11 marriages + 0 divorces, Suicide Squad news and UAB football rides again

- The University of Alabama-Birmingham football program rode again – at least for a day. The school ass-hattedly decided to shut the entire program down in December, prompting an outcry from students, former and current players and fans. In explaining its decision, the school cited financial issues and that placated no one. Alas, there is no reversing the decision President Ray Watts announced shortly after UAB became bowl-eligible after a decade of struggles and coaching changes. Former players may not be able to change school officials’ minds, but they made sure the Blazers got at least one more game at Legion Field. They gathered Saturday for the Sons of UAB alumni flag football game, a quaint counterpoint to the spring scrimmages other schools around the country will play in the next week or two. Coach Bill Clark started the alumni game this past spring after his hiring and to his credit, it will be played this year even though there is no football team at UAB anymore. Former players, alumni and supporters decided to hold it again to maintain connections with one another and also to deliver a stiff middle finger to the administration about its decision. "Obviously there's a huge, somber cloud hanging over the university, really, over the whole football issue right now," said former UAB kicker Lee Miller, now a high school soccer coach. "I think the vibe toward this event is positive, but there's always this undercurrent. The next question is, 'How can we get the program back?' There's a lot of people out there, including me, that are trying to make that happen." Here’s hoping Miller, UAB alums and Carolina Panthers teammates Joe Webb and Darrin Reaves and 27-year-old tight end Tristan Henderson – who famously told off Watts in a public assembly following the decision – find a way to bring UAB football back to life………

- So, Prague has a problem. On the surface, a newly expanded line of the Czech capital’s subway network that will take travelers from downtown closer than ever to the city's international airport seems like a net positive. And it would be, if not for a small snafu that will make using this train out of town much tougher. In order to complete the journey and cover the final five miles between the Nadrazi Veleslavin station and Vaclav Havel Airport, commuters will need to board the No. 119 bus. In order to get to that bus, folks will have to climb 32 steep stairs from the subway station to the bus terminal. It seems that whoever designed this transportation trouble spot forgot to budget for an escalator to top off the $787 million project and that isn't sitting well with elderly people and other mobility-challenged travelers who were counting on some motorized assistance. An estimated 3.5 million passengers of more than 11 million using the airport yearly take the buss rather than go by car or risk a rip-off by Prague's notorious cab drivers. Now, those people need to haul their luggage up 32 steps or get an assist from the luggage porters the airport has hired to help travelers from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, The service is provided free of charge, proving at least someone in this mess is using their thinking muscles. "The missing escalator is the reason," Prague airport spokesman Michal Rehorek said. The city's transport authority, the Prague Public Transport Company, said the Nadrazi Veleslavin station was intended to serve as a transport hub for the airport — for connections to trains, not busses. It has an escalator going to a train station that is unfinished and in the midst of a major delay. It “became impossible" to change the original project, company spokesman Jiri Stabl said. "We don't feel it is a mistake of the transport company,” Stabl lied. You may not believe it, J., but everyone else does……….

- Trolling fanboys must be a lot of fun. “Suicide Squad” director David Ayer knows how easy it is to get a reaction from the sadly infatuated sorts who hang on the every detail about movies based on their favorite comic books and it’s why he dropped a full cast photo on Wednesday, then chased it with the first picture of Jared Leto as The Joker after fans wondered about the omission from the first shot. Ayer responded by tweeting a picture of Leto dressed as the iconic villain, complete with The Joker’s trademark green hair. Shooting on the film is set to begin later this month as Ayer tells the tale of the famed DC Comics super-villains, with Leto as The Joker, Will Smith as Deadshot, Jai Courtney playing Boomerang, Margot Robbie portraying Harley Quinn and Cara DeLevigne as Enchantress. Tom Hardy was originally scheduled to play the role of Rick Flag, but pulled out due to a scheduling conflict, allowing Joel Kinnaman to step in. The role of Amanda Waller, a government agent who is often put in charge of the Suicide Squad, went to “How To Get Away With Murder” star Viola Davis. Davis will oversee the team of super-villains working for the government in return for their freedom and Squad fans have been able to see their anti-heroes in a limited role on the CW’s hit drama “Arrow,” where they have made spot appearances in the show’s past two seasons. None of the actors cast in the movie have played their respective characters on “Arrow,” but anything that keeps the Suicide Squad alive plays well with DC Comics fans. Warner Bros. has set “Suicide Squad” for release on August 5, 2016 and until then, many a tasty morsel of promotional beef will be dished out to keep the masses hanging on what could be when they finally get to see their favorite characters on the big screen………

- Liana Barrientos is addicted to saying, “I do.” She’s not the first woman to enjoy repeated walks down the aisle and famous marriage addicts like Elizabeth Taylor have made a disturbingly frequent habit of saying yes to the dress. However, Barrientos seems to miss out on a key part of the equation when it comes to marrying over and over again and that has landed her in some agua caliente with the Bronx district attorney's office. According to the DA’s office, Barrientos is accused of marrying 10 times over an 11-year period without ever getting a divorce. She’s now charged with two counts of felony fraud and one count of h filing a fake instrument. According to the criminal complaint, this wayward woman allegedly obtained two of the marriage licenses in the Bronx and that gives them jurisdiction to prosecute and persecute her bigamous ass. The complaint claims the other marriage licenses were obtained in Westchester County and Long Island, so perhaps those fine jurisdictions will be inspired by this and go after Barrientos as well. This string of fraud allegedly began in 1999, but the matter didn’t come until 11 years later when there was a probe of her most recent marriage in 2010. This could make for an awkward scene in the courtroom if all 11 husbands show up to support the woman they love….assuming all of them married her for love and not as part of some massive scam for green cards or some other chicanery. If you want to find a positive in all of this, at least Barrientos is helping to hold down the percentage of marriages in the United States that end in divorce……..

MLB vs. time, Colombians march for peace and The National goes pompous hipster

- Sometimes, theft simply isn't worth it. For example, when you live in Iowa – problem No. 1 – and you need a vehicle but don’t have access to one or the cash to afford a set of wheels, you might be tempted to steal one. Odds are that in Iowa, your choices are going to fall largely in the pickup truck or farm equipment category, but if you need something to drive, then you need something to drive. That being said, you’re not going to want to fall short on your attempted vehicle jacking and end up with nothing more than a bag of dog sh*t for your troubles. Such was the fate of a would-be truck thief who attempted to jack a truck parked outside a Des Moines home and instead took home a bag of canine feces as a consolation prize. The Des Moines Police Department responded to a report of an attempted burglary around 4:45 p.m. and when they rolled up on the residence, the homeowner told police someone broke into the driver's side door of his truck. The ever-amusing police report stated that the person who tried to steal the truck checked the bed of the vehicle and grabbed what turned out to be "a bag of dog feces." Amazingly, there are no suspects in the case, but should one emerge, he or she could face third-degree burglary charges. The obvious question is what sort of value you place on dog poop in a bag and there is an answer, namely $1. If nothing else, we’ve all learned the value of doggy waste products……….

