There was a big brawl involving Catwoman, an alien, Jack Sparrow, and others in Hollywood. Does it get any better than that? These are the low-rent impersonators who roam the sidewalk outside Grauman's Chinese Theater and get tourists to pay to have their pictures taken with them. And they're sometimes -- no, usually pretty skeezy. This brawl included the Jack Sparrow guy getting pepper-sprayed. You know, it's nice that they try to put ona show for the out-of-towners. (Los Angeles Times)

Do you check your Facebook and Twitter pages at work? Companies are grappling with whether that should be allowed or banned. Surely, they CAN track what you're up to, so do you want to give them the indication that you're not paying attention to work? (Orlando Sentinel)

This case, in which a teen is facing charges for setting up a fake Facebook page for another kid and using it to impersonate the other kid and post nasty stuff, is a reminder of how easy it is to do a fake Facebook or Twitter account. If you want to do some damage to someone, it's never been easier. (Toronto Star)

Yes, Roseanne Barr is running for president as a Green Party hopeful. I don't know that there's anything more to say about that. (TMZ)

Someone's created an app for cats. You fire it up on your iPad and it has a few different little games designed to distract and amuse cats. I would try it with Ella the World's Most Famous Cat, but she's supremely disinterested in my iPad, or anything else other than mealtime and the occasional bug. (WEWS-TV/Cleveland)

Human smuggling is big business at the U.S.-Mexican border, so the smugglers are doing whatever they think will work to get their cargo past the guards. The latest attempt: they hired African-American drivers because, the theory goes, the border agents wouldn't suspect them. They hired people from Compton, including an older woman, who don't speak any Spanish. See? Businesses have to innovate to stay viable. Unfortunately, the plan didn't work this time, and the smuggler, two of her family members, and a driver got arrested. (Los Angeles Times)

This article describes a pretty awful incident in which a boss fired an employee and allegedly hit her when she wouldn't go quietly. Forget the details for a minute; have you ever been subject to a GOOD firing? Because when I've been given the bad news, it's always been awkward and, in one case, just silly, with the GM insisting we go to Starbucks "just for a coffee and a chat" when he had to be aware I don't drink coffee. He wouldn't take "no, that's okay, I'm good" for an answer, which was also my way of saying "I know I'm a goner, just do it here and get it over with so I can get my severance and go home." (SF Weekly)

The school board in Saugus, MA has decided to keep allowing Santa Clause to visit classes. Yeah, whatever. Seriously, is this really controversial either way? First, Santa's not really a religious thing anymore. And second, do schools really need Santa showing up? Why? Can't the kids just go to the mall and see Santa? I don't remember Santa showing up to class when I was a kid. (WFXT-TV (Fox 25)/Boston; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

Can there be anything more mortifying than your mom being drunk when she shows up to pick you up from school? This mom allegedly ran her car through a gate, hopped a curb, and drove the wrong way up the school road. Poor kid won't ever live that down. Thanks, Mom. (Orlando Sentinel)

In case you were worried about it, the NFL says it won't be playing Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part Two" at the Super Bowl. Because, you know, perv. So, no big royalties. You can go back to not caring now. (San Francisco Chronicle)

This came out a few weeks ago and I missed it, but Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville didn't: among the tributes planned for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking this year at Titanic museums in Pigeon Forge and Branson are Ice-carving contests. Ice carving?!? How... tasteful. (Los Angeles Times)

A woman was attacked by a teen perv in a Chuck E. Cheese bathroom. The attacker was 16 years old, so he go a very light sentence -- time served. And then, now 17, he attacked another woman. And he got ANOTHER light sentence, 2- to 4-months, and could be out in 60 days. It's like the judges know he's going to do it again and they just don't care. (KABC-TV/Los Angeles)

The problem with letting inmates make the decals for the sides of police cruisers is that it gives the inmates the opportunity to slip something past everyone. Take the Vermont inmate who slightly altered the state crest to change the cow to a pig. The pig crest made it onto some cop cars. Someone's clever enough to do that but not clever enough to stay out of jail. (AP via WCVB-TV/Boston; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

Oh, boy. The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton, in recovery from hardcore drug and alcohol problems and a heartwarming story for his comeback and stardom, has allegedly relapsed, spotted drinking at a bar this week. Never assume recovery is easy. Hope he gets back on the wagon. (Dallas Morning News)

The insurance commissioners in California, New York, and Washington are now requiring all insurance companies to disclose how they plan to deal with the risks of climate change. Um... raise rates? What else can they do if the state insists they do something? (New York Times)

Police are looking for this guy who they say nearly murdered his girlfriend because she wouldn't give him beer money and didn't want to let him take $300 from her dresser. He tried to suffocate her with a pillow, beat her, then took off. One look at his mug and you won't be all that shocked. (WCAU-TV/Philadelphia)

So, one day, Tom Brady mentions that he watched last year's Super Bowl on an illegal streaming website while rehabbing on Costa Rica (tough life). And hours later, the feds shut down a bunch of illegal broadcast streamers. Here's the thing: If the league won't offer it by legitimate means, why do they expect that people wont try the other way? (Wall Street Journal)

So now that Peyton Manning has apparently been cleared to play next season, which complicates things further for the Colts, it's still a question of whether he SHOULD. Or WILL. Or... or... or can't Irsay and Manning make up their minds already? (Indianapolis Star)

This article is an interesting look at how the TV networks kinda cheat -- they would argue it's all kosher -- to pump up their ratings. It's not how you think. They do things like... well, in order to have a week they know won't get a lot of viewers counted towards, say, "Good Morning America," they'll tell Nielsen that for that week, instead of the usual "GMA," they'll be running a special show, "Good Morning Amer." What's on the air is the same old, but just filing the different name keeps that out of the totals. Or they'll front-load commercials in one hour so the second hour is national-commercial-free and won't count. Or they'll -- you hate this -- let a show run over the top of the hour. Or they'll declare something like a presidential debate a "special episode" of one of their news magazines so it looks like a regular show. Or they'll compare a half-hour show's ratings to a competing full-hour show. The ratings company doesn't have much say -- they get paid by the networks, anyway -- but do ad agencies buy this stuff? (New York Times)

This is a sad story about hockey great Gordie Howe, whose wife died after battling dementia and who is now starting to experience it himself. He's still hanging in there and still functional but it's tough. And it's a reminder of how, sometimes, aging just sucks. (Canadian Press via USA Today)

Okay, so Trump's endorsing Romney. Give me one good reason anybody should care. (Fox News)

And now the Obama administration, through Leon Panetta, is suggesting that we might pull out of Afghanistan a year earlier than scheduled, which is not a bad idea, since we STILL don't know exactly what the end game is for that particular war. But is this announcement a campaign strategy or a real plan? (Washington Post)

Different cultures eat different things. So when police in Australia raid a property and find dogs and goats being illegally slaughtered and sold for human consumption, can we really cast aspersions on the societies that eat... well, yeah, eating dog is sick and weird. You don't eat dog meat. Now, excuse me while I order a pile of charred ground cow flesh on a bun, well-done. (Melbourne Age)

Another study says bad things about diet soda, this time saying that it's correlated to an increased risk for stroke or heart attack. Of course, it could also be that people with a greater risk to begin with (because they're overweight) tend to drink diet soda rather than it being causally linked in the other direction. But there's still a link either way. So go with the full-sugar thing. No, maybe just water. (New York Daily News)

A study claims that women who eat a meal together tend to eat at the same pace, even if they don't know each other. It's part of studying if people's eating and drinking behavior is influenced by others, and whether it's because we want to be liked. Or it's just a silly study designed to get grant money to "prove" nothing in particular. (MSNBC)

I don't know what to add to the simple description of what these sisters, 24 and 17 years old, are charged with doing to an 18-year-old dude: They allegedly sexually assaulted him with pliers and gave him pee to drink. What kind of twisted do you have to be to even think of doing anything like this to anyone? (Eau Claire Leader-Telegram)

Parents in New Ulm, MN are alarmed that their fifth-grade kids are playing what they call rape tag. This is freeze tag except you do hip thrusts to unfreeze someone. Interestingly, the school didn't mention this, or what they did to stop it, to the parents until rumors hit Facebook. What I want to know is how fifth graders don't know that rape isn't a joke. (The Journal of New Ulm via St. Paul Pioneer Press)

Remember how Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego was "renamed" Snapdragon Stadium for a month so that Qualcomm could promote the Snapdragon processor on bowl games and NFL telecasts? The city let them do that in exchange for a healthy payoff: a bunch of cupcakes and $1,000. That's all the city got. The name exposure was worth more than that, but the council accepted practically nothing, and didn't tell the public until the local paper got the secret records. And now we know how much it takes to buy off the entire San Diego city council. It ain't much. (U-T San Diego)

A woman was upset that a dog had chased her around the neighborhood, so she and her boyfriend got their guns, went to their neighbor's home, and shot the dog owner dead. And now they're going to prison for life plus five years. Over a dog. They're too stupid to be allowed to function in society. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Here's a study that has determined that scratching feels better on certain parts of your body than on others. It feels better to scratch your back or ankle than your arm. Um... so? Well, they say this could help them come up with better itch relief or something. I think they just wanted an excuse to scratch themselves. (MSNBC)

One huge chain reaction crash was, the cops say, possibly caused by a speeding driver chatting on a cell phone. A woman drove her car into a house and said she was changing the CD in the car stereo at the time. Are we capable of driving and doing anything else at all anymore? (Houston Chronicle; WSOC-TV/Charlotte)

The car chase ended with the speeder's car crumpled into a tree and on fire. But the trooper giving chase didn't stop, officials say. Instead, he deliberately kept driving, only coming back when another cop called in the wreck. And when he did come back, he pulled out a fire extinguisher, but not to save the driver's life; he said he did it "just to make it look good... I knew he was dead, but you, you got to do that for the media and everyone else. I was just trying to put on a show." What he did, or didn't do, wasn't technically illegal, they say, but it was pretty egregious, and he's facing a civil wrongful death suit. You know, you can't blame cops for thinking dark thoughts about the people who lead them on high-speed chases, but they can't ignore an accident. (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

A woman accused of robbing a bank was noted on surveillance video to have no teeth. And it therefore makes sense that she told police that she'd robbed the bank to pay for dentures. So at least she had a logical explanation for it. (Observer-Reporter, Washington, PA)

If there's one thing you can say about Ron Paul, he sure knows his audience. And that's why he made sure to reiterate one particular proposal in his platform while making an appearance in Las Vegas: He wants to end federal taxation of tips. A few thoughts: Since it's a cash item, you can imagine a lot of tips go unreported to begin with. Second, it makes working in service jobs where tips are a large portion of the compensation much, much more attractive. On the other hand, should there be a category of worker which doesn't pay taxes while everyone else does? Why do they get a break while everyone else doesn't? (Los Angeles Times)

You know they want to do it, but it's still shocking to hear researchers come right out and say that they want the government to regulate sugar like booze and tobacco. You won't be surprised to hear that these academics are in San Francisco, where having the government interfere in your life is accepted and celebrated. The stress there should be on the word "your," because they themselves don't consider themselves the problem. They want YOUR life dictated by the nanny state. Anyway, they want taxes on sugary foods, restrictions on advertising, restrictions on where you can buy sweets. You know that they'd be happy if fat people were put in concentration camps, because that way they wouldn't mar the view from the organic grocery's free trade coffee bar. (MSNBC)

This article is an annual survey that the San Diego Union-Tri... oh, right, they're now officially U-T San Diego. That's like President Obama legally changing his name to "B-Man" because his friends call him that. Anyway, the paper does this thing every year of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the county, and that's something every market has, so you can do the same. Where are the worst traffic spots in your area? (U-T San Diego)

Officials in Missouri are ready to pony up $124 million to keep the Rams in St. Louis by paying to bring the Edward Jones Dome up to "top tier" status, whatever the hell that means, and if that's not enough, they'll probably pay more, just to keep the struggling team in town. And they have nobody to blame but themselves. Back in '94, they put a very bad deal on the table to get the team in the first place, a massive tax giveaway, way more than necessary to get the Rams to leave Anaheim, which the team wanted to leave anyway. And they put that language in the deal that now has them having to dig deeper. Of course, it's not the politicians' money, so they don't care that much. Is an NFL team worth the money to a city or state anymore? If the Rams go to L.A. or London, will St. Louis really suffer in the long run? (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Yes, there's apparently going to be a "Candy Land" movie with Adam Sandler. I blame you. You go to see that guy's movies even though you KNOW they'll suck. And that only encourages them. (Springfield Republican; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. You know what that means, right? Nothing. It means nothing. STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS FARCE. (Washington Post)

Do you trust the reviews you see at TripAdvisor (or, for that matter, Yelp or Amazon or anywhere else)? You probably do what most people do and take the reviews with a grain of salt, assuming that some are fake and some are overwrought one way or the other. But the site said that the reviews were "honest" and from "real" travelers, and that was enough to get a British advertising watchdog to censure the site and warned not to claim that all of its reviews are from real people. But do people really assume that all of those raves or pans are real? (Sydney Morning Herald)

Some universities are tring to get the emphasis in admissions away from grades and towards other qualifications, like personality and activities and stuff. Because college isn't about learning things in class. (And, actually, that's true; I learned more about living independently in college than I learned about the subjects in class) (Toronto Star)

They wouldn't say what they believed caused last year's salmonella outbreak in 10 states, not until now, when Oklahoma health officials have come right out and blamed Taco Bell. Wait, salmonella? I didn't even think that they sold meat there. Can filler breed salmonella? (MSNBC)

To raise money for breast cancer research, a guy is selling breast-shaped iPhone cases called "The Breastie." It comes in pink, black, and white. See how well it goes over at your next business meeting. (St. Paul Pioneer Press)

Oh, geez, another warning about teens using vodka soaked tampons and gummy bears? We know, we know. Stop that and they'll find another way to catch a buzz. 'Twas always so. (KHOU-TV/Houston)

Why you and I have no shot: In California, unions, businesses, and other special interests -- but mostly unions -- spent over $285 million lobbying state legislators in 2011. The teachers' union alone spent $6.5 million. You have the money, you write the rules. (Los Angeles Times)

Poorly-sourced overseas story? Sure, but like you don't want to talk about a 74-year-old man who died when he swallowed his dentures during sex with a prostitute. Probably should have taken those things out for that. (KTLA/Los Angeles)

Dead: Angelo Dundee.  Ali's guy.  Then Sugar Ray Leonard's guy.  That's pretty much as spectacular a resume as you can have as a trainer in boxing.  Fun fact: He, along with his brothers, took the name Dundee so his family wouldn't know about his boxing career.  (AP via ABC News)

Leave it to Charles Barkley to say what others surely think: He went on Waddle and Silvy's show on ESPN 1000 in Chicago and said he can't believe how bad the NBA is this season.  And, yes, the level of play sucks, and he's right that the lockout is being used as an excuse, but it's still the case that only a certified loose cannon like him can say that and still keep his job as a commentator on NBA telecasts.  (USA Today)

