Lady Gaga + Judy Garland, Brock Lesnar confuses Bo and university art theft conspiracies

- Stolen art seems to be the sort of thing that happens in other parts of the world and not as much in the United States, as many of the world’s top museums are in Europe or elsewhere on the planet. But if you believe the claims in a lawsuit filed by a Pennsylvania man against the University of Notre Dame, the Indiana school is displaying $575,000 worth of early American art that was stolen from his father. Scott Leff and his wife filed the lawsuit last month, accusing Notre Dame of buying his father's figurine collection more than a decade ago from a New Mexico dealer, who previously purchased it it from Jay Leff's ex-wife. The university can easily claim regardless of what the legal situation is that it purchased the art with honorable intentions, but Scott Leff claims his father's ex-wife pilfered his art collection in 1996 after his father filed for divorce. It’s a classic “eff you” divorce-process move, heisting valuable items and selling them off for a fraction of their actual value, and for that alleged misdeed, Scott Leff is seeking the art's return or damages equal to its current value. A private school with deep pockets, the university is standing its ground on this one, noting in correspondence with Scott Leff that he has no ownership proof and did nothing to get the art back for 20 years. A university spokesman says Notre Dame acquired the figurines in good faith and Leff could end up spending more in fighting this case than he’s going to win should he emerge victorious in this case……..

- When Brock Lesnar boasted that he was “the modern-day Bo Jackson” after announcing his return to the UFC for a one-off match against hard-hitting Mark Hunt at UFC 200, maybe he should have toned the hyperbole down a bit. After all, trying to style yourself as a legitimate two-sport athlete is a stretch when one of those sports is actually sports entertainment, a blend of some elements of athletic competition sprinkled in around scripted theatrics. Lesnar was good, but not dominant when he was in UFC the first time, so that part of the comparison to Jackson, an NFL Pro Bowler and MLB All-Star in the 1980s and ‘90s, doesn’t really fit either. It especially doesn’t fit for Jackson, who was recently asked about Lesnar’s comparison and didn’t react angrily or with great offense, but rather with genuine bewilderment. "I don't even know who Brock Lesnar is, man,” Jackson said. "I don't watch [UFC and pro wrestling]. If I didn't make money in it, I don't know nothing about it." It’s an odd policy because many athletes love watching sports other than their own and don’t stick strictly to the sport or sports they played professionally once they retire, but Jackson has always been a different sort of dude and that peculiar approach seems to have followed him into life after professional sports. Lesnar’s UFC 200 bout was approved by WWE as a standalone happening and with his already sparse schedule of fake wrestling in WWE, it couldn’t have been all that difficult to find enough time to train and compete for the fight with Hunt. The better comparison might be Nate Robinson, the former NBA player who recently failed to impress the Seattle Seahawks in a tryout session as he attempted to cross over to football from basketball……….

- It’s the ugly underside of the Philippines’ new leader and his promises to whip the country back in shape and now, the kids are caught in the middle. A crackdown bearing the Philippine president-elect's name is underway and police have rounded up hundreds of children or their parents to enforce a night curfew for minors. Apprehending drunk and shirtless men roaming metropolitan Manila's slums is shaky enough, but the poor people who were among Rodrigo Duterte's strongest supporters are finding out that their support doesn’t guarantee much in the war against crime he has vowed to wage. In a surprise sweep, a girl who appeared to be about 10 years old was dragged to a police van for curfew violation despite claiming she was only outside to take out the garbage, while a boy about the same age was seen sobbing as a slightly older-looking boy dropped food he’d just bought when police apprehended him. A mother sleeping on a sidewalk had her toddler ripped from her arms by a social worker and was dragged to a police vehicle, ironically enough while wearing a rubber bracelet bearing Duterte's name. The crackdown is dubbed "Oplan Rody," with Oplan an acronym for "Rid the Streets of Drinkers and Youth" and Rody the nickname of Duterte, who becomes president June 30. With this sort of build-up to his impending reign of terror, complete with police and local officials reviving little-enforced city ordinances like night-to-dawn curfews for minors, a ban on drinking alcohol in the streets and shirtless men in public places, it’s easy to see where there is extreme apprehension about what the rest of his term in office will bring……..

- Being a part of “American Horror Story” seems to have opened some new doors for Lady Gaga. The pop singer and part-time actress is reportedly in talks to star opposite Bradley Cooper in his long-planned remake of “A Star Is Born,” in which Cooper is now planning to direct, produce and star. He’s been linked to the project dating back to 2012, at which point Clint Eastwood was attached to direct. At that time, Beyoncé Knowles was attached to play the film's female lead, but when the project stalled she elected to move on elsewhere in her ongoing quest for domination of the entertainment world. The original film starred Janet Gaynor in 1937, with icons Judy Garland (1954) and Barbra Streisand (1976) taking on the role in subsequent years portraying an ambitious female singer who falls in love with an aging rocker, only to watch her career take off as his goes into decline. The deal isn't done, but Lady Gaga is now in negotiations for the role after her screen test with Cooper impressed Warner Bros. executives. Will Fetters, who has written for “The Lucky One” and “Remember Me,” has penned the script for this one and previously said he based the aging rocker character on the late Kurt Cobain. "I approached A Star Is Born [imagining] if Kurt Cobain never got to go unplugged and survived and it's 20 years later and it's now, and he wanted to try to do that album with that understanding as this grunge icon,” Fetters said. “That'd be tough to get done if he was past his prime, no longer selling, how does he get that album?" Thanks for making Cobain an even more depressing, melancholy figure than he already was, Billy………

The Sojourner Truth NFL medical pot, Portland v. tipping and 'Orphan Black' lives...for now

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- Should anyone really have to tell independent Australian legislature candidate Bob Katter that his mic-drop of a new campaign ad went about 10 paces too far? Katter, running as a man without a party, decided to start his own party of a different sort when he filmed and released a campaign ad suggesting he shot dead two political rivals. This train wreck of a 58-second ad did as much damage to the already dubious reputation of an also-ran indie political candidate as can be done when it was posed online earlier this week. In the ad, Katter paints the picture of a Western film parody in which the big, dramatic scene finds him blowing smoke from a revolver barrel as two men wearing stockings over their faces and shirts emblazoned with the names of Australia's two major political parties lie spread eagle in the Outback dust. While not actually showing him gunning down these two faceless representations of what he seems to believe is wrong with is country, the message is pretty clear and came after the two figures erected a sign advertising "Australia for Sale." Katter’s counter? His anti-foreign investment slogan: "Australia is 'NOT' for Sale,” with which he ends his ad. For a country that banned automatic weapons and enacted strict gun laws 20 years ago, it’s a regrettable moment and one Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull condemned ahead of general elections on July 2. It’s sad because Aussies are typically thought of as a walking party and guaranteed fun wherever they go, but this is proof that every country has its insensitive, tone-deaf ass hats………

- The news is mixed, so it’s all about where fans of BBC America’s sci-fi drama “Orphan Black” choose to focus. On one hand, the hit series has been picked up for a fifth season, but the joy over that revelation is tempered by news from BBC America that the fifth season will also be the final season. “Orphan Black,” starring Tatiana Maslany, is a science fiction drama centered on Maslany's character Sarah and her 'cloned sisters.’ Show co-creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson announced the fifth season and aid that they are "excited to deliver an epic conclusion to the tale of Sarah and her clone sisters" and that the past four seasons "have been a phenomenal adventure.” The pair also expressed gratitude for those who have faithfully followed their show, sprinkled with a nice dose of false humility. “We are eternally grateful to our loyal fans who have loved the twists and thrills of our weird little show. We are thankful to our partners at Temple Street, and to BBC America and Space for their support and giving us the opportunity to end on a high,” the two said in a joint statement, while BBC America president Sarah Barnett praised the "genius" team of actors, writers and producers who "have, time after time, taken us to a place of awe, delight and utter shock and surprise." Barnett called Maslany’s character Tatiana “a complete revelation” who has delivered “one of the most remarkable performances on television.” Yeah, but if it’s that good, then why is your network canceling it after the coming season……..

