Man With History Of Violence Beats Adrian Peterson's 2-Year-Old Son

A 2-year-old child whom Adrian Peterson had with a woman has died from injuries suffered from abuse by the mother's boyfriend. Joseph Patterson, 27, has been charged with aggravated felony assault and battery of an infant, and will face a hearing later this month concerning terms of his suspended sentence. Patterson was given a one-year jail sentence last year for assaulting a 3-year-old and threatening the mother after she complained. In the same hearing, he was given another one-year sentence for violating a no-contact order given after the woman claimed he threatened to kill her "multiple times." Patterson received a suspended sentence on the condition he attend domestic violence classes.
Peterson, who just recently learned of the child, still plans on playing Sunday.
Read more in the New York Daily News.

50 Years Ago Today - The First Try At Doctor Who

On September 9, 1963, the pilot for Doctor Who, "An Unearthly Child", was shot at Lime Grove Studios in London. The episode was directed by Waris Hussein, and featured a more sinister Doctor (William Hartnell) and an alien-acting granddaughter, Susan (Carole Ann Ford). After the shooting, creator and Canadian Sydney Newman took Hussein and his producer, Verity Lambert, out to dinner. There, he told them he should fire both of them, but was going to give them a second chance. The second pilot, shot almost a month later, featured a softer Hartnell, which was the reason the type-casted tough guy took the role in the first place. Also, Susan became more like a modern teenager, and instead of 49th century Earth, the two were from "another time, another place," allowing for more mystery in the show. That "An Unearthly Child" would air in November, and the rest they say is history.
Read more, including set plans, at the Radio Times.

Former Florida A&M Player Shot Dead By Police After Car Crash

According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police in North Carolina, Jonathan Ferrell crashed his car into an embankment Saturday morning around 2 a.m. After escaping through the rear glass, Ferrell ran a quarter-mile to the nearest house, and knocked on the door asking for assistance. The occupant, who believed he was a burglar, called 911. When the two officers arrived, Ferrell ran towards them asking for assistance. One officer fired his taser, but officer Randall Kerrick fired twelve rounds from his firearm, striking Ferrell ten times. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Ferrell was a former safety on the Florida A&M Rattlers from 2009 to 2010. He had just recently moved back to Charlotte, where he was engaged and working at Dillards and Best Buy. Ferrell's family has hired a lawyer, believing the shooting was racially motivated. Randall Kerrick has been charged with manslaughter.
Read more at Deadspin.

That Time Doctor Who And A Late Night TV Host Were In A Punk Band

When the BBC announced Peter Capaldi would be taking the lead role in Doctor Who, one man who congratulated him was Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show on CBS.

Great news that Peter Capaldi is the new Doctor. A spectacular talent and a beautiful man. #DoctorWho
— Craig Ferguson (@CraigyFerg) August 4, 2013

But Ferguson's praises didn't come from some ordinary fan; he and Capaldi know each other from over thirty years ago. More after the jump.

Serious Tweet or Contest Promo - You Make The Call

Hard to tell. Either this is a horrible incident that needs to be corrected, or the best stunt since the $10,000 Fugitive.

The 9/11 flag raised at WTC is missing. Do you know its whereabouts? Email: findtheflag@cnn.com & watch @CNNFilms #TheFlag at 9pm ET on 9/4.
— CNN (@CNN) September 3, 2013

It's Not Been The Best Year For Lamar Odom

With TMZ reporting rumors around the clock, and an incident with paparazzi back in July, Lamar Odom hasn't had a good 2013. Earlier this year, ESPN's Outisde The Lines did an expose on athlete charities, including Lamar and Khloe's "Cathy's Kids." While other athlete's organizations were examined, Lamar's situation was made worse when he chose to be the only athlete to speak on camera with ESPN. Odd that an NBA player who married into a reality-show family would be so willing to step in front of a lens, but it's his money.

DudeBros Riot At Surfing Tournament

No one knows what made these DudeBros go ape at the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, California. Perhaps local stores had run of Axe Body Spray or shirts that come with the sleeves already cut off. Maybe officials banned barbed-wire tats or Ed Hardy shirts. Perhaps they were upset at being unable to park their tricked out Honda Civic, or their slammed Chevrolet Silverado's with the fart can. Or maybe their girlfriends couldn't come so they had to swing at somebody. Either way, things went sideways in SoCal Sunday.

