Poking a sleeping bear, the Juice in jail and dumb art thieves

- Today was not a good day for former star athletes and the law. Let's begin our tales of woe with the same thing that pops into everyone's mind when you hear the words "athlete" and "jail" in the same sentence: O.J. Simpson. Yes, the Juice has run....afoul of the law again. Simpson is in jail, accused of violating terms of his bail in an armed robbery case, after a bondsman told authorities the former football star tried to get him to pass a message to a co-defendant. First, I'd like to make a plea to the prosecutor in this case. Can't you just leave the guy alone, it's not like he killed anybody....this time, anyhow. Simpson has a 9 a.m. court hearing on Wednesday, when prosecutors plan to request that Simpson's bail be revoked and he be kept in jail until the trial in April. The Juice arrived in Las Vegas on Friday on a flight from Florida with his North Las Vegas-based bail bondsman, Miguel Pereira. He was taken in handcuffs by a police escort to the Clark County Detention Center. Pereira, of You Ring We Spring, said he was unhappy because he had not been paid for handling Simpson's bail. Pereira added he gave prosecutors the message Simpson wanted him to take to a co-defendant because he didn't want to face criminal charges. "He left a message instructing me to do something violating a court order," the bondsman told The Associated Press after escorting Simpson from his home in Miami. "I don't want to get involved in such a dilemma or a criminal act." Simpson's attorney denied the allegations. Of course the Juice denied the allegations - the man is freaking bulletproof. He;s made some kind of deal with the devil and can get away with murder, literally. His attorney, Yale Galanter, offered this convincing explanation for his client's situation. "O.J. did not try to persuade anybody to contact a witness," Galanter told The Associated Press.The prosecution isn't buying that story, with District Attorney David Roger alleging in a motion filed with the court that the tape-recorded message Simpson left for Pereira on Nov. 16 was an effort to contact co-defendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart, which violated a court order. "I just want, want C.J. to know that ... I'm tired of this [expletive]," Simpson is quoted in the documents as saying on the taped message. "Fed up with [expletives] changing what they told me. All right?" Maybe this is just me, but if the Juice tells me he's fed up with something, I'm not asking questions. Whatever he wants, I'm going to comply, lest he turn me into a human Pez dispenser like his ex-wife (allegedly). Pereira confirmed that Simpson left the message, in which he expressed frustration at testimony during a three-day preliminary hearing in November. Pereira believes the message was discovered by someone tapping Simpson's phone. A Las Vegas police transcript of the message, which is attached to Roger's motion, is titled, "surreptitious recording. "Simpson had been instructed by Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joe M. Bonaventure in September not to have any contact with anyone involved in the case -- not even by "carrier pigeon." Carrier pigeon? No. Large, lethal knife? That's more the Juice's chosen method of communication, Your Honor. Roger's motion alleges Simpson "committed new crimes," without elaborating. Galanter said he believed the "new crimes" referred to allegations of witness tampering. He called Pereira a member of Simpson's defense team, and said he was "totally miffed" by the effort to use a tape of a permissible phone call to try to revoke Simpson's bail. "He was clearly voicing frustration to a member of the defense team who had been providing security, transportation and investigation services," Galanter said. Pereira said he provided security and transportation, and that Simpson stayed at his home during the preliminary hearing. But he said he and his business, You Ring We Spring bail bonds, were not part of Simpson's legal team. Great name, loser. Who doesn't love a cutesy name for their bail bondsman? No one enjoys a good laugh at a funny name more than an accused criminal. "I'm a separate entity," Pereira said. "Whenever they go into their attorney-client thing, I step out of the room. I'm not an investigator, nor am I hired or paid by their defense team." Pereira said he was upset that Simpson never paid him the $18,750 he was due for posting Simpson's bail. Let it go, Miguel, let it go. If the Juice doesn't want to pay you, don't push it. Would you rather have that $18,750 and end up dead or live and be without it? Be smart, my man. "I'm in the bag for plane tickets, car rental down in Florida, even the $40 filing fee at the jail," he said. Again, do you want to live or die, Miguel? Let it go. Three other former co-defendants in the burglary case, Walter Alexander, Michael McClinton and Charles Cashmore, agreed to plea deals and testified against Simpson at the evidentiary hearing. If I'm those guys, I'm asking for protective custody 24/7 as part of my deal, with that protection extending for the rest of my life. Clearly the Juice, even at age 60, is still a bad dude and the worst guy ever. He will literally kill to even the score, so let's just hope he ends up in the place he should have been since, oh, about 1994......jail.

- Marion Jones and that ginormous gap between her front teeth didn't have a good day, legally speaking, either. Jones had her sentencing hearing today after pleading guilty to lying to investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam., and despite her lawyers and prosecutors not expecting or pushing for prison time, she received a six-month sentence. "I ask you to be as merciful as a human being can be," she implored the judge. Umm, sorry Marion, but when you took part in that check-fraud scam, injected yourself with those 'roids and cheted in meet after meet, you kind of forfeited that right to mercy. Lying to the feds didn't help your case either. Law enforcement tends to be funny about that; you lie to them, they get pissed for some odd reason. Jones, once the premier female sprinter in the world, has been "put through humiliation with great fanfare," said U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, who sentenced her. He said Jones damaged two federal investigations with lies that came years apart, so "I don't think the criminal conduct can be written off as a momentary lapse of judgment or a one-time mistake, but instead a repetition of an attempt to break the law." Yeah, you could say that. Lying to the feds isn't exactly an oops, I jaywalked or ran a red light sort of thing, is it? The check-fraud scheme was a major crime and the wide use of steroids "affects the integrity of athletic competition," he said. If Jones had told the truth from the start, he said, it would have been a great help to the ongoing BALCO investigation. Isn't it amazing how no athlete caught up in this BALCO mess seems to be able to tell the truth? Weird. Going down along with Jones was her former coach, Olympic champion Steve Riddick, who was sentenced to 5 years and 3 months in prison for his role in the check-fraud scam. Riddick also was given three years' probation and must pay back $375,000. Jones pleaded with the judge not to separate her from her sons "even for a short period of time," saying she was still nursing the younger one. Although she is happily married now to Olympic sprinter Obadele Thompson after being married to confirmed 'roid user and Olympic shot-putter C.J. Hunter and dating another confirmed 'roider, Tim montgomery, she said she knew from experience the problems of bringing up children in a one-parent household. Karas acknowledged the children were victims, but said criminals "have to realize the consequences of their actions on others." In other words, it's not the court's problem that you're a criminal and have to go to jail, it's your fault, M. "We wouldn't be here today talking about the possibility of incarceration if Ms. Jones-Thompson had told the truth," the jude said. A prison sentence, he said, might make others "think twice before lying. It might make them realize that no one is above the obligation to tell the truth." The judge said he stayed within the six-month maximum suggested by prosecutors because of Jones' sons, her eventual acceptance of responsibility and the good she "can do to debunk the worldwide lie" perpetrated by performance-enhancing drugs. He also told her that 400 hours of community service in each of the two years following her release would "take advantage of Ms. Jones-Thompson's eloquence, strength and her ability to work with kids." He suggested she teach children that "it's wrong to cheat and to lie about the cheating." Karas sentenced Jones to six months on the steroids case and two months on the check fraud case but said the sentences could be served at the same time. He imposed no fine, he said, because Jones can't afford to pay one. In case you hadn't heard that part of the story, a few months ago it came out that Jones has about $2,000 to her name, which would make her sympathetic if you weren't a lying, cheating criminal. After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted last October she lied to federal investigators in November 2003, acknowledging she took the designer steroid "the clear" from September 2000 to July 2001. "The clear" has been linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab at the center of the steroids scandal in professional sports. Use your prison time to clean up your act, Marion, and when you come out, try to figure out what life holds for a disgraced former Olympian whose entire career is a sham.

- Since I do such a good job of alerting you to albums to avoid, I figure from time to tiem that I should also point out albums that you want to make sure you listen to and illegally burn copies of, er, buy. One such album comes from a great band from my hometown, the Black Keys, Their garage band, two-man rock outfit has already produced four great albums (Chulahoma, Magic Potion, Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory) and earned them a loyal, devoted follwing among rock fans, and now the duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are finally back with a new album. Attack & Release will drop on Tuesday, April 1, and no, this is no April Fool's joke. The album is produced by Danger Mouse of alt-hip-hop act Gnarls Barkley and is the first one the band has produced in an official, standard studio setting. Their previous albums have been recorded in their own digs, which I think helped contribute to the raw, genuine sound of the group. Hopefully going into this new setting won't take away from that, although I don't suspect that it will.

- Simple crimes carried out by simple criminals invariably lead to arrests. Last month, two crooks with little more than a crowbar and a car jack were able to steal millions of dollars in paintings from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in a matter of minutes. They made a clean getaway but clearly they didn't have a good plan for moving the paintings once they had them, because the two masterminds have been arrested with the paintings in their possession. The art, including works by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari, were found along with the thieves not far from where they were stolen. Memo to these two ass hats: When you steal valuable works of art, it's best not to hang around the same city you stole them from. Before you thieve them, you need to have a plan on what to do with them once you steal them, because otherwise you end up right where you are now, in jail and no better off for your effort. If you actually were smart enough to have a plan, you could have moved the art, made millions and been far, far away from Sao Paulo by now. I know I haven't gotten around to finalizing the details from my seminar to help aspiring criminals because you all aren't too bright, but this is a lesson you should know even without my help.

- I often feel the need to step in and head off disasters when I see them start to develop, so I'm going to issue a caution to officials at Folsom State Prison in California. Those officials have pulled the plug on a concert scheduled to take place at the prison to honor the 40th anniversary of legendary singer Johnny Cash's concert at the facility. Cash, who passed away in 2003, performed before Folsom's inmates on Jan. 13, 1968. He had a heart for the inmates and their problems, having seen his own share of trouble in his life. "Johnny was wild at heart, just like these men," said Joe Avila, the executive director of Prison Fellowship Ministries. "But just like him, they can change. They can walk the line." The prison and concert promoter are blaming each other for the cancellation of the show. Prison officials cited problems with media access, filming rights and general security concerns. The original Folsom concert became a legendary live album, but there will be no chance for a redux. Four nonprofit groups were to have underwritten the cost of the show and shared its profits. Instead, a possibility memorable show has been cancelled and I have to say, this could turn ugly. I do hate to butt in here, but pissing off prison inmates is one of the last things you want to do. You had a bunch of guys locked up for varying amounts of time, some bad dudes with lots of pent up anger and the potential to inflict a lot of pain and you're going and ripping a free concert from them? I'm sure all of the guards at the prison are thrilled about this. Way to poke the sleeping bear with a stick, Folsom Prison officials.

