A "Trainspotting" sequel, smashing a Maserati and building pirate ships

- China is in a wonderful place financially. It owns a massive chunk of the United States’ debt and is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but the financial good fortune doesn’t end there. A certain Chinese Maserati owner is doing fairly well for himself, so much so that he has enough disposable income to hire four sledgehammer-wielding men to smash up his $420,000 supercar in protest at poor customer service. Yes, a man identified only by his surname Wang decided that the best way to let the world know that he wasn’t happy with the service he received from his luxury car dealership was to have four sledgehammer-wielding dudes to destroy it at the opening of an auto show in the eastern city of Qingdao in Shandong province. The staged attack on the Maserati Quattroporte took place in full public view. Video from the attack was posted online, showing the four men enthusiastically bashing the hell out of the car, leaving it with a shattered windscreen and mirrors, a busted-up grille and serious dents all over its body. During the attack, the car was draped in a banner accusing the Italian manufacturer of poor decision-making. Wang’s sad story of woe began when he bought the luxury car in 2011 for 2.6 million yuan - around 100 times the average income of Chinese urban residents last year. His problems began when he took it back to the dealer for an unspecified repair. The dealership’s repair department charged him for new spare parts despite using used ones, according to Wang. Later, the dealership failed to fix a problem with a door and scratched the vehicle, he added. "I hope foreign luxury car producers acknowledge clearly that Chinese consumers are entitled to get the service that is commensurate with the brand," Wang said. Maserati's China arm said the company and its dealer in Qingdao did respond to Wang’s complaints and that it regretted its previous actions. The staged attack was Wang’s response to that statement. "We deeply regret that the customer decided to terminate bilateral talks in such a sudden manner," the automaker said in a statement. Mazerati may regret it, but Wang clearly doesn’t………

- Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin is angry. He’s also extremely unoccupied at the time and the two things are directly linked. His team just lost in seven games to the New York Rangers and was shut out in each of the last two games. Ovechkin contributed heavily to those two losses, firing 30 shots on Henrik Lundqvist but scoring just one goal. The former MVP’s long goal game on a power-play in Game 1 of the Capitals’ Eastern Conference quarterfinal series and with the loss, the former MVP and team captain has yet to reach the conference finals in eight NHL seasons. Add all of it up and you have Ovechkin doing an interview with the Russian-language Sport-Express newspaper in which he all but accused the NHL of rigging the series to ensure that it would go the full seven games. : “The refereeing... You understand it yourself. How can there be no penalties at all (on one team) during the playoffs? Ovechkin asked. “I am not saying there was a phone call from (the league), but someone just wanted Game 7. For the ratings. You know, the lockout, escrow, the League needs to make profit... I don't know whether the refs were predisposed against us or the league. But to not give obvious penalties (against the Capitals), while for us any little thing was immediately penalized.” Those comments aren't likely to sit well with the NHL, which fined Rangers coach John Tortorella $30,000 last season for suggesting that the refs “wanted” overtime in the Winter Classic after conspiring with NBC, which broadcast the game. Ovechkin also suggested that he was facing undue pressure because he was trying to win as a virtual one-man team, comments that should inspire his teammates to try much harder next season so he doesn’t continue his string of losing four straight Game 7s on their home ice…….

- Life is not so good right now for NASA. Its budget shrinks annually and the projects it can afford to keep running aren’t yielding superb results. Specifically, the agency’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has been crippled by the failure of one of the reaction wheels that keep it pointed. NASA officials confirmed the bad news Wednesday afternoon and explained that if engineers cannot restore the wheel or find some other way to keep the spacecraft’s telescope pointed, it could spell a premature end to what had been one of the agency’s most successful missions. Kepler has been busy searching for Earth-like planets in habitable orbits around other stars and just last month, astronomers reported that Kepler had found two planets only slightly larger than Earth orbiting in the “Goldilocks” zone, where liquid water is possible, of a star 1,200 light-years from Earth. More planet candidates are waiting for confirmation, but may not get it if the probe cannot be fixed. Kepler was launched in March 2009 with the assignment to determine the fraction of stars in the galaxy that harbor Earth-like planets by surveying some 150,000 stars in the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra. It was tasked to search for the dips in starlight caused by planets passing, or transiting, in front of their suns. So far, it has identified 115 planets and has a list of 2,740 other candidates. Because Earth transits only once a year, NASA really needs two more years to get the chance it needs to see more transits of the planets they are seeking. Not getting that time will leave the data in a gray area. Kepler’s wheel problems started in January, when engineers noticed that one of the reaction wheels that keep the spacecraft pointed was experiencing too much friction. Kepler was shut down for a couple of weeks to give it a rest with the hope that the wheel’s lubricant would spread out and solve the problem. That attempt failed, but Kepler kept plowing ahead with its mission, scheduled to last until at least 2016. It has been chugging along with three wheels since once of its original four failed last year after showing signs of erratic friction. Three wheels are required to keep Kepler properly and precisely aimed and project managers have put the odds of that happening at 50-50………

- Ewan McGregor has changed his mind. The “Star Wars” star once dead-set against a sequel to Danny Boyle’s cult-classic film “Trainspotting.” He was one of the key cogs in the original, so doing “Trainspotting 2” without him seemed like a bad idea. It likely still would have happened, mind you, because Hollywood loves remakes and sequels because they allow it to crank out “new” movies with a minimum of creative work. Thankfully, a McGregor-less sequel won't have to become a reality as he has reversed course and decided that he’s down with being a part of the neext chapter in the story. Boyle recently revealed that he is aiming to have “Trainspotting 2” ready for 2016, 20 years after the release of his classic black comedy starring McGregor, which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. Boyle explained that his follow-up is "very loosely based" on Porno, Welsh's own sequel to “Trainspotting,” and added that “Trainspotting” screenwriter John Hodge is working on the script. Why the change of heart for McGregor? "It's funny - Irvine Welsh's novel ‘Porno’ is set 10 years after Trainspotting, but I wasn't ready to do it then, for lots of reasons," McGregor said. "But now there’s talk of it happening in a few years' time, and I'm totally up for it. I'd be so chuffed to be back on set with everybody and I think it would be an extraordinary experience." Recapturing the momentum and enthusiasm for the film two decades later, when most movie fans have either forgotten it or never heard of it in the first place, will be difficult – even if the original is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest British films of all time. Its soundtrack featuring Iggy Pop's “Lust For Life” alongside tracks by Underworld, Primal Scream and Elastica will also be tough to match……

- Most people, if they’re honest, have dreamt of being a pirate at one point or another in their life. It’s the reason International Talk Like a Pirate days exists. St. Charles, Mo. resident Tim Woodson understands this. It’s why he has embarked upon a quest to become the Noah (or Noah’s Ark fame) of a new time and generation. “I just wanted to do something different with a boat and said, “Let’s build a pirate ship,’” Woodson explained. “That was five years ago and here we are six ships later.” That’s right, the man builds pirate ships. His love of all things pirate-y includes not only building pirate ships, but also gives river cruises. It has morphed from a hobby into a full-fledged business. “We recently sold the one we use last year for our cruises to the History Channel,” Woodson added. “Shelby Singer from the Axe Men bought it.” Yes, selling pirate ships to quasi-famous E-listers is quite the accomplishment and now, that boat – dubbed the Gypsy Rose - will be featured in a new reality show later this year. Not one to rest on his (insert pirate accent here) laaaaaurrrrrels, Woodson is hard at work on the fifth and sixth Gypsy Rose vessels and these will be bigger and better than the ones that came before them. “This one is 60 feet by 15 feet wide, 68 feet long and its 30 feet tall,” he said. Prior to becoming a pirate ship builder, Woodson worked as a commercial artist for 30 years. He now works with a longtime friend he calls Barnacle Bill (real name Bill Burkholder). “He’d go down and cut down between the railing and the fiberglass boat,” Barnacle Bill said. “A beautiful perfectly good boat and I would say man this guy is nutty as can be.” One of the boats the duo is now working on was once onboard the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy………

