Recycling stale ideas for movies, a disturbing trend for Big Ben and Riot Watch! in Colombia

- Who says Hollywood doesn’t have any fresh, original ideas these days? Oh right, that would be everyone and it would be because it’s freaking true to the core. If you’re not recycling someone’s stale old idea for a “new” movie or TV show, then you don’t belong in the business right now. The latest example of that comes from executive producer Lloyd Schwartz and former Arrested Development and My Name is Earl writer Brad Copeland, who will team up for a film adaptation of Gilligan's Island. For those who aren’t old or fans of vintage television, the show was a ridiculous series with a goofy premise that featured Gilligan, the skipper, a girl-next-door, a professor, a movie star and an wealthy couple who went out for a three-hour boat tour and ended up stranded on a deserted island where they could build housing, radios out of coconuts and all sorts of other devices but couldn’t manage to patch up a damn hole in their boat. The show featured Bob Denver filled the title role of the dimwitted crewman and Gilligan's Island ran on CBS from 1964 to '67. Still, its popularity went up significantly once it went into syndication. Then, people could enjoy it with retroactive irony and revel in how truly ridiculous and implausible the entire show was. Now, everyone can enjoy the recycling of another used and worn-out idea and pay $10 for the privilege of seeing that recycled crap on the big screen. I suppose that the one advantage the movie version of Gilligan’s Island will have – it’s only a single two-hour romp of ridiculousness and not a series of one-hour mini-romps of ridiculousness spread over four years. Oh, and the movie version will also have help from co-executive producer Sherwood Schwartz, who created the television series that started this all and will team up with son Lloyd to produce. That being said, this is one movie I am not looking forward to seeing for any reason………

- I’m picking up on a disturbing trend involving Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. And no, it’s not a trend of panicking under the heat of an intense corner blitz or an inability to hit one of his receivers in stride on a deep “go” route in the fourth quarter of a close game. The trend I’m zoning in on is of women accusing Big Ben of sexual assault, something that has now happened for a second time. After Roethlisberger spent a night bar-hopping in the central Georgia college town of Milledgeville, a college student told police he sexually assaulted her in a nightclub. You might recall that a civil lawsuit was brought against Roethlisberger last year by a former emplyee at Harrah’s Resort and Casino in Lake Tahoe who claimed that she was raped by Roethlisberger and that her superiors pressued her to keep quiet. No criminal charges were ever filed in that case, but now that another woman has come forward to accuse him of such a crime, it does make you think twice. The first lawsuit is still pending, but the latest accusation came early Friday in downtown Milledgeville, about 85 miles southeast of Atlanta. Roethlisberger was in Milledgeville because it’s just 30 miles south of the home he owns in Lake Oconee. Roethlisberger and several friends went to Buffington's bar earlier Thursday night to watch the University of Pittsburgh men's college basketball game and witness Paul Kurcikevicus said the group was friendly at first. Kurcikevicus even claimed that Roethlisberger bought shots for him and some other people in the bar -- "O-Bombs," a mixture of energy drink and flavored rum. The group later moved on to the nearby The Brick restaurant where Roethlisberger reportedly signed autographs and posed for pictures. From there, it was on to Capital City, a popular nightclub for students at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville. Sadly, it was country music night at the bar and that alone would be enough to ruin anyone’s evening. But somehow, Roethlisberger muscled up and overcame the menace of country music, paying the $20 cover charge. Witnesses said he was led to a VIP area in the back of the club and a few women were let into the area as well. From there, what happened depends on whose story you believe. Deputy Police Chief Richard Malone said Roethlisberger had been with three other people who were mingling with another group that included the alleged victim. The woman and her friends spoke to a nearby police officer following the alleged assault. "He's been identified as being at the scene and there are allegations naming him as the perpetrator," Malone said. The nature of the assault was not described, but Malone did say it was being termed a sexual assault, not a rape. That’s good news in one sense because rape is about the most heinous non-murder crime one can commit and at least things didn’t progress that far in the alleged crime. The regional Georgia Bureau of Investigation in Milledgeville and Milledgeville police are still investigating the case and will continue to do so into next week. The GBI has not spoken with Roethlisberger or any of the men who were with him on the night in question, but plan to do so soon. Their findings will be turned over to the Baldwin County district attorney, who will decide whether or not to file any charges. For his part, Roethlisberger denies the alleged assault and says he is innocent. I don’t know who’s telling the truth here, but I do know that this needs to be the last time a woman accuses Roethlisberger of this kind of crap because if the pattern continues, it’s going to become a stigma he won’t be able to shake………..

- Ah, the good ol’ days of the "summer of the shark"? Back in the summer of 2001, one shark attack after another occurred and the news media covered the rash of attacks ad nauseum after an 8-year-old boy lost his arm in a shark attack off Pensacola, Florida. But in the years after that summer of excitement, the number of shark attacks in the United States mostly declined, going from 53 in the 2000 to 28 last year. There was an exception in 2007, when the number of attacks surged to 50, but the overall indication is that shark attacks are on the way down. "We may have a bit of a trend, but only time will tell," said George Burgess with the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File, which released the data showing the overall decline in attacks. Burgess also has an interesting theory about the decline: our faltering economy. In his opinion, a piss-poor economy means less tourism, which means fewer people in the water. "I am not doing a economic analysis, I'm just saying there could be a correlation," Burgess said. Okay, how about you keep your crack un-economic economic analysis to yourself and leave that stuff to the pros? Fact is, surf shops all around the state of Florida are seeing a decline in business an undoubtedly that is due in part to the terrible state of the economy. However, the most common victims of shark bites are surfers and people hitting the beach to surf in Florida tend to be locals and not tourists, so that doesn’t fit with Burgess’ ill-advised theory. Even with the steady decline in shark attacks, central Florida's east coast, is still considered the shark bite capital of the world. A 200-yard stretch of New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County remains a hotspot for attacks because the area draws both sharks and surfers because of the constant waves. On a positive note, the data in this report showed a 50 percent drop in shark attacks in Volusia County last year. "New Smyrna, where most of the bites happen, I think we had eight last year and the year before that, 24," said Capt. Scott Petersohn with the Volusia County Beach Patrol. In other words, don’t expect another “summer of the shark” any time soon………..

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It’s time for a trip to Bogotá, Colombia, where a four-day transit strike that created a traffic nightmare in the Colombian capital and funneled hundreds of protestors out into the streets has created enough chaos to accomplish its purpose and summarily come to an end. The strike was resolved Thursday after making life miserable for some 8 million passengers. Sadly, the strike ended once transportation workers reached an agreement with the city government. As much as I love the good people of Bogotá having their public transportation to help them get where they need to go, I love riots, protests and strikes more. Owners of small- and medium-sized bus companies were protesting because they said a new integrated transportation plan would have driven them out of business. That plan would be the scheme of Bogota's mayor to implement a new transport system, a system that would reduce from 66 to 13 the number of companies that perform public transport duties in the city. As part of the plan, the city attempted to lure drivers to work for the new transport system was not generous enough. Seeing a chance to bilk some more money out of The Man, the workers went on strike. They claimed that they would not receive a big enough cut of the new operation. In response, the city offered to buy some buses from smaller companies to add to the new fleet. Those offers were too small, the strikers said. Apparently the two sides were able to hammer out an agreement that both of them could live with and now the strike is over, meaning no more scenes of angry protestors clashing with police and people hoisting anti-government signs and taking it to the streets. In other words, a sad return to life as normal……….

- Right about this time in every television season, verdicts come in for shows in terms of being back for the next season or not. It’s an especially tense time for new shows, as being canceled after a single season is both embarrassing and stigmatizing for all involved. Other networks aren’t exactly rushing to give chances to actors, writers and producers whose previous attempts at TV series weren’t good enough to merit more than a one-year run. One show that falls squarely into that category is ABC's sci-fi drama "FlashForward," which returns with new episodes on March 18 but will need those episodes to do extremely well to avoid cancellation. From its debut in the fall, the show lost 43 percent of its viewers, narrowly edging out fellow ABC sci-fi’er "V" (35 percent decline over four airings) for the mantle of show that viewers lost interest in most quickly. Making matters worse for "FlashForward" is the fact that co-creator/executive producer David Goyer is leaving the show to focus on his film career, meaning it is now on its freaking third EP in under a year. With these two potent examples in mind, none of the four major over-air networks have a sci-fi show in development for the 2010-11 season. The only place sci-fi shows seem to work, at least in the case of "FlashForward," is internationally. Strong international numbers could convince the network to pick up the series for another season, but the network could hold off on a decision until right before its upfront presentation in New York this May. Some ABC series, including "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice" and "Brothers and Sisters," will definitely be back. Others, including "Better Off Ted," "The Deep End," "Scrubs" and "The Forgotten," are very, very long shots to come back for another season. As always, expect a litany of crap-tacular, unoriginal and uninspired replacement shows in place of any that are canceled. That, by the way, is a phenomenon that is not exclusive to ABC; every network’s offering of new shows is invariably terrible and that’s just an indictment of the industry as a whole and not of any one network on its own……….

