A well-endowed mistress (financially), pre-emptive vote-rigging allegations in Sri Lanka and weekend movie news

- If only all mistresses were so well-endowed…….financially. YaVaughnie Wilkins finally decided that she’d had enough of being viewed as the “other woman” in her relationship with Oracle Corp. co-president Charles E. Phillips. For 8½ years, the pair had cheated on Phillips’ wife together and Wilkins clearly felt like she wanted everyone to know about her relationship with Phillips and no longer been seen the woman who wrecked his relationship with the woman to whom he was legally wed. Phillips must not have taken her hints, because Wilkins decided to take her message public – very public. She rented out billboards in New York, San Francisco and Atlanta featuring the happy couple. People from the dirty south to midtown Manhattan were greeted this week with the smiling faces of "Charles and YaVaughnie" looking down on them from their giant billboard homes, labeled with the caption reading, "You are my soulmate forever! - cep." Below the caption was a URL directing inquiring minds to a Web site containing personal photo albums featuring the couple at public and private events with friends and family. The site also contains love notes from Phillips to Wilkins. Confronted with a lot of proof that he couldn’t lie his way out of, Phillips finally came clean and admitted the affair with Wilkins in a statement released by his spokeswoman Friday. ""I had an 8½-year serious relationship with YaVaughnie Wilkins," the statement said. "My divorce proceedings began in 2008. The relationship with Ms. Wilkins has since ended and we both wish each other well." Umm, about those divorce proceedings…….Phillips is reportedly still married to his wife, Karen, and the two have a son together. I don’t know many divorces that take two years to complete, do you? The prevailing question at this point is why Wilkins put the billboards up at all. She refused to speak about them and instead allowed her cousin Misha Davila as a de facto spokeswoman. Davila claimed the Web site was created as a gift from Wilkins for Phillips' 50th birthday and that were an attempt by Wilkins to reclaim her version of her relationship with Phillips among friends and family, nor an act of revenge. So if you don’t want to get back with the guy and you aren’t looking for revenge, why do it? Divorce proceedings between he and his wife are ongoing, so you’re not ruining his marriage either. It’s just a bizarre situation and seeing as one New York billboard had been removed and the Web site was no longer active as of Friday, the picture is even blurrier. "Their relationship was always very public and open. He went to family events, she has traveled with him," Davila said. Again, just odd all the way around. This guy took home an $800,000 salary for 2009 and also raked in stock options and other compensation valued by Oracle at more than $18 million. That being said, he’s going to lose a huge chunk of that when the divorce (at some point in the next decade or so, I’m guessing) becomes final. This situation is far too murky, complicated and weird to declare a real winner, but at least it was entertaining…………

- This is just a unique story and I don’t know that we’ll ever hear one quite like it again in professional baseball or any other sport, for that matter. Oakland Athletics prospect Grant Desme was selected selected the 2009 Arizona Fall League MVP just a couple months ago and was considered one of the top prospects in Oakland's system. He was just three years into his professional career and batted .288 with 31 homers, 89 RBIs and 40 stolen bases in 131 games at Class-A Kane County and Stockton last season. Yet after following that up with a stellar showing in the fall league, Desme has decided to abandon his baseball career….to become a priest. Seriously. Desme is retiring from baseball to enter the priesthood, leaving a stunned Oakland organization behind. "We respect Grant's decision and wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors," A's general manager Billy Beane said in a statement. No doubt, nothing but wishes for success are in order because if Desme felt baseball wasn’t what he wanted to do and that his heart wasn’t in it, then he was right to make the change. Also, if the priesthood was where he felt called, then no one can question his decision and regardless of what faith you practice, you should have nothing bad to say about Desme and his decision. That being said, what do you think Beane’s first reaction was when he was informed about the situation? I wonder if he was waiting for that tool Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind the door to tell him he’d been “Punk’d.” All told, just a bizarre story and one that I hope Grant Desme doesn’t look back on and regret some day…………

- One thing that isn’t a surprise to anyone is that American teens are FAT. It’s not surprising because freaking 67 percent of Americans are either overweight or obese, so why would teens be any different? But while the knowledge that our teens are packing on far too many pounds isn’t groundbreaking, what should disturb all of us is the revelation that one in five teens in the U.S. -- and more than 40 percent of obese teens -- have abnormal cholesterol. Whether it's low HDL (good cholesterol); high LDL (bad cholesterol); or high levels of triglycerides, another type of blood fat, the bottom line is that these teens are getting a far-too-early start on a serious health problem that could easily ruin the rest of their life if it goes unchecked. These statistics come from a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings back up the American Academy of Pediatrics's (AAP) 2008 guidelines, which recommend more aggressive cholesterol testing and intervention in kids. The AAP especially recommends targeting FAT and obese kids. At the time of their release, the guidelines stirred controversy because, for the first time, cholesterol tests were recommended for overweight or high-risk children as young as 2 years old. Hearing that treatment with a cholesterol-lowering statin was an option for children as young as 8 who had bad cholesterol, or LDL, over 190 mg/dL, and who couldn't lower their cholesterol with diet or exercise was equally shocking to some people, but those people should belly up to a plate of crow right about now because clearly their stance has no factual backing. Clearly the time has come for children’s cholesterol to be monitored, especially the cholesterol of chunky little Timmy or Ashley whose mom or dad thinks that raising a child on a diet of alternating runs to Taco Bell and McDonalds is a good idea. Memo to you, lazy American parents: Stop shoving unhealthy crap in your kids’ pie holes, start forcing them to get some exercise and pray that they don’t end up as FAT and unhealthy as you…………

- As much as I love claims of cheating and vote rigging after an election, when disenfranchised parties are making those allegations before the election, I like that even more. Pre-emptive conspiracy theories are another notch higher on the Insanity/Paranoia scale and for that reason, they are to be cherished and admired. With Sri Lanka (a special “What up?” to my Sri Lankan peeps) set to hold its presidential election Tuesday, opposition activists say the Sri Lankan government is planning to use vote rigging and violence to win the vote. Campaigning has officially come to a close and the two main candidates in the poll, President Mahinda Rajapakse and former army chief General Sarath Fonseca, have held their final campaign rallies. Both men can boast strong ties to the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels, but it is Rajapakse who is confidently proclaiming victory (perhaps because he and his party plan on rigging the vote?) and in his final rally, he spoke of last year's war victory against the Tamil Tigers and the need to fight corruption. After all, who breaks out the celebratory music and fireworks before voting begins unless their victory has already been stolen, er, secured? If General Fonseca says the ruling party is planning to use violence and vote rigging to disrupt the poll, then I’m inclined to go with his sentiments. Curiously though, in spite of his stated belief that the government wants to deter voters from turning out, he is urging his supporters not to retaliate. Why, General? The only thing that would make this better is all-out brawls at the polls featuring angry, disenfranchised opposition voters clashing with The Man. If the government has the chutzpah to deny any use of violence in the campaign or intentions to use it in the next couple of days, make them prove it. Of course, the fact that four people have died and dozens have been injured in pre-election unrest would already seem to contradict those statements, but whatever. It is good to see elections take place, the first elections the end of the country’s civil war last year. Although the result of the election has already been determined (allegedly), the rigged final voting tallies are expected on Wednesday…………

- Another weekend, another box office triumph for James Cameron and Avatar. On its sixth weekend in theaters, the animated flick about freaky blue aliens netted $36 million, a per-screen average of $11,461 that brings the film’s total to $552.8 million. It handily beat back the horror flick Legion, which opened to a paltry $18.2 million in wide release and doesn’t appear to have a strong, prolonged run in its future. The Book of Eli saw a significant drop-off in its second weekend, making $17 million for third place to bring its two-week tally to $62 million. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (sorry bro, but you will always be The Rock to me) was the top earner in a family-oriented flick, with his turn as the Tooth Fairy debuting with $14.5 million, good enough for fourth place. Rounding out the top five was Paramount Pictures’ The Lovely Bones, with a tally of $8.8 million, pushing its cumulative total to $31.6 million. The rest of the top 10 included: Sherlock Holmes ($7.1 million, $191.6 cumulative), Extraordinary Measures (I ALREADY WORK AROUND THE CLOCK! – inside joke for those who saw Harrison Ford’s omnipresent promo for the movie during the past two weekends of football) with $7 million in its debut, Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel ($6.5 million, $204.2 cumulative), It's Complicated ($6.2 million, $98.6 cumulative) and Lionsgate’s The Spy Next Door ($4.7 million, $18.7 cumulative). Overall there are some very solid movies on this list, so hopefully you were able to get out and see at least one of them this weekend……………