"Temple of Doom" in Syria, Billy Crystal back on Broadway and it's time to eat bugs

- Welcome back, world of delusional kook-dom. The fools who believe they see the Almighty or Virgin Mary in a grease stain on a stove or oil spill in their driveway are never far away and after a short break, they have returned to provide the world with new reasons to laugh. Norwalk, Ct. resident Joseph McCaffrey belongs to this non-distinguished group and he’s found his supposed sign from above in a truly insipid place. There McCaffrey was, skimming through a local newspaper when he spotted what his tiny brain could only surmise was an image of Jesus Christ in a blob of ink. While trolling the May 2 edition of his local paper, he saw the blob of ink and mentioned to his wife – yes, kooks can have wives - that the movie section had a large blob of ink. "I didn't see it at first, but as I was reading the paper, I said to my wife the movie section was blotted out with ink and held it up for her to see," he recalled. "And she shouted, 'It's Jesus!'” Like any good delusional fool who has found something amazing that doesn’t exist and is merely a figment of their overactive imagination, McCaffrey snapped a photo of the holy ink blob to show his friends and family. "Some see the image, some don't," he added. "The overwhelming majority said they could definitely see Jesus." Those people are known as idiots as well, just to be clear. But McCaffrey has questions about what this supposed miracle in newsprint means. He’s even cracking jokes about it. "If Jesus is really trying to send me a message, I wish he popped up in the Lotto section instead," he said. "Does he want me to see a movie?" No Bill, he merely wants you to stop being an overly suggestive moron……..

- The United Nations would like you to eat bugs. It sounds like a desperate idea to tackle world hunger and in a sense, it is. Edible insects are being promoted as a low-fat, high-protein food for people, pets and livestock and as a way to battle hunger, global warming and pollution. The bug eaters at the U.N. are touting bugs’ benefits: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and livestock pollution, creating jobs in developing countries and feeding the millions of hungry people in the world. At present, some two billion of the planet’s seven billion residents currently consume bugs, mostly people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization wants to expand that number and has issued a report exploring edible insect potential. The report cites the use of a red coloring produced from the cochineal, a scaled insect often exported from Peru, as one way bugs are already in the food chain. Science ranks the nutritional value of edible insects such as red ants, small grasshoppers and some water beetles high on the list, with enough protein to match lean ground beef while having less fat per gram. Bugs also contain useful minerals such as iron, magnesium, phosphorous, selenium and zinc. Beetles and caterpillars are the most common edible insects among the 1,900 species that people eat. Travel enough and you just might find bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets on the menu. According to the U.N. report, insects on average can convert 4.4 pounds of feed into 2.2 pounds of edible meat compared to cattle, which need 17.6 pounds of feed to produce the same amount of meat. Oh, and beetles don’t generate dangerous greenhouse gases with their farts the way cattle do………

- Money is being thrown around like a strip club on steroids and the NBA is the setting for this massive orgy of big bucks. A battle has been brewing for months over control of one of the worst franchises in the Association. Sacramento has fought to keep the team currently known as the Kings and get a new arena built, while a group from Seattle has tried desperately to ply the franchise away to fill the void left when its former team moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. At various points, both sides seemingly had the deal sewn up, most recently when a committee of NBA owners recommended to the league that the team remain in Seattle. That didn’t sit well with Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer, the deep-pocketed Seattle-based investors trying to acquire the team, and they ramped up their offer to buy the Maloof family’s 65 percent of the Kings to $409 million (from $358 million) for a total valuation of $625 million. That may not be enough to sway owners into voting for the move, but it appears to have swayed owners Joe and Gavin Maloof. According to multiple sources, the Maloofs have informed their fellow owners that if their deal to sell and relocate the Kings to Seattle is not approved by league owners next week, they will not sell the team to a Sacramento-based group that promises to keep the Kings in Sacramento. Their reasoning is sound: They need money and they need it now. Should their sweetheart deal with the Seattle group be rejected, they have also reached a "backup" agreement with the Hansen-Ballmer group to sell it 20 percent of the team for $125 million to allow the Maloofs to continue to operate the franchise. In other words, Hansen keeps throwing more money on the pile and hoping that wins everyone over. The move seems to have had some impact, as the committee evaluating the potential move plans to reconsider the revised offer next week. While the Maloofs work their own angle, the NBA has been busy negotiating its own deal for the Kings with a group led by Silicon Valley billionaire Vivek Ranadive. However, this group has changed its leadership several times and its best offer was a valuation of $525 million for the Kings and a deal with local governments to building a new arena with more than $250 million in public funds. No matter how this ends, quite a few people are going to get even richer from this deal……

- Billy Crystal is at that point in his career. He’s done it all on the big screen, small screen and Great White Way. He’s hosted every awards show worth hosting (a short list) and can essentially pick and choose his projects without needing to work constantly. So what’s next for the acting icon? Crystal announced Tuesday he will bring his Tony-winning play “700 Sundays” back to Broadway one last time for a nine-week run this fall at the Imperial Theatre. Des McAnuff will direct the one-man, autobiographical play Crystal wrote himself. In the production, the Emmy winner plays several rounds of characters that left an imprint on his life while growing up in New York. Despite all his prominent roles and gigs over the years, Crystal has often called the play “the most satisfying experience of my career.” His (allegedly) final round of the play will have previews starting Nov. 5 and an opening date set for Nov. 13. “I’ve now decided to tell this story one last time in my own backyard, where it all took place,” Crystal said in a statement. “It is a privilege to return to Broadway to say goodbye to one of the greatest thrills of my life.” The play’s past success is impressive.  “700 Sundays” debuted on Broadway in 2004 and quickly set box office records by taking in the highest weekly gross at the Broadhurst Theatre and earning more than $21 million by the end of its run. It also snared its share of awards, most notably winning the 2005 Tony for special theatrical experience. After its New York debut, it toured across the country and internationally, with stops in Canada and Australia. For a native New Yorker like Crystal, though, there was only one place it could end……..

- How long has the civil war in Syria gone on? Long enough that participants are now drawing inspiration from old-school Hollywood action films. There is no nice way to break the news that a Syrian rebel commander has been caught on video cutting out the heart of a soldier and biting into it, so let’s dive in. That claim comes from the activist group Human Rights Watch, which has either been watching “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and eating spicy foods before bed or watched an amateur video posted online in which a man cuts into a dead soldier’s torso and removes his liver and heart. The attacker has been indentified by HRW as Abu Sakkar, a founder of the rebel Omar al-Farouq Brigade. In the video, the attacker says: "I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog.” That would be embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad, who still refuses to cede power even though it’s clear he’s not wanted any longer. Later in the video Sakkar also uses sectarian language to insult Alawites, HRW said. So far, 80,000 are believed to have been killed in the increasingly sectarian conflict in which majority Sunni Muslims have sought to overthrow Assad, whose family is chiefly supported by Alawites. No one is sure how many people have been killed or injured because of government restrictions and security concerns, leaving amateur videos posted online as the primary source of news. To verify the identity of the man in the “Temple of Doom” clip, HRW claims to have compared frames in the clip to similar videos of the same man and spoken to sources in Homs, including other rebels, who identified Sakkar. HRW emergencies director Peter Bouckaert decried Abu Sakkar’s alleged cannibalism and repeated his organization’s plea or Syria’s conflict to be referred to the International Criminal Court. Please do before George Lucas and Steven Spielberg view incidents such as this one as a sign that a fifth “Indiana Jones” movie is needed……..

