The Pope and I disagree, suspicious liquids run wild and graduating seniors at St. Vincent College get screwed

- The Pope is old and out of touch, so I’ll forgive him for his speech on Friday in which he ripped pop culture for promoting sexual immorality. An estimated crowd of 1 million people who apparently didn’t have anything better to do gathered on an empty airfield to hear Pope Benedict XVI talk, in part to canonize Friar Antonio de Sant’Anna as a saint and partly to take a run at the pop culture we’ve come to know and love. I could point out several problems with the Pope’s argument, but I’ll just say this: pop culture (i.e. music, movies and television) are a reflection of society more than they are a tool to shape it. Yes, these mediums do have an influence on people who view or listen to them, but pop culture is not some living entity with a mind of its own; it is a non-carbon-based entity that the people who create it structure and shape through their own preferences, values and ideas, so if you have a problem with pop culture, your real problem is with people. Don’t waste your time attacking industries and mediums that don’t give a crap what you think and focus your efforts on changing the minds and beliefs of people, because that’s how you’ll win the fight. This is what happens when you live inside your own structured little city, isolated from the world. Besides, what is the Pope doing tuning into MTV2 and visiting YouTube anyhow, which I assume are the types of pop culture entities that are so lacking in virtue? Thanks for nothing, Pope B.

- WANTED: A new member for the U.S. ski team who will be responsible for the following: 1) showing up for races drunk, 2) giving controversial interviews where he comports himself like a horse’s arse and says at least five stupid things per 15 minutes, 3) fails miserably in the team’s biggest races and events. Sound appealing? It’s all thanks to the departure or Bode Miller from the U.S. ski team, a move that should surprise no one and disappoint even fewer. Miller talked big, drank big, partied big and performed small in his time with the team, frequently crapping out in major international races, including the Olympics. Now he’s quit because he’s not happy with his place on the team and because the philosophy that the team focused on for its members. Gee, as hard as it is to see you go, Bode, the team will just have to make due/be much better off without you.

- Bottles of suspicions liquid are everywhere, so beware. A few months ago, it was Atlanta Falcons quarterback and esteemed dog fight kingpin (allegedly) Mike Vick carrying a water bottle with a mysterious dark particulate through airport security and refusing to turn the bottle over to security officials. Now, a school in Timonium, Md. has been evacuated because firefighters found a bottle containing a suspicious liquid inside a classroom. A teacher was taken to the hospital after experiencing dizziness, and a student was arrested several hours after the evacuation as a suspect in the incident. Nobody loves a good end-of-the-year senior prank like I do, but it stops being funny and worth the effort when you’re cuffed and put in jail. People stop laughing at you and start thinking you’re a ginormous tool when you’re driven off in the back of a squad car and facing serious charges. Next time, stick to taking the wheels off the principal’s car and putting it up on blocks or letting a bunch of rats or cockroaches loose in the school hallways, intrepid Maryland high school prankster.

- Wow….normally you’d want a great capper for your college career, a fitting sendoff and a time to symbolize all of the great times and experiences you’ve had over the past four or five years. My heartfelt sympathies go out to the graduating seniors at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., who suffered the indignity of having the worst president in United States history as their commencement speaker. I realize that sometimes, a school isn't able to secure their first or even second choice for a commencement speaker, but St. Vincent must’ve whiffed on its first 1,485 choices to end up with a brain dead, war mongering, head-in-the-sand goober like W. as their speaker. On the rankings for commencement speaker choices, I’d rank him behind even Ryan Seacrest and his man blouses right now. Nothing like having a graduation speaker who inspires 150 anti-war protestors to demonstrate outside the hall where the ceremony was held. It isn't truly a graduation unless angry anti-war demonstrators are marching outside while you receive your diploma. How’s about establishing a rule that no one can be a commencement speaker at your school if he’s not smarter than the quartet of stoner dudes wearing their knit beanies and playing hackey sack outside the student union.

- Let’s try a bit of legal strategy here, see if you can come up with the correct analysis here. Imagine you’re an NFL player who has been in trouble with the cops 12 times in a two year span, been charged with crimes three times and has been suspended by the league for a full year after your latest criminal activity. You’ve appealed the suspension and in four days, you will be meeting with the NFL commissioner, the same man who suspended you, to present your case for reducing the penalty you’ve received. Is the following a solid part of your strategy in preparing for said hearing, answer with a simple yes or no: being pulled over by the police for speeding and additionally charged with failure to produce a driver’s license. Anyone? You’re saying……..no? That’s right, another run-in with the law, even a minor one, is not a wise part of your appeal strategy. Adam “Pacman” Jones could have used a smart legal brain like yours this week, because he elected to commit the above-mentioned faux paus, and now he gets to head into his appeal hearing with Commissioner Roger Goodell with a fresh mark on his record of legal troubles. The heck with shortening your suspension at this point, P., you’d better hope the commish doesn’t extend it to two years.

The dilemma for stoners, the worst idea ever for a reality show and a funny penalty for smuggling cocaine

- Trying to decide between smoking weed and playing in the NFL wouldn’t seem to be a difficult decision, but don’t tell that to Ricky Williams. The dreadlocked Miami Dolphins running back who has endured multiple drug suspensions from the league, including the most recent, a one-year ban during which he traveled the world and also played in the Canadian Football League, was just about to return to the NFL when the hippie lettuce intervened. Williams, who is now tested regularly as part of the NFL’s substance abuse program, has tested positive for the wacky weed once again and now won't be able to apply for reinstatement until September. Furthermore, when he does apply he’ll have a fourth strike against him and will be trying to convince a commissioner who is being harsh and vigilant on misconduct and drug use by players to reinstate him. And oh yeah, any team that considers signing him would know that it runs the risk of having a guy who still can't stay away from his bong be booted from the league on a permanent basis if he tests positive again. I always knew that pot heads were a bunch of degenerate stoners who like hackey sack and Cheetos and can make a bong out of nearly any object in less than five minutes, but I didn’t know they were such a bunch of addicts that they would be willing to throw away a chance to make several million dollars and enjoy the NFL lifestyle just so they could continue getting baked.

- Bingo on ABC, really lame. Yeah, because what people have really been after is a reality show they can sit down and watch with their Nana. The only people who have any interest in Bingo are the ones down in the basement of their local Catholic or Methodist church, using the money from their Social Security check to play Bingo with Ethel, Betty, Estelle, Edna and the rest of their elderly friends. America at large isn't crying out for a forum for Bingo to exhibit its greatness on a national scale. This isn't a hotly debated issue that has our nation deeply concerned, ABC. Sometimes the reason there’s not a show about a certain subject on TV is because there’s no interest in seeing a show about that subject and it’s a terrible idea to do one. My life won't be complete once I have a mustachioed Indian man in a referee’s shirt yell, “No Bingo!” Nor do I need to see that British dude who used to be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition with that lush Ty Pennington try to launch his career hosting National Bingo Night. This would be the absolute worst idea for a new TV show on the way this summer if not for………..

- Of course, as lame as National Bingo Night on ABC is, even higher on the lame-osity scale is…..Pirate Master, a show that will be debuting this summer on CBS. I have oh, so many questions about this worst idea for a reality show ever: What exactly do you do if you win? What’s your next step? With American Karaoke, you at least have a recording contract to produce a couple albums worth of over-produced, over-polished crap that someone else writes for you and tells you to sing. If you win America’s Next Top Runway Bimbo/Model, you have a modeling contract and a career you’ve embarked on. So what the frak do you do if you’re the Pirate Master? Is there really a market for Pirate Masters right now? And where exactly do you go to capitalize on your fame and accomplishment as Pirate Master? Does it entitle you to free meals at Long John Silver’s? Can you get in for half price at the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie? Also, exactly what skills that would help you win this God-forsaken show are of any good to a person in everyday life? Looting, pillaging and plundering haven't been en vogue for a few centuries; peg legs, eye patches and wooden legs are no longer stylish and “Shiver me timbers!” hasn’t been anyone’s catchphrase since before the Revolutionary War. I know that most reality show contestants are wannabe actors trying to launch their nonexistent careers, but I don’t believe that appearing on a pirate-themed reality show is going to boost anyone’s profile. Just because people will go see a movie about a certain topic doesn’t mean they want to see a reality show about it. Nobody is itching to see a show where people genetically mutate after being bitten by radioactive spiders, are they? Pirate Master is going to go the way of Armed & Famous within a few weeks of debuting, namely to the bottom of the ratings and then off the air entirely.