- It’s a small, yet growing trend in the restaurant industry: gratuity-free dining. Some pricier establishments have gone to the practice of boosting their prices and removing tips from the pay of servers, which seems like a greedy move or even an outright cash grab that guarantees the money will come in rather than relying on customers to feel the service they received merited a 20-percent gratuity…and that’s mostly what it is. The newest group of restaurants taking this stance is from Portland, Oregon and these six high-end establishments are about to take tips out of the equation. Park Kitchen, The Bent Brick, Farm Spirit, Le Pigeon, Navarre and Luce will begin using a new “gratuity free” logo on websites, menus, social media and in windows so customers know why their steak now costs $17.99 instead of $15.99 and why there’s no line on their bill for a tip. Restaurateur Scott Dolich says the change is one he hopes will catch on on a larger scale. “My overall hope is that this will slowly evolve in the restaurant industry,” Dolich said. “This is really one of the last industries that has held onto tips.” Tips are often a way for customers to respond to the quality (or lack thereof) of their meal and especially the quality of the service they receive, but Dolich doesn’t like that gray area. “There are mixed messages with tipping,” Dolich said. “Someone can come in and tip 15 percent and think that’s good, but it leaves us thinking, ‘What did we do wrong?” What did you do wrong? Maybe the steak was undercooked, maybe the sauce was too salty, maybe the salad was subpar…or maybe that person tipped 15 percent because that’s what they could afford. Dolich, who owns Park Kitchen and The Bent Brick, claims the primary reason for eliminating tips is his means of dealing with the rise of minimum wage, especially in the wake of a recent federal court ruling that banned staff from being able to share tips. As a result, these six eateries will raise their prices by a whopping 18 percent, meaning there are now some much more appealing options for dining choices in Portland than these six places……..

- In his quest to be the Sojourner Truth of ganja in the NFL, newly minted free agent Eugene Monroe will not be silenced. Monroe, who was released by the Baltimore Ravens after efforts to trade him to the New York Giants fell through, insisted in a statement that his release won't deter him from his campaign to get medical marijuana taken off the NFL's banned substances list. "Despite the current uncertainties, one thing is for sure: whatever happens in terms of my professional football career, I will never stop pushing for the League to accept medical cannabis as a viable option for pain management," he said. "I will do everything I can to ensure the generations of NFL players after me won't have to resort to harmful and addictive opioids as their only option for pain management." It’s worth noting that Monroe is technically not advocating to let NFLers spark up recreationally, although anyone who lives in a state where medical chron is legal knows that there are a million and two ways for people to get medical marijuana clearance when they don’t actually need it. Monroe says he can’t say for sure whether the Ravens released him because he has been campaigning loudly for the NFL to take medical marijuana off its banned substances list, but said that in the past the team has distanced itself from him when it comes to the cause and made it clear they “do not support my advocacy." A cynic could argue that Monroe’s frequent injuries (i.e. his reason to like medical pot), the presence of Ronnie Stanley, the No. 6 overall pick in this year's draft, and his overall performance factored into Monroe's exit from the Ravens, as opposed to the Great Ganja Conspiracy of 2016………

Sweden gets angry, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" revived and Ronaldo gets b*tchy at Iceland

- Bitter much, Portugal star striker Cristiano Ronaldo? Sounding very much like a rich, spoiled brat who’s angry that the smaller, poorer, weaker kid just beat him in a tetherball game on the playground, Ronaldo snapped at Iceland for their defensive tactics and over-celebration after the teams shared a 1-1 draw in the Euro 2016 Group F opener. Iceland was making its first Euro championships appearance and by all rights, seemed legitimately glad to be there with a contingent of fans representing about 1/8 of its island population of about 332,000 people. When Birkir Bjarnason's goal five minutes after halftime evened the game at 1-1, the smallest country in the competition was jubilant. The Icelanders spent much of the game playing defense-first soccer, knowing they didn’t have the offensive firepower of the Portuguese, who boast one of the world’s best players and biggest whiny b*tches. “I thought they'd won the Euros the way they celebrated at the end, it was unbelievable," Ronaldo said. "When they don't try to play and just defend, defend, defend, this in my opinion shows a small mentality and are not going to do anything in the competition." In other words, though they did nothing illegal or unethical, they didn’t make enough of a concerted, consistent effort to score and therefore, in the words of Ronaldo, the Icelandic defense put "the bus in the net." This world-class bitterman outright said that his team “tried hard to win the game, Iceland didn't try anything.” It was topped off by him allegedly refusing to shake Iceland players' hands after the game, capping an all-around classless day for a guy who could probably buy the whole island of Iceland with a single paycheck………

- Everyone is responding to this week’s horrific mass shooting in Orlando differently. Congress is continuing to do nothing in regards to gun control, NRA kooks are tightening their grips on their rifles in case anyone tries to take them away, gun opponents are calling for automatic weapons bans…..and Bates County (Missouri) Sheriff Chad Anderson is spending government dollars to make sure that residents of his county have every possible chance to gun-up. Anderson is boldly waiving the cost of concealed carry permits for the entire month of June for all Bates County residents, allegedly in the name of safety. According to Anderson, he wants people who live in his community to feel safe and the best way to make that happen is introducing a lot more guns into the mix. The offer is actually an enticing one for those who like sending wads of hot metal flying through the air in an deliberate attempt to wound or kill another person, as getting a concealed carry permit can be expensive. Missouri residents must be 19 years old to get a concealed carry permit, while the age requirement is 18 for members of the military. It’s $100 for a first-time permit holder and permits are valid for five years, while it’s only $50 for permit renewals. Anderson is giving up a lot of money to allow folks to get their gun on and the good news is that with the next concealed carry class isn’t until next month, anyone who applies now will still get their permit for free. Permits can take up to 45 days to process, so all the lead lovers out there who want to take advantage of this limited-time offer will have to exercise a little patience………

- He has an acerbic, caustic sense of humor, but this is no joke from counterculture favorite Larry David. The creator of the cult favorite comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm” will bring the show back for a ninth season. HBO announced the news, reviving the show after five years in TV Neverland. The show last aired new episodes in 2011, but HBO president of programming Casey Bloys broke the news that David and his crew of mischief-making friends were coming back. "We're thrilled that Larry [David] has decided to do a new season of Curb and can't wait to see what he has planned,” Bloys said. That’s in stark contrast to David's co-star Jeff Garlin saying that he thought there was “a decent chance …not good, not bad, decent" of the show returning. David, originally known as the co-creator of “Seinfeld,”  stars as a fictionalized version of himself in the semi-improvised show, which he also created and writes. In other words, this show wouldn’t be coming back unless David himself was extremely committed to making it happen. HBO never seems to have a dearth of worthwhile shows, but its comedic offerings have lagged behind its dramatic ones of late and having a previously dormant show roar back to life is bound to generate lot of interest, fan reaction and support for the next round of episodes, whenever they hit screens of all shapes and sizes. Here’s hoping David’s razor-sharp wit is as snarky as ever……..

