Taxing lap dances, seagulls attack baseball and Riot Watch! Philippines

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The Philippines were the scene and better jobs, more inclusive growth and the protection of human rights were the reason behind massive demonstrations as thousands of protesters took to the streets to speak out and rise up ahead of President Benigno Aquino III’s state of the union address. Seeing a large crowd of people making noise in conjunction with a state of the union speech and not being the sycophantic ass hats who applaud wildly every five seconds during the President of the United States’ own speech addressing the current state of his country’s affairs was refreshing, as was the sight of angry protestors burning Aquino in effigy and hurling eggs at the police officers blocking the main road going to the House of Representatives. While a few explosives here or there, perhaps a Molotov cocktail or 50, would have been a nice addition to the day, the protest that actually took place was solid enough. The angry masses converged about two kilometers from the House of Representatives compound and there, they were met by riot police who set up barricades and braced for the onslaught that was coming their way. It would be easy to dismiss the uprising as a small number of malcontents with a grudge against the president, but they did have the good sense to hang their demonstration on the principles of opposing a counter-insurgency campaign that rights groups have alleged led to human rights abuses. Many protestors carried placards with denouncing the campaign, so there is clearly a wealth of rage going around and that’s reasons enough to hope that sooner or later, larger and angrier riots will happen. If not in Manila, then maybe somewhere else in the Philippines, a place where people are just as pissed off and even more willing to get violent……..

- Is time up for the world’s most endangered feline species? Assuming that one counts possibly being extinct some time in the next five decades as time being up, then sure. According to a new report published in the most recent edition of the journal Nature Climate Change, the Iberian lynx could become the first cat species in at least 2,000 years to become extinct and that extinction could happen within 50 years. The big cat is projected to be a victim of climate change and it has much to do with the dwindling population of the lynx’s primary dietary staple. That would be the European rabbit, which makes up 80 percent of the cat’s diet. The study warns that current efforts to boost population of the distinctive cat may extend the existence of the lynx, but only for a few decades. For many years, the Iberian Lynx was prevalent in parts of Spain, Portugal and France. Even though its ranks may not be the target for hunters on a consistent basis, rabbit populations have drastically fallen because of overhunting, disease and habitat reduction, leaving the lynx without its favorite meal. Climate change has played a major role in the reduction of the rabbit’s habitats and as that has taken place, wild Iberian lynx populations have dwindled from nine groups in the 1990s to two in 2013. An estimated total of 250 Iberian Lynxes live in the wild and there is a well-funded captive breeding program underway with a goal to release genetically diverse animals into suitable habitats. Unfortunately, this study claims the conservation strategy is flawed because it fails to take into account climate change and its influence on prey abundance……..

- A Flock of Seagulls has tormented generations of county fair visitors, ’80s-themed dance attendees and party goers for years. They have made everyone with ears to hear want to run…..run so far away….and feel the need to get away. A very different flock of seagulls are now tormenting the struggling San Francisco Giants and their intrepid fans. While the Giants linger below .500 and in fourth place in the National League West, they are also battling an ever-worsening onslaught of the birds at home games. Team officials are befuddled by the infestation and are attempting to find humane solution to the issue. The gulls have been flocking to the park at the end of night games since the park along San Francisco Bay opened in 2000, but the number of gulls flying over, landing around the stadium and even defecating on fans has increased substantially this season. The issue was on display for all to see when a massive swarm took place in March during the World Baseball Classic semifinal between the Netherlands and the Dominican Republic, and similar invasions have occurred throughout the year. Hundreds of gulls have descended on the park at times, clearly aware of what time night games typically end and the abundance of leftover food and beverages fans leave behind when they exit the stadium. Having birds defecate on fans and create cleanup headaches for staff members is a problem and players are well aware of the birds. "You're focused on the pitcher," Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford said. "But you definitely notice them." Even biologists and seagull specialists aren’t sure how the sea gulls time their arrival for the end of games to feast on discarded hot dogs, popcorn and other food. There is no easy solution, although the gulls did disappear for a time late in the 2011 season when a red-tailed hawk nicknamed "Bruce Lee" began frequenting the park. For a reason known only to ass hats who write federal laws, shooting seagulls is illegal. Hiring a falconer to scare them away would cost $8,000 a game, said Jorge Costa, the Giants' manager of operations. There is also a chance a falcon could gruesomely kill a sea gull in front of families and a television audience, so the possibilities for entertainment are virtually endless………

- Tame Impala are not just a trendy indie rock band. The Australian psych-rockers have had their music be the soundtrack for several recent commercials and now they are lending their musical talents for a great cause. After a pregnant friend had her car stolen, Tame Impala decided to put together an instrumental band they're calling Cam, cam and kevin's groovy groovy funtime disco funk elevator explosion, aka kevin spacey, and that new band will play a one-off gig in order to raise money for their friend. The show came together on short notice and the band announced the last minute gig on Facebook, writing: "Hey perthian fiends, our good friend the lovely and evidently pregnant felicity groom had her car stolen on saturday morning, so we're all going to THE BIRD tonight to raise money for a new one! playing is Maurice Flavel, Electric Toad and our new band we made at about 4 o'clock this afternoon cam, cam and kevin's groovy groovy funtime disco funk elevator explosion, aka kevin spacey, in an elevator. that's the band name, all of that. in fact this whole post is the band name. including this. oh yeah and we didn't have time to find a vocalist so it's instrumental, the best kind of ental. get down there yo's!” As absurd as instrumental jam band typically are, this one doesn’t sound quite so bad and this is, if nothing else, a unique case of an band using its talents not to meet and sleep with as many hot chicks as possible, but to help one in a difficult spot get the money she needs to replace a stolen car……..

- Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter administration is not making any friends. Thankfully, the administration’s decision to tax the pathetic, greasy, lowlife losers who frequent strip clubs and pay coke-addled strippers with daddy issues and no self-esteem to grind on them for a few minutes is not going unchallenged. That decision to start taxing lap dances at strip clubs is being challenged in court by two affected clubs, Club Risque and Cheerleaders. The clubs’ attorney, George Bochetto, says his clients were suddenly and unfairly hit with bills for back taxes for back room activities. “Out of the blue, they then got a bill for $400,000, $500,000,” Bochetto said. “Imposing this amusement tax on lap dances.” Mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald explained that city attorneys believe lap dances should be subject to the longstanding city amusement tax. “It’s the considered opinion of the Law Department and the Revenue Department that this tax applies appropriately, in this case,” McDonald explained. “The city views this as a taxable activity.” In other words, there’s a chance we can get away with this and strip clubs are among the most despicable places on Earth, so why not take a chance on enforcing the tax and see if it stands up in court? In response, Borchetto claims the amusement tax is already imposed on the cover charge to get into strip clubs. “It does not apply to activities once you’re already in a place of amusement and have already paid a cover charge and an amusement tax on the cover charge,” Borchetto argued. He believes this move could set a dangerous precedent for taxing any skeezy activity once a person is inside a place of amusement. Along with an attorney for another club, Delilah’s, Borchetto launched his legal challenge to the tax Tuesday before the city’s tax review board……….

