Top Chef: Creeping towards the Finale

So, I'm not really sure when it became acceptable for finales to last multiple weeks, but there you go. This week, Hung, Casey, Dale and Brian all ended up in Aspen where they figured two of them would be cut prior to the, er, actual finale. Turns out only one chef would get cut because of the high talent. (Normally, I'd quibble about this, but it's true...they are all really good chefs.)

It seemed fairly clear from the start that Dale and Brian were on the shakiest ground, and as Brian continued to get more and more airtime during the show, I figured he was toast. And he was. Which leaves Dale (who really rallied this week), Casey (everyone's favorite, and not just because she's hot) and Hung.

Below the fold, more thoughts on the show, including some quotes from Anthony Bourdain's most excellent blog.

On Casey -- Bourdain says it well below, but it's clear she's really hard NOT to like. She seems really well-grounded, someone who it would be fun to hang out with, and by every account, a great, GREAT chef.

Casey won the Quickfire. And for those commentators here who wonder what "heart" or "soul" means -- in relation to food (The judges frequently reward Casey with the remark that her food is somehow more "soulful" than others. That she has "heart") -- let me make it simple for you. They mean her food has a pleasing FLAVOR. Chefs usually mean -- when talking about "soul" ( or "heart") -- that the food has a depth of flavor that is both exciting and somehow, strangely, comfortingly familiar. As if the ingredients belong together the way macaroni and cheese -- or peanut butter and jelly -- or other, similarly beloved childhood combinations feel "just right."

...

Got it now, conspiracy theorists? "Heart" does not mean "nice rack". "Soul" does not mean "looks like Jennifer Aniston". The woman is GOOD. How many times does she have to prove it? Give her the respect she deserves.

Hung is obviously the Marcel of this show, but like Bourdain, one statement he made during the show really made it clear -- he's competing here, not acting as he would in a restaurant. Why should he help a struggling Brian out? He wants to beat Brian (which he did).

As for Dale, what a crazy story, that he'd not cooked for over a year prior to the show, and that regardless of outcome (which despite his performance, seems clear to be a 3rd place), he's reaffirmed that he's a chef. True.

Finally, some more great quotes from Bourdain:

At this point in the competition, it was a bit of a low blow, dragging the contestants to a trout stream in the freakin' wilderness and making them clean and cook fish over propane for the Quickfire. Something of a come-down after Le Cirque and the French Culinary Institute. I think they deserved better treatment this late in the game and a cleaner shot at the brass ring. And it was a terrible waste of a great judge.

Eric Ripert is probably the greatest seafood chef in the country (one of the greatest chefs -- period, but he famously specializes in seafood). His restaurant, Le Bernardin didn't just get four stars from The New York Times and three stars from the Michelin guide -- it has gotten them EVERY TIME. An unbroken, perfect record going back more than 15 years -- when Eric was suddenly, and unexpectedly called on to step in as chef. To remain as relevant and widely loved in Manhattan, the most competitive, capricious, dog-eat-dog, and outright vicious restaurant environment in the world is an amazing accomplishment.

...

On the other hand we DID get all that nice B-roll of a gleaming RAV4 driving the contestants home from the boonies. I just hope that before leaving the campsite, everyone remembered to police their areas and deposit all waste in one of the Glad Family of trash bags.

Do We Have It All Wrong?

An interesting take on Barry Bonds that those not in the Bay Area probably shrug off in disbelief. This is from Baseball Prospectus, and is clearly food for thought. A snippet, then the rest after the break:

The Giants are free to run their team however they care to, but we shouldn’t persist in this fiction that Bonds is what stands in the way of the rebuilding process. The Giants, as effective as they’ve been in drafting and developing pitchers, have had little success with hitters. The Dan Ortmeiers populating the outfield and the lineup aren’t prospects, they’re MLB fourth and fifth outfielders who are being evaluated generously by virtue of not being Barry Bonds. The Giants have no prospects being blocked by Bonds, and if they did, they’d actually be being blocked by Dave Roberts and Randy Winn. As we saw with Alex Rodriguez and the Rangers, the team, the press and the public is focusing far too much on the best player with the biggest contract, rather than the money being wasted on the ridiculous contracts for inferior players throughout the rest of the roster. Bonds is worth the money; Pedro Feliz, Ray Durham and Barry Zito, not so much.

End of an Era

On Friday, the Giants held a press conference to announce that their sub-.500 team, with its mediocre offense, was going to play the 2008 season without its best hitter. From the press reaction, you would think that they’d announced that the AT&T Park press box was going to expand the free buffet.

The naked glee generated by this decision was embarrassing, with the San Francisco writers falling all over themselves to praise McGowan for cutting loose the best player in franchise history, the most productive player on the current roster, the best hitter in the National League and, dollar for dollar, one of the better values in the game. The press pool showed no recognition that Bonds remains an amazing player and an asset to any team, even one far from contention. Yes, he requires special treatment; is it some kind of news to everyone that the very best people in any line of work tend to get perks that separate themselves from their peers?

Of course, the story about Bonds, for that crowd, has never been about performance. It’s always been about Bonds’ disdain for the media, his refusal to provide access and quotes and make the media’s job easier. However, to allow that one aspect of the man to become the driving force for years of negative coverage strikes me, has always struck me, as just as unprofessional as his approach.

The disdain for Barry Bonds among the local media is disproportionate to anything the man has ever done, amounting to a collective tantrum that has poisoned the man’s reputation among baseball fans nationwide, Bonds’ relationship to the media, and the media’s treatment of him because of it, queers the entire discussion about Bonds’ accomplishments and whether they may have been influenced by extra-legal actions on his part. He’s never been evaluated fairly because the world has been told he’s a bad guy, and we don’t like bad guys. It’s a lesson in how the media can make or break men of any hue.

Well, bad guys can rake, too, and whatever you think of Bonds as a person, Bonds as a baseball player has been a force of nature. Even at 43, he’s the best hitter in the NL on a per-AB basis, and second only to Alex Rodriguez in the majors. His defense, despite appearances, is just a bit below average, and his baserunning costs his team a few runs a season and isn’t among the worst in the game. He remains a championship-caliber baseball player who will be the best player on the market this winter, and almost certainly the lowest-risk one. Torii Hunter for five years and $75 million? Andruw Jones for five years and $70 million? Kyle Freaking Lohse for Gil Meche’s deal? Or Barry Bonds for one year at $18 million? Which of those sounds like the most sensible deal to you?