Charles Barkley Talks The Zimmerman/Martin Case

The Round Mound of Rebound recently appeared on CNBC's Closing Bell, where Maria Baritromo asked Charles about the Zimmerman/Martin case. Never afraid to speak his mind, Barkley took on the case as it went through the media.

BARKLEY: I just feel bad because I don't like when race gets out in the media, because I don't think the media has a pure heart, as I call it. There are very few people have a pure heart when it comes to race. Racism is wrong in any, shape, form. There are a lot of black people who are racist too. I think sometimes when people talk about racism they act like only white people are racist. There are a lot of black people who are racist. And I don't like when it gets out there in the media because I don’t think the media has clean hands...And like I said, the main thing I feel bad for, it gives every white person and black person who is racist a platform to vent their ignorance.
BARTIROMO: Right.
BARKLEY: You know, that’s the thing that bothered me the most because I watched this trial closely, and I watched all these people on television talking about it. A lot of these people have a hidden agenda. You know, they want to have their racist views, whether they are white or black.
BARTIROMO: The bias comes out.
BARKLEY: The bias, it definitely comes out. It was a bad situation. We all lost. And I feel bad for his parents. You don't ever want to see anybody lose a kid.

Barkley did say he agreed on the verdict based on the lack of evidence, believing Zimmerman was wrong for profiling, but Martin did "flip the switch" and start attacking Zimmerman. As Charles said, "It was a bad situation. We all lost."
Read more at Deadspin.

Gawker Publishes Tweets Complaining Of Bilingual Home Run Derby Interviews

During Monday night's Home Run Derby on ESPN, Pedro Gomez interviewed Aroldis Chapman and Yoenis Céspedes. Neither speak English, so Pedro spoke to them in Spanish and translated the interview. As with anything that ever happens in the world, people complained on Twitter. Now Deadspin's Timothy Burke is publishing any tweet (with username) that's negative on his sports blog. Timothy Burke has published tweets in this manner before, recently for anyone defending Paula Deen, any racist tweets about Sebastien De La Cruz's national anthem, and people complaining of a ESPN Deportes broadcast on the main ESPN channel.
Read more at Deadspin.

Did Anna Benson Kill Someone?

Deadspin has unearthed a 1996 murder case involving Anna Benson's apartment in Knoxville, TX. Benson, who at that time was Anna Warren, was living in a dirty apartment that had "anti-cop graffiti and satanic messages," such as "666," "187," and “The only good pig is a dead pig.” One day, an argument with a man named Micheal Evans led Warren to tell her live-in boyfriend Paul Dejongh to "get rid of him." On January 22, police found Evans face down by her front door, with two bullet holes in the back of his head.
The two fled, and Benson was captured two years later; Dejongh was captured two months after her. Dejongh pleaded guilty to second degree murder in a plea deal, and charges were dropped against Benson since there's no evidence "get rid of him" meant murder. Later that year, Anna met Kris Benson.
If any of this sounds familiar, it might be because the case was aired on "America's Most Wanted."



Read more at Deadspin.

Sharknado, Hype, And Twitter

With all the coverage on news shows, radio shows, and the tweets leading up to it's airing, you'd think "Sharknado" scored record ratings Thursday night. As a matter of fact, with more than 600,000 tweets during primetime (that's two tweets for every three humans), it surely had to be a blockbuster.
Um, no.
In fact, only one million people watched "Sharknado", and SyFy scored a 0.4 in the 18-49 demo. According to Bloomberg Business' Claire Suddath, that's not only a TV bust, but "[m]ost Syfy originals have an average viewership of 1.5 million people, with some getting twice that."
The Atlantic compared the twitter and viewership numbers of "Sharknado" to the Red Wedding episode of "Game of Thrones:. As you can see on the right, tweets don't equate to eyeballs.
But don't cry too much for SyFy: they make around 24 of these movies a year, at a cost of $1.5M each, paying companies who used to be direct-to-vi
deo before the market dried up. That's not even 1% of what Disney paid for "The Lone Ranger."
Read more at Bloomberg Business and The Atlantic. 