- Sweden isn't often thought of as a place with a lot of rage, malice and badass-ery. That probably isn't going to change based on Swedish police arresting four people suspected of assaulting security guards and trespassing at the government headquarters in Stockholm, but it was still a nice effort. These four are  environmental activists planning a stunt as part of a campaign urging the government to close state-owned utility Vattenfall's coal operations in Germany and while climbing ladders to get onto the roof of the entrance of the building and unfurling a banner there isn't exactly the sort of earth-shaking effort that makes the world take notice, it’s the thought that counts here. Perhaps realizing that they needed to add an edge to their effort to really leave a mark, the demonstrators also engaged in an altercation with security officers guarding the entrance, so that’s something. No one was injured in the incident and it logically follows given the small scale of this uprising that it won't have a major impact when the government decides whether to approve a bid from Czech investors for Vattenfall's coal mines and power plants in Germany. Climate activists - and four kooks with a Spiderman complex and a weak-ass protest plan - believe that government should dismantle the coal assets instead of selling them, but pretty much no government is going to willfully turn its back on a large amount of cash if someone is standing in front of them with a suitcase full of cash and a willingness to pay a steep price for some of its assets. So nice try, four wacky Swedish enviro-lovers, but next time aim much higher if you really want to affect change in your battle to save our planet from whatever imminent destruction is on its way………..

Kansas exploits immigrants, UK hoops drunk in the street and James Cameron rises again

- Oh good, another opportunity for Jimmy Cameron to waste four-plus hours of the movie-watching public’s lives. The oft-reclusive director of the four-hour behemoth that is “Titanic” has directed just one film since that Leonardo DiCaprio-led 1997 release - 2009’s critical and commercial smash success “Avatar” - but he’s making a comeback of sorts by producing a documentary about the mythical lost city of Atlantis. Cameron is executive producer of what is allegedly a two-hour documentary called “Search For Atlantis,” but nothing Cameron has ever done has lasted less than three hours. Besides, this project will be shown on National Geographic and honestly, does that network even have any other programming or does it just air “Planet Earth” reruns on an endless loop? Cameron could make a 10-hour documentary and there would still be plenty of time for it. “Search For Atlantis” is the second documentary made by National Geographic about the mythical city, so clearly someone at the network is really eager to figure out where the hell Atlantis went. Back in 2011, the show “Finding Atlantis” claimed to have located Atlantis off the coast of southern Spain. Cameron claims to have refuted that with fresh intelligence. “Finding the historical and archaeological truth behind the Atlantis myth has always been a fascination of mine,” Cameron said. “Our exploration team will investigate several new theories about where the real Atlantis was, who these mysterious people were, and what disaster wiped them from the Earth over three millennia ago.” Filming for his project has begun in Sicily, Malta, Crete and Sardinia as well as the original documentary’s location in Spain, setting up future chapters, “Atlantis: Where the hell is it?” and “Desperately Seeking Atlantis.” Stay tuned for that barrel of fun………..

- Every government employee’s dream work scenario is no more in Venezuela. The South American nation’s  two-day workweek is no more, as public workers have been ordered to return to working five days a week because officials say a severe energy crisis has eased. This curious policy decision came in April, when the national government decreed that public employees would work just Monday and Tuesday in a bid to save energy. As it turned out, the only energy they were really saving was the sort required to show up at work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday because in a shocking twist, it seems that many of these workers didn’t just sit home and read books while lighting their houses with candles. No, they were likely using up lots of power running their own computers and other miscellaneous electronic devices, so no real power savings were achieved. The return to the five-day work week came because the country’s energy minister said water levels at the dam that supplies most of the country's electricity had been somewhat restored. Those who worry that the system shock employees might have by being asked to work all five days during the week can rest easy because while these slackers will be in the office Monday through Friday, they will only be in that office on Wednesdays, Thursday and Fridays until 1 p.m. It’s quite a grind, but hopefully these working class heroes can find a way to endure it…….

- Someone got to their 21st birthday a little early, eh Kentucky senior forward Derek Willis? Willis, who should probably know by virtue of being around for a fourth year under John Calipari - i.e. the maestro of the one-and-done college basketball prospect - that he’s not really destined for great things on the hardwood, now finds himself staring down charges of public alcohol intoxication after he was found lying in the street late at night by Boone County Sheriff's Department deputies. According to a police citation, a observed Willis lying outside the open driver's side door of a car and had to awaken him Saturday morning in Union, Kentucky. The deputy noticed a "strong odor" of alcohol coming from Willis and the car and said he had extremely slurred speech and along with being virtually comatose in the street, that’s a strong indicator that a person has definitely had "a lot" to drink. Willis was arrested and later released after posting $50 bond, while a UK spokesperson said the school is aware of the situation and gathering information. Oh, and the timing of this is a bit gnarly because the 6-foot-9 Willis doesn’t turn 21 until next week, so there’s that too. The irony is that this is a guy who became a bigger part of Kentucky's rotation last season and finished with per-game averages of 7.7 points and 4.0 rebounds. He’s also the second-leading scorer returning to a Wildcats squad that lost three players to the NBA draft, but knowing Calipari’s typical disciplinary approach, he’ll have to sit out a meaningless non-league game or two against a Division II opponent as penance for his crimes…….

- It’s one of the worst clichés imaginable when it comes to companies and undocumented immigrants working for those companies. A shady employer hires a bunch of border crashers who don’t have green cards, work visas or anything allowing them to legally enter and be employed in the United States, then turns around and uses their undocumented status to extort and blackmail them. This time, its Century Roofing owners Tommy Frank Keaton and Graziano Cornolo, whose Kansas-based roofing company is accused of forcing workers who are in the U.S. illegally to pay kickbacks by threatening to turn them into immigration agents if they didn't. According to a 17-count federal indictment unsealed this week in Kansas City, Kansas, these two lotharios profited from kickbacks since at least 2009, paying workers who were in the country illegally in cash to complete roofing projects in the Kansas City area in Kansas and Missouri, then forcing the workers to give some of the money back. Ah, make it look like you’re paying them fair and legal wages, but put that cash in one hand and take it right back out before they can stash it in their pockets for the same reason that anyone does anything, because they can. According to a spokesman for Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall, no attorneys had entered an appearance for either defendant, but given that they a) are scumbags and b) have a lot of money, rest assured that someone will represent them and try to explain why it’s OK for a business owner to exploit people who yes, are breaking the law, but still don’t need to be treated like subhuman beings in order to line the pockets of wealthy Americans who appear to have neither morals nor scruples. Even if Keaton and Cornolo are somehow acquitted of these charges because #americanjusticeisbroken, they should still be convicted of being lame, lazy and unimaginative when it comes to the crimes they (allegedly) chose to perpetrate upon illegals…….

