Sarah Palin

It's a high bar to find shocking new revelations about Palin's character and political identity. But this piece may bring home how truly shocking a decision it was for McCain to pick Palin. Not a bad decision or an ill-considered one, but one that in single stroke showed McCain had no business being president. An angry, resentful, small-time crooked pol. And she really could have been president because of McCain's recklessness.

From Talking Points Memo on an article about Alaska governor Sarah Palin from Vanity Fair.

Read them in that order.

College grads don't play baseball

College grads don't end up playing the Major Leagues very often. According to The Wall Street Journal, there are only 26 major league college graduates. No, that isn't a typo -- it's 26 total, not 26 percent.

And that's not just players, but also managers.

I wrote before about Ross Ohlendorf, a Princeton graduate who is probably smarter than you. I'd guess that he's the most accomplished member of the major leagues -- at least when it comes to education.

Never try to rob the house of a 72-year old former boxer

Because you just might get beat up.

He added: ' Photographs of the defendant showed what looked like a car accident and photos of the scene looked more like a murder scene.'

Happened in the UK.

Firefox 3.5 downloads

Wonder how many times a new version of Firefox gets downloaded?

Well for Firefox 3.5 right now you can see at a website that Firefox makers Mozilla set up how many people have downloaded it total and per country.

As of this writing, at 9:12 PM mountain time, 2.62 million downloads total, 868,000 in the United States

Can someone tell me why we don't have this in U.S.?

The European Union has agreed on a cell phone charger universal standard -- at least among all of the big cell phone manufacturers.

The agreement by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other industry majors will mean phones compatible with standard charging devices are available in Europe from next year, said the EU executive, which has pushed for such a deal.

"People will not have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone," said EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, estimating that unwanted phone accessories accounted for thousands of tons of waste in Europe each year.

The standard will be micro-USB.

Hopefully the phone manufacturers don't make the phones destined for the United States with a different size cell phone charger port.

Mayne Street Auto Tune edition

I wish these webisodes were a little longer. But this one has some autotune action going on, so it's all good.

From ESPN, Mayne Street:

Ridiculous local news story on a bear in backyards

This is why he went to journalism school:

Brock Lesnar: "I'm built like a black man"

Athletes have always fought the stereotype that they are dumb. Meatheads. Jocks. Idiots.

This is especially true the bigger they come -- football players are often personified as dumb as are boxers. And mixed martial arts fighter Brock Lesnar isn't helping the cause with comments he made to a reporter in an interview a couple of weeks ago.

“I bet you I’ve taken over 60 steroid tests," he noted. "In college I had 15 random drug tests in two years. I’ve taken drug tests for the NFL, the WWE, the UFC. I must be pretty good at masking steroids. God gave me this body: Are you jealous of it or what? Give me a break. I got the genetics of—not to get into racism or anything—but I’m built like a black man. Would you say so?”

To which Spencer Hall of The Sporting News responded with the awesome headline:

Brock Lesnar Hasn't Seen Charles Barkley Lately

Oh yeah and Lesnar also took a shot at President Barack Obama.

Stay classy, Lesnar.

Chrysler employee wins WSOP event

There is at least one lucky person who works for an American car company. Chrysler employee Ray Foley won a World Series of Poker event last week in dramatic fashion.

Numerous times during heads-up play, Cantu had Foley on the ropes. All-in and behind for his tournament life, Foley hit the cards he needed to keep his dream alive. Foley will never forget two hands during heads-up play: The first was a split pot in which he was holding A-7 versus Cantu's A-Q (8-8-5-6-5) and the second was when he hit a two-outer on the turn with 10-10 versus Cantu's K-7 (after Cantu hit a king on the flop). It just wasn't meant to be Cantu's night.

Foley's haul?

$657,969.

Not bad.

Twitter ain't off the record

From Benson, aka @desertronin.

It was discussing if a Capitol Hill staffer can expect his tweets to be off the record just by declaring it to be so in his bio on Twitter.

Farrauto put up a sentence on his Twitter account stating that all of his “musings” are off of the record. It’s like standing in the middle of a room of people, some of whom are his friends and others of whom are reporters, and shouting at the top of his lungs, then not expecting the reporters to write about any stupid things he said.

Anything you say in a publicly available place is on the record.

And anything that you put on Twitter from a non-private account is public. It's searchable, you can find everything on Google, on Twitter's search engine... so to think that by slapping up a disclaimer saying your publicly available "musings" are off the record is almost as funny as the press releases I constantly receive that have this disclaimer at the end:

Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail,including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review,use,disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message

Sorry, Farrauto, anything you say in public is on the record.

And if your tweets are not protected, then they are completely public.

As the Washington City Paper put it:

You cannot speak into a microphone and be off the record at the same time. Those two things are incompatible and should never be attempted.

Twitter is just another kind of microphone, a internet-based, 140-character microphone.

I guess we can call him Batman

Minor league baseball players might have a little too much time on their hands...

Online poker

In the New York Times magazine there was a really interesting first-person account of a mom whose son becomes consumed with online poker. I don't want to give anything away, but it is definitely worth a read.

So go read it.

Twitter: Average user has 126 followers

Some stuff that Evan Weaver, Twitter's lead engineer in its services team, said at a recent talk:

-the average user has 126 followers;

-only 20% of its traffic comes through the Twitter website; the other 80% (logically) comes from third-party programs on smartphones or computers. So if you're looking at Twitter stats on your website, you're probably underestimating that source of traffic by a factor of five;

-an early peak test of the service came during President Obama's inauguration in January, when more than 300 tweets per second were being added to the message queue.

Read the whole article for some Twitter geek stuff.

NBA, soccer stars play in charity soccer game

Most of the NBA player, um, aren't good at soccer. Even considering they are playing with soccer pros and even soccer greats, some of the basketball players (Chris Bosh) just embarrass themselves.

But it's all for charity, so it's all good. A lot of NBA talk, so if your'e into that you'll like this. If not... then you probably won't.

Steve Martin does 'Billie Jean'

Via The New Yorker:

As a dancer, Michael Jackson was great. He was like Fred Astaire. This video, a parody of the “Billie Jean” video, was done for “The New Show,” which was a prime-time NBC program that Lorne Michaels did in 1983-1984, when he wasn’t producing “Saturday Night Live.” This was the opening—it was the first piece on the first episode of the show.

My dad loves telling me a story about a time I saw Jackson do the moonwalk on TV. He says my eyes got really big, I stood up, attempted the moonwalk, then sat down.

Didn't say a word, I just tried to moonwalk. I must have been six or seven at the time. But I'm sure that the first time everyone saw Jackson do the moonwalk, they all did the same thing -- stood up and tried it. And, utterly failing, sat down in shame.

Pitcher punches door, breaks hand, pitches another inning

Jeff Bennett, angry that he gave up a two-run single to Alex Rodriguez in a game on Wednesday, punch a door in the dugout. He broke a bone in his non-pitching hand.

But it gets better. From MLB.com:

After punching the door, Bennett said that he pushed the bone back in place and took the mound again in the seventh inning without telling anybody what had occurred. The reliever said that his glove kept his hand somewhat stable.