Racist cameras, illiteracy in Laredo and Tim Floyd stays true to his inner d-bag

- Literacy in the city of Laredo, Texas is taking a standing eight-count at this point. . A 2003 study by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 48 percent of the residents of Webb County, Texas -- home to Laredo -- lacked basic literacy skills and the fact that the city is now without an actual bookstore is not going to help the problem. As of Jan. 16, when Barnes & Noble, which owns B. Dalton, closed the store inside Laredo's Mall del Norte, Laredo has been bookstore-less. The closest bookstore is in San Antonio, some 150 miles away, and that makes Laredo (population 250,000) one of the largest cities in the United States without a bookstore. A grass-roots group called "Laredo Reads" has formed and begun collecting signatures to show corporate book dealers that Laredo can support a bookstore, but the fact that all of the bookstores in the city closed would somewhat contradict that sentiment. After all, business don’t generally close if they are profitable and so I have to assume that bookstores in Laredo just weren’t making much money, hence their closure. Barnes & Noble says it closed the Laredo store as part of an overall strategy to shut down the chain of mall-based bookstores. That is the company’s concern, but the concern of Laredo residents is that the lack of a book store will make the city look like an ignorant outpost on the Texas border. "Assuming that we don't read because we're Mexican or we're immigrant or we're poor, that is not the case," said Xochitl Mora, the city's spokeswoman. "Our challenge is to convince a corporate America bookstore and others they will find a literate, articulate, eloquent citizenry." Look, I feel your pain Laredo, but just know that approximately 50 to 60 small Barnes & Noble-owned bookstores have closed every year over the last 5 to 6 years. Furthermore, what I would point out to those lamenting the lack of bookstores in Laredo is that not having a bookstore doesn’t mean people aren’t reading. Electronic reading devices like Amazon’s Kindle (on which you can read this very blog!) are becoming more and more popular and taking away from sales of actual books in physical form. To be honest, I can’t tell you how many bookstores are in any city I live near or have ever visited and I don’t use that number as any sort of measuring stick for literacy. You still have a sweet public library that I’m guessing it heavily underutilized, so go down and check out all the books you want for free. Boost literacy that way and you should be a-ok, overpriced national chain bookstores be damned…………

- I personally believe, like, such as, therefore, toasters, lamp shades, pitchfork, rainbow, that the Iraq and people who don’t have maps in the South Africa, such as, tacos, nuclear bomb, Fiji, zebras, that the next season of The Amazing Race will be quite a trip. That sentence is brought to you by the legendary, the infamous, the one and only Caitlin Upton, a.k.a. the former Miss Teen South Carolina who delivered a Muhammad Ali-like beatdown to the English language in answering, well……I have no freaking idea what Miss America question she was asked that precipitated her incoherent rambling answer about maps, Iraq, South Africa and the future, but when someone delivers that sort of rambling, legendary diatribe, the question is virtually irrelevant. Now, Upton will team with Brent Horne, a model from Columbia, S.C., to form one of the 11 teams that will cross five continents and eight countries in the 16th edition of Race that kicks off Feb. 14. They will be joined by former Big Brother contestants Jordan Lloyd and Jeff Schroeder, proving what an incestuous little circle reality shows are, recycling contestants from one show for the case of another. The remaining nine teams are comprised of people who aren’t “famous,” including a team of undercover detectives, a professional baseball coach and his daughter, two attorneys, a personal trainer grandmother and her granddaughter and the requisite married couple and lesbian couple. For what it’s worth, Amazing Race is one of the better reality shows out there, which is akin to being the tallest midget in some sense, but it’s still a show that would be worth your time to check out…………

- I’ll say this for former USC coach Tim Floyd: He’s sticking to his true scumbag self no matter what the situation and no matter how bad things get. After running a corrupt program during his short stint at USC that (allegedly) featured payments and illegal benefits used to entice prized recruit O.J. Mayo to play for the Trojans, Floyd abruptly left the Trojans' bench in June as allegations about the improper recruiting surfaced. Rather than stay and face the looming NCAA sanctions, he jumped ship to the NBA. His resignation came after allegations surfaced that he paid $1,000 to Mayo associate Rodney Guillory, who helped steer Mayo to USC. Because of his corrupt regime, the Trojans have been banned from postseason play this season and suffered other self-imposed sanctions the university put in place in the hopes of avoiding more stringent NCAA penalties. But in spite of the mounting mounds of evidence against him, Floyd continues to insist that his departure was in no way related to the allegations of improper recruiting against him and was due to his deteriorating relationship with athletic director Mike Garrett. Floyd, now an assistant coach for the New Orleans Hornets, is as defiant and douche-baggish as ever in denying the real reason he fled USC like a guy fleeing a crowded room after dropping a gag-inducing fart. "Why I left was not in any way an admission of guilt," Floyd said, according to the Times-Picayune. "It was a complete testament to a lack of support by my administration and how we were treated after four years of doing everything the right way. And that is what I've gone on record as saying. The day the story broke, my athletic director called me and asked me where I was. He asked me if I'd read the story. I said, 'Yes. And I did not do what I'm accused of doing.' Two, 'Where are you?' 'I'm in New Orleans.' The third thing he said was, 'You need to get your ass back to Los Angeles, so I can decide what I'm going to do with you.'" Interesting. And by interesting, I mean a scumbag not actually denying what he did, but rather saying he didn’t explicitly admit guilty by hitting the eject button with a sledgehammer when it became clear that the sh*t was about to hit the fan. Mayo hasn’t been much better, refusing to cooperate with USC’s investigation into the improper recruiting allegations even though he had nothing to lose by doing so. Neither he nor Floyd could possibly be punished for what they had done while at USC and for anyone with an actual conscience, that would be incentive enough to be truthful and own what they had done. Instead, Mayo and Floyd sit idly by while the players and coaches remaining at USC must cope with this season's postseason ban and the vacating of wins from 2007-08, a reduction in scholarships, restrictions on recruiting, and returning money the school received from participating in the NCAA tournament. Of course, it’s impossible to completely absolve Garrett of any blame in this matter, as he is presiding over what appears to be the most corrupt athletic department in college athletics. The situation involving the men’s basketball program is mirrored by a similar investigation into the football program, where NCAA is investigating whether former Trojans running back and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush received extra benefits during the 2004 and 2005 seasons. Ironically, USC football coach Pete Carroll also fled the school for the professional ranks as the investigation heated up. Carroll jumped ship to the Seattle Seahawks earlier this month, again leaving behind the players to deal with the mess he made. There just aren’t any true good guys here and Floyd merely happens to be the most loathsome of the bunch at this point…………

- Want to own a part of a near-disaster that became one of America’s greatest stories of heroism in recent memory? If so, I have just the opportunity for you. US Airways Flight 1549 ended with an impromptu crash landing in New York's Hudson River courtesy of Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger last January, but the plane itself hasn’t suffered nearly as famous a fate as its pilot. The plane, an Airbus A320-214, is now up for auction. It currently sits at a salvage yard in Kearny, New Jersey and is listed for sale "AS IS/WHERE IS". Currently the wings of the plane are separated from the body, although they are included in the sale. The the bid site for the aircraft lists "severe water damage throughout the airframe" and "impact damage to underside of aircraft." One thing you won't get in the sale are the engines, which were famously damaged by a flock of freaking Canadian geese, leading to the improvised landing on the Hudson landed with 155 people aboard. The auction continues until March 27 at 4:30 p.m. ET and is open to the public. It is being managed by Dan Akers of Chartis Insurance, a division of the larger American International Group Inc. that insures US Airways. is Marie Ali, a spokeswoman for Chartis, stated that the plane is being auctioned "as salvage." Admittedly, I’m not sure what one would do with the wreckage of a commercial aircraft, as it’s not like a signed jersey from a professional athlete that can be neatly displayed over the mantle inside a nice frame. I suppose if your back yard is large enough, you could resurrect the Airbus A320-214 and use it as a piece of playground equipment for the kids. That being said, I don’t know that you can justify throwing away the chunk of change it will likely take to win this auction just for a conversation piece……………

- Can cameras be racist? I sure hope so. Nothing pumps me up more than the possibility of inanimate, non-human objects displaying racist tendencies and giving minority groups one more target for their anti-establishment rage. The issue of camera racism came to light last year when some Asian-American consumers experienced problems with Nikon cameras whose facial recognition software flashed messages about people blinking in pictures when in reality they were simply Asian and had more narrow eyes than many non-Asian photo subjects. Face detection can also automatically snap a picture when a subject smiles, so it has become more popular with many camera makers. It is also used on computer webcams, where it can track a person's face during a video conference or enable face-recognition software to prevent unauthorized access. The software relies on an algorithm to identify for common facial features, or more specifically, their shadows. A video from an RV dealership in Texas showing the webcam on an HP computer reacting differently to a black employee than a white employee went viral on YouTube last month, with almost 2 million views. Rather than labeling that camera racist, my explanation would simply be that HP computers are pieces of crap, mostly because they are. Still, some analysts wonder how cameras that are so “racist” in their facial recognition even made it to the market in the first place. The blame belongs more so on the makers of camera parts who often supply the facial recognition software to well-known brands. Issues arise in creating facial-recognition software because the more images fed into the making of the program to help the camera identify faces, the more contradictions pop up in the rules the computer uses for the purpose. What helps identify a face in one image could be contradicted by the data from another image and that’s where problems occur. Lighting and the computing power of the camera’s internal memory also factor into the equation, so there is obviously much more to the issue of camera racism than it may appear. That being said, I like the idea of bigoted cameras and the thought of angry minorities drop-kicking their digital picture-takers after receiving the same offensive, mistaken error message over and over again…………

The first-ever White House iPhone app, the fallout from shows like Jersey Shore and the Supreme Court screws over the little guy