Top Gear's sagging ratings, Maine murder by machete and an MLB midsection tragedy

- Dudes everywhere are wincing, reflexively covering their own midsections from hundreds of miles away and averting their eyes from the televisions as replays of the awful scene involving Cleveland third baseman Juan Uribe  play over and over again. Uribe suffered an injury described in two words that should never be used together in a sentence, sentence fragment or utterance of any sort in any language for any reason at any time: testicular contusion. Uribe left the Indians' game against Los Angeles to end a three-game weekend series in the fourth inning when Mike Trout's scorching ground ball struck him squarely in the groin while he attempted to field it. In a feeling dudes everywhere know too well, Uribe was left flat on the ground in obvious, excruciating pain. The veteran utility man stayed down for several moments and had trouble standing before a cart arrived to take him off the field. Fittingly, that cart was emblazoned with the words “Anaheim Fire & Rescue.” Emergency services were definitely needed that day as Uribe was carted off and every guy in attendance silently cursed the unfairness of the world. Michael Martinez moved in from center field to replace Uribe at third and presumably made sure that he had the best, strongest cup in the team’s equipment room for the remainder of the game. Here’s hoping Uribe is resting, recovering and takes as much time as needed and then some before he even thinks about thinking about returning to action………

- Oh, the dirty, unsavory world that is Albanian politics. There’s just so much power and opportunity for world domination that you know folks are going to dig up every dirty trick they know to get control and keep it once they have it. That includes the mayor of an Albanian town whom prosecutors claim used forged documentation to hide past criminal convictions. Investigators alleged that Elvis Roshi, the mayor of Kavaja, 30 miles west of the capital, Tirana, provided false documentation that hides criminal convictions in Italy and Switzerland dating to the 1990s. He’s the first official to be arrested based on a six-month old anti-corruption law that requires the vetting of public officials and a statement from the prosecutor general's press office lays out the dastardly deeds Roshi allegedly committed so many years ago and tried to hide in order to rise to such a position of prominence in a random Albanian town that no one outside the borders of Albania knows even exists. It’s exactly the sort of plot that shakes the world to its foundations. Prosecutors noted that Roshi was convicted of rape in Italy but gave no other details, yet this case promises to get uglier as it goes on in light of a law law passed in December which is considered a key tool in fighting corruption, a major obstacle to Albania's ambitions to join the European Union. However, it might need to net a bigger fish than the mayor of Kavaja before the EU really stands up and takes notice……….

- It’s been revived with new hosts, given a shiny new promotional campaign and yet, “Top Gear” is not faring too well. The auto-centric series recently came back without original hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May left after Clarkson was fired for punching producer Oisin Tymon in 2015 and with Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc at the helm, its ratings have dropped again to what is believed to be a 13-year low. The show attracted an audience of 2.4 million to BBC2 for its third episode over the weekend and by most any metric, that represents the smallest overnight ratings since 2003. The trend is downward, as the first episode of the Evans-helmed “Top Gear” snared an overnight audience of 4.4 million, then saw that number decline to 2.8 million for its second episode before declining to 2.4 million over the weekend. Evans, sensing how bad all of that looks for he and LeBlanc, took to Twitter to make his case for the numbers not being what they seem to be. "Overnight viewing figures for Top Gear have never been less relevant. Obviously, some newspapers prefer to live in the past,” Evans tweeted. He has a slight point, as a total of 8.2 million watched the show across the week, including 1.8 million on BBC iPlayer. Strictly judging a show by how many people watch it when it airs on television for the first time is not a great measure of its success because of DVR, online streaming services and the like. Meanwhile, Clarkson, Hammond and May have signed a deal with Amazon Prime for three seasons of 12 hour-long episodes of a new car series, “The Grand Tour,” debuting this fall………

- It’s worth noting that as the trend of horrific gun violence incidents continues to spread like a disease across America, there are evil or just plain stupid, IQ-deprived people committing terrible acts of violence without the aid of guns. There are psychotic, unstable souls like Limington, Maine resident Bruce Akers, who is accused of using a machete to nearly decapitate a neighbor after a series of disagreements, including an accusation of stolen alcohol. Yup, you read that right. One man allegedly decided that having a few tiffs with his neighbor and possibly having that neighbor steal a six-pack of cheap beer is a reason to grab your machete, march over the property line and take a man’s life in one of the most brutal fashions imaginable. Police say Akers called them a day before the victim was reported missing to accuse him of stealing a six-pack of alcoholic beverages. When Douglas Flint went AWOL and his relatives reported him missing, investigators went searching for him and found his body under a pile of rotting deer carcasses. Nice move, Akers. Toss the body under a pile of deer blood, guts and bones and no one will notice that there’s a rotting, decomposing human body in that pile. According to an affidavit, there was a series of disagreements and unusual behavior by Akers, who allegedly trespassed and bathed in Flint's swimming pool. Those actions suggest some sort of mental issues on Akers, who was charged with murder after police questioned him and found the body in his deer carcass pile. Some cases of murder are extremely difficult to prove on account of circumstances and lack of evidence, possibly even due to great intelligence on the part of the accused. This does not appear to be one of those instances……….

Soccer gonna soccer, Minion silo fun and Pope Francis v. fitness

- Right aim, sort of, but wrong direction, Pope Francis. The pontiff lashed out at in-shape, pretty people over the weekend, claiming that what he calls the pursuit for perfect bodies leads to society hiding away the disabled to avoid offending sensibilities of what he terms "the privileged few." Pope Frank celebrated Mass Sunday in St. Peter's Square in an event dedicated to disabled people and their caregivers and while advocating for disabled folks is never a bad thing, saying that "the world does not become better because only apparently 'perfect' -- not to mention 'made-over' -- people live there," but when solidarity and mutual acceptance and respect increase misses the point entirely. Simply put, people with physical disabilities are not the ones who are put in a bad position by people trying to get six-pack abs and toned legs, butts and arms. In fact, the ones who are crapped on by the fit, muscled segment of society are those who are not disabled, but rather flabby and out of shape. The obese aren’t disabled, just saddled with poor eating habits and a lack of dedication to exercise. Frank is missing the point when he complains that "care for one's body has become an obsession" and "big business” because while those things are true, they do not led to "anything imperfect" being hidden away since "it threatens the happiness and serenity of the privileged few and endangers the dominant model." Whatever evils befall people with disabilities, it isn’t because of the dudes down at the gym pumping iron to Slayer or the women doing CrossFit in tight-fitting clothing. Keep championing the cause of those marginalized in many societies, but leave the toned and athletic out of it……..

- Look at Icelandic indie rock icons Sigur Ros, doing what high-minded Icelandic indie rock bands do. Specifically, Sigur Ros are teaming up with London’s Tate Modern museum on a new collaboration featuring an interactive video experience as well as new music. Titled 'States of Matter', the project is split into four "visual journeys" – plasma, air, solid and liquid – and in true high-minded, art-museum form, they will explore the “past, present and future of Tate Modern, the Bankside building that hosts it in London and its new extension.” Included are videos featuring original music composed by band members Orri Páll Dýrason and Georg Hólm. “With ‘States of Matter,’ we wanted to explore more experimental and textural options. Splitting the track means that each stem had to have its own subtleties, its own identity while being part of a cohesive piece,” the band said in a statement. Sigur Ros are clearly big into multimedia at this point, with drummer Orri Páll Dýrason announcing in December that he was working on “Jurassic Bark,” a new film successor to his 2014 release, which "follows two space dogs as they traverse galaxies and time in search of the elusive bone of enlightenment.” Not exactly the sort of project that belongs at the Tate Modern, but Dýrason has a history in the movie industry and his 2014 project, “The Three Dogateers Save Christmas,” was released with help from bandmate Georg Holm. At this pace, Sigur Ros are going to have no time left to make melodic, instrumental indie rock that only the coolest of hipsters enjoy………

- When you live in a Podunk town in Indiana with very little to do, these are the sorts of activities you come up with. You find yourself looking at your farmer wife and saying, “Hey honey, remember that forgotten silo we have on our farm, the one we never use and could probably tear down? Why don’t we turn that into a 25-foot-tall homage to a trademark-protect cartoon movie character?” And so it is that Kathy Stark and her husband came to transform their family farm silo into the image of an oversized Minion. The Ossian, Indiana native has lived at the home for 37 years and decided that the silo needed to be repainted. Her husband channeled his inner creative genius and came up with the decorative idea because he thought their grandchildren would love the idea. Earlier this year, the Starks put their plan into action, painting the silo and welding together 6-foot-wide eyes for the Minion. Amazingly, it took just two days to complete the project.  “We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, but we have traffic jams,” Kathy Stark said. “People are just stopping to take pictures. A lot of the silos are shaped a little different. They almost have the Chinese hat on top of them or they’re too tall. This one was just the right size, the right shape.” When you have something large and freaky on your property, word gets out and now, people from all over town drive by hoping to get a glimpse of it. There have been helicopters, losers on lawn mowers and even visitors from the local nursing home coming by to see the spectacle and it makes sense because in a place like Ossian, there isn't much for the elderly to do to amuse themselves. Credit to the Stark family for stepping up to fill that entertainment void for the town……..

