True story

An elementary school teacher in Boston explains to her class that she is a Celtic fan. She asks her students to raise their hands if they, too, are Celtic fans.

Everyone in the class raises their hand except one little girl. The teacher looks at the girl with surprise and says, "Mary, why didn't you raise your hand?"

"Because I'm not a Celtic fan," she replied.

The teacher, still shocked, asked, "Well, if you are not a Celtic fan, then who are you a fan of?"

"I am a Lakers fan, and proud of it," Mary replied.

The teacher could not believe her ears.

"Mary, why, pray tell, are you a Lakers fan?"

"Because my mom is a Lakers fan and my dad is a Lakers fan, so I'm a Lakers fan too!"

"Well," said the teacher in an obviously annoyed tone, "that is no reason for you to be a Lakers fan. You don't have to be just like your parents all of the time. What if your mom was a prostitute and your dad was a drug addict, what would you be then?"

"Then," Mary smiled, "Then I'd be a Celtic fan".

Fun with headlines

Blowfish testicles poison 7 diners in Japan

Hootie could not be reached for comment.

The "stimulus" scam

You probably already knew that the spending portion of the proposed “stimulus” is just a huge slush fund for politicians to pay off their supporters, but for those who might be holding out:

Only 8% of the spending occurs in fiscal year 2009, and only 41% in FY 2009-10 combined.

In other words, pretending for a minute that spending bills can actually stimulate the economy, most of the spending will be done after no stimulus is even needed.

Can you say “Scam”? I knew you could.

Welcome to governing

Obama's approval rating is already down 15 points. From 83% to 68%, yes, but the point is that it's a little different when you actually have to do something as opposed to just running around demagoguing issues. Presumably he will do some things the people like as well, and he will have a slobbering (to use Bernie Goldberg's term) media running interference, but his approval ratings will be an interesting watch as we go forward.

An inconvenient truth

Really bad timing for the new preisdent:

Al Qaeda says in a statement that Said Ali al-Shihri, released from Guantanamo Bay a year ago, it now its number two man in Yemen.

Yeah, this is about as surprising as another Clippers loss, but I'm just sayin'...

Better late than never

I was heartened to see the outgoing president make one of his final acts commuting the sentences of two border patrol agents:

On January 19, in one of his final acts as president, George W. Bush commuted the prison sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two former Border Patrol agents who were convicted of shooting a fleeing Mexican drug dealer near the U.S. border while trying to apprehend him. (New York Times, January 19, 2009).

Republican and Democratic lawmakers had urged the President to pardon the agents. In response to the commutation, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said: "This is not just a day of celebration for the families but it is a victory for all Americans, while acknowledging our system is flawed, to see that if they are involved, if they speak up and utilize their freedom, injustices can be corrected." (Rohrabacher Press Release, January 19, 2009).

A presidential pardon would have vacated Ramos and Compean's sentences whereas the commutation merely cuts short their sentences without vacating the conviction itself. The effect of the commutation will allow the two Border Patrol agents to be released in the next few months. (Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) Press Release, January 19, 2009).

That these become his signature pardons, while his predecessor's signature pardon was sold to a tax cheat for almost a million dollars, speaks volumes about our last two presidents.

A good start

I have no idea whether Obama will be a good, mediocre or poor president, since he's so inexperienced and such a blank slate. So I will take comfort in any encouraging signs I find, and it's hard to find one much better than this snippet from his inagural speech:

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Why we love KD

If you're an NBA fan you should be reading Kelly Dwyer's "Behind the Box Score..." game recaps, which are published most weekdays. Where else can you get stuff like this take on the January 14 Bulls-Raptors skirmish:

"there were times in this game where neither of these teams looked to deserve their own arena, uniforms, free ride to the arena, and/or paychecks."

Gerrymandering

Here is a set of maps of the 20 most gerrymandered congressional districts in the country, showing the ridiculous lengths to which states will go to rig elections. For the record, the count is 16 Democrat, 4 Republican, but the fun is in the maps themselves.

It's good to be the QB

If you watched any of the Fiesta Bowl, I'm sure you noticed the goddess next to Colt McCoy's parents, who as you probably guessed is Colt McCoy's girlfriend. Turns out she is Rachel Glandorf, a 6'0" Baylor track athlete who also does television work, which is presumably where she met the Texas QB.

As Chris Myers would say, that deserves a "wow!"

Not Even Ray Guy...

I had never seen a punter completely dominate a football game in my 40 years of watching the game. Until tonight.

It's all becoming clear now...

The Democrats didn't nominate Obama because they wanted a black man in the White House, they didn't even think he'd win anyway because, you know, America is irredeemably racist and all. No, L'Affaire Burris makes clear their real motivation; TO RID THE SEANTE OF BLACKS.

Brilliant!

Fun with sports

Headline: Dolphins Found Dead at New Jersey Shore
Reaction: Miami should have known better than to beat the Jets in Tony Soprano's back yard.

Headline: Colorado Avalanche Kills 2 Snowmobilers
Reaction: Even if the snowmobilers were Gretzky and Lemieux, I'm not that impressed.

She's no Dixon Edwards

Celebutante Caroline Kennedy made waves when she let it be known that she'd like to the next junior senator from New York, a seat soon to be vacated by Hillary Clinton.

Since then she's proven to...how can I put this delicately...not the most intellectual Senate hopeful we've run across (just imagine the uproar were she a Republican).

The good thing about such vapidity is the humor value, and she gave us some priceless material with a now-infamous New York Daily News interview:

"I'm really coming into this as somebody who isn't, you know, part of the system, who obviously, you know, stands for the values of, you know, the Democratic Party." ...

"I know how important it is to, you know, to be my own person. And, you know, and that would be obviously true with my relationship with the mayor." ...

Her speech was often punctuated with extra "you knows" and "ums." ...

"Andrew is, you know, highly qualified for this job," she said. "He's doing a, you know, a great job as attorney general, and we've spoken throughout this process." ...

"You know, I think, you know, we're sort of, uh, sharing some of this experience. And um, as I've said, he was a friend, a family member, and um so, and uh obviously, he's, you know, he's also had an impressive career in public office." ...

"It's really, you know, it's not about just the Kennedy name."

There's some audio of this gold out there somewhere, and it's been determined that she uttered 12 "you knows" in 49 seconds. No word on whether there were any doubles or triples, but that's a slugging percentage of at least .245.

Sure, Dixon Edwards or Roger Pavlik could beat that in the course of ordering lunch, but they aren't trying to get appointed to the Senate now, are they? Hopefully the HardLine will pay homage to this genius when they get back from vacation.