Something to ignite my interest in soccer, a freaking awesome Smallville episode and Iran's zoo-themed space endeavor

- Now this is the sort of thing that could pique my interest in soccer as anything more than comedic relief from real sports. Former U.S. soccer coach Steve Sampson said Tuesday revealed Tuesday that he dropped John Harkes from the national team roster two months before the 1998 World Cup because the American captain was having an affair with the wife of teammate Eric Wynalda. Sampson held onto his secret for more than a decade and Harkes has long denied having an affair with Amy Wynalda, but I’m choosing to believe it’s true because if it is, it’s a freaking awesome story. Eric Wynalda referenced the story in a recent interview after Sampson said on Tuesday he was glad the story was coming out now because "maybe people will have a little better of an understanding of what happened in the final months leading up to the World Cup." What happened was the U.S. team followed up a fairly strong outing in the 1994 World Cup, when it reached the tournament’s second round, by getting swept and finishing last in the 32-nation field at the 1998 tournament, getting shut out in two of its three games. "It wasn't about losing to Iran," Sampson said. "There was more to it than that that impacted I believe the outcome of this team." Sampson definitely has an axe to grind in this situation, as that tank job in the 1998 Cup cost him his job. He was replaced by Bruce Arena after the tournament. As for Harkes, the alleged wife-banger in question, he was a member of the 1990 and 1994 U.S. World Cup teams and became the regular captain before he was dropped by on April 14, 1998. Asked about the situation involving his dismissal from the team in an interview on Tuesday, he wasn’t exactly an open book. "I am not going to rehash the things that have happened in the past," Harkes said Tuesday in a telephone interview. "1998 was devastating to me and my family. It was hard enough not to play in the World Cup, but it was even difficult to go through that time period, the most difficult time period of my life." Maybe he doesn’t want to discuss the past, but I bet he’d love to get a piece of former teammate Roy Wegerle. Charles is the player who went to Sampson and assistant coach Clive Charles between a Feb. 25 game and the March 14 match against Paraguay in San Diego and said he knew about the affair. At the time, Sampson said Harkes was dropped because the midfielder refused to play a more defensive role and because of "leadership issues." U.S. Soccer officials were apprised of the situation and apparently supported Sampson’s decision to dismiss Harkes as well as his wishes to keep the real reason a secret. Harkes may not be willing to admit to an affair to this day, but Wynalda has no doubts what went down. "I'm calling it an inappropriate relationship. It was a major contributor to why I'm no longer married," said Wynalda, who separated from his wife in 2003 and then divorced. Both men are preparing to cover this June’s World Cup, albeit for different networks, so here’s hoping their paths cross somewhere in South Africa…………

- The two-hour mini-movie “Justice League” finally hit Smallville tonight and it was, without a doubt, worth the wait. The episode kicked off with Chloe Sullivan trying to contact Clark and set up a meeting of his group of superheroes with himself, Oliver Queen and Co. All of a sudden, the lights go out and she finds herself on the street, having a mysterious meeting with an eclectic, quirky man named Sylvester Pemberton. Before the meeting could really get going, the temperature suddenly dropped a huge amount and snow and ice began flying. Pemberton grabbed Chloe and in one fluid motion, grabbed her arm and swung her up over his head, landing her safely inside a large dumpster beside them and telling her to stay down. From her spot inside the dumpster, Chloe can’t see much, but she hears what appears to be a battle raging outside and once the bizarre cold snap lifts, she extricates herself from the dumpster and finds Pemberton dying on the ground with what appear to be bullet holes in his body, ringed by ice. Pemberton tells her that he’s a friend but warns that “they are after us.” Pemberton is rushed to the hospital and dies there. Clark shows up after a call from Chloe and after an argument about Clark being AWOL of late, they try to figure out who Pemberton was. Clark also spots a girl talking to the police officers who are taking Pemberton’s possessions into evidence and when he tries to talk to her, she spots his reporter’s badge and tells him to get lost. Meanwhile, Chloe uses one of her high-tech gadgets to scan Pemberton’s phone in the hands of a police officer while she pretends to chat with the officer. By cloning the phone, she finds out that Pemberton’s last call was to a man named Wesley Dodds. We see Dodds in his apartment, where he is waking up from a vivid dream about Pemberton’s murder. No sooner than he wakes up, Dodds is confronted by the Icicle, the same freak who killed Pemberton. Dodds too is killed and the Icicle racks up his second murder of the day. At Watchtower, Chloe is hard at work when Oliver finally responds to her superhero call. He tries to explain some, um, questionable emails from himself to Black Canary, but Chloe isn’t worried about his love life. She has found out the identity of the girl from the hospital: Courtney Whitmore, a high school student with a spotty attendance record. She also dispenses Ollie to the police station to steal the powerful golden staff that Pemberton had when he was killed. At Dodds’ apartment, Clark finds the aftermath of the murder and Dodds’ blood splattered on the wall, spelling out “JSA.” At the hospital, Dr. Emil links Dodds’ and Pemberton’s murders by the ice around the wounds on each body. He uncovers DNA from the wounds, meaning the ice has come from within someone’s actual person. The Icicle is shown laying out head shots of those he’s killed, placing a big X over each one. He then glares at a picture of his next target: Courtney. He is also sitting inside some sort of cell with a logo on the floor of a black chess piece, a knight, over a checkerboard background. At the Daily Planet, Clark and Chloe dig for information on the JSA in the archives and find old film of a series of prominent citizens being rounded up by police and arrested for crimes that seem totally incongruous with who they were. In the file, there are also names and Clark goes to the home of one of those named in the file, Carter Hall, to search for answers. He speaks to Hall about the murders, but finds Hall unwilling to offer much assistance. In the corner, a man who appears to be mentally ill sits, rocking back and forth, holding a bowling ball bag and speaking nonsense. When Clark inquires about the man, named Nelson, Hall shuts him down. Using his X-ray vision, Clark looks inside the bag and sees some some of iron warrior’s helmet. Hall claims to have not spoken to Dodds or Pemberton in years and all but throws Clark out to get rid of him. Oliver’s mission to retrieve the golden staff is equally fruitless, as it’s not at the police station. He calls Chloe to fill her in, but just then he spots Courtney rushing down the street with it. He confronts her and attempts to explain what he’s doing, but the bowling ball man appears from nowhere, grabs Courtney and disappears in a flash of light. Chloe departs from Watchtower to help Oliver and together they find Pemberton’s car, a classic whip with a license plate reading “STAR.” The car has decals declaring it to be the Star Rocket Racer and it appears that Pemberton may have actually been living out of it. Red, white and blue are all over the car, but the most puzzling discovery is a notebook in the glove compartment. Inside are pictures and notes about Clark, Chloe, Oliver and the rest of their team. Pemberton knew about them, it appears, which means that Courtney likely does as well. Back at Hall’s home, Courtney tries to talk him into fighting back against Icicle, but Hall won’t bite. She asks what Shayera, a.k.a. Hawkgirl to Hall’s Hawkman, would have done. Chloe and Clark are also hard at work, with Chloe having unearthed the file of a man named Johr Makent, whom she believes to be the Icicle. At Hall’s home, Nelson, Courtney and Hall argue about what to do next. Nelson, suddenly well-spoken, talks about someone named Dr. Fate and says he wishes he could remember what his life was like before Dr. Fate. With that, Nelson opens his bag, pulls out the helmet and puts it on. He undergoes a massive transformation into a helmeted, cape-wearing, blue-and-gold superhero – Dr. Fate. Over at Metropolis General, Clark and Chloe follow the lead on Mahkent and find him in a vegetative state in a private room. They are interrupted by Dr. Fate, who uses his superpower to see Clark’s fate and informs CK how important that fate is to the world. He then cryptically informs Chloe that, “You walk the same path I do.” With that, Fate and Clark disappear into another flash of light and Chloe is left solo. She calls Oliver to tell him about Clark’s disappearance, but he is off on his own mission, tailing Courtney. She’s looking hot, dressed in red, white and blue spandex decorated with stars. She walks down and alley and waits and Oliver senses that she is somehow using herself as bait. He tries to warn her away, but she tersely tells him to leave. Instead, a cold chill sweeps down the alley and Icicle shows up to do battle with Courtney, a.k.a. Star Girl. Back and forth they go, Icicle wielding a huge, sharp (what else) icicle and Star Girl wielding the golden staff. The battle is a standoff, but Icicle manages to release a hail of sharp chunks of ice that are about to turn Star Girl into a dead girl. Oliver saves her life by shooting all of the ice chunks down with some amazing archery, but and angry Courtney chides him because she was supposed to have the first shot to battle Pemberton’s killer because “he” said so. Who is he? That’s answered when Hall, clad as Hawkman, swoops down from the sky, snatches Oliver and flies off. He tosses Ollie through the windows at Watchtower, then barks at Oliver and Chloe to “stay out of our business.” Knowing they need Clark’s help, Oliver calls in Detective John Jones, a.k.a. the Martian Manhunter, to assist. As it turns out, Clark is at the massive mansion Hall calls home and finds himself in a large room full of objects covered in drop cloths. Pulling them off one by one, he finds all sorts of artifacts and pictures that reveal a legendary group of masked heroes – the Justice Society of America. Dr. Fate, Starl Girl and Hawkman walk in and Fate urges the others to believe, as he does, that Clark is special and important. We also learn that Pemberton, a.k.a. the Star Spangled Kid, was trying to form a new JSA, hence his notebook on Clark and friends. Just then, Oliver barges in, ready for a fight. On his heels is Martian Manhunter, who tries to settle everyone down. The original JSA members say they simply want justice for their murdered friends and then will step back into the shadows. They reluctantly agree to allow Clark and his group to help them. Over at the Daily Planet, Lois finally joins the episode. She heads to her desk at the Planet and finds a mysterious package with a note inside saying, “The truth will set you free.” It accompanies files and photos of the same JSA members Clark and Chloe have linked up with. Her find is spoiled by the arrival of nemesis/DP owner Tess Mercer. The two ladies have a very unfriendly conversation before Tess heads to her office and finds Checkmate’s calling card, a chess piece – a white queen in this case – on her desk. Back at JSA headquarters, Carter Hall dispenses a history lesson about the Society. He concludes by saying that there are still members of the JSA out there. Chloe crashes the party next, overlooking a rude greeting from Hall to share information on where Icicle might show up next. She suggests the nearest liquid nitrogen depot, where Icicle could refuel. She then returns to Watchtower with Courtney in tow and the two have an interesting chat. Courtney ruminates on how she got into the JSA (Pemberton’s sidekick was her stepfather) and remarks on how Watchtower is so cold and unwelcoming, not like the homey feel of the JSA lair. She muses that perhaps Clark’s group would be more effective if they had a warmer hideout where they could hang out and spend time together. The talk is interrupted by an incoming call from Oliver, who is staking out the roof of the hospital with Hawkman after Chloe set up a trap for Icicle by putting out word that his father had taken a turn for the worse. Ollie and Hawkman continue to get on one another’s nerves, while back at JSA HQ, Dr. Fate speaks with Clark about his future. He adds that Clark will provide hope for the entire world, lead this generation as Hawkman led the previous one and triumph over his ultimate enemy, Lex Luthor – yes, the one who is supposed to be dead. Clark thinks the same thing, but Fate doesn’t address the topic further. All of a sudden, Lois knocks on the door of the mansion and Clark wonders why she is there. Curiously, Fate says she is “the key” to it all. Clark isn’t about to allow Lois to find out he’s there and speeds off. Fate welcomes her in, then shares her own fate with her. She will be “the one for him,” and he “will be the one for her.” When Lois asks who the he is, Fate tells her “he” is the savior for the world, an all-powerful, sentient being. Then, just as suddenly as her visit came, Lois’ time with Fate ended and she found herself standing at the door of the mansion, on the front steps – visit over. At Checkmate, Icicle is visited by Agent Waller, a woman who is overseeing his mission and warns him that he is taking things too personally. Icicle reveals that he’s been killing for Waller for some time now and has no plans to stop any time soon. Over at the Planet, Tess rifles through the files Lois received in the mail but is interrupted by Clark, who chides her about respecting privacy. Clark goes off to find Lois, who hints at the top secret story she’s researching and shares some details. She fills in some blanks for Clark and he suddenly realizes that as bad guys captured and jailed by the JSA are being released under the orders of high-ranking government officials, someone must be collecting these villains for some reason. We then jump to the nitrogen depot, where Martian Manhunter and Dr. Fate are waiting on Icicle. The chilly villain does show up, but he steals the nitro he needs before ambushing the two heroes and impaling Fate from behind with a ginormous icicle. Right before impact, Fate saves Manhunter by opening up some type of portal and zapping him away. Icicle then stabs him and steals Fate’s helmet, which is the key to being able to see the future. Later on, Icicle visits his father’s hospital room, pulls the plug on dear old dad and puts on Fate’s helmet in his quest to defeat the JSA. Manhunter is over at Metropolis General under Dr. Emil’s care and in some sort of coma, called a “period of incubation” by Emil. Clark and Courtney keep watch and he tries to encourage her to keep fighting the good fight. The good fight is not what Agent Waller has in mind. She visits Lois in the DP archives and reveals herself as Lois’ source, but is unwilling to say why she’s doing what she’s doing. Instead, she presents Lois with a cell phone and promises to be in touch. At the JSA HQ, Hawkman and Oliver ready for battle against Icicle and Hawkman reveals that he is some sort of immortal being, having been cursed, along with his wife Shayera/Hawkgirl, to fall in love and watch one another die in lifetime after lifetime. Then, in the funniest moment of the episode, Oliver admits to never having known such a love and Hawkman snapping that it’s because Oliver doesn’t want people to know how much they mean to him and so, “You act like a jackass.” The new BFF’s head to Watchtower, where Clark, Chloe and Courtney are waiting on them. The meeting is interrupted by Icicle, clad in Dr. Fate’s helmet. All four superheroes try to take him out, but Icicle fights them off. That’s the cue for Martian Manhunter to enter the fray. He’s snapped out of his coma and courtesy of Dr. Fate’s final act, he now has his Martian powers back. Using those powers – which include becoming invisible and invincible – he helps the four other superheroes battle Icicle. Each uses their power to bring the villain to his knees and Hawkman strikes the final blow with his ball and chain, knocking the helmet from Icicle’s head. Back at the JSA lair, Hawkman admits that Clark’s team is better than he thought and also reveals that he is resurrecting the JSA to help train the next generation. At Watchtower, Manhunter cautions Chloe against her endless quest to gather and gain information, lest she end up on the verge of insanity, as Dr. Fate did. “There is a limit to how much knowledge someone can have,” he warns her. Oliver shows up and amazingly, it’s not because there is a problem with deal with. He just wants to take his friends to dinner – perhaps the start of the family feel Courtney suggest to Chloe? We then see Lois at the Planet, where she revels in her front page JSA story and shares with Clark Dr. Fate’s cryptic prediction of her future. The episode wraps in Icicle’s Checkmate cell, where Waller rejects his plea to continue hunting the JSA. She informs him that he has already done just what she needed, namely pulling the JSA out of hiding and back into the spotlight. With that, she welcomes Icicle to “the Suicide Squad” and puts a bullet in his forehead. She exits the cell and is met by…..freaking Tess Mercer, whom she addresses as Agent Mercer! Tess is apparently a Checkmate agent, which throws a whole lot of wrenches and twists into things. Overall, an amazing episode and unquestionably the best of this season, good stuff…………

