"Real Houseskanks" news, Hugo Chavez at it again and pulling guns on overbearing youth sports parents

- Please join me in a nice, big group “throw up in your mouth” moment, all. My distaste for Bravo’s Real Houseskanks series of reality shows is legendary be it the Atlanta, New York, Boise, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Mobile, Minneapolis or Bismarck version. All of these surgically enhanced, carved-up cougars are an affront to anyone who actually places any weight at all on keeping sheer and utter crap off of their television screen. Their personal drama and the fact that they all married well or inherited enough money to allow them to live lives of luxury and attend fancy events at which they engage in ridiculous, b*tch-tastic drama simply aren’t enough to justify any of these wenches being anywhere near a TV camera - ever. But nonetheless, on TV they are and there just doesn’t seem to be any getting rid of them. With that being said, I think we could all do without any of these vapid cougs releasing a sex tape, no? Yet here we are, with filth and depravity purveyor Hustler Inc. preparing to release a sex tape starring Houseskanks star Danielle Staub. Hustler has said that 47-year-old Staub, a mother of two, is aware that the tape is being released and images of her topless, giggling and frolicking with an unidentified man hit the web on Wednesday. As if that weren’t enough, one of her fellow Houseskanks is looking for further bury Staub by Tweeting that she actually leaked her own sex tape. That would be Houseskank Jacqueline Laurita, who Tweeted late Tuesday: "Heard from a VERY reliable source that D released her OWN sex tape. Heard it's disgusting. Such disregard 4 her kids. I feel horrible 4 them." I’m sure you do. Because if I truly felt bad for anyone, especially kids, what I would look to do is find the nearest BlackBerry or laptop and fire off a Tweet further fanning the flames of embarrassment. Stay classy, Houseskanks. Thanks for once again proving my argument that you are right up there with ass hats like Heidi and Spencer as the single biggest piece of evidence for the damaging effect that reality television has had on our society…………

- Unruly parents are a constant at any level or age group of youth sports and dealing with them is one of the primary stressors on coaches, officials and even the very players those parents are supposed to be supporting. Almost invariably, the parents are the ones at fault for stepping out of line, acting like idiots and causing a scene. Often, those on the receiving end of their vitriol would love to walk over and punch the offending parent in the face - repeatedly. Notice I said they would like to do that, not that they actually seek physical retribution. Well, not unless they are Fruitport (Mich.) Soccer Club assistant coach James Sherrill, that is. Sherrill helped coach his team, consisting of boys ages 8-10, in their game at Pine Park on May 15. After the contest ended and probably while the players were chugging down Capri Sun pouches and munching on orange slices, some of the parents confronted Sherrill after witnessing him yelling and swearing at their kids during the game. An angry confrontation ensued but other coaches and parents were able to step in and break things up before the situation got out of control. That proved to be a temporary fix as one of the parents, Adam Eikenberry, approached Sherrill as he was leaving. At that point, Sherrill decided he’d had just about enough parental grief for the day and pulled a concealed 9mm handgun from its holster and pointed it at Eikenberry. Well played, coach, well played. Pulling a gun at a youth sporting event is always a good idea, especially with plenty of witnesses around to let the police know exactly what you did. That decision led to an arrest for Sherrill, a trip to the local police station and will now result in a trial for Sherrill on one count of felonious assault. As stated at the start of this story, I am the first to admit that youth sports parents are all too often out of control and need to be put in check before they ruin the experience for everyone else. However, you may also have noticed that I did not advocate drawing a gun on them as a means of shutting them up. While it might have worked and the possibility of being shot could definitely deter many parents from piping up about Junior’s playing time or treatment by the coach, it’s also a tad illegal. So let’s keep the guns holstered, our attitudes in check and our fists of fury locked safely away for all future youth sporting events and see if the game doesn’t go better for everyone…………

- And the crackdown on anyone willing to stand up for what they believe and oppose Venezuela’s totalitarian regime continues! The latest move came when dictator Hugo Chavez and his cronies issued an arrest warrant against the president of one of the last independent TV stations in that country Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision, is now a wanted man, accused of illegally storing vehicles with the intent to sell them for a profit. The warrant includes his son, also named Guillermo. Police searched Zuloaga’s home while Globovision cameras caught all of the action. Zuloaga, perhaps knowing the raid was coming, was not found and his whereabouts are unknown. His attorney, Perla Jaimes, spoke on his behalf and stated that his client will now make a decision as to how and when turn himself to the authorities to face the charges. The charges stem from the May 2009 discovery of 24 vehicles stored at one of his properties in Caracas. The government, looking for any excuse to persecute anyone who dares oppose it, claimed that the vehicles violated existing law. Uh huh, sure they didn’t. But keep telling yourselves and the rest of us that they did, Venezuelan government. No one is going to see through this charade and recognize it for the feeble attempt at suppressing freedom of the press that it is. The government has long been after Zuloaga, who was detained in March as he returned to Venezuela -- accused of criticizing the government during a public forum outside the country. I’m sure it’s just one giant coincidence that he’s under Chavez’s microscope and that he runs one of the few remaining independent media outlets in Venezuela, a media outlet that is often critical of Chavez. Human rights and freedom of the press groups immediately denounced the warrant, rightly labeling it a renewed attempt to silence critics of Chavez. In other words, just more of the same from one of the world’s more maniacal, overbearing and belligerent dictators. Along with death, taxes and the Chicago Cubs not winning the World Series, it’s safe to say that the oppressive actions of Hugo Chavez are one of the things in this world you can always count on…………

- Do me a favor and just let me know a) when the conference-shifting game of musical chairs for college athletics ends and b) when these conference jumps will actually affect what I see on the field. The dominoes began to fall on Thursday when Colorado jumped from the Big 12 to the Pac-10, but that was merely the first of many steps in the process. Nebraska became the next domino to fall, leaving the Big 12, ironically enough, to join a Big Ten conference that had been rocking 11 teams for a decade and now should be called the new Big 12. Those moves left the Big 12 with 10 teams, temporarily making it the new Big Ten. I say temporarily because reports now have as many as five additional Big 12 teams leaving the conference to join the Pac-10, which would make it the Pac-16. Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are all reportedly on the verge of moving to the Pac-10, leaving Big 12ers Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State and Baylor out in the cold. But wait, there’s more! Enter the Mountain West Conference, a growing power that has produced BCS party-crashers the past few seasons with TCU and Utah elbowing in amongst the big boys for spots in college football’s massive payday disguised as a means of determining a true national champion. The Mountain West wants to climb up to the level of being an automatic BCS qualifier (currently, the league does not receive an automatic BCS bid but teams can earn one with a high enough BCS ranking) and join the payday. To that end, the conference scored a major addition by welcoming in fellow BCS crasher Boise State (two BCS bowl wins in the past five years) Friday, boosting the MWC to ten teams and making it a major force to be reckoned with. Yet the conference may not be done yet and could have the other conference jumpers to thank for opening up a golden opportunity to expand once again. According to multiple sources, Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State are on the Mountain West's radar for a possible expansion to 13 teams. The big add there would be Kansas’ men’s basketball program, one of the iconic programs in all of college basketball. Just as adding Boise State’s football program boosts the conference’s profile on the gridiron, welcoming the Kansas basketball program would infuse the MWC with instant basketball credibility and a boost in football as well. "The Mountain West wants to be a national player and continue to grow in that realm," MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said in a conference call with reporters Friday. "We are extremely interested in BCS automatic qualification. We are simply trying to get to the level where each and every year a Mountain West team is playing in a BCS bowl game." The one Big 12 school the Mountain West has no interest in is Baylor, largely because of its proximity to current MWC dwellers TCU, which would reportedly mount a lobbying effort against Baylor if the Bears are left out of the conference-realignment mix. So what does all of this mean? For next season, not much. The conference jumps will take effect down the road, but the bottom line to keep an eye on here is….well, the bottom line for the involved schools and conferences (outside of the Big 12). Those entities will make more money and in the end, that’s all they care about………..

- Technology sure does take us so amazing places. You can now connect to the Internet through any number of devices in nearly any setting, there are advances in robotics that have made the manufacturing process for most goods a seamless, expedited process and now, in possibly the greatest technological advance of all time, we have computerized underwear. This technological leap forward comes from Joseph Wang (save the jokes), a nanoengineering professor at the University of California at San Diego who has developed underpants that have sensors built into the waistband to sense blood pressure, heart rate, and other biological markers. Before you get any ideas on what the purpose of such skivvies might be, know that the primary purpose for the digital drawers is to allow doctors to do things like keeping an eye on a soldier's vitals during field surgery. There are legitimate medical uses for this sort of device, which relies on sensors printed on with a technique similar to that employed by ink-jet printers. The sensors are such that they cannot be felt against the skin, which means the underwear wouldn’t be any more uncomfortable than normal. Once “printed,” the sensors relay the biometric data nonstop, allowing medical teams to better and more quickly treat the wounded. Although initially developed for military use, the computerized underpants could also be adapted for hospital use as a new way to track patients' progress with less invasive sensors than those used now. Hope all of this talk sounds good to you, members of the American military, because by the sound of it, you all are going to be the first ones to try on these new wardrobe options………..

