Japanese mobsters, arrogant karaoke judges and a delusional MLB slugger

- Ironic how a huge, hulking athlete chasing down the most hallowed and respected record in all of sports can look so feeble and desperate, eh? San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds is now whining about the media driving a wedge between he and Hank Aaron, the man whose record he’s about to break (with the help of copious amounts of steroids). Aaron, who like the rest of Americans with an IQ above 40 has all but concluded that Bonds’ career is tainted by ‘roid usage, has stated explicitly that when Bonds breaks the home run record, he will not be in attendance. Hammerin’ Hank said he’s a 72-year-old man and he’s not getting on a plane for anyone, so he will not fly to wherever the Giants are playing when Bonds hits home run No. 756. Of course, Hank then got on a plane and flew across the country for Jackie Robinson Night at Dodger Stadium, where the man who broke baseball’s color barrier was honored. And Hank did say that if Bonds is poised to break the record when the Giants come to Aaron’s hometown of Atlanta in August, he will be in West Palm Beach playing golf at that time. So to clarify, Aaron won't get on a plane for anyone, as long as anyone means Barry Bonds. I don’t blame the Hammer, because I’d be pissed too. If I was sure someone had blatantly cheated to break my record that I attained playing clean, I’d be livid. The blame here doesn’t go on Hank, nor does it go on the media. It goes squarely on the shoulders of Bar-roid, who would not be dealing with this controversy if he had simply said no to the beef roids and chlomid. Bonds needs to stop trying to pawn blame off on others, keep as quiet as possible and break the record without b*tching any further, because baseball fans, players, executives, former players and the public in general are all going to be pissed off enough as it is.

- How many text messages do you send on your cell each month? 200? 500? University of Arkansas football coach Houston Nutt has you beat, and it’s landing him in a lot of trouble. Some of Nutt’s detractors, seeking ammo to get the coach fired, used the Freedom of Information Act to access his cell phone records and discovered that over the course of one month this past winter, Nutt send more than 1,000 text messages to a local female TV anchor, despite the fact that Nutt is married and the anchor is decidedly not his wife. The anchor in question, Donna Bragg, is the director of a charitable foundation in Fayetteville and Nutt claims those texts were charity-related, but that’s a dubious claim. Doing a little math, we can break this down and find that on average, there were 32-33 texts per day being sent from Nutt to Bragg, more than one per hour. I’m not a text messaging expert, but I can say with confidence that if you text someone more than once an hour every day for a month, there’s something more going on than charity work. Nutt went so far as to send one text 19 minutes before his team played in the Capital One Bowl on New Year’s Day. Those critics who dug up Nutt’s phone records are using them against him in their latest ploy to get him fired, but the coach has responded with an open letter claiming the text messages were in relation to Bragg’s charity work and nothing else. I’m going to split my vote on this, because I don’t believe Nutt’s explanation but I also don’t believe that excessive text messaging alone is a fireable offense. Unless someone has proof of much more inappropriate conduct and conduct that goes beyond merely bad judgment and marital unfaithfulness, you cannot fire Nutt over sending too many text messages to a special lady friend.

- One of the dangers of playing the “Do you know who I am?” card is that people actually will know who you are and will punish you because of it. Normally I say that if you have to play that card, then you’re not important enough for people to know or care who you are. For American Karaoke judge/lush Paula Abdul, going with “Do you know who I am?” is an even worse decision. You may or may not realize this in your drugged up, alkie state P., but you’re an incredibly annoying, irritating part of the most offensive, awful TV show in the world, and when people see you in a public place and realize who you are, they just might seek to stick it to you to gain some revenge for the part you play in facilitating the atrocious karaoke-ing on your show each week. Thus, when Abdul tried to cut in line and force her way on to a Southwest Airlines flight from San Jose to Burbank and once onboard, attempted to save a seat so she could have some extra room, her fellow passengers weren’t down. One heckled her with a Sanjaya blast (seeing those frightening pictures of him/her is enough, I don’t need to know anything about who this Sanjaya person actually is), saying that Paula was no Sanjaya and that she needed to be treated just like any other passenger. See, travelers are funny that way, they don’t give a crap if some drugged up former Laker Girl with a Botox-ed up grill and a gig “judging” glorified karaoke singers on a crappy reality show wants to take their spot on a plane or save an extra seat on that plane. They want to get where they’re going as quickly as possible and they’re not giving anything up so you and your E-list celebrity status can have some extra perks. Stay in your shoes, Paula, realize who you are and take your sorry butt to the back of the line. Be thankful the airline doesn’t force you to ride in the cargo hold, where you deserve to be.

- Prepare to riot, soccer fans: rumors have the L.A. Galaxy, the Major League Soccer (again, the ultimate oxymoron as soccer is never major league) franchise of southern California, pursuing aging, head-butting Frenchman Zinedine Zidane. Zidane is the ass clown who used his head as a battering ram when an Italian player got under his skin with some good “your momma and sister” smack in the last World Cup. Now, the Galaxy want to bring him to America to team up with another over-the-hill has been, David Beckham, in an attempt to convince the rest of us that soccer really does matter. Personally I’m going to keep on not caring, and I have a feeling the rest of America (well, those over the age of 12 who don’t play youth soccer and slurp down Capri Sun pouches religiously) will do the same. Still, I do feel the need to pose a question in response to a comment by Alexi Lalas, the team president for the Galaxy, who stated that buying out Zidane’s European league contract would not be a problem. On the heels of paying Beckham ridiculous amounts of money, how can an MLS franchise have any more to spend? Their league is about the ninth most popular in the country, attendance is miniscule and I don’t see too many people sporting MLS merchandise, so where is the Galaxy coming up with this kind of jack? We may need to audit their tax returns and make sure they’re not trying to write off the $15 million they spend annually on Capri Sun and orange wedges as a business expense and therefore a tax deduction. Bring all the aging Euros you want to your team, L.A. Galaxy, you’re still soccer and you still don’t matter.

- I’ve criticized the Chinese government for actions I label as crappy in recent weeks (trying to ban all sexually explicit online content and destroying pirated copies of music, movies and software), but now there really is something crappy about China. A fertilizer plant in the Guizhou province accidentally discharged a massive amount of sulfur dioxide, and the resulting stench literally sickened 140 teachers and schoolchildren in the area. Major points deducted for the Chinese government on this one; if you’re going to rip your citizens’ porn, bootleg music and movies and their illegal software copies, the least you can do is properly regulate your fertilizer plants so they don’t release illness-inducing levels of airborne toxins into the atmosphere.

- Sorry for the beatdown and abuse, we just overreacted a bit. Those are the heartfelt, genuine words of contrition coming from the Russian government after police administered violent beatings to protestors in two recent demonstrations against the administration of President Vladimir Putin. The marches took place over the weekend in Moscow and St. Petersburg and included prominent Russians such as former world chess champion Gary Kasparov. The police predictably went overboard in wailing on demonstrators with their clubs and batons and in arresting people as fast as they could slap the cuffs on. But hey, a canned, stiff, sterile apology from a governmental spokesman should soothe any lingering tensions, right? Everyone will just forget that your administration is violently suppressing democracy and individual rights and moving back toward the Communist end of the political spectrum as long as you dig surface-deep and issue a scripted apology, Mr. Putin. All is well, don’t worry about it, everyone will just shake hands, smile and forget all about it…………….

- Is there any traffic law that New Jersey governor John S. Corzine’s vehicle wasn’t breaking when it crashed and left him hospitalized last week? A state police investigation revealed that Corzine’s vehicle was traveling at 91 mph at the time of the crash on a stretch of highway where the speed limit is 65 mph. Add to that the already known fact that Corzine was not wearing a seat belt and was being driven by a state trooper whose job it is to enforce seat belt and speed limit laws, and you have the recipe for quite the political crap storm. I’m the last person to criticize anyone for breaking the speed limit, but the governor has to know that someone in a position of authority over a whole state cannot be involved in this kind of crash where he’s breaking multiple traffic laws with a law enforcement official there overlooking said violations. Corzine comes off as a major hypocrite in all of this, and I look forward to his teary eyed, scripted fake apology in a few days as he attempts to spin the whole mess into a big misunderstanding.

- Organized crime may not be as public or prominent in the United States as it was during the 1920s with Al Capone (although it does still exist in a very real way), but the mob is alive and well in Japan. An organized crime chief gunned down the mayor of Nagasaki on Tuesday because he was pissed about the city’s refusal to pay for repairs to his car when it was damaged at a public works construction site. Mayor Iccho Ito was shot twice in the back as he walked outside of a train station, with one bullet piercing his heart and causing cardiac arrest. The heart attack was fatal, and Ito died after emergency surgery at Nagasaki University Hospital. Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, was tackled by officers at the scene of the crime and arrested after firing the fatal shots. All I can say is that if this is how Japanese mobsters react to their car getting scratched, I would hate to see how they react to something really major. Mental note to self: if ever in Japan, steer clear of any members of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate……

- Besides being an effective torture device for wives and girlfriends to use on their husbands and boyfriends, Dancing With the (D-list) Stars isn't anything but a glorified ballroom dancing class with terrible music that fills an hour of airtime less interestingly than a test pattern. However, is it too much to ask that your show not feature covers of crappy ‘80s music that sounds like it’s sung by Cookie Monster with a bad case of laryngitis? All you need to do is walk through a room where someone is watching that joke of a show and hear five seconds of that ear-assaulting crap-ola in order to realize how blessed you are not to have a wife or girlfriend who forces you to watch DTWDLS. Oh, and having former man-bander Joey Fatone on the show doesn’t do much for your credibility either.