David Letterman's 30th anniversary in late night TV is Wednesday, and this column at Gawker by Drew Magary makes the case that Letterman is, and for several years has been, irrelevant, at least to anyone under 50. And that goes for Leno and the whole late-night chat show format. People don't watch late night television the way they used to, and young people don't bother with it except for clips online if there's something interesting. Meanwhile, Letterman does the same bits, the same Top 10s with celebrities doing the actual reading, that kind of thing. Do you agree? I do, but I haven't watched late night TV live for years and, save the occasional Ferguson, Fallon, or Conan when a friend's on, not even clips. They just don't seem essential anymore. (Gawker)

A couple of days after the fact and people are still arguing over whether Blake Griffin's posterizing of Kendrick Perkins was a dunk or not, and now Kevin Durant, coming to the defense of his teammate, insists that what Griffin did was not a dunk. He called it a "layup" and says he "wasn't impressed." You know what? After having looked at the play over and over since it happened, I'd say that, technically, since Griffin more threw the ball into the hoop than slammed it, maybe it wasn't a dunk. But it doesn't matter, does it? It was the loudest layup in history. It was still spectacular. And it was still mortifyingly posterizing. (Deadspin)

That small claims suit by the woman against Honda over the hybrid Civic's failure to deliver the promised fuel economy? She won. $9,867, and no lawyers to grab a cut, either. And that's great, because maybe it'll inspire similar DIY suits that'll do an end-around to avoid the class action that will primarily benefit lawyers (the plaintiffs in that case would get $100 to $200 and a $1,000 discount on a new car in a settlement; the lawyers would split $8.5 million). If every legitimate case against a company caught lying or cheating went this route, the real victims would get real money, and the lawyers can go pound sand. (AP via Washington Post)

There is NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT in the tiny little really small leak of radioactivity at the San Onofre nuclear plant, which happens to be not far from San Diego, down the road from Orange County, right along the 5 Freeway, and way too close to where I happen to be right now. No problem. Tiny. Didn't escape into... oh, well, actually, some radioactivity, really just a small amount, you wouldn't even notice it, may, just may have leaked out and reached the atmosphere. DO NOT PANIC. Go back to whatever you were doing. FORGET WE MENTIONED ANYTHING. (U-T San Diego)

Because context means nothing if you want someone to look bad, Mitt Romney's comment in which he said "I'm not concerned about the very poor" seems to now be missing the next sentences he uttered, which were "We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich -- they're doing just fine." In other words, he wasn't saying he doesn't care, he was saying that he's confident with social services to handle the problem. But the critics are piling on. Whether you like Romney or think he's a symbol of everything wrong about establishment politics, is this really a fair thing to rip? (New York Times)

Want your name on the theater that, at least for now, hosts the Oscars? It can be yours, now that Kodak's pulling out, seeing as how it's bankrupt. They don't say what Kodak was paying, but they call it "significant," so you might want to check how much credit room you have before making a bid. (Los Angeles Times)

74 dead in a soccer fan fight in Port Said, Egypt? And they call Oakland Raiders fans tough. Apparently, Egypt has particularly violent soccer fans. This is a country where they just overthrew a longtime tyrant and they're driven to murder over soccer? (BBC)

What? GQ's best- and worst-smelling cities list has L.A. in first and Paris as worst? Okay, L.A. DOES smell OK. And Paris, well, I like the description: "every other person smells like smoke-cured human bacon... If Satan farted, it would be a little like this sulfurous cocktail of burning photocopies and fried electrical wires..." Been there, and yup. (GQ)

Can we resist a story about a peewee hockey game delayed because of an allegedly drunk Zamboni driver? No, we cannot. The usual 10-minute scrape took about a half-hour, and the driver rammed the Zamboni into the boards. "Parents helped smooth the ice after the man was arrested," the article says, "as he left some rough patches." Yeah, that WOULD be a rough patch. (KMSP-TV (Fox 9)/Minneapolis)

Dead: Don Cornelius, an apparent suicide, according to TMZ. He was 75 and in poor health. If you grew up with "Soul Train," he was kind of a legend. (TMZ)

So the arena in which the NHL's Florida Panthers play needs some fixing up. The team could probably afford them, but why would they pay for it when they can get a $7.7 million loan from taxpayers, who already paid a lot for the privilege of building an arena in the swamp that makes money for the team but not the county? When are politicians going to stand up to pro sports teams and stop handing out tax money to them? What are they gonna do, move? Would too many people miss the Panthers if they left South Florida? (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

The mug shot is really the only reason it's news that this young woman was arrested for assaulting a strip club manager when he wouldn't let her in. He said she was too drunk and wouldn't pay the one-drink minimum. And she allegedly grabbed and slammed his cell phone to the ground and hit him in the nuts, which is never a good thing to do to a strip club manager. But, again, look at her picture. It's not good to ever look like that, but to be a wreck at 22 years old is just pathetic. (KMGH-TV/Denver)

Joakim Noah got off to a slow start this season, and the Chicago Bulls center admits that the problem stemmed from his new five-year, $60 million contract extension. He says it put more pressure on him. At least he's being candid, but some might suggest that the money would take pressure OFF him; in fact, some players have in the past been accused of dogging it once they got their money. That's the whole theory behind "contract years," players only playing hard in the year before they become free agents. So, which is it, pressure from making the big bucks or getting lazy after getting that contract? (Chicago Tribune)

The other day, there was another random violent attack in Center City Philadelphia by a mob of teens, this time swarming a cab, punching the passenger through the open window, and attacking the driver when he jumped out of the cab. The passenger ran, and later wrote an article for his college paper in which he noted that there were dozens of witnesses who all watched the attack and didn't help. It was entertainment for them. This wasn't in a bad neighborhood, either. Is this the future of society, bands of bored thugs beating people while others just sit there watching? (Philadelphia Daily News)

This article about vanity sizing -- the practice of making clothes, usually for women but for men, too, with smaller sizing labels than the items actually are -- mentions that it's practically impossible to standardize sizing. There ARE standards, but they're not enforced. And as a result, you have to try on everything, because a Large in one line is an XL in another and a Medium in a third. Maybe they're doing it to cut into online clothing sales, since you can't buy stuff online and assume the size is right. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Whoa: This guy became a respected civic leader, a contractor and City Councilman, and suddenly he's been charged with murdering a young woman 30 years ago. DNA evidence has linked the guy to the murder. If he did it, how did he live with that secret for 30 years? (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

The cops say a suicidal woman admits she buried her 2-year-old son under tumbleweeds in a field and left him to die because she was going through a breakup and "no one would want him after she killed herself." But she didn't kill herself. And the boy was rescued. How sick do you have to be to try to kill your son because you're upset about your divorce? And she was, by the cops' account, pretty cold-blooded about the whole thing, telling them that they "must already know (the boy) is deceased, because you have a cadaver dog" to search for him. And, again, they don't have tests or licenses to determine if you should be a parent. (KMGH-TV/Denver)

A 58-year-old woman was arrested for allegedly stalking her neighbor's 4-year-old daughter. And the details show what must have been a nightmare for the girl and her family: The alleged stalker is said to have insisted that the family was selling the girl in the Internet for sex, which doesn't appear to be true at all, and would peer into their windows (including the bathroom) and freak them out. The cops had to break down the doors to get to the woman, who blocked all the doors with boxes, chairs, and even a motorcycle. What do you do when your neighbor is, allegedly, nuts, and targets you? (Daily Commercial, Leesburg, FL)

This guy allegedly gave two 16-year-old boys tattoos in exchange for an iPod touch. A look at him explains why he'd do that; he's tatted up and on felony probation. But what kid would rather have tats than an iPod Touch? iPod Touches are sweet. (WKMG-TV/Orlando)

The Census Bureau says that the U.S. homeownership rate has fallen to 66%, down from a fourth-quarter peak of 69.2% in 2004. That's not a surprise, considering all the foreclosures and how hard it is to get a loan at the moment, but I thought it would be worse. The drop isn't good, but you'd think that homeownership is dead from all the news we hear. 66% is still a lot. (USA Today)

Amazon is doing exclusive deals to publish books. Barnes and Noble now says they won't carry those books in their stores. And if you can't get a book you want at a retail store, will you go back to that store? It's understandable that B&N would be angry and want to retaliate, but this won't help their business. (Los Angeles Times)

There have been two high-profile cases of people being badly injured in New York when someone thought it was a good idea to throw a shopping cart from a great height. In one case, it was stupid kids who critically injured a woman; in another, an argument between livery drivers led one to go to the top of a parking garage and fling a cart at his rivals. And now, people are freaked, which, despite the fact that it's only happened twice, is understandable. We can't have shopping carts above the ground floor anymore? (New York Times)

Connecticut Democrats are pushing a bill that would outlaw "price gouging" in the wake of storms. They already have such laws in place for gas and home heating fuels. Who could be against that? Well, here's the thing: Who defines "gouging"? If a store has a finite amount of materials, the market would say that the price SHOULD go up -- that's what markets do, adjusting values to account for conditions and demand. When is it "gouging"? Who decides? Should the government be getting involved in the market? (AP via NECN; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

I'm speechless: In a move that appears to be designed to protect extremely rich polo club owner John Goodman's assets from a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from his alleged running of a red light and killing a man, Goodman, who is 47 years old, has adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend to make her his "child" and therefore eligible to participate in the trust for his adult children that he's set up (and is beyond the reach of lawsuits). Again, he's 47, she's 42, and a court let him adopt her. How is that even legal? Does this make their relationship incestual? (Palm Beach Post)

The woman's credit card was rejected -- twice -- but when the restaurant asked her for $9.15 cash to pay for breakfast, she bolted. And she ended up allegedly leading cops in a chase, ramming her car into a police cruiser, and refusing to get out of her car. For a ten buck breakfast? Oh, and a baggie of cocaine fell out of her shoe, cops say. In retrospect, I'm sure she'll agree, none of this was worth the free food. (WFSB-TV/Hartford)

A school in Newton, MA has banned Valentine's Day candy, and the principal is suggesting that kids hand out some nice origami instead. We've been through, what, a hundred years of kids trading candy for Valentine's Day and suddenly it's unhealthy, possibly allergenic, and disruptive? What the hell happened to society? (WFXT-TV (Fox 25)/Boston; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

This story has so much to offer: Drunken sailor? Check. Went into wrong apartment? Check. Peed on floor? Check. Climbed into bed with the 80-year-old woman who lived there? Check. Criminal charges? No, not those. He was too drunk to realize it was the wrong apartment, and, apparently, if you mistakenly go into someone's apartment, pee on the floor, and get into their bed, it's legal. So if you want to do that, just say you were drunk and stupid and you're home free, it seems. (Seattle Times)

Police in Pacoima, up in the San Fernando Valley, were dealing with a standoff, and the SWAT team was arresting the suspect when a woman walked up and stole a patrol car. She just got in and drove off. They left the keys in it? Really? And she ditched the car several blocks away and they don't know who she was or where she went. Great police work, guys. (KCBS-TV/Los Angeles)

If the majority of the City Council of Detroit can't be bothered enough to show up for a critical meeting about last-ditch efforts to avoid the city being taken over by an emergency manager, why shouldn't the city be taken over? Better yet, why should the rest of the state put another penny into trying to save what's left of the place? They needed just five of nine members to be there, and only four did so. Some left during the aborted meeting. THEY DON'T CARE. That's who the people of Detroit elect to represent them, people who don't care? What does that tell the rest of the state? What SHOULD that tell the voters in the city, who apparently don't care enough to demand better? (Detroit Free Press)

Really? Aaron Rodgers ripped his NFC teammates for lack of effort in the Pro Bowl? Does he realize that nobody ever cares about the Pro Bowl and they're there for the Hawaiian vacation and not to get hurt? That most have been out of action for several weeks and are out of tune, unlike Rodgers, who'd played right up until the previous week? What was he expecting? (ESPN)

So with Romney's Florida win, does this end it? If Santorum gets out, is there still a race? And if not, does Gingrich staying in until the end just hurt Romney's chances in November... and do hardcore Newt-ites care? (Miami Herald)

The CEO of Angry Birds maker Rovio said that a little piracy may be good for business. He says his company learned from others' mistakes and doesn't crack down on piracy because they figure that today's pirate will ultimately like the game enough to buy more. And they're making a fortune on that thing, and give away "Lite" versions, too, so maybe they know what they're doing. (Daily Telegraph)

Score one for Jamie Oliver, who's succeeded in getting McDonalds to stop using pink slime in its hamburgers. Pink what? Well, see, a lot of fast food burgers use "pink slime," a filler made from spare "beef trimmings" treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria. It's perfectly legal, and the USDA says it's safe, but activists including celebrity chef Oliver say that the stuff is gross and bad for you. It probably won't kill you, but you'd rather not eat it, right? (KTLA/Los Angeles)

By now, you've heard about the conditions at the Foxconn Chinese plants where iPhones are made. Now, some groups in the U.S. are gathering names on petitions to demand an ethical iPhone 5, that is, one made in a factory that doesn't abuse or overwork its employees. We know that a lot -- maybe most -- companies who make products overseas are guilty of the same sin, but does Apple have a special duty because they CAN demand better and because they have that image of being, you know, Apple? Does that matter to you? (CNET)

Oh, sure, when Rob Lowe said it, you laughed, but now Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports says that two Colts sources told him Peyton Manning won't ever play again, and it seems more legitimate. If you were him -- you've won a Super Bowl, you're a sure Hall of Famer, you're a sure media star for the future, and you're risking very serious injury if you come back -- would you do it for the money or the pride, or would you walk away? (Yahoo! Sports)

Wow, just after we found out about that Fresno-area teacher who allegedly played the "lollipop game" with a student, we hear about ANOTHER teacher this one in L.A., who allegedly gagged and blindfolded kids and fed them semen. Yes, "ew" is a mild version of your immediate reaction. There are pictures. And they found a spoon that appears to be the one in the pictures. And there's a DNA match. (EW) And this was a teacher who was popular with parents, so popular that they'd invite him to girls' quinceaneras, although investigators think that the relationships seemed... unnatural. Yyyyup. He also allegedly put big roaches on them. Oh, and there's the story of a boy whose father says he's pictured in those photos eating a cookie with a white substance on it. EW!!! (Los Angeles Times)

A BBC executive, talking about watching shows while using social media, said that while interactivity "has its place," some shows demand viewers not be distracted by Twitter, including "Frozen Planet." He may be right, but I don't think I watch ANYTHING without multitasking nowadays. And I think people know when a show's so intense you can't tweet while watching it. (Daily Telegraph)

Okay, so this article is about the Lions fan who allegedly threatened to blow up the Superdome during the Saints-Lions playoff game, and the key to understanding why he did it is in this sentence from the article: "He expressed regret during a phone interview Monday and worried about losing his cooking job at McDonald's." Add to that the photo of the guy, posing in a Slayer t-shirt, and the best part, exactly what he said, which included the sentence "Hi, I want you to relay a message to the sideline, if your stupid Southern team keeps winning, there will be reper... severe consequences, OK?" Yes, the word "repercussions" was a little too problematic for this guy. He's exactly the kind of guy who you'd imagine would call in a bomb threat when his team is losing. If he didn't do it, he sure fits the profile. (Detroit News)

In a case of shutting the barn gate after the horses have gotten out, a New York lawmaker wants to enact heavy fines for eating on the subway, on account of all of the rats in the system. Something tells me that a) those rats would be there whether or not people eat their Egg McMuffins on the way to work, and b) it's too late to get rid of them. (WINS/New York)