The Giants are free to run their team however they care to, but we shouldn’t persist in this fiction that Bonds is what stands in the way of the rebuilding process. The Giants, as effective as they’ve been in drafting and developing pitchers, have had little success with hitters. The Dan Ortmeiers populating the outfield and the lineup aren’t prospects, they’re MLB fourth and fifth outfielders who are being evaluated generously by virtue of not being Barry Bonds. The Giants have no prospects being blocked by Bonds, and if they did, they’d actually be being blocked by Dave Roberts and Randy Winn. As we saw with Alex Rodriguez and the Rangers, the team, the press and the public is focusing far too much on the best player with the biggest contract, rather than the money being wasted on the ridiculous contracts for inferior players throughout the rest of the roster. Bonds is worth the money; Pedro Feliz, Ray Durham and Barry Zito, not so much.

Bonds is a distraction, the people who have covered him will tell you. Are wins distracting? Are pennant races? Playoff appearances? Persistent in the coverage of Barry Bonds is this notion that evaluates his clubhouse persona, the evaluation of him as a teammate, as being just as important as what he does on the field. MLB isn’t Little League, and it isn’t your rec softball league; what a guy does between the white lines is infinitely more important than what he does anywhere else.

Steroids? We’re no closer to legal action against him than we were the day he testified in the BALCO case. Check back with me when the protests over Rafael Betancourt helping the Indians to a division title reach a fevered pitch, or when the multi-year deals awarded to Guillermo Mota and Ryan Franklin are voided due to their past—and proven—steroid use.

There’s not a team in baseball that he wouldn’t add value to. When he’s once again among the league leaders in OBP and OPS, distanced from the poisonous San Francisco media, it will be interesting to see how his performance is covered.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

I not only really wanted to like The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, I expected to love it. Chabon is one of my favorite authors, and Kavalier and Clay is a true masterpiece. However, his latest novel is a far cry from, really, any of his previous works.

An alternate-history book that will draw inevitable comparisons to Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, Chabon envisions a world where, as FDR actually suggested (which I didn’t know) that a Jewish settlement be located in Alaska. Derisively called the “frozen Chosen” by Americans (referred to as “our neighbors in the South” by the locals), the area is due to be returned to America, and the Jews are due to go…somewhere.

“It’s a strange time to be a Jew,” almost every character states at one point or another, and indeed it’s true. This is the backdrop to the novel, which in most respects is – or attempts to be – a hardboiled detective story.

My full review is below.

Our Mickey Spillane is a policeman named Meyer Landsman, a beaten-down shell of his former self, who spends his nights drunk and contemplating suicide. One morning, he’s called to investigate the murder of someone also living in his fleabag hotel.

I’d get into the story, which involves several different sects of Jews, chess and the Holy Land…but it’s really hard for me to do that. The book feels far too clever for its own good, and at several times Chabon refers back to characters who I barely remembered – who turn out to be incredibly important and relevant. In the zeal to keep this alternative history “real,” Chabon can’t draw out a historical review, so characters casually refer to things, in Yiddish slang no less, that take several repetitions to make sense. Many characters have similar, unfamiliar Eastern European names, and the way their roles intertwine gets more confusing as the book progresses, until perhaps the last third of the book.

Perhaps most disappointingly, the book seems to explain itself towards the end in two somewhat cheap ways – through a flashback, and then by Landsman suddenly figuring a key component out in the last few pages. It feels beneath an author as brilliantly talented as Chabon, and while there’s no denying it’s a good book, it’s far from a great one. I didn’t much care for most of the characters, but I perservered because it was Chabon, and also because I did want to see the story play out…which it only sort of does.

All in all, a disappointment, and a book I couldn’t honestly recommend.

Rating: 5.5/10.

Where Will Barry Bonds Go?

Yesterday, Barry Bonds and the Giants both acknowledged that the team has decided not to resign Bonds next year, and to actually (shocking) rebuild their team as they've needed to do for quite awhile.

Bonds was thankfully appreciative of what the club has done for him, though he's stated he plans on playing next year, if not more.

My question is, where does he land? The Yankees and Red Sox have the pockets, and assuming he plays DH, those are logical places (where it will be hilarious to find those fans who have led the anti-Bonds bandwagons find reasons to love him once he's on their team), but my money is on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They have the cash, they need the pop (though they could win the World Series without him this year) and he lives locally.

Though it's somewhat pretentious to do so, as a Giants fan I would like to thank Mr. Bonds for making the team incredibly exciting and providing some of the best baseball memories of my life.

Where do you think he'll play next season?

After the fold, the official letter to fans from Peter Magowan (meaning, the press release).


GIANTS TO MOVE FORWARD WITHOUT BARRY BONDS


SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants will not bring all-time home
run king Barry Bonds back for the 2008 season, the club announced today.
He will conclude his 15-year career with the Giants during this week’s
final homestand and next weekend’s final series in Los Angeles.

“No one is more aware of what Barry has meant to the Giants and San
Francisco than I am,” said club President and Managing General Partner
Peter Magowan. “He gave our ownership group instant credibility when we
bought the team in 1993 and he helped transform the Giants into a
consistent winner. For the first 11 years that he was here, the Giants
had the third best record in baseball and Barry was a huge part of that
success. Most importantly, Barry helped San Francisco become a baseball
town again. I will forever be grateful for all of the success,
excitement and memories that he created for our fans. However, all good
things must come to an end and now seems like the right time to move
on.”

“There’s no question about what Barry has meant to this organization and
to our success over the past 15 years. He is the greatest player of his
generation and one of the very best of all time,” said Giants Senior
Vice President and General Manager Brian Sabean. “Barry has been the
cornerstone of our franchise and his amazing contributions will be
sorely missed.”

From hitting a home run in his first at bat as a Giant at Candlestick
Park in 1993 to becoming the game’s all-time home run leader on August
7, the future Hall of Famer has delivered many indelible moments over
his 15 seasons with his boyhood team. Bonds won five of his
unprecedented seven MVPs with San Francisco, while helping the club
produce one of its most successful runs in franchise history from
1997-2004 that included three National League West titles and the 2002
National League pennant.

