Toddler-gluing mother glued to a cell

Before I start, I am ending the Good Service Award. I can't find any one person to give the awards to each month, so this month, the second and final Good Service Award goes to everyone who is eligible.

The Bellend of the month for October 2012 is Elizabeth Escalona. This month, she was convicted of child abuse after she stuck her daughter Jocelyn's hands to the wall at the end of a brutal beating last year - one that left the toddler with a fractured rib, bleeding in her brain, and bite marks. It sent her into a coma for days. The 23-year-old mother of five exploded in rage because of potty training challenges with Jocelyn, and because of that, she is now behind bars for 99 years, but will be eligible for parole in October of 2042 (after 30 years). This sentence, while disproportionately severe, will send a very strong message to anybody engaging in child abuse or any other criminal behaviour: crime doesn't pay.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Google taxes

French President Francois Hollande is considering pushing for a new tax that would see search engines such as Google have to pay each time they use content from French media. However, Google has opposed the plan and threatened to bar French websites from its search results if the tax is imposed. And besides, none of the search engine giants are based in France, so the tax might not even be collectable much of the time. The thought of any government taxing search results is unfathomable.

Party of nine put in their place

Manchester United shaded a thoroughly entertaining top-of-the-table clash at Stamford Bridge this morning with Javier Hernandez netting the winner after Chelsea were reduced to nine men. The final score was 3-2, with Man United's goals being an own goal by David Luiz and one goal each by Robin van Persie and Javier Hernandez, and Chelsea's goals coming from Juan Mata and Ramires.

In the second half, Branislav Ivanovic was red-carded for a professional foul on Ashley Young, and Fernando Torres was dismissed for a second bookable offence - diving in a bid to win a foul following a clash with Jonny Evans. Three others were yellow-carded.

Shame Campaign Level 439932

But before I start on that, I hope our Muslim readers had an Eid Mubarak. Now that that's out of the way, the genre of “kid shaming” on the Internet continues to evolve. First there was “laptop-shooting dad,” then “poop in the shower dad.” The latest is brought to us by two Wisconsin parents, who hijacked their daughter’s Facebook page. The twist: They posted goofy and embarrassing pictures of themselves on it. After their daughter “got fresh” with her parents, they confiscated her phone for a week and took over her Facebook account as well. Next, they posted a series of wacky pictures of themselves for all of her friends to see. Thanks to her brother, the story and one of the pictures found its way to Reddit for the whole world to see. “My parents took away my sisters phone for the week. They've uploaded about 10 of these to her facebook. Doing it right!” AustinMac posted on the popular site. Now, although this particular punishment seems more lighthearted than earlier shaming examples, not everyone agrees that it’s all in good fun. Most parents would be outraged if another child used social media to humiliate their kids, yet if parents do this, they are often hailed as heroes. During 'Bully Prevention Month,' it's interesting that some view parental cyber-bullying as OK, when in actual fact, publicly shaming your kid isn't cool, and it doesn't work to change the child's behaviour. In fact, it likely intensifies the power struggle between parent and child. Discipline should help the child make a better choice in the future rather than shame them for past mistakes. Parental cyber-bullying, on the other hand, is simply a parent's attempt to 'get back at' the child. They don't take seriously their duty to deliberately teach better behaviour in a way that is helpful to the child. So to sum it up, those bellends did the wrong thing and they themselves could use a little shame. In other news, Rod Stewart has packed a lot of life into his 67 years and he uncovers it all in his new book, “Rod: The Autobiography.” The memoir is filled with page after page of sex, drugs, and of course, rock ‘n’ roll!

Armstrong still living strong

Lance Armstrong may have been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and barred from Olympic sports for life after a report from the United States Anti-Doping Agency detailed how he used performance-enhancing drugs to win cycling races and coerced teammates to do the same. But he is still a rich man, with an estimated net worth of US$125 million. Independent advisers and lawyers say he is likely to hold on to most of that wealth - though he may have to give up an estimated US$3.9 million in prize money he won in the Tour and pay some hefty legal bills. But other than that, I'm sure he'll get through this embarrassment and be a stronger and better person for it, even though he will have to live with the consequences for the rest of his life. In other news, two people have been sentenced to a year in jail: a former Italian prime minister for tax fraud, and a man in central China for ringing a bell to end a national college entrance exam too early. In the former case, Silvio Berlusconi dodged huge amounts of tax by exaggerating the cost of film rights that he purchased for his Mediaset television empire. Some of the assets were diverted to overseas slush funds in Switzerland and Hong Kong in the €200 million scam. In the latter case, students were forced to hand in their papers nearly five minutes before the exam should have ended.

