World Cup Nonsense & Other News

Every now and then I try to give soccer another try. And every time, I remember why I don't care for it. Actually, I liked playing it fine when I was doing intramural indoor soccer, but I just don't watch it. According to The Nation, as a right winger I don't like soccer because I'm white and soccer is played by minorities and America isn't that good at it. We could be great at it if we cared about it. Look at all the pure athletes in football and basketball. Don't tell me a lot of them couldn't be great soccer players if they had played it for 20 years. Besides, I like curling and we're as good at that as we are soccer. But obviously my love for football and basketball is because we've managed to keep blacks out of those sports. But why don't I care for hockey which is the whitest sport outside of curling? Oh right, same problem as soccer. Low scoring and too much credit for a tie.

Actually, hockey is nowhere as bad as soccer. For one, soccer players flopping is incredibly embarrassing. Sure, you have flopping in basketball where they try to draw the foul, but in soccer, it's routine to see a player barely get touched, grab his head (even though he was touched on the arm) and roll on the ground like he's dying. A hockey player would get his ass beat if he tried that. Plus, while hockey may make you play a set period of time with one fewer man, it's not the rest of the game. But in soccer, if the prissy little referee walks up to you and puts a red card in your face, not only are you out of the game, but you aren't replaced at all. And those are judgment calls (although since no one seems to know the offside rule in soccer, most of the calls are judgment calls) so you could play with one fewer player for 89 minutes of the game for a bad call. And speaking of bad calls, we have the added delight of the US having a potential game winning goal disallowed because of a penalty, but nobody knows what the call is. I've never heard of a serious sport where the referee can call a foul but isn't required to say who and what was called. But surely FIFA wouldn't use referees who are know to be incompetent and possibly corrupt, would they? Would they? And at least hockey can keep track of the time. It's bad enough that soccer counts up instead of down (like every other sport), but they have this injury time BS. Because they don't stop the clock for injuries, they just add the time lost to the end of the match. But they only tell you the approximate amount of time left. WTF??? You're watching a game and have no idea how much time is left? That's spectator friendly.

But let's look at the real reason I don't like soccer. Friggin' ties (and not the ones given as Father Day presents). The World Cup has different groupings. Let's look at the one with the US, England, Slovenia and Algeria. Four of the six games between those four have been played. There is a grand total of one win among them. One. Which means three ties. Even hockey tries to get a win first before declaring a tie. This is a major tournament and you declare the game over after 90 minutes (plus some inexact amount of time that no one knows when it will end) even though it's tied? Know what this means? If England chokes up a loss to Slovenia and the US ties Algeria, the US advances. That would mean the US would move into the next round without a single win in three tries. Is this really how the premiere event of your sport should be decided? Eddie Erdelatz once said "a tie is like kissing your sister". That makes the World Cup tournament the biggest case of incest outside of Johnson County, Tennessee.

Then we have the fun of the French team in a near meltdown cause by the fact that they are a bunch of assholes. Fighting between coaches and players. Refusing to practice. Fun stuff. Here's one writer who thinks we should root for the French to lose over all this. Hell, I was rooting for that before the Cup started. Just because they're French.

Now when I heard that Al Gore was getting a divorce, I didn't really care. If his purchase of another energy sucking mansion didn't make people see what a hypocritical charlatan he is, nothing will. Sure, I found it amusing that someone at the Washington Post is blaming Bush for this happening. Just reinforces my belief that they have a macro in their word processors that inserts "blame Bush" into most of their stories. But for the most part, I didn't care. Then I saw this funny story that the reason for the breakup was Big Al putting Little Al into Laurie David who was once married to Larry David. Oh, and produced Al's movie. Oh, and is as big a enviro-hypocrite as Al. Granted that story is in Star Magazine. So, it's probably not true. Of course, after the John Edwards love child story was scooped by National Enquirer, you never know. Could be worse for Gore. The Globe says the divorce is because of a gay affair. Funnier, but not sure I believe that either. Gay men usually have better taste.

Speaking of adultery, this story is a awesome. A woman was cheating on her husband with some dude. In the park. On a bench. Near the playground full of kids. Probably wouldn't have got much play outside of that town if the cops hadn't charged her with adultery. Which led to the video of her explaining what happened with her loyal husband by her side. Really loyal since her first excuse to the cops was that she had to do it because she didn't have sex with her husband because he's transgendered and thus she was really horny. But the video is great. First she says everyone was dressed so nothing could be showing. Then she admits that maybe his junk was hanging out of his zipper but still out of sight. I'm pretty sure by trial, she will saying that yes, his johnson was out but the kids would not have been able to see it because it was up inside her.


