Welcome to the Jungle

He's ba-ack! Mere daysd before he would rejoin his team on the field after being suspended for the first half of the season, wide receiver Chris Henry rejoined his team where they are usually mired--in the middle of a controversy. Henry was involved in a dispute with a parking lot employee over $5. Who dey think gonna convict them Bengals?

Speaking of controversies, America's favorite goon squad Blackwater is back in the news, this time involving reports of Blackwater thugs shooting three guards protecting members of Iraqi media in a balcony, killing two of them and wounding another unprovoked. Blackwater is rumored to be coming up with a new slogan: Shoot first, answer questions later.

Pat Robertson is endorsing America's mayor Rudy Giuliani for President. Robertson, the controversial television personality, is urging Christians to support Rudy despite his past record of supporting things that run contrary to most of what Christians are supposed to believe in. Apparently the 700 Club will get behind any candidate that supports the doctrine of Christ--marital infidelity, abortion and screwing public servants. Rudy for President!

What is lacks in controversy, the latest stock dip certainly makes up for in creating an image of certain economic doom. Analysts predict that the stock drop may be an indication of a forthcoming economic problem. Who could have imagined a forthcoming problem under leadership like this?

Finally, in another type of controversy that just won't seem to go away, China is brewing up a new batch of toy quandary. This latest batch comes in the form of date rape drugs contaminating children's toys. The real issue here is how did China come up with this idea before the Catholic Church came up with the idea of GHB on children's toys?

Open letter to the crackhead who broke into my car

Dear crackhead who broke my car window on Lester,

Oh where do I start? There's so many things I could say to you or about you. But I'm going to keep it short, sweet and to the point.

You are a soulless, meaningless jerk. You broke into my car through the passenger window. I hope you cut yourself fumbling around my car, and I hope you bled somewhere other than my car.

Who knows if you remember breaking into my car during the first inning of the ALCS game 6 during the 1st inning? Who knows if you know what baseball is? But you are definitely an Indians hater. Cleveland is full of enough dread after their history of coming up a little short this half century as well as the last year. You didn't need to agitate the situation by robbing cars during the Championship Series, dimwit.

The best demonstration of your mental faculties was that while robbing my automobile, you took a Sirius radio, an item that has no cash value, and nothing more. If a pawn shop or any other doofus gave you money for it (which they wouldn't btw), the radio won't be able to be activated after I canceled the subscription and reported it stolen. I realize that logic doesn't make sense to a person who smokes cocaine out of a soda can. But this should: The part that you overlooked even though it should have been obvious to anybody with half a brain was that there was $5 worth of quarters in my ashtray. You should have taken those. Unlike a stolen Sirius radio, quarters actually have a cash value.

I realize that it is a long shot that you might have access to the internet. It might be a stretch that you can read the English language. All I know is that you probably smoke crack while you stumble around thinking the world owes you something. I hope every drug crash you have is annoying as my trip to Safelite to replace the window you broke for $188. I would have paid an extra $20 to watch a video of the dealer turning you down on your crack for a three-year-old, stolen Sirius trade proposal.

I wish you a long life in prison performing fellatio for cigarettes. May your drug stash be cut, may the shack that you sleep in be blown over by a tornado, and may you always use birth control. My car is fixed while your life is in shambles. You broke my window and I still came out on top. Ha ha ha, it sucks to be you, crackhead.

Good day to you, street trash,

Jared R.

Big Hair and Big Spending

It's difficult to disagree with a face like that, with or without the Wall of Sound. The Phil Specter murder case in California was declared a mistrial due to a deadlocked jury, proving that if you are planning on shooting somebody, you should at least have the common sense to drag them into California before you kill them so you can guarantee a victory no matter the evidence. A California jury would probably have trouble reaching a decision on whether to bench Rex Grossman based upon a lack of evidence.

Robert Gates is asking Congress for more money to fight the war on terror, bringing to $190 billion this year's grand total of money spent that is helping the American people as much as it would if it was thrown in a pit and burned to ashes. At least if we threw billions of dollars in a hole and torched it, it could lower the heating bills for people in Minnesota and Alaska during the winter.

Speaking of Iraq and a change in regime, the top 3 Democratic candidates would not guarantee a troop withdrawal during their first term in office in the latest debate, doing little to distance themselves from the G.O.P. candidates. Hillary Clinton appeared to be the consensus victor of the debate. America again appears to be the loser.

The cause du jour involves the violent crackdown on protesters of the junta in Myanmar, which included the killing of monks, a Japanese photographer and even a stiff rebuke from China. If Bush could find Myanmar on a map, he'd probably invade and promote sectarian violence.

