Cynic Central

Vermont hippies attack water bottles, idiots take TV too seriously and Google v. Microsoft amps up

2012-02-01T14:15:00.001-05:00

- Dammit, granola-eating, beanie-wearing tree huggers of Vermont, lay off plastic water bottles. What do they do to any of you other than provide a safe storage for your liquid refreshment? So why are some of you now celebrating the fact that through your efforts, the University of Vermont has enacted a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles on campus, effective Jan. 1, 2013. Led by student DJ and environmental activist Gregory Francese, the Vermont Student Environmental Program, or VSTEP, has fought to stop the sale of bottled water on campus. Seizing upon the end of the university’s contract with Coca-Cola coming to an end, these student enviro-Nazis were able to convince the school to abandon the sale of plastic water bottles entirely. "The administration decided that with this existing exclusive contract expiring that it was time for us to do it," said Richard Cate, the vice president for finance and administration at UVM. Cate wasn’t nearly as excited as Francese, who trumpeted the decision as a victory for activism. "This is student activism success," Francese said. "I mean we've had our problems. We've had our setbacks. We've had people tell us it can't happen." As of Jan. 1 next year, the sale of bottled water from UVM's vending machines and campus eateries will be banned. University officials estimate that it will save 200,000 water bottles each year by doing away with water bottles sales on campus. "We believe that we can provide good, cold, fresh water here in Vermont without having to purchase it from some other place," Cate said. To offset the unavailability of water for sale in bottled form, the university will retrofit all 75 water fountains on campus to convert them into bottle-filling stations. The project will cost $100,000 and the idea of getting tap water to refill bottles has some students concerned. There is also a health component to the plan, as the new policy also calls for one-third of drinks offered in vending machines to be healthy options. Way to be, hippies…………

- Give Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah credit for honesty. The high-energy agitator who has developed into one of the key pieces of a legit championship contender conceded that the pressure of seeking a bigger contract and the aftereffects of receiving that massive deal were partially to blame for his subpar play in the months after signing the new agreement. "Yeah, no question, I thought about that," Noah said. "Sometimes you feel like because you're given so much money you're expected to do things. That's not the right mentality to have as a player. I have to play my game. I have to have fun out there. If I don't, I'm not the same player." While he signed the five-year, $60 million extension in October 2010, the deal didn’t go into effect until this season. Noah’s numbers are down so far this year, from 11.7 points and 10.4 rebounds per game last season to 8.5 points and 9.3 rebounds this year. His play has picked up over the last game, with five straight double-doubles (points and rebounds, not the famed In-N-Out Burger double-double) and that should allay some of the concerns that arose after his sluggish start to the year. Part of that sluggish start was a noticeable decline in on-court passion and energy, two key components of Noah’s game. "I've always been a player who reacts well to criticism and doubters," Noah said. “Not only wasn't I playing well, but I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. I wasn't playing loose out there. I was playing tight. In the beginning of the year, I was overthinking a lot. I was going through a lot of things personally. I feel a lot more comfortable now. I have to stop overthinking and just play." He did not elaborate on the specific personal issues, but insisted his diminished production had nothing to do with poor conditioning due to the league’s lockout and shortened training camp. Whatever those issues were/are, Noah seems to have turned the corner………

- Iran is threatening to block the Straight of Hormuz, but crazy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn't the only ruler plotting something sinister - at least according to British diplomats. Senior British diplomats have accused Argentina of plotting an economic blockade of the Falkland Islands, citing fears Buenos Aires is attempting to block all flights from Chile to the islands. Attempt is a relative term, but the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has publicly threatened to cut the weekly route between Punta Arenas and Port Stanley. That route is important because it is the islands' only air link with South America and its main link with the outside world. Isolating the islands could be a precursor to an economic blockade and those same British diplomats believe the flights will stop entirely as part of a sinister Argentinean plot to make the Falklands too expensive for Britain to maintain. "If the LAN Chile flight is cancelled it would be pretty difficult to resist the already credible thesis that there is an economic blockade of the civilian population of the Falklands," a senior British diplomat in the region said on Wednesday. The supposed blockade is expected soon and would amp up tensions between Argentina and Britain, fittingly enough, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the war between Argentina and Britain. The Falklands are already fairly isolated and Argentina possibly banning use of its airspace if LAN objects to its plans would be a massive eff-you to everyone involved. Fernandez first hinted at the escalation during a speech to the UN last September, when she said Buenos Aires may block the flights. The flights had been allowed under an agreement negotiated during a thaw in relations in 1999 and Fernandez explained the blockage would happen if , if David Cameron's government refused to discuss the sovereignty of islands. "We'll wait a little longer, but otherwise we'll be forced to review the standing provisional agreements," she said. Cameron wants nothing to do with talks and recently provoked the Argentinean government by accusing it of "colonialism" in its campaign to win back the islands. Argentina still believes Britain stole the territory 300 miles off its south Atlantic coast, which it refers to as Las Malvinas, in 1833. With flights through Argentina disallowed, the Falklands would be fully dependent on the twice-weekly 8,000-mile military flight from London via Ascension Island, a volcanic island on the equator. That would make life miserable for the islands' estimated 250 Chileans, who would have to travel through London instead of taking a 560-mile flight home to southern Chile. Argentina has already canceled landing rights at Aeroparque, the capital's domestic airport, for LAN's flights from Santiago and São Paulo. It now appears set to expand that ban and accept whatever fallout comes from the decision………..

- If there is nothing less realistic than “reality” television, how is it that people watching SCRIPTED, FICTIONAL television shows don’t understand that what they are seeing on their flat screen IS NOT REAL? The question seems pertinent because of the problem fans of the new FOX drama 'Alcatraz' are beginning to present for employees at the prison that is the namesake for the show. The National Park Service runs the now-defunct prison and since the show began airing last month, rangers and employees have seen an increase in visitors poking around and attempting to sneak into off-limits areas. To combat the idiocy of people who believe the sinister, devious storylines of the show just might have some basis in reality and want to find tangible evidence, park officials have put up signs asking visitors to stay out of areas that are designated as prohibited for unauthorized personnel. “The TV Show Alcatraz is fictional. Many areas depicted in the film are not real,” reads one sign on the premises. Yes, park officials felt that sign was necessary and sadly, they are probably correct. Part of the show’s storyline is a secret lab underneath Alcatraz and other hidden features allegedly used for, um, non-correctional purposes. Findings these hidden rooms and relics is the sort of pursuit that excites conspiracy-theory-loving, no-contact-with-reality kooks who believe that world-changing alien technology exists in Area 51, that the W. administration was actually smart enough to orchestrate the 9/11 terrorist attacks and plenty of other inane nonsense. These people are making life difficult for park rangers, who also tweeted on Monday that there “are no tunnels like in The Rock either,” alluding to the movie of the same name starring Sean Connery and Nic Cage………….

- Oh Microsoft, you’re so silly. Seeing its market share shrink, its world’s worst operating system lose market share and its subpar Internet Explorer browser lose ground to competitors on a daily basis, the company Bill Gates built is futilely trying to swing back. Frank Shaw, corporate VP for Microsoft's Corporate Communications group, said in an official company blog post that Microsoft offers users a safer choice than Google, which has taken a lot of flack recently over its new privacy policies. Shaw hinted at a larger campaign to exploit what his company views as Google's recent missteps in its ongoing quest for world domination. Google changed its privacy policies to share user information across different products and services and has led Congress to ask the company to justify its decision. In his post, Shaw claimed Google's changes will make it harder for users to control their own information. But hey, what do you know, Microsoft has a “better” alternative. “We work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both,” Shaw wrote. He praised the decreasingly popular Hotmail email service by inviting users to "join the hundreds of millions of people who enjoy not worrying about the content of their private e-mails being used to serve ads." To piggyback on Shaw’s comments, Microsoft has launched a major public relations campaign that will start with full-page ads in several major newspapers this week titled "Putting people first." The ads mock the supposed anxiety of Google users while positioning Microsoft's own products as more secure. Both the blog posts and the ads represent the latest round in the battle between the two companies, who have fought over both government and commercial contracts in recent years. Google has hammered Microsoft of late on several fronts and is the dominant player in the search engine field. Subpar products from a company tend to have that effect, even if Bill Gates started the company……….

An A's gamble, pythons invade Florida and bickering over-the-hill divas

2012-01-31T11:44:00.000-05:00

- The team that inspired the book that inspired Brad Pitt’s foray into sports films may once again take the sort of gamble that started that entire chain of events in the first place. “Moneyball” was all about Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane taking a risk by putting together his team based on the statistically based principles known as sabermetrics, which involves detailed analysis of complicated stats as a means of assessing players’ values beyond traditional baseball rubrics. Beane assembled a motley crew of players other teams didn’t see a lot of value in because those players had qualities like high on-base and slugging percentages. Nearly all of them were calculated risks to sign and although he doesn’t fit the sabermetrics approach to a “T,” embattled slugger Manny Ramirez is nothing if not a calculated risk. Ramirez, who applied for reinstatement to Major League Baseball last month after quitting six games into the 2011 season when he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs for a second time, is on the A’s radar. Following his positive test and facing a 100-game suspension, Ramirez simply quit on his team, the Tampa Bay Rays, without telling them. He tried to revive his career playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic, but the league had ties to MLB and his suspension would have carried over. Faced with the prospect of a life without baseball, Ramirez chose to apply for reinstatement. Taking into account him missing almost all of last season, commissioner Bud Selig cut the suspension in half. Ramirez can return after sitting out 50 games if a team signs him and the A’s could be that team. A's owner Lew Wolff suggested the move last week and assistant general manager David Forst said Sunday during A's Fanfest held at the Oakland Arena that he is opening to signing the slugger even though the team is not actively pursuing the free agent. "We're open to it," Forst said. "We do have other things going on and we do expect other additions between now and Opening Day. We have never been in a situation where we had too many good players.” Wolf was more enthusiastic, saying, "I think it would be fun. This should be viewed on the basis of talent. Once he's served the penalty he should be free to do what he wants. I don't know what kind of shape he's in, though I hear he's in great shape." Great shape or not, Ramirez will turn 40 on May 30 and was 1 for 17 (.059) in five games last season for Tampa Bay. He’s on the last fumes of his career and for a non-contender like the A’s, signing him is a head-scratching move………….

- Beware the Burmese python. Since 2000, these massive beasts have been slithering their way around the Everglades in southern Florida and 12 years later, their impact is becoming clear. Scientists have been monitoring the snakes’ presence and have discovered that in areas where the pythons have established themselves, rabbits and foxes can no longer be found. Gordon Rodda, an invasive-species specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and a team of researchers also found that sightings of raccoons are down 99 percent, opossums 98.9 percent and white-tailed deer 94 percent during the same time frame. ''What if the stock market had declined that much? Think of the adjectives you'd use for that,'' Rodda said. Wait, the stock market isn't down 99 percent? Wow. It’s doing better than most Americans would guess…..but back to the original point. Pythons are causing major problems and the good folks of the USGS are none too pleased. “'Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America's most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,'' USGS Director Marcia McNutt said. Burmese pythons, as their name would suggest, are native to southeast Asia. However, a small number of snake-loving freaks and kooks who brought them to Florida to keep as pets and either let them go intentionally or were simply too inept to keep them contained sprang them on the unsuspecting Everglades area. Burmese pythons can grow up to 16 feet long and weigh nearly 140 pounds. Sighting of the creatures in the Everglades were reported sporadically beginning in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2000 that a breeding population was confirmed there. Their numbers have risen sharply since then and according to Everglades National Park official Linda Friar, park rangers have captured or killed 1825 pythons since 2000. Rangers also saw fewer and fewer mammals in python-infested areas. The snakes aren't a threat to humans, but they are to other animals. Using systematic night road surveys done in the Everglades that counted live and road-killed animals, the USGS team tracks the number of mammals in specific areas of the park. They typically do not see the pythons themselves, which are notoriously hard to find and very secretive, but the snakes are indeed lurking. To combat the problem, on Jan. 23 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service started the paperwork to ban the importation and interstate transportation of Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons and yellow anaconda because they threaten the Everglades and other sensitive ecosystems. The USGS findings were contained in a paper published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.........

- In need of a scapegoat with its populace in revolt, Egypt’s ruling military has found its man. The country’s military leader fired the general responsible for media affairs in a feeble attempt to improve an image still soaked and stained with the blood of protestors killed by the military, with rampant accusations that the men in uniform are seeking to crush Egypt's democratic revolution still swirling. While the move is superficial and hollow, it is the first change in the military council since the generals took power from President Hosni Mubarak during a popular uprising last February. The military had some good will in the bank for ushering Mubarak out, but quickly squandered that good will by attempting to crush subsequent protests by force, killing dozens. Under intense pressure from the public, the council reluctantly agreed to hand over to a civilian president by June. Even so, the body has continued to defiantly protect its privileges and avoid civilian oversight. A defense ministry source explained that Major General Ismail Etman was "exempted from service and replaced by Major General Ahmed Abu El-Dahab, the director of the artillery division." Etman had been in charge of media affairs for the council and firing him isn't going to fix any of the problems, but oh well. The military’s image is in the crapper and it is no longer viewed as a respected institution to be revered and obeyed. Venturing into politics has sullied that image and the generals who comprise the council are not trusted by many young pro-democracy campaigners. Then again, who would trust an army that killed or injured dozens attempting to suppress protests on the streets of Cairo in November and December? Those videos of soldiers mistreating injured demonstrators led to national and international outrage and that furor has not died down. Observers say the council is concerned about its public image and believe Etman bears responsibility for its decline in the public’s eyes. A source said the move was decreed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the council. Putting someone new in charge of a wide range of issues ranging from media relations to dealing with the concerns of military officers is certain to be viewed as a cosmetic change by opposition groups, especially since Etman is losing only his seat on the council and will remain one of Tantawi's many advisers, positions given to officers closely tied to the army leadership. In short, Egypt’s political and social scenes are still very much f**ked up……….

- If two over-the-hill prominent musical figures do battle and both of their music is unlistenable, does it make a sound? Sadly, it does. Madonna, a.k.a. the Material Skank, is still locked in a pitched fight with Elton John even though both are on the wrong side of 50 and she has yet to make an album that does anything other than make the world - musically and in general - a worse place. This time it was Elton John who initiated the confrontation by tossing a bitchy remark the Material Skank’s way as she prepares for a performance sure to suck at Super Bowl XXVI on Sunday. "Make sure you lip-synch good,” he said during an interview with Good Morning America about the halftime show. "I've never seen a decent one. Never ever. You have to play live, but I don't think you can. In all fairness to everyone who's done one before, you may be able to sing live, but it's really hard to play live." The song the MS will lip-sync, er, sing to is her new single “Give Me All Your Luvin.” She follows the NFL’s trend of picking middling, mainstream artists that the majority of non-football and football fans alike tuning in for the big game will recognize for the Super Bowl halftime show. Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and the Hack Eyed Peas have all performed at the big game in recent years. Ironically, Madonna is still known by many for her infamous raunchy performance of “Like A Virgin” at the 1984 Video Music Awards, but the NFL must feel age has mellowed her. Elton John bitterness or not, the MS is sure to deliver an abysmal pop performance Sunday, although odds are the Rocket Man wouldn’t have been any better. If only both of them would shut up and just go away………..

- Lawmakers are getting mighty uppity the past couple weeks, especially ones from New York. Sen. Charles Schumer jumped on the trend first, pushing for provisions in a new transportation bill that would give police additional tools and training to identify and handle drivers under the influence of drugs. The idea seemed unnecessarily persecutorial of stoners and cokeheads, but compared to the idea being offered up by state Sen. Sen. Bill Perkins, Schumer might as well be Winston Churchchill and John F. Kennedy rolled into one. On the heels of an increasingly popular online video in which one woman informed a fellow passenger who was eating spaghetti on the Manhattan subway, “animals eat on the train” and received a well-deserved face full of pasta in response, Perkins is leading a debate over whether or not passengers should be allowed to eat on the subway. The idea of a ban was thrown into the debate early on, but the Manhattan Transportation Authority (MTA) was unable to enact the ban and that led to Sen. Overbearing to take action. Perkins claims he regularly receives complaints from subway passengers about rats, which seems odd because rats are the official mascot of both the city and subway and a true part of the New York City experience. In response to the whining, Perkins wants to impose a $250 fine on anyone who eats on the subway. His logic, to say the least, is asinine. “Those rats feed off of what we eat or discard in the system. You feed them, you breed them,” he explained. “Not only are they on the tracks, they’re on the seats. Sometimes they even come off out of the subway. If you look in the subway on track, you’ll see them eating pizza.” Right, because New York pizza is freaking awesome and damn near everyone enjoys it. Besides, a ban is never going to work. If the MTA is having trouble keeping trains clean from food, how is it possibly going to have the personnel to enforce a food ban? And what about those with medical conditions who need a bagel or an orange to stave off a health problem, or the person who just gave blood and needs to hop the express uptown to get to the Upper West Side? A ban is a moronic idea and one that will never work because people will continue to eat anyhow. Keep moving and find a better cause, Perkins……….

$2 billion in government waste, blind flight from Syria and Thom Yorke's arrogance

2012-01-30T13:09:00.000-05:00

- Even those who can’t see can see that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is an unjust despot hell-bent on staying in power even though the clear will of the people is for him to leave office. The story of blind mosque preacher Ahmad al-Sayasneh underscores the fact that physical sight isn’t required to understand just how overdue al-Assad’s ouster from power has become. An outspoken critic of al-Assad’s regime, al-Sayasneh was smuggled into Jordan Saturday from the rebellious border town of Deraa through a hilly northern border area devoid of Syrian patrols, according to Fadi Abu Mustafa of the Free Syrian Army. Al-Sayasneh, a Sunni Muslim, preached at Deraa’s Omari Mosque, where he quickly became known for his passionate anti-Assad sermons in which he called for civil disobedience. Just how much of an impact those calls have had is unclear because Syria has been in a state of upheaval for months and the riots almost certainly would be raging with or without the exhortations of one angry cleric. Still, the government took notice of his sermons and Syrian dissidents say he was jailed and tortured for his anti-Assad remarks. The Free Syrian Army force of defectors from the Syrian military, despite its name, is based in Turkey, with followers in Jordan and Lebanon. For those wishing to flee Syria’s repressive regime, they are good friends to have. According to Mustafa, Jordanian police are questioning al-Sayasneh before allowing him to go free, but the feeling has to be much better than suffering a brutal beating and torture from al-Assad’s regime………

- Thom Yorke is already known for being one of rock’s more pretentious stars. This probably won’t help ground him or humble him. Two tracks from Radiohead’s catalog are to be reworked into classical compositions by Steve Reich, the world-renowned minimalist composer. Reich has announced that he will be reworking “Everything In Its Right Prize” from the band’s “Kid A” album and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” from “In Rainbows” as part of a piece he’s working on called “Radio Rewrite.” The project will be performed by 13 musicians from the London Sinfonietta on Mar. 5, 2013 as part of the Southbank Festival. Andrew Burke, the chief executive of the London Sinfonietta, explained that the pieces would not simply be covers of the original tracks. “I don’t think Steve will be quoting these songs directly. I don’t think that’s his style. How he uses the songs as a starting point for what he does is going to be part of the excitement,” Burke said. He added that Reich was inspired to include tracks from the Oxford-based band after he met them in Poland in September and heard that Jonny Greenwood had played one of his compositions. “It was the first time he’d met them as musicians and spoken to them at length. Jonny Greenwood played [Reich composition] Electric Counterpoint – Steve saw this guy was seriously interested in his music and Steve became seriously interested in theirs," he said. Radiohead are currently readying for their 2012 world tour in support of their latest album “The Kings Of Limbs” and can now head out on the road with some extra swagger in their step……….

- Logic works from time to time. Touching a hot stove will get a person burned, sleeping in the freezer will turn you into a human popsicle and asking a FAT doctor to help a FAT patient lose wait is going result in failure. That blatantly obvious reality was confirmed by a new study researching the link between the physical conditioning of doctors and the weight loss of their patients. The study found that obese doctors are much less likely to help obese patients shed pounds to stay healthy. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University surveyed 500 primary care physicians and measured how much faith the doctors had in themselves to treat obesity - both in giving advice and in their perceptions of patient trust in their advice. They found that normal-weight physicians were more likely to address weight loss with their obese patients (30 percent vs. 18 percent of FAT docs), had more faith that patients would trust their advice (80 percent vs. 69 percent of FAT doctors) and had more confidence in their ability to provide good diet and exercise advice (53 percent vs. 37 percent of FAT doctors). Those numbers are compelling, but the bigger disparity came in the manner in which healthy physicians assess patients versus the way their overweight counterparts do. Normal-weight doctors had a 93 percent probability of reporting an obesity diagnosis in overweight patients, compared with a measly 7 percent of overweight doctors. The standard for most of the doctors included in the study was the patient’s weight in relation to the doctor’s weight. If a patient’s body weight met or exceeded the doctor’s own body weight, the patient was more likely to be judged obese. Doctors rocking a healthy weight were more likely to provide recommended obesity care to patients, according to the study. "For me, the results raise a lot of questions," said study author Dr. Sara Bleich, an assistant professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "I’d be surprised if this behavior is intentional. I think a lot of it is subconscious. What this study suggests is that physical attributes of physicians have a much bigger contribution to their care of patients than I realized before." While the numbers do call for action, they are hardly surprising. In a country where more than one-third of U.S. adults - almost 34 percent - are obese and two-thirds are overweight, odds are high that more than a few doctors will also be overweight. The government defines obesity as having a body mass index of 30 or higher and too many Americans qualify for that club. Results from the Johns Hopkins study were published in the Jan. 19 online edition of Obesity journal………

- Government waste has existed for as long as government has existed. Millions of dollars are thrown away on pork projects, eaten up by employee laziness or simply thrown into the trash with stupid decisions and bureaucratic red tape. Government waste doesn’t even begin to describe the accounting blunder currently being investigated by the U.S. Defense Department, which admits it cannot account for about $2 billion it was given to cover Iraq-related expenses. Furthermore, the department is not providing Iraq with a complete list of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, according to two new government audits. Both reports come from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is asking the tough question, “How does any government entity f**cking blow through $2 f**king million dollars and not know how that money was spent?” Making matters even worse, that money came not from the U.S. government, but the struggling Iraqi government. That’s right, back in 2004 the fledgling Iraqi government gave the Department of Defense access to about $3 billion to pay bills for certain contracts and the department can only account for approximately one-third of that, the inspector general says in an audit published Friday. Wasting one’s own government’s money is bad, but spitting in the face of another government by taking their money to help rebuild their country - a country you were responsible for demolishing - is something else entirely. A cynic might ask the obvious question that comes to mind when $2 billion goes missing, namely, “Shouldn’t there be accounting procedures and rules in place?” The answer, ironically, is yes. The Department of Defense has "internal processes and controls" to track payments, the "bulk of the records are missing," the report says. Monthly reports documenting expenses and other key documents appear to have vanished completely. "From July 2004 through December 2007, DoD should have provided 42 monthly reports. However, it can locate only the first four reports," the audit stated. The audit was overseen by Glenn Furbish, assistant inspector general for audits. What does the DoD have to say in its defense? Defense Under Secretary Mark Easton acknowledged in a response letter also contained in the report that there was "a records management issue." Right, except that $2 billion doesn’t just trickle away in bits and pieces because solid records weren't kept and a few people took advantage of lackadaisical financial management. Someone, somewhere has to be abusing and gaming that system for all it’s worth. Iraq’s government was undergoing a transition at the time and someone - or a lot of someones - cashed in. Now it’s up to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which was created in 2004 to continue oversight of Iraq reconstruction programs, to prove it can do its job and figure out where all that money went……….

- Ozzie Guillen may no longer be the manager of the Chicago White Sox, but there is at least one member of the team’s coaching staff looking for a fight as the 2012 is about to dawn with the start of spring training next month. New White Sox bench coach Mark Parent, part of new manager Robin Ventura’s staff, appeared at SoxFest, a fan gathering in the Windy City where hundreds of diehards come together to meet and greet a handful of players and coaches and get hyped for the season ahead. The former major league catcher spoke about how the White Sox will respond to their batters getting hit with pitches in light of the fact that they were dotted a Major League Baseball-high 84 times last season, while they themselves hit just 44 batters on the year. Parent doesn’t like those numbers very much and he knows exactly how that problem needs to be handled. “You hit our guy, we’ll hit your guy,” he told the gathered crowd. Those fiery words earned him some applause from the crowd, but they also ignored the facts. Last season, White Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin led the American League with 23 HBPs in just 118 games. Quentin was traded to San Diego during the offseason and with both he and his plate-crowding ways gone, the team’s HBP totals are sure to drop. Also, Parent isn't exactly knowledgeable about what it feels like to be drilled by a fastball. He was a career backup who was hit by pitches just twice in 13 major league seasons. Still, it’s nice to see someone take up the baton of angry (and hopefully profanity-laden) rhetoric for the South Siders after Guillen left town and headed south to manage the Miami Marlins……….

Tebow rejects a reality skank, FEMEN strikes Switzerland and Liam Neeson still kicking asses

2012-01-29T14:11:00.001-05:00

- Those on either side of the Tim Tebow debate can find an ample number of reasons to either love or hate the much-feted Denver Broncos quarterback and his response in the face of a rather unique situation involving one of the biggest attention whores in Hollywood is no different. With fame comes the requisite chorus line of skanks and groupies wanting to join the party and for the devoutly Christian, über-conservative Tebow, that poses an interesting conundrum. What does he do when skanked-up hotties begin throwing themselves at him and more specifically, what does he do when it’s über-skank Kim Kardashian, she of the infamous sex tape, Playboy spread and two failed marriages? The answer, it seems, is politely declined. Shortly after deflecting a special invitation from Katy Perry’s parents to speak at their church and also start dating their trashy daughter, Tebow became the target of Kardashian’s affections. She reportedly has a huge crush on the professed virgin who is saving himself for marriage even though she is a devout narcissist who has made a sex tape and proudly displays her life for the world on a crappy reality show. Seeking her next sports star to garner headlines, er, share her love after her destined-for-eternity marriage to marginal NBAer Kris Humphries tapped out after 72 days, Kardashian apparently feels Tebow mania is what she wants. Unfortunately for her, Tebow is immune to her charms and when Kardashian tried to land a date with him, he said no. Add that to a string of failures for Kardashian since her divorce from Humphries, as ratings for her flagship reality show, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” are down 14 percent, and she had lost several endorsement deals. She’s seeing her 15 minutes wind down and dating Tebow would pump life into her faltering image. Either Tebow is smart enough to realize this or he is genuinely not interested in her, because he knows about her interest and isn't taking the bait. “Tim’s been made aware of Kim’s crush, and although flattered, he’s not interested,” a source said. Those who love Tebow will undoubtedly praise him for sticking to his values and not associating with a skank like Kardashian, while his haters will bash him for turning down a hottie most of them would give anything to hook up with. In other words, more of the same……….

- FEMEN is at it again. Known almost entirely as the Ukrainian hotties who show up at various political events or to support specific causes and take off their tops to get their message across, they bring joy to one and all while accomplishing very little in the way of affecting actual change. Even perpetually neutral (and awesome) Switzerland is not immune to the bare-chested rage of FEMEN, as was demonstrated Saturday when three of the group’s members were detained while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, to call attention to the needs of the world's poor. Reaching the heavily guarded Swiss resort town of Davos is a challenge in an of itself, but the determined ladies of FEMEN would not be denied. They reached the entrance to the complex where the World Economic Forum takes place every year and despite temperatures around freezing in the snow-filled town, they took off their tops and tried to climb a fence before being detained. When their doffed their threads, the women revealed messages painted on their bodies. "Crisis! Made in Davos," read one message painted across a protester's torso. Other protestors - who kept their clothes on - carried signs that read "Poor, because of you" and "Gangsters party in Davos." Technically, it should have been “gangstas,” but it’s the thought that counts. Davos police spokesman Thomas Hobi confirmed that the three women were held at the police station during the day and were released later Saturday. "We came here to Switzerland to Davos to explain the position of all poor people of the world, to explain that we are poor because of these rich people who now sit in the building," said protestor Inna Schewcenko. Denouncing FEMEN’s protest as a waste of time would be a mistake, however. One look at the attention the trio of topless women received versus the attention paid to a small group of protesters from the Occupy movement who are camped in igloos in Davos to call for more help for the needy illustrates this point perfectly. Half-naked chicks draw eyeballs, even if no one is listening to what they actually have to say……….

- Liam Neeson remains very good at kicking asses and moviegoers remain interested in seeing him do so. The targets of his rage may have changed from sleazy criminals who abducted his daughter in Paris to carnivorous wolves on the side of a mountain, but Neeson’s “The Grey” still fought its way to the top spot at the box office in its debut weekend with $20 million. That allowed it to best “Underworld: Awakening,” which dropped one spot in its second weekend, made an additional $12.5 million and has scored $45.1 million cumulatively in domestic earnings thus far. Katherine Heigl’s “One for the Money” overcame its incredibly transparent and clichéd premise and poor screenwriting to land in third place in its debut weekend with $11.7 million. The insanely over-promoted “Red Tails” fell two spots to fourth in its second weekend after raking in $10.4 million to raise its two-week total to $33.7 million. Another movie that has been used to bludgeon potential viewers over the head with incessant ads is “Man on a Ledge,” which finished off the top five in its first weekend on the (relative) strength of $8.3 million in domestic earnings. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” continued to be critically acclaimed and commercially uninspiring with $7.1 million and a sixth-place result for the weekend. Through six weeks of mostly limited release, the film has earned just $21.1 million. Another critically praised movie was right on its heels as George Clooney’s “The Descendents” jumped back into the top 10 on the strength of the proverbial “Oscar buzz” and made $6.6 million to elevate its 11-week tally to $58.8 million. “Contraband” was the eighth-highest earner for the weekend and its $6.5 million was nearly enough to edge out “The Descendents,” but not quite. After three weeks, “Contraband” has banked $56.4 million. Disney’s revived, three-dimensional version of “Beauty and the Beast” made $5.4 million to secure ninth place and the spy thriller “Haywire” wrapped up the top 10 with $4 million. “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” (No. 11), “Joyful Noise” (No. 13), “The Iron Lady” (No. 14) and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” (No. 15) all dropped out from last week’s top 10…………

- Prepare for days of whining, bemoaning and lamenting from your social media-dependent friends and family members, which by this point is just about everyone you know or associate with in any capacity. Any time Facebook makes a change, be it major or minor, the hordes who use the site for free and rely on it as their stalking/interaction/connectivity tool for the world beyond their computer screen or smartphone react angrily. “Don’t you dare change the site I use for free and that you run as a business and get rich off of!” they shout. That will surely happen as Facebook expands its virtual scrapbook feature, Timeline. In addition to being able to share current and past Facebook activities with people who mostly could not care less about either, users will also be able to share what they are doing elsewhere on the Web thanks to the new Timeline Apps feature, which allows a new set of apps to grab and post activity from other websites and services into a person’s Facebook Timeline. Installing the Words With Friends app means a person’s Words With Friends account activity appears in Facebook to be ignored by that individual’s 447 digital friends. The new feature debuts with just 80 apps available, but among them are big names like Hulu, Yahoo! News, eBay, Zynga, Rotten Tomatoes and TripAdvisor. Favorite music services Spotify, Rhapsody and iHeartRadio are also on board, as are USA Today + Me, BuzzFeed, The Daily, Yahoo! News, Washington Post Social Reader, Ticketmaster and Hulu. Before installing Timeline apps, Facebook users must visit the Timeline Apps page to find apps they want to use. Each app has an install page to explain what it does an allow users to adjust their privacy settings. Some apps then allow a person to turn on the "post to Timeline" feature right from the app install page, but others force users to enable from within their Facebook Account Settings. Either way, users need to go to Account Settings >Apps to manage all their apps and from there, the magic happens. Let the bitching begin…………

- Every now and then, Congress gets some truly wacky ideas inside its collective legislative head. For example, Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Mark Pryor of Arkansas feel like impaired driving is a major issue. That may not seem noteworthy because who among us doesn’t know what a hazard drunk drivers are? Except that Schumer and Pryor aren't looking to target drunks who stumble out of the local watering hole or house party at 3 a.m. and climb behind the wheel of their old Dodge pickup truck for the drive home. They believe the federal government should help police departments nationwide obtain the tools and training needed to attack a rising menace of driving under the influence of drugs. The two senators have proposed that federal funding in a pending transportation funding bill be used for research and to train police on how to identify and police drivers who are baked, stoned, peaking, high, coked out or otherwise adversely affected by an illegal narcotic of some sort. "Cops need a Breathalyzer-like technology that works to identify drug-impaired drivers on-the-spot — before they cause irreparable harm," Schumer said. "With the explosive growth of prescription drug abuse it's vital that local law enforcement have the tools and training they need to identify those driving under the influence of narcotics to get them off the road." In explaining the rationale for their idea, the two senators explained that police have no equipment and few have any training in identifying drugged drivers because those drivers typically do not show the same outward signs of intoxication as drunken drivers do. According to Schumer, drugged driving arrests have risen 35 percent in New York since 2001. He also cited a 2009 federal report in which 10.5 million Americans acknowledged that they had driven under the influence of drugs. That number seems a bit high because let’s face it, most stoners are not getting up off the couch for anything other than a kitchen run for another box of Pop Tarts. Schumer would have everyone get worked up over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2007 roadside survey in which more than 16 percent of weekend and night-time drivers tested positive for illegal drugs. Those people just might be taking drugs to cope with the presence of overbearing civil servants like you, Chuck………

Riot Watch! Senegal, uber-hot lasers and people marrying buildings

2012-01-28T13:01:00.000-05:00

- When Republican presidential candidate Mitt “Dry Toast” Romney declared corporations were people, it was bound to inspire something idiotic because that statement itself was idiotic. One of the ass hats Romney inspired with his words is Seattle resident Babylonia Aivaz, who has carefully pondered the former Massachusetts governor’s words and decided that if corporations are people, so are more tangible inanimate objects. "If corporations can have the rights as people, so can buildings," Aivaz proclaimed. To demonstrate her love of buildings, she’s planning to “marry” a 107-year-old warehouse that sits at 10th and Union in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Her “wedding” is to take place Sunday and Aivaz describes her union of woman and storage structure as "a gay marriage" that will show how much she cares for it and doesn’t respect the Supreme Court’s opinion that corporations are entitled to same of the same rights as human beings when it comes to political advertising and free speech. . "I'm doing this to show the building how much I love it, how much I love community space and how much I love this neighborhood. And I want to stop it from gentrification,” she said. The warehouse has been scheduled for demolition for some time and was supposed to begin next week. However, demolition crews began their work on Thursday and when Aivaz learned demolition work was under way, she rushed over to the site and changed into her wedding dress on the street. Letting her kook flag fly, she began climbing on the crew’s equipment and trying to get in the way of the demolition. Minutes later she departed, telling a news photographer she had to get to work. She has since extended a Facebook invitation to the public to attend her planned wedding on Sunday. "Yes, I'm in love with a 107 year old building! Yes, ITS A GAY MARRIAGE! How is that possible? Well there must obviously be a deeper story," she wrote on the wedding’s Facebook page. Aivaz has been fighting for the warehouse’s right to exist for weeks now and back in December, she and 16 other "activists" linked arms and occupied the warehouse "for a cause in which we believed strongly. That cause was COMMUNITY SPACE." An apartment building is planned for the site once the warehouse is torn down…………

- Hypocrisy is a word that does not seem to be in the vocabulary of quintessential pageant mom/attention whore Susanna Barrett. Barrett, whose daughter Isabella appears on TLC’s deplorable reality series “Toddlers & Tiaras,” has filed a lawsuit against TMZ, Huffington Post and Daily Mail Online, among other media outlets, for running stories that she alleges “sexualize” her 5-year-old daughter, according to court documents. Susanna Barrett does not appear to have any compunctions about accusing others of sexualizing her kindergarten-age daughter despite being the one who allowed that same little girl to sing LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” at an event. Hey pot, it’s kettle. “After this firestorm, I quickly protected my daughter by having cease and desist orders sent to most media outlets that ran the story,” Barrett fumed. “I intend to clear my daughter’s name.” Words fail on occasions like this, when a person is so directly engaged in an activity and excoriates others for commenting on what he or she is doing, then accuses those other people for being guilty of the original offense. In the video, Isabella is shown singing along to “Sexy and I Know It” at a DJ booth with a microphone in her hand. The controversy ensued when several media outlets reported that the Barrett’s were at a nightclub. Susanna Barrett claimed she and her daughter were actually at “a pet friendly charity event at an American bistro restaurant in New York City at 7:19 p.m. It was a private well-lit event with vendor tables and pets in attendance.” Vendor tables, pets and a mother who clearly doesn’t understand the meaning of sexualizing a child because if she did, she’d see a prime example of it in the mirror……….

- Looking for a chance to throw away millions of dollars while contributing to one of the most unnecessary phenomena in sports? If so, step up and make your offer now to be the next sponsor of the event formerly known as the Insight Bowl. One of college football’s whopping 35 bowl games, the Insight Bowl has been sponsored by Tempe-based Insight Enterprises Inc. since 1997, but the tech company has allowed its sponsorship contract to expire. Bowl officials are now seeking a replacement for this year's game and the search shouldn’t be a long one because who isn't eager to throw down a few million dollars to sponsor a contest between two middling football teams? In this case, those teams are the third-place team from the Big 12 against the third- or fourth-place team from the Big Ten Conference, after BCS selections are made. This past season’s Insight Bowl pitted Oklahoma against Iowa on Dec. 30, with the Sooners defeating the Hawkeyes 31-14. Anyone looking to become the game’s next title sponsor will need fairly deep pockets, as the Insight Bowl increased its payout to participating teams to $6.65 million two years ago. The game was first played in 1989 as the Copper Bowl but if it cannot find a new sponsor, it may soon become the D.O.A. Bowl……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Senegal has missed out on the unrest in Africa and the Middle East over the past year, but no more. The country’s opposition vowed Saturday to force President Abdoulaye Wade out of office as massive riots rocked the capital city of Dakar following a decision by the Senegal’s top court that the octogenarian could run for a third term. Riot police patrolled the area around the presidential palace and blocked off streets after opposition groups threatened to march on the palace after a night of what local media described as "fire and blood" in which rioters killed one policeman. It was truly an inspiring scene to see still-smoldering debris littered all over streets in downtown Dakar, reminders of the running battles with police, overturning and burning of cars, torching of tires and general property destruction of the night before. The working class suburb of Colobane saw some of the most violent clashes after a mass opposition gathering turned confrontational. Shops were looted and torched and the entire scene was the result of the Constitutional Council giving Wade, 85, the green light to run in Feb. 26 polls. Opposition groups anticipated the ruling and had their plans to riot locked and loaded once it became official. Predictably, Wade dismissively told his opponents to stop throwing "temper tantrums.” Those weren't temper tantrums, Abdoulaye, those were some epic riots. The chief organizer for the riots was the June 23 Movement of opposition, which called Friday's rally and urged Senegalese to march on the presidential palace in downtown Dakar. Spokesman Abdoul Aziz Diop issued the rallying cry, saying M23 "calls on the Senegalese people to mobilise and march on the Presidential Palace and remove Wade who is squatting there." Characterizing the president as a squatter, that’s solid. Diop reiterated his call Saturday and said opposition leaders deliberated “all night on the best way to organize a response," possibly more riots. Presidential spokesman Serigne Mbacke Ndiaye agitated the opposition further by insisting in a radio interview that Wade’s administration would challenge several opposition candidacies. Overall, the five-judge council approved a list of 14 contenders but rejected the candidacy of music icon Youssou Ndour, depriving the election of some much-needed star power even though he stunned the African music world when he announced this month he was quitting singing for politics. Wade’s candidacy is controversial because when he was elected in 2000 for a seven-year mandate there was no term-limit in the constitution, but one year into his term he revised the laws instituting the two-term limit and reducing the mandate to five years. After securing re-election in 2007, he rewrote the constitution again, reverting to a seven-year mandate, renewable once. However, he argues that the law does not apply retroactively and that he is thus due two seven-year terms from 2012. Sounds like a wonderful reason to riot………..