Google streamlines, get free Charles Ramsey ink and Bangladesh rises up

- Benedict Cumberbatch is a busy man these days. As one of the stars of the upcoming “Star Trek Into Darkness,” he is front and center in the hearts and minds of sci-fi dorks everywhere. Playing the prime villain in the latest “Star Wars” flick can have that effect, but wait….there’s more. He will also star in Meryl Streep’s new movie, “August: Osage County,” this summer, as well as “The Fifth Estate,” in which he appears as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is also busy filming the third series of “Sherlock” with co-star Martin Freeman - but wait….there’s more. Not content with all of the above, he’s also teaming up Norwegian electronic rock duo Röyksopp on their new mix album. Röyksopp has agreed to follow the footsteps of Arctic Monkeys, Flaming Lips, MGMT and others by assembling a mix album for the “Late Night Tales' series.” Röyksopp has enlisted the help of such artists as XTC, Vangelis and John Martyn, but somehow the idea of a famous actor who isn’t really a musician at all came about. Cumberbatch isn't going to do any singing – nor does anyone else on the average Röyksopp album – but will appear for a reading of the second half of a short story called 'Flat Of Angles' by Australian author Simon Cleary. Cumberbatch read the story's first half on a “Late Night Tales” compilation by Friendly Fires that came out last November and Röyksopp was clearly impressed by what they heard. Ever since “Sherlock” became an international hit for the BBC, Cumberbatch has become much busier and seen his popularity soar. Röyksopp's “Late Night Tales” mix album will be released on June 16 and by then, Cumberbatch will likely have signed to star in at least five other movies……

- It’s time to rise up, Bangladeshi blue-collar workers. The power of the little guy is currently on display in the Asian nation, where the country’s main textile association confirmed late Monday that many textile factories in an area near the capital, Dhaka, have shut due to worker unrest sparked by the collapse of the Rana Plaza. Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. claimed factory owners made the decision on safety grounds. In response to pressure to improve workers' conditions, the government says it will lift trade union restrictions. So far, 1,127 bodies have been recovered from the Rana Plaza building, although officials say the rescue operation is drawing to a close. "The possibility of getting more bodies is thin," Brigadier General Mohammad Siddiqul Alam Shikder said. The Rana Plaza, located on the outskirts of Dhaka, housed a number of textile factories and many of those factories supplied prominent Western retailers. The deadly collapse is the latest in a series of deadly incidents focusing global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's textile industry and workers have clearly had enough. "Owners decided to close their factories on safety grounds after workers went on a rampage almost every day after the collapse of Rana Plaza," Atiqul Islam added. All of this is happening because 80 percent of workers at factories in Ashulia staged a walkout demanding a salary increase and as a nice bonus, the execution of the owner of the Rana Plaza. These workers made their presence felt by taking to the streets, vandalizing vehicles and clashing with police. Western retailers, H&M, C&A, Britain's Primark Stores and the owner of the Zara chain, Inditex, are all under fire for their connection to the collapsed building and perhaps this deadly incident will be a catalyst for real change……..

- Charles Ramsey has become something of a cult hero in the past week. The man who helped kidnap victim Amanda Berry escape from the Cleveland where she had been held captive for a decade, then delivered a kick-ass television interview in which he explained how he went from eating some McDonald’s food to helping rescue a kidnap victim. His lively retelling of the story went viral in no time and now his fame has taken the next step: ink. Yes, the man who went hero in the rescue of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight is coming to a selected body part near you and it could be a free piece of body art. Cleveland tattoo artist Rodney Rose, who works at an establishment called 252 Tattoo, was so inspired by Ramsey’s actions that he offered to ink the man’s likeness for free on anyone who would get the tat. “He’s kind of like that public figure in Cleveland right now, kind of the voice and face of it,” Rose said. “He’s such an expressive guy, I figured it’d make a great tattoo.” Rose put the offer on his Facebook page, explaining that if someone was willing to get a Ramsey tattoo, he would do it for free. Who would be nutty enough to take him up on that kind of deal? Fellow 252 Tattoos artist Stephen Munhollon, that’s who. “I think Rodney and I were caught up in the ridiculousness of it,” Munhollon explained. “You could ask the question, did I want to get Charles Ramsey tattooed on my leg, and the obvious answer is no. The real question is, was I willing to get Charles Ramsey tattooed on my leg, and the answer was yes.” That may make no sense at all, but logic matters not because Munhollon now has Ramsey’s mug inked on the back of his knee cap after five hours under the needle. He insists it is not without meaning. “In society, a lot of times people choose not to get involved in situations,” he said. “I think what’s really grabbed people in regards to Mr. Ramsey, is he’s an average, everyday guy. He’s an ordinary person, he was put in an extraordinary situation that he could have walked away from. But he chose to do something.” Well said, Steve-O………

- Google is consolidating, which isn't normal for the tech giant. Known more for expanding its empire than scaling back, the search titan is actually streamlining its operations by combining cloud storage for three of Google's more popular services – well, two of its more popular services and then Google+ - in an effort to give users more control over how they want to use the storage space. The storage for Gmail, Google Drive and Google+ is being combined, allowing Google to offer users access to 15 gigabytes of storage for free that they can use for their emails, Google documents and photos on the Google+ social network. Before now, users had 10 GB that they could use for Gmail and an additional 5 GB for Google Drive and Google+ photos. Anyone who wants more storage can always fork over some extra cash, but that just seems foolish when most folks don’t use the chunk of the cloud they already get for free. "Maybe you’re a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2 GB in Gmail," Google wrote in a blog post. "Now it doesn’t matter, because you can use your storage the way you want." Better still, Google wants you to know that you can check the Google Drive storage Web page to see a visualization of how you are using your online storage space. This lovely, multi-colored pie chart will show users how their storage breaks down between the three services. All of these changes will roll out over the next few weeks and when they’re done, still no one will be using Google+ for any reason……..

- Michigan football coach Brady Hoke is pissed. No, it’s not because his team was b*tch-slapped by South Carolina in the Outback Bowl last season and finished a so-so 8-5. He’s also not angry because his team’s most dynamic offensive player graduated and must be replaced. No, Hoke is ticked because of the way Notre Dame pulled out of its annual football rivalry game with the Wolverines. Hoke was speaking to a crowd at the West Michigan Sports Commission luncheon in Grand Rapids and minced no words when addressing the topic. He proclaimed that the Irish were "chickening out" of their series with the Wolverines. "We have unbelievable rivalry games at Michigan," Hoke said. "The Notre Dame, that rivalry, which they're chickening out of ... they're still going to play Michigan State, they'll play Purdue, they don't want to play Michigan.” Notre Dame was forced to give Michigan three years’ notice of ending their series due to stipulations in the contract between the schools, with notice being given before kickoff of the game between the schools that year. The Fighting Irish delivered that notice of termination of the deal on the night of Sept. 22, 2012 -- just before the teams played. That announcement conveniently came 10 days after Notre Dame announced its move to the ACC, and with it, an agreement to play five games against schools in that conference each season. "The decision to cancel games in 2015-17 was Notre Dame's and not ours," Wolverines athletic director Dave Brandon said in a release in September. "We value our annual rivalry with Notre Dame, but will have to see what the future holds for any continuation of the series." The two sides have two games remaining before their current deal ends and play what should be two very interesting games on Sept. 7 of this year and then the final game of the series on Sept. 6, 2014, at Notre Dame………

Targeting Chicago bikers, junk DNA and movie news

- He may have won this weekend’s The Players Championship tournament at TPC Sawgrass in Florida, but Tiger Woods isn't going to win any awards for maturity after he and longtime rival Sergio Garcia got after one another verbally on Saturday like two whiny elementary school brats fighting over control of the monkey bars at recess. Prior to Woods claiming the title by shooting a 70 on Sunday, he and Garcia traded barbs after Garcia suggested that Woods could have shown better judgment in pulling a club from his bag early in their third round. During a mid-round weather delay, Garcia complained that he felt the timing of Woods' action distracted him. The problem arose after Woods hooked his tee shot into the trees and was trying to figure out his second shot to the par-5 second hole. At the same time, Garcia was waiting to play his second from the fairway. When his shot sailed well to the right of the green, Garcia reacted angrily, casting an angry glare toward the commotion surrounding Woods. A rattled Garcia a went on to bogey the hole, while Woods got up-and-down for birdie from the right-greenside bunker. "Well, obviously, Tiger was on the left, and it was my shot to hit,'' Garcia said. “He moved all the crowd that he needed to move. I waited for that. I wouldn't say that he didn't see that I was ready, but you do have a feel when the other guy is going to hit, and right as I was in the top of my backswing, I think he must have pulled like a 5-wood or a 3-wood and obviously everybody started screaming.” Woods didn’t like hearing his adversary complain and wholeheartedly disagreed with the Garcia's assessment. "Obviously, he doesn't know all the facts," Woods replied. . "The marshals told me he had already hit. I pulled the club and played my shot. Then I hear his comments afterward. Not really surprising that he's complaining about something." Ouch. That didn’t sound very kind, Tiger. Then again, these two have existed in a state of mutual disdain since a 2000 made-for-TV exhibition in which Garcia defeated Woods in a match-play event and celebrated like it was a big tournament victory…….