- If you’re an inept coach or general manager in the professional sports world, there are two franchises you absolutely want to work for: the Boston Celtics and the Detroit Lions. The Lions, owned by the Ford family, continue to employ GM Matt Millen Despite a 24-72 record in his six seasons at the helm and a slew of bungled draft picks. The Celtics used to be one of the NBA’s flagship franchises but have fallen on hard times, including the last four seasons with Doc Rivers as head coach. Their futility reached its zenith this season as the Celts went 23-59, the second worst record in the NBA, yet Rivers has not only kept his job but has now been given a contract extension of yet-to-be-announced length. It’s not as if the Celtics have gotten better under Rivers either; they’ve gotten progressively worse. The team’s younger players haven't developed and improved, and Rivers constantly juggles starting lineups and his rotation of players to the point that his team develops zero continuity and cohesion. He doesn’t have the most talented squad, but he manages to get even less out of the talent he has than he should get. Many fans complain incessantly about how out of whack player contracts and salaries are, but equally or possibly more absurd are the contracts and innumerable second chances given to coaches and executives like Millen and Rivers who are consistently awful over prolonged periods of time.

- If this is the penalty for a charge of conspiring to traffic cocaine, I’m going to reverse field and openly advocate that everyone get into the coke toting business. Jorge Hernandez-Villalvazo, a Mexican native with permanent U.S. residency, has been freed as a part of a plea deal after a federal agent made him pose for a demeaning photo wearing a sombrero and holding a Mexican flag. I know no one likes to have their heritage mocked, but tell me you wouldn’t take the risk of smuggling cocaine across the border and making a few thousand dollars if you knew that you could get off with little more than having to pose for a humiliating photo and that photo would include you being fully clothed. Sounds like a decent deal to me, and props to the federal agent who botched an entire smuggling case because he or she possesses and incredibly juvenile sense of humor and zero professionalism. Glad to see that those we charge with protecting our borders and policing the drug world are operating at the absolute highest level 24/7.

- Normally finding myself on the same side of any argument as radical Shiite lawmakers would scare the crap out of me, but I’ve found an exception to that rule. Members of the Iraqi legislature are pushing for an actual deadline for the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops and a freeze on the number of foreign troops already in their country (i.e. no troop surge). You guys want to know when our troops will be leaving and when this whole debacle of a war will end? So do we! Pretty much everyone is wondering that except for a select group of Bush administration sycophants who have either drank the Kool-Aid and believe the B.S. that W. is selling or are too terrified of him and too enamored with keeping their vastly overpaid government jobs to say what they really think. The Sadrist block of the Iraqi government, which holds 30 seats in the country’s legislature, is the group pushing for the withdrawal deadline and freeze on foreign military increases, and I have only one question for them: Do you guys have some sort of flag or bumper sticker for your party that I can get ahold of? I’m with you all the way on this issue, because the more people we can get from all over the world and the political spectrum to confront W. and demand he start fixing the mess he’s made and bring the war to an end, the better our chances are that this war will finally end.

A new TV show gets thumbs up, a new war-funding bill is gonna get a thumbs down and O.J. gets the heave-ho

- Of all the places in the world that O.J. Simpson should not be (anywhere where class, dignity, honor and integrity are needed), restaurants are high on the list. It’s not that O.J. doesn’t deserve or need food, it’s more that he should never, ever be in close proximity to waiters for any reason. I think we all know what (allegedly) happened with the Juice and waiter Ron Goldman, so why run the risk of that happening again? Jeff Ruby, the owner of an upscale steakhouse in Louisville, Ky. understands this, and he was smart enough to boot the double-murdering (allegedly), money grubbing (confirmed), worst guy in the history of the world (also confirmed) from his restaurant during Kentucky Derby weekend. Ruby didn’t want the kind of sideshow and notoriety that the Juice brings, so he marched right up to the table where the former Heisman Trophy winner was sitting and told him to leave. It was the right choice, but from that point on, Ruby was putting his waiters in a dangerous position. I doubt the Juice was happy about being refused service, and having him angry in the vicinity of both knives and waiters is a recipe for disaster. This time, no one got hurt and O.J. left peacefully, but it’s not a chance you want to take on a regular basis. Go away, Juice, you’re the worst dude in the world and you’re the most despicable piece of crap I’ve ever seen. No one likes you and no one wants you around, so just go away and stay gone.

- Kudos to the NBA’s schedule makers for being nearly as idiotic and inept as their NHL counterparts. The geniuses who draw up the Association’s playoff schedule have somehow managed to construct a five-day stretch wherein one series, the one pitting the Cleveland Cavaliers against the New Jersey Nets, has only one game played in five days, while in another series, the Golden State Warriors versus the Utah Jazz, three games are played in the same span. Worse yet, from Wednesday to Friday of this week, Utah and Golden State play two games in two separate cities while the Cavs and Nets play no games during that time. Not even a quarter of drunken, stoned baboons throwing darts at a schedule board while blindfolded could come up with a playoff schedule this absurd and retarded, so well done NBA. There’s a fine line between prolonging your season to extract maximum attention and coverage and being a bunch of moronic imbeciles who waste time and drag things out to a ridiculous length, and the NBA has crossed this line and is watching it fade quickly in the rearview mirror. Why is it so hard to find a simple formula for playoff scheduling and stick with it, something like one day off between games if the series stays in the same city, two days between games if the series shifts from one city to another? Seems easy, seems logical……..but it also seems -waaaaay beyond the grasp of the pea-brained NBA schedule makers.

- This will shock and awe you, but it appears likely that W. will veto another war-funding bill. This one is on its way to his desk after he vetoed a bill that would have dared to set actual timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and the new bill would only provide funding for the war through July, at which time the issue would be revisited. Once again, though, the president will reject a war-funding bill, showing that he just doesn’t get it and doesn’t understand that no one is buying his lies about the war anymore. Congress isn't going to give him money to drag this thing out indefinitely, they and the American public want answers, explanations, reasons and actual evidence. W. maintains that if he was open-minded and considered anew strategy with an actual chance of success, then his current doomed, incompetent, failing strategy would not have a chance to work. Again, allow me to ask how a strategy under which the situation has continually and drastically worsened for four years and which has pissed off nearly everyone involved (including people who initially supported the war) is suddenly going to start succeeding. I feel like I’m watching an especially stupid bird fly into a glass door over and over again, not realizing he’s slowly killing himself and that there is no opening for him to fly through, only a solid glass door he’s going to keep smacking into over and over again. Give it up W., no one is buying the steaming, stinking pile of monkey crap that you’re selling. It’s over, just admit you’re totally incompetent and accept whatever funding Congress will give you.

- As promised, I tuned in for the special advance preview of ABC’s new show, Traveler, on Thursday night. Going in, all I really knew was that the show centered on three friends visiting New York and a terrorist attack in the city happened while they were there. My first impressions of the show were good; I think it has a chance to be a great show to watch, depending on how the writers and producers build on the themes and feel of the pilot. There was a lot of action and a fast pace to the entire hour, with one of the three main characters, Will Traveler, involved in an explosion at a museum and two of his friends, Tyler and Jay, seen fleeing from the museum right before the blast and immediately the two prime suspects in the attack. The rest of the hour was those two on the run, and thankfully there wasn’t the totally implausible, miraculous escape from the cops in which two average guys outrun, out-leap and outsmart an entire police force with helicopters, multiple cars and all sorts of resources at their disposal. One thing the show will have to do is develop more back stories and secondary characters, because the pilot was devoted almost exclusively to setting up the three main characters. We didn’t get to know any of the other characters very well, which I’m sure will come in the shows ahead if the series is going to be successful. Shows where you only care about the one or two main characters don’t work, you need more depth. Also, we found out that a special advance preview means you see the pilot on a given day, then nearly three weeks later, the show debuts in its normal time slot. Not sure of the logic behind that, because waiting three weeks wouldn’t exactly have been the end of the world. But whatever, the bottom line is that Traveler merits watching when it returns on May 30 for an eight-week summer run, so tune in and give it a chance.

Lots of cheaters, lots of riots and a lack of good jihad music

- Is a new, totally revamped and possibly barely recognizable version of your favorite show preferable to not having that show around at all? That’s the question facing those of us who have come to know and love Veronica Mars. The creators of the show, in an attempt to save it from the horrifically and incapably wielded ax of the CW network, have pitched a revised version of the show that would have major cast changes and would fast forward from the show’s eponymous main character being in her first year of college to her working for the FBI. Also, there could be a name change for the show, so lead actress Kristen Bell might be the only constant between the two incarnations of the series. Last time I wrote about this, I ranked this option as the second best choice, behind bringing back the show as is, without the leap ahead in time, as the best option and canceling it altogether the worst choice. I still feel that way, but at this point I’d be both happy about the show’s return and worried about whether it will be at all the same or if it will be like a whole new show and have little connection to the first three seasons. Of course, the CW hasn’t yet said for sure if Mars is coming back, and since these ass clowns canceled Everwood well before its time and have shown a general lack of aptitude for properly running a network, there’s still a chance for them to f’up this situation as is their M.O.