Did you know that it's a tradition for hockey players to nap before a game? They ALL do it. And now an expert says that it's a bad thing to do, that it's no subsitute for a good full night's sleep. He says that players should ditch the nap. Good luck with changing the habits of some of the most superstitious people on Earth. (National Post)

A new Boston website follows successful similar ventures in New York and London in asking people to post surreptitiously-taken pictures of attractive subway riders for comment. In New York and Boston, they only allow pictures of men. In Boston, it's open to women, too. And it's... creepy. You don't want your picture on a website for people to make fun of you? It's legal, so too bad. (WBZ-TV/Boston; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

Update: The family that sued the California Highway Patrol for an officer posting grisly accident photos of their daughter on the Internet has agreed to a cash settlement. I don't know how much they got, but no amount of money can pay for the anguish of your daughter's mangled dead body being posted for people's entertainment on the Internet, can it? (KTLA/Los Angeles)

In a spectacular display of parenting, an 18-month-old tot managed to crawl away, go through a doggie door, and get mauled by up to seven dogs. The parents were sleeping, and the dogs are the property of grandpa, who lives with them and obviously didn't think having pit bulls around a baby was a bad idea. It gets better: after a neighbor confronted the grandmother about the dogs, the grandma allegedly grabbed the neighbor by the throat and had to be cuffed by the cops. Is this a news story or a Springer episode? (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

It is not at all self-serving for the company that makes bubble wrap to release a "poll" showing that popping bubble wrap for more than one minute relieves stress and equals a 33-minute massage, according to people who wouldn't know about that. But popping bubble wrap IS addictive, even if it's totally pointless. YOU LOVE IT AND YOU KNOW IT. (WFSB-TV/Hartford)

I'm a sucker for this: A couple in Las Vegas has been married for 78 years, longest in America, and, well, that's something to which I aspire, even if I'd be well over 100 if we make it to 78 years. Nice to imagine, anyway. (KVVU-TV (Fox 5)/Las Vegas)

It's been more than half a century, and now a guy who claims to have run a secret gay prostitution ring servicing Hollywood stars in the 1940s is writing a book about it and naming names of long-dead famous people he says partook, including names like Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. The question is whether this matters at all and why we care. I mean, you'll read at least the articles about this and see who's named (all of whom can't speak for themselves now), yet what's the point of knowing that Cole Porter may have used this guy's services or that Walter Pidgeon propositioned him with a $20 tip? Why is this interesting to people today? (Daily Telegraph)

In San Diego, two of the leading candidates for the next mayoral election are gay Republicans. This raises two issues: One, that nobody much cares about the "gay" part, and whether that indicates that we've finally gotten past it as an issue (and whether that's true everywhere or just in a more sophisticated area like San Diego), and two, that even in a more polarized political climate, it's not impossible to be both gay and Republican. (U-T San Diego)

This short item is about a woman who accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brake and crashed into a donut shop. She's in her 90s. And that raises the time-honored radio topic: What's someone in her 90s doing behind the wheel? Should there be an age limit for driving? Can you take people's independence away without a test? Should there be annual testing? At what age? You know the drill. (Orange County Register)

One thing the iPhone's Siri doesn't do well: accents. And that's why it's practically useless in Scotland. There's no "Scottish" setting, and when you put it in British English, it can't figure out the Scottish accent at all. It isn't stopping people from buying the thing, but it must suck when a feature like that doesn't yet work with your voice. (Los Angeles Times)

Add this to the Ew File: A second grade teacher at an elementary school up in Clovis, CA has been charged with not only sexually abusing a little girl but recording it on his cellphone. The got caught because the girl's mother happened to go to the school during recess and noticed that her daughter wasn't out with the rest of the kids. Can it get worse? Well, the abuse was this: he allegedly had the girl blindfolded while they played "the lollipop game," which is exactly what you think it is. Yes, ew. (Fresno Bee)

Teens don't use Twitter, right? Now, some are, and the reason isn't that it's a better experience. No, it's to escape their parents on Facebook, according to a survey. Once parents got really into Facebook, it kinda ruined everything for the kids. Parental presence equals uncool. (AP via The Globe and Mail)

A 16-year-old teen accused of assaulting a cop says that he only fought the cop after catching the cop putting dog poop in a friend's mailbox. The teen (who, incidentally, is 6-foot-1 and 240 pounds, which is one big 16-year-old) says he watched the cop plant the poop, then confronted him, saying that the cop seems to have been blaming him and his friend for crimes in the neighborhood. The kids have arrest records, but what if they're right? Is it possible that a cop IS trying to set them up? (Charlotte Observer)

This brief article is about an apparent love triangle that erupted into a brawl at a Walmart. Security asked them to take it outside but they went to the produce department instead and started punching each other and throwing wine bottles. I don't care HOW emotional you are, you can't control yourself in public? You need to throw punches and bottles in Walmart? Has civilization ended and we just weren't informed? (Desert Sun)

If you walk your dog in a national park, you'd best observe the leash laws, lest you encounter this National Park Service ranger who, upon observing someone walking dogs off-leash at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and getting a false name when she asked the guy for ID, tased the guy. Here's the thing: The park in question was an off-leash park until December, when it was added to the national park. People there still don't know the law. And the ranger allegedly didn't explain to the guy why he was being detained, and she shot the guy in the back when he walked away. It's interesting to read the comments with the article, in which people seem to think that the ranger was justified in using electric shock force against an unarmed guy who was walking away. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Everybody loves to download apps. We know that. But a study by the study-happy Pew Center says that we don't use most of the apps we install. People go back to five or six. What are your favorites? (USA Today)

A guy is suing the Frito-Lay company claiming that Tostitos and Sun Chips are, contrary to the marketing, not all-natural, because they use products from genetically-engineered plants. Not sure that invalidates a "natural" claim under the letter of the law, but whatever. All I know is that if you're that concerned over "natural," you probably don't want to eat chips. (Reuters via WJW-TV (Fox 8)/Cleveland)

Okay, this isn't good: Someone died from Legionnaire's Disease, and they say it was in the water at the Luxor in Las Vegas this month. And three Luxor guests in the past year were diagnosed with the disease. So... wow. Nothing much you can do about it if you happen to stay at a hotel -- it's usually a hotel -- where that happens. (KTNV-TV/Las Vegas)

It's indisputable that some people used Megaupload accounts to store and swap pirated copyrighted material. But others used the now-frozen-by-the-feds service as off-site storage for legitimate purposes, like for family photos or business archives. And the feds now say that the private third-party server operators whose capacity Megaupload used may destroy it all without allowing users to retrieve it. Due process? None. And Megaupload itself can't arrange anything because its money has been frozen, so it can't save the data or retrieve it to defend itself. They still hope to arrange something, but right now, it should serve as a warning: Off-site storage is fine as a backup, but you really should be backing up locally as well. You can't have too many backup options. (AP via MSNBC)

A survey says that 75% of Americans have used their mobile devices on the toilet. And a quarter of them will not go to the bathroom without their devices. And 20% of males have joined a conference call from the toilet. You know who you are. (New York Times)

Where left-wing nuts and right-wing nuts intersect: It was a Republican state senator from Florida who proposed a bill to block food stamp recipients from using the stamps to pay for "junk food." This satisfies the right wingers who don't want the poor to get government assistance, and the left wingers who don't want anyone to eat food of which they disapprove. The perfect nanny-state storm. (Los Angeles Times)

That city council candidate in Arizona who got pulled from the ballot by a judge because she couldn't speak English well enough insisted in an interview with CNN that her English is indeed good enough. She gave the interview in Spanish. And the debate continues: If people want someone in office who can't speak English, should they have the right to vote her in? Oh, yeah, one other issue: She is a U.S. citizen who graduated the local high school, which is bilingual. She graduated without fluency in English. Should that ever happen in America? Isn't bilingual education supposed to help the students learn BOTH languages instead of enabling them to graduate without the need to learn English? (CNN)

The "green" movement has its consequences, and in Palm Beach County public schools, where they put waterless urinals in the boys' rooms, the consequence is that the pee, undiluted, has corroded the copper pipes behind the walls and left hallways and classrooms soaked with pee seeping from the walls. So all that money spent on waterless urinals is out the window as they replace the fixtures with low-flow flush urinals. They should make all the officials who forced this upon the taxpayers install waterless fixtures in their own houses. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

The Department of Homeland Security doesn't do humor, so they didn't see it as funny when a British tourist tweeted a joke suggesting that he would "go and destroy America," which he says he intended to mean "party." He also quoted "Family Guy" saying that he'd be "pissing people off on Hollywood Blvd. and diggin' Marilyn Monroe up." And because of that, he and his travel partner were cuffed, thrown in a cell, and deported when they landed at LAX. Welcome to America, world! We have absolutely no sense of humor or perspective! (Daily Mail)

The Democrats are going to push the issue of the "Buffett Rule," the extra tax on the "super-rich." Why is nobody pointing out that there is nothing preventing Warren Buffett from making a voluntary donation to the federal treasury? (New York Times)

How did it escape our notice that Tim Tebow was booked into the same Vegas hotel as the porn convention? They say nothing happened, but, come on, you'd have wanted to see those worlds collide. (USA Today)

Hey, great news! Gas prices are going up, there's no end in sight, and oil companies are compounding the problem by shutting down refineries, thus guaranteeing that production will be low for the demand! Wait, that's not good news at all, is it? (Los Angeles Times)

A study claims that women are better at parking than men. This was determined by covert surveillance of parking lots across Britain. They were better at finding spaces, better at accuracy, better at using "preferred" parking methods and backing into spaces. Men were better in parking nose-first (and isn't that the way most people park? Just sayin'). And James May of "Top Gear" points out that some of the criteria, like parking centered in the slot, aren't necessarily the best way to park if the cars on either side are too close to the lines. Anyway, there it is, contradicting all the old hack jokes. (Daily Telegraph)

A German thief stole a box from a car, but what he or she didn't know is what was in the box: seven wooden dildos. Turns out that it was a bunch of props for sex education. Not sure what you can get for those on the black market, but they might make for some interesting parties. (AP via Arizona Republic)

This is a standard story about a home overrun by animals, and the animal control people coming in to remove the animals, except for the type of animals involved: 29 hogs, 25 dogs, 5 horses and 2 llamas, plus chickens, ducks, geese and doves. Llamas? How the hell does this happen? Where do you even GET llamas, from a Michael Jackson estate sale? (WFTV/Orlando)

This BBC article posits that the worst place on Earth to be a garbageman is in Jakarta, Indonesia, where people just push all of their trash -- food scraps, paper, cans, whatever -- into the street, no bags or cans. The binman has to come around with a hand cart and pick it all up by hand; this guy wades through it in bare feet. He only has to collect from the people who pay for it, but it takes a few round-trips to empty the cart into an open tip, which happens to be located by the shacks where the garbagemen all live. And then it gets taken to a massive landfill. Oh, did I mention that they have open drains outside each home, and they get blocked? And that it's his job to unclog the drain manually? And, finally, that these jobs are actually prized, because there's a regular salary and there are only 3,000 jobs (and one complaint can get you fired, because there are other people waiting to take your job)? (BBC)

The amusing part of this story about a woman who allegedly stole stuff from her neighbor's house while the neighbor was away for an extended period is WHY the neighbor was away: the neighbor was in jail. And when that person was released, the burglar was in the house. Caught red-handed. Maybe next time they can share a cell. (Tampa Bay Times)

A gun show vendor shot himself in the hand while showing off his personal concealed weapon. He'd removed the magazine but there was a round in the chamber. You'd think a gun seller would... nah, you're right, you can't assume that. (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

The cops have one guy they think is among several who are walking into Walmarts and walking out with flat-screen TVs. They just stroll in, take a cart, fill it with TVs, and walk right out unimpeded. Why is it that I get stopped by the elderly greeter and my receipt gets perused when I've legitimately bought everything in my cart and these guys just walk right on out with nobody checking anything? (WSB-TV/Atlanta)

Oh, well, if a camel at a New Jersey petting zoo camel predicts the Giants will win Super Bowl, then the Giants will win the Super Bowl, right? So that's settled. (USA Today)

It's been a month since a concert promoter from New Jersey was placed under detention in Angola because Nas failed to show up for two New Year's concerts. The rapper decided to stay in Miami and party with LeBron James instead of honoring his contract; he sent the $300,000 back but the Angolans want $75,000 for their troubles, and the promoter doesn't have it, so they're holding him with no end in sight. Does Nas owe the promoter payment of the ransom... er, fee? (Newark Star-Ledger)

Because the meat provisioner is going out of business, we get the headline that Doogie's two-foot hot dog will no longer be offered. Yes, I wrote it that way to emphasize the phrase "Doogie's two-foot hot dog," for the comic double entendre possibilities. But it's a real hot dog, featured on "Man Vs. Food," offered at a Connecticut restaurant. Will nobody step forward to preserve Doogie's two-foot hot dog? A nation wonders. (Hartford Courant)

Here's the hypocrisy: Some candidates talk a good game about smaller government, but they're all for intrusive government when they're pandering to a voting bloc. Newt Gingrich wants a commission to study the possibility of having the federal government get involved with in vitro fertilization clinics, because, you know, they create embryos. He'll expand the intrusiveness of government to get the religious right's votes. Don't believe these guys when they claim to be for smaller government, because they lie. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Some New York City private schools now cost close to $40,000 a year. $40,000? For school? Four years at a private college didn't cost me as much as one year of private school now. I don't have kids, so I don't know how much it costs anywhere else, but if getting my kid a good education in a city cost $40,000 a year, I'd move to someplace with decent public schools. (New York Times)

It's never been easier to plagiarize, and that goes for college application essays, too. But colleges have a weapon: there's a computer program that's specifically designed to look at college admissions essays and figure out if they're plagiarized. They can do that. I wonder how many essays are ripoffs; I remember that the essays were the most stressful part of the process for most applicants back in the pre-Net days, and I wonder if the temptation to make it easy overwhelms people nowadays. (Los Angeles Times)

Brazilian bikini makers are making the scanty suits in larger sizes because people are getting chunkier. And you can do what you want with that information, because I'm not saying anything further. (AP via Houston Chronicle)

Students at a Houston-area high school are protesting a ban on yoga pants. Apparently, the tight pants are causing disruption, or at least the administration thinks so. The biggest problem with yoga pants is that a majority of the women wearing them really aren't shaped in a way that would make form-fitting clothes look attractive. But I'm pretty sure that the school is just thinking that they're too sexy for class. (And do parents even look at what their kids are wearing anymore?) (KHOU-TV/Houston)

Firefighters rescued this 13-year-old girl who got her arm stuck in a vending machine after she reached in to see if she could free a bottle of water. She clearly hasn't been taught that you NEVER stick your arm in the machine. You rock it back and forth instead. Oh, wait, it could fall on you. But you'll do that anyway. (WWLP-TV/Springfield, MA)

In the category of "really stupid studies" comes a survey of British kids that reveals that 49% of kids 12 and under would be sad if they didn't have Internet access. That's truly illuminating. Kids that age would be "sad" if they didn't have french fries, or their pet hamster, or their favorite socks. They have emotional attachments to everything. Hardly news. (Daily Telegraph)

Here's your EWWWWW story of the day: Doctors in Peru are performing surgery Monday on a 3-year-old boy who has a parasitic twin in his stomach. It's like a horror movie! And, ew. (AP via Houston Chronicle)

