Rashida Jones v. Instagram whores, BART drama in the Bay Area and Brunei goes sharia soon

-  Get your keg stands and Irish car bombs in now, Brunei, because next year that sort of behavior is going to be a big problem in your country. The oil-rich nation, which has all of its power concentrated with the monarchy and does not hold elections, will enforce sharia criminal law next year. The Islamic kingdom's sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, announced the decision on Tuesday. The news should be very exciting for everyone in Brunei who is a fan of punishments that include stoning to death for adultery and flogging for drinking alcohol. Bolkiah, one of the world's wealthiest people, has presided over a shift to more conservative Islam and anti-sedition laws in recent years. "It is because of our need that Allah the Almighty, in all his generosity, has created laws for us, so that we can utilise them to obtain justice," Bolkiah said. He also holds the post of prime minister, so there is no going over his head to argue against the move. Those looking for the sunny side of this mess can rest (not really) assured that many crimes under the new code have a high burden of proof. Ultimately, sharia court judges would have discretion over punishments, which could also include amputations for theft. The process of implementing sharia law has been ongoing in Brunei for several years. Previously, the sultan has said that sharia criminal law should be established to work alongside the country's civil law more prominently. In the small, yet rich kingdom, Islamic teachings are enforced more sternly than Malaysia and Indonesia, the other majority Muslim countries in Southeast Asia. The sale of alcohol is banned and evangelism by other religions is strictly forbidden. However, these legal changes may not be the best idea with Brunei’s oil reserves set to run out in about two decades and the government working on a strategy to promote development in sectors such as tourism, halal products and manufacturing. Brunei is clearly underestimating foreigners’ love of booze……..

- Maybe it’s the bitterness of knowing that his team was about to rank third in the first BCS standings of the year, perhaps it’s the disappointment of not blowing out an inferior opponent…or maybe Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti just has a perpetual red ass that keeps him angry and chaffed all the time. Whatever the cause, Aliotti was bent after the Washington State Cougars threw a record-breaking 89 passes Saturday night in the Ducks' 62-38 win. His rage boiled over because Cougars quarterback Connor Halliday set a Football Bowl Subdivision record for pass attempts with 89 and was still chucking the ball with his team down four scores late in the game. Aliotti called it "low class" move by Washington State coach (and noted pirate lover) Mike Leach. "I am kind of stunned he would keep his quarterback and crew in there,'' Aliotti said. "They want stats, they got stats. But we got the most important stat, and that's the 'W,' and we are happy about that.'' Factually, Aliotti is correct. Down 55-24 at the start of the fourth quarter, Halliday made 28 more passes to break a 15-year-old FBS record set by Drew Brees with Purdue -- by six attempts. A cynic might argue something insane like Washington State trying to compete, playing the same way it always plays and doing what any team should do in a game, but Aliotti was having none of it. "That's total (B.S.) that he threw the ball at the end of the game like he did,'' Aliotti said, referring to Leach. "And you can print that and you can send it to him, and he can comment, too. I think it's low class and it's (B.S.) to throw the ball when the game is completely over against our kids that are basically our scout team.'' For the night, Halliday completed 58 of 89 passes total for 557 yards and four touchdowns for Washington State. The Cougars did not run the ball in the fourth quarter, but again, a squad down 31 points typically does more throwing because, ya know, it’s a quicker way to move the ball and score points………

- BlackBerry is still going downhill at a breakneck page, but at least the former king of the cellphone world is still trying. The troubled tech company has resumed the rollout of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) apps for iOS and Android devices one month after a badly botched launch attempt. That, however, is only part of the story. Downloading the apps is possible, but users may need to wait for the official green light to use them. Those who signed up for email notifications about BBM in September will be able to start using the apps immediately, according to BlackBerry executive Andrew Bocking, but everyone else will be asked to submit their email address the first time they open the apps and then wait for their spot in the activation queue to come up. An email from BlackBerry will notify users when they have reached the front of the line (which probably won't be that long because no one uses BBM anymore) and can begin using the app on their device. It may be an odd way to roll out a new product, but maybe it will work better than last’s month’s train wreck of a release, when at least 1 million Android users downloaded an unreleased version of BBM from file-sharing sites that "caused issues" with the official client. After that debacle, BlackBerry withdrew both the Android and the iOS versions of the client from app stores and began overhauling its systems to prevent similar situations in the future. Four weeks later, BBM is trying again and with the smartphone side of its business on life support, BlackBerry needs this launch to go well. Last month, the company had to own up to  $1 billion in unsold inventory of its latest Z10 devices and fend off rumors that it was planning to spin off BBM as a new subsidiary. Even BBM has struggled to win the fight against rivals as WhatsApp, although launching BBM on iOS and Android should help a bit. Outside of the loyal, hardcore BlackBerry user base, the company’s devices and apps continue to be increasingly marginalized in the tech world and nothing on the horizon seems destined to change that……..

- BART is back on track. A brief, yet nasty work stoppage for Bay Area Regional Transit workers came to an end early Tuesday when union and transit officials announced a tentative deal. The agreement ended a four-day strike that caused travel headaches for  400,000 commuters. Des Patten, president of the BART professional chapter of Service Employees International Union, confirmed that the deal includes wage increases and work rule changes that allow for innovation and input from workers. It also addresses two primary concerns of the striking workers, namely their safety and passenger safety. The agreement represents a "new path in terms of our partnership with workers," BART general manager Grace Crunican said. "We compromised to get to this place as did our union members." With a tentative deal in place, some trains in the nation's fifth-largest commuter rail system returned to service at 6 a.m. Tuesday. Talks to terminate the stoppage resumed Monday and not a moment too soon if the frustrations expressed by commuters over the weekend are any indication. A federal mediator got involved in the talks late in the weekend and was able to facilitate discussion between the two sides over rules governing implementation of new technology and safety-related issues. By the time face-to-face negotiations resumed about 2:30 p.m. Monday, the two sides were much closer to a deal. While negotiations slogged onward, traffic in and out of the city on he San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was backed up for miles. The situation grew so desperate that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission began offering $5 gift cards for Peet's Coffee and Tea to drivers willing to pick up passengers at "casual carpool" locations near the bridge. Stranded commuters used social media to solicit or offer rides to and from downtown. Thankfully, everyone can now go back to ignoring one another on the train every morning and evening…….

- Rashida Jones wants the Instagram flirts of Hollywood to kick things down a notch with their scorching online selfies. With Kim Kardashian’s nonstop attention whorish ways and her revealing Instagram selfie of last week, Jones – solidly attractive in her own right – has reached her breaking point and took to Twitter to plead for famous folks of all kinds to ramp down the over-sexification of their social media accounts. "This week's celeb news takeaway: she who comes closest to showing the actual inside of her (private parts) is most popular," Jones wrote. "#stopactinglikewhores." While no names were named and no Twitter handles were affixed to the message, it was clearly aimed at pop creations such as Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears. Jones’ comments are nothing new and the likes of Annie Lennox and Sinead O'Connor have both expressed similar sentiments of late. Perhaps realizing that her remarks could be construed as a direct frontal attack on some of the biggest names in Hollywood, Jones then backpedaled with subsequent tweets suggesting that she was only looking out for impressionable young women and girls and didn’t mean to attack any one person for how they chose to depict themselves. "There is a whole generation of young women watching," Jones later tweeted. "Sure, be SEXY but leave something to the imagination. Let me clarify. I don't shame ANYone for anything they choose to do with their lives or bodies…BUT I think we ALL need to take a look at what we are accepting as 'the norm.'” Ever the comedian, she later tried to turn the focus back to the lighter side with a tweet that read, "Also, calling on all men to show me dat ass." Well played, R………