- Keep being you, soccer. It may be one of your biggest events of the year and virtually the entire world may be watching, but far be it from you to act with a semblance of class and dignity. No, you live to loot, riot, pillage and try to burn the stadium to the ground whether your team wins or loses, so it only makes sense that UEFA, the governing body of football in Europe, has opened disciplinary proceedings against the Russian Football Union after its fans clashed with England supporters at the Euro 2016 championship in Marseille. The opening game in the tournament for both teams was highlighted by ugly scenes of hooliganism before, during and after the match in the southern French city's Stade Velodrome and now, Russia faces charges for crowd disturbances, racist behavior, and setting off fireworks during the contest.  "UEFA expresses its utter disgust for the violent clashes that occurred in the city center of Marseille, and its serious concern for the incidents at the end of the match inside Stade Velodrome," UEFA said in a statement. "This kind of behavior is totally unacceptable and has no place in football." Right, but that’s who you are, soccer. If you don’t throw lit road flares at players during games and attempt to asphyxiate opposing fans in the stands, then you’re not being true to yourself. Oh, and there’s the lovely twist that no action has been taken against England's Football Association, whose fans were also involved in the clashes on the third straight day of football-related violence in the port city. Three straight days of riots led to at least 35 people being injured four of them seriously. It was truly an international affair, as eight people were arrested, including British, Russian and French citizens. FIFA, the sport's thoroughly corrupt international governing body, also released a statement condemning the violence, presumably in between bribe-taking sessions and steam room jaunts…….

Walmart bike theft cowboy recues, more world athletic corruption and "Nashville" revived

- Behold, the power of the masses. Every year, dozens of new and established television shows are canceled and some of those shows have rabid, loyal followings that give rise to all manner of wacky campaigns to save them. It’s worked well for some (NBC’s cult favorite action-comedy “Chuck,” for one) and not so well for others, but it definitely did the deed for “Nashville.” The musical series was previously canceled by ABC after the Season 4 finale aired on May 25. The show’s fate was sealed with news that co-star Hayden Panettiere had recently taken a leave of absence following the birth of her first child and co-star/producer Connie Britton spoke out about an anti-LGBT law passed in Tennessee where the show was filmed. ABC still doesn’t want the show and the network announced renewals for 15 other series, but CMT has announced that it will bring back the show for a fifth season. “The wave of love and appreciation they have unleashed for ‘Nashville’ has been overwhelming,” CMT president Brian Philips said. “‘Nashville’ is a perfect addition to our evolving line-up of big music specials, documentaries, and original series. We see our fans and ourselves in this show and we will treasure it like no other network. ‘Nashville’ belongs on CMT.” The weird twist is that the show won’t actually air on CMT, but will actually air on video streaming service Hulu. There is no premiere date for the new season, nor has there been any word on which members of the cast will return, but at least the show has life………

- Not a good week for you, Nigeria. First, an international court orders your government to pay $3.25 million for 11 extrajudicial killings of militants and now, your military is firing dozens of senior officers accused of corruption and the theft of billions of dollars meant to buy arms to fight the Boko Haram Islamic insurgency. Sources within the army confirmed that more than 50 officers have been axed, although Army spokesman Col. Sani Kukesheka Usman said only that "quite a number" were fired this week, primarily major generals, brigadier generals, colonels, lieutenant colonels and one major. A few members of that crew have already been handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for allegedly diverting billions meant to buy weapons, Usman said in a statement. Others were determined to have played partisan roles in the 2015 elections in the south of the country that favored former President Goodluck Jonathan and election-rigging is always a great use of the military’s time. However, Jonathan lost to former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari, who made fighting endemic corruption and Boko Haram a cornerstone of his campaign. There are officers, including two former chiefs of defense staff, already on trial for corruption, the most recent of which is Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, who is in court for allegedly stealing some $20 million to build a shopping mall and buy other property in Abuja, the capital. Former national security adviser and retired Col. Sambo Dasuki admitted to diverting $2.1 billion on Jonathan's orders to bribe officials to win Jonathan his party's presidential nomination. When your entire annual military budget is about $6 billion, that figure is problematic to say the least. The net result of this mess is the deaths of an unknown number of civilians and troops in the uprising that has killed more than 20,000 in six years, so it’s not like it’s a huge deal or anything………

- Shocking news from the track and field world, where three officials of track and field's world governing body -- including one of Sebastian Coe's top aides -- have been provisionally suspended for allegedly receiving money to conceal Russian doping cases. Russia was apparently doping everything with a pulse and two legs over the past few years and track was at the top of the list, something that former communications director Nick Davies, his wife and project manager Jane Boulter Davies, and medical manager Pierre-Yves Garnier all agreed to conceal to line their pockets with dolla dolla bills y’all. The IAAF ethics board imposed six-month suspensions on the trio pending a full investigation and panel chairman Michael Beloff said the suspensions were leveled "in the interests of the integrity of the sport but do not prejudge the outcome of the investigations." Uh huh, sure. The case stems from an email reportedly sent on July 29, 2013, to then-IAAF president Lamine Diack from his son, Papa Massata Diack, an IAAF marketing consultant, in which the younger Diack  allegedly outlined plans to delay announcement of Russian doping cases to avoid bad publicity before the 2013 world championships in Moscow. Lamine Diack stepped down as IAAF president last year and is under investigation by French prosecutors for corruption related to cover-ups of Russian doping, while Coe, who was elected as Diack's successor in August, appointed Davies as his chief of staff.  Oh, and there was the email Davies allegedly sent l to Papa Massata Diack in 2013 asking what "Russian 'skeleton' we have still in the cupboard regarding doping," and suggesting using the marketing company chaired by Coe -- then an IAAF vice president -- to lead an "unofficial PR campaign" to "avoid international media scandals" related to the Moscow championships. Stir in the evidence indicating that Davies received an "undisclosed cash payment" from Papa Massata Diack in 2013 which may have resulted in "manipulative" action, and let’s just say that another international sports governing body has its integrity severely in doubt……..