I still despise Hank Clinton, an idiot mails a cow's head and the Golden Globes go bye-bye

- I love it when my ideas benefit others because those in power are smart enough to adopt them. A while back, when it became apparent that the many self-congratulatory, pompous, long-winded awards shows for TV and movies were in danger due to the writers' strike, I suggested that instead of holding altered versions of these industry schmooze-fests, we just cancel them altogether. Then last week, when some of the late-night talk shows came back on the air, I lamented that my two favorites, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central weren't back. Well to put it succinctly, done and done. On the first count, the Golden Globe Awards, previously scheduled to air this Sunday, has been canceled and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will instead announce the winners at a news conference/luncheon format. The show had been on the rocks because with the strike still ongoing, clips from shows and films written by the striking writers could not have been used. Instead of holding a neutered show, the organizers decided to try and save some dignity by staying out of the prime-time spotlight. Whatever works for you, HFPA. You all hold your luncheon and save us the hours spent listening to arrogant actors being patted on the back by their peers and thanking everyone they've ever met in their life. We won't miss your show and honestly, let's consider adopting this format for handing out your awards on a permanent basis. On the second count....Stewart and Colbert, hosts of the two best fake news shows around, returned to the air Monday night with new shows for the first time since the strike. Stewart returned with Ronald Seeber, a Cornell University professor and expert in the field of conflict resolution, as its guest. For his first show back, Colbert had the Atlantic magazine's Andrew Sullivan. It was great to have both shows back and bit by bit, TV is starting to work its way past the strike, although scripted prime-time shows like Prison Break, Heroes, etc. are still crippled by the stoppage. I'll continue to hope for a minor miracle to save the season, you do the same.....

- Now here's a winning combination. Take a temperamental, spoiled, past-her-prime supermodel and have her interview the world's craziest, most unstable despotic dictator for the British version of GQ magazine. Somehow, Naomi Campbell talked her way into a spot as a contributing editor to the next issue of the magazine and in that issue is an interview she did with noted psychopath and Venezuelan dictator, er, presidente Hugo Chavez. No word on whether Campbell berated Chavez or threw a cell phone at him as she once did at a passenger on a flight, but she did talk to him about his feelings on other foreign leaders, including our own Tool in Chief, W., and Prince Charles. Regarding W., Chavez said he is "completely crazy. But he's on his way out." Umm....wow. If Hugo Chavez, the king of crazy, says you're crazy, that's really bad. However, I have to disagree with the characterization. W. is many things - stupid, simple, partially illiterate, a warmonger, a liar, a dunce, a tool, an ass hat, the worst president ever - but he's really not crazy. Further cementing Chavez's own reputation as a certifiable loon was his observation that the world's most stylish leader is Fidel Castro. Yeah, because nothing screams stylish quite like a drab military uniform, a dirty, nasty beard that could contains chunks of food from some time last month and the splendor of a Communist dictator. Good call, H. He also added that he likes Prince Charles, which puts him in the minority. All in all, stellar interview, Naomi, really. Maybe you should try to squeeze a few last years of modeling out and earn some extra cash, because I don't think your editorial career is going to be too successful.

- In my long-awaited European adventure, Italy has always been one of the top stops on the agenda. That still holds true, but I might have to steer clear of Naples if the current crisis there isn't resolved. The city is literally in the dumps - our more specifically, out of room in its dumps. The Italian army had to bulldoze ginormous piles of uncollected trash away from schools in Naples earlier this week as the city moved into the second week of its latest garbage crisis. Garbage collectors in the area stopped picking up trash a couple weeks ago because there is no room left in local dumps to house the garbage collected from Naples and the surrounding Campania region. Of course, that this situation led to a direct and violent clash between citizens and police does put a smile on my face, but I still find my stomach turning at the thought of such unsanitary conditions. As for the clash with police, it came when residents in the suburb of Pianura tangled with police at roadblocks set up at the local landfill that has been closed for quite a while because it's too full to take more trash. Authorities are trying to reopen it, but citizens feel this would pose a significant health hazard and thus, they rioted. Good job, Pianura citizens, but just don't plan on me visiting your town when I come to Europe because riots or no riots, ginormous piles of uncollected trash aren't my bag,

- Damn. I expected better from you, New Hampshire. The good folks of Iowa had the smarts to hand a victory in their state's caucuses to Barack Obama and not to Sen. Hank Clinton, but then you maple-syrup-swilling, ski-lodge-running liberals had to go and hand your state's votes at the Democratic convention to Sen. Hank. Do you all not realize that Hank's reign of terror in the Senate is just a small harbinger of the absolute horr-a Hank will bring to our nation if elected as president. That dude is scary looking, scary sounding and that angry lesbian haircut she's sporting doesn't help matters. As much as America loved Bill Clinton, that love shouldn't be there for Hank, who appears to hate everyone and everything in his path. The 37 percent of New Hampshire residents who voted for Hank need to realize what they've done, repent and hope that no other states follow their lead. I continue to take the position that among all of the candidates running for president this year, I don't care who is elected - as long as it isn't Hank Clinton. Coming off the worst presidency in world history with W., this nation can't survive four years with Hank in charge. As bad as things are right now, that might be the only way they'll get worse. Hank may have been the one crying on TV as she thanked her supporters in New Hampshire, but I and many other Americans will be the ones truly sobbing if Hank is chosen as our next leader.

- Put this one in the con column when it comes to watching the Godfather movies over and over and over again. People who do so start to do idiotic things like emulating actions that characters in those movies took and uttering the same catch phrases despite the fact that they are not now, nor have they ever been, fictitious Italian mobsters in decades past. Jason Michael Fife provides a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about, as the a-hole from Pottsgrove, Pa. decided that the best way to deal with the man his wife was having an affair with was to mail the man a bloody, severed cow's head. He may not have stuck in in the man's bed in true Godfather fashion, but Fife still shipped the heifer's head to his wife's lover along with threatening messages and pictures. Good one, J., I'm sure after all of your lovely care packages to this guy he had no clue who the cow's head came from. Besides, I'm sure like the rest of us, he has dozens of friends sending him severed cow heads, so it's easy to get confused as to which one came from which friend. Be thankful you got off with probation and community service, bro, because you are clearly one sick puppy. File for divorce, separate from your wife, whatever you need to do, just stop sending severed animal heads to people in the mail.

Mike Gundy needs a new person to rant about, criminals need to be smarter and terrorists need my advice

- Not that beating a child is ever acceptable in any way, but if you're enough of an a-hole to beat a kid, shouldn't you also be smart enough not to do it in public and in a place that is heavily surveilled? Just as you wouldn't shoot heroin in the middle of a crowded shopping mall or counterfeit money in the lobby of a busy casino, you also shouldn't be abusing a 2-year-old inside of a convenience store, a place with a lot of video cameras and surveillance. Joseph Gray, 27, of Detroit was arrested over the weekend after surveillance footage showing him beating his son at a local convenience store aired on several local news broadcasts. On the tape, this tool can be seen hitting, kicking and stepping on the boy during a four-minute span. Of course, that beatdown wasn't enough for Gray, who also hit the tiny tot with a cooler door repeatedly and paused when other customers came around. Good one, idiot - or at least it would be if you weren't in a place with at least a half-dozen surveillance cameras. Two lessons for you to learn here, Joe: 1) stop beating your kids under any and all circumstances. There are a lot of suitable parenting methods to choose from, but physical abuse is not one of them, and 2) when committing a crime, make sure you're not doing so in a place where your crime will be caught on camera from multiple angles. I'd say there are other lessons to learn here, but judging from your act here, my man, you're pretty stupid and two lessons might be all you can handle for now.....

- Finally, a college president with the balls and brains to stand up against the status quo and actually advocate the incredibly sensible step of creating a playoff system in Division I college football. The president in question is University of Georgia president Michael F. Adams, who said in a public letter to NCAA president Miles brand that he supports an eight-team playoff to decide the national championship, with the opening rounds to be played in the four major BCS bowl games. He proposed the change be made as soon as the contracts that govern the BCS expire. Unlike the ass-hat president at Ohio Stat,e Gordon Gee, who said we could have the current system to dispose of it when we pried it from his cold, dead hands (don't tempt me, Gordon), Adams doesn't seem to have his head firmly planted up his own ass. He complained that the BCS has become a "beauty contest largely stage-managed by the networks."
"This year's experience with the BCS forces me to the conclusion that the current system has lost public confidence and simply does not work," Adams said in news release. "It is undercutting the sportsmanship and integrity of the game." To be fair, it should be pointed out that Adams' quest is more than a little self-serving. Georgia did not win its division of the Southeastern Conference and did not play in that league's title game, but was widely regarded as one of the best teams in the nation as the college football season closed. The Bulldogs went to the Sugar Bowl instead of the BCS Championship Game, where some believed the team belonged. Under his proposal, the schedule would return to 11 games from its current 12, with playoffs beginning at the major bowl games and extending two more Saturdays, and a selection committee would seed eight teams to the four major bowls. "If one of those bowls chooses not to participate, another game could be found to fill the void," he said. Yeah, he's looking at you, Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl fought like hell to stay independent of the current system because they're so over-protective of their tradition and history, so you'd have to guess that if any bowl game would be dumb enough to oppose this plan, it would be the Rose Bowl. Adams becomes the second SEC member president to advocate a playoff in the past year. Last year, University of Florida president Bernie Machen -- whose Gators played in the BCS Championship Game and won the title -- said the time had come for a playoff system, but backed down from his position after conferring with his fellow SEC presidents. Adams admitted that he has long opposed a playoff system, largely (and fraudulently) for academic reasons and because the season is already too long (again a load of crap). However, he said in his letter to Brand that he was "troubled about the commercial influence over how the college football season is played out." He said it is time for the NCAA's member institutions to regain control over the college football postseason -- control he said is now concentrated in the hands of the television networks, the major conferences and the bowl commissioners. "The television networks ... have grown too powerful in deciding who plays and when they play, and indeed, whom they hire to coach," Adams wrote in his letter to Brand. "The Bowl Championship Series has become a beauty contest largely stage-managed by the networks, which in turn protect the interests of their own partner conferences. The situation may not quite rise to the level of collusion, but it leaves an air of dissatisfaction with the fans of most institutions, even as they celebrate successful seasons, I believe the time has come for the NCAA to take control of the college football postseason, and in so doing to create a system that our players, coaches, friends and fans can support and appreciate." Thanks for coming around the something most of us have known for a long time, Mike. Sorry it took your team getting screwed to spur you into action, but at this point I'll take what I can get. It's bulls**t for D-1 presidents to complain about the academic and schedule problems as reasons a playoff wouldn't work when every other division of college football, most them filled with schools whose academic requirements surpass those of D-1 schools, have a playoff system and teams play as many as 14 games in a season. The rest of you college and university presidents need to grow a pair, take your head out of the sand and follow Adams' lead right about now.

