Chastising Hugo Chavez, pimping a new TV series and an elderly mobster gets his

- If I praise you when you are smart enough to publicly rip and verbally excoriate America’s intelligence-deprived leader, then I also must rip you when you engage in an act of oppression and bullying, Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan presidente is forcing Radio Caracas Television, the country’s oldest private TV station, off the air at midnight tomorrow because of lingering resentment and hostility he has against RCTV because of the part he believes it played in a failed coup against him in 2002. Nothing like holding a grudge for five years and refusing to renew the station’s license, H., it’s refreshing to see that your administration won't be so petty and small-minded as to quash someone who dared oppose you half a decade ago. Of course, you can bet that Chavez will release some official statement denying that this is any sort of payback for RCTV and that he had a completely justified, reasonable motivation for the decision - the typical political-speak B.S. that you always hear when a scheming, conniving and indefensible move like this is made. Yet I can’t help but theorize that America probably wouldn’t be any worse off with H. Chavez as our leader than we are with the current idiot sitting in the Oval Office………

- Hey everybody, major news flash: the IRS is inept and ineffective, can you believe it!?!?! This may come as a shock to you, but in addition to its slowness, insensitivity, lack of responsiveness and general disdain for taxpayers, the Internal Revenue Service also does a poor job identifying tax-exempt groups that may have ties to terrorist groups, according to a report by the office of the Treasury Inspector General. I am shocked and appalled to learn that a fine, upstanding and efficient organization such as the IRS does a poor job of anything. Other than losing my tax return this year and taking four months and running to get me a refund that I am due, all the while feeding me a dozen different excuses and showing all the enthusiasm for getting me my refund that Rosie O’Donnell shows at a salad bar, I can't think of a single reason to doubt the competency of the Internal Revenue Service. Just because their heads are shoved so far up their collective arse doesn’t mean that they screw things up, except for the fact that they continually f’up everything in sight. The true stunner will be if and when the IRS does something correctly and on time……….

- When our justice system is on its game, it takes a bite out of the real criminals among us, those who are a threat to society and need to pay for their misdeeds. For example, when you have a nearly century-old former mobster living in a retirement haven in south Florida filling his days with bingo, shuffleboard and the early bird special at Bob’s Big Boy, you need to bring the smack down on his hardened criminal arse big time. Albert Facchiano, a 97-year-old convicted mobster, has been sentenced to six months’ house arrest after pleading guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy and witness tampering charges. I’m not sure exactly how a 97-year-old dude intimidates potential witness, other than threatening to beat them with his cane and choking them with the chain on his eyeglasses, but so be it. No word on whether Albert will be allowed out of his house for the condo shuffleboard tournament or the early bird special at the Sizzler, but something tells me that in sentencing him to house arrest, the court is hoping he’ll kick the bucket before the end of his sentence and they won't have to waste money and jail space incarcerating him. Still, kudos to this guy for still being gangsta enough to have the federal government coming after him on major criminal charges when he’s nearly at the century mark of his life.

- College basketball coaches are hard driving and dogmatic by nature. They have to go hard after potential recruits and fight like heck against the other schools trying to recruit prized players, but there comes a time when that dogmatism and relentless pursuit need to be switched off, which is a lesson Florida A&M coach Mike Gillespie Sr. doesn’t seem to know. Police in Tallahassee, Fla. arrested Gillespie on a misdemeanor stalking charge Friday, although he was later released on a $1,000 bond. The arrest came after a woman phoned police to tell them she was being stalked Thursday night and Friday morning. Gillespie was nabbed during the day Friday, and apparently this isn't his first foray into the realm of being a creepy, weirdo stalker. A police report states that Gillespie has been investigated several times for stalking since March 2005 and had received numerous warnings from law enforcement to change his behavior. Then, once he was arrested, he twice refused to tell police his side of the story, which certainly doesn’t do anything to disperse the dark clouds of suspicion hanging over his head. This stalking tendency should do wonders for recruiting at A&M, because what parent wouldn’t want their son going to play basketball for some creepy 56-year-old dude who has a habit of stalking people and then lying about it? Stop following random women around, Coach, and learn that if they don’t want anything to do with you, you need to respect that and leave them alone.

- Not sure what to make of the return of ABC’s new series, Traveler, this Wednesday, May 30. I watched the pilot a few weeks ago and it was interesting enough to watch again, but my optimism is balanced by the knowledge that the show doesn’t have any sort of time slot of scheduled night for the upcoming season on ABC. In fact, one piece I read said the series won’t be a part of ABC’s 2007-08 lineup, but I have to believe that’s faulty information, otherwise why bother bringing it back for eight weeks this summer. At this point, the show has to have at least some life in it and a shot to be included in the network’s lineup at some point, be it as an in-season replacement or otherwise. Here’s hoping enough other viewers tune in so that the suits at ABC are encouraged by the ratings and give this promising series a real shot. Tune in Wednesday night at I believe 10 p.m. and see what should be good viewing…….

Adios, Rosie O'Fat, adios, creepy snakes-on-a-plane guy and adios to illegal immigrants if you heed my advice

- For future reference, attempting to re-enact Snakes on a Plane in real life is a bad idea. Yahia Rahim Tulba, a would-be passenger attempting to board a flight out of the main airport in Cairo, Egypt was detained by customs officials after it was discovered that his baggage included 700 live snakes, some of them poisonous. Tulba was asked to open his bag after he informed officials of the snakes’ presence but asked everyone to stay at a safe distance. He intended to sell the snakes in Saudi Arabia, although the total value of his scaly supply of crawling creatures was not immediately known. No word on whether Samuel L. Jackson was also on board the plane, but this is yet more proof that no matter how many pictures they put on the security signs at the airport to show things you can't bring on a plane, some moron will try to sneak something else onto a plane that shouldn’t be there. You’ve seen the signs, pictures of guns, knives, water bottles, explosives, etc. with a red circle around them and a red slash mark diagonally across them. Looks like airport security will now need to add a snake graphic to that list so that would-be snake smugglers don’t try to board the plane with hundreds of dangerous animals. I’m still at a loss as to how you could think this was OK under any circumstances, but then again the world is not a smart place……….

- Good to see another state legislature engaging in the pointless, idiotic and wasteful notion of apologizing for an act that happened nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. The state legislature in Alabama has become the latest to issue a formal apology for slavery, even though all those who were enslaved are dead, the people who owned slaves are dead and anyone who was directly affected by the horrible practice of slavery in Civil War times is also dead. The Alabama Legislature officially passed a resolution Thursday that expresses “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery and also apologizes for slavery’s wrongs and their effect on this country. Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina have already passed similar legislation, which I am sure are of great comfort to the people buried in cemeteries around the country who actually suffered those effects and wrongs, even though those people have no knowledge of these resolutions and never will. I move for a new resolution that no one should be apologizing for anything they didn’t do when those who were wronged are no longer alive. More or less, these measures are a feeble attempt to garner favor with African Americans of this day and age and a way to put a happy face on a terrible time for America - except they don’t accomplish any of that because you can't apologize for something you didn’t do to someone who no longer exists.

- So the verdict is in on the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and the verdict is…..ehhhhh, it’s OK. That’s the best I can muster for this movie, which unfortunately continues the recent trend of third installments in major movie series that are definitely weaker than the first two editions (see Spiderman, Shrek and even the last version of the Matrix trilogy a couple years back). While the plot is decidedly less complicated and difficult to follow than the preceding Pirates movie, Curse of the Black Pearl, At World’s End is unwieldingly long, two hours and 45 minutes, and while there’s plenty of action to fill that time, the picture has numerous holes that make it a bit of a sinking ship long before the final credits roll down the screen. The most obvious beef I have with this movie is its ending, specifically the ending for Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). Without giving it away, I’ll just say that it’s neither really positive nor really negative, but more of a halfhearted cop-out that won't make much of anyone happy. Also, the dialogue in large chunks of the movie is terribly indiscernible, with the main culprit being Capt Barbosa, played by Geoffrey Rush. During climactic action sequences on the high seas, Barbosa’s loud proclamations sound like garbled gibberish that you need subtitles to understand. Also, the movie devotes a large chunk of time and effort toward the relationship between Davey Jones and the goddess of the sea, Calypso, but ultimately this storyline proves to be of little relevance to the main focus of the movie. Ultimately, I think At World’s End falls victim to the massive expectations for it based on the preceding two pictures in the series. Everything in a movie of this magnitude has to be big, over the top and excessive, and the movie as a whole suffers for it. Still, the great special effects and visuals, plus a cast of interesting characters and plenty of great action do save the film to some degree, and as such it’s not a total waste.

- Elizabeth Hasselbeck, you are my hero. Besides being considerably hot, Hasselbeck has done all TV watchers a huge favor and delivered a swift kick to the sizeable arse of Rosie O’Donnell that has propelled the chubby former comedienne out the door of ABC’s The View even sooner than planned. Hasselbeck and O’Fat tangled about the war in Iraq, which O’Fat is a vocal critic of. There was some haggling about O’Fat tagging American troops in Iraq as terrorists and whether she actually said that, and several times Hasselbeck stood up to O’Fat’s bullying tactics and pounded the table while insisting she be allowed to speak. I’m going to go ahead and forget that I actually agree that the war is a terrible thing, because even though I don’t agree with Hasselbeck’s stance on the issue, I more importantly agree with her standing up to the tyranny of idiocy that is Rosie and sending her fat, ugly face packing. If an argument is enough of an irritant to cause O’Fat to ask for an early release from her contract and leave the show immediately, I have to side with whomever is on the other side of that debate. Well done, Liz, you’re a hero to all of us…………..

