• SLUT — Streetcar’s unfortunate acronym seems here to stay - Someone forgot to add up the letters.
• Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site - New York Times - It’s finally official. I was able to freeload off my parents’ membership during the lean Times Select years, but the rest of you suckers will now have access as well. Free archives back to 1987!
• L. Ron Hubbard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - The wikipedia section on L. Ron Hubbard’s turn in the U.S. Navy always makes me picture Arrested Development’s G.O.B. in charge of his own sub-hunter. The later section on the Sea Org is just disturbing–dude was an epic asshole
• Electoral Vote Shuffle | The American Prospect - A good piece on how state control over the standards for federal elections messes up everything and leads to undemocratic results
• Working on a Building | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle’s Only Newspaper - Dubai now has the world’s tallest building, at 555 meters. It may end up at over 700. Dubai and Vegas aren’t sister cities, but they should be.

-The kid looks and sounds like Dirk Calloway
-He’s precocious like the Tenenbaums or Max Fischer
-His racing uniform has a European, 1960s look about it, like everything in Rushmore
-While the fact that he wears a uniform in daily life conforms to athletes-as-pitchmen conventions, it also matches Anderson’s movies (all four of which involved uniforms for the protagonists)
-Ari and Uzi race go-carts with Royal in The Royal Tenenbaums.

I would’ve thought this too obvious to point out, but when I googled all sorts of permutations of Geico, Wes Anderson, go-cart, and Wallace (the Nascar dude), I didn’t find any results. Maybe I’ve just watched too much Wes Anderson.

Monday, September 10th
General Petraeus testifies before the Senate.

Tuesday, September 11th
The Washington Post reports that Col. Pete Devlin, the Chief of Intelligence for the Marine Corps, filed a secret report describing the situation in the Anbar Province as dire and beyond the potential for improvement. Summarizing the report, one Army officer said, “we have been defeated politically—and that’s where wars are won and lost.”

Wednesday, September 12th
The Los Angeles Times reports that the United States has secretly been negotiating with Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, the fearsome militia that made Fallujah such a hornet’s nest for U.S. troops. Their demand? A starring role for their leader in the next Matrix movie.

Thursday, September 13th
In his speech on Iraq, Bush says “Anbar Province is a good example of how our strategy is working.”

Friday, September 14th
Catching up on the week’s sports news and his fantasy football lineup, Dick Cheney reads of Bill Belichick’s troubles. “Send him a signed waterboard,” he tells his secretary. “Put a ‘Patriot Act’ pun in the note and be sure to let him know we’ve got a tap on Dungy’s phone.”

Just yesterday, I was introduced to the work of Choi Hoon, a Korean cartoonist whose strips poke fun at current happenings in major league baseball. U.S.S. Mariner commenter thefin190 posted a link to a recent strip he supposedly translated himself. I have no way of knowing whether the translation is accurate (or intended to be), but it’s certainly topical. In honor of Jeff Weaver’s 1st inning stinkbomb last night, and not in honor of John McLaren (Did Adam Jones sleep with his wife or something? Seriously, what’s the deal?), here’s the strip:

The notion of a fearsome, vengeful Super Mario as the voice of reckoning behind Bill Bavasi (or anyone else) cracks me up. I wonder if he and Luigi play good owner/bad owner to soften up their charges.

Anyway, you can find all his cartoons—or at least a lot of them—here. They’re not translated, but I think they’re almost more fun that way. I’ll leave you with this one of Ozzie Guillen, playing with boats in his bathtub:

• Bloomberg.com: Spend - On average, it’s twice as expensive to get a dinner in London as to get one in New York. Wow.
• Dictators of the World: Suharto crushes Time magazine for telling the truth? - Time Magazine lost a $106 million lawsuit for “defaming” and “hurting the image and pride” of the former dictator Suharto by reporting that he embezzled state funds.
• SONICS: NBA Microfracture History - A list of players who have had microfracture surgery and the outcomes. List now includes Greg Oden, which just sucks.
• The Naughty American - Mormon Calendar Reveals More Men - Topless (male) mormon missionaries.
• Marbury Testifies He Had Sex With Knicks Intern - New York Times - More fun with Starbury: After calling his wife his “better ho” on the air, he recounts his back-seat-of-my-jeep exploits with a team intern at Isiah Thomas’ sexual harassment trial.
• ESPN - Report: MLB eyes use of HGH blood test in ‘08 - MLB - An interesting development, but the devil’s in the details. My guess is that the test will be administered like their steroids tests–with plenty of notice for those who want to time their cycles. That way, everybody wins.