Red Lobster racism, Manhattan music venues die and Lakers-Clippers hate

- The Los Angeles Clippers will likely never match the 16 championship banners and 10 retired uniforms their Staples Center co-tenants boast. The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the most decorated franchises in all of professional sports and even though their NBA little brother, the Clippers, are the better team right now, historically the team in purple and gold is vastly superior. So what are the Clippers to do as they begin a new regime under their first-year coach Doc Rivers and seek to step out of big brother’s shadow? How about cover up the Lakers' championship banners and retired uniforms during Clippers home games? That sounds like a win, right? The part-time arena makeover debuted during a preseason game Friday, with giant posters of players Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes, Jared Dudley and J.J. Redick over the Lakers' memorabilia. The two teams have shared the Staples Center since it opened for the 1999-2000 season, making them the only teams in the league to have such an arrangement. When asked about the new decorations, the Lakers didn’t sound too pleased, especially not L.A. native, and former Clipper, Nick Young. "He can do that?" Young said of Rivers. "For real? That's disrespectful. We got to talk to Doc. He can't have that. We got to do something about that." It was suggested to Young that Rivers' championship resume from his time with the Boston Celtics gave him that necessary gravitas to make the changes, but Young countered, "But he didn't win no title in L.A. That's where it's at. Look at all these banners in here, you can't shadow those up." Lakers point guard Steve Nash was more diplomatic and given that Kobe Bryant won't be back any time soon and the Lakers are a shell of their former selves, that’s probably smart. "I guess if you were in the Clippers' organization you probably want to do that, too," Nash said. "It's their arena on their night, so I would try to make it feel like home." Well played, Steve-O………

- Gold dig time in India, booyah! On the surface (pun intended), it might seem ridiculous to launch a massive dig based simply on a tip from a holy man who said he dreamed 1,000 tons of gold was buried at a random site, that’s precisely what the Indian government did over the weekend. The dream from Swami Shoban Sarkar indicated that the treasure was buried near an ancient temple. As the swami tells it, he was approached in a dream by a 19th century ruler called Rao Ram Bux Singh and the Singh-meister informed him about the $40 billion bonanza buried near an ancient temple. Showing his unselfishness/insanity, Sarkar did not keep the mystical vision to himself even though he has no money, land or bank account. He took his found wisdom to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in the hope the gold could solve India’s economic crisis. The agency could have blown off the suggestion as the delusional raving of a nut job, but political pressure compelled the ASI has decided to see if Sarkar’s dream checks out. This expedition based on insanity is taking place in the village of Daundia Khera, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, began Friday. "I cried the day I realized that India is going to collapse economically," Sarkar said. "It is a hidden treasure for the country." A crew of a dozen labors sent by the ASI arrived at the site on Thursday and cordoned it off with a bamboo fence. Gawkers with nothing better to do have begun showing up at the site to see if there is any progress and the work crew is following Sarkar’s directions to dig in an area based on a shadow cast by the nearby temple. They will waste their time, effort and energy to uncover two 100-square meter areas beside the building. In an attempt to cover its own ass, the ASI said the project is not based entirely on the holy man’s foresight. Director General BR Mani used a fictional geological survey following the claims to back up the idea that there could be precious material at the site. “We’ve responded to a report by the ministry of culture,” he said. “[The report] has observations by the Geological Survey of India that there could be some metal bounty under the earth. So the team is in the field.” Way to behave like a financially secure world power, India……..

- The Amazon rainforest may not be as diverse as is widely assumed. Sure, the massive natural wonder is home to about 16,000 tree species, but a new study suggests that a mere 227 "hyperdominant" species account for half of Amazonia's total trees. After painstaking research, an international team of researchers found that the region is home to an estimated 390 billion trees. However, t the rarest 11,000 species made up only 0.12 percent of tree cover. Their findings are based on a survey of 1,170 plots and half-a-million trees across the six-million-square-kilometer area often described as the lungs of the world. Unfortuantely, the authors were unable to determine the hyper dominance of the 227 species, which accounted for 1.4 percent of the estimated number of species in the region. "We knew that, normally, a few species dominate ecosystems, but if you have a system that has 16,000 tree species but just 227 make up half of the trees, that was pretty surprising even for us," said lead author Dr. Hans ter Steege from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands. "We don't really know why these species are so incredibly dominant because they do not have any particular ecological feature that stands out." Ter Steege and the team of more than 100 scientists concluded that two key functional traits for trees - seed mass and wood density - played a part in determining what species dominated the landscape. The most dominant species was indentified as Euterpe precatoria, a palm tree native to central and southern America, boasting a population of more than 5 million trees within Amazonia. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the rarest 5,800 species had communities with fewer than 1,000 individuals. Those species identified as hyperdominant were found to be  "disproportionately resistant to pathogens, specialist herbivores and other sources of frequency-dependent mortality,” according to the researchers……..

- New York City has hundreds of great live music venues both large and small, but its best and brightest are disappearing at a disturbing rate. In 2006, iconic punk rock venue C.B.G.B.’s on the Lower East Side in the Bowery closed due to a rent dispute between owner Hilly Kristal and the local residents’ commission. Earlier this year, the New York City Council gave the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, 10 years to find a new location so it could expand Penn Station, which rests below the arena. Now, the historic Roseland Ballroom will close in April, ending its 56-year run on 52nd Street. The 3,500-seat venue, which is owned by developer Larry Ginsberg and is booked by Live Nation, was originally located on 51st Street, where it opened in 1919. The second version opened in 1958 and has morphed from a ballroom dancefloor in the 1920s to a venue for rock n' roll, disco, grunge. Of late, it has become a popular stop for the rising crop of electronic and dance music artists. Its closing might have come much sooner had the venue not spent more than $1 million on new production and rigging in the early '90s to upgrade its facilities and make it a viable stop for a litany of high-profile acts, including rock icons Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Along the way, well-known acts including The Rolling Stones, Madonna and Radiohead have also played there. The best of the best may not have Roseland Ballroom as the first stop on their world tours, but even with a cycle of artists including Jessie Ware, The Wanted and Panic! At the Disco rolling through, it wouldn’t seem like the ballroom was on its last legs. So far, venue officials haven't officially confirmed the shutdown, but once they do, tickets for the remaining shows will likely become much bigger gets and a few A-list acts might decide to make one final trip to midtown Manhattan………

- What’s a trip to a C-level seafood restaurant without a nice dose of blatant racism? For Franklin, Tenn. Resident Devin Barnes, it’s pertinent question because it is Barnes who stands accused of scribbling the N-word on a receipt that waitress Toni Christina Jenkins said a customer left for her last month at the Red Lobster restaurant where she works. Barnes says he has been falsely accused and vows to sue the franchise in the coming week. Jenkins turned the situation from an ugly, unknown incident into national news when she posted a picture of the receipt on Facebook Sept. 10 with the words “none” on the “tip” line and the N-word on the “total” line at the Franklin, Tenn., restaurant. “I was just stunned that it happened,” Jenkins said. “It’s not something that you think in our generation would actually take place, so I was just blown away by it.” Tracing the receipt back to Barnes wasn’t difficult and he admitted writing “none” on the tip line but says he left the “total” line blank and signed his name. Either he sucks at math and couldn’t add the zero dollars he left as a tip to the total of his meal or he wrote the N-word and now knows what an ass hat he looks like….or the always-elusive random stranger who hijacked his receipt and scrawled a heinously racist term on it. His father called him, asking, ‘What happened? Someone wrote the N-word on your receipt,’” Barnes said. “I thought he was lying. But I pulled it up on her [Jenkins] Facebook page and just thought, ‘I didn’t write this, I don’t know who wrote it.” Regardless of the author, the incident inspired complete strangers around the United States to donate more than $10,000 to Jenkins and excoriate Barnes online. Because the receipt contained confidential information about Barnes, he had to change his banking information and order a new debit card – and deal with a few harmless death threats. His continues to insist that he didn’t leave a tip because he and his wife were in a hurry and needed to leave. His attorney/pastor (true story) Richard Dugger advised him to sue Red Lobster over the story and he has already submitted handwriting samples to a forensic document examiner in an attempt to prove his innocence.……