UN got Gangnam Style

Yahoo has acquired its first company under the leadership of new CEO Marissa Mayer: Stamped, a New York startup backed by a roster of celebrity investors, including Ryan Seacrest and Justin Bieber. But now onto a better musician: Psy. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met the K-Pop sensation on Tuesday, tried his best to ‘dress classy, dance cheesy,’ and finally scored the U.N. some cool points. The U.N. could however score more cool points by giving Resolution 2758 the boot. But back to the meeting between Psy and Ban Ki-moon. The two were an odd couple to behold. Bespectacled and wearing a proper suit, Ban looked every bit the serious dignitary. And with a trendy checkered sport coat and nattily unknotted bow tie, Psy appeared the quintessential Web supernova. One trail-blazed the U.N.’s work combating global warming and was instrumental in negotiating the peacekeeping resolution during the Darfur conflict. The other created a song and music video that has received over a half-billion views on YouTube while encouraging people of all generations to mock-gallop like a horse while chanting, “Hey, sexy lady.” And their importance to the country of South Korea, right now, may be of equal weight. And hey, at least their side of the 38th parallel doesn't blow ridiculous sums of money on failed rocket launches.

SURI IN TEARS, ABANDONED BY HER DAD... NOT!

44 DAYS WITHOUT TOM ... ABANDONED BY DADDY ... Suri is left heartbroken as Tom suddenly shuts her out and even misses her first day of school... HAS HE CHOSEN SCIENTOLOGY OVER SURI FOR GOOD?

I don't think so. Even if he fell for a huge global scam like Scientology, Tom Cruise would never hurt his daughter Suri like that. Also, he is not a litigious guy. But when sleaze peddlers try to make money with disgusting lies about his relationship with his child, you bet he's going to sue. Tabloid headlines that falsely trumpeted in bold letters that he "abandoned" his young daughter should cost the publisher US$50 million, the actor's lawyer said yesterday. The magazine covers appeared on Life & Style and InTouch in the weeks after Cruise divorced actress Katie Holmes, with whom he shares 6-year-old daughter Suri, according to a defamation lawsuit Cruise has filed in LA against the publisher.

Even though Tom Cruise isn't necessarily the best actor out there, he is a caring father who dearly loves Suri. Suri is a vital part of his life and always will be. To say he has 'abandoned' her is already a vicious lie, but to say it in lurid headlines with a tearful picture of Suri is reprehensible. Those serial defamers are a bunch of bellends who are only kept alive by making money from malicious lies, and I don't know whether the magazines, whose owners (Bauer Publishing Group) are headquartered in Germany, would be able to use the First Amendment as an excuse for printing sleaze. Maybe having to pay a libel judgement will slow those krauts down.