- I didn’t know the French had it in them to riot and actually show some testicular fortitude, so kudos to the Frenchmen who rioted following the election of the country’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy’s policies and alliances are already in question, as he is seen as too U.S.-friendly and frighteningly brutal on crime and immigration. Still, the Socialist Party, which was defeated in the just-completed elections by Sarkozy and his followers, appealed for calm and an end to the rioting (cars burned, storefronts smashed, the usual) that took place after the election results were announced. Why quash the enthusiasm, I have to ask? This is the most life and toughness the French have shown since……….well……pretty much ever. Granted, they were attacking cars and windows, which can't fight back, but still, everyone has to start somewhere.

- Ah, those wacky Islamic militants and their nonstop crusade for jihad. In a remote region of Pakistan, these radicals are trying to eliminate any and all music, in its varying forms and mediums, that doesn’t promote their radical hateful way of thinking. They began their crackdown in the region of North Waziristan, a mostly lawless frontier region that has been partially cooperative with the Taliban. Were I a resident of this region, I would be doubly pissed, first about having my tunes ripped, but secondly about the mandate that only music promoting the jihad agenda will be allowed. I mean, do you have any idea, Islamic militants, how hard it is to find good jihad songs on iTunes? You type in “jihad” to the search bar in iTunes and the pickings are slim, guys. For whatever reason, the music industry just isn't eager to crank out hits promoting radical, violent, large-scale religious warfare. It’s crazy, I know, but have you ever tried to rhyme with jihad? It’s almost impossible.

- Apparently Zimbabwe is African for “Los Angeles East”, because police in that nation have decided to employ the exact same tactics that the LAPD uses against protestors. Riot police in the nation’s capital used riot sticks to beat down dozens of lawyers who gathered outside Zimbabwe’s High Court on Tuesday to protest the arrest of two colleagues. Usually there’d be a line of people wanting to whack a lawyer, but this is not that kind of situation. These lawyers were fighting the mistreatment of two of their own and were deliberately disobeying an order by President Robert Mugabe to cease any sort of demonstration and the accompanying warning that police have the right to snuff out any sort of dissent. Giving props to lawyers goes against my instincts, but I’ll make an exception here and salute the Zimbabwean lawyers for taking a stand against The Man.

- There’s a reason the Rusted Steel Sandwich and the Sharp Piece O’ Iron Burger haven't become staples on the menu at Cracker Barrel restaurants nationwide. After a customer eating a hamburger at a Myrtle Beach, S.C. location of the national chain cut her mouth on a piece of metal in her sandwich, Cracker Barrel pulled hamburgers from hundreds of its restaurants nationwide. I’ve heard of people planting severed fingers in food in an attempt to extort money from restaurants and consumers trying to say that they found hypodermic needles in their cans of soda, but this is a first. I have a hard time figuring how a piece of metal could find its way into a hamburger with no one noticing. Wouldn’t you feel a hard, sharp piece of metal in the meat as you cooked it on the grill? Americans may need more iron in their diets, but I don’t think this is the kind of iron that the FDA is referring to.

- Curt Schilling always has something to say about any issue he’s asked about, and usually the Boston Red Sox pitcher sticks his foot in his mouth and ends up apologizing. This time, though, I wish he wouldn’t have apologized, because he’s said out loud what most of America is thinking about everyone’s least-favorite ‘roid-head, Bar-roid Bonds. Schilling said in an interview that Bonds had cheated the game of baseball, he had cheated on his taxes and he had cheated on his wife, all of which are pretty much true. But as is the custom in sports nowadays when anyone has the balls to speak out and tell the truth instead of spout clichés, Schilling got heat from those around him and backed off his statements the following day. Normally I’d be the first to rip someone for making such comments about a person he or she barely knows and attacking said person’s character, but this isn't just any person we’re talking about here, it’s the biggest cheater in sports….ever. Everyone, everywhere, whether they know Bonds or not, should be free to rip him 24/7 because he’s lied to, bullied and disrespected the game and those in it and is about to break the game’s most respected record on the strength of something a chemist cooked up in a laboratory instead of his own abilities.

- Testing baseball players for steroids and other performance enhancers might not be enough anymore, we might need to start testing these guys for something far more dangerous: stupidity. I say this in light of the news that New York Mets minor league pitcher Jorge Reyes has become the first player to receive MLB’s 100-game suspension that comes with a second positive test for ‘roids. It’s bad enough when you’re either enough of a cheater to deliberately take steroids once or dumb enough to take them unintentionally as a part of some kind of supplement that you don’t bother to learn the ingredients of, but a second test just means you’re either a huge, huge cheater and can't help but be dishonest or you’re really, really stupid and just don’t realize that you’re going to ruin your career if you keep doing what you’re doing. Considering that Reyes is only at the Class A level, the lowest level of the minor leagues, you have to think that the Mets aren't going to keep him around based on his proclivity for performance enhancers and his blatant cheating. Way to submarine your career before you even advanced to the majors, J., hope that was worth it to take those ‘roids.

- Speaking of cheaters in sports…..this one involves not a player, but rather a coach. Someone entrusted with shaping, molding and instructing young men in both football and life shouldn’t be trying to defraud their university out of thousands of dollars, but Eastern Carolina University assistant football coach Donnie Thompson doesn’t appear to be bound be integrity or ethics. Thompson has been arrested and charged with one count of obtaining property by false pretenses after a scam in which he submitted more than $11,000 worth of fraudulent receipts to ECU for reimbursement. Thompson claimed he’d spent the money for expenses while out recruiting, but the $11,373.70 worth of purchases he claimed were from false receipts that he had created. Way to set an example for your players, Donnie, to show them that character counts.

A simpleton sheriff in Wisconsin, what I'll do if the Roger Clemens coverage doesn't stop and a new show I'm going to take a chance on

- If I lived in Grant County, Wisconsin, I would be feeling less than thrilled about the current state of law enforcement in my community. The current sheriff, a man who actually changed his name to Andy Griffith in an attempt to gravy train off of the popular 1960s TV series The Andy Griffith Show, has just finished up a legal battle with the original Andy Griffith over the legality of his name change. The law enforcement artist formerly known as William Harold Fenrick won a lawsuit against him by Griffith when U.S. District Court Judge John Shabaz ruled that Fenrick/Griffith did not violate trademark and copyright laws, as well as the actor’s privacy, by changing his name. The sheriff may not have violated those laws, but he did violate the Moron’s Code when he based a real-life campaign for public office on comments such as: “They never did unethical stuff like that in Mayberry (the fictional town where The Andy Griffith Show was set)!” Wow….you got us there, Sheriff, because it’s hard to refute what a fictional character on in fictional town on a fictitious TV show four decades ago did. If you’re basing your policies on law enforcement as practiced on TV, how’s about going for something more recent, say Miami Vice, NYPD Blue or Law & Order? Must be a great time to be a criminal in Grant County right now………

- So help me God, if I’m beaten over the head with Roger Clemens stories by ESPN every day for the next month until he actually makes his 2007 Yankee debut, I will drive to Bristol myself and burn the entire ESPN complex to the ground. The news of Clemens and his self-promoting ego trip of a career restarting with the New f’ing York Yankees has led every ESPN broadcast I’ve seen this week, and it just goes to show what a lack of intelligence and discernment the network’s decision makers have. The guy is in his mid-40s, he can't even get through more than six innings a start anymore, he doesn’t even care about baseball enough to travel with the team and be in the dugout for road games and series where he won't be pitching and he’s on a team that is a 50-50 shot to miss the playoffs at this point. Yet you tools at ESPN act like you’ve got Nolan Ryan in his prime coming back to the best team in baseball and forget that a dozen other stories, both inside baseball and in sports in general, are more noteworthy and relevant right now. Non-Yankee fans are already sick of hearing about the ass clowns in pinstripes, so maybe talk about how the Milwaukee Brewers have the best record in baseball, how the Red Sox are playing stellar baseball and lead the Yankees by six games, how the Cleveland Indians have gotten amazing pitching and lead the AL Central (baseball’s toughest division) or how the Chicago Cubs are finally putting things together after a massive off-season roster overhaul and have won six games in a row. Those are just a few thoughts for stories you may want to focus on instead of an overweight, injury-prone pompous ass of a pitcher coming back to a mismanaged, overpaid team of rotisserie all-stars that 98.4 percent of America despises.

- It’s always seemed like Ty Pennington is on some type of drugs and/or a bender based on his insane, loopy act as host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and now we have confirmation of those suspicions. The freakishly energetic actor/host who spends an inordinate amount of time yelling into a megaphone and bossing people around while traveling the country in an RV with a crew of designers and carpenters to fix up homes for needy families was picked up by the LAPD’s West Traffic division Saturday for suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol and drugs. In an ironic twist, he probably had the chance to hear someone yelling at him over a bullhorn, as in “Step out of the car, keep your hands where we can see them!” As bad as this is, the whole driving under the influences of drugs and booze, Pennington can take solace in one thing: at least the LAPD officers didn’t administer their trademark brand of justice during the stop. He wasn’t beaten with a baton or shot with rubber bullets, so there is a silver lining in all of this.