A penchant for stating the obvious, a new low for the war in Iraq

- Time for news of more researchers wasting money “discovering” things that are more painfully obvious than a Michael Jackson nose job. The British-based Internet Watch Foundation has uncovered shocking evidence that over the past four years, child pornography on the Internet is becoming more brutal and more graphic. The group claims the number of images depicting violent abuse has risen fourfold since 2003. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe in a world where there’s a new sex scandal weekly, where porn sites comprise an unsightly majority of the ‘Net and where prisons are littered with pedophiles and sexual deviants, but it’s true. I’m just curious about one thing that the IWF researchers didn’t explain: after they figured out their new “discovery” that had to take all of half an hour because it’s so frickin’ obvious, what did they do over the remaining months of their “research” project? How did they spend the rest of their research money after using paying their high-speed access bill for the first time and realizing they had all the data they needed on Day One? Ah, the luxurious, simple life of an Internet researcher, where new insights and fresh analysis aren't needed and you can waste money figuring out something most seventh-graders could already tell you.

- The DWB defense didn’t work for former NFL player John Mobley, so now the ex-Denver Bronco is headed to jail for a seven-day sentence on a drunken-driving conviction. Mobley and his lawyers claimed he was the victim of racial profiling by police, i.e. driving while black, but Colorado’s Supreme Court refused to hear the argument and now Mobley is going to spend a week in the hole. The jail time can’t be the major concern here, because after all, it’s a week in county jail, not a huge ordeal. I’ve gotta believe that having a drunken-driving conviction on his record is of greater concern to Mobley. Still, arguing racial profiling on a DUI is weak, because your blood-alcohol content and failure of sobriety tests tends to prove you are indeed drunk, regardless of skin color. Whether the cop pulled you over because you are black (which is wrong), if you’re drunk and exhibiting signs of that in your driving, the tests they put you through will bear that out. Do your time, J., and in the future don’t give the cops any excuse to suspect you of driving drunk by, um, not driving when you’ve had a beer or six.

- So the war in Iraq seems to be going muuuuuuuch better…..if by better you mean that American troops are dying at the highest rate of any time since the war began. Military authorities announced the deaths of seven more service men and women over the weekend, bringing the running total to 3,308, or about 3,308 more than would have died if our bungling president hadn't created this pointless war in the first place. At the same time, prominent members of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s cabinet loyal to a radical Muslim cleric have resigned, leading to growing speculation that Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers could be planning another confrontation with U.S. troops. For a war we’re supposedly winning and have a chance to emerge victorious from, does anyone else notice the dearth of good news or even remotely positive developments coming from the Mess O’ Potamia lately (or since the war began, either/or)? I know W. is not an intelligent or scholarly man, but does he really think that you spell victory as D-E-F-E-A-T or D-E-A-T-H?

- Normally I don’t make a point of reveling in the misfortune of others. However, I always make an exception when bad things happen to the New York Yankees, the most loathsome professional sports team in America. Any time anything negative happens to those arrogant, corporate sellouts short of a real tragedy like serious illness or the loss of life, I’m going to be the first one there for the celebration. So it is with great joy that I point out the current state of the Yankees’ starting rotation, with its top three starters on the disabled list. Mike Mussina, Chien Ming Wang and Carl Pavano are all on the DL, and now the starting five for the Yanks sports legendary names like Darrell Rasner, Kei Igawa and Chase Wright. Yes, the Chase Wright, the one who has made all of two starts at the AA level. With only the lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays standing between them and last place, the 5-6 Yankees are relying on Rasner, Igawa and Chase Wright to right the ship. Compounding the hilarity is the knowledge that this is the team that a $200 million-plus payroll has bought, making it the biggest waste of money in New York since the Backstreet Boys’ final concert came to town in 2005.

- There are a few ways you can be certain of finding trouble in life, one of which is being Likes to Fight Guy. You probably know Likes to Fight Guy; he’s ready to throw down for any reason at any time, or for no reason at all. Insult his girl, cut in front of him in a line, look at him the wrong way, spill his beer or just be in his way when he’s having a bad day. Likes to Fight Guy doesn’t find trouble; he creates it. Such is the case with NBA referee Joey Crawford, whose self-created confrontation with San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan has landed Crawford a suspension for the remainder of the season, including the playoffs. Duncan is a notorious flat-liner who rarely shows any emotion or personality, but late last week Crawford ejected him from a game by giving Duncan his second technical foul as Timmy was sitting on the bench, laughing with his teammates. Crawford took the laughter as a personal affront and ejected Duncan, and according to Duncan Crawford also challenged him to a fight. NBA Commissioner David Stern is pissed at Crawford for his out-of-line conduct and thus the suspension. Crawford needs to learn that in the middle of an important NBA game is not the place to be Likes to Fight Guy. Do it at your favorite bar, do it at a party, do it in a pickup game at the Y, but not in a late-season game that is important to both teams involved. This only provides more evidence for critics who rip officials and umpires for having a God complex, for abusing their authority and for having vendettas against certain players.

The Chines government is running afoul of me while Pacman Jones is just plain foul

- I’m really developing a strong dislike for China, or more specifically the Chinese government. First, there was the announcement last week that the country’s Ministry of Public Security will be kicking off a six-month campaign to eliminate Internet porn in China and deprive all sexual freaks and perverts in their country the chance to get their online freak on, and now the government has destroyed 42 million pirated DVDs, CDs and pieces of computer software. Burning copies of movies and albums is the centerpiece of media consumption here in America, and I challenge you to find any movie or music lover who doesn’t own one or several dozen copied discs. Yet here’s the Chinese government, going all overbearing dictator on its citizens and destroying their bootleg copies of Borat, the new Killers album and their pirated version of Photoshop CS. Not everyone has to money to be actual legitimate copies of those items, Chinese government, so why you gotta go ripping their bootleg versions? Isn't life in a Communist country hard enough without the government forcefully ripping your burned CDs and DVDs and destroying them? Seems like there’s a race on that continent to see whose government can be more oppressive and restrictive of its citizens’ lives, China or Russia…..

- Now what are illegal immigrant women going to do? That’s the pertinent question after Juan Balderas-Orosco, a Mexican man charged with running a ring of brothels across America that forced immigrant women into prostitution, was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for his crimes. Balderas-Orosco and twelve cohorts smuggled hundreds of women across the border and forced them to become prostitutes, often having sex with as many as 40 men a day. Hope you enjoy the next six years and eight months on American soil, Juan, because once that sentence ends, deportation is the next step. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that forced prostitution is what any anti-immigration critics have in mind when they say that those wishing to enter our country should be bringing something to the table and not just sponging off the rest of the country. Your life in your own country might be bad, but I find it very hard to believe that going to a foreign country and basically being forced to have sex with dirty, disgusting strangers all day, every day is an improvement. Maybe ol’ Juan will be forced into a special kind of prostitution of his own inside of prison, if you catch my drift…………

- Two of my least favorite things in the whole world came face to face with one another on a radio call-in show recently: Sen. Hank Clinton and American Karaoke. Hank was appearing as a part of his apocalyptic, sign-of-the-end-of-the-world presidential campaign (well, if dude is elected it will be apocalyptic) and some moron called in to ask what Hank thought should be done about hack karaoke-er Sanjaya, um, whatever his last name is. Hank quickly ducked the question, saying people can vote for whoever they want to vote for, just as they can in the presidential election. Actually, Hank is somewhat right in drawing a parallel between the presidential election and AK, because both frequently sport a bevy of unqualified, unappealing choices that make leave voters with the realization that they must vote for the least offensive of two possible options. Both situations involve a lot of fake, phony people and both waste an inordinate amount of television airtime that would be better served watching Sesame Street or reruns of Leave It to Beaver. However, Hank’s indirect, beat-around-the-bush answer to a question like this on a radio show does beg the question of what he’ll do when faced with actual political quandaries posed to him at debates and throughout the campaign.

- “I’m not a racist but…..” You hear those words and you know something racist is about to be said. It’s the ultimate contradiction, and anyone uttering that sentence ends up looking bad. Adam “Pacman” Jones of the Tennessee Titans looks nearly as bad for his own malapropism, put forth when asked about his reaction to the NFL (rightfully) suspending him for one full season for his many, many, many legal troubles and consistent run-ins with police. Jones was interviewed when he happened to be at ESPN’s Friday Night Fights boxing event in Mississippi, and during the course of the interview he unleashed the following gem when discussing his suspension: “For the most part, I’m taking it like a man, but I’m going to appeal.” Which one is it, Pacman? Are you taking it like a man and accepting your punishment, or are you going to be a whiny, petulant child, stomp your feet and appeal your suspension as if this isn't fair? If Pacman’s history is any indication, he’ll be going with the latter. He also had the audacity to allege that he’s the poster boy for the league in its crusade against felonious behavior by players, as if they’re singling him out to make a point and thus taking advantage of him. Nobody but you has had those dozen or so brushes with the law, Pacman, and even if you haven't been charged with a crime in the latest incident, you have past convictions and failed to report two arrests last offseason, which violates NFL rules. I do take issue with the whole poster boy notion, because that assumes that his punishment should be a warning to others who might follow in his footsteps and to be honest, I doubt anyone is going to go as far down Felon Road as this guy has. Others will get into trouble with the law, but I think other players will stop well short of visiting the cops as often as Pacman does. Oh, and you can appeal all you want, P., but you thinking you will win that appeal and be back on the field after missing only 10 games is as ludicrous a prediction as I’ve ever heard.