- Let’s face it, world: We just can't heat things up to quite the extreme temperatures we’d like. Microwaves are nice and ovens are awesome, but what if you want to heat, say, a sheet of aluminum up to temperatures of 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than the sun’s corona? Now you can, thanks to the hard work of scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. By focusing rapid-fire pulses from the beam on a piece of aluminum foil thinner than spider’s silk, these brilliant scientific minds were able to achieve the extreme temperatures and in turn create a material known as hot dense matter. Their achievement marks the first time researchers have been able to produce such plasmas in a controlled way. Hot dense matter is some of the most extreme material in the universe and is not commonly found on this side of the ozone layer (or what remains of it). It is typically found only in the hearts of stars and giant gas planets. Creating a sample of it should allow the SLAC team to further research the material and gain insights to help them create better models of its behavior. If properly utilized, it could also theoretically allow them to roast an entire pig for their annual luau party in .0000000000000001 seconds, give or take a bit. Read more about their white-hot research in the Jan. 25 edition of the journal Nature………

Twitter oppression, the perks of being a heavyweight champ and pirate invasions in Tampa

2012-01-27T14:44:00.001-05:00

- NBC’s hit comedy "The Office" hasn’t exactly soared to new heights with Steve Carrell and his beloved Michael Scott character gone, but the show is soldiering on for the time being. James Spader joined the cast to somewhat fill the void and the Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) character was promoted on the show to take over as the boss at the Scanton, Pa. branch of the company formerly known as Dunder Mifflin. Spader’s Robert California character landed in an executive role with the company, leaving Rainn Wilson's Dwight Schrute on the outside looking in. Wilson’s cantankerous character is a favorite for many fans because of his bizarre mannerisms and haphazard schemes and there are rumors swirling that NBC is considering a spinoff concept for Schrute, who hasn't been too pleased at the "Office" since Michael Scott departed and Bernard took over. Wilson and show executive Paul Lieberstein are reportedly working on the project, which would find Schrute back home at his family's beet farm and bed-and-breakfast. Sources say the concept will be planted in an upcoming episode of "The Office" set at Schrute Farms, which has been a setting in previous episodes of the show. “Paul [Lieberstein] and Rainn have been joking for years about Dwight's life on the farm, his family and how well-suited he is to run a B&B," a source said. Lieberstein and Wilson began work on the idea, NBA was amenable to it and the concept has reportedly grown and expanded from there. Because the project is still in the development stages, there is no agreement or deadline. Wilson addressed the rumored spinoff in a tweet, writing, "Don't believe everything you read in the press, OK?" Sounds exactly like something Dwight Schrute would say……….

- Arrrrghhh! Gather your wenches and swig some rum, mateys, because the biggest pirate freak fest in the United States is back and legions of would-be swashbucklers will descend on Tampa, Fla. this weekend for the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival. The festival is staged by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla and has taken place every year since 1904. For this year’s incarnation, more than 300,000 pirates and wenches are expected to attend, parading up and down Bayshore Boulevard and pillaging downtown Tampa. YMKG historian Bill Carson explains that the festival came to be when a group of about 50 people decided to amp up the volume on the city’s existing May Day celebration. The group sent letters to the local newspaper warning that the pirates were about to invade, playing upon the legend of the aristocrat-turned-pirate Jose Gaspar. Gaspar allegedly plundered 36 ships along Florida's West Coast during the end of the 18th century and early 19th century. YMKG picked up his legend, ran with it and “invaded” the May Day celebration on horseback, truly befitting pirates of course. Either willfully ignorant of what a pirate was or just too drunk to care, the good people of Tampa loved the sight and the idea grew from there. A boat was added to the party in 1937 and the festival grew from a smaller gathering rooted in the downtown area. Other pirate “crews” joined along the way and the event has become more commercialized with each successive year. There’s even a children’s parade, which doesn’t seem all that compatible with the general debauchery associated with quality pirating. In a nod to Mardi Gras, the festival has bead tossing to wenches who flash their assets and a local craft store called Bead Barn estimates it has e sold more than 40 million strands of beads so far this year. The festival begins Saturday at 11:30 a.m. with the Gasparilla Invasion as “Jose Gasparilla” sails from south end of Hillsborough Bay toward the docks at the Tampa Convention Center, continues with the very un-piratey Gasparilla Invasion Brunch at the Tampa Convention Center (pirates are not well-known brunchers), moves on with the Gasparilla Parade of Pirates and ends with the Gasparilla Invasion celebration at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. Hopefully someone is pillaged and plundered at some point during the day………..

- Twitter is walking a fine line of censorship with its newly established capability to block tweets that run afoul of certain countries' restrictions on speech and free speech advocates are already turning their rings around and looking for a fight over the issue. The popular micro-blogging site announced Thursday that it can censor tweets depending on national laws and users quickly speculated that it will lead to repressive regimes bullying Twitter into taking down posts those regimes disagree with. Twitter tried to justify its actions by using France and Germany as examples because both nations ban pro-Nazi speech. However, it’s difficult not to imagine what effects the decision could have in places like the Middle East, where social networks like Twitter and Facebook played a key role as organizational tools during last year's Arab Spring uprisings. The term #TwitterCensored became a trending topic shortly after the announcement and some users have pledged not to use Twitter on Saturday, Jan. 28 in protest of the move. Angry Twitter users ironically turned to the very site they were pledging to boycott and declared that the site would have blood on its hands by silencing opposition voices. Reporters Without Borders released an open letter to Twitter executive chairman Jack Dorsey, pleading with him to abandon the idea. “We urge you to reverse this decision, which restricts freedom of expression and runs counter to the movements opposed to censorship that have been linked to the Arab Spring, in which Twitter served as a sounding board," RWB director Olivier Basille wrote. "By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization." Some conspiracy theorists suggested that the move had something to do with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Tala's $300 million investment in Twitter. That is only a 3 percent stake on the company, but it’s good fodder for conspiracy lovers. Twitter insisted “we strongly believe that the open and free exchange of information has a positive global impact." Mmm hmm, sure thing…………

- Communist oppression lives in Russia! Prime Minister/I Never Stopped Being President and Dictator Vladimir Putin is marching back to officially being in power and angling to quash an uprising against his United Russia party while steamrolling toward a March 4 presidential election. Putin is using all of the old tricks to crush the competition and executed a page straight from the dictator’s playbook this week when he, er, Russia's official electoral commission announced that veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who's been a presidential candidate three times before, will not be allowed to run against Putin in the upcoming presidential polls. The decision will not only prevent Yavlinsky from campaigning or addressing the electorate over the next five weeks, but it will bar his party, Yabloko, from fielding election observers to monitor the voting. Yabloko’s voice has been effectively silenced, although opposition groups are already decrying the ruling and slamming it as proof that the Putin system of "managed democracy" is alive and well. That system seeks to rip the power from any groups with a legitimate opportunity to wrest control from Putin while theoretically allowing voters a “choice” on who they select. Critics believe Putin’s plan is to win the election decisively in the first round and crush the spirit of opposition that has fueled riots and protests across Russia since parliamentary elections late last year that were almost certainly rigged. Political observers believe Yavlinsky would draw a significant percentage of votes on the strength of the mass demonstrations in December and could be an acceptable protest candidate for millions of people who are tired of Putin. But according to election official Nikolai Konkin, Yavlinsky’s exclusion is merely a matter of technical propriety. In a supremely clichéd move by a group in power seeking to invalidate the status of a rival group, Putin’s regime deemed about a quarter of the two million signatures collected on petitions to put Yavlinsky on the ballot to be invalid. A likely story, Nicky. Yabloko's press spokesperson, Igor Yakovlev,was spot-on when he suggested that, "The decision not to register Yavlinsky is purely political, and we believe it was taken by Putin himself.” As always, thanks for giving the world something it can count on, commies………

- Being a world champion in any sport definitely does not suck. Walking around knowing there is no one better than you and enjoying the associated perks and benefits has to be a nice existence and even if boxing doesn’t carry the prestige it once did, having a title belt from any of the sport’s myriad governing bodies still has a nice ring to it. Former world middleweight champion Oscar De La Hoya knows this well and according to a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, so does Playboy and Maxim model Angelica Cecora. Cecora, who admits to having sex with De La Hoya in a Manhattan luxury hotel room, is nonetheless suing the Golden Boy for dressing in women's underwear while trying to force her to engage in "disgusting" sexual acts in March 2011. While she admits the sex was consensual, De La Hoya's increasingly strange behavior and sexual requests afterward were against her will, Cecora said. "Once 12 o'clock hit that night, he just started doing more and more drugs and wanted me to do more and more things," she said. According to the lawsuit, she feared she would die while trapped in that hotel room with the former Olympic gold medalist and world champion of multiple weight divisions. Cecora spoke to reporters outside a hearing for the case, but De La Hoya did not attend. During the hearing, his lawyers asked to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks $5 million for emotional distress, false imprisonment, assault and battery. Attorney Judd Burstein dismissed the suit’s claims as “offensive and frivolous.” The suit details the sequence of events during the night, beginning with De La Hoya inviting Cecora to meet for dinner at his hotel, then taking her up to his room. She claims she had no idea that he was married at the time and said De La Hoya used his fame to manipulate her, promising to use her as a ringside girl in his boxing promotion ventures. At some point during the after-dinner festivities, the two had sex and Cecora claims that De La Hoya put on her underwear and walked around the room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. He then allegedly picked up a phone and ordered around $300 worth of cocaine and marijuana to be delivered to his room. Hmm……pot, blow, cross-dressing, sex with a Playboy skank.....maybe boxing does still have a lot of its status and power. De La Hoya is now retired and according to Burstein, he is a changed man who has gone through rehab and is clean. "His life was spiraling out of control," Burstein said. "He's a changed person now." Changed but unable to outrun his past………

Disco threats live, aboriginal riot fun and bitter NBA stars

2012-01-26T18:51:00.001-05:00

- NOOOOOOOOOOO! Duck and cover everyone reading this who has ears, duck and cover! Disco is not completely dead, much to the world’s chagrin. One of the biggest perpetrators of the ear-assaultingly bad genre of music known as disco is rising from its musical grave and coming back to haunt us all. Swedish disco divas ABBA plan to release a new version of their last album, featuring a previously unreleased track for the first time since 1994, the group's website said on Wednesday. For over-the-hill baby boomers and others on the wrong side of 50 who are so completely out of touch with what’s good these days in music, ABBA is a go-to standard for road trips or any other occasion when “fun” music is needed. The makers of the critically panned, financially failed “Mamma Mia” movie based on the stage show of the same name breathed new life into the group’s music, sadly. According to the post on the group’s website, a deluxe edition of their final album, "The Visitors," would be released in April. "For ABBA fans, the most sensational inclusion in the package will be the previously unreleased track, 'From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel (demos)',” the statement said. “This is the first time since the 'Thank You For The Music' box set in 1994 that ABBA have opened the doors to the tape vaults to release previously unheard music from the group's heyday.” If only those vault doors had remained closed and “The Visitors” had remained merely another dark stain on the musical wasteland that was the 1980s……but alas, the chance to re-release it along with bonus selections and a DVD of rare and previously unreleased material from the archives was too much to pass up. ABBA, comprised of Agnetha Faltskog, Anna-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, terrorized lovers of good music everywhere with a string of abominable disco-pop songs in the 1970s and '80s and to this day remain one of Sweden’s most lethal exports……….

- Get with it or get out of the way, indigenous leaders who stupidly condemned the Aboriginal Tent Embassy protesters who clashed with police and tried to storm an event with Australia’s prime minister and opposition leader Wednesday. More than 200 protestors were outside Old Parliament House in Canberra to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the tent embassy and decided to bum rush an Australia Day awards ceremony at a Canberra restaurant where Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott were in attendance. The sudden surge of protestors forced dozens of police officers to rush to the scene, where the demonstrators were angrily banging on the three glass sides of the restaurant and chanting words like "shame" and "racist.” Gillard and Abbott were rushed from the scene in a display of cowardice. Gillar stumbled and lost a shoe as she was dragged away to a waiting car by security guards. Undeterred by the evacuation, protestors chased the car down the road, banging on its roof and hood. Their rage was fueled by remarks Abbott made in which he said he thought it was probably time to reconsider the relevance of the tent embassy. On a day many Aboriginal people regard as "invasion day,” those words and his presence were enough to spark an uprising. Gillard later attended a function for international ambassadors elsewhere in the city and insisted she was fine, but indigenous leaders still labeled the protesters' behavior as "disgraceful.” Former aboriginal leader Warren Mundine believes the protesters misinterpreted Abbott's comments as a call to demolish the embassy. Mundine tried to spin the remarks as Abbott’s belief that the embassy is outdated but not necessarily in need of demolition. "Quite frankly it's irrelevant to the mainstream of Aboriginal people today," he said. Police have already said they do not plan to file charges against any of the protestors, but an incensed Mundine disagreed. "No human being, let alone the Prime Minister of this country, should be treated in such a way," he said. "I believe the people who instigated, the people who have caused this to happen, the full force of the law should come down upon them." Suck it, Mundine, and shut your mouth. Allow the protestors to seize Gillard’s lost shoe (which they did) and hoist it proudly over their heads (which they also did) without being subjected to criticism……….

- The best athletes are often some of the most bitter athletes as well. Their bitterness over every sleight - real or perceived - fuels them and drives them to work harder and become even better. They remember every critical story written, every condemning comment made and every show of disrespect from opponents. Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose is undoubtedly one of the best, the NBA’s reigning MVP and the unquestioned leader of one of the league’s best teams. Rose is decidedly unhappy right now and it stems from the Bulls’ 95-90 home loss to the Indiana Pacers Wednesday night. The defeat was the Bulls’ first of the season at home and it brought Indiana to within 2½ games of the Central Division leaders. It also gave the Pacers a measure of revenge after losing a hard-fought first-round playoff series to the Bulls last season. Rose wasn’t as bitter about losing the game as he was about how the Pacers reacted to winning it. Pacers players and coached slapped each other with animated high-fives and could be heard whooping and hollering as they headed down the tunnel from the court to their locker room. "I'll never forget how they celebrated just from winning this game," Rose said immediately after the game. "I can't wait to play them again." Bulls guard Ronnie Brewer, who started in place of the injured Luol Deng and scored 20 points, said the Bulls could hear the Pacers' celebration continue from the court to the locker room. "When you're walking off the court, you're in the same corridor," Brewer said. "And we were walking into our locker room, and you could hear those guys celebrating, cheering, screaming, and that kind of hit home with a lot of guys on our team. We're all competitors. They're in our division. Every time we play them it's a tough matchup. And especially in front of our fans, you don't want to have a letdown and lose at home. To hear them do like that adds a little fuel to the fire.” Indiana coach Frank Vogel defended his players while pointing directly back to last season’s playoff loss. "They are just thrilled to get the win here," Indiana coach Frank Vogel said. "They were crushed that we didn't beat them last year in the playoffs." The Pacers were also coming off a difficult home loss to the Orlando Magic the previous night and clearly had memories of last season’s physical, contentious first-round playoff series. After the series, Pacers forward Granger said Bulls center Joakim Noah's play was cowardly. Rose sounds like he feels the same way about the entire Pacers locker room right about now………

- For those seeking it, here is another reason to hate work. Aside from low pay, idiotic co-workers, overbearing bosses and being forced to work in cubicles or windowless rooms and slave one’s life away, a team researchers led by Finnish scientist Marianna Virtanen has determined that working 11 hours a day may not only take a physical toll on workers, but could also leave them depressed. Virtanen and her team studied civil servants in England and found that working excessive hours was linked with more cases of major depressive episodes. Researchers studied 2,123 men and women for an average 5.8 years and assessed each participant for depression. Those who worked 11 or more hours a day was associated with a 2.3- to 2.5-fold increased risk of having a major depressive episode compared with those who worked a standard seven- to eight-hour day. Hmm, so grinding away for an extra three-plus hours doing a job you probably hate with every fiber of your being isn't good for your mental health? Tell me more. Virtanen and crew found that even after adjusting for social and demographic factors, smoking, alcohol use and job strain, the link between working long hours and depression held up. They concluded that working longer hours may cause conflicts between work and family, problems relaxing after a long day and increased amounts of cortisol in a person’s system. Cortisol is a stress-related hormone that, when over-produced by the body, can lead to health problems such as lower immunity and high blood pressure. “Although occasionally working overtime may have benefits for the individual and society," Virtanen said in a written statement, "it is important to recognize that working excessive hours is also associated with an increased risk of major depression." You’re preaching to the choir, M…………

- Why can people not simply say “Thank you” and keep moving when life hands them a great blessing? College students spend an inordinate amount of time bitching and moaning about the ridiculously high cost of textbooks and how little money they receive at the end of the semester when they go to sell back books they’ve rarely used as anything other than a makeshift pillow for when they fall asleep “studying” on Facebook. Operating within this reality, how pumped should a college student be when he or she orders a textbook for a class from an online retailer, receives that book in the mail and opens it up to find a bag with nearly $400 worth of cocaine inside? Sophia Stockton, a junior at Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, Kan., this message is directed at everyone, but was inspired by you. See, Stockton bought a textbook, “Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives and Issues,” through Amazon.com for a spring course on terrorism. She received the book and upon flipping it open and looking through it, she discovered a bag of white powder had fallen to the ground. Being the uptight square she clearly is and thus failing to recognize it as a gift of free Colombian nose candy, she feared the white substance was anthrax and took it to the Gardner Police Department the following day. “I told them white powder was in my terrorism textbook and so I put it on the table and they’re like, ‘oh, okay,’ And so he went back and tested it,” Stockton said. “ He comes back and says, ‘you didn’t happen to order some cocaine with your textbook, did you?’ And I was like, no!” Wrong-o, Sophia. You SHOULD have answered “Yes” and if you were one of the cool kids, you would have. Yes, you go to a religious school, but Kansas City is a big places with plenty of other colleges and you need to go to parties at one of them. Learn all about the Bolivian marching powder and maybe next time some stranger gift-wraps a bag of it for you, you’ll know what to do with it…………

Bitter Sheen, overpriced and overweight sluggers and bottomless Libyan pits

2012-01-25T15:47:00.000-05:00

- What’s more exciting than your favorite Major League team throwing down $214 million and committing for nine years to a 300-pound slugger who doubles as the world’s largest vegetarian? The prospect of that same team having to reassign a nearly-as-obese slugger with no range whatsoever and subpar conditioning to a new spot on the field because the slugger you just signed plays his current position, that’s what. The Detroit Tigers landed one of the biggest free-agent prizes of the offseason when they inked first baseman Prince Fielder to the fourth-largest contract in MLB history. That’s the good news - assuming they get enough production out of him in the first five to six years of the deal to justify paying an overweight first baseman in the twilight of his career $24 million a season for the final three years of the contract. The bad news is that the Tigers must now move Miguel Cabrera from first base even though the reason he was playing first base is because he was too FAT and slow to continue playing third base or the outfield, the two positions he played prior to signing with the team in 2008. Cabrera began his career with the Florida (now Miami) Marlins as a left fielder, but moved to third base because he was terrible defensively in the outfield. His conditioning played a role and as his weight ballooned, his ability to track down balls in left field decreased. His lack of nutritional and exercise discipline continued and eventually he was moved to first base, where he had to move even less and mostly had to catch balls thrown his way by his fellow infielders. He committed five errors in the space of just 14 games playing third base for the Tigers and managed Jim Leyland shifted him across the diamond. Now that Fielder has landed in the D, the team must hope that Cabrera will either rediscover how to be a competent third baseman or accept manning the designated hitter role for most games. Cabrera insists he’s fine with the move to third. “I will come back to the third base, which is my natural position. The arrival of Fielder will benefit us,” he said. Lots of success with that, Miggy…………

- Who knew Connecticut was such a racist place? In all fairness to the Nutmeg State, not everyone who lives there is a flaming bigot. Just East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo and a few select idiots, that’s all. That Maturo is the top executive in a city where Latinos have said for years that they live in fear of local authorities doesn’t help matters, of course. Those fears were validated Tuesday after news broke of the arrests of four rogue police officers who are accused of systematically targeting Latinos with unlawful search and seizures, traffic stops and even physical abuse. Federal authorities accused East Haven Police Sgt. John Miller and officers David Cari, Jason Zullo, and Dennis Spaulding of not only intimidating fellow officers but also the community as a whole. "The indictment further alleges that Spaulding and Zullo intimidated, harassed and humiliated members of the Latino community," said David Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. With a quartet of New Haven’s finest accused of such horrific abuses of power and authority, one would hope Mayor Maturo would exercise respect, professionalism and integrity in dealing with the situation. What did the mayor have to say about the matter and how he would work with the Latino community to repair the relationship between them and the city? Nothing intelligent. Maturo responded by saying he "might have tacos" as his first step to repair relations with the New Haven Latino community. That’s right, a taco blast. Nothing like suggesting that all Latinos are Mexicans who like tacos, eh Mr. Mayor? For some reason, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy called Matruo's comment racially insensitive. They represent either a horrible lack of judgment or worse, an underlying insensitivity to our Latino community that is unacceptable. Being tired is no excuse. He owes an apology to the community, and more importantly, he needs to show what he's going to do to repair the damage he's done. And he needs to do it today,” the governor said. In his defense, Maturo pointed out that his city’s Latino population is relatively small. "We have a very small segment of Latinos in town," he said. "We have a very small segment of a lot of nationalities in our community." What that has to do with anything related to the case is unclear, as racist treatment of even one or two members of a race or ethnic group is a major problem. Maturo also tried to soften the stupidity of his remark by saying that he's visited Puerto Rico, and since he's Italian he may have spaghetti, then claiming his words were taken "out of context." Nice try, numb nuts…………

- Learning is fun. For example, isn’t it riveting to know that the raven-size creature long thought of as the earliest bird, Archaeopteryx, may have sported black feathers? That riveting find comes from a team led by researcher Ryan Carney, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University. Researchers theorized that the structures that held the black pigment may have strengthened wing feathers, perhaps helping Archaeopteryx fly. Archaeopteryx lived in what is now Bavaria in Germany (which means it loved beer, obviously) and was first discovered 150 years ago. It was a known carnivore sporting a blend of avian and reptilian features. Scientists have long identified the creature as something of an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds, but once recent study questioned whether Archaeopteryx was a true bird or just one of many birdlike dinosaurs. In cases where a creature bears characteristics of both dinosaurs and birds, scientists often turn to the animals' feathers. "Being able to reconstruct the colors of feathers can help us gain more knowledge about the organisms and more responsibly reconstruct what they looked like," Carney said. He and an international team of scientists conducted research on Archaeopteryx’s feathers and determined that they were black. They also studied the color-generating structures within the creature's feather, known as melanosomes, and found that they "would have given the feathers additional structural support," Carney said. "This would have been advantageous during this early evolutionary stage of dinosaur flight." The Archaeopteryx feather was discovered in a limestone deposit in Germany in 1861, but scientists were initially unable to locate any melanosomes within the feather. It wasn’t until a more powerful type of scanning electron microscope was developed that the needed melanosome was found. "The third time was the charm, and we finally found the keys to unlocking the feather's original color, hidden in the rock for the past 150 million years," Carney said. In fact, the international team located patches of hundreds of melanosomes encased within the fossil. Each melanosome is about 1 millionth of a meter long and 250 billionths of a meter wide. That is less than a wavelength of visible light in width. In order to determine color, researchers compared the fossilized structures with those found in 87 species of living birds that represented four classes of feathers — black, gray, brown and ones found in penguins, which have unusually large melanosomes compared with other birds. "What we found was that the feather was predicted to be black with 95 percent certainty," Carney declared. One point the team did not address was what purpose the coloring of the wing may have served, although one theory is that black feathers may have helped the creature absorb sunlight for heat, acted as camouflage, served in courtship displays or assisted with flight. No matter the reason because as always, knowledge of any sort is power………

- Is the future bright in Libya now that Moammer Gadhafi is dead? Not according to Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, it’s not. Abdul-Jalil warned on Sunday the country could be heading towards a "bottomless pit" after protesters stormed a government office in Benghazi while he was inside. His comments could be purely out of fear and panic after facing an angry mob demanding the resignation of the Libyan government. But where he sees a possible plummet into a bottomless pit, others might see a bold group of dissidents smashing windows and forcing their way into the NTC's local headquarters late on Saturday. The display made it clear that anger at the establishment has not abated merely because Gadhafi is no longer in power. The rioters did not seem impressed by the continued support of Western powers for the NTC, which makes sense because the unelected body has been slow to restore basic public services and most its members have direct links to Gadhafi. Shortly after the riot, Abdul-Jalil suspended the six representatives to the NTC from Benghazi, the main city in eastern Libya and appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gadhafi regime. The suspensions angered the group’s deputy head, Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga, who resigned in protest. Other delegates on the council blasted the decision and criticized the appointment of religious leaders to the council’s operations. The country's election law has also delayed for one week and will be made public on Jan. 28, said a government spokesman. Once it is put in place, the law will guide Libya as it puts together its first working parliament in more than four decades. But how can it go wrong with confident leaders like Abdul-Jalil? "We are going through a political movement that can take the country to a bottomless pit," he said. "There is something behind these protests that is not for the good of the country." Wrong, wrong, wrong. There is nothing bad about a quality riot…………

- Charlie Sheen has let go of plenty of things in the past 18 months or so - his main acting gig, his grasp on sanity, any remaining shreds of humility in his character and plenty more - but hasn’t found a way to release his anger toward the show that fired him and those who run it. He has gradually inched back toward sanity in recent months, but he ire toward “Two and a Half Men” and show creator Chuck Lorre still burns white hot. With the show moving on and Ashton Kutcher taking his place, Sheen is not impressed by what he has seen and believes the show should die a quick death. "I don't think they should go past this year," he remarked. "I don't think that (Kutcher's) working with the best writing because Chuck is doing too many shows." So it all comes back to Lorre, it would appear. Sheen made his comments while promoting his new series, “Anger Management,” but sounded less concerned with the new project than with laying out Lorre. "They deserve what I had for the first five years," he said of Kutcher and co-stars Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones. He believes the trio are working with subpar scripts and given the show’s lackluster ratings this season, maybe Sheen is correct. He still sounds bitter and unable let go and move on, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Perhaps he’s also hoping that the demise of his old show will give viewers all the more reason to watch his new series, which will probably be just as bad or worse because that’s simply how sitcoms work. They’re formulaic due to their half-hour time frame and are rarely original or interesting. One could also say the same about Sheen now that his crazy act has worn thin……….

Steelers upheaval, men's pain vs. women's pain and Riot Watch! Tibet

2012-01-24T12:59:00.001-05:00

- Ending the year with a stunning loss to the erratic Tim Tebow was clearly not what the Pittsburgh Steelers had in mind. An overtime loss with a half-dozen of their best players either injured or unavailable was tough to digest for the defending AFC champions and someone had to take the fall. Offensive coordinator Bruce Arians became that scapegoat with a departure that was initially characterized as a retirement only to later be painted as the team forcing him out because Steelers president Art Rooney II wants the team to regain its blue-collar identity on offense by running the ball more, something Arians has moved away from in the past few seasons. Arians himself admitted Sunday he didn’t decide to retire of his own volition and only made the choice after the team declined to give him a contract offer. He explained that while he had considered retiring before, not having a contract offer essentially made the choice for him. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger lashed out at the decision, which makes sense given that he was the primary beneficiary of Arians’ pass-first offensive scheme. Arians was fairly cryptic when asked what the team’s reasoning for not giving him a new contract was. "I can't answer that question," Arians said. "Only the people there can. That's the business. I know the job we did as a staff. I don't have any regrets." He confirmed that Roethlisberger was unhappy about the decision. The veteran quarterback was largely responsible for a push to o keep Arians after the 2009 season when it looked like the coordinator's job was in jeopardy. Despite his “retirement,” Arians hasn't ruled out a return to coaching and said he has been contacted by several teams since being let go by the Steelers………

- If Ron Paul had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the Republican presidential nomination, this sort of mini-scandal might hurt him. As is, authorities at Nashville International Airport blocking Paul’s son, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, at a security checkpoint after he refused a patdown is nothing more than one disagreeable legislator trying to make a stand against the establishment. Sen. Paul admitted to going through a scanner at the airport and setting off an alarm. Rather than be subjected to a patdown, he asked to go through the body scan again. According to the senator, he also showed Transportation Security Administration officers his knee and under his socks. Oddly enough, agents weren’t buying his offer and demanded he either submit to a patdown or turn around and leave. "When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport," TSA spokesman Greg Soule said. "Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling." What was Paul’s objection to a patdown? He said that he didn't think it was "appropriate" for him to have a pat-down and felt he should have been able to go through the scanner again. "Is it too much to ask to have a little dignity when you travel? And shouldn't an adult be able to get back in line and go through the scanner?" he asked. "I don't think that's too much to ask." Dignity when traveling? Has he seen his fellow travelers? Who travels with dignity? In addition to patdowns, people board planes looking like they just woke up and rolled out of bed, they carry dinky travel pillows and fall asleep snoring in front of total strangers and try to subsist on tiny bags of pretzels and apple juice on cross-country flights. Nothing about travel is dignified. As for Paul’s saga, he was allegedly ordered out of the screening area and told he may be subject to a "full body search" after he began talking on his phone. He later took another Washington-bound flight and passed through the scanner uneventfully. The drama should give him another soapbox to stand on as he crusades against what he characterizes as an overly obtrusive federal government threatening to strip citizens of various rights and civil liberties, so the day was not a total loss………….

- What’s your prediction for life? Pain. That “Rocky III” reference is specifically for the ladies out there, who according to a new study by the Institute of Medicine are affected by chronic pain more than men. According to a 2011 Institute of Medicine report, pain affects more than 116 million Americans annually and of those Americans, about 50 million are women. While that means more men than women are seeking treatment for chronic pain, the Journal of Pain reports that women seeking medical care for a wide range of medical problems in the hospital or clinics at Stanford University School of Medicine reported higher pain intensity, on average, compared with men with these same diagnoses. In the study, women reported more intense pain than men in 14 of 47 disease categories and men did not report more intense pain in any category. Women suffering from musculoskeletal disorders such as back, neck and joint pain, sinusitis and even high blood pressure reported more intense pain than men with the same conditions. Even so, the study’s authors were quick to point out that their findings did not necessarily mean that pain is actually experienced more intensely by women. The results could simply be due to the fact that women communicate better with their health care providers about pain. In other words, the stereotype about men trying to be tough and gut it out because that’s what men are expected to do could be true. With those conducting the study not exactly trumpeting its impact, it’s not difficult to believe that most medical experts are skeptical about its results. Many say the authors didn't account for the possibility that if many women had additional diseases that caused pain, it could actually be the other diseases, and not their gender, that is to blame for them having more pain than men. "It's a flawed study," said Dr. Lloyd Saberski, medical director of the Advanced Diagnostic Pain Treatment Centers at Yale University. "Just how accurate is the data collected? Probably not too accurate." Listen to the wicked smaht Ivy League dude from Yale, yo. Other experts have pointed to the culture of men being expected to not complain about pain and “deal with it” as another key element omitted from the study. Either way, looks like it’s time for more time and money to be spent on über-important research……….

- Jay-Z may or may not still use the word b*tch in his songs, but he most definitely will not be using the uncooked meat from the refrigerator at his 40/40 nightclub in Manhattan for anything other than trash-can filler. The club, which just reopened after being given a $10 million makeover, was shut down by health inspectors after a Jan. 19 visit. During their visit, inspectors found 69 violations of the city's health codes in the kitchen, including its walk-in fridge heated to 60°, which is classified as a dangerous temperature to store the uncooked meat that was contained within it. A worker was also spotted mixing salsa with his bare hands, which looks, sounds and is extremely disgusting and unsanitary. The temporary closure came just one day after the club reopened following a 10-month shutdown for renovations. By tallying a whopping 69 violations of the city’s health code, the club earned the worst possible rating for kitchen hygiene and its managers must now attend a hearing to explain themselves next month. The past few weeks have certainly been eventful for the club’s famous owner, who celebrated the birth of his first child with wife Beyonce, recorded a song that featured the crying sounds of his new daughter, had to debunk a poem he supposedly wrote in which “he” promised never to use the word b*tch in his lyrics again and now has his club being crushed by city health inspectors. Still, being Jay-Z probably doesn’t suck…………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Tibet/China are the places and that fact should surprise no one. Chinese security forces were the ones using excessive force and a protest seeking Tibetan freedom was the cause. At least five Tibetans were shot and one killed when police opened fire during a peaceful protest in Seda, known to Tibetans as Serthar, on Tuesday. The shooting came one day after the death of a Tibetan man during unrest on Monday, when Chinese security forces fired teargas at Tibetan protestors in the Sichuan province. Monday’s conflict came after authorities deployed extra officers and closed roads to Meruma, in Aba county, after Tibetans demonstrated and refused to celebrate the lunar New Year to protest against repressive Chinese policies. How dangerous or violent the protests were depends upon the person telling the story. Activist groups like Free Tibet painted a scene of non-violent demonstrations by Tibetans seeking more freedom. China's official news agency has claimed that a knife-wielding, rock-throwing mob of dozens attacked a police station and provoked the confrontation. The supposedly angry mob also destroyed two police vehicles and two fire engines stormed into nearby shops and a bank, according to the government. Beijing also accused foreign media outlets of distorting the story to manipulate public perception of the government’s actions. "Overseas forces of 'Tibet independence' have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. State news agency Xinhua, citing local authorities, said the unrest was fueled by rumors that three monks planned to self-immolate. Such incidents have become more common in the past year, as Tibetan areas have seen 16 self-immolations, mostly fatal, in the past 12 months. Monks in the Meruma area reported automatic weapons fire and teas gas from police and Free Tibet painted an ugly picture of the scene and the underlying issues tied to it. "Protests are spreading and growing, and the Chinese state response is becoming increasingly disproportionate. By failing to address legitimate Tibetan grievances and responding to protests with brutal force, the Chinese state is exacerbating the situation," said Free Tibet's director, Stephanie Brigden. Keep rioting, Tibet…………

Celebrity reality weight-loss show hazards, Croatia ho-hum on the EU and jailbreaking the iPhone 4S and iPad 2

2012-01-23T13:38:00.001-05:00

- Whoa there, this is stunning. Police have been found to be in violation of a suspect’s rights. More shocking still, this happened in the United States. The Supreme Court issued a rare unanimous ruling Monday when justices decided the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and tracked its movements for 28 days. While the ruling was unanimous, he justices divided 5-to-4 on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying that the problem was the placement of the device on private property. In issuing the decision, the court managed to duck a litany of tough questions, including how to handle information gathered from devices installed by the manufacturer and how address information held by third parties like cellphone companies. The case before the court was that of Washington nightclub owner Antoine Jones, whom police came to suspect him of being part of a cocaine-selling operation. To determine if he was an aspiring Tony Montana or not, police planted a tracking device on his Jeep Grand Cherokee without a valid warrant, tracked his every move for a month and used the evidence to help prosecutors secure a conviction for conspiring to sell cocaine. Oddly enough, Jones didn’t react well to the life sentence he received and appealed the verdict. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned his conviction on the grounds that the information collected by the tracking device violated his Fourth Amendment rights, which protect citizens unreasonable searches. The Supreme Court concurred despite differing logic. “We hold that the government’s installation of a G.P.S. device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion. Scalia noted that the government “physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information” and that “such a physical intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.” Word, A. Scalia. Leading the ass-hatted objectors to the majority’s line of reasoning was Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who chided them for trying to apply 18th-century legal concepts to 21st-century technologies. But whether one sides with the majority of with Alito’s assertion that the pertinent issue is the contemporary reasonable expectation of privacy, the bottom line is that the police crossed the line and need to learn how to follow the laws they’re supposed to enforce………….

- It took 10 months, but the hacker community has finally jailbroken Apple’s iOS 5.0.1 for the iPhone 4S or iPad 2. The break came from the Chronic Dev Team, which announced Friday that it had successfully created the new jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, both of which run on the dual-core A5 processor. For the tech-clueless, jailbreaking allows any application to be installed and facilitates operating system, user interface, and system alterations. Users of jailbroken devices can even install an SSH client to remotely access the iOS device's file system. In the past, hackers have jailbroken some operating systems less than a day after Apple pushed an OS update. The battle to crack iOS 5.0.1 too much longer and from the sound of it, the challenge could become even tougher with each successive OS upgrade. "The endless war we fight to jailbreak has become more and more difficult with each new device released, and our recent battle against A5 only proved this further," said Joshua Hill, one of the principle iPhone hackers involved. "After working for months with few tangible results, Chronic Dev hackers tried a new approach--we launched CDevReporter to accumulate all your devices' crash reports, an invaluable source of information for iOS hacking & research." CDevReporter was able to complete the jailbreak by allowing users to run software on their Mac or Windows PCs that would prevent iTunes from sending iOS crash reports to Apple, and instead send them to a secure server hosted by the Chronic Dev Team. A simple plea for these reports--generated every time an iOS device crashes--in late November 2011 yielded more than 10 million reports in one week. Jailbreaking is legal in the United States and many other countries. The federal government clarified its stance on the practice in July 2010 And Apple had fought that decision ever since. The best the company can do at this point is warn users that jailbreaking a device could void its warranty. That doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to anyone intent on jailbreaking their device and probably won't ever be……….

- Not that the New Jersey Nets weren't already aware of the ginormous ticking clock lurking just over their shoulder, but here’s another valuable reminder for them. They packaged up a slew of talented young players and draft picks to acquire All-Star point guard Deron Williams from Utah and banked on Williams as a beacon to draw other stars to the franchise. They couldn’t convince any prime free agents to sign with them, so trading for one was their only option. But Williams didn’t exactly fuel the Nets to a strong finish to last season and the Nets are 5-12 to start this season. No prime free agents signed during the offseason and with Williams’ contract set to expire at the end of the year, there is already speculation as to what he will do once his deal is up. His choice, according to sources close to the team, is to stay with the Nets and help them build the franchise as it moves to Brooklyn next season. However, those same sources suggested that if the Nets don’t make another major move - such as acquiring All-Star center Dwight Howard - Williams is almost certainly gone and has a short list of desirable destinations that includes the Mavericks, the Knicks and the Lakers. While he has publicly expressed his desire to remain with the Nets, it is becoming increasingly clear that they will not be winning another other than one-third of their regular season games unless they add another star player. The Nets are putting on a brave face and refusing to entertain potential trades involving Williams, but that stance could change in a few weeks if the trade deadline arrives and the Nets are 10 games below .500. Without Howard landing in New Jersey on or before the March 15 trade deadline, Williams is likely gone and the Nets know it. Unfortunately for the Nets, the Lakers also have a desperate need for Howard and could offer a better package than the Nets if they’re willing to part with both Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. Williams didn’t seem happy when asked about rumors about where he would play next season. "Did you hear it from me?" Williams asked. "We don't need to talk about it then. Another one of these sources. Sources. I don't know who sources are." Sounds like it’s going to be a fun few weeks ahead in Jersey…………

- Croatians are fired up to join the European Union…..at least those who care enough to actually vote about the chance to do so are. Two-thirds of voters who cast ballots in a referendum on EU membership voted yes, but just 44 percent of those eligible to participate did so in Sunday’s ballot. The plan is for the nation of 4,300,000 on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea to become the 28th member of the EU by July 2013. That possibility should fire up the populace, but the 44-percent turnout suggest apathy and resignation rather than enthusiasm. EU membership doesn’t hold quite the appeal it once did with the credit downgrades of several prominent members and the economic instability gripping the continent. Many voters expressed either skepticism or diluted optimism over the benefits of EU membership for their country. The membership process began six years ago with negotiations between Croatian leaders and EU officials. Ironically, Croatia was governed by a government of the right at the time but it now under the leadership of a leftist regime. Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic hailed the referendum’s passage with all the blowhard political gusto he could muster. “A lot of good things will come out of it. Of course, there are downsides as well, but that is something we have to get used to. It will depend mostly on us,” he said. “This a turning point in our history, and we will be responsible for our own decisions. Success or failure now depends solely on us.” While Croatia is marching toward membership, Romania and Bulgaria continue to have difficulty meeting the criteria for admission. Life in Croatia isn't exactly caviar and fine wine at the moment, as economic growth is virtually nonexistent and the country’s debt is higher than its income at 102 percent of its GDP. Not everyone is enthusiastic about the prospect of EU membership. “We are not ready for the European Union. We should have improved our economy, increased our exports, and only join then. Our economy is in very bad condition. We don’t have a single real national bank. Our exports are abysmal. We are on our knees,” right-wing MP Ruza Tomasic said. Score one for optimism…………

- The reality weight-loss show circuit can be a brutal place. Even for bonafide D-listers like Kevin “K-Fat” Federline are not exempt from the grind and K-Fat is currently undergoing evaluation after being taken to a hospital in Australia on Sunday after complaining of chest pains while competing on weight loss reality show, “Excess Baggage.” That’s right, he’s bottomed out so emphatically that he’s now accepting roles on third-rate reality weight loss shows Down Under. What’s next, some celebrity fitness show in Peru or Indonesia? The former Mr. Britney Spears reportedly collapsed after completing a challenge with the Greater Western Sydney Australian Football League team. The challenge forced D-list has-beens and never-weres to run and catch footballs. A spokesman for the show made it clear K-Fat did not have a heart attack, but collapsed after completing the challenge and was treated for symptoms of minor cardiac arrest (typically known as a heart attack) and was taken to the hospital where an ECG determined he had not had a heart attack. As those who avidly follow Australian weight-loss shows know, “Excess Baggage” airs on Channel Nine. A spokesperson for Channel Nine said when Federline is released, producers would decide whether he would be allowed to continue on the show. The decision will undoubtedly be difficult - assuming the decision is how much of the next few episodes to use on playing up the drama and setting K-Fat up for an heroic comeback story. The incident was his second of the season, as the former Mr. Spears was hospitalized with heat exhaustion when the cast filmed in the Kimberley, a wilderness area in Western Australia. K-Fat probably should be better at the whole reality weight-loss show thing, as this is his second run at it. He was previously on VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club,” which did not seem to do much good for his health and physical fitness…………

Banning rat smuggling, movie news and rare monkey finds

2012-01-22T15:43:00.000-05:00

- The NFL continues to aspire to become a global league just like the NBA even though football is a decidedly American enterprise. To achieve that goal, the league is committed to playing regular-season games in London on an annual basis. Thus far, different teams have made the flight to the UK each year to compete at Wembley Stadium in London. For the next three years, Brits will see a lot more of one particular team. The St. Louis Rams have agreed to rip one home game from their hometown fans for each of the next three seasons in order to play in the NFL’s annual London game. Whether they can actually become Britain's "home" team is highly doubtful, but the Rams will attempt to do that beginning Oct. 28 when they play the New England Patriots at Wembley in the first game of the deal. The game will take place about two months after the closing ceremony of the London Olympics and be followed by games at Wembley against undetermined opponents in 2013 and 2014. Rams fans in and around St. Louis will certainly be angry about losing a home game, but odds are owner Stan Kroenke doesn’t care. He is the majority shareholder in English Premier League club Arsenal and clearly sees dollar signs dancing in his eyes over the prospect of growing the Rams’ and NFL’s following internationally. "We've seen first-hand the increased popularity of the NFL not only in London but throughout Europe," Kroenke said in a statement. "To play a role in that growth over the next three years will be incredible and is a testament to the many good things happening not only in the NFL but also in the St. Louis Rams organization." This year’s game will be the sixth regular-season game at Wembley and with NFL owners committed to play regular-season games in the UK for the next five seasons, maybe the Rams can find a way to play in all of them……….