Barking at police dogs, poisonous Pakistani politics and movie news

- People having the sh*t scared out of them was a big draw the movies this weekend as newcomer “The Conjuring” claimed the top spot at the box office with a $41.5 million debut. That total was sufficient to displace last week’s earnings champion, “Despicable Me 2.” The animated flick featuring the vocal talents of Steve Carrell slipped to second with $25 million and through three productive weeks, has banked $276.1 million in domestic earnings. The second new movie in the top 10 was “Turbo,” which powered its way to $21.5 million and has a long way to go to earn back its $135 million budget. Fourth place belonged to “Grown Ups 2,” which brought in $20 million and has somehow managed to rake in $79.5 million in two weeks despite sucking exponentially. A newcomer-dominated top five included geezer spy flick “Red” with its $18.5 million effort that doesn’t exactly scream long-term success. “Pacific Rim” continues to be the antithesis of a dominant force at the movies, earning $15.9 million in its second weekend for a domestic total of $68.2 million against a robust $190 million budget. The fourth and final new movie to crack the top 10 was the Jeff Bridges-led “R.I.P.D.” It hauled in $12.7 million and might be the biggest surprise of the weekend when it comes to films with a massive budget because Universal somehow spent $130 million making it. “The Heat” slipped four spots to eighth in its fourth weekend, its biggest decline to date, with $9.4 million for the frame. After one month in theaters, the female buddy comedy has amassed $129.2 million. “World War Z” was slotted ninth with $5.2 million to boost its five-week haul to $186.9 million. “Monsters University” completed the top 10 with $5 million to place its domestic total at $248.9 million. “The Lone Ranger” (No. 11), “White House Down” (No. 12) and “Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain” (No. 14) all lost their spots in the top 10 from last weekend……..

- The Transportation Security Administration is joking, right? Flying is already an über-costly experience in terms of money, sanity and personal dignity, so leave it to a government agency to find a way to pry even more money out of the pockets of intrepid travelers. This way dangles the carrot of expediting the ever-annoying TSA screening process and profit from it. The plan is to dramatically expand the program to get travelers through airport checkpoints faster by inviting them to pay a nominal fee for voluntary background checks. Yes, invite the government further into your life and pay for the privilege. As presently constituted, the TSA’s pre-check program offers travelers separate lines at checkpoints, where they leave on shoes and light coats and keep laptops in their bags. It currently operates at 40 airports and now covers members of frequent-flier programs for Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, United, US Airways and Virgin America airlines. Travelers typically can apply with little more than the information provided when buying a ticket. TSA Administrator John Pistole announced expanded eligibility for the program for anyone with enough spare cash and few enough brain cells to pay a one-time fee of $85 for five years, to cover an application with identifying information such as address and birthplace, a background check and fingerprinting. The first two enrollment centers are scheduled to open in the fall at Washington's Dulles and Indianapolis airports. "This initiative will increase the number of U.S. citizens eligible to receive expedited screening, through TSA Pre-check," Pistole said. Pistole has made a point of shifting security scrutiny from a blanket suspicion of everyone to focusing the most scrutiny on the riskiest travelers. "That's our way of dealing with risk-based security and saying let's get away from the one-size-fits-all, and let's focus on the those that we can pre-screen ... so we can expedite your physical screening at the checkpoint because we have a high confidence that you are not a terrorist," Pistole added. The agency’s goal is to expand the program to cover 25 percent of travelers by the end of the year and 50 percent by the end of 2014. Imagine the money that will bring in for the government to ultimately waste……….

- Surfers make tasty snacks for sharks. Surfers generally blanche at the idea of being eaten by a shark. Australians like to surf a lot. Put all of these facts together and it makes perfect sense that Australian researchers say they've come up with the first shark-proof wetsuits. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there is no Kevlar involved and no magic fiber that somehow prevent sharks from taking a ginormous bite out of a guy waiting to catch a righteous wave. The suit works by using visual trickery to throw a shark’s attention elsewhere, thereby keeping surfers safe. One model of the shark-proof suit features black and white stripes, based on the idea that t a shark would see that as a warning to stay away from possibly poisonous prey. A second suit is predominantly blue and colored in a way that is supposed to help a person blend in with the water around them and become – in a sense – invisible to the color-blind sharks. Such suits could be a huge asset following a recent surge in shark attacks in Australia. Scientists from the University of Western Australia used the spike in attacks as an impetus to team up with designers from the commercial Shark Attack Mitigation Systems to create the $500 suits. Their efforts produced a usable product in a relatively short amount of time and the suits went on sale last week. Aside from testing carried out by the people now attempting to profit off the suits, the effectiveness of this new (possible) miracle product has not been proven. Maybe the suits can offer a benefit to sharks as well because eating poisonous prey is much more damaging to the ol’ reputation than being tricked by an optical illusion-based wetsuit…….

- What is the price of playing a key role in the murder of 22 people? That would be $500, or 50,000 rupees in Pakistan, where a cook has been accused of poisoning to death 22 people and sending 50 more to the hospital as part of a political feud between two branches of the same family. The government has confirmed the incident in the town of Mailsi in Punjab province, an incident that came on the heels of provincial elections in which Arsal Khan Khichi lost to his cousin Jehanzaeb Khan Khichi. Police chief Sadiq Dogar confirmed that Arsal Khan Khichi is accused of paying a cook, Mohammad Rafiq, 50,000 rupees ($500) to poison food at his rival's home on June 9. Rafiq has confessed to poisoning the food, Dogar said, but police waited to arrest him until they received medical reports that confirmed the dead had been poisoned. The no-good chef is in police custody, but Arsal Khan Khichi is still on the run. A murder case has also been lodged against him for the deaths of the 22 people who consumed the toxic food at the dinner. Such an incident was probably inevitable in Pakistan, where family members often run against one another in elections and politics are an extremely violent and vicious arena. The animosity typically stops short of paying a cook to drop some arsenic or another toxic chemical into the soup or use it to flavor the bread before distributing it to those eating the meal, but losses in races for elected offices can be difficult to accept…….

- No argument in life ever can or should be won with the argument that, “Hey, that dog barked at me first.” Florida Gators linebacker Antonio Morrison finds himself in the unenviable position of making this very argument after he was arrested for the second time in five weeks, this time for allegedly barking at a police dog and resisting arrest. According to the police report, he attempted to justify his alleged crime by claiming that the dog barked at him first. An Alachua County Sheriff Office's report claims that police responded to a suspicious incident and disturbance call at 3:43 a.m. Sunday at a Gainesville hotel adjacent to a nightclub. Officer William A. Arnold investigated the vehicle that was the subject of the call and as he did his work, a group of several men were walking along SW 13th Street. The men, who were not related to the incident, became part of it when one of them reportedly approached the patrol car and began barking at his police dog through the open window. The report added that the barking t caused the dog, named Bear, to bark back at the man, which Arnold says in his report diverted his attention from investigating the vehicle. Arnold then reportedly instructed the man  -- later identified by his driver's license as Morrison -- to wait in front of his patrol car. Morrison then compounded his woes by allegedly resisting arrest when Arnold tried to handcuff him. Two other officers arrived on the scene and helped subdue Morrison, according to the report. Alachua County Sheriff's spokesman Art Forgey noted how unusual it is for an ass hat to harass a police dog. "We don't see that very often at all," he said. "Gainesville Police Department has horses and they see it sometimes. Usually everybody steers clear of the dogs." Not the man who is expected to be the Gators' starting middle linebacker this season, a man who was already in Florida coach Will Muschamp’s disciplinary crosshairs after June 16 arrest for battery after he punched a nightclub bouncer because he was not given a discounted rate for admission………

When hawks attack, ignoring the Tour de France and Disney Channel + Star Wars

- Apple’s quest to improve its malfunctioning mapping service continues and the quest continues with an agreement to purchase Locationary. Toronto-based Locationary comes with technology to improve search and navigation results for mobile apps as well as increase advertising and commerce performance. It its Apple’s latest salvo in its heated battle with Google and the house that Steve Jobs built confirmed the acquisition Friday. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but one could argue that no cost would be too high if Apple were able to move past the spectacular flop that was its push last year to overtake Google’s lead in smartphone navigation apps. Apple Maps was a disaster in the sense that directions to locations were incomplete, buildings and monuments were out of place and users were often sent to places that were neither their intended destination nor anything remotely resembling it. The endeavor went so badly that Apple CEO Tim Cook felt compared to issue a rare public apology. The Locationary purchase is a direct and public certification of Apple’s intentions to shore up its mapping efforts and avoid being a digital punchline in the quest to get people whose noses are permanently buried in their smartphones to their intended destination. It follows Google’s acquisition last month of Waze, a crowd-sourced mapping startup, in a transaction reported to be valued at $1 billion. Waze is unique in that its 50 million users contribute real-time traffic data that helps improve mapping around traffic. Locationary specializes om enhanced local business data, which should help keep Apple Maps more up to date and hopefully avoid sending people into the Pacific Ocean when they are planning a trip to New York City……..