- Two days of protests in Russia have led to two consecutive days of police-administered beatdowns. For the second day in a row, anti-Kremlin demonstrators felt the wrath of the law, but take heart in knowing that Russian police are equal-opportunity abusers. Both young and old felt the cold steel of the policeman’s baton in St. Petersburg on Sunday. Protesters accurately claim that the harsh, overbearing use of force will only serve to fuel the argument that President Vladimir Putin is choking the life out of democracy and free speech in the country. Astonishingly, the major national television stations in Russia (controlled by Putin and his cronies) didn’t show much of the footage from the demonstrations. After all, when oppressing your people and stifling their right to speak out against you, who needs that kind of bad publicity shown on your nation’s airwaves. Better to oppress and abuse in anonymity, eh Vlad? By the way, I’d also like to thank President Putin for providing a glimpse of what life must have been like back in the days of Iron Curtain, since many of us aren't old enough to remember.

Russian riot led by a chess champion, a 42-year environmental goal and a not-so-bad sex scandal

- Glad to see that bigotry and racist thinking hasn’t totally been eliminated in Germany after all. The country that was responsible for the most gruesome genocide in world history still has some of that bigoted spirit in it, as evidenced by a German army training videotape in which an instructor tells a soldier to envision himself in New York City fighting hostile blacks while the soldier is firing his machine gun. Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr. has demanded an apology from the German military because his borough is the one specifically mentioned in the tape. The German Defense Ministry has been aware of the video since it was shot in July but has offered little more than a feeble, scripted promise to investigate the matter. In the video, an instructor details a scenario in the Bronx where three young black men exit a black van and are “insulting your mother in the worst way.” Side note here, but is that not the single whitest thing you’ve ever heard, “insulting your mother in the worst way” as a phrase? Wow, hire a dialogue consultant so you can at least sound like you’re not speaking as a TV character in a 1950s family sitcom, German military. While you’re at it, also try dropping the whole bigoted, racist labeling of all criminals and also explain why your theoretical training exercise is set in the Bronx. Since when have German forces ever been sent to fight in the Five Boroughs? That’s what I thought……..

- Gary Kasparov isn't just a chess master, it seems. The former world chess champion who once battled a supercomputer in a man vs. machine match took on a different opponent Saturday. Kasparov was one of 2,000 protestors who took to the streets in a demonstration against the administration of President Vladimir Putin. The event was labeled the Dissenters March and was organized by a coalition of opposition groups. Their beef with Putin and Co. is that the administration’s social and economic policies are unjust and that the government has made a concerted effort to silence anyone who opposes it. Putin has asserted a high level of control over the country’s major television networks, meaning little or no airtime for those who speak out against him. I hate to be the one to point this out, but Russia looks to be moving back toward the policies and government of its Communist past rather than forward. Take heart, though, Russians, because like America your nightmare of a president will be serving out the last year of his final term in office next year and you can have the chance to vote in someone new and actually competent.

- When I set a goal, I like it to be clear cut, definitive and to have a specific time frame. Usually, though, that time frame is significantly less than 42 years. Not to nitpick, but those 42-year goals just don’t cut it most of the time. A lot can happen over the course of four-plus decades, and a goal you set 42 years ago doesn’t tend to hold up well. Even so, a collection of 1,300 rallies took place across the United States over the weekend to protest global warming and push Congress to require an 80 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The biggest rally took place in New York’s Battery Park, where the campaign labeled Step It Up 2007 drew a large crowd to make its voice heard. You can't totally fault the tree huggers, though, for setting such a far-reaching goal. Analytical, insightful thinking backed by logic is not the centerpiece of the environmentalist movement, so cut them a little bit of slack. Also, I think there needs to be a clarification here: do you want the actual cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, or do you merely want Congress to pass a bill to that effect by 2050? The latter might be doable, but I can more or less guarantee that the former is not.

- The Naval Academy doesn’t mess around. The academy has expelled Lamar Owens Jr., a former football player who was cleared of rape last summer but convicted of lesser charges. Not only is Owens expelled for conduct the school deems “unsatisfactory”, he has been ordered to reimburse the Naval Academy $90,797.75. The key, of course, are the 75 cents, because that’s what really matters here. You know it’s a tough school when not only do you get kicked out for a criminal conviction, but the school demands that you give it money for kicking you out. As a football player at a place like Florida State or Miami, you don’t get kicked out for a conviction such as Owens’, you get to move up on the depth chart. At the Naval Academy, you are expelled and you’ll spend the next four or five years trying to pay back the money you owe. In other words, Navy is never going to become an elite football program if it continues to conduct itself this way.

- A melancholy happy trails to Don Ho, the famous entertainer and singer from Hawaii who crooned the all-time classic jingle Tiny Bubbles. While I realize that most people under the age of 40 don’t have much of a clue who Don Ho actually was and why he’s famous, but for several decades, Don Ho entertained tourists on the island of Waikiki and Hollywood stars such as Lucille Ball, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra were known to frequent his shows. Additionally, anyone who can rock a Hawaiian shirt like that deserves props, so here’s to you, Don Ho, Hawaii won't be the same without you.

- Color me misguided, but here’s a school sex scandal I can get with. The reasoning behind that is actually very simple: it doesn’t involve a teacher, administrator or staff member engaging in any sort of sexual activity with a minor. That alone is good news, and when you factor in that the incident in question took place between two adults well above the age of consent, I’m really inclined to say that this is the least offensive school sex scandal in recent memory. Leroy Coleman, the principal at a suburban Chicago elementary school, and teacher Janet Lofton were both forced to resign after anonymous individual mailed out copies of a tape showing the pair having sex in the principal’s office. To quote George Costanza when confronted with allegations of on-the-job sex, “Is that wrong?” I assume the district has rules about this sort of behavior, and if it took place during school hours, then that is a problem. However, if the sexual activity took place during non-school hours, shouldn’t we be celebrating the “restraint” these two showed? They didn’t break any laws and aside from being dumb enough to tape themselves, they’re not harming anyone. And yes, I do realize it’s a sad commentary on how sick and twisted parts of our society have become when I’m relieved simply because a sex scandal doesn’t involve adults harming children.

Chinese porn crackdowns, lame tax stories and America's 36 percent idiot quotient

- Many of the volunteers who go into prisons are religious groups who engage in different ministry activities with inmates. The idea is to share things with those inmates that will tend to their spiritual needs and perhaps provide them with a way to change themselves and their lives. That is apparently not the idea of ministry espoused by Rev. Teresa Darden Clapp, a prison chaplain in New City, N.Y. Rev. Clapp is being investigated for distributing anti-Islamic literature to inmates, including booklets with derogatory depictions of the prophet Muhammad. There’s no reason for this kind of action and no need for it, because last I checked, you can share your beliefs and your religious views without denigrating other religions. I can't really find the part of the Bible where Jesus mocks and belittles other religious beliefs. Saying another religion is wrong theologically is one thing, but looking to make fun of that other religion and put it down is another. When the average non-Christian person forms negative stereotypes and opinions about Christianity, these are the kinds of incidents they think about, and Rev. Clapp is really hurting her own religion more than she is hurting Islam with her actions.

- Good luck with your new project, Chinese government. Officials there are looking to crack down on online porn, claiming it has “perverted China’s young minds.” First, let me say that your claim of perversion is probably correct, China. Porn tends to have that kind of effect on people, although often it’s a reflection of how sick and twisted they already are as opposed to a driving force in creating that sickness and twistedness. Still, online porn is responsible for a disturbingly large portion of Internet content, and I seriously doubt you all are going to be able to totally restrict your citizens’ access to it. The Ministry of Public Security will spearhead the campaign and look to target cyber strip shows and sexually explicit images, videos and audio clips. Something tells me that with more than a billion people in your country, you are going to have a very difficult time cutting off everyone’s access to online porn, but it’s a worthy goal and hopefully the Chinese have success accomplishing it.

- No place in America is incompetence rewarded more handsomely than the NBA. Already, New York Knicks coach/GM Isaiah Thomas received a contract extension for coaching his team to a win total in the mid-thirties and missing the playoffs. Now comes speculation that the Boston Celtics are about to give head coach Doc Rivers a contract extension after he has “led” his squad to the worst record in the whole Eastern Conference and the second-worst record in the NBA. The Celtics’ only hope in lieu of their atrocious, underachieving campaign is to land one of the top two picks in June’s NBA draft and select either of the two top phenoms expected to be available, Kevin Durant or Greg Oden. Despite the fact that Rivers’ teams have seen their win totals go down from 45 his first year of his current contract to a current total of 23 in this season, the Celts’ brass seems to feel that he’s doing a bang up job and deserves an extension. Following this logic, if he wants another extension when this new deal is up, he’d better get that win total down into single digits and he’ll be good to go.

- Tax day is this coming week, and you know what that means: it’s time for an annual favorite of mine, the TV news reporter stationed outside the post office interviewing tax procrastinators as they rush to have their taxes postmarked by midnight on April 17. These interviews are always verrrrrry insightful and so fresh. You never get tired of some lazy schmuck explaining that he was up all night trying to hammer out form 1040-EZ and get it to the post office in time. I’m still not sure why I’m supposed to care about these people and their quest to turn their taxes in on time, but I guaran-frickin’-tee that almost every local station in America will have a story along these lines on its broadcast.