The fate of "Smallville" decided, a town willing to whore itself out for free stuff and reasons you should watch women's college basketball

- The fate of Smallville is especially interesting to me because at this point, it is the one and only show on the CW network that doesn’t absolutely and totally suck. In the four or so years since emerging as the bastard offspring of the marriage of the WB and UPN networks, the CW has jettisoned its good shows one by one in favor of shallow, crap-tacular offerings that all center on the same theme: rich, beautiful people living in either New York or southern California, going to posh parties, hooking up with one another and looking to climb the social ladder. Literally, this network of fools has churned out more series based on this theme than I ever thought possible. Through it all, Smallville has managed to stave off the ax of CW head idiot Dawn Ostroff and amazingly, the story of Clark Kent’s humble beginnings in rural Kansas has been renewed for a 10th season. The CW announced the decision Thursday, making Smallville one of the last CW series to be renewed for next season. Although the network will only confirm that lead man Tom Welling is set to return next season, Erica Durance has already said that her contract runs through Season 10, Cassidy Freeman said that her contract runs three years, meaning she could be included in next season and Justin Hartley also said he would return if the show wants him back. That’s four key cast members and although I still miss the über-hot Kristin Kreuk as a member of the cast (but love seeing her on NBC’s Chuck), that’s a good start. It’s also good to see that in spite of a move to Friday nights for this season – often a graveyard for TV shows because Friday is a night when far fewer people are at home watching television – ratings for Smallville have actually increased, , bringing in an average of 3.12 million viewers. Also, making it ten seasons is something that even legendary shows like Seinfeld didn’t achieve, so that’s definitely a milestone for Smallville and most importantly, it doesn’t feel like the show has hung on too long and outstayed its welcome. Hopefully that feeling will continue through the tenth season of action…………

- Why not change town name to “Will Whore Selves out for Free Stuff”? Sure, the official city name is Topeka, Kansas, but Mayor Bill Bunten and Co. are willing to temporarily pimp themselves and their city out if it means getting free stuff from Internet giant Google. Bunten believes that Topeka should change its name for a month as part of a campaign to earn a spot new "Fiber for Communities" program. Google is going to install new Internet connections in unannounced locations, giving those communities Internet speeds 100 times faster than those elsewhere, with data transfer rates faster than 1 gigabit per second. It’s actually a pretty cool deal and cities wishing to be chosen have until March 26 to tell Google why they should be selected. The company says it will pick one or more cities for the pilot project. "We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people," Google says in an online post. To up his city’s chances, Bunten announced Monday that his city will be known as "Google" -- Google, Kansas. "It's just fun. We're having a good time of it," he said of the unofficial name change, which will last through the end of March. "There's a lot of good things that are going on in our city." Umm, if it’s unofficial and it’s only for a month, what exactly does that do for anyone? You’re not really changing the name, not even for a day, and it’s not official, so why bother? I want to make it clear that the ones who need mocking here are Bunten and his citizens, not Google. Fact is, the company’s contention that U.S. Internet speeds are falling behind the global standard is on point. So if Google wants to fix things itself by installing new broadband cable, go for it. I just don’t think that the good folks at Google are going to see this hollow gesture and say, “Gee, some Podunk city in Kansas unofficially changed its name to Google for a month, we’d better pick them.” Topeka isn’t exactly a major national city, boasting a population of only 123,400. And as much as Bunten would like for his proclamation – which renames Topeka as "Google, Kansas -- the capital city of fiber optics" – would like to believe it’s so, the fact is, to put it simply, if terrorists look to attack a major U.S. city of significance, Topeka isn’t cracking the top 50 list. In closing, I would like to soften my verbal salvos directed at Mayor Bunten by pointing out that his lame attempt to woo Google is far from the lamest or dumbest name-change effort by a mayor of Topeka. Back in 1998, former mayor Joan Wagnon temporarily changed the name of the city to "ToPikachu, Kansas," in reference to the Pikachu anime character, from the show and game called "Pokemon," which was popular at the time. Why the hell the mayor of a town in Kansas felt that Pokemon had any special link to her city is beyond me, but it should make Bunten feel like less of an idiot for his own waste of time, if nothing else. All in all, I could not be prouder to NOT live in Topeka…………

- There are many reasons I don’t watch or follow women’s basketball. The actions of Baylor freshman Brittney Griner in Wednesday night’s game against Texas Tech in Lubbock, Tex., well, let’s just say that they are not among those reasons. Griner, a 6’8 giant and one of the prized recruits in the nation this past season, was tangling in the low post with Texas Tech's Jordan Barncastle. Barncastle fouled Griner with No. 14 Baylor up 55-39 with 9:01 remaining in the game and as the two untangled and Griner stumbled away the recipient of some rough play, she was clearly agitated. That’s nothing new; players get bumped around and pissed off in every sport, every single game. Basketball is very much this way and at most, players typically jaw with one another, maybe get up in their opponent’s face and bump chests. But not Brittney Griner, no sir. She was not going to take any crap from Barncastle and she came charging at Barncastle ready to throw hands. Griner wound up and threw a freaking haymaker, landing her fist squarely on Barncastle’s face. The blow broke Barncastle’s nose and the game was stopped for about 10 minutes as officials reviewed tape. Officials clearly saw that Barncastle was moving away from Griner at the time of the punch and a technical foul was called on Griner. She was ejected for a flagrant foul and another technical was called on another Baylor player, Morgan Medlock. The Texas Tech bench also got a technical for going out onto the court after the punch was thrown, but their tech was defensible because if someone is looking to cave in your teammate’s face, you had best get out on the court to protect her. Like I said, this sort of shenanigan is something that would lead me to watch a lot more women’s college basketball. If I could be guaranteed that a couple of chicks would start brawling every game and that one would unleash a Mike Tyson-like jab to her opponent’s grill, I’d watch women’s basketball every night of the week. Nothing says classy, sportsmanlike competitor quite like busting someone’s beak with your bare hands. Oh, and big ups to Baylor coach Kim Mulkey and athletic department officials for manning up to suspend Griner for all of two games – the team’s regular-season finale and first conference tournament game. Way to show that you’re serious about discipline and representing your team and university well, guys……………

- The self-importance and pomposity of awards shows like the Oscars are key reasons why I don’t want these self-congratulatory schmooze-fests. Seeing the status quo incestuously give awards to one another on a rotating basis and refusing to actually open their doors to non-mainstream shows, movies, artists and voices who actually deserve recognition is not my thing. These attributes were on display in finest form this week when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday that "Hurt Locker" producer Nicolas Chartier will not be allowed to attend the March 7 awards show because of an e-mail he sent that has been deemed in violation of the Academy's campaigning standards. "Chartier had recently disseminated an e-mail to certain Academy voters and other film industry figures in which he solicited votes for his own picture and disparaged one of the other contending films," the Academy said in a statement Tuesday evening. Basiscally, Chartier sent out an email looking to drum up votes for his movie and made veiled, negative remarks clearly directed at one of its chief competitors, James Cameron's "Avatar." According to recipients of the email, Chartier's message asked the message recipients to help promote the Iraq war movie so that the it would win, "and not a $500M film," which is a not-so-cloaked shot at “Avatar” (which is vastly overrated, by the way). In the Academy snooty opinion, Chartier's appeal to voters and industry insiders crossed the line by "casting a negative or derogatory light on a competing film." That sort of action is against the organization's arrogant, self-important rules. In response, Chartier’s invitation to the show was pulled, which ironically should be considered a blessing because now he doesn’t have to sit through four hours of arrogant Hollywood types pumping up one another’s egos by handing out tacky trophies and making self-aggrandizing speeches sprinkled with fake humility. The Academy also made the magnanimous decision not to remove "The Hurt Locker" out of the competition completely. If the film wins, co-producers Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal and Greg Shapiro will accept the award and Chartier would receive his ugly Oscar statuette later. Way to show that you don’t take yourselves too seriously, H-Wood…………

- Is it a problem when your country’s national police chief and top anti-narcotics official are arrested for being in league with the country’s drug cartels? I feel like there might be a slight conflict of interest there, but I never can quite tell with these situations. Let’s ask the good folks of Guatemala their thought because Guatemalan Attorney General Amilcar Velasquez announced Wednesday that Police Chief Baltazar Gonzalez and anti-drug czar Nelly Bonilla were arrested Tuesday and charged in connection with a shooting last year over some stolen cocaine that left five police officers dead. With U.S. Secretary of State Hank Clinton set to arrive in Guatemala in a few short days for talks with the Guatemalan government, the arrests should provide an interesting backdrop for the visit and a nice conversation starter for all involved. Seriously, who can’t have a good chat about top law enforcement and government officials allegedly having key roles on the wrong side of a drug-related shooting that left five cops dead? Coincidentally, Hank Clinton’s visit is expected to include a discussion of Guatemala's current anti-drug efforts. I’m sure Hank will be fascinated to hear about the 11-month investigation by the International Commission Against Impunity that led to the arrests of the two high-ranking officials and also police officer Fernando Carrillo. Together, the three men are accused of heading a criminal network that infiltrated and systematically corrupted the police force with a commitment to robbery and drug trafficking. Their burgeoning criminal enterprise was brought to the forefront following the shootout between police and drug traffickers last year. Allegedly corrupt officers attempted to steal 750 kilos of cocaine from the traffickers, a practice that was apparently common under Gonzalez and Bonilla’s leadership. Gonzalez, Bonilla and Carrillo are accused of trying to cover up the shooting incident, which is smart business for anyone running a drug cartel but problematic if you are caught. As one might expect, the arrests did not do anything good for the government of President Alvaro Colom "Guatemala is at the epicenter of the drug threat," according to a U.S. State Department report on narcotics released this week. "Corruption and intimidation of law enforcement continue to be major challenges. Combined with multiple changes in senior positions ... there was no perceptible improvement to institutionally strengthen law enforcement or give law enforcement agencies the capacity to more effectively address the grave narcotics situation in Guatemala." That definitely doesn’t sound like a positive assessment, but perhaps the militant, angry femi-Nazi ways of Hank Clinton can solve all of Guatemala’s problems. Then again, based on our own experiences with Hank here in the U.S., probably not…………

