NFL, fired your third head coach in as many seasons and have offered fans no reason to believe that you’ll pull out of your organizational tailspin any time soon. So don’t expect any praise for announcing that you’re freezing season-ticket prices for the next two seasons of the crap-tastic product you humorously call a football team. "We are announcing that 49ers season ticket pricing will be frozen through the 2018 season," the 49ers said in a letter sent to season ticket holders Tuesday. "Invoices for your 2017 season tickets will be made available to view and pay online in the coming weeks." Oh, and the team has long had some of the most expensive tickets in the league, with the range for season tickets between $850 and $3,750 and the range for personal seat licenses between $2,000 and $80,000, so freezing them isn't exactly some charitable endeavor. Even though those prices have remained the same since Levi's Stadium opened in 2014 and this announcement means the prices will be the same for the first five years of the stadium's existence, some other elements of the team have remained the same too: its lack of a competent quarterback, its revolving door at head coach, inept front office performance and a steady stream of losses piling up for what used to be one of the elite franchises in the NFL. Keeping ticket prices the same seems to be less than the least the 49ers could do for their tortured fan base at this point………

Lara Croft rides again, prison dining in style and bank robbery v. ball and chain

- When you’re staring down a life of retirement filled with lots of time at home with the ol’ ball and chain, formerly unpalatable options suddenly begin to look a lot better. At least that’s the outlook of Kansas resident Lawrence Ripple, who pleaded guilty in Kansas City, Kansas, to a federal bank robbery count and is now staring down up to 20 years in prison, but that’s not the real attention-grabber here. No, that would be the logic Ripple used when explaining to law enforcement why he, seven decades into his time on Earth, chose now to launch himself headfirst into a life of crime. According to an FBI agent, Ripple had argued with his wife earlier and told her in writing he'd "rather be in jail than at home." See, this is why they tell you to never drive angry, text or tweet while angry or go to a bank, give the teller a note demanding cash and warning you have a gun and then grab $3,000 before taking a seat in the lobby before informing a security guard that you’re the "guy he was looking for” while angry. You’re bound to do things you regret and once you calm down, it might occur to you that you could have done a lot saner things, such as moved out, filed for divorce, had an affair or even gotten into a bar fight to blow off steam, none of which are going to land you 20 years behind bars. Even with the hate-filled explanation Ripple gave to the FBI, his wife still accompanied him to court, although maybe the experience was a dose of revenge porn for her………

- It would be fair to say that new University of Oregon football coach Willie Taggart’s human resources skills need improvement. Taggert was hired in December to lead the suddenly downtrodden Oregon football program and coming off a double-digit win season at South Florida, he looked like a good hire. It’s his own hires that aren't exactly panning out for the Ducks, a fact driven home over the weekend as Oregon co-offensive coordinator and tight end coach David Reaves was arrested by the Eugene Police and charged with driving under the influence. That came literally four days after Reeves was officially hired and subsequently, the process to terminate his employment with cause has commenced, according to the school. "University of Oregon assistant football coach David Reaves was arrested last night and charged with Driving Under the Influence by members of the Eugene Police Department," Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens said in a news release. "Reaves has been placed on administrative leave and the process to terminate his employment with cause has commenced. The University has high standards for the conduct of employees and is addressing this matter with the utmost of seriousness." About the whole high standards part….where were those standards a week ago, when the Oregon athletic department suspended strength and conditioning coach Irele Oderinde for a month without pay after three Oregon football plays were hospitalized following offseason workouts? Taggart needs to start hiring people who a) don’t get arrested within a week and b) don’t pose a significant threat to the general well-being of his players……….