It seems my younger brother, whose name I shall omit for Google purposes, was the subject of a prank. Unbeknownst to him, the following appeared on a daily newspaper’s website:

(He was kind enough to give me permission to put it up here, so please don’t add to the article’s search rank by searching for it and clicking on it.)

• + RAWSTOCK short film festival + - For Seattle area readers: Haymaker & Sally co-producer and co-director Jason “Reidster” Reid will be showing several shorts at this event on Friday night, including a music video for Tim Seely’s “Trucker’s Lullaby.” Also showing will be an enjoyable short called Schmuli’s Dream.
• YouTube - Stephon “Starbury” Marbury on Mike’d Up - I finally watched this interview with New York Knicks’ guard Stephon Marbury. It’s full of bizarre assertions that raise challenging ontological questions.
• YouTube - Set Adrift On Memory Bliss - PM Dawn (Great Audio) - My friend Kaitlin was inspired by the PM Dawn pic in the “Masters of Wrath” post to find this video. It brings me back to middle school dances in the gym; I can almost smell the Drakkar Noir.
• U.S.S. Mariner » Blog Archive » The Value of Adrian Beltre - Dave Cameron of the U.S.S. Mariner addresses the perception that Seattle Mariners’ third baseman Adrian Beltre is overpaid.
• News: Joe Pace Is Using Papier-Mâché Robots and a Three-Rimmed Backboard to Get His Life Back on Track (Seattle Weekly) - Fascinating story on former NBA player Joe Pace, who has battled substance abuse and is pursuing his dream of a basketball boot camp featuring giant robots and a three-rimmed, message-spouting pop-a-shot.
• Crystal Mess | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle’s Only Newspaper - The Stranger’s Dominic Holden examines the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s ineffective, alarmist anti-meth ads. Apparently, if you lie to people, they stop believing you. Who knew?

Serbian basketball forward Darko Milicic’s recent post-game rant set me adrift on memory bliss. There have been so many great tantrums and tirades by our sporting entertainers over the years. Here I present my favorite ten (of those recorded and available on the Internet), which I shall call the ten greatest, if only to encourage debate. I’ve deliberately left off Mike Tyson, as his are a little too sad and disturbing for me to really enjoy. I’ve also omitted Phillip Wellman’s famous tantrum, as it seemed a bit calculated and playful, as well as the Jim Rome/Jim Everett debacle, for the same reasons. Be warned that the list contains NSFW/profane audio and text.

The Ten Greatest Sports Tantrums Available on the Internet

10. Mike Sanford

A top-notch sports tantrum can take many forms. Sanford decided to go the civil disobedience route after his UNLV Rebels football team lost to the Iowa State Cyclones. Sanford asserted (wrongly, as replays later showed) that a UNLV receiver had been inbounds when catching a potentially game-winning pass. Bringing Walden Pond to the breadbasket, Sanford stormed the field, telling his players “we’re not leaving” and demanding a meeting with the Iowa State athletic director. He may trip and stumble, but in the end he takes a principled stand. Here’s to you, Mike.

9. Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman

This one isn’t much to look at—a kiss-me-or-push-me moment of truth, a lot of awkward grappling, and some crashing into tables. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a clip containing the lead-up. But here’s what you need to know:

A few days before their fight, Lewis and Rahman were taping a promotional appearance on ESPN’s “Up Close and Personal” with Gary Miller. Referring to previous comments by Rahman, Miller asked Lewis, “Did Rahman question your sexuality?” Lewis ignored Miller and glared at Rahman. “Why you starting that gay stuff? I’m not gay. Why you call me gay?” Rahman replied that Lewis’ lawsuit to force a rematch between the two of them was a “gay move…I don’t know why he was offended.”

