Cyclist accused of being racist: I'm just an asshole!

At least this professional cyclist acknowledges that he is an asshole unlike so many of his kind:

"I love to come here (France) and I love to come here and race. For sure I'm going to get arsey at some lad - because I'm an asshole," said Cavendish.

"But their nationality, and what they look like or where they come from is irrelevant."

He was responding to charges that he was racist against French people. I may be wrong, but I think that's just being xenophobic not racist.

Barack Obama and Willie Mays

Cool T Shirt

A cool Resident Evil T-shirt from Comic-Con.

Fixing Obama's throwing motion

Though conservatives are all abuzz with the news that Obama's first pitch at the All Star Game last night wasn't very good ("Bush may have ruined the economy but at least he could throw a baseball!"), Deadspin found links to three experts who analyzed Obama's throw.

What did they say? Well, his technique wasn't all that good, but it wasn't that surprising since he never played baseball even as a kid.

As Dr. Mike Marshall, a former MLB reliever, said:

I've seen him shoot jump shots. He has an excellent shooting stroke. It's not all that much different throwing a baseball. It takes training, though, and I'd like him to spend as much time as he can on fixing the economy.

At least he's better at baseball than bowling, though.

Ichiro wants to wear jeans

A cool little story from the All Star game about Japanese star Ichiro Suzuki, his link to hall of fame player George Sisler and, yes, meeting Barack Obama (Obama threw out the first pitch of the All Star game).

Obama, visiting the clubhouses, stopped and signed a ball for Ichiro, who gave a slight bow upon meeting the President and appeared as giddy and excited as a kid.

"My idea, when I saw him, was to say, 'What's up?' to him," Ichiro said. "But I got nervous. You know, he has that kind of aura about him. So I got nervous and I didn't say that to him. I was a little disappointed about that.

"But I realized after seeing him today that presidents wear jeans, too. So my hope is that our skipper, [Don] Wakamatsu, was watching that and we can wear jeans on our flights, as well."