- For the first time ever, the White House has its own iPhone app. On the eve of President Barack Obama's first year in office, White House launched the free app for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. What does the app provide? For starters, you’ll receive live streaming of all the president's public events at the White House, Web chats with Administration officials, and other events such as the daily press briefings. In other words, it’ll be a freaking party! Woooooo! Whose day isn’t made by having a chance to read content from WhiteHouse.gov on their phones, browse behind-the-scenes photos, watch on demand videos, and have instant access to full videos from recent speeches, press briefings, and special events? Allow me to answer that for you: no one. For the right-wing whack jobs out there who hate everything coming out of the Obama White House, there is also something to latch onto. According to White House spokesman Nick Shapiro, the iPhone app is part of a larger mobile strategy. Can anyone say “source for liberal, socialist propaganda?” No, I don’t believe this is part of any sort of liberal takeover attempt, but I do find your right-wing, Fox News-watching kooks amusing with your insane theories, incessant paranoia and general hatred of anything Obama before you’ve even heard the facts. Shapiro stated that other mobile products are planned for the near future including mobile.WhiteHouse.gov, products that will allow WhiteHouse.gov to be easily accessed on all mobile phones. As one of the five people in the United States still without a cell phone, I’m the first to admit that this isn’t going to affect me that much, but I am interested to hear from those of you who do make use of the White House iPhone/iPod Touch app. Let me know what you think and unlike the Fox News lovers out there, I’ll make my decision once I’ve actually heard the facts…………

- Color me stunned. I just cannot believe that Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera has spent the last three months in a treatment program for alcoholism. After all, we had no indication that he had a drinking problem of any so-…….wait, what’s that? You’re suggesting that the fact that he went on a massive bender just hours before a crucial game against the Chicago White Sox, a game that cemented his team’s late-season collapse and helped cost them a playoff spot yet again is an indication of a drinking problem? Look, just because dude was taken into custody by police after a domestic-abuse complaint was filed by his wife in the early morning of Oct. 3 and he registered a 0.26 blood-alcohol reading doesn’t necessarily mean that he needed treatment. After all, who among us hasn’t gone out in the midst of the biggest moment of our professional career and had a beer…..or 12 to take the edge off? Sure, he gave a symbolic middle finger to the Tigers, who are paying his $152 million contract, and to the fans who come to watch him play, but you can’t hold that against him. Perhaps he felt that going out and getting drunk off his ass between Friday night's game and Saturday morning was the best way to prepare for a big game later in the day on Saturday. They don’t administer sobriety tests in the batter’s box, okay? Maybe Cabrera believed that pitchers would see his inebriated, hung-over state and throw a nice, meaty fastball right down the middle of the plate because they figured he would be too liquored up to hit it. Risking alcohol poisoning would have been worth it then, no? All right, all right, I can’t do it anymore. I legitimately tried to mount a defense for Cabrera’s actions, but I can’t keep up the charade. This guy has clearly battled the booze for some time and along with his apparent addiction to food that has caused him to balloon to 50-60 pounds over anything close to his ideal playing weight, it is a problem that had to be addressed. Anyone willing to throw away such an important game in order to get his drink on needed to spend time in rehab and probably more than three months. Going out for a few beers is one thing, but topping out at three times above your state’s legal limit for driving is something else entirely. Along with his teammates, family and fans, I applaud Cabrera for seeking help and hopefully this is the one and only trip he makes to rehab……………

- For a long time now, I’ve been saying that what we truly need in the United States is to pit our many charitable organizations against one another in a battle to the death. Put a little prize money out there, allow them to battle it out in a philanthropic steel cage match and see who emerges the victor. Well, a banking titan has finally embraced this idea – sort of – and although JPMorgan Chase hasn’t fully reached the level of my brilliance quite yet, the company is serving up an interesting contest pitting many of the country’s most prominent charities against one another for a cool $1 million prize. The contest, which wrapped up at midnight Thursday, began late last year when Chase took a database filled with 500,000 nonprofit organizations and uploaded the information on to Facebook. The bank then “crowdsourced” the winnowing process and allowed Facebook users to decide choose which charities should be recognized. The top 100 charities won $25,000 and advanced to the second round, where the leading vote-getter will receive $1 million and five runners-up will receive $100,000 each. A Chase board of directors set up to oversee the competition will give out an additional $1 million to a single charity chosen from the original group. "We wanted to find a way where we could hear from the communities we were operating in and hear what was important to them," said Chase Community Giving foundation President Kim Davis. "This, for us, is very much about testing out a new way of doing corporate philanthropy for the firm." Overall, Chase will donate a total of $5 million to 100 charities chosen by Facebook users. What you may not know is that Chase Community Giving, the philanthropic arm of the large bank, donates annually $100 million to organizations around the world on an annual basis. The Facebook involvement has been a hit, with more than a million fans have participating. As of noon Thursday, the top vote-getting charity on the contest's Facebook page was Invisible Children Inc., a nonprofit that seeks to combat the exploitation of children as child soldiers in Africa through documentary filmmmaking. It’s a worthwhile charity, as are all of the organizations in the running for the $1 million prize. The winner will be deserving no matter who it is, but I’m just thrilled that my idea of a philanthropic steel-cage match is one step closer to reality…………

- This is just the sort of problem you run into when you take a bunch of vapid, self-absorbed, unintelligent, narcissistic idiots and slam them on television in a reality-show setting. It doesn’t have to be a bunch of self-described “guidos and guidettes” who play up to all of the worst stereotypes of Italian-Americans, but that certainly does add to the atrocity. The problem I speak of is that the aforementioned idiots begin to think that a) they matter, b) people care about what they think and c) that they are much more talented than they actually are. Enter the cast of MTV’s abortion of reality series, The Jersey Shore. From a dude who nicknamed his pecs “The Situation” to a bunch of skanky chicks who make the cast of a back-alley porno filmed in Chatsworth seem classy, the tools on this show have plumbed new depths for reality television, which is saying a lot. And just as you’d expect, they are trying to use their new-found infamy to launch their careers in new directions. One such effort is being made by Skank #1 on the show (I just number them as I come across them, so this chick is first, that’s all), Jenni Farley, better known as “JWoww” on the show. Aside from having what might be the dumbest nickname in the history of nicknames (JWoww? What, is the extra “w” on the end of Wow supposed to signify the extra hotness you think you possess?), this chick is seeking to foist her slutty style on the rest of the world with a collection of skimpy made-to-order party tops to replicate her signature look. Plastic surgery to increase the size of your rack, as this chick as undoubtedly done, is not included. She is pimping (never has that term been more appropriate) her skank wear on her Web site, which I won't dignify here by listing its IP address. The site says, “Jenni has created the ultimate in fashionable clothing. She will be reinventing the term ‘Sexy Sophisticated.’ Not only will her line be ‘Edgy’ and ‘Sexy,’ but it will make people of all ages and body type feel more confident in ‘the scene.’ This exclusive line will be limited and custom made to your body type.” Sophisticated? Nothing about this glorified hooker or Jersey Shore is sophisticated. Predictably, the prices for these fashion wonders aren’t listed and technical difficulties on the site make it virtually impossible to order at this point…………

- Oh good, just what American politics need: the Supreme Court giving big business more power to spend freely in federal elections. A 5-4 conservative majority handed the right to buy elections, er, to increase contributions without limit to businesses, unions and nonprofits, curb-stomping a half-century of government efforts to regulate the power of corporations to influence American. With this year's congressional midterm elections large, the decision by the justices to ease long-standing restrictions on "independent spending" by corporations and unions in political campaigns could play a significant role. "When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. "The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves." Not really, Judge K. While you may see it as a First Amendment issue and a way to benefit a broader range of for-profit and nonprofit groups seeking a voice in the crowded national political debate, I see it as yet another way for the rich and powerful among us to purchase even greater influence on the political process. Within hours of the decision, President Obama responded by saying the court has given "the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington -- while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates." I don’t agree with a lot of what Obama has done in his first year in office, but he is spot-on in his assessment of this decision. He piled on with a written statement declaring that he is telling his administration "to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less." Right-wing kooks were lining up in support of the decision even as Obama was denouncing it. "The Supreme Court's decision today is a victory for the First Amendment and the right of all Americans to participate in the political process," said Theodore Olson, who successfully argued the case for the conservative Citizens United. The specific case that brought this issue before the nation’s highest court centered on a documentary on Hank Clinton. The film was produced last year by Citizens United and it tore into the then-presidential candidate with gusto. "Hillary: The Movie" was a source of controversy and the filmmakers wanted to promote it during the height of the 2008 primary season. Surprisingly, a federal court blocked any ads, as well as airings on cable television's video on demand. In regards to the specific case, the Supreme Court also ruled against Citizens United, saying federal restrictions on broadcast ads are appropriate. But the precedent set by the decision will have a more wide-ranging effect and that’s what Obama and dissenting justices like Justice John Paul Stevens are concerned about. Stevens wrote, "In a democratic society, the long-standing consensus on the need to limit corporate campaign spending should outweigh the wooden applications of judge-made rules. The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation." Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens on the dissenting side of the case in her first case since being selected for the high court. In the end, she, Stevens and the other two dissenting justices were unable to protect the rights of the little guy. By their decision, the five majority justices also nullified earlier rulings upholding the core of a 6-year-old federal law aimed at curbing corporate campaign spending. Whereas corporations have previously been limited to issue-focused campaign ads, they can now directly support or oppose a candidate without restriction. In his opinion, Kennedy wrongly postulated that Americans should be trusted to decide competing election issues. "The appearance of influence or access," he wrote, "will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy." Wrong again, K. Have you not met enough Americans to realize how many morons there are across this great nation? These knobs cannot be entrusted with anything more serious than which color socks to wear today or what sugared breakfast cereal to pour into their bowl in the morning. I concur with Stevens, who read part of his harsh dissent from the bench, when he said, "The court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding." If you are trying to figure out who to send your Supreme Court hate mail to, Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts were also on the majority side of this decision to give a gigantic judicial middle finger to. Section 203 of the comprehensive Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, widely known as the McCain-Feingold law. Thanks for nothing, Supreme Court, and for showing that even though you may change out a justice or two from time to time, you can still churn out utterly indefensible decisions on a wide range of legal issues…………