- Because #Walmart. No matter where in America you find that familiar supercenter structure, you can count on a few things. People wearing hideous and inappropriate attire that should never be seen in public, massive quantities of generic merchandise, indifferent employees earning paltry salaries…and the sort of general weirdness that went down in Oregon this week. A female shopper was patronizing the Eagle Point shopping center when a would-be thief attempted to steal her bike. Enter the sort of hero you can only find at the white trash shopping mecca of choice, cowboy Robert Borba. Rorba rode - yes, rode - to the rescue on his horse, galloping onto the scene to save the day.  "A lady yelled out 'He's stealing my bike, he's stealing my bike'," Borba said. He rushed to the trailer behind his truck, jumped on his already-saddled horse and rode onto the scene. When the suspected thief saw Borba coming after him, he jumped off the bike and started running, but his misery was only beginning. As it turns out, Borba is a legit, professional cowboy and lassoed the thief by the ankles. A witness snapped a photo showing the roped man on the ground, holding onto a tree. Because there’s nothing like the image of a captured thief to bolster one’s social media following, others followed suit and the images spread like wildfire. "He jumped on his horse that was at the ready and pulled out his lasso," said Alyssa Borba, Robert's wife. "This is what he does [for a living], so he could do it quick." Afterward, Borba, a professional cowboy, continued on his way to California……..

NFL star to kingpin, stealing from Disney World and Polish night club tank stunts

- We all make mistakes. Some of us leave our coffee mug on the roof of our car and drive off, some don’t turn the oven off before leaving home and Chance The Rapper leaves extremely talented female vocalists off his new albums. Chance recently revealed that Regina Spektor was set to appear as a guest vocalist on his recent mixtape, 'Coloring Book,' and called cutting her from the final version his "greatest mistake." The album dropped last month with a number of guests spots, including appearances from Kanye West and Lil Wayne, but it’s the one that didn’t happen that has Chance shaking his damn head. He wrote on Twitter that Spektor was set to make a vocal appearance on the song 'Same Drugs,' but was cut late in the process. Now that he’s had a chance to let the new one sink in and go back and listen to older demos of the track, he’s not feeling good about his final decision. “Listening to old versions of the songs from Coloring Book. Same Drugs had Regina Spektor on it. Not using this may be my biggest mistake,” Chance wrote. When some of his Twitter followers suggested going back and editing the song after the fact as West has done at times, he shot didn’t seem eager to do so. However, Spektor responded to Chance's admission later that night on Twitter with a string of seemingly forgiving emojis, so at least she’s not holding a grudge about it and is happy that he has realized the true error of his musical ways……..

- Ah, the stresses of being a Polish nightclub owner trying to make your strobe-light-flashing, EDM-cranking, expensive-drink-serving establishment to stand out above the many other strobe-light-flashing, EDM-cranking, expensive-drink-serving establishments in your city. That’s what’s currently vexing the life of Rafal Pasionek, who owns both a decommissioned Soviet-era tank and the Mono Club in Szubin and decided that the best way to promote the latter was to take the former and send it hurtling through the front doors. Pasionek crashed his crashed his tank through the club's doors in what’s being called a promotional stunt gone very wrong and as with anything worth mocking these days, there is video of the incident and that video quickly went viral, with Pasionek saying the crash happened when “the brakes and steering failed as I was moving the vehicle in front of the club.” However, the crash happened at a time when no one is anywhere near a nightclub, the afternoon, and so no one was hurt. "I was incredibly lucky that the vehicle went right between the posts flanking the entrance - otherwise there would have been a lot of damage," Pasionek said. Yes, and you would have looked like an absolute idiot who thought that a Soviet-era tank driven by a man who had absolutely no clue what he was doing at the controls was the perfect vehicle to use to make his club the place to be for the good people of Szubin……

- Life after football is a tough thing to transition to for former professional athletes. Some ex-NFLers go into broadcasting to stay close to the game they love, others go into acting or producing … and then there’s the select few who decide that the best way to follow a life making millions of dollars to play football is to try to create their very own drug empire. Former Chicago Bears receiver Sam Hurd is the most famous example of an NFLer going full-on El Chapo, but according to a man suspected of trying to extort at least $65,000 from former Ohio State star and NFL player Christopher "Beanie" Wells, the ex-Arizona Cardinals ball carrier has a little bit of kingpin in him. Wells testified at Franklin Conley's federal trial, denying Conley's allegations that Wells was tied up in drug dealing, but prosecutors say the defendant threatened violence toward Wells and his family if the former Arizona Cardinals running back didn't pay between $65,000 and $175,000. According to Conley's attorney, Wells and his brother helped arrange a bad drug deal for Conley and another man and took their money. It could be a desperate claim by an overmatched attorney who knows he has a losing case and Wells adamantly denied those claims in court, but all of this does beg the question of how Wells became entangled with such a shady character. Yes, he was released by the Cardinals in 2013, later tore his Achilles tendon and hasn't played since, but does the end of an NFL dream drive a man into the world of plastic baggies, eight balls and bricks of coke? Wells had best hope not……..

- Maybe Katie Miller was simply trying to even the score for the millions of families Disney has gouged over the years for $100-plus dollars to get into its contrived world of magic and mirth. Either that or she’s a duplicitous scumbag who used her job at the Disney World in Orlando, Florida to steal more than $100,000. According to police, Miller was a teller at Columbia Harbor House restaurant in the Magic Kingdom theme part and was caught making fraudulent refunds at the restaurant back in March. She would allegedly process the refunds using the IDs of cast members not logged off registers, along with her override privileges, and was able steal up to $6,000 a month starting in May of 2013. Her admitted era of thievery ran for 22 months, during which time police say she stole about $112,707. But as always, at least when a person commits grand larceny of this sort, there was a viable reason and it wasn’t just a lack of character, integrity and honor. No, Miller told investigators that she started stealing after her car was repossessed and it became an addiction. Maybe if Disney paid a decent living wage off the exorbitant ticket prices it charges patrons for its theme parks, this problem wouldn’t have come up. Miller was finally arrested this week even though Disney fired her way back in March and quickly decided to prosecute her for stealing the same amount of money it likely earns in sales at Columbia Harbor House restaurant in an hour or two with the absurd menu prices at the establishment………

Steven Tyler goes country, Spain gores bullfighting traditions and when Olympic canoeing matters

- Very few people pay attention to Olympic canoeing events when they Olympics are going on. No one knows who the athletes competing in something like the  two-man canoe slalom event are and even those who stumble across a race while scanning the channels late at night when the Games are being broadcast at an unusual time due to being halfway around the world pay little attention to the identity of those row, row, rowing their boat gently down the stream. For those reasons, maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world that Joe Jacobi is now trying to recover his stolen 1992 gold medal after it was thieved from his car in Atlanta. The former American Olympian is searching for his medal, won for the U.S. in the two-man canoe slalom event in Barcelona, Spain, after the medal was seized by thieves who ripped it from a backpack that was taken from his car while he and his family were inside a restaurant. Surveillance footage of the parking lot shows two men involved in the break-in and according to Jacobi's wife, Lisa Riblet Jacobi, police found the thieves' getaway car and recovered some of the stolen items Tuesday but are still looking for the medal. The kinds of dudes who are breaking into cars in a diner parking lot during daylight hours on a weekday generally aren’t the high-end sort of criminal, so the odds of these two sticky-fingered fools having the connections and intelligence to actually fence that medal and get anything close to its actual value aren’t high. As for why a guy is toting around a 24-year-old Olympic medal, Jacobi’s wife said he takes the medal with him to share it with schoolchildren at public speaking events. Maybe it’s time to hire a big, burly, bald dude in sunglasses and with 24-inch biceps to roll with him to, at and from those events……..