Seven Fuels of Grave

Three men accused of desecrating Jewish graves have appeared in court charged with wilful damage. A 19 and 20-year-old were granted interim name and image suppression at the Auckland District Court today but the other defendant, 23-year-old Nathan Symington, was not. The two men granted suppression had little to say outside court today, but Symington was keen to emphasise his innocence. "I'm fighting this to the bitter end," he said. "If I did it, I'd plead guilty straight away." So would I if I had done anything that despicable. But Symington’s only connection to the crime was through a friend who had taken a photo of the graffiti and sent it to him, which he then shared. And speaking of sharing, I have more to share tonight: forget the seven Tour de France victories. Forget the yellow jersey celebrations on the Champs Elysees. Forget the name that dominated the sport of cycling for so many years. As far as cycling's governing body is concerned, Lance Armstrong never existed. Once considered the greatest rider in Tour history, the American was cast out on Monday by his own sport, formally stripped of his seven titles, and banned for life for his involvement in a massive doping programme that tainted all of cycling and his own reputation. But I don’t see him as a doper. He is a respected cyclist who had beaten cancer as well as seven consecutive packs of riders. It’s unfortunate that this has happened to such an inspirational man. In my books, all seven of his Tour titles stand. But we have more on the books tonight because Kim Cattrall hasn't ruled out starring in Fifty Shades of Grey. The Sex and The City actress confirmed she is being considered for the role of mysterious older woman Elena Lincoln in the big screen adaptation of the racy novel. Cattrall revealed she is up against Uma Thurman for the sexy part. Cattrall, who has previously denied any involvement in the film, could have an advantage over Uma in the casting race for Fifty Shades of Grey. It has recently been revealed that Thurman has signed to another upcoming movie project (Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac) while Cattrall can fit Fifty Shades into her schedule. It’s anybody’s race, but whoever does play Elena is likely to share some steamy scenes with the lead male character Christian Grey. Stars linked to that role include Ryan Gosling, Ian Somerhalder, Matt Bomer, and Chris Pine. But whoever they pick for that role won’t matter because if they pick Mila Kunis for the role of Anastasia Steele, then I’ll just spend the entire movie jacking off to her scenes. Until then, here’s a scene worth getting in on: Stockton-on-Tees, a small city in northeastern England, has only one claim to fame. The first railway tracks were made and laid in the city in 1822, and the first train ran on those tracks in 1825. But it might one day have another claim, also related to transport: a local start-up company called Air Fuel Synthesis has just produced the first petrol from air and water. It's expensive now but their technique for making petrol from air and water can only get cheaper. They only made five litres in two months – it isn’t much but Peter Harrison, the company's chief executive, hopes within two years they'll build a larger plant producing a tonne a day. He envisages refinery-scale operations in fifteen years. "We've taken carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water and turned these elements into petrol," Harrison told a conference at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London. So what this could mean is that fuel may get cheaper and the world might never run out of petrol. But it also poses an ethical dilemma – would it really be right to misappropriate air meant for breathing and water meant for drinking? Turns out we might not have a choice. But America will have a choice in two weeks between a douche and a turd.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Foul play

Australian rugby player Scott Higginbotham joined a long list of rugby players who have lashed out at All Black skipper Richie McCaw. Higginbotham was cited yesterday for 'punching or striking' McCaw with both incidents coming in the 26th minute of the 18-all draw in Brisbane on Saturday night. McCaw's not new to being on the receiving end of illegal play having played 112 test matches at the highest level, but three incidents have come under the spotlight in the last 12 months following Dean Greyling's forearm strike during the Springboks' defeat in Dunedin and allegations of eye-gouging by Frenchman Aurelien Rougerie in the World Cup final. So here's what I think should be done to put bellends like Higginbotham in their place: the All Blacks senior players should select a player to became a sacrificial lamb, who will deal to any dirty player like Higginbotham. It would be better to play with 14 players knowing the opposition has got the message that if they play dirty with our skipper, they will be getting a ride in a stretcher.

Snooki back down to size

Reality TV star Nicole Polizzi has lost almost all her baby weight just eight weeks after giving birth to son Lorenzo. Chilean-born Polizzi, better known as Snooki, showed off her slimline physique in a photo posted to her Twitter account on Saturday, where her slender waist was on display in a belted skirt. But seriously, I just don't care. In other celebrity news, the ongoing saga of Lindsay Lohan and her parents is so oddly pathetic, her family can't even get an intervention right. TMZ.com reports that her father Michael tried one on Friday, and when he arrived at Lindsay's Beverly Hills home, she not only didn't let him in, she called the cops on him. Her mother Dina, of course, criticized Michael's intervention plan, telling TMZ, "This sole act by my ex was not an intervention nor was this extreme antic sanctioned by any member of Lindsay's family or her professional team of handlers. It's all about her father obsessed with making a name for himself in the news once again. It's sad and I hope he stops masquerading as her father in public and starts acting like one in private." But come on, guys. Who needs celebrity news when you can feast on this? A new study has revealed that the average Twitter user is an American woman with an iPhone, 208 followers, and a purple background on her profile. But I'm just glad that's not me.

Stoking the fires of success

Manchester United's deadly array of attacking talent combined to devastating effect as the Reds overcame Stoke City 4-2 this morning in another enthralling, goal-laden encounter at Old Trafford. Wayne Rooney scored three goals, one of them being an own goal for Stoke City. Stoke City's other goal was scored by Michael Kightly, and Man United's other goals were scored by Robin van Persie and Danny Welbeck. Two players received yellow cards.