TiVo turns over a new (and expensive) leaf, Riot Watch! in Indonesia and the Smithsonian gets uppity with the Juice

- It was only a matter of time before TiVo and the Internet came together and so it has happened. Very soon, TiVo subscribers will be able to pull Internet content, music and movies onto their televisions with new devices announced by TiVo on Tuesday. Called TiVo Premiere, the boxes are similar to products already on the market such as Boxee and Roku. Their release is aimed at helping the pioneering DVR company combat a gradually declining subscriber base. "It has never been this easy to get all of your entertainment in one place, on the big screen, in HD, right at your fingertips," TiVo President and CEO Tom Rogers said. TiVo’s new boxes will be available in early April and pricing will begin at $299 for the TiVo Premiere. That model will have 320 gigabytes of storage and record up to 45 hours of high-definition programming or 400 hours of standard-definition programming. For a step up, users can go with the TiVo Premiere XL, which will be capable of recording up to 150 hours in HD or 1,350 hours of standard-definition but will also cost freaking $499. Both boxes will combine access to digital cable television, movies, videos on the Web and music, including a planned app from Pandora online radio and they will come with a Bluetooth-equipped remote with a slide-out keyboard that's able to operate the box from up to 30 feet away. Additionally, both boxes will allow users to browse for shows from premium cable channels and offer a new interface for broadband sources like Netflix, Blockbuster On Demand and Amazon. "It's the one box that can give you access to almost anything you want, whenever you want it," Rogers said. "We've taken millions of pieces of content and organized it for you in a way that makes so much sense, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it." However, assuming that TiVo will automatically vault to the top of the market for these devices would be premature. The Boxee Box, one of its chief competitors, was awarded the title of "Last Gadget Standing" at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Its outstanding feature is allowing users to search and store Web content and either play it on television or share it on social-networking sites. Oh, and at $200, it’s also much cheaper than either of TiVo’s new offerings. "It's truly a game-changer," said Boxee spokesman Andrew Kippen,. "We're really bringing the creativity of the Web onto your TV screen." TiVo definitely has an edge in longevity, having been around since 1997 and having built its reputation upon being the first commercially available DVR. Its brand name has become so ubiquitous that like Band-Aid and Kleenex, it has been absorbed into pop culture to refer to all like devices in its field. However, growing competition has taken a chunk out of TiVo’s market share and in the fiscal quarter that ended October 31, TiVo had about 2.7 million subscribers, down from more than 3.4 million subscriptions the previous year. Based on the number of people I know who use TiVo, it’s safe to say that these new products a) will get some consideration and b) will ultimately flop because they’re just too freaking expensive…………

- What, now the Smithsonian is somehow against displaying the suits that double murderers (allegedly) wore when they were acquitted of crimes that they (without a doubt) committed? When did this happen? When I heard that the Smithsonian Institution, often called "America's Attic,” rejected a golden opportunity to secure a piece of 1990s history for its collections, I was astonished and heartbroken. Just a day earlier, a California judge handed the museum a golden chance to secure a true piece of Americana by approving an agreement to donate the brownish-green suit O.J. Simpson wore the day in 1995 that he was acquitted of murder if museum officials wanted it. Now if that gift was handed to most of us, we would grab it and not think twice. But not the snobs at the Smithsonian; they apparently feel they are above displaying the memorabilia of double-murderers currently serving eight years in prison for armed robbery. "The curators feel that it doesn't fit with the collections here at the National Museum of American History," said Valeska Hilbig, spokeswoman for the museum. Nice try, V. Could your arrogance be any more obvious? The suit doesn’t fit with your collections? Then dammit, you start a new collection centered on the Juice’s suit. Maybe you could secure Phil Spector’s wig, Scott Peterson’s golf clubs and gear from other famous murderers. Don’t tell me that you can find a place for Judy Garland's ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" and the hat Abraham Lincoln wore the night he was assassinated and you can’t find a place for O.J.’s suit. If Honest Abe were still around and we could ask his thoughts on this topic, I am 109 percent confident he would agree with me completely. This suit has been at the center of a years-long battled between Fred Goldman, the father of the one of the two people the Juice turned into human Pez dispensers, and Simpson's former agent Mike Gilbert, who has possession of the suit. Perhaps those involved in trying to find a suitable home for this piece of clothing should have contacted the Smithsonian first, but to me that’s secondary. Sure, museum officials learned of the potential deal on the Internet and never received an official offer to donate the suit and that officials. Now that the Smithsonian has turned up its nose, the involved parties must now seek a new museum to take the suit, as per the Los Angeles County Superior Court order on Monday. "I suggested to go back to USC (the University of Southern California, where Simpson starred in college football), even though they've distanced themselves, or maybe the Pro Football Hall of Fame museum," said Simpson's attorney, Ronald Slates. "We had worked six hours on Monday to reach the settlement, and to find the finest museum in America turning down what is truly a piece of highly controversial litigation in the United States -- it was very disappointing. Of all the museums in the United States, this would be the one most open because it is our national museum. You don't see the Smithsonian walking away from days of the Depression -- which were certainly horrible days in our history -- because it was so horrible.” Now that’s what I like to hear. Nothing quite like comparing a guy who (almost certainly) knifed two innocent people to death and was acquitted by a jury of twelve people with a collective IQ of 56 to one of the most horrifically sad and difficult periods in the history of the country, wherein millions of people couldn’t find work or afford to support themselves and their families. Certainly nothing offensive or inappropriate about that, counselor. Of course, this suit is just one chapter in the prolonged battle between Simpson and the families of both Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, the two people he knifed on that fateful night in 1994 in Brentwood. The reality is that those families will never see the money they were awarded in a civil suit against the Juice for the wrongful deaths of their loved ones and the Nevada prison in which O.J. currently resides is as close as he’ll ever get to the punishment he truly deserves…………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Takin’ it to the streets in Jakarta, Indonesia is one of my favorite pastimes. So while I may not have been their physically as anti-government protesters hurled rocks Tuesday at police in Indonesia’s capital city, I was there in spirit. Likewise, in my mind I was standing tall right beside those same protestors when police retaliated with tear gas and water cannons outside Indonesia's national parliament. I just don’t see how authorities could be so harsh on the protestors when inside the building, lawmakers were screaming one another down and even shoving one another in the debate over a controversial bank bailout. Why not direct your energy inside, Jakarta police? But let’s not focus on The Man and his typical overreaction to a riot, because the true heroes are the nearly 1,000 people who rallied outside the building to protest the government's $715 million bailout of Indonesia's Bank Century in 2008. Sure, that was two years ago, but don’t deny them their rage. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was re-elected in July 2009 and because he’s still in office, their rage is warranted. Overall, it was a very good riot effort, including the banner demonstrators hung across the front gates of the parliament compound that read: "Replace the regime, replace the system without SBY." The pride I felt watching police have to use their riot shields to deflect the rocks and other projectiles being hurled at them……it was immense. The sight of them unfurling rolls of razor wire to cordon off parliament was something you don’t often see at a riot and that really kicked things up a notch. Two protest leaders were arrested on charges of defaming government officials and allowing their followers to throw rocks, but police did not specify who had allegedly been defamed or how. The police really needed to chill out, as no one was injured in the riot and no arrests were needed. I don’t care that officials had earlier warned protesters against using insulting banners and language. You can’t trample free speech like that, guys, and no one listens to those sorts of warnings anyhow. The one great aspect of the warning is that it was preceded by a ban last month on the presence of animals at rallies, enacted after protesters tried to parade a water buffalo with Yudhoyono's name spray-painted on it through the city's main traffic circle. That, I dare say, is freaking awesome. Nothing says protest quite like adopting a water buffalo as your mascot, spray painting it with your president’s name and trekking the beast through your capital city’s main traffic circle. Well done, Indonesian protestors, well done. On a day when a parliamentary committee inside the building delivered a report on its inquiry into the bank bailout, someone needed to remind them that the public is watching and that the allegations of irregularities in the bailout won't just go away. You know there is tension around the issue when lawmakers are brawling over the simple decision of whether or not to hold a vote about how to proceed with the inquiry. The actual fighting commenced after parliamentary speaker Marzuki Alie angered many by ruling that the vote would be held Wednesday, spurring his peers to bum rush him and begin throwing hands among themselves. In actuality, the vote is largely symbolic because the final decision on any charges against those involved with the alleged corruption rests with the police and an independent anti-corruption commission. In any case, I salute all the protestors who turned out for a great day of social dissidence, blew right past the idiotic police warnings and exercised their right to make their voice heard. Indonesia’s defamation laws are stifling and overbearing, so ignoring them and saying what you want about your government officials is a must for anyone with even a smidge of a social conscience. Big ups to you, Indonesian protestors, you guys rock…………

