The WNBA: still a joke, flag burning at Yale and a Black Eyed Peas parody (and the Peas are a joke too)

- The commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, steadfastly refuses to admit that the NBA-sustained charity project known as the WNBA is a failure. Even though attendance is pathetic and TV ratings are microscopic, Stern vehemently defends the women’s league against detractors. Well, here’s another piece of ammo for myself and all the other WNBA haters: when the eighth overall draft pick in your league is from a community college, your league is a joke. That’s right, the WNBA held its draft (you missed it, I’m sure) on a Wednesday afternoon and the league’s Houston franchise drafted the illustrious, legendary Ashley Shields, a guard from the powerhouse program at Southwest Tennessee Community College. Community college is the dumping grounds for the intellectual refuse churned out by our nation’s lesser public high schools, it’s not the place to draft pro athletes. Nobody sits down with their parents and agrees that the best way to boost their athletic career and chances to make the pros is to enroll at the local CC. If the eighth best player you can find for your league has made her rep on dominating 5’2 power forwards in a gym that her community college shares with the local middle school, then your league officially sucks. Thanks for nothing, WNBA, and I continue looking forward to the day when Stern finally concedes this battle and folds your league.

- A small-scale protest on the campus of Yale University has once again thrust the topic of flag burning into the public consciousness. Three Yale students were arrested and charged with arson, reckless endangerment and other crimes after attaching an American flag to a metal pole on the side of their house and setting the flag on fire. Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikoloas Angelopoulos, 19 and Farhad Anklesaria, 19, are the dissidents in question. Before you go denouncing it as an act of disrespect and people of Middle Eastern descent being unpatriotic, consider that Akbar actually spent time serving as a translator for American troops in Afghanistan. Hard-core patriots will always fly into a blind rage whenever anyone anywhere burns an American flag, while more liberal thinkers will reason that it’s only a piece of cloth and burning it isn't grave offense. Flag burning doesn’t happen as much now as it did in the ‘70s, but given the attention it receives, I’m surprised more activists don’t turn to the tactic. Yes, during war time there’s an implied need to band together as Americans because our country is a target for a lot of haters, but even so, we have enough free thinkers amongst us that flag burning could still be a common occurrence. Color me liberal, but I’m going to go all bleeding heart on this one and side with those who realize that a flag is just a piece of cloth and that burning it isn't a travesty. Our forefathers didn’t fight and die for a piece of cloth; they gave their lives for something bigger and less tangible, the notion of freedom and for the sake of America. You could pick anything to represent America, be it a flag, a flower, a song - the fact that some assign such meaning to a flag doesn’t make it a holy, sacred item. So all of those who will undoubtedly line up to verbally flog these three young guys can spout all of the indignant, venomous vitriol they want, because the bottom line is that this is a lot less of a travesty than most people like to paint it as.

- Not even a week ago, I took a shot at Canadian music for holding an awards show at which Nelly Furtado was the top honoree, winning five awards. Well, if you’re going to rip the bad, you also need to praise the good, so here goes. If you haven't already seen it, you need to check out this YouTube clip of Alanis Morissette's parody of the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps," a parody that crushes Fergie and everything she stands for. Administering a scathing verbal beatdown on Fergie and her merry band of hacks known as the Black Eyed Peas is such a logical move and one with no shortage of ammunition, but for some reason Morissette is the first one to take on the task. Props to Alanis, an artist who I normally wouldn’t listen to and whose awkward, distinctive voice can be difficult to listen to much of the time. That being said, she can have a free pass from here on out, no matter what her future albums sound like, because she has so brilliantly decimated the most musically talentless, overhyped, underwhelming musical act of our time. Well done Alanis, now get to work on that parody of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt.

- The Justice Department should really just dig up the end zone at Giants Stadium so we can end this charade. Word has come out that last summer, the government tore up a barn and property in Milford Twp., Mich. in the search for the remains of deceased mobster Jimmy Hoffa. They found nothing more than a water line, a beer can and plenty of trash, and after destroying the barn at Hidden Dreams Farm, they paid $225,000 to rebuild the barn they laid to waste. Why is our Justice Department wasting nearly a quarter of a million dollars to find the decomposing remains of a mobster from the 1970’s? I have no freaking clue, but wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on a pointless endeavor should surprise exactly no one. Our government may have a lot of faults and shortcomings, but never let it be said that they don’t know how to waste money.

- John Peragallo should be very thankful that no one in America gives a crap about hockey. Peragallo, 64, had drunken driving charges against him dismissed after a Morristown, N.J. judge ruled that a Zamboni is not a motor vehicle and thus a person driving it, no matter how intoxicated he or she is, cannot be hit with a DUI. Peragallo was driving the Zamboni at the Mennen Sports Arena in Morristown when a fellow employee saw him driving at high speeds and in an erratic manner, very nearly crashing into the boards on the perimeter of the ice. The judge overturned Peragallo’s conviction and reinstated his license as a result of the ruling, even though at the time of the incident the accused’s blood-alcohol content was 0.12, well above the legal limit. But hey, it is just a hockey arena, so what’s the big deal? Now if this were a drunk dude driving the lawn mower or infield maintenance cart at a Major League stadium, perhaps a different story. The lesson, as always: America could not care less about hockey and the places where hockey is played.

- Reason No. 544,981 to be glad that you don’t live in Thailand: the government of the island nation in the Pacific has blocked access to YouTube within its borders after the site refused to take down a short video clip that the Thai government views as insulting to the country’s ruler, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Think if the American government got pissed and demanded that YouTube take down every clip that’s insulting to our leader…..would there be any clips left on YouTube? But back to the hubbub in Thailand…..the clip in question is 44 seconds long and shows graffiti-like graphics superimposed over a slideshow of photographs of Adulyadej. I haven't seen the clip yet, but my most sincere hope is that those “graffiti-like graphics” include a drawn-on mustache and one of those awkward, badly drawn linear smiles that every kid draws as the mouth when they’re sketching stick figures. From this mess, there is a silver lining for the Thai government: they can craft a new slogan sure to boost tourism in their country. “Come visit Thailand, a place with no sense of humor and no access to YouTube.” Now that’s a winning slogan if I’ve ever heard one!