News Of The Week

Well, the Roger Clemens case certainly got a bit stranger after the Congressional hearing. A lot of people have pointed out that Congress holding hearings on whether or not Clemens did steroids was a huge waste of time. I disagree. When your motto is "There is no problem so bad that government action can't make it worse", you find that you like it better when Congress goofing around with stupid crap like this. After watching parts of the hearing, I really don't want these people messing with too many things that affect my life. Contrary to popular belief, the hearing didn't break down along party lines. Yes, some Republicans did makes asses of themselves in defending Clemens, most notably Dan Burton. But most Republicans don't take Burton that seriously. And the two most pandering comments to Clemens came from Democrats. Eleanor Norton of D.C. (no way any place that elected her should be given statehood) actually told him he was going to heaven. William Clay of Missouri asked him what uniform he was going into the Hall of Fame in. Showing that I've watched the movie Die Hard way too many times, my first thought was "William Clay? That's the identity Hans took to make McClain think he was an escaped hostage." Still, this hearing did bring out a few facts. Clemens' former training partner and teammate, Andy Pettite, said Clemens told him he used human growth hormones, which Clemens said Pettite "misremembered". Oh, and McNamee told the feds that he also gave HGH to Clemens' wife so she could spruce up for a bikini shoot. In order to show his own credibility (by giving an admission for someone else), Clemens tossed his wife under a bus by saying she did use it even though the committee wasn't investigating HGH use in SI's Swimsuit Issue. I think it says more about Clemens' character than his credibility. Mainly, that his character is as bad as his credibility.

Still, it does all come down to credibility. Neither Clemens nor trainer Brian McNamee had much. McNamee admitted lying in the past about his resume, and he is a drug dealer. I've said numerous times that I think the evidence supports Clemens' being juiced. It was pretty funny to me that some people found his performance believable because "he got angry". Well, so did Rafael Palmeiro who later tested positive for steroids. I have to look at what people have to gain or lose. Did Clemens have anything to lose by lying? Actually, no. Palmeiro righteously denied using steroids under oath, but he hasn't been charged with perjury. Clemens won't either (and outside of Barry Bonds and Marion Jones who were intimately involved in the BALCO case, the feds haven't generally been going after the athletes). It's his word against McNamee's. McNamee does claim to have saved syringes and bloody gauze but even if it has Clemens' DNA on it, the chain of custody consists solely of McNamee's basement so I can't see the feds wasting money on a perjury rap with that. Clemens did have a huge reason to lie. He wants in the Hall of Fame, and he knows baseball writers are the dumbest of sportswriters (if that is possible). His whole act is trying to convince them of his innocence so they'll vote him in.

Now, does McNamee have a reason to lie? Maybe, but I can't figure out what it is. He told federal investigators that he gave steroids or HGH to Clemens, his wife, Pettite and Chuck Knoblauch. McNamee was told by the fed that if he lied to them or his story changed to the baseball investigators, he would be charged with perjury, plus there would probably be no deal on steroid distribution. Am I supposed to believe he would risk real jail time just to get back at someone who he considered a friend? Truthfully, it doesn't matter how credible McNamee the person is. It's that his story is corroborated. Pettite, Knoblauch and now the wife have all said they got HGH from McNamee. So, he told the truth about all three of them, and then made it up about Clemens? His wife and one of his best friends were getting HGH from his trainer, and he didn't know anything about it? I don't think so.

Fidel Castro announced he is stepping aside (and replaced by his clone like younger brother). To be honest, his place in history has been largely inflated because he is really nothing more than your run of the mill tin pot dictator. He just had the major advantage of JFK blowing the Bay of Pigs invasion and a bunch of other Presidents deciding taking him out wasn't worth the trouble (and no, I don't belief all the assassination attempts that Castro claims). Really, his only claim to fame is that he lived a long time. All the talk of him outlasting all theses American presidents was stupid. Of course, he would outlast them. We have term limits for our presidents. Oh, and these things called elections. All his other accomplishments can be boiled down to two things. He was immensely popular with his people. At least that's what we've always been told. Never had one of those elections things (a free one anyway) so I guess we won't know. His other accomplishment was building an island paradise so wonderful that every year thousands of Cubans would rip the roof off their house to make a rickety raft trying to flee to Miami.