Bennett told the MLB.com reporter "It's just one of those things where a lot of things had boiled up and I didn't handle the release of it very well."

You don't say...

Anti-gravity record player

Well it's not really anti-gravity, but it still is pretty damned cool.

This is a record player that would be the hit of any party out there. It's called the Void and it is the coolest record player ever. Ever.



How does it work? Engadget explains:

The Void LP takes the concept of a self-sufficient speaker, amp and needle (the red ball), and then tosses them all into the air with a magnetic saucer.

It's not for sale yet anywhere according to The Rock and Roll Star, but I'm with him on this part:

My dreams aren't quite a reality, as yet. But when they are, and when it becomes available at a novelty gifts and/or stereo store near you, I'll be sure to let you know. In the mean time, however, if someone can make something like this, I will pay you handsomely for a baker's dozen.

SR-71 disintegrates around pilot during flight test

Via a comment on my post about the SR-71.

It's the story of an SR-71 test pilot surviving the plane disintegrating around him. I vaguely remember a high school teacher telling me about this story -- he was a retired Air Force aviator, so he had a lot of such stories.

But from a first-person perspective... wow.

Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. I learned later the time from event onset to catastrophic departure from controlled flight was only 2-3 sec. Still trying to communicate with Jim, I blacked out, succumbing to extremely high g-forces. The SR-71 then literally disintegrated around us.

From that point, I was just along for the ride.

I highly recommend reading the entire thing. I read it twice.

Oh, and the test pilot, Bill Weaver, ended up landing in New Mexico.

MacGyver had nothing on German prisoners

Wow. Look at these confiscated prison items from Germany. They range from the somewhat mundane (a slingshot) to the truly crazy (a whip with razor blades).

But I guess they have a lot of time to think these things up.

Via Adam Savage of Mythbusters via Twitter.

Celebrities don't die in threes

Do celebrities really die in threes? The answers is "No." Just look at this year's list of prominent deaths from recent weeks.

If there does happen to be three celebrity deaths in a row, it is just random.

A plane faster than a speeding bullet

Via Kottke.

The SR-71 Blackbird might be the most remarkable airplane ever built. The Smithsonian Magazine has a short profile of the plane:

Created as the ultimate spy plane, the SR-71, which first took to the air in December 1964, flew reconnaissance missions until 1990, capable of hurtling along at more than Mach 3, about 2,280 miles per hour—faster than a rifle bullet—at 85,000 feet, or 16 miles above the earth. It is the fastest jet-powered airplane ever built. At top speeds, the surface heat of the airframe could reach 900 degrees Fahrenheit. In their pressurized suits and breathing pure oxygen—mandated by the extreme altitude—the two-man crew looked like astronauts.

Pretty cool.

SportsCenter Top 10 play of the week

As I said before, always entertaining.

Aussie crop circle mystery solved: stoned wallabies

I'm not joking.

"We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," the state's top lawmaker Lara Giddings told local media on Thursday.

"Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high," she said.

Though "Stoned Wallabies" would make a good name for a prog rock band.

Harold Ramis interviewed in GQ

Here is a very, very interesting interview of Harold Ramis in GQ. The only problem is that they don't have a single page option so you have to click "next" over the 11 pages of the interview. But it's worth it.

Here's a taste:

It seems like you’re the only one who didn’t end up on Saturday Night Live.
Lorne [Michaels] offered me a job, but at that point I was the head writer on SCTV. SNL was completely fueled by cocaine; the show was being written literally overnight. I didn’t want to stay up all night writing. And the show had a veneer of New York sophistication—very snide and superior. I thought, It’s just not me. Besides, we were already working on Animal House.

Ten best prison breaks

Via NewMexiKen. Who does this whole blogging-about-interesting-things thing better than I ever could.

Wired magazine had the list of the ten best prison breaks. Which, of course, makes me think of Cool Hand Luke and The Great Escape. Never a bad thing.

My favorite? This one:

Lake County Jail(1934)

John Dillinger, brandishing a wooden gun blackened with shoe polish, bailed in the sheriff's Ford.

That's a whole lot of bandwidth

I listen to the Bill Simmons podcast every day. Well, every day that he has one. And apparently a lot of other people do as well.

From his Twitter account:

FYI: My 6/23 BS Report w/ Chad Ford broke 2 ESPN.com records: 221K downloads in 1 day; 333K total (and still going). Many thanks everybody!

So over 333,000 people have downloaded the 11.6 MB, 56 minute podcast. Wow.

If you want to listen to the NBA Draft preview, you can find them at his section on the ESPN website.

Most ridiculous idea to save newspapers

Richard Posner is an idiot. At least that's the impression I get from this part of his blog post on how to save newspapers:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

In other words, Posner wants people to have to pay to talk about their news stories.

I agree that people who steal wholesale any news story or blog post should face the consequences. But completely dismantling fair use provisions to save newspapers not only wouldn't work (it's ludicrous to think that people linking to news stories is causing any sort of financial hardship for newspapers) -- it's just a dumb idea.

Via Jay Rosen on Twitter.

Congressman to DC driver: "Fuck you!"

From CQ Politics, an exchange between a Washington D.C. driver and Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE):

But Terry was crossing a Washington street during a workweek when a local driver called him out for jaywalking.

"Can't you read the sign?" the driver shouted.

"[Expletive] you!" Terry retorted.

"Really?" the driver asked.

"Really," Terry confirmed.

Video: Road to the Confed Cup finals for the US

A nice video that shows how the United States made it to the finals in the Confederations Cup. The US will face soccer powerhouse Brazil tomorrow.

Weezer/Notorious B.I.G./Beverly Hills Cop remix

A pretty good mashup. Sometimes the Beverly Hills Cop stuff seems to clash (during the chorus it seems that there is just too much going on).

But listen up anyway.

I'm a sucker for mash-ups, truth be told.

It's 5:30 on a Saturday. Do you know where your governor is?

The Associated Press attempted to find out where the governors in 40 US states were as of yesterday. This is, of course, in response to the Mark Sanford saga that eventually found him having flown to Argentina for a week to be with his mistress.

Where the governors were wasn't all that exciting. But what was more interesting is how many of their offices refuse to release their public schedules -- you'd think that is something that they would put on their websites in most cases.

Instead, they try to hide the most basic thing about their jobs -- where and with whom they are meeting on state's business.

No wonder Sanford thought that he could get away with something like flying to Argentina to be with his mistress.

Ambushing O'Reilly's ambushers

One of Bill O'Reilly's favorite techniques is the 'ambush' where an O'Reilly staffer runs up to someone with a camera crew and asks them misleading and accusatory questions.

On the Media tagged along with Gawker while they tried to ambush Jesse Watters -- O'Reilly's ambusher. After a discussion of the O'Reilly team's tactics.

Former mayor arrested for public nudity

Luckily every time that I've been camping, I've never seen anyone lounging around naked. So it's a good thing that I wasn't camping in Rabun County.

Authorities arrested Mark Musselwhite and charged him with public indecency last weekend after state Department of Natural Resources officers found him sitting nude at his Rabun County campsite.