- Just so you know, 36 percent of America is incredibly stupid. This isn't an arbitrary number, either. I based this statement on the fact that in the most recent poll measuring W.’s approval rating, 36 percent of Americans say they approve of the job this clown is doing. I can think of no better measure of stupidity than whether or not someone is able to realize that we are currently experiencing the worst and most incompetent president in our nation’s history. Giving this bozo a positive approval is like saying you’re a fan of the health benefits of the Ebola virus or that you think a shotgun blast to the head is a great remedy for headaches. The findings of this new poll do offer some consolation, though, because when other issues come up and I find myself wondering how so many people can be so ignorant or clueless on a topic, I can think back and realize that these are probably the same IQ-deprived dipwads who gave a thumbs up to W. and his work in the Oval Office.

Airport bathroom sex acts, Toledo football closer to the big time and a musical tragedy

- The rest of the Mid-American Conference needs to pick up the slack and stop forcing the University of Toledo to do this all by itself. By “this” I mean turning the conference’s mid-major label into a thing of the past and seeing the MAC become one of collegiate athletics’ true power conferences. UT got the ball rolling last month when it was revealed that football player Scooter McDougle was involved in a gambling ring with a Detroit-area con and recruited other UT athletes to shave points and fix games. Now, heeding my call for an assault case of some sort as the second step in the push toward true big time status, UT has come through again. Football player Richard Davis has been arrested and charged with attempted aggravated burglary after showing up at what he thought was a teammate’s house with a shotgun in an attempt to settle a dispute between the two. However, this Mensa went to the wrong house and was arrested by a sheriff’s deputy who lives in that house. Davis, the Rockets’ second leading rusher last season, may not be a criminal mastermind, but he does put UT two-thirds of the way to the Powerhouse Football Program trifecta. Add this to the gambling scandal and all you need now is some academic fraud to put your program over the top. I do have to ask exactly what Toledo coach Tom Amstutz is doing with his team, because he doesn’t seem to have any sort of control over these guys nor does he appear to be recruiting athletes who are smart or possess much character. In other words, he’s trying to create a powerhouse and he doesn’t care what he has to do to get there. Good work, Tommy, keep it up.

- Angelina Jolie is not going to be happy about this. Her unspoken mission to adopt a child from every single country in Asia and Africa has hit a snag as the Russian government has put a halt to the work of all foreign adoption agencies in the country. The shutdown, projected to last several months at least, will halt placement of children from one of the most important countries for U.S. families looking to adopt a foreign child. The delay is a result of a new adoption law passed last year that is complicating the registration process. You can do what you want, Russkies, it’s your country, but just remember that you’re the ones who are going to have to look Lara Croft, Tomb Raider in the face and explain to her why she can't adopt little Vladimir or Nadia.

- Dear God, it is getting worse. I thought teaming Jennifer Lopez and American Karaoke was the worst musical idea ever. That still may be true, but there’s a good chance that after this week, when these talentless hacks/glorified karaoke contestants attempt to sing the most offensive genre of music to the ears, country, that things could actually get worse. Even when sung by “qualified” professionals, country music is excruciatingly bad. When sung by unqualified karaoke singers on a pathetic reality TV show….let’s just say the results will be catastrophic. I’ve never watched AK, but I can still make a suggestion to the show’s producers that will surely be beneficial: Don’t make these losers try so many varying kinds of music, because they have enough trouble with the pre-packaged, overproduced pop crap they’re going to be singing anyhow. Cut out the country, Latin, polka and whatever the heck else you have them do and restrict them to the types of music that they have the least potential to butcher. You’re already setting music back a decade by the charade you’re pulling, so please heed my suggestion so you don’t make it worse.

- What’s worse than going to a foreign country and putting your life on the line by fighting in a war that is unjustified and unnecessary? When the army you’re fighting for then shortchanges you on disability pay if you are injured, life becomes that much more difficult. That’s the allegation being made against the Army, rating the severity of injuries suffered by soldiers on a scale that is shady and inconsistent. Allegations made in a recent congressional hearing indicate that the Army may be trying to save money by underrating the severity of soldiers’ injuries. Hearing that truly warms my heart, as it should yours, because what better thank you, what better gesture of appreciation can our government show to those who are injured fighting an abomination of a war created entirely by a warmongering president who refuses to admit his mistakes than to deny them the proper benefits? Do the physicals used to rate the level of injury also include a complimentary punch to the groin, or is that extra?

- Now here’s something I never saw when flying through Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport: public sex acts. I’ve flown through the ATL a few times recently, and not once did I see what police uncovered during an investigation to catch airport luggage thieves. More than 30 people have been arrested in the past three months for getting their freak on in airport restrooms. The reason the cops were surveilling the restrooms was to find luggage thieves who snag items off the baggage carousel and root through them in the privacy of a bathroom stall. Instead, police discovered that there are more ways to pass a long airport layover than reading People magazine and playing computer solitaire. Personally, I don’t understand the appeal of getting after it in a dirty, filthy, disgusting public restroom, but maybe that’s just me. Whatever happened to the Mile High Club anyhow? If you’re going to get some action while traveling, at least make it a noteworthy story like sexing it up in the airplane bathroom at 20,000 feet. The glamour is lost if you have to explain that you hooked up in a skuzzy public restroom on top of a clogged-up toilet and standing on a floor that reeks of urine and ammonia.

Shady prosecutors, crazy Mike Tyson and why you can get away with any crime as long as you don't cheat on your taxes

- I don’t know about you, but I have felt substantially safer the past few months knowing Mike Tyson is behind bars. Following his Dec. 29 arrest in Scottsdale, Ariz. on charges of drug possession and driving under the influence of drugs, Tyson finally has a trial date: August 20. America’s favorite insane former boxer could be sentenced to as much as 7 ½ years in prison if convicted on all four counts facing him. Ultimately, the most discouraging part of this is that this legal mumbo-jumbo is preventing Iron Mike from continuing work on that facial tattoo that now sits half-completed on the left side of his face. The next pretrial hearing in the case is set for May 24, but Tyson will only participate by phone so as to not interrupt his treatment, according to his lawyers. Spin it any way you want guys, but I think we all know you’re making the smart play by staying as far away from that crazy dude as possible at all times. The less often you put yourself into direct contact with Tyson, the safer you are.

- Most of us have heroes, people we idolize and put on a pedestal because they are great athletes, musicians, actors, politicians or role models in some sense. Likewise, many people who feel a friend of loved one has been wrongfully convicted of a crime fight to clear that person’s name even after that loved one has passed away. However, that doesn’t mean it’s anything but idiotic to fight for a pardon for the governor when your favorite musician, now deceased, was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity at a concert…..in 1969. Dave Diamond, a cable TV producer and fan of Morrison and the Doors, is asking Florida Governor Charlie Crist to pardon Morrison for those charges. Diamond wants people to remember Morrison as a musician, not as a rock n’ roll bad boy with a rap sheet, but that’s where I think his efforts become even more misguided. Besides fighting to absolve a deceased man of a minor crime that nearly everyone has forgotten about, Diamond is ignoring that fact that being lawbreakers and wild men are what make rock n’ rollers the icons they are. Bad behavior is expected, hence the sex, drugs and rock and roll idea. Glad to see Dave Diamond is focused on what really matters in life, though. After all, Jim Morrison should really appreciate it if he is pardoned, assuming that those urban legends about him still being alive and living with Elvis somewhere in the United States are true.

- Now it’s not just the foods you eat that can poison or sicken you, it’s the hygiene products you use after eating that are dangerous too. Listerine, which recently launched a new mouthwash product specifically targeted at children, is now recalling that same product because it could be dangerous to those very same kids due to contamination with microorganisms. Listerine Agent Cool Blue plaque-detecting rinse, which is supposed to color any plaque left on teeth blue, instead is likely to infect your mouth with some nasty little microorganisms and thus all 4 million bottles that have been distributed thus far are being recalled. Call me crazy, but this is not the best way to launch a product. If you need to recall it right away, odds are you should have taken more time to prepare said product for its launch.

- Here’s more proof that you can do whatever you want in America, no matter how lewd, reckless, disgusting and borderline illegal and get away with it, but the second you try to screw the IRS out of tax money, you’re goin’ down. Joe Francis, creator of the Girls Gone Wild video series, has been slapped with charges that his company claimed more than $20 million in false business expenses on tax returns. Francis and his company have been in brushes with the law before, but have mostly gotten off unscathed. This time, though, he’s messed with the IRS, and the government gets extremely pissed when you try to scheme them out of tax money. The claims of $20 million in business expenses is especially dubious coming from a production company whose main expenses are buying liquor to help get girls drunk enough to flash the camera and paying sleazy cameramen to film said action. It’s not like you all have a bunch of intelligent, Mensa-like thinkers working there, so don’t try lying on your taxes because you of all people aren’t going to get away with it. Enjoy prison, Joe, I’m sure many of the guys you meet there will be big fans of your work……

- Rich college lacrosse players fought the law and the rich college lacrosse players won. Charges against the three Duke University athletes accused of gang-raping a stripper at a party have been dropped, ending a shoddy, politically driven prosecution by now ex-prosecutor Mike Nifong that ended up wasting a lot of money and time and ruining a lot of lives. Nifong clearly wanted to use this case as a means to re-election, and he did that. However, he was also fired because of the way he handled the case, so ultimately he got what was coming to him. The three lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty, had to endure ridicule, condemnation and presumed guilt from many on their campus and around the country, and for that, they deserve some sympathy. Notice I said some, not total sympathy. They are guilty of boorish behavior, acting like spoiled rich kids and crossing ethical lines in what they did at that party. They may not have been guilty of criminal activity, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do anything wrong. Charges like rape don’t just pop up when absolutely nothing wrong has taken place. These three guys should take a lesson from this, and it’s not that money and affluence can buy you out of tough situations. They should learn and remember that staying out of jail doesn’t mean that what you did was right or justified, it just means it wasn’t criminal.