More people angry at NBC, the dysfunction of the Oakland Raid-ahs and trampling rights in Vietnam

- His $45 million severance agreement notwithstanding, Conan O’Brien is still pissed at NBC for its handling of the network’s ongoing late-night debacle and he’s not the only one. The mess the Peacock created when it relocated Jay Leno from 11:35 p.m. to 10 p.m. and handed the reings of The Tonight Show to O’Brien has affected other shows on the network and one of the stars of a show affected by the situation is speaking out. "It ruined our numbers," Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay said of the show’s move from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. in a recent interview. "The first four episodes, we were considerably down because nobody knew when the show was on. Finally, we're starting to find our audience again.” Whether or not the show’s ratings are directly attributable to Leno’s new (and now dead) show is up for debate, but the ratings themselves are a matter of fact. The show's new season premiered to 8.35 million viewers and a 2.5 rating in the 18-to-49 demo last September, down from 9.7 million viewers and a 3.8 rating for the premiere episode last season. Hargitay added that she hoped "we go back to where we belong. It was doing so well. Why mess with it?" The interview took place before the deal was struck between O’Brien and NBC to buy him out and give The Tonight Show back to Leno, a deal that will also will move Law & Order: SVU to Wednesdays at 10 p.m. EST starting March 3. Repeats will also precede the new episodes on Wednesday nights, so viewers will get a double dip of Hargitay and Co. solving heinous crimes of a sexual nature in New York City. Not that there can be any losers when all involved parties are getting paid copious amounts of jack to work on TV shows, but this is truly a situation where everyone wins and that would be because everyone is getting paid………a lot…………

- Another NFL offseason isn’t even in full swing yet and already the Oakland Raiders are showing that no team is capable of being true to its identity than they are. The Raiders do dysfunction like no one else and this offseason will be no different, not if the past couple of weeks are any indication. After alleged franchise quarterback and aspiring The Biggest Loser contestant JaMarcus Russell blew off his season-ending exit interview with coaches and was spotted in Las Vegas partying instead (although the team attempted to cover for him), the focus turned to the team’s tenuous head coaching situation. Following a 5-11 season that gave them double-digit losses every year since making the Super Bowl in 2002, coach Tom Cable’s fate was uncertain at best. After all, he did spend part of this season being investigated by Oakland police for allegedly breaking assistant coach Randy Hanson’s jaw in a meeting-room confrontation. Combine that behavior with a losing record and you can see where owner Al Davis might want to find a new coach (assuming that Al is still alive, a dubious assumption to be sure). Davis and Cable were supposed to meet last week to discuss things, but that meeting didn’t happen. As of now, Cable is still the team’s head coach……but that hasn’t stopped Davis from contacting other coaches, both college and professional, to see if they have any interest in being the new head coach of the Raiders. The first name to surface was Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh. Sources confirmed that the Raiders spoke to Harbaugh about their head coaching job and that Harbaugh had no interest. Smart move by him, as the Stanford job is a much better gig than the Raiders job at this point and any job at all is less stressful than working for Davis. Up next was their former offensive coordinator Marc Trestman, who now coaches in the CFL. Yes, the Raiders are looking to pillage and plunder the Canadian Football League for coaches. That is not at all embarrassing, Raiders. After speaking with Trestman, the team also met with former NFL coach Jim Fassel. That meeting may have taken place, but not if you ask Fassel. In an interview with Sirius/XM Mad Dog Radio on Wednesday, he sort of denied speaking to the Raiders. "I'm not lobbying for the Raider job. I have never in my life rooted for a coach to be let go so there's an opening. I never have. I'm in the same fraternity," Fassel said. And why would he, what with the sweet gig he has as the head coach of the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL? Notice that he said he is not lobbying for the job, not that he didn’t speak with the Raiders. Mind you, all of this takes place as Cable is still officially the team’s head coach. The team is also tinkering with the coaching staff outside of the head position, bringing in Baltimore Ravens quarterbacks coach Hue Jackson to interview for their offensive coordinator job. Nothing like the front office assembling a coaching staff, interviewing for a currently unavailable head coaching position and looking like every bit the running NFL punchline it has been for the past eight-plus years. Keep doing your thing, Raiders……………

- New York Gov. David Paterson may not have the benefit of physical sight, but he clearly is not blind to the financial bind his state is in. Gov. Paterson is facing tough choices all over the political map and he’s not going to win any friends with a sweeping budget plan announced Tuesday that slashes services, raises fees and takes some odd steps to bridge a massive $7.4 billion fiscal gap. "We can no longer afford the spending addiction we've had for so long," Paterson said. "Nobody wants to make these cuts. They will be difficult. They will be painful. They will affect the lives of our citizens. But they are necessary." It’s important to note that this is only a proposed budget and still must be ratified by the legislature, so don’t get too worked up over it. Then again, I realize how wasted those words are to potentially affected parties. They see a fiscal 2011 budget cutting billions from school aid and state agencies, closing four prisons, legalizing ultimate fighting and increasing taxes and fees by $1 billion and they freak out. But before New Yorkers lose all mental control, let’s take a closer look. Some of the measures are good, namely the proposal to slap losers who smoke with an additional $1 tax on every pack of cigarettes. We all hate smoking and people who breathe in that toxic air and subject the rest of us to their equally toxic secondhand smoke should be penalized, both financially and otherwise. Perhaps this will help push more smokers toward quitting their nasty habit and thus driving down smoking-related health-care costs. Given New York’s run of attacks on unhealthy eating, drinking and smoking habits, it makes perfect sense. In that vein, Paterson also proposes an additional tax of a penny per ounce for sugary drinks. No complaints there, either. As for the push to legalize ultimate fighting……sure it’s barbaric, sure it’s bloody and no, it’s not for everyone. But if the bloodthirsty MMA freaks in their Tap Out t-shirts want to throw down their money for MMA tickets, let them. You’re telling me that an MMA event at Madison Square Garden wouldn’t draw a big crowd? Better still, legalizing ultimate fighting in the Empire State could bring with it an estimated $2.1 million in tax revenue. Again, this is merely a starting point for the budget and the state legislature will definitely make changes to the $134 billion budget before it adopts the spending plan. The issue is coming up now only because New York's fiscal year starts in April, the earliest of any state. New York's deficit is the fourth largest nationwide, in terms of dollars, behind California ($14.4 billion), Illinois ($12.8 billion) and neighboring New Jersey ($8 billion). Paterson and the legislature are in a tight spot because they raised taxes last year and simply can’t get away with it again this soon. An exception to that would be the cigarette tax, which would a) raise $218 million and b) target losers who have it coming. On the flip side, New York’s tree huggers won't be pleased if Paterson has his way with budget cuts. Funding for the Environmental Protection Fund would be slashed by $79 million under the proposed budget, which is sure to spark plenty of outrage. In the end, there will be a lot of pissed-off people, no happy people (except for those of us who hate smokers) and a lot less money to go around in New York come 2011…………

- Persecution of one brave dissident anywhere in the world is persecution of all dissidents, everywhere. In other words, I’ve got my eyes on you, Vietnam. You a-holes convicting and sentencing four prominent dissidents to lengthy jail terms Wednesday for attempting to overthrow the government has not gone unnoticed. These four great men spat in the face of the country’s Communist rulers and for that, those Commies are showing off their oppressive muscle. The best-known of the defendants, human-rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, a former vice chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, was hit with a five-year sentence in Ho Chi Minh City. What was his crime? Brace yourself, because dude had the audacity to (gasp) join a banned political party and own it in open court. Prosecutors claimed in court that Dinh's transgressions represent a "particularly serious violation of national security." Perhaps because he has since been brainwashed by his Communist a-hole government, Dinh blamed his actions on the undue influences he fell under while studying law at Tulane University in New Orleans. He went on to cowardly admit that he never intended to challenge Vietnam's leadership. "From the bottom of my heart, I myself and these three other defendants had no intention to overthrow the government," Dinh stated. One co-defendant, Internet entrepreneur Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. He received a sentence more than three times as strict as Dinh’s despite testifying that he hadn't broken any laws and was solely interested in helping to stamp out corruption. Clearly, Vietnam’s government is very fond of its corruption. Both Dinh and Thuc faced the death penalty on charges of subversion, as did another defendant, Nguyen Tien Trung. A fourth defendant, Le Thang Long, was convicted as an accomplice. The government clearly sought to make examples of the four men, featuring the trial extensively in local, state-controlled Vietnamese media. It is a disturbing example of the sharp U-turn Vietnam has taken politically of late, going from a reputation as one Asia's fastest-growing, most vibrant economies to a brutal Communist regime that stifles and tramples the basic rights of its citizens. Signs of this crackdown could be seen last year, when Vietnam began blocking access to Facebook.com, which has been used to organize anti-government activities in other nations in turmoil. Keep it up, ‘Nam, and you could soon find yourself in China’s elite company as the top rights-oppressors in the world……………