Computers become private domain

Workplace computers contain so much personal information nowadays that employees have a legitimate expectation of privacy in using them, the Supreme Court of Canada said in a major ruling yesterday. The court said an individual’s Internet browsing history alone is capable of exposing his or her most intimate likes, dislikes, activities, and thoughts. So what this means is that any employee in Canada can have as much porn on their work computers as they want without getting busted. And speaking of bust, Chinese police have recently busted a telecom fraud gang. They arrested 86 suspects and solved over 200 criminal cases.

Graves encounter the gravest times

The Catholic Bishop of Auckland has expressed his disgust at the desecration of Jewish graves with anti-semitic obscenities, including Nazi swastikas, at a cemetery in Auckland. Police are investigating after around 20 headstones and graves were vandalised in a Jewish part of a Karangahape Road cemetery. So basically, 67 years after the liberation of the Jewish people from the death camps and ghettos of Europe, expressions of blind hatred for Jews and for the sole Jewish state have resurfaced. The vandalism of anybody's graves is a despicable act and I am disgusted that despite humanity being the product of billions of years of evolution, certain bellends would stoop to this level of cowardice. Whoever did this needs to be brought to justice now.

The pirate spirit lingers on

The Pirate Bay has made an important change to its infrastructure. The world’s most famous BitTorrent site has switched its entire operation to the cloud. From now on, The Pirate Bay will serve its users from several cloud hosting providers scattered around the world. The move will cut costs, ensure better uptime, and make the site virtually invulnerable to police raids — all while keeping user data secure. That's a great choice for a site that has been great to me over the last 18 months. Thanks to their huge selection of movies and TV shows, I can save hundreds because I don't need the DVD versions. And because a lot of newer episodes of TV shows are uploaded as soon as possible after they first air in America, I will have seen this season's episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy before they air in New Zealand the following weekend. And speaking of the weekend, a Sydney man in jail for participating in two gang rapes has been refused parole for a third time but will be allowed out on weekends.

How now disavow

Google launched a new tool today that allows Webmasters to eliminate links to their site that they believe might be hurting its search rankings. Announced at the Pubcon conference in Las Vegas today, the "disavow links" tool is designed to help sites that have already been warned by Google of manual spam actions based on "unnatural links." The tool is recommended as a last-resort solution to link spam - disreputable or irrelevant links that may hurt a site's search engine results ranking. I myself won't be using this new tool, but it seems like a great idea. Now for something not so great: there are growing concerns by developers about approval times for applications in the Mac App Store. Apple isn't reporting the average wait times and the problem appears to be the time spent in the approval process, not in getting the approved app up onto the App Store. So how long does it take for Apple to approve new entries in its Mac App Store? Nobody knows exactly and Apple is mum. But according to a report at MacRumors, wait times at the Mac App Store have been growing longer in the past months. This is based on data from a developer-training firm named Shiny Development and shows a rising trend from 7 days in April to almost a month in October. The trend for iOS apps is less severe and is based on more substantial data as would be expected for the larger iOS App Store, with 471 data points being included from the past 30 days. Average iOS App Store review times have been within a range of 3-11 days over the past year and currently sit at one week after declining from their peak roughly two months ago. But back to the Mac App Store, where Apple had better sort out their approval times otherwise the developers will just distribute their Mac titles elsewhere.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Car theft

A California teen accused of stealing a celebrity chef's Lamborghini and later shooting at a couple will have to stand trial on a number of charges, including attempted murder. A judge ruled yesterday that there is enough evidence against the bellend, named Max Wade, to try him on charges including attempted murder and auto theft. Wade is accused of stealing chef Guy Fieri's US$220,000 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder from a San Francisco dealership, where it had been brought for repairs, in March of last year. Authorities say that he later opened fire on an 18-year-old woman and her boyfriend in Mill Valley because the woman had rejected him. Seriously, this is just wrong. I would never open fire on a woman (or man) simply because they reject me. Somebody like Hitler or a Klansman would be a refreshing step up from that bellend.