One of the greatest players to ever play the game, the 13-time All-Star,
8-time Gold Glove winner, two-time winner of the National League batting
title and lone member of baseball’s 500 homer-500 steal club holds Major
League Baseball’s all-time records for home runs (762) and walks
(2,558). Bonds also ranks among the game’s best for RBI (tied for second
- 1,996), extra-base hits (second - 1,440), runs (third - 2,227), total
bases (fourth - 5,976), on-base percentage (sixth - .444), slugging
percentage (sixth - .607), doubles (14th - 601) and stolen bases (32nd -
514).

Bonds’ impressive resume also includes baseball’s single-season records
for home runs (73 in 2001), walks (232 in 2004), intentional walks (120
in 2004), on-base percentage (.609 in 2004), slugging percentage (,863
in 2001), home run ratio (6.52 in 2001) and home run percentage (12.06
in 2004). The 43-year old also holds Major League career records with
13-consecutive 30-home run seasons and 14 campaigns with 100-or-more
walks.

Having grown up in the clubhouse at Candlestick Park as he accompanied
his father the late Giant Bobby Bonds, it’s only fitting that younger
Bonds dominates both the Giants franchise and San Francisco-era record
books. He has established virtually every San Francisco-era offensive
standard, holding the records for average (.312), home runs (586), RBI
(1,440), runs (1,555), doubles (381) and is tied for first with his
father with 263 stolen bases. Only his godfather Willie Mays has more
home runs in a Giants uniform, clubbing 646 in both New York and San
Francisco.

The eight-time Gold Glove winner is also fourth in franchise history
with 1,975 games (third in SF annals), fifth with 6,260 at-bats (third
for SF), third with 1,555 runs, fifth with 1,951 hits (third with SF),
third with 381 doubles, third with 1,440 RBI, first with 1,947 walks,
tied for ninth with 263 stolen bases and third with 4,172 total bases
(second for SF).

Many of AT&T Park’s defining moments in its eight-year history have
included Bonds’ milestone home runs. The slugger clubbed the team’s
first clout in the inaugural game April 11, 2000, while adding his 500th
career blast in 2001. He became the single-season home run champion in
2001 with his 71st, 72nd and 73rd roundtrippers coming on the Shores of
McCovey Cove. Bonds connected for his 600th home run August 9, 2002 off
his former team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. The two greatest Giants of
all-time, Bonds and Mays, were tied at third on the all-time home run
list when Bonds drilled his 660th clout during the 2004 home opener. He
also added his 700th blast later that season off San Diego’s Jake Peavy
and surpassed Babe Ruth for second on the all-time list May 28, 2006 off
Colorado’s Byung-Hyun Kim. The new home run king reached the pinnacle of
power on August 7, 2007 when he clubbed a solo, one-out clout off
Washington’s Mike Bacsik.

Rudy The Buffoon

I usually don't do this, but I enjoyed Kevin Drum's notes on Rudy Giuliani so much that I am going to quote the entire short piece. (But please hit the link and visit Washington Monthly, which along with Talking Points Memo are probably the best liberal-leaning blogs that still fall well short of screeching partisanship.

Here's a snippet, with the rest of it after the fold:

Crikey. How much more obvious can his campaign make it that he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about and was just randomly inserting a 9/11 reference because he figured it sounded good?

This is, once again, Rudy the wind-up doll. He's got a small supply of stock phrases (9/11, lower taxes, crime fighter) and he just hauls out whichever one seems handiest for the moment. Actual knowledge of anything necessary to be president? None.

WIND-UP RUDY REVISITED....Speaking of Rudy the buffoon, America's Mayor addressed the NRA today and was asked if he still supports the lawsuit against gun manufacturers that he initiated in 2000. You'll be unsurprised to learn that now that he's running for president, the answer is no. Still, he had to provide some excuse for changing his mind, and aside from mumbling something about "several turns and several twists" that the lawsuit had taken, here's what he said:

I also think there have been subsequent intervening events, September 11th, which cast somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment and Second Amendment rights. Doesn't change the fundamental rights, but maybe it highlights the necessity for them more.

Does this make even the slightest sense? In what possible way did 9/11 affect gun rights? Perhaps someone on his staff could explain?

Asked to explain Mr. Giuliani's remarks that his views on guns were shaped by Sept. 11, a campaign spokeswoman said, "he was making a point that personal rights such as the 2nd Amendment are even more critical in a post-September 11th world."

Crikey. How much more obvious can his campaign make it that he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about and was just randomly inserting a 9/11 reference because he figured it sounded good?

This is, once again, Rudy the wind-up doll. He's got a small supply of stock phrases (9/11, lower taxes, crime fighter) and he just hauls out whichever one seems handiest for the moment. Actual knowledge of anything necessary to be president? None.

So You Think You've Heard It All?

Yesterday, I railed against my recent experience at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas with the morons running the bag check screening there. Today, it seems, a sophomore at MIT has made my life even worse through a stupid "art" concept that could and possibly should have left her mortally wounded.

The girl's name is Star Simpson, which sounds either like a pornstar or an E! news reporter, or both. Here is a clip from the story, from AP:

MIT Coed With Fake Bomb `art' Arrested

By GLEN JOHNSON

BOSTON (AP) — An MIT student with a fake bomb strapped to her chest was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said.

Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweat shirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport.

"She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day," Pare said at a news conference. "She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it."

The device had wires connected to a battery, allowing it to light up, he said. Simpson also had Play-Doh in her hands, he said.

Simpson was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device, and was to be arraigned in East Boston District Court later Friday.

"I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport," Pare said.

Simpson was "extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," Pare said. "She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

Yes, she is lucky. (And I'll reserve my amusement about the fact that women are still referred to as "coeds" for later.)

How dumb do you have to be? Obviously, she's no dummy if she goes to MIT, but what was going on here? This is either the worst art prank or a brilliant suicide attempt gone awry.

Of course, now airport security will probably be throwing away Play-Doh -- oh, wait, they do that already, as my 2-year old niece found out on a recent trip. Anyhow, Star Simpson is one dumb broad.

Meet The Douche Nozzle: McCarran Airport Security Supervisor

In an evolving series, this space is occasionally devoted to highlighting the douchenozzles among us. Prior "winners" include Roger Clemens and Freddie Thompson.

It's worth stating the obvious: Douche Nozzles aren't restricted to celebrities. Indeed, they lurk among us each and every day. Especially when you are traveling.

I flew through McCarran Airport in Las Vegas yesterday, and I’m trying as hard as I can to not still be furious about what went down.