L.A. Dodgers spending, Luxembourg corruption and gang bangers v. Utah

- A weak slate of new movies and a stale group of returning films led to stagnation at the weekend box office. That was good news for the reigning earnings champion, “Gravity,” which held first place for the third straight weekend. With $31.1 million, the outer-space epic has banked $170.6 million in domestic earnings thus far. Once again, “Captain Phillips” ranked second, adding $17.3 million to its overall haul for a two-week tally of $54 million. “Carrie” was one of only two new movies to crack the top 10, placing third after banking $17 million in its debut. That was more than enough to beat out “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,” which dropped one spot to fourth and cranked out $10.1 million for a four-week total of $94 million and counting. Geezer prison drama “Escape Plan,” a.k.a. “Expendables Goes to Jail,” opened in fifth place and managed a scant $9.8 million. Fittingly, it beat out “Prisoners” (not set in jail) and kept the latter in sixth place for the second consecutive weekend with a mere $2 million. In five weeks of release, “Prisoners” has made a modest $57.2 million. “Enough Said” rose four spots to seventh despite remaining in limited release and garnered $1.8 million while showing in a mere 757 theaters to up its cumulative domestic earnings to $10.8 million. “The Fifth Estate” became the third and final new movie in the top 10 with an über-weak $1.7 million against its $28 million budget. “Runner Runner” raced into ninth place, down four spots as its earnings plummeted 57 percent to $1.6 million. Through three weeks, the Ben Affleck-fronted drama has conjured up $17.5 million in domestic money. The last spot in the top 10 went to “Insidious Chapter 2,” just out of ninth place with $1.5 million and in possession of $80.9 million in domestic earnings through six weeks. “Rush” (No. 11), “Machete Kills” (No. 12), “Don Jon” (No. 13) and the über-awful “Baggage Claim” (No. 14) dropped out from last weekend’s top 10………

- Score one for the street thugs. Street gangs and Utah end up in the same sentence all of the time and this week is no different after the Utah Supreme Court overturned a controversial injunction that had barred members of an Ogden street gang from hanging out together. Gang members will be allowed to freely gather in public once more thanks to the reversal of a decision that prohibited more than 300 members of the Trece gang from associating with each other within an area of Ogden designated as the "Safety Zone" for more than three years. The state's high court voided the injunction, determining that leaders or the "managing or general agent" of the gang were not properly served, concluding that the district court “therefore lacked jurisdiction to enter the injunction." Weber County Deputy Attorney Branden Miles didn’t sound too hyped about the decision, saying, "Nobody and their dog could have argued that they didn't know the gang was being sued. But the legal requirements for suing someone requires us to provide a certain kind of notice." The Trece gang, also known as Centro City Locos, remains Ogden’s largest band of upstanding criminals and has been operating for more than 30 years. In response, Weber County labeled the gang a "public nuisance" and moved to file the injunction against it in August 2010. That 331-page filing contained more than 100 pages of photographs of gang symbols, tattoos, graffiti, clothing and hand signs. It audaciously accused the gang of criminal acts ranging from graffiti to selling drugs and murder. However, the county claimed it was "difficult if not impossible to give the gang 'notice' ... and serve [it] under traditional methods” because officials had a difficult time determining and locating the gang's "known management structure, officers, directors." Yes, gangs tend to have a tough time following normal hierarchical procedures other organizations adhere to. That doesn’t mean the city can establish a 25-square-mile area encompassing most of the city of Ogden in which gang members were banned from "[d]riving, standing, sitting, walking, gathering, or appearing together" in public view. Just because they (allegedly) confronted, intimidated, annoyed, harassed and/or threatened the good folks of Ogden is no reason to single them out……..

- Who says government can't act quickly? As long as it’s not the U.S. government, there is a chance that a governing entity can take action when the situation demands it and Luxembourg is proof of this fact. For the geographically ignorant, Luxembourg is a small nation nestled between Belgium, France and Germany in northern Europe. Its voters went to the polls this weekend in a snap election sparked by a secret service and corruption scandal. The country has been in a state of crisis since July, when Jean-Claude Juncker's coalition cabinet collapsed amid claims he had failed to stop illegal security agency activities, including phone-tapping. If that sounds vaguely like the NSA surveillance scandal in the United States, there are vague parallels, with the small exception of Luxembourg actually doing something about the situation. Juncker had been the longest-tenured elected leader in Europe, serving as prime minister since 1995. With a new regime being selected, Luxembourg’s center-left, Liberals and Greens are now hoping to win enough seats to form a coalition government. Juncker’s reputation is badly damaged, but there is still a possibility that his Christian Social People's Party could remain in power. If that happens, it will prove that a damning report alleging the allegations against the SREL security agency that Juncker oversees wasn’t as damning as originally thought. That would be a sad development, even if the alleged indiscretions included the illegal bugging of politicians, along with the purchase of cars for private use and payments in exchange for access to local officials. Much of it is typical government corruption that would surprise no one, but Juncker has denied any wrongdoing. Then again, what politician ever does……..

- The tech world rarely sees two of its industry titans team up in any way, which makes the new arrangement between Google and Facebook so unusual. The two companies may not be TBFF’s (tech best friends forever), but they have reached a deal under which Google will sell Facebook ad inventory. The ads will be sold via Google's DoubleClick Bid Manager, its real-time bidding system, and in a matter of months, marketers will be able to buy ads for Facebook's Ad Exchange on the platform. "Partnership has been key to Google’s success as a rising tide lifts all boats. So we’re excited to announce a new way to help our clients succeed by working with Facebook to participate in FBX, their real-time bidding exchange," Payam Shodjai, Senior Product Manager at Google, wrote in a company blog post. Terrible nautical cliché aside, Google’s point is simple: We want to make as much money as possible and continue our quest for global domination, so if we have to work with Facebook to make that happen, so be it. Facebook debuted FBX last year as part of its efforts to capitalize on its social media empire. FBX is a program that allows advertisers to drop cookies in users’ browsers and then retarget those users when they re-enter Facebook. It’s a conniving, underhanded plan and given the lack of tech savvy and privacy awareness among many Facebook users, it is also working swimmingly. Facebook and Google are still competitors on most levels, but they have coordinated efforts before. In June 2012, Google bought Wildfire, a social media marketing agencies that develops ad campaigns for Facebook, and earlier this year Facebook purchased Atlas, an ad server that sells ads on Google's display network………

- The Major League Baseball offseason hasn’t even begun yet and the Los Angeles Dodgers are already throwing Godfather offers at star players. In what is fast becoming their tradition under new ownership fronted by NBA legend Magic Johnson, the Dodgers are embracing a role as the new New York Yankees, outspending everyone else in pursuit of a championship. Their first target of the offseason-to-be is left-hander Clayton Kershaw, the presumptive Cy Young award winner in the National League for this season. The Dodgers have reportedly offered Kershaw a lifetime contract in the range of $300 million, an offer that has been on the table for some time now but has not yet been accepted because Kershaw was initially uncertain about committing to a deal so encompassing, and about having contract talks during the season. The final offer may not be the lifetime deal the team has in mind, but progress has been made and most experts expect the contract to be completed this winter, with a significant portion of money being devoted to a charity of Kershaw's choosing. Whether or not Kershaw’s new deal dwarfs Alex Rodriguez's current contract with the New York Yankees – a 10-year, $275 million deal that could reach $305 million – is still to be determined. Even if it doesn’t hit that mark, Kershaw's potential contract is expected to be the largest ever for a pitcher. After a 16-9 season with a 1.83 ERA, such a payday should still be a wise investment, even if Kershaw had his worst outing of the season in a Game 6 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Championship Series on Friday night that ended the Dodgers’ season…….