Mike Vick just can't stay out of trouble. His sincere apology followed his conviction on heinous charges, but even his mea culpa may be too little, too late after news of his positive drug test hit the news wire. Add common sense to the laundry list of things Vick hasn't tried in his approach to redemption.

USA Today has detailed the brilliant business model of the Huffington Post--don't bother to pay your high-profile bloggers. All right! The 17 cents I make on advertising trumps the money that Bill Maher generates blogging. Score one for the team.

Finally, good news comes out the dining scene on the heels of my tenacious reports on poor Grant Achatz's health developments. In all seriousness, best wishes again to a titan of fine dining.

Microsoft Drives Me Crazy

In what must be one of the saddest stories of all time, the cyber-pirate Microsoft Corporation lost its appeal and may be forced to pay a record €497 million court fine for anti-competitive practices in Europe. Bill Gates will get to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day with a giant, "Arrr, matey! Shiver me timbers!" after the European Union pillaged and plundered the booty in Gates' bank accounts.

The Federal Reserve cut key interest rates in a move designed to improve America's economy. Hopefully the new energy in the economy will generate enough scratch for Bill Gates to pay off the right people in Europe.

One of the day's most interesting stories was the L.A. Times piece on the multimillion dollar cache of fine art in Iran that is kept in a basement. The works of Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollock, Warhol, Monet, Pissarro and Bacon are kept in an underground room with the public unable to view the art because of political and religious concerns. Perhaps we could sell Iran some of our more modern artistic treasures like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan so they can also keep them hidden from public view.

Immigration and issues of illegal aliens come up in interesting places, including the fine wine industry, where wineries that require manual labor in order to harvest the best product are under strain because of tighter border security limiting their potential pool of workers. I don't know how many illegal immigrants it takes to make my favorite single vineyard California Pinot Noir, but if the quality of California wine goes down, I'll be more than happy to buy my single vineyard Pinot Noir from Burgundy.

Today's favorite conduit for controversy is Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student who was subdued by police Taser in a video that was featured in a post here yesterday. Critics are starting to question his credentials as a journalist after reading some of his editorials that were basically senseless rants with little to no fact checking. Hey, famouswriterman, I guess Andy Warhol's prognostication of everybody having 15 minutes of fame was pretty accurate.

Also in regards to the difference between fame and infamy, the Dallas Cowboys signed embroiled defensive lineman Tank Johnson to a two-year contract. Luckily for Tank, he's more difficult to tackle and take down with a Taser than Andrew Meyer was, so the police will usually ask Johnson nicely to turn himself in when he's a wanted man. Unluckily for the NFL, Johnson is also a magnet for trouble. Hopefully he can stay out of jail long enough to face the Bears in the post-season.

Speaking of football players and felonies, Texas is leading the nation in players suspended and crimes (allegedly) committed this season after Coach Mack Brown suspended running back James Henry for being charged with two felonies in retaliation for a separate incident involving two other Texas football players and an (alleged) armed robbery. Mack Brown is allegedly the coach, and allegedly he recruited these felons, so if the University of Texas is indeed allegedly an institution of higher learning, they should fix some of these real problems before the governor calls the National Guard to take down your roving (and 6th- or 7th-ranked) gang of thugs.

Finally, in vegetarian news, Alicia Silverstone is getting naked to promote vegetarianism. It's good to see that her cruelty-free diet has helped her to shed some of that Batman weight. I have had a hankering for Silverstone since her appearance in the Aerosmith videos, so she does qualify as an animal product I would eat.

Taser my Brain

John Kerry can't buy a break. He loses the Presidential election in a controversial fashion. Now he's tied to a different controversy, this one involving a University of Florida student getting Tasered at an appearance Kerry made. This goes on to prove that wherever John Kerry goes, mistakes are sure to follow. Kerry wishes he could have flip flopped his choice of appearances.

There is a nominee for attorney general, and that nominee is Michael Mukasey. They couldn't just leave the position unattended, although putting Alberto Gonzales in charge of the justice department or suggesting Harriet Miers was fit to be on the Supreme Court was about as close as America could get to legal anarchy.

People are up in arms about the decision of Fox to censor Sally Field at the Emmys because of her swearing and talking about the Iraq war on television. Like I've been saying, Sally Field could start a riot...she makes Don Imus look like Johnny Carson. Be careful with that one.

Leading scientists are predicting a huge earthquake in the near future in Indonesia. The quake might lead to a subsequent tsunami. Predicting natural disasters in Indonesia is about as difficult as forecasting a Keith Richards drug binge or a University of Texas football arrest.You know it's coming...you just can't say exactly when.