The eternal quest for a male contraceptive has led doctors to come up with a new method: zapping your testicles with ultrasound. Tests indicate that pounding the testicles with sound waves may stop the production of sperm. It's not perfected yet, and it may leave you producing damaged sperm when you resume production. Guys, you gonna let them do that to you? (BBC)

A school principal is in trouble for swearing at students at an assembly. Why did she do that? Well, someone smeared poop on a bathroom stall, and she told the kids about it and, um, she used the S-word in the process. They've put a letter in her file for it. But, come on, all the kids know the word, and it's accurate, so.... (WANE-TV/Fort Wayne)

Deadspin has this story that played out on KFNC (ESPN 97.5 The Ticket) in Houston about a guy who says he bought Super Bowl tickets for himself and his girlfriend, only she dumped him because he was diagnosed with cancer. But she then demanded the tickets, because, she says, he bought them with her in mind. So he auctioned the tickets off on Twitter to someone who gets him the most Twitter followers by the end of the Pro Bowl. There'll be an announcement on the show on Tuesday as to who gets the tickets. It would be funny if the ex won them, but that's unlikely. (Deadspin)

After due consideration by NBC, the donkey-semen-and-pee-drinking episode of "Fear Factor" will not be aired Monday night. They'll run a rerun instead. YOU'RE DISAPPOINTED, I CAN TELL. TMZ has a photo with mugs o' pee and semen (and donkeys), in case you needed to see it. Personally, I didn't. (TMZ)

This guy has gotten Ripley's to certify that he has the world's largest gumball, made up of chewed Nicorette gum. That is disgusting. He knows it, and he says it was all kind of a lark that just kept going and served as a bonding experience with his daughter (awwww), but, still, would you want a massive wad of chewed gum that smelled like an ashtray in your house? (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

A sensational trial ended in a guilty verdict for three Afghan-Canadians who murdered four relatives in an "honor killing." Three teen girls and the first wife of one of the defendants (who was a polygamist) were found in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal near Kingston, Ontario in June 2009. Why were they killed? Because the wife didn't want to be part of a polygamous situation and the girls were interested in -- gasp! -- boys and dating. Women, in this household, were far from equal to the men, and didn't think there was anything wrong with it... until they were arrested, at which point they tried to deny everything while wiretaps and other evidence was piled high against them. And, yes, this still goes on in the 21st century. (The Globe and Mail)

This "struggling soap-opera actor" was, he said, pressured by his condo association to get rid of his pit bull, not directly but by fines for barking and rules against this and that. So he had the healthy dog euthanized, then killed himself. There WERE other options besides having the dog killed -- he COULD have moved, he COULD and should have sued the condo board (he had the dog BEFORE they instituted a ban and harsh rules) -- but that's how he went, and it seems like his depression took both lives. Awful story. (New York Post)

Ew: A woman who died in 1994 was, it appears, packed in a coffin and left in a storage unit in Clearwater, FL since then. The body was only discovered when the storage unit was seized and the contents prepared for auction after the woman's daughter failed to make the rent payments. The dead woman's granddaughter knew about it -- her mother told her that she couldn't afford the burial and swore her to secrecy -- and there was no money left to bury the grandmother after the mother died and was herself buried. But the granddaughter's got her own problems -- her home was declared uninhabitable and a dozen cats were seized by the cops in 2010. Just ew all around. (WTSP-TV/St. Petersburg-Tampa)

California is doing it again, ordering car makers to make more super clean cars, with one in seven to be essentially zero-emissions by 2025 and making other emissions rules ultra-tough. That's noble, except that it will add several thousand dollars to the cost of each car, and that will be paid by you and me (and, believe me, this will affect prices everywhere; unlike the old days when they'd set different prices for California versus the rest of the country, everyone pays now when California changes the rules). They say, well, you make that money back over the life of the car, but a) do you really?, and b) that's nice, but you have to pay it all up front, and people who can barely afford a car now will be priced out, because the lenders don't care that you'll save it on gas over three years; all they know is what you make now and how much you want to borrow. (Los Angeles Times)

One of our local high schools here on the Peninsula is the site of a cheating scandal, with three students accused of breaking into classrooms, hacking into the computer system, and changing their grades. You know, if you're smart enough to know how to do that, you probably shouldn't NEED to change your grades. (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

A middle school in Pottstown, PA has banned Uggs and other open-top boots. Because they're ugly? Well, they are, but no, that's not why. It's because students were hiding forbidden cell phones in the lining of the boots. What, so they'll hide the phones in their pockets now? You can understand the frustration the administrators have, but banning open-top boots in a cold-weather area might not be the way to go. (Pottstown Mercury)

Thought the Occupy protests had gone away? Not in Oakland, where there were over 400 arrests when Occupy Oakland protestors tried to seize the old convention center, which has been closed for years. They wanted a new base of operations from which to do... what? That's still unclear. Really, they got the 99%-1% thing out there, and that did make a mark. But we're past a year into this and there are still no answers and still a bunch of college students sitting around smelling bad and not really offering anything new. (San Francisco Chronicle)

You went and got an advanced degree in a technology-related field, and you worked for years in Silicon Valley. And then your employer got sold and you got let go. Your skills should make finding a new job easy, right? Nope -- there's a large and growing population of older, unemployed tech workers for whom jobs just don't exist anymore. What to do about that? Well, the only answer is to be entrepreneurial and creative, because the biggest firms are only hiring young people -- they'd object if you called it age discrimination, preferring to couch it in terms of "cultural fit," but that's what it is. If you're going gray, stay away. (Bay Citizen via New York Times)

Says here more men are coloring their hair. It's all about trying to remain youthful in the job market, now that more older workers have been plunged back into looking for work. Plus, the ladies, they love it. Do they? (Los Angeles Times)

It kinda sucks that this family may be evicted from the wife's brother's garage, where they've been living after her husband's hours were cut and they couldn't afford anything else, because the converted garage is 18 inches too close to the property line to qualify for a conversion variance, but if you were a neighbor to that house, you'd complain when a family of three moved into the garage, too. Times are tough, but having one-family houses turn into duplexes or rooming houses would tick you off, too. Until you needed a place to stay; then, you might look at things a little differently. (Los Angeles Daily News)

The guy who co-wrote "The Bell Curve" is back with another book, summarized by this columnist, that says, basically, that society has broken into two castes, not divided by economic issues as much as by social things like work ethic. He says that the reason people in the lower classes are poor is because they don't have the same work ethic, or reverence for education, that the other people do. And that might be true for some people, but how does he account for the people who worked hard at blue-collar jobs which have, through technology or outsourcing, gone away? Is an assembly-line worker's plight that he just doesn't put enough value into working, or that the jobs he can do have simply gone away and he's not necessarily qualified to do anything else? (The Globe and Mail)

A bunch of protestors stormed the Davos conference, the key element being thaty they were women and they were topless. What were they protesting about? Does it matter? Oh, well, you could probably guess that they hate capitalist pigs and they held signs saying that it was the fault of the rich people at Davos that they're poor. But they're not from some third world country without electricity, sanitation, or education, they're from the Ukraine, and blaming others for your poverty means you probably haven't really tried to do anything to, um, not be poor. That's all beside the point, which is, of course, topless. (Toronto Star)

This article about Barnes and Noble paints the chain as the last stand for bookstores before they ALL go away, vanquished by Amazon and digital books. It's another chance to talk about how life will be different without the bookstore experience. I know that even though I have a tablet and I'm comfortable with e-books, it's not the same. And without bookstores, I don't know where I'll go to spend hours browsing and reading and getting out of the house. (New York Times)

It doesn't surprise me all that much that a TSA agent would mistake an insulin pump for a gun, because, you know, insulin pumps look so much like guns, if guns look like little rectangular boxes with big buttlons and LCD screens. Which they don't. (Los Angeles Times)

Police arrested a man who allegedly caused a traffic accident and then ran naked from the scene, and who fought back armed with shovels when the cops caught up with him. He'd reportedly had some sort of argument with a co-worker and set out to wreak havoc in traffic. He's "believed to suffer from mental health issues," the article says. Really? (Orange County Register)

It's nice when someone reaches her goal in life, but some people set the bar lower than others. This woman hopes that Guinness will certify her record, getting over a million comments on her Facebook post, which was about, um, getting a million comments on the post. Why would she think that would be worthy of a record? Well, it IS in the news, isn't it? (KTXL-TV (Fox 40)/Sacramento)

This teen is upset with some of the Orlando theme parks for refusing to allow her to get on their rollercoasters even though she's ridden them before. The problem? She doesn't have hands, and they say that as a result she can't grab onto the restraints if needed. But she CAN use her arms and stumps to ride horses, take photos, climb ropes, and draw, all without benefit of prosthetics. And the parks can't seem to decide on whether she can or can't ride. So just let her ride already. (Orlando Sentinel)

Okay, so it seems like the latest round of management at RIM seems to think that they can revive BlackBerry, and they also seem to think that they're still at the cutting edge of technology. You want to break it to them or should I? Seriously, is there any hope at all for BlackBerry now that it's all about apps and corporate IT departments are getting more comfortable with iOS and Android? (New York Times)

From the Chihuahua Bureau: A woman's dogs got loose in the gated community, and a neighbor, who nobody seems to have known before this incident, came out and allegedly killed Lily the Chihuahua with a golf club. He just took aim and hit her like a chip shot out of a bunker. Who would do that? He allegedly said the dog tried to bite him, but it's a Chihuahua. You should be able to shake a Chihuahua off without beating it to death. (Riverside Press-Enterprise)

From the Chihuahua Bureau: Here are TWO articles from two cities very far apart in which Chihuahuas had close and nasty encounters with other wildlife, specifically a coyote in Alhambra, CA and a hawk in Memphis. Pet owners are being advised to keep their pets indoors, because you don't want your Chihuahua to become Coyote Chow or to be snatched up and taken away by a hawk. (Pasadena Star-News; WMC-TV/Memphis)

From the Chihuahua Bureau: Someone dumped a Chihuahua puppy in a trash can. Someone else found the puppy and it's now safe with a family. But what kind of person just dumps a puppy in the garbage? (KCBS-TV/Los Angeles)

From the Chihuahua Bureau: Meet the latest celebrity pet, a two-legged Chihuahua. This poor kid was the result of someone's amateur breeding attempts; apparently, people try to breed smaller and smaller dogs, and they don't always know what they're doing. Anyway, this one, sans front legs, is otherwise perfectly healthy, and they're hopeful to find a home for him. Oh, and to answer your question, he hops around like a kangaroo. (Daily Democrat, Woodland, CA)

So, it's been a mild winter. Remember when that early storm hit and everyone said, ha, see, it's going to be another extreme CLIMATE CHANGE!!! winter? You can't tell either way from one year's results. And I can remember winters like this from when I was a kid back east: Some years, you get a lot of snow, and others, not so much. (Los Angeles Times)

This story is tragic on a few levels: Cops have arrested an 11-year-old boy for threatening a woman with a loaded gun on a light rail train car in Portland. His half-sister was found murdered last year. The family is, obviously, irretrievably broken, but an 11-year-old flashing a gun and threatening people is screaming for attention. He might be too far gone, though. At 11. (The Oregonian)

Orlando got taxpayers to build a new arena for the Magic in part by selling everyone on the benefit to nearby businesses (this despite the lack of benefit to business from the "old" arena a few blocks away). And they delivered on an NBA All-Star Game, but local merchants are not happy. Why? Because, at, they say, the NBA's insistence, there's an eight-foot wall around the arena property, for "security" reasons, and it effectively keeps the people in town for the game away from the stores, bars, and restaurants nearby. Remember, it's all about making money, for the team and the politically-connected, that is. Everybody else just pays. (Orlando Sentinel)

Vassar told several early-decision applicants they were in. And then they had to go back and tell many of them they weren't accepted after all. It was all a mistake. Should there be some kind of rule -- you send out a "yes," it's a yes -- to compensate for the rollercoaster of emotions? (New York Times)

You KNOW the first thing EVERYONE is thinking when they hear about the donor heart that paramedics dropped on the ground while transporting it is... five second rule? But it was well-wrapped, so the doctors went ahead and transplanted it, and the donee is fine so far. When do you think they'll tell her what happened? (ABC News)

Late last week, Jerry Sandusky asked the court for the right to visit his grandchildren. You can see the dilemma. On the one hand, they're his family and he hasn't been found guilty of anything yet. On the other hand... ew. (Los Angeles Times)

Here's good news for people with chronic nosebleeds: Research confirms that an efficient way to stop nosebleeds is to shove strips of bacon up your nose. Seriously, cured, salted pork works to stop nosebleeds. Do you get the feeling that this is some kind of joke the researchers are playing on us? "Hey, Wernher, I betcha we can get people to walk around with bacon in their nose!" "You're on!" (ABC News)

Guy got arrested for exposing himself in people's driveways. He told the cops that he doesn't wear pants for the "sense of freedom" it gives him. The cops say he drives around the city at night bottomless and finds driveways in which to, um, whack it. I'm not sure what about strange driveways turns him on. I DO know that I don't WANT to know. (Glendale News-Press)

Breaking up with a spouse or lover is one thing, but how do you break up with a friend, especially in an age when, due to social media, you're pretty much always in touch? Do you say anything? Do you just stop returning calls? If they don't take the hint, what do you do? (New York Times)

This kid's 492 pounds and he's upset that the state-run health insurance agency won't pay for weight-loss surgery. You could take this two ways: first, as he admits, he got himself into this with his eating, so the insurer could be understood to be hesitant to pay for it. But second, insurers say they want you to lose weight and charge you more if you're heavier. So if you sincerely want to lose weight and having the surgery can ultimately prevent costly illnesses later, why shouldn't they pay? Isn't preventative care important? (WFTV/Orlando)

You hire employees and you have to have faith that they won't rip you off. That's now how it went with this legal assistant who will plead guilty to embezzling $180,000 from her firm, $3,00 of which paid for gastric bypass surgery to lose weight. She allegedly forged checks and used company credit cards to buy stuff. When you're hiring someone to handle your money, you're always taking a chance. (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

BREAKING NEWS: Kim Kardashian gets Google Alerts on her own name. I'm no Kardashian fan at all, but is there anyone who DOESN'T Google their own name? Make fun of her for anything else, but Googling herself isn't anything different from what YOU do. (New York Daily News)

A restaurant in L.A. has raised the price of coffee 500%. Outrageous? Won't customers complain? Probably not much, since the price was 9 cents and it's going up to 45 cents, which is still ultra-cheap. And the restaurant is Philippe's, home of the best French dip sandwich in the universe, so they could charge more and still be popular. They hadn't raised the price of coffee since 1977, but the recent rise in the cost of beans forced their hand. Their loyal customers will forgive them. And if you visit L.A., you gotta go there for lunch; the place seemingly hasn't changed since the '40s. (KABC-TV/Los Angeles)

Atheists in Minnesota are trying a new ad campaign to convince people to eschew religion: billboards with babies on them, saying things like "Please don't indoctrinate me with religion. Teach me to think for myself," and "We are all born without belief in gods. Learn how to be a born-again atheist." They're supposed to look like anti-abortion ads. You put a cute, adorable baby up there and you can sell anything. (S. Paul Pioneer Press)