- Good news, everyone who has been downing fish or fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids to improve their health. A new study in the latest edition of in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that cramming extra fish or fish oil supplements in your body acids may protect against death and illness by slowing biological aging. Heart disease patients have long been told to consume more fish or take fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids, but based on these findings, even those not suffering from a heart ailment might want to consider following suit. But the study had barely been published before some cardiac experts questioned its legitimacy because they felt it had serious limitations. The study was conducted by Dr. Ramin Farzaneh-Far of the University of California San Francisco and his team of researchers. They followed more than 600 men with heart disease and found those taking the most omega-3 appeared "biologically younger." That term means the ends of their chromosomes, called telomeres, looked longer and healthier. "Patients with the highest levels of omega-3 fish oils were found to display the slowest decrease in telomere length, whereas those with the lowest levels of omega-3 fish oils in the blood had the fastest rate of telomere shortening," Farzaneh-Far said. "This suggests that these patients were aging faster than those with higher fish oil levels." Some cardiologists, including members of the staffs at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. and the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, were encouraged by the results of the study, but they were balanced out by those who pointed out that the results are preliminary, and need to be replicated before physicians can use them in practice. Part of their beef with the study is that it was strictly observational and couldn't prove cause-and-effect. "We don't really know whether ingestion of omega-3 fatty acids resulted in this 'benefit,'" said Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic. "It remains entirely possible that individuals who consume more fish also have other favorable healthy habits. ... The relationship between telomere shortening and cardiovascular health is not well established." In assessing the study and its findings, I would have to concur with those who have their doubts about what it proves. There are simply too many other potential factors in play with these 600 participants to definitively state that the fish oil supplements are the primary reason for these men appearing "biologically younger." Keep researching, come back with something more conclusive and we can go from there…………

Short-lived interest in women's tennis, the perils of rain in SoCal and $262 poorly spent in Tennessee

- Well that didn’t take long. My interest in the women’s side of the Australian Open draw lasted less than one full round. Those who read this space often know that my degree of interest in women’s tennis is directly proportional to the amount of time that my girl Maria Sharapova is in a given tournament. If Sharapova and her amazing legs are on the court all the way through the finals, then your tennis tournament is one that I will follow avidly. However, if she is bounced in the first round like she was in the ongoing Australian Open, my desire to follow that tournament packs its bags and leaves along with Sharapova when she exits town. Her surprise 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4 to fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko was Sharapova's earliest exit from a Grand Slam since the 2003 French Open. Coming off the heels of her second-round loss at last year's U.S. Open and injury problems over the latter half of 2009, it is a discouraging sign for the former top-ranked player in the world and those of us who love to watch her play. The match was among many affected by steady rain that delayed the start of play on outside courts and forced several suspensions and more than a dozen postponements. In defeat, Sharapova made no excuses and said it was "just a bad day." Making matters worse had to be the fact that it was her first appearance on Rod Laver Arena since winning the 2008 Aussie Open trophy. She missed last year’s Australian Open last year as part of a 10-month layoff due to shoulder surgery, so you know she wanted to come back strong this year. “I could be disappointed or I could just take it as it is and just go back on the court and just keep working,” Sharapova said. “I choose option two. A bad day's not going to stop me from doing what I love. I'll be back here on a Saturday of the second week, so you watch.” So where does Sharapova go from here? Clearly she has rust to knock off after missing 10 months, but I am holding out hope that she will regain her old form (although her current one doesn’t look all that bad to me, but I digress) and become one of the world’s best players again. If you need any additional words of encouragement or support, Maria, let me know because I am always here to help my favorite athletes when they struggle…………

- Southern Californians do not deal well with inclement weather. They’ve learned to cope with mud slides and wildfires, but talk to anyone who has lived in SoCal for any length of time and they will readily admit that when it comes to dealing with precipitation falling from the sky, they are freaking pansies. Just a few drops of rain can turn the freeways into demolition derby hour, so with rain that would actually register as significant in non-SoCal portions of the country currently falling, you can only imagine what life is like right now. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged hundreds of Californians to heed evacuation orders and flee their homes before a dangerous storm hit their area this morning. "A powerful Pacific storm, likely the strongest of the week, will bring strong and damaging winds to much of southwestern California on Wednesday," the National Weather Service said. This new storm from comes on the heels of a torrential rainfall Tuesday that unleashed flooding and spawned a rare tornado warning in SoCal. "This is a severity we have not seen in a very long time," Villaraigosa said. "Respect any and all orders to evacuate. They are doing this to protect your safety. Please cooperate." Right, Mr. Mayor. I’d love to tell you that people will follow your directive without questioning, but you know they won't. People are prone to give the middle finger to the authorities when they are told to evacuate because they a) believe the potential threat won't materialize, b) feel they can weather the storm right where they are or c) just don’t give a damn. Having said that, officials issued evacuation orders for more than 480 homes in areas prone to mudslides. Of particular concern are he foothill areas torched by last year's Station fire were. "I can't stress enough how quickly the danger arrives," said Councilman Paul Krekorian. "When it is time to leave, it is time to leave. You may not have a second chance." The incoming storms truly are supposed to be bad, with predicted winds of about 80 mph in mountain areas and rainfall of more than 1 inch an hour in parts of Los Angeles County. Floods have already hit many areas in the county and a lot of homes are currently without power. On top of all that, a possible tornado was reported Tuesday in Huntington Beach by the Orange County emergency manager. Boats in the Huntington Beach harbor were damaged in the storm, as were several buildings in the area. In all seriousness, I hope this storm is not nearly as bad as predicted and wish nothing but health and survival for all of my SoCal amigos…………

- As a longtime fan of Smallville, it has been a bit of a bummer not having Martha Kent (Annette O’Toole) around for the past couple seasons. As the show plows through its ninth season, Martha Kent has been AWOL since in Season 6, when Martha moved to Washington to become a U.S. senator. She has been referenced and alluded to by different characters the past two seasons, but has not made an on-screen appearance. That will change later this season, when O’Toole makes a brief return to Smallville. Sources say that O’Toole has inked a deal to reprise her role as Clark Kent’s mom later this season, although producers are still working on the details of her role. The when and why are still up in the air, but it is expected that she will most likely come back near season’s end, possibly during May sweeps. Show insiders are speculating that the return and mother-son reunion won't be an entirely pleasant one and that there will be some unexpected turmoil to bring it about. With the show having lost so many key original cast members (the über-hot Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, John Glover, John Schneider, O’Toole, Sam Jones III), it will be nice to see at least one of them make a (temporary) return to the show. Observers believe the show is likely to return for a tenth season but that hasn’t been decided officially, so with the possibility of this being the show’s final season still in play, I’m glad Martha Kent is popping up again…………

- I don’t know about you, but when I see those lame sitcom episodes where a crazy dad brings out his gun to “clean” it when his daughter’s date shows up, interrogates the poor guy like he’s a freaking terrorist and follows the poor kids out on their date to snoop on them, I always assumed those were just fictional Hollywood creations. Never did I dream that there were men out there like Scott David Sullivan of West Bloomfield, Mich. Sullivan was arraigned on charges of malicious destruction of property and reckless driving Tuesday after…..well, after he found his 14-year-old daughter and her 16-year-old boyfriend in a compromising position in the back seat of his car. Seems that Sullivan followed the two teens after they drove up to a beach near Pleasant Lake and parked there in the boyfriend’s 2010 Dodge Charger. He told police that he pulled his van up alongside the Charger and saw the teens in the backseat of the car. From there, let’s just say that Sullivan did not react well. His first move was to do what most dads in his position would do, namely pull his daughter out of the car. I don’t think anyone can quibble with that, nor would they have a problem with Sullivan if, after putting his daughter inside his own vehicle, he had turned back to threaten the boyfriend and inform him which appendages he would be cutting off if the boy ever came near his daughter again. But sadly, that response was much more pedestrian than the one Sullivan went with. After pulling his daughter from the car, he leapt into the driver’s seat of the Charger, drove it out onto the icy lake and left it there – with the boy still in the back seat. He returned to his own vehicle and drove away, leaving the boy to fend for himself on the thin ice. See, temperatures in the Midwest have bee at or just above freezing the past few days, so that ice wasn’t exactly thick or sturdy. As such, when the boy got into the driver’s seat and attempted to drive the car off the ice, the front left tire had already sunk into the ice - making it impossible to move the vehicle. Police soon arrived and the boy was unharmed, but his car remained in the water until a tow truck pulled it out the next day. Now, Sullivan could face up to 10 years in prison for the malicious destruction of property charge and up to 93 days in jail for the reckless driving charge. Although I’m sure he would tell you that he’d do anything to protect his little girl, he didn’t need to go to this extreme to make his point. Heck, even waving an empty gun at the boyfriend or briefly attempting to choke him would be smarter than driving his brand new car out onto an icy lake to leave him there. What if the ice had given way and the boy had drowned? Awfully hard to protect your daughter if you’re in jail for homicide, idiot. Oh, and lots of luck for this poor girl in getting a date any time soon. She may appear to possess certain qualities that teen boys are after (as evidenced by her presence in the back seat in the first place), but a homicidal dad tends to scare away potential dates…………