Glee hits the bookshelves, nuns get what they have coming and cursing in the World Cup

- The first season may be over for Fox’s hit song-and-dance drama Glee, but fans of all ages will soon be able to connect with their favorite series in a whole new way. Little Brown Books for Young Readers will publish five authorized books based on the series, beginning with a prequel novel dubbed Glee: The Beginning. The book will go on sale in August, tying in nicely with the premiere of the show's second season. Of course, one would expect the book to sell well not just with kids, for whom the series may not have a huge appeal, but also with the teens and adults who have tuned in on a weekly basis to make it such a success. The show wrapped up its first season Tuesday, drawing 10.9 million viewers, and was the highest-rated finale for a new show in the 18-to-49 demographic. During the season, Glee offered its own spin on artists ranging from Kanye West to Journey and Eminem to Lady Gaga. It inspired a flash mob at Ohio State University to copycat the show’s rendition of Journey’s hit “Don’t Stop Believing” and quickly became one of Fox’s top shows. And any time you strike it big with a successful new show, any responsible television network knows to strike while the iron is hot and churn out as much show-related product as possible in order to cash in before the show tanks and fans turn their attention in a new direction (see Heroes, failed NBC drama in the TV dictionary). No word on what the plot will be for the Glee books and how they will tie into the show itself, but methinks that fans will buy the tome first and ask questions later…………

- Nuns have gotten a free ride for far too long. Just because they are religious figures who pledge themselves to a life of good, of sacrifice and of serving others, people take it easy on nuns and don’t hassle them nearly enough. Well, I say it’s time we take off the kid gloves and give nuns what they’ve had coming to them for a long time. That’s exactly what’s happening in Honolulu, where a team of nuns has been providing a library and reading lessons to the children of Kalihi Valley Homes, a state housing project for the past 24 years. Their cozy little arrangement came to an end recently when a boulder struck their apartment in the project. For some odd reason (which I don’t need explained to me), that caused the state government to review the nuns’ work and evict them. Furthermore, the state declared their reading program over. According to the state housing program, one reason it evicted the nuns was because their arrangement violated laws separating church and state while the program needed all the units it can get for family housing. Whatever story you need to sell, state housing program, is fine with me. Kick that rascal Sister Pat and her fellow nuns out and let someone else help the local kids with their reading. I feel confident in saying that if you surveyed the resident of Kalihi Valley Homes, you would find scores of horror stories about what a menace the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet were. They probably celebrated when two huge boulders which struck the hillside housing complex in January and shut the sisters down. Who needs a local library provided by Catholic nuns anyhow? So what if two nuns lived there as residents in return for turning their unit into a comfortable library? I think these nuns received better treatment than they deserved when they were temporarily relocated to another unit in the complex for several months. When they finally heard word on their fate, it was not what they were hoping to hear. “It was definitely a big part of our life and it was a big loss,” said Sister Brenda Lau, who said she and Sister Pat are now sharing a house with other nuns in their order. So save it, all of you who would argue that these thugs have been providing the reading program since 1986 under a memorandum of agreement with the housing authority and deserve to continue their good works. I don’t care if the nuns were also full-time employees of other state agencies and were living in the apartment rent-free. They may have donated the income from their jobs to their order, further perpetuating that image of being goodie two-shoes. I am squarely behind new director of the Hawaii Housing Authority, Denise Wise, who insisted that the arrangement the nuns had operated under for years was no longer feasible. “We could not provide exclusive use to a religious organization on any of our properties,” Wise said. “Even if it’s one unit at a time, we have a tremendous amount of pressure on our waiting list right now.” Stop complaining, displaced nuns, and be thankful that you didn’t get what you had coming to you sooner…………

- Dare I say it? There appears to be a touch of racism in the World Cup and it’s directed at none other than English-speaking teams. In preparing for the world’s biggest soccer tournament, World Cup referees have been given a crash course on English-language obscenities so they may properly punish those who curse them out. While reckless play and dirty tactics will still earn players yellow or red cards, the heightened focus on verbal abuse of referees, specifically by English-speaking players, is a new tact for the Cup. Cursing is certainly nothing new in soccer or any other sport and no fan is shocked to see a player on either his team or an opposing team let loose with an F-bomb or other profanity. Whether it’s Korean, Swahili, Japanese or English, players let their emotions go on the field and now, referees will be there to penalize them for it. "At the end of the day, you don't understand half of it," former Premier League and FIFA referee Graham Barber said. "So what do you do about it? Say 'I think he swore he at me, so I sent him off?' You don't, do you?" Well, the answer in this year’s World Cup is yes, at least if the player doing the cursing speaks English. FIFA requires World Cup referees and assistants to be proficient only in English, but the organization denied reports that match officials have been given lists of swear words. That doesn’t jibe with the claims of referee Carlos Simon, who will officiate a Saturday match in Rustenburg, assisted by Roberto Braatz and Altemir Hausmann. "All players swear and we know we will hear a few," Hausmann stated, adding that he and his crew have been brushing up on English and American curses. Perhaps all of this is framed by the fact that FIFA prides itself on its family friendly entertainment. It met with each team before the World Cup, reminding players they could be carded or ejected for profane language or obscene gestures. Now if the referees could only eject fans from the game for similar hooligan-ish behavior…………

- Well, the official word is in and you’ll all be disappointed to know that in fact, President Barack Obama did not appear in Tag Team's 1993 music video for hip-hop jam 'Whoomp! (There It Is).' Rumors had been buzzing all week long that Obama was the mysterious man throwing dice and rocking a ginormous old-school cell phone about one minute into the video, but White House spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield shot down those rumors (and our dreams) when pressed on the issue this week. "It is not him," Bedingfield unequivocally declared. Another source familiar with the situation, Judd Miner, a colleague of Obama's from his Chicago law days, also pooh-poohed the rumors. "I've never heard of this before," Miner said. "Barack never had an earring." Not that you know of, Judd. How do you know dude wasn’t rocking jewelry in his ear after hours? The talk of Obama’s possible cameo in the video even got back to Tag Team member DC the Brain Supreme, who admitted he was stunned by the attention and had received calls from 'Inside Edition' and New York magazine since the weekend. "This is like an episode of 'South Park.' You can't pay for that kind of publicity," the rapper, real name Cecil Glenn, said. However, he admitted that to the best of his knowledge, the man in the video was not Obama. "It doesn't add up. It's hard to say he was in Atlanta and said, 'Ooh, I want to be in the 'Whoomp! (There It Is)' video. I can't be for sure because that was a real big video shoot and thousands of people showed up," Glenn stated. The video was shot at a fairground in Atlanta, with word put out by a local radio station and word of mouth. Hundreds of wannabes showed up that day to be a part of the shoot, but unfortunately our current president does not appear to have been one of them……….

- Dammit, this is so not going to help bring down the cost of an eight ball of coke or a dime bag in my hood. No one looks out for the best interests of Average Joe Drug User like me and as such, I cannot help but be horrified by the arrest of the alleged leader of a regional branch of the Los Zetas drug cartel by the Mexican Army Wednesday,. Hector Raul Luna Luna, known by his amigos as "El Tori," was arrested during a "precision operation" by the personnel of the Seventh Military Zone in Monterrey, in northern Mexico. The military immediately spun lies about Luna confessing to participating in a grenade attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey on October 12, 2008, under the orders of Sigifredo Najera Talamantes, alias "El Canicon." Talamantes was arrested on March 20 of last year, which also did nothing to lower the price of illegal narcotics for those who need and covet them most. Since March, the Mexican Army has been hunting Luna, who is also suspect of killing six members of the Mexican Army and being the perpetrator of an attack against the secretariat of public security in the municipality of Escobedo, in Coahuila state, near the Texas border, and the subsequent attack on the then-secretary of public safety, retired general Hermelindo Lara Cruz. It’s an impressive laundry list of crimes, to be sure, but where is your proof? Arresting Luna and alleged accomplice David Eduardo Fuentes Martinez, known by the aliases "El Chile" and "El Mantequilla," doesn’t tell me much. Yes, the two men were carrying an impressive arsenal of weapons with them, including a 55 mm Barrett rifle, commonly used for piercing through shields and other materials. But who among you can tell me that you don’t always have a shield-piercing rifle handy for just such an occasion? What also infuriates me, aside from arresting key cartel figures and thus driving up the cartels’ cost of doing business and the subsequent price of drugs for the average junkie, is the Mexican Army holding a new conference Thursday and sending Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas Melendez out to allege that Talamantes and Martinez were arrested as part of the country's comprehensive strategy to combat drug trafficking. I prefer to marvel at these guys’ cool aliases (seriously, "El Mantequilla") and their massive stash of weapons that included: a 40 mm grenade launcher, a 5.7 x 28 mm pistol, two fragmentation grenades, two 40 mm grenades, chargers and 30 cell phones. UK8. I also weep over the 20 kilograms of marijuana, 110 doses of the same material, and 58 doses of cocaine seized by the military and the effect it will have on friendly Joe Pothead or Crackhead…………

The NFL's money fight, a prime piece of presidential real estate and the world v. Iran - the next chapter