A college student has been fined $210 for taking a donut without paying. That's $10 in court costs, 79 cents for the donut, and a $200 fine. At that price, it better have been one hell of a great donut. (KARE-TV/Minneapolis)

A reporter working on a book about Somali pirates has been... yeah, you know what comes next, he was kidnapped by Somali pirates. Reporters sometimes think that they can go wherever they want and nothing will happen to them, but I think most know that there are risks and understand that what they do is dangerous. It's how you get the story. Or how you get kidnapped. (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

An Oklahoma legislator has proposed a bill banning food containing aborted human fetuses. Wait, what? Is there food with fetuses in it? Not really, but I guess the sponsor is reacting to past genetic experiments using stem cells. But there's no food with fetuses in it, at least as far as we know. They really should put that on the label. (ABC News)

A woman won a million bucks in the scratcher lottery, but that's where the story gets complicated. See, there's a store, and there's a bin where people throw their losing tickets. And because the state has a "second chance" lottery where you can use losing ticket numbers, people will go take the losers. It's like recycling. So this woman grabs a bunch and discovers that someone discarded a winning ticket. She cashes it in. Then the clerk at the store steps forward and says that she has a deal with the store owner and SHE deserves the money. And then a THIRD woman says she was the one who threw away the ticket and SHE deserves the money. Yes, three women claim ownership of the ticket. I think that the woman who threw it away won't win, because it's a bearer instrument and she threw it away. The clerk, well, you can have whatever private deal you want, but if it's not clearly disclosed (she says there was a sign, but that's in dispute), so what? Really, nobody cared about those tickets until the winner realized that one of them was the winner, so I think she ought to get it. (ABC News)

Apparently, the cold weather is affecting people's libidos in St. Paul. We had a story yesterday about a couple arrested for having sex in a public bathroom, and today we have two kids who allegedly had sex in high school restrooms. To which we can all say... ew. But when you're a teen, it's less exhibitionism than doing it wherever you can, especially if you can't do it at home, lest mom walk in on you. (St. Paul Pioneer Press)

A survey says that American workers spend $1,000 a year on coffee, men more than women, younger more than older. What are you spending all that money for? To stay awake, probably. Anyway, I don't drink coffee, so someone else is probably drinking a LOT to make up for me. (WTTG (Fox 5)/Washington; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

I don't know how I feel about this Arizona court ruling that says a woman running for City Council is ineligible because she doesn't speak English well enough to do the job. That would seem to be a prerequisite, but if people want to vote for someone who can't speak English, isn't that their prerogative? Where does it say that you have to be literate, or even competent? We've elected plenty of English-speaking people who were ill equipped for the job. (New York Times)

What do you do when your ex-girlfriend puts up a website calling you a liar and cheater, and it's the first thing that comes up when someone Googles your name? Meet Matt Coulote, an attorney whose ex did just that. And he's suing. His ex says that after five years, he suddenly broke up with her after allegedly promising that they'd get married, and then, 12 days later, married another woman. The ex has hired... guess who? Yep, Gloria Allred, who else? So you get the picture: It's a free speech claim versus a defamation claim, her word against his, and an issue that required the invention of a searchable Internet to arise. (Fox News)

Oh freakin' no. The Philadelphia 76ers, my own favorite NBA team, says that it was public demand that led them to bring back their old theme song, "Here Come the Sixers," better known to those of us who loved through it in the '70s as "1-2-3-4-5 Sixers, 10-9-8-76ers," which is, in my estimation, possibly the worst piece of music ever. Rebecca Black "Friday" bad. You don't believe me? Listen to a clip. Or, if you're insane, here's the whole thing. WHO DEMANDED THAT? It's ultra-70s, but in a Starland Vocal Band way rather than a Philly Soul way. And it reminds me of nights at the Spectrum, less than half-full, this nightmare blasting loud enough to shake the scoreboard as the Sixers sleep-walked through a February game against the Kansas City-Omaha Kings or someone like that. Some nostalgia should be left as memories. Bad, painful memories. (Although I used to be able to sit practically courtside for less than ten bucks, so that was nice) (Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia)

Dead: Robert Hegyes, better known as Juan Epstein, of a heart attack at 60. Juan Epstein was 60. That should make a lot of you feel old. (Newark Star-Ledger)

You go into a restaurant and what's the first thing people do these days? Yes, they put their phones on the table. Some restaurants are banning cell phones, and some are providing a plate for yout phone to protect it. These are the extremes. But how hard is it to follow some basic manners? Turn off the ringer. If a call comes in, take it outside. If there are other people at the table, don't look at the phone unless you're expecting an important call. There, we're good. (Los Angeles Times)

I'm not a Paula Deen fan and I don't care for her delaying telling the world she has diabetes until she was able to get a deal to plug a medication for it, but should people be following her around and photographing her eating a burger and fries while on a cruise? So she isn't the healthiest of eaters and she has diabetes. That's her business. And diabetics CAN eat the occasional burger without it being a major issue. This shouldn't be news. (People)

Australia's Federal Transport Minister gave a little speech recently, and someone noticed something familiar. Sure enough, the minister had borrowed lines from a movie, "The American President." I guess that's plagiarism of a sort, but you have to wonder how many politicians steal their lines without getting caught. (Brisbane Courier-Mail)

A study says that there's no link found between fried foods and heart attacks, but there's a caveat: If you use olive or sunflower oil and change the oil every time and you eat a Mediterranean diet, you're okay. If you use fattier oils and reuse them, as most American fast-food places do, then you might find some correlation. Plus all that fat and calories. So this isn't all good news. (Daily Telegraph)

This South African strip bar is providing patrons with cologne to cover up the strip bar smells that might tip off your spouse that you spent the day at a strip bar. Like cheap cologne wouldn't be a tipoff either. (Toronto Sun)

Cops arrested a couple for allegedly having sex in a public restroom and then fighting with cops. This happened in midday, which raises the question of why some people just can't wait to have sex, not even long enough to find someplace a little cleaner and less public than a restroom. Unless that's what turned them on, in which case ew. (St. Paul Pioneer Press)

You know that Morgellons disease, the one that people say feels like things are crawling under their skin but that doctors insist they can't verify is an actual disease? The CDC looked into it and found... nothing. No infectious agent, no environmental cause. Not contagious. They have no clue whether it's real. But people say they're being driven crazy by the itching and creepy sensation. So, who do you believe? Is science infallible, or is it missing something? (Chicago Tribune)

This Australian guy needed to make a court date and he couldn't hitch a ride, so he decided to carjack someone, take the car, and drive to court. Did I mention that he was drunk at the time? Or that he faked having a gun with the old finger-in-his-pocket trick? None of this helped his case. (Townsville Bulletin)

A political party in South Africa created a poster that showed an interracial couple, apparently nude, embracing. What's weird is that the objections come from all sides: There are racists, to be sure, but the ANC objects because it's for a mostly-white party; religious groups don't like the sex insinuation; and the unions don't like it because it's a white man and a black woman, which they say promotes affairs with white people. Everybody's upset. And, yes, it's 2012 and people can still find reasons to be outraged by a picture of two consenting adults doing something legal. (The Globe and Mail)

New malady: iPad shoulder. You get it from hunching over while using your tablet. I don't know, I tend to use mine while lying down or leaning back, but okay, if they say they see this happening, I'm sure it does. How about you? Is your iPad causing you pain? (Daily Telegraph)

Obama's been talking about General Motors a lot, even in the State of the Union, but the Republicans wonder whether his boosterism of the bailed-out company might be one reason why there was a substantial delay in disclosing a potential safety defect in the electric Volt cars. We're talking fires resulting from collisions, and they didn't immediately disclose that or call for a recall. Did political considerations delay informing consumers about something that could, conceivably, have killed them? (Toronto Star)

Alaska Airlines will no longer provide prayer cards to passengers. They stopped for coach years ago, and now first class passengers won't get them anymore, either. I'm sure some religious people will be dismayed, but do you really need religious stuff coming from every business? You CAN bring your own Bible, after all. (MSNBC)

How many times do we have to hear about people getting themselves killed by smoking while using an oxygen tank before it's clear that you can't smoke while using an oxygen tank? (Chicago Tribune)

This is a U.K. study, but I imagine it's the same everywhere: More working wives, more househusbands. Especially in this economy, it would seem obvious that more guys would be stay-at-home dads if mom can make more money. Guys, are you okay with that? Would it bother you, or does that sound like a pretty sweet deal? (Daily Telegraph)

What kind of freak would hide a video camera in the bathroom and peep on his own kids and their friends while they showered and changed and did their business? Allegedly, this guy. What has to go wrong with someone's development to do something this awful? (The Age, Melbourne)

The woman reacted properly, I suppose, when she walked into the ladies' room at York University and saw someone wearing men's shoes in a stall; she left, called for help, and waited. But the guy got away, somehow, and is suspected of being a serial peeping tom. It occurred to me: When you go into a public restroom, do you actually look at the feet of the people in stalls? I can't say I consciously do, but would you notice if someone of another gender was in there by seeing their feet? (Toronto Star)

Why is it that they keep finding bad things about microwave popcorn? Now they say that a group of compounds found in microwave popcorn as wellas things like water-resistant clothing, can block childhood vaccinations from working properly. That's disturbing, but not as disturbing that the same stuff in waterproof clothing is in microwave popcorn. (MSNBC)

Boston's buses and trains will be alcohol-ad free starting July 1st, when a ban goes into effect. They say it's to protect youth from the harmful effects of alcohol ads urging them to drink underage. An anti0-alcohol student group prompted the move; they said they "felt like they were being targeted and bombarded by those images." But did the ads MAKE them drink? Do ANY ads make people drink? Or is it peer pressure, which can't be banned? (WFXT-TV (Fox 25)/Boston; Thanks to Jeff Katz at EXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

This teen started driving two weeks ago, which makes her feat that much more amazing: When her school bus driver had a heart attack while driving, she grabbed the steering wheel, and, with the dying driver blocking the brake pedal, eased the bus into a u-turn to slow it down and get it out of oncoming traffic, then put the bus into park to stop it. She says she wasn't a hero, just the closest kid to the wheel with any driving experience. But she's a hero. (WCAU-TV/Philadelphia)

This grocery made a bad Groupon deal, and the result was that earlier this month, the owner announced to customers that the store would close, because the "deal" pretty much bankrupted her. And then a miracle happened: Her customers stepped forward with loans and offers to volunteer to staff the store, and they effectively bailed her out. That must be some great store for the customers to loan money to keep it open. (Actually, what it is, is a store that caters to people with food allergies, so the customers do have a particular motivation to keep it in business) Moral: Business owners, be VERY careful with those daily deals things. (WHYY/Philadelphia)

This article explores one of the most awkward things you'll ever encounter in social situations: the social kiss. When is it appropriate? Left or right cheek? Face cheek or... no, it's going to be on the face, definitely, but who goes in for it first? For someone like me who feels awkward even with hugs and handshakes, social kisses are just puzzling. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Wait, so you're telling me that this guy arranged a weekend of sex and drugs with a swinger couple and he was surprised that it ended with him allegedly getting sprayed in the face with bear repellent when he wouldn't let them take a picture on his mobile phone? Well, I guess the part where they allegedly threatened to stab him was a little much, but these three spent the weekend taking ketamine and having sex and at that point, I'd assume anything could happen. Bear repellent? Sure, why not? Nothing else seems to be out of bounds. (Daily Telegraph)

A flight from Halifax to Toronto was delayed for several hours because of a non-mechanical difficulty: a cat got into the cockpit and they had to get it out of there. As a cat owner, I can attest to the fact that getting a cat out of wherever the cat wants to be is close to impossible. I'm surprised they were able to do it. They had to take panels out of the cockpit to get at the cat, which sounds like when we have to get Ella the World's Most Famous Cat out of her hiding place to take her to the vet. (Toronto Star)

A high-rise apartment building in Chicago has a carbon monoxide problem from a blocked chimney, and it'll take two to three weeks to fix it. So the property manager told residents to heat their apartments with ovens and space heaters in the meantime. Ovens? Is that safe? No, it isn't, not at all, and with the building already trying to clear carbon monoxide, cranking the ovens seems like a really bad idea. This has to build the residents' confidence in the competence of the building management. (Chicago Tribune)

Doctors tell this 17-year-old that she can't keep doing it, but she refuses to stop what might be among the most dangerous things anyone can do: For 15 years, she's eaten nothing but chicken nuggets. McDonalds, KFC, supermarket brands... it's all she eats. Oh, and fries with that, and occasionally toast for breakfast and potato chips. She ended up in the hospital with anemia and STILL won't eat anything but chicken nuggets. Her mother, who has tried to stop this, is exasperated. They need to get her to a specialist, but first, they need to get her to a psychiatrist. (The Sun)

5-Hour Energy? Red Bull? Starbucks? So 2011. The next way to get your caffeine fix is inhalable caffeine; you puff this thing into your mouth, breathe it in, and you get the same caffeine as a large cup of coffee. It's three bucks a throw. If you need caffeine that badly, you probably have some issues to address, though. (WBZ-TV/Boston)

Meet Tyree Lincoln Smith, who allegedly murdered a man with an ax and ate the victim's eyeball and part of his brain. The alleged murderer's cousin told police that he came to her house, told her he had "to get blood on his hands" and was going to the park and his old home, and was going on about Greek gods and calling her "Athena." And she didn't call the cops right then? Oh, and he allegedly said that the eyeball tasted like an oyster, in case you were curious, which I sure hope you werent. (Hartford Courant)

In the category of "say anything to anyone to get elected" comes Newt Gingrich's "pledge" that if he's elected, there'll be an American moon base by the end of his second term, built by commercial and private efforts. Yeah, good luck with that. It would be nice to see the space program revived, but paying for it -- government or private -- doesn't seem in the cards right now, does it? (Politico)

"Sex and the City" co-star Cynthia Nixon famously came out as lesbian a few years ago, but now she has a lot of gay people very upset, because she called her lesbianism her "choice." She had been in a long-term relationship with a guy before falling for her present partner, and she said in an article in the New York Times Sunday magazine that being gay was a choice for her. People who contend that homosexuality is something into which you're born are understandably angry, because she's implying that you can just turn it on and off, which might lead others to think it can be "cured." I wonder if she's just playing semantics and semi-denying the idea that she, too, was born at least bisexual. (Los Angeles Times)

Have you noticed that more and more stadia are opening without being able to sell naming rights? The new Meadowlands stadium was called New Meadowlands Stadium for a year before finally selling the name to MetLife. The Cowboys STILL haven't sold naming rights to the World's Biggest Wart in Arlington. Nationals Park in D.C. is still Nationals Park. And now comes word that when it opens this season, the new Miami Marlins stadium on the site of the Orange Bowl will be called... Marlins Park. No deals in place. Has the value of your name on a stadium finally dropped to the point where it's, um, pointless? (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

I don't think it will come as any surprise that studies show tablets and e-readers becoming the devices of choice for travelers and commuters. They're practically perfect for the purpose: large enough to easily read (unlike phones) and easier to carry than books. And that, if you can't yet find a reason to buy one, is one use to which you can put these things. (USA Today)