- In Colombia, one has to be willing to go anywhere to enjoy a good meal, even if that anywhere is an all-female prison that’s less “Orange Is The New Black” and more “Master Chef.” It’s the ladies-only location of San Diego prison in the popular Caribbean tourist town of Cartagena, where the city’s trendiest new restaurant has been serving up gourmet meals since December and packing in the hungry customers even though the people serving the meals spend much of their time locked inside 8-by-8 cells, cleaning toilets and trying to avoid fights in the exercise yard. Yes, it’s a unique experiment intended to promote the inmates' rehabilitation while also shining a much-needed light on Colombia's neglect of the country's soaring prison population. The restaurant is called Interno — Spanish for "inmate — and it’s a South American take on the InGalera restaurant at a penitentiary in Milan, Italy. Interno serves up dishes such as seabass ceviche and a tabbouleh salad made of Andean quinoa, with some of Colombia's top chefs serving up recipes for the inmates to make. Patrons dine on a patio at the minimum-security prison, the same patio where inmates used to consume prison gruel on disposable foam trays. To spice up the atmosphere, there’s a wall-sized mural and pink tassels hanging from metal bars, all accented by meals served by inmates who must sleep on the floor due to overcrowding. The jail's director, Ramiro Cuadro, credited outside funding for enabling programs like the restaurant, which is an initiative by Teatro Interno, a Colombian foundation led by TV actress Johana Bahamon that holds theater workshops in prisons across the country. Famous chefs prepped inmates for the experience by running workshops teaching them how to make bread and whip up fancy desserts. Twenty inmates stuck with the program and now, they’re brought fine dining to cell block D……..

- New decade, new leading lady, same damn Hollywood. In other words, time for another sequel in an existing movie franchise, one that requires no new concepts and can subsist on more ass-kicking, stilted dialogue and subpar acting. Yes, it’s a new Tomb Raider film, which has officially begun production. It’s the third adaptation of the successful video game franchise, which debuted in 1996, and it’s slated to hit theaters next March. This third take will follow two Tomb Raider movies that saw Angelina Jolie play the main character in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and 2003’s Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. There is no officially announced title for the new film, but Norwegian director Roar Uthaug, who also directed the 2015 catastrophe film “The Wave,” confirmed the start of production with a photo on his Instagram account. He posted a picture of a clapper board from the set, where Alicia Vikander, who won an Oscar last year for her role in “The Danish Girl,” will play Lara Croft. She beat out Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley, who was considered the frontrunner to play the title role. Add in “The Hateful Eight” star Walton Goggins as the main villain of the film and Daniel Wu, who previously starred in “Into The Badlands,” as a ship captain who helps Croft in her mission to find her father, and you have a cast that can take what won't be a great script and turn it into a hunk of rote, canned action move excess………

Riot Watch! Romania, the Harbaugh Rule and marble spill = bad joke bonanza

- The Harbaugh Rule is now in place. No one involved with implementing it will call it that or even admit that Michigan head football coach Jim “Dad Bod” Harbaugh was the impetus for its creation, but when the autonomy group of Power 5 conferences voted at the NCAA convention to ban offseason practices away from campus during a vacation period, it was pretty clearly a direct retort to Harbaugh taking his team on a spring break trip to Florida last March and holding practices in the Sunshine State. Not surprisingly, Proposal No. 2016-139 received majority support from all five leagues, including an 11-3 vote from Big Ten institutions, although student-athletes on the 80-member autonomy panel voted 11-4 against the proposal. In the wake of the vote, Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said no Michigan players complained of a bad experience last year in Florida, which is probably true because none of them wants to run afoul of their head coach by criticizing his tactics. During their Florida trip, the Wolverines held four practices at IMG Academy, a school that has more than a half dozen top Division I prospects, including Michigan enrollee Cesar Ruiz, the nation's No. 1-ranked center. No one hated the trip more than Southeastern Conference coaches and administrators, who were irate to have a Big Ten school walk into their backyard and try to blatantly curry favor with recruits - something SEC commissioner Greg Sankey lied about when asked. "It wasn't about one institution," Sankey said. "It wasn't about some regional protection effort. It's very simply, if we're going to sit here and talk about being attentive to the time expectation and managing those appropriately for student-athletes, then we have to look at that type of out-of-season, off-campus, take-a-trip practice." Nice try, commish……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Romania is not happy with its government and citizens made that abundantly clear this weekend as thousands of them marched through the capital, Bucharest, and other cities to protest a government proposal to pardon thousands of prisoners which critics say could reverse the country’s long-running and questionably successful anti-corruption fight. The common man rose up 10,000 strong, amassing in University Square as evening set on Bucharest, but it wasn’t until well into the festivities that things got interesting as many demonstrators broke through police lines before bum-rushing government headquarters. The angry mob was inspired by the appearance of Klaus Iohannis, a government critic who supports the anti-corruption drive. It was a truly diverse angry mob and better still, some of the protestors were elderly folks out to prove that being old isn't an excuse for tolerating an inept regime. Others carried children on their shoulders, showing the next generation how to rage against the machine. All of these people denounced the ruling Social Democratic Party as "the red plague” and took a stand against Premier Sorin Grindeanu’s plans to pass an emergency ordinance to pardon prisoners which his government says would ease overcrowding in prisons. Critics see through the measure and view it as what it is, a means of freeing  government allies convicted of corruption. Regardless of how you feel about the prisoners, correctional authorities say 3,700 could be freed if the law is put in place……..