- File this one under quintessential hipster indie rock coolness doing random artsy sh*t because we’re a quintessential hipster indie rock band. The National have long been favorites on the indie scene and beloved by the cooler-than-thou sect, so they’re the perfect band to release a box set documenting their 2013 performance at New York's Museum Of Modern Art in which they played the same three-minute song ('Sorrow') continuously for six hours. There isn't a more pompous “artist moment” than doing a performance piece consisting of 105 renditions of the same damn song and for anyone who didn’t feel like going to the MOMA and listening to a song so many times that they literally hated it with the core of their soul, the box set will bring it back to life. 'A Lot of Sorrow' will document the band's entire night, including all 105 renditions of the track and the one that saw drummer Bryan Devendorf sitting out to enjoy a break while his band mates kept rolling on. The very existence of this box set is offensive in and of itself, but when you consider that it will cost a whopping $150, it kicks up to a whole new level. If you just want to listen to ‘Sorrow’ once, you can merely pop in the album – “High Violet” – on which it appeared and give it a spin. The MOMA performance was a collaboration with artist Ragnar Kjartansson and here’s hoping it never happens again. Coincidentally, last week National released new single 'Sunshine On My Back' to mark the worldwide VHX release of their documentary “Mistaken For Strangers.” Named after another of their songs, about singer Matt Berninger’s brother Tom’s attempts to succeed as a director by filming the band on tour. It’s all very artsy and too cool for school, which pretty much sums up what The National have always been about……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Okay, so it’s more of a lame, peaceful march in the name of ending a war that has spanned half a century and claimed thousands of lives, but Colombia doesn’t really need more violence these days. What it does need is the input of thousands of marchers who waved white flags and paraded through cities across the country Thursday to support peace talks between the government and guerrilla. The dual-purpose march also paid tribute to victims of the nation's armed conflict and came as the government extended a suspension of air attacks on the country's main rebel movement amid a day of marches in support of peace. The Man even got involved in the festivities as President Juan Manuel Santos led more than 8,000 people through Bogota, marching alongside victims who suffered at the hands of rebels and paramilitary groups. At the end of the march, Santos spoke at the presidential palace and announced a one-month extension of the order he gave in March that the military suspend air attacks on camps of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Of course, this doesn’t mean that peace is imminent, not when the two parties have been in negotiations in Havana since 2012 to end Colombia's half-century-old conflict. Peace is likely still a long way off even if most of the country is rooting for it and all but willing it to happen. A Molotov cocktail or two hurled in rage is entertaining to watch, but 50 years of civil war is enough to make even the most ardent riot lover amenable to some peace and quiet……….

- First come the strongly worded letters, then come the pocket­-change fines and finally….nothing. That’s the pattern Major League Baseball has started with its sending of written warnings to players who have violated its new pace-of-game rules. MLB spokesman Mike Teevan said about 10 letters had been sent since the start of the season last weekend and for some reason, the league seems to feel pretty good about toothless measures that players have already said they won't follow regardless of what penalties they face. Simply put, hitters are required to keep one foot in the batter's box, with exceptions such as after foul balls. Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was asked about the new rules and called them bullsh*t, indicating that he’ll step out of the box when and where he damn well feels like it. The $500 fines that will accompany the violation starting May 1 are no deterrent to guys who will lose that much money in the dugout betting a teammate he won't eat a sunflower seed that was stuck to the bottom of their cleats. The new rules also require pitchers to start innings before 30 seconds remain on the countdown clocks, so hitters aren't being singled out. Look for zero changes when fines are levied, other than professional athletes with one less pair of high-end designer shoes in their travel bags and a chip on their shoulder because their sport is trying to shorten games and make them more watchable by insisting that they not turn every plate appearance into the baseball equivalent of a congressional filibuster. Points for the effort, MLB, but you’re fighting a losing battle on this one……..

Solar-powered San Fran toilets, punching Marilyn Manson and bad NBA war analogies

- Memo to all athletes and coaches at all levels of sports: Stop using war analogies and the world – including your lives by association – will be a better place for it. What you do is in no way on the same level as men and women who put their lives on the line trying to defend a nation against enemies trying to kill them in a variety of awful ways, so using any war analogy is offensive on so many levels. Take Los Angeles Lakers coach Byron Scott, who dealt with the latest frustrating loss in a season full of them by angrily saying he knew which of his players he "wouldn't want to be in a foxhole with.” After his team's 30-point loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday and the Lakers' 28-point loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday, Scott sounded very much like a coach whose team was setting a new franchise record for losses in a season with each defeat. He lit into his team and tried to liken playing professional basketball for a living for millions of dollars is similar to soldiers on the battlefield hiding in a hole in the ground in an effort to stay alive. "After the last two games ... I was probably as frustrated as anybody," Scott said. "I thought the last two games, we didn't come close. So that frustration boiled over. At that particular time, there wasn't a lot of guys that I would want to be in the foxhole with. I want guys that I know I can go to battle with.” One of Scott’s primary targets has been reserve guard Nick Young, a.k.a. Swaggy P. Scott recently said Young "has to grow as a basketball player if he wants to continue to play in this league for a long time and ripped Young’s defense but the coach insisted he talks to all of his players “about what they need to do to get better as a basketball player.” Maybe write, “Don’t be like your coach and use regrettable war analogies” at the top of that list………..

- There is family strife straining the inner sanctum of France's far-right National Front party and it’s getting uglier than normal when the party’s racist founder is involved. Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen is on the record as saying that the Nazi gas chambers were merely a "detail in history,” an ignorant and offensive claim this tool has reiterated on numerous occasions as if saying something idiotic over and over makes it true. The gas chambers were a detail in history the way slavery is just a funny anecdote in the building of America, but keep believing that bullsh*t and see how it goes, Jean. Yet this fool has decided to run in France’s upcoming elections and his daughter, current party leader Marine Le Pen, said she will quickly convene the party's executive bureau to seek "means to best protect the political interests of the National Front." Simply put, she’s vowing an all-out offensive against her father and saying she will oppose his candidacy by any means necessary. To her limited credit, Marine Le Pen has worked to clean up the party's anti-Semitic, racist image and has fought a guerrilla war with her old-guard father, but she has yet to actually discipline him in any way despite his bigoted, hateful views and outright refusal to admit how horrible the Holocaust truly was. It’s hard to praise Marine Le Pen too much for promising to oppose her father's candidacy to head the list in December regional elections in southern France largely because the old man has little chance to win anything, but maybe there’s still a shred of hope for his out-of-touch views to change. Haha, just kidding. This old fart is a lost cause………

- The reasons behind what went down at a Denny's restaurant in Alberta, Canada after a Marilyn Manson show doesn’t matter as much as one might think. The shock rocker who is much less out-there and shocking than he was 15 years ago because there is so much more visible freakery in the world and he’s no longer the most bizarre cat out there found himself in a scuffle as the low-end breakfast joint after a concert in the city, proving that even a well-off recording artist can be a sucker for greasy sausage, cheap pancakes and oily hash browns in the middle of the night. What went down from there depends upon whom you’re asking. Some witnesses claim that Manson became embroiled in a dispute with a fellow diner because the rocker called this dude’s girlfriend a b*tch, prompting the local man to dent Manson’s face with his fist. However, Manson has denied making comments that caused the man to punch him in the face and through his agent said that he was minding his own business when he was attacked. Other witnesses backed up that story and said Manson was friendly, taking time to sign autographs and pose for photos with fans when he was attacked. Police confirm there was a disturbance at Denny's that night, but no charges were filed and the investigation is closed, so whoever was at fault here must not feel the need for legal justice. In the end, all that matters is the hilarious spectacle of a denim-clad denizen of one of the world’s most docile nations becoming so enraged/eager to troll a world-famous rock star that he used his fists of fury to bring the rage to Manson’s face when the musician was merely trying to order a Grand Slam and eat in peace……….