- Welcome to another day of the Roid-ger Clemens soap opera. No sooner had Clemens, a.k.a. Pocket Rocket, done a totally weasel-ly thing by recording a phone call to Clemens' former trainer Brian McNamee without McNamee's knowledge and used it in their war to discredit his allegations that he administered 'roids to Roid-ger, than McNamee's own lawyers fired back. Earl Ward, a lawyer for McNamee, called on Congress to demand a copy of and make public the recording of a December interview between his client and two private investigators hired by Roger Clemens' attorneys. A lawsuit filed Sunday by Pocket Rocket against his former trainer contains an excerpt of the interview, which took place Dec. 12, but Ward wants the whole thing out there for all to hear. That date was one day before the release of the Mitchell report, in which McNamee accused Clemens of using steroids and human growth hormone, allegations Clemens took his sweet time addressing, then put out statements through lawyers, agents and videos on his website before hand-picking Mike Wallace, a noted Yankee fan, to conduct a soft-hitting interview on 60 Minutes about the allegations. "They should ask for the entire tape of the interview back in December. That's the tape they should ask for," Ward said Tuesday. "According to Brian, they tried to get him to recant. Brian said, look, what I told the [Mitchell and federal] investigators was the truth." On Monday, McNamee's lawyers released faxes purportedly signed by Clemens and Andy Pettitte that stated investigators Jim Yarbrough and Billy Belk work for the law firm representing them. They asked that Clemens' attorneys voluntarily release the entire Dec. 12 recording. Ward said the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has asked Clemens and McNamee to testify Jan. 16, should ask for the recording. "I think it would be important for Congress to show how consistent Brian has been," Ward said. At present, no request for the tape has been made. When questioned by federal prosecutors, McNamee told them he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Prosecutors had him repeat those charges to Mitchell. When Roid-ger finally did get around to directly addressing McNamee's allegations at a news conference Monday, a recording was played of an ambiguous 17-minute conversation last Friday between the Pocket Rocket and McNamee. "I thought the tape didn't really add anything to the case," Ward said. "It was really just a very emotional and tormented Brian McNamee, who clearly demonstrated that what he is doing is something that he's tormented by. At that point he still had tremendous reverence and adoration for Roger." I would have to agree with Ward here. If you've heard the tape, you can hear a frustrated, confused McNamee, but a man who also does not recant his allegations. Clemens and his legal team are trying to bully their way out of this one with a heavily strategized, structred attack that has been anythign but convincing. It would also help if Clemens weren't a ginormous a-hole, but maybe I'm just being petty there.....no, on second thought, he really is a ginormous a-hole. You suck, Roid-ger.

- Now who is Mike Gundy going to defend in his volcanic, maniacal rants? This past season, Gundy went off in a post-game press conference on local writer Jenny Carlson for a piece she wrote criticizing Oklahoma State quarterback Bobby Reid as being a soft mama's boy who wasn't mentally tough enough to hang onto the starting quarterback job. Now comes word that in a surprisingly weak move, Reid is leaving OSU after losing his starting job and not playing much after that point. Gundy said Reid, the backup quarterback defended by the coach during a now-famous rant, had not spoken with him about the situation. But Gundy didn't doubt the credibility of a report claiming that Reid's mother Rajika has said her son will not return to play for the Cowboys next season. "I can't speak for them, but I think it's something everyone kind of anticipated," Gundy said Friday during a conference call with reporters. "...I think it was kind of understood that it was going to happen." Why? Because he is FAT? Because he's a momma's boy who couldn't hold the starting job and couldn't deal with losing it either? Reid, a junior from Houston, entered the season seemingly entrenched as the Cowboys' starter, having held the job since midway through his freshman season. But after he left a Sept. 8 game against Florida Atlantic with an injury, Zac Robinson stepped in and started Oklahoma State's last 11 games. To be fair, Reid did graduate from Oklahoma State in December with a bachelor's degree in education, so he does have a reason to move on. Of course, coming on the heels of a season in which he passed for just 602 yards and two touchdowns and rushed 19 times for 15 yards, it does look like he's a quitter. Doesn't sound like Gundy is all that sorry to see him go, either. That's surprising because of that now-famous rant in which Gundy looked like his head was about to explode as he went off and crossed more lines than you can count in his rant against Carlson. He was totally wrong, calling Reid a kid when in fact he's 21 years old, an adult in every facet of the word, and it wasn't as if Carlson delved into his personal life and revealed embarrassing medical or personal secrets. Now none of that is relevant, because Reid is gone, jumping ship on a coach who made an ass out of himself for Reid. Cheer up, though, because Gundy still has an entire roster full of players he can blow a gasket defending, and I have a feeling he'll be back in a rage in no time.

- A very happy new year to you as well, al-Qaida. In the terrorist network's first message of 2008, it's American spokesman went on an hourlong rants during which he spouted loads of anti-American rhetoric, tore up his American passport and urged al-qaida fighters to meet W. with bombs when he visits the Middle East in a few weeks. Now you all know I hate W. and believe with all my heart that he's a tool and an ass hat, but I have to oppose this plan from al-Qaida. As much as I despise W. and believe he's the worst president in the history of the world, I can't advocate you all blowing him up. So how's about we strike a compromise here? Instead of blowing him up, why don't you all just take him hostage for, say, the next 10-11 months? At that point, we'll have elected a new president and W. won't be in power any longer. You win because you get to capture and, um, treat rudely a man you believe is the devil, and Americans win because we miss out on the final few months of a presidential reign of terror and ineptitude that has taken our country right down the toilet, through the plumbing and into the septic tank. Adam Gadahn is the spokesman in question and I'm going to allow him to pitch this idea to al-Qaida in lieu of what he suggested. I know it's not the terrorist way, but it's a fair deal and as W. travels to the West Bank, Gaza, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, you all should at least consider a straight-up kidnapping instead of a bombing. Trust me when I tell you that most Americans wouldn't miss W., but if he were killed it woudl start a war. Think about it, al-Qaida, I'm here if you need any other ideas.

Sarkozy, strike news and a college football moron

- June Jones is a moron. I detailed Jones' saga a couple of days ago, having the University of Hawaii let his contract as the school's head football coach expire then offer him a new deal while he was being courting by Southern Methodist University to take over their foundering football program. SMU was offering $2 million a year, but Hawaii made a comparable counteroffer and for a brief moment, it appeared that Jones would stay at UH and would get the facilities improvements he wanted for the program there. But no, Jones had to go full-on knucklehead and reverse field, accepting SMU's offer because of "the challenge of rebuilding a tattered football program." AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! Wrong answer, June. Southern Methodist is a tattered football program, stumbling to a 1-11 record this season. But you had a big enough challenge at Hawaii, trying to build a perennial mid-major team into an elite national program - and oh yeah, you got to do in in Hawaii. "Where you are now excites me because the only way is up, and I am good at going up," Jones said to crowd at SMU Monday. Jones' decision to leave Hawaii came after an extraordinary bidding war that even involved the governor of Hawaii. "In 30 years representing athletes, I've never seen the emotional reaction from a state like Hawaii," Leigh Steinberg, Jones' agent, said. "There was a flood of e-mails and calls exhorting him to stay." And if he were smart, he would have stayed, Leigh. Hawaii was offering $1.6 million a year, whereas SMU gave Jones $2 million per year. Not a big difference, and not nearly enough to convince most people to leave a tropical paradise. Most 55-year-old dudes are looking to spend more time in a tropical climate, not to leave one. Plus, as I said last week, Hawaii is ten times the job SMU is right now and even if Jones is able to build a winner at SMU, it's still no better of a job than the one he left. Best wishes for success at SMU, June, but I really think you're going to come to regret this one.