To make a supersonic man out of him

The sky proved no limit for Felix Baumgartner. The Austrian daredevil, in fact, rose to the edge of space (40 km above the Earth) yesterday before plunging faster than the speed of sound. Minutes later, he landed in southeastern New Mexico, dropped to his knees, and pumped his fists to the sky. "He made it - tears of joy from Mission Control," his support team said. Dubbed "Fearless Felix," the helicopter pilot and former soldier had parachuted from such landmarks as the Petronas Towers in Malaysia and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. And he'd been preparing for this latest feat for five years - physically, mentally, and logistically. By most accounts, all the hard work paid off. According to preliminary findings cited by Brian Utley, an official observer monitoring the mission, the 43-year-old Baumgartner flew higher than anyone ever in a helium balloon and broke the record for the highest jump. Still, even Baumgartner seemed taken aback when Utley detailed how fast he had fallen at one point - 833.9 mph (1340 km/h or Mach 1.24), smashing his goal to break the sound barrier. But breaking the sound barrier is nothing new, and neither is copyright infringement. In fact, a company that fiercely protects its own intellectual property was recently caught using another's. The irony of Apple being accused of stealing the intellectual property of a Swiss clock designer was not lost on the tech press that had just spent a month covering the company's patent infringement suit against Samsung. So when the Swiss railway operator SBB politely complained three weeks ago that the face of the clock app in iOS 6 was lifted from an iconic (and trademarked) design familiar to anyone who has ever waited for the next train from Zurich, the accusation made for several days of amused headlines.

Let them eat panda!

A Chinese scientist says that humans used to eat pandas. In a newspaper interview, Wei Guangbiao says prehistoric man ate the bears in what is now part of the city of Chongqing in southwest China. Wei, the head of the Institute of Three Gorges Paleoanthropology at a Chongqing museum, says many excavated panda fossils "showed that pandas were once slashed to death by man." But enough about prehistory, because the iPod Touch 5 has finally been released and has already received numerous reviews with many of them being hugely positive. TechCrunch's MG Siegler has said the device would "further obliterate the point-and-shoot market." "With the new iPod Touch, which was unveiled a few weeks ago and just started shipping this week, the camera is one of the hallmark features," Siegler commented. "In fact, it may end up being its most important feature." He added that even though the iPod Touch camera is slightly less powerful than the ones found on the iPhone 4S and 5, it is still a "good camera" and will satisfy those who are not necessarily "iPhone people." But to hell with that. I'd rather get the new iPhone. And speaking of iPhone, Saturday Night Live offered its satirical take on various complaints about Apple's new iPhone 5 in a skit that skewered the tech press and featured a confrontation with SNL's version of Chinese factory workers who make the iPhone.

All Googled out

The majority of top decision-makers at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission believe that an antitrust case should be brought against Google Inc , meaning the search giant could soon be headed into tough negotiations, three people familiar with the matter said. Four of the FTC commissioners have become convinced after more than a year of investigation that Google illegally used its dominance of the search market to hurt its rivals, while one commissioner is skeptical. But let's not worry about that just yet, because a gunshot was fired into President Barack Obama's downtown Denver re-election headquarters yesterday while campaign workers were inside. Fortunately, no one was struck. Unfortunately, this means that almost three months after the Batman shootings, another gunman is stirring up trouble in Denver. And speaking of trouble, Canada was in uproar yesterday over a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was found dead, an apparent suicide, five weeks after she uploaded a video to YouTube describing years of bullying that drove her to drugs and alcohol. Coroner Barb McLintock said Thursday night that preliminary indications suggest the British Columbia girl, Amanda Todd, killed herself. Her school district's spokeswoman, Cheryl Quinton, confirmed the girl in the video was her.

Squat in the middle with you

A surprise squatter turned into an unintended houseguest for a woman who returned to her Detroit home last week after a year away. But while the homeowner wants to boot the tenacious tenant, she legally can’t, and now they’re sleeping under the same roof. So now, Heidi Peterson is embroiled in a battle for control of her own home. After living away for a year, she returned to find a previous tenant (who says the home was abandoned) had moved back in, changed the locks, and installed new appliances. Peterson is taking her fight to evict the woman to court, but for now, it’s a problem she’ll just have to live with. Unless, of course, she pulls a gun on the squatter. But if that happens, the squatter won't be alive to enjoy this: DirecTV has announced their latest HD DVR. The new product is called the DirecTV Genie, and this new DVR brings to the table a whole roster of features you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere, including the ability to record up to 5 high-definition videos at once. According to DirecTV, this flagship DVR is the by-product of integrating as many of the most requested features as possible. Other features include an opt-in recommendation system, which will recommend shows based on the subscriber’s preferences. A single recorded show can be watched on up to four televisions at the same time. Shows can be recorded and deleted from every room with service. With the Genie, the single receiver will operate for the entire home, so that an individual DVR is not needed for every room in which service is wanted. Recordings can be scheduled up to two weeks in advance, while up to 5 weeks of past shows can be viewed at any time. Genie utilises DirecTV’s TV Apps to provide access to Pandora, Facebook, Twitter, and ScoreGuide, in addition to the usual array of weathers/news/sports. Genie has 1TB of storage space, which can store about 200 hours of high-definition content, or 800 hours of standard-definition content. It looks awesome and they should definitely bring a version of this to New Zealand.