- Beware world, Iran has allegedly had launched a rocket carrying a rodent, two turtles and some worms into orbit. You know a nation is serious about its space program and a legit threat in outer space when it can shoot a rat, a couple of turtles it ripped from someone’s aquarium and a few worms it dug up from the ground into space. Not only did Iran accomplish this “feat,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency publicized it at a ceremony to commemorate this month's anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew Iran's monarchy. The launch was hailed as a successful advance in the country’s space program, which has become a growing target for international scrutiny. The IRNA labeled the rocket the "home-built" Kavoshgar-3, or Explorer-3 rocket and Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi saluted the launch as a success and described Iran's space program as "peaceful. Iran will not tolerate any un-peaceful use [of space] by any country," he said. That runs very much contrary to sentiments expressed last year by the U.S. State Department, which expressed "grave concern" over Iran's announcement it was planning a series of satellite launches. "Developing a space launch vehicle that could... put a satellite into orbit could possibly lead to development of a ballistic missile system," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said. "So that's a grave concern to us.” Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell chimed in as well, saying, "Although this appears to be [a] satellite, there are dual-use capabilities that could be applied to missiles, and that's a concern to us and everybody in region.” The launch comes as the United States and a collection of other nations are seeking to expand sanctions against Iran because of its test-firing of long-range missiles and a program of uranium enrichment. For its part, Iranian space officials say they are going to be using live video transmission and telemetry allowed the rat or mouse -- named Helmz-1 -- turtles and worms to be monitored during their space voyage. Call me cynical, but I have no doubts that all of these space-venturing critters could be part of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Just because they are small animals doesn’t mean they’re not evil and armed with bad intentions, Iran. We’ve got our eyes on you and this little stunt has done nothing to allay our concerns……………

- Being über-smart often means nothing more than you are able to waste money in much more extravagant and kooky ways than the average person. Thanks to some intrepid researchers at Harvard University for helping to illustrate this point by taking $9 million in federal stimulus money and using it to research and assemble robotic bees without creating any jobs, as stimulus money is supposedly intended to do. A different research group at Harvard pissed away $225,000 in stimulus money by studying Narwhal whale tusk function and a third group used its $176,000 grant to research pre-natal conditions in Gambian women. Again, none of these projects generated a single new job, which was kind of the idea behind the stimulus money. Ditto for a $94,000 grant at UMass-Boston that is currently funding a study of pollen. Wait, wait…..that grant did create one hole job, that being for a graduate student to count pollen grains and assess environmental changes in Northern Iceland during the Viking colonization – important stuff. State Sen. Richard Tisei looks at the way some of the more than $100 million in stimulus dollars were given to colleges and universities for scientific research were used in his state and he is oddly unhappy. “If that's going to put people back to work, I need to know how,” Tisei said. “That's a perfect example of wasted money. People are catching on to what this was all about.” In response to the senator’s comments, a Harvard University spokesman stated that the projects help "maintain our country's role at the forefront of scientific research and innovation" and that the projects "will lead to jobs." How very vague and elitist of you, Harvard spokesman. I don’t know if you know this or not, but just being an Ivy League institution doesn’t mean you are above the rest of us and can spend federal stimulus money any way you damn well please. So take your robotic bees, your ancient pollen counts and all your other wasteful spending and take it all away because we’ve had enough of it…………