Exploring black holes, soccer kindness and playing Freddie Mercury

- Way to be, Federal Way (Wash.) City Council. When going toe to toe with a 12-year-old girl who wants nothing more than to keep her beloved pet, your only option is to quash those hopes and crush her spirit in a very public fashion. That’s what the council elected to do when faced with Ava Anissipour’s request to keep a pygmy goat as a household pet. Anissipour and her two goats became a story in July when her family was cited by the city’s animal services after neighbors complained about the odor and the noise that the two goats generated. Because of a legal loophole that allows homeowners to have one creature designated as a service animal on their property, one of the goats was allowed to stay. However, city code also classifies goats as large domestic animals that require a minimum property size of 70,000 square feet. That made the second goat a code violation that had to go. Anissipour and her parents tried every legal avenue to keep both of their beasts of burden, but the council declined a motion for the city’s planning commission to pursue a code revision that would allow Ava to keep her goat by a resounding 6-1 margin. Each of the six council members who voted no deserve an immense amount of credit for listening to an emotional plea from a 12-year-old girl who implored them to allow each of her goats to “stay under one roof” and tell her to go the hell away and shut up. Anissipour’s weak arguments included the ridiculous claims that pygmy goats are herd animals who need to live in pairs and that these filthy creatures behave and smell better than most dogs. The council disagreed and voted to leave the city code unchanged. “The neighbors have a right to enjoy their homes that they have bought and paid for… and not smell the terrible and offensive odor,” councilwoman Dini Duclos said. Well spoken, Dini………

- And the search goes on. The living members of Queen cannot find the right actor to play the leading role in their long-planned biopic of Freddie Mercury, but they have at least identified their next target. Whether they know it or not, Roger Taylor and his bandmates dodged a major scud this summer after Sacha Baron Cohen pulled out of the project, reportedly because he and Queen, who have script and director approval, were unable to agree on the type of movie they wanted to make. "We felt Sacha probably wasn't right in the end. We didn't want it to be a joke. We want people to be moved," Taylor said. The next rumored frontrunner for the role was “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe, who quickly denied rumors he could play Mercury, saying, "I am completely wrong for that part." Whether Radcliffe was ever in the running or not, Queen seem to have moved on and during a recent interview, Taylor said the actor Queen have in mind for the role has the initials BW. BW, it turns out, is “Skyfall” actor Ben Whishaw. Whishaw didn’t exactly scream “charismatic rock frontman” in his role as the new Q in the latest James Bond movie, but Taylor and Co. seems to believe that he can ditch the horn-rimmed glasses, sweater vests and tech-savvy ways and travel back in time a few decades to play the flamboyant Mercury. This casting talk is the latest counterpoint to screenwriter Peter Morgan saying last month that the biopic is "probably not going to happen" following Baron Cohen's exit. Producer Graham King countered by insisting that the project is "still very much alive.” Alive or not, it still needs a leading man and Whishaw seems to have the role if he wants it………

- Something smells fishy in the Maldives….and it’s not just all of the fish on the nation of 1,200 islands scattered in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka. The fish do smell, but not as much as police blocking officials from conducting a scheduled re-run Saturday of September's presidential election. The decision sparked immediate condemnation from the international community, but a police spokesman says the vote was stopped because election officials failed to comply with a court order that required all candidates to approve a list of voters' names. Maldives Elections Commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek boldly attempted to hold the election as scheduled, but police surrounded the commission's offices early Saturday and stopped Thowfeek’s staff from distributing election materials. India was among the countries that expressed concern over the situation and its External Affairs Ministry urged the Maldivian government and all other parties involved to assist election officials in holding a presidential vote "without further delay." All of this drama stems from a September decision by the Maldives Supreme Court to annul the results of a Sept. 7 presidential election, citing irregularities that no international observers seemed to see. So far, only former president Mohamed Nasheed, who was ousted in disputed circumstances in February 2012, has approved the electoral list. Two other candidates refused to sign the list until it is verified to avoid any irregularities. Oh, and don’t forget about businessman Gasim Ibrahim, who launched the legal challenge to the first round after finishing in third place and was able to re-enter the fray thanks to the annulment. Maldives has about three weeks before current president Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s term ends, so it should probably clear all of this up soon……..

- Is there class and character in soccer? Maybe, right alongside the flopping, diving, faking, softness and ridiculous goal celebrations. Just don’t expect to find it in Mexico, according to U.S. soccer star Landon Donovan. Donovan, who did not play in Tuesday’s World Cup qualifying game against Panama because the U.S. had already clinched its spot in Brazil and didn’t need to win, was asked about the ramifications of the Americans’ comeback win on the rest of the group. By scoring two goals in stoppage time, the Americans not only won the game, but also eliminated Panama from World Cup contention and allowed Mexico to finish fourth in its qualifying group, thus earning a spot in a playoff with New Zealand for an at-large spot in the World Cup. In the closing minutes of Tuesday's qualifiers, Mexico was losing at Costa Rica 2-1 and Panama was beating the U.S. 2-1. Had Panama beaten the U.S., they would have finished fourth in the CONCACAF standings, eliminating Mexico. Panamanian players were pissed that the U.S. actually tried to win, while Donovan mused that had the Americans and Mexicans had their roles reversed, the U.S. could not count on Mexico to do what it had done by trying to win a game it did not need for qualification. "It was a miracle for them, and it says a lot about the American spirit," Donovan said. "I can't imagine that if the roles were reversed, that they would have done the same. And I can't imagine many teams around the world doing that for their rival, but our guys play hard always, and it was professional and it was with integrity. I'm proud to be part of that team." It’s a not-so-veiled shot at the Mexicans, who still must outduel the Kiwis in a two-leg playoff to earn their own spot in Brazil. Even if they do qualify, the odds against them facing the Americans at any point in the tournament are miniscule, so inadvertently helping its rivals won't be the reason the U.S. once again comes up extremely small on soccer’s biggest stage……….

- Supermassive black holes are more than fodder for Soundgarden song titles. They are also massive entities located in the centers of large galaxies and for years, they have confounded astronomers unable to understand how the holes grow to be so big. A team of Australian researchers may have narrowed the search for that answer by using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia. "This is the first time we've been able to use information about gravitational waves to study another aspect of the Universe--the growth of massive black holes," said Ramesh Bhat, co-author of the study. "Black holes are almost impossible to observe directly, but armed with this powerful new tool we're in from some exciting times in astronomy. One model for how black holes grow has already been discounted, and now we're going to start looking at others." Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time that are generated by massive bodies changing speed or direction and they are caused by pairs of black holes orbiting each other. In the event of a galaxy merger, each galaxy’s central black holes are destined to meet after swirling around each other and emitting gravitational waves at a frequency that astronomers can detect. To search for these gravitational waves, the researchers in this study examined a set of 20 small, spinning stars called pulsars. Pulsars are outer space’s de facto clocks because the arrival time of their pulses on Earth form a precise record traceable to within a tenth of a microsecond. Gravitational waves temporarily swell or shrink the distances within that area and alter the arrival time of the pulses on Earth. Observing this phenomenon allows scientists to detect the presence of waves. Baht and his colleagues were able to measure the background rate of gravitational waves and test four models of black hole growth. They ultimately ruled out that black holes gained mass only through mergers, leaving three other theories still in play……..