BBC details the technological advancements made in the U.S. and U.K. now that the two countries have turned into Big Brother. It's amazing how gadgets that are supposed to make us feel safer manage to make us feel paranoid and in danger.

Finally, research is out that suggests liberals are smarter than conservatives. Some people have countered and said that the units aren't really a measurement of intellect. Whatever the truth may be, social science does support the theory that President Bush is dumber than the average slug.

O.J. Sucks at Crime (Allegedly)

He's ba-ack! The Juice just couldn't stay out of the headlines. Years after his famous murder trial, O.J. Simpson has been questioned about a break-in and theft of sports memorabilia in a Los Vegas casino. If he did it, the law might finally squeeze the last pulp out of the Juice.

Another case has had a verdict rendered...Bush is staying in Iraq. The Nation offered an analysis of the war on terror, calling the current Bush policy illegal, immoral and misdirected.You can only hope that somebody in Congress will finally step up to the plate and take a swing at smashing this policy over the Green Monster that is the White House stubborn streak. I pick Kucinich because he would look the funniest rounding the bases (and also because his vegan diet allows him to swing a sweet stick).

On the indefinite detention in the war on terror front, the Pentagon censored an audio recording of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believing that the material could be used as recruiting material in the YouTube world. This is probably a bad move. Everybody remembers how big 2 Live Crew got after the government tried to censor them. The U.S. doesn't want Osama bin Laden to achieve Luther Campbell status. Everybody would be out buying the album!

I just can't get enough of the Presidential mashup. It was referenced here yesterday, and you can put together your own debate, choosing any or all of the Democratic candidates to answer questions within a set time frame on Iraq, health care, education or a random jab by comedian Bill Maher. Web 2.0 candidate Barack Obama leads the poll so far with 36 percent choosing him as the winner over runner-up Hillary Clinton (32 percent). Eddie the Ambulance Chaser finished a distant third as of press time. The technology in these debates is still developing. Hopefully in a few years we'll be able to ask candidates like Mike Gravel directly if they really, truly believe they have a chance at winning or if campaigning is just a hobby of theirs.

Also on the subject of Bill Maher, he posted a blog entry about those he calls 24 Hour Republican Party People. On the heels of the national sex scandals plaguing the G.O.P. comes the story of the St. Petersburg City Council Chairman committing suicide after allegations arose that he sexually abused three young girls, two of whom were his adopted daughters. The Republican party is just one giant George Michael scandal followed by a night out with Charlie Sheen, ending with confession at a Catholic church.

Concertgoers interested in how their city stacks up against the competition can compare notes in the University of Chicago study that compares music markets. If they were counting, Ohio would probably finish in last place.

The sports jury is in: Bill Belichick's punishment wasn't harsh enough. Belichick, the hooded sweatshirt-clad 007 of NFL head coaches, has to fork over $500,000 for video taping the Jets sideline, while the team loses a quarter of a million dollars and a 1st round pick if they make the playoffs or a 2nd and 3rd round pick if they don't. The Chargers think that Brady and Moss should be euthanized in order to make things fair. The Jets want a penalty more like the McLaren automobile fine. I suggest an even greater punishment--make Lloyd Carr the Patriots coach during a four game suspension to be served by the hooded hoodwink Belichick.

A Hilliard Davidson high school student had his punishment reduced for his role in a prank passing out signs to a section occupied by the rival team's fans at the football stadium that spelled out, "We Suck" when they were held up in unison during the third quarter. The other high school's fans should also have been punished for sucking at common sense.

Finally, if you don't think that people waste enough time watching television or using social networking sites, somebody had the common sense to combine the two endeavors. OMG my top friend is that guy from the MySpace show. Somebody shoot me now.

It's So Hard to Look Away

Sometimes it's difficult for a guy to make an honest living, even if that guy is in a lion costume. It gets more challenging when the guy is wanted for rape of an underage girl, both in relation to the guy making a living and in relation to his living being honest. I hope they left you in your lion costume for your cell mates to get their first look at you.

Mayhem in Israeli/Palestinian relations continues to whip itself into a frenzy. Mother Jones harps on the damned-if-they-do/damned-if-they-don't puzzle that Abbas is locked in. You know the situation is a debacle when somebody actually recommends that outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair should head a reconciliation effort.

Much like the rest of Iraq, the government is in such disarray that top officials are stepping down. Current Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki is so unpopular that he is approaching Bush popularity levels. (The Onion parodied a new approach to one of Bush's favorite topics...climate change.)