- Is it really better to know exactly how bad the air pollution problem in Beijing is? Sure, it could help in figuring out just how to attack the problem of oppressive pollution that makes breathing a hazardous exercise, but the sheer terror of realizing how toxic the skies are could also induce a heart attack or 1,000. Throwing caution to the wind and ultimately caving to public pressure, Beijing environmental authorities began releasing more detailed air quality data Saturday that may better show how bad the Chinese capital’s air pollution is. The government conveniently chose to begin releasing the more detailed information on a day where blue sky was visible and the skies over the city were being cleared by a north wind. In a report posted on Beijing’s environmental monitoring center’s website, the initial readings of PM2.5 — particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in size or about 1/30th the average width of a human hair - illustrated just how bad the air quality over Beijing is. That size particle can penetrate deep into the lungs and accurately measuring them is generally considered a more accurate reflection of air quality than other methods. Saturday marked the first time the government revealed PM2.5 data and began offering clues as to just why the air over the capital is an ugly shade of gray and yellow. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has its own PM2.5 monitor, but the readings released by the Chinese come from a single monitoring site about 4 miles west of Tiananmen Square, the monitoring center’s website said Saturday. In typical Communist Party fashion, officials insisted the data was for research purposes and the public should only use it as a reference. The initial reading was 0.015 mg/m3, which would be classed as “good” for a 24-hour exposure at that level, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. However, a U.S. Embassy reading taken from its site on the eastern edge of downtown Beijing said its noon reading was “moderate.” Environmental observers expressed immediate skepticism about Beijing’s PM2.5 data, with positive readings similar to those supposedly taking several times Saturday having occurred about 0.1 percent of the time since the U.S. Embassy began monitoring air quality in the city in 2006. More good, ol’ fashioned Communist Party propaganda………….

- Finding items that were lost is usually a great feeling. Coming across money left in a coat pocket or a hat in the back of a closet that one believed lost are great. Rediscovering a large, gray monkey so rare it was believed by many to be extinct has to be a pretty solid feeling for scientists working in the dense jungles of Indonesia. A team led by Brent Loken, a Ph.D. student at Simon Fraser University in Canada, recently came across the Miller’s Grizzled Langur, a money distinguished by a black face framed by a fluffy, Dracula-esque white collar. Researchers found the creature in an area well outside its previously recorded home range after setting up hidden camera traps in the Wehea Forest on the eastern tip of Borneo island. They installed the cameras in June, hoping to captures images of clouded leopards, orangutans and other wildlife known to congregate at mineral salt licks. Instead, they received images of groups of monkeys none of them had ever seen. Few have seen langur monkeys and virtually no photographs of them exist. Confirming the find was difficult for that and other reasons, Loken explained. “We were all pretty ecstatic, the fact that, wow, this monkey still lives, and also that it’s in Wehea,” he said. Langurs once inhabited the northeastern part of Borneo, as well as the islands of Sumatra and Java and the Thai-Malay peninsula. In recent years, many scientists expressed suspicions the pink-nosed creatures may have become extinct. Their former habitats had been destroyed by fires, human encroachment and conversion of land for agriculture and mining and a survey in 2005 failed to locate any langurs. Next, Loken’s team will return to the 90,000-acre forest to try to find out how many grizzly langurs there are. The findings from their initial research were published in the American Journal of Primatology on Friday…………

- There are several amazing facts of a state lawmaker introducing legislation known as "The Rat Trafficking Act." First, it’s amazing that New York City, the Mecca of rats, is not involved. Secondly, it is astonishing that delegate Pat McDonough feels the need to introduce a bill that will stop any government entity from allowing rats and other rodents into Maryland on Friday at 1 p.m. The bill is in reaction to a law that was passed in Washington, D.C. called the Wildlife Protection Act. The law doesn't allow pest control, government agents, or anyone else to kill a District of Columbia rat. It mandates that a person capture the rat, cause no harm to it whatsoever and release it somewhere else. If it sounds like the ultimate example of bleeding heart, tree-hugging, treat-animals-better-than-humans liberalism gone wild, it is. McDonough and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli took notice of the law and realized its potentially negative effect on their states. Rather than allow Virginia and Maryland to become rat dumps for D.C. pest control workers and companies, these forward-thinkers got to work on legislation to make sure that disease-carrying rodents weren't transported across the border. Passing up the opportunity to have filthy rodents carrying diseases such as rabies and Lyme disease may sound illogical, but such is life. And no, the Wildlife Protection Act still does not make any sense at all………

- The “Underworld” franchise has a pale, bizarre and loyal following (often clad in leather) and that following helped “Underworld Awakening” to a victory in its debut weekend, topping the box office earnings list with $25.4 million. Kate Beckinsale led the film to the triumph, which came at the expense of the insanely over-promoted “Red Tails.” George Lucas’ World War II aviation epic seemed like it must have spent as least as much on commercials as the $19.1 million it brought in for the weekend. That was good enough to land it in second place and best last weekend’s top flick, “Contraband.” Mark Wahlberg’s newest film dropped to third with $12.2 million in domestic earnings and has scored $46.1 million in its first two weeks of release. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” had the biggest surge of the weekend, jumping from No. 36 to fourth place as it expanded from six theaters to more than 2,6000 and made $10.5 million in the process. It was actually the fifth weekend of release for the film, but its first in wide release. Spy thriller “Haywire” completed the top five with a $9 million effort in its debut. The shameless cash grab that is Disney’s 3-D revival of “Beauty and the Beast” fell four spots to sixth in its second weekend, garnering $8.6 million to raise its two-week domestic haul to $33.4 million. Next on the list was the annoyingly cheesy, lame “Joyful Noise,” finishing seventh with $6 million for an overall tally of $21.9 million after two weeks. “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” slid all the way to eighth thanks to a $5.6 million weekend that raised its six-week domestic haul to $197.4 million and counting. On its heels was “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” which notched a ninth-place result on the strength of its $4.8 million weekend. Through six weeks in theaters, it has earned $178.7 million. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” hung on in the top 10 for one more weekend with $3.7 million and still has yet to crack the $100 million barrier in the U.S. ($94.7 million). Several films dropped out of the top 10 from last weekend: “War Horse” (No. 12), “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” (No. 13), “We Bought a Zoo” No. 14 and “The Devil Inside” (No. 15)………

Bitter soccer legends, the death of annoying ad character and Seinfeld + Skrillex

2012-01-21T13:09:00.000-05:00

- Bitter legends are not just confined to the NFL. Sure, football might have the 1972 Miami Dolphins popping champagne bottles every time the league’s last unbeaten team loses because that means they’re still the only team ever to have an unbeaten year. And yes, former New York Jets star Joe Namath routinely piles on his former team for their failings, but the sport known as football outside the United States has a bitter old dude or two as well. Pelé is the most famous soccer player ever and he’ll be the first to let you know it. He received a golden opportunity to do so when it was suggested to him that Argentinean star Lionel Messi might be approaching G.O.A.T. (greatest of all-time) status. Messi already has won three straight FIFA player of the year awards, but Pelé believes the young striker has along way to go before he can be called the best. "When Messi's scored 1,283 goals like me, when he's won three World Cups, we'll talk about it," Pelé said. "Football changes. Records are there to be broken, but it will be hard to break mine. People always ask me: 'When is the new Pelé going to be born?' Never. My father and mother have closed the factory." Way to end it with the “the factory is closed” blast, P. For the record, Messi scored 55 goals in 2011 for Barcelona and already has 213 in 300 games for the club and is the club's leading scorer in the Champions League, scoring in victories over Manchester United in the 2009 and 2011 finals. However, he failed to score in the 2010 World Cup and Copa America last year, and has a modest tally of 19 goals in 67 international matches. He's a great player for Barcelona, but when he plays for Argentina, he doesn't have the same success," Pelé said. He finished off his verbal deconstruction of the next big thing by intimating that he likely had more natural ability than Messi. "No one knew which foot I was going to shoot with, I was two-footed. I also scored a lot of goals with my head," Pelé said. Stay bitter, bro……….

- Thank God, the nightmare is over. The über-annoying "Priceline Negotiator" commercials featuring that knob William Shatner as a day-saving travel website savant who gets people insanely discounted rates on hotels, flights and rentals cars are going away. The "Priceline Negotiator" character will be killed in a fiery bus crash in a commercial set to air on Monday and even though the company has made it clear Shatner will still be part of its advertising strategy, the theme of the ads will change. "We only killed off the negotiator," company spokesman Brian Ek said. "William Shatner is still under contract." Shatner claimed he has no idea what his Priceline future holds. "They're leaving me on the same cliffhanger you're on," he said. "They're careful to mention that I still have a contract." Shatner said one year remains on his contract, but he does not know what that year will be like. Ek explained the decision to kill Shatner’s character off in spectacular fashion was merely a way to draw more attention to the company's published-price offering, which is much less well known than its name-your-own-price service. Amazingly, the former “Star Trek” star has been associated with the company for 14 years. "He's not at the top, but he's close to the top," said Ek, who referenced Michael Jordan’s run with Nike and Bill Cosby’s interminably long tenure with Kraft's Jell-O as among the few relationships that lasted longer. Shatner understands the decision to off his character and claims he is fine with it. "All advertising is an attempt to bring attention to their product," he said. "I know that's the case. It's a matter of good business." With his newfound freedom, Shatner plans to open a one-man biographical show on Broadway next month. Anything that brings the "Priceline Negotiator" ads to an end has to be a positive……….

- More than a decade after airing its last new episode, “Seinfeld” maintains a cult following to the point that fans actually transcribe the scripts for entire episodes and post them online. Meddling with anything related to the show is a dicey proposition, but DJ and producer Skrillex decided to take the chance anyway and created a video mash-up featuring and clips from Larry David's sitcom with some of his own dubstep music. The video quickly went viral and are not difficult to find online. They feature Michael Richards’ character Kramer comically dancing to some dubstep beats. As with any video of significance that can be found on YouTube, the reaction from viewers has been split into two extreme groups. Some have saluted the video is being hilarious and entertaining, with a few even ascribing diety-level status to Skrillex for his work on the video. Others have ripped him for tinkering with their favorite show and one user went so far as to write, “I can't believe you would ruin one of the best shows ever made with something as terrible as Skrillex, shame.” The track used for the video is “Breakin' A Sweat,” which was created by the Re:Generation documentary, which also featured DJ Premier, Mark Ronson, Pretty Lights and The Crystal Method. Skrillex enlisted Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore, the surviving members of The Doors, for the song…………

- AT&T has thrown the latest punch in the battle of cell phone carriers seeking control of the unlimited data plan market with a new set of tiered data plans that become available today. Mark Collins, AT&T's senior vice president for data and voice products, wrote in an official company blog post that "more content downloading, more video streaming, more apps" have caused a huge upswing in the amount of mobile data Americans consume daily. A stunning chunk of that data is consumed by a small percentage of uses, according to a study made public this month by a British consultant for cellular providers. Researchers found that the top 1 percent of all people who have cellular data packages account for half of all cellular downloads and data usage. Couple that reality with faster 4G networks and the burden on providers is growing faster than most can react. To compensate (and make more money in the process), AT&T is making its smartphone and tablet computer data packages bigger, both in price and size. All new AT&T cellular customers will be able to choose from three monthly data packages: 300 megabytes for $20; 3 gigabytes for $30; or 5 gigabytes, plus the ability to use your smartphone as a mobile broadband hotspot for other devices, for $50. The previous collection of plans offered 200 MB for $15; 2GB for $25; and 4 GB plus mobile hotspot capability for $45. In short, $5 more will get you a 50 percent increase in data. Existing customers can either keep their current plans or make the switch to one of the new offerings without having to extend their existing contract, AT&T said. As the math-savvy will realize, the new plans technically offer a better value per megabyte than the previous plans even if they are an excuse for AT&T to jam customers for a few extra dollars at a time when most aren't using the full allotment of their data plans every month. Those who do need extra data will benefit from avoiding overage charges. iPad users on AT&T's mobile network have the option of switching to the two larger plans. "Customers are using more data than ever before," said David Christopher, an AT&T spokesman. "Our new plans are driven by this increasing demand in a highly competitive environment." No, they’re driven by profit…………

- Score one for freedom of speech (and nudity) in Iran - sort of. Golshifteh Farahani is Iranian and spent most of her life in its repressive regime’s clutches, but her current whereabouts are unknown. She is believed to be somewhere in France, but no one is sure. What is known is that a video and photos of Farahani baring her breasts have gone viral this week, sparking a divided and often vitriolic response from Iranians. In a photo in the French magazine Madame Le Figaro, the actress appears topless, cupping her breasts. In a video apparently made by a French film academy, she looks directly into a camera as she disrobes and stands with her breasts uncovered. Farahani has not lived in Iran since 2008, when she played a nurse in "Body of Lies" with Leonardo DiCaprio. She reportedly moved to France shortly after making history by being the first Iranian to star in a Western film and has had virtually no ties to Iran since. She is represented by an agency in France, although the agency did not respond to questions about her whereabouts. Wherever she is, Farahani is undoubtedly aware of the divided reaction in her native country to her actions. "The fate of an actress, who left her own country and joined Hollywood, has been nothing but immorality," the semi-official Fars News Agency declared. "The actress who once played the role of caring and decent mothers of Iran has now auctioned off her modesty and honor in front of the Western cameras." Blah, blah, blah. Typical stuck-in-the-16th-century bullsh*t, just what is to be expected from a country run by a repressive despot like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and that kook Ayatollah Khomeini. They preside over an Iranian film industry known for state-sponsored movies that forbid the mere touching of hands. Critics say Farahani has betrayed Islam and Iran for revealing her body, while others cheered her braveness and defended her right to self-expression. Facebook pages encouraging visitors to re-post the photo and video have begun popping up as well. Critics have pointed out that Farahani will likely never be able to return to Iran, although one would have to wonder at this point why she would ever want to………

Spiderman musical madness, reasons to salute Hamas and NCAA hypocrisy

2012-01-20T15:44:00.000-05:00

- The Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark musical is a never-ending source of amusement for anyone not actually involved with one of the biggest train wrecks in Broadway history - or those who paid top ticket prices to see a musical that was critically panned. Even in an entertainment industry full of big egos, high-priced disasters and drama, the musical based on songs written by U2's Bono and The Edge has been a veritable three-ring circus nearly since its inception. The drama continued this week when producers of the show filed a lawsuit against he show's former director Julie Taymor, claiming that she developed a "hallucinogenic" plot. Taymor, who was fired last year, had already sued the show’s producers seeking $1 million in damages after claiming that her creative rights have been violated and that she hasn't been paid appropriately for her work, so a countersuit was only a formality. So far, the show has cost $75 million to make and is the most expensive Broadway show ever produced, which would be easier to swallow if it was critically acclaimed and had gone off without a hitch instead of enduring months of delays, investigations by government agencies over health and safety hazards on the set and one negative development after another. Producers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah Harris added to the growing list of reasons to point and laugh at the show with their countersuit, which they tagged with a statement: "Taymor refused to develop a musical that followed the original, family-friendly Spider-Man story, which was depicted in the Marvel comic books and the hugely successful motion picture trilogy based on them. Instead, Taymor, who admits that she was not a fan of the Spider-Man story prior to her involvement with the musical, insisted on developing a dark, disjointed and hallucinogenic musical involving suicide, sex and death." And the problem with any of that is? Who doesn’t like a sexed-up, suicide-featuring slant on a classic movie franchise? Hard to see how Taymor’s attorney’s claims that she is the victim of "outrageous mischaracterizations and attempts to besmirch her reputation" aren’t 101 percent true………..

- Could it be? Is there really a reason to like and support Hamas? Sure, the group is classified as a terrorist organization by some and is right in the middle of all the hate, killing and violence in the Middle East and yes, it would love nothing more than to wipe Israel off the map. However, there has to be a place of love and appreciation in the world for anyone who bans residents of a city or region from participating in any incarnation of “American Karaoke” for any reason. Yes, there is a Palestinian version of "American Karaoke” and yes, the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers have banned residents from participating in the popular reality show. Haters have criticized the ban as merely the latest attempt by Hamas to crack down on behavior it sees as being contrary to its conservative interpretation of Islam, but the reasoning behind the decision is wholly irrelevant. In this case, the ends completely justify the means and the end here is less people being involved with the show most responsible for the bastardization of music as we know it. So Alaa al-Abed, the chief producer of the "New Star" program, needs to shut his mouth and stop complaining about Hamas calling his show "indecent." It IS indecent and if only there were a group in the United States with enough clout to shut down “American Karaoke,” the U.S. would be a better place to live. Big ups to Hamas for making a decision that will prevent Gaza's 12 contestants from competing in the upcoming second round of the competition Thursday night. For those in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel who watch or participate in the show, you should all be ashamed of yourselves………..

- First the White House piled on, then Wikipedia and Reddit went dark in protest and angry Internet users across the United States capped off the digital revolt against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Add those combustible ingredients together, stir in politicians desperate for re-election and not wanting to attach their name to immensely unpopular legislation and you have a Congress backpedaling from legislation faster than Rosie O’Donnell charges toward a salad bar. After widespread protests throughout the week, both the House and the Senate on Friday backed away from a pair of controversial anti-piracy bills. The Senate now wants nothing to do with PIPA, its version of the bill, even though it once had widespread, bipartisan support. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was postponing the vote "in light of recent events." The House showed no more spine when House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith issued a written statement announcing the legislature will "postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution." Both moves show no spine, but it is extremely difficult to move forward with legislation when some of its supporters are exhibiting world-class flip-flopping on it. The blackout-style protests by Wikipedia and Reddit, coupled with the White House expressing concerns about the bill, fueled protestors to take to the streets in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. for demonstrations against the bills. Google also took part by collecting than 7 million signatures for an anti-SOPA and PIPA petition that it linked on its homepage. Smith cited the protests in his statement while doing his best to keep the concept of the bill alive for possible revival and revision. "I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns," Smith said Friday in a prepared statement. "It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves." Media companies who were pinning hopes for a huge financial boost from the bill are just about the only ones disappointed by the bills’ setback and Reid offer some hope to those companies by hinting that PIPA may not be dead yet. "There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved," Reid said. Whatever you say, H………..

- You can ban them from texting or using their cell phone while driving, but you can't take the moron out of bad drivers. Houston, Texas is proof of this phenomenon and a handful of imbecilic drivers in the greater Houston area drove that point home Wednesday. As the day rolled on, the Houston Fire Department began receiving calls about a tiger on the roof of an abandoned hotel near Will Clayton Street and the Eastex Freeway. The calls seemed odd and could easily have been characterized as a few delusional kooks who may or may not have been doing bong rips or dropping acid prior to getting behind the wheel, but they kept coming in and eventually the fire department could not ignore them. They headed to the scene, climbed up to the roof and investigated. Was there a real tiger roaming around and was a scene for “The Hangover 3” being filmed? Nope. It was just a large, stuffed toy firefighters had to remove on the grounds that it posed a hazard because drivers kept stopping to look at it. That’s right, a stuffed tiger on the roof of an abandoned hotel is enough of a distraction to negatively impact the driving of people who have somehow managed to earn and keep them for what it some cases has to be decades. Needless to say, the world is still full of morons…….

- The NCAA is not an organization built on fairness. Maybe it should be that way for an entity governing college athletics and tens of thousands of student-athletes at colleges and universities around the United States, but hypocrisy and bogus ordinances tend to be more of the NCAA’s thing than fair play. University of Alabama-Birmingham basketball player Todd O’Brien can definitely attest to that fact. O’Brien, who graduated from Saint Joseph's and wanted to use the NCAA's waiver rule to pursue a graduate degree at another institution that offered a program not available at Saint Joe's and thus gain one more year of athletic eligibility, will not be allowed to play for the Blazers this season. He lost his last waiver appeal to play immediately at UAB after the NCAA sent an email to the school denying the appeal. “I don't know why this happened," O'Brien said. "I'm mad. It's so stupid. It's so petty." He has been practicing with UAB since August and is pursuing a graduate degree in public administration, but Saint Joseph’s refused to grant him a waiver to play and that is one of the conditions of the rule. An NCAA spokesperson admitted after the appeal was initially denied that Saint Joseph's refusal to endorse O'Brien's waiver did have an effect. His case is rare because most other waiver appeals have been granted without any issues. Even s Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who was kicked off the Ducks, was given clearance to play immediately at Ole Miss. O’Brien didn’t get kicked off the team at St. Joseph’s and merely wanted to transfer of his own accord, something he believed Saint Joseph’s was cool with. "I didn't get kicked off," O'Brien said. "I told (St. Joseph's athletic director) Don DiJulia that I wanted to go to grad school. He understood. He was real cool. He said we'll take care of all the paperwork." With his NCAA options exhausted, O’Brien plans to meet with his attorney to consider his legal options and the possibility of playing basketball overseas………

The gift of military coups, dork rock icons up their game and a city on the path to secession

2012-01-19T18:56:00.001-05:00

- What is it with being an NFL receiver and having the urge to start your own drug ring? In the past two months, two current NFL players who just happen to line up at the far side of the offensive formation and catch passes for a living have been charged with buying and distributing illegal narcotics. The more noteworthy of the cases is now-former Chicago Bears receiver Sam Hurd, who was arrested after meeting with an undercover federal agent to set up an operation in which he would buy millions of dollars of marijuana and cocaine on a weekly basis to distribute in the greater Chicago area. Hurd was busted at a Morton’s Steakhouse just outside Chicago after telling the informant that he wanted to buy "five to 10 kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana per week for distribution in the Chicago area." His tale is more sensational, but Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Jerome Simpson’s saga began first. Federal authorities confiscated a package containing 2.5 pounds of marijuana that was allegedly shipped from California to Simpson's northern Kentucky home in September and found six more pounds of marijuana inside the house, as well as drug paraphernalia such as packaging materials, scales and smoking devices. The case dropped from the public eye for a while as the investigation proceeded, but Simpson was indicted on drug charges Thursday in Covington, Ky. He is charged with trafficking in more than eight ounces and less than five pounds of marijuana, a felony, Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders confirmed. Simpson faces up to five years in prison if convicted. The indictment puts a bit of a damper on his über-amazing highlight play against Arizona on Dec. 24, when he jumped over a defender at the goal line and did a full flip in mid-air before landing in the end zone for an epic touchdown catch. Evading justice proved to be more difficult and odds are that even the felon-friendly Bengals won't bring him back after an erratic season capped with felony drug charges……….

- Finding alternative fuels requires creative thinking. Natural gas, solar energy and fuel made from French fry waste are good options, but the brainstorming session cannot stop there. That’s why a team with Bio Architecture Lab (BAL), a company based in Berkeley, Calif., is working to turn seaweed into another option for affordable renewable fuels. As odd as it sounds, seaweed is packed with a specific type of carbohydrates that make it a great option to convert into fuel. "About 60% of the dry biomass of seaweed are fermentable carbohydrates, and approximately half of those are locked in a single carbohydrate - alginate," company CEO Daniel Trunfio said in announcing the research. BAL researchers have discovered a way to extract the major sugars in seaweed and convert them into fuel. The team working on the project described seaweed as an ideal feedstock for making biofuels, because it has a high sugar content, does not require arable land or freshwater to grow and is environmentally friendly. By engineering an enzyme to degrade the alginate and a pathway to metabolize it, BAL researchers can now take the seaweed they grow in economically viable quantities at the company’s four farms in Chile into biofuel using a $17.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy it received in 2010. The final product is called isobutanol and Burbaum said the technology can be combined with commercial-scale seaweed cultivation promises to produce renewable fuels without forcing a tradeoff with food crops such as corn or sugarcane. Read all about this riveting find in the Jan. 20th edition of Science magazine…………

- Is Greensboro, N.C. looking to secede from the United States and form its own self-sufficient nation? Probably not, but it’s a viable question to ask any time a city south of the Mason-Dixon line starts making noise about creating its own currency. The city is mere months away from joining Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and New Orleans as major cities with their own currency and will joining fellow North Carolina town Pittsboro, southwest of Raleigh, in the club. Pittsboro has the Plenty and Greensboro’s yet-to-be-named paper money will be accepted by businesses within the city limits beginning in the spring. Like actual U.S. currency, the Greensboro Dollar will be printed on paper with security features and can be used either alone or with U.S. dollars. The Bank of Oak Ridge will support the currency's creation and circulation and it will be overseen by a nonprofit with a governing board. Organizers of the effort hope to sign on 50 businesses by the time it's circulated and in the interim, they are soliciting help from local students and the community at large in choosing a name for the currency. "The local money has to stay here. There's no other place for it to go, so it really will stimulate local commerce," said Signe Waller Foxworth, an activist who came up with the idea three years ago. Mahi's Seafood Bar and Grill on Lawndale Drive is one of the first businesses to agree to accept the currency, with owner and city councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter expressing optimism for its future. "You have a wide variety of people who have already signed on, and those varieties of trade and business are certainly appealing to Greensboro residents. I certainly believe it's going to grow," Abuzuaiter said. "It stands to reason that if you are going to encourage many more commercial transactions, many more people are going to get paid. Many more people are going to get employed and it's going to stimulate the economy.” Step one is almost done, Greensboro. Now you need to work on raising your own army, building an impenetrable wall around your city, cutting all ties with other towns and finding a way to become completely self-sufficient…………

- Indie rockers Death Cab For Cutie are known as the pied pipers of indie-rock loving dorks and have been for some time. Their music was the soundtrack of glorified dork cult figure Seth Cohen of “The O.C.” fame (Fox’s defunct drama about rich SoCal types and their life problems) and Ben Gibbard and Co. have continued to occupy a special place in the hearts of obscure music lovers ever since. They have thrived on being cool by being uncool and what’s more uncool than going on tour with a full orchestra? That was the dream the band bandied about last may following their release of their strings-tinged album "Codes and Keys" last May. In order to better replicate the original vibe of the album, the band discussed their hopes of touring with an orchestra even though the idea seemed far-fetched. "It would be really fun to take Magik*Magik Orchestra out, but unfortunately, it is kind of a nightmare to try and figure it out," Death Cab guitarist and producer Chris Walla said last year. "It's sort of turned into the Polyphonic Spree dilemma. You can make a living or you can play with an orchestra. They're totally mutually exclusive -- you almost can't do one and the other. But, I do think that we'll be able to do some shows with Magik*Magik somewhere at some point, even if it's not a full tour." Magik*Magik Orchestra is a small San Francisco-based orchestra that contributed all of the string arrangements on "Codes and Keys" and supported Death Cab on the band's 2011 VH1 "Storytellers" special. As DCFC prepares to head out on tour to promote the album, it will do so with Magik*Magik in tow on a 21-stop tour beginning on April 10 in Denver and ending five weeks later in the band’s hometown of Seattle. Fellow indie rockers Youth Lagoon will also be on the road for the second half of the tour, with an opener for the first half of the tour to be announced soon. "Codes and Keys" debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and was one of the band’s better-selling albums………

- Another military coup to enjoy? Seriously? Don’t ask questions world, just sit back and enjoy. Bangladesh is the scene of the latest alleged coup after the Bangladesh army said Thursday it foiled a military coup plot aimed at toppling the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Brig. General Muhammad Masud Razzaq accused a group of serving and retired army officers "with extreme religious views" of being responsivble for the plot. One of the conspirators was "probably staying in Hong Kong," according to Razzaq. He announced the arrests of two retired officers — Lt. Col. Ehsan Yusuf and Maj. Zakir and said officials are still seeking a third retired officer, Maj. Ziaul Haq. All of those responsible for instigating the alleged plot are Bangladeshis living abroad, Razzaq explained. The army spokesman did not specify when the two officers were arrested but insisted the army has evidence that some 16 officers, both retired and serving, were involved in the "heinous conspiracy." That details of the supposed coup are virtually non-existent isn't an issue, mostly because a scarcity of facts and information only makes the purported coup that much more awesome. Hasina's time in office has been marked by controversy ever since his party, the Awami League, came to power in 2009 in a landslide victory after a military-backed unelected interim government ruled Bangladesh for two years following a wave of protests after disputed polls in January 2007. A huge mutiny occurred just two months after Hasina took office. Seventy-four people, including 57 army officers serving the paramilitary border force, were killed in a mutiny over pay and perks. The government is still in the process of trying more than 800 border guards on charges of killing, arson and looting during the mutiny. Bangladesh has long been the cradle of military coups in the southeastern Asian theater and this latest alleged plots cements that status. In 41 years as an independent country, Bangladesh has suffered four confirmed coup attempts and now that number could stand at five. Good times…………

Porn needs a new home, the legend of Tebow grows and full-circle political justice in Myanmar

2012-01-18T11:57:00.002-05:00

- The real miracle isn't that Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow played through torn cartilage on his first rib where it attaches to his sternum, a bruised lung and had fluid buildup in the plural space of his chest during Saturday night's AFC divisional playoff game against New England. No, what is miraculous is that Tebow didn’t just heal himself on the spot - just kidding, Tebow fanatics The increasingly out of touch sect that believes Timothy Richard Tebow can do no wrong and that anyone who dares to criticize him is a jealous hater doesn’t take well to any jokes about their favorite human being, so it’s fun to take a jab at them every now and then. The injuries were real and came as the result of a hit in the pocket when Tebow was pressured after throwing a pass. Even though his team was being blown out and hadn’t been in the game since the first half, Tebow was determined to finish the game and fought through the final few series of an ugly 45-10 loss. After the game, he was in such severe pain that he had difficulty sleeping and underwent an MRI on Monday chest to determine the extent of the damage. He will begin his offseason doing rehab and is still expected to will begin his offseason training program according to schedule. Broncos chief of football operations John Elway didn’t exactly give Tebow a ringing endorsement at his a season-ending news conference Monday, committing only to him being the starter through the beginning of training camp. Commitment or not, the legend of TRT continues to grow……….

- Reasons America is uber-FAT No. 14,766,887: Burger King decides people slamming thousands of calories worth of its unhealthy grub in restaurants or their cars after hitting up the drive-thru window isn't bad enough and tests the concept of ferrying 1,250-calorie sandwiches right to customers’ doors. Because the convenience of fast food simply isn't convenient enough, Burger King has launched a pilot program in the Washington, D.C. area to deliver food to customers within a 10-mile radius of a store. The delivery service is presently available in a few locations in Virginia and Maryland, but the company plans to expand it to as many as 16 locations by the end of January. There is an $8 minimum order for delivery, but to entice customers further BK is offering delivery meals such as 40-piece chicken tenders ($10.99) and four large sandwich combos ($23.99). The obvious question is what the quality of the food will be when it arrives because anyone who has eaten more than one fast food meal in their life knows that fries and burgers are only good for a few minutes right after they are made and are still hot. Fries are notoriously terrible when reheated and if they are being delivered seven miles and 15 minutes from a restaurant, odds are they will be cold and need to be heated up after delivery. To alleviate this concern, all delivered items it will be "packaged in thermal bags to keep it warm." Rest assured, there will still be 40 grams of fat in a whopper and 1,230 calories in a Triple Whopper with Cheese. Not exercising and grubbing on fast food regularly will still make you FAT and unhealthy no matter where you eat your meals. The only comparable service to what Burger King is doing is a limited program in Manhattan wherein McDonald’s will deliver to very confined areas near its approximately 751 locations around the city. Burger King has not yet announced whether it plans to expand its delivery program nationwide…………

- Famous people are still no different than everyone else. They are still screwed up, insecure and many of them are not all that intelligent. They simply have more money, better therapists and people know who they are. Nobody embodies this phenomenon more than country pop starlet Taylor Swift, who is riding about as high as any recording artist could be at the moment. She’s universally loved and perceived to be the sweetest, nicest thing to ever hit a recording studio and even those who don’t like her mainstream approach to country music look at her as a beautiful, kind soul who they’d love to hang out with. She was recently named favorite country singer at the People's Choice Awards and seems to have nothing but success ahead of her. But that doesn’t mean she’s any more confident about her future than the average person struggling to pay their bills and make ends meet on a daily basis. Swift admitted she is always worried about her future and fears that her life will take a turn for the worse. "This is what I've wanted to do my whole life. It never freaks me out. Never. Ever. But you know what does freak me out? When is the other shoe going to drop? I am so happy right now. So I am always living in fear. This can't be real, right? This can't really be my life," she fretted. Oh, it is your real life and that includes the part where arrogant, megalomaniacal blowhards like Kanye West jump up on stage and rip the microphone from you at awards shows. Success can end quickly for any performer, but Swift really should stop worrying and enjoy the ride while it lasts……….

- The circle is nearly complete in Myanmar. Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi spent nearly two decades under house arrest, effectively banned from participating in politics or having any freedom at all because she dared to believe that the results of an election that should have put her in power were to be honored. International outcry over the Burmese government’s treatment of Suu Kyi grew louder over the past decade and her plight became a rallying cry for the world’s biggest rock band, U2, at its live shows. She was finally freed from house arrest last year and after being politically ostracized for two decades, Suu Kyi will participate in April elections to select a new parliament. Her campaign officially began Wednesday when she registered Wednesday to run for a parliamentary seat in Kawhmu, a poor district south of Yangon where villagers' livelihoods were devastated by the 2008 cyclone Nargis. While the potential impact of the April elections is not immense, the symbolic value of Suu Kyi being a part of the process is great. Her party will only have minimal power even if it party wins all 48 seats to be contested April 1, but her decision to run is a tacit endorsement of the new government's reforms after years of authoritarian rule. A victory would also give Suu Kyi a voice in parliament for the first time, 20 years after she legitimately won a vote that should have put her in power. Two decades too late, a dose of political justice could finally come to Myanmar……….

- Los Angeles city council, do you have any idea what you’re doing? Sure, you may think a new measure establishing an ordinance that would deny film permits to adult film producers who do not comply with the city’s condom requirement is solely a health issue, but is it really? Yes, having hundreds of down-on-their-luck, drug-addled freaks getting after it on dirty mattresses in back alleys and empty warehouses is filthy, revolting and sad. Sure, there is the potential for the spread of every imaginable STD and more than a few unwanted pregnancies as well, but if the city follows through on its nascent effort to police adult film sets and order that every actor be outfitted with a condom, what will the financial impact be? After all, the greater Los Angeles area is the porn capital of the world and porn producers have made it clear that say they'll start packing up their sex toys and abandoning the city if the new measure goes into affect. The city council approved it by a 9-1 vote on Tuesday and it now goes to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for approval. The STD merchants, er, porn industry members denouncing the law can only hope that a council-mandated study by of a committee of police officials, the city attorney, state health officials and others to assess the potential law’s enforceability determines that implementing the measure isn't feasible. "It's going to be interesting to see how in fact they do try to enforce it and who's going to fund it, and all of the time and effort they're going to spend," said Steven Hirsch, co-founder and co-chairman of Los Angeles-based Vivid, one of the standard bearers in the porn industry. "Ultimately I think what they will find is people will just stop shooting in the city of Los Angeles. That's a given." Umm….and the downside is? While 90 percent of U.S. porn films are made in Los Angeles, almost all of them in the city's San Fernando Valley, porn will find a seedy new home somewhere else and L.A. will be a healthier, cleaner, more sanitary and less STD-riddled place. Besides, Internet porn is plentiful and free, so the adult film industry is on the downslope anyhow. One voice in support of the new law is the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Ged Kenslea, spokesman for the organizations, said the measure is needed because the industry has failed to properly police itself. "Let's make one thing clear: Condom use on adult film sets is, and has been, the law in California under blood-borne pathogens regulations," Kenslea said. "It is just a law that has not been uniformly enforced or followed. This film permit ordinance that the city council approved today provides another enforcement mechanism to make sure that adult film producers are complying with existing California law." Well said, Ged. Let the scumbags of the porn industry learn to follow the law or find somewhere else to ply their pathetic trade………

Clooney needed in Kansas, Jay-Z now has 100 problems and Iraq v. Turkey

2012-01-17T12:59:00.001-05:00

- George Clooney, your help is needed in Kansas. Clooney, quite possibly the world’s most famous pot-bellied pig owner, might be able to offer assistance to Lawrence, Kan. resident Ehren Penix. Penix has been willfully living in defiance of the city’s animal ordinances that forbid citizens from having pigs as pets, among other farm animals. His argument is that that the city has changed the code before, making it legal for people to have animals like hedgehogs and chickens, so officials should make an exception for his 70-pound pot-bellied pig as well. His pig, Starky, is apparently Penix’s best friend and Penix describes the oinker as smart, fun to be around and a pig who loves to cuddle. Yes, this sounds pathetic, desperate and sad on many levels and yes, Penix is light years away from having a girlfriend if he insists on keeping Starky. However, Clooney has done fairly well for himself with the ladies while keeping his pot-bellied pig Max in his life, so maybe there’s hope here too. For the time being, Penix remains hopeful that the city will change its mind and alter its code to make it legal to keep a pot-bellied pig as a pet. He will present his case at the city commission’s next meeting and await their decision. In the meantime, a pig’s fate hangs in the balance and a call from a certain good-looking veteran actor might do a little something to sway the commission’s decision………..