- Disney is really cashing in on its acquisition of the “Star Wars” franchise. All manner of merchandising and promotional links are in the works and there are efforts to bring the iconic outer space brand to the company’s programming offerings as well. Disney Channel cartoon “Phineas and Ferb” is getting in on the action as series creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh have finally succeeded in their plan to get a “Star Wars” crossover episode for their show. Povenmire and Marsh have expressed their desire since Disney acquired Lucasfilm and the “Star Wars” franchise last year and months of campaigning have paid off. One month before the “Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel” crossover, Povenmire and Marsh announced Friday at Comic-Con that a “Star Wars” collaboration is next. The episode will follow Phineas and Ferb as they enjoy summer on Tatooine, living next door to franchise hero Luke Skywalker. Their summer abroad in the galaxy will go haywire when plans for blowing up the Death Star accidentally fall into their hands and Phineas and Ferb are suddenly thrust into a global rebellion. They must concoct a plan to stop the rebels and find a pilot to take them on their mission with assistance from their sister Candace, who has a Stormtrooper-like desire to bust those rebels. They will battle low-level henchman "Darth Enshmirtz," who has created a "Sith-inator" that he hopes to use against the Rebellion. Life will take a turn for the worst when Ferb is hit by Darth Enshmirtz's creation, turning into an evil Sith. "May The 'Ferb' Be With You and with all of us who for decades have dreamt of a chance to work with the great characters and stories of Star Wars," Povenmire said. "When I saw that news break, I drew a picture of Doofenshmirtz as Darth Vader and texted it to the head of Disney TV animation and wrote, 'I smell crossover!'" The episode will air some time next year…….

- Score one for surprise in Russia. The communist nation stunned many, including its own citizens, on Friday when it unexpectedly freed opposition leader Alexei Navalny after thousands of protestors rose up to decry his five-year jail sentence as a crude attempt by President Vladimir Putin to silence him. Crushing protests and voices of dissent has been the standard M.O. at the Kremlin, but a judge threw a wrench in the plan when he approved an unusual prosecution request to release Navalny while he awaits the outcome of an appeal. Navalny’s freedom is limited; he can only travel within Moscow. Still, he proclaimed the ruling, one day after he was convicted of theft, as a victory for people power. "I am very grateful to all the people who supported us, all the people who went to (protest in Moscow's) Manezh Square and other squares," he said. "We understand perfectly well what has happened now. It's an absolutely unique phenomenon in Russian justice.” The hearing took place in Kirov, an industrial city 550 miles northeast of Moscow, but supporters who poured onto the streets of big Russian cities to protest on Thursday evening after Navalny was convicted of stealing at least $494,000 from a timber firm when he was advising the Kirov regional governor in 2009 were excited to see him freed. Navalny (rightly) claims the case is politically motivated and intended to eliminate him as a political threat to Putin, even though his support is limited outside the major cities. He did lead some solid anti-Putin protests which attracted tens of thousands last year and there is a solid chance his release is merely a political maneuver to head off social unrest. The Kremlin has remained silent about his release…….

- Because it’s almost over and no one had any idea it was going on, it might be time to check in on the forgotten sporting event that is the Tour de France. No one cares about cycling these days, at least no one outside France and Britain, which is about to record its second consecutive Tour de France champion. Even in Britain, the ongoing British Open is the top story and Chris Froome retaining his large lead and all but ensuring that he will succeed countryman Bradley Wiggins as the winner of the world’s biggest cycling event is second-place news. Wiggins leads the field by more than five minutes and barring an accident or other freak mishap on Sunday's largely ceremonial final ride to Paris, he will win the 100th Tour after finishing third in a dramatic Stage 20 to the ski station of Annecy-Semnoz in the Alps. He is well ahead of Nairo Quintana of Colombia and Joaquim Rodriguez of Spain, neither of whom could make up much ground during the 78-mile penultimate stage of the race. The ride to the finish on the Champs-Elysees in Paris is always relaxed and barely competitive and Froome will make it wearing the yellow jersey symbolizing the race’s leader. Riding through cheese-making country on Saturday, through the mountains of Savoie between the lakes of Annecy and Bourget, beneath blue skies provided a perfect setting for Froome to clinch his first Tour title. He is unlikely to be at the forefront of Sunday’s sprint to the finish down the cobbled streets of Paris and doesn’t need to. Others will vie for the stage win and Froome will be able to enjoy the final miles of the race as fans line the sidewalks of the City of Light’s most-famous street and cheer him on. Of course, his victory won't exactly reverberate around the sporting world……..

- Life as a doctor in the greater San Diego area can be excruciatingly difficult. Dr. Alexander Ataii lives this harsh and unforgiving reality every day and his life has become even more unbearable now that he is (allegedly) a prisoner in his own home, attacked repeatedly by hawks. Ataii recently moved to his dream home in Rancho Santa Fe, complete with a remote-controlled waterfall. Unfortunately, that waterfall has been commandeered by a winged masochist hell-bent on inflicting pain on the good doctor. A hawk has taken up residence atop the waterfall and wasted little time making its presence felt. “You never think about being attacked by a hawk,” Ataii said. “I was minding my own business, cutting some shrub on my day off. It felt like being hit by a boulder, something hit me behind my head. As I turned around to see what it was, I saw a giant bird with a wingspan of at least four feet, turning around and coming back towards my face.” His face survived the attack just fine, but Ataii said the hawk’s talons ripped through his scalp, leaving a five-inch-long bloody gash. Two other attacks have followed, leaving Ataii fearful for the health and well-being of his 2-year-old son. “I would do anything for my boy, he’s the love of my life,” Ataii added. Like any law-abiding citizen, Ataii asked local wildlife authorities to remove the hawk from his property and like any law-abiding citizen dumb enough to make that request and expect action, he has been told there are restrictions in place that limit what the powers that be can do to deal with the bird. That has left Ataii with a choice: do nothing and be menaced by something he could shoot and kill with a simple hunting rifle or take action. He’s elected for the latter. “They said they couldn’t do anything about it. I’ve never owned or shot a gun before, but I did have thoughts when this happened. Owning a gun in this scenario wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he said. His only problem with shooting the hawk is that the bird is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty act and anyone caught trying to move a nest, trap a bird, or kill one is liable for a felony, a fine of up to $100,000 and jail time. Thus, Ataii’s real mistake was contacting anyone about the problem and not simply buying a gun with a silencer (technically illegal) and going sniper on the bird under the cover of darkness. Given their nesting and living habits, hawks tend to return to the same location year after year, meaning Ataii’s current options are taking a chance on breaking the law and getting caught, ripping out his waterfall or moving…….