- To empower gun-toting whack jobs in the Windy City or not, that is the question. The answer will come from the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Tuesday heard in a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons. The case is a direct challenge to Chicago's long-standing strict ban on handgun ownership, which appeared very much in. A conservative majority on the court seemed ready to say the U.S. Constitution gives individuals greater – or at least equal - power than states -- or at least equal power – in terms of owning certain firearms for self-protection. At the heart of the case? Competing parts of the 14th Amendment relating to some "reasonable" gun control measures in place nationwide. "There are provisions of the Constitution, of the Bill of Rights, that have been incorporated against the states, where the states have substantial latitude and ample authority to impose reasonable regulations," Justice Anthony Kennedy said. "Why can't we do the same thing with firearms?" In other words, does the constitutional "right of the people to keep and bear arms" apply to local gun control ordinances, or only to federal restrictions? It is a question that has hung in the air like a carrot on a judicial stick for decades and now, it gives a conservative-led high court another chance to allow Americans expanded weapon ownership rights…….eventually. The timeline for a ruling in the case is late June, so there’s no need to get too excited about it just yet. As with all issues that come before the Supreme Court, this one is attached to a specific case that has made its way through the judicial system, one painfully slow step at the time. The case relating to this issue began with an appeal filed by a Chicago, Illinois, community activist Otis McDonald, who sought a handgun for protection from gangs. McDonald wants a handgun to protect himself and his family local gangstas (I hope in the Supreme Court briefings, all justices are required to say it like that, gangstas, and not “gang members” or “gangsters”). "That's all I want ... just a fighting chance," McDonald said. "Give me the opportunity to at least make somebody think about something before they come in my house on me." McDonald’s problem is that Chicago has some of the toughest private weapons restrictions in the nation and under those guidelines, the city denied McDonald's application for a handgun permit. So the question is whether the Second Amendment's 27 words grant gun ownership as an individual right or as a collective in order to arm a military group, i.e. a militia. "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed," the amendment reads. To whet our appetite for the case, attorneys for both sides presented an hour’s worth of arguments Tuesday with the focus mainly on the whether the Second Amendment should be "incorporated" or applied to state and local laws like most of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights. James Feldman, the attorney for the city of Chicago, argued that that gun laws are different. "Firearms are designed to injure and kill," Feldman said. The conservatives on the court didn’t seem to like that, especially Justice Samuel “The Ol’ Gunslinger” Alito. "Your position is that a state or local government could completely ban all firearms?" Alito asked Feldman. This is a big case for the obvious reasons, but just to underscore its importance, the Justice Department estimates as many as 275 million guns are in the United States. As recently as 2005, three-fourths of homicides nationwide involved handguns. In other words, we’re a nation of gun-toting whackos and someone needs to police this sort of thing…………

- In case you didn’t know, the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement has expired. The CBA is the deal between players and owners that stipulates how revenues are distributed and deals with other important labor- and football-related issues governing the operation of the league. Like any contract, it is for a given number of years and depending on the deal, it can be opted out of by one side or the other. Now that the CBA is dunzo, that means 2010 will be an uncapped year in the NFL, giving teams much more liberty with their spending. However, it also means that after this year, the owners could (and are expected to) lock out the players prior to the 2011 season. With that possibility looming over them, NFL players are planning ahead, with the NFL Players Association advising its membership to set aside money in case of a lockout a year from now. In previous instances where professional sports leagues have locked out players, the athletes have proven that they don’t have a freaking clue how to manage their money and have found themselves drastically outspending their resources within a few weeks. Perhaps this time around, things will be different. Last week, more than 75 current and former NFL players participated in the league's business management and entrepreneurial program held at Wharton and Harvard University. Players such as Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Deion Branch and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Farrior went in thinking they knew how to manage their money, but left admitting the program was a wakeup call for players to prepare for life after football. Apparently a week of workshops at the Wharton School was enough to open their eyes, but it remains to be seen if those lessons stick and these guys have truly learned their lesson. My money is on about a third of them actually retaining, applying and abiding by what the Wharton School imparted to them…………

A faulty episode of "Lost," curious optimism in Russia and ratting people out to the IRS

- You might recall that Jack, Hurley, Sawyer and Jin played prominent roles in major storylines the past couple of weeks on Lost. Well, they made a grand total of zero screen appearances combined on last night’s episode, good times. Once this season (and the series) ends, that’s the one thing I’ll be most thankful for, that a show that regularly omits key characters for weeks on end is gone. Now, on to the recap. It was a Sayid-centric episode, with the former member of the Iraqi National Guard visiting family in L.A. in Oceanic-land (life off the island, where Flight 815 never crashed on the island). He arrives at the house of his brother Omar, who is amazingly married to the former love of Sayid’s life, Nadia. On the island, Sayid storms Dogen’s “office” inside the temple, where Sayid was tortured soon after coming back from the dead. He demands answers and Dogen says machine used to administer electrical jolts to Sayid’s was to see which way his internal scale of good vs. evil tipped. His scale tipped the wrong way, Dogen says, thus they tried to kill him by having Jack give him a pill filled with poison. A kick-ass fight breaks out between the two men; things are thrown, plates and pots are broken, makeshift weapons are used and martial arts skilled displayed. Dogen gains upper hand and has knife to Sayid’s throat, but curiously stops the attack when he sees the baseball he always seems to have in his hands hit the floor. He pauses, then tells Sayid to leave the temple and never return instead of killing him. Meanwhile, Claire and faux Locke stand in the jungle outside temple. He sends her inside for some sort of mission, but she wonders why he’s not going himself. She says he could have sent Jin or Sawyer as well and asks why her. Fax Locke says if he could go himself, he would. He confirms his promise that if she helps him, he will help her get her son back, so in Claire goes. Back in Oceanic-land, Omar wakes Sayid in the middle of the night while he sleeps in the guest bedroom and asks him to help settle a debt. Omar explains that he took out a loan from a shady character to help open a second branch of his dry cleaning business and now the man he borrowed from claims that Omar owes him interest on the already-paid loan for as long as he owns the business. On the island, Claire strolls into the temple area and informs Dogen that faux Locke wishes to speak with him. He refuses because he believes faux Locke will kill him if he sets foot outside the temple. Instead, Claire suggests that he send someone faux Locke won't kill. In response, he orders her to be placed in “the pit” and tells his minions to find Jack and Hurley, not knowing they are gone to the other side of the island. Instead, Dogen halts Sayid’s exodus from the temple and asks him to be the one to go see faux Locke. Dogen tells him he that the being he’s about to meet is evil incarnate who is free now that Jacob is dead. This being, Dogen says, will appear to Sayid in the form of someone he knows. He must stab this person in the chest before they speak because if the person speaks, “it’s too late.” Sayid takes off with Dogen’s dagger and on the way to his meeting, he encounters Kate, who is on her way back to the temple. She arrives and greets Miles, who admits that he considered going after Sawyer like she did, but figured he would eventually end up berated and sent away. Then Miles spills the news that Claire came to the temple and because that’s who she came back to the island to find, Kate is determined to see Claire and talk to her. Back in the jungle, the wind begins to swirl through the trees around Sayid and he braces himself for trouble. Suddenly, faux Locke walks through the trees and greets him. Remembering Dogen’s advice, Sayid stabs him in the chest. That proves an exercise in futility, as the knife stab does no damage to faux Locke. He doesn’t bleed or suffer any pain and merely asks Sayid why he did that as he pulls the knife from his chest. Off the island, Omar is attacked and sent to hospital, presumably by the men he owes money to, and at the hospital, Nadia urges Sayid not to go after attackers. On the island, talks with faux Locke, who explains to Sayid that Dogen sent him to kill him because he knew Sayid would fail and assumed that faux Locke would kill him, which is apparently something Dogen really wants. But instead of killing Sayid, faux Locke tells Sayid that if he will merely deliver a message to Dogen, he can have literally anything in the world that he wants. Sayid apparently accepts the assignment and goes back to the temple, where he loudly shares with all the inhabitants that faux Locke is leaving the island at sundown and those who want to leave can go with him. When someone asks what will happen to those who stay, Sayid answers that they will die. Elsewhere in the temple, Kate visits Claire in the pit deep inside the temple and is given two minutes to talk by Lennon, the hippie right-hand man of Dogen. Off the island, Sayid is back at Omar’s home with Nadia while Omar himself recovers at the hospital. Nadia asks why he keeps a picture of her in his suitcase and why, if he truly loves her, he pushed her away and toward his brother. He answers that he’s spent the past 12 years trying to rid himself of the terrible things he’s done and that he doesn’t deserve her. Clearly, they still love each other, but to what avail? Flash back to the island, where everyone is fleeing because from the temple because they now know that Jacob is dead and because of that, the temple is no longer safe. Sayid goes inside to return knife the knife to Dogen. Back off the island, Sayid is met in front of brother’s home by men in a black SUV with heavily tinted windows. They demand that he get inside and he’s taken for a ride to a local restaurant. In the kitchen, he meets none other than Martin Keame. You may remember Keame as the leader of the mercenary team that billionaire Charles Widmore sent to the island two seasons ago. Keame is the man Omar owes money to and he begins lecturing Sayid. He knows all about who Sayid is and pointedly informs him that either he or Omar is going to pay him the money he’s owed. Sayid calmly answers all questions, bides his time and when the moment is right, attacks the guard closest to him. He manages to take out both guards and after shooting them, he turns the gun on Keame, who desperately offers to forgive Omar’s debt if Sayid will let him live. After a moment’s consideration, Sayid decides he’s not in a forgiving mood and shoot Keame dead as well. As the sound of the gunshot dies out, he hears the sounds of movement from the nearby walk-in freezer. Rushing over and opening the door, Sayid finds none other than Jin bound up inside the freezer. This version of Jin doesn’t speak English and it’s unclear why he’s there. Back on the island, a whole lot of people suddenly bum rush the temple. First, Sayid finds Dogen sitting beside the temple pool and drops the knife beside him. Asked why he wants Sayid dead, Dogen launches into a monologue about once being a banker in Osaka, getting promoted and going out to celebrate with his co-workers, having too much to drink and ending up in a car crash that killed his 12-year-old son. In the hospital, he was visited by Jacob, who offers to save his son’s life if he agrees to go to the island, take a new job there and never see his son again. Sayid admits that faux Locke offered similar deal and suddenly leaps up from where he sits and drowns Dogen in the pool. Lennon walks in, realizes what he’s done and berates Sayid. He states that Dogen was the only thing keeping faux Locke (i.e. the Black Smoke Monster) out of the temple. Stunningly, Sayid admits that he knew this and slits Lennon’s throat. The BSM rushes in and begins killing people right around the time things get busy inside the temple. Kate and Miles try to flee the BSM, but rather than leave with Miles, Kate goes to get Claire. Claire refuses to leave, knowing what’s coming, and urges Kate to take shelter in the pit with her. That ends up being the wise choice, as Kate survives the BSM attack. Ilana, Lapidus, Ben Linus and Sun also arrive at the temple (haven’t seen them in a while) and find Miles, telling him he needs to come with them. Ben breaks off from the group to find Sayid, who is sitting calmly beside the pool containing his two murder victims. Ben says there is still time to escape but Sayid distantly answers, “Not for me.” The rest of the group – Miles, Sun, Ilana and Lapidus – head through the temple to the tunnel we saw Hurley exploring last episode. Ilana stops at the same symbol engraved on the wall that Hurley seemed focused on and pushes in that section of the wall, revealing a hidden compartment. The four of them step inside and close the opening just as the BSM rushes by. As the attack ends, Sayid strolls out into the temple courtyard and walks through a scene of total carnage. Dead bodies lie everywhere and the temple is in ruins. Sayid and Claire walk out of the temple trailed by Kate. In the jungle just outside the outer wall, faux Locke is waiting with a band of followers/Others. Without a word, Sayid and Claire join faux Locke’s posse and trudge off through the jungle, leaving a stunned Kate behind. So once again, lots of questions raised (still no one will say what faux Locke/BSM’s real name is) and only a few minor answers provided. Hopefully next episode will be better……….