- It’s been a year and Sidney Crosby still isn't right. Since suffering a concussion in January 2011, the Pittsburgh Penguins star has struggled to get back on the ice and missed the remainder of the 2010-11 season after the injury. His symptoms lingered into the summer and even into training camp this fall. He was ultimately able to return to the ice early this season, but once again suffered post-concussion symptoms and hasn't played since Dec. 5. His inability to shake the after-effects of the concussion have cast doubt on whether he will ever return to the ice and stay. He was great spectacular in his season debut on Nov. 21, scoring two goals against the New York Islanders and had 12 points in eight games before being sidelined. Even after skating skated with his teammates for the first time in more than a month last Friday, he is still scheduled to meet with chiropractic neurologist Dr. Ted Carrick to address his lingering symptoms and determine the next step in the process. Headaches and dizziness are still a regular part of his day-to-day existence and doctors have not cleared him to exert himself at a high level. "The motion stuff is still a little bit iffy," Crosby said. "I want to make sure I give it a fair shot, but at the same time I know it's something I can improve." Carrick treated Crosby last summer and said in September that the superstar would have a "very good outcome" following his rehab. That good outcome has yet to fully materialize and Crosby has been MIA since getting jostled around in a loss to Boston on Dec. 5 and is unsure when he’ll return to the ice. "It's a tough injury," Crosby said. "It's not always clear-cut all of the time. Now I feel like I know a lot more about what I'm feeling and how to improve it. I think being more familiar helps a bit." Without him, the Penguins have slipped from being a top contender in the Eastern Conference to the eighth spot in the standings and they still don’t know if or when help is on the way…………

- Way to be, Iraq. You need to have a little diplomatic swagger if your new government is going to stand on its own and command respect from the international community. Summoning Turkey's ambassador to Baghdad on Monday to protest Ankara’s perceived Ankara's meddling in Iraqi politics is a solid first step. Sure, it could be characterized as another sign of a growing rift between Sunni Turkey and its Shiite neighbors, but that’s overly pessimistic. Turkey has showed immense disrespect of late by lecturing Iraqi leaders about how its Sunni-Shiite tensions could engulf the entire Islamic world. Turkey took its meddling a step further by publicly expressing support for a Sunni rival to Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "Turkey interferes by backing certain political figures and blocs" in Iraq,” al-Maliki fumed last month. I believe Turkey is unqualified to intervene in the region's flash points. Unfortunately, Turkey is playing a role that could lead to a catastrophe or civil war in the region.” With of the U.S. drawdown from Iraq and of the Arab Spring shifting Iraq’s political landscape significantly, the Iraqi government is facing an immense burden to maintain control and the perception that an outside entity is involving itself in the process is understandably infuriating. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu hinted at a looming problem earlier this month when he warned of a "Cold War" developing between Shiites and Sunnis across the Middle East. Turkey insists its efforts are purely humanitarian and in no way designed to exert influence on Iraq’s political system. Iraq isn't buying that explanation and even at a time when Turkey’s cooperation with the United States is at an all-time high, the Iraqi government is increasingly angry with its Middle East neighbors. Summoning the Turkish ambassador to face difficult questions and be told in no uncertain terms to f*ck off probably won't calm those tensions…………

- Wikipedia is going dark for 24 hours, parties on both sides of the issue are making apocalyptic proclamations about what will happen if the proposal is approved/rejected and the fate of the Internet as we know it hangs in the balance. That’s the general consensus as the House and Senate weigh two similar bills that would crack down on the sale of pirated American movies, music and other goods on foreign-based websites. Both bills would require Internet companies to severely restrict access to foreign pirate websites, bar search engines from linking to them and prevent U.S. companies from placing ads on them. Supporters of the bill were dealt a significant setback over the weekend momentum after the White House sided with irate Internet companies and users and said that the proposal could hurt innocent companies and undermine cybersecurity. The White House spelled out its opposition to the bills in no uncertain terms. "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet," three White House advisers said in a statement released Saturday. Prior to that statement, the bills seemed to be headed for passage by a wide margin. The Senate is still scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the legislation on Jan. 24, but House backers haven't announced any plans to advance the legislation. "I am committed to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to send a bipartisan bill to the White House that protects free speech, the Internet and America's intellectual property," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R., Texas) said response to the White House announcement. With the fate of the Stop Online Piracy Act uncertain, those who complain that piracy is ripping billions of dollars a year from their flush-with-cash pockets are undoubtedly furious. "It's very difficult to compete with free," said Rick Cotton, general counsel of Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal. "New business models and new offerings are going to get stifled in the crib if there's an unlimited tidal wave of stolen content on the Internet." Fox media mogul Rupert Murdoch ripped the Obama administration on Twitter for not supporting the bills, which are undoubtedly subverting his ability to buy the finest caviar and that essential 15th Rolls Royce Phantom for his garage…………

- I got 99 problems but a disagreeable lady ain’t one? If that lyric sounds funny to you, then you may not like the new Jay-Z. As anyone with Internet access, a smartphone or a TV knows, Jay-Z and wife Beyoncé recently became parents and with the birth of daughter Blue Ivy Carter, the dude known as H.O.V.A. is a changed man - or so he says. Just eight days after his daughter’s birth, Jay-Z released a poem to her in which he vowed to change one of the very characteristics of his game as a hip-hop artist. The guy who once rapped, “I got 99 problems but a b*tch ain’t one” promised in the poem to his daughter that, "No man will degrade her, or call her names. I'm so focused on your future, the degradation has passed. I wish you wealth, health and insight. Forever young you may pass. Blue Ivy Carter, my angel." In other words, no more calling anyone a b’otch in his lyrics. "Before I got in the game, made a change, and got rich/I didn’t think hard about using the word b---h," he wrote. "I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it/Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it," the poem continued. Whether he abides by that promise or not remains to be seen, but rhyming is going to become much more difficult if he does. Eliminating one of your go-to words from the mix has to complicate the songwriting process. The poem came just one week after Jay-Z released a lullaby titled "Glory, featuring B.I.C." that included sounds of Blue Ivy crying. The song debuted at No. 74 on Billboard's R&B/hip-hop hit list four days later, making the infant the youngest artist to ever make the chart. Now Blue Ivy’s father has 99 problems and not using the word b*tch is one…………

Romanian Riot Watch!, Golden Globes bombshells and giant roadkill omelets

2012-01-16T17:09:00.001-05:00

- When hearing the word California, a few connotations come to mind: plastic people, Hollywood, 75 degrees and sunny, soy lattes and surfing among them. Add forward-thinking health policies to the list because the University of California is making the brilliant move to ban cigarettes and all other tobacco products from its campuses over the next two years. No more cancer sticks smoked by losers huddled around the doors of buildings during the winter, no more walking through a cloud of smoke to get into the dining hall or science building, none of it. University officials announced the move as a way designed to both protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke and prevent others from developing the bad habit. This blanket ban will prohibit students and staff alike from smoking anywhere on a UC campus - including outdoor spaces, parking lots and private residences. There won't be any designated smoking areas. In other words, take it elsewhere losers. "Our young students who come here as freshmen, who don't smoke but come to college and start experimenting, maybe they won't choose to smoke now. That would be a huge gain," said Trish Ratto, manager of UC Berkeley's Health Matters wellness program and a member of the committee that is developing the ban. Whatever logic you need to use, Trish. Just get cancer sticks away from the general public and make smokers feel as unwelcome as possible. Forcing them to wear neon green t-shirts identifying themselves as smokers might be too much (even if it’s already easy to identify them by their raspy voices, leathery skin and generally unhealthy countenance), but forbidding smoking is a solid step. The stricter policy fits well with existing state anti-smoking laws, as California already has some of the strongest measures in the country. UC President Mark Yudof announced the change late last week in a letter
to campus leaders. Big ups to the entire UC system on this one, showing why California has one of the lowest percentages of smokers in the country. To keep it trending that direction, this sort of rule is exactly the right prescription………….

- The Golden Globes were, as always, a ginormous waste of time and energy. The drama over what host Ricky Gervais would or wouldn’t say and who he might insult were pointless, as were the awards handed out and the over-the-top fawning over who wore what outfit by which designer. However, the show did bring a key bit of information about one of the biggest names in attendance and Kate Winslet’s big reveal could truly shape the future of her acting career as well as Hollywood in general. Winslet was asked if she would ever consider playing Elizabeth Taylor in a film about the iconic actress’ life given that rumors came up last week that Lindsay Lohan was in talks to play Taylor in a Lifetime movie about Taylor’s romance with Richard Burton. "Oh my gosh, I'll decline to comment, actually, because that's the first I've heard of that," Winslet said. "I'm not gonna go there, dude. It's a bit of a hot zone, I think." Aside from her addressing a media member as dude, awesome in and of itself, the comment set Winslet up to deliver a true bombshell of entertainment news importance. The one role she truly wants to play but hasn’t yet it…..a man. "I don't know what kind of man, and I don't know if that would happen or not, but I would be very interested in that because I think that would be the ultimate challenge," she explained. Umm…..OK. Actors sometimes earn praise and even meaningless industry awards for roles that force them to stretch and expand their acting game, such as gaining or losing immense amounts of weight, so playing a man could do that for Winslet. She did take home an award Sunday night for her role in "Mildred Pierce," but maybe at next year’s Globes she could hoist a statuette for a more manly performance………….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Romanians are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more……with “it” being recently enacted government austerity measures. Opposition groups responded to the measures by demanding the resignation of President Traian Basescu, Prime Minister Emil Boc and elections to choose a new government. "The National Liberal Party asks the prime minister and his cabinet to resign immediately because they couldn't manage the violent protests held over the last couple of days in Bucharest," liberal opposition leader Crin Antonescu said. Thousands of citizens staged massive protests in the capital city of Bucharest and 40 other Romanian cities over the weekend, decrying protesting government austerity measures and calling for change. The scene in Bucharest Sunday night was intense, with police and protesters clashing in the city’s University Square. Police used tear gas and excessive force to disperse demonstrators and as of Sunday night, more than 2,000 police officers were on the streets of the capital. As the smoke (and tear gas) from the weekend’s violence lifted, the opposition coalition responsible for the protest announced plans for more mass demonstrations on the heels of four straight days of protests. The group plans to meet Tuesday to plan the best way to continue what have evolved into the most serious revolt since Basescu's election in 2004. It will be difficult to top the weekend’s festivities, during which banks, shops and bus stations in the capital were vandalized, according to Bucharest Mayor Sorin Oprescu. The numbers could have been more impressive for protestors, with just 250 people were fined for disturbing the peace, but it was a solid start. A few rocks and Molotov cocktails were lobbed at police, but more are needed going forward. Protestors also blocked traffic, waved ripped flags and saluted the country’s 1989 communist revolution. They carried signs reading "Liberty" and "Down with President Basescu," leading to a predictably lame response from The Man. "The violence is unacceptable," said Prime Minister Emil Boc. "I ask Romanians to understand that the government took those austerity measures in order to avoid a crisis." Buzzzzzzzzzz! Wrong answer, E. There already is a crisis and you’re in the middle of it. The spark that incited the protests was the resignation of Deputy Health Minister Raed Arafat, an opponent of health care reforms proposed by the government. Quelling the unrest will be difficult, as Basescu decided to scrap the reforms Friday in the face of public pressure and yet, the rage did not abate. "The hospitals don't want the change, the (doctors) don't want the change and neither does the emergency health care system," Basescu said. Protestors are still angry at the government for their poor living standards and that’s the sort of rage that doesn’t quickly fade…………

- The New York Giants are riding high. They have won four straight games, including two impressive playoff triumphs, to reach the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 2007. They are unquestionably playing as well as any team in the playoffs right now and head coach Tom Coughlin is leading the charge. In the midst of the G-Men’s rise, one of the best players from their recent past is seeking a moment of Coughlin’s time to resolve their differences. Former Giants running back Tiki Barber, who Barber retired following the 2006 season and made a failed comeback attempt in 2011, said during a radio interview in New York that he has tried to set up a face-to-face meeting with Coughlin to mend fences over critical comments Barber made after retiring and while working as a TV analyst. Barber heavily criticized Giants quarterback Eli Manning's ability as a leader following his retirement, saying Manning's pregame speeches were "almost comical." At the time, Manning dismissed the remarks and disssed Barber in the process. "I'm not going to lose any sleep about what Tiki has to say. I guess I could have questioned his leadership skills last year with calling out the coach and having articles about him retiring in the middle of the season, and (how) he's lost the heart (to play). As a quarterback, you're reading that your running back has lost the heart to play the game and it's about the 10th week. I can see that a little bit at times," Manning said. Coughlin supported Manning then and based on his response to Barber’s offer for reconciliation, he’s still supporting Manning. "We tried. He said no, through his agent, (Giants vice president of communications) Pat Hanlon," Barber said of his offer. "But one of these days I'm sure it'll happen, because as we know, time heals all wounds." Those comments stand in stark contrast to his past remarks that it was Coughlin's militant and "demeaning" coaching style that drove him to retire. "One issue I've ever had with Tom is he never respected that. He always tried to vilify me,” Barber said of his dedication to the game. He also shot down keeping his comeback bid alive, saying it was a one-time attempt and that he has moved on. Coughlin seems to have moved on as well………….

- Anyone in the mood for a giant roadkill omelet? Upstate New York is (or at least was) the place to be on Friday for anyone looking to toss some peppers, onions and other culinary goodness into a giant mass of egg products and create a Paul Bunyan-esque breakfast item. A tractor trailer carrying liquid eggs overturned and spilled in a farm field in Genesee County around 8:30 a.m. Friday, forcing authorities to shut down Route 20 for nearly four hours while the mess was cleaned up. The crash occurred near the intersection of Route 20 and Browns Mill Road in the town of Alexander as the truck was carrying an entire trailer full of liquid eggs to Canada. Liquid eggs are a key ingredient in dog food and as everyone knows, Canada is the place where quality dog food is made. Crews from the Department of Conservation worked to clear the egg goo from the road and returned later in the day and the following day to clean the scene. No word on whether any of them brought salt, pepper or a spatula to get the job done, but traffic returned to normal shortly after noon on Friday. The driver was unharmed, but was cited for driving too fast for the weather conditions. His calloused disregard for quality eggs products went unpunished, but hopefully the hundreds of hungry dogs who will not have enough to eat because of his carelessness will haunt his dreams in the days and weeks ahead……….

Movie news, Kazakstan election fun an melancholy NBAers

2012-01-15T15:06:00.000-05:00

- Does anyone else get the impression that Ohio State University president E. Gordon Geek, er, Gee might want to stop talking for a while, maybe sit the next few plays out? Being the president of one of the world’s largest universities typically puts one in a position to give quite a few speeches to groups of varying sizes and interviews as well, but Gee doesn’t seem to handle either very well and he continues cramming his foot so far down his throat that he needs one of the fine proctologists from OSU’s vaunted medical school to help remove it. His most recent offensive remarks prior to this past week came in November 2010, when he boasted that Ohio State's football schedule didn't include teams on a par with the "Little Sisters of the Poor." He was looking to criticize schools like Boise State, which have a better football team than OSU but don’t play in the mighty Big Ten. Gee’s comments were both idiotic and inaccurate because he clearly knew nothing about the schedules of non-BCS teams like Boise State and TCU. He also offended the real Little Sisters of the Poor and sent a personal check to the group’s northwest Ohio chapter and followed up with a visit to the nuns months later. Gee continued to speak without thinking on Wednesday while talking to an audience in Columbus about the challenges of coordinating the university's 18 divisions such as independent schools and colleges. "When we had these 18 colleges all kind of floating around, they were kind of like PT Boats, they were shooting each other," Gee said. "It was kind of like the Polish army or something. I have no idea what it was." Umm….uh……oops. Sure enough, the Chicago-based Polish American Congress quickly condemned Gee’s remarks. "The Polish American Congress is shocked by the slanderous analogy used by Ohio State University President Gordon Gee and his slur on the military of a nation that has been fighting valiantly and effectively alongside the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan," the group said in its statement released Thursday. "We are dismayed by the bigotry and ignorance expressed by the President of such a large and prominent American university." What did Gee have to offer in his defense? Not much. He issued an email statement that didn’t exactly make anyone forget that in the aftermath of his initial remarks, he said, "Oh, never mind, who did I embarrass now? I'll have to raise money for Poland now.” It’s OK not to talk, president Gee(k)……….

- Has anyone heard this before: a major medical breakthrough with potentially wide-ranging implications and already a pharmaceutical company has licensed the technology? The discovery of a hormone that is secreted by muscles during exercise and boosts the amount of energy the body burns, a finding that could lay the basis for new drugs for obesity, diabetes, and other diseases is just such a breakthrough and Boston-based Ember Therapeutics has managed to lock it up. The company is already working to develop a form of the hormone that could be used as a drug that would mimic some of the benefits of exercise. Yes, mimic the benefits for exercise for those too lazy and undisciplined to actually exercise. Bruce Spiegelman, a cell biologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, led the research that discovered the horome. Spiegelman has done multiple studies on the formation and nature of “brown fat,” a type of fat that burns energy rather than storing it. He and his colleagues discovered that the hormone, which they named irisin, alters ordinary “white” fat and makes it resemble brown fat while increasing energy expenditure. By dosing obese, pre-diabetic mice with greater levels of the hormone over a short period, researchers saw slight weight loss, increased energy expenditure and improvements in insulin resistance, a risk factor for diabetes. “It’s a hormone made by muscle, put into the blood, and with exercise it increases,” Spiegelman said. “It seems to embody some of what exercise is known to do, which is have an antidiabetes, antiobesity effect.” Left unanswered by the study is how the hormone creates its positive effects. Ember Therapeutics is working to optimize the hormone to create an experimental drug that might help fight various diseases by activating brown fat, which would obviously make it a lot of money. Scientists responding to Spiegelman’s find have also questioned why exercise, which already increases energy expenditure, also cause an increase in the kind of fat that burns energy. He hopes to answer those and other key questions with additional research. For now, read about his findings in the latest edition of the journal Nature……….

- The dream of a parliament that isn't just a ginormous puppet for The Man is one step closer in Kazakhstan. Voters in the oil-rich Central Asian nation showed the sort of voter dedication Americans wouldn’t dare expend the energy to even think about by casing ballots Sunday (yes, Sunday) in elections that are expected to minimally expand democratic representation in parliament's rubber-stamp lower house. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has an iron grip on the lower house, with all seats currently occupied by his Nur Otan party. Despite a 2009 election law gives at least two seats to the party with the second-highest number of votes even if it does not receive the 7 percent share that is the threshold for proportional allotment of seats, Nazarbayev’s government has either disqualified or effective neutered all opposition parties that were most likely to pose a challenge to it. The leading contender for Sunday’s election to grab those two seats in parliament was the pro-business Ak Zhol party, which avoids confrontation with the government. Any push for change in Kazakhstan are typically mitigated by economic prosperity and stability on the basis of its vast reserves of oil, gas and minerals. However, it’s the perception of the outside world Kazakhstan that its leaders are looking to improve and transitioning to a multiparty parliament will serve to improve its democratic credentials would be valuable in boosting its international image. "This is a great test for us, we have more than 1,000 observers here from around the world. I am sure that the people of Kazakhstan will make the right choice for their future, for our development, and a peaceful life in our common home," Nazarbayev said. There has been an outburst of discontent and violence in the weeks leading up to the election, including a long-term protest in the town of Zhanaozen by oil workers striking for better pay. Many potential voters expressed optimism that the election would bring about change and with more than 9 million people are eligible to vote, turnout was expected to be high. In that sense Kazakhstan is already well ahead of at least one of the countries whose respect it wants to earn, no names named (cough…..United States….cough)…………

- The Dallas Mavericks thought they were getting the best sixth man in the NBA, a versatile 6’10 point forward who could handle the ball, play inside or outside and bolster the reigning league champions as they sought to repeat. Instead, they acquired a wishy-washy, half-interested bench player averaging just 6.6 points and 4.8 boards in a career-low 19.8 minutes per game and someone who wasn’t even sold on playing at all this season until his wife talked him into it. As he and his new teammates prepare to play the team that traded him away, the L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom revealed that was "real close" to taking a basketball sabbatical for one season as possibly longer. After being included in a failed three-team trade that would have sent him to New Orleans and brought Chris Paul to the Lakers, Odom demanded the Lakers move him somewhere else. Mix in the July murder of his 24-year-old cousin and a fatal car accident days later that killed a pedestrian after the car he was riding in as a passenger collided with a motorcycle, and Odom was on the verge of quitting basketball all together. "My wife talked me out of it,” he said. "Cause I was asking myself: 'Was I mentally prepared to play? If I didn't play well, was I mentally prepared to help the team?' I had thought, 'Maybe I need a year.' Because of the lockout, I thought, 'Maybe somebody's sending me a sign that I needed this time off.'” Considering his play so far this season and his admitted struggles to adapt to his new team, maybe a year off wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. "I thought it was good time for me to take a step back," Odom said of his sabbatical idea. Asked if he imagined it as just a one-season break, Odom added: "I don't know. 'Cause who knows where time away is gonna take you? You never know." Interesting philosophy on basketball and life, to be sure………..

- Marky Mark reigns at the box office once more. His days of bench-pressing cinder blocks and dancing in puddles in abandoned warehouses as a rising rapper may be gone, but Mark Wahlberg’s days of fronting successful films are alive and well. His latest, “Contraband,” debuted this weekend and was the top earner at the box office with $24.1 million. Those domestic earnings were enough to beat the revived, 3-D edition of “Beauty and the Beast,” which came back to life and brought in $18.4 million domestically. Both newcomers edged out “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol,” which landed in third place with $11.5 million and has scored $186.7 million in domestic earnings through five weeks. The unimpressive duo of Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah led newbie “Joyful Noise” to a fourth-place finish, just behind “Ghost Protocol” with $11.3 million in its first weekend of release. Robert Downey Jr.’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” rounded out the top five with a total of $8.4 million to boost its cumulative tally to $170 million and counting. Last weekend’s top film fell precipitously, with “The Devil Inside” dropping to sixth in the space of just one week. A 76-percent decline will do that, but “Devil Inside” did make $7.9 million and raised its two-week total to $46.2 million. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” finished seventh with $6.8 million, boosting its one-month earnings total to $87.9 million domestically. Eighth place belonged to “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” with a $5.8 million weekend. The animated film has garnered $118.8 million in five weeks of release. “War Horse” galloped to a ninth-place finish on the strength of $5.6 million in earnings and has scored $65.7 million in one month. “The Iron Lady” made the biggest jump of the weekend, rising 16 spots to finish tenth and make $5.4 million in the process. Falling out of the top 10 from last weekend were “We Bought a Zoo (No. 11), “The Adventures of Tintin” (No. 12), “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier” (No. 13) and “The Darkest Hour” (No. 17)…………

Sappy Olympic stories, maligning ODB and whale quota trading

2012-01-14T14:07:00.000-05:00

- Was that really necessary, FBI? Yes, after a person passes away their FBI file tends to become a matter of public record, but couldn’t the Bureau have handled the release of former Wu Tang Clan rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard’s file better? Maybe redact some of the more damning material so as not to disparage the sterling, upstanding reputation of one of hip-hop’s most iconic groups by alleging he was "heavily involved" in "murder, car-jackings and the sale of drugs and illegal guns." That is all according to ODB’s newly released FBI report, which was released this week. The rapper died of a drug overdose in 2004, but it took nearly eight years for the FBI to release his file. Along with the headlining allegations, the file also contains an extensive list of arrests for offences that include resisting arrest, injuring a child, common assault, attempted murder of a police officer, refusing to pay child support and the illegal possession of body armor. Actually, scratch the whole idea of it impugning ODB’s character. He was a freaking rapper, after all. If anything he would love all of this information leaking out and enjoy a nice boost in street cred. The full report is 93 pages long and connects the rapper, whose real name was Russell Tyrone Jones, with the infamous Bloods gang as well as two murders and an incident in January 1998 in which he himself was robbed and received treatment for a bullet wound. Ironically, the FBI describes Wu Tang Clan as a sort of criminal gang, stating that "once individuals have proved themselves as good and loyal members [of Wu Tang Clan], they are offered record contracts to record rap type music." Doing ODB proud, FBI……….

- Doing the Nazi solute is a crime punishable by fines and prison time in Germany (or deportation for foreigners), so holding a torchlight neo-Nazi parade is probably verboten as well. That could be why raids were carried by police in four states in eastern Germany and netted a large volume of evidence linking 41 neo-Nazi suspects to an illegal torchlight parade held in the region. Suspects in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Brandenburg are suspected of participating in a September march in the town of Stolpen, east of Dresden, adorned in black clothing with black hoods, white masks and carrying torches. This sort of march is typically used to promote a violent, far-right ideology. Investigators worked over the last three months of last year to gather evidence on the march and on Friday said they confiscated torches, white masks, far-right propaganda, weapons and other evidence in raids on 44 homes and garages Thursday. Despite Thursday’s evidence discovery, police say the investigation of the suspects for breaking public assembly laws is ongoing and no arrests have been made. As always, at least it’s reassuring to know that the hateful and despicable Nazi philosophy lives on through a new generation of ass hats……….

- Airlines, you can keep on charging über-FAT people extra because they can't keep their flabby physique in a single seat like everyone else. Those individuals have control over their girth (theoretically), but hitting up exceptionally tall people because they want exit row or bulkhead seats with extra leg room is bogus and you know it. Now the world will know it as well thanks to Malcolm Johnson, a 6-foot-7-inch architect from Edmonton, Alberta, who has started a brawl with Air Canada to stop charging the fee for those choice seats. Johnson rightly argues they should be available to tall travelers without the added cost. He launched his campaign last year by filing a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency, but the agency predictably rejected it in December on the grounds that he didn't fully qualify as a disabled person with a special condition. His appeal of the decision will likely be rejected as well and that doesn’t sit well with Johnson because he flies on the airline from Edmonton to France twice a year. Oh, and Canadian law also makes exceptions for extremely chubby travelers, allowing some who can't fit into one seat a free extra seat. "It's a penalty for tall people ... to pay for those seats -- they're the only seats on the craft that we can fit into," Johnson lamented. His woes are further compounded because there are no direct flights available from Edmonton to France and he must pay the fee for each of the two flights it takes to complete each leg of the trip. That means four flights for a round trip, meaning Johnson ends up paying $200 extra. If his wife travels with him and they actually want to sit together, the couple ends up paying $400 extra. In the past, Air Canada allowed him to have the seat without an extra charge. As of last year, that is no longer the case. Johnson admits other passengers haven't been very sympathetic to his cause and suggested he fly first class or just shut up and pay the fee. “People have said, well, why don't you just suck it up and sit down and shut up? And I say, that's fine for you because you're 5-foot-2 and it's all right. For tall people, it's a little different." Johnson said. Way to sell out your fellow passenger, you short a-holes. Here’s hoping the airline finds a way to stick it to you when you need assistance getting your bags into and out of the overhead bins………

- What the world truly needs, besides a way to kill off all reality karaoke shows and Justin Bieber’s career, is a whale resolution. For three decades, the battle between environmentalists and whalers has raged on with neither side able to effectively end the debate. A group of researchers believes it may have the solution with a bold proposal: The world should put a price on killing whales and give everyone - whalers and whale lovers - the right to bid on them. A group of two marine scientists and an economist published a commentary in the journal Nature on Wednesday that suggested the International Whaling Commission (IWC) could allocate catch quotas between whaling and anti-whaling nations but keep a few back for an open auction. Calling it "a market that would be economically, ecologically and socially viable for whalers and whales alike," the group said its proposal could diffuse tensions between the two sides. The Obama administration has already shown interest in the idea, as have some environmentalists who have become frustrated by the difficulty in enforcing global whaling moratorium rejected by Japan, Iceland and Norway. Since 2008, an average of nearly 2,000 whales have been killed annually those three nations alone, more than double the yearly toll in the 1990s. Both the Obama and W. administrations attempted to strike a worldwide deal that would have allowed whaling nations to hunt whales legally as long as there was a quota in place. Japan’s annual whale catch is about 1,000 whales "for scientific purposes," while Norway and Iceland catch a combined 600 annually. When 2010 came and went without an agreement, conservationists and whale hunters became even more belligerent toward one another. Christopher Costello, the paper's lead author, labeled the current system "totally ineffective" because "everyone thinks they either have a right to whale or let whales live." To correct this, he and his two co-authors, Bren School dean Steven Gaines and Arizona State University ecologist Leah Gerber, want to create a "whale-conservation market" that would allocate whale allowances to IWC members to hunt whales at "sustainable harvest levels" and have the option of harvesting their quotas, holding onto them for a year or permanently retiring them. "Somehow you have to come up with a way to allocate whales between those two visions,” Costello said. "Both sides have something to gain, and fewer whales will be killed." Making whale allowances tradeable in a global market could be a fun side project for bored day traders tired of working on the futures market and speculating on stock prices and derivatives………..

- Syrupy, sappy and sugary sweet human interest stories are what make the Olympic Games go. Networks love churning out compelling tales of athletes overcoming immense hardships to qualify for the Games and viewers eat up such stories because otherwise there is no way synchronized swimming, ice dancing or equestrian competitions would be watchable. Legendary American swimmer Janet Evans is looking to write one of those stories for this summer’s Games in London. Evans, who set world records in the 400 and 800 in 1988 and 1989 but last faced elite competition in the 1996 Olympics, is trying to make a comeback in her two signature events at the age of 40. She took the first step by clocking 4 minutes, 17.27 seconds in a preliminary heat of the 400-meter freestyle at the Austin Grand Prix on Friday. That time was good enough to win her heat and qualify her for the U.S. Olympic trials in June. The four-time Olympic gold medalist easily bested the qualifying standard of 4:19.39 for the Olympic trials. "I'm super excited to make my trials cut, that was my goal, to go 4:19, so to go 4:17 is a bonus," Evans said after winning her heat by more than 5 seconds. "My only disappointment was that once again, I took my race out and looked around in the first 50 (meters) and there was no one there. We came here for some competition. Obviously I'll be swimming against some girls that are going about the same times tonight.” Evans began her comeback in late 2010, training with former coach Mark Schubert at the Golden West Club in Huntington Beach, Calif. She competed in two Masters meets last summer, set age group world records in the 400 and 800 freestyle events and built from there. Her heat victory was all the more noteworthy given that she entered the Austin Grand Prix seeded 51st in the 400 with a time of 4:22.87…………

Bag bans in Washington, offensive CBS shows and Russian PR charades

2012-01-13T14:41:00.000-05:00

- CBS has achieved more success than anyone expected with its new sitcom “2 Broke Girls.” The show stars Max (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Beth Behrs) as snarky waitresses working at a roadside diner and most observers figured the show would go the way of most freshman comedies, landing in mediocrity or outright failing. Instead, the show has found a solid fan base with its own brand of offensive humor. CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler admits her network has received plenty of criticism about the show's sometimes offensive humor and its broad racial stereotyping of the characters Dennings and Behrs work with at the diner but insists there is nothing to be upset about. "Like any of our new shows, you do take a step back and you let them find their way," Tassler said. "All of our big hits... when they first started, you have multiple characters to service. You want to make sure the audience has time to get the concept, get the emotional arc and really engage with the relationships. And then over time you build out and dimensionalize the other supporting characters.” She further defender the show’s humor with the always-smart rationale that no one demographic or group is being singled out above any other. "[The show] is an equal-opportunity offender. Everybody gets digs," Tassler said. "Our comments and dialogue with [creator Michael Patrick King], is, yes, continue to dimensionalize, continue to get more specific, continue to build [the characters] out. Our track record shows we know how to build comedy hits... and we'll continue to do that with 2 Broke Girls." Oh, so you make offensive jokes about everyone and that makes it OK? Whatever works for you, CBS…………

- Those who can't afford an iPad and are stuck with a Kindle will now have a much easier time sending documents from their subpar-OS-running PC to their e-reader. Amazon, maker of the Kindle and Kindle Fire, on Thursday released a new application called "Send to Kindle" that enables Kindle owners to transfer files from their Windows-based PCs directly to their e-book reader. For those with computers running the world’s worst operating system, Send to Kindle is available as a free download. Amazon said it would launch Send to Kindle for Mac soon, although odds are most Mac users are rocking an iPad instead of a Kindle. Send to Kindle will make the transfer process easier, allowing users to transfer files from Windows Explorer by simply right-clicking on a document and choosing Send to Kindle. Another option for any other Windows application that can print is to select Print, then choose Send to Kindle. Most any type of commonly used document can be sent, including PDF, .doc, .rtf, .txt .jpg, .gif, .png and .bmp files. Users will be able to archive personal documents to their Kindle Library in the Amazon Cloud and re-download them later to a Kindle device or Kindle App when connected wirelessly. Kindle users have always been able to transfer documents to their device, but had to email them to an address assigned to their Kindle account or attach the Kindle to a computer and drag the files over. "Your last page read along with bookmarks, notes and highlights are automatically synchronized for your documents (with the exception of PDFs) across your Kindle devices and supported Kindle reading apps," Amazon said in a company blog post. The company promised that support for Mac is coming soon. Keep on trucking, Amazon……….

- Oh, for great opportunities gone by the wayside. Have you seen all of the drama in Russia the past few weeks over rigged elections designed to keep Prime Minister/actually still President and Dictator Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party in power? There have been massive protests, riots, clashes between dissidents and police and general chaos across Russia with Putin all but certain to be elected to another term as president in March. If Putin is to be believed, though, much of the tension could have been resolved if only his most outspoken critics had showed up to talk with him at a media award ceremony on Friday. Instead, several leaders of recent anti-government protests in Moscow chose not to attend the show where Putin was a guest. Putin’s spokesman said they had missed their chance for dialogue, a dialogue that would have been fascinating after Putin provoked the opposition by comparing protest participants to chattering monkeys. Along with opposition leaders, poet Dmitry Bykov, journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, author Boris Akunin and other prominent opposition journalists also declined invitations to the event. "I just didn't want to go. I was invited but I didn't want to take part in all of this," said Leonid Parfyonov, a well-known television journalist. "I don't think he intended to talk about (the protests). I think he wanted some PR for himself and had no intention to speak to anyone." Wait a second……is he actually suggesting Putin’s recent claims that he was ready for dialogue with the opposition if only the movement could pull together a common platform and a leader with whom to hold talks. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov chided protest organizers for missing their chance for open, honest dialogue with their dictator and actually released a list of participants and the reasons given by those not attending, listing many as on vacation. "Earlier many of them had expressed desire to take their message to Putin. They were given such an opportunity," Peskov said. "They talk loudly about the dialogue but when they are called they do not turn up." Peskov conveniently ignored the fact that the government organized the event on short notice at a time when many Russians are still on holiday and glossed over the fact that invitations were hurriedly sent out on Monday. At the event, Putin self-aggrandizingly presented an award for bravery to a reporter left handicapped by a severe beating while campaigning to save a suburban forest in Khimki. The entire event was an obvious public relations stunt and Putin played it up by promising to step up an investigation into the reporter’s beating. Rather than take part in Putin’s PR stunt, opposition leaders are planning to make their voice heard with another demonstration near the Kremlin next month. Riot on, Russian opposition………….

- Coaches of bad basketball teams in numerically challenged conferences tend not to receive copious amounts of attention. In the 12-team Big Ten, Iowa and coach Fran McCaffrey and his squad are one of those bad teams. The Hawkeyes were absorbing a beatdown from conference power Michigan State at home Tuesday night and McCaffrey decided he’d seen just about enough from his disappointing squad. When a coach is angry, he or she will often look to pick a fight with just about anyone in an attempt to light a fire under the team. McCaffrey started off his tirade by picking up a technical foul for arguing with officials over a call on the court. That was only the start and before the final buzzer sounded on a 95-61 loss, the coach’s rage had transferred from a human target to an inanimate one in the form of a courtside chair. After picking up the “T” for arguing, McCaffrey called a timeout to further berate his team, which trailed 69-41 at the time. As his players saw down in a semi-circle in front of their bench, McCaffrey picked up an empty folding chair and slammed it on the court. Unfortunately the chair did not bend or break apart and merely fell meekly to the floor. None of the players even responded to the tantrum, which would suggest they’ve seen that sort of behavior from their coach before. But maybe McCaffrey would realize how bad the display made him look after he had time to cool down and maybe he would apologize……or not. Two days later, he informed media members that he had no apologies for the tirade and said he would continue to "coach with passion" and fight for his players. If the players had as much fight as McCaffrey, Iowa might be better than 10-8 this season and 2-3 in Big Ten play……….

- Washington could soon be a bag-free state. No, not a D-bag free state, which would be just about the most awesome label any state could ever have. But banning D-bags from your state would (sadly) be illegal in any number of ways, so Washingtonians will have to settle for possibly being the first state in the country to ban plastic bags. State lawmakers formally introduced a bill Thursday to ban plastic bags in the state in what supporters hailed as a move to benefit both the environment and the economy. The cities of Bellingham and Edmonds already have plastic bag bans in place and Seattle will have one as well after its city council approved a ban last month that will take effect July 1. Not only would stores be forbidden from offering plastic bags if the state law is passed, but a 5-cent fee would be imposed for the use of paper bags. That seems excessive because recycled paper bags aren't exactly an environmental hazard. Maybe the state just hates bags in general and isn't so much concerned with the environment. The only people who would escape the paper bag fee would be those on government food assistance. No word on what state officials would have shoppers carry their groceries in once they buy them, but there aren't many options left if paper and plastic bags are out. Backpacks could be an option unless they’re next on the list of bags to ban, but cardboard boxes seem safe for now…………

Tiny hard drives, "Goodfellas" on TV and Nigerian riot-quashing

2012-01-12T18:08:00.000-05:00

- Characterized by many (including former mob boss and current author and speaker Michael Franzese) as one of the most accurate organized crime-themed films ever made, "Goodfellas" could be making a jump to the small screen soon. AMC, with a growing focus on its original series lineup that includes “Mad Men” and “The Walking Dead,” is developing a series based on Martin Scorsese's classic film with writer Nicholas Pileggi, who adapted the screenplay from his book "Wiseguy.” Pileggi will co-write the TV adaptation, which should lend an air of credibility to the project from the outset. Pileggi will team co-writer Jorge Zamacona and "Goodfellas" producer Irwin Winkler to produce the developing project. The film was released in 1990 with a solid cast that included Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta. Its story centered on the rise and fall of mobster Henry Hill (Liotta) from 1955 to 1980. Given that the movie was nominated for six Oscars, including best picture, and that Pesci walked away with the Academy Award for best supporting actor, it’s a minor miracle that no one has tried to crank out a bad sequel or TV show before now. It is extremely doubtful any of the movie’s key actors will be involved with the show in any way, other than a cameo at some point during its run. Still, AMC has a growing reputation for producing quality original series and with Goodfellas,” it is starting off with a solid concept…………..

- A cynic might say that Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly isn't exactly sincere when he says he hopes that Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun is successful in appealing his positive test for a banned substance, and also that Mattingly has ulterior motives when he suggests that would "make sense" to revote on the MVP award, or strip Braun of the award if it is found that he indeed used a banned substance. Mattingly, after all, manages star center fielder Matt Kemp, who led the NL in homers (39) and RBIs (126) and was third in batting average (.324), and finished second in the MVP voting to Braun. "In the end, I hope the appeal it's something that was a mistake. I don't want to see anything bad come out of it for him," Mattingly said. Of stripping Braun of the award, Mattingly characterized the idea as logical. "I don't know. It makes sense though, a little bit. It's not 10 years later, it's a month later," he suggested. For the record, Braun tested positive for a banned substance near the end of the season and after news of his positive result leaked in December, Braun vehemently proclaimed his innocence and is appealing the result. Braun and his attorney will argue their case in front of a three-person panel of arbiters before the end of January, then await their ruling. He hit .332 with 33 home runs and 111 RBIs to win the award and received a boost from his team winning their first division title in nearly three decades. Mattingly believes his star should have won the award. "To me Matt was the best player in the game last year," Mattingly said. "Ryan had a great year too. But you guys (the media) always ask me about unwritten rules, about catchers and stuff like that. Then we have the unwritten rules about voting, because he wasn't on a winning team. You guys gotta get your unwritten rules together." Or they could just vote for your guy and then there would be no issues, eh Donnie Baseball………..