In honor of Father's Day, I want to point out a heart warming story of a man bonding with his daughter over drinks. Too bad she was 9 years old, and he said he'd kill her if she didn't chug-a-lug with him. But otherwise, it just gives me a warm fuzzy.

Now, the only real fault I put on the Obama administration over the oil spill was some of the buffoonish things they did. I don't think Obama is doing anything particular about the problem because what the Hell does he know about oil wells and maritime works. And the bureaucracy won't work because it doesn't work. But I thought I'd seen everything, and then we got the "Ass to Kick" interview and then the limp dick speech about stopping the oil spill that was so inane that MSNBC didn't like it. Is anyone taking Obama seriously after that? At first I thought his anger was over missing his tee time, but apparently that's not the case. So, what has Obama done? Well, he got BP to put together an escrow account of $20 billion to pay off people. Which is good because after all the demonization of BP (a lot by Obama), BP may end up in bankruptcy. What could go wrong there? Sure, the British may suddenly hate him, but he's made us so popular and respected in other countries like..............let me get back on that. Oh, right, the other problem. If BP goes into bankruptcy, the taxpayers will end up on the hook for the cleanup outside of the escrow fund. Do I think Obama is an idiot for possibly driving BP out of business? Well, the guy is apparently still unaware that BP hasn't been called British Petroleum in years. I just can't believe we've reached the point that the President thinks it's okay to demand a private company give him $20 billion to divvy up as his flunky sees fit. Sure, it's easy to ignore because BP is a pariah, but what happens when he decides to do it to some company that isn't universally hated in this country?

Up in Minnesota, a bar near the Twins stadium started having "Twin Titties Series" to draw in female customers during Twins games. Show up with your boobs hanging out and you'll be entered in a contest. I see nothing wrong with this. Well, except you're expected to watch baseball.

Here is a good one. Angelina Jolie is being considered to play Cleopatra in some upcoming movie. This has Essence magazine (and I'm certain the community they represent) outraged because they believe Cleopatra should be played by a black woman. Which may make sense if you have no concept of history and geography. Now, she was African because that's where Egypt is, but there's a big difference between northern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as far as racial traits. Egyptians aren't black. Oh, and it wouldn't matter anyway. Cleopatra was one of the last rulers of Egypt from the Ptolemy dynasty. Meaning she was really Greek. But at least Essence did know that Egypt was on the African continent. The LA chapter of the NAACP apparently is unaware that space isn't full of black whores. Hallmark had a space themed graduation card that mentioned black holes. Hallmark took it off the shelves because the NAACP complained about it's use of the term "black whores" which would be demeaning. I'm not black, but if I was, I would feel more demeaned that a group claiming to represent me was so stupid that they thought Hallmark was talking about black whores in space.

Well, the French may have done something right. They pulled a 16 year old girl out of the ocean after her boat broke. So brave. So heart warming. So stupid. She's not old enough to vote, but she and her dad think it's all just fine to send her on a solo trip around the world. I think it's moronic. And now we find out that it may have been motivated by a reality show. Which would explain why they'd have her sailing a long ass stretch of empty ocean during winter storms. Or they're stupid. I'm thinking a bit of both. Well, a lot of the second. I'm glad they get to live out an adventurous life. Of course, there are consequences. It cost a Hell of a lot of money (other people's money of course) to rescue her on her little ego cruise. Oh, and the captain of the fishing vessel that rescued her fell overboard and almost drown. I wonder how confident she'd be on her next little vanity trip if she'd killed someone. Self centered asses like that probably don't care. Maybe they shouldn't have picked her. Did she have paddles?

Earth's lowest form of life, Perez Hilton, might be in trouble for child porn since he posted an upskirt shot of Miley Cyrus with no underwear. Not sure a flamer like him can get in trouble for it since he can argue he doesn't find it tittilating. And as someone else (can't remember who) pointed out, why is he getting all the grief? What about the photographer? He took and distributed it. But it's good to know that in spite of the fact that she's running around in a short skirt with no underwear, Cyrus insists she's not a slut. That's good to know because every one knows teen singers with limited talent always go on to make it big as an adult without resorting to flaunting their body. But she says she's not a slut. Why wouldn't anyone believe her? Sluts don't pole dance at 16. Or think a fake lesbian kiss at 17 is exactly what her wholesome stage show needs. Guess if the new record doesn't sell, on stage masturbation is next.