- Junk DNA or not junk DNA? So-called junk DNA and its greater purpose has been debated for years, but new research by Victor Albert, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo in New York, aims to settle the issue definitively. According to Albert’s findings, this junk DNA doesn't code for proteins and isn't needed for a healthy organism – in a non-human subject anyhow. "At least for a plant, junk DNA really is just junk — it's not required," Albert said. His work centered on a carnivorous plant, but could have implications for the human genome as well. Genes comprise 2 percent of the human genome and in recent years, researchers have debated whether the remaining 98 percent could play some hidden, useful role. Many theories posited that junk DNA may consist of genetic parasites that copy segments of DNA and paste themselves repeatedly in the genome, or that it consists of the remains of once-useful genes that have now been switched off. "Nobody's really known what junk DNA does or doesn't do," Albert admitted. His work may not silence researchers who believe that junk DNA might actually be useful, including those involved in a ginormous project called ENCODE, which aimed to uncover the role of the 3.3 billion base pairs, or letters of DNA, in the human genome that don't code for proteins. Scientists in that effort found that in test tubes, about 80 percent of the genome seemed to have some biological activity, such as affecting whether genes turn on. If these new results bear out, they would mean that such activity does not translate to any useful or necessary function for humans, Albert and his colleagues sequenced the genome of the carnivorous bladderwort plant, Utricularia gibba, a freshwater or soil dweller in much of the world. The carnivorous plant sucks swimming microorganisms into its tiny, 1-milimeter-long bladders. The genome they studied had just 80 million base pairs and was interesting because the plant seemed to have stripped out a vast amount of non-coding DNA. It remained healthy and functional without it, suggesting that junk DNA may just live up (or down) to its name………

- There wasn’t enough greatness in the tank for the weekend’s most-hyped new film to dislodge the reigning box office champ. “Iron Man 3” fended off a challenge from “The Great Gatsby,” banking $72.5 million to up its two-week domestic take to $284.9 million. That was enough to hold off “Gatsby,” which was solid in its debut with a $51.1 million tally. After those two movies took their cut, there wasn’t much money left for anyone else. “Pain and Gain” was a distant, distant third with $5 million in its third weekend and has brought in $41.6 million so far. Fourth place was something of a surprise, as the latest identical Tyler Perry movie and what feels like the fourth one already this year, “Tyler Perry Presents Peeples,” finished in that fourth slot with $4.8 million in its debut weekend. Fifth place belonged to “42,” which remained in the top five for the fifth time in as many weeks, earning $4.7 million and elevating its overall domestic earnings to $84.7 million. “Oblivion” locked down sixth place with $3.8 million and its four-week bank roll stands at $81.6 million. “The Croods” was next on the list with $3.6 million and its eight-week domestic earnings are an impressive $173.2 million and counting. “The Big Wedding” tumbled two more spots in its third weekend, earning a mere $2.5 million for an overall take of $18.2 million. Matthew McConaughey’s dramatic turn in “Mud” continued to go relatively well in limited release as the project appeared in only 854 theaters but still made $2.4 million for a three-week total of $8.4 million. “Oz The Great and Powerful” had enough juice left for one more top-10 appearance, adding $800,000 to its running tally for a $229.9 million total through 10 weeks. “Scary Movie 5” (No. 11) and “The Place Beyond the Pines” dropped out from last week’s top 10…….

- Wise choice, Turkish Airlines officials. After trying to drop a controversial ban on flight attendants wearing red lipstick or nail polish because it made flight attendants appear too sexy, the airline has doubled back amidst pressure both internally and externally. The controversy began last week when the airline’s media relations department sent out a memo forbidding flight crew members from wearing red cosmetics. The memo explained, in thoroughly B.S. business-speak terms, that wearing those colors  "impairs the visual integrity of the intended look.” What does that nonsense actually mean? "Turkish Airlines has adopted a policy that requires service personnel to use personal grooming products that are in a more muted color palate,” the statement added later on in its avalanche of printed nonsense. Booooooringgggg……and clearly that point of view is shared by many because the wars of words from within and without have led Turkish Airlines to reconsider the new policy – sort of. Dr. Temel Kotil, the airline's president and chief executive, tried to spin the situation his company’s way by insisting that there was never any official decision made and it was only an idea suggested by lower-tier managerial personnel. "It was not a decision actually, there's no approval,” Kotil said, adding that the idea came from a paper on appearance standards prepared by "low-level" managers. "This is taking us one step back but we're going four steps forward.” The claim that it was just some theoretical concept floated out there by an assistant manager in Ankara seems like a reach, especially given that the airline is making other changes that seem designed to take any remaining fun out of flying and turn it into an arch-conservative experience. Among the changes are a ban on bleached hair for flight attendants and a cessation of serving alcohol to economy passengers on many domestic flights. The changes have raised concerns among secular Turks that the carrier is becoming more Islamic and the separation of church and oppressive airline is an important one to keep intact. At least red lipstick and nail polish are safe for the time being, but this fight may not be over……..

- The scourges of the road are about to get theirs in the Windy City…..as long as a stockbroker or package delivery employee on a Schwinn qualifies as a scourge of the road. Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to drop the hammer on cyclists who violate traffic laws and believes current measures are insufficient to keep these Lance Armstrong wannabes in line. Emanuel’s plan calls for fines against law-breaking cyclists to increase from a flat $25 to a range of $50 to $200, depending on the violation. “If they are sharing the roadway with vehicles, cyclists must obey all traffic laws, including yielding to pedestrians, stopping at traffic signals and indicating when they are making turns,” Emanuel said. “When the traffic laws are obeyed, everyone is safer. By increasing the fines for failing to obey the law, cyclists will behave more responsibly, increasing safety and encouraging others to ride bikes.” Whatever you say, Mayor McCash-Grab. The ploy is such an obvious attempt to generate extra revenue that Emanuel should just go ahead and admit it. To make sure more money comes in, he also wants to hike up the fines for motorists who open their doors in front of people on bikes, a practice known as “dooring.” As part of the mayor’s proposal, the fine for “dooring” cyclists would double from $500 to $1,000, with the same happening for anyone who leaves a car door open in traffic (increasing from $150 to $300). According to the “official” statistics from the mayor’s office, there were more than 250 dooring accidents in the city last year. “I’ve been doored or hit about 5 times,” 32nd ward Alderman Scott Waguespack said. However, Waguespack astutely pointed out that the real challenge isn't changing the rules, but rather enforcing them. Lots of luck on either endeavor………