- We could save ourselves a lot of trouble on debating and hashing out this new immigration bill currently making its way through Congress with two things: a ginormous wall and a whole lotta guns. The Senate has overwhelmingly endorsed a wide-reaching bill that would tighten border security and create a strict verification program designed mainly to deny jobs to illegal immigrants. Rejected by the Senate were two measures also relating to immigration, one of which would have ended the temporary worker program for immigrants after five years, and another bill that would have allowed government authorities to question a person about his or her immigration status if authorities had reason to believe that person was in the United States illegally. Both of those measures were rejected by a narrow one-vote margin, showing the contentious and hard-fought nature of the immigration issue. There would be no need to question illegals or to find a way to deny them jobs, though, if my solution was adopted: a 35-foot wall along the whole border, topped off by five rows of razor wire, with guard towers stationed every quarter mile, manned by guards with high-caliber automatic rifles. Think about it Congress, it could just be the answer to all of your immigration problems……….

The real American Karaoke winner, why Clinton Portis really a moron and why Chinese toothpaste is really dangerous

- China and its Communist regime may be a great threat to the world after all, but it may not be in the form of military might or nuclear power. No, the bigger threat could come from deadly Chinese toothpaste. Health authorities in several Latin American countries, including Panama and the Dominican Republic, have pulled the toothpaste brands Mr. Cool and Excel from store shelves in their countries after learning that the product contains diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and brake fluid. Chinese authorities say they will investigate, which I’m sure will be of great relief to those who may have inadvertently used the tainted toothpaste. Hmmm, honey, is this a new flavor of toothpaste? Why does it have such a chemical taste to it, and why does my mouth feel like it’s inside a car engine? Could this “slip” of toxic chemicals in toothpaste be the first stage of a subtle yet powerful attack by the Chinese against the Western world? Keep your toxic toothpaste out of our hemisphere, China, we’re only down with cinnamon, vanilla, mint and various fruit products as flavor agents in our hygiene products, we draw the line at poisonous chemicals from car care products.

- This just in: Clinton Portis is a moron. Portis used to be the funny, charming Washington Redskins running back who showed up for interview sessions once a week during the season dressed in outrageous costumes (Napoleon Dynamite, the fictitious Coach Spanky Janky, etc.) and everyone laughed. No one is laughing now, and no one would include his own team and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell following Portis’ indefensibly stupid comments re: Michael Vick and the alleged dog fighting ring at a Virginia property with Vick’s name on the deed. Portis said basically that it’s Vick’s property and Vick’s dogs, so he can do whatever he wants and everyone should leave him alone. Well, the Redskins and Goodell have both spoken out and publicly condemned Portis’ comments and now Portis and his agent, the abrasive and irritating Drew Rosenhaus, are doing spin control. Rosenhaus tried to spin his client’s comments by saying that Portis was simply urging everyone to reserve judgment on the situation until the police investigation is complete, and that as of yet Vick has done nothing wrong. Sure, because that’s exactly what everyone thinks you mean when you say clearly and explicitly that it’s his property and his dogs, so he has every right to do whatever he wants with them. Next time you want to offer a bogus apology and have it sound at least somewhat plausible, Drew, make sure you’re client doesn’t so clearly enunciate and eloquate his thoughts. Portis left no room for revision with his statement, and now he’s trying to backpedal faster than Carmelo Anthony in the brawl at Madison Square Garden this past NBA season. Part of what agents do when their clients f’up is to clean up the mess, but this time Portis stepped in it big time and no amount of spinning will clean up the mess. Let it go, Drew, and spend your time on a more useful pursuit, namely explaining to your client to use his brain and think for more than .00005 seconds before speaking.

- American Karaoke is over and the winner is…………..me, and anyone else who loathes this abomination of a TV show/glorified karaoke contest. I really don’t care who the declared winner was, because any time a new season of this debacle airs, the real loser is quality music. Oh, and mad props to Joe Perry for whoring out his musical legacy and appearing with that tool Sanjaya, which I hope Joe was paid well for, because seeing him sell out and take part in that farce broke the heart of every true rock fan when they saw a picture online or elsewhere of Perry and the effeminate, finger-nails-on-a-chalk-board-voiced loser performing together. Thank the Lord I didn’t actually see the broadcast of that, because I’d prefer not to have to smash my TV set to pieces with an axe, as I’ve grown relatively fond of it. Not since the Joe Perry Project and its ill-fated run has Perry been involved with such an atrocity of a musical act, and I may have to build a time machine to go back 20 years and retroactively start hating Aerosmith’s music because of what he’s done by appearing on AK. You suck, Joe, and you have your new buddy Sanjaya and his amorphous, feminine hairdo and voice to thank for that.

- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has a zero tolerance policy for player misconduct, but I wonder what his “sending porn emails to the entire league, including the commish, NFL GM’s and their secretaries” policy is………..Pittsburgh Steelers offensive line coach Larry Zierlein may find out what the policy is, because Zierlein was either technologically stupid or immature and inappropriate enough to send out a league-wide email containing what has been described as an “inappropriate e-mail message”, with one copy of that going to Goodell. No word as of yet on whether Zierlein sent the email intentionally and thought it was funny or if he intended to send it to one or two buddies and accidentally forwarded it to the whole league, but I would have loved to see the look on Goodell’s face when he opened his email inbox and found that beauty there. How’s about using a little more caution and making sure who you’re sending a message to, coach? Even if you’re the world’s biggest porn freak, you can’t be sending out crude, offensive and obscene porn messages to every coach, GM and exec in the NFL.

Karma bites the Yankees, a riot by Chinese farmers and what I want Exxon Mobile to do

- Props to the NBA for showing us what those three letters really stand for: No Balls Association. The league decided that there should be a two-day break between games of the Eastern Conference finals even though the Cavaliers and Pistons aren't changing locations for Game 2. It’ll be in Detroit, just as Game 1, but the league refused to schedule the second game on Wednesday night, supposedly because of an irrational fear of competing with the American Karaoke finale for viewers. Way to man up and show the tough, balls to the wall attitude that sports are supposed to embody, No Balls Association. You’re afraid to compete with a bunch of glorified karaoke singers, one of whom may or may not be a transvestite (Sanjaya whatever-his-last-name-is), a trio of judges comprised of a bitter, uninteresting, pub-hungry Brit, a pill-popping former Laker Girl and a fat black dude who serves no apparent purpose at all - for anything. Yeah, because the people who are dedicated NBA fans are exactly the same people who watch AK. This is just one more reason why the NBA will never, ever be as interesting or legitimate a basketball entity as NCAA hoops and why the NCAA Tournament is bar none the best sporting event in the world, because it doesn’t kowtow to a glorified karaoke contest or anything else in its scheduling.

- Never let it be said that Minnesota legislators don’t know how to party. Just a few hours after gaveling the 2007 session of the state legislature to a close, the president of the Democratic-led Minnesota Senate, James Metzen, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Metzen was weaving back and forth in his lane and driving erratically, which I am confident in saying (even though I am not a law enforcement professional) is a very good indicator of someone driving drunk. Metzen seems to have wasted no time making a mad dash to a local inn popular with lawmakers and downing a beer or eight at a celebration of the end of another “grueling” legislative session. Good to see that someone who plays a major part in creating laws and sculpting the government for his state is so dedicated to following those same laws he helps put in place. Something tells me that the first bill proposed to the legislature in Minnesota next session will be a measure to increase the legal limit for intoxication to .25-ish.

- When your company is responsible for one of the biggest environmental disasters in modern times, you really should just pay whatever the courts order you to pay and not complain. Exxon Mobil Corp. refuses to go quietly into the night by ponying up the $4.5 billion in damages that a federal appeals court ordered it to pay as restitution for the damage caused by the 1989 Valdez oil spill that contaminated 1,500 miles of the Alaskan coastline and killed thousands of wildlife creatures. Exxon could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and knowing the reluctance of major international corporations to part with any of the money they wring out of consumers, that’s exactly what Exxon will do. The company’s attorneys argue the fine is excessive, but then again so is the damage they did to the environment. I’d call dumping millions of gallons of oil into the water and killing all those animals is excessive too. Pay what you owe, Exxon, and in the future do a better job of making sure you don’t hire some drunken lush as a captain for your tankers so you won't have to worry about another mess like the Valdez spill.

- Riot time, riot time! If there’s a political, social or economic-based uprising anywhere in the world, you know I’m down. Today, the uprising de jour, as it were, comes to us from the southern Guangxi region of China, where authorities detained 28 people after thousands of local farmers rioted to protest fines levied on those who have had more children than allowed under the country’s family planning policy. Basically, the Chinese government only allows one child per family in order to put the skids on out-of-control population growth, and these fines are a way of enforcing the policy. Ah, the joys of Communism, dictating to people how many children they can have and what their family is allowed to consist of, you gotta love it. Not that the big, bad Chinese government is going to abandon its controlling ways and give these people a break, but props to the people of the southern Guangxi region for taking the fight to The Man anyhow………

- Does anyone else think it’s poetic justice that the New York Yankees are seeing two of their biggest free-agent signings of the past five years go up in flames/down in ‘roids? Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano both came to New York for $100 million-plus contracts, but each has been a major disappointment to the Bronx Bombers in his own special way. Giambi battled health problems early on, mysteriously apologized for something shortly thereafter, the something that was steroids but he wouldn’t say explicitly, and since then he’s been producing less and less of the power and offense he was brought in for. Now, Giambi gave an interview in which he hinted even further at using ‘roids and also reportedly tested positive for amphetamines, also banned by baseball, and the Yankees are considering voiding his contract. Pavano rewarded the team’s faith in him by accumulating a measly five wins in his entire Yankee career, and now he’s headed for major reconstructive surgery after his umpteenth injury. For more than $200 million, that’s what the Yankees now have, a washed up slugger whose contract they want to void and a broken-down pitcher who may never throw another inning for them. Yes, the Yankees can afford to write off these mistakes more than any other team because of their deep pockets, but it’s still great to see them suffer, because for me and millions of baseball fans worldwide, it’s a beautiful thing………….