- So One Tree Hill is back after a seven-month hiatus, returning tonight in a drastically different form than when we last left it at the end of last season. The show's midseason return might not be as welcome a development as it is with the ongoing writers' strike that has resulted in a total disruption of this TV season and reruns for most of my favorite shows, but we are in that situation and so OTH is a welcome sight right about now.It's always tough when a show returns for a new season because usually things have "happened" between the end of last season and where the show picks up for the new season and those things have to be explained and a lot of the groundwork for the new season needs to be laid out. Thus, it usually takes a few episodes for the season to settle in and get on track. With OTH, that's true on a bigger scale because since the end of last season, the show had leapt ahead in time four years, taking the main characters right past their college years and straight into post-college life. As you might expect, it wasn't the most dynamic, kick-ass episode, but it did do a great job of filling in some of the blanks from the four-year gap in an interesting way. Some of the new stuff you could have learned in advance by watching short spoiler clips on the CW's website, but in case you didn't...most of the gang started this season back in Tree Hill, although life is very different for them. Lucas Scott is now a published author, having written one novel and starting work on a second one. He's also the new head basketball coach at Tree Hill High School, taking over a program that has crumbled in the four years since legendary coach Whitey Durham retired. Assisting him is pal Skills Taylor, who shares an apartment in Tree Hill with Mouth McFadden and Fergie, both old friends from their River Court days. Mouth is trying to find his way in the world of sports broadcasting and starts out as a lackey at a local TV station with a boss who hates him and tries her best to get him to quit. Mouth wants to be a sports anchor more than anything, but clearly he's starting at the bottom and has a long way to go. His boss even goes as far as telling him he doesn't have the looks to be an on-air talent. Also having trouble with looks is Nathan Scott, who we find out became a college basketball star the past four years and was poised to be a top pick in the NBA Draft, headed to Seattle, before a bar fight he couldn't walk away from resulted in him being thrown through a plate-glass window and suffering spinal damage that has left him temporarily paralyzed and ended his basketball career. That's led him to grow a Unabomber-style beard and shaggy 'do, coupled with heavy drinking and a dereliction of his fatherly duties of son Jamie, who is four years old. Wife Hayley is struggling with her alkie, depressed husband and also trying to settle into her new job as, shock, the English teacher at Tree Hill HS. Yes, a teaching job miraculously opened up at her old school, the same on where lifelong friend Lucas is the basketball coach. Her first day goes poorly when a rowdy class led by the school's star basketball player harasses her so much that she runs from the room in tears. Lucas returns the favor to the ass-hat of a player who started the trouble by cutting him from the team, but this is a storyline that will be ongoing this season. Now to the two who made it out....Brooke Davis and Peyton Sawyer, both of whom are out in L.A., chasing their dreams - albeit in much different ways. Brooke has hit the big time, taking her Clothes Over Bros fashion line and turning it into a conglomerate, with a fashion magazine, world-renowned clothing line and appearances on red carpets with star actors. She's jetting around the world, rich and famous.....but not happy. Imagine that, being rich and famous isn't everything she expected it to be. Also dissatisfied with life and with how her dream has turned out is Peyton, whose job at a record label has come to suck royally because she's continually pushed to embrace music as a business and sign and promote acts who suck musically but will sell to the mainstream instead of holding onto her idealism and searching for bands she believes are truly great and have the potential to change kids' lives like music changed hers. She finally snaps and, brace yourself because there's no way you'll see this coming, returns to Tree Hill, where she meets up with Brooke, who is also returning home for a visit. However, the two of them decide that they need to move back home permanently and Brooke amazingly finds a way to run her clothing line from Tree Hill while also using her wealth to help Peyton start her own record label in a perfect empty space Lucas has next door to the Tric club owned by his mom, the same club Peyton helped to start back in high school. Yeah, there are a few too many convenient coincidences here and it does have a hokey, too-good-to-be-true, only-in-TV-land feel, but it could be worse. The next big drama on the horizon is Lucas' romance with his editor Lindsey, which is a major source of trouble for Peyton, who somehow had a falling out with Lucas between graduation and now that led to them breaking up. She claims she knew they weren't meant to be and that's why it ended, but she appears to want Lucas back now, so catfights may ensue. Overall, it was a good night of TV and just something the show had to go through to set up its new landscape and setting. It could be a really good season if it's done well, so here's hoping. The show's new night and time are Tuesday, 8 p.m., so tune in and see for yourself what the new Tree Hill looks like.

- Do Joe Gibbs a favor and don't lump him in with all of the other coaches, both college and pro, who have stepped into new jobs with much fanfare and ended up walking away before they accomplished anything close to what they were expected to do. He's no Nick Saban, who lied to the Miami Dolphins, stole their money by failing badly as a coach and then lied to everyone with the team about his intentions to leave before bailing for the exact job he said he wasn't taking as head coach at the University of Alabama. Nor is he Bobby Petrino, whom the Atlanta Falcons wooed him away from the University of Louisville and paid him massive jack to coach them to three wins before bailing on the team before his first season even ended to go coach at the University of Arkansas. Gibbs came back to the Washington Redskins, a team he helped mold into a Super Bowl champion in the '80s, in the hopes of reviving a franchise that had fallen on hard times. Instead, he posted a 31-36 record, including 1-2 in the playoffs, after emerging from NFL retirement and his NASCAR career to sign a five-year, $27.5 million contract in 2004. I feel confident in saying that those results aren't what he or the Redskins expected, but don't mistake Gibbs' retirement for him quitting because he couldn't get the job done. Gibbs has endured a personal crisis for the past year, with one of his grandsons, Taylor, diagnosed with leukemia last January at age 2. Gibbs frequently talks lovingly about his "grandbabies," and he made an overnight trip to North Carolina on Sunday to be with his family, interrupting the postseason routine of meetings that usually follow the final game of the season. He also led his team through a heartbreaking season in which starting safety Sean Taylor was shot and killed in his Miami home, yet the 'Skins still made the playoffs at 9-7. All that has to take a huge toll on a 67-year-old, so you can't fault Gibbs for walking away. At this stage of his life, he clearly has higher priorities than coaching a football team and he did stay and battle for four years on a five-year contract. Happy trails, Joe, all the best to you and your family.

- I may have to revise my opinion of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and it has nothing to do with any political decisions or actions he's made or taken of late. Well, I suppose you could call it a policy decision, as long as you consider swapping out your middle-aged wife for a younger, former French supermodel as "policy." It's a damn good policy from where I sit, assuming you can pull that kind of girl and pull off that kind of switch. Sarkozy made the move back in October, when he finalized his divorce from wife Cecilia and was immediately spotted out and about with former supermodel Carla Bruni. The pair dated for a while and Sarkozy proposed recently, presenting Bruni with a heart-shaped diamond engagement ring and setting a February date for the wedding. The president has drawn criticism for flaunting his relationship with Bruni on holiday vacations to Egypt and Jordan, but I always say that if you can pull that kind of talent and want to show it off, fine by me. I'm not so much concerned with Sarkozy's political stances, which have included trying to trim down the country's bureaucracy and reviving a stalled economy as I am curious as to how a guy like him landed a girl like Bruni. I guess it's true, some women do have a thing for men in power. Props on the engagement, Nic, hope you two are happy together.

- Could it be that the writers' strike is finally beginning to crack the united front of studios and networks and that a settlement could be coming? Well, yes on that first part and a big maybe on the second part, because on the heels of late night shows like those hosted by David Letterman and Craig Ferguson striking their own deals with striking writers to come back to work while the strike rages on, United Artists, the studio now run by certified whack-a-doo Tom Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner, has reached its own deal with writers to allow UA to employ union writers even as the strike rages on. The deal is independent of any agreement the AMPTP (Association of Movie and TV Producers) has with the writers, and it's another sign that there are people (besides fans) who are not happy with the strike and are taking steps to end it. The more side deals like this struck, the more pressure it put on the situation and also the less unified of a front the AMPTP has. It might not be enough to save this TV season, but I'm holding out hope until that becomes official. Normally I'm not a Cruise fan, as severely insane people frighten me, but on this occasion I salute him for his efforts and hope that others will follow his lead.

Weekend movie news, NYC gets more expensive and another horrible horror movie

- If this keeps up, New York City might become the home of a million bicycles. The city has been on a rampage in recent months, upping fees, tolls and the like for travel of all kinds to and from Manhattan, and the fare hikes continued this week as the tolls for motorists and riders of the PATH train system both went up substantially. The toll for drivers entering NYC has been raised by $2, while the fees for the train have been upped by 25 cents. Now, peak tolls are up to $8 for motorists and $1.75 for train riders. While these are the first increases for these particular fees in a few years, the costs for parking and other travel expenses have also been raised around the city in the past year or so, all in a so-called attempt to keep pace with the soaring post-9/11 security and safety expenses. Right, because getting around Manhattan wasn't expensive enough already. What's next, taxing people a penny for every step they take walking around, or maybe a nickel for every time the pedal their bike around the city? I love New York and it's a great place to visit and hang out, but the way things are going, visiting the Apple is going to become an expensive luxury that a lot of people can't afford to do but once every few years.....

- You'll never believe this, but yet another hour-and-a-half, teen horror film has come out and it sucks. I know, it's been all of a few weeks since the last hackneyed attempt at a scary, torture-porn thriller than crapped out in theaters, so we're in need of our next piece of cinematic ineptitude to mock. We have it now in One Missed Call, a horror film that's more horrible than horror. The notable names in the cast are Ed Burns and Margaret Cho, but even if the stars had been bigger, brighter and more numerous, this weak plot and bad writing would have doomed this movie to crap-i-tude. This movie clearly aspires to follow in the footsteps of films like The Ring, wherein people watch a creepy video and then 72 hours later, they die. In One Missed Call, a girl dies and everyone her cell phone's stored numbers list gets a call. One by one, they hear a ring tone that doesn't belong to them, and when they answer the call they hear their own voices saying the last words they'll say before they die, with a scream typically following. There in on their screen is the date and time of their death....creepy. French director Eric Valette feebly tries to mix in a few laughs with the gag of how hard it is to try and cancel your cell service and end your contract, but terrible writing dooms those attempts, which really weren't a good idea in a horror movie to begin with. Also appearing in the film is Ray Wise, who is obviously big on the demonic and supernatural these days, appearing on the new CW series Reaper as the devil and appearing in this film as the producer of a supernatural TV show that promises to exorcise the demonic devices that are cell phones, which have turned the world into text-messaging addicts. All in all, not only is this a quick, easy, no-meat-to-it horror film, it's just not a good movie. There are no real redeeming qualities to it, not even for people who like horror movies. Next time someone wants to make a film in this genre, they need to be forced to take an extra few months to work on their script and take extra time filming and editing, because clearly the challenge of making a good horror movie takes more time and effort than the current crop of directors, writers and producers are putting in....

- Scoreboard reads: GPS systems 2, Criminals 0. After I told you about a story a few days ago wherein a criminal stole a GPS system from a home and rode down the street on a bicycle in the middle of the night with the stolen goods in tow, we now have the tale of Shannon McGee, 34, of Muskegon Hills, Mich. It seems that Shannon had a bit of a disagreement with his 29-year-old girlfriend during the holidays. By "a bit of a disagreement," I mean that McGee punched her, doused her in rubbing alcohol and set her on fire. Right, because you don't want to waste actual alcohol, say beer or rum, on something like that, so use cheap rubbing alcohol that you can buy for a dollar a bottle, then you have booze left over to drink after you beat and burn your woman, eh Shannon? Regardless, after committing this vile, violent crime, McGee went on the run, hiding from police who, for some odd reason, wanted to talk to him. Even as his girlfriend, who I certainly hope is now his ex-girlfriend, was being treated for burns at the Grand Rapids Hospital, McGee was on the run. So how did the cops track him down? You guessed it, with a GPS system. This time, they used the GPS in McGee's own cell phone to find him hiding in an attic. Clearly Shannon McGee has never watched a single crime drama or movie, because if he had, he'd know what the rest of us know, that a cell phone can act like a tracking device when you have it turned on. With the right equipment, which cops tend to have, they can track you down in a matter of minutes if you're dumb enough to leave your cell on when you're trying to hide from the law. Best wishes on trying to get sympathy from a judge or jury after setting your girlfriend on fire, S., but I doubt you're going to have much success there.