- Quashing revolts via hired help is an increasingly popular trend so far in 2012. Bashar al-Assad’s regime was accused of hiring and equipping gangs to shoot and kill protestors by a defector and now two Nigerian trade unions have accused their country's president of using "armed thugs" to attack protesters. "In a Mubarak-style response to the peoples' protests, the Jonathan administration brought into Abuja, thugs armed with various weapons including guns," the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria said in a joint statement late Tuesday night. The groups urged demonstrators to continue their nationwide strike against high fuel prices on Wednesday and beyond in spite of the crackdown. The unions likened President Goodluck Jonathan to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, even though the Assad comparison fits more aptly. "Labour warns the Presidency that it will be held responsible for whatever atrocities these thugs commit," the statement said. "We call on Nigerians to continue the strikes, rallies and protests ... Wednesday ... and subsequent days until the Jonathan government listens to the voice of the Nigerian People." All in all, it’s an inspiring piece of prose and hopefully Nigerians will heed the call to continue the gas revolution. The government sparked the protests with its decision to remove fuel subsidies -- a move that resulted in more than doubled fuel prices in one of Africa’s poorest countries. At least 16 people have died and 205 have injured in just three days of protests, according to a tally collected by the Nigerian Red Cross Tuesday. Most of the violence has been centered in the southern state of Edo, with five people killed and 83 injured. One of the more violent incidents thus far occurred in Yobe state, where four people died Wednesday after two gunmen on a motorcycle stopped next to a car filling up at a gas station and opened fire on the occupants in the town of Potiskum. Gunmen also opened fire at an open-air bar in Potiskum, killing eight. Jonathan has attempted to strike a conciliatory tone in speeches on the need for ending the subsidies, telling Nigerians that the government would invest the money in the country's poor infrastructure. "My fellow Nigerians, the truth is that we're faced with two basic choices with regards to the management of the petroleum sector," Jonathan said. "Survive economically or continue with a subsidy regime that will continue to undermine our economy." That message isn't exactly resonating with the Nigerian people so far, it would seem…………

- Chaos is an appropriate word to describe the end of outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s time in office. Like any outgoing president or governor, Barbour was besieged by requests for pardons from convicted criminals. The thinking goes that a politician on his way out might be inclined to grant a pardon to a person because that politician no longer has to answer to his or her constituents. Barbour clearly had many such requests in front of him and caused a lot of drama Wednesday in Mississippi by approving full pardons for 199 people, including 14 convicted murderers, as his term in office ended. The mass pardoning led to a public and judicial uproar and the day ended with a judge issuing a temporary injunction forbidding the release of any more prisoners pardoned by Barbour. Prior to the injunction, four convicted murderers and a convicted armed robber were released Sunday, but they must contact officials on a daily basis as the matter is adjudicated. "We have ordered that they report to the Department of Corrections," said Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. "It's a slap in the face to everyone in law enforcement and Gov. Barbour should be ashamed.” The freed felons will remain unfettered for at least 11 days, as a court hearing on the matter will be held January 23. Hood claimed Barbour violated Mississippi's Constitution because the pardon requests for some inmates were not published 30 days in advance, as required by law. Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Tomie Green (desperately seeking the missing “m” from his first name) agreed and issued the injunction, saying it appeared the pardons, including those for the four murderers, did not meet the 30-day requirement. David Gatlin, Joseph Ozment, Charles Hooker and Anthony McCray are the four murderers released and they were specifically cited in Green's order. All four men were serving life sentences and worked as inmate trusties at the governor's mansion. Hmm……ironic, no? Barbour defended his pardons by chiding critics for not understanding the clemency process. He argued that contrary to popular belief, most of the individuals were not currently jailed. "Approximately 90 percent of these individuals were no longer in custody, and a majority of them had been out for years," he said in a statement. "The pardons were intended to allow them to find gainful employment or acquire professional licenses as well as hunt and vote. My decision about clemency was based upon the recommendation of the Parole Board in more than 90 percent of the cases.” Keep selling that story, former Governor………

- The search for smaller, more convenient technology never stops and a new technique could vault the process forward substantially. Current computer hard drives use more than a million atoms to store a single bit and more than half a billion to store a byte, which is an eight-bit-long unit of code sufficient to write a single letter, as an example. Researchers at IBM Research in California may have unearthed a discovery to radically streamline that process. Lead investigator Andreas Heinrich and a team of tech researchers found that 12 atoms are all that's required to store a bit of computer code – a 1 or 0. That equates to just 96 atoms per byte, allowing for hard drives that store 100 times more information in the same amount of physical space. "We can put the neighboring bits at the same atomic spacing that the atoms have inside the bit," Heinrich said. "So, we can really pack them right next to each other." To go all Scrabble double-word score on everyone, the new storage technique is based on an unconventional form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism. There is a certain amount of irony in antiferromagnetism, as normal magnets used in today's hard drives and for everyday uses, are made of ferromagnetic materials. It is ironic because strong magnets can also be used to wipe out the contents of hard drives. In existing hard drives, the spins of atoms in these magnets align with each other. This provides an overall magnetic field that we can read as a bit — a 1 or 0, explained Heinrich. "But it is bad because the magnetic field from one bit will interfere with the magnetic field from the neighboring bit and so you can't pack these bits too close together because they'll just talk to each other," he said. Conversely, antiferromagnets cancel each other out, so there's no magnetic field emanating from them. Drives using antiferromagnets can be packed close together, allowing for the increased data storage density. Heinrich and his team began their experiment after an exploratory research quest to find out how small they could make a magnetic device and use it for classical data storage. With a scanning electron microscope, they built a data storage system up one atom at a time. Once a device reached eight atoms, the team found a bit was stable for a few seconds and "at 12 atoms it turns out that the classical concepts are so good that these magnetic structures hold their magnetic state for days," Heinrich said. "We said that's good enough to call it storage." Unfortunately, this so-called “stability” is found when the atoms are kept at a chilly minus 268 degrees Celsius, or 5 Kelvin. Operating at room temperature boosts the necessary number of atoms to 250. If scientists can find a way to mass produce the technology, the result could be terabyte hard drives the size of a pinhead or thumb drives that hold every movie you've ever seen………..

Larry Brown NBA pools, CW actreses' topless tweets and science supports stoners

2012-01-11T14:47:00.001-05:00

- It might be time to determine the winner for your Larry Brown Coaching Nomad NBA pool, degenerate gamblers. Brown is the biggest transient in a coaching business full of them, having done stints at Davidson, Kansas and UCLA in the college ranks and with the Nuggets, Spurs, 76ers, Pistons, Pacers, Knicks and Bobcats in the ABA/NBA. He never stays in one place for long, occasionally wins a championship and is always coaching with one eye cast toward the horizon for his next gig. He supposedly left coaching for good after his stint in Charlotte ended badly, but less than two years later he’s once again waxing philosophic about how much he wants to coach again. “I want to get back badly. I just don’t know. The direction the NBA’s going, it seems like they just want to get young ex-players and if you look around the league, there’s not a lot of older coaches anymore. ‘Pop’ [Gregg Popovich] and maybe [Rick] Adelman, but most of these guys are younger, so I don’t know if I fit that mold, but I still believe that I have something to offer and I was disappointed the way Charlotte ended,” Brown opined. “We go to the playoffs and then, 14 games later, I’m fired. They get rid of Raymond [Felton] and get rid of Tyson [Chandler], and I have Kwame Brown, Gerald Henderson and [Dominic] McGuire, all of those guys hurt, missing training camp. So, I’m disappointed the way that ended, but I’d love to get back if somebody gave me a chance. But I won’t politic for it.” No, of course not. You’ll just lobby for it in the media and hope someone will take one more chance on you because you’re a junkie and being on an NBA bench is your drug. Maybe someone actually will give Brown his next fix…………

- Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom! Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom! William Wallace isn't around any longer, but the thirst for freedom remains a major topic in Scotland and current First Minister Alex Salmond is the one sounding the trumpet of liberty. Salmond took a direct shot at the British government Wednesday by insisting that the people of Scotland should set the terms of a referendum on independence, not British politicians. Rather than back down and be a polite member of the United Kingdom, Salmond took a defiant stance against British Prime Minister David Cameron's government by saying he favors allowing the Scots a vote on whether their country should become independent. Salmond believes Scotland should choose between total separation and the status quo and wants the Scottish parliament to determine the best way to present the question to voters. He allowed for the inclusion of a third option based on more independence from Britain that stops short of total separation, but that just seems like a cop-out. His position falls in line with the Scottish National Party’s long-standing position that Scotland should leave the UK and become fully independent. Scotland currently relies on its legislature to govern its own internal affairs and social policies, but cedes control of foreign policy and defense issues to London. Perhaps the reason Scotland hasn’t gone the independent route is the failure of Salmond or another SNP leader to paint their face blue and white, mount a trusty steed and ride back and forth in front of their supporters proclaiming that no one can ever take their freedom and maybe Salmond will do just that if he follows through on his promise to hold a vote on Scottish independence in the fall of 2014. Cameron opposes any breakup of the United Kingdom, which also includes Wales and Northern Ireland, but nonetheless has suggested that Scotland make its intentions clear "sooner rather than later." Scottish minister Michael Moore weakly claimed that Scotland's parliament did not have the legal power to hold a referendum and that any plans must be approved by Britain's parliament, but Salmond was not so meek. "Our conditions are quite clear: This must be a referendum built and run in Scotland, accountable to the Scottish Parliament," he said. He then slammed the British government for having "the idea that London knows best and it is operating in our best interests but wanting to set the ground rules for our referendum despite the fact it has got no mandate whatsoever for doing so.” Let freeeeeeedom ring………….

- Bong rips aren't so bad for you, according to science. Dr. Stefan Kertesz of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, newfound friend of stoners everywhere, and his team hunkered down and researched the riveting topic of whether the smoke wafting from bongs and fatties is as detrimental to a person’s health in the same way as cigar or cigarette smoke. What they found was that multiple measures of lung function actually improved slightly as young people reported using more marijuana all the way up to 1,000 joints smoked. In other words, bong rips don’t seem to have any detrimental effects on lung health. "There's no doubt, if you've watched a Harold & Kumar movie, marijuana triggers a cough," Kertesz said. He admitted that his study contradicts the results of previous research, but isn’t exploring new ground what science is all about? "Previous studies have had mixed results," Kertesz explained. "Some have hinted at an increase in lung air flow rates and lung volume (with marijuana smoking), and others have not found that. Others have found hints of harm." One obvious question about the apparent lack of harm from smoking the chron is why the effects would be different even though marijuana smoke has many of the same toxins as cigarette smoke. Kertesz theorized that could be due to the fact that stoners tend to smoke fewer joints each day than tobacco users smoke cigarettes. Combine that with the method of inhaling for potheads potentially offering some relative lung protection and boom, a working theory furthering the cause of stoners everywhere. For the study, Kertesz and his team used data from a long-term study of more than 5,000 young adults in Oakland, Chicago, Minneapolis and Birmingham. During a period of 21 years from 1985 until 2006, researchers periodically questioned participants about their past and current use of cigarettes and marijuana and tested how much air their lungs could hold and the maximum rate of air flow out of their lungs. Those who were smokers or had smoked cigarettes in the past performed worse on the tests, but the findings did not hold true for stoners when Kertesz and his team dug in and studied them. In fact, both lung volume and air flow rates increased with each "joint-year" -- the equivalent of 365 joints or pipe bowls -- participants said they'd ever smoked, up until about seven joint-years, or some 2,555 joints. Haters will argue that ganja is still a gateway drug, that it makes people lazy and unproductive, blah, blah, blah. Those people can suck it, stop hammering stoners and read more about Kertesz's team and their awesome work in the Journal of the American Medical Association………….

- If one is a marginal actress on an irrelevant CW teen soap opera and wants to get people talking about her, what’s the best way to go about it? “Accidentally” tweeting a topless picture of yourself is a good start, as "90210" cast member AnnaLynne McCord found out earlier this week. While taking some time off searching for the missing space between her two first names, McCord spent some time chilling and hanging with her iPhone and like any remotely tech-savvy person with a Twitter feed, she snapped a picture of herself and posted it. Unfortunately for her, she (allegedly) didn’t realize that the pic showed a little too much of her hot body. The image too much of her left breast and one of her female fans pointed out the mistake, leading McCord to delete the image and shoot that fan a message of gratitude. "Omg I deleted it, is it still there?" she asked in the message. . "This is for you @meganraee," she later tweeted to the fan, along with a link to the edited photo. "You rock! Xxx." Granted, there were probably quite a few of her other followers who noticed the nip slip as well, but most of them were probably dudes who chose to enjoy the visual rather than alert McCord to what it showed. A cynic might argue that McCord is a D-lister at best who knew exactly what she was doing with her NC-17-rated tweet, but she insisted it was a mistake and swung back at those who criticized her for it. "My only response to all these lovely people is, 'He who be without sin cast the first stone.' If you have never messed up or done anything wrong in your life, then please, feel free to judge me," McCord tweeted. Assuming that was a “mistake” on her part, of course……….

- Kooks who think they’ve seen the Almighty or Virgin Mary in grass clippings, tree bark, food or oil slicks in a parking lot, you’ve been ignored for a little while now, but the time has come to welcome you back into the spotlight. First up is Philadelphia resident Patty Maiellano, who hosted a New Year’s Ever party at her south Philadelphia home for friends and family and also welcomed none other than Jesus Christ to the party as well. With noise inside the house and a festive scene outside, how could she possibly encounter Jehovah? “Fireworks, kids — you know how south Philly is on New Year’s Eve,” she recalled. “As I was coming downstairs, I saw a figure on my vertical blinds, which were completely shut. That was Jesus that appeared on my verticals.” Umm….OK. Not being able to sleep late at night and ambling downstairs to see the crazy scene on the street, coupled with some possible consumption of a glass or five of alcohol, could make one a bit fuzzy on logic and perception. Maiellano doesn’t believe she was delusional and maintains that she saw a figure silhouetted in the window blinds of her front room. She says the figure appeared to have his hands clasped, perhaps in prayer. She then called her sister, who was undoubtedly thrilled that she had been disturbed in the middle of the night on a holiday to come over and see some dirt spot or other blemish on a set of vertical blinds. “When she saw Jesus on my verticals, she dropped to her knees,” Patty recalled. The sisters scanned the area around the window searching for anything that could have caused the image, but saw nothing. “This is a complete miracle,” Maiellano said. Sure thing, kook. Maiellano soon found company in her growing club of fools when employees at a restaurant in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, Fla. thought they saw an image of the Virgin Mary on one of the restaurant’s walls. The restaurant is Hamburger Mary's and its supposed miracle came over the weekend after some customers noticed the image on a stainless steel plate on the wall near the kitchen. "From certain angles it does look like the Virgin Mary," manager Melanie Todd said. "I never have noticed it myself, before [this weekend]." And what more logical place for the Virgin Mary to appear than at some greasy spoon known for its gay karaoke and drag queen bingo nights? It’s reassuring to know that there are still nuts out there seeing “supernatural” images in inane places…………

College tripping coaches, Girl Scout cookie apps and NBC's failures continue

2012-01-10T19:01:00.000-05:00

- Want your Thin Mints or Do-Si-Do’s but don’t know if there is a Girl Scout living in your neighborhood? Thankfully, there is now an app to help you get FAT by ordering too many boxes of Trefoils and dunking them in 2 percent milk before jamming them into your pie hole. With sales of their famed cookies lagging as America’s eating options (and waistlines) continue to expand, the organization is embracing new technology and using the smartphone and tablet revolution to reach out. After adding online sales last year to save lazy Girl Scouts from having to lug boxes of cookies around and actually ask annoyed family members and neighbors to buy them in person, the Scouts have introduced the free Cookie Locator app available for iPhone and Android users. Girl Scouts no longer have to knock on doors because the app will lead tech-savvy Samoa-lover to the nearest cookie sale location, which could even be a new neighborhood booth that accepts credit cards. Using technology seems an appropriate way to honor the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts and in that spirit, the organization is also introducing a new cookie — Savannah Smiles. The name sounds better than the cookie itself, which is a lemon-wedge cookie, dusted in powdered sugar. Its primary selling point is being low in calories and fat, as a serving of five Savannah Smiles cookies has only 140 calories. This is the 95th year of Girl Scout cookies, which were first made in 1917 when troops baked cookies and sold them in high school cafeterias. Some 200 million boxes are sold on an annual basis and the Thin Mint is the biggest seller for the troops, accounting 25-percent of overall sales. At a mere $3.50 per box, the chance to pack on extra pounds while supporting a solid cause is still relatively affordable………

- NBC had an admittedly bad fall. Network entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt admitted the Peacock “had a bad fall,” one punctuated by the first-month cancellation of the bomb-tastic “Playboy Club” after just three episodes. Mix in the poor ratings of much-hyped show “Prime Suspect” and generally low ratings for NBC shows across the board and it’s not difficult to see why Greenblatt is so glum. In light of its slow start, the network had to be hoping for big things from “The Firm” as the series based on John Grisham’s best-selling novel and the feature film of the same name. Unfortunately for the Peacock, the Power of Tebow trumps all and “The Firm” had its legal briefs yanked into an atomic wedgie Sunday night by the overtime playoff game between Tebow’s Denver Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers - and most everything else on network and cable television that night. “The Firm” posted ratings a whopping 46 percent below the demo rating of “The Cape” last year. “Cape” was NBC’s big new show at the time and it didn’t overwhelm by any standard, but it was far better than “The Firm.” Worse still, the legal drama lost viewers with each succeeding half-hour. It was NBC’s first Sunday since August without “Sunday Night Football” and already the Peacock is struggling profoundly. ABC’s freshman drama “Once Upon a Time” returned from its holiday break to further hold down “The Firm,” posting ratings 28 percent above its last first-run episode on Dec. 11. With Tebow anchoring a 4:30 p.m. game that ran over into the 8 o'clock hour, CBS pulled in 25.23 million viewers and in the 7 o'clock hour, the game had 41.89 million viewers and a 14.8 rating among the prized 18-to-49-year-old demographic. Back to the drawing board, NBC…………

- Wireless devices are consuming an increasing amount of work tasks and other important items on individuals’ to-do lists, but the ol’ iPhone, iPad or Droid doesn’t necessarily have the storage capacity needed to keep many large video or audio files. Tech manufacturer Seagate looked at that reality and saw an opportunity to cash in by partnering with Verizon Wireless on a mobile hotspot storage device. Like so many other new gadgets, the prototype for the device was revealed at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show/Dork Fest in Las Vegas, where tech lovers gather to ogle new devices in between all-night gambling-and-tequila sessions. Seagate revealed and demonstrated the prototype of a product tentatively called Personal Server 4G LTE Wi-Fi, which essentially combines the company's GoFlex Satellite and a 4G LTE mobile hot spot in one single unit. It is the result of a 16-month collaboration with Verizon, which will be the exclusive provider of the 4G LTE connection for the product whenever it is released. With the product, the tablet wireless storage expander will connect to the Internet from anywhere in the United States. Instead of belonging exclusively to the GoFlex family, the Personal Server 4G LTE Wi-Fi has just one fixed USB 2.0 port and a built-in 4G mobile hot spot. Its two main selling points are wirelessly expanding the storage capacity of smartphones and tablets with enough storage space carry hundreds of HD movies and serving as a mobile hotspot at the same time. Typically, when a mobile device connects to the Personal Server via a Wi-Fi connection, it gains access to the Internet via a 4G LTE connection. With the Personal Server 4G LTE Wi-Fi, a user will not need to be in an area with a Wi-Fi network to gain access to the Internet. Another common concern with any mobile wireless device is battery life and Seagate claims the Personal Server will come with a battery that lasts about 5 hours, about the same as that of the GoFlex Satellite. It will utilize Wireless-N technology, offer storage space of at least 500 GB and sport mobile apps for iOS- and Android-based mobile devices and will also work with any devices that have a full browser, such as a laptop. No release date was offered at CES for the Personal Server 4G LTE Wi-Fi, but here’s hoping…………

- So……Syrian President Bashar Assad doesn’t seem like he’s coming to his senses, backing down or doing anything else that involves him willingly ceding so much as one ounce of his dictatorial power. Months of rebellion have not softened his defiant stance, nor has international pressure to step down. Assad affirmed as much on Tuesday when he vowed to respond to threats against him with an "iron hand" and refused to step down because he is confident he still has the support of the very people who have angrily demanded his resignation for months. Ten months of riots around Syria haven’t clued Assad in to reality and in his fourth speech since the revolt began in March, he reiterated his bizarre foreign conspiracy theories. Instead of accepting the obvious will of the people, Assad insisted terrorists are behind the unrest -- not true reform-seekers. "Our priority now is to regain security which we basked in for decades, and this can only be achieved by hitting the terrorists with an iron hand," he proclaimed in a speech at Damascus University, where he stood at a podium flanked by Syrian flags. "We will not be lenient with those who work with outsiders against the country." The targets of his rage included western powers and even the Arab League, which Assad denounced for failing to protect Arab interests. The organization did suspend Syria and send a team of monitors to assess whether the regime is abiding by an Arab-brokered peace plan that Assad agreed to on Dec. 19, which could explain some of the tension. In the course of the 10-month revolt, Assad has made himself scarce and even left the country for weeks for medical treatment of injuries sustained in attack on his compound. His regime’s crackdown on dissidents never slowed and has grown more violent by the week. Assad has continued to run the same dictator’s playbook as other failed leaders in the region even though the formula failed miserably in Tunisia and Egypt. "We will declare victory soon," Assad said. "When I leave this post, it will be also based upon the people's wishes.” Lies, lies and more lies. If he was willing to leave because of the will of the people, he would already be long gone. With more than 5,000 dead in the revolt and more sure to follow, the will of the people could not be any clearer…………

- The UCLA football team had the distinct honor of being the first sub-.500 football team to make a bowl game this season and even added to their humiliation by losing the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl to Illinois to finish the year an embarrassing 6-8. Their subpar season was bad enough to get coach Rick Neuheisel fired and former Atlanta Falcons coach Jim Mora was hired to take his place. Mora is now assemling his new staff and suffice it to say, he’s not necessarily looking for high-character individuals to fill out the list. As long as he’s bringing in the only former assistant coach found guilty of deliberately tripping an opposing player on the sideline during an NFL game, Mora’s staff definitely cannot be rooted in integrity. That coach would of course be former New York Jets strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosi, who became an NFL punchline when he tripped Dolphins player Nolan Carroll while Carroll was running along the Jets' sideline in a December 2010 game. The organization investigated the incident and determined that Alosi had instructed inactive players to form a "wall" along the boundary to deter Miami players and set up the trip. He was indefinitely suspended following the incident and later resigned/was fired. After leaving the Jets, he worked as a personal trainer out of his home in New Jersey before taking a job with tiny Bryant College in Rhode Island. Now, he joins UCLA as its strength and conditioning coordinator. He previously worked on Mora's staff with the Falcons in 2006, hence Mora tossing him a bone with this job. Alosi has never commented on the tripping incident, likely because he signed a confidentiality agreement upon his resignation, prohibiting him from commenting on anything pertaining to his time with the Jets. Whether he will be able to improve the strength and conditioning of the Bruins is uncertain, but opposing players will definitely be wary of going anywhere near the UCLA sideline…………

Kanye and the Jetsons, rage-filled coaches and Brits love beer

2012-01-09T14:45:00.000-05:00

- How committed are you to your job? Depending on your salary and how much you hate what you do, the answer could range from extremely committed to don’t give a damn and don’t care who knows it. Polish military prosecutor Col. Mikolaj Przybyl would seem to fall more into the former category and anyone doubting that fact need look only at Przybl was willing to shoot himself in the head rather than allow the work of his office to be insulted and reforms to its practices instituted. The colonel read a statement to reporters about the proposed reforms and allegations or corruption within his office in the western city of Poznan, then asked everyone to leave the room. He proceeded to shoot himself in the head, a wound he somehow survived. Footage recorded by TVN24 station, whose camera was left rolling after reporters left, shows the colonel walking across his office and out of sight before a gunshot can be heard. For a member of the military, Przybyl must be a terrible shot because he is currently in stable condition, conscious, and his life is not in danger, according to hospital director Leslaw Lenartowicz. His status as deputy head of the prosecutor's office in Poznan and the head of a local department investigating organized crime in the army may not be quite so stable, although Chief Military Prosecutor Krzysztof Parulski said that Przybyl was one of the "best prosecutors" and a "man of honor." President Bronislaw Komorowski and Justice Minister Jaroslaw Gowin vowed to closely monitor an investigation into the shooting and some national lawmakers are calling for a special parliament probe into the case. Many lawmakers believe Przybyl's statement suggests a massive corruption problem in the army. That seems awfully cynical just because Przybyl read a statement to reporters in which he objected to plans by Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet to put military prosecutors under civilian authority. The allegations of corruption stem from the questionable purchases of equipment for Poland's troops on missions in Afghanistan and, earlier, in Iraq. Whatever the outcome, just don’t say Col. Mikolaj Przybyl is not extremely passionate about the process…………

- Morgan State basketball coach Todd Bozeman appears to have anger issues. That much was obvious back in 2007, during his first season as Morgan State's coach. He was charged with misdemeanor assault stemming from an incident at a Virginia restaurant in which his order was allegedly messed up. Restaurant manager Carlos Holland claimed Bozeman had gone "belligerent, screaming that he didn't want ham sandwiches” when his server delivered his meal. The charges were ultimately dismissed after Bozeman reached an undisclosed financial settlement with the manager of the establishment and apologized publicly to Mulligan's Sports Grille in court. He is also no stranger to breaking rules and laws, as his first head coaching job at the University of California-Berkeley ended when he was accused of recruiting violations that included paying a recruit’s family $30,000. That earned him an eight-year ban from coaching, after which he resurfaced at Morgan State. He survived the 2007 incident and remains on the bench for the Bears, but has now been suspended indefinitely with pay after a scrape he has described as "accidental contact" with senior guard Larry Bastfield during a win Saturday at South Carolina State, Athletic director Floyd Kerr informed Bozeman of the decision Sunday night and told the coach he was to "separate" himself from the team and have no further contact with any of his players or coaches until further notice. It certainly didn’t aid Bozeman’s case that South Carolina State president George E. Cooper witnessed the incident and thought the coach had punched the player in the face. Cooper summoned campus police during the game to question Bastfield during the game about bringing possible charges against Bozeman. In Bozeman’s defense, both he and Bastfield maintained Sunday night the situation was blown out of proportion. Bastfield went so far as to say he didn’t give much thought to the incident until he was questioned by two campus police officers during the game. The facts of the case don’t suggest any charges or additional discipline are forthcoming for Bozeman, but he does seem to be every bit as angry as ever…………

- The sad state of the American judicial system notwithstanding, this is still unique. Hennepin County Judge Lloyd Zimmerman is refusing to do his job at three suburban courthouses. He won't hear cases until his concerns about courtroom security are addressed. “It’s an issue that’s been on everybody’s plate for a long time,” admitted Chief Judge James Swenson, who presides over courts that have weapon screening, and three suburban locations that don’t. Swenson’s comments come just weeks after a shooting incident in a St. Louis County courthouse and the chief judge says most judges favor stronger security measures. “They’re concerned with participants in court,” he said, “and they’re concerned with themselves. It’s not just about judges.” Zimmerman was not placated when an extra deputy was added at the courthouse in Brookdale last year and is on the record as saying he won’t work at the Brookdale, Southdale or Ridgedale courthouses until they get screening. He sent out a scathing email to colleagues that read, “I’m tired of driving to Brookdale, the courtroom everyone who knows agrees is the most likely place for a shooting or violence to occur, and not know whether I will be carried out in a body bag that day.” Wow….a nice body bag blast, well done. Swenson and other Hennepin County officials met with county representatives on Tuesday, but implementing security screenings with the requisite equipment will take time. The plan formulated at the meeting calls for a 16-week study to assess the needs of the three facilities and there is no guarantee what consultants will recommend. They could suggest metal detectors at all courthouses, or even moving all domestic cases, which are the most volatile, to the Government Center downtown. Long-term recommendations won't come until some time this summer and Judge Zimmerman will have to stick to his threat to boycott justice in suburbia until then…………

- Put the liquor down, Brits. Those are tough words to hear, but your own government is telling you it’s time to lay off the sauce just a little bit during the week. The British Science and Technology Committee, made up of several members of Parliament, warned Brits not to drink alcohol twice a week. The committee believes the country's current guidelines for "sensible drinking" could lead to excessive drinking. Why? Just because the British government’s position since 1987 has been that British men could drink up to 21 units of alcohol a week and women could drink up to 14 because scientific evidence suggested drinking alcohol could cut the risk for heart disease? Even in the 1990s, when the government revised its recommendation to quantify daily alcohol use, officials still recommended that men should not regularly drink more than three to four units a day and women no more than two to three units a day. Oddly enough, members of the STC are skeptical about those recommendations because the evidence of alcohol’s benefits was found for only men over 40 and post-menopausal women. They objected to the fact that the guidelines "appeared to endorse daily drinking." Right, and the problem is? So what if the average Brit doesn’t know how much alcohol is in a unit? For the record, a can of beer or a standard glass of wine contains two units in the British system. Asking Brits to forego alcohol two days a week is a big ask, even if the committee suggested doing so would promote better health and "enforce the message that drinking every day should be avoided, and would helpfully quantify what 'regular' drinking means to the public." They probably don’t need that help and they’re also going to ignore that suggestion, but go for it anyhow…………

- Kanye West’s ego is healthy enough that he could take on any project, no matter how absurd, and believe it was the best project ever. He’s dabbling in fashion even though his looks are typically pretty absurd and feature styles that only Kanye West can really get away with. He’s launched a new company called DONDA, recorded an album with Jay-Z and been his usual egomaniacal self. Soon, he may have a new gig as creative director of "The Jetsons" live-action movie. Yes, the futuristic cartoon about a family living in the space age with a robot maid named Rosie and a dog named Astro is going to be made into a live-action movie and for some odd reason, West’s name surfaced as a possible choice for creative director. Producer Denise Di Novi confirmed a meeting with West and said that although no deal was reached, both sides remain extremely interested. "Kanye's always been a 'Jetsons' fan, I think because he's so into design and he loves the design aspects," Di Novi said. "So we had a fun brainstorming conversation." Oh, and the reason West’s name surfaced for the project is because he "reached out and said he's a huge Jetsons fan," Di Novi explained. West then tweeted about the meeting and his desire to be a part of the film. "He was interested in creatively brainstorming what we were doing with the movie and what ideas he might have," Di Novi said. West reportedly told Di Novi he would consider the project further and “see if he got inspired visually.” With or without him, the revival of the show that first aired on television the '60s and returned two decades later before jumping to the big screen with the 1990 animated film "The Jetsons" will go forward, just less arrogantly if he’s not on board…………

Movie news, misguided heroes and satellites falling from the sky

2012-01-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

- So….maybe not every soldier who comes back from a stint in Iraq is in possession of heroic qualities through and through. Yes, putting one’s life on the line even when the war is unjustified and just plain unnecessary for a nation that feels rightfully infringed upon by your presence is courageous and admirable, but evidence would suggest that at least a few of those who so proudly served in the United States Army during its interminable stint in Iraq didn’t come home with a better sense of what “Honor, Duty, Country” really means. In fact, as many as 100 soldiers in the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division unit seem oblivious to the meaning of that phrase because they are currently confined to a Washington state base following a report of missing sensitive military equipment, including scopes and night lasers. A spokesman at Joint Base Lewis-McChord confirmed the soldiers’ detention and said that they can have day visits but must sleep at the base at night. Maj. Chris Ophardt also explained that the missing items came to light last month when authorities conducted an inventory, but no one knows how long they have been gone. The missing materials were discovered and a $10,000 reward has been offered, but so far none of the AWOL scopes, night lasers and other gear have been found. The 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division unit has been home from Iraq since September 2010 and a cynic might suspect that someone in the unit siphoned off a few valuable items they thought would not be missed and pawned them for some quick cash. Doesn’t really sound very heroic………..

- Demonic possession and other evil matters were a big hit at the movies this weekend, leaving newcomer “The Devil Inside” as the top film with a $34.5 million effort in its debut to best a top 10 field comprised almost entirely of returning films. Paramount scored a significant success with the exorcism-centric flick, which knocked fellow Paramount movie “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” from the top spot. “Ghost Protocol” finished second in its third weekend of release by adding another $20.5 million to its bank account. That gives Tom Cruise’s latest project a domestic total of $170.2 million thus far. That left third place to “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” which managed a modest $14.1 million in its own third weekend and has garneted $157.5 million in U.S. earnings. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” lingered in fourth place and cranked out $11.4 million to raise its three-week earnings tally to $76.9 million, still well below expectations. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” was the final film in the top five despite dropping off 42 percent from last weekend. The animated flick made $9.5 million and has scored $111.5 million and counting in domestic earnings. Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse” ranked sixth on the earnings list for the weekend. The family film made $8.6 million and for two weeks of work it has scored $56.8 million in U.S. earnings. It was another disappointing outing for Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson’s “We Bought a Zoo,” with $8.5 million made and a seventh place finish all the movie could muster in its third weekend. “The Adventures of Tintin” secured the eighth spot with $6.6 million and has brought in a respectable $61.8 million in its three-week run. “Tinker Tailor Soldier” has been incessantly promoted over the past week and showing in just 809 theaters, it was ninth on the earnings list with $5.7 million. “New Year's Eve” capped the top 10 with $3.3 million, while “The Darkest Hour” (No. 11) and the dogmatic “The Descendents” (No. 12) both dropped out of the top 10……….

- Win with class, lose with class. At least half of that mantra was fulfilled Saturday night (and into Sunday morning) after the New Orleans Saints’ 45-28 shellacking (sorry for all Lions players infuriated by that word choice), the Saints went about their business and said all the right things about a win that saw them blow by the Lions (again, apologies to offended Lions players) with 35 second-half points. The Saints scored on all five of their drives in the final two quarters and went from four points down at halftime to a 17-point win. The Lions had not played a playoff game since 1999 and their inexperience in a postseason setting showed. Several players lashed out at those who criticized their poor performance and one of them sounded eerily LeBron James-like in telling the haters reveling in his team’s failure what they could do. “Y’all can go back to being Broke & Miserable…now back to regular scheduled programming,” tweeted defensive back Aaron Berry, who showed Crisco-coated hands by failing to hold onto a would-have-been interception with the Saints trailing by only three points in the fourth quarter. His words sounded reminiscent of James telling his critics they had to go back to their same miserable lives once they finished gloating over his team’s loss to Dallas in last year’s NBA Finals. Berry sounded just as bitter and misguided, even if he later apologized to his “loyal fans.” Safety Chris Harris followed his secondary mate into social networking stupidity, reacting via Twitter to the headline on an Internet story proclaiming that the Lions were “torched” by the Saints. Harris blasted the reporter for being unable to “think of a better adjective” even though torched is technically a verb. Only Lions cornerback Alphonso Smith handled his Twitter feed with any sort of responsibility after the game. “Before you say anything crazy or ignorant please know your ‘coverages’ first just a friendly reminder!!! now fire away!!!” he tweeted. Ah, the clever ploy of reminding fans they don’t know much about football but encouraging them to “fire away” anyhow. Stay classy, Lions, stay classy………..

- Train rides through Europe are typically a solid experience. Even for a foreigner who doesn’t speak the language well, riding through picturesque scenery aboard a fast train is a great way to spend a few hours. That was not the case for passengers aboard a train from Gothenburg to Orebro, Sweden in late November. These Scandinavian travelers were chugging along in second class when their day took an interesting turn courtesy if a disoriented stoner. Stoners are usually some of the most chill, mellow people in the world and not at all problematic to share a train with. If anything, they’re likely to sit quietly in their stoned state listening to Phish or the Grateful Dead on their iPod while chowing down on some Cheetohs. That was not the case on this particular train, as a stoned Swede finished smoking his fattie and then began to “behave strangely,” according to police. He started off his sojourn through the train by threatening to assault a train conductor, then took his clothes off and roamed through the train asking passengers if they would like to have sex with him. Oddly enough, none of the ladies aboard the train took him up on his offer for stoner sex. When offering nicely didn’t work, the man attempted to force a woman to perform a sex act on him. Another passenger testified during the man’s trial that he claimed to be "a warrior who was going to rape and kill everyone." Police arrested him at the next stop and he was held on remand for assault, attempted rape, threatening behavior, resisting arrest and drugs offenses. Now, he’ll get to spend the next 20 months in prison and will have to wait quite a while for his next bong rip………..

- America is scaling down its efforts in outer space, so the door is wide open for other nations to step up and seize control of the great beyond…….or so it would seem. China has vowed to send astronauts to the moon, private companies from various countries have stepped up efforts to shoot people into space and Russia has vaulted to the front of the race as well. But Russia will likely be taking a huge step back in the near future as its Phobos-Grunt mission aimed for a first landing of a probe on the Martian moon, Phobos is about to crash and burn in literal and spectacular fashion. The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft was launched Nov. 8 from Kazakhstan, carrying a piggybacked Chinese Mars orbiter added late to the mission and a Planetary Society microbe experiment. Costing a whopping $163 million, the spacecraft reached orbit around Earth but failed to fire the rocket that would send it on an eight-month interplanetary trip. Russian space officials are investigating the cause of the failure, but independent scientists have criticized the project as overly ambitious and insufficiently funded. European Space Agency and NASA transmitters have attempted to re-establish radio communications for several weeks without success, leaving Russian space agency officials with no option but to declare the craft a loss. No one knows for certain its exact location, but U.S. Strategic Command officials estimate that the satellite’s declining orbit from a low point of 130 miles high to 114 miles means the 29,100-pound spacecraft, stuffed with 8.3 tons of hydrazine fuel, should come crashing back to Earth around Jan. 15. When it lands with a thud, the Phobos-Grunt craft will become the latest Mars-focused project to fail in über-disappointing fashion. NASA's Mars Polar Lander, a $120 million spacecraft, suffered a debilitating crash in 1999 most likely caused by landing rockets failing to fire. "The Phobos-(Grunt) science team would like to repeat the mission using (the) experience that we got working on this mission," said mission scientist Alexander Zakharov of the Space Research Institute in Moscow. With the impending admission of failure for the Phobos-Grunt mission, Russia is now batting a solid .050 (1-for-20) in successful Mars missions. The only mystery left for the mission is guessing where the craft will land. Its crash point could be anywhere from 51.4 degrees north latitude, about as far north as London, to 51.4 degrees south latitude, nearly as far south as the tip of South America. Enjoy the suspense, world…………

Golden Globe irrelevance, Riot Watch! Nigeria and fighting-free hockey

2012-01-07T13:41:00.000-05:00

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Nigeria is the place and oil is the reason for massive protests that are gripping the western African nation. The government threw the first punch in the fight when it ended oil subsidies that had kept gasoline prices artificially low. As of Jan. 1, Africa's largest oil producer removed subsidies that kept prices down and the cost of a liter of gasoline shot up from 65 naira (40 cents) to at least 141 naira (86 cents) almost overnight. That is an increase of 107 percent and it inspired thousands of Nigerians to take to the streets and stage ‘Occupy Nigeria’ protests and mass demonstrations across the country. Police have responded with a predictable show of excessive force and one death has already been reported because of it. Student Muyideen Mustafa was allegedly struck and killed by a police bullet in Ilorin, Kwara State during a protest. Police in Kano State also confirmed that they fired teargas into a crowd staging a midnight protest Wednesday even though the gathering of Muslims and Christians was largely peaceful. The government eliminated oil subsidies as part of its push to deregulate the oil sector in the country. Officials believe subsidizing consumption of oil is a drain on public finances and cannot work in the long term. In fact, they have argued that fuel importers were the only real beneficiaries of the subsidies and claim the move will save the Treasury more than 1 trillion naira ($6.13 billion) in 2012. Reuben Abati, spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan, said that money will help to improve public amenities and build much-needed infrastructure. Nigerians would contend that better roads are worthless if they cannot afford the gas necessary to drive on them. Its oil and gas arrangement is odd because it produces around 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day but imports 70 percent of its gasoline from as far away as Venezuela because its own refineries are inoperative after years of neglect. Those realities are less immediate to Nigerians than waking up and seeing the prices of gas has more than doubled. They are hit with that immediate hardship as well as the increased cost of transport, food, medicine, rent and school fees. With most Nigerians living on less than $2 a day in a country with little infrastructure, high unemployment and only intermittent electric power, cheap gasoline was one of the main tangible benefits. That benefit is now gone and instead the country is being fueled by the power of outrage and riots…………

- Hockey just isn't what it used to be. Back in the day, a player could punch whomever he wanted in the face, whenever he wanted. Technically that may be an exaggeration, but fighting was definitely a bigger part of the game in the past. But with the long-term effects of head injuries and specifically concussions a focal point for all sports, not just hockey, the NHL is trying to make fighting a much smaller part of the game. There are still brawls during games, but not the way there once was. That’s not OK with Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, one of the biggest proponents of rough-and-tumble hockey. Burke’s team is founded on skill and speed instead of brute force and he doesn’t like the direction hockey is heading. "If you want a game where guys can cheap-shot people and not face retribution, I'm not sure that's a healthy evolution," he said Thursday. "The speed of the game, I love how the game's evolved in terms of how it's played. But you're seeing where there is no accountability." The NHL’s own statistics show that fighting is down significantly this season. Approximately one-third of the way through the season, there has been an average of 0.8 fighting majors per game compared with 1.2 at the same point last year. That’s a 33 percent decrease and Burke believes that a lack - again, a lack - of fighting is actually dangerous for hockey. "To me, it's a dangerous turn in our game," Burke said. His own team isn't exactly looking to drop gloves every chance they get as the Leafs are in the bottom third of NHL teams in fighting majors per game with just 13 of them prior to facing Winnipeg Thursday night. Burke doesn’t seem very concerned that former NHL tough guys Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak died within a short span during the summer and researchers ound evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative neurological condition, in Boogaard's brain, as they have with other former fighters. Instead, he cracked on new league disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan and suggested that on-ice discipline is the superior alternative. "These guys that won't back it up, won't drop their gloves, run around and elbow people in the head and hit people from behind. They never have to answer for that in the game. They used to have to answer for that in the game,” Burke fumed. "The players (used to) police the game and now it's Brendan Shanahan." Bitter much, eh Burke……….