Debunking yeti myths, Beijing's toxic air and NBA preseason smack

- His location is new, but Brooklyn Nets power forward Kevin Garnett’s unbridled rage against anyone who dares to step to him remains the same. Garnett, who was traded from Boston to Brooklyn this offseason, clearly took his hatred of the Miami Heat and their star with him to New York. After LeBron James said that Garnett and Nets small forward Paul Pierce should apologize for hypocritically criticizing Heat sharpshooter Ray Allen for leaving the Boston Celtics because they had done the same thing, Garnett was having none of it and before the two teams met in an exhibition game Wednesday night, KG had a little something for LBJ. "Tell LeBron to worry about Miami. It has nothing to do with Celtic business," Garnett said. James was equally direct in his remarks and that goes a long way to explaining why Garnett was so angry – along with the simple fact that he’s Kevin Garnett. "I think the first thing I thought was, 'Wow, Ray got killed for leaving Boston, and now these guys are leaving Boston,'" James said. "I think it's OK; I didn't mind it. But there were a couple guys who basically [expletive] on Ray for leaving, and now they're leaving. "That's the nature of our business, man. I don't know what Boston was going through at the end of the day.” Pierce was less confrontational when asked about the debate and danced around it by passive-aggressively pointing out that while he is no longer in Boston, he was traded and didn’t simply sign with another team. "I left Boston?" Pierce said when asked of James' comments. Garnett’s instructions to James to shut up and keep he and Pierce’s names out of his mouth remain the proper way to handle such disagreements……..

- Who doesn’t want free peanut butter for life? It’s a rhetorical question, even for people with peanut allergies, but they too would love to have a bottomless supply of that rich, creamy goodness for the rest of their life – if they’re smart and have a death wish. Vermont Peanut Butter is a small company looking to grow and they understand this concept well. It’s why they’re combining a unique offer with a pitch to invest in their fledgling enterprise in its early stages. To grow beyond a company that simply cranks out jar after jar of the brownish spread, VPB has plans to begin producing single-serve packets of peanut butter for people on the go. Adding a new product and producing the packaging for it can be an expensive proposition, so the company is reaching out to the local community for help. In order to raise the necessary $50,000 to launch the new line, VPB is seeking 50 investors to give them $1,000 each and in exchange, those investors will receive free peanut butter each week for the rest of their life. "When we have this equipment in place, we'll be able to manufacture over 10,000 packets a day," said company executive Chris Kaiser. Those who invest $1,000 will receive two limited-edition Mason jars that can be filled with any VPB variety weekly for the rest of their lives. The promotion has been dubbed “Forever Nuts” and those who live close to the company’s Morrisville location can either pick up their peanut butter at the plant or designate two people to fill up jars for them. Those who live out of state can pay to have it shipped. The promotion has been running for two weeks and so far, the company has 17 out of its 50 investors. Its plan to create single-serve packets dates back for years, when Tropical Storm Irene washed away its Waterbury location. "We had the pouches they were designed and in-house, we had a few components of the machine in-house, and all that was destroyed," Kaiser said. Vermont Peanut Butter rebounded and revived its dream in Morrisville and now, they’re sharing that dream with others……….

- Winter is lurking and after last winter’s “Airpocalypse,” government officials in Beijing are already working to ensure they aren’t a global laughing (and coughing) stock again. Communist overlords have introduced new guidelines for dealing with so-called “bad-air” days and the focal point is the city’s roadways. Under the new rules, an alternative driving day schedule for cars is the proposed solution. Those with even-numbered license plates and those with odd-numbered plates will alternate being allowed to drive on days when Beijing issues a “red alert” under a four-tiered pollution warning system. The red alert will be issued when the air quality index (AQI) is expected to be over 300 over a three-day period, which is pretty much every three days in the smog-choked capital. In addition to banning some drivers from the road for the day, the capital will increase public transportation frequency and hours of service for residents. China’s Environmental Protection Bureau estimates that the new rules would force an estimated 2 million more people onto the city’s already packed buses and subway system. City officials would be subject to the law as well, keeping  30 percent of the city’s fleet of vehicles to stay off the roads during bad-air days. Similar restrictions were put in place throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as China sought to not embarrass itself during the world’s biggest sporting event by having every single athlete drop dead due to its toxic air. A scaled-down version of the traffic restrictions have remained in place since then, but the primary focus has been on reducing traffic congestion as opposed to improving air quality. There actually has been marginal improvement in terms of air quality since 2008, but if there had been substantive improvement then the new regulations would not require industrial plants and constructions sites to suspend or limit work to control particulate in the air. Oh, and outdoor barbeques would not be suspended in the event of an orange alert, which they will be going forward. No barbeques, Beijing? What the hell is this, Communism? Never mind……….

- Dammit, Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes, did you really need to ruin it for humanity? Sykes couldn’t allow mankind to enjoy the possibility that the legendary Himalayan yeti was wandering around the mountains in all of its furry awesomeness, threatening to snap any man in half if that man dared to cross its path. Instead, this science nerd had to do actual research and conclude that the Himalayan yeti may in fact be a sub-species of brown bear. Sykes conducted DNA tests on hair samples and found that they matched those from an ancient polar bear. That led him to theorize that the myth likely stems from the fact that the animal is a hybrid of polar bears and brown bears. "I think this bear, which nobody has seen alive... may still be there and may have quite a lot of polar bear in it," he said. "It may be some sort of hybrid and if its behavior is different from normal bears, which is what eyewitnesses report, then I think that may well be the source of the mystery and the source of the legend." Blah, blah, blah. So you conducted DNA tests on hairs from two unidentified animals, one from Ladakh - in northern India on the west of the Himalayas - and the other from Bhutan, and found their genetic makeup to be very similar to that of polar bears and brown bears. Comparing your results with the genomes of other animals that are stored on a database of all published DNA sequences and finding a 100-percent match with a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway is not nearly as exciting or cool as proving that the yeti really exists. The sample from Ladakh came from around 40 years ago, while the second sample was in the form of a single hair, found in a bamboo forest by an expedition of filmmakers around 10 years ago. Sykes admitted that his results were "completely unexpected" and that more work needed to be done interpreting them. Damn right they do, professor, because the yeti is not happy with you right now…….

- Hint: if the season finale of your show requires a 29-minute audiobook to explain what one of its central characters did in between the closing minutes of the episode and the start of the next season, then maybe the episode didn’t do quite enough ‘splaining. “Homeland” producers should take note of this idea because they just released a 29-minute audiobook explaining what Damian Lewis's character Brody has been doing between the end of season two and the start of season three. “Homeland: Phantom Pain,” the audiobook is narrated by Lewis and available to download from Audible. A synopsis – yes, there is a synopsis – for the audiobook fills in some of the gaps and sounds as complicated as the season finale itself. "Picking up at the end of Season two after he has parted from Carrie at the border, Brody relates, in the form of a letter to Carrie, his desperate escape by sea and land as the world's most-hunted fugitive. Guided off the grid by a former CIA analyst and a battle-scarred French mercenary, he stays in the shadows... both physically and emotionally. But wherever he goes and whoever he meets, he cannot stop thinking about Carrie,” the synopsis reads. All of this should be helpful to fans who have been asking unanswered questions since the third season of HBO’s popular drama premiered on Sept. 29. The premiere wasn’t as exciting as it should have been for many fans, as the episode leaked nearly a month early and within hours, had been downloaded illegally over 100,000 times. Wonder how many of those fans are enthusiastically downloading the audiobook to find out what they’ve been missing……

