THE BIG REVIEW: Profits from the sale of murder weapons

The Bellend of the Month for May 2016 is George Zimmerman.

They shot the 'rilla, but they didn't shoot the four-year-old

Devastated. Heartbroken. In mourning. Those are some of the words the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden used in a contrite explanation for the death of Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla killed on Saturday to save a boy who slipped into the zoo's habitat. The boy was in "imminent danger," leaving the zoo's Dangerous Animal Response Team with no option but to shoot the 450-pound gorilla, zoo director Thane Maynard said in a statement on Facebook. Tranquilizers may not have taken effect in time to save the boy while the dart might have agitated the animal, worsening the situation, Maynard said. "We are heartbroken about losing Harambe, but a child's life was in danger and a quick decision had to be made," he said. The words did little to assuage an angry chorus of critics who believed the gorilla's death was unnecessary. Many blamed the boy's mother for failing to look after her son. Neither the boy nor his family have been identified. And neither was the idiot who didn't build the walls high enough to stop kids from falling in. The fault is at both ends. Parents need to supervise their kids and zoos need to build their enclosures with higher fences.

So that's why they call it thousand island

Will you Mario me?

You know what they say: Nice guys finish last. But that’s only because they’re busy crafting the perfect proposal for their girlfriends. Case in point: YouTube user Shane Birkinbine. Last weekend, the avid gamer and self-proclaimed "geek" asked his girlfriend, Pam Edwards, to marry him, using Super Mario Maker to spell out the sweet request. "Pam bought me the game for the Nintendo Wii several months ago," the groom-to-be told USA TODAY. "Being busy with life and working, I had not had a chance to create my own level. So, it came to me to make the very first level a marriage proposal. It just seemed to fit as we both enjoy Mario games. So, over the course of a week I would work on it after I got home in the evenings when she was fast asleep." Birkinbine explained that he and Edwards met on Match.com a year and eight months ago. "Her photo and profile was so genuine so after some messaging I asked her out. And here we are!" The video will be uploaded soon.

Renewable energy has been Trumped

Hours after effectively clinching the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump vowed to withdraw the United States from the historic Paris agreement among 195 nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to stop global warming. Trump, who has often dismissed the science on climate change as a hoax that threatens American jobs, promised to cut all US spending on United Nations programmes on global warming. Speaking at an oil and gas industry conference in Bismarck, N.D., he laid out an energy agenda that would rely heavily on fossil fuels and rescind Obama administration regulations aimed at addressing climate change. "In a Trump administration, political activists with extreme agendas will no longer write the rules, because that's what's happening now," Trump said. When I think of extreme agendas, his own agenda comes readily to mind. He should be lucky I don't live in America, otherwise that would mean one more vote for Clinton or Sanders. Speaking of which, if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, 2016 may well be the year of the third party.

Everything in this picture is awesome

Wow much noble, so respect

THE BIG REVIEW: Panic at the disco

And no, I don't mean the band. I'm talking about a bunch of pricks who haven't even heard of behaving their goddamn selves. I've got a whole sin to write about them tonight, so let's pour the champagne: a 15-year-old girl who was involved in an altercation at a disco was asked by the organisers to stop bringing attention to the issue for fear of backlash. On Saturday night at the Pro Fresh Blackout Disco in Palmerston North, Katelyn Bird was involved in an altercation, which resulted in her being concussed. The disco is an event held for 14 to 18-year-olds all around the country and is a drug and alcohol-free event. Katelyn said she was pushed to the ground in an altercation at the event. She said security guards did not check she was OK and did not break the altercation up. After contacting event organisers about the issue, Katelyn received messages back that encouraged her not to speak out about what had happened. "Word will spread fast that you are the cause of anything that may come from this," Katelyn was told. I'd speak out anyway, so that some good comes out of it.

This is what our planet really looks like from outer space

And that's before the populace suffer at the hands of goons going by the names TTIP, TPP, and TiSA.