- Public restrooms, especially those of the portable kind, are a uniformly disgusting lot. So how can they also be the solution for problems with sanitation and human waste in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood? It’s easy and due in large part to a pilot program inspired by a group of students at De Marillac Academy, a private Catholic school in the neighborhood. The students wrote and read poems to city officials about their struggles growing up in the Tenderloin area, where they had to keep an eye out when they walked to avoid stepping on syringes and human feces. That spurred an idea of how to clean up the area and so it is that mere blocks away from fancy stores and long lines of tourists waiting for cable cars, solar-powered toilets are rolling in four afternoons per week. Mobile commodes are not new, but solar-powered ones on wheels and guarded by attendants are a long way from stinky music festival toilets in rows in the middle of some field on a sweltering summer afternoon. Putting them on the streets has proven to be a huge success and the program has been so successful that city officials say Portland, Oregon, Honolulu and New York have inquired about it as a means of resolving similar sanitation problems. Proponents of the pushable poop depositories say having public bathrooms accessible has taken a neighborhood known for crime, homelessness and poverty and improved its livability. "Everyone has to go to the bathroom, that's not something anyone can stop," said Jane Kim, a San Francisco supervisor whose district includes the neighborhood. "This program affords people some dignity to take care of a human need." Workers bring in two portable toilets with sinks and mounted on a trailer by trucks each Tuesday through Friday and set up in three spots near soup kitchens and a park – all areas that attract large clusters of people. The solar sh*tters are dropped off at 2 p.m. and taken out at 9 p.m. to be cleaned and attendants working for a nonprofit contracted by the city make sure they stay reasonably sanitary and keep them stocked with toilet paper, air freshener, soap, paper towels and seat covers. Anyone who stays inside longer than five minutes receives a courtesy knock…….

Exporting the NBA to Cuba, Parents Who Should Not Be Parents and Catfish and the Bottlemen v. One Direction

- It cannot feel good to be the sole Russian deputy to vote last year against the annexation of Crime, at least not any time beyond a day or so following that vote. Enter Ilya Ponomarev, who is no longer viewed as a bold, free thinker willing to stand alone in the face of a tyrannical regime looking to perpetuate its quest for world domination, but rather as the target of a parliament that has voted to allow legal action against him for daring to go against the grain. The State Duma voted overwhelmingly to strip of immunity against prosecution, paving the way for legal proceedings against him that could cost him his seat, which is a nice way of saying his life is about to become the seventh circle of hell. The Duma can say it was simply responding to a prosecutors' request in a case in which he is accused of embezzlement related to his work for a state-funded technological foundation. If those charges seem cooked up against someone against whom the government now has a major beef, then you’ve clearly seen the Russian government do business before. The good news for Ponomarev is that he is currently in the United States and therefore might consider just hanging out for a while and hoping this all blows over. Then again, for one of the leaders behind the 2011-2012 anti-government protests, that seems unlikely. Ponomarev says the motion is a politically motivated attempt to kick him out of parliament and prevent his return from abroad and will lose his seat only if the court finds him guilty, but Russian judicial proceedings are typically not the most honest, straightforward proceedings……….

- Shots fired, Catfish and the Bottlemen singer Van McCann. A lot of people believe what just came out of the indie rocker’s pie hole and have believed it for some time, but the question is why McCann is so worked up about it now. After all, One Direction have existed for years now and everyone knows the man band is  "preconceived and controlled,” as McCann described them. What seems to have set him off is a tweet from One Direction member Louis Tomlinson that stated how much he loved Catfish and the Bottlemen’s music. "Genuinely made up you like it but we're here to do us best to get u lids out charts & bands in. I promised Ma a jacuzzi seem," McCann replied. "We're here to f*ck you lot off." Peel back the layers of British slang and you have some genuine musical rage, rage that does not seem to have abated in the months since. You lot won a competition. I've sat in a band of seven years while you queued up outside Manchester Arena the did a bit of disco to a man behind a table who then put a few dollar bills down your jacket," McCann added. "Everything they do is preconceived and controlled. It's live pantomime." The Welsh band recently released its debut album and while creating an unnecessary feud with a group – albeit a hacky one with no authenticity whatsoever – with a much bigger public profile could come off as a contrived publicity stunt, McCann and his bandmates are fine with the blowback. "We don't care if people don't like it," McCann said. "We're resonating with young people because no one else is doing the big guitars and chorus thing.” His music is based on a life growing up in his Welsh hometown of Llandudno and is vastly superior to anything One Direction has ever cranked out, so he can really say whatever he wants about them………

- Welcome to the newest edition of “There are a lot of people who shouldn’t be parents.” Today’s participants are Aaron Tate and Rachel Jaajaa, Northeast Ohio residents who clearly should’ve taken a pass on procreating or at least waited a decade or so until they were no longer ignorant, selfish, immature ass hats who would do something so patently moronic as leaving a 3-month-old in the parking lot of a McDonald’s like she was a half-empty cup of Sprite that they were too lazy to finish or throw away in the trash can 15 feet away. Instead, this unfortunate infant's parents have been charged with child endangering after police say they couldn't agree which one would take care of her over the weekend and rather than one of them step up and do the job or at least drop her off with someone who wasn’t a blight on humanity so that person could care for the child, they both bolted the scene. Police in Elyria say Jaajaa was leaving McDonald's after her shift ended Friday and Tate met her in the parking lot with the child. He clearly had had enough of caring for the child while his significant other was working a low-paying, dirty job to make money for the infant’s needs and wanted to hand the baby off. Jaajaa refused to take the baby because she had plans and clearly, that human being that lived inside her for nine months and depends on her for sustenance did not fit into said plans. The best part of the story – if there can be a best part of this dumpster fire of adult incompetence and life failures – is what happened next. These two went from the McDonald’s parking lot to a nearby Burger King, where an officer found them continuing their dispute. What the hell? You didn’t think it was appropriate to have this fight outside Mickey D’s, so you brought the home of the Whopper into the mix? Did Round 3 occur at Arby’s before you finished things off with fisticuffs at Jack in the Box The responsible parties in this story, for the first time in human history, were the minimum wage-earners at McDonald’s, who called police. Jaajaa's sister is now caring for the baby, which probably should have happened before now, and if there is any justice this world, neither mom nor dad will be allowed near the child again………..

- Cuba is about to get a firsthand taste of the United States’ best export, the one in which America remains unquestionably the best in the world: basketball. The NBA is set to become the first U.S. professional sports league to visit Cuba since President Barack Obama ordered diplomatic relations between the countries to be restored when the Association holds a four-day development camp and host clinics for youth from April 23-26. While the timing of the event won't exactly allow the league’s best to take part and truly bring the highest level of hoops to the impoverished island nation, the camp will have newly retired two-time MVP Steve Nash, newly elected Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo and former WNBA star Ticha Penicheiro. No idea who Penicheiro is, but sending a former WNBA player is probably better than sending no one at all, even if she is flanked by coaches of two of the league’s most mediocre teams, Quin Snyder of Utah and James Borrego of Orlando. Of all of the places we've been to, it's amazing to think this is the first time the NBA will be hosting events in that country," NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum said. "While we're in Cuba, we're going to teach the values of our game, things like teamwork, respect, dedication. Our game is an inclusive, easy-to-understand sport that has brought people together. We think this is a great opportunity to bridge cultures through basketball." The NBA and FIBA, basketball's world governing body, also plan to issue an invitation for a pair of players and a coach from Cuba to participate in an upcoming Basketball without Borders camp for the first time, further globalizing the one sport that stands above the rest when it comes to being universal no matter where in the world one finds themselves. It may not fire Americans up like the improved chance to get their hands on some quality Cuban cigars, but it’s still pretty damn cool……..