Canadian rage, enraged college football players and Bieber needs to keep Metallica's name out his mouth

- The Biebs needs to take five ginormous steps back and keep Metallica’s name the hell out his mouth. The Biebs is obviously famous, he has obviously gotten there with a galling lack of musical talent thanks to the public’s even more galling taste in crappy pop music and on some level, that’s fine. Sing your garbage dance pop music, get a few tattoos to try to make yourself seem badass and allow teenage girls everywhere to swoon over you on a daily basis. While the world would be a better place if Justin Bieber just went away, if he just keeps doing his talentless pop hack thing and stays out of the real musicians’ way. However, when the Biebs shows up in a backstage video performing the single most despicable cover ever of one of the biggest rock bands in history’s best songs, then there’s a problem. The clip of the Canadian pop-singing tool “singing” Metallica’s “Fade to Black” is only 15 seconds long, but the sight of this ass hat playing air guitar while he tries to recreate the guitar solo from Metallica's 1984 original with his voice does enough damage in those 15 seconds to nearly wreck an iconic track. Perhaps all of this should come as no surprise, as the Biebs has previously revealed that he is a big fan of early Metallica and has cited “Fade to Black” and “One” as his favorite tracks. '"Those are my jams," he once said of the song. Excoriating him over this egregious musical party foul may not be enough, though, and so it is better to end with the words of Deadmau5, who recently branded Bieber a "spoiled bitch" following a row over the latter’s demands that hip-hop be played instead of dance music in a nightclub. A specific description that applies to the whole of Bieber’s life……..

- Life is not great for the Grambling State football team. Their coach was fired, their athletic department doesn’t have a director and now, school administrators are daring to make them travel by bus instead of plane to games in Kansas City, Mo., and Indianapolis. That’s a long bus ride from Louisiana and the prospect of making that trip with interim coach George Ragsdale was unappealing enough that the entire football team reportedly did not show up for practice Wednesday. A bad season that has featured losses in all seven of their games took a turn for the mutinous when the whole roster used a practice boycott to make their voices heard about their undesirable travel plans and the firing of coach Doug Williams in September. The boycott came less than 24 hours after a contentious meeting between the players and school administrators. The meeting reportedly became extremely negative and confrontational and the players walked out on university president Frank Pogue, athletic director Aaron James, student government president Jordan Harvey and Ragsdale. "[The administration] knew that emotions were raw," school spokesman Will Sutton said. "No matter what, it was going to be a challenge for the team to feel good after this season and last season. That's part of the reason why we have a new [athletic director] and are looking for a new football coach. The president wanted to make a point that the university supports and appreciates the team and these students and that the administration will do everything we need to do for the future success of the program." Williams was axed two games into the season after losing by a combined score of 71-19 in those contests and after a 1-10 season, he had run out of goodwill. Life won't get easier as the Tigers – if any of them show up – face Jackson State (5-2, 5-0) on Saturday. No one is quite sure what to expect from this mess next…….

- When an antagonistic a-hole puts up an offensive billboard in any city around the world, their aim is always the same and the plan is virtually foolproof. That person wants to say something completely over the line and get a response out of people who aren't smart enough to know better. That would be the plan of the anonymous author of a controversial new billboard put up Tuesday in northern Arkansas and the plan is already working perfectly. In fact, the billboard has begun to generate national attention in the three days since it went up along bypass 62-65 in Harrison. Its message is simple, grammatically incorrect and wholly transparent: "Anti-Racist is a code word for Anti-White." Aside from the fact that “Anti-Racist” is two words and not one, there are other problems with the billboard. No, one of them is not that it is actually racist in and of itself. The biggest issue is that the person behind it doesn’t have the kahones to put their name with whatever the message is supposed to be and explain what their intentions are. Oh, and the billboard stands in a town that has made years and years of efforts to distance itself from the ugly and hateful image of white supremacy. Heck, Harrison has its own diversity council and the local high school makes a point of promoting diversity to students. Yes, the person behind the billboard has a right to use his or her money to buy the billboard and put up whatever message they choose, but remaining anonymous is a straight-up coward move. So far, all this anonymous person has said about the billboard is that it is a political statement of some sort. Another statement was made by ESPN Radio, which had a billboard adjacent to this one but took its sign down once the “Anti-Racist” billboard went up. Well said, ESPN Radio……..

- What the eff has gotten into Canada? The maple syrup chuggers to the north are supposed to be placid, docile people who rock out to Bryan Adams, rock mullets without irony, have a closet full of denim and enjoy their round bacon. So why, then, are Canadian police saying they have arrested at least 40 people in eastern New Brunswick at the site of a protest over shale gas development that turned violent? Yes, fracking and natural gas are divisive issues and they can bring out the worst in people concerned about the water from their faucet bursting into flame, but in Canada? The power of fracking to get people f*cking pissed off should not be underestimated, as no less than the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were called in to corral angry rioters, some of whom were arrested for firearms violations, threats, intimidation, mischief and violating a court-ordered injunction near Rexton. The day was decidedly rage-tastic, with at least five of the RCMP’s vehicles reportedly destroyed after they were set on fire. Why they didn’t all show up on their horses remains a mystery, but horses don’t always fare too well when Molotov cocktails are involved. Oh, and there was also at least one shot fired by someone who isn't a police officer, although police have not yet identified the shooter. The drama began when an injunction was granted for SWN Resources to store exploration equipment. An angry mob of rioters that included many aboriginals showed up to speak out against the arrangement and renew their demands that SWN Resources stop seismic testing and leave the province. Here’s hoping for more riots soon……..

- AT&T is always working on plans to gouge consumers for more money for communication services and so it is fortuitous that the comm giant has developed a new plan for tablet owners who do not maintain a monthly data plan for their device, but may find themselves in need of a temporary connection. These glorified day passes were announced by AT&T vice president Chris Penrose, who told a captive audience that the cheapest option will be a $5, 250 MB day pass, slotted alongside a plan that provides up to 1 GB of data over a three month period for a one-time $25 fee. Both plans are targeted toward users who would otherwise be reliant on a hotel’s wireless network or other public wireless system when on the road. "We really think that a Wi-Fi only tablet is good, but it is not good enough,” Penrose explained. He added that AT&T would "like to see tablet manufacturers build just one tablet," a single model equipped with a cellular radio. At present, most tablet makers offer two tablet versions — cellular-capable and Wi-Fi only — to reduce costs for anyone who doesn’t need their tablet to connect to a 3G or 4G network because they already have a phone, laptop and/or desktop that do so. Signing up for one of the new AT&T plans is as simple as accessing buyasession.att.com and completing the four-step purchase process using their AT&T SIM card. What some tablet owners may not know is that Apple has offered a $29.99-per-month unlimited data plan directly from the tablet's Settings app on a month-to-month basis using a credit card since the iPad’s debut in 2010. Now the house that Jobs built has some more competition……..