And finally LVG wins a trophy for the Reds

Manchester United’s 12-year wait to win the FA Cup is over after Louis van Gaal’s men came from behind to secure a dramatic and exhilarating extra-time victory over Crystal Palace. Jason Puncheon opened the scoring late in the second half, but the Reds mustered a display of fighting spirit and drew level three minutes later through Juan Mata. After Chris Smalling was sent off in extra time, Academy graduate Jesse Lingard hit a stunning winner that will be remembered for years to come. Although it has been a disappointing season in the Barclays Premier League, after finishing fifth and missing out on Champions League qualification, success in the FA Cup has provided genuine cause for celebration among everybody associated with United. Particularly for the fans, who have craved this trophy in the dozen years since the club’s last success in 2004 when Millwall were beaten in Cardiff. It may not be a Premier League title, but it is better than nothing for a manager who could be on his way out.

The worst-case scenario is if Crystal Palace wins

But here's the wurst-case scenario.

You gotta beliebe

No more crap for two months

That's right, people. Michael Buble is out of action for two months. Just as well because his music has been on the way out since before he was born.

Last game under LVG ends in win

Two days later than planned, Manchester United signed off for the 2015/16 Barclays Premier League season with a comfortable 3-1 victory over Bournemouth at Old Trafford. The Reds knew a point would guarantee entry into the Europa League group stages and avoid a qualifying tie in July, and goals from Wayne Rooney, Marcus Rashford, and Ashley Young ensured it was mission accomplished in that sense. Of course, this match should have been played 48 hours earlier after Sunday’s security alert had forced the initial fixture's abandonment and that had an impact on the crowd inside Old Trafford with not everyone who was here on Sunday able to make the rearranged meeting. It was the same XI for United that was due to start the original match though, with Marcos Rojo and Matteo Darmian missing out through injury and illness ruling out Morgan Schneiderlin. Before kick-off, David De Gea was presented with the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award but neither the Spaniard or his opposite number Adam Federici had much to do in a quiet opening quarter of the match. But at least they made it into the group stages of the Europa League.

THE BIG REVIEW: The real terrorists

Donald Trump was absent when the photo was taken.

Top four not happening this year

Manchester United's final Barclays Premier League match of the season will now be played on Tuesday 17 May, when kick-off is set for 8pm BST. This follows the abandonment of the planned fixture due to a suspicious package that was discovered at Old Trafford. Louis van Gaal's men can realistically no longer finish fourth and qualify for the UEFA Champions League after Manchester City's 1-1 draw at Swansea City on Sunday afternoon. The Reds are determined to end the league campaign on a high though, particularly with the FA Cup final to follow at the weekend. A second defeat in the last 12 matches was suffered during West Ham's Upton Park farewell, despite two goals for Anthony Martial. Louis van Gaal's men have only lost twice at home all season (not including the penalty shoot-out defeat to Middlesbrough in the Capital One Cup), while the visitors are 17th in the form table, covering the last six matches, but have won three of their last six games on the road. Even if the Reds can no longer finish in the top four, they still have the FA Cup final next weekend. Loser van Gaal can still win it.

Australia enters Eurovision again

It's a wonder the green stuff is still a no-go

Indians currying favour with the devil

Strong with the priorities America is not

Reds frustrated in race to the top four

The Champions League qualifying initiative swung away from Manchester United again as Louis van Gaal's side lost 3-2 to West Ham in an incredible last competitive match at Upton Park. The Reds travelled to East London knowing that two wins in the final two league games against the Hammers and Bournemouth would clinch fourth place in the Barclays Premier League. But despite a brilliant double from the in-form Anthony Martial, the Reds were ultimately defeated by strikes from Diafra Sakho, Michail Antonio, and former All White Winston Reid as the hosts turned the game on its head in the final 15 minutes. With one game remaining, United lie two points behind Manchester City and must now hope Swansea City beat the Blues in South Wales while ensuring three home points are collected when Bournemouth visit Old Trafford. Human lives may not depend on it, but a top-four finish does.