Journalists Accuse NFL Player of Extremism Before Checking Sources

Oday Aboushi, the 6th-round pick for the New York Jets, is a Brooklyn-born Palestinian Muslim. This week, Yahoo Sports' Adam Waksman wrote an article about how Aboushi's anti-Semitic activism "is a potential disaster that needs to be dealt with before it becomes anything real." And MLB's new media coordinator Jonathan Mael tweeted, "The Patriots have Aaron Hernandez, the Jets have Oday Aboushi."
The problem?
The two men's source was an article at Frontpage Magazine, a blog founded by far right-winger David Horowitz. The article made accusations of antisemitism and claimed links to Muslim extremism based on a tweet Aboushi shared of a Palestinian woman being evicted from her home. There is no evidence Aboushi is anti-Semitic or a Muslim extremist.
The Yahoo! article, which did not quote Aboushi, has been removed, and Mael has apologized. But when you're looking to throw stones, why check sources?
Read more at Deadspin.

Jason Collins' Ex-Fiancé Speaks

Two months after Jason Collins came out in a first-person interview in Sports Illustrated, his former fiancé Carolyn Moos did a first-person interview with Cosmo magazine. After an 8-year relationship and 1-year engagement, Collins called it off without giving a reason in 2009. She never heard from him again until a phone call last April:

"Jason told me he's gay over the phone on a Monday morning in April, the same day the magazine hit newsstands. However, he didn't mention the article—that came as a surprise when I heard about it from a friend. In his essay, Jason wrote that he'd once been engaged to a woman. Reporters zoomed in on me, thrusting my name into the news." 

Carolyn said Collins' promised he would discuss things further with her, but he hasn't ("I am sad that the media seems to be a higher priority"). She also addressed her current feelings for him:

"I empathize with Jason and support him. But at the same time, I remain deeply hurt by him. I wish he could have been honest with me years ago... He's being hailed as a pioneer, but I believe true heroism is a result of being honest with yourself and with those you love." 

Read Carolyn Moos' full interview at Cosmo.

Another Example Of Your Hollywood Execs In Action

In the late 1980's, Paramount Studios were looking into making a feature film of the BBC standard Doctor Who, according to the new book Now On The Big Screen: The Unofficial And Unauthorised Guide To Doctor Who At The Cinema. And as Paramount readied to take on the project in 1988, they decided on their first choice as The Doctor:

Want A Frosty?

Do you want it as bad as this guy? Hopefully not, since he's been fired after the picture hit the internet.
Read more at What Would Tyler Durgen Do?

Boat Launch Fail

NOAA launched one of their ships, the Reuben Lasker, a year ago this month. This was the video released following the launch.



Before you say "but the ship didn't tip over," watch this video, which is making the Reddit rounds now.



According to Reddit, the woman who filmed this is alive. Apparently, the shipyard used wooden rails instead of steel ones to launch the boat, and you can see how that worked.

You may now commence your "government in action" jokes.

The Captain Is Still Fascinated With Pizza

After discovering pizza for the first time last week, Patrick Stewart is now moving on to deep dish. And yes, he is having a wine with it.

Continuing Ed: Deep Dish. Must admit - at home with a knife and fork. twitter.com/SirPatStew/sta…
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) June 2, 2013

@SirPatStew on twitter.

Why You Never Date A Pornstar

Jenna Jameson suddenly started tweeting Thursday about the UFC's Tito Ortiz, her on-and-off boyfriend and father of her twin boys. He claimed he nearly beat her to death in February, and claimed he used drugs and cheated drug tests from the UFC. She even posted pics of the drugs Tito was supposedly taking. Who would've guessed a professional fighter and a peeler couldn't get along?

My ex took my poor children away from me for NO reason. He did drugs and faked drug tests for UFC. I all my time with my babies, he partied
— Jenna Jameson (@jennajameson) May 30, 2013

Here is more drugs Tito kept prior to fights... Scared me and scared my kids. I won't lie for him anymore twitter.com/jennajameson/s…
— Jenna Jameson (@jennajameson) May 30, 2013

I laugh at the fake ass drama he is creating. I watched his crazy drug use and have proof
— Jenna Jameson (@jennajameson) May 31, 2013

@jennajameson on twitter.

Jean-Luc Picard Just Ate Pizza For The First Time

Sir Patrick Stewart tweeted a picture of himself eating a slice of pizza for the first time Wednesday - at age 72. Give him credit: he waited to get the real stuff instead of trying that replicator shit.

My first ever pizza "slice". Please note: the authentic NY fold. twitter.com/SirPatStew/sta…
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) May 29, 2013

@SirPatStew on twitter.

Remember When MTV Was Hip With The Kids?

Well, this is MTV's Bill Flanagan, telling you kids you don't understand how things work. Video courtesy CBS Sunday Morning.