YouTube losers, chimps can remember and Mike Tyson back in boxing

- Adult cartoons have always seemed to miss the point, the point being that cartoons are supposed to be silly, funny, kid-oriented programming built on simplistic ridiculousness that children can understand. In spite of this fact, “The Simpsons” has remained on the air for two decades and has proven to be one of Fox’s steadiest shows during that time. Fox has also leaned heavily on fellow adult cartoon “Family Guy” and received consistent ratings as well. That makes it a natural fit for the two shows to cross-pollinate, something they will do this coming TV season when the stars of “Family Guy” will make a guest appearance on “The Simpsons.” Fox confirmed that “Family Guy” stars the Griffin family will end up in Springfield in an episode titled “The Simpsons Guy,” which is slated to air this fall. A Fox episode synopsis says that the Griffins and the Simpsons "get along famously" and Homer Simpson "welcomes his new 'albino' friends with open arms.” Also according to the synopsis, Marge and Lois ditch housework for a heart-to-heart, while Lisa becomes a mentor to Meg and Stewie gets obsessed with Bart and his pranks. The only point of contention will be patriarchs Homer and Peter battling over the best beer in town: Pawtucket or Duff. "Fox hasn't spent this much money since they took Simon Cowell tight T-shirt shopping," said Family Guy's Peter Griffin in a press release. The two shows have a history of collaborating, as Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane guested on an episode of “The Simpsons” earlier this year, Homer Simpson made a cameo on “Family Guy in 2012” and Peter Griffin briefly popped up on “The Simpsons” all the way back in 2002……

- Americans, now is the time to learn Arabic and apply for citizenship in Dubai. No, not because it is a nation of opulence and excess wherein building multimillion-dollar skyscrapers is something children do after opening up their lemonade stand in the morning and raking in the profits until lunch time. There can be no better place for people from the world’s FAT-test nation to repatriate now that the tiny Emirate has launched a weight-loss initiative that will reward citizens with gold for shedding pounds. This limited-time offer will reward fatties with one gram of gold for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) lost over the course of a one-month challenge. “It’s a good idea. It will encourage the people. Gold is gold and money is money,” a tourism spokesperson said. “People are eating more and more.” One gram of gold is worth about $41 at current market prices and a in one of the most obese nations In one of the most obese nations in the world, that could equate to some real wealth being dishes out. A recent United Nations report placed the obesity percentage in the United Arab Emirates - a collection of seven Emirates including Dubai – at 35 percent. That puts the UAE dangerously close to running down the United States, where the obesity rate is 35.7 percent. Another recent study, this one by the World Health Organization, , 30.2 percent of men and 43 percent of women in the UAE are obese. Medical experts blame a lack of exercise, the prevalence of fast food and the wealth-induced laziness of Dubai’s resident for the FAT problem. It’s an odd development, given that just over half a century ago the UAE was populated by nomadic Bedouin desert farmers and coastal dwellers. The discovery of oil changed all of that and has now led to the “Your Weight in Gold” campaign, in which the three biggest losers will have a chance to participate in a draw to win a gold coin worth $5,545. Those looking to shed pounds can make use of Dubai’s well-groomed, ocean-side tracks for the running, walking and bike riding they apparently haven't been doing much of………

- Mike Tyson’s renovation into renaissance man continues. Now out of boxing as an active competitor and living life as a reformed crazy man who trains pigeons and eats healthy, Tyson has to find a way to fill his free time between appearances in increasingly terrible sequels to “The Hangover.” He has his next endeavor and eight years after retiring from boxing after a knockout loss to Kevin McBride in 2005, he will make his first substantial return to the sport. The closest he has come in the past eight years was talking about his career in his hit one-man stage show and appearing for his induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. As of this week, Tyson is entering the promotional end of the sport and is thrilled to be there. "I thought about it, I talked to my wife [Kiki] about it and we thought we wanted to do it," Tyson said of his new company, Iron Mike Productions. "I feel so awesome to be involved with the game again. That just feels so awesome." His first event will take place Aug. 23 at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, N.Y., with junior lightweight world titleholder Argenis Mendez (21-2, 11 KOs) in his first title defense against Arash Usmanee (20-1, 10 KOs) in the main event and Claudio Marrero (14-0, 11 KOs) taking on Jesus Andres Cuellar (22-1, 18 KOs) for a vacant interim featherweight title in the co-feature. Tyson will partner with Acquinity Sports, a Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based promotional company that has been around for about two years and has an existing talent base that includes Mendez and Marrero. Tyson is essentially taking over the company and giving it a new name. "They gave me a call and believed we could help each other," Tyson said of Jonas and Henry Rivalta, who heads boxing operations for the company. "We struck up a deal where we would form Iron Mike Productions. I just thought that would be something remarkable because I always wanted to be in boxing but I was unable to because of all the stuff that I've done that back in the sport has to be good for boxing, which is struggling mightily for star power. The fact that Tyson remains one of the most famous fighters ever and a pop culture icon because of his long-ago in-ring success speaks to how few stars boxing has these days. He vowed to be hands-on in running the business and said his main goal is to help the fighters while also making a few dollars………

- Chimpanzees and orangutans have fairly solid memories, according to a new study carried out by Gema Martin-Ordas of Aarhus University in Denmark. In the study, these primates were able to remember past events when presented with sensory reminders. Both species were able to locate a useful tool that had been hidden and do so three years after performing a task with it only four times. They were also able to recall a unique event two weeks later and that led Ordas’ team to theorize that memory for past events is not unique to humans. In the study, chimps and orangutans were presented with two boxes in different rooms, one of which had useful tools, the other useless ones. No, the useless tools were not former “Jersey Shore” cast members, by the way. The primates could earn a reward by successfully retrieving the useful tools. Three years later, they were able to retrieve the tools and use them correctly. The cues used by the researchers seemed to triggered the apes' memories. Some 90 percent of the apes who experienced the event three years earlier found the tool in the correct location almost instantly. "Our data, and other emerging evidence, keep challenging the idea of non-human animals being stuck in time," Ordas said. "We show not only that chimpanzees and orangutans remember events that happened two weeks or three years ago, but also that they can remember them even when they are not expecting to have to recall those events at a later time. What this shows is that the episodic memory system in humans is not as unique as we thought it was, as we share features with non-human primates." The one major difference shown by the study is the lack of an ability to remember when an event happened along with recalling what, where and when it took place. Still, it was a solid primate performance under pressure…….

- Losers abound in the world. The Internet offers consistent proof of this fact and the Katz family of New Haven, Conn. is reinforcing that reality. The Katz clan has an honorable mission, but that doesn’t make how they are going about accomplishing it cool. Their plan is to get young people to eat healthier. Their means of doing so a music video designed to “un-process” teens. "We've been processing food. Now we're processing you. We're here to climb in your mind. We will control what you chew,” son Gabe Katz says in the video. "They process the food in a factory manufacturing and they process you that their bright and colorful commercial, to think that this product is best for you.” The video is a spoof of “The Matrix,” which is apparently supposed to appeal to teens even though the trilogy came to an end in 2003, making it about as current as “The Cosby Show” for most under the age of 18. The video was produced by The Turn The Tide Foundation, a.k.a. the Katz family, and was released on YouTube. "Processed foods, when you see a long list of ingredients, back away number one," Gabe Katz added. "A banana, all it has in it is a banana, so it's obviously great for you." In the clownish video, Katz’s sisters Valerie and Natalia sing and dance along with him. "Everything is not black and white. You have to really look into what food you're eating," Valerie Katz added. “It's really important to eat healthy. Know what you're putting in your body." The three Katz children have apparently been inspired by their father, well-known health expert and author Dr. David Katz. Dr. Katz heads up the Yale-Griffin Prevention Center and has reached out to Connecticut’s public schools and asked them to upgrade their cafeteria offerings. "We want to develop a whole educational curriculum around music videos and focus on a whole series of messages about both the importance of eating well and being physically active," said Dr. Katz. "But also the power the kids have to take this into their own hands and do something really good with it." It’s a great concept, but less corny music videos is probably the way to go……