- I don’t know what a special advance preview of a TV show is exactly, but I’m planning on giving a shot to ABC’s new offering Traveler this Thursday at 10 p.m. Partly it’s because the premise of the show looks interesting, but an equal if not larger part of the equation is the fact that by the time the fall TV season kicks off, as many as four of the shows I faithfully watched this year (The O.C., Gilmore Girls for sure, maybe Veronica Mars and a small chance for One Tree Hill) could be gone, so I need to find new shows to watch. Maybe the special advance preview means the series will officially debut this fall, but then having an episode air now doesn’t make much sense. Of course, I got burned by ABC with Six Degrees last fall/this spring and the network hasn’t had anything of quality to offer (and no, Desperate Housewives is not quality, it’s crap-ola) lately outside of the mildly decent Brothers & Sisters. In case you haven't seen the promos for Traveler, it centers on a trio of friends, two of whom are forced to go on the lam on New York City after their friend Will Traveler is involved in a terrorist attack. Not sure how this could be sustained for more than a season or two max, but I’m willing to give it a chance.

- Quite a week for Calvin Borel, the winning jockey in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. On race day, he whipped and beat his horse to a win, then after the race use a sopping-wet sponge to cool down his horse, including a swipe across the horse’s rear end with the sponge followed by him wiping his own face with the sponge. Then on Monday, he got up close and personal with another horse’s ass, except this one was named George W. Bush. Borel was invited to a formal dinner at the White House, where he also met Queen Elizabeth II of England. W. used the event as a platform to hawk his farce of an agenda for the war in Iraq, yammering on and on about the U.S.-British partnership in Iraq and dropping his meaningless buzz words “freedom” and “liberty” a combined seven times. The queen didn’t discuss the war at all, saying she was using her vacation to get away from that sort of thing. Makes me wish W. would take an extended vacation of his own, say for the next 19 months to Siberia, Antarctica, someplace he’s likely to do the least amount of damage.

One year later, the CW is still stupid, Spencer Tunick needs a screening system and an NFL legend dispenses pointless grooming tips

- A year ago I was livid and incredulous when Everwood was inexplicably axed by the CW network while the insipidly awful 7th Heaven was dragged back from the dead for another season. As pissed as I was then, I’m going to be equally upset if the same inept network, which is killing off its good shows one by one and keeping the crappy ones for some reason, brings back the teen drama One Tree Hill, a show with mediocre ratings and zero critical acclaim, and doesn’t bring back the smart, thrilling, snarky detective drama Veronica Mars, a show whose worst episode is ten times better than OTH’s best show? At present, the network appears likely to bring back OTH but is still on the fence when it comes to the fate of Mars. I would ask, “Are you freaking kidding me?” but I know based on prior terrible decision making that Dawn Ostroff and her crew of CW minions are just morons, plain and simple. Amazing how a network that was able to cherry-pick the best shows from two merging networks (WB and UPN) is becoming such a haven of unwatchable and downright awful programming. At this pace, the CW will be off the airwaves within five years and will have no one but its own executives to blame.

- Are you more excited about boxing now? Going into this past weekend, some in the world of sports (I’m looking right at you, Sports Illustrated) tried to argue that the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jr. “superfight” was going to save the sport of boxing. Two problems with this argument: First, even before the fight began, the argument was flawed because in order for the fight to save the sport, fans would need to believe that it was a precursor to, a harbinger of other similarly great fights to come. With a fragmented heavyweight division (four different champions holding belts from four different organizations), corruption rampant and a discernable lack of great, interesting fighters, there aren't any must-see fights on the horizon. Second, the fight itself was good but not great, and most definitely not a fight for the ages. Mayweather won a split decision, hardly the kind of highlight-reel result that a dramatic knockout or even a unanimous decision would have been. This fight didn’t have the potential to save boxing before it took place, and an underwhelming performance meant it didn’t live up to whatever life-giving ability it might have had for the sport of boxing. There was no blood spilled and no knockout punch, which in turn means it might have been a night where the real losers were those hoping that boxing was about to be saved.

- Until now, I’d thought of Jo Theismann in positive terms, mostly as an accomplished NFL quarterback from years past and a decent game analyst for broadcasts. Now, however, I’m rethinking that evaluation because Theismann opened his mouth and uttered one of the single dumbest sports-related comments I’ve heard in a long time. He cracked on Cleveland Browns’ draft pick Brady Quinn for not looking “businesslike” at the draft, with the criticism apparently based on Quinn’s longish hair with heavy doses of styling products and his chewing of gum (gasp!) on camera at the draft. Who the frak cares, Joe? What kind of moron worries about whether an NFL quarterback’s hair is too long and if he chews gum on camera? I know you want to contend that image is important and that players, especially quarterbacks (the leaders of most teams) need to look like leaders, but this isn't the 1950s, so short hair isn't a necessity and the school principal isn't going around demanding students spit their gum into the wastebasket. Quinn’s hair has no effect on his play, nor does it affect his ability to lead. Call me loco, but if you’ve got integrity, character, strength and charisma, your teammates will follow your lead, especially if they know they can count on you. You can have green hair down to your waist if you want and it doesn’t matter 1/1,000th as much as your character and integrity. Stick to your gig in the Monday Night Football booth…..oh, wait, you got booted from that gig, didn’t you Joe? Oops. Well, at least you can take solace in knowing that your hair is nice and neat and you didn’t chew gum on camera, and isn't that what really matters?

- Spencer Tunick is either a unique artist or the world’s most successful pervert…..or a combination of the two. Tunick is the photographer who creates controversy in cities around the globe as he travels to photograph large crowds of people who all agree to pose nude en masse for a picture. The latest shoot took place over the weekend in Mexico City, where more than 18,000 individuals struck a variety of poses for Tunick’s lens. I don’t so much take issue with the concept of a massive nude photo shoot; my issue is what kind of screening process Tunick has for subjects in his pictures. If he simply accepts anyone who’s willing to show up and pose, that’s not good. There are just far too many people out there who should never, ever, ever be seen by anyone, anywhere without several layers of very bulky clothing concealing their out of shape, overweight, pale and pasty bodies. Just as there should be licensing guidelines for anyone wishing to purchase and wear spandex clothing for the same reason, Tunick should be required to screen out these types of people from his pictures. Residents of the cities he takes pictures in should not be subjected to the possibility of walking through town and having to see some 5’10, 250 lb. person without their clothes on, that’s just not right. And before you go criticizing this viewpoint as mean-spirited and superficial, ask yourself if you really want to see a sight like the one I just described……didn’t think so.

- No longer will the word lynx be solely associated with a near-anonymous women’s basketball team from the state of Minnesota. While the WNBA franchise whose mascot is the exotic jungle cat sadly remains operational thanks to the continued subsidy of the NBA, the lynx is garnering additional attention thanks to a group of IQ-depraved thieves in Johnstown, Pa. who decided that stealing one of the huge exotic animals was a good idea. These Mensas duct-taped a central Pennsylvania breeder (who refused to sell them a lynx without a proper license) of the rare cat to a chair and tried to steal a male and female lynx, but couldn’t get the two animals out of their cages and into a trailer. They then un-taped the breeder and forced him to corral the cats, but that too failed and so the thieves made off with the female cat and gave the breeder $2,000 for it. A few days later, a large cat was spotted near Plymouth, Pa. and wildlife authorities tranquilized the animal and found it to be the stolen lynx. So to review, the three thieves gave up $2,000, got possession of a lynx that they then lost and are now being sought by police. Well-crafted plots like this are what enable law enforcement officers to appear as if they are actually winning the war on crime as opposed lo lucking out with criminals whose intelligence ranks slightly above that of your average lamp post.

Two eminently despisable politicians square off, clown vs. clown in Connecticut and a load of crap hits the Hudson River

- Because America on the whole is grossly obese and unable to put down our Big Macs, hot fudge sundaes and doughnuts, there are more and more stories on nightly news programs and news magazine shows about obesity and related issues. While grossly overweight people aren't all that amusing as a general rule (they’re, well, gross) what is funny are a staple of every obesity story on any network, those shots of fat people from the neck down, waddling down the street or walking around in a mall or airport. How sad is it that your only way of making it onto the airwaves is an anonymous shot of your gargantuan body without showing the head attached to it for privacy reasons? You’re being used as a poster child for how out of shape our nation is, but you don’t even get recognized, they just use your torso and legs and exclude the head. Personally, I think we should show these people from head to toe, privacy and rights to the use of your likeness be damned. If the disgustingly fat people of America had to see their flabby likenesses plastered on the television in stunning HD, maybe they would be motivated to stop eating, start exercising and stop being so fat and disgusting.