- Folks Snapchatting, texting and Facebooking in the restroom is about to get a lot more common at James Street Gastropub and Speakeasy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The business is well-known as a solid jazz club and restaurant in the Steel City and as of this week, it’s also a place that’s going full-on old-school curmudgeon by trying to get those damn kids to put down their damn smartphones and actually talk to someone face to face. The restaurant is offering those willing to put their phones away for their dining experience a 20-percent discount on their bill and like Derek Jeter demanding that everyone who visits his Florida estate put their phone in a basket for safe keeping when they walk in the door, employees will offer diners a chance to go digitally dark while they dine. “You will be greeted by the host or hostess and they will give you the option of putting the phone in a safe location that will be kept at the table in case of emergencies,” general manager Kevin Saftner said. Yes, because having everyone stack their phones in the middle of the table and forcing the first person to reach for theirs during the meal to foot the entire bill is no longer doable. The idea behind the new policy is that people being engrossed in their phones can distract musicians performing at the club, slow the process of serving for waiters and ruin the connection you can have with your fellow diners. The hands-free zone will run from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. each day, so those who prefer to stay connected to their world and not feel like they’re missing out on some financial savings because of it can simply hit the restaurant up outside those hours………..

- The hopes that Steven Tyler’s long-planned country music solo album would simply go away and never happen appear to have hit an iceberg and are slowly sinking to the bottom of the musical ocean. The Aerosmith frontman has been enamored with the idea of going country for some time and sadly, he’s following through with the project. 'We’re All Somebody From Somewhere' will be released on July 15 and will contain 13 tracks.  "I headed down to Nashville last spring to start working on this project, wrote some kick ass songs with some of Music City’s finest songwriters and now we get to share them with the world,” Tyler said. "Country music is the new rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not just about porches, dogs and kicking your boots up. It’s a whole lot more. It’s about being real.” You shut your mouth, you microphone-tonguing, scarf-hugging geezer rocker. Country music is not the new rock and roll because country music remains twangy, yodel-y and in its truest form, not good. This album comes as the band fends off rumors that they may replace Tyler, something guitarist Brad Whitford hinted at when he said the band had “considered” touring with a different singer. Those comments followed Tyler saying the band could come to an end sometime next year, so it seems like its members are clearly moving in opposite directions right now. As for the country album, Tyler recorded it with T Bone Burnett, Dan Huff, Marti Fredriksen and Jaren Johnston and while those are some big names with country music clout, Tyler should be nowhere near this genre of music unless he’s prepared to drive his rock and roll legacy directly off the nearest cliff……..

- Changes to long-standing traditions keep on coming in Spain and the areas of rest and leisure continue to be the primary targets. Daily siestas are still in danger and perhaps the only subject generating more heat on the Iberian Peninsula these days is bullfighting. In the latest showdown over the controversial sport, Spanish lawmakers have voted to ban the spearing to death of bulls at one of the country's goriest spectacles. This one comes from lawmakers in the Castile and Leon region, who confirmed an earlier government decree to prohibit bull killing at September's annual Toro de la Vega festival in the town of Tordesillas 120 miles northwest of Madrid. In past festivals, dating back centuries, dudes on horseback traditionally have chased a bull and speared it in front of onlookers. It’s a totally pointless slaughter that doesn’t give the bull any chance to survive and for that and many other reasons, the event has attracted increasing protests in recent years by animal rights activists. Defenders of the controversial practice argue that the ban would violate the cultural heritage of Tordesillas and Spain, presuming that just because something has been done traditionally for decades, it must be good and right and should continue to happen even as our knowledge and social consciousness grow. Bullfight and bull spectacle supporters who demonstrated outside the regional parliament as the bill was being debated and in the end, it was the bleeding hearts that won the day, saving a few bulls from having their blood spilled for no apparent reason other than it being done for a long, long time…….

American ladies v. fat, Wiz Khalifa's strip club divorce party and college football police blotter fun

- So….maybe there are certain ways in which famous people are not like the rest of us. For most people, the end of a marriage is a time to reflect, possibly mourn, be angry and even throw a few angry accusations at the other party in the termination of a union. Even if the split is amicable, the two sides typically just want to go their own ways and try to begin the process of moving on in life. That’s not really the approach taken by celebrity couple Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose, who finalized their divorce settlement earlier this week during business hours and then celebrated their disunion together that night at the Ace of Spades strip club in Los Angeles. Rather than go their own respective ways, they decided to mark the end of their marriage by showering cash on pole-dancing skanks and then counting dollar bills and throwing them into the crowd at the venue. Rose said prior to the divorce that the pair  are working on remaining friends for the sake of their 3-year-old son, Sebastian, and nothing says uniting around your child quite like throwing dolla, dolla bills are women writhing around on stage in G-strings and pasties. But what’s not to like when one of you, Khalifa in this case, will keep the couple’s Pennsylvania home and 10 cars, while Rose will reportedly receive $1 million as well as $14,800 a month in child support for their son, who the pair will share physical and legal custody of. It’s a more civil parting than the one between Rose and camera whore Kanye West, who said he needed “30 showers” to cleanse himself after breaking up with Rose. Now pass the Cristal and light an expensive cigar in the VIP lounge because it’s time to celebrate……..

- Maybe it’s time to tap the inheritance of that one Nigerian prince who keeps hitting up people around the world with emails asking for $5,000 in quick cash to access his fortune, because the African nation is in need of an immediate infusion of cash. The need arose after a West African court ordered Nigeria to pay $3.25 million in compensation for the extrajudicial killings of eight civilians and the wounding of 11 others shot by soldiers and secret service agents in the capital, Abuja. Yes, $3.25 million is an awfully low price to pay for 11 lives, especially after the court of the Economic Community of West African States ruled there is no evidence to back claims by the Nigerian army and Department of Security Services that troops fired in self-defense on a group of Boko Haram extremists the night of Sept. 20, 2013. If you want to know the cost per life for victims who were squatting in an unfinished building that was raided, that averages out to $200,000 for each death and $150,000 to each of the wounded. Again, it’s a low price when being found liable for the "barbaric, illegal and unconstitutional" deaths and injuries of people, even if those people are extremists who have caused a lot of death and carnage and may deserve some sort of swift and severe justice. A three-judge panel issued the ruling against the Nigerian state and while it’s hard to imagine Nigeria moving swiftly to pay up, that email scamming prince probably has the spare change to wipe out that debt……..

- Ah, the wild, wacky period between the end of one college football season and the start of another. It’s a time of increased free time for players and therefore, a time they appear on the police blotter and court dockets at a breakneck pace. The latest instance of this incredibly reliable phenomenon comes from Texas, where a West Texas grand jury indicted three former Texas Tech football players on charges that accuse them of stealing seven guns worth more than $14,000 from a Lubbock home. The trio of Robert James Castaneda, Dakota Devon Allen and Trace Keaton Ellison are accused of breaking into the home between Dec. 20 and Jan. 9 and stealing a gun safe containing seven handguns and rifles, two digital cameras and a TV. The trio was kicked off the team May 5 for "failure to uphold student-athlete expectations, which is a really nice way to describe a charge of burglary of a habitation, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Allen's attorney, Guy Womack, tried to earn his fat hourly fee by claiming he can't imagine a less likely person to be accused than Allen, who earned Big 12 academic honors in 2015. "This is a terrible circumstance but we'll look at the evidence and see what we can do with this case," Womack said. Give these three alleged felons credit because they picked a solid time to allegedly commit this crime. Residents of the home didn’t report the burglary until Jan. 9, when they returned to the city after the semester break. Unfortunately, Allen’s skills as the team’s top returning tackler didn’t help him elude justice and along with Castaneda, who would have been a sophomore offensive lineman, and Ellison, a redshirt freshman on the offensive line, he did himself in when the stolen gun’s owner went to  a pawnshop in March looking for a new gun and found one of the stolen guns there. From there, it was only a matter of time before the whole scheme unraveled……..