Real World redux, a London screw job

- Few things are creepier than seeing that photo of Larry Birkhead standing outside a courthouse in the Bahamas, arms raised triumphantly over his head after learning that he is officially the father of the late Anna Nicole Smith’s baby. Glad to see you’re so troubled by Smith’s passing, L, and that you are committed to raising your child in a responsible, non-exploitative fashion. Oops, you mean that you’re already exploiting the kid for your personal benefit and are so jubilant because you realize what this development means to you financially as the child’s biological father? Well, I’m sure that this baby girl no chance at all to be screwed up by being raised by a publicity hungry, out-for-money loser and with the knowledge that her mother died in such tragic fashion. This kid will be just fiiiiine…………………

- What a way to start your “home” season if you’re the Cleveland Indians. Following four consecutive snowouts in Cleveland as they tried to kick off the home portion of their schedule, the Tribe took a trip to Milwaukee to their new temporary home at Miller Park. While the Brewers, the stadium’s normal tenant, were out of town, the Indians had a three-game “homestand” against the Los Angeles Angels. Ticket prices were set at $10 and only the lower bowl of the stadium was open for the games. I’m sure there was a very homey feel for these games, what with the minuscule crowds that showed up and the fact that most of them were just baseball fans in general, not a fan of either the Indians or the Angels. Thanks a bunch, Major League Baseball, for not having the good sense to schedule the first week of the season in the 15 warm weather or dome-having cities in the league so we can avoid having entire series snowed out and seeing neutral site home openers with indifferent fans in the stands.

- It’s the cruise ship crash that keeps on giving. After a Greek cruise ship sank off the coast of the popular tourist island of Santorini, necessitating a rescue at sea for 1,600 passengers and having two French tourists lost in the fracas, word now comes that a major oil spill has resulted from the crash. Funny how ramming into a volcanic reef tends to cause that sort of thing, eh? With the captain being charged with negligence and blaming choppy seas for the crash, the ship said captain wrecked and sunk is leaking massive quantities of oil that cleanup crews are struggling to deal with. The time may be coming where we really need to go ahead and shut down the whole cruise ship industry, for both the well being of potential passengers who will undoubtedly contract some sort of illness or virus on their cruises, and for the sake of the environment, which tends to be harmed with hundreds of gallons of oil are leaked into it.

- Speaking of creepy, MTV has decided that no longer is its Real World franchise all about hooking up seven strangers in a ridiculously pimped-out house and waiting to see how many people they can sex up in said house. Instead, the network will reunite the entire cast from its Las Vegas incarnation of the series in the very same Palms penthouse they made famous the first time around. It is mildly sad, although totally predictable, that none of these people have advanced in life enough that they don’t still have time to go be reality TV characters for a few months. People who end up on a show like Real World typically are looking to become famous, launch acting careers and if all else fails, become a member of the Real World/Road Rules challenge series and try to glean a living off of that. They’re not aspiring to become doctors, lawyers, civil engineers and college professors; they want to have sex with their cast mates, live in fancy digs and get their face on TV. I would say it’s also sad that MTV is getting so lazy as to simply recycle past casts in the same locale, but it’s not that dumb of a move. People who enjoyed this group the first time around will tune in to see what these seven schlubs have become. If we’re lucky, cast member Trishelle Cannatella will go all out to launch her career in the porn industry during the season and add some excitement to the proceedings. She’s headed there, it’s just a matter of time………

- I feel bad for music fans in London, because in this summer’s Live Earth concerts (to be held July 7), Londoners got stuck with an atrocious lineup of awful music that includes both Madonna and the Black Eyed Peas. While other cities around the globe get Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West, Keane, John Mayer, Bloc Party, Snow Patrol and others, if you’re in London you get Madge and a group of talentless hacks whose lead singer seems only able to craft songs revolving around how hot she thinks she is and how many guys want to sleep with her. The only way the London show would work well in helping raise awareness about the environment is if you could pay to have those acts not perform. I’d pay double the price of admission if I could be assured that the Peas would not be performing in my city.

NFL justice, a controversial hug and a money laundering track star

- The best piece of news for NFL fans worldwide has nothing to do with this month’s draft or any free agent signing their team might have made this offseason. The suspensions handed down by commissioner Roger Goodell to Adam “Pacman” Jones of the Tennessee Titans and Chris Henry of the Cincinnati Bengals are a huge step in the right direction for the league. These two bozos have been in troubles with the cops at an infuriating rate, with Jones having a dozen brushes with the law the past few years, two arrests and a felony charge on the way in the Las Vegas strip club melee in February and Henry having four freaking arrests in the past year. Amidst an outcry for swift and severe punishment against players who can't stop getting arrested, Goodell popped Jones with a one-year suspension from the NFL and hit Henry with an eight-game ban. Although the commish insists that each future case involving player misconduct will be taken on a case-by-case basis, this sets a great precedent. Now, players will think twice before they give alcohol to minors, incite riots at strip clubs, assault women and drive drunk. They’ll know that the hammer is going to come down on them if they act like an idiot and they will lose their chance to play in the NFL and earn millions of dollars if they can't stop visiting the insides of jail cells. As for these two cases in particular, I’m glad to see these two felons get such a severe punishment. You cannot argue that a guy who has a dozen run-ins with the cops just needs a second chance, because he’s already had nine or ten of those. Henry and Jones are both guys with enormous talent, but that kind of talent has to be balanced with at least a fraction of common sense and responsibility. You don’t have to be a saint or a constant do-gooder, all you need to do is stay out of jail and not abuse drugs and alcohol and no one from the NFL will give you trouble. The NFL will be a much better place when players like Jones and Henry either learn their lesson and reform their lives or are kicked out of the league for good.

- When you’re the President of the United States of America, what higher honors can you really aspire to? You’re the most powerful man in the world, sitting in the most prestigious office there is. However, I truly believe that our despised, ridiculed leader W. has received an honor that he is truly deserving of and one that fits his unique “accomplishments” in office to a “T”. The Jefferson Muzzle awards, given annually by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Speech, has bestowed its loftiest honor on the W. administration for its efforts to discourage, mute and censor government scientists who fail to get in line with the administration’s policies, namely its policies on global warming. While W. and his henchmen have certainly done more ignominious things, things like lying about WMD’s in Iraq and indefinitely prolonging the disgrace of a war that never should have begun, this is definitely worthy of honoring. What says America more than leaning on those who dare to disagree with you and coercing them into changing their position? This should definitely go up on the mantle of the fireplace in the White House, because let’s face it, if W. is holding out for honors and awards for things he’s done right, he’s never going to have anything for that mantle.

- A melancholy happy trials to Johnny Hart, creator of the B.C. and Wizard of Id comic strips, staples of the funny pages for decades. Hart’s passing is a sad day, because his strips were always funny and thoughtful. However, it is good news to learn that family member will continue the strips, including many who have been assisting Hart with both comics for several years. Hart was never afraid to let his comics share what he believed in, and I hope that same spirit will continue even with him gone. Thanks for all the years of laughs and warmth, Johnny, you’ll be missed.

- The last time I remember anyone getting this pissed off about a hug, Scott Evil was screaming at Dr. Evil to stop being a “lazy eyed psycho” and trying to force Scotty to hug his old man. Radical Islamic clerics have demanded that Pakistani Minister of Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar be fired after she had the audacity to, gasp, hug a foreign man. Bakhtiar said she now fears for the safety of her family and friends after rejecting the suggestion that her “great sin” should be punished. Two clerics at the Islamabad Red Mosque are demanding Bakhtiar’s dismissal, going so far as to set up a court to deliver Islamic justice on the issue. It’s a direct challenge to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is a strong U.S. ally, much to the disapproval of the Islamic factions of Pakistan. Hey Islamic clerics, you might not like your president aligning himself with America, but picking an issue like your minister of tourism hugging a foreign man as your issue to make a stand and challenge the president on is weak and pathetic.

- Tim Montgomery once ran lightning-fast sprints down the track at the Summer Olympics. Now, the man who once held the title of “World’s Fastest Human” will be doing his running inside the exercise yard of a federal prison. On Monday, Montgomery pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy in a multimillion-dollar bank fraud and money-laundering scheme. When his sentencing hearing is held November 1 (ah, gotta love expedited American justice, six months just to hold a sentencing hearing), he will be facing between 37 and 46 months behind bars. Along with his former coach Steven Riddick and 11 others, Montgomery took part in an alleged conspiracy to deposit $5 million in stolen, altered or counterfeit checks at several banks over three years. The scam involved cashing and depositing a series of checks in an attempt to rip off a whole lot of people, but even the speedy Tim Montgomery could not outrun the feds on this one. Once he serves his sentence, I would recommend that he try to avoid any further cheating and scheming, because he doesn’t seem to be very good at either. You may recall that his world record in the 100-meter dash, the race that won him that title as the fastest man on earth, was actually wiped off the books after he was implicated for steroid use in the BALCO scandal. To review, he cheated on the track, was caught and banned for track and field for two years, then he cheated in life in an attempt to launder millions of dollars and will be going to prison. Find a new approach to life, Timmy, because your current one isn't working out so well.