Officers had received a complaint about a naked man walking along a nearby road earlier in the day, but the 43-year-old Musselwhite said he was not the same man. Musselwhite told the DNR officer he had been swimming in a nearby creek.

Musselwhite was the mayor of Gainesville. He had a failed state senate run as well, and that will probably be his last elected run.

Cubs manager "I smoked weed too"

Yesterday, the news came out that Cubs catcher Geovany Soto tested positive for marijuana at the World Baseball Classic earlier this year.

This caused him to be banned from international competition for two years. However, the Cubs player can continue to play in Major League Baseball, where he makes his money.

And, to help things out, he has the support of his manager, Lou Piniella. In large part because Piniella announced today that he experimented with weed as well:

"Look, I have smoked dope one time in my life," Piniella said before the Cubs faced the Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field. "And it didn't do a damn thing for me, and I never tried it again. I'm fortunate because of that. A lot of people do. You can even buy it in California from a pharmacy.

The Cubs played their cross-town rivals the Chicago Whtei Sox on Friday. And the White Sox manager also had Soto's back:

"It takes a man to admit mistakes. He's not the only one doing that. But he's the only one admitted to come out and say that. I wish more players come out and make this an example. He just made a mistake. He did something he wasn't supposed to do. Meanwhile, I tip my hat to him because when you make a mistake and admit it, you move on."

Soto said it was an isolated incident. But does anyone really believe that?

Booker T and the Drive By Truckers playing "Green Onions"

Green Onions is definitely one of the coolest song ever made. And Booker T, the writer of the song, recently played the song live with the Drive By Truckers.

Check it out:

Netflix $1 million prize might be won soon

Pretty cool, from Mashable:

If you haven’t been following closely, you’re probably wondering what this $1 million contest is all about. On October 2, 2006 Netflix announced the Netflix Prize, a contest designed to draw aggressive competition for improving upon their already widely recognized movie recommendation engine. Simply put, they would award the $1 million prize to the first person to improve accuracy of movie recommendations by at least 10 percent (see full rules for more details).

A team that includes AT&T engineers might be the ones to win that prize.

The bible of baseball cards

Via, again, NewMexiKen.

The LA Times has a story about The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book" today.

Long ago, when children were allowed to wander from their parents' side for more than 15 minutes, I spent much of my free time accumulating baseball cards.

After school, my buddy Adam Rogers and I would stroll to the candy store and buy multiple packs. We'd sit on a stoop near his apartment, tear open the wrappers, and debate the merits of each player until it grew dark.

I used to collect baseball cards but, for whatever reason, basketball cards were what my brother and I collected the most.

We did care about how much cards cost, hoping that we would get that magical card that was worth $100 or even $1,000. We never did. We would buy Beckett magazines to see how much our cards were worth. Our best card was a card worth $17 -- a "Super Soph" Vin Baker card.

Yeah, that Vin Baker career didn't work out so much.

Filipino prisoners who did "Thriller" dance to do tribute to Michael Jackson

I think I can safely say that if you are reading this, you have seen the video of Filipino prisoners doing the Thriller music video:



Well, they will do the dance again to honor Michael Jackson after he died Thursday of cardiac arrest.

101 things all sports fans must experience before they die

Via NewMexiKen, a story from ESPN Page 2's Jim Caple from two years ago about 101 things every sports gan must do before they die.

I have seen exactly one: A Harlem Globetrotters game.

@TheOnion remembers Michael Jackson

The Onion has a section on all things the King of Pop.

My favorite?

This story: "New Rap Song Samples 'Billie Jean' In Its Entirety, Adds Nothing.

I'm actually surprised that The Onion didn't write more about the King of Pop.

MMA fighter masterminded a $92 million bank heist

Wow.

In February 2006, robbers posing as cops abducted the manager of a high-security bank warehouse in Tonbridge, Wales, and forced their way inside the building while his wife and son were held at gunpoint. As employees were bound and gagged, seven masked men loaded three waiting trucks with 53 million British pounds in cash (about $92 million.)

Police say about $57 million of the haul is still missing.

Five of the assailants were captured and convicted at trial in London last year. Another alleged accomplice, Paul "The Enforcer" Allen, is currently in custody awaiting trial. But British prosecutors say Murray, a former UFC star, was "at the heart" of the plot and claim to have a cell phone recording that shows him planning the heist.

Didn't exactly work out like Ocean's 11 for Lee Murray who is now spending his time in Morrocan jail.

Soccer in South Africa from The Big Picture

If you know me, you know that I love soccer. I also love The Big Picture blog from The Boston Globe. Combine the two and you have... Soccer in South Africa.

South Africa lost to Brazil today in the final minutes of their semifinal game of the Confederations Cup after outplaying Brazil for much of the match.

Brazil now will face the United States in the final on Sunday. And I'll be watching it.

Sanford was just "recharging after the stimulus battle"

Woot.com, in addition to having some killer deals, also has a sense of humor. And they are showing it with their new thread on their forums, Beyond “Hiking The Appalachian Trail” 10 Euphemisms The Sanford Affair.

You can even suggest your own!

Like:

Enjoying a special Fathers Day

Or

Laying a new Intercontinental Pipeline.

Oh, and Talking Points Memo has a Sex Scandal Flow Chart that is definitely worth a look.

Manny in #ABQ game 2

Manny Ramirez was in town for his second game on a game that featured rain for the first four innings. The game also featured Ramirez for five innings, and he went 0-1 with a walk. He grounded out to the second baseman.

Here are some pictures I took while dodging raindrops:

Ramirez signing autographs before the game, as shown on the big screen.



Ramirez stretching while being introduced to cheers and (very) few boos.



Ramirez waiting for a pitch on his first straight at-bat; four straight balls to loud boos from the crowd.



Ramirez leading off of second after a sacrifice moved him forward after his walk; he was stranded on second.



Ramirez's stats aren't so good in Albuquerque... Before his second at-bat which dropped him to 0-3.



Most of the 13,000 and change stayed even after Ramirez sat down for the game after the fifth inning. After the rain, it was actually a really nice night. Except for being soaking wet, of course.



The game eventually went to the 15th inning, but we only stayed until the 11th. I'll be back tomorrow for more pictures.

The Isotopes lost 8-3 in the 15th.

BCS rejects Mountain West playoff proposal

No surprise here; the big conferences (and Notre Dame) would hate to have to give up any revenue even if the process makes any "national championship" in college football a sham. Instead of letting all college student-athletes compete for a national championship, they would rather just allow certain student-athletes to have the chance.

Plus those certain schools will continue to make tens of millions while other schools are left with (relative) pocket change.

But to the story from ESPN:

"I believe we all agree that no system will ever be considered perfect, particularly by those conferences and institutions whose teams are not chosen in any particular year," Frohnmayer said. "But the BCS is the best postseason arrangement that has ever existed in college football. I say that after reviewing the matter from all standpoints, including student-athlete welfare, fan enjoyment, the academic calendar, the significance of the regular season, preservation of the bowl system that benefits a broad base of universities, and business.