- The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has fired up and brought the requisite slate of new and gimmicky products with it. Each year the show draws in all of the major players in the technology world and many of them debut their latest gadgets for the world to see. Vizio is among those looking to make an impact with something new this year. The company is best known for its budget flat-panel TVs, but at CES it is seeking to cross over into the computer market. TV sales have been relatively flat for the past two years and Vizio has turned its sights toward what will probably be an ill-fated foray into computers in an attempt to resuscitate its profit margins. Sales of traditional desktop computers have also been modest with the surging enthusiasm for tablets and smartphones, but Vizio believes there is life left in the PC world. The way consumers are actually using PCs "is expanding, not contracting," says Matt McRae, Vizio's chief technology officer. "They come home and use their PC for e-mail, but they're also using it for entertainment experiences." Vizio is introducing five new computers at CES: two all-in-one desktops with 24-inch and 27-inch monitors, two laptops with 15.6-inch screens and a thinner notebook with a 14-inch screen. All five models will go on sale in May, but no prices have been announced. Vizio has said only that price points will be similar to its TV prices, which are designed to undercut competitors. It will find plenty of competitors in the field of subpar personal computers, where the fight is fierce and the products are typically anything but…………

- A good military coup is the gift that never stops giving. Turkey’s alleged military coup has soldiered on for months now and although it has not yet materialized into a full-fledged coup attempt with the requisite death, corruption and drama, the entertainment value has still been high. The alleged coup added another suspected conspirator to its list Friday when former Turkish military chief Gen. Ilker Basbug was jailed after being accused of leading an Internet campaign to stir the revolt to topple the country’s civilian government. Basbug was the most senior officer to face trial in the anti-terror probes that began years ago. Hundreds of suspects were detained in the alleged coup, most of them retired and active-duty military officers. The government characterizes the inquiries as a triumph for the rule of law and democracy, but law and democracy generally don’t involve long imprisonments without verdicts or allegations of bias and vindictiveness. Basbug’s arrest didn’t exactly spark a public uproar, an ironic development in a country where generals once held immense influence over civilian leaders. The balance of power shifted to the civilian side during the past decades as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan challenged the military’s once-untouchable status. The military is still a point of national pride and assists in Afghanistan and other NATO missions, but has taken some significant hits of late. Its reputation suffered a blow last week when 35 civilians were mistakenly killed in an airstrike meant to target Kurdish rebels. Basbug’s fall from grace continued when he was arrested and placed in a prison near Istanbul after seven hours of questioning by prosecutors investigating allegations that the military financed websites undermining Erdogan’s government in 2009. The general retired in August, but led the military at the time of the alleged misdeeds. Basbug’s lawyer, Ilkay Sezer, said his client has joined other suspects in the case in denying all accusations during questioning. Basbug reportedly went so far as to coin a new term to describe the claims against him, calling them “tragicomical.” All of this brought to you as part of the sheer joy of an alleged coup…………

- The real stunner isn't that Rick Gervais is returning to host the Golden Globes for the third consecutive year. The true surprise is that anyone gives a damn. After all, the Globes are one in a long line of meaningless, self-congratulatory, narcissistic award shows that feature A-listers handing out tacky little statuettes to one another while wearing overpriced threads and rubbing elbows with their arrogant peers in some stuffy theater. They have no more meaning or cachet than any other award show, but Gervais livened up the event last year when he offended many stars with jokes perceived to be over the line and disrespectful. He joked about Charlie Sheen’s turn toward insanity and cracked on Robert Downey Jr. for his stint in jail. Gervais said he didn’t understand what all of the outrage was about. “I don't know what I did wrong really, what did I say that was untrue? The controversy is irrelevant to me. That is people's opinions outside my jokes,” he said. After his performance last year, the common belief was that he had hosted his last Golden Globes. When asked what factored into his decision to return, Gervais admitted he heard the critics who claimed he would never be invited back and when the offer came, he accepted in part to stick it to those critics. “I do it my way. I get final edit on everything. And they don't know what I'm going to say. And they won't know what I'm going to say 'til I say it,” he insisted. In his mind, Gervais’ on-stage persona is merely a character he plays who is “a lot brasher, more arrogant, more confident than me.” That more arrogant version of Gervais will be on stage doing his thing when the Golden Globes take place on Jan. 15…………

Van Halen is back, a stolen gun show and desperate French politicians

2012-01-06T14:22:00.000-05:00

- Everyone knows there’s only one way to impress a classy lady: Buy her two tickets to the gun show. Iconic (and fictional) TV news legend Ron Burgundy taught the world that lesson and Carolina Panthers linebacker Kion Wilson lives it - or at least he will once he gets his guns back. In Wilson’s case, the guns aren’t the twisted steel located between his elbow and shoulder that is toned and built by hours in the weight room, but actual guns and plenty of them. Apparently Wilson is something of a gun enthusiast and a few days ago he was tooling around Charlotte with four pretty heavy pieces of weaponry in his truck. He headed out to the shooting range with his FN 57 handgun, Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, Glock 23 and Smith and Wesson Body Guard 380 in tow. With the proper permits in hand, there was no issue with Wilson’s small weapons cache - until he stopped at a local best buy on the way to the range. He found a parking spot, departed his Ford F250 truck and headed inside to check out the iPhones, laptops, iPads and noise-canceling headphones. When he returned, his truck had been broken into and the guns were gone. Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said the team had confirmed the guns were registered to Wilson and that the player had done nothing wrong, but had no further comment. Considering the issues NFL players have had with guns and shooting either themselves or others in the past decade, one player having four guns stolen from his truck probably registers as a relief on commissioner Roger Goodell’s radar. As for the scumbag who stole Wilson’s guns, here’s hoping karma comes back to smack that fool…………

- French President Nicolas Sarkozy is digging deep and reaching for every weapon he can find in his battle to stay in power. Well, he may not be willing to use gang members as mercenaries to crush revolutions the way Bashir al-Assad’s regime is in Syria, but Sarkozy is looking for every legal method possible to curry favor with voters ahead of April’s presidential election. Polls suggest Sarkozy is losing ground to Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-Right National Front, and could fall well short in the first round of elections in April. Socialist contender François Hollande is currently leading in most polls and Sarkozy is showing signs of desperation. He is digging deep and trying to pander to France’s general love of Joan of Arc to bolster his fading campaign. Sarkozy made pilgrimage to Joan of Arc's birthplace in eastern France for the 600th anniversary of her birth this week and seized upon the occasion to remind the French that no single party could stake a claim on the Maid of Orleans, especially not his rivals. "Joan is the incarnation of patriotism, which is the love of one's country without the hatred of others," Sarkozy said in a speech at Vaucouleurs, eastern France, where Joan began her campaign to push the English out of France and place Charles VII on the throne. Latching on to the legend of a 15th century peasant who led the French army against the English after hearing religious voices and was later burned at the stake does seem like a reach, but politics are often a desperate endeavor. Just to be safe, Sarkozy later e visited Domremy-la-Pucelle, the village said to have been Joan of Arc’s birthplace. He reminded his citizens that Joan of Arc’s legacy is not the property of any single party even as he tried to gravy train on her beloved status to help his own campaign. "Joan doesn't belong to any party, any faction, any clan," he said. "May we continue to think of her (Joan) as the symbol of our unity and not leave her in the hands of those who would use her to divide. To divide in the name of Joan of Arc is to betray Joan of Arc's memory." Le Pen actually threw the first punch in the fight earlier this week when she claimed that she had more in common with the late saint than Sarkozy, both ideologically and physically. "He must know that I have stronger convictions, a purer heart and longer legs and thus he will have great difficulty, I think, in catching me," Le Pen said. She also held a rally Friday in central Paris at the base of an armor-clad statue of the saint. And you thought the Republican presidential race was full of desperate, pathetic candidates…………

- Van Halen is back…..for another cash grab. The ‘80s rockers are back together with David Lee Roth as lead singer and will begin a nationwide arena tour next month, but they kicked off their on-stage reunion Thursday night at a small club in New York's West Village. The show took place at the famed Cafe Wha?, owned by Roth’s uncle Manny, and featured plenty of VIPs to see the band play some of their greatest hits including "Jump" and "Panama." Former tennis great John McEnroe was among those in attendance as Van Halen played an hour-long set. "Welcome to Occupy Van Halen, ladies and gentleman!" Roth yelled just before the band launched into "You Really Got Me," the first song of the night. He also took time to single out some of the other greats who had played at the club, including Bob Dylan, and claimed he was more nervous on the Café Wha? stage than he would be next month at much larger venues. "I'm more nervous about this gig than I would ever be in the Garden," he said, referring to Madison Square Garden. The World’s Most Famous Arena is one of the venues Van Halen will play in the coming months as they kick off their reunion tour. The tour begins in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 16, and will tour through June, hitting cities like Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. Of course, there is a new album to promote as well and the band announced Wednesday that they'll release "A Different Kind of Truth" on Feb. 7. It will be their first album with Roth since their celebrated album "1984," released that same year. Since then, the band has veered all over the place, swapping out lead singers, fighting amongst themselves and putting out some extremely unlistenable music. Roth left for a solo career and Sammy Hagar took his place, bassist Michael Anthony left and was replaced by Wolfgang Van Halen, the son of guitar great Eddie Van Halen and plenty of discontent permeated every album and tour. However, nothing brings people together quite like money and the promise of renewed fame, so everyone was smiling Wednesday night during the show. "This has been a really long time coming," Roth told the audience. "It took us 50 years to get this gig. It was easier to get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame than to get this gig." Glad someone enjoyed the occasion even if the whole thing is a blatant cash grab…….

- The Guinness Book of World Records continues to inspire losers around the globe to attempt truly asinine feats. Whether it’s kooks growing their fingernails for seven years, thousands of tools uniting to play the opening lick of “Smoke on the Water” in unison or a fool collecting the world’s largest ball of yarn, there will never be a shortage of ass hats willing to do worthless things just to get their name in that book. Maitland, Fla. resident Penny Gold is one of those ass hats and her feat is no less ridiculous than any of the others. She is seeking a new world record for……wait for it…..wait a little longer…….owning the most pairs of Converse tennis shoes. Her collection currently contains 733 pairs and even if a person is buying their Chuck Taylor All-Stars from the discount store, that would still put her in the neighborhood of $15,000-$20,000 spent on shoes that, while awesome, are not a product that one needs to own in bulk for any reason. When did the madness start for Gold? "The collection began about 20 years ago,” she said. "I’ve been wearing Converse since I was a very little girl in Brooklyn. When all the Converse outlets opened here in Orlando it was at least reasonable to buy." Umm, not really. Nothing about owning 733 pairs of the same kind of shoes is reasonable. Gold has even beaten any resistance to her shoe collection out of her husband Barry, who admits he’s given up the fight. “We're married 40 years, I have no choice,” he said. Instead, he dutifully builds shelves to house his wife’s kicks and keep them neat, color coordinated and organized. Some of the shoes are brightly colored, some are sparkly and some have comic book characters or band names on them. Like any loser with a large collection of junk, Gold wants her name in the Guinness Book of World Records. She followed the book’s requirement to document her collection by holding a public display and having her friends count every pair, including the ones on her feet. If her count is accurate, Gold will best the loser who currently holds the record by a margin of 173 pairs. Her official count will be reported to Guinness at its headquarters in England and her record would then appear in the book’s 2013 issue, cementing her status as a world-class loser…………

- This is only going to fuel the arguments of those sad souls who truly believe their dogs are really their children and equivalent to a human member of their family. A new study led by researcher Jozsef Topal found that dogs possess non-verbal communication skills comparable to what is seen in 6-month-old human infants. "These results support the notion that dogs are sensitive to the cues signaling humans' communicative intent in a way that is analogous to preverbal human infants," said Topal, the study’s lead author. He and his team found that dogs who were spoken to or who had direct eye contact with a person were more likely to follow that human's gaze as it moved across the room than if the person didn't make direct eye contact with them. They also discovered that dogs pay attention to the right side of a person’s face to read non-verbal clues in much the same way humans do. For the study, Topal’s team had 16 domesticated dogs watch videos of female actors turning towards a plastic pot. In the first video, the actor looked directly at the dog and said in a high-pitched voice, "Hi dog!" In the second video, the same actor said "Hi dog" in a low-pitched voice but didn't make eye contact. Researchers used eye-tracking techniques, which are already commonly used to study infant behavior, to determine that the dogs were more likely to follow the human turning toward the pot when they had both been spoken to and received direct eye contact. When the actor said "Hi dog" in a low-pitched voice without the direct gaze, the dogs seemed unable to read the person’s intent. "The [dog's] gaze was only triggered when preceded by communicating intent. It does seem to be that dogs do look at humans and follow gestures," said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, Mass. "This is intuitive to anyone who owns a dog, that dogs seem to be more in tune with us than some scientists believe." Eye-tracking techniques also play a role in other aspects of dogs' cognitive processing, such as memory skills and reasoning abilities, said Topal, who is an associate professor in the Comparative Behavior Research Group at the Institute for Psychological Researches, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in Budapest. That’s where you should send your angry messages once the pathetic person in your life hits you with, “Not only does little Fluffy love her Mommy so much and love the sweater I knit for her, but she understands me and how I feel. She really is my child.” Thanks for that, Joe…………

More reasons for government workers to slack, digital music rules and paying gangs to crush protests

2012-01-05T19:02:00.000-05:00

- You do what you have to do to stay in power and if that includes holding jailed dissidents underground and paying pro-government gang members $100 a day to crack down on protesters, so be it, eh Syria? Those are the most recent allegations against the country’s embattled government has been as it attempts to crush dissent amidst months of demonstrations and public outrage. Mahmoud Suleiman al-Hamad, a financial inspector in the Ministry of Defense in Damascus until his recent defection to Egypt, made those claims in an interview this week and in the process provided a view inside a dark and violent crackdown that does not appear to be slowing. He spoke about what he saw from his 12th-floor office and how harsh the crackdown truly was. "I used to see them bringing in blindfolded and handcuffed detainees on buses who are kept in underground prisons, even some built under the streets," he said. "What is more horrific is the intelligence vans marked with the Syrian Red Crescent insignia that would drive through the protests as ambulances and start firing at protestors." Posing as aid workers or medical professionals and using that as a cover to needlessly gun down protestors in the street? Very clever, Syrian government. Among al-Hamad’s other allegations were instances where city buses filled with armed gangs left the ministry accompanied by four-wheel-drive vehicles "filled with weapons” and drove directly into the heart of areas where protests were taking place. Not surprisingly, al-Hamad blames much of the carnage not Syrian regular troops but on President Bashar al-Assad's intelligence service and the gangs of violent criminals he says were recruited to battle protesters. "Bashar al-Assad is no longer able to control these human monsters," al-Hamad said. "We have reached a phase of genocide, and this can't be tolerated under any circumstances." Yikes, he’s tossing out the G-word? That’s not good. Nor is the suggestion that gunmen were provided with accommodations "and high salaries of about $100 a day." Violently crushing a rebellion is one thing; doing it by paying criminals to serve as mercenaries is something else entirely. Even within the government, life was not exactly free and easy, al-Hamad said. The ministry forced employees to have vacations and travel be approved by the intelligence department. He ultimately escaped by traveling to Egypt through the airport with the excuse of registering my son in college in Cairo. And yes, escaping to another country in upheaval like Egypt is incredibly ironic……….

- How did the battle with one of his star players go for Sacramento Kings Paul Westphal? Go ahead and ask Westphal that question because he has plenty of time to answer it now that the Kings have fired him. They dismissed the third-year coach Thursday, amid a slow start and an intensifying dispute with young center DeMarcus Cousins. Westphal was 51-120 in two-plus seasons with the franchise, but it was his early-season battle with Cousins that garnered the most attention through Sacramento’s first seven games this season. On Sunday, Westphal unexpectedly released a statement Sunday criticizing Cousins' commitment to the franchise, stated that the 6’11 center would not play in the team’s game that night against New Orleans and said Cousins asked for a trade. Cousins’ agent refuted the trade claim and Cousins played in the team’s two ensuing games, losses at Memphis and Denver on consecutive nights. Cousins was the fifth overall pick in 2010 after he spent one season at Kentucky and has averaged 13.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in 26 minutes per game this season. He has a reputation among both peers and around the league as talented but troubled, an immature slacker who doesn’t always follow instructions or make an effort to be a part of the team. His flashes of promise on the court have alternated with outbursts against players, coaches, trainers and referees and his conditioning and work ethic have been regularly questioned. While Westphal’s firing isn't entirely attributable to his clash with Cousins, it certainly didn’t aid his case to stay with the team starting 2-5. On top of those factors, the NBA and Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof have given Sacramento a March 1 deadline to approve a plan to help finance a new arena, or the franchise could again explore relocation. The Kings nearly moved to Anaheim, Calif., in April before the league's Board of Governors elected to give Sacramento another chance. This season is that chance and it’s not exactly off to a roaring start…………

- The tide has been moving this direction for a while, but sales figures from a Nielsen and Billboard report confirm that digital music has officially bypassed physical album sales as the preferred method of (legally) obtaining music. For the first time ever, digital sales topped physical album sales in 2011, to the tune of 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent. Digital sales rose a whopping 8.4 percent from the previous year, while physical album sales declined 5 percent. A major surge at the end of the year boosted digital sales, with a record 3.5 million albums sold in the last week of 2011. Despite the downtown, physical album sales and those who try to keep that dying beast alive can take solace in the fact that both physical and digital rose compared to the prior year for the first time since 2004. The push toward digital music was fueled early on by file-sharing services like Napster and digital music stores like Apple’s iTunes store and Amazon’s music store picked up the torch. Most consumers say they prefer shopping online to buying in a store, which is both sad and predictable. The slow death of the record store has inspired Record Store Day each April, but there is no way physical album sales will ever be anything other than a niche part of the market ever again unless some sort of apocalypse sets the whole world back a century and sends us all into a mini-Dark Age. What hasn’t changed is the low quality of music the masses are buying and listening to the most. For example, the most streamed song of 2011? Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass," with 84.9 million audio streams and 71 million video streams. Minaj’s music is terrible, but the world has always loved terrible music (see Spears, Britney and the entire man-band era). Lady Gaga was 2011's most streamed artist and she’s one of the few artists whose music is even worse than Minaj’s. One of the year’s best-selling albums was Adele's 21, which sold 5.8 million units. Her music has plenty of critical acclaim but isn't exactly causing anyone to hail it as the “Abbey Road” of the modern era. Also boosting digital music sales are apps from popular music magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine that allow users to purchase music while browsing. Yes, this digital music idea just might have some real staying power…………

- Aaaand yet another sign that filming a “Bourne” movie without the real Jason Bourne is a terrible idea. Even the universe is against the project and evidence of that can be found in the near-disaster that found the film’s star during a night of barhopping in Thailand while working on the film. Jeremy Renner, taking Matt Damon’s place as the star of the franchise, was hanging out with friends at Rachada Pub in Phuket Town when one member of the group, Vorasit Issara, general manager of the Sri Panwa Resort, dropped a glass on the floor. In most countries, a drunk dude dropping a glass on the floor is just another benign part of a normal night, but Issara’s glass drop sparked an attack from six members of the bar staff. Issara was allegedly stabbed in the stomach by Suchart Palae and attacked on the neck by Nareubate Tednok with a rotor axe - yes, an axe. The six bar employees have been charged with attempted murder following their confession to attacking Issara and his friends, Phuket City police superintendent Maj. Gen. Chonasit Wattanavrangku confirmed at a press conference following the incident. As Issara remains hospitalized with serious wounds to the stomach and neck and with bruises all over his body, the obvious question persists: Does this happen if Matt Damon is starring in “The Bourne Legacy”? The obvious answer is no. First, Damon probably isn't out in some lame bar where the staff attacks people just for dropping a glass. But even if he is there, Matt Damon has enough street cred (it’s true even though he’s a white dude from Boston) that he would get some respect. Oh, and the gods of cinematic karma wouldn’t be looking to smack Damon in the face with another reminder that he’s in a role he should not be in. Even though Renner fled the premises as the fight started (another un-Bourne-like response), he’s not getting away clean on this one. Filming for “The Bourne Legacy” is now underway in Manila………….

- Use your sick days and use them before it’s too late, state workers in New Jersey. If Gov. Chris Christie has his way, you will no longer be able to suck it up, go to work and hold onto your sick days before cashing them in for a huge payday when you retire. Some stat employees in the Garden State currently have the option of accumulating unused sick days and cashing those days in at the end of their career. The most prominent example in the past year was the mayor, police chief, deputy police chief and five other government employees in the city of Elmwood Park pocketing a cool $1.2 million for their unused sick days when they retired. Stories like that have caused a minor public uproar and now Gov. Christie wants the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature to end the practice. “That is a lot of money for you to be putting out for paying not to be sick, which is essentially what we’re doing here,” Christie said. Christie alleged that Democratic lawmakers aren’t taking action on his sick pay reforms, while those lawmakers argue that the governor’s plan g is unconstitutional and that he’s not accepting compromises. Those who oppose the governor’s plain claim taking away sick days now from employees who have been on the job for years and in some cases decades would be tantamount to a breach of contract. One possible compromise would be grandfathering current state workers into the system, but that sort of measure would do little to alleviate the current financial issues Christie is seeking to address. Yes, not all state workers can walk away with unused sick pay money when they retire. Some may argue that it is unfair and a double standard, but either way there is no arguing that if Christie’s idea went into effect, there would be plenty more fake coughs, bogus back injuries and feigned migraines……….

"Les Miserables" on the big screen, ancient nautical junk and athletes who hate their sport

2012-01-04T15:29:00.001-05:00

- While having as many big names as possible in your movie isn't a surefire recipe for success (just ask anyone associated with “Tower Heist” or “New Year’s Eve”), the producers for the big-screen adaptation of Broadway favorite "Les Miserables" are stocking up on A-listers and hoping it leads to big things. With like Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, Helena Bonham Carter and Hugh Jackman already on board, rumors are swirling that both Taylor Swift and Amanda Seyfried are deep in talks for roles in the film. Swift has reportedly been has offered Swift the role of Eponine and Seyfried the part of Cosette, meaning they have beaten out the likes of Lea Michele, Scarlett Johansson and Evan Rachel Wood if these reports are true. There is not a lot of time left to cast the remaining roles with rehearsals starting later this month, so any final decisions will need to be made quickly. Filming is slated to begin in May with Tom Hooper directing and the movie is expected to be released on Dec. 7. Swift hinted at possible movie roles at the launch part for of her Wonderstruck perfume, when she suggested she was working on "some surprise projects that may or may not happen, and possibly some acting." As for Seyfried, she has been a part of a Broadway-to-screen adaptation before in 2008’s bomb-tastic "Mamma Mia!" That film was a disaster both critically and commercially, but Seyfried wouldn’t be counted upon to carry “Les Miserables” and there is little chance to project could be as tragically bad as “Mamma Mia!” was. Seyfried is currently filming the Linda Lovelace biopic, "Lovelace," in L.A. but could certainly be a part of another project by the time May rolls around………..

- Spending time at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum isn't high on the priority list of anyone outside of the employees of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, but maybe it should be. Seeing old nautical crap in some poorly lit, creaky old museum isn't exactly the most riveting use of one’s time, but on the strength of what workers at the Manitowoc museum found this week, that should change. Workers uncovered the possessions of a World War II sailor left aboard the USS Cobia, a submarine on exhibit at the museum. For nearly 70 years, those possessions went unnoticed and unclaimed even though the sailor who left the items is alive and well. Museum supervisor Paul Rutherford has worked the USS Cobia for more than 30 years and was performing routine maintenance in the torpedo room next to some bunks when he made a surprising discovery. "I thought, what if something was up there? That's what I said to myself before I even looked up, and I put my hand up, and was like, there's something up there," Rutherford explained. When he reached up, Rutherford found an old leather bag tucked away in a small space near the top of the sub. Inside were two Navy poems, a cocktail recipe book, a small red velvet pouch and a stamp with the name of sailor Hersey Williams. According to museum curator Karen Duvalle, Williams served aboard the boat in 1945 on the Cobia's fourth war patrol and was a part of its crew through the end of the war. He currently lives in North Carolina and was contacted by the museum once his possessions were discovered. "I was 18 years old at the time, and staying in that bunk during my first war patrol," he said. "I'm one of the last survivors, I'm sure. I was one of the younger ones on the ship.” Other items from the war have been found on the sub, but nothing as noteworthy as Williams’ items. He can't remember why he placed the items in such an obscure space and says that while he’s anxious to see them, he doesn’t necessarily need them back. Museum officials plan to put them on display some time next summer………….

- Has North Korea changed at all now that its Dear Leader is dead? Umm, no. Kim Jong Il may be dead and his son Kim Jong Un may be on his way to taking the old man’s place, but the Communist nation hasn’t lost any mph off its diplomatic fastball. In light of K.J. Il’s passing, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had the gall to place placed his troops on high alert based upon the belief that the always-unpredictable North might become even more unstable during its time of transition. That move infuriated the North, which quickly rebuked Myung-bak as president a “pro-U.S. fascist maniac” and a “chieftain of evils.” The chieftain of evils blast might seem a few decades antiquated, but it is North Korea and they are operating in something of a cultural time warp, so cut them a little slack. Even though South Korea only put its troops on high alert and took no direct action toward North Korea or anyone else, the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said Wednesday that its Korean army would force South Korea to pay a price for the decsion. Myung-bak has been an unpopular figure in North Korea since he ended a no-strings-attached aid policy toward the impoverished North after taking office in 2008. He exacerbated those bad feelings by for barring all South Koreans, except for two private delegations, from visiting to pay respects after Kim’s death. The odds that scores of South Koreans would have flocked across the border somehow to pay homage to a man they despised is funny and would be even more hilarious if one suspected the North had a clue how absurd its suggestion was. The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea statement was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency and sadly was not accompanied by stock footage of nuclear bombs decimating cities or cities left in ruins following brutal destruction during a world war…………

- Science has finally given the world a much-needed silkworm spider hybrid. OK, so technically it’s not a hybrid of the time creatures but rather a hybrid of the silk they spin, but it’s still progress. Researchers at the National Academy of Sciences were able to genetically engineer a silkworm that spins cocoons composed of about 95 percent silkworm proteins and 5 percent spider silk proteins. The resulting composite silk is significantly stronger than regular silkworm silk and researchers are working to confirm that it can be as easy to produce in large quantities as regular silk. Blending the two types of silk was ideal because spider silk’s strength, lightness and flexibility make it an appealing material for sutures, artificial ligaments and tendons, bulletproof vests, but farming spiders for their silk isn't possible. Spiders are extremely are territorial and, if kept in close quarters, have a tendency to eat each other. To counteract that tendency, some researchers have engineered cells and even goats to produce spider silk proteins. Obviously, those measures are not effective in producing large quantities of silken threads and thus, the quest to produce two genetically engineered silkworms. With that goal achieved and the ideal blend of softness and strength created, researchers must now find a way to expand their idea on a larger scale. Their findings were published in this week’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is riveting reading as usual………

- Fans want athletes to care about their sport. At a time when salaries and tournament purses are larger than ever, the idea that an athlete might not be fully dedicated to his or her craft even though fans are paying rising ticket prices to see games is nauseating. Serena Williams doesn’t care. She has won 27 career Grand Slam titles, scores more wins to her credit and has no plans to retire from tennis any time soon. Just don’t assume she loves the sport that has made her a multi-millionaire because that is definitely not the case. Speaking after her first-round win at the Brisbane International (which she withdrew from Wednesday after injuring her ankle in a second-round victory), Williams admitted she is no longer passionate about tennis and has never been a huge fan of sports at all. "I mean, I don't love tennis today, but I'm here, and I can't live without it ... so I'm still here and I don't want to go anywhere any time soon," Williams said. "It's not that I've fallen out of love; I've actually never liked sports, and I never understood how I became an athlete. I don't like working out; I don't like anything that has to do with working physically." If that doesn’t inspire everyone who reads it, clearly nothing will. Nothing says dedication and focus quite like admitting you don’t like anything that involves physical effort. Some of her thoughts could be attributed to tennis fatigue, as Williams turned pro in 1995 and won her first Grand Slam title in 1999, at the U.S. Open. While she hasn’t played nonstop since then and has taken time off both for injuries and to pursue off-court interests like fashion in the interim, spending 17 years playing a sport has the potential to wear on someone. But hey, she’s going to hang around, win some more tournaments she doesn’t really want to play in and make a lot more money, so it’s all good…………

Riot Watch! Hungary, attacking obesity in Georgia and Becks back to L.A.

2012-01-03T12:50:00.001-05:00

- Attention would-be burglars in the New Rochelle, N.Y. area: Think twice before messing with badass Tony Vanacore. He may look like your average 92-year-old senior citizen who can easily be shoved aside in order to ransack his home, but Tony V. is no pushover. In fact, Vanacore is basking in praise and adulation after driving a home invader from his domicile with a burst of rage and bravery. As a former boxer, Vanacore had the tools he needed to ward off the invader after the man entered his home through the unlocked front door. Vanacore’s caregiver, a woman named Mariana, met the intruder and struggled with him on a staircase leading up from the door to the second floor of the house. Vanacore heard the struggle and rushed (relatively speaking) to join the battle. “I pulled his hat off his head to see what the hell he looked like. He had his hat down to his eyes, and then I ran up to dial 911. He ran up after me and shut the phone off and I re-dialed and he ran away,” Vanacore recalled. In the struggle, both men threw punches and Vanacore called on his boxing background to hold his ground. “You keep your left hand out and counterpunch,” he said. “The funny thing is, I use a walker, but when all this was happening, I was running without no help and fighting with him because he was harming my caretaker. I gave him some pretty good shots. He gave me some shots too. I got bruises.” Both Vanacore and his caretaker are fine after the altercation and he credited the Almighty with giving him to strength to fight off the invader. New Rochelle Police lifted the invader’s fingerprints from the phone and believe they may be able to catch the suspect and possibly even tie him to home invasions in Pelham Manor and Mount Vernon. As for Vanacore, he said after the incident that he had finally decided to start locking his front door after 50 years living in the same house…………

- Los Angeles, never mind Chris Paul’s arrival. Forget that USC has weathered its two-year bowl ban in solid shape and will have the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy heading into next year. Bypass Albert Pujols’ arrival in nearby Anaheim. Your city’s sports future is brighter today for one reason above all others: Becks is coming back. Yes, David Beckham has spurned offers to return to Europe and will remain with the Los Angeles Galaxy. Yes, L.A. has a Major League Soccer franchise and yes, Major League Soccer still exists. Beckham, whose contract with the Galaxy expired at the end of last season, will re-sign with the team stay after turning down a chance to join Paris Saint-Germain. The French club confirmed Beckham’s decision Tuesday after weeks of negotiations with the midfielder and former England captain. Why stay in a second-tier league instead of returning to Europe, where soccer is king and people actually know and care who he is? Because Becks and his family want to be real American celebrities and L.A. gives them - in their minds - the best chance to accomplish that goal. "David Beckham is not coming," PSG president Nasser al-Khelaifi said at the Qatar Open tennis tournament. "We feel a little disappointed. But both sides agreed it would be better that we not do the deal ... maybe in the future. David Beckham is (with) Los Angeles and he's going to stay there.” Beckham has not confirmed the decision, but will try to finalize a new, rolling one-year contract this week with the Galaxy. He was courted by several teams across Europe in recent weeks and speculation on his potential salary with those teams put the figure in the neighborhood of $1 million a month as opposed to the $6.5 million base salary the Galaxy paid him under his old contract. Still, what are millions of dollars when you and your former Spice Girl wife can life the SoCal celebrity lifestyle…………

- Too many people tiptoe around the issue of obesity. No one wants to offend or hurt the feelings of the FAT, so they turn a blind eye or refuse to criticize those who refuse to push away from the buffet table and do any exercise. When the obese person in question is a child, the reluctance to criticize only increases. But out of this torrent of timidity steps Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which is facing strong criticism from some soft-hearted enablers for bold advertising campaign designed to attack Georgia’s childhood obesity epidemic. The campaign features advertisements depicting overweight children with messages like an overweight young boy named Bobby asking asks his obese mother, “Mom, why am I fat?” His mother just sighs heavily and the commercial fades out. A print ad shows an obese child above the tagline, “Fat prevention begins at home. And the buffet line.” Thankfully, CHA is standing behind its message on the grounds that it is necessary to get families to recognize the widespread public health problem. Naysayers claim say the approach could be counterproductive when it comes to childhood obesity because the commercials and billboards do not give families the tools they need to attack the problem and also further stigmatize obesity. Those critics need to answer the question of how the current culture of not criticizing obesity is working for America. CHA fashioned its campaign based on research showing that 50 percent of people surveyed did not recognize childhood obesity as a problem and 75 percent of parents with overweight or obese kids did not see their children as having a weight issue. Georgia ranks second nationally for childhood obesity and with 1 million overweight or obese children in the state, it was time to do something. “We felt like we needed a very arresting, abrupt campaign that said: ‘Hey, Georgia! Wake up. This is a problem,’ ” said Linda Matzigkeit, a senior vice president at Children’s Healthcare. The Strong4Life campaign is planned as a $50 million project to be executed over five years. It is just one part of a larger program to direct connects overweight children and their families to specialists who can help them address their problem. Those who want to hate on the campaign may want to listen to the tale of Maya Walters, a teenager with high blood pressure who appeared in one of the ads. Walters says she has made significant lifestyle changes through the program, is eating healthier and exercising more and has lost weight. She supports the ads and their message. “I think it’s really brave to talk about the elephant in the room,” she said. “It’s very provocative and makes people uncomfortable, but it’s when people are uncomfortable that change comes.” As with any company or organization running controversial ads, CHA has no problem with the controversy and if the truth were told, is likely high-fiving behind closed doors because they’re getting exactly what they want. “There are people who don’t like it and people who like it,” Matzigkeit said. “In the end, I think people are saying it really is time for a wake-up call. We have to do something about this or our state is in jeopardy. It’s not good for business if your state has the second-highest obesity rate. Obese children turn into obese adults.” Well said, Linda. Now, on to the second phase of the Strong4Life campaign…………

- While it might not be an incredibly complicated or revolutionary show, there is no question Fox’s song-and-dance drama “Glee” has registered a significant cultural impact. Glee club dorks are still dorks, but having a show all about them on a major network has at least provided the requisite 15 minutes of fame - or at least not being stuffed into a locker after gym class. The show’s cult following has also provided plenty of opportunities for its cast members and made many of them flavors of the week before the requisite fade back to obscurity. Darren Criss is the latest to ride that wave of “Glee” momentum, or Glee-mentum if you will, into a three-week run on Broadway in "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying." Criss, who plays Blaine Anderson on “Glee,” will spend the next three weeks filling the role formerly occupied by “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe and his presence on stage at the Hirschfeld Theatre on W. 45th St. was enough to inspire a few dozen fans to camp out for tickets to the show. “Gleeks” came from as far away as Washington, D.C. and Toronto to sit on the cold Manhattan sidewalk outside the theater to ensure they would get tickets for opening night. With blankets wrapped around them and huddled together for warmth, fans braved the chilliest night so far this winter for tickets to see Criss do his thing. Hopping a bus and crossing state or national borders to see an actor from a flash-in-the-pan TV show perform in a solid Broadway show may sound nutty, but it’s more proof of the power of “Glee”………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Just because your country gets a new constitution doesn’t mean you have to like it and tens of thousands of Hungarians understand that. These hostile Hungarians took to the streets of Budapest Monday night, demanding that Prime Minister Viktor Orban resign and protesting the country’s new constitution. Crowds gathered around the city's opera house and derisively called the prime minister "Viktator" -- a pun on "dictator" -- with Orban and other luminaries attending a gala event inside. Protestors displayed impressive stamina in demonstrating for five hours in opposition to their new constitution, which civil society groups and opposition parties have criticized as anti-democratic. The new constitution took effect on January 1 and among its perceived shortcomings is the omission of "republic" from Hungary's official name. Additionally, the document includes several paragraphs which Amnesty International says violate international human rights. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised similar concerns last year, urging Orban to commit to "the independence of the judiciary, a free press, and governmental transparency." Orban responded by…..doing nothing. Amnesty International has objected to language in the constitution that would likely draw rave reviews from American uber-conservatives, including sections that define life as beginning at conception and marriage as being between a man and a woman. Other controversial segments of the new constitution include the possibility of life imprisonment without parole and failure to forbid discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Monday’s uprising came on the heels of several protests in 2011 against laws introduced by Hungary's populist government. Journalists at a national television station launched a hunger strike in protest of a new media law they deemed too restrictive. Orban has rejected all challenges to the constitution, be they two recent bills related to the country's financial stability and the central bank, a law criminalizing homelessness or any of the other offensive measures…………

Siri knockoffs, badass NFLers and idiots + fireworks

2012-01-02T11:47:00.001-05:00

- He’s one of the best receivers in the NFL and after his performance Sunday in a meaningless game against Seattle, Arizona Cardinals wideout Larry Fitzgerald should also be known as one of its toughest. Fitzgerald, with nine catches for 149 yards on the day to finish with 80 receptions for 1,411 yards on the season, made two clutch catches on Arizona's game-winning drive in overtime in a 23-20 victory. He did so after being spotted coughing up blood on the sidelines after taking a huge hit while trying to make a catch. Trainers initially checked him for a concussion after he "took a hard shot" before realizing the injury was in the chest area. Despite coughing up blood because of a lung injury, the Pro Bowl receiver refused to leave the game. His father, a sportswriter in Minnesota, tweeted his son's injury Sunday night. "Cardinals Pro Bowler Larry Fitzgerald suffered a Lung injury was spitting up blood on sidelines. Will have MRI MONDAY," Larry Fitzgerald Sr. tweeted. Keeping up his tough guy act after the game, Fitzgerald refused to discuss his injury and instead took the chance to have a little bit of fun at the expense of the quarterback who got him the ball all afternoon long. "Pre-game he scared us all. He fell out and he had a little fainting issue in the locker room," Fitzgerald said. "We were all nervous about him being able to play today and he fought through that and was able to go out there and perform and get our team a win. That shows the kind of toughness he has." It’s tough not to appreciate the irony of a player with a lung injury that causes him to cough up blood praising the toughness of someone else…………

- Firecrackers and intelligence are rarely synonymous. Those who love and heavily use firecrackers are virtually never leading candidates for Mensa membership. Even when a government runs a large scare campaign to discourage its people from using firecrackers and other similar devices to celebrate the arrival of a new year, people are bound to go bonehead. The scene in Manila, Philippines Saturday night and into Sunday morning should come as a surprise to no one. Even after the government did its best to play Big Brother and warned about the danger of firecrackers (especially in the hands of morons), firecrackers and gunfire injured nearly 500 people in the Philippines during one of the world’s rowdiest New Year’s celebrations. The firecracker smog from the celebrations in downtown Manila and surrounding areas was so severe that about a dozen flights, including two from the United States, were diverted or canceled early Sunday due to obscured visibility. Health Secretary Enrique Ona confirmed 472 injuries - 454 from firecracker blasts and 18 from stray bullets - a number that was actually slightly lower than last year but still enough to fill hospital emergency rooms in the capital shortly after midnight. To add another thrilling level to the chaos, members of two rival gangs battled it out in front of Manila's main government hospital attending to the injured, leaving one man dead from a gunshot wound. "Again, it seems our appeal to mothers to keep their children away from firecrackers wasn't effective," Ona said at a news conference. True, but sound logic has no chance when matched up against a belief rooted in Chinese tradition that noisy New Year's celebrations drive away evil and misfortune. Even threats of arrest were not enough to discourage gunfire and massive firecrackers. Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo said at least 65 people were arrested for using illegally large firecrackers, leading Ona to admit he would consider a proposal for a total ban on firecrackers but that it needed to be studied. Congrats to anyone who survived New Year’s Eve unscathed in the Philippines……………

- Not everyone can afford an iPhone 4S. For those who can't and must settle for an Android phone, the increasingly popular Siri voice controlled virtual assistant of the iPhone 4S is out of reach……or is it? Android users may not be able to ask important questions about navigation, weather or their daily schedule to Siri, but maybe someone can come up with an alternative, a Siri knockoff if you will. Sure enough, there are several Siri imitators in the Android Market. On closer examination, however, those imitators are actually giant frauds. One is new app called ‘Siri for Android', which is nothing more than a shortcut for Google's Voice service. The service comes pre-installed on Android devices, so the shortcut is nothing more than a clever hoax. The app’s icon is a copy of Siri’s own icon and ‘Siri for Android’ comes from by a developer called ‘Official App,’ which easily confuses easily confusable people into believing that they are downloading an official app released by Apple. So far, the faux Siri app has been downloaded more than 1,000 times since it was discovered. Another Siri knock-off, Speerit, touts itself as itself the ‘real' Siri for Android but is currently available only in Korean. Those who don’t speak for Korean just have to hope promises from the app’s creator of an English-speaking version come true soon. Other app makers have taken a more tongue-in-cheek approach, with Fake Siri for Android praising praises Android every time people on a button but not taking any actual voice commands. Those not wishing to waste their time with Siri knockoffs can simply slog along with Google Voice until the online search titan offers a legit rival for Siri……….

- Dead birds are becoming an unwelcome trend in the small town of Beebe, Ark. For the second straight year, birds fell from the sky at the start of the new year in Beebe and authorities believe they have an explanation this time around. With 200 or more dead blackbirds littering the streets Sunday, state wildlife officials quickly attempted an explanation for the occurrence. "We know that there was evidence of fireworks set off in the middle of the roost, and it wasn't a coincidence," said spokeswoman Genny Porter of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The scale of the bird-pocalypse was much smaller than last year, when 4,000 bird fell to the ground and sparked a nationwide media frenzy complete with apocalyptic prophesies and wild theories. Although no official explanation was ever offered for last year’s incident, most scientists agreed the birds were spooked by fireworks and flew into buildings, trees and each other. Following last year’s avian mortality surge, police in Beebe pushed rushed through an emergency ban on fireworks in a bid to avoid a repeat of the issue. That ban failed miserably, as evidenced by the 400 dead birds that began falling to fall to the ground around 7:00 p.m. Saturday. As was to be expected, police quickly threatened criminal charges if suspects can be identified……….