Maybe it's supposed to signal something else, but I don't see J.C. Penney's price-cutting and jettisoning of most sales as a good sign. They're not aping Walmart, because they don't intend to compete solely on price; they just think you'll appreciate predictable pricing. But unless they start carrying stuff you want to buy, they can put any price on their stuff and they'll fail. (AP via Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

What does the Fed leaving interest rates extremely low through late 2014 mean? Simple: They don't see the recovery really catching fire until at least then, and probably longer. Keeping rates low is intended to reduce the cost of borrowing and therefore, theoretically, encourage business to expand and invest. So far, though, it's not looking that good. (New York Times)

It's been one year since the beginning of the Arab Spring. What's changed, other than the deposing and/or killing of dictators? Free elections, for one. Are they better off? Patience. And let's hope for better treatment of women, and avoidance of extremism. (Los Angeles Times)

You gotta hand it to Newt, he knows how to handle controversy, whether he's full of it or not: After Nancy Pelosi's second "I know something" comment about him insinuating that she has damaging dirt that would lose him the election, Gingrich came right out and challenged her to put up or shut up, in more polite terms. This is what's called "getting out ahead of it." He does this well. What would you do if someone hinted that she knew something that could ruin you? (Fox News)

The terror attacks on synagogues in North Jersey turn out to allegedly be the work of one 19-year-old moron, allegedly a virulently anti-Semitic loner who didn't have a car and rode his bike to do his "work." He's pleaded not guilty, and his public defender wants to move the trial away from the area due to the publicity. How does a 19-year-old build up that much hatred against anyone? You haven't lived enough at that point to know anything. Unfortunately, when you're 19, you don't necessarily know that. And in this kid's case, he didn't know anything, period. (Bergen Record)

Employees at a bank in France complained of an awful smell since last September, and now they know why: There was a probable would-be bank robber wedged in the air vents, stuck in a bend of the ducts and dead for months. So that didn't work out as planned. This never happens in the movies, in which the ducts are always plenty wide enough for a burglar, and a camera crew. (Daily Telegraph)

That awkward Facebook "timeline" profile page will become mandatory soon, and, well, doesn't it suck? When I've checked the pages of people who have it, I can't find anything. And there are a ton of pictures I don't need to see. Why are they making these pages harder to navigate? And why aren't they allowing people to opt out of it? (Los Angeles Times)

News You Didn't Need To Know: Tim Gunn of "Project Runway" fame says he hasn't had sex in 29 years. Apparently, a past relationship went bad when his boyfriend was critical of his sexual performance, and that's more than wnyone wants to know about this particular issue. I guess you could do a topic on celibacy and how long you could go without, or on how much you want to know about your favorite celebrities, or something like that. (USA Today via Arizona Republic)

This Seattle Times piece is about the aftermath of a case from 2003, in which a repeat rapist was considered by a jury for release from prison or commitment to a mental facility. A forensic psychologist convinced them that the guy was no threat, and they set him free. And he promptly attacked four more women, killing one. This psychologist told the jury that the defendant hadn't raped in 17 years, neglecting the crucial information that it was because the defendant had been in prison all that time. We're told to defer to the experts all the time, but what happens when the "expert" isn't all that expert, or, as in this case, draws the wrong conclusions from the data? (Seattle Times)

Dead: James Farentino. He was always on TV when I was a kid. Weird, though: I remember what he looked and sounded like, but for the life of me I can't remember a single role he played. I'm drawing a blank. They say he was in "The Bold Ones," but I never watched it. And I do remember him getting in trouble for allegedly stalking Tina Sinatra. But I still don't really remember anything about his acting. (Los Angeles Times)

A man is taking his case to a federal appeals court, asking for reinstatement of his lawsuit alleging that his application to become a cop was rejected by the Atlanta Police Department because he is HIV-positive. You know what the topics are: blood, transmitting disease, all that. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Florida has a law of which people have been unaware for years, and now a new bill aims to enforce it with teeth: The sponsors want pro sports teams to repay the public money spent on their stadiums unless they agree to abide by the law making them open the arenas as homeless shelters on off-days. It's kind of brilliant, actually; if tax money is going to go to build a stadium that's idle all winter, like a baseball park, or operates for only a dozen or so events a year, like a football stadium, why NOT get more use out of it? It'll never happen, of course, and there are logistical problems like who'll operate the shelter and liability and interference with the kind of operations that go on when there's no event, but it's an interesting proposition. (Miami Herald)

The school system is threatening to put a 12-year-old kid into an "alternative" program (that's what they call reform school now) for a month as punishment for peeing in a bottle in class. But he says he had to, because he hadda go and the teacher refused to let him go to the bathroom. And if that's the case, what do you do? I'd have gotten up and headed o the restroom and told the teacher she could suspend me if she wanted. (Houston Chronicle)

We've seen this Star Trek fanatic guy's apartment before, fitted out like the Starship Enterprise. And now, the crisis: He has to tear it all out. Why? Because his apartment is owned by his ex-wife, and she wants to sell the place. He's heartbroken. And, yes, the first thought is to understand why she's an ex-wife. (The Sun)

The Atlanta Falcons want a new stadium. There's nothing wrong with the old one, and the bonds are about paid off. But they see what other teams have managed to get, with more and more luxury boxes, and they want that. They know we're in a bad economy, right? Anyway, if your city has a team and a perfectly good, modern stadium built in the '90s, expect them to start demanding a new facility soon. It's feeding time for the hogs. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

A woman from Texas was in Idaho, driving a rental car, when, she says, she got lost and ended up spending several days stuck in a dairy wastewater pond, surviving on M&Ms. They don't know how long she was there -- maybe days -- but it's weird: when she got stuck, the pond was empty. She COULD have gotten out and walked, but only did so when the pond started filling, because, she says, she heard you're supposed to stay in your car when it's disabled. It gets weirder: She was told by a cop to take the bridge across the river to her hotel, and she says she saw the pond and thought that was the river and just drove into the dairy. What part of "cross the bridge" was unclear? (Twin Falls Times-News)

Police in Carthage, MO are apologizing for a photo they posted on their Facebook page. The photo was one of some guy's penis. They say it only went up -- the photo, that is, not the penis, get your mind out of the gutter -- for a few seconds. The explanation is that it was one of several photos from evidence and someone accidentally... you're not buying this, are you? And wait until the new Timeline home page goes into effect and all of their photos show up on their profile. (Kansas City Star)

Someone spread some kind of substance all over a college admissions office, and the authorities took the grease down to the lab for testing. What was the stuff? Turned out that it was primrose oil. Primrose oil? For vandalism? Primrose oil is available over the counter at drug stores, and they use it to treat some skin problems. Maybe they wanted the admissions office workers to have clear, soft hands. Or maybe they ran out of lavender. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

This kid in England is being bullied because of his red hair and the school's solution was to put HIM in isolation, taught in a separate room "for his own protection." They punished HIM, not the bullies. And what IS with the British hating "gingers," anyway? Maybe it's lingering anti-Irish sentiment, but red haie(The Sun)

You kinda knew it would come to this: Two studies by State Farm and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia say that one of the riskiest distractions a teen driver can have in the car is... what? A cell phone? The radio? No, it's another teen in the car. Either there's a tendency to show off and drive more recklessly, or the other kids are distracting, or both, but it's worse than texting at the wheel. And they think they know why: The kind of kids who drive with other teens in the car tend to be thrill-seekers whose parents don't monitor their driving behavior. Yes, there are laws in some states restricting how many passengers a teen can have. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

A woman wants to use her embarrassment to warn others about a fortune teller who duped her put of $136,000. She knows she was foolish, but wants others to be careful. Well, yes. And let's just boil it down to the basics: The moment you think fortune tellers are legit, you've lost your mind. (Orlando Sentinel)

A police officer fired, he says, for allegedly exposing himself to a woman being held at the station says that he did not expose himself and he has proof: The woman said he was uncircumcised, but he's been cut since childhood. He wants his job back. This article has one of the best subheds in news history: "Cop says hearing officer not a penis expert." Yeah, everyone CLAIMS to be a penis expert but how many really are? (New York Daily News)

The campaign for Worst Person of the Year is picking up more candidates, and this one is a pretty strong one: While arguing with a neighbor over parking on the lawn, the guy grabbed the neighbor's kitten and ripped its head off with his bare hands and threw the head across the road. Not to get all animal-rights on you, but that's just beyond barbaric. You don't have to be a cat lover to be appalled and disgusted by that. (Bendigo Advertiser)

New York City's war on obesity includes a poster all over the subway system of a guy who lost his leg to fast-food-induced diabetes. But the picture is a fake: The actor in the picture has two legs and no crutches. The poster is the result of Photoshopping. Was it really that hard to find a real diabetes patient with an amputation? Not that it means the message is fraudulent, but, still. (New York Times)

Possibly the greatest single moment in American political history: A penguin pooped on the floor of the Kentucky Senate. BEST COMMENTARY EVER. The penguin was there for a resolution commending an aquarium, and it pooped. I would vote for this penguin for President. I am not exaggerating. (Lexington Herald-Leader; Thanks to I Want to Go to the Zoo With Roy Halladay for the link)

Sunbeam Television is the owner of the Fox affiliate in Miami and the NBC and CW affiliates in Boston, and you might recall that they're having a dispute that's keeping those stations off DirecTV. And you also might recall that they gave a one-day truce deal to DirecTV to let the satellite carrier offer the NFC Championship in Miami last week. And you surely know that the Super Bowl is on NBC this year. See where this is going? Without a similar one-night reprieve, DirecTV subscribers in Boston will be blacked out of the Super Bowl. Now, again, if you're a DirecTV subscriber in the Boston DMA and you're facing this situation, you COULD pop a UHF antenna onto your TV, do a scan, and chances are you'll get either the Boston or Providence NBC affiliates that way. The picture might even be better than DirecTV can offer. But this kind of hostage-taking shouldn't happen, not when the real losers are the viewers, who aren't part of the negotiations to begin with. (WCVB-TV/Boston)

So when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around, what are you gonna do? If you say "watch the game," skip this. If you say "I don't watch football," this article points out that it's a great day for travel and eating out, because all those football fans (including me -- what, miss a Super Bowl? Never!) won't be competing for airplane seats or restaurant tables. If you're not going to watch the game, what WILL you be doing? (New York Times)

Who's rooting hardest for the Patriots in the Super Bowl? Vegas bookies. That's because the Giants were long shots for futures betting, and some people put money on them at 80-1 odds. As late as the Eagles loss, they were long shots. Someone stands to win a LOT of money if the Giants win. (USA Today)

Here, the State of the Union. You watched it, you decide. (CNN)

Chris Christie is nothing if not a very, very clever, smart politician, so when the Democrats in the New Jersey legislature figured they'd paint him into a corner with a bill to legalize gay marriage, he managed to find a way to block it without actually coming out against gay marriage: He announced that he wants to put it on the ballot for voters to decide or he'd veto the bill. Slick. On the other hand, is the right to marry something that should be governed by majority rule? Do you let the public decide who gets to do what? (Philadelphia Inquirer)

How can a woman be so without maternal instinct that she would secretly give birth to a baby and then kill it, suffocating the child and dumping the body in the trash? That's what this woman, then a 19-year-old high school junior (that might be a clue), is charged with doing, and her attorney says she was just a "naivem inexperienced girl." But that doesn't explain how she could have been that cold, that lacking in anything remotely maternal. (Orange County Register)

The NFL does NOT want to make the same mistake twice, so they're being stingy with the temporary seating for the Super Bowl. Or have you forgotten the Cowboys Stadium fiasco when they didn't get approval for the temporary seating and people were left outside? Really, they ought to stop being piggish. Whatever the permanent capacity of the stadium is, less the seats reserved for auxiliary press, should be the number of tickets sold. Period. They don't make the real money from ticket sales, anyway. (AP via Boston Herald)

Return with us now to those skeptical days of yesteryear, when people said that the iPhone 4S wasn't enough of an upgrade and people said that Apple was losing that edge. And now check their holiday quarter profits: doubled. The 4S is not just a success, it's a total stone-cold smash hit. They also doubled sales of iPads year-to-year. Net income? Up 118%. So the experts were wrong, very wrong. (New York Times)

Simple: Would you, as the Tigers did, have given Prince Fielder a nine year, $214 deal? Focus on the 9 years (no options, no outs) -- are you ready to give a guy that physically huge nine years? (The other topic is what you do when Victor Martinez returns and you end up with THREE big-hit-no-field guys in the lineup? There's only one DH and Martinez, Cabrera, and Fielder are liabilities with the glove) (USA Today)

This couple won the EuroMillions lottery, but they didn't immediately celebrate. That's because they had to take their kids to their soccer match, then hold a sleepover for the kids, then entertain friends that evening. Couldn't cancel anything, and they didn't want to tell their kids right away. What would you do under the circumstances and DON'T LIE, you KNOW you think about how you'd react if you won the lottery. You do it every time you buy a ticket. (Daily Telegraph)

If your cell phone calls drop this week or your GPS sends you into a lake, blame sloar flares. This is a reminder that technology can sometimes be at the mercy of nature. You'll get through this. (Los Angeles Times)

Are you concerned that Google will be sharing your personal data across all of its websites and services? That your login and personal info from YouTube will feed tailored ads to your Gmail, that your YouTube recommendations will be affected by your Google searches... It might be a bad thing, but, I'll be honest, I assumed they were doing that already. (AP via Boston Globe)

A woman got angry that some kid was ringing her doorbell and running away, so after the third time, she went out with her gun, fired a warning shot, pointed the gun at a teen, and held the kid until police arrived... and arrested HER, because you can't do that. Although you WANT to. If you can't use your gun to intimidate people, it's not that much fun. (New York Post)

Dude, dude, come on, stop this. This former high school history teacher and softball coach has been accused of "inappropriate contact" with players, and while he awaits trial, he's allegedly violated a protective order twice in a month by trying to contact one of the girls while she was at work. If the police and the court say stay away, sir, that means stay away. (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

A study says that women feel pain more intensely than men do. How can they even measure that? Isn't pain intensity totally subjective? They're asking people to rate their pain, and there's no subjective scale, so the respondents can assign whatever numbers they want. And, again, how can they tell? (MyHealthNewsDaily via MSNBC)

Here you go, the Oscar nominations. A little surprised that "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Crass and Manipulative" got a Best Picture nomination, but it has no chance of winning. And while it was expected, it's still pretty cool that Dean Pelton from "Community" (Jim Rash) got nominated for best adapted screenplay (for "The Descendants"). (AMPAS)

People are insane. That's the only reason I can think of for people to do "hot yoga" -- that's yoga in a room heated to 90 to 100 degrees. It's allegedly getting more and more popular, and I suppose that the idea would be to sweat while stretching. But you can get dehydrated, pull muscles, and damage your joints. They say you should talk to your doctor first, but do you want to let your doctor know you're nuts? (HealthDay via Philly.com)

A truck fire burned almost 39,000 pounds of mail bound for Florida. But it was all junk mail. Literally. You won't find too mahy people upset at this. (AP via Orlando Sentinel)

The sisters were arguing. They walked into a room where their pit bull was waiting. The pit bull attacked one of the women and wouldn't let go. This doesn't happen with Shih Tzus, which raises the question of whether it's bred into pit bulls, and why you'd want one in your house. (WDTN-TV/Dayton)