- Well at least Tennessee football fans arent bitter. They were majorly dicked over by departed coach Lane “One and Done” Kiffin as he fled the UT campus after only one season so he could take the USC job when it opened up earlier this month and left a litany of burnt bridges in his wake. Angry students gathered on campus the day after his abrupt departure and UT fans immediately took to lighting him up on message boards, Facebook and Twitter. Stories were dragged out about Kiffin crashing his university-provided Lexus late last summer and any damning evidence that could be used against him was readied for launch. But even where there isn’t any damning evidence against Kiffin, embittered Vols fans are creating it. Even as the university has hired Derek Dooley to replace Kiffin and theoretically set the wheels in motion for moving forward, people like. Knoxville attorney Drew McElroy are readying another salvo to lob Kiffin’s way. McElroy, clearly a rabid UT fan, has filed paperwork with the Knoxville City Council's Public Properties and Facilities Naming Committee to rename a waste water treatment plant the Lane Kiffin Sewage Center. “At first I was offended that he would sneak out in the middle of the night, like a one night stand," McElroy said. "It dawned on me--Lane Kiffin told us that he hoped the fans would understand. I thought 'Well, naming the wastewater plant for him would let him know, I think very clearly, we do understand. We want to memorialize his stay here, and I think this would be doing it appropriately." Sounds like a very pissed-off guy, no? But McElroy insists that in spite of scratching a the $262 check for the application fee, he is in fact not angry at all with Kiffin. "Knowing what we know now, I don't think anybody is angry he's gone," he stated of the waste facility’s new namesake. Right, because people spend $262 to rename a sewage treatment facility just for the heck of it and because they genuinely like someone. Sure thing, you ignorant tool. I don’t have a problem with what you’re doing and it’s your money to waste on whatever you want to waste it on, but just don’t pretend like you’re really clever and that anyone thinks this is anything other than a bitter, scorned guy with too much money and too much time on his hands looking to rip the coach who jilted his beloved program. On the application, McElroy says he wanted "to honor our recently departed head coach and raise awareness of the good work done by the Knoxville Utilities Board." Students asked about the idea are mostly on board, but I doubt that any of them will be heading down to what was formerly known as the Kuwahee Wastewater Treatment Plant for a renaming ceremony any time soon. The proposed name change isn’t expected to happen any time soon, as the Knoxville Public Property naming committee only meets a few times each year. But it’s safe to say that if the change is made, it should be done in time for the start of football season this fall and I’m sure Drew McElroy’s day will be made…………

Why not to mess with a KISS tribute band, the recession strikes the weathy where it truly hurts and exporting American crazy to China

- If there is one ironclad rule in this world, it is that you do NOT screw with the gear of a KISS tribute band, period. No, I am not a huge KISS fan. I haven’t seem KISS in concert, I’ve never seen a KISS tribute band in concert and I don’t own a single KISS album. My reason for making this declaration is very simple: these losers already have enough working against them in life. They are in a freaking KISS tribute band, for God’s sake. They earn part of all of their living by gravy-training off of someone else’s image. They are so unoriginal and unimaginative that they must copy the music and identity of someone else for anyone to give a crap about them. I feel bad for them and so when someone takes thousands of dollars in instruments, props and a trailer from one of the best-known KISS tribute bands in the land, I have a serious problem with that. The recipient of this terrible treatment is none other than Kiss Army, which was heading to a show in Louisville, Ky. when someone ripped off their gear. The stolen items are fairly distinctive: a 2007 Haulmark trailer, Pearl 15-drum set, black with chrome pin stripes; eight Zildjian cymbals and one gong with Japanese writing, Ampeg bass cabinet with SVT head, Large "coffin sized" case for drums with "Christie Lites" in white lettering, Stage speaker props, road cases and a Kiss Army sign. "Here we are, right around the corner from creating our finest moment in our history, and to have someone potentially derail that is heartbreaking," said Kiss Army band member Steve. "We're starving and striving at the same time. We can't afford to have something like this happen." The anger and hurt in Steve’s words is clear. Here is a tool who has been criss-crossing the country with his faux bandmates for 18 years, playing to county fairs, in smoke-filled casinos and at festivals that aren’t big enough to bring in real, original versions of bands. Their Louisville gig was important because the band was on the verge of making a move to Las Vegas as a house band act in the near future. Already, some of the stolen items have been recovered thanks to the stupidity of the thieves. A few days after the theft, two men walked into Music-Go-Round in nearby Jeffersontown and attempted to pawn some of the goods. Christopher Goff and Austin Becker were arrested on the spot and their cohorts Joe Morel and James Riggs were eventually arrested as well. "They didn't get any cooperation whatsoever out of them trying to locate the property," detective Steve Fisher said. I wouldn’t expect that to change and perhaps this is a hit that Kiss Army will struggle to recover from, but hopefully other a-holes out there will back away from their plans to steal gear from or otherwise harass the pathetic losers who take the stage in a tribute band of any sort. They’ve already suffered enough, everyone……………

- You all know how pissed off I get at global developments that will eventually lead, directly or indirectly, to an increase in the cost of illegal narcotics for my stoner, coke head and heroin addict pals all around the world. The arrest of prolific Mexican drug trafficker Teodoro "El Teo" Garcia Simental by Mexican federal police, assisted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, is just such a development. Simental was arrested Tuesday in the city of La Paz, Mexico, capping off a truly crap-tacular month for the Tijuana cartel as it does battle with the powers that be. "He is one the most notorious drug lords and was on a list of the Top 24 drug traffickers in all of Mexico," said one DEA official. Taking down a cartel big shot like Simental in the capital of the state of Baja California Sur is a bad omen for the Tijuana cartel and all cartels for that matter. Sure, Simental is accused of more than 300 murders, most of them since he split from the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix organization in April 2008, but you can’t believe it every time the police accuse a guy of murdering a few hundred people, right? Seriously, it’s not like this guy is accused of disposing of 300 body parts by dipping them in acid…….oh, that’s exactly what he’s accused of doing? Dang. As ugly and heinous as those allegations might be, what I always attempt to do in these situations is to look past the damaging accusations made against one particular drug cartel leader and see how the problems posed by his arrest will affect average Joe Stoner or average Jane Crackhead. How will that street-level drug user be impacted? Will he or she be unable to afford the dime bag or the eight ball because drug prices have soared higher and higher due to the cartels who supply those drugs raising prices with the cost of doing business going up? These are the kinds of problems that the authorities who are so eager to make these arrests never seem to think of. But it’s why I’m here, seeking a solution for the problems that ail…………

- All right, this who recession thing has now gone WAY too far. When it was just lower- and middle-class people feeling the sting of losing jobs, seeing their banks close, unable to pay their mortgages and seeing their financial status circle the drain, I could tolerate it. But when the über-wealthy in this world are so stricken by the world’s financial woes that they can no longer throw exorbitant amounts of money away on racehorses at Keeneland Auction in Lexington, Kentucky, then that’s when I know this has gone too far. These rich snobs gather four time a year at Keeneland, a 1,000-acre racing grounds and sales facility, to put forth hundreds of thousands (and in some cases, millions) on horses that may end up winning lots of races or may end up finishing dead freaking last every time they run. Thoroughbred ownership is a harsh game and the downward turn of the economy has made it more difficult for multi-millionaires to stomach the idea of spending more than most people make in five years on a freaking horse at auction. The most recent five-day sale, which ended Friday, brought in about $23.9 million -- down 27 percent from last year's six-day gross of $32.8 million. In turn, that was a decrease of more than 50 percent from the amount the $70 million the sale raised in 2008. “I had executives who had the cash tell me they couldn't afford being seen buying a thoroughbred while they were sitting in a union negotiation during this economy,” says Keeneland President and CEO Nick Nicholson. One of the auction’s star horses, Distorted Passion, a 5-year-old mare who finished her racing career with five wins in 18 starts, did not sell because the bids on her fell short of the unannounced reserve price. "The market is soft," said Tommy Thornbury, associate sales director at Keeneland. "There's been some overproduction. We saw it coming for some time. Hopefully we're seeing the bottom." Some big names were on hand for the auction, including celebrity chef Bobby country music warbler Toby Keith, but they weren’t doing any buying in the end. Several international contingents also showed up, but they too were reluctant to splurge on many of the prized ponies. Oh, and as I always do when discussing horse racing for any reason, I do want to point out that HORSE RACING IS STILL NOT A SPORT AND NEVER WILL BE. That has nothing to do with this story, but it still needs to be stated. I am nearly as passionate about that fact as I am about seeing these poor, suffering multi-millionaires unable to throw away ridiculous sums of money on races horses…………