- It’s a simple question with a simple answer: Should you turn in someone you know who cheated on their taxes? No. The topic is coming up because it’s once again tax season and the country has just over a month remaining to mail (or electronically submit) their taxes to those ass clowns at the IRS. It’s a guarantee that more than a few people will cheat on their taxes because it happens every year. Skew a few numbers your way, omit some information and bam, a) your refund it bigger or b) the amount you owe is smaller. A recent poll from the IRS Oversight Board showed that 13 percent of those surveyed think this behavior is acceptable, up from 9 percent in 2008. Bearing that in mind, the IRS is upping the blood money, er, reward for turning in someone who cheats on their taxes. The IRS's informant program has been around for more than 140 years and rewards have never been higher. Should you choose to be a no-integrity rat and sell out your fellow citizens to The Man, you could receive up to 15 percent of the amount that has been underpaid, with a maximum award of $10 million. To sell your soul to The Man for a few bucks, you must fill out a claim form, which is available on the IRS Web site, and mail it to the agency or call the IRS tip line. What is particularly gutless about this approach is that although you must reveal your identity to the IRS, your name will not be made public. I say if you’re going to rat out someone for trying to stick it to The Man by cheating on their taxes, you need to be man enough to have your name made public. Of course, there is no minimum requirement for the amount in question, which could lead to a lot of people filing small claims against people they merely suspect of tax fraud in the hopes of scoring a few bucks or getting some payback for a past wrong. To combat this potential problem, IRS requires informants to provide personal information about the tax evader, including the person's social security number, address and date of birth. For big-time tax cheats, the IRS offers even more incentives to turn them in. Rats who sell out someone who cheats the IRS out of at least $2 million in taxes, penalties and interest will receive a minimum of 15 percent and a maximum of 30 percent of the amount owed. Additionally, if the suspected tax evader is an individual, his or her annual gross income must exceed $200,000. What I hate is that the IRS received tips from about 476 informants identifying 1,246 taxpayers in fiscal year 2008, the first full year the program was implemented. In other words, people are far too willing to sell one another out for cash. It’s one thing if you want to go down the street to your neighbor’s house and steal his TV because he’s cheating on his taxes. If you want to even the score that way, I don’t have a problem with it. Just don’t go selling that same neighbor out to The Man for some quick cash, that’s all I’m saying…………

- Why this next topic is even a topic at all, I’m not sure. But I suppose that there are just too many morons in the world for subjects like this to not be an issue, so onward we forge. Journey with me to Brooklyn, New York, where the current hot-button issue is none other that people bringing their infants and toddlers to bars. Sounds insane, no? It is insane, but in places like Park Slope and surrounding neighborhoods, parents just can't seem to shake the habit of bringing their little brats to the bar. Why they are unable to find a babysitter or find somewhere else, I don’t know. The issues are numerous relating to this trend, from bar patrons who don’t have kids feeling uncomfortable drinking, swearing and engaging in normal bar behavior in front of kids to those who worry what being around drinking, smoking, swearing people and bar fights will do to kids. I’m with those in the former category because they should not be asked to watch their language, to not smoke outdoors near strollers and to keep their drunk friends under control because some ass clown has brought their 4-year-old to the bar. Nor should you be asked to play peek-a-boo or talk baby talk to someone’s tot sitting in a baby carrier in the corner booth. The bar is where you go to unwind, to get your drink on and to enjoy some freedom and lack of constraints. Yes, I understand that in a place like New York, the cost of living is high and paying for a babysitter on a regular basis can be tough. But if you can't afford to pay a babysitter, then you don’t go to the bar. There are places you can bring your kids along if you absolutely have to, but the bar is not one of them. Recently, a user on the Brooklynian, a neighborhood blog, posted a question: "Which bars are child free?" The debate has been raging for two years, ever since the bar Union Hall, a popular New York gathering place, banned strollers from the premises. It was a brilliant decision and if I were looking for a bar to go to in New York, that decision would put Union Hall at the top of my list – or it would have if whiny, b*thcy parents who like toting their kids to bars hadn’t thrown a hissy fit and pressured Union Hall into doubling back and removing the rule. Even though the bar had a legitimate reason for banning strollers - it been issued tickets by the fire department at one point because strollers blocked exits – these tools who wanted to both get drunk and not have to pay for a babysitter for little Timmy didn’t want to hear it. Tough luck, knobs. You have kids, you forfeit certain parts of your life in order to raise those kids. Going to the bar a couple nights a week is one of those parts and you all just need to deal with it………….

- One of the thickest personnel files in the history of personnel files became public record recently and now the entire world knows exactly what sort of impact golfer John Daly has had on the PGA Tour for the 17-year span from 1991 through 2008. We all know the highlights: multiple divorces, numerous battles with alcohol, smoking and gambling, run-ins at Hooters and suspensions from the tour just to name a few. But the true depth of JD’s wandering ways is illustrated by the following nuggets of knowledge, which became public when the records were turned over as part of a court case. This 456-page behemoth reveals that the PGA Tour ordered Daly to undergo counseling or enter alcohol rehabilitation not one, not two, not even three, but seven freaking times. Seven stints in rehab is an impressive number, one that would make Amy Winehouse envious. Daly has also been placed on Tour probation six times, although the records don’t indicated if the probation was double super-secret in nature, and cited 11 times for "conduct unbecoming a professional." That doesn’t include the 21 times JD was cited "failure to give best efforts,” which seems like a very subjective evaluation and would also be tough to prove if a guy was playing drunk, which I have to assume happened once or 15 times. All told, these antics cost Daly some $100,000 in fines during the period covered in the file, which ends with the infamous Hooters incident in which he was found intoxicated outside a Hooters restaurant in North Carolina, ended up in the drunk tank and was suspended from the Tour for the six months of the 2009 season. Oh, and there was also the time JD almost drove his ride into an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent after failing to stop at a security checkpoint at the 2005 U.S. Open in Pinehurst, N.C. He returned to the Tour midway through last season and was out playing this year at the start of the season, but remarked to a Golf Channel crew that he "was done" with the game following one particularly bad round. Of course, he was back on the course two weeks later at Pebble Beach, which surprised exactly no one. He’s also the subject of a new reality show on Golf Channel, which should be an interesting train wreck. I do have to wonder what the over/under on Hooters references in the file is, a number I would put somewhere about 471…………

- Russia’s focus isn’t only on its piss-poor Olympic performance and finding ways to get its athletics officials in front of the firing squad, er, fired as soon as possible. Make no mistake about it, they’re still pissed about winning a measly 15 medals and three golds at the Vancouver Games, but they can multitask. For instance, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov showed that he has far more optimism than the rest of the world when it comes to the growing international menace that is Iran. While the rest of the world has more or less resigned itself to the fact that dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Co. are a bunch of nuclear-happy freaks looking to create an arsenal of nuclear-powered weapons (i.e. bombs) and blow Israel (and perhaps others) right off the map, Lavrov seems to believe that there is still room for diplomacy rather than sanctions to resolve the dispute with Iran over its nuclear program. "We will concentrate all efforts on finding political and diplomatic solutions. These efforts have not yet been exhausted," Lavrov said Tuesday. Furthermore, Lavrov said his comments were in keeping with a statement by Russian President/Communist dictator Dmitry Medvedev, who on Monday said Russia would back new sanctions against Iran as long as they did not create a humanitarian crisis. For some odd reason, Russia seems intent on avoiding additional punitive measures despite the fact that Iran is openly boasting of its nuclear advances and marching blatantly and proudly toward creating a nuclear bomb. Unsurprisingly, both Russia and China have been reluctant to endorse any broader sanctions against Iran, probably because my mythical League of Fascist Dictators truly does exist and their leaders are all members of it. Either way, a fourth draft of a U.N. Security Council resolution regarding Iran is due in the next week or so and many diplomats believe it will contain a "symbolic" tightening of sanctions against Iranian government assets. Still, I am nothing if not a guy who loves optimism, so you keep those rose-colored glasses on, Russia…………