- It’s a rare showdown of clowns versus clowns, with a group of politicians on one side and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on the other. The famed circus is threatening a boycott of the state of Connecticut if the state legislature there passes a bill outlawing the use of an elephant-herding tool known as a bullhook. Connecticut is the home state of the legendary P.T. Barnum, but the company he founded won't be doing any shows there if the law is put in place. Small children in Hartford, Southington and Norwich won't be able to see the clowns piling into the tiny car, the crazy dude swallowing swords or the man swimming in a tank with alligators, and quite frankly, I am devastated for them. Can’t we all just accept a little animal cruelty in order to provide a truly magical moment in the life of a child? I don’t think it’s too much to ask, really, and hopefully this decision by Connecticut won't spur other states to make the same bad decision.

- Bad news for my Metro New York Rivers Swim team: we’re going to have to cancel our weekly swim in the Hudson River because it’s full of crap. A broken sewage pipe has spilled more than 4 million gallons of raw sewage (really, is there any other kind of sewage but raw?) into the river north of Manhattan and Westchester County health officials have warned boaters, water skiers and divers to stay out of the water. This isn't going to sit well with Cosmo Kramer, either, because I know he loves swimming in the discolored waters of New York’s rivers for the therapeutic powers they have on his back. You know what this means, of course: there’s going to be a major overcrowding problem in the East River for the next week or two until this mess gets cleaned up.

- This is one of those disputes where I’m not rooting for a winner and a loser, I’m simply rooting for the earth to open up and swallow both of these individuals whole. Sen. John McCain, who dopily supports the Mess-O’-Potamia that our un-esteemed Moron-in-Chief has created in Iraq, is picking a fight with the presidential candidate that would horrify a nation if he/she is elected, Sen. Hank Clinton. Hank wants to repeal congressional authorization of the Iraq war, a move McCain labels as “the worst possible idea that anyone could have.” Sorry, Johnny Boy, as much as I hate Hank, dude’s idea is not the worst idea anyone could have, not when it comes to the war in Iraq and not in a broader sense. It’s behind several things on the list, including: waging the war in the first place, continuing the war with no justification, sending more troops over to die when it’s clear the war is a disaster and can't be won, electing W. to begin with, giving more funding to a war that’s a total farce and of course, going for a fourth patty and slice of cheese on a burger at Hardee's that already has about 4,500 calories. Furthermore, McCain is ignorant enough to argue that W.’s new war strategy, introduced in January, is showing “some progress.” What f’ing strategy?!?! There is NO STRATEGY. THERE IS NO PROGRESS! IF ANY AMERICANS ARE STILL DYING IN A PLACE THEY SHOULD NOT BE TO BEGIN WITH, THEN THERE IS NO PROGRESS! Is there any way to disqualify both of these tools, McCain and Hank, from the presidential race immediately? Can we get to work on that like, yesterday? Thanks.

- I freaking hate Roger Clemens, I freaking hate the New York Yankees and I hope these two representations of evil incarnate fail miserably together for the rest of this baseball season. The arrogant, pompous, ass-faced franchise that a nation loves to loathe has signed the unlikable, piece of crap pitcher for the remainder of the season, appropriately enough to a bloated, overpriced $28 million prorated contract, meaning Clemens will make $4.5 million a month for the next six months to throw decent but not great games for a Yankees team that’s headed for another disappointing campaign. I’ll be rooting for a torn rotator cuff muscle, a torn groin muscle, torn knee ligaments or a blown-out ACL for Clemens and a sub-.500 season for the Yankees, who are once again trying to buy their way out of a mess and don’t have to worry about being smart of shrewd with their personnel decisions because like most arrogant rich people, they believe their money can right all of the wrongs. You suck, Yankees, and you’re a piece of crap, Clemens, you two deserve each other and I hope you both flame out horrifically.

A house with stripper poles, a misguided TVstar and the NRA is a bunch of morons

- Ever wanted to own a house that once belonged to a psychopathic, misogynistic, clinically insane rapist/heavyweight boxing champion and a thug gangsta rapper who was once shot nine times and considers Eminem one of his boys? If so, the house for you is the 52-room mansion in Connecticut that rapper 50 Cent is selling after buying it a few years ago from everyone’s favorite ear-biting boxer Mike Tyson. Before I go on, can someone please explain to me what a hardcore hip hopper like 50 is doing living in a state occupied largely by old, rich, white liberal blue-bloods? I can't really picture 50 (or Tyson for hat matter) drinking coffee in some small-town café, going to the county fair or playing tennis with Milt and Buffy Haddleston. Insane heavyweight boxers and bullet-riddled rappers aren't supposed to live in quiet, picturesque communities in the Northeast, they’re supposed to want to live in places that don’t get a couple dozen feet or snow each winter, places that sport miles and miles of beaches and places where the median age is 25, not 50. But back to the house……be assured, it’s not gaudy or distasteful - except for the stripper poles, which actually make for great conversation pieces, assuming your guests are loose-moraled women between the ages of 18 and 29 who don’t mind skanking it up a bit.

- Another sign you’ve really f’d up as a police force……your city’s mayor cuts short a trade mission to Mexico to come home and deal with the fallout from your egregious abuse of civilians at a protest rally. After officers beat down citizens with batons and pelted them with rubber bullets at an immigration rights march, for some reason people weren't happy. Now, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is coming home from Mexico to clean up the mess. For the sake of the policemen in question, I hope that this stops at the local level, because if the Governator gets involved, things could turn even uglier for the LAPD. Good to see that no one learned a lesson from the Rodney King fiasco and that the police in L.A. still view the use of excessive force as an acceptable practice.

- The National Rifle Association sucks. Now it is risky to say that a group of gun toting marksmen sucks, but I’ll go ahead and run the risk. The NRA is urging W. to withdraw his support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms, with the justification being that it’s an arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based solely on suspicion. Umm…..so what? Normally I’m all for giving the government a collective middle finger, but keeping guns out of people’s hands doesn’t seem too problematic. None of the arguments about why you need a gun sway me even if you’re a responsible, law abiding citizen, so if you’re a suspected terrorist, let’s go ahead and make sure you’re not one before you are able to purchase guns. Besides, how much good is this bill going to do in stopping terrorists anyhow? You think your average terrorist group goes through legal means and buys their weapons at the local gun or sporting goods store? I’m inclined to say that black market arms dealers is more the method of choice for terrorists, but that’s just me.

- A quick word on the news that Lauren Graham, appearing on the Ellen Degenerate Show, said that the end of Gilmore Girls is a good thing. Hey Lauren, thanks for the input, I know you’re on the show and all, but you’re wrong anyhow. Maybe you think it’s a good thing because you didn’t get enough money offered to you, maybe you worrying staying on the show one more year would result in you being typecast in your role from the show and prevent you from getting offers to do other types of roles elsewhere, but either way, you’re in the wrong. It’s a great show and even if people are critical of it, that doesn’t mean we don’t still love it. This is a rare case where you owed it to the fans to give them another year, even if it was a shortened one, so we could so goodbye to a show we love.

- Raise your hand if you think Adam “Pacman” Jones is going to win his appeal of his yearlong suspension from the NFL……….no hands? You’re correct if you kept your hand down, because Commissioner Roger Goodell is not going to reduce his suspension by even one game, because clearly the commish is making a statement about what players can expect if they repeatedly run afoul of the law and bring reproach to the league. Jones is gone for the year, and if he thinks the very guy who determined his suspension in the first place is suddenly going to change his mind, he’s even dumber and crazier than I thought. Shut your mouth, sit out the year and stop getting arrested, P., and we’ll see if you can be reinstated for the 2008 season.

When idiots stage a coup, when skanks go to prison and when, oh when, will the NHL season end?

- Anyone know if the NHL playoffs are still going on? I think I heard they were starting sometime in the past month or so, and since the least-followed “major” sport in America has a habit of dragging its postseason out for three or four months even though no one south of the Canadian border gives a crap, I figure they must still be going on. I can't say for sure because NHL playoff games are televised on that media giant known as the Versus network, which 0.004% of Americans get on their cable or satellite system. I also can't tell you any of the teams still playing (assuming anyone is still playing) or any of those teams’ players, which means I’m an astonishingly good representation of the American sports fan in general. Thanks for another “scintillating” season and postseason of crap, soccer on ice. Please tell me why the sport the least amount of people pay attention to is the one that stretches its season out for 11 months and 2 weeks, leaving an all-too-brief two-week hiatus between the end of one unbearably boring season and the start of the next one. You suck, soccer on ice, and I wish you’d just go away on a permanent basis.