- The possibility of a works stoppage in the NFL come 2011 is still very real, so much so that the NFL Players' Association is challenging the structure of the NFL's television contracts through an arbitrator, alleging that the league essentially set up a 2011 lockout protection fund with the structure of its TV deals. In a filing Wednesday to special master Stephen Burbank of the University of Pennsylvania, the NFLPA argues that the NFL's guaranteed $4 billion in television revenues combined with the elimination of $4.4 billion in player salaries would essentially cement 2011 as a profitable season for the league’s owners even if not a single quarter of football is played. In an amazing occurrence that only underscores the massive power the league wields, its television contracts for the 2011 season provide for the networks to pay the league even though there would be no games during a lockout. I repeat, the NFL so strong-armed the networks that even if the league provides it no games for an entire season, the networks still must pay and pay handsomely. Now, the NFLPA isn’t upset that the networks got screwed over; their beef is with the owners because the players’ association feels this agreement was made to the detriment of the players and is a weapon to be used against them in the case of a lockout. In its filing, the union asks Burbank to order the league to put all TV money in an escrow instead of distributing it to the owners during the lockout. Should the special master (a job I want to get, if only I knew what qualifies one to be a special master) concur, the same sort of advantage the union accuses the owners of having under the current deal with flip in favor of the NFLPA. Owners would then be forced to find other funds to make interest payments, stadium payments, and other bills that continue to accrue during a lockout. "It appears that the owners bought a strategy to lock players and fans out and nonetheless financially protect themselves," said Baltimore Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth, a member of the NFLPA's executive committee. "The players want to leave no stone unturned to make sure that CBA negotiations proceed in good faith and that next season is played in its entirety." The league has nearly half a dozen current television contract (ESPN, NBC, CBS, Fox and DirecTV) and defended those agreements in a statement Wednesday, calling the union's challenge "meritless." League spokesman Greg Aiello lined up a nice economic blast to return fire, trying to paint his boss, commissioner Roger Goodell, as the good guy in the situation. "The television contracts that the union attacked [Wednesday] were agreed to during the worst economy in our lifetimes. Far from failing to maximize revenue, the contracts grew league revenue to fund higher player salaries and benefits," Aiello said. "No wonder [NFLPA executive director] DeMaurice Smith said publicly this year, 'My hat's off to [NFL commissioner] Roger Goodell. Television is locked up until 2014 to the tune of about $5 billion a year.' The union's meritless charges, including many inaccuracies, will be addressed in the proper forum, but they are simply a distraction and do nothing to get us any closer to a new CBA.” To me, sounds like a bunch of rich, out-of-touch guys arguing about their millions………

- Your move, Iran. The United Nations Security Council voted Wednesday to impose new sanctions on your nation in order to convince dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and crew to suspend the country’s nuclear program. President Barack Obama seemed pretty pumped up about the sanctions, calling them "the toughest sanctions ever faced by Iran." His views were not shared by Ahmadinejad, who pulled out a curious and illogical analogy by likening the penalties to a "used handkerchief that should be dumped in a garbage can.” Now maybe something was lost in translation there, but to me, that comparison just lacks punch, panache and Ahmadinejad’s usual menacing presence. "They cannot harm the Iranian nation," he added of the sanctions. The vote was nearly a clean sweep for proponents of the sanctions, 12-2 in favor of them with Lebanon abstaining. Only Brazil and Turkey opposed the sanctions, which was expected going into the vote. This is the fourth set of measures against Iran since 2006 and based on past experience, I’d guess these aren’t going to achieve their intended purpose either. "True security will not come through nuclear weapons," Obama said. Obama then piled on by mocking Iran as the only signer of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty "that cannot convince the IAEA that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes." The IAEA would be the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, which serves as a nuclear watchdog for the world. After the vote, Obama and various Iranian leaders traded barbs, with the Iranians arguing, as always, that their nuclear program is for peaceful, energy purposes only and Obama refuting every one of those arguments. Prior to the vote, Iran warned that it would break off negotiations with the United States and its allies if new sanctions were put in place and now, it’s up to them to make good on that threat. Bottom line here is that we simply have more of the same and everyone in the world remains convinced that Iran wants nuclear capabilities to bomb the s**t out of Israel, nothing less. The true question is when we will hit the breaking point that pushes Iran over the edge and pushes it to become openly and irrevocably hostile to the world at large in such a manner to commence World War III. I know my man Kim Jong Il and North Korea are watching because that’s a distinction they very much want for themselves…………

- Rip them as unoriginal, say that they’ve gone nowhere but downhill since their debut album, but you can no longer call New York City rockers The Strokes dormant any longer. The band ended a three-and-a-half-year hiatus Wednesday night, performing a surprise show in London, their first public performance since October 2006. Rumors about the show spread throughout the early part of the week, but the band attempted to keep the gig quiet and low-key by booking it under the fake name “Venison.” Still, true fans got word of the show and were treated to a lengthy, 18-song set that didn’t feature any new material but is still being hailed as a positive sign that the long-promised fourth album from the band is on the way. As for the crowd, it was exactly what The Strokes wanted, a 500-person gathering that was filmed and has made its way to YouTube, where it hasn’t exactly gone viral yet but is still drawing plenty of attention. All told, the band sounded solid after three-plus years off and banged out old favorites like “Is This It” without much trouble. In the weeks ahead, The Strokes will hit up several festivals on both sides of the Atlantic, including a gig in Chicago at Lollapalooza in August. Now all that’s left to determine is whether they can win over detractors who have been ripping them as being on the decline ever since their 2001 debut album. That feat will be tougher than a surprise underground gig before 500 fans and will also take significantly longer…………

- As the debacle in the Gulf of Mexico continues to unfold, the question of what to do with oil-coated marine life lingers on and will likely continue to linger for months to come. For the most part, we’ve seen oil-soaked birds and dead fish floating in the gulf, but not a lot of attention has been paid to some of the other denizens of the sea, including turtles. But sooner or later, turtles harmed by the oil will begin surfacing and when they do, they will likely end up at the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, Fla. And why will they end up there? Because the Turtle Hospital is the only licensed turtle hospital in the U.S. "I can honestly say we're as prepared as we can possibly be," said Ryan Butts, a staffer at The Turtle Hospital. The hospital has two new 30,000-gallon tanks ready for a possible influx of sea turtles injured by oil and tar from BP's burgeoning underwater plumes of death. "The oil will weigh them down, but they usually are strong enough where they can stay buoyant and they will float. Eventually, the toxins in the oil are what will eventually do them in," Butts said. In other words, just because no injured turtles have surfaced yet in the Gulf, don’t take that to mean there aren’t any. Workers don’t know when affected turtles may begin arriving at the facility, but when they do roll in, a plan is in place. Workers at the hospital plan to clean oil from the turtles using mayonnaise, which is made of mostly oil and eggs. "It will actually bond to the oil on the turtle, and you put it on there, bond it, wipe it a few times, and you can actually wipe it off," Butts said. Besides having oil sticking to their exterior, some marine wildlife experts are concerned that turtles might mistake tar patties for food and eat them. Also, over time the crude oil could contaminate sea grass habitats and create difficult living conditions for turtles in coastal areas. Yes BP, the hits just keep on coming for you………….

- In the real estate game of today, a seller must do anything he or she can in order to make a for-sale property seem as attractive as possible to potential buyers. Fibbing, exaggerating or outright lying are commonplace and all too often, those buyers show up to find a property that is nothing like the one they read about online. When you factor in the component of realty listings on a notorious scum magnet like Craigslist, well……I think you can see where this might go a bit wrong. However, it appears that one dubious ad on the site is in fact legit…..sort of. The add screams "LIVE LIKE A PRESIDENT!" in the Morningside Heights apartment President Barack Obama crashed in when he attended Columbia University. "YES LIVE WHERE PRESIDENT OBAMA LIVED !!!" the listing boasts. "TRUE STORY." Funny thing is, the claim is true. The New York Times did some digging and confirmed that Obama once lived in the small apartment. He resided there while earning his undergraduate degree from the Ivy League school on Manhattan’s Upper West side, graduating in 1983. So the presidential vibe in the place may be very faint, but that doesn’t make the asking price any lower. It’s still Manhattan and so a two-bedroom, one-bathroom second-floor apartment located on West 109th Street that will become available on June 15 will run you $1,899 per month. However, the pad does feature "great light, big windows," hardwood floors and a kitchen furnished with "new appliances and cabinets." Real estate agent Dalila Bella is the woman you want to talk to, but she wants would-be buyers to know that the apartment is still occupied by the soon-to-depart tenants. If interested (and I’ve been through this neighborhood; it would be a nice place to live, near Morningside Park), an open house is scheduled for June 12. So all who have a hankering to live in Manhattan but can’t afford a pricy Trump-owned property in midtown Manhattan, this could be your chance……….

The Saints still lifting spirits, Canadian excess and "Bourne" news

- The cynic might look at Tuesday’s visit by the Super Bowl-champion New Orleans Saints to the Gulf Coast region as a straight PR play, one designed to boost the team’s public image and portray it as a concerned resident of the region that cares about those who come to see it play, buy its merchandise and root for it like maniacs. Personally, I’m going to set aside the cynic hat for a second and salute head coach Sean Payton and his players for taking time to visit Fort Jackson in Plaquemines Parish, stop by some of the facilities where oil-coated marine animals are being cleaned and lift the spirits of the area’s weary residents. Payton, team owner Tom Benson and some of the team’s best-known players - Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Jonathan Vilma, Jeremy Shockey and more - were on hand to visit with crowd that packed the fort. Fort Jackson has been a staging area for cleaning birds rescued from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and those working at the fort clearly needed the pick-me-up that the world champs provided. "We haven't had anything to smile about in a while. Today at least people are getting the chance," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. The players didn’t do anything miraculous, but they didn’t need to. Signing autographs and posing for pictures was a boost for those on hand and Brees also announced a chance for a lucky fan to get a Super Bowl ring like those that will soon be worn by the team. The Saints will raffle off chances to win that ring, with all funds going to aid victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Tickets are $2 each, but buyers must make a minimum $10 order. The winner will be announced prior to the Saints kicking off the 2010 NFL season with a Sept. 9 regular-season game against Minnesota. The Saints hope to raise $1 million through the effort and for the chance to win a legit, authentic Super Bowl ring, I’d say that’s a distinct possibility. The people of the Gulf Coast are going to need all of the support they can get and perhaps no area epitomizes that more than Plaquemines Parish, where most coastal waters have been closed to fishing. It’s a region where oysters, shrimp and other seafood species are the lifeblood of the local economy. Locals like Le and Shawn Townsend are struggling to get by and Le Townsend said she was delighted the Saints were in Plaquemines. So while oil continues to leak into the Gulf of Mexico and relief efforts fail, fall short and disappoint, props to the Saints for doing a little something to brighten the days of those affected……….