Big College Football Stuff Going On

Shoes are beginning to drop all over college football. As of right now (subject to change in the next hour), Nebraska has moved to the Big Ten, and Colorado moved to the PAC-10. Oh, and Boise State moved to the Mountain West. Other than that, everything is just rumor. Talk of the Big Ten going to 16 teams which will make the PAC-10 to do the same. Then who knows what the SEC and ACC will do then, but most people think the Big 12 is done. The worst part of it is that it almost appears that the Big Ten started all of this in an effort to get Notre Dame. I almost believe that they wanted to scare Notre Dame into thinking all this huge expansion would destroy the Big East which would make Notre Dame worried about their non-revenue sports enough that they'd join the Big Ten. But they end up taking Nebraska first. Apparently Nebraska didn't like Texas being the big dog in the Big 12 so they wanted to move away. I'm sure they'll love being with the snooty ass Ohio States and Michigans of the Big Ten. And ironically, one rumor has Texas petitioning the Big Ten for membership where they'd still get to look down on Nebraska. I doubt Texas has made any overt move there because the Big Ten would take Texas in two seconds. Other rumors have Texas going to the PAC-10 and taking the Oklahoma schools and Texas A&M and Tech with them (I think Texas to the PAC-10 is the most likely). But other rumors have Oklahoma trying to move to the SEC. And another rumor has Texas A&M deciding to between the PAC-10 and SEC which sounds retarded that they'd go somewhere other than wherever Texas ends up.

But since the moves began, it's almost like no one is planning anymore. Everyone is reacting. The rumors are the Big Ten and PAC-1o could stop at twelve or blow up to sixteen. No one knows what the SEC and ACC will do. Missouri played footsie with the Big Ten but didn't get an invite. The PAC-10 doesn't seem interested. Screwed themselves over. But what if the Big Ten, PAC-10, SEC and ACC scavenge the Big 12 and ACC for members and all go to 16 teams? You could end up with four super-conferences. I'm not sure they understand what it could mean. For one, when you start destroying conferences for TV money, that tax exempt status those athletic departments get because they are part of "education" could very well be gone. It's hard to behave like a corporation in running up profits, but then claim to be a non-profit. And what if the super conferences freeze the rest out of the money? Will that destroy the NCAA? What will that do to the basketball tournament? You might notice that Kansas isn't mentioned in a lot of expansion talk. Can you imagine a championship tournament without them? Hell, Louisville could be in the same boat. Which means that at least one team in the last six Final Fours (including one champion) won't be in the mega conferences.

Now, what does that mean locally? Well, for Louisville, it could be good or bad. There is potential for the Big East to lose teams to the Big Ten, and if the ACC and SEC decide not to expand, they could be out in the cold. Or if the Big East falls apart after losing teams to the Big Ten and the SEC grabs teams from the ACC, Louisville could end up in the ACC. Or there is also a belief the Big East could stay together and grab Kansas, Kansas State, and Missouri out of the Big 12. The last two scenarios would be good. Ironically, Kentucky could have problems if the SEC expanded. If the SEC took Oklahoma, they'd have to find someone to add to the SEC East. I'm guessing Virginia Tech (a state the SEC doesn't have a presence in). Why is that bad for Kentucky? Another team they can't beat regularly. Kentucky's football strategy is to win their four out of conference games and then only need two conference wins to go to a bowl game. Expansion will probably mean fewer non-conference games, and Virginia Tech would add another hard win for them. But on the plus side for Kentucky, they'll now have another excuse to drop the Louisville game which is more pertinent now that Steve Kragthorpe got fired.

Just proves football drives college athletics in this country. One of the historically top basketball programs, 2008 National Champion Kansas, could be looking for a home. Yet, the Big Ten's addition of Nebraska means they'll now have the two historically worst basketball programs from a major (ie BCS) conference. Nebraska has made six NCAA tournaments. They've never won it. By "it", I mean an actual NCAA tournament game. How can you be in a major conference for over 100 years and never win a game in the NCAA tournament? The only other school from a BCS conference to have no wins when they made the NCAA tournament is South Florida. But they only joined the Big East a few years ago and didn't have basketball prior to the 1970s. So, Nebraska gets the call as the second worst basketball program from a BCS conference. Why only second? Northwestern has never even made the NCAA tournament. That's friggin' pathetic.