Smoke on this one!

Actually, don't. Smoking can kill you. But at least read this: a boyracer caught after a 14-minute high-speed pursuit involving 10 police cars was unrepentant afterwards, telling officers: "Next time I'll smoke you." The unrepentant little punk, named Kevin McKinley, was caught by police stealing petrol from a rural service station yesterday. On his discharge from the police station, he hitch-hiked back to his "impounded" car and took off again, and was stopped only as he entered Christchurch, doing 100 in 60km/h zones, with the deployment of road spikes. Today, the unemployed Nelson youngster appeared at Christchurch District Court where he pleaded guilty to five charges, including theft of petrol, driving while disqualified, and failing to stop. Seriously, if that's not typical of a bellend, I don't know what is.

She’s sexy and she knows it

Mila Kunis (pictured) has been dubbed ''the sexiest woman alive'' by Esquire magazine in its November issue out this week. The 29-year-old, a one-time star of the TV comedy That '70s Show and the voice of Meg on Family Guy, was lauded by the men's magazine on its website as ''the most beautiful, opinionated, talkative, and funny movie star that we've all known since she was nine". As a grown-up, the native of Ukraine electrified audiences with a solid performance opposite - and sometimes in bed with - Israeli-born Oscar winner Natalie Portman in the 2010 ballet movie Black Swan. She recently showed her comic chops in Friends With Benefits and Ted. Next year she will star in Oz: The Great and Powerful. But now for something not so sexy: a 16-year-old in Warrensville Heights, Ohio, was reportedly killed by a teen she teased about her flatulence. The fight took place last Wednesday at about 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time when, according to witnesses, the suspect, whose name has not been released, passed gas. And speaking of gas, a popular Tunisian children's magazine is to be prosecuted for telling its young readers how to make a petrol bomb, officials said yesterday. The latest edition of "Qaws Quzah", Arabic for "Rainbow", featured a piece about the history of petrol bombs in its "Knowledge Corner", including detailed instructions and a diagram. "It is an improvised weapon that is often used in riots and acts of sabotage because it is easy to make and use," the article read. The magazine, read for decades in Tunisia by boys and girls aged 5 to 15, has no political orientation. But one person with political orientation is a Baptist pastor going by the name Mark Harris, who stood before his flock in North Carolina on Sunday and joined hundreds of other US religious leaders in deliberately breaking the law in an election-year campaign that tests the role of churches in politics. By publicly backing candidates for political office from the pulpit, Harris and nearly 1500 other preachers at services across the United States were flouting a law they see as an incursion on freedom of religion and speech. Under the US tax code, non-profit organisations such as churches may express views on any issue, but they jeopardise their favourable tax-exempt status if they speak for or against any political candidate. But that’s what the pastors are doing on ‘Pulpit Freedom Sunday,’ which has been staged annually since 2008 by a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom. Its aim was to provoke a challenge from the US Internal Revenue Service in order to file a lawsuit and have its argument out in court. The event has grown steadily in size, but the IRS has yet to respond - even though the pastors tape their sermons and mail them to the agency. But what to do about where one should stand on this movement? There’s the First Amendment and its rights to freedom of speech, and there’s also the principle of separation of church and state. And speaking of separation, Scotland will hold a vote in 2014 on independence in what could result in the eventual breakup of Britain, a British government minister said yesterday. The announcement ended months of stalemate between the Westminster government in London and the devolved administration in Edinburgh. "What will happen is that Westminster will devolve the power to the Scottish parliament to hold a single-question referendum on whether Scotland should be in or out of the United Kingdom," Scotland Office minister David Mundell told Sky News. "We anticipate that happening in autumn 2014." This could spell the end of over 300 years of union between England and Scotland, but one person who won’t be released in time for this decisive vote goes by the name Jerry Sandusky, who stood in court yesterday in his current uniform, the bright red jumpsuit of the Centre County jail. No longer was he in his Penn State coaching gear, nor in the suit and tie he wore at his trial in June. He was, in a sense, as powerless before his victims as they had once been before him. So he sat, forced to listen. “We both know exactly what happened,” said one of three victims who stood and spoke. Another said: “I am troubled with flashbacks of his naked body, something that will never be erased from my memory. Jerry has harmed children, of which I am one of them.” “There is no punishment sufficient for you,” the mother of another victim wrote in a statement read by the lead prosecutor. Another victim wrote: “There is no remorse. There is no acknowledgment of regret, only evil.” So to sum it up, that bellend will be getting 30 to 60 years (more likely than not to last the rest of his life) behind bars. And I can bet you that when that lowlife piece of scum is all soaped up in the prison showers, he will likely get what’s coming to him.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Animal cruelty