Muse isn't happy, cockpit brawls and giving to a homeless Jesus statue

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- Soccer is the best. Whenever sports gets bland or boring and someone needs to step up, light a Molotov cocktail and hurl it into the morass of meh, soccer is there to make something go boom. Most of the time, it comes from Europe, where soccer is known as football and fans care far too much about a game that produces more scoreless nights than hanging out with a group of mechanical engineering majors for a weekend. Often, it involves actions that would seem insane to fans of other sports in other parts of the world, actions like those of unidentified assailants who attacked the team bus of reigning Turkish champion Fenerbahce after their victory against Rizespor. Fenerbahce have called for the Turkish Super Lig to be suspended after their team bus was shot at – SHOT AT! – in what seems like a possible militant act but was probably just a few liquored-up Rizespor fans with nothing to do after the game and with plenty of spare ammunition in their trunk. . "We consider that as long as this attack is not solved in a way that satisfies Fenerbahce and public opinion, a suspension of the championship is inevitable," Fenerbahce officials said in a statement. "Blood ran and football was silenced. Finding and punishing the culprits is of vital importance for Fenerbahce." Fenerbahce vice-president Mahmut Uslu denounced the attack and the working theory for police is that the attack was possible carried out by a lone assailant with a shotgun. Uslu decried the incident as "very wrong" before adding: "We came here to do sport, we come to play football." An investigation into the incident is underway, but finding one whack job fan with a gun and a thirst for revenge is like trying to find a striker capable of scoring a goal in a Turkish Super Lig mid-week tilt……….

- In need of some spare cash and unfortunate enough to be in the greater Buffalo area? Head on over to St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, where you’ll find a statue depicting a homeless Jesus sleeping on a park bench and if you’re lucky, money, food and other items left at the bronze sculpture by passersby who figure that rather than actually go inside the church and give their money or perhaps give diectly to an actual homeless person in need, they’ll dump their cash on a park bench and hope for the best. The statue was unveiled last Tuesday outside the church, which raised money for the public art project through private donations. With their haul of disposable income, the church commissioned Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz to create the work of art showing a blanket-shrouded Jesus, identifiable only by the crucifixion wounds on his feet. Shortly after the statue was unveiled, offerings apparently meant for Buffalo's homeless began showing up on the statue. Church officials and members have collected money, food, books, a Buffalo Bills cap and a scarf from the statue and in the process, illustrated a valuable lesson: If you’re an enterprising person of dubious morals and you need a few spare dollars in your pocket, find some way to crank out a semi-decent statue of a religious figure as a homeless person and drop that bad boy outside a local church. Then, wait for the donations to roll in. In this case, those looking to five-finger discount donations to the almighty need to act quickly because the church collects the items each day and donates them to a local organization that helps the homeless………

- When a band names its new album “Drones,” it’s reasonable to expect that it won't be a warm, fuzzy release with a lot of romantic ballads. When that band is politically minded and socially conscious British rockers Muse, the chance for warm fuzzies dips even further and that makes it the least surprising news ever that there “isn't a lot of love on this album." That’s according to Muse frontman Matt Bellamy, who took a few minutes to break down “Drones,” which is scheduled to hit the market in June. The album is the trio's seventh studio album and the band have debuted two songs from the project so far. One of them is “Dead Inside,” which centers on Bellamy’s split from his wife, actress Kate Hudson, last year. Bellamy said the song is about "a relationship ending and a person becoming dead inside themselves.” The rest of the album isn't much sunnier, according to Bellamy. "I went very internal, very into my paranoias, weird feelings and life experiences. It’s quite personal,” he said, calling the album "a modern metaphor for what it is to lose empathy." Much of the project is literally built on the idea of actual drones, a subject that clearly resonates with an fascinates the members of Muse. "I think that through modern technology, and obviously through drone warfare in particular, it’s possible to actually do quite horrific things by remote control, at a great distance, without actually feeling any of the consequences, or even feeling responsible in some way,” Bellamy said. “The next step in drones is gonna be autonomous drones, which actually make ‘kill’ decisions themselves, where no humans are involved.” It’s a dark view of a dystopian future commonly theorized about by kooks in nuclear bunkers with tin foil helmets on and cans of SPAM clutched in their hands, but hearing a world-famous rock band sing about it is always fun………

- What the hell is going on inside the cockpits of planes around the world? After the horrific Germanwings tragedy that saw one mentally troubled co-pilot commit a heinous murder-suicide that ended the lives of 150 people, it’s safe to say that there is an intensified level of security on cockpit security and the mental status of the men and women flying planes full of people. It’s safe to say that if an airline captain and his co-pilot are going to throw hands at any point in the flight process, that’s a problem. Tensions in the cockpit of an Air India flight thankfully took place while the Airbus 320 was on the ground in Jaipur, India and not in the air, but that doesn’t make what went down any less disconcerting. The flight was bound for Delhi and about to take off when the commander asked his co-pilot to perform a routine task: writing down important statistics needed for the flight, including the number of passengers on board, the plane’s takeoff weight and fuel intake. “The co-pilot took offense at this and reportedly beat up the captain," an airline spokesperson said. Dude, no one likes their boss ordering them to perform menial tasks that require little skill or intelligence, but you really cant respond by looking to kick their ass when you two are about to fly hundreds of people over a long distance. The co-pilot reportedly beat up the senior pilot, but Air India is officially denying that any fisticuffs took place. Credit to the senior pilot, who decided to continue to fly AI flight 611 to Delhi because reporting the incident before the flight took off would have led to a flight cancellation and passengers left stranded, for calming himself down and doing his job. Both pilots have been removed from duty following the incident and the airline is investigating, but the conclusion of this one seems rather certain. The co-pilot has reportedly faced similar charges in the past, according to sources, originating from confrontations with both co-workers and supervisors. It might be time for this hothead to find a new gig………

Movie news, international parking pissing matches and NBA groin blasts

- Drug smuggling and dealing are all about capitalizing on opportunity. If the holiday season for a particular special day affords you the chance to use what would normally be considered a children’s toy as a means of smuggling your illicit product across county or state lines, you had best cash in on that golden chance. Take the case of the stuffed Easter Bunny who pulled double duty as arguably the most peculiar drug mule police in Oklahoma have encountered in a long time. Tahlequah City police intercepted the rabbit stuffed with a pound of meth, street value around $30,000, when a police dog in Tulsa County sniffed out the methamphetamine before the package was to be delivered to the home of Carolyn Ross in Tahlequah. “We’ve intercepted narcotics in the mail before,” Police Chief Nate King told. “The Easter Bunny I thought was a strange touch.” Once police knew about the package and its contents, they set up a sting operation to take down whoever was involved with trying to pervert the symbol of the commercialized version of Easter. An officer posed as a delivery man and went to Ross’ home to give her the package and when she signed for the drug bunny and took possession of the white trash drug of choice, she was arrested. Ross allegedly confessed to knowing about the meth and is being held on $75,000 bond. Police didn’t provide any details on who sent the package, but given the low level of sophistication here, it shouldn’t take a tremendous amount of time to unravel this yarn of criminality………

- Protect the assets, NBA players. That’s the lesson from the past week thanks to a pair of groin-punching points guards who decided that going below the belt on 7-footers was the way to even the score. First, Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul delivered a questionable low blow to Portland center Chris Kaman in a Thursday night game, prompting Kaman to retaliate by knocking Paul out of bounds on the next trip up the court and Paul getting up looking like he was ready for a fight despite the 12-inch height differential. But the more contentious of the two incident came when Golden State Warriors guard Shaun Livingston attacked the manhood of Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki two days later, when the German icon was posting up the 6-foot-7 Livingston late in the third quarter and Livingston reached between Nowitzki's legs and struck him in the groin. Nowitzki doubled over in pain and let out a few choice words before turning around and briefly confronting Livingston, who insisted he did not mean to hit Nowitzki in the nether regions. Nowitzki said he'd give "the benefit of the doubt" to Livingston despite the guard being hit with a flagrant foul 1. "Well, I give him the benefit of the doubt because he's really not that type of player," Nowitzki said. "He hasn't been his entire career. I'm not really sure what he was trying to do there, if he was trying to get to the ball through my legs or anything. But like I said, he's not a dirty player. He's actually a really, really good dude.” Mavs owner Mark Cuban and coach Rick Carlisle weren't so magnanimous, with Cuban stopping Warriors coach Steve Kerr after the game for a chat about the incident. Maybe it’s time for NBA big men to either start wearing cups or start dishing out some old-school justice to put an end to this nonsense……….