Saying that it is the "best postseason arrangement" that college football has every had isn't saying much; before the process was a sham, and it continues to be a sham. Just with a veneer of legitimacy.

Frohnmeyer goes on to say that a playoff system would mess up the academic calendars, to which I have to call BS. Players who go through the NCAA tournament in basketball miss much more time at school than any football player would in nearly any arrangement.

Saying that their fanbase wouldn't travel is similarly just another load of... well you know what. People at these big schools would travel to two or three games in two or three weeks. If you're saying that USC wouldn't get enough fans for a playoff game, you are fooling yourself.

The real barrier is greed by the BCS conferences. And the fear that allowing schools like Boise State or Utah to compete on a level playing field would let schools like Boise State or Utah get a piece of the pie and some of their star recruits.

Shrinking a quarter to the size of a dime

No embeddable video, but this is pretty goddamn cool. Via Bad Astronomy.

@TheOnion: Twitter Creator On Iran: 'I Never Intended For Twitter To Be Useful'

America's Finest News Source:

"Twitter was intended to be a way for vacant, self-absorbed egotists to share their most banal and idiotic thoughts with anyone pathetic enough to read them," said a visibly confused Dorsey, claiming that Twitter is at its most powerful when it makes an already attention-starved populace even more needy for constant affirmation.

I love Twitter. Hell, you probably got here from Twitter.

The greatest trick shot player of all time

Shaq challenged this guy to a game of HORSE. Considering Shaq is a really bad freethrow shooter, I doubt that Shaq will win.

That is if this video is real. I can't see how it isn't, though.

US beats Spain

It was a gross mismatch on paper. The US was coming off a first round where they basically needed a miracle even to make it to the semifinals of the Confederations Cup. The US had played two top-flight opponents (Italy and Brazil) and lost both badly.

So the odds weren't even close to being in favor of the U.S. winning -- or of even being close. On ESPN.com's Streak for Cash the two options were the U.S. winning or losing by one or Spain winning by two. The choices are designed to be as close as possible so you don't know which to choose.

Spain hadn't lost a game in 35 matches. They had won 15 in a row. The last time they lost to a non-European opponent was ten years ago, back in 1999.

But the U.S. came out and won, 2-0 thanks not only to goals by young forward Jozy Altidore and veteran Clint Dempsey, but by an incredible defensive performance, especially by center defender Oguchi Onyewu and goalkeeper Tim Howard.

Defenders were diving in, sliding and making last-second efforts to stop the Spanish forwards from scoring at every opportunity. When the Spaniards did get a shot off, Howard was there to parry the ball away.

If you ever have a chance to watch the replay of this game, do so. It was a really good game -- well, if you are a U.S. soccer fan, anyway.

Manny goes hitless in first game in #ABQ

Manny Ramirez was in Albuquerque for his first game with the Albuquerque Isotopes. The dreadlocked, suspended hitter struck out and grounded out in four innings of work.

However, he was a hit in another way (pun all-encompassingly intended) -- A record 15,321 people showed up to see one of the all-time greats in his Triple-A stint. That's a record for baseball in the city all time, not just with the Isotopes.

Oh, and he flew on a Southwest flight to Albuquerque. Cool.

Here's the highlights from ESPN:

Video remix of best sports press conference highlights

Not quite as good as autotune the news, but pretty damned close.

I think all sports fans will recognize these infamous press conference rants.

The Big Picture back in Iran

The Big Picture had yet another excellent post, this time about "A troubled week in Iran."

As always, amazing pictures. Go check it out. You won't be disappointed.

Transformers breaks Guinness World Record in NM

Via @aaronjhoward on Twitter.

The second Transformers movie (which, to put it lightly, Roger Ebert didn't like) broke a Guinness World record here in New Mexico.

The N.M. scene now officially holds the Guinness Book World Record for the biggest explosion on film with actors present.

Where did Sanford go? Sighted in Atlanta.

The question of where South Carolina governor Mark Sanford disappeared to has been the big political question (outside of healthcare) for the past day or so.

First, his wife said he left on Thursday to write. Eventually, his office said that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Which led people to find out that Sunday was Naked Hiking Day on the Appalachian Trail.

Now, we find out that he had been sighted in Atlanta (where his cell phone was tracked to), according to WYFF news.

On Tuesday, sources told News 4's Nigel Robertson that a state vehicle is missing and was tracked down, not to the Appalachian Trail, but to the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta.

Sources told Robertson that a federal agent spotted Sanford in the airport boarding a plane. Robertson was told that the governor was not accompanied by security detail.

Sanford has been out of reach for more than four days, including Father's Day.

He has four kids.

Also of note, his Lt. Gov. went on TV and blasted him. From Daily Kos TV:



Curiouser and curiouser.

Dallas Cowboys linemen sign record deal for heavy metal band

Offensive linemen are generally over 300 pounds. And so, it's only fitting that three Dallas Cowboys offensive linemen who are in a band play in a heavy metal band.

Make that "heavier than metal."

From the Associated Press:

Leonard Davis, Marc Colombo and Cory Procter have signed a recording contract as part of a heavy metal band called Free Reign. Their debut album for Australia's Riot Entertainment will be released this fall.

Considering all three players weigh over 300 pounds, it only makes sense they are being referred to as "heavier than metal."

And video from ESPN's First Take:

@TheOnion: "Workplaces," "Paychecks," And "Jobs," A Nostalgic Look Back At A Vanishing Part Of The American Landscape

This weekend's The Onion Sunday Magazine.

German hockey player banned after skipping drug test for "a private moment" with his girlfriend

I think the headline just about says it all, but here is an Associated Press story on the incident anyway:

Germany coach Uwe Krupp said Busch was sharing "a private moment" with his girlfriend when the testing team arrived.

The 24-year-old Busch was originally fined $7,000 and ordered to do 56 hours of community work. The decision was appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, whose rules equate refusing a test to flunking one.

He has been banned for two years from the German hockey league.

@Wootoff is going down

There is a wootoff going on over at Woot.

What is a Wootoff? From that bastion of never-wrong knowledge, Wikipedia:

The site occasionally deviates from the one-product-per-day model for a "Woot-Off", where a succession of products are available for a period of unannounced length, usually 24–72 hours. This mode is indicated by rotating lights and a bar displaying the percentage of product's stock remaining. When one product sells out, it is replaced within a minute or two by a new product. The percentage bar is the only indication of how much stock remains; Woot never gives the exact quantity available until after the item has sold out.

More on Manny in Albuquerque

As fellow Albuquerque Twitterer drywall said, it's weird seeing an ESPN reporter in Isotopes Stadium. As far as I can recall, this is the first time.

And somehow, ESPN managed, to get a shot that doesn't include the Sandia Mountains. You'd think that great backdrop would be an ideal thing to show on TV.

Anyway, no new news here, but at least there is video:

Picture of volcanic explosion caught from space

NASA recently caught one of the coolest pictures you'll ever see. It's of the Sarychev Peak Eruption, Kuril Islands, and it was the photo of the day yesterday.