- While rock stars may be synonymous with strippers, groupies and the occasional porn star, at least one rocker is lending his voice to an unusual project that flies in the face of that stereotype. Metallica frontman James Hetfield is the voice of a new anti-porn documentary, working with an acclaimed director for whom he narrated a previous project in 2011. The documentary, titled “Addicted To Porn: Chasing The Cardboard Butterfly,” is the work of director Justin Hunt. “In this controversial film, award-winning filmmaker Justin Hunt dissects the impact of pornography on societies around the globe, from how it affects the brain of the individual, to how modern technology leads to greater exposure to youth, to watching it literally tear a family apart,” the film’s synopsis notes. “In what may well be one of the most devastating issues in modern culture, this film will break down the damage that porn is doing to us a human race and leave you thinking that it’s clearly time that we start taking porn addiction much more seriously.” It’s a stance that makes a lot of sense, especially because folks rarely look beyond the surface and pay attention to the actual impact porn has on both those addicted to it and the ones they love, but that doesn’t make it any less odd to have a tattooed, party-loving metal lead singer as the one who’s narrating the entire documentary and trying to make sure that society pays more attention to this particular issue of consequence……..

- Some situations are just rife with bad jokes and the tools among us just can't avoid making those jokes and acting like said jokes are fresh, funny and creative. It couldn’t have set up any better for that sort of jokester when a truck driver oddly carrying entire trailer full of marbles lost control of his rig and sent some 38,000 pounds of the glassy, shiny spheres of a bygone toy spilling all over the embankment of I-465 southbound near Pendleton Pike, Indiana. The requisite spate of jokes about someone losing their marbles ensued, including the Indiana State Police, who tweeted that very lame joke out to the public, presumably as a typical warning for drivers to avoid the area and expect delays if they were traveling that particular stretch of highway, but mostly so John Q. Law could feel like he has a sense of humor and doesn’t set up speed traps and smack down unsuspecting drivers while operating with that giant stick up his ass. Police spokesperson John Perrine said that a truck overturned along the interstate, but most of the marbles fell onto the embankment, meaning the situation was less hazardous than it could have been had the small balls of colored glass clogged up all of the lanes of traffic and created the sort of exhaustive cleanup that only a giant vacuum cleaner or a baby boomer seeking to reclaim the joy of playing with non-digital toys 50 years ago could enjoy………

Turning the pepper spraying tables, a home for Johnny Manziel and attacking "A Dog's Purpose"