- Some beefs are universal and some fights are liable to happen around the world despite cultural differences simply because there are a-holes in the world and they need to be dealt with. Enter South American neighbors Guyana and Suriname, two countries now in a diplomatic pissing match on account of what else, parking problems. Brawls over parking spaces and who has a right to them are a near-universal reason to go and this one has caused a minor diplomatic row between two countries that aren't exactly world powers who might be tempted to go nuclear on each other’s asses should this whole mess kick up a notch in the days ahead. Guyana's government is accusing two Surinamese policemen of assaulting and trying to arrest Ambassador Keith George over an incident than began when a drunk driver blocked the entrance to the embassy in Suriname's capital and began arguing with a security guard after refusing to remove his car. Drunken morons are another universal aggravation and dealing with them is enough to piss off even the most sagacious among us, so it’s no surprise that George and other officials intervened and called police. What is odd is how the situation unfolded from there. According to Guyanese officials, the officers who responded to the incident scuffled with George and entered the embassy to try to arrest him. In the resulting chaos, and this is truly tear-jerking, embassy staffers were allegedly traumatized by the actions of Surinamese police. Yes, being protected embassy employees who have to witness local police attempting to arrest your boss is a harrowing experience and if nothing else, Suriname needs to pony up enough money for some psychological counseling to these poor, fragile, traumatized souls………..

- Sentimentality and lots of testosterone fueled the opening run of “Furious 7,” which easily outpaced the box office field for the win with $143.6 million in opening-weekend domestic earnings. Needless to say, the rest of the movies in theaters didn’t earn as much combined as the fast-driving drama, with “Home” dropping from the top spot one week ago to second and banking another $27.4 million to up its overall domestic haul to $95.6 million in two weeks. The inexplicable success of “Get Hard” continued for another week as Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart powered the comedy to $12.9 million for a two-week tally of $57 million. “Cinderella” held onto fourth place with $10.3 million in it fourth weekend and has raked in $167.3 million in one month of work. “The Divergent Series: Insurgent” stepped down two spots to fifth with a $10 million weekend, allowing the dystopian drama to break through the $100 million mark in just three weeks at $103.4 million. “It Follows” followed in sixth place at a scant $2.5 million and in four weeks of limited release, it has managed just $8.5 million. The second newcomer of the top 10 was Helen Mirren’s “Woman in Gold” in seventh place with $2 million in an underwhelming debut. “Kingsman: The Secret Service” claimed the eighth slot with a meager $1.7 million to make its two-month domestic total a solid $122.3 million. “Do You Believe?” found enough faith for $1.5 million and a three-week bank roll of $9.8 million. That left the final top 10 spot for “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” which brought in just $1 million this time around and $30 million overall. “Run All Night” (No. 12) and “The Gunman” (No. 16) both tumbled out of the top 10 from one week ago………

NHL playoff paranoia, Iranian women + soccer and Rihanna accused of plagiarism

- No freaking way. Noted pop hack and “artist” who has a team of superstar songwriters pen many of the tracks she sings so pathetically Rihanna has been accused of plagiarizing a rapper on her new single. It’s astonishing to think that someone who doesn’t seem to have an original or insightful lyric in her body would ever be fingered for daring to lift someone else’s work without proper credit or compensation, but Texas rapper Just Brittany is claiming that the pop singer borrowed heavily from her similarly named 2014 track “Betta Have My Money.” Rihanna, if she did plagiarize the song, didn’t do much work to obscure her thievery, titling her version of the song “Bitch Better Have My Money.” . Just Brittany took to Twitter to claim that Rihanna had "jacked" her song, but the veracity of her claim was quickly thrown into doubt by the fact that she later deleted the tweet. Maybe the entire claim was merely a thinly veiled publicity stunt that Just Brittany – whoever the hell she is – knew would get her a lot of attention even if it were totally bogus. Either way, “Bitch Better Have My Money'” was produced by Kanye West, alongside Roc Nation producer Deputy, Travis Scott and Wonda Gurl. It comes out as Rihanna is preparing to release her forthcoming eighth studio album, which she claimed would be a "soulful" new album that will sound "timeless." "I've made a lot of songs that are just really big songs...they just blow up,” Rihanna said. "Not that they weren't real music, but I just wanted to focus on things that felt real, that felt soulful, that felt forever.” The thing is, all of her music is timeless, as in there is never a time when you want to listen to it……..

- Now THIS is how you open a New York City racetrack casino. Forget the normal pomp and circumstance of balloons, streamers, signs and banners that you typically find adorning such events because those trappings of ceremony are both lame and tired. What’s in – or at least should be in – from here on out is the chair-flinging, glass-shattering fight that marked and legend-ized (new word alert!) the grand opening of the Fat Tuesday daiquiri bar at the Resorts World Casino at the Aqueduct track in Queens. Yes, it’s Queens and therefore not exactly the sort of upscale, trendy Manhattan happening one might expect, but this night was more epic than anything on the Upper West Side thanks in large part to the three people who were arrested or ticketed on disorderly conduct charges and several other people were injured in the brawl. According to police, officers arrived just before midnight to find about two dozen people elbow-deep in fights in the casino's food court. While many people brawled and proceeded to shatter glasses over each other’s heads and hurled the nice new chairs in the food court to take the brawl to a new level, most in attendance chose to post video showing people punching each other and lifting rope-line stanchions over their heads in an all-out effort to weaponize anything not firmly affixed to the floor. The damage was extensive, but the publicity the establishment received from this should put it on the radar for anyone looking for a good time in the greater Manhattan area. No word on whether any of the evening’s scheduled events were paid attention to, but at this point it could not matter less………

- Bad news, women of Iran. One of your country’s senior Iranian sports officials says the country's authorities have partially lifted a ban on women attending men's sports matches and while on the surface this might seem like a positive and a sign that social progress is being made – or at least no longer impeded to the same extent it was in recent months, let’s take a deeper look at what this truly means. Deputy Sports Minister Abdolhamid Ahmadi announced that Iran's State Security Council has approved a plan by his ministry to allow women and families to attend some sports events, but was cryptic about which events women could attend and when. Sadly, it almost certainly means that women will have a chance to be exposed to soccer and lets face it, soccer is not something anyone needs more of in their life. Ahmadi cautioned that not all matches or stadiums would allow women but offered no details about whether the change would actually accommodate FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s plea to Iran earlier this year to end the ban on women watching soccer in stadiums. Women have been banned from attending men's sports matches since the 1979 revolution that brought hard-line Islamic clerics to power, but in recent years the country has allowed foreign women to attend matches of their national teams. Maybe Iranian women will be mistakenly excited about the chance to attend soccer matches until they actually endure 120 minutes of scoreless “drama” on the pitch, filling two halves and two goal-free overtimes before a 0-0 draw brings their day at the stadium to a close. Ladies of Iran, you’ve been warned……..