A "Greek" recap, renaming highways previously named for 'roiders and the ballsy play of defecting from North Korea

- On last night’s Greek, a new neighbor threatened to ruin the fun at the Kappa Tau house, the encroaching future threatened to ruin the balance in Casey and Cappie’s relationship and Casey’s focus on law school began to take its toll on best friend Ashleigh. Things kicked off with the KT pledges cleaning up after the fraternity’s Valentine’s Day party, tossing trash over the back fence into the back yard of the vacant house located behind the KT house. To their surprise, the trash came right back at them, courtesy of the couple that had just moved into the house, the Hilgendorfs. Professor Tom Hilgendorf is a new member of the music department faculty and the KT’s immediately figure that having an old, married couple living next door is going to put the kibosh on their fun. Fun definitely isn’t what Casey has on her plate as she tries to write her personal statement/essay to go with her law school application. She has help from Joel, the campaign manager of the senatorial campaign she collected voter registrations in support of last episode, as he has agreed to read and advise on her application. Working on her application also leads Casey to suggest the Cappie seek some help as he finally begins to consider picking a major, but he’s in no hurry to find an academic advisor. Casey is also working with Ashleigh on putting together a freshman dorm reunion for those they lived with their first year at Cyprus Rhodes, but law school takes precedence for Casey and Ashleigh clearly begins to feel neglected. At the KT house, the guys meet to discuss how to deal with the Hilgendorfs and ways to run them off. Rusty offers to go over and smooth things over, to which Cappie’s response is to start a pool to bet on how long it will be before he can tell Rusty, “I told you so.” And sure enough, even after sending pledges over to clean the Hilgendorf’s back yard and porch and install their wireless network, Tom Hilgendorf drops by the KT house to hit the guys with a list of rules he wants them to adhere to – no significant noise after 10 p.m., that sort of thing. He also makes a point of warning the guys to stay away from his daughter, who is 16. Cappie gets to tell Rusty, “I told you so,” but they must then figure out how to deal with the Hilgendorf rules. Rusty’s next idea is to try to make Tom “feel like part of their collective,” i.e. make him feel like he’s a part of KT. The tactic actually works, just a little too well. Tom hangs out at the KT house and actually shows he has some skills in drinking games, including a combination of pool and beer pong “Monkey Hump,” in which he challenges and demolishes Cappie. Meanwhile, Rusty’s V-Day date Katherine is still crushing on him and seeks out Casey for advice. Katherine confesses to having sent Rusty an email to say how much fun she had on their date, complete with a link to a story about a new robotic hand that researchers have developed. She wants to hang with Casey, partially to help her with her law school application, but also to get advice for things with Rusty. Life is decidedly more tense at the Omega Chi house, where in the aftermath of the frat’s Valentine Day party, $500 is missing from the house’s cash box. OC president Evan Chambers calls a meeting to get to the bottom of the missing cash, but it quickly deteriorates into one big accusation-fest. Rather than allow that to continue on and poison the house atmosphere, Calvin and Grant decide to solve the problem by passing out envelopes to all of the brothers and giving them a chance to return the stolen money anonymously to the house’s common room. The tactic works, sort of, when all of the envelopes are returned and the missing $500 is in one of them. However, Calvin knows who stole it because he marked Evan’s envelope in the hope that it would come back empty and he would be able to tell all of the brothers that Evan was innocent despite being one of the most likely suspects. Evan admits to taking the money, but only because he felt like he needed to buy a great V-Day gift for Rebecca Logan. Also, he claimed that he was going to repay the money as soon as possible and thought he could do so before anyone noticed. He then tries to liken his having to adjust to life without his trust fund and the lifestyle to which he had grown accustomed to Calvin trying to adjust to having people know that he’s gay, which offends Calvin. Things are significant lighter at the KT house, where Tom Hilgendorf has turned into a honorary pledge called T-Bag, courtesy of Cappie. His presence is not welcomed by the other pledges and brothers, who want Rusty to find a way to get rid of him. Already, T-Bag has gotten drunk and spent the night sleeping in the back yard and had his wife come to the house looking for him and hanging out with an “old guy” isn’t what the brothers are after. When Rusty begins trying to haze T-Bag into leaving, the tactic backfires as he proves perfectly capable of hanging with the other pledges. He even gets down on the dirty, disgusting KT floor and cleans under the pool table – right up to the point he spots his daughter Hannah making out with one of the KT’s. Both father and daughter are somewhere they shouldn’t be, but before they can hash things out, campus security officer Huck shows up to chide the KT’s for exceeding the allowed noise level. The KT’s know that if Huck finds an underage girl in their house with alcohol around they are screwed, so they sneak Tom and Hannah out the back door while the pledges distract Huck. When the door in the fence jams, they hoist Tom over the top and then must form a human barrier in front of Hannah when Huck pops into the back yard. The blockade works and they are able to sneak both Tom and Hannah home, but they encounter more trouble when Mrs. Hilgendorf arrives home just ahead of them. To distract her long enough to sneak Tom and Hannah back into the house, Beaver and Rebecca meet her at the front door and chat her up long enough for Cappie and Rusty to get Tom inside and in bed, saving the day. Why Beaver and Rebecca, you ask? Well, after they had sex last week, news of their hookup spreads. Beaver tells Cappie, who doubts the claim but gets confirmation from Rebecca. She admits she did it because getting too close to Evan freaked her out. Now, she can’t find the silver necklace Evan gave her and looks everywhere for it, including the OC house and the KT house, which put her there when Huck showed up. The episode continues with Casey finishing her law school app with help from Joel and Katherine, who help her find a story from her life that helps explain why she wants to become a lawyer. The inspiration comes at the freshman year dorm reunion, where meeting a former dorm mate named Sonny leads Ashleigh and Casey to have a major blow up about drifting apart. Later, they meet up in the dorm laundry room and recall the fun memories of meeting there freshman year and starting their sorority journey together after meeting then-ZBZ president Frannie there. Casey observes that their lives may be busier now, but if they work hard, they can stay close. Things conclude with Cappie and Rusty hanging out post-T-Bag at the KT house, with Cappie admitting that although Tom wasn’t much good as an academic advisor, he did learn from the professor. He learned that he doesn’t want to rush out into the real world with its minivans, kids and full-time jobs. Stay at CRU as long as possible and enjoy goofing off, Cappie realizes. He shares this revelation with Rebecca when he returns he necklace, found stuck to T-Bag’s chest after he spends time cleaning under the pool table at the KT house. They recline on a bench and muse about why some people must take life and relationships so intensely and seriously. Cappie postulates that if Casey gets into law school at CRU, his perpetual student routine with no direction won't be an issue – for now. If she gets into a different law school……who knows? For now, he wants to sit on a bench and enjoy a sunny day. An episode with less laughs and more serious matter for the most part, but still a pretty solid episode overall……………

- Ordinarily, a one rich, old white guy ripping on a bunch of other rich, old white guys wouldn’t interest me. However, I’m going to make an exception because like Warren Buffett, I have a special stockpile of hate for the ass clowns who run our nation’s banks. Buffett has an solution for the problem of “too-big-to-fail” banks: Put the bankers' bank accounts on the line. Buffett recently took time in his role as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway to tear the leaders of the banking industry a new one in his annual letter to Berkshire shareholders, released Saturday. Criticizing the financial sector and those who run it is nothing new for Buffett, but his words are being given more weight as the federal government takes a closer look at the fraught-with-ineptitude banking industry and how to rein it in. While I would simply suggest not giving out any executive bonuses to execs already making eight figures, that is apparently too simple and obvious a solution to be considered. The Obama administration last month proposed separating banks' proprietary trading activities from their federally subsidized deposit-gathering and lending ones, which is admittedly more complicated and less likely to succeed than my approach. On top of this ingenious idea, the government is also considering increasing the amount of capital banks hold against losses and how much cash they carry to deal with a sudden onslaught of withdrawals. Like myself, Buffett is seeking a simpler approach and I like his idea almost as much as I like my own. He wants to force these pampered CEOs to take responsibility for assessing the risks at their firms and put their own net worth on the line in the process. "It is the behavior of these CEOs and directors that needs to be changed," he wrote. "They have long benefitted from oversized financial carrots; some meaningful sticks now need to be employed as well." What I like most about Buffett is that even though he makes a ton of money each year, his annual salary at Berkshire is $100,000, much less than almost anyone else in his position with a major company. I suppose that even the world’s second-richest man can be outraged when the government hands out massive bailouts to AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America that cost investors more than $500 billion. Seriously, who can’t muster outrage when shareholders absorb the overwhelming majority of the risk and yet receive such a small chunk of the profits when things go well? Many of the executives who presided over those banks leading up to their collapse are still there and that’s a problem for all of us. Boards that don't mandate the CEO take responsibility for risk management are "derelict" in their duty, Buffett wrote. For once, I’m going to agree with a rich, privileged old dude and get behind his idea of how the financial industry needs to change…………