- After Apple failed to impress anyone with its lackluster launch of the iPad last week, Google is proudly touting its own tablet computer ideas based on its Chrome operating system. According to Google, the Chrome OS-based tablet actually went live two days before the iPad launch, but no one seemed to notice. Google’s aspirations include a wide of devices for Chrome OS. "While its primary focus is Netbooks, Chrome OS could eventually scale to a wide variety of devices. Each would have vastly different input methods, available screen space, and processing power," according to the Chromium form factors site. Chromium, by the way, is the official name given to the open-source developer project associated with the Chrome product. The question for Google is whether Chrome OS will actually work better on tablets than on Netbooks, the device on which Google plans to launch Chrome OS. Chrome OS is browser-intensive, so it isn’t an ideal fit on Netbooks, which are typically used as general-purpose PCs. Tablets tend to be more unidirectional in their focus - reading books, surfing the Net and tasks that only require light typing – so Chrome could be a better fit in that sense. Right now, Google’s tablet ideas are just that – ideas. They are still in the development stage, so there is no real threat to other tablet computer makers at this point. These early tablet sketches show a virtual keyboard taking up the bottom half of the screen or detached and floating as a separate window, a slideshow mode, an application launcher, sidebar-mounted browser tabs, and a pop-up contextual menu. Google plans to debut Chrome OS in Netbooks later this year and work for that launch could also aid in the area of tablets. "Google Chrome OS is still in development, and we are constantly experimenting with various user interfaces to determine what designs would produce the best user experience. As we've said all along, the UI is still under development and will continue to evolve as we determine which designs work best for our users," the company said in a statement. Well, at least it won't be less impressive and worse of an idea than the iPad, so Google has that working for it…………

The Cincinnati Bengals on the way back, I hate on "We Are the World" and Richard Branson's new rip-off

>- The Cincinnati Bengals aren’t all the way back, but at least they are on the road to once again becoming the good ol’ Bengals we all came to know and love. By that, I mean a group of miscreants and misfits who rack up more arrests than wins in a year and are generally a disgrace to their community and city. Yes, head coach Marvin Lewis seemed to have succeeded in remodeling and renovating the team from its criminal ways and it has been a little while since a Bengals player ended up wearing a pair of the silver bracelets, but Bengals linebacker Rey Maualuga rode to the rescue Friday morning when he decided to get liquored up, get behind the wheel and go for a drive. Police in Covington, Ky., across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, didn’t seem to appreciate his actions and arrested the burly linebacker, who was coming off a solid rookie season and a key part of a vastly improved Cincinnati defense in 2009. Maualuga then pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge on and said he "will learn from this and it won't happen again." Really? Is that the Bengal attitude, Ray? No, I believe that the correct response is, “You’re damn right I committed a crime. None of my teammates were stepping up to continue the team’s proud criminal tradition, so I stood tall and filled the void. I hope others will follow my example with a wide range of criminal offenses ranging from the stupid to the narcotics-related.” All told, Maualuga got off light for a drunk-driving offense. He was given a seven-day suspended jail sentence, placed on two years probation, had his driver's license suspended for 90 days and was fined $350. When you are drunk enough to plow into two parked cars and obliterate a parking meter, losing your license for three months and being fined less than you make in half of a quarter in a single game is a very lenient punishment. Thankfully, two female passengers in the car were not injured and neither was Maualuga himself, although a few stitches or a broken bone might have served as a nice reminder to him not to get behind the wheel while hammered in the future…………

- You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not down with the lame-tastic recording of an updated version of "We Are the World" to raise money for Haitian earthquake relief. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for supporting Haiti and hope that people from around the world continue to do so until the country is rebuilt and back on its feet. My beef is with the way in which the support is being raised here. What you will hear is that dozens of recording stars converged on a Hollywood studio on Monday evening to lay down their vocals for a new version of the song that raised at least $30 millions for African humanitarian programs 25 years ago. What you should hear is who some of these hacks were: Carlos Santana, Orianthi, Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, Sugarland, Adam Levine, Jason Mraz, Earth Wind & Fire, Natalie Cole, The Jonas Brothers, T-Pain, Brian Wilson, Justin Bieber, Nicole Scherzinger, India.Arie, Julianne Hough, Mary Mary, Melanie Fiona, BeBe Winans, Mya, Tyrese Gibson, Anthony Hamilton, Raphael Saadiq, Gladys Knight, Keri Hilson, Joel and Benji Madden, Heart, Brandy, Pink, Musiq Soulchild, Miley Cyrus, Akon, Jordin Sparks, Celine Dion, Rob Thomas, Katharine McPhee, Jeff Bridges, Randy Jackson, Patti Austin, Kid CuDi, Usher, Will.i.am, Kanye West, LL Cool J, Issac Slade (of The Fray), Snoop Dogg, Nicole Richie, Trey Songz, Ethan Bortnick, Taryll Jackson, Taj Jackson, TJ Jackson, Vince Vaughn, Drake, Freda Payne, Faith Evans, Robin Thicke, Rashida Jones, Barbra Streisand, Jimmy Jean Louis, Enrique Iglesias, Zac Brown, Lil Wayne, Tony Bennett, Josh Groban, Sean Garrett, Harry Connick Jr., Al Jardine, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony (Bizzy Bone) and A.R.Rahman. Now I haven’t heard of a lot of these losers (Orianthi?), but the ones I have heard of……not only would I not pay to hear them sing, I would pay a lot of money to NOT hear them sing. For example, Justin Bieber is some adolescent pipsqueak pop singer who is a poor person’s version of the musical train wreck that is Jesse McCartney. Celine Dion has great vocal abilities, but her music is horrifically bad and puts me to sleep within seconds. Pink? Please, don’t even get me started on that misfit. Making matters worse is that one of the co-writers for the first song was the single most overrated musical act of all-time, Michael Jackson. This version of the song will be produced by Wyclef Jean, producer RedOne and producer-musical director Ricky Minor, none of whom I would trust to produce any album I would want to own. But as terrible as this song will clearly be, it will premiere during the NBC network's coverage of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Vancouver, Canada, on February 12. Not that I was planning to watch much of the Olympics anyhow, but I will surely be avoiding the opening ceremony now…………

- The big topic as it relates to the American military right now is the move toward repealing the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gay and lesbian service members. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the Pentagon has taken the first steps toward repealing the policy. While explaining that setting up the groundwork for a repeal of the policy will take more than a year, Gates said that in the meantime, the Defense Department will start enforcing the policy "in a fairer manner." Those comments were made in an address to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. You may think you know where I would come out on such an action and you would probably be wrong. Yes, I do believe homosexuality is morally wrong. Having said that, I am 100 percent sure that there are gays and lesbians currently serving in the military and I have to wonder what good it does to force them to keep their sexual orientation hidden. Whether you believe as I do or not, the fact is that these people are already serving in a variety of posts throughout the military and having them reveal (if they choose) to those around them that they are homosexual would not affect their ability to do the job they have been trained to do. The move to repeal the policy comes after President Obama called it during last week's State of the Union address. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen also endorsed a repeal Tuesday, so this movement is gaining momentum. Mullen cited a "personal belief" that "allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly [in the military] would be the right thing to do. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity." Gates seemed to indicate that the change was all but certain, stating, "The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it. We have received our orders from the commander in chief and we are moving out accordingly." Of course, the decision on whether or not to change the policy ultimately resides with Congress, so you can't be completely certain that Obama’s wishes will be followed. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy was put in place under President Clinton in 1993 and bars openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals from serving in the U.S. military. On the flip side, it prevents the military from asking a service member's sexual orientation. Almost from its inception, the policy has been a major target for controversy and that is unlikely to change even if it is ultimately repealed. "The mandate of this working group is to thoroughly, objectively and methodically examine all aspects of this question and produce its finding and recommendations in the form of an implementation plan by the end of this calendar year," Gates told the committee members. "A guiding principle of our efforts will be to minimize disruption and polarization within the ranks, with special attention paid to those serving on the front lines." The group Gates has appointed to study the issue will be led by Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson and it will "reach out to the [military] ... to authoritatively understand their views and attitudes about the impacts of repeal," Gates added. The RAND Corporation will also be asked to update a study it conducted in 1993 on the impact of allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military. In other words, prepare for a long year of television talking heads screaming at one another about what to do with this decision and not a lot of action for a while. So far, more than 13,500 service members have been discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” and there were 428 such discharges in 2009, the lowest rate of discharge since implementation of the policy. Defense officials have admitted privately that the will to enforce the law is declining, so if ever there was a time when a change was likely to be made, this would seem to be it…………

- Kooky billionaire Richard Branson is at it again. Just a couple months after launching his new business to fly tools with too much spare cash into outer space for a few minutes, Branson announced the latest addition to his fleet on Friday: an underwater “plane” that will fly riders into the depths of the Caribbean Sea. Hey Richie, we already already have one of those, it’s called a submarine. Apparently this “innovation’ will be available for guests on Necker Island, a retreat in the British Virgin Islands. They will be able to dive underwater in a craft dubbed the Necker Nymph for $25,000 a week - after shelling out around $300,000 for a one-week stay on Necker, the private island owned by Branson. This ginormous rip-off will begin operation on Feb. 20, allowing two riders and a pilot to go underwater either from land or from a boat. The so-called underwater plane uses the downward pressure on its wings to fly through the water for up to two hours at a time, while an open cockpit will give riders a 360-degree view at an average speed of 2 to 5 nautical miles per hour. Karen Hawkes, a spokeswoman for Hawkes Ocean Technologies, the company that designed the Nymph, explained that this submarine on steroids can dive more than 100 feet. In order to sell their scam as an actual new idea that isn’t just a submarine ride with a new name, Virgin Limited Edition, the luxury arm of Virgin Hotels, released a statement describing the “underwater plane’s” dive like a plane's takeoff. "Gliding on the water's surface like an aeroplane on a runway, one of the three pilots will operate the joystick to smoothly dive down." Should you be both rich enough and wasteful enough to engage in this charade, you will have to fork over around $400,000 total for your time on Necker Island, which includes the price to stay there, the cost of the glorified submarine ride and a possible rental of the Necker Belle, Branson's 105-foot yacht. Oh, and you must follow SCUBA procedures and be trained or accompanied by a certified pilot before entering the underwater plane. So have at it, rich people, because this in no way screams wretched excess that will make the commoners want to revolt and end up with your heads on pikes, marching through the square…………