- Not that there was going to be the proverbial fight at the bat rack to order single-game playoff tickets for the Tampa Bay Lightning this postseason, but the line just got a little shorter. The ‘Ning, currently third in the NHL’s Eastern Conference and assured of a spot in the playoffs, are looking to ensure that the loud and enthusiastic masses of their postseason foes aren't able to find their way inside Amalie Arena. Perhaps cognizant of the fact that loud contingents of fans of teams in Chicago, Montreal, Winnipeg and Detroit have attended Lightning games this season and of the fact that Boston and New York fans routinely turn home games for baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays into their own personal playground, the Lightning are dropping a ban on single-game ticket purchases for anyone residing outside the state of Florida. The team says it wants to "create a home atmosphere" during the postseason and so any tickets purchased with a credit card not attached to a Florida address will be cancelled and issued a refund without notice. Spokesman Bill Wickett said the team doesn't "feel the need to apologize" for limiting the number of visiting team fans in the arena and he’s right because anyone who wants seats will find a way to get them regardless of this insipid ass-hattedness. Someone from Chicago, Boston, New York or whatever city provides the Lightning’s first-round foe will simply buy tickets through an online marketplace from an enterprising Florida resident who purchased them with the full intention of flipping them for a profit because they don’t give a damn about hockey or who attends game. Oh, and only Lightning team attire will be allowed in the Chase Club section during playoff games, suggesting that the front office is both paranoid and not really confident in the team’s ability to win games unless the conditions are as optimal as possible in the home side’s favor. Way to focus on what really matters, guys……..

Pig v. Burger King, The Prodigy's projections and Kim Jong-Un's Pleasure Squad

- You can claim it’s going to end badly for Olympic women's gymnastics champion Gabrielle Douglas, but you can’t argue it’s a bad gamble. As the defending all-around gold medalist points toward becoming the first gymnast in nearly 50 years to repeat as Olympic champion, she knows that her time in the spotlight is limited. She can compete at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, but after that she’s going to age out of the gymnastics game and that means she needs to be thinking about her next move. Thus, she and her family will be featured in a new Oxygen reality show debuting later this year, "Douglas Family Gold." The show will be co-produced by Douglas and her mother, Natalie Hawkins, among others, and will follow Douglas as she trains for the Games next summer. She will never be hotter than she is right now as the first African-American to win the all-around title after scoring the win at the 2012 London Games as part of the "Fierce Five" that also won the team gold medal. If that means pimping her life out in very scripted, contrived reality television form in order to make some extra money and attempt to build herself from perky, adorable gymnast into pop culture personality, she is clearly willing to do so. Her gymnastics remain strong at this point, as she returned to training last summer and finished fourth at the Jesolo Trophy in Italy last weekend in her first meet in nearly three years. Taking three years off from your chosen sport is a long time even if you might need a break after many more years of relentless training with über-intense coaches, so adding reality TV cameras to the mix should create quite the circus sideshow………

- Ladies, the career opportunity of a lifetime has arrived. If you’re at a crossroads in your life or are merely open to something that will blow your mind and take you places you never imagined going, then you’re going to want to hear this. Word on the street is that North Korean authorities are recruiting young women to be part of a revived so-called "pleasure squad" that entertains dictator Kim Jong Un. The tiny, gout-riddled despot wants to revive this distinguished group of debauchery, which was disbanded shortly after Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, mercifully shuffled off this mortal coil December 2011. The facts about the group are hard to come by, but the members of its former incarnation reportedly forced to sign a pledge of secrecy in exchange for money and gifts. If you believe their urban legend, the women worked as, um, entertainers and received approximately $4,000 before returning to their hometowns. By comparison, women who worked in Kim's palaces and summer homes as maids and cleaners received about half that amount. But hell, both groups of women also reportedly received home appliances and in a country where repression is the norm and modern conveniences are a luxury that most people don’t even know it’s possible to dream about, a nice washer-dryer combo is something to treasure. Bringing back the Pleasure Squad is an interesting choice given that K.J. Un disbanded the group because he believed the women who entertained his father knew too many state secrets. He reportedly became interested in bringing back his Skank Brigade while recovering from an undisclosed physical ailment at one of his summer cottages last year, believing the women could have made the recuperation process more, um, pleasant……….

- In a very punk rock, use-what-you-have display of public artistry, British rockers The Prodigy projected the artwork for their new album “The Day Is My Enemy” on a series of London landmarks Thursday night, shamelessly promoting the project on a massive scale and ensuring that even if the album sucks abysmally, a hell of a lot of people will know about it. The artwork, featuring an illustration of a fox, appeared first on the side of Battersea Power Station at 8:30 p.m. Ninety minutes later, it showed up again, this time on the side of Shoreditch High Street underground station. The final stop on this overhead projector tour of London was the Houses Of Parliament shortly before midnight, with the band munificently documenting the entire public promotional process via their Instagram account. “Residents and representatives of London town,” the band wrote in the caption for their final photo of the evening, adding the hashtag “Fuckeemandtheirlaw,” which is the chorus of their song ‘Their Law’ from 1994’s album “Music For The Jilted Generation.” It is nice to see a band that has been around for more than two decades, long before Twitter or Instagram were close to existing, embrace the role of social media in promoting their work and the brilliant irony of posting a picture of a fox – i.e. a Fawkes – on the side of parliament is awesome. Buckingham Palace or the Tower Bridge also would have been bold choices, but you can lug your projector around the entire city in one night, even if it is for something truly rock and roll………

- This is perhaps one of the sickest coincidences in the history of fast food promotions – or is it? Why it happened is up for debate, but no one is disputing the fact that a wayward pot-bellied pig wandered into a Burger King restaurant on U.S. Route 30 near Boswell in southwestern Pennsylvania at what can only be described as a wonderfully and twistedly ironic time. The eatery was running a two-for-$4 special on bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches, making one wonder if this portly visitor was there to rain hell down upon the minimum wage earners serving up pieces and parts of its distant piggy relatives or simply to see if the horror stories were really true. Check that, because this escaped pet had merely wandered from its home and took up residence near the fast-food restaurant before wolfing down some hash browns given to him by one customer and snapping at some others who got too close before police arrived. It was the sort of call that has to make an officer remember why he or she got into law enforcement in the first place, stopping a 300-pound, dirt-loving quadruped from tearing up the booths and napkin dispensers at a fast food restaurant on the interstate. Employees were happy to have the pig hauled away and not having to hear any more pig jokes. Of course, the real joke is the slop Burger King calls food and jams into their waxy wrappers on plastic trays, but those are problems that no pig can fix. Well, unless the pigs who pound a couple of whoppers and two orders or fries and chase it with four refills of their soda cup on their lunch break learn some dietary self-discipline……….

Riot Watch! Hawaii, casting the next "X-Men" and boxer + iPhone = knockout

- It’s always nice when a government can crank out a symbolic, practically worthless gesture that generates a lot of publicity while accomplishing nothing of substance. Governments seem to thrive on those sorts of actions and Cyprus' parliament is no different. These fine professional legislators have legislated to criminalize the denial of the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago and if you think that doesn’t matter….you’re right, at least to anyone outside this fine legislative body. Parliamentary speaker Yiannakis Omirou said that through a unanimous vote, lawmakers can make denial of any historically proven massacre a crime. He announced after a meeting with his Armenian counterpart Thursday that Cyprus was the first country to raise the issue of recognizing the Armenian genocide at the U.N. General Assembly in 1965 and therefore, believes this empty action carries with it a tremendous significance for the whole country. Who is this aimed at? That would be Turkey, which denies that the deaths constituted genocide and claims that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest. Having a nearby country that flatly denies something so offensive and important in your history can drive a nation to do crazy things, or to simply have a bunch of well-dressed and self-important men tasked with making laws that govern your nation band together to vote through a meaningless bill that won't actually have any substantive effect in the real world. Armenians mark the centenary of the killings on April 24 and it will clearly be a poignant day all around……..