But even though this is about football, there is still some real shit going on. For example, why was Colorado wanted by the PAC-10? Yes, they have that 1990 national title (with the help of a fifth down), but their record since joining the Big 12 is 85-82. It's been even worse in recent years. So, why would you want them over Kansas or Kansas State? Both those schools have made BCS bowls in the past few years (and would add an actual basketball program). And since destroying all these conferences for money proves tradition no longer matters, why should serial underachievers in football get to stay in lucrative mega conferences while teams that have put time and effort into vastly improving their football product are left out? Are you telling me that Northwestern (last bowl win 1949), Duke (last bowl win 1960; no winning season since 1994) and Vanderbilt (1 winning season since 1982) add any value to their conference brand? Duke has been such a joke in football that when they canceled a contract with Louisville for a three game series, they argued in court that they shouldn't pay damages because any team Louisville could get to play would be better than Duke. Yet, they won't have to sweat the realignments and Louisville will? And don't give me academics because this whole episode has shown that isn't relevant.

Imperfect Game & Other Things

The big sports story of the week was a Detroit pitcher, Armando Galarraga, getting the final out of a perfect game only to have the ump call the hitter safe. It was an out although not as clearly as some say. He did sno-cone the ball meaning it could have appeared to be juggling. But the umpire admitted after seeing a replay later that it was an out and cost a relatively unknown pitcher a very rare feat. The Tigers still won as the next batter was out. Which has led to the usual caterwauling from the peanut gallery. To begin with, this was a bad call, but not the bad call to end all bad calls. After Don Denkinger blew a call in the World Series in the ninth inning, the Royals came back and beat the Cardinals to later go on and win the Series. That's a bit worse. But this just looks worse because it was the last out. If it happens earlier in the game, you can argue that you never know how the game would have unfolded with that base runner. And you feel bad because Galararaga most likely will never be close to a perfect game again, and the umpire was clearly torn up about his call. Even worse, Galaragga has to live in Detroit. But I can't believe how many people think major league baseball should retroactively declare it a perfect game. Yes, it wouldn't make a difference in the game, but you can't set a precedent based on such an extreme example because where do you stop? Baseball is incredibly stupid about their stats. If you change a statistical achievement after the fact, you have to do it every time. Unless there is there is evidence of fraud, the result must remain the same after the game is over.

So what should baseball do? Two things. First, change the rule that says umpires must ask for help from another umpire before they say anything. That's just dumb. An umpire may have a bad angle or sight line and not even know it. So even if the third base umpire knew it was an out, he has to go along with it unless he's specifically asked for help. Second, use instant replay for these calls. They already allow it for disputed home runs. It's ludicrous to think that only a blown home run call can affect the outcome of a game. The main arguments that I hear against replay in baseball is human error is part of the game and it will increase time to the game. Well, just because human error is part of the game doesn't mean you have to accept it. Isn't getting the call right the most important thing? As for time, give me a break. If they make it like football, ultimate judgment calls (balls and strikes) can't be replayed. Whether the ball beats a runner or a catch was really made or if the ball was fair or foul will. And don't review every play. Give managers three challenges. Trust me, they won't be used. There just aren't that many disputed calls (except balls/strikes) in a baseball game. But replay could save time. Look what happened after the Galarraga call. The manager comes out and bitches for 10 minutes at the umpire. This is routine in a baseball game. What takes less time? An official running to a sideline monitor to look at the play again? Or a manager like Lou Pinella screaming obscenities, kicking dirt, throwing third base into the outfield and peeing on a ballboy? Baseball is stupid.

A woman (of course) is suing her cell phone company for consolidating all the family bills into one. Which led to her husband finding out about her infidelity. Which led to her husband to divorcing her. So, she's blaming the phone company for her divorce. I take a different view. Her inability to keep her legs shut to men other than her husband led to her divorce. So, she's now claiming that her husband leaving made her so unhappy that her work suffered leading to job loss and doctor visits. Which means she's claiming to be a victim. Seriously. I might point out that her husband was the one cheated on.

But not the dumbest lawsuit recently. David Carradine's wife is suing over his death. You might remember this. He died because he was spanking the monkey with a rope around his neck. So, who is the wife suing? The movie production company because his assistant went to dinner without Carradine. Apparently they should have known that Carradine couldn't be left alone during dinner without dying from a freak masturbation accident.