A hammered Hasselhoff = good TV, W. making threats = not much and rioting villagers = a thumbs up from me

- There’s only one way I’m watching even a half-second of NBC’s ridiculous and embarrassingly-awful returning summer series America’s Got Talent: David Hasselhoff must agree to film every single episode with a blood-alcohol content of .15 or above. That’s nearly twice the legal limit in most states, and if Hasselhoff is that hammered, the show might actually be entertaining instead of incredibly lowbrow, stupid and worthless. Normally a self-glossing poseur like “The Hoff”, a druggie, plastic-surgery-loving old British woman like Sharon Osborne and whoever the third loser judge is on this show would ensure that I would watch zero hours of it, but if Hasselhoff is fall-down drunk, I’ll reconsider. I’ll still have no desire to see losers perform karaoke, see cats work miniature parallel bars, idiots juggling fire and wannabe comedians do their shtick, but if there’s any chance D. Hasselhoff will recreate the utter hilarity we saw on that video his daughter took when he was hammered and making a total fool of himself, then it’s worth watching. All NBC needs to do is stock Hasselhoff’s green room and trailer with enough vodka, rum, tequila and gin to drown an elephant and I think they’ll have a hit on their hands………

- Not many things are as sickening as a sports fan as watching LeBron lovers in my area of Northeast Ohio fawn over No. 23 and continue to apologize for his shortcomings and lack of killer instinct 24/7. You can debate whether Bron Bron should have shot the ball or passed it to Donyell Marshall for a potential game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds of Monday night’s game, but that play is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle. As talented as LeBron James is, he doesn’t inspire that same “we can’t lose, he won’t allow it” confidence that stars like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird or even Dwayne Wade and Tim Duncan do. True superstars possess an infallible, unfailing will to win that will not accept failure and for that reason, they compel their teams to win games they shouldn’t win just on sheer willpower. Watching Cavs games, I don’t get the feeling that the Cavs will win games they have no business winning because James is there. He has the talent to be that player, but not the killer instinct and tenacity. He mails in games regularly and most other games, he puts it on cruise control for the first half or so and then figures he can't flip the switch and pull through in the end. In other words, he spends more time worrying about being cool and smooth than he does about going balls to the wall and ripping the other team’s heart out. The Cavaliers reflect his personality because he’s their leader, and as a result they can never drop the hammer on opponents when it’s necessary. The Cavaliers will be fortunate to win two games in this series because the Pistons do have that killer instinct and they have guys who will go with reckless abandon after the W every game.

- If you’ve read this blog for more than a few days, you know that I love riots, demonstrations and citizen vs. police clashes worldwide. I love the average man or woman giving the proverbial middle finger to The Man, so there’s no way I could not love this next story, courtesy of the town of Singur, India. About 200 villagers in Singur clashed with police on Monday for a second straight day as the citizens continued to voice their displeasure for the new factory that is to be built in their town. The villagers want more compensation from the government for land acquired to build the factory on, so they tried to break down the boundary wall around the site where Tata Motors Inc. is building a small car factory. No counts of injuries or arrests were immediately available, but this is a class struggle of the little guy versus the government and big business, and I’m rooting for the villagers in Singur to get what they deserve - better compensation for the land the government took from them.

- The Piece of Crap Club is proud to induct John Orlowski as its newest member. Orlowski was able to bypass the normal waiting period that esteemed clubs like sports halls of fame have for induction because his crime is so heinous, so deplorable and so reprehensible that he not only qualifies for immediate induction but he’s quite possibly among the worst one percent of people in the club. This scumbag attempted to hire a hit man to whack his entire family, including his 7-year-old daughter, and told the hit man that he had no qualms about having his family killed as long as the killer agreed to several stipulations as to how the murders would be done. Orlowski’s requests were as follows: his wife and mother-in-law were each to be shot twice in the head, while the 7-year-old daughter was to be shot in the chest. Now, Orlowski is facing murder-for-hire charges after the mother of the gang member who Orlowski hired to do the murders called the FBI. Personally, I don’t care if the death penalty is normally reserved for people who have actually carried out or organized murders-for-hire, but Orlowski needs to get the gas chamber even if no one has died in this plot. He’s absolutely a piece of garbage and clearly has no conscience, and our planet would be a better place without him inhabiting it.

- Talk about your hollow threats…..the W. administration has begun hinting that it will reconsider its support in Iraq if Iraqi leaders don’t make major reforms and progress by the fall. The Iraqi government in turn has allegedly begun formulating plans for dealing with a quick U.S. military withdrawal from their country. Am I the only one who laughed out loud at this news? Does anyone actually believe that W. has the brains or the balls to end this war and bring the American troops home? That would mean admitting he’s been wrong about this situation and that he actually has been wasting time, money, lives, more money and more lives on a pointless, unjustified war. This comes even as Democrats in Congress appear to be capitulating to W.’s demand for a war-funding bill without troop-withdrawal language in it. So other than vacant, meaningless words from our Tool in Chief that we might pull our troops out of Iraq if they don’t meet some vague, amorphous “progress” guidelines that probably don’t even exist. Don’t waste your time on those contingency plans, Iraqi government, I really, really doubt you’re ever going to need them.

A Pakistani sex change scandal, another woman-beating athlete and is it adios for Alberto G.?

- In a story almost too salacious to be true, a Pakistani couple were arrested by police on charges of lying to a judge about the gender of the husband, who was born female and had a sex-change operation 16 years ago. Shumail Raj, 31, originally went to court to seek protection for his wife amid harassment from her family, but the High Court discovered Raj’s past and their reaction was swift and severe, to say the least. Raj and his bride allege they married in order to prevent her from being sold into marriage to settle her uncle’s gambling debts, while the bride’s father wants their marriage annulled because the sex-change operation Raj had done is against the principles of Islam. So to review, we have a gender-switching husband marrying a woman to keep her from being used as a marker to cover uncle’s gambling debt and the father of the bride wants the marriage annulled on religious grounds. If only there were a Pakistani Jerry Springer Show, we could settle this the right way……..

- Raise your hand if you view duct tape as an effective and acceptable method of discipline for an unruly toddler……….anyone? Nobody? Well you may know that using such methods is a no-no, but nobody sent that memo to the now-infamous über-abusive childcare worker daycare worker in Tulsa, Okla., who bound a 2-year-old boy’s hands with masking tape when he would not be quiet at nap time. The woman, who was caring for eight children under the age of seven at the time, called for an ambulance and tried to perform CPR, but the toddler died anyhow. Now, this sad excuse for a human being is facing murder charges, and it’s hard to feel any sympathy for her no matter what the punishment ends up being. Again, since not everyone seems to get this, your options when a child won’t stop crying are: 1) have someone else watch the child and go for a long walk to calm down, 2) put the child in their bed/crib and sit down in another room and try to relax, 3) buy yourself a heavy bag, put it up in the corner and pound out some stress on an inanimate object without doing any harm to the child. Any solutions involving masking tape, duct tape, electrical tape, zip ties, rope or other means of subduing the child or any other means of inflicting physical or emotional harm on them are not acceptable, ever. Thanks for your attention……

- With all the shenanigans and screw-ups going on in the W. administration, there should be high-ranking government officials resigning or being fired on a weekly basis. That isn't happening, unfortunately, but it looks like a high-up member of the administration may in fact be resigning soon. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may resign, and let me be the first to say: yippee! While Alberto isn't the one I would most like to see resign (nope, that would be you, W.), he definitely needs to go for the shady, deceitful, wrong and quite possibly illegal method in which he conducted the firing (and attempted cover-up) of eight attorneys general whose politics didn’t jive with the administration’s views. Now, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., says he believes Gonzales may resign before the Senate can even hold its planned no-confidence vote in him. I’m not sure why there needs to be an official vote on this, because anyone who has been following this whole saga already has zero confidence in Alberto and his ability to be a competent Attorney General. Good riddance, Alberto, you’re an absolute joke and America would be no worse off if a chimp served in your post for the rest of the W. administration.

- Continuing a disturbingly high rate of professional athletes assaulting women, New York Jets defensive back/kick Justin Miller has been charged with third-degree assault after punching a woman in an incident at a New York City club over the weekend. Miller was in an altercation with another man and when he swung his fist, the other guy ducked and Miller accidentally punched the female bystander instead. On the football field, you can get away with accidentally hitting the wrong guy when going in for the tackle on a ball carrier, but Miller needs to be able to get himself in check in social settings because there, the rules are different. You aren’t going after another player in pads with a helmet; you’re around unarmed, unprotected people who aren't actually expecting to be hit. Also, Miller might want to familiarize himself with the new crackdown policy that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has for lawbreaking players, because he’s about to experience the commish’s wrath firsthand. Goodell has brought the hammer on assaulters, illegal-gun-havers and miscreants of all kinds in the NFL. You get arrested for a crime, you’re going to hear from Goodell as well as the police. Miller had better make sure that whatever charges he is convicted on for this incident are the only criminal charges he sees for the rest of his NFL career, otherwise that career will be a short one. Just ask Pacman Jones if you don’t believe me………….