Society v. ice cream men, Cher's mom sings and a new ghost town in Argentina

- Find someone to fist-bump and crack open the champagne, mankind. It’s time to celebrate. Together, we’ve achieved something amazing and that something is having such a detrimental impact on the environment that the concentration of carbon dioxide in our planet's air has reached a level that is unprecedented in human history. Never before has so much of this greenhouse gas loomed in the skies above and the credit/blame goes nowhere but on humanity for burning so many fossil fuels that the planet’s ecosystem is helpless to defend itself. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Earth's atmosphere now has about 400 molecules of CO2 in every million molecules of air. Scientist Charles Keeling first monitored rising CO2 levels at the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii's Big Island in 1958 and at that time, the concentration was 317 parts per million (ppm). The ascent from that sadly low number to 2013’s impressive figure is shown in a graph known as the Keeling Curve. Fittingly, two instruments at Keeling's former observatory recorded the milestone of 400.03 ppm on that curve Thursday. Keeling, a bleeding-heart liberal back before it was cool, warned in the 1950s that rising CO2 would result in droughts, heat waves, higher sea levels and scarcer food supplies. He tried to warn the world, but no one listened and the past few decades have yielded a steady stream of natural disasters that have increased in frequency as time has worn on. Scientists now hope merely to stabilize CO2 concentration below 450 ppm and reduce short-lived warming pollutants in the lower atmosphere and even those goals seem lofty. Sure, reaching them could save 4.5 million lives that are now lost to indoor smoke and outdoor pollution and save as much as 100 million tons of crops destroyed by ozone pollution, but the world has a proven track record of ignoring this type of ominous information…….

- A good ghost town is tough to find. Argentineans know this. After all, it was back on Nov. 10, 1985 when water burst through a retaining wall and spilled into the lakeside streets of a small, popular lakeside resort known as Epecuen. A massive rainstorm followed a series of wet winters led to the flooding and it was so sudden that people fled with what they could as the homes they left behind were eventually submerged under 33 feet of corrosive saltwater. For more than a quarter of a century, the town remained underwater and the saltwater baths and spas that tourists once came there to enjoy were beneath the surface. That has changed of late as the waters have receded, leaving behind in the Argentine farmlands southwest of Buenos Aires that looks like a scene from a movie about the end of the world. A place that once served 20,000 tourists a season is once again drawing the visitors in even though the drive from the capital takes nearly six hours along 340 miles of narrow country roads. As James Earl Jones promised in “Field of Dreams,” people will come. They’ll come to see a ghost town fill with rusted hulks of automobiles and furniture, crumbled homes and broken appliances. They’ll come to climb broken staircases that lead nowhere and wander through a graveyard where floodwaters have toppled tombstones and left graves exposed to the elements. While they’re visiting these lovely and uplifting sites, they can have a friendly chat with 82-year-old Pablo Novak, who still lives on the edge of the town, welcoming people who wander into the town. "Whoever passes nearby cannot go without coming to visit here," Novak said. "It's getting more people to the area, as they come to see the ruins.” Many of those who fled Epecuen now live in nearby Carhue, another lakeside town. The rebuilt many of the city’s most-popular features there and have no plans to return, but that doesn’t mean the tourists won’t………

- The nightmare won’t go away. Cher, a.k.a. Cherilyn Sarkisian, has been tormenting the world with the crap she calls singing, but her terrorism via horrible music has mostly been contained to her own awful albums or those she recorded with her late husband, Sonny Bono. Now, her mother is getting in on the party (that no one wants to attend) by releasing her own album. Yes, 86-year-old Georgia Holt has dropped “Honky Tonk,” her debut album. It entered the Billboard Heatseekers chart at Number 13 and the Top Country Albums chart at Number 43 following its release last week and despite the fact that it is utterly unlistenable, it does have an interesting back story. The album was originally recorded in 1980 with members of Elvis Presley’s band, but it was never released – much to the relief of the world. However, as so often happens with forgotten recordings of music in a horrible genre sung by someone with little or no vocal talent, the session tapes were recently rediscovered in Holt's garage. Some of the songs are original material written by Holt, but there are also crappy covers of “Love Me Tender” and “Cryin’ Time.” Oh, and there is a duet with Holt and her musically inept daughter, so maybe there’s something the U.S. government can use to coerce a few more confessions out of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay before it closes, whenever President Obama gets around to that. Cher took the tapes to her musical director Paul Mirkovich after finding them and he spun them into a truly forgettable and regrettable finished product. "He went in and took it all apart and put all new music in it. Basically, we just kept mom's voice and put everything else new on it," Cher explained……… 

- Pedophiles will have to find a new method of luring in children from now on in Coachella, Calif. The city, which typically only gets any attention when it hosts its annual music festival at which iconic, deceased rappers occasionally perform in hologram form, is making headlines of another kind by announcing a decision to stop issuing new permits to ice cream truck drivers, a.k.a. the child molesters of the food truck world. Going forward, vendors who already have permits will be allowed to continue selling, but once those individuals shut down their business, pass away or grow tired of hearing “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” on their truck-top speaker for eight hours a day, the ice cream truck industry will wither and die in Coachella. The official reason given by city leaders for the decision is that there are too many vendors already and combined with a recent wave of crime (i.e. statutory rapes) involving drivers, putting an end to permits for these shady characters just made sense. In first few months of the year, police arrested one ice cream truck driver for DUI (sounds like those Irish Car Bomb Pops were a bad idea) and another was cited for urinating inside his truck, which is probably unsanitary. Oh, and there was that one incident last month when police arrested 40-year-old Israel Ayala for exposing himself to children on at least two occasions while selling ice cream. Ayala was charged with indecent exposure, which is actually one of the least offensive and unsavory offenses an ice cream truck driver could commit with children involved. There is a chance this is part of a secret, all-out war on ice cream in the city, as small pushcarts selling the frozen treat are already illegal in Coachella…….

- Rutgers men’s basketball is under new management. That is the more pertinent fact when digesting the news that the new coach, Eddie Jordan, apparently lied on his résumé when he claimed that he graduated in 1977 from the same university he now works for. According to the university registrar's office, the former NBA player and coach never received a degree from Rutgers despite earning 103 credit hours from 1973 to 1985. University officials haven't said it the screw-up in on them for not vetting the résumé or if Jordan deliberately lied to them, but admitted only that “was in error when it reported that Eddie Jordan had earned a degree.” However, the university tagged that admission by pointing out that Jordan’s new position does not require him to have a degree. "Rutgers sought Eddie for the head coach position as a target-of-opportunity hire based on his remarkable public career," Rutgers said in a release. "Eddie Jordan was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2004, and he has been a part of the Rutgers family since before 1977." Not verifying the information listed in a bio of their new coach by checking with their new coach just never crossed anyone at Rutgers’ mind, it seems. Jordan admits he did not receive a diploma, but said he did complete his school hours in 1985 and blamed his lack of an actual degree on a registration issue after he finished playing at Rutgers in 1977. He returned to school to complete his degree after his NBA career ended in 1984 and claims that’s where the confusion occurred. "Some of the professors are still around and some are gone, but they all know I was in class and did my work,'' Jordan said. "There was arrogance on my part when I was told I didn't register right, and then I left to (coach at) Old Dominion. I was told my classes were never recorded. I saw a transcript. I will have to find it. I was there and I completed the work. My professors that are still there know that. That's it." In Jordan’s version of the story, he went to class in 1984 and did all of the work to earn his degree, only to learn he wasn’t officially registered. Of course, he was a physical education major, so a degree wouldn’t prove much anyhow. Degree or not, what really matters is that unlike his predecessor on the Rutgers bench, the disgraced Mike Rice, Jordan isn’t known for assaulting players, blasting them with basketballs from five feet away and hitting them with homophobic slurs. If he doesn’t do those things, then he’s a massive upgrade already………

NBC axes five shows, Amazon wants a 3-D smartphone and a campaign for Malaysian uprisings