- There is no way this end any way other than disastrously. Two-time NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury has clearly gone off the deep end, spending much of last year going certifiably insane on U-Stream, causing observers, fans and former teammates to openly worry about just what had become of the man known as Starbury. He had bounced around from NBA team to NBA team and had been a free agent since leaving the Boston Celtics last season, but Marbury hasn’t been an effective player for quite a while. In short, I cant think of a worse American player to go to China and play basketball there. Yet that’s exactly where Marbury is headed after signing a deal to play in the Chinese Basketball Association. He has inked a deal with the league's northern Shanxi club and is scheduled to arrive in Shanxi next week. "The aim of signing Marbury is to pay back our fans and try to win more games in the rest of the season," said Shanxi boss Wang Xingjiang. Pay back your fans? Don’t you mean punish your fans? What did they ever do to you other than support your team, Wang? How is bringing an insane, unstable whack-a-doo who is too washed up to play in the NBA a reward for your fans? I am sure that for a game or two, Marbury will help boost Shanxi's ticket sales, but once fans see how little this guy has left in the tank, they are going to be in no rush to see him play. As much as Shanxi would love to have Starbury vault it from its current 15th-place standing in the 17-team league, that’s not happening. Supposedly Marbury’s salary won't be that high because he’s willing to take less in order for the chance to promote his personal brand of shoes in China, but whatever Shanxi is paying him will be too much in the end. You’d think Shanxi would have learned its lesson from last season, when the team hired former NBA player Bonzi Wells. Wells, who was nearly as insane as Starbury, played less than two months before he went on vacation but failed to return on time. The team terminated his deal and that was that. Maybe my man Wang Xingjiang has a soft spot for the crazies and wants to help them out, but signing washed-up nut jobs from the NBA is a practice he may want to consider changing……soon……….

- Polls about who the hottest or most desirable woman or man in the world is always crack me up. Everyone has one of these poles, they are totally subjective and thus pointless and are only aimed at generating talk. As an example, I’ll use the poll just released by AskMen.com, which had six million men (or the same six dudes with no life voting a million times each) weighing in over a six-week period as to who the 99 most desirable women in the world are. This year’s winner was “Entourage” actress Emmanuelle Chriqui, a Canadian actress who I’m guessing a lot of guys out there don’t know about at all. Personally, I’ve never watched “Entourage” and I’m not sure I’ve seen a single movie or TV show Chriqui has acted in. Is she the most desirable woman in Hollywood? Again, it DEPENDS WHO YOU ASK. Ask a hundred different guys and you’ll probably get at least 50 different answers. Some guys like blondes, some like brunettes and some like redheads. Others are partial to women of a certain nationality or ethnicity and in the end, who cares? What another dude finds attractive makes absolutely no difference to me. So other top-ten finishers like Marisa Miller, Jessica Alba, Beyonce and Miranda Kerr and Eva Mendes may not even rank on the list of some guys. Similarly, ladies like Kate Winslet, Alicia Keyes, Britney Spears, Katherine Heigl, Christina Aguilera and Keira Knightley didn’t make the AskMen.com list and they may be at the top of many guys’ lists. In the end, my point is that I just don’t give a crap and honestly wish that Web sites, magazines, tabloid TV shows and the like would just stop with these lists because they don’t matter and if you can't come up with anything better to fill space in your publication or on your site, then you don’t deserve to have a publication or Web site anyhow…………

Jose Offerman shows crazy doesn't fade, a Heroes recap and pink snow in Buffalo

- Jose Offerman may no longer be an active baseball player, but that doesn’t mean dude isn't still insane. During his career in Major League Baseball, Offerman was known for being a loose cannon and a guy who was certifiably nuts. He cemented that reputation after retiring from MLB, when he went to play for the Long Island Ducks in an independent minor league and provided an all-time highlight during a game against the Bridgeport Bluefish when pitcher Matt Beech hit him with a fastball and Offerman charged the mound with his bat and swung at least twice, striking Beech and Bluefish catcher John Nathans. That incident took place on Aug. 14, 2007 and it ended up being the last games of Nathans’ career. In February 2009, he sued Offerman in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, seeking $4.8 million in damages. So ended the playing career of a guy who played 15 seasons in the majors and so began one of the most physically abusive managerial careers in the history of Dominican winter league baseball. Fast forward from that 2007 independent league incident to Saturday night in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where Offerman threw a punch at an umpire during an argument in a Dominican winter league game. Offerman, manager of the Licey Tigers, moved menacingly in the direction of first base umpire Daniel Rayburn and appeared to strike Rayburn in the face or neck with his fist. Rayburn fell to the ground and Offerman - once he was corralled - was detained by stadium security and taken to a police station to wait until the end of the game against the Cibao Giants to see if Rayburn would press charges. What inspired Offerman to charge the field and cold-cock an umpire? That would be the ejection of Tigers catcher Ronny Paulino for arguing balls and strikes. Of course, there is never a justification for on-field violence, not even in the third inning of the final game of a winter league semifinal playoff series. The day after the game, Daniel Rayburn, Jayson Bradley, Justin Vogel and Barry Larson gave notice Sunday to the Dominican League, or LiDom, that they were resigning from their positions and were to leave the country because they feared for their safety. "They left after filing their report of Saturday's incident," a source said. In addition to being punched by Offerman, Rayburn and his fellow umpires claimed that they were hit with threats from fans as they left the field at the end of the game at Quisqueya. At this point, it is not known if Rayburn plans to file charges against Offerman, but if he does, Offerman could be charged with a battery count. He did apologize in a statement on Sunday. "My attitude during the events that took place during the playoff series between Gigantes and Licey was unjustifiable," he said. "Of the aforementioned incident between umpire Daniel Rayburn and myself, which happened during a heated discussion with personal insults which are difficult to tolerate, is something I'm terribly sorry.” The LiDom didn’t seem too impressed by his apology, as it hit him with a lifetime ban today. That means fans in Japan and/or Mexico could soon have the privilege of seeing Offerman ply his special brand of crazy in their baseball leagues sooner rather than later…………

- Life already sucks for Microsoft, but it’s about to suck some more for the company and its customers. A federal appeals court has brought the smackdown on Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates and Co., ordering them to strip custom XML support from Word 2007 by January 11 (which came and went), essentially banning the sale of Microsoft Word and Office in their current form. And who was the one to fell the mighty Microsoft giant? That would be the small Canadian firm i4i, which filed a patent infringement lawsuit by in 2007 that led to this injunction. In its lawsuit, i4i claims it owns the custom XML editing technology that is included in Microsoft Word. All they needed was for one judge or panel of judges to agree and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas filled the bill. Not only did the justices issue the injunction stopping the sale of Word 2007 in its current former, they also hit Microsoft with a $290 million. Predictably, Microsoft appealed, but the lower court's ruling was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals. The ruling gave Microsoft not nearly enough time to re-release Word and Office 2007 before being barred from selling the software. Microsoft's Director of Public Affairs Kevin Kutz issued a statement about the decision: “With respect to Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007, we have been preparing for this possibility since the District Court issued its injunction in August 2009 and have put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products. Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007, with this feature removed, available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date. In addition, the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction.” Tough balls for you, Microsoft. Not only do you sell the crappiest operating system on the market, but the one software product you sell that is actually mildly usable is now under attack. You had better hope that subsequent versions of Word and the Office software suite in general are free of the sort of violation that led to this problem, or otherwise you would be forced to rely on the latest garbage version of Windows to bring in the money you need to keep chugging along and I think we all know how and when that would end……badly and very, very soon…………