On the way out to Vegas, the woman at the security checkpoint in Oakland informed me that she was going to let me bring my shaving cream, shampoo and whatnot aboard even though I had stupidly forgotten to put them in a clear plastic bag. (She did not call me stupid – I just was, because I’d forgotten about this patently ridiculous rule.) She did toss an almost empty bottle of haircare product and my toothpaste because they were too large, even if I’d had a plastic bag. Again, this was my bad, not hers.

So, after spending two days in Las Vegas, looking around for a plastic bag to put my toiletries into, I stumbled across a nice lady working at The Luxor who handed me one that she simply had at the cash register. I put two travel size shampoo bottles, a travel toothpaste which I’d bought at The Luxor, and some hair gel – which was about $20 worth. (I know, it’s pathetic, but I use the stuff.)

If you’ve ever traveled on Southwest through McCarran Airport, you know that the security line on the best of days takes about twenty minutes to get through, and today was not the best of days. It was probably a good half-hour for me to get to the security line. When I did, I took the plastic bag out so they could see everything, and waited patiently on the other side.

Then I heard the words I didn’t expect to hear – BAG CHECK.

An armed officer came over to tell me that the toiletries I’d packed were all of acceptable size…but the problem was the size of the bag. I’d put them in a gallon bag, whereas regulations demand no larger than a quart size bag.

I honestly thought he was joking.

Nope. He stated that this has been the regulation, otherwise people would bring on too many toiletries. (Which of course would be an unbridled disaster.) I patiently explained that, even if this was cause for concern, I had far less than even a quart sized bag worth of toiletries…they just happened to be in a gallon sized bag. At this point, frankly, they didn’t even need to be IN a bag – security knew they were all fine items, and I could easily take them out of the bag and put them back into my kit.

Nope. I’d violated regulations. So, I had three choices – one, go back to a shop and buy a quart sized bag, then go through security again. Even though I was exceptionally early for my flight, this was completely unpalatable, at least partially because I expected a brand new reason why the evil shampoo could not board the plane.

The second choice was to check my luggage, which of course is equally distasteful since the whole purpose of carry on luggage is to avoid such nonsense.

And of course, the third option was to toss the items away.

In as patient a voice as possible, I told the supervisor – who had been called over, and who quietly gave me a bit of fear that I’d soon be arrested for violating the Patriot Act or something – that even he had to understand how silly this was, that I knew it wasn’t HIS policy, but it was just stupid, just a waste of time and money and resources.

“Oh, no, sir…you are wrong,” he told me. “They tried to blow up an American Airlines plane in Europe.”

Sure, I know this. But not with Bumble & Bumble shampoo. Seriously, how dumb is this? It’s not like I had anything dangerous, but frankly, Joe Bob Security didn’t know that – he just could see the packaging it was in. And apparently, a large amount of air around the items – because of my dangerously large Ziploc bag – was aiding and abetting the terrorists.

There’s no other way to put this – if you think that security guards at the airport are not complete and utter morons, then I’m sorry to inform you that YOU are a complete an utter moron. If it weren’t for the nice lady in Oakland who made an exception, I’d be okay with that blanket statement…but sadly, I can’t be. Because she understood how dumb the rule was, and the supervisor – the SUPERVISOR! – did not. It made perfect sense to him, because he hadn’t ever thought about it beyond the hyperbole and platitudes that he’d been given on why this was.

It’s easy – if airports really believed in this quart-size Ziploc bag rule, they’d have them available for free at the security lines. It’s no picnic to unpack and repack your bag, and toiletries in particular are things most people don’t want on display. I’d wager that an airport the size of McCarran would spend no more than a few hundred dollars a day – if that, when you think that a given bag is probably $0.10 – in this give-away. But they won’t do that, because it’s not really about safety. It’s about control. It’s about fear. I’m supposed to believe that this rule is making me safer, when all it’s doing is making me not want to fly. You know when the terrorists win? When we completely overreact and change the way we live in stupid, bureaucratic and moronic ways.

There’s simply no reason that I have to go and re-purchase some of those items, besides the fact that the Southwest security supervisor is dumber than a bag of wet hair.

Luxor...Fantasy?

So...I'm in Vegas, for a conference (shop.org if you care), and because the Mandalay Bay was full, I'm next door at The Luxor. It's a hotel I haven't been in since 1994, if memory serves, and the Egyptian pyramid scheme is pretty much as cheesy as I'd remembered, but the room is actually quite nice and cheap, and I'm barely here.

On my cab ride to the hotel from the airport, I saw a billboard advertising "Fantasy," an adult entertainment show at said Luxor hotel. (Which I believe is a euphemism for "what you do with your girlfriend or wife if she doesn't want to go to a strip club with you.") Anyhow, the ad featured three pretty hot women, a blond, brunette and redhead, and I can't say it didn't catch my eye.

Then, I got to the hotel, where I saw the same ad, except MUCH closer up...


I mean, these girls are obviously not unattractive, but...really, they don't look so great here. They ALL look like they've spent way too much time inside rooms with too much cigarette smoke, and possibly that they've each done a bit too much crank in their day.

I'm just saying, after seeing the billboard, I was mildly intrigued. After seeing it close up - and assuming that these three lovelies are the best the show can do - I'm feeling sort of sad.

On Cheating

I am not someone who hates on the Patriots...after all, from all I can tell, they are the modern version of the 49ers in the 1980s. Winning championships, excluding class - and, at the end of the day, bending or breaking the rules in order to do so. And being fined.

Cheating in sports covers a lot of ground. Clearly, when an umpire or player does it in order to win money from gambling, there's nobody in the world who could really justify that. But cheating in order to win? It's another story.

Sure, I'm a Giants fan and therefore don't care nearly as much about Barry Bonds as others do, and to go into that conversation is so boring I can't take it any more. But the most important variable or outcome of that story was all the retired players who acknowledged that they would have done the same thing if they could have during their career. It's called being incredibly competitive, something we as fans applaud until we feel that somehow, we've been lied to.

What Belichek and company did was wrong. What's also probable is that they are not the only team that does this. What's odder is that this was apparently known around the league, and that the Patriots had been warned about it in the past.

The brazen behavior is probably the only thing that sticks in my craw about this. The fact that owner Robert Kraft, who had to know about this, took the Lombardi trophy on World Tour, etc.

Dr. Z of Sports Illustrated puts it well:

The arrogance of the organization, the smugness. We are the greatest, with the greatest coach, a genius, etc. What other team ever had its owner, Bob Kraft in this case, take the Super Bowl trophy overseas in the name of world peace. What'll he take this year, the videos of the defensive signals?