- Nothing quite like raising the ire of the kooks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals if you’re trying to build your prospective audience for a niche film that seems to have little appeal outside those looking for a wholesome, family-friendly flick they can drag their kids to and get them out of the house on the weekend. Congrats to you, infinitely missable new movie “A Dog’s Purpose,” steeped in syrupy sentimentality and cheesiness and yet now being cast as a true villain by the howler monkey huggers of PETA, who put sufficient pressure on the film’s producers and studio to prompt the last-minute cancellation of its premiere amidst accusations of on-set animal cruelty. The source of the outrage is a video showing a clearly distressed German Shepherd dog being forced to perform in artificial rapids on the film’s set, spurring PETA to call for moviegoers to boycott the movie. It wasn’t that necessary because the odds of millions flocking to see this movie weren’t sky high, but the campaign did manage to secure the cancellation of the scheduled premiere in Los Angeles this weekend. The studio for the film, Amblin Entertainment, is doing its best to stand behind its embattled release. “Because Amblin’s review into the edited video released yesterday is still ongoing, distributor Universal Pictures has decided it is in the best interest of A Dog’s Purpose to cancel this weekend’s premiere and press junket,” the studio said in a statement. “Since the emergence of the footage, Amblin has engaged with many associated with the production of the film, including safety personnel, trainers and stunt coordinators as part of their in-depth review. While we are all disheartened by the appearance of an animal in distress, everyone has assured us that Hercules the German Shepherd was not harmed throughout the filmmaking.” Always good to know that no animals were harmed in the making of this movie……..

- The new year has been a busy one for would-be border crashers looking to invade Spain with their poor, dirty and huddled masses of humanity. According to Spanish police, migrants have attempted close to 500 illegal border crossings in just one month by the creative means of attempting to stow away on passenger and cargo boats landing on its southern coast. Authorities say they’ve registered those 500 attempted entry efforts departing from Spain's North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla thanks in large part to a month-long police operation aimed at reducing the number of stowaway migrants setting foot on mainland Spanish ports like Almeria, Malaga and Motril. On the strength of increased patrols along both docks and boats, those 500 failed tries to hop across the border clandestinely were stopped, denying folks trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar hidden inside trucks, cargo or garbage containers set to be off-loaded into Spain. Possibly the most troubling aspect of the situation is that many of those making the dangerous crossing in an unsafe setting are minors, a lot of them traveling on their own in an attempt to escape even more dangerous situations in their home countries. It might be a new year, but it’s clear that Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis is only getting worse and more dire for all involved as political and military troubles in countries throughout Africa and Asia spur citizens to put their lives on the line in search of a better life in a new, unfamiliar place………

- Minor league sports must do whatever they can to generate publicity, even if it means scraping the absolute bottom of the societal barrel in the name of attention. Minor league baseball goes heavy on the wacky, zany promotional stunts and apparently, a new independent football league debuting in April has its own approach to grabbing headlines. The league, which has no affiliation with the NFL, is nonetheless trying to forge a link and pull fans by trying to sign several high-profile NFL players who have boozed abused and stupid-ed their way out of the league. Among those the unimaginatively named Spring League has courted are booze hound/club addict Johnny Manziel, domestic abuser Ray Rice and simply ineffective at his chosen profession Vince Young. Spring League CEO Brian Woods says he’s chatted with representatives for Rice and Young, but elected to reach out to Manziel the only way the disgraced former Texas A&M star seems to communicate: through media, both social and traditional.  "If Johnny Manziel is serious about a future in the NFL, the Spring League is willing to provide him with a platform to prove he's still relevant," Woods said. It was a shameless publicity grab for the league and it came after Manziel declared on Twitter last week that he's trying to be "a good person" and said he’s gotten sober and curbed his partying ways. His 2012 Heisman Trophy couldn’t be further in the rear view mirror at this point and he still has legal issues on his plate, but at least he’s useful to a fourth-rate independent football league trying to make a name for itself during the NFL’s offseason……….