As expected, Bush vetoed newly-proposed embryonic stem cell legislation. Democrats are expected to battle the resistance of President Bush. It will be nice to see the party stand up to something that Bush supports at least once before he is out of office.

Media news shows the bidding options for the Wall Street Journal dwindling, with G.E. and Pearson pulling their hats out of the ring. That leaves neo-con tycoon Rupert Murdoch as one of the last men standing in the bidding war for the influential and respected conservative daily. Unless Mark Cuban is willing to step in and trade Dirk Nowitzki for the newspaper, look for Dr. Evil Murdoch to make the Journal part of the No-Spin Zone.

The effort to save internet radio got their chance to voice their opinion through a concert in the capital city. Crushing royalties rates would leave those sitting in their office cubicle little choice but the vanilla options offered by your friendly Web-casting Clear Channel conglomerate. I'm keeping my support behind a choice of better flavors.

Sports and scandal continue with a newly-minted book leveling the same old charges of cheating at Lance Armstrong. Lance's credibility in situations involving accusations of cheating is equal to Lindsay Lohan's dedication to rehab. At least Lindsay admits to doing coke. Barry, Sammy, Lance and Floyd are still claiming innocence or ignorance.

Finally, Bengals fans sick of being singled out as the only team in the NFL being arrested can thank Sports Illustrated for putting together a photo gallery of arrests from the yet-to-be-played 2007 season. At least the newest remake of "The Longest Yard" won't consist of only players from Cincinnati.

If You've Come to Fight, Put Up Your Dukes

It is official. Buy a Mac. Use Linux. Vista is a nightmare. Nothing works the way it used to. Media performs terribly (especially audio). In typical Microsoft fashion, Vista railroads users into the Microsoft network of applications like Internet Explorer rather than the inherently superior Firefox. Keep XP for as long as you can. Vista is the one island you do not want to get stuck on.

After Rumsfeld's hand-picked man at the helm of the military Peter Pace stepped down, there is a new job opening in the career field called lost causes. Admiral Mike Mullen will be chosen as his successor based upon the understanding that Pace would have been roasted alive by Congress if he had to undergo another confirmation hearing. Good luck with that job Mike. It probably isn't any more of a lose-lose situation than being selected coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Dr. James Holsinger is another Bush nominee that should face careful scrutiny in his hearings to become surgeon general of the United States. Holsinger is controversial because of a paper he wrote 16 years ago for the United Methodist Church that called homosexuality "unnatural." Actually, James, asking what Jesus would do before making scientific decisions is unnatural. The physician might be a heart doctor without brains, but you know it takes a lot of balls to get on the national stage backing that argument, Dr. Holsinger-Falwell.

The United States' War on Drugs is nothing compared the conflict in Mexico. The U.S. fights a war of words and policy while in Mexico, they kill anybody and everybody that gets in the way of feeding the American appetite for blow. Within a week, 46 people were killed in a territory war across Mexico. The killings included grenade attacks and decapitations that are taking place between rival factions. Doesn't anybody in Mexico watch the Sopranos? Bad things happen when crime families split up.

Back in the States, Bush is fighting a war of a different sort. Fresh on the tail of the battle to prevent satellite radio from overtaking the generous corporate conglomerates that make up a big part of campaign finance, Bush is fighting a new war...against organic produce. Anti-trust investigations have begun, and they are aimed at preventing the merger of Whole Foods and Wild Oats. When giant media companies control entire markets, nobody blinks. But they'll be damned if one company can control all of the sales of organic clover honey in Denver. It's proof in America you can only be as competitive as your lawyers will allow you to be.

Finally, with all the reports on my fights with Vista, Mexican drug cartels fighting each other and the surgeon general fighting reason, I would be remiss if I failed to mention John Daly's wife fighting him...with a steak knife. Apparently the couple took their contentious relationship with all of its drugged out history to a restaurant, and after dinner the future ex-Mrs. Daly took her frustrations out on the portly golfer's face. John Daly is to crime and golf what John McClane is to unlucky situations involving terrorists...the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Some Cheese Smells Like Sweat

Rasheed Wallace is to technical fouls what Ron Jeremy is to cheap, meaningless sex. The major differentiating factor is that Jeremy gets paid for the sex while Rasheed typically pays for the fouls. This time Wallace paid with a loss, and some poor sap got rewarded with a sweaty jersey to the face. Check the video to see if Wallace is technically foul.

