"Sharpton seeks DNA testing to determine Thurmond shared ancestry"
From this article
"The Rev. Al Sharpton wants a DNA test to determine whether he is related to former segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond through his great-grandfather, a slave owned by an ancestor of the late senator."
Wow!
I used to keep track of the NBA. Used to be a pretty big fan actually. That was several years ago, before it started going downhill. Things definitely aren't getting any better. From a sport's commentator's account of the All-Star game that was held in Las Vegas. (link)
"LAS VEGAS -- NBA All-Star Weekend in Vegas was an unmitigated failure, and any thoughts of taking the extravaganza to New Orleans in 2008 are total lunacy.
An event planned to showcase what is right about professional basketball has been turned into a 72-hour display of why commissioner David Stern can't sleep at night and spends his days thinking of rules to mask what the NBA has come to represent.
Good luck fixing All-Star Weekend.
The game is a sloppy, boring, half-hearted mess. The dunk contest is contrived and pointless. The celebrity contest is unintended comedy. And, worst of all, All-Star Weekend revelers have transformed the league's midseason exhibition into the new millennium Freaknik, an out-of-control street party that features gunplay, violence, non-stop weed smoke and general mayhem.
Word of all the criminal activity that transpired during All-Star Weekend has been slowly leaking out on Las Vegas radio shows and TV newscasts and on Internet blogs the past 24 hours.
"It was filled with an element of violence," Teresa Frey, general manager for Coco's restaurant, told klastv.com. "They don't want to pay their bills. They don't want to respect us or each other."
Things got so bad that she closed the 24-hour restaurant from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
"I have been spit on. I have had food thrown at me," she said. "I have lost two servers out of fear. I have locked my door out of the fear of violence."
All weekend, people, especially cab drivers, gossiped about brawls and shootings. You didn't know what to believe because the local newspaper was filled with stories about what a raging success All-Star Weekend was. The city is desperately trying to attract an NBA franchise, and, I guess, there was no reason to let a few bloody bodies get in the way of a cozy relationship with Stern.Plus, the NBA's business partner ESPN didn't have time to dirty its hands and report on the carnage. I'm sure ESPN's reporters were embedded in the rear ends of the troops -- Shaq, Kobe, King James, D-Wade, AI and Melo.
But there were multiple brawls, at least two shootings, more than 350 arrests and a lot of terror in Vegas over the weekend.
And the police might want to talk to NFL player Pacman Jones about a nasty shooting spree at a Vegas strip club. Jones and the rapper Nelly were allegedly at Minxx Gentlemen's Club Monday morning shortly before (or during) the shooting.
Two victims, male employees of the club, were listed in critical condition at the hospital; a third, a female patron, sustained non-life threatening injuries after being grazed by a bullet.
There were so many fights and so many gangbangers and one parking-lot shootout at the MGM Grand that people literally fled the hotel in fear for their safety. I talked with a woman who moved from the MGM to the Luxor because "I couldn't take it. I'll never come back to another All-Star Game."
There are reports of a brawl between rappers and police at the Wynn Hotel.
Vegas police were simply overwhelmed along The Strip. They were there solely for decoration and to discourage major crimes. Beyond that, they minded their own business.
I was there. Walking The Strip this weekend must be what it feels like to walk the yard at a maximum security prison. You couldn't relax. You avoided eye contact. The heavy police presence only reminded you of the danger.
Without a full-scale military occupation, New Orleans will not survive All-Star Weekend 2008.
David Stern seriously needs to consider moving the event out of the country for the next couple of years in hopes that young, hip-hop hoodlums would find another event to terrorize. Taking the game to Canada won't do it. The game needs to be moved overseas, someplace where the Bloods and Crips and hookers and hoes can't get to it without a passport and plane ticket.I'm serious. Stern has spent the past three years trying to move his league and players past the thug image Ron Artest's fan brawl stamped on the NBA.
After this weekend, I'm convinced he's losing the battle. All-Star Weekend Vegas screamed that the NBA is aligned too closely with thugs. Stern is going to have to take drastic measures to break that perception/reality. All-Star Weekend can no longer remain the Woodstock for parolees, wannabe rap artists and baby's mamas on tax-refund vacations.
This was not a byproduct of the game being held in Vegas. All-Star Weekend has been on this path for the past five or six years. Every year the event becomes more and more a destination for troublemakers.
If something isn't done, next year's All-Star Weekend will surpass the deceased Freaknik, a weekend-long party in Atlanta, in terms of lawlessness. Wide-spread looting and a rape killed the Freaknik in 1999.
The NBA's image cannot survive bedlam in the French Quarter. And I'm not sure it can survive the embarrassment of a New Orleans standoff between its fans and the National Guard, either.
If Stern wants to continue to strengthen the international appeal of his game, he has the perfect excuse to move the All-Star Game to Germany, China, England or anywhere Suge Knight's posse can't find it."
...Mexico is a great place to run to.
Sure, you may still get caught, but at least you can get back at the folks that catch you.
News this week is that "Dog the Bounty Hunter" is likely going to be extradited to Mexico for catching a convicted rapist. The reason being that bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico.
I don't necessarily have a problem with bounty hunting being illegal for criminals in Mexico. But I do have a problem with someone running to Mexico, being caught, and then the person(s) that catch them being arrested. This is clearly a case where the United States government should have used some diplomacy to work things out. That's just plain old COMMON SENSE!!! If you are after a criminal, enlist whatever help you can get and then ensure that help does not get arrested!!
So, Osama and any other criminal knows what to do now. Run to Mexico. At least they can guarantee that would-be hunters will think twice before trying to catch them. Ridiculous.
(side note - If you don't watch Dog's show on A&E, you should. Great show.)
Wow, some amazing drama on NASCAR this week.
Big news all week has been the cheating that has been going on and all the fines. The biggest story being Michael Waltrip's team putting some unidentified fluid in with his gas and being fined a ton of money and docked 100 points.
He's the owner of his team and two other teams. And his shop is a Toyota shop, who is entering into its first year of NASCAR Nextel Cup competition. As has been all over the press, Toyota isn't exactly happy about one of their big teams going through this fiasco.
So NASCAR confiscated his car and he had to use a teammate's backup car. A car that has not been on the track at all for practice. And he has to finish well or he will miss the race on Sunday. I think it's pretty safe to say that very very few people actually thought he had a legitimate chance to make it past all of these odds.
But you know what? He just did it!! He was one of only two drivers (out of about ten) who were able to race their way in. Absolutely amazing!
From The Drudge Report
The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”
The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later.DC WEATHER REPORT:
Wednesday: Freezing rain in the morning. Total ice accumulation between one half to three quarters of an inch. Brisk with highs in the mid 30s. North winds 10 to 15 mph...increasing to northwest 20 to 25 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation near 100 percent.
Posts
All Comments