- Battles over wills are always, always ridiculous and offensive. Anyone willing to go to war over what they receive in the will of a deceased person either didn’t know the deceased well or didn’t give a crap about them, because if they did, then they would be devastated at the loss of someone they loved and not concerned with how much money they were getting. With that in mind, I did get quite a bit of amusement out of watching the brawl over the estate of one of Asia's richest women, Nina Wang, Wang, the heiress known for her iconic pigtail braids and nicknamed "Little Sweetie," died of cancer in 2007. Since then, the fight over her estate has dragged on…..and on….and on. Finally, a judge decided Tuesday that will go to her family's foundation -- not her lover and feng shui adviser – bringing a decisive end to a probate battle that has dragged on for two-plus years. Soon after Wang’s death, a will was presented by Tony Chan, who claimed he had been her confidante off and on over 14 years. Stunningly, the will stated that her estate would go to him. Even more shockingly, Wang's family disputed the will, allegedly signed by her in 2006. They countered with a will produced by family attorney Keith M. K. Ho, allegedly signed by her in 2002. That will left the estate to her family's Chinachem Charitable Foundation. According to Ho, his client has given a 11-digit-figure -- or billions -- in Hong Kong dollars. "The court does not believe that their relationship was such that Nina was prepared to give him her entire estate irrespective of her other commitments and responsibilities," stated the judgment prepared by Hong Kong's judiciary. "As far as her estate was concerned, she placed a higher regard on her charitable objectives than the first defendant (Chan)." The judgment brings to an end a spectacle that saw more than 25 witnesses -- including experts in feng shui and handwriting – testifying over the course of the month of May 2009. Crowds gathered outside the courtroom and the entire region was captivated by the ordeal. Which included sordid details about Chan and Wang’s supposed relationship. Their connection was "as old as the hills. It's a love story," Chan's lawyer, Jonathan Midgley claimed. "It's a story of two people that met in 1992, and they were close, in slightly different forms over the 14 odd years until Nina Wang died." The court disagreed with those sentiments and decided that although the pair became intimate after September 1992, Chan "also acted as Nina's feng shui master at the same time and obtained financial benefit of the services he provided." So that settles that. As always, nice to know that when someone they supposedly love passes away, you can count on those left behind to freaking go to war if they don’t like what they are left in the will. Good times…………

The curious effect of separated shoulders, recapping the Lost premiere and Rogue Wave with a new album

- Hey everyone, I have some breakthrough medical news based on (superficial, conducted in less than two minutes) research that I have conducted1 Apparently, NFL players (especially high-paid wide receivers) who suffer a separated shoulder will also experience symptoms including, but not limited to: lack of effort, laziness, failure to run their routes properly and a general lack of interest in the game they are being paid millions of dollars to play. I base all of my findings on the case of New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss, who was diagnosed with a separated shoulder following the Patriots' season and came under fire during the latter part of that season for lackadaisical, half-hearted play. Moss initially appeared on the injury report with a shoulder ailment three days after the Patriots' 20-17 overtime loss to the Broncos on Oct. 11. His lack of production bottomed out in a 20-10 home win over Carolina on Dec. 13, when Moss caught all of one pass for 16 yards, fumbled the ball after that catch and made no effort at all to break up a pass in his direction that was ultimately intercepted. Following the game, Panthers defensive backs Chris Harris and Chris Gamble openly doubted Moss’ effort on the field and suggested that he quit because they were physical with him. The Patriots, from owner Bob Kraft to coach Bill Belichick to quarterback Tom Brady, leapt to Moss’ defense and vouched for his effort level. News of this injury could explain some of Moss’ lack of production – although he did still post 83 receptions for 1,264 yards and 13 touchdowns – but not the lack of effort. Opposing players know when a guy is going all out or shutting it down and even if that shoulder was bothering him, Moss could still have run his routes at full-speed and made a reasonable effort to break up errant passes before they were intercepted. If that effort was too much or too painful to make, then he shouldn’t have been out there. You could argue that he had value as a decoy, but clearly the Panthers didn’t view him as a big threat and played him accordingly. They weren’t shifting extra help his way and double-teaming him, not when their DBs were thinking that he wasn’t trying and didn’t care. I never want to be a guy who tells athletes how much pain they can tolerate and when they should play versus sitting because of injury, but what I can say is that if you cannot bring yourself to put forth a better effort than what I saw from Moss in several games this year after the injury, either because of injury or something else, then you should not be out on the field. Your team and your fans deserve better and if you cannot give that to them, then get out of the way for someone who can…………

- I was extremely pumped to hear that Rogue Wave, an amazing indie rock band from Oakland, planned to release of its fourth album, Permalight, March 2 on Brushfire Records. I was extremely pumped….right up to the point I heard the new single, “Good Morning,” that the band put out for listening online. Now? I’m still excited, just not nearly as excited as I was before I heard what that song sounds like. Over the course of their first three albums, Rogue Wave have put forth soaring, layered indie rock with oft-ambiguous-yet-deep lyrics. What I heard on “Good Morning” is none of those things and instead is a huge step in a pretty crappy direction – dance music. “I told Pat [Spurgeon, drummer, keyboardist, vocalist] I wanted to make a total dance album,” lead singer Zach Rogue said. Yeah, that’s no good. I don’t need garbage songs featuring synthesizers, “club beats,” and dancy feel. I can get that garbage from any number of un-talented pop music hacks, artists like those tools in Maroon5. The reason bands like Rogue Wave are – or were – so great to listen to is that they didn’t succumb to lame synthesizer sounds and didn’t make sh*tty dance-pop music, which is the single most offensive and horrible music genre in existence. According to a press release put out by the band, the change in its sound has its genesis in an event from 2008, when Rogue woke up unable to move because the result of two slipped discs in his neck. He was bedridden for months and in excruciating pain, but when he was finally able to pick up a guitar and play again, Rogue decided he wanted to write music that was totally new. “When I started writing I wanted to make a record that was a little more up, a record you could move your body to because I couldn’t move for so long,” he said. I’m okay with that, making more positive music. That much is cool, but you can do that without turning into just another hack dance/pop band that leans on the crutch of synthesizers and similar garbage that shows no musical talent whatsoever. And yes, I know that the release of this album comes on the heels of several major events for the band, including the tragic death of a former bandmate, Spurgeon’s kidney search (the subject of a PBS documentary D-Tour) and fatherhood. I feel bad for them in dealing with some difficult things, but that doesn’t mean I am going to excuse them for putting out what seems to be a crap-tacular album that will tarnish any future listenings of their first three albums. The band will unveil the new material at its upcoming Noise Pop appearance on February 24 and at the Fillmore on April 30 and hopefully the album doesn’t end up being as bad as it appears it could be. I shouldn’t be saying that about a band that has always been one of my favorites, but that’s where we are…………

- Financial times are tough, but clearly not tough enough for AT&T. If the company were truly struggling to make ends meet, then I have to believe it would not be announcing that it will invest an additional $2 billion in its network in 2010 to ensure it keeps up with the growing demand from smartphones and other 3G data devices on its network. Apple’s launch of its new iPad tablet “computer” last week will definitely increase those demands and AT&T wants to be prepared, Chief Operating Officer John Stankey explained during the company’s fourth quarter 2009 conference call. All told, AT&T plans to spend between $18 billion and $19 billion in 2010 upgrading its wireless and backhaul networks to handle the influx of new traffic. A significant chunk of that cash will go to adding 2,000 new cell sites and upgrading existing cell sites with three times more fiber links than they had in 2009. These moves will increase capacity for the backhaul network that connects the cell towers to AT&T's main network and allow the company to more readily upgrade in the future to 4G wireless technology. That change is expected to begin this year as AT&T begins testing its 4G network using LTE, the same technology Verizon Wireless is using for its 4G network. The process will be a gradual one, with a few commercial deployments ready in 2011 and more commercial deployments in 2012. Any upgrades for AT&T are significant because it remains the only wireless operator in the U.S. selling the iPhone. That has been something of a two-edged sword this past year, as a litany of complaints from iPhone customers - dropped calls, slow Internet access, and poor all-around service – have been rolling in. Critics have ripped AT&T for not spending enough on network upgrades to keep up with growing demand and although Stankey (love that last name, but he sounds like he should be an NFL offensive lineman) admitted as much, he maintained that his company is "closing the gap." Closing the gap also includes adding additional radio network controllers on existing cell sites and boosting capacity at convention centers, sports stadiums and along public transportation routes. Closing the gap is also difficult when AT&T continues to add new devices and subscribers, which contributed heavily to the company’s 200 percent increase in overall usage on AT&T's network in 2009 alone. To put things in perspective, AT&T now services more than twice the number of smartphones as its competitors and activated an additional 3.1 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2009. There will be more additions in 2010, as AT&T announced at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, that it would soon offer two Palm smartphones and several Google Android handsets. Top that off with the addition of the iPad and you have a recipe for disaster unless serious upgrades are made and made like right now…………