A bad first week for the Yankees, another bad week for cruise ships

- I take back everything I’ve said for the past few months about the war in Iraq and what a debacle it is. W. is right, we’re winning and we can achieve victory! After all, what says that we’re winning like a prominent Iraqi cleric issuing an anti-American order for the country’s army and police to band together in the fight to expel the “archenemy” from their country, America being that archenemy? Can’t you feel the momentum train a-rollin’ down the tracks, ready to quash……aww, screw it, I can’t keep typing these lies. I’d like to go all patriotic and say that someone issuing and order like this is crap and that we need to take this guy out, but here’s the problem: while his solution is bogus, the problem he sees is real and his anger is valid. We’re in their country, trying to keep military rule and tell them how they need to run their nation. The reason we’re in this position is because we invaded without just cause, under false pretenses (WMD’s, suuuuurrrre) and now we refuse to leave because our president is a ginormous horse’s ass who is too proud and/or stupid to admit that this has become a complete debacle. Muqtade al-Sadr might not be a person you’d invite over for dinner, but tell me you wouldn’t be pissed if someone invaded your country, overthrew your government and refused to leave until…..well, I don’t know what could cause us to leave Iraq, because W. doesn’t seem to have that part of the plan hammered out yet. But rest secure, America, because our lying leader continues to insist that things are just fine and that everything will work out A-OK, so nothing to worry about here…..except everything.

- Glad to see that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is keeping his eye on the ball. Huckabee is pissed at fellow candidate Mitt Romney over that most important of campaign issues, lying about being a hunter. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am saddened to report that Mitt Romney lied about being lifelong hunter and has, in fact, only been hunting twice in his life. This lie ranks right up there with Watergate, lying about the WMD’s and Bill Clinton lying about the whole Monica Lewinsky situation. To insist that one has been a hunter all his life, then to admit that is not the case is devastating. Dare I say, it even makes a person unfit to serve in office. Either that, or it’s a trivial, pointless piece of information for a man who clearly has bigger problems, chiefly that he’s named after a piece of baseball equipment. Huckabee clearly wants to establish that Romney is a liar and not trustworthy, and you can be sure that he will use this insignificant incident to try and establish that if Romney will lie about being a hunter, he’ll lie about everything else and blah, blah, blah……..AWW, SHUT YOUR MOUTH, MIKE HUCKABEE! If your campaign is so feeble and desperate that you’re clinging to something like this more than a year away from the election, then you don’t have much hope of winning anyhow. Like I give a crap whether Mitt Romney is a hunter or not. What you have ensured, Huckabee, is that I won't be voting for you, even if I were dumb enough to vote for another Republican after the eight-year running joke of a Republican we will have had in the Oval Office by the time 2008 comes to a close.

- More developments in the case of the Greek cruise ship that crashed into a volcanic reef off the coast of Santorini last week. With two French tourists missing (maybe they simply surrendered to the first person they saw with a weapon, as is the French custom?) and finding himself under indictment on charges of negligence, the ship’s captain is doing what all truly courageous, stand-up men do in times of crisis; he’s trying to push the blame off on someone, or rather something else. The captain is blaming rough sea currents for the crash, a wise move on his part because it’s kinda hard to go back several days and measure the sea currents in the middle of the Aegean, where the water provides and ever-changing landscape and there’s no definitive way to prove or disprove the captain’s claim. On the plus side, this does give me another entry for my list of cruise ship hazards, going right below Norovirus, volcanic reefs itching for a collision and ice bergs. So add blame-averse ship captains to the list, and be on the lookout for the next cruise ship disaster that is sure to come some time this week. Isn't it awesome to have something to look forward to every single week?

- Let this be a lesson to all of the high schools, colleges and universities out there that are procrastinating when it comes to finding a speaker for your institution’s graduation ceremonies. Ah-nold Schwarzenegger, the Gover-nator, has been chosen to speak to British Conservative Party about the environment at the party’s annual conference. Ostensibly, the BCP actually sought out the Gover-nator to be its speaker. Party leader David Cameron is trying to sell that lie, but it’s about as convincing as O.J.’s search for the real killers. Nobody actually wants Ah-nold to speak to their group for a special occasion, unless your group is sci-fi dorks who are debating the social significance of the Terminator movies and trying to predict when the actual war between man and machines will happen. This is what happens when you whiff on your first four or five options for a speaker and end up with, say David Hasselhoff as your special guest at graduation. Plus, the BCP is going to have the added expense of hiring a translator for Ah-nold so they can actually understand what the man is saying. Next time, save your money and bring in Jerry Seinfeld or Dane Cook, it’ll be a lot more entertaining and probably just as informative.

- Most “developments” this early in the Major League Baseball season aren't worth much. Teams have played one week’s worth of games, six or seven of 162 contests that aren't enough of a sample to make significant judgments on. However, it’s never too early to revel in a bad start to a given season for the team everyone outside of the Brooklyn/Bronx/Manhattan area loves to despise, the New York Yankees. The Yanks ended their first week of the 2007 season with a record of 2-3, with not a single starting pitcher making it out of the fifth inning in any of the five games, their starting left fielder Hideki Matsui on the disabled list with a strained left hamstring and third baseman Alex Rodriguez on his mercurial, roller coaster act that so endears him to Yankee fans on an annual basis. On opening day, A-Rod dropped an easy pop up for an error and made an out in a key situation, a blunder he then repeated in the second game of the year. Most teams can overlook a slow start, but when your payroll is more than $200 million and you have the most impatient owner in all of sports, George Steinbrenner, you don’t have that luxury. The Boss is probably already pondering who he can fire or trade, and the bad news for the Yanks is that despite a stacked offense that should score a lot of runs this season, their pitching isn't going to miraculously get better, not with the immortal Brett Rasner in the rotation. Here’s hoping this is the season the Yankees finally miss the playoffs, if for no other reason than it’ll be fun to see the looks of utter despair and shock on the faces of Sal from Brooklyn, Joey from the Bronx and their loathsome owner as Big Stein blows a gasket.

Catch and release with illegal immigrants, a great Commie riot in Nepal and the MLB schedule is created by morons

- Don’t you illegal immigrants dare sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border or else we’ll…..we’ll…..do absolutely nothing. Nothing appears to be the preferred course of action in dealing with most illegal immigrants to the United States. More than 98 percent of those entering illegally via our southern border between 2000 and 2005 were not prosecuted at all. These 5.3 million border crashers were simply escorted back across the border into Mexico and turned loose. Well, that’s not a problem at all. I’m sure they all learned their lesson and the strict admonishment of the border patrol set them all straight. None of them turned around and tried to sneak across the border again the next day, that’s for sure. The Justice Department has been pressing for more prosecution against illegals, but you know that our government specializes in red tape and bureaucratic delay, so expect that to take place about the same time we find those elusive WMD’s in Iraq.

- Know who throws some of the best riots? Nepal, that’s who. Just like in high school and college there’s always a guy or a group of buddies who throw the best keggers and the parties that always end up getting raided by the cops, there are countries that just know how to riot. Nepalese citizens took to the streets in protest for a verrrrrrry good reason this week: to protest the country holding the Miss Nepal pageant. Maoists and women’s rights groups led the uber-violent protests, with nearly 200 people, including members of Maoist affiliated Young Communist League and Maoists women's wing, staged protests at the main gate and attempted to keep contestants from entering the venue. The following very enlightened quote was lifted from literature distributed by the dissidents and explains why these commies are acting like such idiots: “We oppose the beauty contest because it promotes woman as an object for advertisement and damages their prestige by commercializing beauty.” Well put, people, assuming you live in the 17th century, have no active brain cells and operate under the assumption that communism is a valid option of government. Even angry feminists here in America don’t make that much of a fuss about beauty pageants because (and this may come as a shock to you) the contestants participate voluntarily. Hard to argue the whole exploitation angle when the women take part of their own free will. Why can't you all be more like the Sherpas, the cool mountain dwellers who can scale Nepal’s tall mountains in under a day? Now those people reflect positively on your country, whereas you ass clowns just make Nepal look like a backwards, socially retarded misfit in the international community.

- The schedule makers in Major League Baseball need to pool up their spare change, go down to the local convenience store and buy a travel map. These dopes annually fail to realize that scheduling early season games in cold weather cities is a bad idea. With 15 of MLB’s 30 teams in either warm-weather cities (California, Texas, Arizona, Florida or Georgia) or having domed stadiums, the scheduling brain deads eschew using these sites for first-week games and giving the weather an extra week to turn more spring-like in the cold-weather cities. Thus, you have series like the Seattle-Cleveland series in Cleveland, where all three games were snowed out and a scheduling nightmare has ensued because this was to be the Mariners’ only visit to C-Town this year. Oh, and Seattle is one of those cities with a dome, so having the series there and avoiding the snow would have been a smart concept. There’s no reason I need to see a White Sox-Twins game in Chicago with all of the players wearing ski mask/hood combinations, blowing on their hands constantly and looking like they’re about to turn into giant icicles when the Twins have a dome and the series could just as easily have been played there. I’m here if you need any help with that whole schedule-making thingy, MLB, and from the looks of it, you need a lot of help.

- Shawn White and Travis Pastrana can call themselves extreme athletes if they want (and I do love the Flying Tomato), but I’m going to throw my support firmly behind my main man Martin Strel. Strel just completed a nine-week Herculean effort to swim the length of the Amazon River, a 3,272-mile odyssey fraught with danger from all kinds of threats. Strel’s swim put him in the same river as piranhas, bull sharks and the toothpick fish, an animal that swims into body orifices and sucks blood. He suffered from dizziness, vertigo, high blood pressure, diarrhea, nausea and delirium, among other ailments. Dolphins swam alongside Strel for portions of his journey and in order to reach his goal of swimming the length of the world’s second-longest river, he even mixed in some night swimming (cue R.E.M. if you have it). Some lasting souvenirs from the adventure that Strel will have are the many abrasions and chafing from his wet suit and the remnants of the chronic insomnia that he developed over the past nine weeks. But I have to believe if you asked Strel if making the trip was worth it, he would say yes and he would be right. That’s about as macho of an effort as any athlete can make, and my respect for this dude’s toughness and testicular fortitude could not be higher. Good job, Marty, what you did is the most balls-to-the-wall athletic feat I can imagine and one I doubt anyone else will have the guts to try for a long time.