- Red and Black café owner John Langley, I salute you. You had the testicular fortitude to boot police officer James Crooker from your store at Southeast 12th Avenue in Portland, Ore. on May 18 and as someone who LOVES stickin’ it to The Man, this pumps me up. Crocker entered the café for a cup of coffee but was asked to leave by Langley, who worried the officer would resort to unnecessary violence if something went wrong. What Langley anticipated going wrong (too much sugar in the coffee?), I don’t know, nor do I need to know. I simply wish I had been there when Crooker sauntered up to a cop, gave him the boot and did so because he is a police officer. Langley’s actions become more understandable when you realize that he is a self-described anarchist. There just aren’t enough true-blue anarchists around these days, pining for all-out chaos and freedom from rules and government. Those few bright lights of anarchy tend to attract similar thinkers and it’s logical to imagine that those thinkers might not feel safe around police. For that reason, Langley asked Crooker to leave. In fact, the Langley stated that if anything went wrong in his shop, he would not be comfortable calling police for help. "If there's a police officer there, I wouldn't feel safe in that situation. I would feel worried that the officer might Tase the person or potentially shoot them for having a mental health issue," Langley said. Perhaps a little irrational and excessive, but Crooker actually respected the decision and left without incident, saying it’s the right of the proprietor to decide whether he is allowed to be in the shop. "He comes from a place that I respect. He comes from a place where he doesn't view the police the same," Crooker said. "Everybody views the police differently and he's got the right to express his opinion." The officer has actually handled the situation better than the general public, which has responded by creating a group asking for a boycott of the Red and Black café. The group has gained 15,564 fans, creating such hubbub that Langley called a news conference Monday to respond to criticism. "It's not a personal thing against this police officer. It's not just an irrational hatred of police at work here," he said. "There are some real reasons behind it and there's some real thought behind it." Take it easy on him, general public. Langley can just as easily point to three Portland officer-involved shootings this year as you can call him a discriminatory jerk, so back off………….

- Umm, you probably don’t want to spend nearly $2 million building an indoor man-made lake for this month's G20 summit if you, like most nations, are dealing with widespread financial troubles, Canadian Cabinet ministers. That’s just a friendly thought from me to you and judging by the massive outcry against the plan by media, citizens and civic groups around the country, I’m guessing most Canadians feel the same way. The lake was supposed to be part of a new complex in downtown Toronto for reporters covering the meeting, but those plans may now be scrapped after left-wing legislators ripped it during a question period in Parliament Monday. “Instead of hosting world leaders, maybe the government should consider party-planning for Lady Gaga," Liberal MP Mark Holland said. Hey oh! Cue the rim shot and someone get that guy a brick wall behind him, a cheap suit and a slot at 11 p.m. at the nearest comedy club. But then again, Holland’s words may not have been that far off, not when the country's budget for hosting the event also included paying for "dancers, singers, fiddlers and flowers" with $20 million Canadian (about $18.9 million U.S. dollars). Apparently Holland and the lake’s other detractors don’t appreciate the irony of throwing down seven figures for an indoor lake as part of a meeting that will focus on recovering from the global economic crisis. It was high comedy to watch cabinet members defend the Canadian government's plans while trying to out-shout their opponents. "It's a normal practice for the host country of an international summit to use the opportunity to showcase all their country has to offer, and that is exactly what we're doing...and we're going to be proud to showcase Canada to the world, contrary to what the Liberals want to do," Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said. Umm, that’s great, but how does a fake indoor lake show off your country? Are fake indoor lakes indigenous to Canada and something you Canucks are renowned for? If so, I stand corrected. If not, maybe focus on making the G8 summit as efficient and fiscally responsible as possible when the world’s leaders gather June 25-26 at a lakeside resort north of Toronto. I’m sure that the 3,000 journalists who will cover the event from the media center in Toronto will understand, as will those who attend the G20 summit from June 26-27. "We're proud of our government's efforts to showcase this great country so it can be a magnet for jobs, investment and opportunity," Transport Minister John Baird said Monday. Again, it’s a nice sentiment, but I’m inclined to agree with MP Jack Layton, Canada's social democratic party leader, who said the following: “We've got a government here that has to create an artificial lake, when Canada has more lakes than just about any other country in the world. The taxpayers are going to end up at the bottom of the fake lake.” Well said, MP, well said………….

- Should I be excited about the announcement that Tony Gilroy, the writer for all three Jason Bourne films, will be writing a script for a fourth film in the series? On the one hand, I love the Bourne films and all three have been great. Unlike the Pirates of the Caribbean, Ocean’s Eleven and Spiderman franchises, all of which had their third installment come out the same summer as the third Bourne film, Jason Bourne and friends have put out progressively better incarnations of their film and as such, a fourth movie in the series should be a slam-dunk of a good idea. However, in considering the fourth Bourne movie, one must also factor in the very real possibility that Jason Bourne himself, a.k.a. Matt Damon, won't be a part of the movie. Damon, has gone on record as saying he would not return to the franchise without director Paul Greengrass and right now, no one at Universal has confirmed whether Greengrass will be a part of the film — tentatively titled The Bourne Legacy — and that leaves Damon in limbo. Producers Frank Marshall and Pat Crowley are also returning, but it’s Greengrass that will apparently be the deal-breaker for Damon and for me, Damon being involved in Legacy could well be the make-or-break factor for me in terms of seeing the movie. Some characters become so intertwined with a certain character that the thought of anyone else playing that character just doesn’t feel right, no matter how great an actor the replacement is. All we know right now is that the studio is aiming for a 2012 release, meaning there isn’t a lot of time to hammer out the details and determine if the Greengrass/Damon duo will be part of the project. If those two aren’t on board, I suspect a lot of Bourne fans may spend their movie dollars elsewhere…………

- Brace for more Cash4Gold commercials. Those ubiquitous infomercials encouraging you to drop your gold jewelry into an envelope and ship it off to be melted down into a lampstand in exchange for pennies on the dollar are already popping up on every channel in seemingly every commercial break, but after gold prices climbed to a new record high Tuesday, I have a feeling the volume of those ads will only increase. Gold is seen as a safe haven in a financial world where nearly everything is a risk and with investors hedging against inflation, the precious metal seems like a safe bet. Gold for August delivery rose $5.70 to reach a record $1,246.50 an ounce. That came on the heels of the metal reaching an intraday trading record of $1,254.50 an ounce earlier Tuesday. With nations around the world dealing with debt and budgetary problems, gold and other low-risk investments have become that much more attractive. Since the start of the year, the price of gold has increased 13 percent. “On one hand you have the possibility of additional problems in Europe going forward. And if Europe implodes, gold prices will continue to rise sharply higher,” said Tom Pawlicki, precious metals analyst at MF Global. So the price of gold will keep going up and based on the massive profits that Cash4Gold and similar businesses have to be making off of the desperate schmuks who actually use its services, so will the number of commercials asking you to send in grandma’s old wedding ring, your aunt’s solid-gold necklace and your cousin’s conference championship ring for one-tenth their actual value…………

The iPhone 4 debuts, beer-drinking kids in Philly and Iran v. the world at the U.N.

- Let the hoopla begin. Apple has announced the newest incarnation of its iPhone, the iPhone 4, and from the looks of it, this might be the most tricked-out smartphone yet. “We think it's the biggest leap we've taken since the original iPhone," Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the audience at the company's annual developers conference on Monday. "We're really proud of it." Just like Apple’s popular MacBook laptops, the iPhone 4 will come in two colors -- black and white -- and will go on sale June 24 in the United States and four other countries. There will be, as is Apple’s custom, two models available: the 16 GB version ($199) and the 32 GB model ($299). Jobs billed the iPhone 4 as "the thinnest smartphone on the planet," with a thickness of 9.3 mm -- 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS. Other aesthetic changes will include a glass back and metal around the sides. However, the most noticeable add for the iPhone 4 versus previous models will be a front-facing camera for video conferencing. The video conferencing app, called FaceTime, will be available only from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 and will use Wi-Fi connectivity. "This is our new baby," Jobs said of the phone. "I hope you love it as much as we do." On the back, the phone will have a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash and 5X digital zoom. In one of the funnier moments of the presentation, Jobs actually asked the audience to turn off their Wi-Fi base stations or he wouldn't keep showing demos of the new phone, as the WiFi for his iPhone 4 was cutting in and out. Prior to the conference, Apple had already announced the phone's new operating system, which Jobs called "iOS." It will allow multitasking, addressing a prevalent complaint about previous incarnations of the iPhone. Owners of the iPhone 3GS will be able to update their phones with the new software, which will be released for free on June 21. As for the iPhone 4, it will be available for pre-order (still a stupid concept) June 14 and will ship on June 25. A curious feature for the iPhone 4 is the inclusion of an iMovie app that will allow users to shoot, edit and share movies from the "device you carry in your pocket everyday." It’s curious because who can (or wants to) edit video on a small, smartphone screen? Editing video is something you want to do on a larger screen and by the way, even if you get the 32 GB model of the phone, video takes up a crapload of space and you’re not going to have all that much room to store footage on your iPhone 4. But should you choose to buy the iMovie app, it will cost $4.99. Oh, and the phone will also have a gyroscope, which measures motion on six axes and is sensitive to gravity. That will make the iPhone 4 much better for gaming, as will improved battery life. It is worth remembering that despite all of the adoration and slobbering over the iPhone from tech dorks, the BlackBerry, made by Research In Motion, remains the top-selling smartphone on the market. The BlackBerry still has the edge with customers who need a smartphone for business and don’t need all of the apps and touch-screen functionality that the iPhone offers. That would include apps like the new "Guitar Hero" app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that game maker Activision announced at the same conference where the iPhone 4 was unveiled. Well, unless you are a businessperson who likes to take time out of his or her busy day to bang out a few chords from “Smoke on the Water” before getting back to work…………