- Why would anyone not want a stretch of a major highway in their state named after one of the most notorious steroid users in professional sports history? This question is directed to the Missouri Senate, which wants to rename a stretch of Interstate 70 in St. Louis that was designated the Mark McGwire Highway in 1999, one year after McGwire’s 70 ‘roid-fueled home runs set a new Major League Baseball record for single-season homers. For some odd reason, the state Senate voted unanimously Monday to rename the section of interstate the Mark Twain Highway. Now the bill goes to the House, which is expected to pass it as well. To be fair to the legislature, the bill addresses more than just Mark McGwire's highway and would also name sections of a few other highways for noted Missourians. For the life of me, I can't comprehend why any state or city wouldn’t be proud to have one of its major thoroughfares named after a guy who jammed all sorts of harmful performance-enhancing drugs into his body, made tons of money off of the improved health and production he gained from those drugs, lied about taking them, refused to answer questions in front of a congressional committee and went into hiding for years rather than face the truth only to come clean when he decided that he wanted to get back into baseball as a coach. You act like having a parent drive down I-70 in St. Louis and explain to their child how a noted cheater and liar deserves to have a highway named after them is a bad thing. I’m not sure what kind of legislative operation you all are running over there in Jefferson City, Mo., but if this is the kind of result we can expect from your efforts, then perhaps the good people of Missouri need to find themselves a new governing body…………

- Defecting from North Korea is one of the ballsiest plays a person can make in life. It’s one thing to be a Cuban athlete who defects while your team in playing at an international tournament in say, the United States. You sneak away from the team, hit up the nearest embassy and bam, you’ve got yourself a new home country. However, manning up and walking South across the heavily militarized border between the two Koreas is a balls-out play to the nth degree. That’s exactly what one brave North Korean soldier did Tuesday, walking across the border separating the two countries. The soldier crossed into the eastern province of Gangwon on Tuesday evening and immediately expressed a desire to defect. No further details were available as the defection remains under investigation, so we don’t know who this brave soldier is and what possible reasons (aside from not wanting to reside in a Communist dictatorship) he has for defecting. North Korean soldiers have occasionally defected to the South in recent years, but not with any regularity. Some civilians have also defected, but they tend to take a less-direct route that winds them through China en route to South Korea. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that there have been zero defections going the other direction, as people tend not to defect to a Communist dictatorship as a general rule. I do want to give out massive props to the unidentified North Korean soldier who precipitated this story and wish him well as he begins his new life in a new country. Without knowing any details about him, I can say with relative certainty that life will be much more enjoyable and much more pleasant in his new home country…………

- Whoopee. So the cast for the next round of Dancing With the (D-List) Stars has been announced and shocker of all shockers, it’s a bunch of lames and also-rans looking to either regain faded glory or take a stab at notoriety that has thus far managed to elude their grasp. And yes, as much as I have enjoyed Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco’s end-zone antics in the past, I put him very much in this category. A guy who changes his name from Johnson to Ochocinco simply for the notoriety and has seen his production steadily decline the past couple of seasons to the point where he’s no longer an elite receiver is definitely in that category. He’ll be joined by figure skater Evan Lysacek, sportscaster Erin Andrews, singer Nicole Scherzinger, actors Shannen Doherty, Aiden Turner, skank-tress Pamela Anderson, astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Niecy Nash and reality TV hacks Kate Gosselin and Jake Pavelka. Yes, it’s quite a distinguished group, assuming that by distinguished you mean irrelevant, unknown and unimportant. Seriously, I don’t know who two thirds of these people are. Andrews is best-known for having some perv jam a camera up to the keyhole of her hotel room, film her undressing and post the video online. Unless you’re a sports fan, that would be the only way you’d know her. Lysacek is a guy who won a gold medal in a “sport” that Americans only pay attention to once every four years and his fifteen minutes will be up very shortly. Notice that Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees isn’t doing DTWDLS, nor is Shawn White. People who matter and have a career that can stand on its own aren’t doing this crap. With no apologies to DTWDLS host Tom Bergeron, who revealed the cast Monday with help from former finalist Melissa Rycroft, this show is unmitigated crap. It makes Bergeron’s former gigs hosting Hollywood Squares and America’s Funniest Home Videos seem impressive by comparison. Just look at the former or current athletes who have been a part of DWTDLS in the past and you’ll see what I mean: former NFL running back Emmitt Smith (retired and looking to stay in the spotlight), Olympic speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno (competes in a sport no one gives a damn about), IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves (not actually an athlete at all), figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi (retired and irrelevant) former NFL defensive lineman Warren Sapp (retired and an attention whore). I guess what I’m saying is don’t expect me to be tuning in when the show premieres on March 22. "It's definitely one of our strongest cast lineups ever," said executive producer Conrad Green. "Pound for pound, it should be really fascinating watching." No it won't, C. Ballroom dancing isn’t interesting when done by people who are good at it, so a bunch of quasi-celebrities with nothing better to do learning to ballroom dance is not only not fascinating viewing, it’s cause for me to want to hunt you down and bludgeon you with a frozen sea bass. Stop wasting my time with this crap and please just go away…………

Losers building giant ice mazes, a "24" recap and Russia's Olympic debacle causing trouble

- Now here’s something you can be proud of your hometown for: having the world’s largest ice maze. That great honor now belongs to Buffalo, N.Y., which accomplished the feat at the 1st Annual (how can something be the first annual?) Buffalo Powder Keg Winter Festival. The maze was completed Thursday night and whatever number of losers it took to assemble the monstrosity, it contains almost 2,200 blocks of ice, each weighing 300 pounds. Amanda Mochan from Guinness World Records came to Buffalo to certify the ice maze as the world’s largest and present a certificate documenting the “feat” to Jeff Empric of the "Roaming Buffaloes" adventure club and Newell Nussbaumer of Buffalo Rising, co-founders of the Powder Keg Festival. That a single dollar was spent either building or measuring this colossal waste of time is a travesty, but I suppose fools need a way to spend their time and amuse themselves and at least no one died or was injured in the pursuit – although I wouldn’t mind seeing a few of the tools involved with the maze suffer an injury or three……but I digress. The tools from the Powder Keg Festival bested the previous ice-maze record set by an equally moronic group of losers in Toronto in 2005. I do find it curious that the two “best” efforts in building ice mazes came from two cities in such close geographical proximity to one another, although that would make it easier to encircle the entire region in high-powered explosives and blast that entire chunk of land loose from the continent, floating it out to sea where these knobs could build ice mazes to their hearts’ content………….

- Jack Bauer was back leading a CTU tactical team as tonight’s episode of 24 kicked off. Due to Cole Ortiz being AWOL (more on that annoying storyline later), Jack stepped into the role in exchange for all charges against lady friend Renee Walker being dropped. Jack’s first task is going to a warehouse complex in Queens to bring in Fahrad Hassan, brother of Islamic Kingdom President Omar Hassan. Having fled after his cohorts in the plot to overthrow his brother and acquire nuclear materials for their country turned against him, Fahrad finds himself pinned down in a stock yard of some sort, wounded and waiting for the CTU team. CTU director Bryan Hastings urges him to stay where he is an not try to run. Fahrad disobeys the order and one of the men chasing him spots him and puts two bullets through his back. At the same instant the CTU team arrives, Fahrad falls to the ground, dead. The shooter must flee before he can confirm that he is in fact dead and Jack orders the CTU medics to keep Fahrad alive long enough to question him. Meanwhile, President Allison Taylor has been briefed by CTU that those who turned against Fahrad Hassan in his plot are members of the IRK’s own intelligence organization. She meets immediately with President Hassan and tells him that she needs intelligence documents so that CTU can show them to his brother and he can identify those involved in the conspiracy. After initially hesitating, he agrees to turn over the documents and calls Nabeel, his acting head of security, to begin the process. However, Nabeel doesn’t answer his phone because he is in a bit of trouble himself. He has been tasked with transporting Tarin, the former head of security, to the IRK embassy for questioning because the paranoid President Hassan suspects him of being part of the plot against him. Before leaving the U.N. building, Tarin meets with President Hassan’s daughter and his girlfriend Kayla. He tells her that a friend of his on the security staff will provide him with a gun and handcuff key to escape during transport and that she should meet him at a room at the Teodore Hotel in Manhattan he has secured. The plan works and Tarin pulls a gun on Nabeel and his driver during transport, forcing them into the storage compartment behind the rear seat and fleeing. Nabeel overhears Tarin on the phone with Kayla before he flees and when other members of the security team come looking for them and help them out of their spot in the back of the vehicle, Nabeel tells President Hassan as much. Back at the stock yard, Jack waits for the IRK security documents to arrive via computer to question Fahrad with. However, he dies before they arrive and Jack is forced to improvise. He suggests that because those in the plot can't be sure that Fahrad is dead, they leak to the press that he survived the shooting and is being transported to the hospital. His theory is that those involved in the plot will attack to silence Fahrad before he can talk and that the attacker can be caught and interrogated for intel. Hastings agrees and Jack leads the CTU team forward. The ambulance transports Fahrad to St. Julian’s hospital as if he were still alive and he’s taken inside and placed in a third-floor room. While there, Jack gets a call from Renee, who is being released from CTU and has learned of Jack’s role in having the charges against her dismissed. He tells her to have CTU take her to his apartment and that he will meet here there once this is all over. Earlier in the episode, Hastings made the decision not to press charges official and drew the ire of White House chief of staff Rob Weiss, but Hastings doesn’t care. News of Fahrad’s “survival” is broadcast on the late news and Samir, the man who co-opted Fahrad’s plot and turned it into a plan to attack New York, sees it and dispenses a young member of the group named Marcos to the hospital to take out Fahrad. Marcos is the group’s lone American and before going, he tries to warn his mother to leave New York to avoid being there when the nuclear bomb goes off. He accepts to assignment to kill Fahrad and arrives at the hospital strapped with a bomb. By the time he arrives, CTU is running facial recognition software on everyone in the hospital to find the attacker. Chloe is running the software and when Marcos approaches the hospital on foot, she spots him and tips off Jack. Marcos approaches a door manned by CTU agent Owen, who is instructed to comply with whatever Marcos demands of him. Owen nervously goes along with the plan and after surrendering his gun to Marcos, leads him to Fahrad’s room on the third floor. The plot is for Chloe to disable the bomb’s detonating mechanism remotely before Marcos reaches the third floor and after some brief issues, she is able to do so after Owen tricks Marcos into opening his jacket and exposing the bomb to a security camera. By the time Marcos barricades he and Owen inside Fahrad’s room, the bomb is a dud. Marcos adapts and shoots Fahrad several times in the chest with Owen’s gun but sees that the heart monitor hooked up to Fahrad doesn’t show any change He realizes he’s been set up and when Jack and the rest of the tac team bust into the room, Marcos has no intention of being taken alive. He leaps from the window, crashes to the ground below and hobbles off with what appears to be a broken leg. He enters the lower level of the hospital and barricades himself inside some sort of pressure chamber before Jack and catch up to him. Marcos rigs the door so it won't open, then calls Samir and is told that he must detonate the bomb manually in order to prevent himself from being taken alive. Now, onto the Cole Ortiz/Dana Walsh über-annoying storyline. Basically, after killing Dana’s (a.k.a. Jenny Scott from Arkansas) former boyfriend/partner in crime Kevin Wade (actually, he was killed by his own partner, Nick) and his friend Nick after they blackmailed her into helping them commit armed robbery and refused to leave her alone, Cole and Dana are now at the site of the killing out in the woods. They must clean Kevin’s van to leave no traces or evidence behind and weigh both bodies down with rocks before sinking them into the lake. Cole refuses to leave and allow Dana to handle the chore alone because as he points out, he’s now a part of things. The last main development of the episode is President Hassan calling his wife Dalia, who is on her way out of the country and also planning on leaving him, apparently. He reaches her on their private plane just before takeoff and asks her to call Kayla and warn her about the nuclear threat to the city so she can get out before it’s too late. However, she is busy getting after it with Tarin in his hotel room because really, what is better than sex with a fugitive on the run? Tarin is also a couple hours away from meeting with a contact who will help him gain political asylum in the U.S., so he’s scoring in several ways. They may not be on their way out of the city, but President Taylor and all of the other leaders from the peace conference at the U.N. – aside from President Hassan – are. They are headed to a nearby military base outside the city where they will be safe and can monitor the situation. The hour ends with Jack attempting to find a way inside the pressure chamber at the hospital, knowing it’s the best chance at information on the plot to attack New York with a dirty bomb…………