- Nice to see that airline passengers aren't the only ones who are pissed off. Ordinarily travel delays, lost luggage, whiny toddlers and idiotic security regulations on toothpaste irritate passengers to the point of rage, but a cursing pilot at the airport in Detroit may have topped all of that. The Northwest Airlines pilot on a Detroit-to-Las Vegas flight forced the flight’s cancellation after a cursing rage that included a tirade directed at a passenger. The pilot was in a heated cell phone conversation in the cockpit, then went into a lavatory and continued the conversation. Somewhere during the incident, he cursed out a passenger and the whole fracas ultimately led to the flight’s cancellation. Not that I’d want a pissed-off pilot with a severe case of air rage flying my plane (unless I really needed to get somewhere and couldn’t afford a delay), but I’m wondering exactly what sort of designation or code the airline used for the flight status screens in the terminal to explain this nice surprise. “CANCELED - PISSED OFF PILOT” doesn’t exactly fit on a single line, does it? Ironically, this all took place in the same city (Romulus, Mich., where the airport is technically located) as last week’s incident featuring the mother who agreed to let a man who turned out to be an undercover cop take pornographic pictures of and have sex with her 7-year-old daughter. Nice city you folks have up there, Romulus, raging lunatic pilots and parents pimping out their young children.

Danger on the high seas, desperation from a reality TV star and when peanut butter will be safe to eat once again

- Whew, that was close. A week nearly passed without a cruise ship disaster or virus outbreak of some sort, which would have broken the streak of 441 straight weeks with such an occurrence. The Greek-flagged cruise ship Sea Diamond saved us from that fate, striking a reef in the Mediterranean and forcing the evacuation of nearly 1,600 passengers. Hundreds of American tourists were among the ship’s passengers, all of whom had to abandon ship near the island of Santorini. More than a dozen ships were involved in the rescue efforts, and thankfully no one was seriously injured in the incident. Many of the passengers were out on the ship’s main deck taking pictures when the collision with the reef happened. No official word yet on who was at fault in the matter, the ship or the reef. A fortunate break for the passengers is that because they were forced to abandon ship early, they didn’t remain on board long enough to contract Norovirus, the ailment that seems to make its way onto every cruise ship if given enough time. Silver linings, people, always look for the silver linings.

- On the topic of viruses and food-borne illnesses…..the cause of salmonella-laced peanut butter from ConAgra Foods has been found. Moisture from a leaky roof and a fault sprinkler aided in the growth of the salmonella bacteria found in the peanut butter, which resulted in more than 400 illnesses nationwide. ConAgra foods promises that the problem will be rectified and that come mid-July, when the company returns its Peter Pan brand peanut butter to stores, the product will be totally safe. I, however, will continue growing my own peanuts, pesticide-free, grinding them up and processing my own homemade peanut butter for another year or so, just to be safe. Yes, there are some drawbacks, such as the cramps in my feet from stomping the peanuts in my peanut press…..what, you mean that’s not how you make peanut butter? Well, it tastes fine to me, and it’s a lot safer than eating potentially deadly sandwich spread bought off a store shelf.

- Legislative bodies might be no good at passing laws and enacting reforms that actually help the people they serve right here in the 21st century, but they’re damn good at helping out people who have been dead for almost 150 years. The North Carolina Senate passed a measure this week apologizing for the state’s role in promoting slavery and anti-black Jim Crow laws during Civil War times. Following the lead of lawmakers in Virginia, the North Carolina Senate issued a statement acknowledging its “profound contrition for the official acts that sanctioned and perpetuated the denial of basic human rights and dignity for fellow humans.” Whoa, that’s a lot of BS and political mumbo-jumbo packed into one long, long sentence. I’m sure that the zeros and zeros of slaves who are still alive appreciate that very much, senators. Don’t tax yourselves with trivial matters like education, highways, crime and taxes, you just keep working in resolutions that don’t accomplish a single freaking thing that matters to the day-to-day operation of your state.

- Dear God, this has the potential to be the biggest disaster in musical history…….ever. Teaming the steaming, stinking heap of money crap that is American Karaoke with a musical novelty act like Gwen Stefani was one thing and it was bad, but when you add Jennifer Lopez to the mix……yikes. Lopez, whose primary strength as a musician is that she’s hot and has one of the world’s elite bottom halves, is going to be the centerpiece for what is being termed a “Latin-themed” week on AK. Forget that Lopez doesn’t have a single good song in her entire repertoire; even if she did, you want these glorified karaoke contestants to try and mimic Latino music when they’re so incredibly inept and overwhelmed by crappy American music? Lopez is appearing in a vain attempt to pump life into her floundering Spanish-language album, but selling your musical soul and appearing on AK doesn’t revive your music career, it kills it. Lopez should devote herself to being a wife and mother, maybe make a mediocre movie or two and forget about music. When I think of Lopez “mentoring” these contestants on how to use a synthesizer to boost and mask your atrocious voice, how to have someone else write songs for you because you lack the talent to do so, to make a music video focusing entirely on how hot you are so no one notices what an awful singer you are…..it makes my heart swell….scratch that, it makes me want to vomit.

- MTV’s reality show The Hills, a spin-off of Laguna Beach and a show that was mildly entertaining for one season, has now spawned an alleged sex tape involving star of The Hills Lauren Conrad. I personally lost interest in both of those reality shows right as their respective first seasons were ending. For one season, you can talk yourself into thinking it’s like an extended documentary and that laughing at spoiled rich kids and their trivial “problems” is amusing, but more than one helping of these spoiled brats clues you in to the fact that they’re really not that interesting and in many ways, you’re a whole lot smarter than any of them. But The Hills has plugged on and has been picked up for a third season, a season that could receive some added attention of Conrad’s former boyfriend, the leech known as Jason Wahler, sells a sex tape he made with Conrad. It took any semi-intelligent person .005 seconds to realize that Wahler was using Conrad and the show in an attempt to jump start his own career and garner some undeserved publicity. Since that failed, it appears he’s peddling the sex tape in an attempt to grab a little extra time in the public eye. Next stop for this loser? The adult film industry should be waiting with open arms for him, so life is definitely looking rosy…….

Attacking soccer players with soap, attacking Imus for stupidity and another favorite show axed

- Women’s pro basketball might not be all that legitimate (see yesterday’s post about a community college player being a first round WNBA draft pick), but you can't say the same thing about women’s boxing. Thai inmate Samson Sor Siriporn, a convicted drug dealer, actually improved her chances for freedom by beating Japan's Ayaka Miyano to win the vacant women's WBC light flyweight title at the notorious "Bangkok Hilton" prison on Tuesday. The win, for reasons I don’t quite understand, actually expedited Siriporn’s parole hearing process. A makeshift ring was set up outdoors on the grounds of the infamous Klong Prem prison and the two women duked it out in front of judges and a raucous crowd. The best part of the event, unquestionably, is that transvestites in high heels and skimpy outfits were allowed out of their cells to parade around the ring with placards at the beginning of each round. Astonishingly, the fact that Siriporn is a convicted meth dealer isn't going to keep her from being released to continue her boxing career. Thai corrections department chief Natti Jitsawang said Siriporn's that as a result of her victory, he would likely see her freed three years early. “We will start the process for her parole immediately,” he declared. What a wonderful country Thailand is, where you can sell meth, be sent to jail on a ten-year sentence and be released three years early because you can win a judge’s decision for a pro boxing title - all while trannies parade around before each round as the cue card girls/its/freaks.

- That was quick, take two. I’ve learned retroactively that when I watched The Black Donnellys on Monday night and then learned it was the last episode of the show NBC would air, I was actually watching the death knell for my second regularly watched show in a 48-hour span. Last Friday’s airing of Six Degrees on ABC was the end of the line for the on-again, off-again show that aired last fall, was pulled and returned in March only to be whacked again after two more episodes. Props to ABC for giving the show a real chance by burying it in a crappy time slot upon its return (Fridays at 9 p.m.), giving it no promotional help and then yanking it before it could even build any momentum. I can tell that the suits at ABC were verrrrrrry serious about seeing this show succeed. The quick trigger networks have developed with new (or even established) shows is creating a very difficult dilemma for viewers. On one hand, any given show, even a favorite, isn't going to be on the air for a long run if you consider the average shelf life of a TV show in this day. There aren't going to be many, if any, Seinfeld-ian runs of a decade. So you have the knowledge that your favorite show probably won't be on the air for more than five years, so you’re always on the lookout for new shoes you might enjoy. At the same time, so many new shows have such a short leash and are yanked and jerked around so quickly that you’re hesitant to invest time and interest watching them, as they may be gone in the blink of an eye. The good news is that I don’t need anyone to remind me why I hate TV networks, because I have a pretty good idea why I do……………

- Don Imus is living proof that you don’t have to be smart or thoughtful to be a big-time radio personality heard by millions worldwide. The controversial talking head finds himself in the middle of a ginormous crap storm after referring to the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as "nappy headed hos" on the Wednesday edition his syndicated program. Imus went on to question the players' looks, describing them as tattooed “rough girls.” One thing I agree with Imus on, and this is a matter of personal opinion and taste, is that on the whole, the Rutgers team is not a good-looking group. I saw a couple of their games and based on what I saw, I would concur that they are not an overall attractive squad. That being said, how does someone who’s been on the air for decades and been at the center of so many controversies not know that using racially slanted terms and bigoted phrases is completely inappropriate? It’s one thing to go on the air and say that you think the players are ugly. That alone would get you some flak, but it would be minimal. But to use the terms Imus used………wow. The canned, well-crafted apology written and issued by Imus’ agent (or whomever helped him out with that) was swell and all and when you say something like he said, you have to make that apology, but don’t think for a second it’s going to abate the anger coming from Rutgers or from African American activist groups who want Imus’ head on a pike.