- At least no one ran onto the field and got a Taser blast this time, Philadelphia. Sure, having a young boy taking slugs from a longneck in the outfield stands looks bad on the surface, but at least this kid didn’t hop over the outfield fence, jump onto the field and run around like a headless chicken before stadium security sent a few dozen volts of electricity coursing through his body. The boy in question was spotted in a video clip from a Philadelphia Phillies broadcast in which he appears to drink from a beer bottle. While the quality of the video isn’t great, it has gone viral after first airing on Monday. Estimates have placed the child’s age at about 4, but even if he was 14, this would still be an issue. In the video, the boy raises the bottle to his lips and drinks, looking very much like he’s done it before. There are no adults around him paying attention when the boy takes the drink, which happened at Sunday's Phillies-Padres game at Citizens Bank Park. Of course, critics are trying to lump this incident in with previous incidents at the stadium earlier in the season, including the aforementioned Tasei-ng, the April incident in which a drunken fan intentionally vomited on an 11-year-old girl and another fan who ran onto the field the night after the Taser-ing incident. The Phillies issued the predictable response to the video, with team spokeswoman Bonnie Clark saying the team hasn't been able to identify the tot or the adults next to him. "Obviously, the Phillies, like everyone else, would not want a child to be permitted to consume any alcoholic beverage," she said. "We are confident that our employees and our fans would not allow this to happen if they were aware of it." In the aftermath, no one is investigating the incident, not even the Philadelphia police or the city's child-welfare agency. "If there was a report of neglect, we would investigate it. We have not received a report," said Alicia Taylor, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Human Services. Quite a classy joint you run there, Citizens Bank Park, quite a classy joint…………

- Anyone up for a vote on tougher sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program? If so, be at the United Nations on Wednesday, where the United Nations Security Council will vote on a new draft resolution to place restrictions on Iranian entities and individuals, including members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Additionally, a closed-door meeting was scheduled for later Wednesday to give Brazil and Turkey a chance to air their views on a nuclear fuel swap. That was confirmed by Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller, the current Security Council president. Leaders from both of those nations visited Tehran in May to broker a deal that the United States rejected as inadequate. Bearing that in mind, it’s not surprising that both Turkey and Brazil are strongly opposed to the resolution that the United States is pushing. Turkey is already riled up because significant numbers of its citizens were aboard the aid flotilla destined for Gaza that was raided by Israeli forces last week. The resolution needs nine votes to pass unless it is vetoed by one of the five permanent members of the 15-nation Security Council, which is not expected. The debate over the stricter sanctions will take place in light of comments by Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatening to cease negotiations with the West over its nuclear program if any new sanctions are adopted against his nation. Ahmadinejad made those threats Tuesday, warning that passing a resolution instead of sitting down for talks with Iran is a “grave mistake” by the United States. "Within the framework of respect and justice, we're ready to negotiate with everyone. Anyone who is going to resort to the language of force and aggression, the response is clear," the dictator fumed. Great, but force and aggression are what you’re all about, M. The first draft of the resolution restates the Security Council's demand that Tehran suspend enrichment activities and other proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities. Additionally, it stipulates that Iran cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The resolution would also impose sanctions including: an expanded arms embargo; a freeze on assets and a ban on travel of 40 entities and one individual; and a requirement that nations prohibit Iranian investment in foreign commercial activities capable of delivering nuclear weapons. There are reportedly strong links between these entities and Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, according to two senior U.S. If nothing else, it should an interesting showdown at the U.N. tomorrow and in the days to come…………

- World, our dreams have come true. For too long, we have been terrorized by the menace that is Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt as a married couple (sorry, but I refuse to use cutesy celebrity couple names). Fact is, neither of them ever should have been allowed anywhere near a television camera, but the damage could have been minimized. Hypothetically, if the two of them had never met, we may have only been subjected to the indignity that is Montag as a public figure. Had she never gotten together with that asinine, IQ-deficient tool known as Spencer Pratt, that a-hole would never have leaked like a toxic oil spill into the gulf of our lives and the pain of watching these two vapid, superficial, socially dysfunctional fools would have been halved. Well, I am proud to declare to all of you that the next best solution to this problem has come to fruition as Montag has filed for legal separation from Pratt.
The surgically carved circus freak who remotely resembles Montag and is using her name filed papers Tuesday at a Santa Monica, Calif., courthouse without a lawyer. She listed June 8 as the date of separation and cited irreconcilable differences. (Apparently “Both of us are immature, ass-hated nincompoops whose heads are so far up our asses that we can see our lungs” wasn’t an option on the form.) In any legal separation, each party's earnings received after the date of separation will be considered separate property, meaning the two will only need to split what they actually accumulated during their tortured (for everyone) time together. The legal separation was something of a formality, as one week ago Montag announced that she had moved out of the Pacific Palisades home she shared with Pratt. "I needed some alone time," she said at the time. "There are so many lies out there about me and I just needed space — even away from my husband." Normally I couldn’t care less about celebrity couple news because who is dating, sleeping with or breaking up with whom doesn’t affect me because I don’t know any of these people, but this is a special case because these two have so ruined everything they have touched and become pop culture staples that I can't help but hate both of them with a burning passion. The only sour note from all of this is that Montag and Hills guest star Jen Bunney, who are now living together, are shooting a new reality show together this summer. Yes, another Heidi Montag reality show even with The Hills ending. At least she’s sticking with what she knows and not trying to branch out into things she has no talent for, like……well, everything else in life besides reality television…………

- Sweet, another ugly spill spewing thousands of gallons of unhealthy garbage into the water supply in the southern United States. No, a major international oil company didn’t f**k up and send millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico again. This spill is, by comparison, smaller and slightly less lethal to marine life. It occurred in Austin, Tex., where a large wastewater sewage spill on Williamson Creek sent more than 100,000 gallons of untreated sewage into the creek - literally, a ginormous pile of crap. Austin Water Utility crews finally have managed to gain control of the spill and placed blame for the mess on tree roots that blocked a 10-inch sewer main in southwest Austin. Personally, I still wonder if BP had anything to do with this mess and believe that we should probably just charge them for the cleanup anyhow as part of their penance for the oil spill in the Gulf. The sewage leak was initially reported at 9:40 a.m. and because Williamson Creek is not flowing, the spill was contained by the end of the day. Crews quickly went to work cleaning up the sewage before expected rainfall that night. Thankfully, no drinking water was affected and no water service was interrupted. Video telescoping of the pipe where the leak originated revealed the tree roots as the culprit and several local roads were shut down as part of the cleanup process. AWU officials also urged residents and their pets to avoid the area and Williamson Creek until crews can complete clean-up and recover the remaining wastewater. The spill comes one month after some local hooligans removed a manhole cover and filled a 15-inch water line with debris, releasing a torrent of wastewater into Barton Creek near Austin. At least this time, it was nature that started the mess………….

Paying more to send and receive smartphone data, massive burgers and weekend movie news

- Smartphone users, think twice before you applaud AT&T's new pricing plans that will supposedly save you money and make life easier. As of today, new iPad and iPhone customers will pay $25 a month for 2 gigabytes of data, plus $10 for each additional gigabyte. The sunny side of the deal is that AT&T's old plan was $30 a month for unlimited data, meaning customers will have to use less than 2 GB a month for the new plan to save them money. As for the company’s 3 GB plan, it will now coast $35, up from $30 to $35. So the obvious question is how much is 2 GB, really? According to AT&T, it’s the equivalent of 10,000 emails without attachments, 1,500 emails with attachments, 4,000 Web pages, posting 500 photos to social media sites, and 200 minutes of streaming video combined. However, those optimistic figures don’t look as impressive when you mix video into the equation. As anyone who works with video knows, it racks up the gigabytes in a hurry. Given that Apple has used Netflix as one of its big selling points for the iPad, it’s worth factoring into any purchasing decision. Those who want to use their iPad for watching a Netflix video will soon discover that 2 GB of data will only get them between six and 12 hours of streaming movies and TV shows, depending on the bit rate Netflix used. Depending on the length of the movies, that means anywhere between four and eight flicks, on average. AT&T would contend that only 2 percent of its current customers use more than 2 gigabytes, but experts believe that number could soon change drastically as use of the iPad widens. Video is becoming a huge part of the online world for smartphone and tablet computer users and according to data tracker Nielsen, the average smart phone customer watched 3 hours and 15 minutes of mobile video each month last year, up 70 percent from 2008. Those figures were all recorded before the iPad went on sale, so the playing field has definitely changed and something tells me that serious backlash over the price points for these new plans is on the way sooner rather than later……….