- Well that was anti-climactic. For a second straight year, the Ohio State Buckeyes marched into college football's national title game, jumped out to an early lead on an SEC team thanks to a big play from one of their stars, then flamed out in spectacular fashion. Last year, it ended with Florida whooping OSU by a 41-14 margin to claim college football's top spot, and this year it was the LSU Tigers administering a 38-24 beatdown to the Bucks that wasn't as close as the score would indicate. After OSU went ahead 10-0 midway through the first quarter, LSU proceeded to score the next 31 points to take a 31-10 lead that the Buckeyes could not overcome. Other than a 65-yard touchdown run from Chris Wells, OSU couldn't muster much of anything against a stout LSU defense until late in the game, when quarterback Todd Boeckman threw two touchdown passes to make things a bit more respectable. I'm not a Buckeye fan, so I'm not here to defend them, but I do need to say one thing to everyone who is out there proclaiming that this is just another example of how the Big Ten, Ohio State's conference, can't keep up with the SEC. Have any of you ever considered that maybe these two title game losses aren't a sweeping indictment of the Big Ten, but rather that the 2006-07 Florida Gators and 2007-08 LSU Tigers were simply better than the Ohio State teams of those seams years and that no general conclusions about an entire conference should be drawn from this? After all, every team in a conference functions as its own individual entity; they aren't a big group of cohesive parts working together. The effort and performance of one team from a conference doesn't necessarily mean diddly-poo about another team from that same conference. And oh yeah, this year's 2-loss national champion and plethora of teams better than LSU (Georgia, USC, West Virginia, etc.) do send a message: WE NEED A FREAKING PLAYOFF SYSTEM. So stop with the lame excuses, college presidents, and give us the playoff that every other division of college football besides Division I has. 'Nuff said......

- It was much of the same at the box office over the weekend, with the same movies that held down the top spots last week holding steady this week. National Treasure: Book of Secrets was first despite being an unnecessary resurrection of a mediocre movie franchise that wasn't that good in its first installment. Bad plot, poor writing and subpar acting be damned, America loves Nic Cage and his quest for treasure via hidden clues in historical artifacts and architecture. Coming in second in earnings for the weekend was a far superior movie to Book of Secrets, Will Smith's action epic I Am Legend, followed by Alvin and the Chipmunks and the terrifying;y bad flick I just discussed a few parargraphs ago - One Missed Call. All in all, not exactly a stellar crop of movie offerings, given the fact that a movie about a group of animated chipmunks who can talk was the second-best of the top five films in box office earnings. It's times like these that having a good DVD collection is extremely valuable to you, that's for sure.

K-Dirt's good day, Amazing Race forges on and a two-time prison breaker

- Another week, another great episode of The Amazing Race. This week, the four remaining teams left India and headed to the Far East, landing in Osaka, Japan for a hectic day in a city where not only is English not a primary language, it's hard to find anyone who speaks it fluently. Going into that environment, one team had a clear advantage: Ron and Cristina, the father-daughter duo whose younger half, daughter Cristina, spent a semester studying abroad in Japan and knows the Japanese language well. That knowledge helped them as they and two other teams, Nate and Jen as well as Nicolas and Don, landed in Osaka and got started on their tasks. What about the fourth team, you ask? Well, everyone's favorite mellow couple, TK and Rachel, started this leg of the race in first place but they picked a two-stop flight to Osaka instead of the one-stop flight the other teams took, so they were AWOL for most of the episode. All of the teams had to find a specific train station upon arriving in Osaka and get a clue from the station's janitor. That clue informed them that their next task was for one team member to don party of a cab driver's uniform and take two waiting passengers to their destination a few miles away, meaning they had to navigate the city's confusing streets on their own. Jen, Nic and Cristina took the challenge and after some trying moments on one-wa streets, they found their destination, a local post office, dropped off their passengers, who gave them their next clue, and headed back to the train station. From there it was on to a Detour, which means choosing between two different tasks. One task was going into a two-story flower shop and finding one of only a few real flowers hidden amongst millions of fake ones. The other task was playing robot soccer using a cell phone which controlled the movements of each team member's robot. Once each team member scored a goal against the robot team, they got their clue. Only Nic and Don chose the robots, which led to some high comedy as 69-year-old Don tried to learn how to work the controls. The robots fell down, misfired but ultimately did the task and the challenge was completed. Nate and Jen went to the flower shop and got there first, and during their time there, they were repeatedly heard talking about how they were going to win this leg of the race and how important that was to them because they had yet to win a single leg. Ron and Cristina arrived soon thereafter and elected to start on the second floor of the shop. Some trademark Nate-Jen, "I hate you' banter ensued, but Nate and Jen found a real flower first and went outside to hail a taxi. Unfortunately for them, the first few drivers they tried didn't know where their destination, the pit stop for this leg of the race at a local park, was. So Ron and Cristina were able to finish the Detour as well and they found a cabbie who knew where to go....or at least he said he did. They took off before Nate and Jen and despite their cabbie having to stop and ask for directions, Ron and Cristina won this leg of the race. Nate and Jen finally found a cab driver who knew where the pit stop was and came in second. Nic and Don, who fell slightly behind during the taxi cab challenge, hustled to the finish line in third place, with the leg finishing the way much of it had gone down, with Nic carrying his grandfather's backpack to help the team move faster. It's yet another reason I'm rooting for these two to win the race, because they're working together, picking each other up, not constantly infighting and because Don remains the coolest 69-year-old around. He continues to admit that he isn't as young, strong or fast as the other competitors, but says he's going to go balls-to-the-wall for as long as he can. The leg concluded with TK and Rachel landing in Osaka, completing their challenges as darkness set in and finishing in fourth place....only to find out that this was the second of the race's two non-elimination legs and so they weren't eliminated. However, they are three hours behind all of the other teams and will face the Speed Bump in the next leg, a challenge only they must complete. After next week, we'll be down to the final three teams, which will lead us to the season finale. It's been a fantastic season of the Race so far, and the final few episodes should be no exception....til next time.....

- Few things are as cheerful and light-hearted as the inner politics of a strike. Two sides at an impasse, lobbing verbal salvos back and forth, making accusations and taking stands on issues while refusing to back down....it just gives you the warm fuzzies all over. Jay Leno is experiencing some of those warm fuzzies right now, as the Writers' Guild of America, of which Leno is a member, is attacking the comedian and host of The Tonight Show for going back on the air and fueling his opening monologue with material he wrote himself because his show's writers are among those on strike. The WGA is arguing that Leno has no right to do what he did, which sounds idiotic and in fact, it is idiotic to say that. Leno and his representatives are rightly arguing that he is free to write and perform his own material on his own show, even if the WGA remains on strike. NBC's contention is that under federal labor laws, the rules that were in place under the previous agreement between the writers and the networks/studios still apply even though that agreement has expired and no new one has been reached yet. The WGA disagrees, saying that because Leno has always been designated as a writer on the show, the strike exception he's taking protection under doesn't apply. Personally, I've been siding with the writers up to this point in the strike, but in this case they need to shut the f' up. Leno can do what he wants and speak for himself. If he chooses to write his own material and perform it on his show, then you need to respect that and stop hassling him. Besides, the biggest beef in this dispute is that writers don't receive a big enough chunk of the revenues from the sale of their shows and movies through digital means, and last time I checked, The Tonight Show isn't offered on DVD. Take a chill pill, writers, and realize that your fight is with the networks and studios, not Jay Leno. He's just trying to make the rest of us laugh, which you all are doing a miserable job of right now.

- Taken on the surface at face value, hearing that Kevin Federline has been awarded sole custody of anything other than a bar of soap, a razor and a pair of pants that actually fit would be disturbing. This guy is the ultimate leech and hanger-on, a guy who built a life mooching off a famous wife and gravy-trained his way to a record contract and a healthy string of alimony payments. He thinks he's a gangsta rapper and a tough guy, but everyone else sees him as a poseur and a filthy, dirty scumbag. However, when you put his situation in context and realize that his being awarded sole custody of sons Sean Preston and Jayden James by a court commissioner means that Britney Spears won't have custody of them, that changes matters substantially. A court commissioner in Los Angeles has awarded sole custody of Sean Preston and Jayden James to K-Dirt and suspended Spears' visitation rights, which might be the key part of this whole equation. The further Brit is from those kids, the better their odds are to grow up and not be total freak shows. Commissioner Scott Gordon made the final determination and set another hearing for Ja. 14, at which time he'll re-evaluate the situation. The decision comes a day after Spears was hauled from her home by paramedics after police intervened when she refused to return the children following a court-monitored visit. It took nearly three hours for the dispute to be resolved, not the best situation when the fate of your custodial rights is being decided. If you slotted K-Dirt on a parental continuum that included all the parents in the world, he would be very near the bottom in terms of quality of parenting, but the fact is that as much of a sleazy lowlife as he is, he's still a thousand times the parent Brit is. I still say we need to kidnap those kids and have normal, functional people who shower from time to time and actually wear underwear in public raise them, but at this point settling for K-Dirt having them and Brit not being anywhere near them is a suitable alternative.

- I know feminists, in all their righteous anger, are always fighting to improve their position in the world and to make sure that women aren't excluded from anything they want to take part in, but I'm not sure this is the kind of inclusion you really want. The recent trend in Iraq, as insurgent groups grow more and more desperate in their struggle against foreign military forces (wrongly) occupying their land, is to feature women as suicide bombers. Three recent bombings have been carried out by women and these incidents suggest that insurgent groups are in such dire straits that they are ignoring the usual rule in their society of not including women in fighting. The al-Qaida attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces have shown that the terrorist group is willing to go to literally any extreme in its fight against the opposition. "There's a sense that this is an act of desperation," said Col. Donald Bacon, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. These aren't the first suicide attacks by women, but they are among a few select incidents since 2005. During that time, there have been 667 suicide bombings, only 14 of them carried out by women. That works out to about 2 percent, so you can see that it's far from a common practice. The first of the three most recent female bombings took place on Nov. 4, when a woman detonated explosives next to a U.S. patrol in Diyala's regional capital of Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Seven U.S. troops and five Iraqis were injured in that attack. Another attack took place on Dec. 7, when a woman attacked the offices of a Diyala-based Sunni group fighting against al-Qaida in Iraq, killing 15 people and wounding 35. The last of the three took place on New Year's Eve, when a bomber detonated her vest filled with explosives near a police patrol, wounding five policemen and four civilians. So there oyu go, ladies. You want to be included in everything and given the same chances as men get, you got it. You now have an equal chance to blow yourselves up in a misguided fight for a terroristic cause if you so choose. Not quite on par with getting the right to vote, but you take what you can get.....