Anti-SeaWorld movies, the Dallas Mavericks spin and Detroit goes bankrupt

- Whoever had July 18 in the “When will Detroit go bankrupt pool,” you’re a winner. The inevitable became official Thursday afternoon when the Motor City became the nation's largest public sector bankruptcy. The potential fallout is immense and could cause a slash in pension benefits to city workers and retirees, and leave bond holders with only pennies on the dollar. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr filed for bankruptcy and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder approved the measure. Snyder explained that the financial condition of the city left him no choice because Detroit could not meet its obligation to either its citizens or its creditors. "The only feasible path to ensuring the city will be able to meet obligations in the future is to have a successful restructuring via the bankruptcy process," Snyder said in the letter authorizing the filing. Public employee unions are expected to fight the move, but Orr already halted payments on about $2 billion in debt last month. At the time, he said the city needed to preserve its dwindling supply of cash. At present, the city faces total liabilities of about $18 billion and anyone who has been to Detroit knows the city has nowhere close to that amount in assets. Under Orr’s restructuring plan, the city would cut $11.5 billion in debt down to $2 billion. For those slow at math, that means investors and retirees would receive an average of just 17 percent of what they are owed. It would be the first time a municipal bankruptcy has ever led to a cut in retirees’ pensions. The resulting court fight could take yes and cost even more money that no one involved actually has. When employees of a bankrupt business lose their pensions, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Co. provides a minimal level of benefits. That doesn’t apply to the public sector. Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel explained that the governor did not take the decision to approve the bankruptcy move lightly. "This has been a huge problem for decades and it's come to a crisis point," she said. "The emergency manager tried to work with all the creditors, including pensioners." On the bright side, Detroit's population has fallen 28 percent since 2000 and at this rate, pretty soon there won’t be anyone left for the city to screw over………

- Documentaries typically do not fall on the sunny side of the cinematic ledger. Gabriela Cowperthwaite is proving that fact all over again with her documentary "Blackfish." The movie was originally conceived without a point of view as Cowperthwaite set out to answer the question of why a top trainer at SeaWorld became the victim of the killer whale with which she worked and performed. Her film eventually morphed into a critical look at the consequences of keeping killer whales in captivity. The resulting project hits theaters this weekend and has already led to severe backlash from SeaWorld, which has launched its own campaign against the movie. Officials for the park chain accused the film of painting "a distorted picture" of its facility, calling it "inaccurate and misleading," as well as exploiting "a tragedy that remains a source of deep pain for Dawn Brancheau's family, friends and colleagues." The subject of the movie, Brancheau, was killed in 2010 by the great orca, Tilikum, at SeaWorld in Orlando. Her autopsy revealed she died of drowning and blunt force trauma. "Blackfish" follows the life of Tilikum, who has been performing for 30 years since he was captured in 1983 around the age of 2. Cowperthwaite insists she is no whale-hugging liberal. "I don't come from animal activism - I am a mother who took her kids to SeaWorld," she said. "I thought (the Brancheau) incident was a one-off. In my mind, I was going to make a larger philosophical film about human beings and our relationships with our animal counterparts." Her planned course of filming took an unplanned left turn when she discovered that Brancheau's death was not an isolated incident, and that Tilikum was involved in two other deaths since 1991. Cowperthwaite interviwed many of Brancheau’s colleagues and also offered SeaWorld a chance to tell its side of the story. It refused, but seems eager to speak up now that it is about to be exposed on the big screen………

- No one respects international criminal warrants these days. If they did, the president of Sudan would not have been allowed to leave a conference in Nigeria, despite the International Criminal Court calling for his "immediate arrest" on charges of genocide and war crimes. Omar al-Bashir is accused of five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes and three counts of genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zagawa tribes in Darfur presiding over a regime that has seen 200,000 people killed. Two arrests have issued for al-Bashir’s arrest, but the former army brigadier who came to power in 1989 after leading a bloodless military coup has ignored both. Several African nations, including South Africa, Kenya and Malawi, have threatened to act on the warrant, but Nigeria allowed him to attend Monday's one-day African Union HIV/Aids summit. Its decision was based on a 2009 vote by African Union states not to cooperate with ICC indictments. Africa typically despises the ICC because many nations believe it is biased against the continent. Bashir's press secretary and his Nigerian hosts denied reports that he ducked out of the conference early amidst the controversy. "President Bashir returned normally to Khartoum after participating in the summit in Abuja to resume his work," said spokesperson Emad Said. The ICC pointed out that it could refer the Nigerian government to the U.N. Security Council for failing to execute an order of the court and a spokesman said a report would be written and the judges would ultimately decide on the appropriate course of action. Nigeria has a contentious history with the court, having been forced to hand over former Liberian president Charles Taylor, the warlord who began Sudan's devastating civil war in 1989 and hid in Nigeria because it promised him a safe haven if he resigned……..

- The Internet is a crowded place. Website names and domains are being snapped up at an alarming rate and the options are running out for those looking to build the website of their dreams. That’s why back in January, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) allowed businesses to submit applications for newly suggested generic top-level domains (like .com, .net, etc.) as long as they paid the $185,000 application fee. There were plenty of applications, including one kook who ponied up $185,000 to submit .africamagic for approval. Six months later, the results of that process have been revealed and ICANN has officially unveiled four new gTLDs. The good news for Americans is that none of these new domain enders are in English. They're all in either Arabic, Chinese or Russian for simple words like "game" or "web" or "online." That’s good news because Americans don’t know or care about much that goes on beyond their borders, although it could also be bad news because it might be a sign that the digital world is passing the United States by. The lack of new English domain-ending handles was not for lack of trying, as the world's largest online retailer, Amazon.com sumbitted .amazon for approval, only to have it rejected due to the fact that it is also the name of the world's second biggest river that runs through South America. The bureaucrats on ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee recommended that geographical regions deserve the gTLD over businesses with the same name. Way to be, you tree-hugging fools. Patagonia faced the same issue and rather than fight, it withdrew its application for .patagonia after realizing that it would most likely not receive approval……..

- Mark Cuban is working hard to talk himself into his team being better off without Dwight Howard. The Dallas Mavericks whiffed on signing the biggest prize on the free-agent market and Howard instead signed with their in-state rival, the Houston Rockets. Their bombastic owner is of the opinion that the Mavs are better off the way things turned out. "I think we've put ourselves in a spot where we're in a better spot than we were at if we got just the one max-out deal," Cuban said. "I think it'd be better shorter and longer term. I don't want to make that sound the wrong way. I think we'll be better this year because we added five good players or more." If those comments sound familiar, it’s because Cuban read from virtually the same script last summer when point guard Deron Williams decided to re-sign with the Brooklyn Nets after the Mavs had recruited him and Cuban failed to show up for the meeting with Williams because he was in Los Angeles taping his reality show. Dallas went 41-41 in 2012-13, while Brooklyn made the playoffs, so those comments seem inaccurate. The Rockets are far from the favorites to win the NBA title next year even with Howard, but the Mavs clearly wanted him and were on of five teams to meet in Los Angeles with him. The team even admitted he was their Plan A for the summer even though it would have had to make at least one significant roster adjustment, likely trading Shawn Marion or Vince Carter, to carve out the salary-cap space necessary to sign Howard to a four-year, $87.6 million contract. Cuban stripped his team down after winning a title in 2011 and Howard was the last big-name free agent to hit the market in the window that followed. He, Williams and Chris Paul were all expected to be free agents in the summer of 2012, but Howard and Paul didn't exercise their rights to opt out of their contracts last year and were traded to the two Los Angeles teams. Dallas got neither of them this summer when they did come free and clear and now, Cuban is in spin mode. "Obviously we didn't get Dwight," Cuban said. "We took a chance, and it didn't happen. I think we put together a really good team. It sticks within the culture we've tried to define. We've dealt with some of the weaknesses we had from last year. Hopefully if we stay healthy, good things will happen." Dealing with weaknesses meant signing so-so point guard Jose Calderdon, poor-shooting gunner Monta Ellis and offensively-challenged center Samuel Dalambert. Sounds like someone is trying to spin a pu-pu platter into filet mignon…….

