Election throwdown time in Chile, the Patriots circle the wagons are their quitting receiver and the feds ruin my holiday shopping

- It’s conservative billionaire businessman v. former center-left president! It’s mano a mano for the Chilean presidency and it’s happening this Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Okay, so technically it may have merely been announced Sunday, but news that billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera and ex-president Eduardo Frei will face off in a runoff election in Chile's presidential election is still exciting. Based on official early results released Sunday and with more than 98 percent of polling stations counted, Pinera led with 44 percent of the vote to Frei's 30 percent. Because independent candidates Marco Enriquez-Ominami and Jorge Arrate pulled the remaining 26 percent of the vote between them (20 percent for Enriquez-Ominami), neither Pinera nor Frei garnered the necessary 50 percent of the vote to win outright. "This is a victory for all the Chileans who want change," Pinera said Sunday night after learning of the results. Clearly, he feels that he will win the runoff election, but Frei isn't conceding anything. He began campaigning for the second-round immediately, asking in a speech for the supporters of the two other candidates to join his cause. Key to Frei’s platform is that women and young people will have an important role in his government if he is elected. Enriquez-Ominami was either too bitter about losing or not a fan of either remaining candidate, because he said that he would not endorse either candidate. Whoever wins this race, that man will follow the footsteps of a very popular president, Michelle Bachelet, who will be leaving office with high approval ratings after piloting the country through turbulent economic times and pushing significant social reforms. However, term limits dictate that a president cannot run for a second consecutive term and so Bachelet is out. She did endorse Frei, a member of her same left-leaning coalition, but her support doesn’t seem to have helped much. What’s noteworthy about a possible victory for Pinera is that it would mark the first time the 19 years since the fall of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship that a conservative has won at the polls. So Chile is on the verge of electing a wealthy businessman whose net worth is tens of thousands of times what most of them and their immediate families will make in their lifetime combined? What is this, a South American nation or the United States of America? Oh, and it was not a good election day for the Communist Party. Its candidate, Arrate, garnered a mere 6 percent of Sunday's vote. Better success next time, Commies…………

- Allow me to save AOL, Google, Yahoo and with New York's Attorney General some time in their quest to identify the sex offenders lurking on their social networking sites and take them offline. One word, everyone: MySpace. This quartet is teaming up to search the millions of members in the databases of 13 different networking sites for the e-mail addresses linked to 8,100 sex offenders. It’s a noble effort, but as I just said, all they need to do is go to MySpace, comb though its user base and they should find approximately 8,074 of those sex offenders. "Every time a social network goes up and attracts young people you're also attracting those who would prey on young people," said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. "It's one of the major challenges of law enforcement going forward." Agreed, by embracing the MySpace suggestion I just threw out would make your important task that much easier. According to statistics released by Cuomo’s office, MySpace and Facebook have already purged 3,500 registered sex offenders from their rolls in cooperation with the attorney general. What’s especially disturbing is that more than 40 percent of those registered sex offenders in New York with known e-mail addresses were on Facebook or MySpace. Aside for portending ill for those under the age of 18 on either site, that statistic also means that many of those sex offenders were violating their parole or probation. There are a few irresponsible social networking sites that are not participating in the search for registered sex offenders, including Friendster, eSpin.com, Habbo.com and LiveJournal.com. "Why you wouldn't run the list of registered sex offenders against your website totally boggles my imagination," said Cuomo. Props for using the word boggle in a sentence, AG Cuomo. All of this persecution of sex offenders is being made possible by the state's recently enacted Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP). Under e-STOP, convicted sex offenders are required to register their online addresses and screen names with the state. It’s a great step and one that other states would do well to emulate. The state can then forward that information to social networking sites to make sure convicted sex offenders sex are not violating the terms of their parole or probation that limit online interactions. Anything to protect kids from the biggest pervs in our society is a good thing from where I sit…………

