The bitterness of losing, Panama joins a great club and you chance to look like a "Mad Man"

- Bitter about losing much, Robert Allenby? Allenby, an Australian golfer and member of the International team in last week’s Presidents Cup in San Francisco, competed in several four-man matches during the event, but it’s his singles match against U.S. golfer Anthony Kim that is clearly causing problems for Allenby. He was hammered by Kim 5 and 3, which basically means that over the match’s first 15 holes, Kim won five more than Allenby. In match play events, the winner is determined by which player wins more holes. Whoever has the best score on a hole wins it and if both golfers post the same score on a hole, it is halved. The match ends when one golfer has an advantage in holes won that his or her opponent cannot overcome even by winning every remaining hole. A 5 to 3 win is a major beatdown in match play, so it’s safe to say that Kim basically curb-stomped Allenby. So how does Allenby handle a harsh loss when his team also lost the event 19½-14½ as the U.S. retained the Presidents Cup? By alleging that his opponent was out until 4 a.m. the morning before the match getting hammered, that’s how. After the match, Allenby said he'd heard Kim arrived back at the hotel "sideways." "Maybe we should all take the theory of Anthony Kim," Allenby said. "Get home at 4 o'clock [in the morning] and then go shoot 6 under." Someone sounds a little bitter about getting beat if you ask me. For some odd reason, Kim and U.S. team captain Fred Couples weren’t down with Allenby alleging that one of their team’s best players was bar hopping the night before a big match rather than laying low and getting ready to compete. Couples said in an interview on Wednesday that Kim was "crushed" by comments from Allenby. "I promise you, there's no way you can go out and beat a guy like Robert Allenby 5 and 3 if you're out until 4 in the morning. There's just no way," Fred Couples declared. "It kind of crushed him. It was the best week that he ever had and those comments kind of crushed him." Asked to comment on the allegations, Kim was direct and firm. "Absolutely false," he said. "I was at the hotel, had dinner with the team, met my buddies for about 20 minutes, then went straight to my room. I was in tip-top shape. If Robert had that to say, he maybe needs to practice a little more." On Wednesday, after the story had broken and every had time to simmer down and consult with their respective PR reps, cooler heads prevailed. Both players released statements through the PGA Tour with Allenby apologizing while going with the old standby of every public figure who says something stupid and wants to double back, that his comments “were taken out of context.” Kim did the professional thing and accepted the apology before stating that "we are both moving on." As for Kim, he does have a valid reputation as a guy who likes to party and go out, although he has made a concerted effort to scale back his partying the past couple of years and focus on his game. For this instance, his captain has his back and Couples maintains that Kim spent most of his time "working out" and spending time with a college roommate. There is a chance that Allenby and Kim could face each other again at the Volvo World Match Play Championship at the end of the month, where I’m sure there will be a staged, forced face-to-face meeting in which both men smile, shake hands and say that this whole incident is behind them. Just don’t expect any of us to believe that, fellas…………

- Welcome to the club, Panama! It was getting lonely there for a while for the United States in terms of nations in the Western Hemisphere who torture people and blatantly violate the rights of international prisoners, so it’s good of you to join in. Sure, you don’t have super-secret CIA prisons on foreign soil where your (alleged) torture sessions take place, but you’re a beginner at this. Let’s look at what happened and see if I can't give you a few pointers to help you step your torture game up, k? All right, so I see here that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has been called in to investigate whether you tortured an Ecuadorian citizen who was being held as an illegal immigrant. The immigrant, some dude named Jesus Tranquilino Velez Loor, was arrested November 11, 2002, and deported to Ecuador on September 10, 2003. During his 10 months of imprisonment, he was supposedly held without receiving procedural guarantees, the right to be heard and the right to present a defense. "The case also involves the lack of investigation of complaints of torture presented by Mr. Velez Loor before the Panamanian authorities, as well as the inhumane conditions of detention under which he was held in several Panamanian penitentiaries," the human rights commission said in a release Tuesday. This court is actually part of the 35-nation Organization of American States, the group that has garnered so much attention of late because of its expulsion of Honduras because of its ouster of President Manuel Zelaya in a military coup. The court is taking up the case because it feels Panama did not adopt sufficient measures to address issues raised in a previous commission report. Velez Loor "was sentenced to a prison term for having repeatedly entered Panama illegally. ... Panamanian law provides that foreign nationals, who repeatedly enter Panama, without the necessary papers, will be imprisoned for two years and then deported," Panama said in a 2006 report. For Velez Loor’s part, he has admitted he entered Panama without proper papers or visas. He then a e-mailed complaint to the commission on February 10, 2004, "in which he claims to have undergone torture, forced isolation, and mistreatment at the hands of Panamanian police officers at two Panamanian detention centers without being given the opportunity to defend himself, without the benefit of any court of law, without being allowed to make a telephone call and while being deprived of all medical care." Panama has been denying those claims since 2006, but clearly the OAS isn't buying what they’re selling. Now, the OAS human rights commission, which consists of seven members who act in a personal capacity without representing any country, will be coming to town to see if you really do have what it takes to stand beside your American brethren in the illustrious world of foreign inmate torture…….