This detailed astronaut photograph is exciting to volcanologists because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption. The main column is one of a series of plumes that rose above Matua Island on June 12. The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance; the surrounding atmosphere has been shoved up by the shock wave of the eruption. The smooth white cloud on top may be water condensation that resulted from rapid rising and cooling of the air mass above the ash column. This cloud is probably a transient feature: the eruption plume is starting to punch through. The structure also indicates that little to no shearing wind was present at the time to disrupt the plume. (Satellite images acquired 2-3 days after the start of activity illustrate the effect of shearing winds on the spread of the ash plumes across the Pacific Ocean).

Click on the picture for a larger image. It's worth it.

Weird award name

New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish will receive an award from the city of Santa Fe. It has kind of a weird name, though:

Affordable Housing Champion Award Affordable Housing Division

I wonder who will get the affordable housing champion award in the non-affordable housing division.

Albert Pujols is pretty good at baseball

Albert Pujols is currently 9th in batting average, 1st in home runs and 1st in RBIs in the National League. He already has two Most Valuable Player awards (and arguably could have more).

But this story about Sunday's game (Pujols' St. Louis Cardinals beat the Kansas City Royals) makes it even more clear how good Pujols is:

El Hombre didn't just provide the difference with four hits, including two home runs, his ninth career grand slam and six RBIs; he quite literally called his four-run shot.

After opening the third inning with a fly out, Pujols returned to the Cardinals clubhouse to review video. There he predicted to assistant hitting coach Mike Aldrete that his next at-bat would ricochet off the yet-to-open Royals Hall of Fame behind the visitors bullpen in left field. "He didn't say he might hit the Hall of Fame. He said he would hit the Hall of Fame," Aldrete recalled.

Pujols returned in the fourth inning against Royals starting pitcher Gil Meche with the bases loaded and one out in a 4-4 game. Pujols and Meche reached a full count. By then Meche had shown Pujols every pitch in his repertoire except a change-up. When Meche finally threw the pitch, Pujols swatted it some 423 feet off a Hall of Fame window.

Not only did he call that he's going to hit a home run, but he also called where he was going to hit it.

He's good.

Iran monitoring all internet activity in the country

People have asked why Iran hasn't simply shut off the internet in their country. Well, it turns out they are analyzing all the internet activity using something called "deep packet inspection."

From the Wall Street Journal:

Deep packet inspection involves inserting equipment into a flow of online data, from emails and Internet phone calls to images and messages on social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Every digitized packet of online data is deconstructed, examined for keywords and reconstructed within milliseconds. In Iran's case, this is done for the entire country at a single choke point, according to networking engineers familiar with the country's system. It couldn't be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection.

All eyes have been on the Internet amid the crisis in Iran, and government attempts to crack down on information. The infiltration of Iranian online traffic could explain why the government has allowed the Internet to continue to function -- and also why it has been running at such slow speeds in the days since the results of the presidential vote spurred unrest.

This probably means that changing your Twitter location to "Tehran, Iran" does about as much as turning your avatar green.

Manny mania comes to Albuquerque

From the Associated Press:

Isotopes general manager John Traub said the 15,000-seat stadium is expected to sell out for Tuesday night's game, including outfield berm seating. Tickets for the remaining three games are going fast.

Fans began buying tickets Friday amid speculation Ramirez might be coming to Albuquerque. The club sold almost 7,000 tickets that day, compared to typical pre-game reserved sales in the hundreds for a midweek series in June.

"And then it got busy," Traub said. "Friday was nuts. Friday was a vacation compared to what followed."

Since Torre told reporters on Saturday evening that Ramirez had agreed to begin his minor-league assignment in Albuquerque, Traub said the Isotopes have sold about 20,000 tickets for this week's four home games.

I will be in attendance on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm going with family on Wednesday and friends on Thursday.

New Mexican wins "Stick Science" contest

Via Bad Astronomer.

The first place entry for the Florida Science Stick Science competition is Richard Korzekwa from Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The contest challenged people to put public misunderstanding of science into an easy-to-understand cartoon -- using only stick figures (kinda like XKCD, except for the "easy to understand" part).

And why?

Public understanding of science, especially biology/evolution, is horribly low. Folks who push antievolution efforts on local, state and national stages prey on that weakness. One such gap in knowledge is the use of the word "theory." When the general public uses the word, it means one thing; when a scientist uses the word, it usually means something completely different. We see this a lot when antievolution folks claim that "evolution is only a theory." The news media mistakenly runs intelligent design and evolution alongside as two competing theories in their stories and accompanying graphics. Lawmakers take advantage of this when proposing antievolution legislation.

Besides the misuse of the word theory, antievolution efforts rely on false arguments such as gaps in the fossil record, the ever changing nature of science, and scientists being afraid of honest critical analysis.

You can see Korzekwa's winning entry -- about evolution, of course -- here.

Chris Dodd changes his mind; supports gay marriage

Chris Dodd wrote today in an op-ed in the Meriden Record-Journal that he is now in support of gay marriage. You can read it on his Senate website.

"Public officials aren’t supposed to change their minds," Dodd wrote. "But I firmly believe that it’s important to keep learning."

While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.

The reason was simple: I was raised to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And as many other Americans have realized as they’ve struggled to reconcile the principle of fairness with the lessons they learned early in life, that’s not an easy thing to overcome.

But the fact that I was raised a certain way just isn’t a good enough reason to stand in the way of fairness anymore.

The Connecticut Supreme Court, of course, has ruled that such a distinction holds no merit under the law. And the Court is right.

Iranian accuses "The West" of meddling

Iran is accusing "The West" of meddling.

Of course, whenever one of these countries who hate the United States say "The West," it seems they really just mean the United States and their allies.

In this case, they are saying that "state-run media" is sowing the discontent:

Speaking to reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi alleged that foreign media organizations, such as CNN and the BBC, were mouthpieces of their respective governments that were exaggerating reports of police clashes with protesters who have demonstrated daily since the June 12 race.

He also said that government-run news sites, such as the Iranian Student's News Agency, had been hacked in recent days and implied foreign outlets were behind it.

I don't think that CNN or any cable news network, for all their flaws, are state-run media (despite the Pentagon's best efforts).

But this criticism from Iran shows that things are serious. And it also shows that if President Barack Obama hadn't been so restrained in responding to the situation, the Iranians would have an example to point at and say, "See! The President of the United States is sowing discontent!"

This is what would happen if Obama listened to hawkish cheerleaders like the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby or Republican ideologue Rich Galen and strongly denounced the Iranian government and called for new elections and did a host of unnecessarily hawkish things.

Other, less partisan or anti-Obama driven analysts have praised Obama for his restraint.

So what can the United States, the West, and outside powers do to help? One key action is to take a public stance of continued restraint. Let Khamenei and Ahmadinejad further discredit themselves with false claims and xenophobic nonsense. Wait to take open action until it is clear what kind of official action can really make a difference.

In other words, cowboy diplomacy, as was the M.O. under George W. Bush, wouldn't be helpful here.

You think you have a big TV for your video games?

