- Apparently Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin believes that the rest of us are complete and utter morons. There’s just no other way to spin his statement today that there's no guarantee that Ben Roethlisberger will be the starting quarterback when he returns from his four-game suspension. In naming Dennis Dixon the starter in Roethlisberger's absence, Tomlin insisted that the two-time Super Bowl-winning, elite field general who has become one of the league’s best signal callers isn’t assured of getting his starting gig back once his league-mandated suspension ends. "I'm going to dodge that one and not artfully," Tomlin stated. "I'm not going to back myself in a corner." Mmm hmmm. So let me get this straight: a guy who is far and away the best quarterback on your team and one of the best in the league won't be guaranteed to start even when he’s eligible to play? Last time I checked, the job of NFL coaches and teams was to win games and Roethlisberger far and away gives the Steelers the best chance to do that. To expect anyone to believe that you might keep him on the bench in favor of the untested Dixon or even veteran Byron Leftwich, who sprained his left medial collateral ligament Thursday against Carolina in the team’s final exhibition game, is laughable at best. "Dennis has had a very productive preseason and training camp," Tomlin said. "He went into the training camp as a young guy, second in the pecking order behind Byron Leftwich. He did a nice job and made it extremely competitive. He waged a battle and got some first-team reps in some preseason games. Largely, we've been very impressed with how he's handled himself in game situations." That’s great, but just don’t lie to our faces about his chances to keep the starting gig once Roethlisberger is back from his suspension. It doesn’t matter if Big Ben wasn’t voted a team captain when the players voted Monday; he’s the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, plain and simple………
- Feel the wrath of a Haitian pop singer, Sean Penn and former Fugees member Pras! You both had the audacity to speak out against Wyclef Jean’s now-defunct campaign to become president of Haiti and Jean has a little something for the both of you. Performing in Manhattan this past Friday, Jean had some stinging words for Sean Penn and sometime bandmate Pras, two of the biggest critics of campaign. “I got a message for Sean Penn,” Jean sang. “Maybe he ain’t see me in Haiti because he was too busy sniffing cocaine.” He then added a line to his song for Pras: “I got a message for Praswell/Even though you don’t want to support me, I got love for you/Even though you only kicked eight bars in the Fugees.” Oh, snap! That’s the biggest lyrical beatdown since……actually, it’s pretty lame, to be honest. Nothing like going to the “You snort blow” card or the “You were barely in the group” blast, Wyclef. It took all of a few hours for the ad-libbed lyrics to make their way to Penn, who issued the following statement through an email sent out by his reps: “Mr. Jean is clearly unfamiliar with the physical demands put upon volunteers in Haiti/ As aid workers there, the notion of depleting the body’s immune system through the use of illicit drugs is ludicrous. More specifically, J/P Haitian Relief Organization (a.k.a. JPHRO) has a ZERO tolerance policy for any and all illegal drugs. As the leader of this organization, Sean Penn has not only set this policy, but adheres to it. That Mr. Jean would make such a false accusation is reckless and saddening, but not surprising.” Wow, that’s the most eloquently worded denial I’ve ever heard and yet, it doesn’t exactly come out and say, “No, Sean Penn doesn’t use cocaine.” As for the slam against Pras, the Music Mix has researched the Fugees’ limited catalog and broken down the contributions of Pras, Jean and Lauryn Hill and found that Pras actually contributed more than eight bars, although he was a significantly smaller part of the group than either of the other two members. But accuracy be damned, Wyclef Jean had a point to make and he was going to make it, true or not………
- It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a blatant violation of people’s civil liberties and we have the mayor of Dublin, Georgia, to thank for it. Mayor Phil Best is leading to charge to ban saggy pants and exposed boxers from his town and in that pursuit, he has signed an ordinance that prohibits the wearing of saggy pants, complete with fines up to $200. The ordinance is actually an amendment to the municipality's indecent exposure ordinance and will be put into immediate effect at the city council meeting. It bans the wearing of pants or skirts "more than three inches below the top of the hips exposing the skin or undergarments." Undoubtedly, the town’s over-the-hill, stuck-in-the-past geezer population pushed this measure through and it makes sense because a) these people loving wearing their pants up to their armpits and b) they are the most vocal on mundane, ridiculous issues like this because…..well, they have nothing better to do. "We've gotten several complaints