Fearing Jadeveon Clowney, Google's Chrome Web upgrades and death by falling cow

- Mountainous areas often have “Beware of falling rock” signs. One might imagine that no place in the world has a “Beware of falling cows” sign. The village of Caratinga in southeastern Brazil may want to consider such signage after one of its residents died after a 3000-pound cow crashed through the roof of his house and crushed him. Joao Maria de Souza was reportedly sleeping with his wife when the animal dropped right through the corrugated asbestos roof of his home. How did a cow end up on a man’s roof? That’s simple:

The cow is believed to have escaped from a nearby farm, before it climbed on top the home, which backs onto a steep hill. Cows are notorious for disregarding structural safety and integrity, so this cow obviously saw nothing wrong with putting a man’s life and its own well-being in danger by clamoring onto a roof not nearly sturdy enough to support its massive girth. The fall wasn’t a long one, but plunging eight feet onto de Souza's side of the bed after the roof buckled under its weight was enough to off the homeowner. His wife was unharmed, but Souza was taken to hospital with a broken leg. His brother, Carlos Correa de Souza, confirmed that Joao Maria de Souza later died from internal bleeding. There may not be a manual for dealing with this sort of situation, but the Civil Police of Caratinga in Vale do Rio Doce have announced plans to open investigation into the circumstances of death. “I didn't bring my son up to be killed by a falling cow," Souza’s mother, Maria de Souza, said in one of the most obvious statements a person has made in a long time. He nearly died when he was two and got meningitis, but I worked hard to buy medicines for him and he survived. And now he's lying in his bed and gets crushed to death by a cow. There's no justice in the world.” No justice, but more than a few awkward laughs…….

- Kings of Leon have taken time off for one of their members to go to rehab, returned and invited a drunk fan who naked crowd-surfed to meet them backstage for a drink and apparently rediscovered their love for making a sh*t-load of money and being famous – er, being a band and making music. So the band’s members say of their new album “Mechanical Bull,” which apparently helped them fall in love with being a band again. Part of the allure for the album may have been recording in their own studio for the first time, a decision frontman Caleb Followill said should have been made much sooner. "The pressure was really off of us on this last one. We were our own bosses. There were no bills because we bought the studio ourselves, there was no timeframe when it had to be done by,” Followill explained. "It feels like it's a shame that we waited so long to do it. We can go in there and rehearse or goof off." Bandmate Matthrew Followill sounded equally happy with how the recording process went and with being back in the studio after a prolonged time away from music. “Us being able to take a break, we kind of got to fall back in love with what we loved about it in the first place, which was picking up your instruments and playing and smiling onstage and actually having fun, and not feeling like it's a job,” Matthew Followill said. Both man suggested that there was enough leftover material from the project to start work immediately on another album. Oddly, Caleb Followill seems to believe that the band’s previous album, “Come Around Sundown,” was actually good and somehow takes pressure off them. Given that it was actually a hot, poppy mess than had no rock credibility whatsoever, maybe the opinions of Kings of Leon about their own music shouldn’t be taken as fact. “Mechanical Bull” drops Sept. 24……..

- There be treasure in them waters….them waters being the ones off of Florida’s Treasure Coast. Treasure hunter Brent Brisben can prove it after he and the 1715 Treasure Fleet Queen's Jewels salvage company found some very valuable needs in an ocean haystack in the form of 48 gold coins that date back 300 years. The coins, called escudos, were among the wealth of treasure aboard a fleet of 11 Spanish galleons wrecked by a hurricane off the Florida coast on July 31, 1715. Most of the gold coins appear to be in good condition, and still have some legible dates and markings. The oldest of the lot dates back to 1697, while the newest is amazingly young with a minting date of 1714. The 48 coins have an estimated value of $200,000 to $250,000, Brisben said. What makes the find all the more amazing is that the coins were found just 100 feet from the shoreline, in only six feet of water. They were there for the taking for virtually any would-be treasure hunter with a working metal detector in the Sunshine State, but Brisben says his work is not nearly as thrilling as anything Nicolas Cage does on screen in his crap-tacular blockbuster movies. "You may expect to see a big galleon on its side with treasure chests overflowing, but it's not like that at all," Brisben said. "With shipwrecks that old, most of the organic material like the actual wood of the ship is gone, due to deterioration. What's left are mostly metals and pottery... china, silver buckles, bronze cannons and gold

coins." The gold coins will be put to immediate use, with the 1715 Treasure Fleet Queen's Jewels salvage company selling them off to private collectors and using the money they make to finance further searching of the wreckage site………

- Google is upgrading again. This time, it’s the tech titan’s Chrome Web browser for iOS devices, which has been updated to include several enhanced features, including data compression designed to speed up page loading. Google has worked to reduce data consumption and improve the speed of Web performance on mobile devices for months and at the company's I/O developers conference in May, new file compression formats for images and video were announced for Android-powered mobile devices. Those changes were based largely on capabilities already present in Chrome for the desktop. Wednesday’s changes are noteworthy because they take those same concepts and translate them to devices powered by Apple's iOS. According to Google, the resulting data cost savings will both reduce data usage and speed up page load times. Users will even be able to view their data savings in the app's bandwidth management settings. Eventually, the changes will apply to all users. The update also builds in interoperability with other Google apps, giving users the option to open links for YouTube, Maps, Google+ and Google Drive in the app instead of in the browser. Its enhancements will also provide text-to-speech for all variations of English, Spanish, German and several other languages, along with allowing users to access their full browser history to view a list of websites the person has visited while using Chrome in standard mode. None of the features are exactly revolutionary, but most experts have pointed to the expansion of the bandwidth management features as the most important part of the update. Google Chrome has grabbed an increasingly large share of the browser market in the past couple years and the number of Chrome users has increased from 450 million per month at the time of last year’s I/O conference to 750 million by the time this year’s event happened, according to Google……..

- South Carolina defensive end and Heisman Trophy hopeful Jadeveon Clowney is right. The man behind The Hit, a playing on which he nearly decapitated Michigan's Vincent Smith and produced video footage that drew millions of YouTube views, says Clemson's Tajh Boyd and three SEC quarterbacks are "scared" to face him and the Gamecocks defensive line. Seeing Clowney obliterate Smith with a helmet-popping smack, then reach out with one hand to snare the ball, struck fear into the heart of anyone who saw it – regardless of whether they would or could ever encounter Clowney on a football field. As abrasive as it sounds for a player to boast about opponents being afraid of him, Clowney is right – or at least he should be. "I can tell Tajh Boyd is scared back there," Clowney said. "He ain't no sitting duck, but you can see in his eyes that he's scared of our D-linemen." When South Carolina faced Clemson in its regular-season finale last year, Clowney recorded a career-high 4.5 as the Gamecocks beat the Tigers 27-17 in Death Valley. Boyd threw two interceptions and was sacked six times in the game and appeared genuinely rattled for much of the game. "We know that coming into the game that we have him shook already," Clowney explained. "We get a couple hits on him and it changes the whole game. He's scared every time we play them. I know he's probably listening to this right now, but I'm just telling the truth, man." Whether Boyd is afraid of him or not, Clowney is on the Lombardi and Bronko Nagurski watch lists and the 6-foot-6, 247-pound freak of nature believes there are other quarterbacks in his own conference who are wary of him. He named Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray, former Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson and third, unidentified conference signal caller as those whose nightmares he haunts. "You can look at a guy and tell that he's scared," Clowney said. "If he's staring at me before the ball is snapped and he's staring at me every play before the ball is snapped, oh we got him. I tell the players that he's shook." Those quarterbacks probably wish Clowney had been allowed to declare for April’s NFL draft, where he likely would have been the top pick. Instead, NFL rules mandate that he wait one more year and in the mean time, he’ll keep lighting suckers up……..

