Don't be late for the parole hearing - stupid people and guns.

A man in Toronto yesterday carjacked an SUV to drive to a parole hearing. Bright dude. He slashed a woman with some scissors, stole her SUV and then lost control on the highway while weaving in and out of traffic. After rolling several times he tried to carjack several other vehicles that stopped to help at the accident. How does a guy figure he can steal a vehicle after slashing the owner and drive three hours down the highway to his parole officers office without getting caught? Perhaps she knows the license plate? Perhaps he'll get pulled over weaving in and out of traffic? In a stolen SUV? The stupidity really boggles the mind.

On the same day that we hear about a man in Vermont who kills his ex-girlfriend and her mother before killing himself, can we see a bright side here? He used scissors instead of a gun. Stupid people with scissors are less likely to kill people than stupid people with handguns.

Cycling and Doping (or is it dopes) - Requiem for Floyd Landis

Floyd, Floyd Floyd - we almost trusted you. You were different than all those HGH injecting, transfusion getting, drug popping cyclists. You were the nice little mennonite boy made good. Hard work and an honest life. You were the paragon of all that is good in the American dream. Now you're just Carl Lewis (insert any track athlete randomly here) with training wheels.

Now you're just another excuse making guy. I like the beer and liquor defence. It seems that drunks get horny so there must be an impact on testosterone. You should try Justin Gatlin's rogue masseur defence now that they have found that the testosterone was synethetic. Maybe the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle was on the juice?

Maybe we should have two divisions in cycling - stock and modified??

Hightened Security?????

The airports in the UK have been on hightened alert since the arrest of two dozen suspects in the liquid bombing case. I flew in Canada last week and there were no liquids and the standard scan of bags and check of my laptop (although they were most interested in the star wars fighter in my son's backpack). We all feel really good about flying because of the outstanding security staff. In reality, however, this low paying jobs are not attracting rocket scientists and we might be getting fooled by nice uniforms. Case in point.

A 12 year old boy in England ran away from a foster home and managed to get through security and onto a plane without a ticket, boarding pass or passport. This happened after the liquid bombing threat when security was supposed to be extra strict. They apparently caught him when someone else showed up and wanted into the seat that he was sitting in on the plane.

Keystone cops? Makes you wonder how smart the bad guys are.

An anti-Rant - A Rave

I saw Lyle Lovett last night in Toronto. He played with his large band and it was amazing. The large band had musicians who could take your breath away and the performance was incredibly tight. He played for more than 2.5 hours straight. A++++++ rating.

There is still nothing like the Economist for a broad range of news and exceptional writing. This quote from this week's issue. The editorial was on the differences between men and women. It started with the context of the controversy around former Harvard President Larry Summers assertion that men are generally better at math than women. "But the long tail of mathematical genius does tend to be male, along with higher rates of idiocy and masturbation." Brilliant tongue in cheek writing and a sharp jab at political correctness. They go on to say:

"These differences may or may not be innate, but the arguement anyway misses the point. The interesting question is not whether men are more likely to be weirdly good at maths than women are, but whether the things that men are good at are more or less useful than the things that women are good at. The answer, in the rich world at least, is no."

Anyone who wants to know what's going on in the world all over should read the Economist.

Get these guys some PR

Sports Illustrated has a Pop Culture Grid every week in which they ask a group of professional athletes a number of questions to see how plugged in they are. It is clearly filler fluff but sometimes amusing. I usually read it at some point.

I've noticed a disturbing trend about baseball players though. A common question is what book they want to read or alternately, a recent book they enjoyed. THE MOST COMMON RESPONSE???:??? "I don't read books." I don't think I've seen any other athlete respond like that. And to be fair not all of the ball players do. BUT - please at least pretend to read. It makes us wonder about illiterate millionaires who do little but play playstation, inject performance enhancing drugs and diddle groupies (unless the aforementioned drugs have caused "shrinkage.)" That may be reality but its not a picture I expect you want us to have. Even Dr Suess's Go Dog Go would be a better response.

And its not limited to reading. Asked this weekwhich musician he'd like to be, Jason Marquis responded Billy Joel. Billy f.......n Joel?!?!! Maybe Barry Bonds wants to be Barry Manilow. Mark McGuire - Vanilla Ice??? C'mon please. Ian Kinsler, the Texas rookie, responded Justin Timberlake. Justin f.....n Timberlake?!?>! Ian - buddy - he's not a musician. He is one step up from Milli Vanilli in the musical food chain.

The Commissioners office should intervene and either screen responses or appoint responders. This has got to stop!

The Passion Or Ego of Mel

I'm not sure whether celebrities really believe they are above the law or that they are just too drunk/stoned/stupid to know better. It probably depends on the specific case.

Mel gets pissed - he clearly has a problem but one can't help but wonder if the rehab thing is damage control - and riffs on a deputy about the evils of Jews. I don't happen to be a proponent of all the global jewish conspiracy bunk, but even a proponent would have to struggle to make the connection to getting pulled over for eratic driving on the Malibu freeway. You're pissed. Your famous and your driving. Shut up and take your lumps. Don't be an idiot.