THE BIG REVIEW: Viv

Who is she, I hear you ask? It is the latest creation by Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, the team who created the artificial intelligence behind Siri, Apple's iconic digital assistant, and one of the first modern apps to capably handle natural language queries on a smartphone. Today the pair showed off Viv, a next generation AI assistant that they have been developing in stealth mode for the last four years. The goal was to create a better version of Siri, one that connected to a multitude of services, instead of routinely shuffling queries off to a basic web search. During a 20-minute demo onstage at Disrupt NYC, Viv flawlessly handled a dozen complex requests, not just in terms of comprehension, but by connecting with third-party merchants to purchase goods and book reservations. Amazing, huh?

#justiceforlauri

Reds continue push for the top 4

Manchester United applied pressure on neighbours City ahead of the Blues' clash with Arsenal on Sunday thanks to a narrow 1-0 win at Norwich City. Juan Mata scored the only goal of the match to boost the Reds' hopes of qualifying for the Champions League but compounded the Canaries' relegation worries. Despite the importance of the game for both teams, it was the most low key of opening halves with precious few moments of excitement. Perhaps the loss of Anthony Martial in the warm-up, with the injured Frenchman replaced by midfielder Ander Herrera, blunted the Reds' attack and Louis van Gaal's team was further depleted when Matteo Darmian was forced off on a stretcher early on. Daley Blind and Marcus Rashford were already rested for the clash and not included in the squad. But what's important here is the three points.

Here's how English should be spoken

Still no PC's in South D

The South Dunedin community is tired of waiting for its community police station to reopen to the public after being closed for 11 months and is demanding answers. The Macandrew Rd building has been closed since floodwaters last June (look at my post dated 3 June 2015 for some photos I took of surface flooding further north) extensively damaged the ground floor. The road policing group relocated to the North Dunedin station but the neighbourhood policing team, Dunedin dog section, and the serious crash unit continued to work from the building. "It [the station] was already diminished as a service for the community ... [but] we could go in there and we could report crimes," Dunedin South MP Clare Curran said. "There's nowhere now. It's deeply concerning that one of our most densely populated communities ... is not getting that police support." In an email response, police said no timeframe had been set for the station to become fully functional again. This is not good enough. There are around 10,000 people living in the wider South Dunedin area - this is a sizeable area that needs an on-the-ground, functioning police station. Community policing is vital. Like the Work and Income building before it - its reopening was confirmed in December after months of uncertainty and campaigning by concerned residents - people need answers on the future of the police station. Even if the area can be policed from the central station on Great King Street for the time being, response times could be affected by the distance the unit has to travel, and residents would have to travel further to report crimes in person. But then again, they already have to go into town for several things anyway - for instance if you want to see a movie, there are only three places in Dunedin and they are for the most part on adjacent blocks near the Octagon. There are more choices in post-quake Christchurch (a grand total of eight within the city's bus network) and they are more spread out, with only one of them in the Four Avenues. Maybe that's something Dunedin could look into.

The king should take the rook

The Fourth Awakens

THE BIG REVIEW: Sleep

We all need it. It's best to start young, because let's face it - teens need to wake up to the need for more shut-eye. But hold on - waking up to more sleep? It doesn't usually make sense unless Chuck Norris says it does. And you better listen to what he has to say about it because he always carries four weapons of mass destruction - his arms and his legs.