- As you’d expect from a Lost season premiere, more questions were raised than answered. The two-hour spectacle began with Jack Shephard on Oceanic 815, talking to Rose and meeting Desmond Hume, who switched seats to Jack’s row because the man he had been sitting beside was snoring. From the plane, we zoom down to bottom of ocean below, where the entire island the show has operated on for its first five seasons seems to be on ocean floor – the Dharma barracks, the four-toed statue and everything else from the island and its jungles. From there, we cut to Kate hanging from a tree on the island (decidedly not underwater). Her speech is muffled and in the dark jungle, she seems to be alone. Once down on the ground, Kate finds Miles, who is also having trouble hearing and has ringing ears. Together, they then find Jack and Sawyer, who are laying in the weeds beside the site where the Jughead nuclear device was detonated in last season’s finale. A giant crater is there, but it looks exactly like it did after John Locke blew up the Swan station’s hatch in 2004, not like it would have after the nuclear explosion circa 1974. Everyone is still on island (except for those pesky scenes from the plane), except they are no longer stuck in 1974, as they were at the end of last season. Everyone is back in present, it would seem. That means that Sayid, who was shot in last season’s finale, is still bleeding to death beside a Dharma Initiative van as Hurley stands guard and tries to stop the bleeding. Suddenly, all-powerful island ruler Jacob appears in the jungle to talk to Hurley. Jacob explains that he is dead, having been killed in last season’s finale by Ben Linus. He admits he is dead, explains to Hurley exactly who he is (they’ve met before, remember, after Hurley got out of prison for murder he didn’t commit while back from the island) and tells Hurley to take Sayid to the temple to save him, along with the guitar case that Jacob gave him when they first met. We then cut back to Oceanic 815, where Locke is on the plane and chats with Boone, sharing the story of the walkabout he took in Australia. Then, we see Ben and Locke in the room inside the four-toed statue on the beach after killing Jacob. Locke cuts a piece of a rug out with knife, then stands up and tells Ben to go fetch Richard Alpert, who is arguing with island newcomer Ilana and her crew (they were on Ajira Airlines flight 316 that brought the Oceanic Six back to the island last season). When Ben tells Richard that John wants to speak to him, Richard throws him to the ground, putting Ben face to face with Locke’s dead body that Ilana and her crew brought with them to the beach. Back at the hatch/explosion site, Juliet’s voice calls out from the rubble and Sawyer realizes that she is still alive, buried under the rubble. Everyone quickly begins digging to get her out. Then it is back to Oceanic 815, where a flight attendant pages any doctor on the plane and Jack responds to the call. He’s told that a passenger entered the restroom half an hour ago and isn’t responding to anyone. Sayid happens by and kicks in the door to help, revealing none other than Charlie Pierce, unconscious on the toilet. Jack realizes something is blocking his airways and reaches into his mouth, pulling out a small bag of heroin to save Charlie’s life. Juliet is still alive as well in the island portion of the show, which we find out when Jin uses the Dharma van to help pull a large beam from the hole and allow Sawyer to climb inside to find her. She is still conscious and admits that she set the bomb off so Sawyer could go home. She also realizes that because they are still on the island it didn’t work. Clearly struggling for breath, Juliet confesses that she has something to tell Sawyer…..and then she dies before she can tell him. Over at the beach, Ilana’s team enters statue room with Ben. They are met by Locke, who tries to tell them to leave the island because he assumes their duty was to protect Jacob, who is now dead, thus leaving them with nothing to protect. Instead, they open fire on him. He disappears and returns as black smoke monster, kills them all, then turns back into Locke. This is a huge revelation, because clearly this is not really Locke, but an imposter. The real Locke is the body on the beach and this faux Locke is the mysterious “man in black” we saw last season in a scene from the island’s past in which Jacob and this man in black argue about the fate of the island and the man in black promises to kill Jacob as soon as he finds a “loophole” allowing him to do so. The faux Locke cryptically tells Ben, “I’m sorry you had to see me that way.” Then, it’s a jump back to Oceanic 815, where Charlie is arrested for heroin. The plane lands, he’s taken into custody and everyone else deplanes safely. Ironically, Jack and Locke are the last two off plane. To kick off the second hour, Jack is paged to a courtesy desk, where he is informed that his father, Christian Shephard’s, coffin is missing. Remember, that’s the coffin Jack went to Australia to bring back with him and now the airline has no idea where it is. This appears to be the funereal portion of the episode, because on the island, Sawyer sets out to bury Juliet while the others head off to temple to follow through on Hurley’s plan to save Sayid. At the temple, they squeeze in through a hole below the structure, one that has been used before by Locke and Ben, among others. Once inside, they make their way toward the temple’s main room but all of a sudden, they are ambushed and members of the group begin disappearing. First, Kate is gone, then Hurley and finally, it’s just Jack left by himself. He too is captured and everyone is escorted out by some Indian-looking men in turbans. In front of them is what looks like a massive Buddhist temple. They are met by an angry-looking group led by long-hair Asian dude, a George Harrison-looking dude, Lennon, and a fellow Oceanic 815 passenger named Cindy who recognizes them. Cindy has two kids, Zack and Emma, and all three were once taken by Others after landing on the island. Back in L.A., Juliet is making her way through the airport with the bounty hunter who captured her and is returning her for the reward. She talks him into allowing her to make a restroom stop, then proceeds to use a pen she nabbed on the plane to try to pick her handcuffs. When the bounty hunter wises up and demands that she come out of the bathroom stall, Kate kicks the door down, lays a beatdown on him and knocks him out. She grabs his gun, tells two horrified women who happen into the restroom that the man on the ground actually attacker her and flees. She makes her way down to baggage claim and sneaks into a restricted area to evade detection by security. Back on island, Sawyer and Miles bury Juliet and knowing that Miles is something of a ghost whisperer, Sawyer demands that he use his skills to speak to Juliet. Miles talks to her dead body, says he was able to get through to her and informs Sawyer that she says, “It worked.” Sawyer wonders what the means and ambles off into the jungle. At the temple, things go sideways fast. The Hostiles, as they are apparently being called (i.e. the neo-Others), want to break out their guns and blast Hurley, Jack, Kate, Jin and Sayid to smithereens. Hurley stops them and saves the day by explaining that Jacob sent them. Asked to prove it, he tells them to open the guitar case. Inside, they find a large wooden symbol in a ribbon shape. The angry Asian leader breaks it open, finds a paper inside and after reading its contents, he asks everyone their names. Satisfied by whatever he has read, he tells his men to take Sayid to the spring. When Hurley asks the paper says, Lennon informs him that it basically states that if Sayid dies, they are all in a lot of trouble. In Oceanic 815-land (how I’m referring to the storyline wherein Oceanic 815 didn’t crash), Sun and Jin are going through airport security, where they are detained for having too much cash in their possession. Anything over $10,000 must be declared and because Jin didn’t declare his holdings, he is taken away for detention and questioning. When another customs official asks Jin if she speaks English and can clarify the misunderstanding, she lies and says she doesn’t speak English. The breakneck back-and-forth pace continues, whipping back to the island where the Hostiles are bewildered because the water in the spring inside their temple is murky and not clear like it’s supposed to be. In spite of that, they decide to go ahead with the attempt to help Sayid. Angry Asian dude warns that there are risks in trying to help Sayid, but the rest of the group is okay with that. With the decision made, a large hourglass is unveiled and Sayid is stripped of coveralls and put into the water, where he appears to come back to life. However, the men holding him won't allow him to come up from under water until hourglass runs out and by that time he is dead. Jack, Kate, Hurley and Jin scream to let him go and that he’s being drowned, but the guards won't relent. A lifeless Sayid is carried from the pool and laid on the floor, where Jack tries to revive him. Unfortunately, he is gone and there is nothing that can be done. In Oceanic-land, Kate continues her quest to evade capture at the airport and commandeers a cab. She jumps inside and is informed by the cabbie that he already has a passenger – Claire. Undeterred and with her bounty hunter right on her heels, she draws her stolen gun on the driver (Erik Doyle of Heroes fame) and the cab speeds off. On the island, Sawyer and Miles are carried in by the Hostiles and dumped in the temple along with their friends. Then, Angry Asian leader summons Hurley to his chambers and questions him about his relationship with Jacob and how he came to their camp. The leader reveals he can speak English, but “doesn’t like how it tastes in my mouth.” When Hurley reveals that Jacob is in fact dead, everyone panics and seems to be preparing for battle. They shoot off fireworks, ready weapons and look genuinely petrified. Over at the beach, Locke and Ben are still talking in room inside the base of the four-toed statue, but again, Locke isn’t really Locke. But he does know all about Locke and proceeds to tell him what Locke was thinking before Ben killed him. He explains that what made Locke unique among the Oceanic 815 crash survivors is that he didn’t want to leave the island. The difference, faux Locke says, it that he does want to go home. Faux Locke and Ben leave the room and walk out onto the beach where faux Locke beats up Richard, says he’s disappointed in everyone, and carries Richard off into the jungle. We then cut to a scene in Oceanic-land, where Jack and Locke chat at the baggage loss center. After learning about Locke’s spinal injury, Jack gives him his business card and offers a free consult any time, being a spinal surgeon and all. The episode wraps up at the temple, where Kate tends to Sawyer, who was roughed up when captured by the Hostiles. Lennon comes in and wants to talk to Jack, but Jack tussles with the armed guards who have come to accompany him. Before their battle can conclude, a frantic Hurley calls out to Jack, who turns around just in time to see Sayid come back to life. All told, a lot to chew on and a lot of questions raised, so it should be a heck of a season…………