- There isn't a person in the world who has access to a smartphone that doesn’t spend way too much time and border on addiction to their iPhone or Droid. We all stash them on a bedside table and use them when we should be sleeping, we dive into our apps when we should be focusing on driving and we have a near-panic attack if we’re separated from our device for more than a moment…..but not everyone takes their phone obsession to the extreme quite like middleweight boxer Marvin Jones. Jones was supposed to be focused on his big bout with Ramon Luis Nicolas at the Turner Agri-Civic Center in Arcadia, Florida, but Jones seems to have had other things on his mind in the moments leading up to the bout and when he stepped into the ring. A few seconds into the first round, referee Frank Santore, Jr. stopped the fight because Jones’ phone came tumbling out of his trunks and to the canvas. Boxing trunks tend not to have pockets, so one has to wonder where exactly in his shorts Jones put the phone and how he expected it to stay there for the entire fight. Maybe he was worried that if he left his phone in his locker room, his lady would sneak in and check it to see if he was getting any text from a girl he has on the side, but then again, why not ask your corner man to keep the phone in his pocket so it was safe? Or maybe Jones was on hold with Apple customer service and didn’t want to lose his place in line by hanging up…..but either way, Nicolas retreated to his corner while Jones bowed to the amused crowd and proceeded to get knocked out before the end of the first round. It was his fourth straight loss, but managed to take losing to a new low in the process……….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Hawaii's Big Island is rarely a place of rage on account of being an island paradise with tropical magic and beaches galore. But there are always reasons to rise up if you look hard enough and so it is that enraged protesters on the island have been blocking the road to a mountain peak where one of the world's largest telescopes is being built. While not Molotov cocktails have been thrown and no police cars have been overturned and burned just yet, Hawaii County police spokeswoman Chris Loos says some people have been arrested for blocking the road to the Mauna Kea summit. The mountain is held sacred by native Hawaiians, but that didn’t stop the government from green-lighting the construction of the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope. When The Man gets a project rolling downhill, it’s tough to stop and even though opponents of the project grasped at straws by questioning whether land appraisals were done correctly and whether native Hawaiian groups had been consulted, it was all to no avail as the process simply kept going. Growing more desperate by the day, protestors disrupted a groundbreaking and Hawaiian blessing ceremony last year and their fight has rolled right on into a new year while on the other side of the debate, astronomers say Mauna Kea is the ideal location for observing the most distant parts of the universe. It isn't quite the same as building a Jack In the Box burger joint or a Target on the peak, but the worthiness of this scientific endeavor seems to have little value to the protestors who are raging against the dying of the light on this one……..

- He hardly looks old enough to be an ass-kicking mutant, but former “EastEnders” actor Ben Hardy has reportedly been cast as Angel in next year's “X-Men Apocalypse.” Hardy last showed up on the popular BBC drama back in February but had actually played Peter Beale since 2013. His next turn will be decidedly more exciting after months of being linked to director Bryan Singer's next X-Men film. Depending on whose rumors you believe, Hardy was at one point in the running to play Cyclops. Instead, Singer has tagged him as the winged mutant Angel, who previously appeared on screen in 2006's “X-Men: The Last Stand,” played by Ben Foster and with some decided daddy issues to figure out along with his newfound abilities. Singer has been a busy man of late and earlier this month he shared production art featuring the character on Instagram. The cast is still in the works, but the project is set to begin shooting later this month in Toronto with a scheduled release date of May 27, 2016. Since the turn of the new year, Singer has unveiled several new cast additions, including Kodi Smit-McPhee as young Nightcrawler and “Game of Thrones” actress Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, with Tye Sheridan portraying Cyclops and Alexandra Shipp as Storm. Most of the players here aren't A-listers or even names that the average movie fan will know, but rest assured that fan boys will delve deep into their IMDB pages and past credits in an attempt to figure out whether they are the right fit for yet another installment in a series that has spawned more spin-offs and sequels than anyone could have ever dared to imagine………

A new MLB era dawns, stealing bikes from wounded vets and The Cribs are conspiracy theorists

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- Bitter much, British indie rockers The Cribs? You’ve done fairly well for yourself over the past decade by indie standards, carving out a loyal following and garnering plenty of respect within your genre of choice, but it’s the band’s failure to crack the mainstream would that seems to have the biggest effect on Ryan Jarman and his crew. Jarman is of the opinion that The Cribs haven’t gotten bigger because of the United Kingdom’s musical "old school dinosaurs" with a "grudge" against the trio, claiming "if we make a misstep, we'll be crucified.” Jarman ranted on, saying that there is some sort of conspiracy against his band. "We're one of those bands who have seeped into public consciousness just by being around such a long time. There are still some old school dinosaurs in the U.K. who just have a grudge against us,” Jarman said. “They just don't give us a chance to get bigger or actively block it…so we just have to put out another record that's better than the last one." Actively blocking your attempts to climb the musical ladder? Paranoid much, Ry? But points for positioning yourself as the plucky indie underdog bravely fighting the establishment for your rightful place in the sun. Conveniently, The Cribs just released their sixth album “For All My Sisters,” last week on Sony Red following the end of their relationship with independent label Wichita Recordings. It’s their first release since 2012’s “In The Belly of The Brazen Bull” and comes amidst rumors of internal tension within the band. Two of the three brothers have since relocated to the United States and Ryan Jarman admitted he went through a three-year period of suffering with bulimia and anxiety beginning in 2010.........

- Here’s hoping karma is real and that it’s not too busy hunting down those associated with murdering good music through reality karaoke shows to hunt down the special brand of d-bags responsible for thieiving 16 custom-made bikes from a group of wounded veterans. The adaptive bikes owned by the non-profit Ride 2 Recover were stolen from a storage unit at the Naval Medical Center San Diego and while it’s not quite the same as stealing them out of the hands of these brave men and women, the wounded warriors and their organization are hurting nonetheless. The bikes are worth over $10,000 and stealing them makes fiscal sense – assuming you’re willing to put a price on reserving your spot in the inner ring of hell. “It may seem like a bicycle to most, but it’s not to us. It’s our way of life,” retired Marine Corps Sgt. Jamie Rihn said. Rihn is the Ride 2 Recovery program director and he knows the true value of these bikes. “They can just be down in the dumps when they get on the bike. But when they’re done riding, even if it’s just 10 minutes, you can see the smiles on their faces, there’s just life back in their hearts,” Rihn said. The anger in his voice is apparent as he heaps cries of “Shame!” on those responsible for the theft and everyone at the Vets2Trails therapeutic mountain biking program that supports the PTSD program at Naval Medical Center San Diego is outraged by this. Each bike is worth more than $2,000 and while the worthiness of this cause makes it likely that many will rise up to donate to replace the bikes, the importance of seeing the thieves brought to justice is still of great importance here………

- This is a new world we’re living in, y’all, as a new Major League Baseball season dawns. A team that hasn't won the World Series since 1908 and has become the epitome of losing and fan misery in baseball and which was one of baseball’s worst teams just six months ago is apparently the cool team to lay down money on as this year’s Series champ. As the opening week of baseball season nears, more money has been bet on the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series than any other team at two of Nevada's largest sportsbooks. Given their offseason upgrades, adding both manager Joe Maddon and ace starter Jon Lester, the Cubs are 6-1 to win the World Series at the MGM. An actual playoff team from one year ago, the Washington Nationals at 5-1, are the only team with better odds. The number of bets on the Cubs more than doubles any other team in the MGM's World Series futures pool and a lot of it has to do with the rave reviews team president Theo Epstein has done rebuilding the team the past couple years. "Every year, they bet the Cubs," Jeff Stoneback, assistant manager at MGM race and sports. "I could be their ace and you could be their No. 2 starter, and they'd still bet them." Back in October, William Hill opened the Cubs at 40-1 and yet, the bets flowed in to the point that the book now has them at 10-1 odds to win the title. A whopping 10 percent of the total money wagered at William Hill on the World Series odds is on Chicago, putting them ahead of annual contenders like the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals. Most sports books still have the Cardinals as the favorites to win the National League Central over the Cubs, but the amount of people who seem to have confidence in the Cubs – or at least like their odds of doing the impossible – appears to be larger than ever……..

