World's longest golf course to open next month

As with all great things, it was conceived over beer.

From the Associated Press:

The world's longest golf course, stretching along 1,365 kilometres (848 miles) of desert highway with holes at 18 towns and service stations, is to open in Australia this year, organisers said Tuesday.

The Nullarbor Links, which will span two time zones and measure more than the entire length of Britain, is expected to be completed next month and will host its inaugural tournament on October 22.

Increased black voters in '08 nearly erased racial gap

From the New York Times:

In last year’s presidential election, younger blacks voted in greater proportions than whites for the first time and black women turned out at a higher rate than any other racial, ethnic and gender group, a census analysis released Monday confirmed.

As a result, in the election that produced the nation’s first black president, the historic gap between black and white voter participation rates over all virtually evaporated.
[...]
Compared with 2004, the voting rate for black, Asian and Hispanic voters increased by about four percentage points. The rate for whites declined by one percentage point.

If this keeps up, the Republican Party should be scared -- minorities tend to overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

And with minorities growing in percentage (especially Hispanics), the Republicans will need to change their politics or be left behind. If it's not too late.

ESPN taking over local big city sports one city at a time

I don't think that we'll be seeing ESPN: Albuquerque any time soon so Rick Wright and the rest of the folks at the Albuquerque Journal dont' have to worry. But those in bigger cities?

Be afraid, be very afraid.

ESPN launched ESPN Chicago in April. ESPN announced today that they will be launching ESPN Dallas, ESPN New York and ESPN Los Angeles -- all markets where there are not only multiple sports teams (Dallas has the Cowboys, the Mavericks, the Stars and the Texas Rangers) but also ESPN-owned radio stations.

So why should the local sports press be afraid?

Since its launch three months ago, ESPNChicago.com, which recently signed an exclusive content syndication deal with The Huffington Post Chicago, has emerged as the top sports site in Chicago. In June, the site had 600,000 unique visitors which logged 1.4 million total minutes of time, an increase of 57 percent and 112 percent since May, per comScore.

Not to mention the fact that ESPN has been hiring the best people to cover every sport, has consistently good opinion pieces, has the most content and the ability to report on each and every sport out there

Dan Shulman, a former writer for ESPN's Page 2, took a look at the trouble the LA Times sports section will be in:

Here's a basic case study: Does the Times think it has a lock on the Lakers? ESPNLA.com has (a) full-time TV reporters based in LA, (b) JA Adande, (c) a top Lakers blog (Forum Blue and Gold) as part of ESPN.com's TrueHoop Network, (d) a local radio affiliate and (e) the power of ESPN. Oh, and Bill Simmons is based in LA. Good night, game over.

As quickly as a good nugget can be reported by someone like the Times, a quick-acting (and inexpensive) ESPNLA intern (or low-paid editor) can have it on the ESPNLA site. It's called aggregation, and you can already find it daily on ESPN.com's Rumor Central pages. That's the craziest part: The economics of ESPN's local strategy are jaw-droppingly cheap, especially relative to local newspapers' costs.

ESPN has quickly become the go-to place for all things sports in the United States. And by branding themselves locally in these big cities, they are directly competing with the newspapers that have never had to deal this sort of competition before -- and they can do it cheaper.

The question is that if newspaper sports departments get winnowed down, who will be the beat reporters for each sport? Will ESPN Chicago, Dallas, New York and Los Angeles all eventually be forced to hire beat reporters?

But it seems clear that ESPN (and to a smaller degree, AOL's Fanhouse) will soon be in all the major cities with major sports teams. I'd bet on an ESPN Boston coming within the next year.

Pink Floyd and the Moon Landing

Pretty damned cool. Via @barbwire55.

So what was David Gilmour doing during the moon landing, 40 years ago today? He was jamming out on the BBC. From The Guardian:

We were in a BBC TV studio jamming to the landing. It was a live broadcast, and there was a panel of scientists on one side of the studio, with us on the other. I was 23.

The programming was a little looser in those days, and if a producer of a late-night programme felt like it, they would do something a bit off the wall. Funnily enough I’ve never really heard it since, but it is on YouTube. They were broadcasting the moon landing and they thought that to provide a bit of a break they would show us jamming. It was only about five minutes long. The song was called Moonhead — it’s a nice, atmospheric, spacey 12-bar blues.

I'll watch this show

Shaquille O'Neal is way past his prime when it comes to basketball, but when it comes to being the center of attention, he's still among the best there is.

And Shaq's new TV show shows just that:

"Shaq Vs.", which is set to premiere Aug. 18 at 9 p.m. ET, begins filming Wednesday in Pittsburgh, where Shaq will take on Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in football.

Future episodes of the hour-long show will feature Shaq against Olympic swimming sensation Michael Phelps, boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya, St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols, tennis star Serena Williams and beach volleyball Olympians Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh.

What, no Chuck Liddell?