- America, you’re still fat. Specifically, American ladies aren’t pulling their weight specifically by pulling around far too much weight on a daily basis. The fight against obesity is a losing one, according to a pair of studies released this week which show that 35 percent of men, 40 percent of women and 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese. The studies, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, report that in spite of the "hundreds of millions of dollars" that have been pumped into research, trials, observational studies, community and hospital programs, and the development of devices and drugs, there doesn't appear to be much headway being made in the battle to curb obesity in the United States, obesity - like Hulk-a-Mania - is still running wild. Despite attempts by schools, communities, companies and places of worship to control weight gain, America’s waistline is still expanding. "Although it is impossible to know what the extent of the obesity epidemic would have been without these efforts, the data reported ... certainly do not suggest much success," wrote Dr. Jody Zylke and Dr. Howard Bauchner, the deputy editor and editor in chief, respectively, of JAMA. The study used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in which scientists monitored obesity trends because of the real health consequences associated with obesity. Ladies fared particularly poorly in the studies, as obesity increased by 5 percent over a decade. A body mass index of 30 or more qualified as obese, and a body mass index of 40 or more qualified as class 3 obesity. A disheartening 10 percent of women and 5.5 percent of men fit into the class-3 obesity category, proving that the gravitational pull of the all-you-can-eat buffet remains stronger than the will to get fit……….

Geography v. college football greed, Ethiopia v. porn and spam and Sum 41 is back for some reason

- It only sounds like a ridiculous incident that would happen on a tongue-in-cheek sitcom like “Parks and Recreation.” A youth baseball game involving children under the age of 10 goes from fun summer activity punctuated by a team trip for ice cream to a full-on embarrassment courtesy not of some immature, spoiled brat of a child, but by a grown-ass adult who was supposed to be there to keep order and not disrupt it. Worse still, the adult causing waves is the mayor of the town and he’s now accused of breaking the jaw of an umpire who had the audacity to make a call with which the mayor did not agree. The umpire was confronted by Monee (Ill.) Mayor Jay Farquhar, who charged at him over a foul ball in the second inning of a game in which Farquhar was managing a youth team on which his son plays, involving children as young as 7. Sources who witness the incident say it took place on school property and directly across the street from the village hall where Farquhar presumably governs the town in calm, well-reasoned fashion. The mayor’s story is that he was just acting in self-defense, while the umpire has a jaw broken in two places and some nasty bruises. The doesn’t really fit with a self-defense defense, nor does the fact that the league has suspended Farquhar from managing for a year and banned him from even attending games. Monee police have referred the matter to the Will County Sheriff’s Department for further investigation, while Farquhar is not helping his case with a Facebook post in which he presumably was trying to defend himself. "[T]here is no excuse for striking an official...in retrospect, it was a reaction which lacked comprehensively best judgment for the coach (me) to defend myself against the physical escalation of the umpire,” the mayor wrote in his post. A huge swing and a miss, mayor, swing and a miss………

- The world has been lacking quality pop-punk, teeny bopper bands lately….oh wait, no it hasn’t. So welcome back, sort of, Canadian pop-punkers Sum 41, who have announced their first album for five years. In the interim since 2011’s ‘Screaming Bloody Murder, Deryck Whibley was diagnosed with liver failure following alcohol abuse in 2014 and has since gotten sober, though his issues with drinking can probably be traced back to the end of his marriage with fellow Canadian pop-punker Avril Lavigne, whose taste in men may be the only thing worse than her taste in music given that she followed her marriage to Whibley with wedded bliss with Nickelhack frontman Chad Kroeger. The new album, “13 Voices,” will also mark the return of guitarist Dave Baksh, who rejoined in 2015 after nine years away from Sum 41 to front his own band Brown Brigade. "I am really excited to be releasing an album after everything I've been through recently. This new music represents the journey I've been on throughout the process of making this record,” Whibley said of the new project. “I had to fall in order to rise, and nothing feels better than to have something you love that you had to really fight for. I can honestly say that ’13 Voices’ saved my life and I cannot wait to share it with all of you.” All jokes aside, if this album did help this guy overcome substance abuse issues and saved his life then it’s a good thing, but it still doesn’t mean that it contains any good music………

- In the name of oppression, governments can sometimes still stumble onto a positive decision. For example, Ethiopia's parliament wants to muzzle dissident voices who might use the freedom afforded by the Internet to make their points of view heard and therefore has approved a law to imprison people who commit various online offenses. That’s the negative part - prosecuting those who spread views it wants to keep quiet. It’s that part of the law that bloggers and activists have decried, arguing that sharing defamatory speech shouldn’t net a person three years in prison. However, in the midst of trying to silence those who oppose it, parliament has actually managed to include provisions that could make Ethiopia a better place. Specifically, decreeing that those who distribute pornography and spam online can be jailed is a good thing, especially the part about spammers. No one likes spam emails about discounted drugs, horny foreign women who want to sleep with them or amazing investment scams, er, opportunities that will make you a millionaire. If every country could jail those who send out spam, then maybe the inboxes of the world would be better places. The law's most severe penalty is 10 years' imprisonment for sharing pornography online, while spam can net the same three-year sentence as anti-government speech. According to Ethiopia's cybersecurity officials, the country is subject to more than 1,000 cyberattacks per day and this new law will enable it to prosecute such crimes more efficiently. That argument has been rejected by rights groups who accuse the East African nation of restricting freedom of expression and using spyware against dissidents living overseas. Even before this law was passed, last month an Ethiopian court charged an opposition activist over his Facebook posts. The times, they are a-changin’ in Ethiopia, and not for the better………

- Screw geography. To hell with sensible travel schedules for college student-athletes. Big dollars are at stake for colleges and universities across these United States and that means college presidents are pleading their case to conferences for inclusion in the big-dollar party that is the College Football Playoff. The latest is University of Central Florida president John Hitt, who is trying to get his team the hell out of the middling Conference USA and into the Big 12 even though the misnamed, 12-team conference is comprised of teams in the center of the country, not the southeast. But Hitt doesn’t care how far his athletes must travel for games as long as it makes the most money possible for the school and so he laid out his case for UCF to join the Big 12 in a letter to Oklahoma State president Burns Hargis. Hargis is helping lead the Big 12’s talks about expansion and in the letter, Hitt touted both his school’s supposed great fit in the league and the community around UCF. He touted the growth of the Orlando, Florida, market and UCF's popularity with high school students and wrote that UCF could expand its 45,000-set Bright House Networks Stadium to 65,000 if it were invited to the Big 12. "UCF's athletic profile fits well with the Big 12," Hitt wrote. Not only did he praise his own cause, but he included a report the school commissioned to throw shade at the candidacy of UCF to fellow Big 12 expansion candidates UConn and Cincinnati. In the report, the authors claim that Orlando's population growth is expected to be six times greater than Cincinnati's and 500 times greater than the region of Hartford, Connecticut, over the next 10 years. Elsewhere, the report claims that Orlando trumps Cincinnati and Hartford in employment and income, concluding that, "Orlando has proven that it is capable of attracting and sustaining economic growth, making it an ideal candidate for joining the Big 12 Conference." Except that it’s in f*cking Florida and the rest of the conference is in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri, but never mind all of that logic nonsense……….