- Like virtually all major cities across America, Los Angeles could use some extra spending cash these days. Departments are asked to tighten their belts financially, workers see their hours and benefits cut, folks are laid off…all in the name of keeping a city from going bankrupt and being unable to pay its bills. Try to imagine all of that going on, only to later learn that said city has been sitting on over $42 million accumulated over the last 17 years, left unspent during the worst recession in modern times. Rich people forgetting how much money they have in the change tray of their Bentley or in their Swiss bank account is one thing, but a city that has been laying off firefighters and teachers and pulling cops off the street not realizing it has a sweet stash o’ cash waiting to be found and used is something else entirely. The $42.6 million is ready for the city to transfer into its general fund and to be used to pay all kinds of bills. It was finally transferred this week after sitting in a special transportation fund where the money accumulated for over a decade and a half. The City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation confirmed the oversight and placed the blame on that old standby, accounting errors. Oddly enough, the budget committee chairman of the city council wasn’t super pumped to hear about that oversight. I just find is shocking that for a decade and a half an accounting error could happen every year without anyone ever picking it up,” Paul Krekorian said. “These past few years have been some of the worst years in the history of the city in terms of providing services to our constituents in the wake of the Great Recession, and it sure would have been much easier if we had this $42 million.” Easier? Maybe, but think of it not as a colossal bureaucratic crew-up and more of a survivalist challenge for the city. Oh, and City Controller Wendy Greuel insists the blame really should be ascribed to the council, which she claims dropped the ball when her audits identified problems with the Transportation Department’s Special Fund. “As Controller, I have been concerned about the lack of accountability in the city’s Special Revenue Funds and have raised this issue repeatedly,” Greuel said. As always, it’s good to see government officials stepping up to own their mistakes……..

- Major League Baseball umpires are not having a good week. First, crew chief Angel Hernandez and his crew absolutely blew a call that turned what should have been a game-tying, ninth-inning home run by Oakland A’s Adam Rosales into a double that the umpiring crew refused to change to a home run even after reviewing multiple replays of the ball striking the railing above the left-field wall at Progressive Field in Cleveland. The next day, MLB executive vice president Joe Torre said the judgment call by Hernandez and his crew "stands as final.” No sooner than the angry outcries from fans and media members began to die down, the crew working Thursday's Angels-Astros game in Houston did its own hatchet job on the rule book. The Angels played the game under protest before going on to win 6-5, but their beef stemmed from a dispute that occurred with two outs in the seventh when Astros reliever Wesley Wright ran onto the mound and threw several warm-up pitches before rookie manager Bo Porter raced onto the field between the mound and home plate to stop him from throwing more. After Porter’s visit, reliever Hector Ambriz jogged out of the bullpen and onto the mound and Wright headed to the dugout. Angels manager Mike Scioscia – who seemed to actually know the rules, unlike the umpires - ran onto the field and argued that Ambriz shouldn't be able to enter the game because Wright did not face a batter. The umpires huddled, discussed the situation and allowed Ambriz to remain in the game. The Angels ended up burning through pinch hitter Luis Jimenez, who was in the on-deck circle when Wright went to the mound, but was replaced by Scott Cousins when Ambriz came on. "My contention was that the pitcher came in, had to face one batter," Scioscia said. "I protested, and we're happy we won [the game]." Like Hernandez two days prior, crew chief Fieldin Culbreth said little about his crew’s f**k-up. "Well, the only thing I can tell you is that all matters concerning protests are handled through the league office," he said. MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said Friday that the rule covering pitching changes was not applied correctly by Culbreth’s crew in the seventh inning and added that the matter is under review……..

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! This overview of socia dissidence the whole world over is a bit different in that it precedes, rather than follows, an uprising. Thank Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for that one because he’s the person who has called a protest tour over elections he says the ruling regime stole. Foreign governments have called on the powers that be in the Asian nation to address the concerns over voter fraud, but Anwas isn’t waiting. On Wednesday, he addressed a rally of supporters dressed in black to protest Sunday's polls and these angry people filled a stadium and spilled out into surrounding areas. Their gathering left the capital, Kuala Lumpur, in hours-long gridlock. In a wonderfully melodramatic moment, Anwar denounced the elections as the "death of democracy" and called for sustained campaign of uprisings against electoral bias and cheating that he says props up an "arrogant, racist regime.” "We will go to every corner of this country," Anwar thundered as the multi-racial crowd roared its approval. "We will continue to struggle and we will never surrender!" He and his followers now face the immense challenge of unseating a regime that has ruled Malaysia for 56 years and (allegedly) just stole an election. Anwar has promised to produce evidence to prove the elections were riddled with fraud by the “illegitimate” Barisan Nasional (National Front) government headed by Prime Minister Najib. Predictably, Najib's government has denied the allegations and instructed its opponents to accept the result gracefully. Najib claimed that Wednesday's rally was "calculated to create unrest.” Anwar’s anger is logical given his ouster from Barisan s in 1998 and jailed for six years on sex and corruption charges widely seen as trumped-up. He plans to wage a long war of attrition to get what he believes he rightfully won and at Wednesday’s shindig, called for another rally in his northern home state of Penang on Saturday, with more to follow around Malaysia. Riot on, Malaysia, riot on…….

- The next evolution of smartphones is on the way and none other than Amazon wants to lead the way. Yes, THAT Amazon. The online retail giant is reportedly developing a handset – possibly called the Kindle Phone – with a next-generation holographic display. Sources have painted a picture of an Amazon smartphone that would not require special glasses to use and would instead relay on a retina-tracker that would follow the movement of the user's eyeballs and render images on the display as "three-dimensional at all angles." As expected, Amazon isn't commenting on the rumors. No comment is needed because anyone in the tech business who does not currently offer their own smartphone would love to do so and is almost certainly looking for the best way to do so before making their plans official. Amazon has expanded its offerings of late and its Kindle Fire line of tablets has been relatively successful in competing with the iPad by undercutting Apple’s popular tablet on its price point. The concept of a three-dimensional smartphone certainly seems cool, but one has to imagine that the normal bugs that plague any new product would be magnified tenfold or more when a revolutionary new idea like a 3-D smartphone is invovled. Oh, and there’s also the fact that 3-D technology y isn't yet good enough to produce something that functions well enough to be viewed as anything other than a gimmick. Throw in app developers trying to create a bunch of

stereoscopic-capable software and the privacy issues that would result from projecting images off a phone’s screen and into the air and the potential for headaches is immense. Chalk this one up in the category of flashy ideas that need more fine tuning….....

- The ax is being wielded with impunity at the Peacock. With the current TV season coming to an end soon, NBC is delivering pink slips to shows both new and old, sending them shuffling off into TV retirement to make way for pilots of new shows that will likely fail as well. So far, five shows have been guillotined. “Up All Night” is gone despite its ill-fated efforts to reinvent itself as a multi-camera comedy. Viewers never latched on to the concept of a behind-the-scenes look at a struggling television series. Lorne Michaels’ presence as executive produce wasn’t enough to bolster the show and the departure of star Christina Applegate obviously played a part in the show ending after just two seasons. The most predictable series failure, not just for NBC but for all of network television as well, has to be the ass-hattedly stupid “Guys With Kids” from executive producer Jimmy Fallon. An ill-conceived attempt to bring the horrifically bad feature film “Daddy Day Care” to TV failed miserably on Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. and little help from lead-in show “Animal Practice” (also canceled) didn’t help. “Guys With Kids” received a limited four-episode back-order in November and averaged a 1.3 in the key 18-49 demo and just under 4 million total viewers. The cancellation of Whitney Cummings’ self-titled series was equally unsurprising, as it flopped like a beached marlin after taking over the time slot previously occupied by “Animal Practice.” Its abbreviated run ended in March and no one even noticed. Another showed that seemed genetically engineered to crash and burn after one season, “1600 Penn,” is also going away. Despite luring President Obama's former speechwriter Jon Lovett to be part of its creative team and enlisting the services of Josh Gad, fresh off his acclaimed run in Broadway's Book of Mormon, the political comedy was a failure from the start. It began with a mere 1.6 in the adult demo and 3.9 million viewers, then went downhill to an average of 1.1 in the demo and less than 3 million total viewers by the time it wrapped its 13-episode run in March. The last of the canceled quintet is “Deception,” NBC’s shameless attempt to rip off the success of ABC’s primetime soap opera “Revenge.” Instead of parlaying the drama into ratings, “Deception” started strong but declined steadily throughout its 11-episode run and several of its stars have already found new projects………