My friend has a 65-inch TV. It's very fun to play video games on or watch a baseball game -- mainly because it's huge.

But it has nothing on the Cowboy Stadium screen that is 72 feet by 160 feet. And here's a video (via Engadget) of someone playing Gears of War on the massive screen.

The angle seems a bit tough, though.

They went THAT far!?

I found this funny from an article talking about how United States soccer fans have been calling for coach Bob Bradley's head for a recent run of poor results.

And a group of noisy cyberspace fans began clamoring for his scalp, even starting a Facebook page demanding his firing.

You hear that? They even started a Facebook page! That takes almost ten minutes to do!

Right now, 1,570 people have devoted chunks of their day to join the group.

Auto-tune news 5

If you haven't seen any of the "auto-tune the news" videos on YouTube, you need to change that right now:

Who is the sentimental favorite at the U.S. Open?

There are a number of compelling storylines in the U.S. Open -- besides the rain and constant delays that pushed the final round back to Monday.

Currently tied for the lead at 7 under par is virtual unknown Ricky Barnes. Barnes has never won an event on the PGA Tour. Or come in the top-three. Or top-ten. The 28 year old has made just 6 of 12 cuts this year -- but he has a very good chance of winning a major. Yes, the 519th ranked guy in the world might be the U.S. Open champion at this time tomorrow.

Barnes is tied with Lucas Glover, a guy who has won exactly one event on the PGA Tour. ESPN golf writer Jason Sobel tells us how that victory happened back in 2005:

In fact, his only career PGA Tour victory came four years ago, when on his last two holes he drained a 50-foot birdie putt from the fringe and knocked in a 40-foot bunker shot. If he can replicate that feat on Monday, he'll be a hero, but those dramatics are a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

Five strokes back, at 2 under par and tied for third, there are more compelling stories.

Phil Mickelson's wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Mickelson left the tour to be with his wife. Mickelson's wife had been to the previous 61 major events (that's fifteen years worth and change), but she is missing this U.S. Open.

Tied with Mickelson and two others is David Duval. Duval was once one of the top golfers in the world, with 13 PGA Tour wins to his credit, including the 2001 U.S. Open. But now, he is ranked 882nd in the world, and hasn't won an event since that U.S. Open eight years ago.

Oh, and another two strokes back, at even par, is that guy named Tiger Woods. Of course, he's seven shots back from the leaders, and has already played seven holes, so it would take an epic collapse and an epic final eleven holes for Tiger Woods to win.

So, knowing all of this, who are you cheering for?

The costs of illegally downloading songs

From the New Yorker:

Direct from the land of the crazy verdicts: a Minnesota woman who illegally shared two dozen songs online has been ordered to pay Universal Music Group and other record labels $1.92 million, according to this article, which contains a senselessly large picture of Slash. As the article points out, this verdict works out to $80,000 per song.

How much would you owe?

Steve Jobs liver joke

From Chumworth, a writer for David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel:

Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago. His doctor's say he's doing really well liver 2.0.

Profiling Rafa Nadal

Rafael Nadal is the only human being on the planet who can consistently play at the same level as Roger Federer, let alone beat him.

Nadal was forced to withdrew from Wimbledon because of tendinitis in his knee. But this huge profile from the New York Times magazine is still interesting nonetheless.

Federer is elegant and fluid and cerebral, so that his best tennis looks effortless even when he is making shots that ought to be physically impossible. Nadal is muscled-up and explosive and relentless, so that his best tennis looks not like a gift from heaven but instead like the product of ferocious will. His victories and his taped-up knees and his years as a very good No. 2 in the world all resonate together, as though the rewards and the wages of individual effort had been animated in a single human being: if you hurl yourself at a particular goal furiously enough and long enough you may tear your body up in the process, but maybe you can get there after all. People have loved watching Nadal create trouble inside Federer’s head. This is how they characterize it in tennis, that Nadal makes Federer crazy, that Nadal’s refusal over and over to be beaten by Federer in Paris was the one problem that Federer — who usually has uncanny on-court telepathy about what his opponent plans for three shots hence and exactly how to wreck it — was unable to figure out.

It is impossible to separate Nadal from Federer; it's Ali-Frazier if no one were even near the same athletic level as Ali or Frazier for a huge chunk of their careers.

In all of hte tennis history books (and I assume there are many and will be many more), the past few years will be referred to as the Nadal/Federer era.

SportsCenter Top 10 play of the week

Never disappointing:

Obama speaking at Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner

Before John Hodgman went up and analyzed whether or not Barack Obama is really our first nerd president (video here), Barack Obama went up and cracked some jokes as well.

John Hodgman proving whether or not Barack Obama is a nerd

Awesome video. Starts off slow, but only gets better and better:

Venus Williams hitting tennis balls at football players

No comment here, just video:

Barack Obama Jib Jab

The folks at Jib Jab have their latest viral video. This one's all about Barack Obama, and you can see it right here:

Manbabies.com -- creepy or awesome?

I'm not sure what to say about ManBabies.com. Is it creepy? Awesome? Dumb? Brilliant?

Or maybe just a mixture of all four.

The site switches baby heads with heads of men to... well, you have to see it to understand.

Here's a sample:

Scrubs coming back, but it will look very different

While Sacred Heart will still be a part of Scrubs, the emphasis will shift away from the hospital that has served as the main backdrop for the sitcom for the past eight years.

The comedy will shift to a medical school setting, though familiar faces will still be around.

From Entertainment Weekly:

Scrubs boss Bill Lawrence said his cancellation-defying comedy would undergo an extreme makeover in its ninth season, and, man, he wasn't kidding. When the show returns next winter, the action will shift from the hospital to the classroom and make med-school professors of John C. McGinley's Dr. Cox and Donald Faison's Turk.

"It'll be a lot like Paper Chase as a comedy," Lawrence tells me. "It's going to be a different show. It'll still be life-and-death stakes, but if the show is just Scrubs again in the hospital with a different person's voiceover, it would be a disaster and people would be mad."

Zach Braff is leaving the show and Neil Flynn (aka the janitor) won't be around as he is costarring in his own sitcom. Sarah Chalke also will not be on the show.

Iranian soccer players who wore green wristbands suspended

The Iranian soccer players who wore green wristbands in solidarity with the protesters in Iran were suspended for their gesture.

The Iranian soccer players wore the wristbands during a World Cup qualifying match in Seoul, South Korea.

Gene Wojciechowski is also an idiot

I've said before that Rick Reilly is an idiot. I'd also like to say that Gene Wojchiechowski is an idiot, especially based on this article he wrote for ESPN.com about the U.S. Open, which was rained out.

Car companies on Twitter

The LA Times looks at how car companies are attempting to use Twitter as a part of their marketing plan for cars:

Scott Monty at Ford says the company has been using Twitter since July of last year and now has about 30,000 followers across 12 subject areas. "We're using it in day-to-day communications in terms of interacting with people, solving vehicle-related problems, sharing corporate news and live tweeting from events and auto shows." He says the company's more popular feeds include information on its Drive Green program and its Mustang model, and the company recently launched a bilingual feed in English and Spanish.