- This is an interesting and disturbingly ironic twist on the whole idea of women protecting themselves when out after dark by carrying some sort of self-defense tool. Sure, it’s still good idea for the ladies to tote some pepper spray, a whistle or a collapsible baton with them if they’re out in a dangerous area once the sun goes down, but apparently a group of southern Florida thieves are turning the tables on this concept by attacking women throughout the region using pepper spray as a means of disabling their victims before stealing their purses and valuables. There have been four reported attacks so far in the city of Plantation, one in Dania Beach and a sixth in Fort Lauderdale. Police say that several of the attacks have happened in Publix shopping center parking lots, so the thieves are clearly fans of quality groceries at reasonable prices - either that or they know that Publix doesn’t spend big on store security, thereby making women in their parking lots easier targets. In one attack, a 73-year-old woman was followed from a Publix to her home where the assailants rear ended her vehicle before robbing and carjacking her. Worse still, these elder-disrespecting thugs punched the woman in the head three times before snatching her purse and so far, no suspects have been identified in the string of thefts. In another attack at a Griffin Road Publix, a woman was pepper sprayed and fought off her attackers, although they did manage to thieve two phones from her. The only details known about the assailants at this point is that they’ve been described as a thin black man accompanied by one or two young black women, all of who flee the scene in a dark-colored Nissan Altima……..

Macedonia v. The World, Jack White rebuilds Detroit with vinyl and floating Alaskan strip club drama

- Too many people are way to hung up on names, what they mean, etc. - here’s looking at you, new parents who spend months debating your baby’s name as if choosing between Tyler and Brett is going to determine the course of the child’s life. But sometimes, a name does matter and it can even poison relations between two nations who are both trying to improve their standing on the world political scene. Yes, the discontent is real between Eastern Europe neighbors Macedonia and Serbia, which are having a bureaucratic showdown over what to call Macedonia. The topic has already caused strife between Macedonia and neighboring Greece, but the beef has spread to Serbia, as Macedonia's foreign ministry says Serbia should avoid calling it by the "offensive" name of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM, which Greece favors. It’s a bit of an international example of your group of friends calling your one buddy by the nickname you know he hates and has been trying to shake since third grade, except this time there are nation-states with armies and bombs and warships involved. A statement from Macedonia’s foreign ministry noted that it would be "inappropriate and disrespectful" for Serbia to call its small neighbor anything but Macedonia. This issue reared up because even though Serbia still formally calls the country Macedonia, its foreign minister has suggested a change to FYROM, and Serbian highway toll receipts now use that name. Yes, turnpike receipts are fueling this drama. Greece’s issue with the name stems from the fact that the name Macedonia implies designs on a Greek province also called Macedonia, while the United States, Russia, China, and most other countries use the term Macedonia for the country that gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, though the powerless United Nations rolls with FYROM………

- Indie rock and hipsters will rebuild Detroit. So says Jack White’s Third Man Records, which is set to open a brand new vinyl pressing plant in the fiscally downtrodden city. The plant is located in the city’s Cass Corridor neighborhood and is slated to open on Feb. 25 in the same location where White’s first major band, The White Stripes, played their first-ever show, as well as being the location of White’s high school. According to a statement from the label, its new venture will feature “environmentally efficient pressing machinery within a purpose-built manufacturing infrastructure,” the first of its kind,” with a pressing operation that will use “recycled water from the record curing process in the air conditioning system.” Thre will be individual pressing stations outfitted with a digital touch screen control for temperature, hydraulic compression, and extruder speed and when the plant is rolling along at full speed, it will be able to press 5,000 records per eight-hour shift. The plan is to create 50 new jobs at a facility that will print Third Man releases for hipsters everywhere, but will also press records for small imprints and indie artists who lack the capability to press small runs of records on their own. The label also commissioned local artist Robert Sestok to create a mural for the pressing plant and to christen its new crib, it will host live performances and a shop selling the records pressed on site, including The White Stripes’ self-titled debut and their ‘De Stijl’ LP, both pressed on red vinyl. White hasn’t released an album of his own since 2014, but clearly has plenty of other interests to pursue……..