- So if you’re going to go on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal and defy order to return to The Hague because you don’t like how things are going, you may as well go big – as in a big, meaty, flaming middle finger to the entire court and your opponents in this legal skirmish. No one needs to tell that to far-right leader Vojislav Seselj, who definitively went big in burning a Croatian flag while defying orders to return to the tribunal, prompting Serbian prosecutors to file charges against him beyond the accusations of recruiting paramilitary forces during the 1990s wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Those proceedings seem to have sufficiently pissed him off, enough to show up with a flag, accelerant and a lighter when he appeared as a witness in the trial of an associate who has been charged with torching an American flag three years ago. The eff-you mentality needed to go pyromaniac in the face of the court while you’re on provisional release from the court in order to seek medical treatment and knowing you’re out on condition that you would return to the tribunal if summoned is strong and it didn’t take long for appeals judges at the tribunal in The Netherlands to rule that Seselj has breached conditions of his provisional release in November. For the record, this rebel with an allegedly criminal cause has said he wouldn't return voluntarily and so in a show of defiance of those hounding both he and his friend, he set a Croatian flag on fire at a Belgrade court where he either thought the U.N. tribunal wouldn’t notice or simply forgot that this is 2015, where everything even remotely interesting goes viral around the world within minutes thanks to social media and cable news. Still, points for style………

Led Zep = cash grab, charity scams are absurd and war + rape = major problem

- Wait, there are still countries where it’s necessary to sign official documents classifying rape as unacceptable? Sadly there are and one of them is the Congo, where Congolese army commanders have signed a declaration to combat rape in war. Rape and war have been sadly intertwined for virtually as long as both have existed and sometimes rape is even used as a weapon or as the spoils to the winning side in a conflict, but at least one of the most bass-ackwards nations in the world is taking a step toward addressing the problem. The United Nations hailed the measure as an important step in the fight against sexual violence during conflicts and should it hold up, it would be just that. The declaration was signed in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, and it is another piece of government plan adopted in September to end sexual violence by soldiers. It requires every Congolese military commander to pledge to take a series of actions including respecting human rights and international humanitarian law on sexual violence in conflict, ensuring prosecution of alleged perpetrators under their command and educating soldiers about the "zero tolerance policy" on sexual violence in conflict. Zainab Hawa Bangura, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, called the signing of the document  "a giant leap forward in the fight" against rape in war. Ending the war would also be a giant leap forward but because men are incapable of living in peace and seem intent on solving their problems through killing one another, tackling rape will have to suffice………

- Nick Saban is still a liar. In case anyone forgot, the man who famously insisted he would not be the next head coach at Alabama before becoming the next head coach at Alabama weeks later is not known for being forthright and so when he claims that he is "very, very sorry for the way this worked out” in regards to signing Jonathan Taylor, he’s full of sh*t. For those who don’t know, Taylor was arrested on a domestic violence charge and dismissed from the team before playing a single game for the Crimson Tide. It came nearly a year after he was dismissed by Georgia following an arrest for felony aggravated assault and family violence for allegedly choking his then-girlfriend. Saban, athletic director Bill Battle and the Alabama administration gave what they called a "second chance" in January, entirely because he’s a 6-foot-4, 335-pound behemoth who can plug the middle of a defensive line that was whipped by Ohio State in January’s College Football Playoff championship game. It had nothing to do with giving a deserving young man a second chance at success, so to hear Saban pretend he’s apologetic about anything to do with this mess is insulting to one and all. "I'm not sorry for giving him an opportunity. I'm sorry for the way things worked out," Saban said. “I'm not apologizing for the opportunity that we gave him. I wanted to try to help the guy make it work. It didn't work. So we're sorry that it didn't work and we're sorry there was an incident and we're sorry for the people that were involved in the incident. But we're not apologizing for what we did.” Right, because everyone knows you prize difference-making players over character every day of the week and if that means taking on a guy now charged with domestic violence third-degree assault and domestic violence third-degree criminal mischief in Tuscaloosa for a brawl that left a hole punched in a bedroom door and the aforementioned incident in Georgia, so be it……….

- You have to be a special brand of scumbag to use a charity that purported to help victims of international child trafficking to rip people off of copious amounts of money. You have to be someone like Peter Senese, the director of a nonprofit organization who has been arrested in New York City on fraud charges. Federal prosecutors announced the charges against him in a criminal complaint that accuses Senese of defrauding parents through an organization called I CARE. The I CARE name makes all of this especially d-baggish, even more so than collecting large fees on false promises to reunite abducted children with their families would otherwise be. The whole sham is so absurd and so offensive, complete with Senese telling clients he was traveling the world as part of his efforts when in truth he never left the United States. Of course, if you’re going to bilk that many people out of that much money and use a story about traveling the world tracking down abducted children like you’re Liam Neeson in “Taken,” then maybe you should just go ahead and use some of that fraud money to travel the world so you can at least pretend like you’re trying to do what you promised to do. Hell, grab a glass of wine in Paris, check out the Great Wall in China and kick it at Carnival in Rio and snap a few pictures from local slums to make it look like you’re legit. Instead, this ass hat was content to con naïve people into giving him massive chunks of money and sitting on his ass in Manhattan, hoping he didn’t run into any of them on the subway or grabbing a hot dog from a street vendor. Poor execution all around………..

- The latest cash grab by one of the most iconic rock bands of all time has gone interactive. Led Zeppelin is trying to cash in on its catalog despite not having all of its members still living and therefore precluding it from releasing any legit new material by reissuing its classic album “Physical Graffiti” and they know that they cannot simply remaster the old album and slap it on iTunes if they expect people to buy it in large quantities – well, they can and a lot of bands do, but it doesn’t really maximize earning potential. Tricking out an iconic album is no easy task, but Led Zep has found a way and it has nothing to do with the music itself. No, Page, Plant and Co. have instead decided to bring the album’s famed cover to life and hope that a three-dimensional take on the image is enough to draw attention to their efforts to line their pockets with even more wads of cash. The centerpiece of this effort is an interactive clip for one of the bonus tracks from the album, part of a video that allows viewers to navigate their way through the house from the “Physical Graffiti” album cover. The video is the creation of , which also crafted Bob Dylan’s interactive video for “Like a Rolling Stone.” On some level, maybe bands and artists who have faded from mainstream consciousness and need a boost to capture any attention amongst the sea of man bands and overproduced pop hacks need this sort of assistance if they have any hope of connecting with music fans of the 21st century, but that too is a sad notion. A re-release of Led Zep’s sixth studio album, with a rough mix of “Trampled Under Foot” retitled as “Brandy & Coke”? can hardly be construed as a bad thing, but all of the excess around it isn't exactly making the band seem any cooler………