- The hit AMC series Mad Men continues to enjoy immense success despite the fact that I have never watched it or even had an interest in watching it, which astonishes me. If I don’t like a show or have an interest in it, you should go ahead and assume that it sucks as a general policy. But Mad Men is a huge hit anyhow and to cash in on that success, AMC is teaming up with Brooks Brothers to sell a limited-edition Mad Men suit, inspired by the “razor sharp 1960s tailoring favored by Don Draper and Roger Sterling.” Fans can expect a trim silhouette, grey sharkskin fabric, narrow two-button lapels, and diagonal pockets, giving all the guys out there looking to travel back in time and pay far too much money for a suit just the chance they’ve been looking for. The suit will set you back $998, which is just about the price range you would expect with a Brooks Brothers suit. Is it really worth it just so you can look like a character from your favorite TV show? I mean, I love Smallville, but I wouldn’t fork over hundreds of dollars for a red jacket, blue t-shirt and jeans so I could look like Tom Welling does in playing Clark Kent. For your $998 (couldn’t just round up and make it an even $1,000?), you will get THE official Mad Men suit, approved by the show’s costume designer, Janie Bryant. If you want to purchase this overpriced sartorial splurge, you need to act quickly. The suit will be available until the show’s finale on Nov. 8, but after that it’s gone for good. Who knows, maybe this is the year when you can afford to spend a grand on your Halloween costume and Don Draper is just the guy you want to look like. Personally I’d rather just cut some eye holes in a white sheet and go as a ghost or put on cheesy, tacky sunglasses, a brightly colored jacket, cut ugly patterns in my hair and go around interrupting people as Kanye West, but that’s just me. Do what you will with this information. Just know that if you do buy this suit, I will be laughing at you and not marveling at your great fashion sense………..

- Several years ago, Tim Robbins and Derek Luke starred in a movie called Man on Fire. Wednesday morning, a Belle Vernon, Pa. man starred in his very own feature that could well be titled Van on Fire. Carl Franklin Miller Jr. was happily motoring along Main Street in Belle Vernon shortly after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday when a concerned citizen phoned police about a vehicle on fire. Police and fire crews responded to the scene and spotted a burning 1993 Ford Econoline van. "The van was smoking, left a big trail of smoke coming down the road," Belle Vernon Firefighter Joel Davis said. One firefighter ran down the road beside the vehicle, trying to get Miller to stop. Even as the van was filling up with smoke and flames were coming from the engine, Miller zipped right past the police station and the fire department. "He wouldn't stop for nothing," a grammatically stunted Davis stated. "Ended up trying to stop him three times. Tried ramming my vehicle twice. On the third time, he must have put the vehicle in neutral and was smashing the gas." The fire crew was finally able to get Miller’s attention, after which he pulled over near the ramps from Main Street to Route 70. "We got out, grabbed him out of the van and told him, 'Hey, your van's on fire, what's your problem?' He didn't know where he was. Didn't know nothing," Davis said, still with a loose grasp on the finer grammatical points of the English language. Once the van had been stopped, firefighters worked on putting out the blaze and police officers attempted to figure out why Miller was driving merrily along with his van on fire. The officer who questioned Miller suspected him of driving under the influence, so he was placed under arrest and taken to Mon Valley Hospital, where blood was drawn. Police are waiting for results of the blood test, but I feel confident in saying that this guy was clearly drunk, high on something or tripping out of his mind, because this sounds like a bad stunt from a Will Ferrell comedy gone wrong at a minimum and the characters doing those stunts are invariably drunk, stoned or tripping on something. Should Miller manage to get out of this little incident without having to go to jail, perhaps he has a future as a stunt man or driver for action movies…………

- Box sets are all the rage these days with legendary music artists looking to cash in on their accomplished careers without actually putting out any new music or putting forth any additional effort. Sure, some of these artists are either deceased or certain members of their group have passed away and so new music becomes impossible, but that doesn’t mean that I’m cool with having to throw down $50 bucks or more for what amounts to a collection of music that I would already have if I were truly a fan of that artist. For example, it was just a month or so ago that the Beatles released a box set of their re-mastered catalogue and tried to convince fans to spend copious amounts of cash for said box set. As someone who already has the entire Beatles catalogue and is okay with the sound quality as is, I felt no compulsion to rush out and buy the box set. The latest musical legend to follow the box-set trend is none other than the King, Elvis Presley. Technically, it’s Presley’s estate and those who hold the rights to his recordings that are looking to mark Presley's 75th birthday in January with a 100-song box set called "Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight." The for-disc set hit stores December 8, giving you enough time to buy and wrap it for the Elvis lover on your Christmas list. The collection literally spans Presley’s entire career, with the first disc opening with "My Happiness," the acetate recording Presley paid nearly four dollars to make at the Memphis Recording Service in July 1953 and the last disc concludes with "A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Remix Edit)," the 2002 track that hit No. 1 in more than 20 countries. That was also the year that "Elvis: 30 #1 Hits," was released and that collection has sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S. The box set will include ballads, early rock songs, movie songs, holiday songs and gospel songs. It also comes with an 80-page booklet featuring rare photos and a new essay by Billy Altman. No word yet on what the price will be, but go ahead and assume it will be far too high…………