- Oh, the persecuted life of the sleazy strip club owner. Being a purveyor of coke-addled, daddy-issue-having ladies who prance around in sequined underwear and take it off as lecherous, pathetic and drunken office workers and bachelor party bros stuff $1 bills into their G-string ain’t easy and no one knows that better than an Alaska strip club owner who was convicted of illegally dumping human waste into a harbor while operating a floating strip club and is defending himself by claiming that he was targeted because of disapproval over his "entertainment charters." In other words, the law and government are being hard on him because he owns a strip club, one floating on Alaska’s frigid waters in one of the more bizarre strip club operations going on in the world these days. Darren Byler says he plans to appeal whatever sentence he receives, as federal prosecutors are recommending that he receive an 18-month prison sentence because he was convicted in 2015 of dumping sewage in violation of the federal Refuse Act and for lying to federal authorities about it. Oddly enough, his wife, Kimberly Riedel-Byler, was found not guilty of the same charges, but the court was convinced that Byler piped sewage aboard the 94-foot converted crabbing boat, the "Wild Alaskan," into the harbor near Kodiak in 2014. The problem arose when the Bylers were accused of telling the Coast Guard they were properly disposing of the waste, which is honestly one of the least revolting parts of this entire strip club operation………

- The Los Angeles Dodgers pay their major league roster more than anyone else in baseball. Apparently a pair of sticky-fingered security guards at Dodger Stadium felt like the team wasn’t chipping off enough cash for them and elected to try to level the paycheck playing field a bit with a long con that netted them a small fortune and now, some serious criminal charges. According to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, stadium security guards Juan DeDios Prada and Fernando Sierra pleaded not guilty to burglary and other charges after being arrested and accused of stealing equipment, baseballs and jerseys from the major league team to sell online. These two stooges are far from the only hourly employees to decide that their paycheck is too small and pilfer some office items to resell, but typically disgruntled employees don’t have access to valuable sports memorabilia that can net them more than $3,400 from a locked equipment room at the stadium between January 2013 and February 2016. There’s a third man in the alleged scam, Jesse Luis Dagnesses, with whom the two guards allegedly conspired to steal those baseball uniforms and other team merchandise to sell online. Dagnesses is accused of receiving $950 in stolen baseballs and jerseys, but one can't help but wonder how these three fools didn’t bank more than the down payment on a nice used car for all of their troubles. If you’re going to spend three-plus years stealing from your employer, you at least want your payout as a group to amount to five figures or more. Otherwise, you look really bad AND you face the possibility of several years in prison for crimes that didn’t exactly set you up financially for the rest of your sad, IQ-deprived life………..

Lil' Cray v. justice, Big Mac expansion and unexploded ordinance 'neath London

- Isn't war wonderful? You can have one, bomb and shoot the sh*t out of your enemy and dispense so much ordinance/explosive devices that seven decades later, people are still discovering undetonated incendiary items you left behind. Such is life in Europe, where unexploded World War II bombs are always lurking somewhere in famous, historic cities. The latest such instance comes from London, where police say two of the city's busiest bridges have been partially closed after a suspected World War II bomb was found in the River Thames. According to the Metropolitan Police force, officers were called to the area to investigate “reports of suspected World War II ordnance in the river." In response to the potential undetonated boom-boom in the river, police closed roads in the area, including northbound lanes of Waterloo Bridge and Westminster Bridge, near the Houses of Parliament. Specialists were called in to assess the device and determine whether or not it’s a threat to blow up part of London, which should be a rare occurrence, except that London was heavily bombed by Nazi Germany during the war, meaning that finding undetonated munitions is less of a “holy sh*t, no way” occurrence and more of an every-other-Wednesday thing in cities like London and others that were prime Nazi targets during the second world war. Germany also finds its share of unexploded bombs lying around its cities as well, so both sides of the war still receive regular reminders of how terrible the conflict truly was……….

- Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Fool us three times and we’ll finally get around to getting rid of you. Welcome to the meandering football tale of former LSU, former Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and former Arizona Western College defensive lineman Travonte Valentine, who has taken the latest step in his downward trajectory from one of the top defensive line recruits in the country to a man without a team after LSU dismissed him from its football team for a second time. Head coach Ed Orgeron announced his decision, blaming the decision on the always-popular violation of team rules. "At this point in time, Travonte is no longer part of our football program. We wish him the best," Orgeron said. Valentine seems to be quite a human being, as this marks the third time that a program has dismissed him in the past 19 months. During his freshman year, when he was not playing because he was waiting to be cleared academically, former LSU coach Les Miles kicked Valentine off the team before he could play a single down. He dropped down to the junior college level and tried to hack it at Arizona Western College, but a guy with Division I talent was booted just a few months after stepping onto campus. Undeterred, he claimed to have gotten his act together during a six-month stint at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and convinced Miles to give him another shot last summer. Even the opportunity to come back to Baton Rouge as a key player on the defensive line for a team with national title aspirations couldn’t keep the 356-pound lineman on track. His conditioning was called into question, his weight fluctuated and now, he’s weighing some serious questions about how life went so wrong, so quickly……….

- Customize your greasy meat puck slathered in a calorie-and-fat-laden sauce, America. McDonald’s has been trying to reshape its flabby, cholesterol-clogged image in recent years, realizing that people are generally paying more attention to the health content of what they eat and don’t want to power down a greasy burger topped with three kinds of cheese, mayo, bacon and toppings and ingest 1,500 calories in a single item. There’s also a tendency toward customization and individualism in America, so factoring all of that in, the fast food chain is coming out with two expansions on its most famous sandwich, the Big Mac. Now, the original Big Mac will be joined by the Mac Jr. and Grand Mac, which will offer new options for those who prefer either slightly reducing their chances of heart disease in comparison with a standard Big Mac or feel like that standard Big Mac doesn’t ratchet up those chances far enough. After successful test markets earlier this year in Ohio and the Dallas/Fort Worth area, McDonald’s is rolling out its new sammitches nationwide. The original Big Mac famously has two burger patties instead of one and is topped with its famed special sauce. It will now be dwarfed by the Grand Mac, which will upsize both patties to top out at one-third of a pound of beef. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Mac Jr. has just one larger patty, sans the middle bun, but with the special sauce. It’s the latest Mac-volution of a sandwich that was invented in 1967 by Michael "Jim" Delligatti at his franchise in Uniontown, Pa. The Big Mac is clearly the driving force behind Delligatti eventually owning 48 franchises, although he sadly passed away at the age of 98  in November, just weeks after McDonald's first announced plans for the Grand Mac and Mac Jr………

- Here’s hoping the next album from Lil’ Cray is titled “Delicious Irony.” That’s the only reasonable option given that the little-known rapper is in deep legal waters on account of filming part of his music video in a Cleveland courtroom. The irony stems from the fact that Lil’ Cray was staring down serious charges ahead of the shoot, including but not limited to criminal gang activity, attempted murder and weapons possession. You’d think that a man staring down a potential long prison sentence wouldn’t want to spend any more time in a courtroom than he’s legally required to, but Cray was undeterred and filmed in the courtroom of Judge Michael Ryan at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center. Amazingly, Judge Ryan allowed the shoot to do ahead on the grounds that he opened his courtroom after hours for an old friend who is also a music producer. A man who makes a living based on what’s supposed to be sound judgment did so without asking questions such as, “Is the star of the video a man who is facing pending felony charges who is currently out of jail on house arrest?” “Last time I checked the Constitution, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.” Ryan said. “I’m always about helping young people especially when I see that they have promise. They have talent.” Yes, and what better way to prove you’re down with the kids and that daggone rap music they love than to allow one of them to turn your courtroom into the sound stage for their next music video? Here’s hoping to video includes a stripper in the judge’s chair, another as the bailiff and 12 more in the jury box. Ryan said he probably wouldn’t allow any more music videos to be filmed in the courtroom, which is going to kill a lot of musical dreams for aspiring rappers throughout the greater Cleveland area……..