Pyjama party with Prince, turkeys terrorize Staten Island and Oreos = Crack

- Who wants the dead Nazi corpse? The answer seems to be no one, at least not right now. That’s why the body of a convicted Nazi murderer was transferred to an Italian military airport Wednesday with no final resting place in sight. Officials in three countries continue to refuse custody of his remains and none seem likely to budge any time soon. SS captain Erich Priebke died while serving a life sentence for his part in the massacre of 335 people in 1944 and after passing away at the age of 100 while under house arrest, Priebke fully admitted his crimes and never apologized. His remains have become an issue of international dispute, with officials in Rome, Argentina and his hometown in Germany rejecting plans to bury him in their respective nations because of fears his grave could become a neo-Nazi shrine. The situation was further complicated Wednesday by angry protests at his funeral by both pro and anti-Nazi groups. The service was canceled and Priebke’s body was transported to the Pratica di Mare military base outside Rome. Italian officials remain responsible for the body, but Rome’s mayor Ignazio Marino has said he may turn to Germany for help. He shouldn’t expect that help from officials in Hennigsdorf, the German town where Priebke was born, because they have already rejected the idea he could be buried there. Priebke's lawyer Paolo Giachini sounds as frustrated as anyone over the case. “They have made a problem which they cannot now solve,” Giachini said of Italian officials handling the matter. “I just wanted to hold a normal funeral and a normal burial and it would be finished, but the Italian authorities would not allow that.” A controversial Catholic fringe group, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), offered to host the funeral, but even that proved troublesome. Local mayor Nicola Marini tried to ban the funeral, but his own police chief overruled him. For now, everyone involved seems to be hoping that someone else figures out a solution so they don’t have to do it themselves….. 

- Science has done done it again, y’all. Researchers have unearthed an amazing truth that the world never, ever would have known if not for the work of some bold, innovative minds. In this case, Joseph Schroeder, an assistant professor of psychology and director of the Behavioral Neuroscience Center at Connecticut College, has discovered that Oreos and crack are equally addictive substances. In his research, Schroeder found that the preservative-laden cookies can elicit the same reaction and activate the brain in a similar manner as cocaine and morphine for lab rats. Schroeder insisted he didn’t single out Oreos, but used them because they were a convenient device to get enough fat and sugar into the rat's habitat. Of course, a spokeswoman for Mondelez International, which owns Nabisco, the maker of the famed sandwich cookie, moved quickly to distance the product from blow, but the damage has clearly been done. "While it may seem simple to bucket foods as 'good' or 'bad,' the reality is that foods are complex, and encouraging people to enjoy a balanced diet paired with physical activity is most important," the company said in a statement. Schroder and one of his neuroscience students, Jamie Honohan, designed the experiment to examine the effects of high-fat and high-sugar foods on the brain. "We chose Oreos not only because they are America's favorite cookie, and highly palatable to rats, but also because products containing high amounts of fat and sugar are heavily marketed in communities with lower socioeconomic statuses,” Honohan added. To test just how additive the cookie equivalent of coke was, the researchers put lab rats into a habitat with two rooms. One room had an Oreo and the other had a bland, boring rice cracker. The rats spent much more time in the Oreo room and when the experiment was repeated with other groups of rats being offered injections of cocaine or morphine in one room and saline in the other, the animals showed an "equivalent preference" for a room when it contained an Oreo as when they were given injections of morphine and cocaine. "That's the novel finding that applies to us," Schroder said. "We found that the high-fat or high-sugar food activated the brain to a greater extent than the cocaine or morphine." How long until shady drug dealers are peddling 8-balls of crushed Oreos on street corners and rock stars are smashing up Double Stuffed Oreos to snort off the stomachs of groupies………

- Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy had better have a damn good Marshall plan if he intends to make it through the coming college basketball season without his leading scorer coming off the rails. That leading scorer would be the ever flamboyant Marshall Henderson, famous from saying stupid sh*t like not being able to wait until he can bust out of college and play in the NBA so he can get paid and doing stupid sh*t like being found by police with what appeared to be a small amount of marijuana and cocaine. The latter of those two offenses is the reason Henderson is currently suspended from the team, although Kennedy had the kahones to suggest that he believes his star can get through the season incident-free once he returns from suspension. "If I was a betting man -- not that I am -- but if I was a betting man, I would say that his lesson has been learned and he's looking forward to the opportunity to play in the SEC," Kennedy said. Terming the suspension a “a fluid situation," Kennedy said it remains to be determined how many games the high-scoring guard will miss to start the season. So far, the coach added, Henderson has so far done everything he's had to do to get back on the court. "He's been tremendous in his approach and the way in which he's tried to help young guys," Kennedy said. "I've really found him to be more of a leader on the floor and take some responsibility not only for himself but for those around him. I've been pleased with the way he's responded." As much of a loose cannon as he is, with a past full of drugs, alcohol and showing up in sports bars the day before NCAA tournament games, college basketball certainly is more fun to watch with Marshall Madness around. Who else is going to get themselves reprimanded by the NCAA for making an "inappropriate gesture" after his team loses to LaSalle in the NCAA tournament? Also, who else is going to burn enough bridges to be on his fourth college and still act like a fool? Come back soon, Marshall………

- Problem, meet easy solution. On the one hand, residents of one neighborhood on Staten Island are up in arms (or wings) because an infestation of wild turkeys (no, not Wild Turkey, which would be a blessing and not a problem) is turning their humble ‘hood into a haven for filthy fowl. On the other hand, Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and well, people need turkeys to put on their table so grandpa can carve them horribly and save the best white meat for himself. Oddly enough, no one is putting these two logically paired pieces of the same equation together just yet and instead, mostly there is a lot of whining about the fact that the same flock of turkeys that has terrorized Staten Island’s South Shore for the past 15 years is back, back again. These bothersome birds originally took up residence each fall on the campus of South Beach Psychiatric Center, but dwelling with the crazies didn’t sit well with the birds and they have relocated to adjacent areas and are making life difficult for local residents. Dongan Hills resident Barbara Laing said as many as 60 turkeys call her maple tree home and her family must clean up the mess the animals make. “They live in this tree,” she said. “They sleep in it. And they poop all night.” How Laing knows when the turkeys poop is anyone’s guess, but something must be done about the problem. Shooting the birds is technically illegal and while that shouldn’t stop anyone, the locals are choosing to abide by the law – for now. In August, wildlife officials deported 25 rogue turkeys to an upstate sanctuary after whiny liberal bird huggers complained about a plan to ship the turkeys to a slaughterhouse. An estimated 80 turkeys remain and the option of offing them seems like it should be considered again………

- Those living in the general vicinity of Minnesota and looking to get freaky this weekend, your chariot has arrived. The walking weirdo that is Prince will be hosting a “pyjama party” at his home and personal recording complex Paisley Park Studios this weekend. He will play a late-night show on Oct. 19, similar to the one he played at Paisley Park earlier this month. The difference this time is the theme for the evening, known simply as “The Breakfast Experience Pajama Dance Party.” Partygoers must come dressed in sleepwear and a flier for the event spells out the dress code: "dress 2 impress - keep it classy!" The flier also states that doors for the gig will open at 2 a.m. and the band will "Party til' the sun comes up!" That would be Prince’s 3rdEyeGirl band, with which he will rock out with his c*ck out for many hours. Getting in won't be difficult, as a mere $50 donation is required on the door. At the last show at Paisley Park Studios, Prince was joined by both 3rdEyeGirl and his old band New Power Generation. He performed numerous tracks from his long career, including “Cool, “Nothing Compares 2 U” and “Breakfast Can Wait.” Nearly 2,000 people attended the show to party with Prince, who has been releasing a slew of material online in recent months via his 3rdEyeGirl website. He also went on a theater tour of North America earlier this year, playing gigs in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego, Anaheim and Denver. The impressive tour include two shows a night at most venues. What beats two shows a night on the road? Playing all damn night at your own mansion house party, that’s what………

17-hour marathons, British kooks storm Buckingham Palace and underwater wireless networks