Dangerous space leaks, Bob Dylan's new album and New York Jets tension

- Lay off, resident of Burlington, Vermont’s Ward 2. Don’t you people have any self-control when it comes to recycling? These enviro-do-gooders are taking the whole concept of protecting the planet and conserving resources a little too seriously and the evidence is in the overflowing bins at the neighborhood’s recycling center. Ward 2 Councilman Max Tracy is well-aware of the problem and amazingly, this elected official actually has an idea for how to address the problem. “We see more and more people recycling more and more,” Tracy said, adding that the 15-gallon bins at the recycling center are too small. Whatever the cause, Burlington’s Old North End is overflowing with to-be-recycled junk and residents are angry about it. “I just feel like the biggest problem is debris,” said Judy Klima. “It gets blown down the street, and it gets run over by cars.” Tracy knows that recyclable material that drops out of the bins and makes its way back into the world is just another piece of trash to be dealt with. “At that point, it becomes trash because it's covered with all kinds of other stuff,” Tracy said. He explained that multiple-tenant buildings with small bins are the root of the problem and when those bins overflow, they exacerbate the problem. “Folks really do want to recycle, they to do want to the right thing, but in order to do that you need four, five, sometimes six bins in some cases,” he added. The issue came up at a council meeting Monday night and Tracy offered up a decent solution: Require landlords with three or more units to buy 60-gallon wheeled containers that are not only larger, but come with a lid. For every three additional units in a building, another bin would be required to contain all of the recyclable material…….

- When New York Jets rookie quarterback Geno Smith says his relationship with Mark Sanchez is fine even though he didn't attend his teammate's passing camp in California, he is probably telling the truth. "Me and Mark are cool; there's no hard feelings or anything," Smith said of the relationship with the Jets’ incumbent starter. "He's up there getting work with the guys. I'm down here getting work." Down her is Florida, where Smith is training with receivers including Antonio Brown of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Greg Little of the Cleveland Browns and former West Virginia teammates Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey, both now with the St. Louis Rams. Sanchez, in turn, hosted "Jets West,” a camp at Mission Viejo High School that was attended by 12 skill players, including receivers, tight ends and running back Chris Ivory. Smith did not attend, which makes sense because he’s attempting to take Sanchez’s job and probably will at some point. Smith said he's approaching the competition against Sanchez "very seriously, preparing myself to be a starter, as I've said all along." Sanchez added that he did not have any issue with any of the players who chose not to attend the camp. "I don't hold it against any of the guys who can't make it," Sanchez said Friday after a two-hour practice. "There are no hard feelings about anything like [that]. Despite being consistently lackluster as a starter, Sanchez has repeatedly said he expects to be the Jets' starter. When pressed on why he didn’t attend Jets West, Smith theorized that the media was just doing its job by hyping up his absence. "They got to create a hot story. They got to keep the fans interested, so they're going to put whatever they want out there," he said. Just imagine what the media will do with the story when the Jets start 1-4 and Smith comes off the bench and thieves Sanchez’s starting gig…….

- So…..is a serious water leak inside an astronaut's helmet while he is walking around in space a problem? It seems like it could be an issue and it befell European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, who last week became the first Italian to walk in space, during a spacewalk Tuesday outside the International Space Station. Parmitano reported a buildup of water inside his helmet about an hour into an excursion with U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy. The water initially pooled in the back of Parmitano's helmet behind his head and eventually floated into his eyes. Mission officials believe the H20 came from Parmitano's drinking-water bag and once they realized  what was happening, flight directors on Mission Control quickly called an end to the outing. NASA mission commentator Dan Huot insisted neither of the astronauts was in danger. "The team down here in Mission Control is taking the cautious path," Huot said. Parmitano was directed to head back into the U.S. Quest airlock and Cassidy was close behind. Inside, it was discovered that the water leak caused the communication system in Parmitano's suit to fail, meaning he could not hear questions about his condition. "Squeeze my hand if you're fine," Cassidy told Parmitano. "He looks fine. He looks miserable. But he's OK." U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg and two Russian cosmonauts — Pavel Vinogradov and Fyodor Yutchikhin — worked to remove Parmitano's helmet once he was back inside the station and used towels to soak up water blobs that floated from the helmet. "Great job getting those guys out of their suits in a timely manner," Mission Control said. "It was a great team effort." Mission Control also had Nyberg to take photographs of Parmitano's spacesuit and document the condition of the suspect water bag. The water leak turned what was supposed to be a  6-hour, 15-minute spacewalk into a 92-minute affair that allowed the two astronauts just enough time to get some maintenance work done outside the station. Cassidy and Parmitano also ventured outside the station July 9 and performed myriad maintenance tasks, but Monday’s mission didn’t go nearly as well. If anyone is going to be in such a tense situation, it definitely should be a former test pilot like Parmitano and a a former Navy SEAL like Cassidy. During the rest of their stint in space, the current crew will lay electrical power and Ethernet cabling to the juncture between the U.S. and Russian sides of the outpost, eventually extending the cabling to a Russian multipurpose module that will be launched late this year from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan……..

- Bob Dylan has been making music for more than five decades. Along the way during that amount of time, an artist is bound to accrue a fair amount of unused material that was good, but not good enough to make it onto an album. For a man who has released 35 studio albums and countless other projects, that pile of forgotten music should be sky high. Thus, Dylan will release a new album of rarities and previously unheard recordings next month. The project, titled “The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 - Another Self Portrait (1969-1971),” will drop on Aug. 26 and contain 35 tracks recorded during the 1970 studio recording sessions that resulted in Dylan's 10th and 11th albums “Self Portrait” and “New Morning.” The two-disc set will cover plenty of ground, but anyone who feels like nearly three dozen extra Dylan tracks isn't enough, a deluxe version will also feature an extra disc with a recording of Dylan's 1969 performance at the Isle of Wight festival. Dylan has remained surprisingly active in touring and recording for a 72-year-old dude and despite the fact that his singing voice has often been maligned and many have poked fun at his distinctive, mumble-esque style, few artissts have ever had the storytelling skill that he possesses. In between now and the time he shuffles off this mortal coil, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him release another collection of rarities and B-sides or two. Then again, so many artists have previously unreleased material drop after they pass away that there could be a slew of Bob Dylan releases waiting to happen……..

- The sh*t just got real in Panama, where a North Korean cargo ship was stopped near the Panama Canal and searched on suspicion of drugs, only to be found to contain the apparent parts of a surface-to-air missile system, hidden inside containers of brown sugar. The ship was on its way home from Cuba at the time it was stopped and the Panamanian State Department said any shipment of arms or related material aboard the freighter would violate at least three U.N. resolutions. Something was clearly amiss when customs officials boarded the ship to begin their search and the captain attempted to kill himself. Independent defense analysts confirmed that the equipment appeared to be a radar control system for surface-to-air missiles and the crew’s reaction once officials began their search seemed to confirm that the equipment was being shipped covertly. A few cynics have pointed out that regardless of the intent of the crew or nature of the cargo, the real takeaway from the incident is that North Koreans were able to smuggle dangerous equipment into the hemisphere. Panamanian officials confirmed that their customs agents initially seized the ship on suspicion of drugs as it headed for the Panama Canal, along with detaining 35 members of the crew. President Ricardo Martinelli also posted picture of the weapons equipment on Twitter “so that the world knows that you can’t transfer non-declared, war-like material through the Panama Canal.” It was some grade-A political smack talk via social media and el presidente was clearly feeling good about himself because he added a tweet that, “The Panama Canal is a canal of peace, not of war.” The picture appeared to show a radar system for surface-to-air missiles — specifically an RSN-75 Fan Song fire-control radar system for a family of missiles known as SA-2. The SA-2 is a Soviet-era system in Cuba since the 1960s and was the class of missile used to shoot down American pilot Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union in May 1960. It is possible that Cuba was sending the equipment to North Korea for an upgrade and included the sugar as payment, but there is also the possibility that the equipment might have been on its way to North Korea to fortify the country’s existing air defense network……..