- One of the best television shows of my short lifetime is done, thanks to a combination of incompetence and/or incredible greed and selfishness. Gilmore Girls, the always funny, interesting, thoughtful and intelligent drama about the life of a single mother, her daughter and a small town full of colorful, offbeat characters and their respective lives is ending in just over two weeks, more or less because the two stars of the show, Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, rejected contract offers for a shortened eighth season of the hit show even though to contracts reportedly contained significant raises in their salaries. Without knowing the whole story and all of the behind-the-scenes details, it’s impossible to assign all of the blame to the two leading ladies, but a lot of it has to go there. How you can let down legions of fans and walk away from a show that has meant so much to so many people over a contract dispute is befuddling. Plus, Graham and Bledel could have had the benefit of a shortened season, all while enjoying a farewell tour that would pay appropriate respect to a show that’s been a wonderful part of Tuesday nights for seven years. Kudos also to the CW and its always incompetent executives for their part in failing to seal the deal for an eighth season, I am sure Dawn Ostroff and crew did their absolute best to f’up the process. I am immensely sad for all fans of the show, myself included, and the remaining three episodes of the show will now be viewed through a bittersweet lens in addition to serving as a hackneyed, inadequately short sendoff for such a great show.

- The bad news about Spiderman 3 is that the movie isn't up to the standards of the first two incarnations of director Sam Raimi’s adaptation of the legendary comic book. The good news is that even at a level slightly below expectations, Spidey is still significantly better than almost anything else in theaters right now. The basic problem with Spiderman 3 is that the film is too busy, too cluttered and tries to weave too many storylines into its two hour, 20 minute running time. Each story line is interesting, but none of them are given much time to develop. There’s the Peter Parker-Mary Jane Watson dynamic, the Peter Parker-Harry Osborne dynamic, the Spiderman-Sandman dynamic, the Spiderman-Venom dynamic and a few other peripheral ideas, and following them is nearly as difficult as trying to keep up with some of the film’s uber-high paced action sequences, which are so rapid fire that you aren't able to figure out what’s going on and who’s hitting who many times. Having said all of that, this is overall a good movie, because the visual effects, costumes and dialogue are all good and there are characters you are genuinely invested in. There are more than a few good laughs in the film, many of them as Peter Parker gets caught up in his celebrity as Spiderman and generally acts like a pompous, self-absorbed ass. Ultimately, it’s worth your time and money to see the movie, even if it doesn’t entertain you quite as much as the first two editions in the series.

- Paris Hilton now has a chance for her best-selling sex tape yet, besting the other dozen or so she’s cranked out over the past few years. The vapid, famous-for-no-real-reason socialite is on her way to jail after a judge in Los Angeles sentenced her to 45 days in county jail Friday for violating her probation. The mega-skank must report to jail on June 5 and won’t be allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled. Hilton was found guilty of violating the terms of parole she received after an alcohol-related reckless driving case. Depending on the cellmate she is assigned, Paris could actually find herself living out some of the freaky fantasies that sexually deprived pervs worldwide have been imaging her in since they watched her previous sex tapes for the 14,688th time. Good news, though: Paris says she’s “very sorry” and in the future she will “pay complete attention to everything.” Umm, thanks Paris, that was vague, unspecific and tells me absolutely nothing. You’ll pay attention to everything? Everything where? Everything in your immediate vicinity, everything you agree to when you receive probation, everything you allow guys to stick in your…..never mind. Enjoy jail, P., it seemed to work out all right for Martha Stewart so I’m sure you’ll be just fine.

- Whatever happened to strapping together some branches, milk cartons and cardboard boxes and fashioning a makeshift raft to paddle across the ocean from Cuba to the United States? Would-be refugees used to ride their hastily crafted dinghies over choppy seas and try to wash up on the shore in Florida, but now things have turned violent. A group of fugitive army recruits from the island nation attempted to hijack a plane to the United States on Thursday and killed a military officer they had taken hostage in the process before being captured and hauled off the jail, which is more or less a death sentence in Communist Cuba. This came after the rogue recruits hijacked a bus that they used to drive themselves to the tarmac, where they then hijacked the plane. These doofuses should have known rule No. 1 about hijacking schemes: never hijack more than one type of vehicle or method or transportation in the course of any single plan. You wanna hijack cars, then stick with cars. Same with boats. You try to mix it up, be versatile and hijack both a bus and a plane, your plan fails. Just think of the loss the U.S. will suffer without these geniuses being adopted into our society, their intellectual and military contributions alone would have made our country a better place by far……

A "major" move by the Yankees, what Bob Wolfowitz has in common with a hot chick and the LAPD does what it does best

- All of the New York Yankees’ problems are solved! Seriously, the team’s 10-14 start, underachieving pitching staff and rash of injuries are no longer concerns, because the Yanks have cut to the core of the trouble and fixed everything - by firing their strength coach, Marty Miller. Yes, it’s a bit unorthodox and doesn’t seem to do much to cure what ails the team - terrible pitching and porous defense - but don’t let the unconventional nature of the move deter you from recognizing its brilliance. Just look at all the teams who have turned their failing seasons around by firing their strength coach. There’s……well….uh….ok, so technically no team has used this tactic to save a disappointing season, but let’s not get hung up on the small stuff. Forget trading for players who can actually catch and throw the ball at a competent level and pitchers whose earned-run averages are below 6.50, replacing your strength coach is where it’s at. Either that or the team is miserably below where Big Stein expected them to be and he was looking to whack someone just to make a point. After all, Miller was just hired by the Yankees in the offseason as director of performance enhancement, so he wore out his welcome quickly. Maybe if the team had hired a director of performance enhancers instead, they would have done much better in April. Then again, I don’t think Jason Giambi needs anyone’s advice on performance enhancers……….

- When you become a parent for the first time, you’ve got a lot to learn and it has to be extremely intimidating. However, even if you’ve lived in a cave all your life and have just had your first child born, there are a few things you should still know even without any parenting experience. The father of an unidentified 1-year-old boy in Chattanooga, Tenn. who left his infant son in the car with temperatures in the 80s clearly didn’t get those parenting skills encoded in his DNA. This tool left the 1-year-old in the car unattended for hours in the stifling heat, and now that the infant has died from heat-related illness, the father has been charged with negligent homicide. On one hand, you feel a tin shred of empathy for the guy because regardless of the circumstances, he did lose his son and he has to carry that burden around for the rest of his life. But mostly you want to smack him over the head repeatedly with a rusty cheese grater, because how do you even begin to think it’s ok to leave a 1-year-old alone anywhere for hours on end, let alone inside of a giant metal box on wheels on a scorching hot day? That baby wasn’t the one who needed to be removed from the gene pool, it was the ignoramus father who needs to be weeded out so he can’t further infect future generations. This goes on the list of parenting techniques to avoid, right behind the woman who put her infant grandson through an X-ray machine at LAX and the woman who took a nap and left her unattended 3-year-old to wander onto the nearby freeway and play in rush-hour traffic.

- Brace yourselves, because you’re about to hear something utterly shocking. Police in Los Angeles are guilty of using abusive tactics and excessive force on civilians. I know, I’ll give you a moment to recover from that, because I’m sure you’re as floored as I am by that. Police Chief William Bratton admitted Wednesday that his officers did indeed err in clubbing people with their batons and firing rubber bullets into the crowd as they tried to clear immigration protestors from a park. The crowds in question contained children, yet the police fired away with their rubber bullets and went about beating people down, as is their custom (cough, cough, Rodney King, cough). Maybe we can take solace in the fact that this time, there was no racial profiling or discrimination and beatings/shooting were administered without bias. At least the LAPD has learned some lessons and they are now equal-opportunity abusers, good job fellas.

- ESPN can just give it up with its campaign to push soccer on us, because we’re not fans and we do know it. The recent collection of ads identify good aspects of other sports, like basketball or football, then try to show those same qualities exist in pro soccer. Thus, if you are a fan of those other sports and those particular traits, then you’ll love pro soccer too, you just haven't given it a chance yet. Well, ESPN, allow me to point out some other characteristics of the real major sports in this country and ask where they are in pro soccer. First, sports like the NBA, NFL and MLB have regular scoring, whereas your sport regularly boasts thrilling tallies of 1-0. If I’m going to spend a couple hours watching a game, I need to see more than one goal scored. Two, those other sports have athletes who don’t fall to the ground and writhe around like they’ve been shot the second someone so much as taps them gently on the arm, whereas soccer players appear to be on the verge of death each time they are touched. Then, once they are carried to the sideline on a stretcher, those same players leap up and wave to the crowd, totally recovered from their (fake) injury. Oh, and I don’t remember seeing any greasy haired, mullet-sporting, one-name Euros in the NFL or MLB, looking like they’ve yet to discover soap or shampoo and whining about people not understanding the beauty, creativity and passion of their game. The assertion that Americans are fans of pro soccer and we just don’t know it yet could not be more wrong. We know who you are, soccer, we know what you’re selling and we’re not buying it. Now go eat your orange wedges, drink your Capri Sun and stop bothering us.