More crooked cops, more indifference to hockey and a TV trend I can use less of

- As a Chicago Cubs fan, you become immune and numb to nearly every possible type of disaster that could befall a baseball time because to cheer for the Cubs is to embrace a life of disappointment. Still, no five words strike sheer terror into my heart like hearing, “Wood to test arm Monday.” Wood would be Kerry Wood, the pitcher who burst onto the scene with a scintillating 20-strikeout game in 1998 and hasn’t been able to stay consistently healthy since. Now Wood is attempting to come back from his 488th stint on the disabled list and Monday will be the time he tests his arm for that, er, blows out another muscle, joint or ligament and heads back to the DL. Seriously, this dude would be the most fragile, injury-prone hurler ever….if not for the fact that his porcelain-bodied teammate Mark Prior already holds that title. Thankfully, Wood is operating on a one-year contract with the Cubs, so once he blows out his arm again and goes back on the DL for the remainder of the season, the Cubs can finally cut ties with him once and for all after this year ends. And if by chance Wood’s throwing session Monday doesn’t end in disaster, Cubs fans need not be too excited, because with this guy, every day and every activity is another chance for an injury. This is, after all, a guy whose last stint on the DL came after a fall getting out of his home’s hot tub.

- Great to see Jimmy Carter taking a break from his humanitarian work to engage in another worthwhile activity: excoriating our inept leader, W. Carter labeled the W. administration as “the worst in history” in international relations, which is surprising not because it’s untrue but rather because Carter is not the type to throw around that kind of criticism lightly. He also took a run at W. for his environmental policies and faith-based initiative funding, but I think the focus belongs squarely on the “worst in history” blast. This may shock you, but I have to contend with Carter over his analysis. I don’t think you should be calling the W. administration the worst in history in international relations because, let’s face it, this administration is just simply the worst in history, without any qualifiers attached to that label. You can't just focus on the ineptitude in international relations, nor on the shady environmental policies or initiative funding. There are plenty of other points to quibble on, things like warmongering, repeatedly lying to the American public, the scandal with Alberto Gonzales, etc. Let’s not ignore all the other low-quality work this administration has put together and limit criticisms to one specific area. Give them the (dis)credit they’re earned across the whole spectrum or don’t bother criticizing them at all.

- Because so many of my favorite TV shows have been cancelled the past couple of years, I’ve been able to pick up on a disturbing and absolutely retarded development in the world of television: the straddle-the-fence season/series finale combo platter. This is a practice that has become all too common as networks near the end of a season with a particular show and can't make a decision as to whether that show will be back the following season. Thus, the show’s producers and writer’s are forced to craft a finale that could ostensibly be just a capper to the season and set up the next one and could serve as the end of the series, period. The problem with this is that these are two mutually exclusive concepts and the way you end a season is drastically different than the way you end a series. Take, for example, Gilmore Girls, which just concluded a seven-year run and got the season/series finale treatment. Because the show’s two stars, Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham, kept stringing out contract negotiations, the network wasn’t able to say that the last show of this season was also the series finale at the time it was filmed. Thus, the show’s execs had to straddle the fence and create a show that attempted to function on two levels. When it was decided that the series was to end this season, the finale ended up with a rushed, hollow, schmaltzy, unresolved feel that wasn’t at all what you would want for the final show ever in a wonderful, wonderful series. The same thing is about to happen to Veronica Mars, which will meet its premature end tomorrow night on the same CW network. I’m not sure what the solution is, maybe a drop-dead date for deciding if a series will continue, a date well in advance of shooting for the finale so things can be wrapped up properly……..all I know is that these rushed, hackneyed, half-baked farewells for great shows need to stop.

- I ignore hockey, most of America ignores hockey, and now NBC is following suit. The network made the decision on Saturday to preempt Game 5 of the NHL Eastern Conference finals as the game went to overtime so they could……………show horsies warming up for a race. Yes, NBC felt its commitment to pre-race coverage for the Preakness Stakes was more important than showing a hockey game in which one team (not sure which one, nor do I give a crap) could win the series and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. I’m on record as saying that horse racing isn't even a sport because the central participants aren't even human and the only humans involved are midgets beating the horsies with a whip, so I find it absolutely laughable that NBC would cut away from what is, at least in the hockey world, an incredibly important game to show not the actual Preakness Stakes, but more than one hour of pre-race crap, basically horses walking around and in their stalls. Yeah, but you’re still relevant and valued, hockey fans and advocates. Your sport is in no way a punch line, a forgotten relic or an inconsequential frivolity on the fringes of the sports landscape. You all had just better hope that when the Stanley Cup Finals roll around that NBC doesn’t have one of those dog long jumping contests to show, because then you’ll really be screwed.

- Some men and women get into law enforcement to make a difference and to make our cities and neighborhoods safer, while some get into it to scam off the very criminals they’re putting behind bars. Count New York City police officers Hector Alvarez and Miguel Castillo into the latter group. These two integrity-deficient individuals were jailed over the weekend in New Jersey on accusations of attempting to steal drugs and money from a suspected drug dealer. The pair of bungling, dishonest cops has been charged with attempted kidnapping, armed robbery and armed burglary, which I’m guessing they knew were wrong, seeing as they are police officers themselves. The motto, I believe, it “Protect and serve,” not “Profit and self-serve.” Get it right next time, officers………..

The Bengals fight back, a zoo gorilla does the same and another dumb criminal needs my help

- The Bengals are back, baby! Commissioner Roger Goodell can try to bring down the disciplinary hammer in the NFL and rid the league of criminal talents that the Bengals seem to possess in massive quantities, but the criminal spirit will not be snuffed out. Bengals linebacker A.J. brought an end to the team’s incredibly disappointing period of good behavior and no arrests on Friday by getting picked up by the cops on a domestic violence charge. This wouldn’t officially be another Bengal to find his way to the inside of a jail cell; Nicholson was already among the Bengals who have arrested in the past year. Still, it restores my faith in the team to see a player willing to stand up and do his part in maintaining the Bengals’ rep even as the NFL is trying to keep these guys from being who they truly are - felons. Yes, A.J. will face a suspension if he’s convicted on these new charges, and perhaps that will cause some on-field trouble for the team, but what’s a little difficulty when it accomplishes something of worth? Actually, the NFL and the legal system might be better served to see this situation as a chance to try something new. Since an inordinately high number of crimes and arrests take place with Bengal players, the ideal solution is something I have devised: a combination courthouse/jail/stadium complex for the team. There’s already a nice, new stadium in place, so what needs to happen now is to build on the courthouse portion of the structure, then convert the Bengals’ locker room into the jail portion of the facility. Slam some bars and metal-frame beds in each locker space, hang some prison-orange jumpsuits into each player’s locker and you’re good to go. This way, everything is consolidated into one place and with each new Bengal arrest, the player in question can be jailed, tried and held in the same place, all the while able to continue playing football and not having to miss any practice time. Heck, consider practice each day to be their yard time, and when they’re at the facility, players eat together in a dining hall a la prison anyhow, so this all works beautifully. Actually, I’m rather proud of myself for coming up with the concept to begin with…………

- Good thing I wasn’t in attendance at the CW upfront on Thursday, because I can pretty much guarantee that if I had been, you would have seen the first-ever death-by-beating-with-a-microphone of a network executive, namely the CW’s Dawn Ostroff. I would have had no choice but to take the microphone she was using on the dais and repeatedly crack her over the head with it, WWE-style, until I’d beaten the stupid right out of that wench. My anger would be well justified, though, as Thursday made official the one billionth in an never-ending series of horrifically bad programming decisions made by Ostroff and her staff of intellectually stunted minions: the cancellation of the network’s best remaining series, Veronica Mars. Mars was the smartest, most cleverly written, funny and interesting series the CW had, especially after the ending of Gilmore Girls (more on that shortly). Its ratings weren't through the roof, yet it was steady and praised by anyone who took time to watch it for more than a few seconds. Now, it’s inexplicably canceled, meaning that in a little over a year, Ostroff and Co. have managed to kill of the three best shows on their network and leave only one good show, Smallville, on its fall schedule. When asked if Mars was officially dead, my least-favorite executive admitted, “Veronica Mars is over, but we're talking about something else. I don't know if it's going to be anything. I'm being honest with you. It could come back in some form, but I don't know what form that would be.” Wow, that’s, umm……….uninspiring. Of course, it’s not as bad or insulting as the totally backhanded compliment Ostroff “paid” to the one of the two or three best shows on TV the past seven years (and no, fans of Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, 24, your shows aren't the best, sorry) Gilmore Girls: “While we're sad to see Gilmore Girls go,” she said "the truth is Beauty and the Geek actually performed better among young adult viewers.” What a heartfelt/bitchy tribute that was! Way to show appreciation for a show, including cast, crew and fans, who invested so much over the past seven years. Hey bitch, at least try to sound appreciative for the show and what it meant to so many people, even if the first six years were on the WB network, which was one of the two that merged to form the CW. In case you haven’t gotten the message by now, I really, really, really hate Dawn Ostroff and like many TV fans I’ve heard talk about this, I’m all but done with the CW network. I’ll watch Smallville as long as it’s on, but I won't be tuning in to any new CW shows ever, and once Smallville is over, so is my relationship with the CW.