Apple's TV goals, diagnosing ghetto booty and Atoms for Peace v. Spotify

- There is the distinct possibility that Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is just a bitter, crotchety old man who is crabby about everything and wants nothing more in life than for THOSE DAMN KIDS TO GET OFF HIS LAWN OR ELSE HE’S GOING TO GET IN HIS CAR AND RUN THEIR LOGN-HAIRED, TATTOOED BUTS DOWN! At 78 years old, Selig is in just as much danger from the Grim Reaper as he is from forced retirement and he sounds the part. Speaking during a question-and-answer session at the All-Star Game, this delusional old kook had the temerity to insist that  "this sport is cleaner than it's ever been." He refused to disclose any details about the timing for decisions on the sport's investigation of the closed anti-aging clinic Biogenesis for allegedly distributing performance-enhancing drugs to players, even with rumors swirling that MLB could attempt to discipline former MVPs Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun and a collection of other players. As the days have passed and speculation has turned to the possibility that baseball might try to tag the accused players with multiple offenses against its drug policy, thereby giving it license to suspend them for an entire season or longer, Selig appears to have grown steadily crankier. When it was suggested that baseball's drug-testing program came far too late because it came after decades of rampant cheating and use of performance-enhancing drugs by players while the sport’s powers that be did nothing, Selig responded angrily. "People say, 'Well, you were slow to react.' We were not slow to react," he said. "In fact, I heard that this morning, and it aggravated me all over again." One has to wonder how baseball fans should feel about the fact that players, owners and the commissioners did nothing while a dirty sport lurched forward with a steroid-soaked record book…….

- Does the "Buddhist bin Laden" and the "face of Buddhist terror" really exist? He does, although it is debatable how true those characterizations are. U Wirathu is a Buddhist monk who has been accused of inciting violence against Myanmar's Muslim minority with angry sermons claiming that the growth of Islam is putting Buddhism and Burmese culture at risk. So far, nearly 200 people have been killed by violence since religious riots erupted in June 2012, while tens of thousands of other could have been killed had they not first fled after homes they owned were burned by angry mobs. Wirathu did once compare himself to the deceased al Qaeda leader as "a joke," but he’s not joking what he alleges that Islamic beliefs can encourage people to have "bad characters." He also does not dispute that he espouses a form of radical Buddhism that doesn’t sync up with the image of peace and acceptance most people think of when they picture Buddhism. Wirathu maintains that he does not advocate violence against Muslims, who make up just 5 percent of the country's 60 million people. "I believe Islam is a threat not just for Buddhism, but for the people and the country and the religion," he said. Various publications have dubbed him as the face of the Buddhist terror movement, but he dismisses the idea that he is the "Buddhist bin Laden." His words carry weight in Burmese culture because in his country, monks are generally seen as beyond question because of their holy status. Tensions in the country remain high, especially in the western state of Rakhine, which borders predominantly Muslim Bangladesh. Buddhist mobs also burned Muslim homes in the northern city of Lashio in May. Human rights groups have denounced the violence and seem genuinely distressed by the fact that tens of thousands of Muslims have been effectively trapped in displacement camps after clashes saw an estimated 200 people killed and villages destroyed last year. Wirathu is the leader of a pro-Buddhist movement, known as 969, that has pushed businesses to certify that they are pro-Buddhist and pressured consumers to choose these businesses over Muslim-run ones. The 969 logos have become increasingly common at rallies and on pamphlets issued by religious and nationalist organizations describing Muslims as a threat. In spite of this, anyone accusing Wirathu of spurring people to violence should know that he "does not believe that violence will solve the problems." Take that, haters………

- Some bands have embraced Internet-based music streaming services, but Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace are no longer among them. AFP member and frequent Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich is none too happy with Spotify and has yanked all of the band’s music down from the service based on claims that the streaming service is "bad for new music." Godrich expounded on his reasons for the move on his Twitter feed. "I'm not b*tching about not getting paid. It's about standing up for other artists rights,” he said. "The reason is that new artists get paid f*ck all with this model. It's an equation that just doesn't work." To prove he wasn’t angry to the core, Godrich did thank fans for engaging in a discussion on the topic and estimated that the fan response on the topic was “about 70% positive and supportive 10% negative and 20% confused." He accused Spotify of having “secret deals” with major labels and cutting smaller producers and labels out of any significant payouts from the service. His conspiracy theory posits that the money is divided up by percentage of total streams and because big labels have massive back catalogues, even a 40-year-old album by a deceased artist earns the same amount as a brand-new track by a new artist. Labels, Godrich reasoned, cut such deals in return for cushy royalty rates. With large portions of their catalogues being streamed, they receive a big payout and smaller producers and labels get much less for their comparatively few streams. Still, Godich wants to make it clear that he’s not upset about not getting paid. He may be telling the truth because he’s made a sh*t load of money working with Radiohead and other big-time artists. Then again, a big-timer claiming to be standing up for other artists’ rights is a bit rich. In its defense, Spotify has argued that its long-term goal is to make sure artists are properly remunerated for putting their music on the service………

- Doctors must be brutally honest in difficult situations and deliver harsh news to people who may or may not be prepared to hear it. Dr. Timothy Sweo, who plies his trade in Tennessee, understands this lesson and he proved it in April when he had a very frank discussion with 55-year-old Terry Ragland. Ragland went to Sweo to find out what was causing her back pain and received a surprising answer. She had, the good doctor informed her, a bad case of GB: ghetto booty. “He said ‘I know what the problem is. It’s ghetto booty,’” Ragland recalled. “I think I blacked out after he said ghetto booty. I think my mind was just stuck on the phrase because I couldn’t believe he said that.” Not only did Sweo say it; he stood behind his diagnosis. Doctors at his office had seen Ragland several times previously and she recalled those as positive visits, but the April visit was her first time seeing Sweo. “It’s one of those things where my hip seems to slip, like it’s slipping out of place a little bit. It’s painful when you get up to go walk it kind of slips, you know,” Ragland added. Her pain has increased with the perceived slight from Sweo, so much so that Ragland has filed a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Health. “He said there’s no cure for it but I could give you something if you’re having pain,” she recalled. In her telling of the tale, she told an office manager about what happened and received an apology on the spot. Sweo allegedly sent an apology letter a few weeks later in which he wrote, “I was trying to take a technical conversation regarding your lower back and make it less technical.” He added that he was trying to explain to Ragland that she had “lumbar lordosis,” the medical term for a curve in her spine. However, she is of the opinion that he was insulting her intelligence by not using the proper medical term along with straight-up insulting her by using such ghetto-rific language…….

- Apple is working on technology for an updated TV set top box or TV platform equipped with a service that would let TV viewers to skip commercials – or isn’t it? As with all things Apple, the tech giant is being über-secretive about the entire situation.  Despite the cloak and dagger routine that Apple goes through every time such a rumor circulates, the commercial-skipping feature sounds logical. It would reportedly be included as part of a "premium" service Apple TV owners would buy into. The subscription fee would have to be pretty freaking high if this story is true, because Apple would allegedly pay networks when skipping occurred. The rumors have yet to be substantiated and in its present form, Apple's TV set top box remains limited to prerecorded content instead of live TV channels. To date, it has attempted some modest efforts to offer its own presentations, like keynotes and concerts, live. One of the other juicy rumors is that Apple wants to expand its television empire from selling content a la carte to a subscription that would rival what people purchase from their cable providers. That sounds like more of an Apple move than anything mentioned above even though it is no longer the house that Steve Jobs built and has slipped a bit in recent months with tepid reception to some of its new hardware offerings. Believe it or not, when asked about the possibility that it would branch out and diversify its TV menu, Apple simply refused to comment on the story and attempted to dismiss it as nothing more than rumor and speculation……..