- There is nothing more tired and played in this or any other country than the annual tradition of yanking some poor, unsuspecting groundhog out of its hole every Feb. 2 and attempting to use the presence or absence of its shadow after surfacing to “predict” the weather for the months ahead. And yes, I’m looking right at you, Punxsutawney, Pa. I realize that every year, more people come to your dusty little outpost of a town for this “event” than come for an entire decade otherwise, but that doesn’t mean that Groundhog Day isn’t totally ridiculous and worthless. So you yank Punxsutawney Phil out of his hole, hold the oversized rodent aloft and predict six more weeks of winter if he sees his shadow and losers with nothing better to do eagerly await the outcome. Simply put, anyone who was within ten miles of Phil’s ceremonial tree stump at Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania, should either be stationed on an iceberg and floated out to sea, never to be seen again, or they should be beaten with whips and chains until every ounce of stupid has spilled out of them. The fact that this is the 99th time that Phil has seen his shadow means absolutely nothing to me, nor does it mean a damn thing to anyone with a life and/or an IQ above 41. The first people placed on those icebergs and floated out to sea are members of the groundhog club in Punxsutawney, which is located about 75 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, in western Pennsylvania. These fools are responsible for perpetuating a circus that has now taken place 114 times. I have a simple message for each and every one of these fools: No damn rodent has any freaking idea what the weather will be like for an month, week, day or hour. Standing in the cold to see this debacle doesn’t make you cool, quirky or fun; it makes you a tool and a brain-dead ass clown. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Phil has "no predictive skill." Thanks for that groundbreaking news, USNOAA. But I don’t think either you or I are going to convince these fools to wise up, get a life and stop wasting even one second of their life on this crap. And no, Groundhog Day dorks, I don’t care that the tradition behind the day goes back to medieval times when there was a superstition that all hibernating animals emerged from their caves and dens to check the weather on Candlemas, which is halfway between the winter solstice in December and the vernal equinox in March. What I would like to do is send all of you back to medieval times so you could all face the guillotine for crimes of stupidity against the world…………

Police under pressure in Portland, a Greek recap and the dream of the U.S.A. version 2.0 ends

- Under pressure, police officers are counted on to make the right decision with little time and much on the line. An unidentified police officer in Portland, Ore. showed that she may not have what it takes in the clutch when faced with a man who set himself on fire Wednesday outside the Nicholas Ungar Furs store in Portland. Daniel Shaull of Kansas poured gasoline on himself and then set himself on fire outside the Nicholas Ungar Furs store at Southeast 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street and began screaming: “There are animals dying! Animals dying!” Shaull’s father said that his son was not an animal-rights activist but did have a history of mental illness, so clearly this is a tragic situation, as Shaull was rushed to nearby Legacy Emanuel Hospital, where he later died from the damage inflicted by the fire. I can't say for sure whether the end result would have been different if the first officer on the scene hadn’t parked her patrol car, went to her trunk and accidentally grabbed pepper spray used for riot control instead of the fire extinguisher and hit Shaull with a pepper-spray blast. Apparently the canister of pepper spray the officer used is red like many fire extinguishers, but that must be a pretty freaking big container of pepper spray to be confused for a fire extinguisher. But even if the riot-gear-sized spray police typically use is very similar in size, appearance and color to the fire extinguishers they carry, this is one of those moments where you had better be damn sure. The pepper spraying came after a motorist who had been driving by grabbed an actual fire extinguisher to help Shaull, but he kept running away. “They (officer and motorist) attempted to get the young man to roll on the ground to put out the flames,” Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer said. “He kept running away and was uncooperative. Eventually, additional cover units arrived, and they were able to get him on the ground and extinguish the flames.”
Police officials say that the pepper spray used was water based and was not an accelerant, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t make the situation worse. Shaull could have easily gotten some of the spray in his eyes or mouth and reacted to it, no question. In spite of that, officials insist there are no plans to discipline the officer. The Portland Police Department will review where materials are placed in the trunk and how they are marked to prevent a similar mistake, but something tells me that this isn’t the last time we will hear about a story like this……………

- Geeks were the center of last night’s Greek. After winning the Gary Wyatt engineering grant, Rusty found himself the object of adoration for every girl in the engineering program and the attention caught him a little off guard. One girl in particular, Dana, made a big deal over him and admitted she’d had a crush on him since freshman orientation. Rusty doesn’t remember Dana and barely gives her the time of day, but having someone single him out and fawn over him goes to his head almost immediately. He sits down in the marketing class he has next and tries to brag about his engineering grant to a hot blonde sitting next to him, but she blows him off and switches seats. Instead, Rusty ends up sitting next to Ashleigh, his big sister Casey’s BFF. They commiserate over their romantic troubles and Rusty offers to help fix her virus-plagued laptop. The class ends up being a joke because the professor is so obsessed with being cool that she makes the class super easy and gives out all A’s. But the day turns out to be an idea-starter when Rusty and pal Dale fix the laptop and return it to Ashleigh. She is thankful and combines that with the ongoing problem Zeta Beta is facing after accidentally burning down the Gamma Psi house in last season’s finale. The idea of doing a philanthropic event to benefit GP and assuage ZBZ’s guilt in the process comes up and instead of a bachelor auction of frat guys, Ashleigh comes up with the idea of a nerd auction. She figures it could also help Rusty get a date with Erica Miller, the hot blonde who blew him off in class. The nerd auction is on, but ZBZ’s problems persist. Casey is feeling increasingly guilty about the fire and keeping it from GP member and Pan-Hellenic president Katherine, who is investigating the fire. With her guilt weighing on her, Casey turns to Evan Chambers for advice because he is well-versed in doing douche-baggish things and living with the guilt. He advises her to hang in and keep quiet, but she can’t cope with the guilt. Instead, she goes to see GP president Natalie and confesses that she was the one who accidentally started the fire. Instead of being understanding, Natalie decides to blackmail Casey and demand that the ZBZ’s give the GP’s their house for the next year while the Gamma Psi house is being rebuilt. The warring sororities have nothing on the battle between Evan’s Omega Chi fraternity and Kappa Tau, which are still at each other’s throats after last season’s prank-gone-bad that led to the expulsion of three KT’s. The battle spills over into a meeting of the super-secret Amphora Society that both Evan and KT president Cappie are members of. When Evan makes a comment that sparks Cappie’s anger over the expulsions, the two tussle and Cappie shoves Evan, knocking him into a jug of sacred Amphora wine and spilling it all over the place. The tension between the two of them and the spilling of the jug irk their fellow Amphora members and the next time Cappie and Evan show up to their secret lair for a meeting, everything is gone and the Amphoras have apparently decided to kick them both out and move to a new location. Cappie’s problems with Evan even extend to Evan’s current girl of choice, Rebecca Logan. Both Cappie and Rebecca are vying for a spot in the hard-to-get-into human sexuality class and as they tussle for what ends up being the only open spot in the class, the topic of Evan comes up. Cappie urges Rebecca to stay away from him, but that only pushes Rebecca to pursue Evan more. They go out on a date and Cappie clearly hates seeing someone he considers to be a friend get mixed up with a guy who he believes will eventually hurt her. In the end, after trying to flirt and charm their way into the class, both of them get in and Casey has to deal with having her boyfriend in a human sexuality class with a sorority sister she doesn’t exactly trust. Evan does prove to be not all bad when he provides even more help to Casey in her problem with the Gamma Psi house fire. He suggests that she dig deeper into the Song Fest judging irregularities that the ZBZ’s broke into the GP house to investigate in the first place. Casey finds and talks to Ryan, the Song Fest judge who rigged his votes to make sure Gamma Psi won, and tricks him into admitting that he slept with Natalie in exchange for rigging the vote. Armed with this information and Evan’s advice, Casey turns Natalie’s blackmail around on her. In a sit-down with Katherine and Natalie in the common room of the dorm where Natalie is stuck because of thw GP house fire, Casey lays out all the facts and points out the possible ramipercussions for both sororities if the Song Fest scandal and truths behind the house fire story became public. Natalie agrees to call things even and that’s the end of the saga. It is also the end of Casey’s short-lived tenure as Pan-Hellenic’s vice president of judicial affairs, which didn’t even last the entire episode. She was asked by Katherine to investigate the fire, which only heightened tensions at the ZBZ house. After the common-room meeting, Casey resigns her new post. The results of the nerd auction are equally disappointing for little brother Rusty, who invites Erica Miller, has her show up and win the bidding for him and then finds out that she only wants a “date” with him so he can fix her and her sorority sisters’ computers. In the process, Rusty is once again rude to Dana, forgetting her name and offending her for a second time. Making matters worse, Ashleigh gets badly rattled before the auction because her ex, Fisher, shows up with his new girlfriend and the two have a showdown before he leaves Dobler’s. That results in Ashleigh rambling on during the auction about how Rusty is just like every other guy in the world and will probably cheat on and disappoint whatever girl bids on him. The only person who benefits from the auction is Dale, who a) strikes a deal with Ashleigh for five percent of the profits from the auction and b) gets bid on by a dorky engineering girl with whom he has a fun date. The day after the auction, a bummed-out Rusty regrets his lame “date” with Erica and tries to ask out Dana, who goes off on him for being a jerk to her before and shoots him down. At episode’s end, Rusty is still single, although there were more than a few hints dropped that he and Ashleigh could be on the way towards getting together, methinks. A pretty fun episode for the most part and the show is off to a great start to the new season…………