- Brian Nichols may be a convicted felon, but at least the guy is persistent, determined and focus. That his focus is directed at attempting to escape from prison for a second time has proven problematic, but you still need to admire his dogged tenacity. Nichols already has one prison break (coincidentally, Prison Break returns to FOX a week from tomorrow!) to his credit and according to an investigation by police in Atlanta, Nichols has recently been hard at work planning another escape after being captured following his first attempt. He broke out of the Atlanta courthouse in 2005 in a bloody escape that left four people dead, including the judge in his rape trial, a court reporter, a sheriff's deputy who chased him outside and a federal agent he encountered a few miles down the road. He then forced his way into a woman's home a few miles from the courthouse and was captured there after spending the night. After being returned to prison and being faced with new charges stemming from that escape attempt, Nichols wasted little time concocting his next plan. He talked his girlfriend, Lisa Meneguzzo, 38, of Beacon Falls, Conn.,, into helping him and also attempted to bribe a paralegal and two sheriff's deputies to help him in his plot. Seriously, who is this guy, Al Capone? Bribes, killing judges, multiple escape attempts. Dude, I know prison has to be the last place on earth you want to be, but seriously take it down a notch. Bribing law enforcement officials with cash and the prospect of sex with the women with whom you were collaborating? Seriously bro, you're making a great effort here, but it looks like you're aiming higher than your intelligence can carry you. A rape and four murders, coupled with an escape from prison and another attempted escape....let's just say you're a wanted man and you're probably not going to be free now or for the rest of your life. You also don't appear to be a very good escapee, seeing as the best you've done is getting a few miles from the courthouse before stopping to spend the night. You're in jail to stay, B., so embrace it and get used to it.

Another Album to Avoid, advice for June Jones and the U.S. dollar b*tch-slapped

- One of the primary things you had better not screw with in life is old people and their early bird specials. That's becoming an increasingly difficult problem for seafood restauants in the state of Florida, haven of senior citizens and also a place where a lot of seafood suppliers are in the practice of ripping off restaurants by selling them catfish, tilapia or other cheap alternatives in place of grouper, which many establishments offer as the house speciality. Many Floridian eateries have been caught trying to pass off Asian catfish as grouper, either intentionally or unintentionally. One restaurant has taken extreme measures to prevent that from happening. The Columbia restaurant in Tampa has taken grouper off the menu because its owner Richard Gonzmart, can't be sure he's serving his customers the real thing and he won't take a chance that he's ripping them off with fraudulent fish. "I'm not going to take that chance because my reputation is more important than keeping grouper on the menu," Gonzmart stated recently. The Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation, which oversees restaurants, has found 139 cases of fake grouper in the past 18 months. Last year, the owner of two Panhandle seafood companies was sentenced to prison after federal authorities caught him selling more than a million pounds of Asian catfish labeled as grouper. So now cheap, knock-off drugs aren't the only problem coming out of Florida, we have fraudulent fish as well. Now you can't be sure that your drugs are pure and you can't be sure that you're getting the fish dinner you're paying good money for? What a rip-off....but still not the state's biggest rip-off, which remains the exorbitant admission price they charge you to get into Walt Disney World......

- Going to India? Make sure to exchange your currency before you get there, because despite being poorer, dirtier and less developed than the United States, India has officially declared that it will no longer accept the U.S. dollar at its major heritage tourist sites. The move underscores the free-fall in value for our dollar, which is quickly becoming an international joke, the Miami Dolphins of the monetary world if you will. Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni made the official announcement that the U.S. dollar is now currency non-grata in India. He said that accepting payments for admission tickets to landmarks would be economical because "the dollar is weaker than the rupee." Ouch. How does that taste, America? Our dollar was just bitch-slapped by the currency of a Third World, dirty, backwards nation that couldn't stage a successful invasion of Rhode Island on a Wednesday afternoon. A big salute to our leader, W., for his fine economic policies and overall inept leadership that have guided our economy to the point that leaders in other countries are talking smack about the U.S. dollar and we really can't say much about it because what they're saying has merit. Still, if we had a real leader he would at least step up and challenge the foreign leader in question to step inside the octagon and go MMA on his Indian a**. Just do us all a favor and resign now, W. spare us the indignity of going through one more year with your idiotic self in charge.

- Few stories brighten my day like ordinary citizens getting belligerent and clashing with police. There's just something about normal people getting pissed off and standing up to authority figures that warms my heart. The anti-authority language is a universal one, and clearly some native Mapuche Indians in Chile speak that language. Dozens of Mapuches clashed with police yesterday as the Indians tried to reclaim land they say belonged to their ancestors. The police felt the need to oppose them and in the resulting violence, at least one protester was killed. Generally I would criticize a group of people for doing something like trying to take back land that may have belonged to their ancestors hundreds of years ago, largely because if that happened here in the United States, we'd have non-stop battles on our hands with Native Americans trying to take back the land we stole from them. I don't want any of our tribes here putting down their casino chips, shutting down their slot machines and coming to reclaim their land, but for the Mapuche Indians of Chile, I'll make an exception. Not only were they willing to step up to take back their land, they were ready to engage in combat with the police who tried to stop them. Whether I agree with their cause or not, I can always, ALWAYS get with a group of people who step up to go toe-to-toe with the law. Best wishes in your attempts to reclaim your land, Mapuche Indians, don't give up the dream!

- Why? In what might be the single dumbest idea since electing W. as our president both times, University of Hawaii head football coach June Jones is actually considering an offer to leave UH for the open head coaching job at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. SMU is said to be offering Jones a deal worth $2 million annually, but still he would be LEAVING HAWAII TO GO LIVE IN DALLAS. It's a terrible idea, period. The reason Jones is even considering leaving is because Hawaii has allowed his contract to expire without extending him, but the UH administration has said it wants him back. Jones also wants the school to commit to upgrading its facilities, which seems like a fair request for a coach who just led the school to its first-ever BCS bowl game in this year's Sugar Bowl. That game brought about $8.5 million to the UH athletic department, so upgrading the facilities should be a given. Word is that Jones' own office has been in a state of perpetual renovation since he got there and has had an unfinished, sloppy look for that time, so I can understand why he might have a problem. But still, it's a lateral move at best to go to SMU, even if the money is better. SMU is a mid-major program just like Hawaii, playing in Conference USA, a second-tier conference just like the Western Athletic Conference where Hawaii plays. It's not like the offer is coming from the University of Texas, which would definitely be a step up. Jones would be leaving Hawaii, with its tropical climate and beautiful landscape, to come to Dallas and to a program that is one of the worst in Division I. He needs to think this through and realize that he's got a great thing going at Hawaii, where he has built a great program and gets to LIVE IN HAWAII. Come to your senses, reject SMU's offer and head back to the islands, June, you won't regret it, I promise.

- Oh boy, oh boy, it's time for the sensation that's sweeping the nation (as well as your local municipal area), Albums To Avoid! Previously I've had some slam-dunk choices, including albums from two former American Karaoke contestant hacks whose names I can't remember because, well, quite frankly they suck. This week's choice is also a no-doubter, but she, to the best of my vast knowledge, has never been an AK contestant. Mary J. Blige has, however, put out enough uber-crappy music to fuel every single season of that hack reality show that has ever happened. Her heavily synthesized, techno-pop, bubble-gum, mainstream "hip-hop" has polluted the airwaves for years, but because she's so mainstream and plays to all of the typical stereotypes that get music played for the dumb, musically-stupid masses, her crap-tacluar tunes have been hard to get away from. That's why I'm making this a Code Orange alert, because you need to be on your guard here, folks. The album is titled Growing Pains and that's ironic because listening to any Mary J. Blige album is painful through and through. This one is no exception, Her lyrics and messages are all over the place, switching from one end of the spectrum to another in a biplaor, schizophrenic rant backed by crappy, synthesized beats from drum machines and melodies that make you reach for the nearest ear plugs. She can mix in all the guest spots from Ludacris and Usher (who I can't stand) that she wants, but Mary J. Blige has proven once again that she's one of the most overrated, unlistenable artists around and if you truly like good music from artists who know how to actually play musical instruments and do more than dance like spastic robots in front of CGI-created backgrounds in horrible music videos, you want to listen to someone other than Mary J. Blige.

Police need to calm down, animals lovers need to get perspective and Kenyans riot

- We all want to have a good time on New Year's Eve. Whether it's going to a party with friends, going to Times Square to celebrate with the masses or just a special get-together with family, everyone wants to have a good time and to ring in the new year in enjoyable fashion. However, wanting to have a good time doesn't justify dropping your 4 and 7-year-old sons like yesterday's trash and leaving them alone at home while you go out to celebrate New Year's Eve, which is what one mother did. This idiot left her two young children alone at home while she went out to party in Memphis, and while she was gone, a fire broke out in their apartment building. Without their mother there to, I don't know, help keep them safe the way all decent mothers do, Romello Winters, 4, and Christian Griffin, 7, were unable to get out of their apartment in time and they both died in the fire. Now their mother is in jail, charged with criminally negligent homicide. Yeah, negligent homicide would be an apt description here. Nothing screams negligence like leaving two kids who, combined aren't old enough to drive a car, alone in your apartment. I know the pain of losing both of your sons in a fire must be immense, unbearable and unimaginable, but whatever punishment this crappy mom gets won't be nearly enough, because the deaths of her sons are on her hands.