- Yesterday I ruminated about creating my own seminar for those aspiring to craft a successful criminal plot, with the thinking being that most people who commit crimes reveal themselves to be Grade-A morons who couldn’t outthink a gold fish. Well, I need to inform you that if you want to register for the seminar, you’re gonna need to do it soon because spaces are being filled quickly. Our latest registrant is Johnnie Jerome Kerns, 29, of Springfield, Mo. Mr. Kerns decided that in order to terrorize his ex-wife, he would kidnap her child from a different marriage. After kidnapping the 5-year-old girl, Kerns tossed her off a bridge into the freezing waters of a nearby lake where two fishermen found and rescued her. Now, Kerns faces five felony charges, including kidnapping, child abuse and assault. All of this because he was pissed at his ex-wife and couldn’t think of a creative way to get back at her that wouldn’t land him in prison. The very first lesson in my criminal plotting seminar, by the way, deals with analyzing the cost-benefit ratio of any plan so you don’t end up in just this type of situation. Something along the lines of threatening phone calls from a pay phone or stealing the tires off of her car would have been a more appropriate tact here, as they would not have Kerns facing five freaking felony charges.

- See kids, this is why you don’t taunt and harass the gorillas when you visit your local zoo. A 400-pound gorilla at a zoo in Netherlands got loose and ended up injuring four people in a violent rampage. The zoo, located in the city of Rotterdam, was evacuated and authorities eventually captured the AWOL ape in one of the zoo’s restaurants, where he was destroying the kitchen in protest of the exorbitant prices charged for sodas and hot dogs. OK, so I made that last part up, but the 11-year-old gorilla named Bokito was indeed captured at a zoo restaurant after his outburst, which included biting a woman and dragging her around the zoo. For those of you looking to avoid this particular zoo on your next visit to the Netherlands, it’s the Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo where this happened. No word on whether the woman who was bitten by the gorilla was making funny faces or taunting Bokito by holding food outside his cage, just beyond the animal’s reach. It would also be wise for the zoo to stop showing its gorillas King Kong DVDs, it’s just a bad influence on them.

- eBay is a great place to sell your knick-knacks, toys, electronics, etc., but I really don’t understand why celebrities ever bother selling wildly expensive merchandise on the online auction site. Inevitably, some joker thinks he’ll be sooooo funny and bid $20 million dollars on the item, which of course he can't afford to pay and the celebrity just ends up looking like a tool for trying to cheap out and sell their item on eBay instead of holding an actual legitimate auction and a reputable auction house. Actor John Schneider, who is known to those of you from the way back as Bo Duke on the original Dukes of Hazzard series and as Jonathan Kent for the first five seasons of the hit TV series Smallville, tried to sell the famous orange “01” car that the Dukes of Hazzard made famous on the popular ‘80s show. Predictably, a ginormous tool put up a $10 million bid on the car, only to have it revealed that the bid was a hoax. Schneider will re-list the car on eBay, but this time bidders will have to prove up front that they can pay. Should’ve gone to Christie’s or Sotheby’s, Johnny, you could have saved a lot of trouble.

What I can teach aspiring criminals, why you shouldn't defend wife-beating baseball players and what the worst people in America have been up to

- Earlier this week, I wrote that no one cares about cycling now that Lance Armstrong is retired and that Floyd Landis should stop prolonging the fight to clear his name of steroid-usage allegations and just fade gracefully into, as Mike Tyson would say, Bolivian. Well, I have to man up and admit I was wrong, because if Landis was going to force the issue and continue the battle, he may as well go big and that’s just what happened on Thursday. Landis’ manager, well his former manager now, William Geoghegan decided that former Tour de France winner and American cycling legend Greg LeMond testifying at Landis’ hearing before officials from anti-doping agencies would be a bad thing. Based on this belief, Geoghegan, formulated a plan - more precisely, he formulated the worst plan in the history of criminal-activity planning. Geoghegan decided that in order to prevent LeMond from testifying, he would call LeMond and pretend to be an uncle of LeMond’s who had sexually abused him when LeMond was eight years old, after which he would threaten to reveal the details of their sexual interactions to the public if LeMond testified. The problem with this plan other than it being despicable, slimy, disgusting and revolting on a colossal level? Geoghegan made the call from his own freaking cell phone, meaning it took about five minutes for the police to trace the call. Well done, Mensa, you always want to use one of the most easily traced methods of communication when phoning in a sexual assault revelation threat to a witness in a case against your friend. Mix in a pay phone and something over the receiver to distort your voice, Willy, at least then the police won't have hard proof that you made the call even though all circumstantial evidence would point in your direction. How scary is it that I (a person who has never committed a crime in his life) could give a seminar on how to formulate a successful criminal plot and it would actually be informative and beneficial to the overwhelming majority of the losers who actually do commit criminal acts in this country? Along with the gaggle of goons Tonya Harding employed to whack Nancy Kerrigan at the Olympic Trials a few years ago, Geoghegan has to be considered one of the biggest morons to hatch a criminal plot anywhere, ever.

- I’m as excited as any American to see the rebuilding and reconstruction going on at the site of the World Trade Center project in downtown Manhattan, but is it too much to ask that the process occur without dropping 15-foot pipes through the roofs of firehouses in the area? Thanks, I and the firemen who were injured by the falling pipe appreciate your consideration. Demolition work was being done on the former Deutsche Bank building this week when the renegade piece of metal sprinkler pipe fell from the building’s 35th floor through the roof of Engine 10/Ladder 10. The firehouse, coincidentally, was almost destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. Nice to know the building survived the worst terrorist attack in the history of our nation but some lackluster demolition crew can nearly take it out. Neither of the firefighters injured in the incident are seriously harmed and both should recover fully, but I for one believe firefighters and people of all professions should be able to go about their daily business in their workplace without fear of huge pieces of pipe crashing through the roof and crushing them. Let’s go ahead and make that a rule we all live and abide by, k?

- Time to enter the name of another finalist into the contest for the worst parent in America for 2007! Rosie Costello of Tacoma, Wash., come on down! Rosie, it seems, decided that the best way to support her two children wasn’t getting a job and earning the money, but rather to coach her children to fake mental retardation so she could collect disability benefits for them. Costello was convicted in U.S. District Court of conspiracy to defraud the government and Social Security fraud and will now serve three years in prison. Her son Pete Costello, 28, was sentenced last week to 13 months in prison for his role in the scam. Investigators have not been able to locate Rosie Costello’s daughter Marie, but when they find her, she’ll face similar charges. Hope you’re very proud of yourselves, Costello family, taking money that’s intended for mentally retarded people who really are handicapped and can’t care for themselves. I’m sure they appreciate able-bodied people faking retardation and making a mockery of their condition. The Costellos would be the most despicable, deceitful and duplicitous pieces of crap in today’s post if not for……….

- On the surface, it might appear wrong and insensitive to protest the suspension of two major leaguers from their respective teams after being charged with assault on their wife or girlfriend…..and it would appear that way once you considered the matter further. Still, the Major League Baseball Players Association filed grievances Thursday to protest the suspensions of Seattle Mariners pitcher Julio Mateo and Arizona Diamondbacks infielder Alberto Callaspo. Mateo was arrested in New York when the Mariners were in town to play the Yankees and police responded to a call from a Manhattan hotel where Mateo and his wife were staying. The cops found a woman, revealed to be Mrs. Mateo, in need of five stitches to close a wound to her mouth and they booked good ol’ Julio on a charge of third-degree assault. He posted bond and was released, but the team optioned him to the minor leagues and suspended him for 10 days without pay for missing that day’s game. Callaspo was placed on the restricted list without pay (i.e. suspended without pay) by his team, the D-Backs, after he was taken into custody on suspicion of misdemeanor assault against his wife and felony criminal damage. He too was released from jail following a hearing, but like Mateo he stands to lose a decent chunk of change if the suspension from his team holds up. You can make the case that a person’s conduct outside of work shouldn’t subject them to punishment at work, and partially that’s true. However, the NFL has already made a point of saying that guys who get into trouble off the field and drag the league down in the mud with them will face ramiprecussions from the league. Also, Mateo and Callaspo were both unavailable to their teams because of their legal troubles, so that colors the situation as well. Lastly, you’re going to have a hard time cultivating any sympathy at all for a guy who is accused of physically assaulting his wife, fiancée, girlfriend, etc. Take your punishment like men, Julio and Alberto, and then start acting like men by stopping your abuse of your wives.

- Working at a funeral home has to be one of the more difficult, challenging jobs around. Working with dead bodies, grieving families and being surrounded by death all day, every day absolutely would take a toll on you. That being said, if you are going to work at a funeral home, you need to conduct yourself with a modicum of dignity and honor. I shouldn’t have to say this, but I do because of three funeral home directors in Rochester, N.Y. who, along with four former employees of a biomedical supply company, have been indicted on charges of body stealing, unlawful dissection and related counts after removing skin, bones and other body parts from dozens of corpses awaiting cremation. Seems clever, right, because if the body is being cremated, who’s going to know anyhow? So maybe there are a few less ashes in the urn, who cares, right, because you’ve got most of your loved one in there. Either that or you’re a despicable, loathsome piece of garbage who can't give the most basic, fundamental respect to the remains of a dearly departed loved one as their final request for cremation is being carried out. You can't conspire with some biomedical supply employees to give them body parts off corpses to line your pockets at the expense of those you’re supposed to be serving. Here’s hoping that when all of seven of you body-part-snatching scumbags die (sooner rather than later if you live the rest of your lives with the same lack of character and integrity you’ve shown here) that those dealing with your remains show more class and respect than you were able to muster.