Of course, we have our own brand of statism in this country. It's called the farm policy. The latest load of crap is that California rice farmers are selling water. They get a subsidized water as part of the farm policy, and the price of water in California is so high, it is more profitable for them to sell that subsidized water than it is to use it to grow rice. WTF? The point of subsidizing water for farmers is so they grow stuff. How the Hell can anyone justify this behavior with a straight face? The whole farm subsidy program is pure crap anyway. Rice is one of the most subsidized. Want to know why? Rice takes a lot of water to grow. We're actually paying people to grow this stuff in areas of the country that it really shouldn't be grown in. The worst part is that the subsidy is price guaranty so even if they overproduce, the price I pay for a box of Kroger-knockoff-brand-rice-chex is probably not going down.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that Duke had a sex show on their campus recently. Most of the critics made the connection to the Duke-lacrosse-stripper-rape-hoax. I'm just curious whether or not college students today are perpetually in the ninth grade. What other purpose is there to bring in a traveling sex show than the shock value? It almost made it sound like a career fair. I'm sure plenty of Duke grads will look into going into the sex industry.

Now, Hong Kong is having their own little sex scandal. Apparently some dirty pictures of some hot young celebs have hit the internet for which they have apologized. I for one find it kind of refreshing when nude celeb pics hit the web without the celeb doing it for publicity.

On to other vices, a compulsive gambler in England is suing his bookie for letting him keep betting even though he asked them not to. Typical nanny-state loser. It's always someone else's fault. "If I had known I had a problem and didn't do anything about it, I would see myself as being 100 percent responsible." What? Telling them to take down your account, yet trying to place more bets is doing something? What a joke. That's not doing crap. When I decided my heroin addiction became too much of a problem, I took concrete action. I began using cocaine heavily.

A new study on internet predators has found that they aren't that big a problem. It's not a haven for pedophiles because picking up six year olds online isn't easy to do even if you make it into the Hello Kitty chatrooms. It's mostly teenagers who are already online looking for sex (okay, maybe just curious about it). Something I found very interesting. From a research standpoint, of course.

Speaking of teenagers in search of sex, Lindsay Lohan is blaming Hollywood for Heath Ledger's drug problems and Marilyn Monroe's suicide. But she claims not to know why the industry could lead to it. How about giving lots of money to people who are never told "no"? Think that could lead people to have the money for drugs and the belief they can handle it? On the plus side, Lohan did some nudie pictures for New York magazine. Look it up. They look......I mean, she's looks quite nice.

When I first read the headline to this story "Gorillas Caught Making Love, Human Style", my assumption was that the male gorilla got her drunk and promised to respect her in the morning. But apparently, they did it face to face which must be uncommon for gorillas. I kind of lost interest when I realized it wasn't a story about drunken gorilla pickup lines.

Although, why is taking pictures of apes doing it considered socially acceptable, but hiding under the bed in order to see some chick naked is a "crime"? Sure, it's a desperate move and claustrophobic, but who among us can honestly say they haven't found themselves in just that situation?

Poor Hillary. She's beginning to flop. Actually, the whole "Hillary is inevitable" was silly. With her high negatives, she was sure to have a sizable anti-Hillary movement even within the Democratic Party (actually, eight years in power means the Clintons probably created some enemies of people they stepped on). It's still pretty funny that Hillary bought the inevitability to the point she some inexperienced crony running her campaign (into the ground). So, what happens when she bites the bullet and replaces her? Some Latino party hack gets mad because the campaign manager was Hispanic. So, her campaign is stalling and he thinks it's more important to keep your Hispanic constituency happy than to put someone competant in charge (although I'm not sure the replacement is any better)? Of course, Hillary has no one but herself to blame. You can't pander to identity politics your entire career then get surprised when it blows back on you. What's next? Finding out that years of sucking up to Al Sharpton won't get you the black vote if you happen to run against a black candidate?

First we got the story that Gary Coleman married some chick way back in August. Then we find out more recently that he hasn't "finished the job" yet. Oh, and she's scared of him which is pretty sad considering she towers over him. All of this means I know too much about Gary Coleman's personal life. Which I feel the need to pass on to others.

I guess Coleman's bride won't have to hire a "honey trapper" detective to make sure he isn't straying. It's an interesting job. Go to a bar and try to pick up someone's spouse to see if they're a cheater. I can't really feel too sorry for them. Just because you didn't go out looking to commit adultery, you still did. Or wanted to. It doesn't say that sex has to be had in order for the detective to get paid. I'm assuming they don't. Actually, there are ones that I do feel sorry for. The ones who get ugly people hitting on them, because they pick "honey trappers" to match the attractiveness of the target. Think about it. If you get hit on by a homely girl, that means that a detective agency sat down and decided you were ugly and if a good looking woman hit on you, you might figure it's a trap.

Maybe what they all need is relationship counseling from this pastor. He wants single people to abstain from sex for a month (no big deal there), and he wants married people to do it at least once a day. I'm sure some married men are going to try to get that sermon on tape to whip out whenever the wife has a headache.