- Another weekend, another box office win for Shrek Forever After, which grossed $25.3 million to raise its overall tally to $183 million. However, the film is still lagging well behind the previous three installments of the Shrek franchise and has a long way to go to match the original Shrek’s $267 million, which stands as the lowest-earning of the three films. In second place was Get Him to the Greek, which earned an $17.4 million in its opening weekend in theaters on the strength of, um……a lackluster cast fronted by Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and Diddy. It has a ways to go in order to break even with its $40 million budget, but should make it there. Next on the list was Killers, featuring Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher as a married couple in the spy business, with $16.1 million and mostly awful reviews. Finishing fourth for the weekend was Prince of Persia, earning another $13.8 million for a running total of $59.4 million. Still, it seems that the ladies just aren’t flocking to see Jake Gyllenhaal like they once did. Yet Persia was still stronger than the still-disappointing Sex and the City 2, which fell 59 percent for the weekend, earned a paltry $12.6 million and continued to fall well short of expectations. It’s total gross stands at $73.4 million, far behind its predecessor, which grossed $152.6 million two summers ago. Close behind was Marmaduke, the animated flick fronted by the voice cast of Owen Wilson and George Lopez, earning $11.3 million for the weekend for a sixth place finish. It may have done better had Twentieth Century Fox even tried to promote it, but that didn’t seem to be in the budget. Seventh place went to top 10 mainstay Iron Man 2, which made another $7.8 million in its fifth weekend in theaters to push its overall gross to the brink of the coveted $300 million mark ($291 million and counting). The R-rated Splice held down eighth place with a take of $7.4 million despite the name value of leading man Adrian Brody. Splice was the lowest-earning of the new releases and disrupted the normal success achieved by films that do well at Sundance. Ranking ninth for the weekend was Robin Hood with another $5.1 million, putting its domestic total at $94.3 million, further cementing the trend of Crowe’s films doing better on the international scene. Rounding out the top 10 was Letters to Juliet, starring Amanda Seyfried. The film lost 49 percent of its value and has now made $43.3 million overall. In total, box office earnings were down 24 percent compared to last year at this time, when The Hangover began began running wild. Check back in next week to see if The Karate Kid can kick the competition up a notch…………

- Of all the broadcasters in the game right now, there aren’t many who are more respected than CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz. The guy has called nearly every sport there is to call and he does them all with class, professionalism and skill. Up until now, the only place I ever found fault with the guy was the curmudgeon-y ass he used to call a partner, Billy Packer. However, if Nantz wants to continue having my (and anyone else’s) respect, he should probably stop quoting Bette Midler’s lyrics on air. Broadcasting as part of CBS’ coverage of this past weekend’s Memorial Championship, Nantz was searching for just the right words to describe Justin Rose’s comeback victory. Now, it can be difficult to summon up just the right words to fit the moment, so announcers typically deserve a little leeway on these things. Still, it’s their job to be eloquent and well-spoken in big moments. Maybe this is just me, but quoting Bette Midler’s “The Rose” doesn’t fit either of those criteria. Quoth Nantz: “This is the putt that wrapped it up. And what’s that Bette Midler song? How does that go? Think about his journey here. When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long …
Just remember in the winterfar beneath the bitter snows lies the seed that with the sun’s love
in the spring
becomes the rose.” Umm…..awkward. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me as far as CBS’ demographics for its golf broadcasts, but I’m guessing that there may have been two or three people watching the tournament who had any idea what the heck they had just heard. Also, I’m certain that Rose would have loved a quote from any other song ever written to commemorate his first PGA Tour victory. Go with “Every Rose Has Its Thorns” by Posion, go with anything but what you went with, Jimbo Nantz. But if you’re going to make that indefensible choice that will endear you only to older women and blatantly gay dudes (neither of whom are notorious for being huge golf fans), you should probably go the extra mile and sing those lyrics out proud, just the way Bette herself would do………..

- Good call, White House reporter Helen Thomas. Riding off into the sunset with a wave of racial carnage behind you is probably a good move, lest people remember you only as a bitter, bigoted and senile old woman who was caught on video telling a rabbi that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Germany and Poland. Thomas made those regrettable remarks last week during a White House event and likely because she’s old as dirt (and looks it) and still isn’t down with that new-fangled video stuff the kids are all talking about, she was virtually oblivious to the fact that the exchange was caught on tape. She then showed that Betty White isn’t the only senior citizen who can go viral, with the video spreading rapidly online and earning her plenty of unflattering evaluations not befitting of someone who has spent decades covering the White House with skill and tact. In light of her hateful words, her employer, Hearst News Service, announced Thomas’ resignation and she issued a statement apologizing for what she said. "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians," Thomas said a statement. "They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.” What, you mean the sort of mutual tolerance you exhibited by hatefully declaring that one of those parties should get the hell out of Palestine and go back to where they used to reside? Call me cynical, but I think following your example will actually kick the hostilities in the Middle East up a notch or ten, H. Predictably, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs condemned Thomas' remarks Monday. "Those remarks were offensive and reprehensible," Gibbs said, noting that her sentiments "do not reflect certainly most of the people here and certainly not those of the administration." Right behind Gibbs in the line to denounce Thomas was the White House Correspondents Association, which called the comments "indefensible," adding that the board "firmly dissociates itself from them.” Thomas also canceled a graduation speech and was dropped by her speaking agency, Nine Speakers. Why? What group of proud graduates wouldn’t have their special day made that much better with a racist, senile old woman coming to talk to them about the world as she sees it? Again, the sad thing for Thomas is that she was once known as a trailblazer who has covered the White House since the end of the Eisenhower administration, was the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association and became the first woman to be an officer of the National Press Club. Now? She’s that crazy old kook who is throwing out hate speech against Jews and telling them to go back where they came from…………

- This next story is why the world would be much better off if the Guinness Book of World Records had never existed. That book inspires idiots to attempt feats like cooking the world’s largest hamburger. The kooks inspired to make that attempt reside in Sydney, Australia and they have cooked up a 178-pound patty that took 12 hours to cook and four men to flip. Sydney cafe owners Joe and Iman El-Ajouz are claiming victory in the race for the biggest hunk of greasy meat on a bun after grilling up a monster burger that weights in at 198 pounds in total, besting the previous record of 185 pounds, set in Michigan. "Just flipping the patty was the main challenge for us, but it all went well," Iman El-Ajouz said. “My husband had to prepare special metal holders and a metal plate, he had one at the bottom one at the top, locked them together and they flipped the burger with that.” The burger consisted of one giant beef patty, 120 eggs, 150 slices of cheese, more than three pounds of beetroot, five and a half pounds of tomatoes and almost four and a half pounds of lettuce, all topped off with a special sauce on a giant sesame seed bun. And no, it was not eaten in one sitting by Rosie O’Donnell or Kirstie Alley, although I’m thinking that was because they simply weren’t notified in time to attend. Instead, café employees chowed down on the massive hunk of meat and tested it out in preparation for its addition to the café’s menu next year in order to meet the conditions for a Guinness world record. It will be on the menu, but it will take a patron with both a deep pocketbook and a FAT bank account to buy this burger. The cost of $1,220 should prohibit most would-be buyers, but eventually someone is going to purchase one and then have their meals taken care of (lots of leftovers!) for the next year or so……………

Kellogg lies about its cereal, the NFL gradually addresses the issue of concussions and a championship for Cleveland (sort of)

- Could you please stop lying about the health benefits of your breakfast cereals, Kellogg? No one eats cereal because they want some great health food, so just be up front about what you put into it and what effect it will have on someone who consumes it. Aside from being a responsible business, you would also see the nice fringe benefit of not having the Federal Trade Commission bring false advertising charges against you twice in one year. Right now, that’s exactly what Kellogg is dealing with, settling on charges that it presented misleading information about the health benefits of its Rice Krispies cereal. Kellogg claimed that Rice Krispies boosts a child's immunity with "25 percent Daily Value of Antioxidants and Nutrients – Vitamins A, B, C and E," a claim the FTC labeled "dubious" while ordering the company to discontinue all advertising stating these facts. Kellogg has agreed to the order, which seems like a wise move given the fact that the FTC likely has enough long-term memory to remember back to last April, when the Kellogg Company settled FTC charges over false advertising claims for another of its breakfast cereals, Frosted Mini-Wheats. That campaign claimed the cereal was clinically shown to improve kids' attentiveness by nearly 20 percent, a claim that seemed dubious at the itme, in no small part because it was fronted by a talking piece of frosted, shredded wheat cereal. When the FTC conducted clinical studies of Frosted Flakes, it discovered that only half the children who ate the cereal had improved attentiveness and that very few–only 1 in 9 - were 20 percent more attentive. That case was also settled and the terms of the settlement barred Kellogg from making these claims, and from misrepresenting test results in any breakfast or snack food products. "We expect more from a great American company than making dubious claims – not once, but twice – that its cereals improve children's health," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "Next time, Kellogg needs to stop and think twice about the claims it's making before rolling out a new ad campaign, so parents can make the best choices for their children." In light of this second showdown, the FTC has modified its original order from the first case and has now barred Kellogg from making any misleading or unsubstantiated health-related claims about any of the food products the company sells unless there is scientific evidence to back those claims. "What is particularly disconcerting to us," said FTC Commissioner Julie Brill, "Is that at the same time Kellogg was making promises to the commission regarding Frosted Mini-Wheats, the company was preparing to make problematic claims about Rice Krispies." Well, you didn’t say anything about Rice Krispies at the time, FTC. Anyone who knows breakfast cereal knows that Mini-Wheats and Rice Krispies are two very different breakfast cereals. Next time, be clearer about what you want a company to do or not do. As for Kellogg, the company released a statement: "Kellogg Company has a long history of responsible advertising. We stand behind the validity of our product claims and research, so we agreed to an order that covers those claims. We believe that the revisions to the existing consent agreement satisfied any remaining concerns." With that, Kellogg also signed an official FTC order, which is just like a court order and is legally binding. What that means is if the company violates the order in any way, it could be fined up to $16,000 per violation. Now, can anyone tell me what sort of health benefits I can get from a nice, big bowl of sugar-coated Frosted Flakes…………