More terrible new TV shows, mindless Republican senators and exploding dishwashers

- Crap. A measure before the U.S. Senate to cut off funding for the war in Iraq was soundly defeated Wednesday, even though a growing number of senators from both sides of the aisle are incredibly unhappy with W.’s (mis)handling of the war. The 67-29 vote against the measure seems bad on the surface, but when you consider that only 12 senators backed a similar initiative last summer, it’s clear that anti-war sentiment isn't just growing in every state of the Union, every country in the world and in the mind of everyone with an IQ above 60, it’s also becoming prevalent in Congress. Ignorant Republican leaders such as Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., went so far as to wrongfully assail the bill as declaring a “surrender date” for the United States. I’ve said it before, Mitch, but I’ll say it again, more slowly and in smaller words so you will understand: We….have….already…..lost…..the….war. There….was…..no…..reason…..for…..the…..war…..to…..begin…..with……so…..no……matter……what…..we…..do…..there…..is…..no…..way……to….win. Letting…….more…..American…….soldiers…..die…..for….no…..real…….reason……won't……..prove…….

anything. Now that we’ve cleared that up, why not get the ball rolling on those impeachment proceedings for W. As incompetent as that dude is, he has to provide mountains of new ammo for an impeachment every day, so by now getting rid of him shouldn’t be all that hard. Besides, he’s not bright enough to understand what the word impeachment means, so just tell him he’s getting an extra-long vacation to spend at his ranch in Texas, hand him a box of goobers, a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew and a coloring book and send him on his way.

- This can't end well. The state legislature in South Carolina is considering a measure that would allow concealed weapon permit holders to carry their guns onto college campuses and school grounds at all levels. The law would mirror one already on the books in Utah, which proudly declares its willingness to fill its school grounds with as many guns as legally possible. Like Utah’s leaders, the powers-that-be in South Carolina are under the false impression that more guns will equal less school shootings. Right, because someone having a permit to carry a gun automatically means they are mentally stable, never get angry and never lose control of their emotions to the point that they might shoot someone. Also, it’s not like anyone who has a permit and carries a piece is anything less than a high-level marksman who is an absolute pro with their 9mm. A House subcommittee in the state legislature approved on Wednesday the bill to allow weapons at schools. Again, I’ll take exception to the assertion that having more people with guns at a school at any level, elementary to college, makes a school safer. Accidents happen, people in stressful, dangerous situations with guns make mistakes, period. Keep guns out of schools, because you’re not making them safer, you’re just packing the powder keg with more dynamite so that when there is an explosion, it’ll be that much bigger.

- Lastings Milledge is no longer satisfied with being a disappointment to the New York Mets on the field, he’s now determined to let them down off the field as well. The former prize prospect turned mediocre major leaguer has run afoul of the organization because of the racially and sexually explicit lyrics he songs on a song that’s included on his new album of hip hop music. Milledge, who founded his own record label (a growing trend among athletes with too much time and money on their hands), uses derogatory terms for women and African Americans in the song, which can be found on his label’s website, www.souljaboirecords.com. Nice word play there, L., but alluding to yourself as a “soldier boy” is laugh-out-loud funny because the last thing you are is a soldier of any kind, and wearing that hideous camouflage suit jacket you were recently photographed in doesn’t change that fact. “We don’t approve of his lyrics,” New York General Manager Omar Minaya stated succinctly. Safe to say that in their closed-door meeting, Minaya used much stronger language to explain his feelings to Milledge about the lyrics. No disciplinary action will be taken by the organization against him, but Milledge needs to realize that he’s Lastings Milledge, not David Ortiz or Alex Rodriguez. He doesn’t have nearly enough credibility or status as a player to do anything he wants without fear of retribution by his team. Clean up your act, L., and before you release any more racially and sexually explicit music, hit about 500-600 home runs and win a half-dozen Gold Gloves and then you might be able to get away with acting like an idiot.

- Dishwashers can suffer from many types of problems such as not getting your dishes clean, leaving ugly spots on the dishes, being excessively noisy and disruptive……..and catching on fire. Betcha didn’t think of that last one, eh? But General Electric Co. has issued a massive recall on dishwashers it sold under the brand names Eterna, GE, GE Profile, GE Monogram, Hotpoint and Sears-Kenmore. Seems these particular models are prone to a nasty wiring malady that could spark a fire in your kitchen. Go ahead, honey, turn on the dishwasher, let it run and…………BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! FIRE!!! FIRE!!!!! Not exactly what you want to have happen after a long hard day when you’re trying to save some time and energy by letting your trusty dishwasher do the hard work in cleaning your plates and utensils. A good rule of thumb for any kitchen is that at no point should any of your appliances have flames protruding from it, just for future reference.

- I was curious about this, and it seems that despite widespread speculation and expectation, CBS is holding firm at three versions of its CSI franchise. At the network’s upfront on Wednesday, the lineup for the fall season was announced and all of you residents of Boise, Topeka, Knoxville, Yuma, Concord, Fairbanks and Galveston won't be getting your much-anticipated CSI show based in your hometown. Among the new offerings from CBS that should be in the running to be the first show canceled this fall is Moonlight, a show about a private investigator who is also a vampire. Yeah, that’s a great premise…….FOR ME TO POOP ON! Another CBS newbie, Big Bang Theory, is about geeks trying to impress a beauty (a lot of shows that area geek-centric being introduced this fall) and is automatically DQ’d in my book because it’s a half-hour show and thus not worth watching. Other new shows are Viva Laughlin, which I don’t know much about other than it’s a mystery set in Nevada and its music is inspired by a British show, and Cane, about a Cuban rum-smuggling family headed up by Jimmy Smits. I’ve never been a big Smits fan, but these two shows, Cane and Viva Laughlin, look like the best bets for new CBS shows worth watching. Of course, Survivor will be in its usual Thursday night slot and my all-time favorite reality show, The Amazing Race will be back midseason (thankfully minus Charla and Mirna, the two most unlikable reality show contestants ever). Oh, and crotchety old Andy Rooney will still be around to spew his bile-laced, bitter, out-of-touch geezer-isms on 60 Minutes every Sunday night, which I am sure is a relief to exactly no one.

You suck, Brett Favre, you'll assault anyone, police officers and you're a beast, Appa Sherpa

- As someone who would love to climb Mount Everest once, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn’t give major props to my new main man Appa Sherpa, a celebrated mountaineer in Nepal who has now climbed the fabled peak 17 freaking times. Sherpas are well-known as the mountain people who serve as guides for those looking to climb Everest, but that doesn’t mean they should be scaling the massive mountain like they’re climbing a flight of stairs to get to the second floor of a suburban home. Facing grueling climbs, extreme temperatures, decreased oxygen levels and the omnipresent threat of death from many different dangers shouldn’t be something you just shrug off 17 times without a care. The climb was a charity endeavor, to raise money for the education of mountain guides, but honestly you could raise money for any cause at all and it would still be absolutely macho to climb freaking Mount Everest 17 times. Appa, you are hardcore, my man, but you need to stop it because you’re making the rest of us look weak and feeble by comparison.

- Progress is being and equity achieved in the way our law enforcement personnel treat citizens. It used to be that police were harsher and less forgiving with poor, uneducated and lesser members of society and the rich and privileged among us were treated far more favorably. I’m proud to report that this is changing, that rich, white-collar citizens are also being subjected to the same type of abuse and beatdowns that were once reserved for the lower reaches of society. Four businessmen dining at an upscale city bar in Chicago were viciously beaten by three police officers in an attack that was caught on video. The three officers have been charged with crimes that include obstruction of justice, aggravated battery and official misconduct. Sgt. Jeffrey Planey, 33 hit the trifecta and was tagged with one count of each of the above-mentioned crimes while Officers Paul Powers, 25, and Gregory Barnes, 39, were only charged with aggravated battery. No one is immune now, it would seem, because both rich and poor, professional and blue-collar, black and white are finding themselves on the wrong end of good ol’ fashioned police brutality. Welcome to the 2007 version of the United States, where physical abuse and the violation of rights are becoming more and more colorblind.

- Buying a foreclosed home at an auction can be a dicey proposition, because you may not know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. The house might need repairs to the plumbing, roof, heating or electrical wiring that you just can't know about…….or you might be walking into a 21st century version of Psycho. That’s what a man who purchased a foreclosed home in the Spanish town of Roses found when he entered a house he had just purchased. A la Norman Bates’ mother in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film, this man found the corpse of the home’s previous owner sitting on the couch in a mummified state. The body had mummified largely because of the salty seaside air in Roses, which is located in the Catalonia region of Spain. Officials in the town estimate that the body had been in that spot on the couch since 2001, when the now-deceased woman had stopped making house payments on her home. I feel bad for the new owner, because you can get rid of that couch, you can fumigate the room, spray it with 50 coats of industrial-strength disinfectant, paint that room, redo the flooring and bring in all new furniture and you’re still not getting rid of that creepy feeling you get every time you enter that particular room. Turn right around and sell that house, only this time make sure that all dead bodies have been removed from the premises so the new owners don’t have the same unpleasant experience of finding a mummified corpse in the living room.