Greenland's glacier status, anti-Tebow momentum and David Bowie pisses people off

- Time to sober up, passengers on Delhi's subway. Subways tend to be the best transportation option for lushes who are too drunk to drive themselves home, but authorities for the subway system in India’s largest city are cracking down on drunks trying to stumble home after a night out on the town. Passengers will now face being breath-tested for alcohol consumption in an experiment aimed at preventing late-night brawls and other drunk-related incidents. As part of the experiment, a nyone who appears drunk will be tested and possibly refused entry to the metro system. This pilot program is the latest attempt to decrease the number of late-night fights on the city’s subway, which carries almost 2 million people a day. In a sense, it’s part of a larger debate over public concern about alcohol and lawlessness. The tipping point for the new approach was the December 16, 2012 gang rape on a New Delhi minibus – an incident in which a medical student died, prompting global outrage. All of the alleged perpetrators in the incident were drunk, according to prosecutors. There is no law against being drunk on a train in India, but the new standard under the pilot program will be refusing entry for anyone found to have more than 30mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. "Drunkenness is an unnecessary nuisance to other passengers. It's uncomfortable if you have to share space with someone who is reeking of alcohol," Hemendra Singh, spokesman for the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which is responsible for metro security. Way to be a total buzz kill, Hemendra. According to this bureaucratic wet blanket, officers will only breath-test people who shows signs of being under the influence of alcohol. To carry out the sobriety checks, the CISF has asked metro authorities for 130 hand-held breath-testing devices, similar to the ones used by traffic police. Sounds like the party’s over, Delhi drunks……

- David Bowie has two distinct talents in life: being a rock star and pissing people off. Fortunately for him, the two go well together and that is exemplified by his new music video for his latest single, “The Next Day.” It’s the title track off of his comeback album and the video is causing plenty of commotion because of its religious-centric content. The video stars Bowie as the Christ-like figure he has likely always imagined himself to be, with Gary Oldman as a priest and Marion Cotillard with blood gushing from her stigmata-studded hands. Those images captured the attention of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who branded the video as “juvenile” and created enough of a stink that the video, which premiered Wednesday, was also briefly banned from YouTube on Wednesday before being reinstated later in the day. Former Archbishop of Cantebury Lord Carey is the one who blasted the video for being juvenile and criticized Bowie for “upsetting people.” “If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery perhaps Christians should not worry too much at such an exploitation of religious imagery," Carey wrote about the video. "I doubt that Bowie would have the courage to use Islamic imagery - I very much doubt it. Frankly, I don't get offended by such juvenilia - Christians should have the courage to rise above offensive language, although I hope Bowie will recognize that he may be upsetting some people.” Verrry subtle, Carey, very subtle. A little reverse psychology here, a challenge to Bowie’s toughness there and you have yourself a nice, snarky little statemnet. Other Catholic organizations also criticized the video, in which Bow’s Jesus-like character hangs out in a trashy nightclub frequented by priests, cardinals and half-naked women. Bowie and director Floria Sigismondi are likely reveling in the attention the video is receiving, knowing how many albums and digital singles it will help them sell………

- Groton is gridlocked in debate over a proposal to build a 10,000-square-foot Shri Shirdee Sai Baba Temple. Yes, a small city in Massachusetts is debating whether or not something called the Shri Shirdee Sai Baba Temple can be built, but a group led by Groton resident Barbara Dunn insists that its opposition to the project has nothing to do with religion. “I don’t care what their religion is, everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” Dunn said. “I thought about the size of it, the parking and the cars and the problems it’s going to create. There is already a problem on that road with traffic,” Dunn said of the temple scheduled to be built in the shadow of farm stands and wetlands. That farm and those wetlands happen to belong to Dunn, who claims she was fine with the Hindu worshipers bid to be her neighbor on the 28 acres of swampy woods along the Groton-Littleton line until she saw the rendering of the proposed temple. The design features an 800-foot domed tower, a prayer hall with a capacity of 400 people and 200 parking spaces. According to Dunn, the size and scale of the project is what threw her for a loop. “I was like ‘oh my God, I didn’t realize it was going to be that big,’” Dunn said. “It’s not about religion, it’s about the size.” Yes, size does matter….even when one is attempting to build a Hindu temple in rural Massachusetts. Church leaders want to build the bigger building because they say their group has outgrown the facility it currently rents in nearby Chelmsford. Their temple plan would cost $3 million, but only if they can get clearance for the project. Church officials have offered to sit down with concerned residents in the next few weeks and find a way to work out their differences so they and their worshippers can become a force for faith and tolerance in their new community. Maybe they can resolve the problems by using the tactics employed a few years back when a Mormon church was built just down Route 119 from Groton and many of the same aesthetic and traffic concerns were raised by concerned residents……..

- Say what you will about Tim Tebow, but no one in NFL history has ever inspired fans of a team that has nothing to do with him to create a website declaring their opposition to that team signing that person. Tebow, who was released last month by the New York Jets and cleared waivers without any interest from another team, is a Florida native and for a Jaguars team that cannot sell out home games, signing a hometown hero would seem logical….except new general manager David Caldwell has made it clear the team has zero interest in Tebow. However, Tebow supporters recently attempted to create a petition on the White House's website for the Jaguars to sign ttheir hero and an Orlando lawyer who took out an ad to the same effect and the anti-Tebow crowd seems to feel that its voice must be heard. Bold City Brigade, which bills itself as a new-age Jaguars booster club, has ponied up the necessary cash to acquire a domain name and build a website of its own, Evenifhesreleased.com. The name is drawn from he answer Caldwell gave at his introductory news conference when asked about the potential to pursue Tebow. "I can't imagine a scenario where he'd be a Jaguar, even if he's released," Caldwell said Jan. 10. Caldwell has not changed his stance since then and this week said the team wants “a fresh start.” The new anti-Tebow website has already generated more than 31,000 clicks and went live Wednesday morning in response to radio advertisements by Orlando attorney John Morgan urging owner Shad Khan to sign Tebow so the Jaguars can win "for the people.” "We are inspired to counter anything or anyone that chooses to attack or spread ignorance about our fan base," said John Caputo, president of Bold City Brigade. "We aim to do it in a tasteful and tactful manner, which represents our mission and members." Wrong answer, Johnny boy. Tasteful and tactful equals boring………

- Have you found yourself wondering lately how Greenland’s glaciers are doing? Glad you asked. For the past decade, ginormous icebergs have cracked off glaciers in Greenland and tumbled into the sea at an ever-increasing rate. Global warming has been blamed and enviro-lovers have fretted about runaway ice loss and rising seas. But wait…....there’s good news. A new study suggests that the rate of acceleration will slow due to the physics and geography that govern glacier movement. Although this sunny prognosis is not a suggestion that the rise in global temperatures will stop anytime soon, good news in relation to global warming is good news at this point. According to Faezeh Nick, a glaciologist at The University Center in Svalbard, Norway, the glacier melting will slow because the ice sheets will continue to melt and push up sea levels around the world at a lower rate than expected. Nick’s work contradicts previous studies that extrapolated the rate of acceleration seen since the late 1990s out to 2100 on the thesis that glaciers respond to warming in complex ways, especially those that end at the sea. These contact points, known as outlet glaciers, accelerate in bursts — dumping tons of ice into the ocean — before their pace slows. "It doesn't go lower than it was before, but it doesn't stay at the top rate,” Nick explained. Her results are based on individual models of the four largest outlet glaciers in Greenland and their individual response to atmospheric and ocean warming. Nick used these models to forecast future ice loss using two different scenarios of warming in the coming centuries and the four glaciers she studied account for 22 percent of Greenland's total contribution to sea level rise. If her findings are extrapolated to include iceberg production and surface melt from all of the island's glaciers, Greenland will contribute between 3-7 inches to sea level rise by 2100. At least that’s less than previously projected…….