- Remember back in 2008 when the world turned its eyes on Beijing, looking forward to the 2008 Summer Olympics in China’s capital city? What you may not recall from that same time is the rampant, suffocating pollution hanging over the city and concerns as to whether the air quality would actually be good enough to allow athletes, especially those in endurance events, to safely participate. You had competitors showing up to the Games with surgical masks on, refusing the venture outside of their hotel rooms except for competitions and a general anxiety about how much damage they were doing to their lungs merely by attending the Olympics in the first place. Chinese officials went insane in their quest to ride Beijing’s air of pollution, taking unprecedented and often controversial measures to sanitize the air. These officials could not have cared less than much of the rest of the country was still covered in a thick blanket of noxious smog, just as long as Beijing looked nice and had (somewhat) breathable air for visitors and athletes. At that time, a stunning 16 of the world's 20 most-polluted cities were in China. At present, it would seem that most of those 16 cities have done little to nothing to remove themselves from that dubious list. Chief among the offending cities is Linfen, a coal-mining and manufacturing hub in the heart of Shanxi Province. A film crew recently visited the landlocked province in northern China to see just what the single most polluted place on Earth looks like. The crew found a city in which the sun disappears much earlier in the day than it’s supposed to, dropping from view behind a curtain of smog above the true horizon. Living with air that would choke the breath out of most people has become a way of life in Linfen and many of the city’s elderly have trouble speaking between gasps of emphysema. The water is nearly as polluted as the air, with that dynamic duo causing many longtime residents to move from the city. Way to show that you were serious about cleaning up your air and ceasing your massive damage done on a daily basis to the Earth’s atmosphere, China………..

- And so the debate on how to handle concussions among National Football League players drags on. Don’t get the wrong idea; I’m all for addressing the concussion issue and making players safer both now and after their careers are over. However, I cannot for the life of me understand why it seems to be such a battle to get everyone on the same page and taking steps toward properly addressing the prevention and treatment of concussions. The latest step in this interminably long process came Wednesday at a meeting on football and brain injury. Neurologists at the daylong seminar with the NFL explained that even without symptoms, blows to the head can be deceptively severe. They “can lead to long-term consequences or later emergence of symptoms,” said Dr. Constantine Lyketsos, a doctor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine after a . “Symptom severity is not a clear indicator of how badly the brain is injured.” Medical representatives from all 32 NFL teams and commissioner Roger Goodell were on hand at several experts from Johns Hopkins Medicine spoke on concussions. Given that the NFL has been accused of minimizing evidence about the dangers of football concussions, you’d think that gathering for seminars would have happened a long time ago and that the league would be actively moving forward on the issue by now. Maybe hearing Lyketsos say a study has shown an average college football player endures about 950 blows to the head during a season will open NFL eyes. The force of those blows may vary, but none of them are gentle love taps, it would seem safe to say. Helmet technology allowing real-time monitoring of the impact of hits to the head is available, so perhaps that should be implemented sooner rather than later. The seminar focused on four major concussion-related topics:1) asymptomatic effects of blows to the head and their consequences, 2) head injuries and their relation to cognitive decline, dementia, depression, 3) chronic traumatic encephalopathy, repeated head injury, often seen in professional boxers that also occurs in NFL players and 4) how long it takes for the brain to recover after a significant hit. This research isn’t relevant only to elite football players. “What we learn about long-term consequence for football players has implication for millions of athletes who suffer concussion and head blows,” Lysetkos said. “It also has implications for soldiers who are at increased exposure to blasts.” Whether this meeting of the minds leads to any substantive action on the part of the NFL remains to be seen, but past evidence doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of hope for that…………

- Cleveland, LeBron James may be about to leave you, the Cavs may have no head coach and the Browns and Indians may be…..well, the Browns and Indians, but at least you have one champion you can hang your hat on - sort of. Even though 14-year-old Anamika Veeramani, the champion of the 83rd Scripps National Spelling Bee, doesn’t technically hail from C-Town, she’s close enough for the downtrodden residents of one of America’s most tortured sports cities to count her as one of their own. Veeramani, who lives in the Cleveland suburb of North Royalton, snagged the winner's trophy, which also comes with more than $40,000 in cash and prizes, and exclaimed, "Go Cavs!" shortly after winning. The eighth-grader also plays golf, likes to dance, wants to go to Harvard and become a cardiovascular surgeon, so those winnings should help her there. The word she won on, fittingly enough for an aspiring surgeon, was the medical term "stromuhr." Veeramani was icy calm throughout the event and didn’t smile until it was all over. "It was too surreal," she said. "It was an amazing experience. I usually have a poker face, so that's what that was." Veeramani also had experience on her side, having tied for fifth last year. She also became the third consecutive Indian-American champion, and the eighth the last 12 years. In so doing, she broke a spelling bee championship drought for the state of Ohio, which had not had a winner since 1964. Her closest competitors were Adrian Gunawan, 14, of Arlington Heights, Ill.; Elizabeth Platz, 13, of Shelbina, Mo.; and Shantanu Srivatsa, 13, of West Fargo, N.D., all of whom were eliminated in the same round. A total of 273 spellers began the event on Wednesday, but only Veeramani was left standing at the end of the three days. She overcame a tough word - "juviam" a Brazil nut, then waited through a 3½-minute commercial before spelling the championship word. "It was just really nerve-racking," Veeramani said. "The commercial breaks didn't really help." Her win wasn’t without controversy, as organizers stopped the semifinals in the middle of a round early Friday afternoon with 10 spellers left because they worried there wouldn't be enough spellers left to fill the event’s upcoming two-hour slot on ABC. Six of those who abruptly advanced to the finals didn’t have to spell a word in the interrupted round. That was a problem because the order of each round is determined by the alphabetical order of the U.S. states, so some of the spellers who were eliminated in the interrupted round before it was stopped merely had the misfortune of going early in the round when a later position could have placed them in the finals without having to spell a word. Such are the pitfalls when your dork-fest garners a prime-time slot on a major over-air network. In the end, it resulted in a championship for the Cleveland area and because I don’t think any of the city’s sports franchises will be delivering one of those any time soon, this one will have to do……………

- It’s worked before, but I don’t believe this campaign to save a canceled TV show is going to work. Fans of the ABC drama FlashForward are hoping that they can reverse the network’s decision to pull the plug on the sci-fi drama after one short season and are using the show’s own mythology to stage protests for the cause. The show’s premise was based upon a massive global blackout affecting every person in the world losing consciousness for two minutes and to lobby for their favorite show’s renewal, FlashForward fans will stage massive blackouts in front of ABC offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and several other major cities on June 10. "On October 6, 2009, the whole world blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, at the start of what promised to be ABC's new hit show, FlashForward," the "Save FlashForward" website says. "On June 10th, there will be another blackout, this time to change fate." The demonstrations will take place weeks after ABC chose not to renew the ratings-deficient first-year drama, which launched to major fanfare but saw its ratings quickly decline once the “new car” smell wore off. The staged blackouts are just one tactic in the fight to keep the show alive, along with mailing out calendars with the date April 29th circled (the date of the show’s flash-forwards and of the second global blackout), friendship bracelets like the one a character on the show gave her father and letters to ABC President Stephen McPherson. Other grassroots efforts to save shows have met with varying degrees of success. In 2008, Jericho fans sent peanuts CBS executives (trust me, it made sense in relation to the show) and were able to coax a short second season from the network. A more recent example is one of my favorite shows, NBC’s Chuck, which fans saved after two seasons by flocking to series advertiser Subway as part of the "Finale and a Footlong" campaign. That led to a full third season for the spy comedy/drama and with that second chance, Chuck performed well enough to garner a fourth season. FlashForward's ended on May 27 season with a cliffhanger-heavy finale that attracted 4.95 million viewers. Ultimately, bringing the show back to life is all but impossible. Three of the drama's main cast members have already committed to other TV projects and so fans will just have to live with the reality that main characters Benford and FBI agent Janis Hawk (Christine Woods) will forever be in television limbo, stuck in either 2011 or 2015 - or perhaps somewhere in between………….

Declining album sales, the race to buy the rights to outer space and how burgers may cause asthma

- I guess all those efforts, crusades and campaigns to stop illegal sharing and downloading of music aren’t having their desired effect, eh recording industry? Not if the figures released this week by Nielsen Soundscan are accurate. For the week ending May 30, Soundscan claimed the U.S. music industry sold a total of 4,984,000 albums. That figure is the lowest of any week since the company began compiling this data in 1994. It includes new and catalog releases, so having numbers that low is cause for concern within the recording industry. The total is more than three quarters of a million units less than those sold for the week ending May 31, 2009, when the total was 5.76 million. By comparison, the highest one-week tally recorded during the Soundscan era is 45.4 million albums, in late December, 2000. Major record levels now face a scary future in which the touring scene is changing and album sales are clearly in a freefall that no one sees a way out of. Not that any further negative news is needed at this point, but Billboard estimates that weekly album sales total could actually be the lowest since the early 1970s.

