Monday, September 15, 2008

Why O.J.'s trial is irrelevant, wondering why Floyd Landis is still around and lampooning another case of cops abusing their power

- Hey Floyd Landis, no one missed you. Don’t mistake the interest and enthusiasm over Lance Armstrong’s impending comeback as an indication that people want your lying, cheating, steroid-ing ass back in the cycling game. Landis, who won the 2006 Tour de France only to have his title stripped for a positive doping test, then spend nearly two years appealing to every governing body that would hear his case and losing at every turn, is looking to return to a team run by Momentum Sports Group. “We are in negotiations with Floyd Landis to ride for the team in 2009, but we do not as of yet have a signed contract,” said team director Mike Tamayo at the Tour of Missouri. Hmm, didn’t know there were any teams out there looking for a cheating, past-his-prime, confirmed steroid user with no credibility or honor. The suspension from cycling that Landis received for his ‘roiding ends Jan. 30, 2009, and in the down time he has served as an adviser for Rock Racing. To the cynic, it might seem that Landis is trying to gravy train off of/upstage Lance Armstrong’s recent announcement that he plans to race in the 2009 Tour de France. The key difference here is that Armstrong has never tested positive for any performance enhancing drugs and he’s won seven Tour de France titles, while Landis won one and did so with the help of ‘roids. People like Lance Armstrong and he’s dedicated his life to helping fight cancer; people don’t like Landis because he continues to lie and is only interested in fighting for his own self-interests. Come back, don’t come back, you don’t matter and you’re never going to be relevant in cycling again, other than as a reference to former champions who had their title stripped, Floyd…..

- Yet again I find myself incredibly disappointed that generating mindless, crappy, garbage pop music that has the most inane, moronic lyrics imaginable is not a chargeable criminal offense. Singer - well, that’s a very loose, generous use of the term singer, but let’s go with it for the purposes of this story - Kelis has been acquitted of all charges in an incident in Miami where she was accused of disrupting a police operation by bum-rushing officers and screaming racial profanities at them as she ran. According to police reports, officers were talking to a group of men in March 2007 in the South Beach nightclub district when they claim that Kelis Rogers-Jones rushed toward them and said one of the men was her husband, Nas. In the aftermath of the incident, she was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence. However, a jury acquitted her of the charges Thursday, clearly having never been subjected to her one “hit” song “Milkshake.” Heck, if I’m on a jury in a trial involving Kelis, it doesn’t matter what the evidence is and whether or not I believe she is guilty of the crime she’s charged with. I’ve had to hear her excrucitatingly bad, stinking turd of a song on the radio in a restaurant, dentist’s or doctor’s officer before and for that alone, I’m bringing the judicial hammer down on her. Charged with resisting arrest? Guilty, life sentence! Disorderly conduct charges? Life without parole! Oh, if only making one of the five worst songs of all-time was a chargeable offense….. married rapper Nas in 2005.

- A big national holiday is coming up, one we can all be very excited about. I think you know the day I’m referring to - yes, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, September 19. ITLPD is the brainchild of two men John Baur and Mark Summers, and it has its genesis on the fateful day of June 6, 1995. Inspiration struck when the two men playing racquetball, engaging in the usual smack talk that goes on between two dudes playing sports. For reasons the two of them say they don't quite understand, they started talking junk in pirate slang. One of the two let loose with the first "Arrr!" after a missed shot and started a revolution. At the end of their game, the fun of talking like pirates for an hour sparked the concept that led to Talk Like A Pirate Day. For the first seven years, it was only Baur and Summers we celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day pretty much on our own, with our friend Brian Rhodes actually reminding us that the event was coming
The pirate-talking revolution got a jolt one day in early 2002 when Baur happened upon the email of renowned national humor columnist Dave Barry's e-mail address. Baur and Summers offered Barry the chance to be official national spokesman for the event. Barry accepted and wrote a column about the idea. From there, ITLPD has taken off to the point where it is clearly one of our nation’s more poignant, meaningful holidays. Well, it sure as heck is better than Arbor Day, that’s for sure. Anyhow, I am encouraging everyone reading this to take part in International Talk Like a Pirate Day this Friday and to encourage everyone you know to do the same. Sure, you’ll get some funny looks, matey, but make those wenches walk the plank…..ARRRRR!

- Stunner! The State Bureau of Investigation in North Carolina is looking into allegations that some police used excessive force on fans who stormed the field after East Carolina's dramatic win last weekend against West Virginia. According to reports, SBI will consider video that shows fans being knocked down and punched by officers as fans rushed the field to celebrate the Pirates’ amazing 24-3 upset win over the then-No. 8 Mountaineers. Predictably, the stiff, stick-up-their-asses a-holes in the Conference USA office (the conference East Carolina plays in) is fining ECU $10,000 for allowing fans charged the field - as if they could have (or should have) stopped them. The conference said Friday the school violated a policy that prohibits public access to competition areas until the visiting team and officials are in the locker rooms - sure, C-USA suits, sure. One of your schools scores a ginormous win over a top-10 team and all you can do is rush to fine them and threaten their right to host future conference events? Pull head out of arse and see if you can’t enjoy this win, idiots. And no, I didn’t forget about you, power-abusing cops. What, couldn’t you get on the NYPD and assault protestors in Times Square for videos to be posted on YouTube? Good job, jerks, way to use excessive force for no good reason. All around, a solidly bad effort by everyone except the East Carolina football team and the fans who did the right thing, storming the field after a huge win….

- Let the pointless exercise in judicial futility begin. We finally have a jury for the O.J. Simpson kidnapping and robbery trial and in a fun twist, there are no black jurors. I say fun because they Juice is going to get off no matter who the jury is, but by having no black jurors, it appears to add a layer of difficulty and complexity to the trial and present a bigger challenge for the Juice and his attorneys - to someone who doesn’t know better, that is. To that casual, uninformed onlooker, the jury of nine women and three men -- none of them black -- being seated Thursday for the Juice’s trial on kidnapping and armed robbery charges is bad news for a black dude. Now O.J.’s lawyers have put on a solid front of being pissed about the prosecution allegedly excluding black jurors intentionally, but deep down, they have to know it just doesn’t matter. Their defendant is in some sort of twisted, sinister deal with the devil and he’s Teflon in this world no matter what he does. So as opening arguments are scheduled to begin today in the case against Simpson and co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, just know the trial is a mere formality. Whether or not the Juice and five other men stormed into a Las Vegas hotel room on September 13, 2007 to recover sports memorabilia that Simpson said belonged to him is irrelevant. So is the fact that four of five Simpson's original co-defendants have struck deals with the prosecution to testify against Simpson. Those things don’t matter either, just so you know. There’s no need to waste your time on following the trial, just go ahead and ready yourself for the sight of O.J. walking out of the courtroom a free man when it’s over……

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