Sam Seder invades "Fire David Letterman" Rally

A funny video of comedian Sam Seder at the pathetic "Fire David Letterman" rally:

Woman fined $1.9 million for illegal song downloads

I hope they were 24 really good songs.

CNN:

Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents. She plans to appeal, he said.

@PeteHoekstra digs deeper

Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) is still digging deeper, a day after, via Twitter, comparing the Iranian election protests to an unsuccessful political stunt that House Democrats tried to pull.

From Politico:

The incident he was referring to occurred in August last year when Nancy Pelosi shut out the lights in the House chamber after passing a motion to adjourn for the August recess. Republicans had taken to the floor for a pre-election round of bashing Pelosi and Democrats for failing to lift restrictions on offshore drilling.

It should be noted that there are a few differences between the victimized Iranians and the oppressed Republicans.

Pelosi, unlike Ahmadinejad,didn't dispatch her Revolutionary Guard to beat them up or shoot them in the streets, nor did she have the capacity to block their access to the Internet, rig a national election to keep them from being seated in the legislature or place them under House arrest when they protested.

Is there any question as to why Republicans are mocked so often?

Daft Hands

I have to watch this video once every week or so. It's a fan video for the Daft Punk song Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger:

Kobe Bryant Proves He Can Win Championship With Luke Walton On Team

Example of why I love The Onion number 341,974:

"I was so sick of hearing people say how I couldn't do it with Luke out there," said Bryant, acknowledging that his teammate's deficiencies have overshadowed the Lakers since Walton was drafted in 2003. "It gets annoying to hear that question over and over, but you can't argue it. You can't deny it. You have to show that you can prevail alongside one of the worst small forwards in the game."

Why Sacha Baron Cohen is funny

It appears some people are angry at Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of a gay European for his upcoming movie "Bruno." Cohen is the guy behind Borat, which, as you recall, spawned its fair share of controversy.

Luckily, this blog can tell us why what Cohen does is funny:

In fact, what makes the movies so hilarious is that the character is SO OBVIOUSLY a joke, a silly collection of quirks that could only be created by a comedian playing a prank on dumbasses.

Donte Stallworth

Cleveland Browns wide receiver was suspended indefinitely today by the NFL. What did he do?

Cleveland Browns receiver Donte' Stallworth was suspended by the NFL indefinitely without pay following his guilty plea to DUI manslaughter in the death of a pedestrian, the league announced Thursday.

Stallworth was sentenced in a Miami court Tuesday to 30 days in jail, a controversial ruling that drew a great deal of criticism.

Yeah, he killed a man while driving drunk in Miami -- and will only be in jail for 30 days.

Pilot dies during transatlantic flight

A pilot died while flying from Brussels to Newark.

The 247 passengers onboard Flight 61 weren’t told about the pilot’s death while they were in the air.

During the flight, an announcement was made asking if any doctors were aboard and several passengers approached the cockpit, including one doctor who told The Associated Press the pilot appeared to have suffered a heart attack.

It looks like he may have suffered a heart attack. The doctor who saw him said there was "no chance at all" of saving him.

Chad Ochocinco and Carson Palmer are like "Brokeback Mountain"

Umm... yeah.

"I know people are trying to say we're mad at each other and all that, but we're good," he said. "We're like Brokeback Mountain. I'm going to be with Carson so much in July that I'm going to be the nanny (for his new twins).

"I'm going to babysit. We were getting down to the details. If he and the wife go out, they have to be back by three. I asked for permission to have company over."

Jay Rosen talks journalism

Jay Rosen, an NYU professor, talking journalism and other stuff.

What happens when tea partiers protest Letterman

At the 'Fire David Letterman' Rally

Posted to New York Magazine by jgreen on June 16, 2009

Click to Play | View Details

The joke in question which caused the right wingers (all fifteen of them!) to protest was, "One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

And will The Onion have to apologize to Palin as well?

God forbid Palin go see Dave Chappelle perform, let alone one of the truly controversial comedians out there.

Basketball in DC

ESPN had a great story today about the resurgence of basketball in the DC political circles thanks to one man: Barack Obama.

It shows the lengths some people will go just to play in a game with someone who plays in a game with Obama -- just to get the chance to maybe get an invite to play pickup hoops with the Commander in Chief.

Even if no information changes hands, a game with someone powerful gives the appearance of being inside. Even that kind of interaction is invaluable. It means that in your next business meeting, you can say, "Well, I was just playing ball with so-and-so …" You are one step closer to the center than the other people in the room. They have no idea that nothing important was discussed, so they must assume that it was.

You now have power.

I could never work or live in DC.

Five Iranian soccer players don green for qualifying match

In what was one of the biggest soccer matches for Iran in recent years, five players on the team showed support for the demonstrators in Iran by wearing green. From McClatchy:

Five of the players, including captain Ali Karimi, front row second from left, wore green wristbands in an apparent sign of support for Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

According to CNN, the players took the wristbands off at halftime.

Iran was playing South Korea in Seoul.

Iran tied the match, which puts them in jeopardy of missing out on a World Cup qualifying spot.

Iran, fourth in the standings going into the match, needed to beat group leaders South Korea and hope North Korea and Saudi Arabia drew to secure the second automatic qualification slot.

GOP just isn't that good at governing

I try to stay away from a lot of political discussion over here and leave that for my other blog, but sometimes I just have to do it.

From Roll Call:

House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn't know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.

It reminds of their budget without numbers:

There certainly was no hard budgetary data in the attractively designed 18-page packet that the House GOP handed out today, its blue cover emblazoned with an ambitious title: "The Republican Road to Recovery." When Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was asked what his goal for deficit reduction would be -- President Obama aims to halve the nation's spending imbalance within five years -- Boehner responded simply: "To do better [than Obama]."

Or then-presidential candidate John McCain's pledge to balance the budget by winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Here's what McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers sent me:

It's pretty straightforward, as we win, costs will go down with a smaller footprint over time, and those savings will go to deficit reduction. It's really the logical extension of Senator McCain's position as articulated in the 2013 speech. Achieving success in Iraq would obviously lead to reduced expenditures on the effort.

Empty rhetoric mixed with hoping that no one is paying attention and, if anyone is, they are incredibly dumb or so blindly partisan that they will go along with anything that the Republican Party puts out as a 'plan.'

Custom 1986 Toyota Camry

Why Craigslist is the coolest thing ever.

Check out this custom 1986 Toyota Camry for sale in Phoenix:



It boasts a "custom made with heavy duty cardboard body kit" and "runs good fast and fun." No price is listed.

Sosa reportedly took PEDs

In the "no duh!" department, comes this news: Sammy Sosa reportedly tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003.

How can I tell that it is truly a "No duh!" piece of news?

Well, besides the fact that Sosa suddenly became a body double for the Incredible Hulk while putting up some of the highest power numbers ever in baseball history, check out this SportsNation poll from ESPN.com

It's not scientific, but only two percent of people who responded were "shocked" that Sosa tested positive.