- Another day, another network upfront, this time ABC. Admittedly I’m not the biggest ABC fan because after the network axed Alias a last year, there wasn’t a single show on ABC that I had any interest in watching. The network has leaned heavily toward pandering to the chick flick crowd, with a slate of programming that seems to make every effort to appeal to woman and repel men (Dancing with the D-List Stars, The Bachelor, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives). With eight new shows being presented at the upfront, ABC has a slightly more promising fall lineup than NBC, whose new schedule looks like a big pile of monkey poop even when contrasted with a TV landscape quickly becoming devoid of great shows. Three of ABC’s new shows are automatically DQ’d in my rankings because they’re half-hour shows, which are basically a ginormous waste of time because there’s not enough time to develop anything worth following. Also, one of those half-hour shows is the moronic, idiotic, imbecilic comedy Cavemen, based on the caveman characters from the GEICO commercials. This premise is already tired and barely entertaining enough to carry a 30-second commercial, there is no way it’s going to work as a TV series. Other new offerings from ABC are Private Practice, the Grey’s spin-off (umm, I’ll pass, since the original incarnation of the show holds zero interest for me), Pushing Daisies, about a young man able to bring things back to life (hey, already seen that kind of stuff on shows like Heroes and Smallville, try coming up with a more original premise), Dirty Sexy Money, about an idealistic lawyer working for an extremely wealthy family (in spite of the fact that the whole lawyer-drama concept has been done to death, this actually sounds possibly watchable) and Big Shots, a series about four would-be CEO’s who are friends, which I might give a chance to if only to see how old favorite Michael Vartan of Alias fame is faring nowadays. Overall, not an inspiring slate of shows, but again, better than what NBC has to offer, which is something to hang your hat on, I guess………

- I’ve been tired of Brett Favre’s act for quite a while now, but it’s still nice to see the Green Bay Packers and their management joining me in my disdain for it. Favre already threw a hissy fit after the team failed to trade for talented and enigmatic wide receiver Randy Moss during the draft. Favre wanted Moss to supplement a shaky receiving corps, but instead New England swooped in and traded for him instead. Reports have Favre demanding a trade from Green Bay after that, but of course the two-faced, image-conscious golden boy came out denying that rumor, saying that while he was unhappy, he never demanded a trade. Sure, because Brett Favre would never, ever put his own welfare ahead of the team’s success, except for every season he’s strung them out, vacillating between retirement and playing another year and left the team in a bind, unable to move on because they don’t know what he’ll do. But Favre was allegedly backed off of the “trade me or else” ledge by coach Mike McCarthy and all seemed well……until word came that Favre was refusing to attend this week’s mandatory team mini-camp so he could stay in Mississippi and help plan his daughter’s graduation party and take part in all of the festivities associated with her graduation. He also alleges that due to his physical status (recovering from surgery) that the team wasn’t going to have him actively participate in camp anyhow. The team says otherwise, and they want Favre at camp because they have the idea that it is mandatory and not optional, as their quarterback seems to believe. Basically, Brett Favre is being a selfish jerk who will only play if everything is totally on his terms, the team be damned. He’s out for himself and his image, and if pursuing that goal helps the team win, all the better. It is sickening to see how much of the media, football fandom and sports fans in general kowtow to this guy and buy into his shtick. It’s time to see him for what he is: an over-the-hill, egotistical, self-centered glory hound who is no longer helping his team but is substantially harming it.

An indication I might be a TV savant, finally W. sets a deadline of some sort and why are Miami motorists so angry?

- Not being an NBA fan and following the Association in only a distant, cursory sense, I can't say for sure if the San Antonio Spurs are a thoroughly dirty team, but based on the actions Robert Horry and Bruce Bowen during the past two games of the Spurs’ series against Phoenix, they at least have two really dirty players. In case you missed it, in Game 3 of the series, Bowen was pivoting on the left wing, outside the three-point arc, with the ball over his head when he lurched forward and swung his knee right into Steve Nash’s groin. That blast to the junk was as deliberate and dirty as you can get, and Bowen can’t hide behind his reputation as an agitator and annoyance on this one. That wasn’t getting under someone’s skin, that was blasting him in the package and it’s a crap play. In Game 4, Horry one-upped his teammate by body-checking Nash into the scorer’s table late in the game after the Spurs blew a big lead and it was clear they were going to lose. What a classless, dirty action by Horry. That went way over the line of being physical and tough and landed squarely in the category of thuggery. For a team that tries to cultivate a professional, take-care-of-business reputation, the Spurs sure are looking like a group of common streets thugs this series.

- Back by popular demand, it’s cruise ship disaster time! This story takes us to the frozen tundra of Alaska, where a riverboat-style cruise ship ran aground near Juneau on Monday. More than 200 passengers had to be evacuated from the ship before the Coast Guard could come in and get the boat moving again. Only one passenger was taken to the hospital for injuries suffered in the crash, while the rest of the happy travelers were taken by ferry back to Juneau. I’d like to know why cruise ship companies don’t go ahead and change their emergency procedures signage and literature to read “When an emergency happens” instead of “In case of emergency.” Your chances of a crash, virus outbreak or food-poisoning incident happening are just as good, if not better, than your chances of avoiding these maladies. But at least with most cruise ship disasters, you’re in a warm, tropical climate. This time, you’re freaking Alaska, surrounded by……well, wilderness, snow, glaciers, etc. Do they even have summer up there or do they just move right from winter to the really bad portion of winter and then back again?

- According to the latest installment of an annual survey by Connecticut-based automobile membership club AutoVantage, Miami drivers are the angriest and most hostile, and I’m not sure that result makes total sense. You live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with gorgeous weather, gorgeous women and miles of beaches. You’ve got palm trees, great night life, tons of amazing restaurants and a local team in all three major sports leagues. On the other hand, if I was forced to shell out copious amounts of cash to park every freaking day because there’s so little real estate available for parking, I might be a little pissed off too. The results of the survey are based on how often drivers in a city slam on their brakes to mess with tailgaters, run red lights, talk on their cell phones while driving and a host of other dangerous on-road behaviors. Other cities near the top of the list were shocking entries such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

- Ok, ok, so maybe that whole destroying the environment and global warming thing, perhaps it really is an issue, I guess. That would be the oh-so-overwhelmingly-enthusiastic attitude shown by the W. administration, which has reluctantly declared that it will decide how to regulate pollution from new motor vehicles by the time our un-esteemed leader leaves office. This comes only after some serious prodding from the Supreme Court, efforts which “inspired” W. to sign an executive order that will “cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.” Thanks for that, W. Is it any wonder we can't get this tool to set a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq? It took the Supreme Court chastising him to get him to do something about greenhouse gas emissions from cars and even then all he would say is that he’ll take care of it sometime in the next 20 months or so. Dude, not being willing to set any timetables or deadlines for anything doesn’t keep people from criticizing you because you’re not officially late or behind schedule (because there is no schedule), it just makes you look like an inept ass who never accomplishes anything of worth.

- Some shocking news from the NBC upfront (a big event where TV networks unveil their lineups for the upcoming fall season, trot out stars from those shows, promote new series, etc.). Andy Barker, P.I. is not returning for a second season! I know, I was floored too, especially since I said before the show even premiered that it had a horrible premise and looked like a total joke based on the promos. Hmmm, you mean a poorly written comedy with a B-list actor based on the absurd notion of an accountant by day becoming an private investigator by night didn’t work? Wow. I can't say as I’m wowed by any of NBC’s new shows being offered up this fall, either. There is one newbie that isn't really a new show as much as a small offshoot of another, Heroes. There will be a small addition to the Heroes franchise, a show titled Heroes: Origins, which will introduce potential new characters to the main show and allow viewers to vote and decide which new characters will be added to Heroes. Other than that, NBC’s new shows will have a time-traveling reporter (borrrrrring), a computer geek who becomes a secret agent (a tired, hack-job rip-off combination of about two dozen other shows in recent memory), and new game show that takes karaoke to a new low, even lower than American Karaoke. And from what I can gather, Howie Mandel will still be around, doing that creepy, bizarre wave/salute/hand gyration thingy he does at the end of every episode of that gawd-awful game show he hosts. Good times all around…………

Morons at the MPAA, the wrong way to go about pimpin' and a doping trial full o' fun

- Absolutely, unequivocally, smoking sucks. If you smoke - be it cigarettes, cigars, cloved cigarettes, a pipe - you suck and that’s a statement I’m not backing off of, because I can guarantee that you have not smoked every single cigarette of your life in total and complete seclusion in an airtight box where none of the fumes were breathed in by another person. Thus, someone else has been forced to breathe in your hazardous, cancer-causing smoke and increase their chances of lung cancer because you lack the willpower and common decency to stop killing them and yourself with the toxin-laced smoke from your tobacco product of choice. As bad as smoking is, however, it’s still absolutely laughable that the Motion Picture Association of America is now factoring the presence of smoking in movies when it assigns ratings to films. Along with sexual content, language, nudity, violence and dialogue, smoking will be a part of the equation in determining whether a movie is rated PG, PG-13, R, etc. I can think of a lot of reasons I wouldn't want children seeing a movie, but smoking isn't one of them. God help us if kids are indeed gullible and stupid enough to pick up smoking because they saw a character do it in a movie and there wasn't a single authority figure in their life to stop them from picking up the most disgusting habit known to man.