Dieties in traffic islands, the biggest idiot in the NFL and a whiny Gwyneth Paltrow

- Exciting things are happening in southern Peru. As long as your definition of exciting involves the discovery of an ancient astronomical alignment beside a pyramid, then exciting is at hand. This unusual alignment was discovered by researchers who found the two stone lines and the setting sun during the winter solstice. Charles Stanish, a professor at UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, led the team that found the two stone lines, called geoglyphs. During the solstice, hundreds of years ago, the three would have lined up to frame the pyramid in light, according to Stanish’s team. The geoglyphs are located about 1.2 miles east-southeast from the pyramid and run for about 1,640 feet. They are "positioned in such a way as to frame the pyramid as one descended down the valley from the highlands,” according to the research team. To determine all of this, the researchers used astronomical software and 3-D modeling, which allowed them to figure out that this event would have occurred during the time of the winter solstice. "When viewed in 3-D models, these lines appear to converge at a point beyond the horizon and frame not only the site of Cerro del Gentil (where the pyramid is), but also the setting sun during the time of the winter solstice," the research team wrote. "Thus someone viewing the sunset from these lines during the winter solstice would have seen the sun setting directly behind, or sinking into, the adobe pyramid.” The pyramid in question is relatively small, standing 16 feet high. It was built between 600 B.C. and 50 B.C. and reoccupied somewhere between A.D. 200 and 400, with the stone lines constructed at some point between 500 B.C. and A.D. 400. Textiles, shells and ceramics have also been found nearby. Fifty other such stone lines have also been found in a flat, dry area near the pyramid, with the longest line running for nearly a mile. Stanish’s team believes the lines are connected with nearby settlements and their pyramids……..

- She is both the most beautiful woman in the world (according to one magazine survey) and Hollywood’s most-hated celebrity (according to a different publication) and she’s going to earn more points in the latter category if she continues acting this way. Gwyneth Paltrow, a.k.a. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin’s wife and Robert Downey Jr.’s “Iron Man 3” arm candy, was one of the celeb-utants at Monday night’s Met Ball, the trendy fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s fashion arm. She showed up, wore fancy clothes, ate hors d'oeuvres such as salmon puffs and toast points with beluga caviar and mingled with the upper crust of society. The theme for this year’s event was based on the opening of the Costume Institute’s new show, “Punk: Chaos to Couture” and Paltrow clearly embraced the latter, showing up in vintage hot-pink Valentino and arriving separately from her husband. She didn’t seem to enjoy the experience and given her comments, it seems unlikely that she will be returning for next year’s Met Ball. “I’m never going again. It was so un-fun. It was boiling. It was too crowded. I did not enjoy it at all,” Paltrow said of the evening. Making those words all the more peculiar is the fact that she spent time at the event hanging out with country pop princess Taylor Swift, who is apparently so pretty and charming that everyone should like her and enjoy any time spent with her. Paltrow tried to explain the miserable time she had hob-nobbing with the elite by suggesting that maybe it was as simple as a clash of styles. “I guess it’s punk in that I’ve gone just totally classic on a punk night,” she added. Don’t worry, Gwen, there will be plenty of other galas and awards shows for you to wear your fancy clothes to………

- Former Detroit Lions wide receiver Titus Young may not be an all-star on the field, but he’s an All-Star of Idiocy off of it. The troubled receiver, who was waived by the Lions on Feb. 4, had himself quite a day on Sunday. Now free of the normal entanglements of gainful employment with an actual NFL team, he’s spending his offseason in southern California, where he’s becoming a familiar face with local law enforcement. His fun day began when he was pulled over at 12:01 a.m. Sunday in after making an illegal left turn, according to a police report. When officers stopped and questioned him, something shocking happened: Young was (allegedly) intoxicated. He was then arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence, booked by the Moreno Valley Police at the Robert Presley Detention Center, issued a citation and later released. Being arrested for DUI would be enough to ruin the day for most people and the accompanying hangover and headache might even be enough to keep them indoors and in bed for the rest of the day. Young, a guy who was sent home by the Lions on three different occasions -- once for punching teammate Louis Delmas during an offseason workout program, then twice for repeated insubordinate behavior. He also went on a Twitter rant after last season, suggesting if the team didn’t get him the ball more, he might quit on them – again. See, he previously admitted to intentionally lining up in the wrong spot on the field because he wasn’t being thrown enough passes and wanted to put himself where the ball was. That’s just the sort of guy who would get arrested for DUI, then jump the fence at a local tow yard at 2:22 p.m. that same afternoon and try to steal his impounded car back. When police showed up, they repeated the same scene from earlier in the day, arresting Young. He was apprehended for burglary and booked again at the same detention center. One has to imagine that NFL teams will be lining up to sign this good citizen once he clears his latest legal hurdles………

 

- This is a refreshing change. For once, the Virgin Mary is at the center of a controversy that doesn’t involve some delusional kook thinking he sees her likeness in a pile of grass clippings or in a grease stain on the stove at the greasy spoon where he works. This particular bit of drama centers around a small traffic island in the city of West Springfield, Mass. The island in question is the site of a statue of the Virgin Mary placed there by a local business owner who adopted and cares for the stretch of earth as a gesture of goodwill. It’s part of a project to beautify West Springfield, a project in which business owners and individuals adopt traffic islands, then donate their time and money to landscape and maintain them. Antonio Liquori adopted a traffic island at Westfield Street and South Boulevard and as part of his decorating plan, he planted a statue that has ignited a debate over the meaning of separation of church and state. He put the statue in place one year ago and for a while, there was no problem. That all changed recently when he received a letter from the city's deputy director of operations, Vincent DeSantis, saying the department received several complaints. “Unfortunately, in this day and age, religious artifacts are not to be displayed on city property,” the letter explained. Liquori said he was surprised and saddened when he read the note. "About a year later, they tell me to take the Madonna down so I was kind of upset because you know everybody has a mother," he said. West Springfield resident Joan Palermo took up the fight for Liquori and even started a petition to allow him to return the statue to the traffic island. The petition had no impact and instead, the city has swung the other way by imposing new restrictions on those who adopt traffic islands. According to DeSantis, the " Adopt an Island" project will now be limited to different types of plantings. Just don’t trim that topiary in the shape of Jesus……..

- Can two of Asia’s most powerful nations make nice before they start firing shots at each other across their shared border? China and India seem to be locked in some sort of international pissing match over a border flare-up that highlighted longstanding tensions between the nations. The world's two most populous countries beefing with each other would seem to be a bad thing, especially given that they have improved relations and increased trade with one another in recent years. Their current conflict is linked to a 1962 border war high in the Himalayas. It is an informal frontier dividing the two countries, called the Line of Actual Control, and it has never been formally demarcated. However, the two sides have signed accords to maintain peace in the area. Those agreements didn’t do much good in mid-April, when India accused Chinese soldiers of setting up camp nearly 12 miles inside a region claimed by India. China swept the accusations aside as the "speculation of some Indian people,” saying Chinese troops "have never trespassed the line.” India didn’t seem convinced, but the two sides have moved to mend fences in recent days and as Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid begins a two-day trip to China on Thursday, both countries seem ready to move forward and focus once more on a two-way trade relationship that produced $70 billion in business in 2012. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying explained at a press briefing on Wednesday that thanks to "joint efforts" the two sides had "reached consensus on the incident... and properly handled it.” Just to be sure, Khurshid will meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and other Chinese leaders during his visit. Here’s guessing they won't be talking about the season finale of “Mad Men” or the new Daft Punk album………