- How funny was it to see not one, but two Carolina Panthers defensive backs openly accuse New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss of quitting during Sunday’s game between the two teams? After the game, Panthers defensive back Chris Gamble said that "we knew [Moss] was going to shut it down. That's what we wanted him to do. That's what we did ... He'd just give up a lot. Slow down, he's not going deep, not trying to run a route. You can tell, his body language." Carolina defensive back Chris Harris added, "I don't want to say [Moss] quits, but he kind of doesn't run the routes the way they're supposed to be run. If you get a jam on him, he'll just ease up. He had the one catch, and he fumbled. ... We stayed on top of him. We were not gonna let him catch a deep pass. That's his game. If he can't get it going, he gets out of sync." Yeah, but you don’t want to say that he quit. You may not want to say that, but that’s exactly what you said. It’s the same thing that analysts, former players and observers all around the football world are saying, mostly because it’s true. In the first quarter, Moss quit on an out route and allowed Gamble to run in front of him and intercept a pass from Tom Brady. On his only catch of the game, a half-assing Moss failed to secure the ball and Gamble stripped it from him almost as soon as Moss caught it. That’s two turnovers because he wasn’t competing, for those keeping count. The Patriots won the game 20-10, but no thanks to Moss. Gamble and Harris were correct in their assessment of Moss’ performance and the fact that Brady and Patriots coach Bill Belichick stood up for Moss Monday was equal parts hilarity and predictability. With a fragile, temperamental ego like Moss, of course his head coach and quarterback have to protect him publicly even if they know what is being alleged of him is true. They know that if they don’t stand up and defend him, no one will and he’d likely retreat further into the shell that he has already climbed into. Brady was the first to take up for his embattled receiver, calling Moss one of his "favorite guys I've ever played with" and saying it's not easy when teams center their defensive game plan around stopping an individual like Moss. "He's one of the top receivers in the league right now," Brady said. "He is up there in yards and catches and touchdowns. Every game plan that the defense comes up with is trying to stop Randy Moss. ... It's not like they don't have respect for him when their game plan is built around stopping him. When guys play Randy, they want to show everyone what they can do. I guess they came out of the game pretty confident. Randy is one of the best players in the history of the NFL. When it doesn't go perfect out there, everyone wants to jump on Randy. It's all of us, and we all have to do a better job." Brady then took a shot at Gamble and looked to demean the defensive back’s game while also attacking his credibility. "Everyone takes liberty to say whatever they want to say in a situation like [Sunday]," Brady cracked. "I've seen plenty of plays made on Chris Gamble, too, over the course of the season." As for Belichick, he actually tried the mean-spirited-yet-humorous approach and came through in typical Belichick fashion. "My response would be that's a lot of conversation coming from a team that lost another game," Belichick said. "I have a lot of respect for Randy, I think he's one of our best players and I think if you watch other teams defend him and watch other teams play against him, they think the same way -- other than these two guys from Carolina after they lost another game. I guess they don't think that way. They haven't won a lot of games now." Way to demean the opposition in an attempt to invalidate their perfectly valid criticism of one of your guys, Hoodie. The Panhters may be 5-8, but your team is not much better at 8-5 and having a losing record doesn’t mean they can recognize a quitter when they see one. Randy Moss has a history of quitting when things don’t go his way and he did it at both of his previous stops in the NFL, Minnesota and Oakland. He has the talent to be the best receiver in NFL history but will never be because of the very sort of shenanigans we’re seeing right now. But go ahead and defend your guy, T. Brady. "He was frustrated in himself and the situation and it's just something you have to fight through," Brady said. "He keeps fighting through it and you have those days where it's not all great, but you keep lining up and you keep going up. You've just got to keep fighting." That’s just the problem; Moss has given up the fight……….

- And so the circus sideshow lifestyle continues for 17-year-old Frances Bean Cobain, the only daughter of the late Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. When your father is an iconic frontman for one of the hallmark bands of the grunge era and dies in incredibly sketchy and controversial fashion, allegedly by suicide, and your mother is an attention whore who gloms on to every possible chance for fame and possesses as much class and personal dignity as a personal injury lawyer mixed with a stripper, it’s safe to say that your life will be unorthodox at best. The latest chapter in Frances Bean Cobain’s saga came Monday as a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner granted control over the girl to Kurt Cobain's mother Wendy O'Connor and his sister Kimberly Dawn Cobain. Frances Cobain, who turns 18 next August, is being removed from the custody of her mother, former frontwoman of the band Hole. Love has been criticized for rambling online postings that have attacked a former bandmate and others of late, none of which are the least bit surprising. . A fashion designer sued Love in Los Angeles earlier this year over some of the posts, claiming they were libelous. Cobain’s family isn't commenting on the guardianship, nor is Love. What we do know is that the court order, which is valid until February, grants Cobain's mother and sister no control over a trust established by the Nirvana frontman for his daughter. No reason is given for the guardianship, nor is Love mentioned in the court filing. Even without a reason, I think it’s safe to say that spending some time away from a mother who was once sentenced to 180 days at a drug treatment facility for violating probation in three misdemeanor case -- one for illegal possession of painkillers, one for being under the influence of a controlled substance in public, and another for assault and battery, as Love was in September 2005. If you’re starting a pool or fantasy league for the children of celebrities who are most likely to end up as totally f*cked up adults, factor this information in accordingly when slotting one Frances Bean Cobain on your draft board…………

- Dammit, this is going to put a serious crimp in my holiday shopping style. Why did the Department of Homeland Security and the Mexican government have to pick now to launch a nationwide series of raids to seize more than $26 million worth of counterfeit clothing, electronics, DVDs, holiday ornaments and other consumer goods? All of the raids were coordinated with the purpose of cracking down on major rings selling "knockoff" products. I don’t know if the authorities behind these raids realize this, but most of us can’t afford the real thing and buying knockoff clothes and electronics is the only way we can afford even a sniff of the upper-class life. But rather than show genuine concern for the goodwill of the everyman, these tools seized more than 700,000 counterfeited products in 41 cities and 26 states and in the process, they ruined a whole lot of Christmases. South of the border, Mexican government carried out a parallel operation that they cheekily labeled "Operation Holiday Hoax." If you listen to these tools, they seem pretty freaking happy with themselves and that only pisses me off more. "Operation Holiday Hoax struck the counterfeiters and counterfeit vendors just when their inventories were at their peak," said John Morton, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was ICE that led a multiagency operation involving federal, state and local police agencies, so they are the easiest and most convenient target for blame. As part of the operation, five people were arrested and charged in New York and Texas. At Monday's news conference in Arlington, Virginia, representatives of the movie and recording industries joined authorities to gloat over their supposed victory. Just know this, all: You may think that your industries lose millions of dollars to counterfeiters who sell cheap copies of copyrighted intellectual property, but you are wrong. The people who buy knockoff goods would not necessarily go out and buy the real deal if the pirated items were not available. Many of them could not afford the exorbitant prices you charge, so don’t delude yourself into thinking that this is the massive economic victory that you would like it to be…………