"We think this is the lowest week ever, or at least of the Soundscan era," says Universal Music Group Distribution president Jim Urie. The Recording Industry Association of America, which should know such things, puts the number of album shipments in 1973 at 388.2 million units, an average of 7.47 million per week. The two figures - albums sold as opposed to shipped - are obviously different, so Billboard looked at the relationship between annual album shipments as measured by the RIAA and annual albums sold, as compiled by Soundscan, for the years 1992-2009. Over that time, shipments exceeded scans by an average of 30 percent and applying that same standard to the 1973 RIAA album shipment data, weekly album sales volume for that year may have been in the vicinity of 5.5 million units. Top industry executives concur that this week's album sales total of 4.98 million units is "pretty scary," in the words of Bruce Ogilvie, CEO of leading music wholesaler Super D. Predictably, those in the industry are citing these numbers as evidence for an increased focus on getting Congress to introduce legislation that aligns Internet service providers and record labels in fighting piracy. Not that anything else has worked in stopping people in their quest for free music, but go ahead and lobby for that, recording industry………….

- Say hello to the future of the American space program. With President Obama slashing funding for NASA and all but ripping the right to explore space from the agency, we now must turn to men like PayPal co-founder Elon Musk and his new company, Space Exploration Technologies, for our outer space fix. On Friday, SpaceX’s first launch test for its own rocket took place. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after an earlier attempt to launch Friday was aborted seconds before ignition. The entire project was paid for by a man named Musk and many in the world of all things spacey believe that his project could serve as a symbol of the future and carry astronauts and cargo to the international space station. The Falcon 9 carries a mockup of its space capsule, called Dragon, as part of its payload. With its budget going in the wrong direction in a hurry, NASA hopes companies such as SpaceX can take over transportation to the international space station. "It's time for NASA to hand that over to commercial industry who can then optimize the technology and make it more reliable, make it much lower cost and make it much more routine," Musk said. Oddly enough, this guy believes the U.S. is at the beginning of a major renaissance in space exploration, perhaps greater than at any other time in our nation’s history. "If the country executes and the administration and Congress execute in that direction, the impact of these changes will be on par, perhaps even greater, than ... the task that Kennedy put us on to," he said. Of course, one has to wonder if the privatization of space travel will spark the same cries of socialism that every other Obama administration decision has seemed to incur, whether those cries were merited or had any basis in reality or not. Maybe private companies will find newer, more efficient ways to conduct space travel than NASA, who knows. NASA selected SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences, to each develop an orbital vehicle because the U.S. will soon be without its own ride to the space station. Instead, we’ll be renting space from the Russians aboard their Soyuz spacecraft. SpaceX has plenty of competitors in the race to space among private contractors and has already spent nearly $400 million to get there. Along the way, there will undoubtedly be setbacks; SpaceX acknowledges that much. Still, the company has former astronaut Ken Bowersox is a vice president, the same Ken Bowersox who flew five space shuttle missions as a commander and pilot and lived on the space station for more than five months as its commander. "Either way, we're going to learn something," Bowersox said. "If we have a problem, we can move forward accepting a higher level of risk. That's how we can be more cost-effective." As for its maiden flight, Falcon 9 was in the air for about 10 minutes and deployed the mock Dragon capsule into a 155-mile orbit. That orbit would last for a year, after which the capsule would orbit for about a year and burn up in the atmosphere. If everything goes into plan and subsequent test flights are similarly successful, Musk says SpaceX will be ready to begin flying cargo to the space station next year. Still, it would be up to NASA to award the contract to SpaceX and allow Musk and Co. to begin ferrying astronauts to the space station within three years. "We want to see a future where we are exploring the stars, where we're going to other planets, where we're doing the great things that we read about in science fiction and in the movies," Musk said. So welcome to the new frontier of space, where the right to fly the friendly galaxy skies belongs to the highest bidder…………

- Chace Crawford, you have a couple of options right now. After being arrested for possession of pot in your hometown Plano, Texas, early Friday morning, you can do one of two things: 1) claim it wasn’t your hippie lettuce and you were holding it for a friend, or 2) say you were doing research for a future role. Both are tried and true tactics any time a celebrity is busted for possession of the chronic. Fact is, there are going to be a lot of very mean people out there saying a lot of harsh things about the "Gossip Girl" actor because he was arrested on a marijuana charge. Sure, it’s only a misdemeanor charge involving possession of less than two ounces of marijuana, but the naysayers don’t care about the amount of tree you possessed or the severity of the charges against you. Even though the charge carries a maximum of 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, first offenders can usually expect a year or less probation. In other words, Crawford will get a slap on the wrist, maybe some community service, counseling, etc. Personally, I don’t have a huge beef with the guy in this situation. I have more of an issue with his crappy glorified soap opera of a show on the steaming, stinking pile of monkey crap that show calls its home network. Besides, you all know my affinity for stoners. They’re peace-loving, mellow people who just want to chill out, get baked, watch TV and munch on tasty snacks. So if Crawford wants to ride around in his 2003 Nissan 350Z with a measly two ounces of bud on his person, don’t bother him. Celebrities have too many people hassling them when they go out in public anyhow. Autograph seekers, paparazzi, etc. are all over them, so the last thing they need is the police up in their face too. Leave this guy alone, leave stoners in general alone and let’s try to focus on more pressing issues in society than arresting and jailing Nate Archibald of "Gossip Girl" notoriety…………

- I don’t know that there is anything terribly surprising or important about Danny Ferry resigning Friday as general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers after five seasons. Whether Ferry sits in the GM’s chair or assistant GM Chris Grant takes over for Ferry, neither of them is running the Cavs at this point. That job, ironically, is occupied by a guy who will soon be opting out of his contract with the team and becoming a free agent, a Mr. LeBron James. James is the one calling the shots in Cleveland and whatever he wants as a condition to re-sign with the team, owner Dan Gilbert is going to give him. The first move in this chess game came after James shut it down and his team choked in an Eastern Conference semifinal loss to Boston after it became apparent they were overmatched. Head coach Mike Brown was fired and the speculation began as to who would replace him. The move may have caused issued between Gilbert and Ferry, who hired Brown five years ago. Whatever the case, with Ferry’s contract up at the end of the month, Gilbert decided to hand the reigns to Grant. What’s funny is that rumors of University of Memphis coach John Calipari returning to the NBA and being the preferred coach of James, numerous sources stated that there was no way Ferry would stand for having Calipari come in and assume the powerful role he would undoubtedly have to receive in order to leave Memphis. Now, Ferry is gone, the Cavs still don’t have a coach and they are still as willing as ever to capitulate to any demands James may have. "It's the right time to move on," Ferry said in an interview after resigning. "I thought it was important that there was as much clarity as possible in the organization at this time, so things could start moving forward. It's important that whomever is hired as the head coach knows and understands the people he is going to work with." In other words, I saw what was coming and for reasons that will soon become clear to the rest of you, I didn’t like it, not one bit. As amazing as it may be to see a team get rid of both its coach and GM despite winning 143 games the past two seasons, the fact is that Ferry and Brown failed in the ultimate goal: bringing a championship to Cleveland. Gilbert is a megalomaniacal, egotistical titan of business who will not tolerate anything less than absolute success. "You've got to be willing to take some risks, calculated ones, and make changes when they're necessary," Gilbert said after Ferry stepped down/was fired. And no, I don’t buy the story that Ferry and Gilbert made a mutual decision not to renew Ferry’s contract. If you believe that, the I’ve got a beautiful chunk of oceanfront land in Nebraska I’d like to sell you. Gilbert is grasping at straws in his frantic push to re-sign James and anyone who isn’t fully on board with doing anything - ANYTHING - it takes to make that happen is going to be tossed overboard. How great it must be right now, being a Cavs fan and knowing that the entire future of your franchise in the hands of a guy who could be holding up another team’s No. 6 jersey at an introductory press conference in less than a month…………

- Not that we didn’t already know this, but burgers are not good for your health. They might be lighter on the wallets and bank accounts of people looking for a fast, cheap food item to cram down their pie hole, but their effect on those who consumer them - especially children - may be heavier than anyone realized. According to a new study conducted by Dr. Gabriele Nagel in the Institute of Epidemiology at Ulm University, “high burger consumption is associated with higher lifetime asthma prevalence” for children. The findings were published in the recent issue of the journal Thorax and for purposes of the study, high burger consumptions was defined as eating three or more a week. Nagel and his colleagues analyzed data collected on 50,000 children for 10 years in 20 rich and poor countries to examine how diet affected asthma or food allergies. They asked parents about their children’s normal diet and whether they had ever had asthma or bad wheezing. Not surprisingly, they found that children who consumed burgers at a high rate had a higher incidence of asthma than kids who are healthier foods like fruit, vegetables and fish. This could be because “fast food is rich in industrially hydrogenated vegetable fats such as margarine and meat from ruminant animals which are dietary sources of trans-fatty acids,” researchers postulated. "The frequency of burger consumption could be considered as a proxy for unknown lifestyle factors which may vary depending on the societal context, environmental and other lifestyle factors.” So go ahead and add “possible cause of asthma in children” to the list of negative effects that fatty, greasy burgers may have on people, right alongside clogged arteries, heart disease, obesity, indigestion and plenty more. And we wonder why we’re the FAT-test, unhealthiest nation around, America………..