- This is a new low, even for terrible new comedies on network television. Networks axe new shows all the time, often before they reach the midway point of their first season, but preemptively pulling the plug on a show already in production is original. Fox’s new series “Us & Them,” a remake of the British series “Gavin & Stacey,” is not going to have a long and productive run on the air. After originally ordering 13 episodes of the remake, Fox has now decided it only wants the six episodes that have already been filmed. None of the episodes has aired, but Fox is convinced that it doesn’t need to see any more. What’s great about the decision is that the network hasn’t officially canceled the series, but it has let all of the cast members know that they are free to take new jobs. It’s the television equivalent of telling your girlfriend you don’t want to break up, but you want to see other people. So why is the show being canceled so quickly? Sources close to the show say Fox is concerned that the "tone" of the series does not compliment the edgier feel of its other new sitcoms, but intends to air the half-dozen completed episodes early next year. It’s tough to blame the show’s premature failure on its executive producers, as series creators James Corden and Ruth Jones have served as executive producers on the remake and Fox had to know what it was getting when it green-lit the project. Alexis Bledel (“Gilmore Girls”) and Jason Ritter (“Parenthood”) are/were the stars of the show, filling the roles made famous by Joanna Page and Mat Horne. Other than relocating the setting for the show from Billericay and Barry Island to New York and small town Pennsylvania and tweaking a few character names, not much has changed as the show makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean………

- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers may be one of only three winless teams in the NFL after Week 6 of the season, but coach Greg Schiano has a strong message for the fans who loudly booed him as he left the field Sunday. Despite a chorus of well-deserved boos raining down upon him following the 31-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, Schiano wants the masses to know that his team is on the way up. "The only thing I can say to the fans is, if they can hang in there, we're going to be good," Schiano said. "If they can't, we're still going to be good, and they're welcome back. I'm not being smart; I mean that." In some sense, the controlling, overbearing second-year coach is correct. The Buccaneers will be good, although it will probably be once they fire Schiano and bring in another coach. The next coach probably won't have a public feud with the franchise quarterback, leading to said quarterback being benched, shopped around the league and ultimately released less than two years removed from his best season and while still in his mid-20s. Schiano famously had his battle with former Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman, who was cut by the team and signed with the Minnesota Vikings. Amidst Schiano’s insistence that all is well with his squad, he and general manager Mark Dominik said the team "would welcome" an investigation into how Freeman's status in the NFL's substance-abuse program was leaked to the media. Oh, and there is also the growing MRSA epidemic in the team’s training room, with the NFL Players Association involved after three infection in recent weeks. Hell, even a member of a man band (Backstreet Men pop-and-locker Nick Carter) is calling for Schiano to be fired. "At the end of the game, I'm disappointed just like they are," Schiano said. "I understand anything and everything that's disappointment. The fact that our fans care as much as they do, I think that's awesome. When we get it turned around, it's going to be really special." Sadly, the turnaround is something Schiano will have to witness as a bystander next season or beyond……

- How many times have you been diving deep beneath the ocean and thought, “Dammit, I need to check my bank balance or get directions to Jimmy’s soccer game on Saturday,” only to realize there is no wireless signal ‘neath the rushing waters above? The problem perplexes all mankind and thankfully, University at Buffalo researchers are working to fix it. Tommaso Melodia, UB associate professor of electrical engineering and the project's lead researcher, is heading up an effort to develop deep-sea Internet. If it materializes, the technological breakthrough could lead to improvements in tsunami detection, offshore gas exploration, pollution monitoring and even surveillance. "A submerged wireless network will give us an unprecedented ability to collect and analyze data from our oceans in real time,” Melodia said. "Making this information available to anyone with a smartphone or computer, especially when a tsunami or other type of disaster occurs, could help save lives." The professor and a team of his students plan to present their findings at the nonstop rager known as the 8th annual International Conference on Underwater Networks & Systems, to be held Nov. 11-13 in Taiwan. Their research is based on the idea that radio waves, which transmit data via satellites and antennae on land, work poorly underwater. Agencies such as the United States Navy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use sound wave-based techniques to communicate underwater, but tsunami sensors on the sea floor and acoustic waves converted to radio waves don’t work for everyone on a wider scale. These systems also have trouble sharing data because each of them tends to have a different infrastructure. Melodia’s system would transmit data from existing and planned underwater sensor networks to laptops, smartphones and other wireless devices in real time. He recently tested the system in Lake Erie, a few miles south of downtown Buffalo. With help from two doctoral candidates in his lab, the professor dropped two 40-pound sensors into the water. One of the students then typed a command into a laptop and seconds later, a series of high-pitched chirps ricocheted off a nearby concrete wall, proving that the test worked. If the setup is proven on a larger scale, it could assist in tasks such as linking together buoy networks that detect tsunamis, collecting oceanographic data and monitoring pollution……..

- There are too many kooks wandering around London lately. Those kooks are finding their way to Buckingham Palace with increasing frequency and an incident at the queen’s royal residence on Monday is the latest example. British police arrested a man carrying a knife as he tried to enter at through the main North-Centre gate at the front of the building. Proving that he wasn’t exactly a sophisticated evildoer intent on harming the queen, the man simply attempted to stroll through the gate and was arrested at around 11:30 a.m. He was searched and found to be in possession of a knife, which was seized, after which he was arrested on suspicion of trespassing on a protected site and possession of an offensive weapon. While this particular weirdo remains in custody at a London police station, his arrest is the second security scare at Queen Elizabeth’s main residence in little over a month. In early September, a man was found in the palace having scaled a fence to get into the grounds. He was found to be working with a second man on an attempted theft and was arrested for burglary, trespass and criminal damage, while his cohort was arrested outside the palace on suspicion of conspiracy to commit burglary. Perhaps on edge because of the incident, Prince Andrew, the second-oldest son of Britain’s queen, was challenged by armed officers in the gardens of Buckingham Palace less than 48 hours later. None of this incidents reached the severity of Michael Fagan’s famed 1982 break-in, which ended with Fagan being arrested after wandering around the palace and sitting down on Queen Elizabeth’s bed for a chat with Her Highness before he was apprehended by security. Mix in the guilty plea of David Belmar, who admitted to trespassing and possession of a bladed article for Monday’s bit of drama and told the police that he wanted to see the queen and was "not happy" about his benefits and it’s becoming clear that it might be time for the queen to get a low-key flop house somewhere and lay low for a while……..

- The Chicago Marathon went off without a hitch on Sunday – even if it took a little longer than expected. Normally, a man taking 17 hours to finish a 26.2-mile race is not only a problem, it’s a non-starter. Most marathons close their course after six hours on the assumption that anyone who can't finish in that window shouldn’t be running. Venezuelan native Maickel Melamed is the exception to this rule and not only did no one have a problem with him taking three-fourths of a day to complete the course, he was cheered wildly for it. Melamed, 38, suffers from muscular dystrophy. He was unquestionably the last person in any age group to finish the marathon, doing so with a support team that included a physical therapist, trainer, coach and volunteers who encourage him. When he finally crossed the finish line, his physical fatigue didn’t obscure his excitement over completing the race. "Because I can do it. That's the point. If you can do something, you discover you can do it, and then you have to do it," Melamed said. Chicago was Melamed’s third marathon, but he said afterward that it was his most challenging because unlike race officials in New York and Berlin, Chicago organizers insisted he use the sidewalks, rather than the streets. "We have to go up and down. It's not flat at all. My muscles were weakened in a way," he explained. His race began early in the morning with the thousands of other runners who took to the streets, but his was the only one that continued through the afternoon, evening and into the night. His message is one of human dignity and teamwork, Melamed added. He expressed appreciation for the fans who showed up to cheer and challenged them to step their game up and run a marathon. "When you cross the finish line, you think, 'I can do anything in life,'" Melamed concluded. Next on his agenda is the Tokyo Marathon in February and then on to Boston to run as a tribute to the 2013 marathon bombing victims……….