In my last diatribe, I bitched that the NFL was legislating contact out of the sport and turning it into some kind of tortured, steroid-laced ballet.  In an effort to restore some badly needed testosterone to the game, I have been Tweeting ex-defensive tackle and Fox TV analyst Tony Siragusa to ditch the Depends undergards and man up with a Stadium Pal.  Meanwhile, current defensive players, afraid of penalties and fines associated with concussion-inducing blows to the head, are resorting to “hitting low.”  It’s not surprising, then, that Packers receiver Randall Cobb was injured on Sunday when he was struck in the knee by the helmet of Ravens safety Matt Elam.  Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told reporters that Elam should have avoided taking a shot on Cobb’s knee: “I just felt like, from my vantage point, he had plenty of time to not take out a guy’s legs in that situation.  I think he could have hit in the proper hitting zone or politely asked him to either lay down or step out of bounds.”

I also lamented the feminization of motorcycle gangs in the wake of the New York biker rage story.  It turns out that the situation is worse than I imagined: three of the participants have since been identified as police officers.  As for the remaining members of the Hollywood Stuntz brood, they behaved, according to Steve Cook, expert on motorcycle gangs at the Heartland Law Enforcement Training Institute, more like teenage schoolgirls that hardened street thugs. “These guys,” moaned a crestfallen Cook, “are obviously looking for attention.”

Washoe District Judge Connie Steinheimer, clearly moved by my paean to the Hells Angels, accepted a lenient plea deal from Gilroy Angel Cesar Villagrana who shot several people during a melee at the Nugget casino in Sparks, NV. At the same time, she sentenced rival Vagos gang member Ernesto Gonzalez to life in prison for killing San Jose chapter president Jethro Petigrew during the same shootout.  Rejecting any and all claims of self defense, Steihheimer railed: “The court is in no way condoning your behavior and found it abhorrent and no justification for it and that there was overwhelming evidence of your guilt.”

I also predicted that, despite the government shutdown, food inspectors would continue to drop the ball on food safety.   A week after a strain of salmonella sickened nearly 300 people who ate Foster Farms poultry, the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service still can’t connect the dots.  Dr. David P. Goldman, assistant administrator of the Office of Public Health Science at the service, noted that inspectors and labs have been working ceaselessly to definitively peg the source of the current outbreak.  Tom Super of the National Chicken Council took advantage of the hapless investigation and crowed, “This isn’t a recall, because they haven’t been able to link it to a specific product.”  Now there’s something to be proud of.