- Nothing like creating a giant crap storm by your own inappropriate actions, then chastising everyone for paying attention that that mess instead of what you want them to focus on. World Bank President Bob Wolfowitz is upset that no one wants to talk about the work World Bank as it seeks to provide loans and financial assistance to needy third-world governments and instead the main topic of discussion is the scandal he created by giving his girlfriend an undeserved promotion to a cushy government job accompanied by a huge raise. Wolfowitz’s lady friend, Shaha Riza, was an employee at World Bank when B. Wolfowitz took over, but to sidestep a rule that said an employee could not work for someone they are dating, Bob-O transferred her to the State Department, along with giving her the aforementioned raise and guaranteed positive performance reviews. Now, he’s angry because all anyone talks about in relation to World Bank is the huge mistake he committed and the controversy it has brought upon the entire organization. He maintains that attention needs to be “focused on the very, very important work of the bank” and not on the current investigation into his actions. “The bank’s work goes on,” B. Wolfowitz said. “It is critical.” In some sense, he’s like an über-hot girl who wears a super-short leather mini-skirt and a tight, low cut shirt and then b*tches about guys staring at her and checking her out. You made the mess, you screwed up, Wolfowitz, and now you’re reaping the whirlwind. If you don’t want to deal with the ramiprecussions (a new word I’ve crafted, ramifications + repercussions), don’t exhibit blatant nepotism and break rules by giving your girlfriend a new job and a big raise she doesn’t deserve. And hey, at least now people know a little about the World Bank and what it does, whereas before you’re faux pas, 80 to 90 percent of Americans had no idea that your organization even existed.

- Because many Americans are mindless sheep, they blindly follow whatever trends celebrities say are popular, be it in terms of clothing, language, diet or music. These followers never quite realize that celebrities aren't smarter than us, and that in many cases they’re dumber by a wide margin. Just because Johnny Knoxville or Brad Pitt wears something, drives a certain car or eats a certain diet, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for you. For a recent example, consider the following: Why imitate celebrities when there’s ample evidence that they’re stupid and will try things like a diet consisting totally of a lemon juice/syrup/cayenne pepper concoction, saltwater and laxative tea? Yes, that’s the diet of choice that’s the newest weight-loss scheme, thanks to famous people like Beyonce who swear they’ve lost copious amounts of weight on the diet. Yes, I know man Americans are orca fat, as evidenced by the fact that every commercial break on every network features one or more commercials from Jenny Craig, Nurti-System or Weight Watchers. But reducing yourself to some crappy lemon juice concoction, saltwater and laxative tea is not evidence that you’re serious about losing weight, it’s evidence that you’re a moron. Last time I checked, if you stop eating potato chips, Doritos, French fries, greasy hamburgers, fast food and desserts and work out on a regular basis, you’re going to shed some lbs. Pouring disgusting, bastardized mixtures of various liquids down your gullet because you want to be like Beyonce shows two things, neither of them good: 1) you’re a spineless follower who can't think for yourself, 2) you’re a lazy piece of crap who hasn’t yet realized what a treadmill, elliptical machine at exercise bike are for.

- I know sometimes pro athletes miss out on certain parts of growing up and rites of passage because they’re so devoted to succeeding in their sport and have little time for anything else, but you’d think that some time in between the end of a guy’s playing career and the time he becomes a senior citizen that he’d get that stuff out of the way. Not Orlando Cepeda, apparently, because this 69-year-old Hall of Famer is still into drugs hardcore, enough to put most meth heads on your average college campus to shame. Cepeda was pulled over in Cordelia by a California Highway Patrol officer for doing 83 mph in a 65-mph zone on Interstate 80. As the officer approached the car, the pungent odor of drugs alerted him that something might be amiss. Upon searching the car, the officer found weed, cocaine and meth in “usable quantities.” To quote Ron Burgundy, I’m not even angry, I’m impressed. That’s amazing, O., because most seniors fill their cars with those massaging back pillows, ugly quilt covers on the seats, Metamucil and several pairs of those hideous wraparound sunglasses they buy in bulk at the flea market. Yet here Cepeda is, still drugging it up big time, in possession of three different drugs at one time. In his defense, Cepeda’s attorney claims the marijuana was intended for medicinal use by a relative with diabetes, but that doesn’t explain the coke or the meth. On a side note, if I’m rolling with those three drugs in my car at the same time, I’m going to be extra sure that I’m not breaking any traffic laws. All Cepeda needed was an open bottle of vodka in the car and he truly would have hit for the cycle.

A pathetic punishment, smart kids ain't so good at cheating and rich people in ridiculous outfits with stupid hats

- Frank Martinez, the New York Mets fan who was arrested and booted from Shea Stadium after shining a high-powered flashlight into the eyes of two Atlanta Braves players during a game, has received his punishment and it’s as ridiculous as you might expect. Martinez has been banned from attending any Mets’ home games for three years and must spend 15 days in jail after pleading guilty to charges of interfering with a professional sporting event. This punishment is absurd, but not for the reasons you might think. I do concede that wasting jail space on a person for shining a flashlight in the eyes of a couple of pro baseball players is absurd, the truly stupid part of this sentence is the notion of banning anyone from a sporting venue for three years. Tell me exactly how you can enforce this kind of ban, because I don’t see it happening. Just prohibiting someone from buying a ticket isn't enough, because that person can scalp a ticket, they can have a friend buy it for them or they can buy it using cash at any ticket-selling location. So what, you’re going to hand a glossy, color picture of this guy to every ticket taker at Shea Stadium and instruct them not to let him in? Right, because ticket takers aren't at all a transient group whose composition changes regularly. Plus, what’s to prevent Martinez (or any fan in his situation for that matter) from dyeing their hair, wearing a wig, growing a goatee, slapping on some glasses or wearing a hat to disguise themselves? There is no way the Mets or the local government is going to be able to enforce this ban, and in order to fly in the face of its absurdity, I hope Frank Martinez does attend many Mets games over the next three years, sans flashlight of course.

- Now things get interesting. W. has indeed vetoed the newly passed war-funding bill containing troop-withdrawal language, and today he met with the Democratic leaders of Congress to work toward an alternative solution. In vetoing the bill, W. stood firmly by his ill-reason, ignorant and oblivious thinking that has led him so far through this war. “It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing,” W. said. “You would be setting a date for failure.” No, ass clown, that date has already been set and it’s the date you decided to wage this ill-fated atrocity of a war. We failed the second an American soldier set foot on Iraqi soil looking to find WMD’s that never existed, from the second the first American soldier was injured or killed in Iraq and from the second you decided that you would continue waging this war with no plan, no timetable and no valid reason for its continuation. We’ve already failed because there was no way to win to begin with. Your staunch refusal to admit this is placing everyone, from the soldiers fighting the war to the legislators bound to fund it, in a terrible position. As bad as you may think you would look for actually deciding to withdraw American troops from Iraq, you’re going to look a hundred times worse for prolonging a war that’s becoming an even more ginormous debacle than Vietnam was for Nixon. In fact, history is probably going to remember you even more critically than Nixon, because at least after all his foul ups, he resigned and left the White House in shame, whereas you, W., keep sticking your head in the sand and refusing to admit how wrong and incompetent you are.

- Ah, the pageantry of rich people in ridiculous outfits and funny hats, overpriced mint juleps and tiny men in brightly colored outfits flogging giant equines around an oversized oval, it’s why the Kentucky Derby (set for Saturday) is truly one of the great sporting events in the world. That is, of course, assuming that by calling it a great sporting event you mean it is neither great nor an actual sport, but rather an idiotic contest featuring tiny men atop big horses that far too many people wager far too much money on. You’ll have to excuse me for refusing to recognize something as a sport when the primary participants are animals without opposable thumbs and the only humans involved in the race itself are resigned to the role of beating the horse with a whip and looking like a slightly oversized lawn ornament. Just as auto racing fails to qualify as a real sport in large part due to its reliance on a piece of machinery as the real “competitor” and thus allows out-of-shape schlubs to excel with minimal physical exertion, horse racing doesn’t pass muster as a legit sport in my book. Something tells me there will be one or 4,015 better things to do this weekend than watch the horsies run around in a circle for a few minutes while wealthy ladies in funny hats sip expensive drinks and cheer them on from their private boxes at the racetrack.

- Ah, international slap fights, God love ‘em. In a near-perfect example of big versus small, the tiny Caribbean island of St. Lucia has stepped to China and thrown down the political gauntlet. St. Lucia has decided to sever its 10-year diplomatic ties to China and restore its ties to Taiwan, a country that is one of China’s biggest rivals. Both the Chinese and Taiwanese have sent diplomatic envoys to the tiny island nation in attempts to curry favor, but China has lost the battle and now its government is pissed. Of course, if I had built a stadium and a psychiatric hospital for a country and then they cut ties with me, I might be a smidge upset too. “We express indignation and opposition,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jian-chao said in an official statement. Not a lot to go on there, but I’ll hazard a guess and say that China isn't going to take St. Lucia up on its offer to still be friends despite the new alliance with Taiwan. You’ve got to admire a 240-square mile island with a population of 168,000 being willing to stick it to the world’s most populous nation and one with nuclear capacity nonetheless. Well done, St. Lucia, you’ve definitely got a lot of testicular fortitude.