As of this morning, the 219 troops killed this month surpassed the highest total of deaths for two months of combat in Iraq. With Thursday still falling in May, all of the opponents of the war in Iraq may have to eat their hats when they see how the mission has succeeded in exceeding one minimum measurement of success. Unfortunately, the milestone is total troops killed, and nobody is going to wear that medal around town.

Zheng Xiaoyu, former chief of China's food and drug safety organization, was sentenced to death for his role in the contaminated pet food public relations disaster that damaged the reputations of China's food and drug industries. Perhaps if President Bush had sent Paul Wolfowitz out the same way, the world would have more faith in new World Bank Presidential nominee Robert Zoellick.

Turkey, a nation with a clearly defined separation of religion and state, has entered unknown waters. The nation, which is 95 percent Muslim, has elected a Muslim President and Prime Minister. Educated elites and the military are adamantly opposed to the move, and new elections have been called for the Presidency. As a free piece of advice, the United States elected a deeply religious man who shared a common belief with much of the population. Take a look at how well that worked out for us.

Slate works on profiling the Republican's next generation flip-flopper Mitt Romney. If the fact that he's a Mormon isn't enough to get you to vote for somebody else, you can at least compare his wavering opinion of a multitude of issues to Giuliani's sordid pro-life/pro-choice stance. This creates my entry into the 2008 Republican Election Slogan contest (if there is in fact a contest and I didn't fabricate it out of thin air) :

The Republican Party 2008: We can't get any more crazy--can we?

Speaking of crazy, the Joseph McCarthy of international athletics Dick Pound advances his case for drug testing in the sport that needs it most--golf. It isn't certain what the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency expects to find, but if Vegas is taking bets, I'll put money on John Daly being the first to test positive based on his past life as the human beer keg.

Criminally good taste was displayed by a band of armed robbers in South Africa who were robbing grocery stores of all their money...and imported cheeses. The robbers would run through the store and grab expensive food, bathroom supplies and vitamins while robbing the registers at gun point. It is offensive that Rosie O'Donnell has to send out a death squad to do her grocery shopping while she recovers from the Elisabeth Hasselbeck hangover. Shame on her!

Luol Deng torches Heat...film at 11.

Luol Deng torches Heat...film at 11.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates stopped just short of setting a withdrawal date for Iraq. As soon as Iraq gets the sectarian violence under control, trains troops to patrol and protect the country and finds a cure for Chagas disease, Gates pledges the American forces will leave (a welcome addition after their performance in Haditha). He refuses to mark the calendar because he wants your children's children's children to be paying for this exercise in democracy for years to come.

The Iranian high court exonerated six individuals who killed five people that were deemed to be "morally corrupt." If that defense were permissible in the United States, how many Baldwin brothers would we have left, really?

Speaking of Iranian/U.S. relations, part-time musician and full-time comedian/conservative war monger/Presidential candidate John McCain was winning friends and influencing people when he delivered an impromptu rendition of the Beach Boys' song "Barbara Ann" with the lyrics "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran." That's a great way to win the voters who won't vote for John Edwards after his vigorous campaigning in Second Life video games. You can't win them all, and with these masterminds vying for office, everybody involved loses.

Apparently it was illegal for a deranged psychopath with a propensity for stalking college girls and a history of writing literature with references to incest and murder to purchase a hand gun. It was also illegal for him to buy two hand guns after his stint in the care of mental health professionals. Of course, these factors plus the Virginia Tech mass murder are not enough to get the Republicans or the Democrats to talk about gun law reform. Oh well. At least they'll still carry voters in the South.

Ohio University continues to dominate the (bad) news. OU graduate James Filiaggi sent in a last minute appeal for clemency after the governor refused his appeal from the murder of his wife. I haven't seen a Bobcat get beat up by the legal system like this since...football season.

In environmental news, a Stanford study determined that ethanol-powered vehicles would pose a threat to human health if widely used. They suggest moving out of the L.A. smog and to keep burning fossil fuels like a good little consumer.

In governmental news of the strange, NASA is becoming the new Post Office with a standoff that ended with a Nasa-employed gunman killing an engineer before turning the gun on himself. This comes a month after the diaper incident, so I'm thinking that the ranks of NASA aren't much better than the ranks of Republican Presidential candidates.

I don't know much about this particular case other than the fact that the guy is accused of some heinous crimes. Just looking at his mug shot, something tells me he will be found guilty.

Finally, I haven't spent any time hyping Pitchfork Fest, but since Slint, Sonic Youth and the GZA will be performing entire albums on Friday while a host of other indie mega acts fills up Saturday and Sunday, I should start now. As somebody who went last year, I guarantee it will be $50 well spent.