Big news recently is the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. A deep water rig blows up and begins leaking oil into the Gulf in an environmental disaster that will most likely lead to the end of life on the planet as we know it. I give us about two more years of human life on this planet before we're overwhelmed by the oil from this leak. Yes, that is absurd but I'm finding it rather funny to see the Obama administration being castigated for a slow response. Is it Obama's fault they can't plug the leak? Of course not. Like I said after Katrina - if you expect the federal government to respond quickly to something big like that, you will end up disappointed. In Katrina, federalism means there is no first response force from the government since FEMA only writes checks and posse comitatus laws restrict the civilian use of military who essentially are the only first responders under federal control. And now Obama has discovered that there is no Department of Oil Leaks. But since the his political allies made such political hay over the "slow response" to Katrina, it's funny to see them take a beating for an occurrence that they can't control. And to be honest, the administration has looked rather buffoonish in all this. I mean really. They actually invited James Cameron to brainstorm how to stop the leak because obviously a man who films underwater documentaries would know more than someone specializing in underwater engineering. But Obama can't say he didn't bring a lot of this on himself. Because when they thought BP was going to get it fixed, he was claiming his people were in charge and directing everything. After it failed, suddenly it was all BP's doing. Strange. But, I'm sure Obama really cares and is entirely focused on this problem. Or not. It doesn't really help when you're asked about the first appointee from your administration fired over this and you just aren't sure if she was fired or resigned. Pardon me if I think that might be something to know before talking to the press. But, at least his people care. And isn't that what competant government is all about.

But I'm sure big decisions will be made soon. The administration has already put a moratorium on deep sea drilling. Because there's nothing better in a bad economy than to enforce job killing measures. Hey, if BP was negligent, punish them for that, but tearing down our own economy is stupid. I hate seeing something like this happen. As one who rehabbed animals as a teenager, I especially hate seeing wildlife suffering. But the fact is the world economy runs on energy, and replacing oil and coal with "alternative energy" has been an elusive (and very expensive) pipe dream. And as quaint as the notion of cutting back is, there are too many of us to go back to subsistence farming. Yes, this is a big problem, but there have been bigger spills than this one. The environment managed to survive. Actually, the US policies on drilling are actually making spills more likely. To begin with, we won't drill in a barren Alaskan wasteland which would mean less drilling in water. And the reason they began doing the much more dangerous deep water drilling was because so much of the shallow areas are off limits. So how will that make spills more likely? If we restrict domestic oil consumption, we'll have to import more. Take another look at the list of worst spills. The majority of them were from tankers, not from rigs. Put even more tankers on the ocean and you'll increase your chances for one of them to spill.

Oh, and boycotting BP won't do much good. Gasoline at BP stores could have been from many companies, so you're really just sticking it to some local retailer who signed a contract with BP when they were still viewed as a good corporate citizen. But good luck harming BP with that Facebook boycott. As Penn Jillette said,


Now, that is a sinkhole.

Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the present administration really thought raising oil prices would be good for the economy. Obama actually plans to campaign in the fall on economic issues. Is he kidding? Let's look at his economic policies. A bloated stimulus plan that hasn't really stimulated anything. Except government hiring which is the only job creation the government can really do. Oh, and a massive health care plan that anyone with common sense knows will increase costs. Pretty much like Europe and Canada. Brilliant thinking. Greece tried the high deficit/too many worthless government employee model. They're basically bankrupt and looking for handouts from the rest of Europe. Other European countries are in almost as bad shape. Oh, and Canada as the model for health care? They're going broke. And wanting to cut back on their health care spending. Whoops. They're managing to go broke, and that's with a smaller population and a larger neighbor to subsidize their price controls. Get ready for rationing. But it is egalitarian. Instead of some people having good medical care and some having substandard, we'll all have substandard.

A woman who used to work for Citibank is suing her former employer. Because of that "former" part. She's claiming that she was given the boot for being "too hot". So, obviously I was interested and low and behold, there were pictures. Frankly, I don't believe her story for a minute. She's attractive enough. I'd certainly do her, but that's not really setting the bar very high. If she'd just stuck with the story that they made inappropriate comments, I might believe her. But not that they told her to change her dress because it was giving her male co-workers perpetual woodies. Or that they told her the other women were too ugly to wear those type of cloths. She's simply not enough of a hottie to get that worked up about. Surprisingly, men can make it through a workday without feeling the need to touch themselves inappropriately over someone who looks like her. But I do think they may have wanted her out of there for safety reasons. Look at that nipple. She could put an eye out.