• The fact that this is nothing new. Stories are now coming out of the woodwork that cheating has been a normal modus operandi with this club.

Does this taint their Super Bowls? Probably. Will folks remember it in a few years? A few. But when I boast loudly about the 49ers dominating the 1980s, even people who hate the Greatest Team in Professional Sports simply shrug and agree. Nobody cares that DeBartolo broke salary cap rules, and whatnot. At least not in the context of the team.

There's nothing worse than sanctimonious folks on their high-horses, bitching and moaning about how wrong folks are. We here in the Bay Area are regularly treated to Ralph Barbieri doing just that on KNBR with regularity. It's enough already.

That being said, Belichek - you're a cheater! And a damn good coach.

Lying With Impunity

For a long time, it's been fairly obvious that George W. Bush will say just about anything, regardless of its truth, to support his woefully misguided belief structure.

I think that it is only fair, and important, to indicate that I actually believe that HE thinks what he says is true, mostly because to think otherwise would suggest that perhaps God did not want him to be President, that he stands on the wrong side of things a lot of the time, and that he IS the worst President in the history of this wonderful country.

Last night, he did nothing to change that impression. While I can't stomach to listen to the man speak most of the time, I will read his speeches to see what he's turning out. Click below to read about his most pointless stupid lie of the night, and you will be rewarded with a nice picture of hottie Megan Fox. (It's all about incentive, right?)

The most obvious, blatant twisting of the truth was Bush thanking the "36 nations with troops on the ground in Iraq." I mean...who in the world does he think he's kidding about this?

Chris Matthews, often a blowhard worth ignoring, said the following about this claim:

The fact we have 36 countries fighting on our side in Iraq must be news to the soldiers over there. I don’t know who these people are or how many divisions they have. All we read about in the papers are American GIs getting killed by IEDs and terrible accidents and all kinds of enemy action over there. … The idea we’re one of 36 countries fighting the war I think is ludicrous and why the President would throw that out there, I think it only opens him up to ridicule.

Uh, no doubt.

Thanks for reading, here's Megan.

Stay Classy, Juice

It's not enough to be the most well-known murderer walking around the fair streets of the country, now O.J. Simpson is taking it to a HNL, a Hole, New, LEVEL!

That's right, he's breaking into casino hotel rooms. Check it.

I'm going to Vegas next week, and I swear to god, I'm brining a Maglite to crack this numbnuts over the skull if I see him.

Investigators questioned O.J. Simpson and named him a suspect Friday in a break-in at a casino hotel room involving sports memorabilia.

The break-in was reported at the Palace Station casino late Thursday night, police spokesman Jose Montoya said. He said investigators determined the break-in involved sports collectibles.

"When they talked to him, Simpson made the comment that be believed the memorabilia was his," Montoya said. "We're getting conflicting stories from the two sides."

Please, Orenthal, just go to hell (literally) and get out of our lives.

Southwest Hates Hot Chicks

Quite a lot of discussion about Southwest Airlines and how twice in the last week or so, they’ve asked a woman to cover up, as she’s been dressed too scantily for the rest of the passengers. (Or, at least, some of the flight attendants, who made those requests.)

In both cases, the women were, in fact, dressed in pretty revealing clothes, but in no way were they out of control, or unlike the kind of outfits most people see someone wearing almost every day when the weather is warm.

Check out the links below to see what Southwest is all up in a tizzy about.

Here is the first woman, Kyla Ebbert, whose skirt was short enough that apparently passengers were treated to a view of her panties. Ms. Ebbert is unsurprisingly a waitress at Hooters, but what’s shocking to me about this is not her outfit. Again, nothing I haven’t seen quite a lot.




What’s shocking to me is that she’s at least claiming to be 23. Look at that face again. Girl has led a hard life, and one suspects she’s relatively unfamiliar with SPF. This woman is already not aging well. (And yes, I’m a wad for suggesting as much.)

And then, just a few days later, a woman named Setara Qassim was asked to cover up while flying back from Las Vegas to Burbank. Ms. Qassim, who actually looks to be pretty attractive, didn’t have a sweater (it being summer and having traveled from one desert to another), couldn’t cover up.


Now, a few things here. One, I have no idea what is wrong with this outfit – it certainly shows a lot of cleavage, but the shuttle from Vegas to Burbank is – as I understand it – basically a stripper shuttle. I’m thinking Ms. Qassim was more of the straw that broke the stripper-camel’s back. (There’s a cameltoe joke there somewhere, but I don’t have the time.) It also seems fairly clear that Qassim is a publicity whore, probably a stripper herself, and loving every minute of attention.

I’m not against Southwest trying to create an environment that is hospitable to all passengers, but I have to think there were better candidates to force to cover up. Either way, what we have here is one quickly aging 23-year old Hooters waitress and a publicity seeking probable stripper, both who are getting a huge amount of press for having nice bodies that other people couldn’t stop looking at.

Just so we’re clear on this, this is business as usual in the good ol U.S. of A.

The National: Apartment Story

Regular readers of this hear blog will know I'm mildly obsssed with The National and their recent CD "The Boxer." Here is their latest vdioe of "Apartment Story" which I find to be really well-done, simple and charming.

Check it out, yo.

Why are you so angry?

That's a question that many Republican leaning morons pundits asked with a grin during the 2004 election. Howard Dean was too angry, etc. Well, after the fold, Ed Kilgore does a far better job of explaining this than I ever could.

Check it:

Think about it. Since 1998, we've witnessed the first presidential impeachment since the 1860s, the first presidential election to go into "overtime" since the 1870s; the first attack on the continental United States since 1812; the first major preemptive "war of choice" in U.S. history; and the first televised destruction of an American city. I don't mean to equate any of these non-9/11 occurances with what we witnessed that day, but it has been an extraordinary span of time.

If you want to truly understand why Democrats (especially those whose entire formative political experience has been the last decade) are so often "angry," remember the behavior of the leadership of the Republican Party in all of the non-9/11 events I've mentioned. And then remember what the president and vice president have done to destroy the national unity and worldwide symphathy this country enjoyed just after 9/11, typically viewing domestic unity and global approval with ill-disguised contempt.

That would NOT have been my choice

So, the fourth Indiana Jones film is apparently actually going to finally happen, now that Harrison Ford is 65 freakin years old. And the title?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Man, that title sucks. Click the below to see a photo of some of the cast, including a remarkably spry looking Karen Allen.

Here is the cast:


OK, so Karen Allen doesn't look like this anymore, but what is she, 55 years old or so? Still impressive.

The film will be out in May 2008.

Only In Washington

That’s a boring headline, but what can you do?

It's somewhat stunning to see how much the press continues to lap this up, but the whole Petraeus dog and pony show is getting some predictable, if pathetic results.

Interested in seeing the madness our country is dealing with? Read on.

Only in D.C. could one be totally unsurprised to see the following sequence of events:

• The White House reluctantly create a “study group” to recommend how to deal with the Iraq War.


• The President completely ignores those recommendations.


• In stark contrast to those recommendations, the President INCREASES troop levels in Iraq by approximately 30,000, stating that it would only be needed for about six months or so.


• Six months later, the chief General echoes the President’s feelings by stating that within a year or so, those 30,000 troops can actually leave Iraq, meaning. Which is actually a military necessity due to how long troops can actually be in rotation, and little if anything to do with reality on the ground.


• All of the above be interpreted as “a troop reduction” and “a new way forward.”

As quoted yesterdya by Dan Froomkin, his Washington Post counterpart Eugene Robinson summed it up nicely:

"The next six months in Iraq are crucial -- and always will be. That noise you heard yesterday on Capitol Hill was the can being kicked further down the road leading to January 2009, when George W. Bush gets to hand off his Iraq fiasco to somebody else.
"It's clear by now that playing for time is the real White House strategy for Iraq. Everything else is tactical maneuver and rhetorical legerdemain -- nothing up my sleeve -- with which the administration is buying time, roughly in six-month increments."

As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi flatly stated, "Please, it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people to call that a new direction."

Updated to reflect the fact my RSS reader was a day old. Today's Dan Froomkin, however, contains this gem:

"After meeting with Bush yesterday at the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) expressed similar dismay with the Petraeus plan. . . .

"Pelosi said she told Bush that he was essentially endorsing a 10-year 'open-ended commitment.' Reid said the president wants 'no change in mission -- this is more of the same.'"

Good stuff.

Meet The Douche Nozzle

In an expanding series, the Reign of Error remains committed to pointing out the douchenozzles you should be aware of. In my first post in this series, Roger Clemens was kindly profiled for being, well...a douche nozzle.

(It's worth acknowledging that the title of this series owes a debt to Mr. Adam Carolla, who on his radio show opined that really, the nozzle was worse than the douchebag, since the bag collected all the nasty stuff, but the nozzle did all the dirty work. Anyhow, "douchebag" is still an excellent retort, but perhaps a bit played out.)

Anyhow, a Presidential candidate wins this award this week, hands-down. Is it the flip-floppity Mitt Romney, who will say just about anything without remorse? Is it the cousin-marrying, very unserious Rudy Giuliani? Perhaps it's someone closer to my side of the aisle, the rabid and always annoying Hilary Clinton? Or...perhaps...someone else? Check it, yo.

This week's Douche Nozzle is none other than actor candidate Freddie Thompson. Mr. Thompson is in some corners considered the "true conservative" in this race, the savior to those who still believe that Bush and Cheney are doing good work. And in that regard, Thompson is playing his cards perfectly to that crowd. This week, he finally announced that he was actually running for President, which was about as shocking as finding out that Britney Spears didn't actually stay a virgin. The problem is...Freddie is simply not a serious candidate. He is just a politician.

And that's the problem with GWB, isn't it? He's never wanted to do the hard work, he "has people" for that -- dumb, incompetent people with their own agendas, as it turns out, but people nonetheless. In his announcement (which he chose to do while the other candidates were holding a debate, talking about issues), and his subsequent interviews, Thompson laid out these gems:

"If you're politically committed against this war and to do something to further harm the president, the way the Democrats seem to be in Congress, then anything [in the Petraeus Report] that's a mixed message is going to be seized upon in a negative way," Thompson told Fox News on Thursday.

"If we look weak and divided in this country, we're going to pay a heavy price for it in the future," he went on. "We're living in the era of the suitcase bomb. And they're not going to go away. They're here now, they're armed and dangerous, and they're trying to get weapons of mass destruction."

Lovely. Dissent is un-American and likely to get us blown up. There's simply nothing about that quote that isn't what a good, solid fascist would say. DOUCHENOZZLE.

And, proving he's just interested in sounding like a President rather than thinking about how to solve world problems, he later added, when asked what he would do about terrorism if he were president today, he said:

We'd better figure out a way to contain it.

Good god. Yes, this is exactly what we need - a candidate who took the longest amount of time to enter the race but hasn't apparently even thought about ways to solve what one would expect he'd think of as the #1 problem facing the country today.

He also waffled on Osama Bin Laden, alternately stating that:

Clearly he's there, clearly he's somewhere on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and clearly he's giving orders.

and, just days before...

Thompson downplayed the impending release of a new video from terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

"Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else," he said. "I think it demonstrates to people once again that we're in a global war."

Note that these two quotes were two days apart. As noted by MyDD, it's not unlike a Republican politician to use fear mongering on one hand and dismiss the same cause on the other, but it's usually best not to do those same things within 48 hours.

My problem with Freddie is that, at the end of the day, I want a serious president. We don't have one now, and the results have been a disaster. I want someone competent, committed to a vision that he (or, I suppose, she) can eloquently and accurately convey to the public here in the US and the world, and who can execute on those goals and aspirations. Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have NONE of that. Ron Paul might be the only GOP candidate who actually does.

Fred Thompson, congratulations! You are the Douche Nozzle of the Week!

As always, the entire series of Douche Nozzles can be found here:

Fun With Blogger

Thanks to a very cool hack over at Hackosphere, I've managed to add the below functionality. That is, I can post a summary and then, for the few of you who are actually interested to read more, you can click the below link. Sometimes, it will be rewarding...

See what I mean?
Meet young Ana Ivanovic, who should definitely get more folks interested in tennis again.


And gracefully showing she's white-hot in any hair color, the under appreciated Mandy Moore:

Later.

Let's Settle This

One thing I've noticed when I occasionally see what pages folks land on is that the archive for November 2006 gets a ton of hits. (Relatively speaking, of course.) And I've long wondered why in a lazy sort of way, because I never dive too deep to see what the searches were for, etc.

So, I've decided it's one of two things:

1. A story on how the more mentally unstable a person, the more likely he or she to like George W. Bush.


2. A picture of former President Martin Van Buren, as a congratulations to someone in my fantasy league winning a weekly bet.


3. A picture of Pamela Anderson, accompanying a story about her breakup from her four-month marriage to Kid Rock.






Yeah, I didn't think this was too hard of a question, but you never know.

Q: Are You Ready For Some Football? (A: Yes.)

Without further ado, it’s time for the Greebytime Fearless Football Predictions. Those who have read the prior versions know that I have about a 25% hit rate…that is, I’m wrong about three times as often as I’m right.

Good times!

Even still, it’s fun to make foolish predictions (after all, as the sadly annoying Chris Berman would say, “That’s why they play the games!), so let’s get it on.

The NFC is clearly, still, the inferior conference – a fact that both saddens me as a 49ers fan and gives me hope that it won’t be as hard for them to rise to the rightful top of that conference sooner than later. (But, not this year.) So let’s start there…

NFC East:
Once the most feared division, the Giants are now in a shambles (certainly, at the least, no threat to win the division) and the Redskins are similarly rebuilding -- Jason Campbell should be good, but nothing’s happening this season. The most talent is probably in Dallas, though two factors work heavily against them here. One, news today that Terry Glenn might miss the whole season, and two – the fact that Wade Phillips has NEVER won a playoff game. So, this division looks to be Philadelphia’s to lose, and I expect Donovan McNabb to have a great season in doing so.

NFC North:
I have to give this one back to the reigning NFC Champion, the Chicago Bears. They not only have the best defense by far, but the rest of the division is a complete mess. Minnesota might have the worst offense in the league except for Atlanta, and Detroit has tons of offensive promise but are still the Lions. A nice story would be the Packers making a run at things in what hopefully is Brett Favre’s last season, but they just don’t have the chops in doing so.

NFC South:
Yeesh. What is going on in the NFC? Seriously, once again, I stare at these teams wondering what garbage will rise to the top. Despite their performance last night, this is the Saints division to lose. With Brees, Colston, McAllister and Bush, that’s a lot of offense. But for those awarding them the entire NFC, I have to point out their slipshod defense and the fact that the wide receiver core is essentially untested. Colston was great last year but can he handle the #1 slot? And is Devery Henderson or Robert Meachem really going to be a solid #2 receiver? Hard to say. Still, the Panthers are likely the only real threat here – and I don’t much buy them either. That being said, they have the offense in Steve Smith and a solid if unspectacular running game and a solid enough defense that I’m giving them a Wild Card berth. Tampa Bay is a mess and Atlanta – despite the Sports Guy picking them as a surprise upside team – is going to be so terrible that the only consolation should be the #1 pick next season.

NFC West:
Ah, home. It’s where the heart is, in case you didn’t know. Shockingly, I think I’m not just a biased homer in stating that this might have the most talent in the NFC. Seattle should get a better year out of both Shaun Alexander and Matt Hasselback and since they’ve won this division three years running, they’re hard to count out. The Rams also look like they could be back, and my 49ers are up and coming with tons of upside on both sides of the ball. Frankly, I am not counting out the Cardinals either – with that offense they should – read, SHOULD – win plenty of games just by outscoring folks. That being said, I’m going to have to call a winner here – and sadly for my team, I think the Rams win this division and the Seahawks take the Wild Card. In any other division, the 49ers might eke out that WC berth.

Predicted NFC Champion: Otherwise known as “The Super Bowl Loser,” this is truly a hard call. But I can’t take the Saints and frankly, I feel a lot better giving it to Philadelphia. So, I’m going with the Eagles, despite the fact that if either Westbrook or McNabb gets hurt, they could truly be horrid.

AFC East:
Can we make this short and just point out that the Patriots are winning this division going away? OK, good. The Jets are not going to win the Wild Card either, so folks can relax on that.

AFC North:
The two talents here are the Bengals and the Ravens, and it says here they both make the playoffs. The Browns and Steelers are busy rebuilding and while Pittsburgh could be interesting, they’re not doing much here this year. I’ll give Cincy the division and Baltimore the Wild Card, just because everyone else picks it the other way around.

AFC South: Once again, a no-brainer division winner with the Colts running away here. Tennessee, Jacksonville and Houston all have large problems, and while I could see all three of them winning enough games to make the Colts division harder to win than one might think…none of them are going to play games in January.

AFC West:
Oakland, quite obviously, is terrible. (I do think Daunte Culpepper might be a hidden gem, but the odds are against it. Plus, the rest of the team isn’t very good.) I’m picking Oakland here as a possible team that could surprise a lot of folks – but frankly, that includes me. Kansas City is a mess because of an unsure QB situation and the fact that everyone seems to be sure that Larry Johnson is getting hurt this year. (Also, anyone who watched Hard Knocks would be hard pressed to bet money on KC this year.) I think San Diego wins the division with the best talent , and Denver is hot on their tails and takes the wild card.

AFC Champion: New England

Look, I just had to erase two paragraphs justifying why I felt okay about choosing San Diego, despite the fact that they’re coached by Norv Turner…until I realized I was just kidding myself. There’s no way Norvelle wins a ring, and clearly any AFC team should destroy the NFC. Then, I put Denver into the slot – but asking a QB essentially in his first year to lead a team that far is really asking too much. So I relented back to the obvious choice of the Patriots. It says here they stumble a bit out of the gates, with both the injury status of Randy Moss and (more relevantly) the four-game suspension of Rodney Harrison playing a role in that. But at the end of the day, they have the best talent, the best coach and it’s too hard to pick against them.

Other picks, just for fun:

Rookie of the Year: Folks seem poised to throw this award at either Calvin Johnson or Adrian Peterson. I’m just not sold on their playing time…and I’d normally want to give it to Marshawn Lynch, but I know that I’m biased in that he’s from Cal and also my 3rd running back on my fantasy team. So I’m going to dance out on a minor limb here and hand it to Brandon Jackson of the Packers.

MVP: LaDanian Tomlinson, until proven otherwise.
Biggest Bust: Larry Johnson is too easy since everyone thinks the 70009 carries he apparently had last season will take a toll on him. Instead, I’ll state that Reggie Bush just isn’t going to be the end-all, be-all that folks want him to be.

More stupid awards later, if I have the time.

Double Elimination Goodness

Big day today at the Reign of Error. Later, I hope to post the anxiously awaited Greebytime Football Predictions, 2007 Style. Sure, I’ve dawdled enough that an actual game has already occurred but let the record show that I already wasn’t as high on the Saints as some others who have/had picked them for the Super Bowl. (I also don’t think they’re as hopeless as they often looked last night.)

But for now…it’s Big Brother time. Last night’s episode was pretty excellent, as the double-elimination that the viewers (but not the houseguests) knew was coming finally occurred. Already on the block were Jameka and Jessica, and it seemed fairly obvious that the only reason Jameka was there was so that Eric was an option to put onto the block if one of the J-girls had won the POV. Which they didn’t. Eric and Jessica relied on their agreement with Dick and Daniele (who have suddenly become, simply, “The Donatos”), even though the prior week they’d both considered kicking one of them out. The fact that they’d get similarly flipped did occur to them, but not enough to start campaigning, etc.

The reality is, there wasn’t much they could have done. Jessica was toast, pretty much as soon as Eric didn’t win Head of Household. (Even if Dick or Daniele had, I think they’d have kicked one or both of them to the curb.)

So, the pretty and shockingly not so annoying Jessica was gone…and then the double elimination was ON. The HoH contest was pretty confusing – all of us watching got half of the questions wrong, and Dick – who won – admitted to flat-out guessing on the critical question. But once he did, he quickly put Jameka and Eric on the block – something fairly obvious since he would never put his daughter on the block, and had made an agreement with Zach that he had no reason to break.

Then, people got stupid. Well…let’s be clear: the true stupidity occurred when Jess and Eric refused to listen to Zach and get rid of either Daniele or Dick, and frankly that extends to the whole season. You do not let a father and daughter stay together in the house this long. Remember on All-Stars when Boogie and Will would laugh hysterically that they hadn’t been “broken up”? Well, the Donatos have played this exceptionally well – Dick never pretends to not have his daughter’s interest at the forefront, while Daniele has pretended (?) to loathe her father, leaving just enough room that their obvious alliance has gone largely unscathed.

Eric made a fairly compelling argument about how the jury wouldn’t be voting for him – and it’s true, he’s pissed off several folks on the jury while Jameka’s only “enemy” in the house is Dick, who is hardly even that. Zach, however, realized that the Donatos were going to vote Eric out – so he joined in (Dick would have broken the tie with a vote to kick Eric out.)

So now…we are down to Dick, Daniele, Jameka and Zach. Honestly, the only person I really don’t want to win is Jameka, the sanctimonious, self-righteous Evangelical Christian who talks about how honest and trustworthy she is – though she’s barely played the game at ALL. Zach seems to have coasted through the game, but he clearly is PLAYING the game. And obvious either Donato has done enough to win, even if neither of them are the most likeable folks. (For what it’s worth, I think having a pint or three with Dick would be loads of fun.)

So, we’re on to the finals, which should be a little boring (the odds of either Dick or Daniele going home are contingent on Zach both winning HoH and having the stones to do something about it, since Jameka has shown no ability to win a single thing), full of self-pity and jurors talking about how they’ve been wronged.

One glaring omission from this season is any display of the sequester house, something that has always been a fixture. I’ve never been a huge fan of it – it seems to be space filler, but the same could be said for a lot of this show. I feel like there’s a reason they haven’t shown the house, but I can’t figure out what it is. In any event, the season is wrapping up well and it’s been an enjoyable one. Next up, Survivor China!

Wonderfully scary

So, here's the thing.

When I was in high school, one of the first famous women I became smitten with was...okay,it was Brooke Shields. But shortly after that, it was Elle Macpherson. To point out how old I am, I graduated high school in 1986.

This is Elle back then in 1986 and sorry if its a bit NSFW.

That is the picture I had up in my room, and yes, my parents were very proud of me.

This is the lovely, blonder Elle today.



I mean, sure she looks different, but not really. She's 43 years old, dude. I know plenty of women (or men, for that matter) in their twenties who never looked this good in their life.

What the hell? Can't we take some of her DNA and use it to improve the species?

Can you say...awkward?

Take away the very real issue of racism from this story...and it's hard not to laugh at how awkward it must have been to write:

Comedian's Show Halted In Doral Over N-Word
Eddie Griffin Cut Off Over Profanities, Racial Slurs

MIAMI -- A performance by standup comedian Eddie Griffin was stopped after he used the N-word repeatedly, a magazine's spokesman said Wednesday.

Griffin was performing at Black Enterprise magazine's Golf and Tennis Challenge in Doral on Friday when he was cut off after using profanities and the N-word, said Andrew Wadium, a spokesman for the publication

"We believe that ending the performance was the appropriate action," Wadium said.

About 1,000 people registered for the performance at the 14th annual event.

Griffin's publicist Jeff Abraham didn't immediately return an e-mail and a call seeking comment.

Use of the N-word has been a topic of discussion in the black community. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held a mock funeral for the word at its July convention in Detroit.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who attended the meeting in Miami but not the performance, said the crowd gave an ovation to Earl Graves, the magazine's publisher, when he came on stage after Griffin was pulled, according to a statement on the Web site of Sharpton's National Action Network.

The statement said Sharpton "expressed gratitude that the nation's pre-eminent magazine for African-Americans stands behind the efforts of National Action Network in getting rid of the 'N' word."

Griffin has appeared in movies such as "Undercover Brother" and "Date Movie" and the television show "Malcolm & Eddie."

Somewhere, there is someone reading this wondering what word, exactly, they are talking about. Seriously - I HATE the word being referenced in this article, to the point that I won't reprint it here, even though that's exactly what I'm mocking. But isn't this just a little silly?

(Why does Eddie Griffin keep saying Nebraksa? Why does he keep saying Napkin?)

Sigh

I've always disliked Whoopi Goldberg more than was probably reasonable. Like many of the other Comic Relief folks (Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, etc.), she always seems to be her biggest fan and generally...not very funny.

THIS doesn't help.

Whoopi Goldberg used her first day on the daytime chat show Tuesday to defend football star Michael Vick in his dogfighting case.

Goldberg said that "from where he comes from" in the South, dogfighting isn't that unusual.

"It's like cockfighting in Puerto Rico," she said. "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country."

Uh...yes, and in other parts of the world, women are second-class citizens and people of certain races are treated horribly. But we don't excuse that here, we deplore it. It's hard to understand why she'd say this or want to make an excuse for him. Whatever the reason, she's a dumb, stupid twit.