It is SO hard to find a good dentist. This one has pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud after he got caught for various violations, including using paper clips instead of steel posts in root canals to save money. How would you know if your dentist is cutting corners? (Fox News)

The suspect who allegedly exposed himself to a woman at a Walmart in Georgia is described as a white guy with dark hair, a slight goatee, plaid shorts, and a Georgia Bulldogs t-shirt and hat. THAT DESCRIBES ABOUT HALF THE GUYS IN GEORGIA. Way to narrow it down. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Anybody notice that in the last year or two, you've been able to see previews of all the Super Bowl commercials online early, before the actual commercials air on the game? They're like mini-pregame shows for the spots, like that one this year with the dogs barking the Imperial March from "Star Wars." It's a preview of Volkswagen's commercial. Weird, though, that this has become a trend as the Super Bowl commercials have become more and more nondescript. (New York Times)

There really is such a thing as being allergic to cold. Some people get hives and more serious reactions when the temperature drops. A new study says that the condition is real and possibly the result of a genetic mutation. It's very rare, so you're probably not allergic, just sick of the cold. (USA Today)

Boston's transit police agency wants you to know that a cop's tweet saying that he would bring beer to a party to watch the Patriots play was a mistake, that it was just an off duty cop's innocent flub sending a tweet to a friend instead of a text message. Was this really a controversy? Did anyone thing cops were really drinking on the job? (WBZ-TV/Boston; Thanks to WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

So Romney's effective tax rate was 14%? Good for him. Here's the thing: He pays a higher rate than 80% of Americans. And he makes his money from capital gains on investments, and do we really want to tax that higher and discourage investment? (CNN)

Dead: Andy Musser, sportscaster best known for decades calling the Phillies and other Philadelphia sports (he was also on CBS for several years). He was one of those workhorses who called every sport, never a star, always the dependable "other guy" in the booth, overshadowed by the Harry (Kalas) and Whitey (Ashburn) Show, but someone had to do the other innings or work on radio while the stars did the TV side. The interesting thing was his second act: He was a beer aficionado, and when he retired, he became a regional rep for Anchor Steam, and he made that a second career. Not a bad way to go. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Aspen high schools may add a new elective course: flight lessons. That beats driver's ed any day. If you could have chosen anything to learn when you were in school, what would it have been? (KMGH-TV/Denver)

What do you get to do when you get elected mayor of a small town? This mayor got pulled over by a state trooper for speeding, but instead of the standard "do you know who I am?" deal, he simply waited until the cop pulled away, then pulled the trooper over himself, claiming he was legally entitled to do so as, technically, the town's chief constable (the police force was disbanded last year). Now, the court's trying to figure out if he can do that. If he can, that's one more reason to run for office. (AP via WIS-TV/Columbia, SC; Thanks to Jeff Katz at WXKS (Talk 1200)/Boston for the link)

When Newt Gingrich tries to paint Mitt Romney as a rich guy who, by inference, is trying to buy his way into the White House, remember that Gingrich himself is being supported by some very, very, VERY rich people, namely Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. Sheldon owns the company that owns casinos in Vegas and Macau; Miriam gave $5 Million to athe pro-Gingrich Super PAC that's been buying tons of ads in the latest primaries. When people complain about third party spending on campaigns, this is what they complain about. Yet, it's perfectly legal. (New York Times)

You're Billy Cundiff or Kyle Williams and things aren't fun for you at the moment. How do you recover? How can you get out from under the disappointment, the goat horns, the image that you are responsible for your team's defeat? Both Cundiff and Williams have been out front taking responsibility, but there are idiots out there threatening them. How long will they have to deal with this, and will it ever go away? (Los Angeles Times)

Homer Simpson Lives! A guard at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was caught allegedly sleeping on the job and using an unauthorized cell phone at the nuclear plant. Someone took photographs of the guard apparently napping, which raises an additional security issue: Who's taking pictures inside a high-security nuke facility? (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

Ever since there's been an Internet, there's been talk of "smart appliances," like fridges that show you whether you need more milk or toasters that show recipes or washers and dryers you can control from space or that track and control power consumption. But none of that has caught on. Do you need a refrigerator that does apps? Do you need recipes or weather reports on the blender? Are we ever going to see this stuff happen? (New York Times)

This guy was arrested and held on $10,000 bail for his 11th DUI, accompanied by an incident in which he kicked a cop and called him an "idiot." Oh, and the guy also told the cop he'd be out of jail before the cop's shift would be over, and he'd go have sex with the cop's wife. That didn't happen, but $10,000 bail seems low for the circumstances. And WHY IS THIS GUY STILL DRIVING? Are they waiting for his 15th offense to put him away for good? Who would qualify as a greater danger to society than a guy who won't stop drinking and driving? (Racine Journal Times)

So the Boston Bruins went to the White House for the obligatory Presidential greeting for the Stanley Cup champions, but it's not exactly obligatory, and goalie Tim Thomas declined to attend. He's made it clear that he did it for political reasons -- he's anti-big government, anti- both parties, and he decided he couldn't go meet the President. Forget what your own politics are; Do you like it when politics and sports mix? Do you even want to know what your favorite players' politics are? Does it matter? (Boston Globe)

Disneyland will now allow employees to wear beards, as long as they're less than a quarter-inch long and not just a soul patch. At this rate, they'll be in the 21st century just before the 22nd starts. (Los Angeles Times)

The idea of driverless cars is gee-whiz cool, except that there's a ton of issues to work through before they can be deployed, like... what happens when they try to mix with aggressive human drivers who decide not to yield when the auto-pilot thinks they will? What about insurance? What happens when a cop wants to stop or pull over a car and the car doesn't recognize that there's a cop there? Do they need a manual override, and who would have to be responsible for that? We're a long way away from closing this deal. (New York Times)

He's a former rugby player and corporate manager who loved to skydive, but he had a stroke and he's now suffering from "locked-in syndrome" -- that's when your mind's fine but your body won't move and you have a very hard time communicating at all. So he's gone to court in London asking a judge to grant a waiver so that any doctor who gives him a lethal injection won't be charged with murder. Otherwise, a doctor acceding to the guy's wish to die would be charged with murder with a mandatory life sentence. Nobody's actually been charged that way in recent years, but this guy doesn't want to take any chances. And if he wins, which is unlikely, euthanasia would be excluded from the definition of murder in the U.K. So, the usual arguments: Can you tell someone with that condition that they shouldn't be allowed to end it all? (AP via WTOP/Washington)

I think what was most interesting about the Rand Paul TSA kerfuffle is that whatever happened, whether he was detained or not, whether the TSA overstepped its bounds or not, whether he was refused a second scan and whether or not the TSA insisted on a patdown, the news just exploded on Twitter. And when that happens, it's pretty amazing how quickly something that might never have been noticed in the past becomes a cause celebre within minutes. (Louisville Courier-Journal)

I don't know what the proper punishment would be for this HIV+ dude, a pro wrestler, who was sentenced for having sex with a dozen women without telling them his HIV status, but 32 years, which is what he got, seems too light. That's less than three years per victim. (New York Daily News)

Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) suffered a stroke, necessitating surgery to relieve swelling and stop brain deterioration, and the guy's 52 years old and from all accounts in good health. Which is to say, it could happen to you. To anyone. I'm not sure whether the proper response is panic or living each day to the fullest. I'm not good at optimism. (Fox News)

According to his "Lost in Space" co-star Bill(y) Mumy and the National Enquirer, Dick Tufeld is dead. He was a big-time voice actor/announcer, but you know him for saying "WARNING! Will Robinson!" Yes, he was the voice of the robot on "Lost in Space," and did a lot more voice work over the years. But, come on, he's the Robot. That's plenty cool enough. (National Enquirer)

Not to be too alarmist, but Big Ben is tilting. It's not tilting much, but it's tilting. And it won't topple over soon, but they have to get ahead of these things. Suggestion: Really large bungees. (Los Angeles Times)

The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that cops can't stick a GPS on your car and track you without a warrant. Your car is a private area, and going inside to attach a GPS is a search that requires a warrant, they said. This is how it's supposed to work: One branch of government overreaches, another smacks them down. (New York Times)

Late Sunday night, Oregon football coach Chip Kelly was reported to be taking the Tampa Bay Bucs job. Monday morning, he changed his mind and will stay. NFL money and fame is huge, but would you trade a good, secure college gig for that? You would if the NCAA was investigating your program, which is the case with Oregon. So, what must have happened to make Kelly turn Tampa Bay down? (Eugene Register-Guard)

Police are searching for the person who allegedly shot another man in a snake deal gone wrong. The two were possibly arranging a sale of 20 ball python snakes for $12,600, but the buyer allegedly shot the seller and jumped into the seller's SUV, driving off with the snakes but crashing into a pole, then throwing his guns into the woods and running off. It's possible, the cops say, that the gunman wasn't the intended snake buyer, but a random carjacker. Either way, since when are there black-market snake deals going down in parking lots with guns involved? (Philadelphia Daily News)

This is a local article from St. Louis that reminds us that all politicians are not to be trusted, ever: The Missouri Department of Transportation wants to turn I-70, the main route between St. Louis and Kansas City, into a toll road. But the chief of the agency doesn't want voters to have a say. The idea would be to hand the road over to private companies, which would handle repairs and charge tolls. And the DOT thinks that doing that wouldn't require a vote. BECAUSE THE PUBLIC DOESN'T COUNT. Okay, they don't SAY that, but that's the takeaway. When government officials come right out and say that they want to hit the public with new taxes and fees (which is what tolls are) and don't want the public to have a say in it, it shows you that the government sees you as a never-depleted source of revenue, and it doesn't care about you. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

It's articles like this that make everyone who isn't a Penn State apologist just shake their heads: The headline really does say "Fans here wonder if Paterno died of a broken heart." He had lung cancer, folks. He was 85 years old. He was sick before the Sandusky scandal hit the national news. And trying to elicit sympathy in this case when children were molested is a little sick. (The Intelligencer, Doylestown, PA)

The New York Knicks have hit upon a great way to sell tickets despite the team's shaky start this season: Get your TV channel dropped by a cable operator in a contract dispute. The Knicks (and Rangers, and Devils, and Islanders) are not on Time Warner Cable in a dispute between their MSG networks and the primary cable operator in Manhattan, so some frustrated fans are swallowing hard and buying season tickets, or hitting up the scalpers. If your local team was off the cable because of a dispute, would you buy tickets? That was the reason given in the 1950s for teams like the Dodgers not putting most games on TV. Are we back to that? (New York Times)

This paper asked a self-styled "futurist" to predict which technology will go extinct next. What's on the list? Radio, naturally. But his reasoning is odd -- he thinks radio will be relegated to emergency radios used when the power's out and the Net's off. If that's all radio is, what does he expect will be ON those radios when the power goes out? If all listening goes to podcasts and the like, what stations will be left for that emergency? The rest are mostly obvious, like cheap point-and-shoot cameras (replaced by cell phones) and the landline telephone (ditto). He gets paid for that? I'm declaring myself a futurist; send me money and I'll tell you what you already know, too. (Sydney Morning Herald)

At some point in recent years, teens seem to have collectively decided that you can't just ask someone to the dance by, you know, ASKING her. No, you have to do it in a creative, elaborate way, with a flash mob or in a fortune cookie or spelled out in pepperoni on a pizza. How did this happen? Is it YouTube that fuels this kind of thing, the desire to be "famous" in a viral video? Or is it trying to one-up everyone else? (Los Angeles Times)

Iowa gives celebrities the immediate right to go hunting. Regular folks have to wait an average of three years for a hunting tag. This seems wrong to the locals. The state says that it's necessary because the celebrities bring good publicity for hunting in the state, but how much positive publicity can they get from Jeff Foxworthy wandering around with a rifle? Who even knew he was there? (Des Moines Register)

This guy is the founder of that job site TheLadders.com, and he's looking to run for Senate from New York. And because of that, people are going through his life with a fine-toothed comb. That's how it was discovered that his "personal blog" included a lot of rude posts on sex and drugs. He's disavowing them and it's being claimed that the posts were, despite the claim on the site that it was his personal responsibility, written by others or maybe sucked up and reprinted on the site -- they're not clear, probably because the staff doesn't have its story agreed upon by all. But wouldn't it be refreshing for a politician to say, yes, I swear and have sex and I've done weed and so what? The whole "family values" thing is phony anyway. Look at all the right-wing religious conservatives willing to ignore Newt Gingrich's serial improprieties because he talks a good game. (New York Times)

What the hell is going on in San Francisco? The prosecutor who'll have to try the newly-elected Sheriff on domestic violence charges has herself been arrested for domestic violence. I thought San Francisco was all liberal and anti-domestic violence; where are they finding these people for these jobs? (San Francisco Chronicle)

Loma Linda, CA is an interesting town; it's populated largely by Seventh Day Adventists and is a very health-conscious, latte-sipping type of place. And they're fighting tooth-and-nail to block the construction of a McDonalds in town, because they JUST CAN'T HAVE THAT HORRIBLE UNHEALTHY SWILL IN TOWN. The fact that there are already other fast-food places like Carl's Jr. in town doesn't seem to matter. There's some kind of special hatred of the Golden Arches there, and they seem to think that if there's a McDonalds, people will be compelled to eat bad food there whether they want to or not. Interesting. The other fact is that Loma Linda is out near San Bernardino and the air there is so brown it's practically chewy, and they're worried about Big Macs? (Los Angeles Times)

When you start weightlifting -- even in school, ESPECIALLY in school -- they always tell you that if you're lifting free weights, you need a spotter. This coach in Florida apparently didn't heed that warning: he was found by his own daughters trapped and killed by a 305 pound bar. You can't lift that much weight alone without someone to help you if you drop it. (Bay News 9)

While the "news" that David Beckham got some take-out at In-N-Out Burger is possibly the least newsworthy "news" of the year -- it makes Katy unfollowing Russell on Twitter look like a major bulletin -- it does raise the question of why some people just attract that kind of attention. Beckham isn't even the best soccer player in the world, his wife hasn't been an active performer in years, and they're kind of irrelevant on every level, yet Becks hits up the In-N-Out for a double-double with fries and it's news in the Daily Mail. Why? (Daily News)

An incident in Sydney has dog owners frightened: Someone kidnapped and drowned a dog, and they think it was the work of a neighbor who couldn't take the dog's yapping. And, yes, people do go into rages over that, but, thankfully, there aren't too many dog murders over it, but what do you do about a barking dog? What do you do if your neighbor has a yappy dog and won't control it? What do yu do if it's YOUR dog and you can't stop the noise? (Sydney Morning Herald)

This article in the New York Times encapsulates a lot of what annoys me about the New York Times and the people who write and read it. It's about a woman who lives and works in Paris (strike one!) and has a child in school and she has SUCH a harried, tough life, what with the commute and trying to have time for her family and all (strike two!), so she's come up with the best solution, you guys: She gets to work late and leaves early, the perfect solution because she gets to spend more time with her son and misses the afternoon traffic jams in the bargain. That's strike three because, well, how many people could possibly get away with that? YOU tell your boss that you'll just come in around, say, 10-ish and knock off work at, oh, 3:30 or so and see what he or she says. Only in the world of the New York Times (and, in her case, academia) is something like that even a possibility. (New York Times)