- There are plenty of reasons to be upset after a Cee Lo Green musical performance, not the least of which is that you just spent four or five minutes listening to Cee Lo Green sing. That’s not why people are angry at the “The Voice Karaoke” judge and sometimes recording artist following his performance of John Lennon's "Imagine" in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. “Imagine” is obviously an iconic song familiar across generations and one of the song’s best-known lines is, "Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too." Clearly not a fan of the idea of a world without religion, Green instead sang, "Nothing to kill or die for, and all religion's true." Removing Lennon’s atheistic sentiments from the song infuriated many viewers of the broadcast, who took to Twitter to excoriate Green for ruining a song, Rolling Stone named No.3 on the list of the its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, calling it "an enduring hymn of solace and promise that has carried us through extreme grief, from the shock of Lennon's own death in 1980 to the unspeakable horror of Sept. 11.” Green tweeted out an explanation of his alteration, saying ""Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all." That explanation did not go over well, as evidenced by the fact that it has since been deleted from Green’s Twitter feed. Some quasi-famous faces were among the angry masses, with comic Colin Quinn tweeting, "Cee Lo covered Imagine but at least he 'cleaned it up a little.' I did the same thing when I changed NWA to 'N-word' WA." Actor Michael McKean was more direct, playing on the title of one of Green's own songs. "Dear Cee Lo: Forget you," McKean tweeted. A few Twitter users actually focused their rage in the right direction, taking issue with the fact that Green's version of the famed song was poorly sung. Others cited the hypocrisy of Green singing a song with lyrics including "imagine no possessions" and "no need for greed or hunger" while attired in a sweet full-length fur coat and jewels……………

Elephants have a bad year, movie news and Adderall shortages

2012-01-01T17:46:00.000-05:00

- Know who didn’t have a great year in 2011? Elephants, that’s who. With a record number of large seizures of ivory in 2011, pachyderms were on the losing end of a battle against poachers in the just-concluded year. There were at least 13 seizures of caches of ivory over 800 kg each, according to the conservation organization TRAFFIC, meaning elephants were big targets with a big payoff over the past 12 months. TRAFFIC is a joint program between the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. "A conservative estimate of the weight of ivory seized in the 13 largest seizures in 2011 puts the figure at more than 23 tons, a figure that probably represents some 2,500 elephants, possibly more," an official release from the group stated. Both the number of seizures and their combined weight represent major increases from 2010, when there were six large seizures with a total weight of just under 10 tons. "This is the worst year ever for large ivory seizures — 2011 has truly been a horrible year for elephants,” said Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC’s elephant expert. "I fear the criminals are winning.” Milliken’s dire assessment rings true because many seizures of illegal ivory result in no arrests. Growing demand in Asia for ivory coupled with increased sophistication of the criminal gangs behind the trafficking make stopping the ivory trade all but impossible. The majority of illegal shipments of African elephant ivory originate in Kenyan or Tanzanian ports en route to China or Thailand. Along the way, the shipments frequently make a stop in Malaysia and in early December, Malaysian customs officials seized 1.4 tons of ivory concealed inside a shipping container being transported from Kenya to Cambodia. Officials in Kenya major another huge seizure on Dec. 21 when they discovered 727 ivory pieces inside a container in Mombasa, Kenya, and destined for Asia. So who wants to resolve not to senselessly kill elephants for their ivory this next year……….

- With two full weeks in theaters under its belt, “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” is still accomplishing its mission. For the second straight weekend the film led the pack at the box office, earning $31.3 million to boost its cumulative domestic earnings total to $134.1 million and counting. Also for the second straight weekend, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” finished in second place. “Sherlock Holmes” garnered $22.1 million and has earned a total of $132.1 million domestically in its own two-week run. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” moved up one spot from last weekend with an $18.3 million effort to boost its cumulative total to $94.6 million. Stephen Spielberg’s much-praised family flick “War Horse” landed in fourth place with $16.9 million, good enough for a cumulative haul of $42.9 million after two weekends in theaters. It was another disappointing weekend in America for Sony’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which debuted in third place last weekend and fell to fifth this time around with a so-so $16.3 million for a two-week total of $57.1 million in domestic earnings. The big-screen adaptation of Stig Larsson’s popular novel doesn’t seem to be catching on with American audiences. Of course, the same could be said for “We Bought a Zoo” and it even has the hotness of Scarlett Johansson and the skills of Matt Damon to count on. In spite of those assets, “Zoo” remained in sixth place for the second time in as many weekends, making $14.3 million and upping its total thus far to $41.7 million. Seventh place went to “The Adventures of Tintin” thanks to a $12 million weekend that boosted its two-week haul to $47.8 million. New Year’s Eve weekend wasn’t so kind to “New Year’s Eve” the movie, which brought in $6.7 million and mustered only an eighth-place finish. That was still enough to best Summit Entertainment’s “The Darkest Hour,” which made $4.3 million and has scored $13.3 million in two weekends of work. “The Descendants” jumped up to re-enter the top 10 on the strength of its $3.7 million weekend and has made an impressive $39.7 million in seven weeks of very limited release. “Arthur Christmas” was the lone movie to fall out of last weekend’s top 10 and did it ever fall, all the way down to No. 19 for this weekend…………

- If presiding over the worst defensive performance in University of Washington football history is reason to fire a defensive coordinator, then how is anyone supposed to live up to the program’s lofty standards? Just because UW defensive coordinator Nick Holt and two other defensive assistants were in charge of a defense that was the worst in school history statistically and finished the year off by allowing 67 points and 777 yards to Baylor in a 67-56 loss in the Alamo Bowl is no reason to fire them, right? It’s not as if Baylor went up and down the field at will and probably could have hit the 100-point barrier with a few more minutes of action, right? Right? The powers that be in the Washington athletic department just did not appreciate the hard work Holt put in and decided to fire him along with linebackers coach Mike Cox and safeties coach Jeff Mills on Saturday. How eager were they to be rid of Holt, Cox and Mills? The university confirmed all three had contracts for the 2012 season that will be honored and with Holt slated to make $650,000, the total amount paid to three coaches NOT to coach at Washington next year will surpass $750,000. In all fairness to the university, Holt probably should have delivered a better performance if he wanted to keep his job given the fact that he has been a frequent target of criticism since his arrival from Southern California before the 2009 season because of because of Washington's defensive decline and the large salary he commanded in making the move to UW with head coach Steve Sarkisian…………

- Americans with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, don’t expect getting medication to help with your problems to become any easier in the near future. Adderall, a stimulant commonly used to treat ADHD, is in short supply and isn't likely to become any more plentiful easing as manufacturers struggle to get enough active ingredient to make the drug as demand climbs. Because Adderall is a controlled substance, meaning it is addictive and has the potential to be abused, the squares at the Drug Enforcement Administration strictly regulate how much of the drug's active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) can be distributed to manufacturers each year. Theoretically, the DEA’s overbearing ways are meant to avoid the creation of stockpiles that could be diverted for inappropriate use. That’s right, black market Adderall, y’all. Overly paranoid bureaucratic and medical types believe the potential for abuse exists among groups like, in theory anyhow, with students who may not have ADHD but are seeking to improve their test scores. The active ingredient in Adderall is mixed amphetamine salts and the DEA authorizes a certain amount the salts to be released to drugmakers each year based on what the agency considers to be the country's legitimate medical need. Drug companies are chafing at that limit as the demand for Adderall surges to an all-time high. In 2010, more than 18 million prescriptions were written for Adderall, a whopping 13.4 percent increase from the previous year. Many orders for the dug are unfulfilled and manufacturers say it may take several months before ingredient authorized under the new 2012 quota can be turned into new product. "I am very concerned about the future," said Ruth Hughes, chief executive of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyeractivity Disorder (CHADD). "No one seems to have much inventory to get us through the months ahead." You’re not the only one who is concerned, Ruth. Those who have difficulty staying focused, battle hyperactivity and experience difficulty controlling behavior because of their ADHD are concerned too because…..ooh look, a cloud shaped like a bunny rabbit! Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, that’s right. The FDA is being an overly restrictive bureaucratic mess of red tape that is preventing people in need from getting the medication they need. Even with authorized generic versions of Adderall on the market, there simply is not enough to go around. No one is exactly sure of the severity of the shortage, but research groups are continue to investigate. President Barack Obama recently issued an executive order demanding that the Food & Drug Administration address these shortages, but the DEA seems content to shirk blame for as long as possible. "Any shortage of these products is therefore a result of decisions made by the industry regarding manufacturing or distribution," said DEA spokeswoman Barbara Carreno. Whatever you say, Babs…………

- Wouldn’t it be logical to think that a state environmental protection agency would do routine checks of water purity and quality in areas close to landfills and trash dumps to ensure that all possible contaminants were kept out of the water supply? In Ohio, that just hasn’t been a priority until now. But big ups to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for being bold enough to propose proposed new rules that would require the state's licensed construction and demolition debris landfills to regularly test groundwater for an expanded number of contaminants. Under the new rules, two of the state's 55 licensed landfills - the County Road 286 landfill in Coshocton County and the Holmes County C&DD Landfill near Millersburg - would be affected. That’s right, a whopping two. Interested citizens in the greater Columbus area with nothing better to do on Tuesday can carve out some time to attend a public hearing on the new at the Ohio EPA offices in the capital city. Actually, the state of Ohio has been in this same spot before. Way back in 2005, a legislative study committee and the EPA proposed tougher regulations regarding the monitoring of water, also known as leachate, at the bottom of landfill sites. When whiny government officials complained the new regulations would be too expensive to comply with, the proposal was dropped. Hooray for bureaucratic red tape. That proposal would have allowed for 64 different toxic chemicals to be tested for, instead of the 19 required by the EPA. Maybe those whiny officials should have accepted the original proposal because the scope of the new one is even larger. It expands that number to 77 pollutants which could leach into groundwater supplies, including iron, sulfates, manganese and toxic adhesives. The EPA made the proposal following a study n the dangers leachate poses threat to public health and the environment if released to ground water or surface water, along with public comments received on the draft rules issued earlier this year. Glad you finally got around to it, EPA…………

A Google+ forecast, a UFC shocker and time in a Russian gulag

2011-12-31T13:11:00.000-05:00

- Google+ may not be anywhere close to overtaking Facebook or even Twitter in terms of popularity, but Google’s attempt to break in to the social networking world is going well enough if you believe Microsoft co-founder and to Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen, who calls himself the "unofficial statistician" of Google+. Allen said this week that the Google+ social network has topped 60 million users and predicted that that it would reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. Allen runs hundreds of queries on various surnames on Google+ every week (rich people tend to have a lot of free time on their hands) and has been tracking those names since Google first announced that Google+ had reached 10 million users in July. Growth had slowed since then and it took Google+ three months to expand to 40 million users, according to Google's numbers. The company has declined to give an official count since October, but Allen said Tuesday the service now has 62 million users. "It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks," Allen wrote on his own Google+ page. He estimated the service’s rate of growth at 625,000 new users per day. For Allen’s prognostication of 400 million users by the end of 2012 (assuming the world doesn’t end before then, of course), that rate would have to go up significantly. The one fallacy of Allen’s research is that he overlooks the distinction between people who sign up for Google+ and not those who actually use it. To draw in more of those who signed up but have not made use of their account, Google recently redesigned the service’s homepage. Cosmetic changes aside, Google still faces an uphill battle on this one…………

- If members of the Occupy movement are actively seeking someone to punch them in the face, its Charlotte-area contingent is well on its way to making that happen. Occupy kooks have tried anything and everything they can think of to garner attention for their cause - however unspecific it may be - and while occupying the Manhattan set of one of the 15,000,000 “Law & Order” franchises is pretty damn impressive, nothing infuriates the “America, love it or leave it” crowd of uber-right wing, red-blooded, gun-toting conservatives quite like setting fire to an American flag. That tactic was utilized by members of Occupy Charlotte at a mini-demonstration on Friday. "Those were actions taken on my behalf," Occupy Charlotte member Alex Tyler said. "I did it to display my utter contempt for American greed, not (the military)." Oh, OK. No one will have a problem with it in that case. Never mind that Tyler and fellow Occupy members Jason Bargert, Michael Berle and Stephen Morris set fire to American flags and triggered a fire that spread to woods in the area of tents that previously housed members of the local Occupy movement because they were in no way showing disrespect to anyone other than the soulless corporate bastards who are ruining this country. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police may have charged Tyler and three other men with arson, but they will undoubtedly drop those charges once they hear Tyler’s side of the story. In a truly hilarious twist, Bargert has been listed on Occupy Charlotte press releases as a spokesman for the group. Clearly, Occupy Charlotte has some top-notch thinkers among its leadership group. Sparking a wildfire that Smokey the Bear could have helped them avert doesn’t exactly scream intelligence, does it? But no sooner than news of the arson became public, Occupy Charlotte released a statement saying the group is no long affiliated with the camp where the fire broke out and that the burning of the flag doesn't reflect its members or its message. According to Tyler, the flag burning was also meant to wake up the Occupy movement because he feels its members have been slacking. "I've seen this group lose its activism and become lazy," Tyler said, adding that he and his fellow IQ-deprived pals wanted to "give Occupy Charlotte a wake-up call." If nothing else, they have awakened us all to the fact that there are more idiots among us than we ever realized…………

- Guns N’ Roses have lived to tease but ultimately disappoint for more than a decade. While the blame for that trend belongs more on egomaniacal frontman Axl Rose than on the rest of the iconic metal band’s original lineup, GNR fans and music fans in general grew weary of waiting for the much-anticipated “Chinese Democracy” album that ultimately turned out to be Rose and whoever he could convince to work with him to finish it. Now that GNR has been selected for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame (a truly dubious “honor”), hype around the band is once again building - albeit for a different reason. Since the announcement that GNR would be inducted along with The Faces/The Small Faces, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beastie Boys inducted at a ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 14, 2012, rumors have circulated that the original GNR lineup may reunite for the occasion. Former guitarist Slash was asked about that possibility and said that while he is not eager to revisit all of the drama between he and Rose, he does want to resolve the lingering tension between the two of them. Slash explained that the split between the two of them originally happened very quietly, only to mushroom into something much bigger as time passed. "The split between Axl and I was a quiet one. But because there was so much attention on the break-up - and are we going to get back together - it got built up into this monster that led to a kind of animosity that wasn't the focus for me. Neither one of us wants to be down each other's throats for no reason. At this point, I'm trying to put it to rest," Slash said. Putting all of the bad feelings to rest with the bombastic, arrogant Rose won’t be easy. Performing with the current incarnation of GNR, Rose is still showing up late for shows, berating fans and acting like he’s still one of the biggest rock stars in the world and not some bloated, flabby version of his former rock star self. Even so, Slash said he still takes pride in what he accomplished as a member of the band. "When I see footage of Guns N' Roses, I see that f**king hunger and attitude. You could not f**k with those five guys. It was just raw. It was this lean, hungry thing on its way up. It was as sincere as any rock 'n' roll that I've ever heard, and I'm proud of that,” he proclaimed………….

- Not that resolutions for the new year are anything other than a ginormous waste of time, but if the Russian government is in the habit of making them then a good one might be improving security at facilities where military technology is manufactured or stored. Keeping that resolution could prevent incidents like bloggers sneaking in to unguarded strategic military rocket motor factories near Moscow on five separate occasions and roaming around snapping pictures for more than an hour. Blogger Lana Sator and her friends exposed this glaring lack of security by visiting around state rocket-maker Energomash's plant five times over the past few months and posting nearly almost 100 pictures of decrepit-looking hardware ranging from the plant’s control room to its roof and most everything in between. Sator claimed she and her friends did not encounter a single employee or security guard during any of their visits and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin did not seem happy to hear that news. Rogozin vowed Thursday to punish "sleepy" security officials for their poor performance and other defense officials compared the incident to German pilot Mathias Rust's brazen Cessna flight under Soviet radar to land on Red Square in 1987. During in a televised meeting with Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin, Rogozin characterized said the security failure as "unacceptable," warning that "sleepy cats" who failed to maintain security at strategic defense sites face punishment. Enjoy spending the rest of your natural life at the gulag in Siberia, V. Popovkin…………

- Two 265-pound mountains of muscle met in Las Vegas inside an octagon of chain-link fencing and proceeded to pummel each other for about three minutes. Someone was going to get destroyed and odds are, it wouldn’t take long for either Brock Lesnar or Alistair Overeem to get the better of the other in the headline but of UFC 141. Sure enough, Overeem stopped Lesnar with a brutal vicious kick to the body at 2:26 of the first round and not only ended the fight, but apparently Lesnar’s mixed-martial arts career. The former collegiate and WWE wrestler, who also tried out for the Minnesota Vikings after leaving WWE, became a rising star in UFC thanks to his massive physique and wrestling skills, coupled with a surly, prickly demeanor that made him polarizing among fans. He talked big beat Randy Couture in 2008 to win the heavyweight title, defending it twice before losing the belt to Cain Velasquez last year. Since then, he has battled a lower-intestinal ailment known as diverticulitis that nearly killed him. He returned from a 14-month absence that included surgery to address his condition and was promptly demolished by Overeem. Once the fight was over, Lesnar wasted no time waving the white flag on his career. "This is the last time you'll see me in the octagon," Lesnar said. "I've had a really difficult couple of years with my disease, and I'm going to officially say tonight is the last time. I promised my wife and my kids if I won this fight, I would get a title shot, and that would be my last fight. But if I lost tonight ... you've been great.” If he actually does stick with retirement, Lesnar will walk away from the sport with a 5-3 record. UFC President Dana White admitted he did not know about Lesnar’s announcement prior to the fight, but insisted he was not stunned by it. "I had no idea he would do that, (but) am I surprised? No,” the loquacious White said. "Brock Lesnar has made a lot of money in his career and has achieved a lot of things. ... He brought a lot of excitement to the heavyweight division. What he accomplished in a short amount of time is amazing, but I get it. It doesn't shock me." With the win in his first UFC bout, Overeem will get the next shot at UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos, who watched the fight from a seat near the octagon……………

Idiotic kickers, Verizon jam jobs and skipping days in Samoa

2011-12-30T14:07:00.000-05:00

- Of all the reasons to hate Kelly Clarkson’s music, the one many fans seem to be rallying around (several years too late) is, ironically enough, a reason that has nothing to do with the cookie-cutter pop garbage Clarkson churns out. No, a chunk of Clarkson’s fans are angry because she has dared to share who she supports in the ever-changing Republican presidential campaign derby. Fans who have followed Clarkson since her “American Karaoke” days are now jumping ship because of Clarkson’s Twitter endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. They have taken to Twitter to proclaim that they have listened to Clarkson’s hits like……um…..uh……that one song with the words and the notes…..for the last time. The offending tweet Clarkson sent out wasn’t profane, overly political or even effusive in its praise of Paul. "I love Ron Paul,” Clarkson tweeted. “I liked him a lot during the last Republican nomination and no one gave him a chance. If he wins the nomination for the Republican party in 2012 he's got my vote. Too bad he probably won't." Some of Clarkson’s Twitter followers immediately demanded that she retract her statement, but she would not. Despite tweets with messages like “Soz Kelly, not your fan anymore” and “Oh Jebus Kelly Clarkson is a Ron Paul fan. My love for you has taken a severe hit, Kelly...” and even more idiotic remarks, Clarkson is standing by her fellow Texan. Some of the outrage is tied to Paul’s links to a series of newsletters published in the 1980s and ’90s that included racist and homophobic remarks. An organization Paul was associated with published the newsletters, but he has disavowed any connection to the messages themselves. Not that it matters at all, but why does the former “American Karaoke-er” like Ron Paul? Clarkson explained she supports Paul’s idea for limited government. “I am really sorry if I have offended anyone. Obviously that was not my intent. I do not support racism. I support gay rights, straight rights, women's rights, men's rights, white/black/purple/orange rights,” she tweeted in response to her critics. “I like Ron Paul because he believes in less government and letting the people (all of us) make the decisions and mold our country. That is all.” Truly, truly a discouraging situation. That anyone cares what some irrelevant, crappy pop singer thinks about a political candidate is truly heartbreaking…………

- Samoa, I see what you’re doing and I like it. Scratch that, I LOVE it. There are days when a person wakes up, doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t want to show up for life. Unfortunately, they don’t have a choice and the day happens whether they like it or not. But on the tiny South Pacific island nation, skipping a day is less of a pipe dream and more of a reality. Unlike every other country in the world, Samoa didn’t have a Friday. As soon as the clock struck midnight Thursday, the country skipped over Friday and moved 24 hours ahead -- straight into Saturday, Dec. 31. Why? To align Samoa’s time zone with key trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region by shifting west of the international date line. The dateline was drawn by mapmakers and is not mandated by any international body, but runs roughly through the 180-degree line of longitude with various zigzags to accommodate the choices of Pacific nations on how to align their calendars. It separates one calendar day from the next and for years, Samoa has been on the opposite side of the line from its top trading partners. In June, the Samoan government passed a law to move Samoa west of the international date line and the move became official at the end of the day Thursday. Samoans gathered around a main clock tower in the capital of Apia to mark the historic moment and sirens and fireworks hailed the country’s jump across the timeline. Samoa's 186,000 citizens, and the 1,500 in the three-atoll United Nations dependency of Tokelau, will also be the first in the world to ring in the new year, rather than the last. The move is something of a slap in the face to the United States, as it was a group of U.S. traders persuaded local Samoans to align their islands' time with nearby U.S.-controlled American Samoa and the U.S. to assist their trading with California back in 1892. Being aligned with neighboring Australia and New Zealand is more important to Samoa these days, as many Samoans move away to one of those two countries. "We've got to remember that over 90 percent of our people emigrate to New Zealand and Australia. That's why it is absolutely vital to make this change," Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi explained. The idea of skipping days you don’t like is actually a good pull from this situation as well. Who wouldn’t be down with the idea of glossing over an unwanted, dreary Monday every now and then? Thanks for the inspiration, Samoa…………

- Karma can kick your ass, eh Verizon? As being the first carrier in the world to widely roll out LTE 4G technology, Verizon has seemed pretty proud of itself. So proud, in fact, that comp any executives decided to smack customers with a $2 fee for paying their bill via a one-time payment on the carrier’s website. , “[A] new $2 payment convenience fee will be instituted for customers who make single bill payments online or by telephone,” an official statement on the Verizon website read. A company has to be rocking a pretty big pair of corporate kahones to assess that kind of fee and not blink. But even as it looks to stick it to customers who don’t pay by the methods it prefers, Verizon is getting a healthy dose of trouble from its 4G network. Significant service outages have plagued the network outages throughout 2011. Verizon VP of network engineering Mike Haberman blamed relative immaturity of LTE as the reason for the company’s 4G struggles. “Being the pioneers, we’re going to experience some growing pains,” Haberman said. “These issues we’ve been experiencing are certainly regrettable but they were unforeseeable.” Ah, the old “paint yourself as a visionary to cover your failings” ploy, never gets old. What does get old is 4G network outages, which Verizon customers have experienced three times in December alone to go with a major failure in April. Haberman pointed to bugs with Verizon’s service delivery core, also known as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), as the cause. To Verizon’s credit, issues causing 4G outages have not reoccurred once a specific case has been dealt with. In an attempt to further mitigate the problems, the company is also begin segmenting its LTE network by geographic location so that issues don’t affect the network nationally. There is still that damn $2 convenience fee to be dealt with, though……….

- The ganja might be fake, but the problem is becoming very real and extremely vexing for the American military. According to the Pentagon, U.S. troops are increasingly using an easy-to-get herbal mix called "Spice," which simulates a marijuana high and can cause hallucinations that last for days. Military officials are concerned enough that they've launched an aggressive testing program that has already has led to the investigation of more than 1,100 suspected users, according to military figures. Synthetic chron is readily available on the Internet and has become an issue of contention around the country. Now that it is affecting servicemen and women, Pentagon officials are confronting the issue as well. “You can just imagine the work that we do in a military environment," said Mark Ridley, deputy director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. “You need to be in your right mind when you do a job. That's why the Navy has always taken a zero tolerance policy toward drugs." It seems like a fair point, really. When a person commits to the military, he or she does so knowing sacrifices must be made. Individual free will in many cases, safety and time spent with family are all on the chopping block, right alongside one’s ability to get baked and enjoy the stoner (or synthetic stoner) lifestyle. Sailors, pilots and soldiers don’t have the luxury of taking a few bong rips and lying on their couch for hours on end with plenty of Cheetos and Pop Tarts nearby. To put the problem in perspective, a mere 29 Marines and sailors were investigated for Spice two years ago. Contrast that with more than 700 such cases this year and it’s clear the issue is growing. Those found guilty of using Spice forced out of the military. The Air Force and Army are seeing a rise in Spice cases as well, with 497 Air Force members punished this year and 119 soldiers treated by the Army for the effects of the synthetic drug. Spice is made up of exotic plants from Asia like Blue Lotus and Bay Bean, which have leaves coated with chemicals that mimic the effects of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Depending on the plant, their byproducts can be anywhere from five to 200 times more potent. Up until this year, there was no way to detect spice on typical urine tests for drugs. Unfortunately for synth-stoners, the Drug Enforcement Administration put a one-year emergency ban on five chemicals found in the drug and a test was developed for Spice. It is a dangerous substance because the potency and composition vary from batch to batch. Spice use was responsible for the dismissal of 28 sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and 49 sailors on the USS Carl Vinson. Time to find the next alternative high or a new career, Spice-loving military members……….

- Kickers aren’t considered real football players. They trot onto the field a few times a day to drop kick or place kick the ball for a point or three, or for field position, and the rest of the time they stand idly by while the real athletes do their work. With their minimal role, kickers are also wise to not cause any disruptions or distractions for their team. Someone should convey that to the kickers for Virginia Tech because they’ve been a major headache for coach Frank Beamer and his team in the space between the end of the regular season and the Hokies’ appearance in the Sugar Bowl against Michigan Tuesday night. Regular kicker Cody Journell was suspended last week after being arrested for his alleged involvement in a home invasion, putting the kicking job in the hands of Tyler Weiss. Weiss held on to the gig for all of a week, but fumbled it away when he failed to be present for a 1 a.m. bed check Thursday at the team’s hotel in New Orleans. Weiss was sent home immediately, booked on a flight to Roanoke, Va. His absence may not be a massive setback for Virginia Tech, as he missed his only field goal try this season, a 29-yard attempt. Still, placing the kicking duties entirely in the hands of kickoff specialist Justin Myer, who missed both of his field goal tries -- from 57 and 53 yards -- this season can’t leave Beamer and his staff beaming with confidence. The coach didn’t mince words about Weiss’ discipline. "We had curfew. We talked about it a lot. (Weiss) didn't make it and we're going to send him home," Beamer said of the decision. "My kickers are not bad guys. They just made bad decisions.” They may not be bad guys, but they aren’t very bright. They just need to hope that Tuesday’s game doesn’t come down to a clutch field goal for a Virginia Tech win that sails wide right as Michigan players pour onto the field in jubilation…………

Americans heart guns, cracking down on smoking and Captain Jack still insane

2011-12-29T14:08:00.000-05:00

- Did you find a nice, shiny 9mm in your stocking or that long-desired AK-47 under the tree on Christmas morning? If so, you were not alone. America is in the middle of a major arms race - even if most of us don’t realize it - and December’s gun sales figures represent that startling reality. According to the latest FBI figures on background checks required to buy firearms, December has already been a record month for gun sales. Days before its end, December has already seen the number of background checks for gun purchases top the previous one-month record -- set only in November -- of 1,534,414 inquiries by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System also known as NICS. Nearly one-third of those background checks - just under half a million - were done in just the last six days before Christmas. Waiting until the week before Christmas to buy that Colt .45 for your loved one is a risky move, but more than 100,000 Americans not only waited until a week before Christmas, but waited until two days before the holiday. Two days before Christmas, NICS ran 102,222 background checks, which was the second-busiest day in history. Finding the current record holder doesn’t take much digging, lack Friday, the big shopping day following Thanksgiving, of this year has that distinction. Further elevating the gun run, the FBI doesn’t know how many guns were actually purchased in December because buyers often take home more than one gun. But most people pass the background checks. A mere 1.3 percent of the searches result in people being denied permission to buy a weapon, said FBI spokesman Steve Fischer. While the FBI does not have an official theory on the spike in gun sales, the gun-toting kooks of the National Rifle Association believe the figures indicate more people feel they need guns for self defense. "I think there's an increased realization that when something bad occurs, it's going to be between them and the criminal," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. Oh, and the NRA says more Americans are participating in skeet shooting and other gun-related hobbies. All in all, a truly heartwarming holiday season…………

- Brilliant medical minds work for the British Heart Foundation. Evidence of their brilliance can be found simply by listening to their plea to the British government Thursday to follow Australia's lead and ban all eye-catching designs and branding from cigarette packs to stop young people being lured into smoking. Everyone knows the younger the person, the more likely they are to be lured in by a colorful, shiny package with bright graphics. Unless those graphics show a diseased, smoke-maligned lung in neon shades, that’s a problem. Australia is boldly taking the lead by becoming the first nation to introduce so-called "plain" packaging on tobacco products by the end of 2012. In place of colorful packaging, the bland designs will sport graphic health warnings about smoking. Attractive colors and logos will be banned. To prove the importance of such an effort in England, the British Heart Foundation charity conducted a survey on how tobacco product packaging affects children. The survey found that more than a quarter of young people make assumptions about the relative harm of cigarettes based on the packaging alone. For the project, BHF researchers surveyed more than 2,700 16-to-25 year-old smokers and non-smokers. They learned that three quarters of those who responded thought selling cigarettes in packs with no colorful brands or logos, and larger health warnings, would make it easier for people to smoke less or quit. Worse still, 16 percent said they would consider the pack design when deciding which cigarettes to buy and 12 percent said they would choose a brand because it was considered “cool.” Bearing in mind that half of all smokers will eventually die of a tobacco-related disease, now might be a solid time to rethink any factor that could lead to an increase in a person’s likelihood of smoking. World, join the BHF’s push for the introduction of plain packaging which has no eye-catching colors or brands but is mostly covered with graphic warnings about the health dangers of smoking. "As informed adults we know that smoking is a deadly addiction," said Betty McBride, BHF's director of policy and communications. "But young people are not always fully aware of the risks, and the power of branding holds more sway." ‘Nuff said, B………….

- Milwaukee Bucks forward Stephen Jackson, a.k.a. Captain Jack, is insane. Anyone who has seen Jackson’s act during his 11 years in the NBA would not argue with that assessment, even if their only memory is of his role swinging on innocent fans alongside then-teammate Ron Artest (now known as Metta World Peace) during their time with the Indiana Pacers, when they instigated the infamous “Brawl at the Palace” in which they stormed the stands and attacked a fan Artest believed had thrown a cup of beer at him during a game. Given Jackson’s insane reputation, it isn't the least bit surprising that he recently admitted to mentally checking out on the team he played for last season, Charlotte, after the Bobcats traded Gerald Wallace to Portland. Seeing his friend and teammate traded away didn’t sit well with Jackson and he made no attempt to hide that fact during an interview prior to the Bucks’ season opening in Charlotte Monday night. “When Gerald left, I really left,’’ Jackson said. “Considering what we did (getting to) the playoffs, and then all those changes. To take Gerald away really took a lot out of me. I still was trying to do my job as best I can, but it was a lot harder. When they got rid of Gerald, that let me know they didn’t want to win. I didn’t want to be part of a place like that.” Wallace was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks on draft night and Jackson was shipped out of town shortly thereafter. Those looking for an optimistic viewpoint on the situation can take solace in the fact that Jackson merely stopped trying or caring and didn’t go on a locker room rampage in which he trashed TVs, lockers, stereo equipment and lights. Maybe, just maybe, Captain Jack is maturing a bit………….

- Mud slides and mudflows of death: They aren't just a Southern California thing. Residents of a remote area in eastern Indonesia have some fast-moving mudflows of doom on their hands today after Mount Gamalama, located in the Molucca Islands, roared back to life this month with a powerful, non-fatal eruption. The eruption caused seismic activity in the area and coupled with days of heavy rains that triggered flows of cold lava, rocks and other debris, villagers near Ternate found themselves literally running for their lives as the mudflows slammed into villages near the base of the volcano. Four villagers were confirmed dead Wednesday and about 1,000 others have fled their homes, according to officials. Government spokesman Yusuf Sunnya confirmed the deaths and said more than a dozen others were hospitalized with injuries ranging from broken bones to head wounds. For the geographically ignorant, Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago with millions of people living on mountains or near fertile flood plains. Landslides and mudflows are common because of seasonal downpours that cause the disasters. Mixing in a volcano explosion just seems unfair and the thought of thousands of villagers frantically grabbing their most important possessions and running from their about-to-be destroyed homes is heartbreaking. Much sadder than wealthy SoCal snobs trying to figure out whether to go for their backup iPad or their alternate iPhone on their way to their $150,000 luxury can in the garage they will drive to escape the approaching mudslide or wildfire……………

- Guys who spend a fair amount of time dreaming about being married to Megan Fox should be aware of just what the job entails. Although the job is currently taken by Brian Austin Green, celebrity marriages rarely last long and odds are the spot on M. Fox’s arm will be open shortly. Those interested in the opportunity need to know what they’re in for and as an example, take Fox’s decision to have her famous Marilyn Monroe tattoo removed from her forearm via laser. Like commoners, celebrities get ink they later regret but unlike the little folks, famous people can afford to pay a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon to laser it off. Fox made the decision to have her tat lasered off, but there was a caveat. “After the first session Megan was freaking out over how badly it hurt," a source said of the tattoo removal process. "Her friend suggested a mouth guard to bite down on to help deal with the pain and protect her teeth." Hmm, an interesting idea. What’s a girl to do when she needs a mouth guard but has neither the time nor the interest in actually going out to buy one? That’s right, send her husband. Fox reportedly Green to a sporting goods store for a mouth guard. Depending on who you ask, tattoo removal is either one of the most painful experiences this side of a root canal or relatively minor pain. Other celebrities have walked this road before Fox, including Angelina Jolie, who covered up a dragon bearing the name of now ex-hubby Billy Bob Thornton with geographical coordinates of her children's birthplaces. Thinking before you ink would also help, but again, famous people are really no different than everyone else. In other words, a lot of them are idiots……………

Hating on holiday music, kooks taking snakes on planes and ruining "The Fresh Prince"

2011-12-28T18:57:00.002-05:00

- Holiday music sucks. It’s annoying, it’s corny and if you replace the holiday-themed lyrics with normal ones atop the same notes and chords, no one would want to listen to it during the rest of the year. This should be common knowledge, but it somehow managed to escape a Boston subway dispatcher who programmed an electronic message board in a station to scroll the lyrics of "Deck the Halls" instead of the normal service announcements on Christmas Day. While there wasn’t exactly a groundswell of commuter outrage over the forced inclusion of Christmas music on their day, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officials were angry about the message and said the dispatcher could be strongly disciplined. Unfortunately, State Transportation Secretary Richard Davey sold out the MBTA by saying any punishment will be light, perhaps as lenient as a reminder not to use the signs for anything other than their real purpose. Davey suggested that because the dispatcher is a long-term employee with good intentions and a solid service record, there is no need for anything too strict. Wrong, Rich. The message needs to be sent loud and clear that this sort of perpetuation the worst music this side of disco, country and polka will not be tolerated. Fire this kook, see if there is any way to file a lawsuit for violation of civil rights and ensure this never happens again. Christmas music is not something to be laughed at or taken lightly and those who further its cause need to meet with swift and severe consequences…………

- Those who enjoy beautiful sights in the skies will have a solid next few days. Those who are not fans of radio blackouts, not so much. Astronomers are predicting fallout of particles from a recent solar storm that will slam into Earth and produce amazing Northern Lights, or auroras. However, the fallout may also cause radio blackouts for a few days due to the radiation from the flare – or coronal mass ejection (CME) for you outer space dorks. Radiation causes magnetic storms and boom, down go radio signals. The uptick in solar junk is due to a larger increase in activity in the sun, which runs in 11-year cycles and is expected to peak around 2013. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center addressed the impending downfall of space particles in a blog post. “Category G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storms are expected 28 and 29 December due to multiple coronal mass ejection arrivals. R1 (Minor) radio blackouts are expected until 31 December,” the post read. GPS systems, radios and mobile phones could all be affected by the particle storm because they all depend on radio waves. For the non-“Star Trek”/NASA crowd, a coronal mass ejection contains billions of tons of gases full of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation hurled out into space at around 5 million mph. Their temperatures reach as high as 100,000,000 degrees Celsius. When ionized solar particles becoming imprisoned by Earth’s magnetic field, the gases in the atmosphere are excited and they emit bursts of energy in the form of light. This causes auroras and magnetic storms, which in extreme cases can disrupt satellites and electricity grids. A major flare occurred in August but did not have a large impact because it took place on the side of the Sun not facing Earth. Maybe this time a little chaos will ensue…………

- Way to ruin the formative TV years of millions of Americans retroactively, relatively anonymous actress Janet Hubert. Hubert is not well-known, but her most prominent role is: that of Aunt Vivian on Will Smith's breakout sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show, which is a staple of the ‘90s pop culture and remains well-known even today thanks to the magic of syndication and too many cable networks in need of programming, depicted Smith as a troubled teenager in Philadelphia whose mother sent him to live with her upper-class sister and family in the posh Beverly Hills suburb of Bel-Air. The concept was loosely based on Smith’s experience growing up in Philadelphia and in many ways, the show helped launch Smith into the role of major action star he now occupies. Along the way he has dabbled in music (never doing anything too adventurous or ground-breaking) but made tens of millions of dollars cultivating a good-guy image in films and playing carefully selected roles that feed the persona he has created. Hubert, speaking after Smith posted a photo of the “Fresh Prince” cast reunion just before Christmas, poked a giant hole in Smith’s positive aura. "He is still an egomaniac and has not grown up," Hubert fumed. Asked about Smith’s hints that a possible reunion show could happen, Hubert could not have been more dismissive. "This constant reunion thing will never ever happen in my lifetime unless there is an apology, which he doesn't know the word. There will never be a reunion ... as I will never do anything with a jerk like Will Smith," Hubert continued. What she wants an apology for, Hubert didn’t say. As for Smith never growing up…..in his position, who would? If you could be one of the highest-grossing actors of all-time, carefully select your roles and be considered one of the good guys in a place (Hollywood) full of a-holes, why would anyone want to grow up…………

- “Snakes on a Plane” was not a documentary or a how-to film, all. This seems like a salient point to mention now that someone, no names mentioned Czech citizen Karel Abelovsky, attempted to smuggle 247 exotic and endangered species in his luggage on board an Ibiza Airlines flight from Buenos Aires' international airport to Madrid. Airport security officials made him open his baggage at after police spotted the reptiles in the X-ray scanner and inside they found the nearly 250 poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles inside plastic containers, bags, and even socks, with each creature meticulously labeled with its Latin name. Oddly enough, that isn't even the most compelling part of the story. Those details take a backseat to the fact that authorities believe Abelovsky was a courier for a criminal organization that smuggles exotic species whose exports are banned. An Argentinian judicial source revealed that detail along with the fact that Abelovsky only arrived in Argentina days earlier and wouldn't have had time to gather all the animals. Judge Marcelo Aguinsky presided over Abelovsky’s initial hearing and said she spoke about the possibility that the boa constrictors, poisonous pit vipers and coral snakes, lizards, and spiders could have escaped the cloth suitcase in the unpressurized cabin of the Dec. 7 Iberia flight to Madrid, and perhaps attacked people there or at his final destination in Prague. Instead of heading to Madrid or Prague, Abelovsky will now spend some quality time in Argentina. He will remain them after surrendering his passport and being released on $2,500 bail. He refused to cooperate with police and now faces up to 10 years in prison. Back home in the Czech Republic, Abelovsky runs a Czech website that offers reptiles for sale. Business may take a bit of hit with its proprietor’s current legal situation…………

- Germany: The new medical Mecca for ailing athletes in need of some experimental procedures to heal their broken-down bodies. Tiger Woods, New York Giants defensive tackle Chris Canty, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee and Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant have all traveled to Deutschland in the past 18 months for an experimental procedure in which a patient's own blood is drawn from the arm and put into a centrifuge to separate out a certain protein. The engineered protein compound is then injected into the affected joint to expedite the healing process. Bryant had two such procedures done, one on his ailing knee and one on his aching elbow. Noted steroid user and all-around disliked New York Yankees third basemen Alex Rodriguez recently joined the club when he traveled to Germany to receive Orthokine therapy on his right knee and left shoulder, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman confirmed. Rodriguez was hampered by injuries at the end of last season and the Yankees were eliminated by the Detroit Tigers in the first round of the playoffs. Athletes travel to Germany to have the procedure done because it is not common elsewhere and also because they want to avoid the scrutiny and questions that would likely ensue if they had it done in the U.S., but Cashman insisted Major League Baseball and WADA have approved the procedure. With just three games under his belt in a new NBA season, it’s too soon to determine how much Bryant’s procedures have helped him, but Rodriguez could clearly use a boost after he had surgery on his right knee last July and saw his power drop in the second half and postseason. He played in just 99 games and hit a mere 16 home runs, then batted a paltry .111 with no homers and three RBIs in the division series loss to the Tigers. Cashman said Rodriguez is "100 percent" right now and should be at full strength heading into spring training in February. If he and Bryant see career boosts in their respective seasons, expect a lot more elite athletes to head to the land of beer and 1,000 different kinds of sausages for their own medical miracles…………

Legalizing online gambling, China's own navigation system and the death of a "Buffy" film

2011-12-27T17:15:00.000-05:00

- Times are tough for states, individuals and yes, even governments. State and federal agencies and bureaucratic organizations are having an impossibly difficult time figuring out how to balance their budgets while also carrying dozens of dead-weight slackers who do little to no work on a daily basis. Cutting some of these do-nothings loose would help, but of course the government isn't going to do that. Instead, the Justice Department is reversing its stance on most forms of Internet gambling in the hopes of fleecing America’s growing quotient of degenerate gamblers out of enough money to adequately fund the government’s day-to-day operations. The department has reversed its long-held opposition to nearly all Internet gambling, eliminating a major legal obstacle for states that want to legalize online gambling to help fix their budget deficits. In a legal opinion issued by the department’s office of legal counsel in September but made public on Friday, the Justice Department responded to requests by New York and Illinois to clarify whether the Wire Act of 1961, which prohibits wagering over telecommunications systems that cross state or national borders. Illinois and New York wanted to use the Internet to sell lottery tickets to adults within their own borders, but the impact of the Justice Department’s change in position will almost certainly extend beyond those parameters. In the simplest of all possible explanations, the decision opens the door for states to allow Internet poker and other forms of online betting that do not involve sports. New York has offered an online subscription service since 2005 by which state residents can enter Lotto or Mega Millions drawings. The state has been working on plans for a broader online gaming system, but the contractor for the project feared legal battles if it moved forward. Armed with its newfound freedom, New York Lottery officials plan to add two additional jackpot games, Powerball and Sweet Million, to its current online lottery subscription service and permit New York residents to buy single-draw tickets online. In Illinois, the superintendent of the state lottery had the gall to suggest that the new policy would enable the lottery to regulate purchases and actually protect gambling addicts. “Right now we can’t guard against someone walking into a lottery retailer and buying too many tickets and behaving excessively,” superintendent Michael Jones said. “Now with credit card purchases, we can guard against excessive play.” Yes, that is exactly how the system will work. Some bureaucratic pencil-pusher behind a desk will determine whether or not a deadbeat dad who isn't supporting his four children by three different mothers can buy that extra batch of Powerball tickets. No one is sure how big the online gambling industry actually is, but most estimates put it in the 11-figure range, as in tens of billions of dollars annually. Both the District of Columbia and Nevada have both approved limited forms of Internet gambling, and New Jersey has been considering legislation allowing sports betting and other forms of Internet gambling, so this party is only getting started. Let the excessive online gambling by those who can least afford it commence……………

- NATO may be an organization supposedly dedicated to making a positive impact around the world, but it certainly doesn’t have any goodwill in the bank with Pakistan. That may have something to do with last month's NATO raid on Pakistani border posts that killed 24 soldiers. Pakistan could be upset about a report issued last week by the U.S. military that blamed inadequate coordination by both Pakistani and U.S.-led forces. Either way, Pakistan says it will only consider reopening key NATO supply routes to neighboring Afghanistan if NATO is willing to pay. Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar insisted his government has not yet decided whether to allow NATO to resume overland shipments of non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan, but suggested it will be a cash-to-cross arrangement if anything at all. Mukhtar informed media members in Sukkur that if the routes are reopened, "it will not be free." Well played Pakistan, well played. Allowing NATO to use your roads for free is a weak move and no one is going to respect you if you agree to that. While claiming the reasoning behind the decision is the high volume of heavy traffic that has damaged the country’s road infrastructure over the last 10 years is not as strong a play as simply forcing NATO to pay because you feel like it, adding tolls or tariffs on NATO shipments is still a balls play. Mukhtar explained that any money raised through would go to road infrastructure. Sadly, he did not punctuate his words by looking directly into the nearest camera, telling NATO it could kiss Pakistan’s ass and holding a middle finger aloft as he walked from the podium………….