- Most of America, even the most rabid sports fans among us, stopped giving a crap about the sport of cycling the instant Lance Armstrong retired. Without Lance’s commanding presence, cycling wasn’t something the majority of fans cared about enough to follow. Still, when Armstrong’s friend and former teammate Floyd Landis made a heroic comeback from hip surgery to win the Tour de France last year, many Americans cheered him and rallied behind his victory. That support turned sharply to disappointment and outrage when a mandatory drug test revealed traces of synthetic testosterone in a sample taken from Landis. Over the past year plus, Landis and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have waged a pitched battle over the validity of those positive test results. There have been twists and turns as some samples have tested negative and some positive, as Landis and his team of lawyers and lackeys have attacked the testing process, the labs doing the testing and anyone else they think might be against them. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is also involved, but its own rules prevent the agency from publicly discussing the case. Now, Landis and the anti-doping agencies in France and the United States will go toe-to-toe in a formal hearing at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. to try to reach a conclusion on the situation. Landis has already spent more than $1 million on his defense against the doping allegations, and at this point I think he’s just wasting his time. Just as everyone forgot about cycling after Armstrong retired, everyone has forgotten about cycling and your (alleged) cheating has faded into obscurity. Let it go, move on to your next endeavor in life and quit dredging up the issue and wasting money. At this point, you’re not going to change the perceptions that most people have about you and what you may or may not have done. Let it go, Floyd, you’re doing as much harm as good at this point.

- Hard to see how this idea backfired: A group of teachers from a Murfreesboro, Tenn. elementary school decided to stage a fake gun attack on school trip as a sort of crisis training exercise for their sixth-grade students. For some reason, when parents of those children learned about what had gone on, they weren’t down. The teachers began the simulated gun attack during the last night of the trip, telling students that a gunman was on the loose and that they needed to lie on the floor or hide under tables. They even had one teacher in a hooded sweatshirt act as if he was trying to break down the door, only to reveal to the students as they began crying and panicking that it was only a drill. What these idiots intended as a “teaching experience” didn’t sit well with parents, who took umbrage at their children being subjected to psychological trauma, emotional distress and outright terror. Memo to teachers and administrators at Scales Park Elementary School: You are dealing with young children, not a commando unit in the Army. Simulated terror exercises are too extreme for kids that age, so next time try sitting them down and just telling them what they should do in case of a dangerous situation such as a gunman on the loose. And oh yeah, tell their parents in advance so they know what you’re doing and aren't taken by surprise when they hear news about your simulated gunman exercises with their children.

- The average NFL career lasts between three and four years, which leaves the majority of players with a difficult decision when their short pro football life is over. What do they do with their life after that? For many of them, football is all they have ever known and they didn’t put that much time or effort into learning and building their knowledge base in college. They’re at a loss as to what they should do next once their playing days are done. Not former Pittsburgh Steelers player Richard Seigler, though, because he had a plan and he most definitely put it into motion once he was done playing. Oh, did I mention that Seigler’s plan was both highly immoral and illegal and could land him in prison as well as on the list of worst guys in America? Such is the life of a pimp, which is what Seigler has allegedly decided to become. He is charged with felony counts of pandering and living off the earnings of a prostitute after flying a young woman from Spokane, Wash. to Las Vegas, forcing her to engage in prostitution and then taking most or all of her earnings for himself. He could be sentenced to 10 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Now I’ll be the first to admit I haven't kept up on the going pimp/ho earnings-split rates, but I have a feeling that most ladies of the night get to keep some of what they bring in. As far as post-playing career moves go, this is one of the more creative and less intelligent ones I’ve seen. Seigler needed to do a bit more research, because while prostitution is legal in certain Nevada counties, it isn't within the city limits of Vegas. Additionally, even if he hadn’t been arrested at this point, I don’t see how Seigler’s pimping business could have been too successful, because how many hookers are going to go to work for a pimp who doesn’t allow them to keep any money they bring in? Use your upcoming time in prison to hammer the kinks out of your business model, Rich, so this kind of problem doesn’t arise again.

- A word of advice to Timbaland, Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake: If the three ingredients in your musical recipe are equivalent to combining horse manure, cow manure and monkey crap, it doesn’t matter what order you put them in or if you choose to combine any two of the three, the end result is still going to be crap. These three artists just keep churning out one steaming, stinking pile of rancid musical garbage after another, teaming Timberlake with Timbaland, mixing in Timbaland with Furtado or bringing all three of these acts together for songs, albums and videos. Let’s see, you have the weasel-on-helium voice of Timberlake, the suddenly skanky, urban-leaning Furtado and her questionable vocal ability and a mediocre rapper in Timbaland who should have stuck with producing instead of stepping behind the mic…….and you’re expecting good music from this combination? Just because it’s club friendly and some of the music-stupid public likes the sound doesn’t mean anything, because you can slam most any song to a dance beat, synthesize and distort the vocals and the Ecstasy-loving clubbers at most nightclubs will dance to it. Plus, the oh-so-terrible musical taste of your average 13-year-old girl will always embrace Timberlake because they think he’s dreamy. With lyrical and topical depth rivaling that of a drop of spit, the Furtado-Timberlake-Timbaland trio is one of the worst things in music this side of American Karaoke, and I sincerely hope that they all go their separate ways soon.

Radio is ruled by morons, Mexican mobsters lack originality and a special day for Major League Baseball

- The powers of petitions and protests are great things, and using them to fight wrongs and injustices in the world are a huge part of what makes free speech and rebellion so great. However, using those powers on a petition to have California Governor Ah-nold Schwarzenegger pardon Paris Hilton for her conviction on a probation violation doesn’t make you an outspoken dissident or a proponent of free speech, it makes you a dumbass. Trying to get a billionaire socialite skank out of a 45-day sentence because she not once but twice violation probation is about as big a waste of time as you can get. Paris should serve twice that much time in jail for wasting everyone in the world’s time by having to hear the nonstop gossip and coverage she gets because she’s famous without actually doing anything that should make her famous. She’s contributed nothing to the world at large (no, her multiple sex tapes don’t count) and yet she’s in the news nonstop. She’s made one terrible movie (House of Wax) that didn’t involve her taking her clothes off, so I’m with the Governator when he laughed off the petition to free Paris by saying he has more important matters to focus on.

- In what has become an annual tradition, Major League Baseball teams took part in a special promotion today, with players using pink bats (still standard wooden bats, just pink) and wearing pink wristbands to show support for breast cancer research on Mother’s Day. Teams do promotions for every game, but this is definitely a classy and great one, and props to all of the players using the pink bats and showing their support for an awesome cause.

- Skydiving is a dangerous activity and that’s part of the thrill. However, deaths involving skydivers typically happen when a parachute malfunctions and fails to open either partially or doesn’t open at all. Four intrepid thrill seekers in Marion, Mont. didn’t even get the chance to jump before their skydiving trip turned into a disaster. The plane the skydivers were planning on jumping out of crashed shortly after takeoff in a remote field (wait, isn't everything in Montana remote?), killing the four men and the pilot. That’s like going to bungee jump and getting killed because the ladder you climb up to the jump platform collapses or going whitewater rafting and being killed by a snake bite before you even make it to the water. It also doesn’t engender much faith in the potential success of a jump if the plane can't even make it up to jumping height before crashing. If disaster struck on what should be the easiest portion of the event, what kind of problems might have arisen once the plane was tens of thousands of feet above the earth?

- Godfather fans, they are indeed everywhere. At a military base in Veracruz, Mexico, some wacky Mexican gangstas left a severed head with a threatening note, with the “gift” intended as some sign of defiance by the organized crime sector in the area. The body that the head formerly belonged to was found shortly thereafter in a nearby neighborhood, but I really doubt the Mexican military is going to be badly shaken by this one. Let’s see……all manner of high-grade automatic weapons, tanks, bombs, grenades, planes, ships……yeah, I think they’ll be just fine. Organized crime has power and resources, no doubt, but if there’s one group I’m not going to directly challenge, it’s my country’s military. However, if you’re going to do so, you can do better than a severed head and a mean letter. The Godfather movies are a couple decades old, Mexican gangsters, so why don’t you use some of your ample financial resources to update your DVD library and perhaps catch the last few episodes of the Sopranos as well. If you’re going to base all of your intimidation tactics off of 20-year-old films, people are going to start thinking you have no imagination or originality.

- Why is it that the dumbest, most brain-dead morons in broadcasting are the ones who manage to land their own national show? Guys like Howard Stern and Don Imus became famous for acting like a-holes and saying insanely moronic things on air, and now Imus has been canned and Stern quarantined on satellite radio. Two other shock jocks on a New York-based show aired by CBS radio with Stern-like tendencies have just been given the heave-ho for a blatantly offensive skit rife with offensive stereotypes about Asians. Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay of The Dog House with JV and Elvis on WFNY-FM are the boneheads in question, and after their ill-advised skit they found their walking papers tacked to the brim of their urban sombreros, so to speak (a Seinfeld reference for you fans). I’d love to hear these guys explain how they thought this skit was going to be acceptable on air, especially after the uproar over Imus’ comments, which weren’t nearly as out of line and offensive as what Vandergrift and Lay said on air. Way to show your intelligence guys, your comedic talents obviously don’t extend beyond puerile, gimmicky and blatantly offensive material that most drunken frat dudes would find beneath them.