Here's Billy Cundiff's press conference after missing the 32-yarder that would have sent the AFC Championship into overtime. He's pretty much straightforward about it -- he should have made it, he missed it, it's his responsibility. What else would you want him to say or do? What CAN a goat do once he's botched his opportunity? Really, because Kyle Williams could use the advice, too. (Boston Globe)

A University of New Mexico professor insists that rap music was invented by the Scots, based on the use of rhyming insults in 16th century Scotland, of which I'm sure the kids in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Queens were aware in the 1970s. The joke possibilities are endless, but I'll leave them to you. (Daily Telegraph)

The fire department showed up when a family called in to say that an electrical outlet on the floor was smoking. And then they discovered why: The family cat peed into the outlet. Pee and electricity don't go together well. (Arizona Republic)

I may have mentioned this in my Net News CES coverage, but one of the things shown a lot at the convention was the control of TVs by gestures and voice commands. Now, this isn't brand new -- Microsoft's been pushing Kinect for that, and Apple's Siri is widely assumed to be the heart of whatever Apple TV action there might be in the future -- but if this catches on, the future will look a lot like "Minority Report." Is that the kind of thing that would get you to buy a new TV? Because 3D didn't. (Los Angeles Times)

Is it really news that a lot of produce and natural food products sold in America are not made in America? That apple and orange juice is often from other countries? I thought that was pretty well-known by now, but in case you didn't know and want to Buy American, well, you might want to check those labels. (USA Today)

In case you want to hit the hot button of religion vs. homosexuality, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback made a big deal about getting obsolete laws off the books, but when he released his list of laws to be eliminated, the prohibition of sodomy was not among them. That's odd in the sense that federal rulings have invalidated state sodomy laws, so it was the very definition of an obsolete law. Is he that craven a politician that he feels he can't sign off on anything that might be construed as treating gay people like human beings? (New York Times)

A co-pilot of a flight from Bangkok to Siberia died from a heart attack in mid-flight. Not even a cardiologist who happened to be on board could revive him. The captain decided to try an emergency landing in Chengdu but changed his mind because the co-pilot died before then, so they kept going. The airport says that the co-pilot was merely a passenger and was never in control of the plane, and was a reserve pilot for the flight, on duty in case another crew member fell ill. Good thing nobody else died on the flight. (Daily Mail)

It appears that a couple held in Jamaica after their 2-year-old child's body was found in their suitcase is the same couple who were the parents of a baby found abandoned on a frigid stairwell in Toronto four years ago. Same people. They were found guilty in Toronto, lost custody of the baby and other children, managed to go to Jamaica, had another baby, and now there's a second dead child, found stuffed and decomposing in a suitcase, although police say they don't have evidence of foul play. No? Then why was the body in a suitcase, unreported? What kind of people ARE they? (Toronto Star)

What a surprise: A man was killed at a festival in Spain when he was gored by a bull with flaming horns. Yes, they put things on the bulls' horns, set them aflame, and send the bulls into the crowds. This does not sound like a great idea to me, but then again... no, it's just not a great idea. (AP via Arizona Republic)

A CDC report says that many girls who became mothers in their teens didn't think they would get pregnant. You might think that we need more education to prevent that, but I don't think it's a case of education. I think it's a case that some people just don't think that what they hear in school or warnings from the government or health officials applies to them. They assume the odds are in their favor. Their bouncing, crying, pooping bundles of joy are proof that mom lost that gamble. (USA Today)

Here's another article, this one from the New York Times Magazine, about the statistics that show an increasing number of people stuck unable to afford to move to where the jobs are. They can't, for reasons from inability to sell their houses to just plain inability to afford anything, "vote with their feet," as Reagan used to say. What do you do when you're living in a city where the jobs are gone and unable to go where there's hope? (New York Times)

Notes from the Hospital: A patient in the hospital in Nanaimo, BC has been wandering the halls for a year. She's homeless, she's special-needs, and they have no place to put her. Isn't the Canadian healthcare system supposed to have this kind of thing handled? Turns out there's no facility for someone who's too old for the children's ward, too young for the seniors' ward, and too special-needs for a regular bed. So they have her bouncing from ward to ward taking up bed space and no solution in sight. (Nanaimo Daily News)

Notes from the Hospital: In a British hospital, a woman died after suffering from severe burns and waiting ten weeks for treatment. You read that right -- she was in limbo and extreme pain for ten weeks without treatment. I'm sure there are way more positive stories than stories like this out of the NHS, but you hear too many stories like this. Socialized medicine shouldn't mean no medicine at all. (Daily Mail)

Remember that couple in England that was the first to do the "we're not telling anyone the gender of our child" thing? That was five years afo, and they've revealed that it's a boy. But they've raised him wearing some girls' clothes and pushing girl-identified things on him, so I'm betting that had it been a girl, they wouldn't have done this gender-free thing. And not allowing a kid to be what he or she is -- whether that involves identifying with his or her own gender or not -- is a little cruel. Let kids find their own way, and don't use them for your gender experiments. (The Sun)

If you want to bet on the next major retailer to go under, you'll probably get a lot of company by betting on Kmart and Sears. The chains are really sad right now -- the stores are kinda decrepit, and the selection weak. Kmart seems further gone than Sears, but that's one company, so if one goes, the other's likely to go, too. And when was the last time you walked into a Kmart? It's been years for me, and the last experience was enough to let me know that a repeat experience wasn't necessary. (Detroit News)

A babysitter in New Jersey is a strong candidate for Worst Person of the Year for allegedly Skyping video of herself sexually abusing a sleeping 5-year-old girl. What kind of person would... no, forget it, I don't think there's an answer for that. (WPIX-TV/New York)

Yes, apparently, people do really pay lots and lots of money to go to African reserves to shoot giraffes for fun. Here's the thing: You don't have to be anti-hunting to be against this. Really, going someplace where they keep animals fenced in so you can shoot them is cheating. Go out in the wild and that's one thing. Having the poor animals served up to you for your shooting and maiming pleasure is just unfair. (Daily Mail)

This woman joined a support organization for bereaved mothers, reportedly because she was a bereaved mother herself. And now she's been charged with embezzling about $25,000 from the organization. Stealing from a group supporting mothers who have lost a child? Can it get much lower? And being a bereaved mother yourself is no excuse. (KGTV/San Diego)

Halle Berry's stalker got released early for good behavior. How would you feel if you were Halle Berry? This guy is a danger to her, and he served a short time and he's out. They haven't invented a restraining order that's effective enough. (KABC-TV/Los Angeles)

A bank in Australia fired 188 people, then had some of those staffers train their outsourced Indian replacements, who were brought in on temporary visas to learn what the fired employees knew. That's about as low as business goes, but it's common, and it happened to me TWICE in radio ("Hey, the new guy doesn't know the format. You'll teach him, right?"). (Brisbane Courier-Mail)

The national TV station in Fiji had a poll to determine the "winning personality of the year." The winner: the head of the Consumer Council. No, wait, the dictator, actually named Voreqe Bainimarama (that's practically Bananarama!), wanted to win it. So he ordered that the channel apologize and give him the win. And they did, because it IS a dictatorship. How positively Kim Jong Un of him. (New Zealand Herald)

Guy went on the BBC's "Eggheads" trivia game show with his pub quiz team. They won. The day after it aired, he killed himself. He was said to show no indications of unhappiness and was excited to see the show on TV. But depression often hits when friends and family don't see it and can't imagine why. And you'll never know what, if anything, was the trigger. (Daily Telegraph)

I've never seen nor heard of this, but they say that teens are creating Facebook "burn" pages on which they post horrible things about other kids. Apparently, they're like the "burn books" in the movie "Mean Girls," which mean that it's all Tina Fey's fault. No, it's the kids' fault, because kids are cruel. This article is about British "burn" pages, but online bullying is happening everywhere. Do you know what your kids are doing online? (Daily Mail)

TMZ says Heidi Klum and Seal are divorcing. There's some dispute over this. But if it's true, how much of all that public lovey-dovey stuff was real and how much was just for the cameras? You gotta wonder when people are a little too willing to do PDAs. (TMZ; People)

Notes from the Hospital: The guy who shot a nail into his brain and didn't know it thought it was a joke when the doctor showed him the x-ray. Now, he's telling jokes after the nail was successfully removed. But he has to know how lucky he is to be alive, let alone recovering fully, after that. (Joliet Herald News)

Did you see that, as an apparent part of their divorce settlement, Vanessa Bryant is getting $18.8 million in property, including three mansions in Orange County, that she owned with Kobe? That's a lot until you try to sell those places in a weak market when nobody wants a mansion in Orange County at what used to be market price. No, actually, even taking a hit on the price, that'll probably STILL be a lot. (Los Angeles Times)

After all the schools and public buildings have removed everything but "healthy" foods from vending machines, a new study says that vending machines may not cause students to gain weight after all. There's no link between the machines and obesity, and more evidence that eating patterns are established outside school, at home. This, of course, won't do for the anti-pleasure crowd, so they're calling for more study. Somehow, they'll manage to find a way to justify taking everything that tastes good out of schools. (New York Times)

Guy went to Hawaii and got something called "rat lungworm disease." What? How? Well, the "what" is a disease that paralyzes the sufferer. And it comes from rat poop, eaten by slugs, who in turn lay eggs on fruit and vegetables, and you get it by eating the fruit and veggies without washing them. And this guy, who went to Hawaii to learn organic farming, must have eaten something in the fields. Moral: Ew, oragnic means poopy. (WCCO-TV/Minneapolis)

Dozens of tourists who went to Cuba came back home to Canada sick. Since when is Cuba a cruise ship? Anyway, that's not necessarily the best advertisement for a vacation spot, not that Cuba comes to mind as an ideal vacation spot (and if you're American, you aren't supposed to go there anyway). (Toronto Star)

This columnist asserts that playgrounds are being ruined by an insistence on safety. The monkey bars and jungle gyms and swings and asphalt we grew up with are being eliminated because, you know, kids could get hurt. Are we now overprotective? (Los Angeles Times)

So, Billy Cundiff probably shouldn't bother flying back to Baltimore after missing a 32-yard field goal attempt that would have put the Ravens into a tie, and instead handing the Patriots the AFC championship. Joe Flacco did his job, but when you can't rely on your kicker, you go home. (Baltimore Sun)

Tip: If you're going to rob a bank, don't use your car with vanity plates as the getaway vehicle. Just sayin', that makes tracking you down a little too easy. (U-T San Diego)

Gabrielle Giffords will step down from Congress, and that indicates how long a road it is to recover from what she's been through. Whether or not you liked her politics, this is pretty sad news. (Arizona Daily Star)

So we now know who the Hollywood sign body parts belonged to, a guy who often hiked in that area and may have had a bi argument with a roommate before his death. Admit it, you were hoping for something more mysterious and spooky. It is, after all, Hollywood. (Los Angeles Times)

Priceline's latest commercial kills off William Shatner's "Priceline Negotiator" in a bus crash. They're changing from the bidding process to just another discounter, and wanted something dramatic. But he's still under contract, so... publicity stunt? Probably. And we remember that Jack in the Box blew up "Jack" in the 80s and later brought him back in a commercial series that's been about as successful as any, so don't be surprised if their commercials get re-Shatner-ized at some point. (CNN)

Good question, in light of the South Carolina primary: Why don't they always hold votes on Saturdays? Why do they always do it on a work day? Wouldn't the turnout be better if it was more convenient? Granted, the advent of computerized voting allows for casting ballots over more than one day, and there's the issue of Orthodox Jews who wouldn't be able to vote until sundown, but you could keep the polling open until a few hours after sunset and if we're going to stick to the idea of "Election Day," Saturday still makes more sense than Tuesday. (USA Today)

Funny how they waited until the end of last week, when nobody was paying attention, for Ben Roethlisberger to settle that rape case in Tahoe. They hope it all just goes away, and, well, for a lot of people, it will. But it's still creepy, and disturbing, and no settlement -- with nobody talking, and no statement of innocence from the alleged victim -- will erase that. (Reno Gazette-Journal)

Sebastian Coe, Olympic athlete turned politician turned London Olympics chief, says that employers should give parents time off work to watch their children play sports. I know some parents who would agree. What this would do to business, and how resentful those of us without kids would be over the free time off we wouldn't get, he doesn't say. Is it an employer's, or the government's, business to enforce quality time for parents and kids? (Daily Mail)

An online survey in the U.K. says that over a fifth of the people who got Kindles for Christmas have never used it, mostly because they haven't bought any books. I wonder whether the same is true of things like the iPad, that people get them and don't use them, because they seemed like a good idea at the time and now, well, don't. I have an iPad and I use it, but I had a use in mind before I got it (I can use it to do quick updates to this column and Nerdist on the run, and for convention coverage when lugging the laptop is too much); I can imagine people getting one and concluding that it doesn't have much of an application to their lives. (Daily Telegraph)

The question that keeps coming up over the Alabama fan arrested for teabagging an unconscious LSU fan is... why does anyone DO that? Who came up with that? And how bizarre is it that he was not the only one with that thought -- there was one other guy who was about to do it but dissuaded by his girlfriend? What does the whole teabagging thing say about the teabagger? (And before you go there, it's not saying "he's gay," because gay doesn't equal committing a sex crime. It says that the bagger is a pervert. Unless somehow whipping it out in public has become acceptable) (New Orleans Times Picayune)

The passing of Joe Paterno, in an awkward he's-dead-no-he-isn't-NOW-he-is back=and-forth late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It's still unclear why he let the Sandusky thing go on. But it's also unclear why, suffering from lung cancer and 85 years old, he just would not step down and ended up being fired in disgrace. Had he retired in his 70s, he would be remembered 100% for his football coaching. But he held on, and the result is that you won't remember him for anything but the scandal. (CNN)

Wait, didn't we have a Wiggles story just a few days ago? Yes, the replacement of the Yellow Wiggle with the original Yellow Wiggle, but there's more. The leader and founder of the Wiggles, fittingly the Blue Wiggle, has released a book detailing his clinical depression while anonymous former employees of the Wiggles organization tell newspapers that morale at the company is at an all-time low with Wiggles not talking to Wiggles and other recriminations. So life in Wigglesland is not all peaches and primary colors. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Dude watched Bear Grylls on TV and decided he'd go live in a hut in the remote Scottish wilderness for a year, living off the land. He didn't make it to a month before he was dead of hypothermia. Turns out that survival in the wilderness is easier when you know what you're doing. (Daily Mail)

The teen trend is to wear pajamas all day. Retailers are jumping on board (would you be shocked to find Abercrombie and Fitch doing it? Thought not), but some schools and even towns are looking to outlaw it. Granted, it's a stupid trend, and sloppy, but, let's face it, pajamas DO cover everything that needs to be covered. How can that be illegal? (Wall Street Journal)

The Niners had their chances, but the Giants are on an amazing roll, and unlike Billy Cundiff, Lawrence Tynes can make field goals in the clutch, and Kyle Williams, well, um, he had a bad day, so Big Blue is the NFC champion and it's the Giants and Patriots in the Super Bowl. Brady vs. Eli. Hated, annoying coach vs. hated, annoying coach. Insufferable, entitled fan base vs. insufferable, entitled fan base. What? Oh, that's just my bitterness talking, sorry. (ESPN)

Okay, so it's a race again with Newt winning South Carolina, but can he win elsewhere? Can he win the general election? (CNN)