- American Karaoke, ruining countries all over the world one debacle at a time. It just isn't enough for the creators and participants of this horrific train wreck that they continue to erode musical standards and quality in America and Great Britain; no, these losers are spreading their disease worldwide and now seven people in Tunisia have died as a result. At a concert in the southern city of Sfax featuring the “stars” of the Arab version of American Karaoke, a stampede in the crowd left seven individuals, all between the ages of 12 and 21, dead and 32 others seriously injured. No word on whether the stampeded ensued when the gawd-awful, ear-damaging musical crap-ola started and those in the crowd tried to flee, but this is just another example of this excruciatingly bad show bringing more pain and suffering on the world. Isn't it enough that we have an ever-growing crop of degenerates who think they can sing because they appeared on AK and now they insist on producing unlistenable albums and showing up on any and every TV and radio show they can beg their way onto in a desperate grab at fame? For the sake of the health, well being and sanity of people the world over, someone needs to step up and take the initiative to shut down any and all versions of American Karaoke around the world by whatever means necessary. It’s not good, it’s not really music and it’s not doing anything but dragging us down, so let’s end this charade, once and for all.

- With finals bearing down on students at colleges and universities across the country, there are a few guarantees: 1) hundreds of gallons of Red Bull and coffee will be consumed, 2) students will cram desperately in an attempt to learn in a few hours material they’ve ignored and put off learning for months and 3) cheating in a wide array of shapes, sizes and strategies will ensue. Students at the Air Force Academy and Duke have gotten an early start on the cheating angle, with fifteen Air Force cadets being booted from the school and 34 Dukies awaiting punishment after their roles in cheating scandals at their respective schools. At the Air Force Academy, the cadets in question either confessed or were found guilty by an honor board of sharing answers to a test of knowledge about the Air Force. At Duke, graduate students at the school’s Fuqua School of business face severe punishment, including nine who are staring down expulsion, after their own cheating scheme was discovered. It’s the largest cheating scandal in the school’s history and proves the adage that if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying, and it’s only cheating if you get caught. I just thought wicked smart kids like those attending Duke might be a little smarter when cheating and could avoid being caught.

Admiring the entrepreneurial spirit, a space spat and pride over toxic air

- Is a person being an international drug lord any reason to persecute them and refuse to admire the entrepreneurial spirit? I say no. Drug cartels in Mexico have taken to expanding their business to include people-smuggling in order to supplement their normal practice of transporting massive quantities of weed, cocaine and hash into the United States. The human cargo is used to distract law enforcement from billions of dollars in cocaine shipments coming across the same section of the U.S.-Mexico border. The diversified crime syndicates get protection money from the illegal immigrants and then use them to provide an easier path for their drug shipments. Why this is a problem, I don’t know. It seems to me that when a business faces a challenge, as the smugglers do with a new crackdown by the border patrol on drug smuggling, that business should be praised for finding new and innovative ways to grow their business. Yes, they’re using human beings as shields to help facilitate trafficking of drugs that could kill people, but as with any advances in business, some sacrifices must be made. By using the same routes for smuggling both drugs and humans across the border, drug smugglers are showing creativity and ingenuity. It’s the American spirit at work, and even if our government, our border patrol, local and state police, federal law enforcement and society at-large can't respect that, I’ll be the lone voice in the crowd to express admiration for these human-exploiting, narcotic-pushing druggies who are finding new ways to foist their lethal product on the American public.

- Taking pride in your hometown or the area you grew up in is a natural instinct. We all want people to know the good things about the place we live and to recognize its good qualities. Thus, I am exceptionally proud that my area, the Cleveland-Akron area of Northeast Ohio, has cracked the list of cities in America with the worst air quality. What makes this honor so meaningful is that everyone in the community needs to pitch in to make it possible. This isn't something one environmentally ignorant, toxin-producing loose cannon can bring about. You need a collection of pollutant-emitting factories, citizens driving environment-wrecking vehicles with poor emissions systems and a general disinterest in keeping your community’s air clean and breathable if you’re going to be honored by the American Lung Association for having some of the most polluted air in the country. In case you’re wondering, the Los Angeles metropolitan area reclaimed its usual spot at the top of the list after dropping off in recent years when the tree huggers in the state of California made that push to clean up the air in the Golden State. Plus, not only does my area rank sixth on the list, Pittsburgh (a short two-hour drive to the east) is second on the list behind L.A. Few times in my life have I been as proud of my hometown and my fellow Northeast Ohioans as I am right now………

- Demanding that your nation’s radio stations portray another nation as an enemy and taking a directly hostile stance toward that national in the political arena makes for a tempestuous relationship. Russia has taken an increasingly hostile stance toward the United States (and pretty much everyone else in the world) lately as President Vlad Putin marches the Russkies back toward Communism, and now the good ‘ol U.S.A. has decided our feelings are hurt and we’re not going to play nice with Russia anymore. The chief of Russia’s space agency claims that the U.S. has rejected a Russian proposal that the two nations join together in exploring the moon, a claim American space program leaders deny. In fact, NASA claims no such offer was made, so someone here is lying. I’m torn as to who that might be, because our current government and agency leaders have shown a clear talent and predilection for lying, but how can you believe a Communist, totalitarian, dictatorial regime over your own country’s word? Whatever the case, you can be sure that the United States and Russia will not be scheduling any lunar play dates any time soon, although I would be all for taking the president of each nation and shooting those two up into space together for an extended moon exploration project through the year 2045.

- Raise your hand if you didn’t think the new movie starring Jamie Kennedy would be a bomb. No hands? Didn’t think so. Kennedy is rapidly becoming the next Pauly Shore, a pathetic wannabe comedian who makes absolutely ridiculous, unwatchable pieces of crap that appeal to a non-existent group about five rungs down the evolutionary ladder from the lowest common denominator among movie fans. After playing lead rules in acclaimed theatrical classics like Malibu’s Most Wanted and Son of the Mask, Pauly Shore Jr. is back in Kickin’ It Old Skool (no word on whether the movie’s producers intended to spell it that way), a movie with an implausible, idiotic premise of Kennedy as a coma survivor who wakes up after 20 years and is still living in the 1980s, with hilarity supposedly ensuing. Hmm, lemme see, has this kind of idea been done recently….oh yeah, Brendan Fraser as a guy who lived in a bomb shelter for a couple decades and reemerges into a world that he’s 20 years behind and struggles to adjust to in Blast from the Past. So with a retread of a plot and an exceptionally bad thespian in the lead, plus a “climactic” break-dancing throwdown, you can see where this movie is headed…….yup, pretty much straight to DVD after an underwhelming two-week run in theaters. I feel bad about seeing Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luthor in one of my favorite TV shows (Smallville) being a part of this cast, so I’m going to go ahead and pretend that this movie never happened so I can still watch Smallville and not laugh derisively every time Rosenbaum appears on screen.

- Not that anyone is going to miss her, but it is bad timing for Rosie O’Fat’s decision to leave The View. Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the show’s ditzy, perky blonde eye candy, has announced that she is pregnant, which would have been a positive development for O’Fat if she were staying on the show. With Liz adding all of that pregnancy weight and ballooning up to several times her normal size in the months ahead, Rosie would have finally had someone in the same general weight class as her so she wouldn’t appear so obscenely fat and disgusting on national television. Don’t get me wrong, Rosie still would’ve been the fattest person on the show by a wide (pun intended) margin, but at least Hasselbeck would have been in the same weight zip code for a few months. When you’re as obese, crude and disgusting as O’Fat, you need to take what you can get. Don’t let the door hit you in your ginormous ass on the way out, Rosie, which means you’ll need to find someone who doesn’t hate you (it’ll be hard, I know) and have them hold the door open for four or five minutes to give you time to make it through the opening.

- Was it something he said? Following his stint as a guest analyst for ESPN at the NFL Draft over the weekend, Keyshawn Johnson has been released by the Carolina Panthers. Johnson spent extensive airtime talking about the Panthers’ draft needs and raving about the players they selected. He talked with the team’s second round pick, Dwayne Jarrett, and consoled him about not being picked higher coming out of the same school Johnson attended, the University of Southern California. He promised to mentor Jarrett with the Panthers and to take care of him there, but it looks like those plans will never come to fruition. Johnson is gone, and ironically Jarrett may be the one taking his spot. Like Keyshawn, Jarrett is a big, physical receiver and he may slide right into the role Johnson once held. Wonder if Keyshawn would have been so effervescent and enthusiastic talking about the Panthers and their draft picks if he’d known what was coming……Of course, that experience as a TV analyst might be helpful to Johnson sooner rather than later now that he no longer has a job catching passes in the NFL. Still, dude does have the all-time best quote from any athlete, anywhere: “If you don’t like me, you’ve got a problem with yourself."