- Not being a mixed-martial arts fan, I don’t pay much attention to UFC, Strikeforce and any other MMA organization that is out there. These guys can climb inside the octagon, beat the living crap out of each other and attempt to make one another tap out any day they want, but the brutality just does not interest me. There is the rare exception, such as Strikeforce: Miami Saturday night, when a) New York Jets coach and noted FAT guy Rex Ryan showed up, conducted a ringside interview and informed Miami Dolphins fans that his team will be looking to beat them twice next season, then flipped them the bird and b) 47-year-old former NFL star Herschel Walker made his MMA debut and won, defeating some stiff named Greg Nagy. Walker, sporting his trademark chiseled physique, went two-and-a-half rounds with Nagy, ultimately winning in the third round when referee Troy Waugh called the fight after a barrage of punches to Nagy’s head. What has always amazed me about Walker is how dude is absolutely ripped despite not lifting weights (seriously, he claims to do all his workouts using only his own body weight, lots of varieties of push-ups, sit-ups, etc.) and being a decade past his football career clearly has not changed that. Afterward, Walker seemed happy with his performance but also humble. “The experience was exciting. This is the hardest thing I've ever done,” he stated before stopping to praise his trainers. “They're the ones that got me here. We sparred three days a week to get me ready.” This is just the latest in an eclectic post-football journey for Walker, who also tried out for the U.S. Olympic bobsled team, made an appearance on Celebrity Apprentice and fought a tough battle with multiple personality disorder. He is also fairly accomplished as a businessman, but he seems to have found a new direction to channel his energies and hopefully he doesn’t get his face broken in the process……………

- Farewell to the concept of the United States of Africa. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the man pushing that dream, has been kicked to the curb as president by the African Union. The AU has elected a new president, rejecting Gadhafi’s bid to remain president of the organization for another year. Instead, the leaders from 53 African countries that comprise the AU selected Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika as the organization's new leader during an annual summit Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Gadhafi, who ose to power in Libya after a coup in 1969 and has become one of the world's longest-serving leaders/despots, had long campaigned to integrate the continent into a United States of Africa, which could definitely have resulted in a cool new flag, some bitchin’ merch sales and a whole lot of chaos – in other words, a win-win. Unfortunately, that dream will likely die with Gadhafi’s presidency of the organization, even though the African Union allegedly seeks to boost cooperation and solidarity on the continent. The summit also featured an appearance by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who spoke to the group and addressed peace-related issues, saying African leaders and the United Nations have a responsibility to war-ravaged countries such as Sudan. His speech was somewhat self-serving, as he urged the leaders to support various U.N. efforts, including increasing its presence in Sudan as balloting nears for national elections are in April. On top of that, Sudan’s southerners will vote in January 2011 on whether to become an independent nation. "In Sudan, time is of the essence," Ban said. "The elections are three months away. The two referenda to determine the future shape of Sudan are in just under a year." This is clearly a pivotal time not just for Sudan, but for the continent as a whole and I for one am sad to see the possibility of the U.S.A. – Version 2.0 go by the wayside……………

- Warning: This next story is extremely depressing in nature. I have the misfortune of sharing with you the news that the world's most sophisticated talking female sex robot is officially on the market. Standing 5 feet 7 and weighing in at 120 pounds, Roxxy the sex robot will talk with losers about their interests, have fake robot sex at any time and “she” only costs $7,000 plus any remaining shreds of personal dignity you may have. "She doesn't vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else," said her inventor, Douglas Hines. Hines unveiled his unfortunate creation last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, or as I call it, the event where your humanity goes to die. This doll is clearly for losers for whom phone sex lines and Playboy have lost their luster. Roxxy is powered by a computer under “her” soft silicone "skin" and “she” uses voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. Heck, pathetic freaks who throw down seven grand for this pile of computerized crap will receive a fake companion armed with five distinct "personalities," from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit their own freaky predilections. "There's a tremendous need for this kind of product," said Hines. No there isn’t, dork. Just because some losers can’t find an actual woman willing to have consensual sex with them doesn’t mean they need Roxxy. If you can’t find a woman willing to have sex with you of her own free will, that’s what hookers are for. Ordering a sex robot and paying a couple months’ salary (or more in this economy) for it is not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, it’s plowing right through that bottom, digging into the earth below and not stopping until you’re several miles down. What’s sad is that even though Roxxxy won't be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site and thousands of losers have signed up. "They're like, 'I can't wait to meet her,' " Hines said. "It's almost like the anticipation of a first date." Wow……just wow. I feel legitimately ashamed to be a member of the human race at this point, although my shame is mitigated by the fact that the freaks who are pre-ordering this sex robot may in fact not be actual humans, not by my definition anyhow. But don’t feel like I’m singling you out for ridicule, fellas; women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. What a (sad, disturbing) scene it must have been when conventioneers flocked to Hines' AEE booth last month in Las Vegas, asking questions and interacting with a Roxxy prototype. What makes this story even more disturbing is that Hines calls himself a happily married man from Lincoln Park, New Jersey. I’m not into suggesting that people get a divorce or anything, but Hines’ wife may want to consider it. How a lady can be cool with her husband spending what has to have been an inordinate number of hours working on a sex robot instead of having actual sex with her……umm, never mind. Let’s just keep moving because this is going to a very dark and uncomfortable place. The design for Roxxy consists of a s body is made from hypoallergenic silicone -- the kind of material in prosthetic limbs -- molded over a rigid skeleton. The robot can’t on its own but can be manipulated into most any position. The entire device is powered by a self-contained battery that lasts about three hours on one charge. There are more details, but I am too depressed by this point and so we will just wrap this up with me asking once again to stop the world from spinning because I would like to get off of this ride…………

Soda with a side of Stalin, a Heroes recap and why the Grammys are still a joke

- Who is in the mood for some bitchin’ carbonated drinks whose containers are festooned with the likeness of none other than my good friend Joe Stalin? Sure, having the visage of a brutal dictator who presided over the Great Purge in Russia, leading to the execution or work-camp imprisonment of anyone who offended or opposed him in any way and is considered one of the worst despots of all-time, but when you can slam his face on your lemon-flavored soda and make a few bucks off of it, why not? Besides, with the better part of a century having passed since Stalin’s brutal reign of terror, there are some within the Communist nation that are beginning to look back on his tenure favorably. Positive references to his time have re-emerged in Moscow’s subway and Prime Minister/former dictator Vladimir Putin endorsed a textbook calling him an “efficient leader.” Oh, and Stalin finished third in a recent TV poll for the greatest Russian even though he was actually from Georgia (the country, not the state). Enter the Pivovar drinks company into the fray, with the carbonated drinks manufacturer slapping Stalin’s mustachioed mug onto a limited-edition lemon-flavored soda next month to mark the 67th anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad has since been re-named Volgograd, but that is of little consequence for Pivovar, which wants to honor three World War II commanders, including Stalin, on the anniversary the battle that lasted almost seven months and claimed some two million lives. Russia won the battle and Pivovar feels that there is no problem with honoring one of the commanders who made it happen, irrespective of what he did in his non-military career. "I don't think there's anything bad here. All three military commanders were significant historical figures and each of their names is closely tied with Volgograd," Pivovar head Boris Izgarshev proclaimed. "I think there will be demand for this soft drink.” If there are Russians out there who think like Vlad Putin, Izgarshev may be correct. “We won the Great Patriotic War [World War II],” Putin explained. “Even if we go back to the question of casualties, you know, nobody can today throw stones at those who organized and led us to victory.” True in some sense, but when that same person in responsible for the murder – nay, extermination – of millions of his own people, then I think it is a-ok to hold that person in low esteem and not take their battlefield actions in a vacuum. Stalin and his ‘stache should probably not be adorning any products in Russia or elsewhere. That being said, if I can get my hands on a can of Pivovar’s lemon-flavored Stalin soda, count me in…………