- Dropping a new jersey on the Washington Wizards does not change the insanity of the Washington Wizards. As long as the Wizards are suiting up crazy Andray Blatche, they will continue to have one of the more mentally unstable rosters in the NBA - or any other sport for that matter. Following the Wizards’ season-opening 90-84 loss to the New Jersey Nets, in which Washington blew a 21-point lead, Blatche was asked about coach Flip Saunders observing that the team began to rely too much on individual efforts in the second quarter. While Saunders did not mention Blatche directly, it was clear from how the Washington offense operated during the period that Blatche was among Saunders’ targets. The temperamental 6’11 forward sounded off in the locker room after the game. "You can't keep having me pick-and-pop and shooting jump shots," Blatche said in the locker room. "Give me the ball in the paint. That's where I'm most effective at. I've been saying that since training camp: I need the ball in the paint. I don't want to be the pick-and-pop guy that I used to be. It's not working for me." Blatche scored 11 points on 5-for-13 shooting and further hurt the team by earning a technical foul exchanging words with Kris Humphries, a.k.a. the ex-Mr. Kim Kardashian. Suggesting the team wasn’t using him to the best of his abilities made some media members and experts question whether Blatche was lashing out at his coaches and teammates, a suggestion he didn’t like. "Every body need to shut up I didn't call out my coach or team mates I said I had a bad game need it n the post instead of jump shots," Blatche tweeted. Saunders met with Blatche before practice Tuesday to talk about the situation. "We talked about what he said about as far as wanting to be in the post," Saunders said. "And I told him, that's something to my ears. I love hearing that. ... But then he also has to understand that just because you get it at 17 feet, you don't have to shoot it either. I'm not twisting his arm to do that." Seventeen is an ironic number for Saunders to reference because prior to the league’s five-month lockout, he gave Blatche a book titled "The 17 Essential Qualities Of A Team Player." Blatche said he has read about half of it. Now might be an optimal time to read the other half……….

- Those hoping for a full-length film version of the cult TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer, there is no good news for you at the moment. A reboot of the forerunner to the “Twilight” saga and all of the other vampire flicks of recent years was in the works, but the project has been put in an indefinite holding pattern because screenwriter Whit Anderson, who was not part of the original series, failed miserably in his attempts to recreate the vampire magic of “Buffy” creator Joss Whedon, who is not a part of the new project. Anderson had been given the job of reinventing Whedon’s brainchild but delivered a script that "fell far short of expectations and, in the end, was rejected completely” by studio executives according to sources close to the situation. Anderson’s failure doesn’t mean the project is dead and a new writer is reportedly being sought to take the project forward, but producers are also debating whether to kill the concept entirely. That would probably hit favorably with Whedon and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who portrayed the show's heroine during its successful run from 1997 to 2003. Both Whedon and Gellar have criticized the idea of reviving the franchise. Whedon is currently working on “The Avengers” but found a moment to share his thoughts on the “Buffy” film. "This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths, just because can’t think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself," Whedon fumed. Gellar wasn’t any sunnier in her remarks, declaring, "I think it's a horrible idea. To try to do a 'Buffy' without Joss Whedon, I mean that's, like, honestly, to be incredibly non-eloquent: that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard." Seems at least a few people agree with those sentiments……….

- GPS is not for everyone. Specifically, it’s not for China because the Chinese aren’t fans of most things American unless it’s chunks of America’s national debt the Chinese can buy up and lord over the United States. In the latest attempt to prove it doesn’t need America for anything other than an economic punching bag, China officially launched its own satellite navigation system Tuesday, which will provide initial positioning, navigation, and timing operational services to China and the surrounding region. State media reported the debut of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BNSS), which is intended to replace China's reliance on the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS). The BNSS has been under construction and in the interim, China has launched 10 satellites, the most recent of which went up in November. Six additional satellites will be launched in 2012 and the system as a whole will be completed by 2020. Although it is not complete, Beidou is reportedly compatible with the U.S. system, as well as the EU's Galileo Positioning System and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS - yes, its actual name). But as with everything the Communist Party does in China, there is a more sinister overtone to the satellite navigation system. In other words, it won’t just be to help commuters find their way through the traffic-packed, smog-riddled streets of major cities. China has recently developed an antiship ballistic missile that could hit a moving aircraft carrier up to 1,700 miles offshore and Beidou could be used with other technology to locate the whereabouts of U.S. ships in the region. In other words, it could be useful should China decide to make an American ship go kaboom. Not that China would ever consider such an attack…………

States love online gambling, NFL teams beg fans and excuses for the FAT

2011-12-26T14:14:00.000-05:00

- Times are tough for states, individuals and yes, even governments. State and federal agencies and bureaucratic organizations are having an impossibly difficult time figuring out how to balance their budgets while also carrying dozens of dead-weight slackers who do little to no work on a daily basis. Cutting some of these do-nothings loose would help, but of course the government isn't going to do that. Instead, the Justice Department is reversing its stance on most forms of Internet gambling in the hopes of fleecing America’s growing quotient of degenerate gamblers out of enough money to adequately fund the government’s day-to-day operations. The department has reversed its long-held opposition to nearly all Internet gambling, eliminating a major legal obstacle for states that want to legalize online gambling to help fix their budget deficits. In a legal opinion issued by the department’s office of legal counsel in September but made public on Friday, the Justice Department responded to requests by New York and Illinois to clarify whether the Wire Act of 1961, which prohibits wagering over telecommunications systems that cross state or national borders. Illinois and New York wanted to use the Internet to sell lottery tickets to adults within their own borders, but the impact of the Justice Department’s change in position will almost certainly extend beyond those parameters. In the simplest of all possible explanations, the decision opens the door for states to allow Internet poker and other forms of online betting that do not involve sports. New York has offered an online subscription service since 2005 by which state residents can enter Lotto or Mega Millions drawings. The state has been working on plans for a broader online gaming system, but the contractor for the project feared legal battles if it moved forward. Armed with its newfound freedom, New York Lottery officials plan to add two additional jackpot games, Powerball and Sweet Million, to its current online lottery subscription service and permit New York residents to buy single-draw tickets online. In Illinois, the superintendent of the state lottery had the gall to suggest that the new policy would enable the lottery to regulate purchases and actually protect gambling addicts. “Right now we can’t guard against someone walking into a lottery retailer and buying too many tickets and behaving excessively,” superintendent Michael Jones said. “Now with credit card purchases, we can guard against excessive play.” Yes, that is exactly how the system will work. Some bureaucratic pencil-pusher behind a desk will determine whether or not a deadbeat dad who isn't supporting his four children by three different mothers can buy that extra batch of Powerball tickets. No one is sure how big the online gambling industry actually is, but most estimates put it in the 11-figure range, as in tens of billions of dollars annually. Both the District of Columbia and Nevada have both approved limited forms of Internet gambling, and New Jersey has been considering legislation allowing sports betting and other forms of Internet gambling, so this party is only getting started. Let the excessive online gambling by those who can least afford it commence……………

- Is the NFL really the king of American professional sports? Television ratings and revenues from merchandise and TV rights sales would suggest as much, but how can a sport be the king if one of its teams is openly begging fans to show up for the biggest game of the season? The Cincinnati Bengals have been one of the biggest surprises of the NFL season, bouncing back from winning four games last year to a 9-6 record that has them on the brink of making the playoffs in the AFC. With rookie quarterback Andy Dalton leading the way and a rugged defense keeping the Bengals in games, coach Marvin Lewis’ team needs only to defeat Baltimore in Sunday’s regular-season finale at home to make the postseason. For some reason, the prospect of watching a potential playoff team fight for the chance to compete for a championship has failed to excite the Cincinnati faithful. Attendance at Paul Brown Stadium has been lackluster all season and in the hopes of changing that trend the team is trotting out some of its stars to plead with fans to show up for the Baltimore game. "It's going to be a big week, and we're going to need everyone to come out and support us," Dalton said of the contest. "Everyone in Cincinnati needs to come out for this big game." Lewis also chimed in, hinting at the need for fans to show up and support the Bengals in their big matchup. "The crowd really affected the game with the noise, and I'm sure they'll be anxious to get here next Sunday as we play for something special," Lewis said. The begging comes on the heels of a crowd of just 41,273 showing up for Saturday’s 23-16 victory over Arizona at the 65,500-seat stadium. Seeing so many empty seats even inspired the Bengal with the longest rap sheer - cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones - to get all political with his plea for a bigger crowd for Week 17. "I'm just happy for the team and the city of Cincinnati," Jones declared. "The fans did a great job getting behind us, and we need all of you this week. We need the fans this week. Who Dey! Please come support us. I'm Adam Jones, and I approved this message." How pissed are those fans who do buy a ticket going to be when the Ravens roll into the Queen City, smack the Bengals and send them into the offseason one week early………….

- FAT people, here you go. A late Christmas gift has just come down the chimney and no, it’s not an extra plate of Christmas cookies, fudge and pumpkin pie to pair with the leftover stuffing, ham and mashed taters you have left over from Sunday’s family gathering. Instead, it’s a study by researchers at Ohio State informing you that you can blame your ever-growing girth on that terrible relationship you have with your mother. Sarah Anderson, assistant professor of epidemiology at Ohio State and lead author of the study, and her team examined the mother-child relationships of 977 children born in 1991. They measured how the mothers interacted with their children at numerous points during their childhoods and evaluated factors such as emotional attachment and children’s sense of security within their family. Those who had a low level of emotional security in their family relationship were more likely to battle obesity as they grew older. A stunning 26.1 percent of children who had troubled relationships with their mothers were obese at the age of 15, compared with just 13 percent of those children who were close to their mothers. “Sensitive parenting increases the likelihood that a child will have a secure pattern of attachment and develop a healthy response to stress,” Anderson explained. “A well-regulated stress response could in turn influence how well children sleep and whether they eat in response to emotional distress — just two factors that affect the likelihood for obesity.” Anderson’s research team had previously found that young children without a strong emotional relationship with their parents were more likely to be obese by the age of 4 1/2. In spite of the potentially guilt-tripping implications for bad mothers, Anderson made it clear the findings should not be used to blame mothers, but rather as a tool to prevent the spread of childhood obesity. "It is possible that childhood obesity could be influenced by interventions that try to improve the emotional bonds between mothers and children rather than focusing only on children's food intake and activity," she said. Whatever you say, S. Read more about this FAT excuse in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics………

- Take one last wistful, longing look at all of those shirtless magazine cover shots and two-page photos, ladies. Drink in the hunky goodness of everyone woman’s favorite shirt-eschewing Texan because the acting talent-deprived Matthew McConaughey is finally going where George Clooney will never dare to venture. That’s right, the star of iconic films like “Fool’s Gold” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” is finally ready to get married after proposing to longtime girlfriend Camila Alves on Christmas Day. She said yes and he broke the news to millions of distraught female fans around the world on his WhoSay account Sunday. "Just asked Camila to marry me, Merry Christmas," McConaughey wrote on his account, underneath a photo of the couple kissing near a Christmas tree. For Alves, the proposal means a payoff for sticking with McConaughey through five years - yes, they began dating back in 2006 - and approximately 24 crappy romantic comedies he filmed during that time (number approximate). The couple have a 23-month-old daughter, Vida, and 3-year-old son Levi, together and now they are just another slice of the American dream: rich, good-looking people with a wedding ring, two kids and the little people despising them for having all of the above. So once you can see through the tears, ladies, and can unclench your hands from the tiny balls of rage you have curled them into since hearing this heartbreaking news, maybe you can head on over to McConaughey’s WhoSay page and leave him a note of congratulations…………

- New Jersey, what’s your problem? You have a lot of garbage - and no, the Nets don’t count any longer - and yet you are one of the worst states in the U.S. when it comes to recycling? It was a mere 25 years ago that New Jersey became the first to require residents to recycle. Now…….the state’s rate of recycling is plummeting and stands at a measly 37 percent, barely ahead of the national average of 34 percent. That’s a marked decline from 1995, when 45 percent of the waste picked up by municipal collectors was headed for recycling. New Jersey residents are either lazy or indifferent to the plight of the planet, because their level of environmental consciousness has fallen to disturbingly low levels. Environmental groups believe that trash dumping is a major part of the problem and are hoping that a tax on trash dumping, which was reinstated in 2008 after being eliminated a dozen years earlier, will help encourage recycling. Further underscoring the role sheer, unabashed laziness plays in the unwillingness of the average New Jerseyite to recycle, these same groups are putting their minimal might behind a collection of new recycling programs that do not require people to separate bottles and paper. Maybe if those programs take the extra step of not forcing people to actually sort their recycling from their trash or take either one out of the house, all the way to the curb, they can really attain a high level of participation. Asking New Jersey to step up its collective recycling game is just too much to ask. Allow them to turn their state into even more of a massive trash dump that the residents of the other 49 states already assume it to be………….

Kobe's Deutschland excursions, Pakistani conspiracy theories and holiday movie news

2011-12-25T14:52:00.001-05:00

- Ever hear someone deny a conspiracy theory and pray that they’re lying? That’s the prevailing emotion when Pakistan's army chief denies claims that the military is working to overthrow the country's civilian government. Faced with the revelation of a secret memo sent to Washington earlier this year about an alleged coup, the Pakistani military is now fighting a battle of a different sort against allegations of a possible coup. Tensions between the army and government are at an all-time high even as the omnipresent threat of the Taliban looms over all. Toss in a faltering economy and worsening relations with its most important ally, the United States, and the holiday season has been a wee bit tense for Pakistan. As if to provide a reminder of just how tenuous the political and social landscape is, Taliban fighters attacked a paramilitary fort in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing one soldier and kidnapping 15 others who they promised to kill soon. But back to the conspiracy theory……Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani stoked that fire Thursday when he claimed there was a conspiracy under way to topple the government. He stopped short of accusing the military but chastised the army’s leadership and insisting it must be answerable to the parliament and cannot operate as a "state within a state." Army chief Gen. Pervez Ashfaq Kayani returned fire, denying allegations promising the army’s full support of democracy in Pakistan. "The army is fully cognizant of its constitutional obligations and responsibilities," Kayani said. Sadly, most experts doubt the likelihood of a coup at this time and don’t put much stock in the memo or its alleged author, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani. Haqqani allegedly acted with President Asif Ali Zardari's support in asking the U.S. to help avert a coup attempt in light of the unilateral U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden within Pakistan. Kayani went with a predictable misdirection play, saying rumors of a coup were "being used as a bogey to divert the focus from the real issues." Embrace the conspiracy, general…………

- An additional 3,023 theaters to expand on its limited-release debut last weekend still were not enough to light a fuse under Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol as Tom Cruise and Co. lumbered to a box office win with unimpressive numbers. Ghost Protocol netted a mere $26.5 million in domestic earnings, wresting the top spot from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Through two weeks, Ghost Protocol has made $58.9 million domestically, which doesn’t exactly qualify as a record-setting start. Sherlock Holmes ended up in second place for the weekend, adding $17.8 million to its two-week haul despite a 55 percent decline. Through two weeks, the film has grossed $76.6 million domestically. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked was the weekend’s third-place film on the strength of a $13.3 million effort, giving the animated flick $50.2 million in cumulative earnings. A trio of new films were next on the list, as Sony’s heavily promoted The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo failed to live up to its own immense hype by finishing fourth with a modest $13 million. That was enough to hold off kid-friendly The Adventures of Tintin for fourth place, but not enough to crack the top three. Tintin secured fifth place with a $9.2 million debut, also falling short of expectations on what is widely considered one of the best weekends of the year for family movies. The critically panned We Bought a Zoo led off the bottom half of the top 10 as the presence of Scarlett Johansson’s hotness and the always solid Matt Damon were not enough to make the film a resounding success. Zoo earned $7.8 million for the weekend despite opening in more than 3,100 theaters. Seventh place went to New Year’s Eve, which dropped from fourth place and made $3.1 million in its third weekend of release. Arthur Christmas ranked eighth with $2.7 million in its fifth weekend in theaters while The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 tumbled three notches to No. 9 with a $2.1 million weekend and Hugo rounded out the top 10 with $2 million. The Muppets (No. 11), Young Adult (No. 13) and The Sitter (No. 14) all fell out of the top 10 this weekend………….

- Thank you, science, for proving that toddlers don’t listen. Directly defying what their parents tell them to do is ample evidence of this, but a new study published in the journal Current Biology hammers that point home even more decisively. Conducted by Ewen MacDonald of the Technical University of Denmark and his team of inquisitive scientific minds, the study featured adults, four-year-olds, and two-year-olds saying the word “bed” repeatedly while hearing a recording of themselves saying “bad” to trick their brain into thinking they were making the wrong sound. Taking the cue, the adults and 4-year-olds began trying to compensate by changing the vowel, saying something that sounded more like the word “bid”. However, the 2-year-olds continued pronouncing “bed” the same way, suggesting they do not respond to their own voice the same way that adults have been found to do. MacDonald drew a parallel to the way musicians listen to notes as they play to determine if their instrument is in tune and adjust accordingly. “When we speak, we do something very similar. We subconsciously listen to vowel and consonant sounds in our speech to ensure we are producing them correctly,” McDonald said in a press release. “If the acoustics of our speech are slightly different from what we intended, then, like the violinists, we will adjust the way we speak to correct for these slight errors.” If they don’t listen to the sound of their own voice, then how do toddlers monitor their speech? Researchers theorized that they may rely on their parents or other people rather than their own words. Anyone who has spent time around a toddler knows full well that idiots who like to talk baby talk usually do repeat words back to children after they speak. Based on their findings, MacDonald’s team will now explore potential applications for understanding or addressing delayed and abnormal early speech development. Sounds like fun………….

- When both major parties are doing a terrible job attempting to drag a country out of its economic and political doldrums, what is a populace to do? Go in search of something new, if an analysis of state voter registration is any indication. The research, conducted by USA TODAY, showed that more than 2.5 million voters have left the Democratic and Republican parties since the 2008 elections. Those free-agent voters aren't necessarily flocking to the Green or Libertarian parties and most are choosing to remain independent. On a national scale, the number of Democrats declined in 25 of the 28 states that register voters by party and Republicans dipped in 21 states. Despite the defections, independents increased in just 18 of those states. With next year’s presidential elections approaching quickly, those independent voters will be more prized than ever. Eight so-called swing states that register voters by party feature Democratic registration down by 800,000 and Republicans down by 350,000. That may not be enough to give libertarian Republican Ron Paul or the newly independent Donald Trump an actual chance to be elected, but there is no question the trend underscores Americans’ growing dissatisfaction with both major parties. Democrats find themselves in the lead in terms of registered voters with 42 million, compared to 30 million Republicans and 24 million independents. However, Democrats have lost the most voters since 2008 - 1.7 million, to be exact. That is nearly 4 percent of their voter base and Democratic registration has suffered more than Republican registration in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — the eight swing states with party registration. Republicans losses’ have been the most severe in Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, independent voters are skyrocketing in Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona, meaning those states and their electoral votes will see a heavy dose of President Barack Obama and whomever emerges from the Republican clusterf**k in a few months. Ah, the sheer, unbridled joy of election season………….

- Kobe Bryant is going to need all the help he can get to keep the Los Angeles Lakers competitive this season. David Stern indefensibly squashing a trade that would have brought All-Star point guard Chris Paul to the Lakers, Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom being traded to Dallas for next to nothing and Paul landing with the rival Clippers have all stacked the deck against Bryant and his team. Factor in all the miles on Bryant’s basketball odometer and his own health issues and…..well, it could be a long year for the purple and gold. But if Bryant looks rejuvenated this season, a large part of the credit may well go to Deutschland. That’s right, Germany is in the lead for praise any time Bryant drops a game-winning shot or leads a fourth-quarter rally this season. Bryant underwent an experimental but increasingly popular procedure in Germany in July in an attempt to help heal his oft-injured right knee and as the NBA lockout dragged on into the fall, he reportedly returned to Germany in October to undergo an innovative procedure on his left ankle. The July procedure, a treatment known as platelet-rich plasma therapy, consists of centrifuging the patient's blood to isolate platelets and growth factors and injecting that mixture into an injured area to accelerate healing. Tiger Woods, New York Giants defensive tackle Chris Canty and Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee are among the athletes who have undergone the treatment and Bryant hopes he will experience similar success in alleviating the pain from an arthritic joint in his right knee. The procedure on his knee was his fourth since 2003 and it needs to hold up because losing him for any length of time could propel the Lakers right out of the playoff race. Oh, and Bryant is also suffering from a torn ligament in his right wrist sustained in an exhibition game Monday against the Clippers. When asked about the wrist injury and his status for the season opener against Chicago, Bryant seemed very receptive to the line of questioning. "I'm fine," he replied. "I'm not talking about my injury." Well then…………….

Russian revolution, raging MLBers and unwanted fruitcakes

2011-12-24T14:51:00.000-05:00

- Don’t tell Texas Rangers catcher Yorvit Torrealba that playing winter league baseball is just a way to stay in shape and polish his skills for the coming Major League Baseball season. Torrealba, back in his native Venezuela to play for he Leones del Caracas squad in the Venezuelan League, had something of a bad night Friday and it wasn’t just a bad plate appearance that ruined his evening. Swinging at strike three and having to head back to the bench with an empty at-bat is the worst outcome for any batter, but Torrealba kicked it up a notch after swinging and missing at a well-placed fastball. Rather than take his anger out by slamming his bat on the ground or snapping it over his knee, he instead began a heated argument with Dario Rivera Jr. over a previous strike call during the at-bat. Torrealba and Rivera argued for about 15 seconds before Torrealba went from really angry to nuclear, delivering an open-handed strike to the umpire’s mask. Rivera was smart enough to keep his mask on during the argument, while Torrealba wasn’t intelligent enough to realize that smacking an umpire was a poor choice that will likely lead to a fine and possible suspension from the league. Then again, when you’re an accomplished MLB star who hit .273 with seven home runs and 37 RBIs last season, you clearly expect preferential treatment from umpires no matter where in the world you’re playing at any given time. Stay classy, Y……………

- Caffeine is available in many different forms. Old-school types chug cup after cup of coffee to get themselves up and going for the day, while others bolt down energy drinks or Five Hour Energy shots. The makers of something known as AeroShot Pure Energy want to put another option on the menu for those who don’t like the taste or calories of coffee and don’t want to drink their daily infusion of caffeine. The plan is to deliver caffeine and a mix of B vitamins into the consumer’s mouth while allowing them to embrace their inner asthmatic. That’s right, the caffeine inhaler is finally here - for now. The makers of AeroShot Pure Energy claim their product complies with FDA dietary supplement guidelines, but some lawmakers aren't so sure about the product. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) believe the Food and Drug Administration should evaluate AeroShot Pure Energy to determine if it is safe to use. "They should check it out, see if it has negative consequences, and don't let it go on the shelves until it is thoroughly checked out," Schumer said. His warnings were dismissed by the company, which insists the product is safe as long as it's used as intended. "AeroShot Pure Energy contains the same amount of caffeine as a cup of premium coffee and has less caffeine than the leading energy shot," said CEO Tom Hadfield. “AeroShot is not intended for use by children, and it is not marketed to children." Fair enough because we all know that products not designed or intended for children never make their way into children’s hands, so that shouldn’t be a problem. As for adults, AeroShot Pure Energy can’t be any worse than downing three or four Red Bulls or six cups of coffee during the course of the day, so what the hey…………

- Fruitcakes: Christmas time’s unwanted quasi-food staple for decades. No one wants them now and apparently no one wanted them back in World War II times either. That would explain how an anonymous Ohio man was able to put a 1941 fruitcake made by The Kroger Co. up for auction through Ohio-based Elite Estate Group and flip the cake for a nice chunk of change he then donated to a local charity helping the homeless. The fruitcake sold for $525 to an Arizona man and the money was immediately donated to help homeless individuals in southwest Ohio, Elite Estate Group CEO Larry Chaney said. Chaney theorized that the anonymous do-gooders probably purchased the fruitcake as an investment. There is an interesting story attached to the cake, as it was produced in 1941 and returned unopened to a Kroger store in 1971. No one is sure why a person would return a three-decade-old fruitcake to the store, but equally inexplicable is why the store’s manager took the cake home and kept it until recently when he and his son were doing some cleaning and came across it. They took the fruitcake to Chaney to put up for auction and from there, it was a matter of finding someone who wanted to throw away a few hundred dollars on a 71-year-old semi-food product they would never actually eat. In actuality, the fruitcake may still be edible given that it was vacuum-sealed and made with a healthy dose of rum that helped to preserve it. With the value of the U.S. dollar in a nonstop freefall, perhaps this could be the start of the fruitcake as the preferred method of long-term investment……….

- Quite a few artists in various genres of the music industry seem unhappy with the current state of their chosen profession. Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof blasted rock as having nothing substantial to say about the world during his speech as last year’s South By Southwest festival, Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie called most of today’s rock stars sellouts in a recent interview and Kaiser Chiefs drummer Nick Hodgson joined the party this week by proclaiming that guitar music "is at an all-time low.” Hodgson claimed that indie music had declined in popularity since the band released their debut album, “Employment,” in 2005. “It's a strange time to be in a band. We all know guitar music is at an all-time low,” Hodgson lamented. "You look at the line-up at V Festival and there were only four or five bands. Very few bands which started when we did have stood the test of time." Hodgson elected not to blame the demise of guitar-based rock on the obvious lack of talent, artistry and originality present in music in the current era, instead identifying the lack of festival spots for guitar groups as evidence of the genre’s decline. His comments echoed the thoughts of Wilson who admitted back in October he was worried for the future of guitar bands. "Necessity is the mother of invention and there will always be music," Wilson said. "Whether it will be a viable career for five guys with guitars I'm not sure at the moment but you know, they'll be there in a garage somewhere." Kaiser Chiefs did what they could to further the cause of guitar bands earlier this year when they took a unique approach to releasing fourth album, “The Future Is Medieval.” The band wrote 25 songs and allowed fans to choose their own track listing, with the album only available online. They also plan to release a new single that did not appear on the album called 'On The Run' in January, which takes aim at "rude, cruel people" who use Twitter…………

- Rage is a great Christmas present, especially if you live in Russia and are chafing under the oppressive rule of Bad Vlad Putin and his United Russia Party. Protests have been a hallmark of this holiday season behind the soon-to-rise-again Iron Curtain, where opposition supporters have lashed out over what they believe to be rigged election results earlier this month that returned Vladimir Putin's party to power. Cries for new elections haven’t subsided and bitterly cold temperatures have done nothing to cool the fires of dissent. That was evident Saturday as thousands of people filled the streets of Moscow to renew calls for fair elections. Using social media and word of mouth, organizers were able to create a massive wave of anti-Putin sentiment for the gathering. Current dictator/President Dmitry Medvedev provided more fuel for the fire when he issued what most critics viewed as a hollow promise of sweeping political reforms in a supposed effort to address discontent following the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections. Police estimated crowds for Saturday’s protest at 25,000, while organizers said at least twice as many participated. A crowd of more than 40,000 was expected based on the always shaky measuring stick of participation in a Facebook forum discussion moderated by protest organizers. On the heels of a massive protest across the country earlier this month, Saturday’s demonstration was the strongest condemnation yet of election results that kept Putin's ruling United Russia party in power. Medvedev’s suggestion that Russia return to direct elections of regional governors, simplify the registration of political parties and presidential candidates and establish a new editorially-independent national public TV channel have done little to abate the outrage thus far. Even the announcement of new anti-corruption measures had little impact and that may have had something to do with his dismissive rejection of public criticism of the parliamentary elections. Labeling the campaign to overturn the results as "attempts to manipulate the people and foment social discord" was a poor choice. "We will not allow instigators and extremists to involve society in their reckless schemes, nor will we tolerate interference in our internal affairs from the outside," Medvedev said. “Russia needs democracy, not chaos.” Yes, democracy would be super. Rights-trampling communist dictatorship doesn’t seem to be working too well………

Profitable heart abnormalities, the death of the camera and Chinese oppression

2011-12-23T13:07:00.000-05:00

- Having a heart abnormality has never been this profitable. For free-agent forward Chuck Hayes, finding a new team once the NBA lockout ended was more challenging than he expected but the end result of his journey was a deal that will net him a $1.1 million more than he was to receive under the terms of the original deal he signed with the Sacramento Kings. Hayes thought he had a contract with the Kings earlier this week, but Sacramento voided the deal after Hayes failed a physical because a heart exam showed an abnormality that would require Hayes to undergo further testing, the Kings said. Hayes went to see the experts at the Cleveland Clinic and underwent further testing as his career and long-term health hung in the balance. After more tests, Hayes was given clearance to play and his agent, Calvin Andrews, resumed negotiations with the Kings. With the original four-year, $21.3 million offer off the table, Hayes was somehow able to score another four-year offer worth $22.4 million. Discovering a heart abnormality made him an extra $1 million-plus and in a statement released by Andrews, he expressed what he had been through over the course of a fairly unpredictable week. "It's been an incredible week of emotional highs and lows," Hayes said in the statement. "The Kings have been very supportive during this process and I feel very comfortable with the relationships that I have started there. After reviewing my options, the Kings were still the choice for me." Making $5.6 million a season for four seasons seems like a high price for a player who averaged 3.4 points and 4.7 rebounds in 17 minutes per game in six seasons with Houston, but Hayes is known as a rugged, physical defender and excellent chemistry guy who does all of the dirty work for his team. Andrews was also thrilled about the outcome of the negotiations and showed some holiday goodwill in assessing how the situation played out. "I want to make it clear there were never any bad feelings between Chuck and the Kings," Andrews said. "We understood the process and their medical staff had to take the necessary precautions when it came to seeing any abnormalities of the heart.” As usual, truckloads of cash salve a lot of wounds……….

- China is at it again, although in truth the Communist Party never truly stops. Oppressing people is what the commies do in China and trampling the basic rights and freedoms of men like human rights campaigner Chen Wei is par for the course. Because Chen dared to post blog entries denouncing the Chinese government and advocating Chinese citizens’ right to free speech, he was found guilty of "inciting subversion of state power" on Friday after a two-hour trial. That’s right, the trial lasted two whole hours. The court clearly took its time hearing evidence and deliberating Chen’s case. The most potent moment of the trial came after the verdict as Chen ominously warned the court: "Dictatorship will fail, democracy will prevail." Chen was one of more than 130 dissidents arrested by security officials in February after taking part in calls for what they deemed a Jasmine revolution in China to mirror the Arab Spring uprisings. Chen's wife Wang Xiaoyan was in the courtroom for the trial and said her husband and other dissidents would not have their spirits broken by their excessive punishment. She blasted the sentence as a measure designed to scare and intimate those who continue to dare speak out against Beijing's Communist leadership. "His behavior will be tested by history," Wang wrote in a post on China's version of Twitter, Weibo, shortly after the trial. "They don't allow people to speak. There is no freedom of speech.” Chen’s specific crime was writing four articles for foreign websites in which he criticized the government and championed a civil society. He contended that he was merely expressing his opinions as allowed under the Chinese constitution, clearly forgetting that the Chinese constitution has about as much validity as a contract signed by a man in a coma. The trial itself was also a farce, taking place behind closed doors and featuring a whopping 35 minutes of deliberations by the justices after the “evidence” was presented. Wang said he husband would not appeal the verdict because there "is no point.” Chen is no stranger to being jailed for speaking out as he was previously imprisoned for taking part in the famed 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protest the government crushed by sending in the army. Welcome to China, where every day is oppressively the same and has been for decades…………

- Someone really should clue Odd Future's Tyler, The Creator in to the fact that he’s not Angus Young, Ozzy Osbourne, Dr. Dre or Jay-Z. The musical legends have accumulated years of success and built reputations as world-class stars. If they act like a rock star and cause a scene by trashing a hotel room or destroying property, so be it. Tyler, The Creator seems to believe he’s in the same class as those musical icons and subsequently forgetting that, well, he’s Tyler, The Creator. He illustrated that point perfectly after Odd Future's Christmas show at the famed Roxy club in Los Angeles. Following the group’s set, the rapper allegedly trashed sound equipment at the venue and Roxy staffers contacted the police. Officers showed up and arrested Tyler, The Creator on suspicion of vandalism and took him for a ride to the station in the back of a squad car. Making the scene that much better, Tyler, The Creator was reportedly handcuffed and arrested in front of his mother, who had been at the Roxy to see the show. The arrest came on the heels of Odd Future’s other half, 'Left Brain' Vyron Turner, getting arrested in November and charged with assault for the incident in which he allegedly slapped a female photographer. Freelance photographer Amy Harris claimed Turner struck her during a show, a claim an Odd Future representative disputed in a statement insisting there was "no truth to the accusation.” Once he clears up his latest legal issues, Tyler, The Creator will start work on this third album, 'Wolf.’ The album is set to drop in May and Tyler, The Creator has promised that the new album will move away from the grisly subject matter of 2010's 'Goblin' because he is tired of "talking about rape and cutting up bodies." Glad to hear that brutal crimes no longer interest you, T……….

- Interesting things have been happening on buses this week. First, the Son of God showed up on a bus in Connecticut and smashed a window when fellow passengers attempted to force him off the bus. Technically, it may have been a mentally unstable kook who thought he was Jesus, but that is neither here nor there. Compared to what happened a few hundred miles away in Philadelphia on Tuesday, a smashed window is actually getting off cheap. There was no appearance by Yahweh on this bus, but rather a brief lapse in judgment by a student at a Boston conservatory who left a rare violin worth $172,000 on a bus after arriving in Philadelphia. The New England Conservatory student got on a Megabus in Boston with the 176-year-old violin and briefly went brain-dead when she exited the bus and left her instrument behind. Muchen Hsieh told police she forgot the violin in an overheard bin and did not realize her mistake until after she was picked up from the bus stop. Investigators are now asking for the public’s help in recovering the valuable violin, which was lent to Hsieh by the Chi Mei Culture Foundation in her native Taiwan while she studies in the U.S. “I’m a violin major, so I really hope that the person that took it can give it back to me so I can continue my studies because right now, I can’t do anything,” Hsieh explained. She frantically dialed the bus company to see if anyone had turned in the instrument, but it was no longer on the bus by the time she called. The instrument is so valuable because it was made in 1835 by Vincenzo Jorio in Naples, Italy. When Hsieh left it on the bus, the violin was in a reddish case with two straps on the back, police Lt. John Walker said. “We believe that somebody may have grabbed the item without realizing its value,” Walker said. Either that or they immediately recognized its value and were looking to cash in. Stealing it and selling it are two very different endeavors to be sure, as the violin has a serial number, original label and is extremely rare. Whoever has the instrument can either fence it and make some quick (and illegal) cash or they can hand the violin over to Philadelphia police with no questions asked. Your move, anonymous Philadelphia violin thief…………

- Smartphones are gradually emerging as the death of many things (common sense, common decency, intelligence while in public places, competent driving just to name a few), but they are also in the process of killing off low-end digital still cameras and video cameras. According to tech research firm the NPD Group, the point-and-shoot camera market saw a 17-percent decline in the first 11 months of the year compared to the same period in 2010 and that decline is directly attributable to smartphones with their own serviceable cameras. Video camera sales fell by 13 percent and an online survey conducted by NPD Group suggested users were also more likely to opt for their phone camera to snap pictures or record video. In the survey, respondents said they were more likely to use their smartphone to take pictures or video of "fun, casual or spontaneous moments” than to reach for a traditional camera. For the first time, NPD's suggested that the total share of photos taken on a camera represented less than half of pictures taken for any purpose. Forty-four percent of images were taken on a camera for the first 11 months of 2011 as opposed to 52 percent for the previous, according to the survey. "There is no doubt that the smartphone is becoming 'good enough' much of the time," said NPD's senior imaging analyst Liz Cutting. "But for important events, single purpose cameras or camcorders are still largely the device of choice." High-end cameras remain an exception to this trend, as NPD found that 12 percent more detachable lens cameras - including SLRs - were sold over the last 11 months. Professional photographers - or merely overzealous sports parents willing to splurge $1,500 on a camera to take pictures of their 9-year-old’s youth soccer game - still need the performance of a high-end camera. However, those who just want to snap a picture of themselves and their buddies at the bar on a Friday night or at the epic rager at their apartment complex for a given weekend are turning more and more to smartphone apps including Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for their imaging needs. Data from Yahoo-owned Flickr's photo sharing site backs that notion up, as Apple's iPhone 4 is the most popular camera in its community. Considering how expensive most smartphones are, they probably should be serviceable for more than just making calls, texting and browsing the Internet……….