- Memo the alarmists who pleaded with Kenya's opposition movement leaders to pull the plug on their 'Million man' protest that took place Thursday: shut up. You say the protest could further the violence and unrest in your country, which is an erroneous statement on several fronts. First, the violence and discord are already at a fever pitch and this protest isn't going to send things over the top because they're already over the top. Second, a little mayhem and chaos are sometimes necessary in a country's development, as in this case where an election looks suspiciously like it was rigged in the favor of the incumbent, a member of the party currently in power. Opposition leader Raila Odinga ignored the pleas to call the protest off, which was absolutely the right call. Don't be silenced when you have the power to speak out against injustice; fight the fight. The government bans the march? So what. Of course they banned it; they're the ones your marching against. They want to repress those who oppose them, just like any good oppressive government does. Equally hilarious is our own Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice phoning Odinga and asking that the two sides resolve their disputes peacefully. Thanks for the input, Condi. Exactly what business is it of yours, anyhow? We need to stop butting in on the rest of the world's problems, but that's another battle for another day. For now, march on, Kenyan opposition members, march on. And burn a car or smash a storefront while you're at it.....

- I don't know about all of you, but I watched last night's Orange Bowl game and I'm concerned. No, it's not anything I saw from the players that concerns me, nor is it the fans. There were no injuries that have me worried, nor was there rioting and disorderly conduct by either team or their fans that has me concerned. No, my concern is for University of Kansas football coach Mark Mangino, a man who immense girth and plethora of chins have me very, very worried for his health and well being. The more Kansas football games I watch, the more I fear that Mangino, who has to be pushing 425 pounds, will have a heart attack and die right there on the sidelines. I'm not kidding about this either; he literally does have multiple chins and appears to have a higher body-fat percentage than a bucket of lard. Earlier this season, he wore a crushed velvet track suit on the sidelines for one game and I wondered what the rest of the world was going to do now that all of the crushed velvet in the world had been used up on a single piece of clothing. I know football coaches work long hours and typically don't have the best diets, nor do they have a lot of extra time for exercise as a general rule. However, there's still enough time to spend half an hour a day working out and buying a salad to eat instead of picking up five Big Macs with cheese for lunch. I say this as someone who loves college football and appreciates the great job you did guiding a program that has been a perennial doormat for years to a 12-1 record and a BCS bowl win, coach: Lose the weight and get healthy, because I'm afraid of what will happen to you if you don't, and you should be afraid too.

- Sometimes I just don't get law enforcement in this country. Often, cops just go haywire over the simplest things, arresting people, seizing property and throwing the book at people who haven't do much of anything amiss. Take the tale of Suwei Chuang, 36, as an example of what I'm talking about. Chaung was just minding his own business, going about his day-to-day life, stockpiling a massive cache of weapons and more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition and bam, the cops are busting down his door and putting him under arrest. Chuang, a resident of New York City, had guns in his car and home and as I mentioned, tens of thousands of rounds of ammo for those guns, but what's the big deal? So he's better equipped than many small nations and could probably stage a hostile takeover in many countries around the world with his gun stash, so what? If this is going to become a country where people are arrested just for amassing ridiculous quantities of weapons and ammunition, then I'm not sure I want to keep living here. Where is the NRA when you need them, anyhow? Our own bill of rights spells out our right to bear arms, and to the best of my knowledge, there's no limit put on the number of arms we're allowed to bear. Take a chill pill, NYC police.

- Animal lovers are another group that usually don't make sense to me. I like animals, don't misunderstand me. However, when animals attack humans, I tend to come down on the side of the human, except in the case of Roy of Sigfried & Roy, because to be honest I think any dude wearing sparkly, sequined vests and sporting that bad of a mullet while f'ing with wild animals like that deserves what he gets. In the case of the 350-pound tiger at the San Francisco Zoo that escaped its cage and killed a teenager visiting the zoo 10 days ago, I don't see how anyone could take the side of the tiger. Yet there are dozens of animal lovers, lining up to visit the zoo upon its reopening and saying that they were there to show support for the tiger. What the frak? You do realize that a) the tiger doesn't know you support him, mostly because he doesn't know what support is, b) he has no concept of people being pissed at him and he doesn't realize that a single negative word has been spoken about him because he's a f'ing tiger, and c) he freaking killed a human being, right? It's great that the zoo upped its safety precautions and has the big-cat enclosure closed for the time being, but zoos have had signs up for ages warning people not to pester the animals and they don't do a lot of good. If I'm visiting the San Francisco Zoo, I'm keeping a 1,000-foot distance between myself and the big-cat enclosure at all times.

Deadly bootlegged vodka, college football bowl fun and a study confirms the obvious

- Tainted, deadly vodka can certainly put a damper on those New Year's Eve festivities. More than 30 people learned that lesson the hard way in the Mongolian city of Ulan Bator, where the tainted alcohol killed 11 people and led to at least 21 being hospitalized. A government official confirmed the deaths and hospitalizations, but did not give specifics as to where the bootleg booze came from. See, this is why if you're looking for bootlegged liquor and spirits, you always want to go American. We've been moonshining, at least those among us from West Virginia, for decades. We know how to make our illegal, homemade hooch and to make it in a way that won't kill you. Sure, bootlegged Mongolian vodka might sound exotic, but is it really worth dying or being hospitalized? Moonshine from Appalachia may seem lowbrow, but at least you know that when you drink it, you won't die as a result. Clean up your act, makers of illegal Mongolian vodka, and either come over to West Virginia to take a class from some real live moonshiners or just cease and desist..... - Maybe it's just me, but it's been an great college football bowl season so far. Even though some of the games that usually are great bowls to watch have been sub-par, there have been a lot of competitive games and much in the way of memorable moments. Things got off to a good start with the Poinsettia Bowl in beautiful San Diego between Utah and Navy, a game Utah held on to win 35-32 after Navy rallied late, recovered an onside kick and promptly threw a fatal interception. There was also a great game at the Motor City Bowl, where Purdue won an absolute shootout over Central Michigan, 51-48, on a last-second field goal. Also tallying a final-play field goal for a win was East Carolina, which stunned heavily favored Boise State in the Hawaii Bowl. But games that usually scintillate, like the Holiday Bowl, fizzled this year. Texas whipped Arizona State 51-32 in that game, a fate also befell South Florida in the Sun Bowl, where the Bulls were routed 56-21 by an Oregon team playing with its third-string quarterback. I always love the Sun Bowl, as it's played in El Paso, Texas, right on the Mexican border, surrounded by beautiful desert hill country. Other exciting finishes have happened in the Las Vegas Bowl, where BYU blocked a last-second field goal attempt by UCLA to preserve a 17-16 win, and Texas Tech trailing Virginia all game long in the Gator Bowl but scoring 17 points in the final 3:31 to win, 31-28. There was also a sad farewell in the PapaJohns.com Bowl, where Cincinnati beat Southern Mississippi in Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower's final game coaching his alma mater after 17 years as the head man there. On the flip side, Michigan sent its coach, Lloyd Carr, off with a 41-35 win over Florida in the Capital One Bowl, Carr's last game as UM coach, although unlike Bower, he isn't being forced out.The Fiesta Bowl was thrilling in spite of the game not being all that close, with West Virginia, a decided underdog, stunning Oklahoma by 48-28 margin. There was a brilliant stretch in the third quarter where both teams exploded trading big play for big play and with West Virginia pulling away when it seemed like Oklahoma was poised to rally. Yes, it's been a great bowl season, with only a few games remaining, the Orange Bowl tonight, the International Bowl in Toronto Saturday, the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Alabama Sunday night and of course, the BCS national championship game pitting Ohio State against LSU Monday night. Hope these final few games are as good as the ones preceding them..... - TV's late-night funnymen have returned to the airwaves this week in spite of the ongoing writers' strike that is slowly but surely crippling the television season. Craig Ferguson and David Letterman are the only two of the five returning late-night shows with writers thanks to deals with the Writers' Guild of America that allow writers to work on the shows while the strike continues. Letterman came back last night sporting a butt-ugly beard and with his nightly top ten list delivered by striking writers with their contract demands in comedic, tongue-in-cheek form. Robin Williams was Letterman's main guest, although Sen. Hank Clinton did make a taped appearance from Iowa, where she was in the process of getting her a** kicked in the Iowa caucuses. The return of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno created a few problems for one other presidential candidate, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee agreed to go on Leno's show for an appearance on its first night back on air, a decision Huckabee says was based on a belief that the Leno show was one of the shows that had a deal in place with the writers. Thus, he didn't think he would be crossing picket lines, but boy was he wrong. One striking writer outside the studio held a sign reading, "Huckabee is a scab," although that opposition didn't stop the Republican frontrunner from going through with his appearance. Sadly for those of us with a better sense of humor, Comedy Central's two flagship fake news shows, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report with host Stephen Colbert, have not returned with new episodes. And if you're following this strike at all, you know that there haven't been any notable positive developments in the negotiation process, so the chances for a resolution to this mess aren't getting better at this point. - How do you know for sure when it's time to lose weight? Well, in lieu of that freak show Richard Simmons showing up at your door in his nutter shorts and glitter-laced tank top and vowing to help you get in shape, your underwear being big enough to use to put out a kitchen fire would be a great sign. That's what happened to Jenny Marsey, a British woman who clearly needs to lay off the tea and crumpets, if you catch my drift. John Marsey and his cousin Darren Lines were cooking in Jenny Marsey's kitchen when a fire broke out. Lines reacted quickly, looking to a nearby pile of laundry for something to use to suffocate the flames. He settled on a pair of his aunt's XL underwear, running them under the faucet to get them wet and then throwing them on the fire. The strategy worked, which is good in the sense that the fire didn't spread and do much damage but disturbing in the fact that there are people out there fat enough to need underwear that can be used to put out fires. A spokesman for the fire brigade put it rather nicely, saying, "Clearly it depends on what size you are - but I don't want to go there." Neither do I, spokesman, neither do I. So in the interest of not talking about this unsavory topic further, let's just move on...... - I love nothing more in the world of science than researchers doing lengthy studies on blatantly obvious topics and releasing new "findings" that do nothing more than tell us things we already know (i.e. fatty foods are bad for you, stress negatively impacts your health, college kids tend to binge drink, etc.). In that spirit, I couldn't be happier with a group of researchers than I am with the group headed up by University of Utah professor David Strayer. This collection of geniuses sought out one of the most obvious facts known to man and they suckered someone into giving them a research grant to "study" the subject. That subject is none other than the impact of cell phones on driving, and shock of all shocks, people talking on cell phones drive slower than everyone else on the road and don't keep up with the flow of traffic. Strayer and his team of extortionists, er, researchers who suckered someone into giving them money for this study, found that one average, cell-phone users, even those with hands-free devices, travel at an average of 2 mph slower than other drivers. "That distracted driver tends to drive slower and have delayed reactions," Strayer said, stating the uber-obvious. No freaking way, Dave. Distracted drivers drive slower and don't react as quickly? What's next, you telling me that drivers with three times the legal blood-alcohol level also have slower reaction times and are more prone to accidents? Will you also be studying whether water is indeed wet, whether grass is green and whether the sky is blue? How about researching whether the North Pole is colder than the Bahamas? This just goes to prove that if you can get the good folks at Kinko's to work up a colorful enough, well-bound presentation for you, you can use that presentation to sucker someone, somewhere into giving you money to "research" just about anything.