A Christchurch man is facing an animal cruelty charge after allegedly feeding his dog a "cocktail" of chicken and insecticide to put it down. SPCA Canterbury manager Geoff Sutton said the 62-year-old man decided to put down the german shepherd, which he had owned for about six years, after it bit his grandson. Sutton said it was alleged the man fed the fatal chicken and insecticide meal, which the dog did not finish, on June 24. That bellend did a horrible thing and if found guilty, he should be put behind bars for it. I wouldn't feed that to my own pets or anyone else's. This is just wrong.

Best. Birthday. Ever.

And here's what made it even better: Manchester United beat Newcastle United 3-0 (the same scoreline as Man U's loss early this year at the same ground) this morning at Sports Direct Arena in Newcastle. Jonny Evans and Tom Cleverley scored only their second goals for the Reds while Patrice Evra notched his fourth, and first away from Old Trafford, on his 300th appearance since arriving from Monaco in 2006. Eight players, four per side, were given yellow cards.

Stupidest. Trick. Ever.

Or at least that's what I think.

Coolest. Bus stop. Ever.

This bus stop is in Curitiba, which is a city in southern Brazil. These cool looking bus stops have gained their reputation as a symbol of Curitiba – the heaven of urban design in Brazil. The bus stop is designed like a subway station where commuters pay at the entrance so that they can walk directly on the bus. The good points about paying at the bus stop are that there is only one price no matter how far you go (good for those living in the furthest reaches of the bus network), and there's less chance of somebody fare-dodging, especially if tickets are checked again on board. For more cool bus stop designs, click here or here.

Best. Tetris. Ever.

Coolest. Video. Ever.

See for yourself:

Luckiest. Kid. Ever.

WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Tagging

8==D TATION. Does the name Jonah Takalua spring to mind whenever you see this tasteless play on the word "dictation"? Never mind that, because there's a graffiti artist on the loose and this weekend, they left their anti-social mark on a town called Pareora. Taggers defaced buildings, fences, and mailboxes in the town over the weekend. The Pareora Rugby Football Club suffered a lot of the weekend's vandalism after taggers spray-painted nearly every wall of both its buildings. This is just senseless and wrong. What makes this worse is that club president Craig Scott has put some of his own hard-earned cash into the club to keep it going this season, so finding funds to cover the damage would be hard to come by. Pareora resident Mike Phillips also had his fence tagged overnight on Friday. A friend had alerted him to the obscene language tagged on his green fence in The Avenue, but he declined to say what the words were. I don't know who the responsible bellends are, but whoever they are, they should be aware that their actions have consequences. Tagging has been a continuing problem for the wider South Canterbury area in recent weeks, however, some of the people responsible have been caught. And in time, so will the bellends responsible for the graffiti in Pareora.

On the Spurs of the moment

What is it about yesterday morning's Man United versus Tottenham Hotspur match that served up so much excitement? Eleven years to the day after United came from 3-0 behind to win 5-3 at White Hart Lane, Sir Alex's men were at it again. This time, the comeback never reached its completion. In fact, barring the first two minutes of the game, the Reds were never even on level terms. But 180 seconds at the beginning of the second half – three minutes of madness that produced three goals – was worth the price of admission alone and epitomised the drama that has long characterised clashes between these sides. But in the end, the match at Old Trafford ended in a 3-2 win for the Spurs. Man United's goals were scored by Nani and Shinji Kagawa. Tottenham's goals were scored by Jan Vertonghen, Gareth Bale, and Clint Dempsey. Nobody got booked.