- Following a strong episode of Heroes last week, this week’s episode was……not nearly as good. The show’s perpetual problem of not finding screen time for many of its key characters for entire episodes was back in full force. AWOL completely this week were: Peter and Angela Petrelli, Matt Parkman, Lydia and Eli (from Sullivan Bros. carnival) and Emma. Nearly AWOL (a minute or less of screen time) was H.R.G. Having cleared that up, let’s get on to those who were on screen. H.R.G.’s one and only scene came was he bade farewell to Mohinder Suresh, who teleported into his apartment at the end of last week’s episode along with Hiro and Ando. After fixing up a homemade compass for H.R.G. to help lead him to Sullivan Bros. carnival, Mohinder said his goodbyes because he had to go make good on a promise he made to a friend. As soon as the door shut behind him, Hiro collapsed at the kitchen table and was rushed to the hospital with Ando there by his side. As he was wheeled into emergency surgery, Hiro lapsed into a coma/dream that put him in an unusual-but-familiar place: the Burnt Toast diner in Odessa, Texas. It was where Hiro met his girl Charlie and where much of his time on the show has been centered, for better and worse. Inside his mental diner, Hiro was put on trial for using his power to teleport through space and time for personal gain. The judge was his deceased father Kaito Nakamura and the prosecutor was none other than Adam Monroe/ Takezo Kensei, the man Hiro met in Season 2 when he teleported back in time to ancient Japan and who became a nemesis of his in subsequent episodes, both in the past and in the present. Monroe first calls in past versions of Ando and Hiro’s sister Kimito, the versions from a visit to the carnival years ago who fell in love and were eventually married, but only after Hiro teleported back in time, stepped in front of a spilled slushy that Ando dumped on Kimito and thus prevented a moment that turned their relationship in the wrong direction. The next witness was Sylar, with whom Hiro struck a deal to heal Charlie from a fatal brain tumor in exchange for Hiro allowing Sylar to remain free, killing people and taking their powers. When Monroe attempted to call Charlie herself as a witness, he made his point instead by explaining that she could not testify because she was lost somewhere in space and time because of Hiro’s deal struck with Samuel. Asked to call his own witnesses, Ando (Hiro’s court-appointed attorney) calls Hiro himself and has him testify that ever since being given his power, he has attempted to make it a better place, do good and improve life for those he loves. Even if he has made mistakes, he feels that they have been with good intentions. At trial’s end, Hiro is found guilty and while still in his dream state, finds himself in an operating room where the doors open to reveal a long hallway with a bright light at the end. His jury, judge, prosecutor and attorney line the hall and as Hiro walks toward the light, he declares that in order to go out with honor, he will change his plea from not guilty to guilty. Kaito hands him a samurai sword and tells him to go out with honor, which turns out to mean a sword fight with Adam Monroe. Hiro battles and wins the fight, putting a sword right through Monroe’s gut. He turns around to see his deceased mother standing in the light, but instead of being there to welcome him to the afterlife, she’s there to heal his inoperable brain tumor. Back in non-dream life, Hiro regains a pulse and is apparently back among the living as a jubilant Ando looks on and later sits beside his bed as Hiro begins his recovery. Life is not so pleasant for Samuel, who thinks his dreams are coming true after kidnapping the longtime object of his affection, Vanessa Wheeler, last episode and bringing her to the carnival. Initially she was angry and wanted only to go back home, but this week she found herself charmed by Samuel as he always found a way to say the right thing to stir up fond memories from their past. He even takes her for a milkshake at a nearby diner and they share the proverbially cheesy two-straws-one-milkshake moment. As his coup de tat, he takes her to see the Garden of Eden-like paradise he and one of his super-powered carneys, Ian, created in the valley near the carnival. In the valley is a beautiful log cabin, just like the one the two of them used to dream about when they were dating. Samuel wants Vanessa to marry him and come live there, but as much as she loves how he has made the dream come true, she admits her life is not there and demands to be taken home. Samuel obliges, but later he goes for a meal at the same diner and jumps all over the waitress merely for the way she looks at him. Samuel’s rage causes him to unleash his power, setting off a major earthquake with effects that can be seen miles away at the carnival. A still-fuming Samuel storms back into the carnival, but no one dares look him in the eye or talk to him. What will the fallout be? The last storyline was Claire Bennet coming face to face with her archnemesis, Sylar once again. He visits her at Arlington University in Arlington, Va. because he can’t see to get his mojo back and find his inner serial killer/psychopath. Before he arrives, Claire and roommate Gretchen are in the dining hall eating lunch. Gretchen tries to get Claire to open up about her time spent recently at the carnival and her trouble with her father, but Claire resists. The writers and producers then made another blatant attempt to play up the lesbian tension between the two, with Gretchen trying to hold Claire’s hand in support and Claire pulling away. She heads off across campus to a review session for one of her classes but when she shows up, she finds herself staring into Sylar’s eyes. He explains that she must cooperate or he will kill Gretchen, whom he has kidnapped. Sylar goes on to explain that he and Claire are actually very similar – abandoned by birth parents who didn’t understand them, adopted by parents who didn’t understand them and trying to figure out their place in the world. Claire angrily declares that they are nothing alike, tells Sylar he’s a psychopath and storms out. He uses his power of telepathy to toss her down, then continues his monologue and explains that if she won't help voluntarily, he will merely pry into her mind and find out for himself. But instead of his usual M.O. of slicing her head open, he uses the power he picked up from Lydia at the carnival, allowing him to read her mind merely by physical contact. To rub in his control over her, Sylar chooses a kiss for the physical contact and finds out what he wants to know. He talks some post-kiss smack and Claire seizes the chance to jam a pencil into his eye, then escapes to save Gretchen. Back in the dorm room, she unties Gretchen and tells her that she’s sorry for what’s happening. Just then, a blast rips through the room, knocking out part of the wall. The girls flee into the hall and hide in a broom closet, where they try to evade Sylar and end up in a serious chat. Claire admits (time to ratchet up the lesbian tensions again!) that she does have a desire to explore things with Gretchen, but she’s scared and dealing with the ramipercussions of her power and all it entails. Ultimately, they reach the conclusion that it is actually similar to Sylar’s struggle and that the only way for him to feel connected to anyone and part of the human race is to give up his powers. Following that gem of wisdom, “Gretchen” morphs back into Sylar, revealing that it was him all along since Claire returned to the dorm room. A disgusted Claire rushes off to find Gretchen, who is still hanging out at the dining hall. Claire gives her a big hug, says that she wants to stop being scared and open up about her feelings and declares that she’s finally ready for a serious talk. The two then holds hands and traipse out of the dining hall, not worrying if people talk about their lesbian experimentation. And so that was the episode in all of its terribleness. Just a subpar episode overall and one that isn’t going to do much to bolster the show’s declining reputation. Hopefully next week will be better…………

- Ordinarily I would absolutely rip a professional athlete for insulting the intelligence and competence of the very fans who pay his salary by attending games and buying merchandise, but I’ll make an exception the case of Boston Celtics guard Ray Allen. Allen sees a clear problem when it comes to All-Star voting, namely that the fans who vote for the NBA All-Star game are clueless idiots. Evidence for this belief can be found by looking no further than this year’s voting, where in Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady are in line to be elected as starters despite having made little or no impact on their respective teams this season. McGrady is easily the worse of the two, having played just six (SIX!) of the Houston Rockets’ 43 games, averaging less than eight minutes per game and 3.2 points per game. Inexplicably, the fans are trying to vote him in as an ASG starter. Ditto for Iverson, who couldn’t find a job this past offseason, signed with Memphis and was released after only three games because he was a me-first malcontent who couldn’t subjugate his own ego and come off the bench instead of start even though he clearly is no longer an elite player. He landed with one of his former teams, the Philadelphia 76ers, and has been decent but not great, averaging 14 points a game. Yet there he is, poised to earn an ASG starting spot over far more deserving candidates. In light of this, Allen has a few suggestions. "I like the fact that the fans get the opportunity to vote and pick who they'd like to see in the All-Star Game, but I don't think it should be 100 percent," Allen said. He went on to explain fan voting has made the game "watered down" and called fans to have 50 percent of the vote, with the other 50 percent being divided evenly between the media and the players. I don’t like the idea of including the media and think the 50 percent of the vote not in the hands of fans should be split between coaches and players, but I like the direction Allen is going here. The NBA, on the other hand, is in favor of the status quo. "We look at it as a great way to engage the fans," NBA spokesman Brian McIntyre said. "We think it's a good system." I’m all for engaging the fans, B., but you cannot overlook the fact that a stunning, disturbing number of them are imbeciles. Just because the NBA has used fan voting for ASG starters since the mid-70s doesn’t mean you have to stick with it. Perhaps the public is just becoming dumber and dumber, but if that’s the case, you need to protect people from themselves. There is no freaking way McGrady should be leading Steve Nash for the second guard spot in the Western Conference, period. Dude isn’t even playing right now because his own team is attempting to trade him and doesn’t like his attitude. To address McGrady-like situations in the future, Allen thinks commissioner David Stern should consider a rule mandating a player appear in a minimum number of games to be eligible. "Tracy, if he played, I'm sure he'd play well enough to be an All-Star player because he's done that his career," Allen said. "But again, that's taking away from another player in the Western Conference that's having a great year, that's been playing, that deserves to be in there." Even McIntyre admitted that when they vote, fans don’t correctly select the players having the best year and thus most deserving of playing in the All-Star game." A lot of times voting reflects career achievement as well as yearly achievements," McIntyre said. That should settle it right there because no one in this argument honestly believes the fans are selecting the most deserving players for the ASG…………

- I know the rule is that you don’t eat the yellow snow, but does the same principle hold true for other hues of the wintry precipitation? I ask this question not only for my own benefit, but also for the benefit of all my friends in and around the Buffalo, N.Y. area. One particular neighborhood in Buffalo, one located near the old Buffalo Color Plant at Lee and Elk streets, is currently dealing with the plague of pink snow. Most of the neighborhood is covered in the pinkish snow, both on the ground and on the rooftops of homes in the area Because the snow was obviously not pink when it fell from the sky, residents are left to wonder what caused the color change and if they should be taking any special measures to cope with it. The cause of the pink show would seem to be the demolition of the Buffalo Color Plant (makes sense, no?), but local health officials insist that there is nothing to worry about. They claim the color is the result of a food coloring, red dye 40, that was once manufactured at the plant. There was apparently a similar incident in the same area many years ago, but that didn’t allay the fears of residents and they want assurances that the pink snow is in no way dangerous to them or their children. Just don’t eat the pink snow or the yellow snow and all will be good, Buffalo residents…………