Cam Cameron gets his, Kenya goes all-out riot and I wonder why America cares about celebrity couples

- You had it coming, Cam Cameron, and I could not be happier to see you get fired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins. You clearly did not have a good team and you clearly did not know how to coach what you did have. You couldn't even get your guys to focus and not do what it takes to win when they were 0-14 and staring at a chance for immortality as the first 0-16 team ever in the NFL. All season long you proved to be overmatched both in games and during the week when it came to preparing your team and making personnel decisions. Thus, I'm ecstatic to see that new team executive Bill Parcells has fired Cameron after just one season at the helm, albeit a 1-15 season of epically bad proportions. Parcells brought in a new general manager as well, hiring old friend Jeff Ireland away from the Dallas Cowboys. Ireland put it succinctly when evaluating Miami's season: "They were struggling on both sides of the ball," Ireland said. "Looking at it from afar, we've just got to put the right person in place." Yes, they did struggle, both in terms of winning games and in losing them when doign so would have made the dream season a reality. That's the 2007 Miami Dolphins in a nutshell, an all-around failure and disappointment. For your part in all of this, Cam, worst wishes for you wherever you go next.....

- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean that really got out of hand. It jumped up a notch. It did, didn't it? Of course, I'm referring to the grwoing violence in Kenya, where a disputed presidential election has turned into an absolute melee, with property destruction, riots, killing and ethnic unrest. Ever since opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who led in the opinion polls leading up to the election and also in early election returns, but saw that lead mysteriously evaporate once the final votes were tallied, lost out to incumbent Mwai Kibaki, all hell has broken loose in Kenya. The rioting and all-out warfare has caused hundreds of deaths and Tuesday, an angry mob (really, is there any other kind of mob?) torched a church where dozens of refugees had been staying, killing many of those inside, including children. Those who didn't die in the blaze were hacked to death with machetes, which is even worse. Those deaths in the city of Eldoret brought the death total to 275 for the first foru days of the uprising, with no real end in sight. Normally I'm the first person to salute rioting and rioters everywhere, but this is no longer just a simple riot. It's a mini-civil war and people are dying, which is not a part of what I love about riots. Whether the election was rigged or not, I don't know, but what I do know is that this is a disturbing conflict that no one in Kenya seems to have a clue as to how to handle.

- Celebrity couples. It's one thing I'll never understand America's fascination with. Famous people are just like the rest of us, they need love and companionship too. So I found it funny when the buzz over Heroes stars Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia broke out. They're dating and this is supposed to affect me how? It's not like Ventimiglia hasn't done this before; while appearing on one of my all-time fave shows, Gilmore Girls, he dated co-star Alexis Bledel. Memo to America: What the frak does it matter what celeb dates what other celeb? They're certainly not going to date you, Average Joe or Jane American, so who else is there for them to date? Get a life, all of your celebrity relationship gossip lovers, find a real hobby.

- People should have learned by now, thanks in large part to Ron Mexico, er, Michael Vick, that people really, really aren't down with abusing and killing animals, especially dogs. That fact clearly escaped the consciousness of an unidentified man in San Diego who decided that when the police began pursuing him from driving erratically, his best bet was to stop the vehicle on the Coronado Bridge along Interstate 5, get out of the vehicle and grab a police dog that had been release to catch him and jump off the side of the bridge holding the dog. The 200-foot fall into the frigid waters killed the dog, while the a-hole criminal survived and remains hospitalized. Good work, ace. I'm sure you'll get a lot of sympathy from the police, what with you fleeing from them and killing one of their own dogs in the process. Now you're not just going in for reckless and/or drunken driving and fleeing the cops, you're also on the hook for the killing of a police dog. If you wanted to jump and injure or kill yourself, fine. The world really wouldn't be worse off without you. But next time you make a drunken leap from a bridge, idiot, make sure it's a solo flight.

- This is definitely a new one in terms of air travel delays. Along with weather, mechanical problems with the plane, connecting flights being late, bomb threats and in-flight illness, add "passenger-to-passenger groping" as something else that can cause your flight to be delayed or have its path diverted. That's what happened en route from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. to Seattle when Michael Lamar Holland began copping a feel on a 39-year-old female passenger. The resulting disturbance caused the pilot to divert the flight to Pittsburgh, where Holland was escorted from the plane by federal air marshals. He appeared before a magistrate earlier this week on charges of abusive sexual contact. I'm sure everyone aboard was thrilled by this development and that none of them were bothered by the delay at all. I'm sure, though, that there were a lot of confused people at the Seattle Airport when the flight code DELAYED-GROPING was posted on the flight information screen around the airport. Maybe the flight attendants need to mix a few words about keeping your hands to yourself into their pre-flight instructions about emergency exits and seats acting as floatation devices, that couldn't hurt....

Sex scandals in Malaysia, Rich Fraud-riguez and airline groping....welcome to 2008

- You had it coming, Cam Cameron, and I could not be happier to see you get fired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins. You clearly did not have a good team and you clearly did not know how to coach what you did have. You couldn't even get your guys to focus and not do what it takes to win when they were 0-14 and staring at a chance for immortality as the first 0-16 team ever in the NFL. All season long you proved to be overmatched both in games and during the week when it came to preparing your team and making personnel decisions. Thus, I'm ecstatic to see that new team executive Bill Parcells has fired Cameron after just one season at the helm, albeit a 1-15 season of epically bad proportions. Parcells brought in a new general manager as well, hiring old friend Jeff Ireland away from the Dallas Cowboys. Ireland put it succinctly when evaluating Miami's season: "They were struggling on both sides of the ball," Ireland said. "Looking at it from afar, we've just got to put the right person in place." Yes, they did struggle, both in terms of winning games and in losing them when doign so would have made the dream season a reality. That's the 2007 Miami Dolphins in a nutshell, an all-around failure and disappointment. For your part in all of this, Cam, worst wishes for you wherever you go next.....

- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean that really got out of hand. It jumped up a notch. It did, didn't it? Of course, I'm referring to the grwoing violence in Kenya, where a disputed presidential election has turned into an absolute melee, with property destruction, riots, killing and ethnic unrest. Ever since opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who led in the opinion polls leading up to the election and also in early election returns, but saw that lead mysteriously evaporate once the final votes were tallied, lost out to incumbent Mwai Kibaki, all hell has broken loose in Kenya. The rioting and all-out warfare has caused hundreds of deaths and Tuesday, an angry mob (really, is there any other kind of mob?) torched a church where dozens of refugees had been staying, killing many of those inside, including children. Those who didn't die in the blaze were hacked to death with machetes, which is even worse. Those deaths in the city of Eldoret brought the death total to 275 for the first foru days of the uprising, with no real end in sight. Normally I'm the first person to salute rioting and rioters everywhere, but this is no longer just a simple riot. It's a mini-civil war and people are dying, which is not a part of what I love about riots. Whether the election was rigged or not, I don't know, but what I do know is that this is a disturbing conflict that no one in Kenya seems to have a clue as to how to handle.

- Celebrity couples. It's one thing I'll never understand America's fascination with. Famous people are just like the rest of us, they need love and companionship too. So I found it funny when the buzz over Heroes stars Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia broke out. They're dating and this is supposed to affect me how? It's not like Ventimiglia hasn't done this before; while appearing on one of my all-time fave shows, Gilmore Girls, he dated co-star Alexis Bledel. Memo to America: What the frak does it matter what celeb dates what other celeb? They're certainly not going to date you, Average Joe or Jane American, so who else is there for them to date? Get a life, all of your celebrity relationship gossip lovers, find a real hobby.

- People should have learned by now, thanks in large part to Ron Mexico, er, Michael Vick, that people really, really aren't down with abusing and killing animals, especially dogs. That fact clearly escaped the consciousness of an unidentified man in San Diego who decided that when the police began pursuing him from driving erratically, his best bet was to stop the vehicle on the Coronado Bridge along Interstate 5, get out of the vehicle and grab a police dog that had been release to catch him and jump off the side of the bridge holding the dog. The 200-foot fall into the frigid waters killed the dog, while the a-hole criminal survived and remains hospitalized. Good work, ace. I'm sure you'll get a lot of sympathy from the police, what with you fleeing from them and killing one of their own dogs in the process. Now you're not just going in for reckless and/or drunken driving and fleeing the cops, you're also on the hook for the killing of a police dog. If you wanted to jump and injure or kill yourself, fine. The world really wouldn't be worse off without you. But next time you make a drunken leap from a bridge, idiot, make sure it's a solo flight.

- This is definitely a new one in terms of air travel delays. Along with weather, mechanical problems with the plane, connecting flights being late, bomb threats and in-flight illness, add "passenger-to-passenger groping" as something else that can cause your flight to be delayed or have its path diverted. That's what happened en route from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. to Seattle when Michael Lamar Holland began copping a feel on a 39-year-old female passenger. The resulting disturbance caused the pilot to divert the flight to Pittsburgh, where Holland was escorted from the plane by federal air marshals. He appeared before a magistrate earlier this week on charges of abusive sexual contact. I'm sure everyone aboard was thrilled by this development and that none of them were bothered by the delay at all. I'm sure, though, that there were a lot of confused people at the Seattle Airport when the flight code DELAYED-GROPING was posted on the flight information screen around the airport. Maybe the flight attendants need to mix a few words about keeping your hands to yourself into their pre-flight instructions about emergency exits and seats acting as floatation devices, that couldn't hurt....