- I know I’ve beaten this drum ad nausem and I know that many shows, not just Heroes, have a tendency to narrow their focus and bring everything together as a season comes to an end. Having said that, Heroes has a huge, huge problem with excluding key characters for long stretches of seasons and tonight’s episode was as bad in that category as any episode of the show’s four seasons. The entire episode was wrapped up in two very compact locations and featured a bare minimum of characters. There was no Mohinder Suresh, no Hiro, no Ando, no Matt Parkman and no Angela Petrelli. The first setting was the inside of Sylar’s mind, where Parkman trapped him alone at the end of last week’s episode to punish the über-villain and also to protect the world from him. Sylar had asked Parkman to take away his abilities and instead, Parkman trapped him alone inside his own mind, forcing him to live out his worst fear – being alone for all of eternity. That plan went by the wayside when Peter Petrelli showed up at Parkman’s door, found the walled-in chamber in the basement Parkman had entombed Sylar in, absorbed Parkman’s power and went to work releasing his own worst enemy from his mental prison so Sylar could help Peter’s friend Emma from impending disaster Peter saw in a prophetic dream. Inside Sylar’s mind, he resides I Am Legend-style, in a huge city (downtown L.A.) all by himself. He takes up his old habit of fixing watches to occupy the time, but the sound of Peter running around the city, making noise and trying to make contact, draws Sylar out onto the street. The two men finally meet but Sylar initially refuses to believe that Peter is really there. His sense of time is also distorted, as he believes he’s been here for three years when it’s actually three hours. As time passes, the two men form an uneasy bond and Sylar repeatedly apologizes for murdering Peter’s brother Nathan and insists that he’s a changed man who will never hurt anyone again. Peter isn’t sold, holding onto his anger but also continually working in a way to extricate the two of them from their urban prison and back to the real world. That challenge becomes tougher when a ginormous brick wall, 20 feet high or more, goes up all around the city, a wall Peter immediately recognizes as the one that Parkman erected in his basement to keep Sylar entombed. Peter and Sylar spend day after day (in the time scale of their bizarro world, anyhow) swinging sledgehammers at the wall, trying to break it down. But the blows from their hammers don’t even dent the wall and they begin to worry that they are trapped permanently. The defining moment comes one night as Peter wails away at the wall and Sylar stops by. Another apology for his brother’s murder pushes Peter over the edge and he admits that he’s held onto his anger about the murder because he feels like if he lets it go, he’ll lose touch with his brother. However, he also admits that he knows Sylar does regret the murder and has changed. After this revelation, he swings the sledgehammer again and this time, the wall cracks. Sylar picks up the other sledgehammer and together, they punch a hole in the wall and light comes shining through – they’re free. Freedom is not the order of the day for Claire and Noah Bennet. They are now prisoners at Sullivan Bros. carnival after Samuel Sullivan framed H.R.G. for the shooting at the carnival that killed Lydia and wounded many of the other “specials” at the carnival – a shooting actually arranged by Samuel and carried out by his right-hand man Eli. Claire is held captive inside Samuel’s trailer but when she refuses to calm down and stop causing a commotion, Samuel takes her to the carnival’s hall of mirrors where super-powered carney Damien has the power to go inside people’s heads and broadcast their memories on the hall’s mirrored surfaces. Samuel forces Claire to watch memories from H.R.G.’s past that show him from 25 years ago, when he had a wife who was killed by a “special” with telepathic powers. That murder of his pregnant wife Kate led H.R.G. to begin hunting specials. He killed one after approaching the man for information and getting attacked, which led to a visit from Thompson, the mysterious man we saw often in the first two seasons of the show as H.R.G.’s boss at the original incarnation of the Company. Thompson recruited H.R.G. into the company, but when his anger issues led to too many deaths in attempting to “bag and tag” specials, Thompson laid down the law: H.R.G. had to get married and start a family to settle him down and reduce fatalities. Thompson even picked out H.R.G.’s wife – Sandra, who we know well from previous seasons. She was the waitress at the diner where H.R.G. and Thompson were eating, so it felt very much like an arranged marriage and not one of love, which is exactly how Claire saw it. She races from the hall in anger, but when Samuel approaches her on the carnival’s midway, believing that his display has won her over to his side and turned her against her adopted father, he has an unwelcome surprise waiting. Claire is angry at H.R.G., but informs Samuel that she will never turn against her dad to join Samuel’s merry band of miscreants. He urges her to change her mind and says that he and his family are on their way to Central Park in New York to finally reveal themselves to the world. She only wants to leave and Samuel points her in the direction of the souvenir trailer, where H.R.G. is tied up. Once Claire is inside, Samuel uses his power to create a giant sinkhole that consumes the trailer and buries father and daughter some 50 feet below the ground, inside the trailer. There they remain as Samuel’s crew packs up and heads for New York. It was an equally bad day for H.R.G.’s partner/lady friend Lauren, who snuck into the carnival to get medical supplies to treat the gunshot wound she suffered last episode courtesy of Eli. When Emma finds her in the medical tent and helps tend to her wound, Lauren tries to convince her that Samuel is a bad guy who is dangerous and only out for himself. Samuel happens into the tent moments later, Emma spills the beans about her visitor and Samuel excuses her so he can talk to Lauren alone. Their talk turns to the video from the Coyote Sands facility some 40 years ago, the one in which Samuel is born and Mohinder’s father realizes that the baby is an extremely dangerous individual with potentially deadly powers. Seeing the fear in Lauren’s eyes at they talk and her response when he asks if he truly does have the power to change the world that he believes the video revealed, Samuel is energized and galvanized to carry out his plan. As the episode ends, he directs Eli to stay behind as the rest of the family heads out so that he can “tie up loose” ends, i.e. people that Lydia revealed before her death that wanted to stop Samuel’s plan. Those people turn out to be Peter and Sylar, who are confronted by Eli – all of him, as he multiplies himself – as they try to leave Parkman’s basement. He’s there to stop them, but will they be able to escape and get to New York? Tune in next week for what will hopefully be a great season finale and manage to salvage some of what has been a thoroughly disappointing season for what used to be a great show…………

- The mini-uproar over Phil Mickelson’s club selection at the Farmer’s Insurance Open in San Diego as the PGA Tour opened the 2010 can be viewed in one of two lights. Either you can see golfer Scott McCarron accusing Mickelson of cheating by using a Ping-Eye 2 wedge that was made 20 years ago and has square grooves to work around new USGA rules on club architecture as a bad thing because cheating in any sport is a negative, or you can say that at least people are talking about golf and the topic isn’t the world-class infidelities of Tiger Woods and his ongoing absence from golf. "It's cheating, and I'm appalled Phil has put it in play," McCarron said of Mickelson using the vintage clubs. Phil is actually one of four players currently using the throwback clubs to get around the new club rules, which ban square grooves on the faces of clubs because they provide more spin and control and thus allow players to hit better, more accurate shots with less skill on their part. The square-groove Ping wedges remain legal, however, because of a loophole provided by lawsuit that Ping filed against the USGA that was settled in 1990. The resulting settlement stipulates that any Ping-Eye 2 made before April 1, 1990, remains approved because it takes precedence over any rule change. So by the letter of the law, Mickelson and any other golfer using the old-school Ping wedges is not doing anything wrong. McCarron and anyone in his school of thought would counter that while that is technically true, such actions violate the spirit of the law. Accusing someone of cheating is especially bad in golf, which is considered a gentleman’s sport where players call penalties on themselves and operate on a code of honor. Mickelson refused to be drawn into a battle of words with McCarron, but did speak on the rule itself. “It's a terrible rule. To change something that has this kind of loophole is nuts," Mickelson said. "But it's not up to me or any other player to interpret what the rule is or the spirit of the rule. I understand black and white. And I think that myself or any other player is allowed to play those clubs because they're approved -- end of story.” To be fair to McCarron, he did clarify that he is not singling out Mickelson and has the same harsh feelings about anyone who uses the pre-1990 wedges. "That anybody using that wedge is cheating? I still feel strongly about it," McCarron said. "Anyone using that wedge, I feel, is behind the rules, even though we have a rule that because of a lawsuit says it's OK.” You can bet that McCarron will be using his recent appointment to the 16-member Players Advisory Council that deals with competition issues as a platform to press this issue. The issue actually should have come up two weeks ago, when both John Daly and Dean Wilson used the Ping wedge at the Sony Open. This basically boils down to the perpetual battle between advances in technology and the competitive spirit of the game and how to strike a happy balance. I suppose it is ironic that players can find a loophole in the rules by hopping into a time machine and going back 20 years to use old-school equipment, but at least people are talking about golf and it has nothing to do with Tiger Woods and his harem of hookers, cocktail waitresses and Denny’s hostesses………..

- In case you missed it (and hopefully you did), the Grammys were last night. I didn’t witness them myself, but enough credible media outlets are reporting that they occurred for me to believe it’s so. How could a guy who loves music so much skip an event that many would argue is the highlight of the year for the recording industry? Because that sh*t ain’t music, to be blunt. The Grammys are the ultimate symbol of what a farce popular, mainstream music is and they are the height of the incestuous, self-congratulatory, out-of-touch world that music has become. The same damn artists who are already in the club are merely recycled through the circuit based on who has released an album recently and the bands that truly put out great albums never get a sniff of these awards shows because they are not mainstream enough. Sure, Kings of Leon won Album of the Year and they are actually a solid band, but sort of occurrence is so rare as to be irrelevant in this discussion. The insidious nature of the Grammys is perhaps best illustrated as they relate to Silversun Pickups, an amazing indie rock back that was nominated in the Best New Artist category, which is fine because their album Swoon was amazing and unquestionably one of the best albums of the year……or it would be fine if Silversun Pickups was actually a new artist. The problem is that Silversun Pickups released an equally amazing album, Carnavas, in 2006. That album was well-received as well by those who actually bothered to venture out of the crap-tacular world of mainstream pop and if the Recording Industry Association of America bothered to remove its collective head from its ass, it may have known as much. Instead, they nominate a great band for an award it should not even be considered for and nothing else. The bottom line is that of the 20 best albums released last year, I would say 19 of them weren’t nominated for a single Grammy and the show’s producers never considered any of them for a live performance at the event either. Anyone who watched the Grammys with anything other than complete and total irony and believes that what they witnessed was anything close to the best of what music has to offer is a delusional fool, nothing less……………

- How freaking magnanimous of you, U.S. Attorney's office in Vermont. After crashing the party of several members of the Burlington chapter of the Lambda Iota fraternity’s party by raiding their coke den and shutting it down, you oh, so generously allowed the non-arrested Lambda Iota’s to keep their house. Word is that authorities wanted to seize home base because members of the fraternity were convicted of drug charges. The brothers who managed to escape criminal charges went to work on a way to save their home and a deal was announced Thursday that will allow them to do just that. The feds filed a complaint in October 2007 in which they sought to seize the 440 Pearl St. frat house because undergraduate fraternity members and others allegedly used the house as a home base to sell coke and the fraternity’s leaders knew of the illegal activities and did nothing to stop it. To that, I would ask simply: Where is your proof? Unless you have something concrete and more substantial than speculation and conjecture, that’s not going to fly. Stick with persecuting the two fraternity members and a third individual who have now been convicted on federal drug charges and leave everyone else alone. It’s bad enough that you had to ruin the coke party and disrupt the flow of the Colombian nose candy to campus, don’t make it worse. The government should be ashamed to itself, forcing the Burlington chapter of Lambda Iota to pay $50,000 to the government itself, as well as $5,000 in donations to seven charitable organizations in Chittenden County. Quit extorting money from these dudes just so they can keep their house. On top of that, the fraternity must allow those groups, along with other community and law enforcement organizations, to use their house for as a meeting site and install a plaque inside the house documenting the fact that the property was used by drug dealers. Oh, and fraternity brothers could also be forced to pay up to $175,000 if further drug activity occurs. "Today's closure of this matter represents just the latest opportunity to reinforce a message that has been looking for a solid foothold in our country for many years, that drugs destroy lives," said Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling. Whatever you say, jerk. Just know that you and your government cronies went waaaaaay overboard on this one and somewhere down the line, karma is going to catch up to you…………