- Bob Huggins is a mercenary hack, so let’s get that on the record first. The guy is a basketball nomad who goes in and wins games any way he can for your school, be it recruiting junior college transfers, guys with rap sheets or academic risks whose only purpose at college is to put an orange ball in a round basket. Huggins bends and breaks rules, saunters around with his gruff, mumbling demeanor and is always on the lookout for a better job. This time, though, the way he conducted his business is absolutely reprehensible and officially makes Huggs a piece of crap. After being bounced from the University of Cincinnati in several years ago following a very public, very ugly drunk driving arrest and other indiscretions, Huggins was out of basketball for a while, then Kansas State gave him another chance, hiring him to coach the school’s perennially mediocre basketball team. He came to KSU promising to turn the program around and make them championship contenders, but instead Huggins stayed for one year and then dumped Kansas State to take the head coaching job at his alma mater, West Virginia. This is one case where even the chance to coach your alma mater isn't a good enough excuse for a screw job like Huggins pulled. If you are as tainted a coaching property as this man was and a school like Kansas State gives you a chance, you need to reward that show of trust by staying at least long enough to hang a few pictures on the office wall. All the kids who committed to KSU because of Huggins’ presence are now stuck unless the school releases them from their scholarships, which it should do but isn't bound to. Kansas State fans are pissed at Huggins, and well they should be. He’s more of a mercenary than the Hessians were in the Revolutionary War, and his sense of loyalty is stunningly low even compared to a traitor like Benedict Arnold.

- Soccer players don’t have the best reputation for cleanliness and sanitation, especially the greasy-haired, mullet wearing Euro soccer players for whom bathing is a bi-monthly activity. Still, this is the first time I can remember a team’s fans running onto the practice field with soap powder and brooms to attack players. The incident actually happened in Brazil, not Europe, but fans of the Brazilian soccer club Corinthians ran on to the filed carrying brooms and boxes of soap powder during training on Friday and forced the practice session be called off. The incident was intended to be a symbolic “clean up” of a squad that is among the league’s dirtiest and most physical, but something tells me that a little soap powder isn't going to change anything. Coach Ze Augusto had this to say about the cleaning supply attack: “I can say that I'm frightened.” Well of course you’re frightened, Z, Euro and South American soccer players aren't used to being that close to soap, so I can imagine it might be frightening. What really surprises me about this is that the players didn’t fall to the ground acting like they’d been shot when the fans charged them. Normally soccer players are on the ground, writhing around in pain and scrunching their faces up into faux masks of pain when anyone comes within a foot of them. Don’t feel too bad for the Corinthians players, though, I’m sure they got their orange wedges and Capri Sun pouches after practice and all was forgotten on the ride home in the back of their mom’s minivan.

The WNBA: still a joke, flag burning at Yale and a Black Eyed Peas parody (and the Peas are a joke too)

- The commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, steadfastly refuses to admit that the NBA-sustained charity project known as the WNBA is a failure. Even though attendance is pathetic and TV ratings are microscopic, Stern vehemently defends the women’s league against detractors. Well, here’s another piece of ammo for myself and all the other WNBA haters: when the eighth overall draft pick in your league is from a community college, your league is a joke. That’s right, the WNBA held its draft (you missed it, I’m sure) on a Wednesday afternoon and the league’s Houston franchise drafted the illustrious, legendary Ashley Shields, a guard from the powerhouse program at Southwest Tennessee Community College. Community college is the dumping grounds for the intellectual refuse churned out by our nation’s lesser public high schools, it’s not the place to draft pro athletes. Nobody sits down with their parents and agrees that the best way to boost their athletic career and chances to make the pros is to enroll at the local CC. If the eighth best player you can find for your league has made her rep on dominating 5’2 power forwards in a gym that her community college shares with the local middle school, then your league officially sucks. Thanks for nothing, WNBA, and I continue looking forward to the day when Stern finally concedes this battle and folds your league.

- A small-scale protest on the campus of Yale University has once again thrust the topic of flag burning into the public consciousness. Three Yale students were arrested and charged with arson, reckless endangerment and other crimes after attaching an American flag to a metal pole on the side of their house and setting the flag on fire. Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikoloas Angelopoulos, 19 and Farhad Anklesaria, 19, are the dissidents in question. Before you go denouncing it as an act of disrespect and people of Middle Eastern descent being unpatriotic, consider that Akbar actually spent time serving as a translator for American troops in Afghanistan. Hard-core patriots will always fly into a blind rage whenever anyone anywhere burns an American flag, while more liberal thinkers will reason that it’s only a piece of cloth and burning it isn't grave offense. Flag burning doesn’t happen as much now as it did in the ‘70s, but given the attention it receives, I’m surprised more activists don’t turn to the tactic. Yes, during war time there’s an implied need to band together as Americans because our country is a target for a lot of haters, but even so, we have enough free thinkers amongst us that flag burning could still be a common occurrence. Color me liberal, but I’m going to go all bleeding heart on this one and side with those who realize that a flag is just a piece of cloth and that burning it isn't a travesty. Our forefathers didn’t fight and die for a piece of cloth; they gave their lives for something bigger and less tangible, the notion of freedom and for the sake of America. You could pick anything to represent America, be it a flag, a flower, a song - the fact that some assign such meaning to a flag doesn’t make it a holy, sacred item. So all of those who will undoubtedly line up to verbally flog these three young guys can spout all of the indignant, venomous vitriol they want, because the bottom line is that this is a lot less of a travesty than most people like to paint it as.

- Not even a week ago, I took a shot at Canadian music for holding an awards show at which Nelly Furtado was the top honoree, winning five awards. Well, if you’re going to rip the bad, you also need to praise the good, so here goes. If you haven't already seen it, you need to check out this YouTube clip of Alanis Morissette's parody of the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps," a parody that crushes Fergie and everything she stands for. Administering a scathing verbal beatdown on Fergie and her merry band of hacks known as the Black Eyed Peas is such a logical move and one with no shortage of ammunition, but for some reason Morissette is the first one to take on the task. Props to Alanis, an artist who I normally wouldn’t listen to and whose awkward, distinctive voice can be difficult to listen to much of the time. That being said, she can have a free pass from here on out, no matter what her future albums sound like, because she has so brilliantly decimated the most musically talentless, overhyped, underwhelming musical act of our time. Well done Alanis, now get to work on that parody of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt.

- The Justice Department should really just dig up the end zone at Giants Stadium so we can end this charade. Word has come out that last summer, the government tore up a barn and property in Milford Twp., Mich. in the search for the remains of deceased mobster Jimmy Hoffa. They found nothing more than a water line, a beer can and plenty of trash, and after destroying the barn at Hidden Dreams Farm, they paid $225,000 to rebuild the barn they laid to waste. Why is our Justice Department wasting nearly a quarter of a million dollars to find the decomposing remains of a mobster from the 1970’s? I have no freaking clue, but wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on a pointless endeavor should surprise exactly no one. Our government may have a lot of faults and shortcomings, but never let it be said that they don’t know how to waste money.

- John Peragallo should be very thankful that no one in America gives a crap about hockey. Peragallo, 64, had drunken driving charges against him dismissed after a Morristown, N.J. judge ruled that a Zamboni is not a motor vehicle and thus a person driving it, no matter how intoxicated he or she is, cannot be hit with a DUI. Peragallo was driving the Zamboni at the Mennen Sports Arena in Morristown when a fellow employee saw him driving at high speeds and in an erratic manner, very nearly crashing into the boards on the perimeter of the ice. The judge overturned Peragallo’s conviction and reinstated his license as a result of the ruling, even though at the time of the incident the accused’s blood-alcohol content was 0.12, well above the legal limit. But hey, it is just a hockey arena, so what’s the big deal? Now if this were a drunk dude driving the lawn mower or infield maintenance cart at a Major League stadium, perhaps a different story. The lesson, as always: America could not care less about hockey and the places where hockey is played.

- Reason No. 544,981 to be glad that you don’t live in Thailand: the government of the island nation in the Pacific has blocked access to YouTube within its borders after the site refused to take down a short video clip that the Thai government views as insulting to the country’s ruler, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Think if the American government got pissed and demanded that YouTube take down every clip that’s insulting to our leader…..would there be any clips left on YouTube? But back to the hubbub in Thailand…..the clip in question is 44 seconds long and shows graffiti-like graphics superimposed over a slideshow of photographs of Adulyadej. I haven't seen the clip yet, but my most sincere hope is that those “graffiti-like graphics” include a drawn-on mustache and one of those awkward, badly drawn linear smiles that every kid draws as the mouth when they’re sketching stick figures. From this mess, there is a silver lining for the Thai government: they can craft a new slogan sure to boost tourism in their country. “Come visit Thailand, a place with no sense of humor and no access to YouTube.” Now that’s a winning slogan if I’ve ever heard one!