T-Pain

While FiveZeroFive says T-Pain makes horrible music (he has a song with Taylor Swift, apparently), I counter with this:

Should Ensign resign?

John Ensign in 1998 while running for Senate:

Clear differences emerged during a series of questions from the audience. Ensign repeated his call for President Clinton's resignation in light of his admitted affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Reid called the affair immoral but said he would "keep an open mind" and let the process proceed before deciding whether to impeach Clinton.

Senator John Ensign today:

Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada admitted Tuesday he had an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff.

Ensign told The Associated Press in a statement, "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions."

Ensign did not win in 1998, but he did two years later. He is the junior Senator from Nevada.

What it would look like if I played baseball

If there is one sport that I would be horrible at more than any other, it is baseball. I'm not the best at throwing, catching or hitting. But I can run.

Anyway, if I were to play baseball, it would most likely look something like the Not Web Gems from ESPN's Baseball Tonight:

Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles

From The Onion:

"From the moment they wake up in the morning, to the moment they lose consciousness at night, Americans are in near-constant visual contact with bright, pulsating rectangles," said Dr. Richard Menken, lead author of the report, looking up briefly from the gleaming quadrangle that sits on his desk. "In fact, it's hard to find a single minute during which the American public is not completely captivated by these shining…these dazzling…."

"I'm sorry," Menken continued. "What were we discussing again?"

America's Finest News Source indeed.

Why it is alright to hate Rossi

From Soccer By Ives:

Most U.S. fans don't hate Rossi simply because he didn't choose to play fo the USA, the hate stems from the fact that Rossi is a special talent, a once-in-a-generation player who has qualities never seen in an American player before. If it were simply about not playing for the USA then Americans fans would have much more hate for Edgar Castillo, who not only chose another country but chose arch-rival Mexico. As it stands, Castillo goes largely ignored by American fans, an afterthought who only recently came back into the picture now that a FIFA rule change could allow him to play for the United States.

Rossi scored two goals for Italy against the United States yesterday. Italy won 3-1.

Mayne Street is hilarious

This week's edition:

Facebook has more US users than MySpace

I have hated MySpace for a long time now. I prefer Facebook, and it appears that many Americans feel the same way as I do.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Facebook Inc., after eclipsing MySpace in global users last year, now leads its social-networking rival in the U.S. as well, according to research firm ComScore Inc.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company had 70.28 million U.S. users last month, topping MySpace's 70.26 million, ComScore said. Facebook's users almost doubled from a year earlier, while MySpace lost 5%.

Facebook has more than 300 million users worldwide.

Rick Reilly is an idiot

I wrote before that Rick Reilly is a horrible writer. He also is an idiot because he has no idea why people dislike Kobe Bryant.

And talking about the fact that people dislike Kobe, Reilly writes, "John Stockton makes Bryant look like a stand-up comedian and nobody hates on him."

That's because John Stockton wasn't unlikable -- he wasn't likable either, but he wasn't unlikable. He was (not talking about his skin color, I promise), vanilla.

People is actively unlikeable. He's hateable. That's why nearly everyone who isn't a Lakers fan isn't happy that Kobe won his first non-Shaq title.

If only Reilly, arguably the biggest sports columnist in the United States, would realize this. But in addition to being such a very successful columnist, Reilly is an unabashed and unrepentant Kobe lover and apologist.

YouTube is popular, but a horrible business

From Business Insider:

Goldman Sachs analyst James Mitchell projects that both the iPhone and Kindle stores will generate more gross revenue than YouTube this year. And Apple's net revenue -- the 30% it takes from transactions -- could overtake YouTube in 2010, he predicts. (And that's not even including the hardware sales these products generate, which is a major reason these stores -- especially Apple's -- exist in the first place.)

In other words, though YouTube is an insanely popular website, it isn't so successful as a business.

Lakers win championship; fans riot, loot

While there is rioting going on in Iran, there was also some unrest going down in Los Angeles, but for a vastly different reason. The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Orlando Magic and the fans went around lighting fires and looting in celebration.

On one hand, I have to wonder what point it is for people to light things on fire when celebrating. On the other hand, I want to be in a city when they win the championship just to witness it.

But some people in the city surely wish they weren't in the city -- like this sneaker shop owner.

Torres and his girlfriend entered through the back door and saw the storage room all but empty. Fewer than 20 pairs of shoes were left out of the 800 pairs they had in stock. The floor was littered with receipts, price tags, tissue paper and crumpled-up shoe boxes.

Torres’ eyes grew teary at the sight. Neighbors told them the revelers had gone to the back of the store, and pulled and pulled at the white metal door until it broke open, all the while chanting: “We want shoes, we want shoes.” Glass display cases had been shattered. Two computers, cash, sunglasses and hats were also looted.

“It makes me not want to be a basketball fan,” Torres said, adding that he opened the store near the Staples Center in November 2007 because he was a fan and thought the post-game crowd would be the right clientele for his consignment sneakers.

I'm a better writer than this guy

I don't consider myself to be a great writer. I just start typing on my keyboard while leaning back and looking up at my monitor and hope that it comes out as something other than gibberish.

But, man, this guy's tribute to his dad on his dad's birthday ten years ago sounds like something written for a children's book:

Dad loves the outdoors. He often took me fishing when I was a kid. We'd go fishing for bluefish off the coast of Maine. I learned the skills of fishing from listening to him, and the joy of fishing from watching him. Dad's a good hunter, too, and one Christmas he gave me a shotgun, a .410. I would go with him to Louisiana to shoot ducks. Those are fond memories.

So who is it? Former President George W. Bush writing about his father, former President George HW Bush.

Top 7 most expensive bottles of alcohol

I'm just sayin' -- my birthday is coming up in a month.

The most expensive bottles of alcohol:

$75,000 - The Macallan Fine and Rare Collection, 1926, 62 Years OldOriginally listed at $38,000, a bottle was sold to a South Korean businessman in 2005 for $75,000.

The oldest and most sought-after of Macallan’s revolutionary Fine & Rare Collection is now sold out. It is still possible to taste this totally unique Scotch whisky at the Old Homestead Steakhouse in the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, N.J. However, it sells for a nosebleed-inducing $3,300 per dram (1/8th of an ounce/shot). I could create a separate list of better things to do with $3,300.
And I thought I was crazy when I bought two lowballs of Johnnie Walker Blue for $30 each…

And that's just number five.

Via @peter770

The best college pitcher

ESPN Page 2 writer Jim Caple went up against the best pitcher in all of college.

No, it's not Stephen Strasburg who might command a $50 million salary before ever pitching in the pros. Instead, it is Danielle Lawrie, a softball pitcher from the University of Washington.

What are her credentials?

Lawrie went 38-7 with a 0.84 ERA and 477 strikeouts in 315 innings. While Strasburg generally pitched only once a week (wimp!), Lawrie pitched 12 consecutive complete games in the last three weeks of the season, starting and finishing every game for the Huskies during the regionals, super regionals and College World Series. She threw 395 pitches and two complete games in one day, including a 15-inning game in which she struck out 24 batters.

Watch the hilarious results of the 'battle' below (and read the accompanying story as well):