- Am I the only one who wonders why New Mexico men’s basketball coach Steve Alford is apologizing? Sure, Alford engaged in a very public postgame screaming match with BYU senior Jonathan Tavernari during the teams' postgame handshake Saturday after Alford’s Lobos defeated the Cougars in Provo, Utah, 83-81. Video of the incident shows New Mexico assistant coach Wyking Jones yelling at Tavernari and then Alford and Tavernari can be seen in video replays arguing emphatically. "What are you going to do about it?" Jones shouted as Tavernari. "I'm going to tell you real clear ... You're an [expletive]," Alford then yelled at Tavernari. All of this went down right amidst members of both teams who were actually showing good sportsmanship (which is for losers, of course) and shaking hands like they were supposed to. The argument seemed to stem from a physical altercation near the end of the game between Tavernari and New Mexico's Darington Hobson. Tavernari had to be restrained following that incident and he clearly had not cooled off one bit by the time the game ended. "I'm wired as a competitor sometimes to a fault, and Jonathan's a fierce competitor, and it's senior night," Alford said in an interview Monday. "I understand that, I've been there, I've experienced that both as a player and as a coach." Fine, but why are you apologizing? I love college basketball – in fact, it’s my favorite sport- and I don’t have a problem with this at all. Heck, if anything it makes the game more interesting. These are the two top teams in the Mountain West Conference and there’s a good chance these two teams could meet in the championship game of the upcoming conference tournament. Having the coach of one team and star player of the opposing team on the verge of throwing hands at any moment would only up the drama of that game. These are two teams ranked in the top 15 in the country (No. 10 for New Mexico, No. 15 for BYU) and having the possibility of an on-court coach-player brawl during a game would make the Mountain West title game a must-see for all fans. Unfortunately, both involved parties seem to be taking the prescribed course of expressing regret and apologizing. Alford said he was trying to congratulate Tavernari, a senior, on an outstanding career at BYU, and that things spun out of control. "We got to speak afterwards," Alford said. "And so I think it was just the heat of the moment between two pretty good competitors. But nobody has any more respect for him as a player than I do." According to Alford, Tavernari came to the Lobos' locker room after the game and apologized, so they claim to be all good now. Still, the conference is reviewing the incident and could hand down penalties to both men. For me, that’s truly sad and my interest in a potential BYU-New Mexico title game rematch is no longer quite as high…………

- Are you ready for a repeat, California? You may remember that from 1975-1983, a dude named Jerry Brown served as your governor. Well, that dude is now California Attorney General Jerry Brown plans to announce Tuesday that he's entering the race to be governor one more time. Reports have him accumulating $12 million to fund his campaign already and he has the support of Hollywood über-producers David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. By the way, it is a nice change of pace that the famous, politically unqualified Hollywood types are simply supporting a candidate in the California governor’s race and one of them isn’t actually a candidate. Brown is the only prominent Democratic candidate in the race at this point after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom dropped out of the contest last October. Furthermore, early polls indicate Brown that Brown currently leads known Republican candidates Meg Whitman (by 5 to 10 points) and State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner by 15 to 17 points. Ironically, Brown’s supporters are touting his previous gubernatorial experience as an asset in his candidacy. That’s ironic because when Brown left office last time, he was not exactly held in the highest esteem. In fact, he was viewed as a kook who dated singer Linda Ronstadt, slept on a futon in an apartment to save money on staffing the governor's mansion and earned the nickname Governor Moonbeam after he proposed buying space on a satellite to enhance state communications in the event of an emergency. Still, he doesn’t fret about those criticisms and seems to view himself as something of a visionary. "There's a certain regression to the mean in politics. Things tend to mediocrity,” Brown said, adding that his policies "in a very dramatic and forceful way set the pace for the whole country." So what has he been doing since he left the governor’s office in 1983? Well, Brown made a run for President, spent a little time studying Buddhism, traveled with Mother Theresa and served two terms as Mayor of Oakland. He still has a bit of the ‘70s hippie in him and will now do battle with distinguished candidates such as Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt. But then again, this is California and what would a gubernatorial race be without a whole lot of kookiness and weirdos…………

- Duck and cover, Russian Olympic officials, duck and cover. Your athletes posted a paltry 15 medals (three gold, five silver and seven bronze) at the just-concluded Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada, coming in 11th with medals. That isn’t sitting well with your dictator, er, President Dmitry Medvedev. With his country poised to host the next Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia in 2014, Medvedev is looking for someone to pay for Russia's poorest showing since it began competing in the Winter Olympics in 1912. "Unprecedented investments are being made in sports in Russia, but money is not everything," Medvedev said. "We need to think about how we change our training methods. The new training system should focus on athletes who should be put at its cornerstone, not sports federations and their executives -- and not even the trainers, with all our great respect to them. Athletes are those who bring victories, and they should become the focus of our attention." Medvedev called for the resignation of the nation's top Olympic officials Monday during an address on state television from his residence outside Moscow. He singled out sports bureaucrats, whom he called "fat cats," and said the country's sports system should be completely reinvented. The 15 medals were an embarrassing result in light of the massive infusions of cash into the country’s Olympic program leading up to the games and the vows of Russian sports officials on the eve of the games that Russians could expect a place in the top three and predicted their athletes would bring home at least 30 medals. From the dictator on down, Russians are outraged that the results did not match the promises and thousands of angry members of the public have taken to Internet message boards to voice their anger. The lack of medals from Russian athletes certainly wasn’t for lack of incentive, as the government promised to pay individual athletes $135,000 for every gold medal won, $81,000 for every silver and just over $54,000 for every bronze medal. In spite of those potential rewards, Russian athletes burst from the starting gate at the Olympics with a grand total of one medal – bronze – in the first week of the Games. Making matters worse, Russian athletes, trainers and sport officials made every lame excuse they could think of, blaming bad luck, lousy weather, equipment failure and even judges' bias. The most embarrassing losses came in figure skating and ice hockey -- the two sports where Russia has long excelled. In figure skating, it was the first time since 1964 that a Soviet or Russian team did not win a single gold medal. Worse still was men’s ice hockey, where the Russian team was curb-stomped by the host Canadians in the quarterfinals, 7-3. Observers blame the declining Russian success in Olympic competition on the fact that the infrastructure built by the former Soviet Union that has been the backbone of Russia’s athletic system is gradually decaying and little has been done to bolster it. "We have been living on Soviet resources for a long time, but that is over now," Medvedev said. That’s fine, but how is Russia going to fix the problem? They had better come up with a solution quickly, because the next Winter Olympic Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi will be mighty embarrassing if the host country can’t even crack double digits in medals…………