from citizens saying the folks with britches down below their buttocks was offensive, and wasn't there something we could do about it," Best said. I’m guessing those people were over the age of 65, right? There were enough comments to motivate Best to task the city attorney to research how other localities have dealt with the issue. The end result was city council passing the new ordinance and the mayor signing it into law, putting baggy clothing in the same category as masturbation, fornication and urination in public places. Read that last sentence again and tell me that droopy pants belong in that category…..didn’t think so. One has to wonder how vigilantly police will be able to enforce the new law, as there would seem to be more important issues to tackle, issues like actual crimes with actual victims. Fines will range from $25 to $200, or court-mandated community service. "That's not our intent, we'd [rather] not fine anybody but we are prepared to," Best said. The response from residents has been almost evenly divided, with those who oppose the new law claiming that the ordinance singles out a specific group of citizens - young black men. Those critics, who probably should have been a bit more vocal when the issue first came up instead of waiting so long, believe the ordinance will lead to profiling by authorities, a claim Best labeled as "ridiculous. It's for white, black, man, woman. The ordinance is for everyone, and I've seen it violated by all races and sexes.” Dublin joins Riviera Beach, Florida, and Flint, Michigan, in passing such moronic bans against sagging pants in recent years, but the Riviera Beach legislation later was declared unconstitutional after a court challenge. "It's time we all have a mutual respect for each other ... what a person does in the privacy of their home is fine," Best said. "But if I had an 8-year-old daughter, I don't think she needs to be subjected to looking at someone's rear end." Dude, an 8-year-old is the exact height to ensure that everyone’s rear end is right in view with their sight line, so I hardly think that works as a standard………
- They may seem like an unlikely pair, the Dude and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, but clearly the dear leader has an affinity for Jeff Bridges’ bearded, bathrobe-wearing, bowling alley dwelling slacker, so much so that programmers from North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology developed a 2007 mobile-phone bowling game based on the 1998 film, according to state media. The Dude, of course, is the pot-smoking, cult-favorite underachiever played by Jeff Bridges in the movie “The Big Lebowski.” Somehow, K.J. Il became a fan of The Dude and when he needed to raise capital for his impoverished regime:, he turned to the bowling buddy of Walter and the thorn in the side of all that is responsible, mature and reliable. That led him to order the development of the game based on the film as well as “Men in Black: Alien Assault.” The games’ existence was confirmed by two executives at Nosotek Joint Venture Company, which markets software from North Korea for foreign clients. Both games were published by a unit of News Corp., the New York-based media company, and are part of a growing software industry championed by my man K.J. Il that is injecting life into the economy of one of the poorest countries in the world and simultaneously improving the technological skills of workers. Foreign companies are allowed to contract with North Korean companies on projects as long as they are not linked to the arms trade. In the three years since the development of the games, the technological education of graduates from North Korean universities has become significantly better, according to those in the know. Of course, any activity involving the North Korean government is bound to have sinister implications and this situation is no different. While boosting their technological know-how, North Korean programmers are also bolstering the regime’s cyberwarfare capabilities. South Korea’s presidential office said July 28 the nation had received intelligence that North Korea may plan an Internet-based attack, which means they could be using The Dude for some very un-Dude-like activities, man. That’s not cool, ever. The cyberattacks may have already begun, as Won Sei Hoon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers last October that North Korea’s postal ministry was responsible for attacks in July 2009 on dozens of Web sites in South Korea and the U.S. With U.S.-led financial sanctions against North Korea widening in scope by the day, it’s only a matter of time before K.J. Il and his posse strike back. It would be the perfect capper for a technology push that began in the 1980s and has inched along to this very day, along the way spawning the creation of a cyber-military unit in the late 1990s. So when the Communists kick off World War III with a vicious cyber attack, they’re going to do so by dragging The Dude right into the middle of it. But as always, war or no war, The Dude abides………
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