I doubt if it's ever been easy to navigate one's teen years. As an extremely shy kid, it certainly wasn't easy for me. Yet when you throw in the magnifying influence of technology, it's easy to see that today's teens are facing issues of growing up in a way never experienced before. The challenges faced by peer pressure are not new, but add the impact of electronic media and the issue becomes so much larger than life. Is it any wonder that, according to one report, 11 percent of adolescents today have depressive disorder by age 18? Another 30 percent of today's teens have been involved in bullying either as a victim or as the tormenter, according to research conducted by Family First Aid. According to the 2011 National Survey of Children's Health, 31.3 percent of children in the United States between the ages of 10 and 17 are overweight or obese. Of the 20 million new sexually transmitted diseases each year, more than half were transmitted among young people between the ages of 15 and 24 according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention findings. Although the high school dropout rate is decreasing, 1.2 million students still drop out of high school each year in the United States, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. For young people that stick it out, many routinely stay up past midnight on school nights, a lot of them transfixed by new media, only to be faced with getting up at the crack of dawn in order to make it to school before the 8:00 a.m. bell. Now, a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revealed that there are consequences of resulting tiredness we see in young people as a result of this cycle. It's also now becoming clear that this sleep-deprived way of life of today's teenagers is not only dangerous, it could be deadly. The new CDC report reveals an association between lack of sleep and a greater tendency toward riskier behaviors by teens. The study found that when teens get less than seven hours of sleep on school nights, they are more likely to engage in a wide range of risky behaviors. Those behaviors included texting and driving, drinking and driving, riding with a driver who was drinking, and not wearing a seat belt in a car, or a helmet while on a bicycle; such risky behaviors were less likely to be found in teens that sleep nine hours a night, according to the report. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report is not the first one to connect lack of sleep to problems associated with young people. In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics made a formal recommendation that school start times be delayed so teens can sleep in, due in part to the evidence that insufficient sleep contributes to behavior and academic troubles and higher obesity risk. In their policy statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. so that teens can get the required 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep a night. An even earlier study in 2011 found that insufficient sleep for teens (described as less than eight hours on average a night) was associated with cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use, sexual activity, not getting enough exercise, feeling sad or hopeless, and seriously considering attempting suicide. At the time, nearly 70 percent of teens were not getting enough sleep, the CDC found. You have to wonder, given we have been seeing a link between sleep deprivation and behavioral and health issues with our young people reconfirmed to us over and over again, why haven't we as a society responded? Perhaps the pattern we see in our teens merely reflects prevailing attitudes we have as adults. As a society, we just don't respect sleep. We continue to associate sleep with being lazy, while seeing sleeping as little as possible as not only being productive, but virtuous. Boy, are we mistaken. Getting enough sleep is not only essential; it's a proven third pillar of health. We so often like to think of the difficulty many people have in controlling their weight and eating habits as merely an issue of willpower. There is now increasing evidence that the "lack of willpower" may be explained by chemical and hormonal changes resulting from sleep deficiency, that there is a clear link between obesity and insufficient sleep. According to recent finding published in the journal Sleep, the growth of this country's obesity epidemic over the past 40 years correlates with a progressive decline in the amount of sleep reported by the average adult. The study found that the "lack of willpower" may not be due to personal weakness, but rather a result of an addictive chemical imbalance resulting from sleep loss. In today's technological age, both teens and adults have developed a habit of recharging their phones and laptops before they go to bed at night, while failing to sufficiently recharge their minds and bodies with a good night's sleep. As I reported last October, J.J. Watt, NFL Defensive Player of the Year and one of the best athletes on the planet, had a bed installed in a corner of the Texans' equipment room. Here, Watt and his teammates would steal away during extended breaks during training camp for a little nap time. Watt later revealed to another player that he also makes it a practice to be in bed by nine o'clock at night to ensure a full night's sleep and to provide the recovery time his body needs to remain in top shape. So let's get it out of our heads — sleep is not for wimps. It's a fact: getting a good night's sleep improves memory, learning, and mental health. While, like adults, some teens need more sleep than others, it's currently recommended that adolescents between the ages 14-17 aim for eight to 10 hours each night.

It's been found that most adults need seven to nine hours to function properly. I take no chances, I go for nine. It works for me.

Oh, and Leicester City have won the Premier League. Actually, it was Chuck Norris, but he lets other teams hold the silverware in his place.

Draw doesn't cut it for either side

Manchester United and Leicester City played out an enthralling 1-1 draw that was punctuated with entertainment, passion, and drama - yet the result was not truly desired by either club. Anthony Martial and Wes Morgan scored first-half goals in the stalemate that mirrors November's meeting at the King Power Stadium, providing a blow to the Reds’ hopes of finishing in the Barclays Premier League top four with just three matches left to play. The Foxes could also have won the title at Old Trafford had they secured a victory, although their champagne remains on ice for the time being. Oh, and Danny Drinkwater was booked a second time in the 87th minute, meaning the Foxes were down to ten at the end.

Let's start the new month shaken, not stirred

With none other than the Disseminators of the Truth Guide to Making the Perfect Martini: