The Vig

First, that crap doesn’t belong in the pre-season let alone the league. Downie was looking to make a name for himself and he was successful.Is 20 games enough? Ummmm….no. He should be suspended at all levels for the season. Send him to Europe. See how it flies there.

Dylan has a good preview this morning. Is it the lack of offense or lack of defense which is killing the Hawks to this point?  The answer, as always, is yes.

The Hawks have traded for a 20, Kevin Undershute, to fill the open overage spot.  It will be interesting to see how he performs in his overage year.  He wore an A for his hometown Tigers.  Teegan Moore, you’ll recall, was captain of the Wheat Kings prior to being shipped to Portland last season.  He started strong but disappeared after about three weeks, figuring correctly that college couldn’t start soon enough.  There is some huge opportunity on this team right now.  Here’s hoping Undershute leads the way.

I’m going to back very slowly away from the keyboard now.
HT: Will Leitch

I didn’t even get past the headline in Canzano’s blog entry this morning before I wanted to gag.  Two weeks ago, he was supposed to meet the Bird Man.  Now he’s teaching life-lessons to first graders.  Or are they teaching them to me?  I’m so confused.

Hey JC!  Greg Oden is a pro basketball player, not Mother Teresa!  Would someone at KXL or The O please sit Canzano down and ask him to talk sports again?  I realize it’s his life’s ambition to win a Pulitzer.  Sandy Rowe probably even put a Pulitzer bounty somewhere in the fine print of his contract.  But enough!  If Oprahfying the sports page is what it takes to gain some sort of national acclaim, then please count me out.

Whisenhunt has decided to stick with the boy wonder for now.  I wonder if the roles were reversed last week and it was Leinart who came in and nearly won the game for the Cards whether the decision would be the same.  I think not.

The thing is the NFL is a win now league.  And in Phoenix I think that’s especially true.  They’ve still got the new stadium.  They’re hosting the Super Bowl in February.  They have one of the top-five running backs in the league running behind a stud o-line.  And they’ve got two premier receivers.  Leinart had the ball for 2-1/2 games and were it not for a Seahawks fumble, he would have guided the team to an 0-3 start.  0-3!

The only silver lining here is Whisenhunt has shown a willingness to yank the kid and put in the former MVP.  I’m not saying this is Warner v. 2000, but with some protection (which he didn’t have in New York) he can be effective.  I’m guessing if they’re unable to score in the first half, we’ll see Warner in the second.  If the switch is made, it could be a while before we see Leinart on the field again.

Congratulations to J and K Noodle on their pending addition.  Just when you’ve almost given up hope on the planet, two cool kids decide to invite a third to the party.  Oh man, how I wish I could be that kid.  How much fun would it be to grow up Noodle?

US Women’s goaltender Hope Solo was benched in favor of Brianna Scurry prior to this morning’s World Cup match with Brazil. The Brazillians ran roughshod over Team USA, winning 4-0. That is a stomping.

Solo wasn’t happy with coach Greg Ryan’s decision and she’s let the world know.

I’m with you, Hope. I do wonder though if maybe something happened behind the scenes which caused the benching. Either way, I don’t think a coach can put his team in this sort of position this late into a tournament. If this country cared at all about soccer, men’s or women’s, this would be a huge scandal. It doesn’t. So this will be over in a few days.Team USA is scheduled to play a friendly against Mexico at PGE Park on October 17th. It will be interesting to see if Solo is still on the team.

TeacherRefPoet put into words what I’ve been feeling for a while.

This issue has become like the abortion issue to me, because I’m finding I hate everyone on both sides of it. But, after ‘04, I feel that my party is not only guilty of all of the sins of the Bushies, but also of hypocrisy for letting themselves sink to their level.

The Democratic Party has become the thing it hates, and that’s a political tragedy of the highest order.

Watching Democrats flail around for the last several years has been disheartening.  As I’ve said here before, it’s going to take another election to get the message through to the Kennedys and Bidens and Dodds of the world.  Their day is long over.  It’s time they step aside and let the next generation take over.

I’m holding off on placing my pick for this week’s pool until I hear for sure who’s starting for my Cardinals this week.

I never thought I’d say this…

Dear God, let it be Warner.

I was looking forward to reading Willamette Week’s write-up of Storm Large. I developed my Storm crush last year while she was on that RockStar show. Rick Emerson and I even started a blog about the whole thing. It was called Dave Navarro Is A Gigantic Douche and for one brief moment, it was genius. The moment has passed. I doubt Storm ever saw it. She did see me once though and she said high. Being the bashful Bean I am, I choked out a “hi” and scurried to the other side of the room.

Back to the task at hand…

I didn’t even make it through the second paragraph. Why? Because I discovered Beth Ditto lives in Portland. Why did no one ever tell me this?

Who’s Beth Ditto you ask? THIS is Beth Ditto…

Questions?

HT:  Indexed

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or were born prior to 1960, you’re no doubt aware Halo 3 came out Tuesday.  If your IT department has been missing, now you know why.  The headline on this article does make me wonder about how out of touch the press truly is.