Declaring himself “100% women’s man,” Lewis offered to prove his assertion with Rahman’s sister. Rahman took offense. The rest is below:

8. Dennis Green

Following a loss in which his underdog Cardinals blew a big lead, Green offered his thoughts on their more ballyhooed opponent, the Chicago Bears. He’s like the middle school kid who had his lunch money taken and almost stood up to the big bad bully. Impotent Rage, thy name is Dennis Green. (Also, note the slight resemblance, at least in this clip, to The Family Guy’s Cleveland Brown.)

7. Jim Mora

Mora has had a number of highly-regarded postgame rants, but this is his most famous. Enjoy the polite qualifiers (In my opinion, that sucked) as well as the concluding Don Knotts/Barney Fife impression during the discussion of “playoffs.”

6. Lou Piniella (and other baseball tantrums we don’t get to hear)

It seems MLB has cracked down on game footage on YouTube, making it difficult to find some of Piniella’s best performances, but one of his 2002 outbursts can be found on this compilation. We see a strong performance by Lloyd McLendon, but Piniella is the real star. Nobody looks funnier throwing a base than Lou Piniella.

5. Darko Milicic

Darko received a $14k fine for this outburst, though it probably should’ve been a grounding instead. Gone are the frosted tips and gangly physique, but Darko remains ever the teenager. With Larry Brown but a distant memory, Darko takes aim at another authority figure, the refs.

4. Tommy Lasorda

Next up, a dugout argument between manager Tommy Lasorda and pitcher Doug Rau during Game 4 of the 1977 World Series. This speech may be considered the forefather of George Bush’s “I’m the Decider.” The incessant organ music in the background gives it an air of carnival fun!

3. Hal McRaeAn otherwise standard clubhouse tantrum, with a lot of profanity and throwing of random objects (note the reporter’s bleeding cheek—the result of being struck by the flying phone), McRae’s tirade is made special by his attire. His baseball pants and undershirt resemble a child’s pajamas—just one step up from a onesy.

2. Lee Elia

In 1983, Elia managed a talented but not quite mature Cubs team that finished the season under .500. The next year, they went on to win their division (before blowing a 2-0 series lead to San Diego in the NLCS—still painful to think about). But in April of ‘83, few could see the good things to come. Cub fans, frustrated by the team’s perennial losing, booed repeatedly during a 5-4 loss to the Dodgers that left the team’s record at 5-14. Meeting with reporters in the clubhouse after the game, Elia unleashed a tirade for the ages.

1. Earl WeaverOne of baseball’s all-time leader in ejections, Earl Weaver was a man before his time, engaging in the sort of rigorous statistical analysis that still eludes some managers today (see McLaren, John). Here he appears on The Manager’s Corner, his weekly radio show. I’m not sure whether it’s fair to classify this as a tantrum, but whatever it is, it deserves to be number one.

Friday, August 31st
-Tony Snow gets an early start on the Labor Day celebration of the American working man and woman by announcing his resignation from the position of White House press secretary, stating that his salary of $168,000 just wasn’t cutting it. “Like my friend Latrell, I’ve got a family to feed.”
-His replacement, Dana Perino, gears up for her new responsibilities. The woman who receives 600 e-mails a day is about to get a lot busier. The White House IT department hurries to prepare itself. “That’s a lot of e-mails we have to make sure are deleted permanently,” explains an insider.

Tuesday, September 4th
-Looking to get a leg up on his fantasy football competition, Dick Cheney orders a wiretap on the phone of Indianapolis Colts’ coach Tony Dungy. Cheney’s chief of staff, David “One Bomb Away” Addington, notices the request and asks Cheney what it’s about. “I gotta see how much he’s going to use Addai,” says Cheney, referring to the Colts’ star running back. “If they’re going to the air, I’ll sit him.”
“The air?” Replies Addington. “Addai? With a name like that, he should be on the no-fly list!” They share a laugh.
-”Kicking ass” joins “heckuva job” on the list of superlative phrases that can no longer be used without sounding insincere. (No word on whether “taking names” was tainted as well.)

Thursday, September 6th
-Basking in the glow of his many successes, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales addresses the Coast Guard Academy. On the subject of the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, he says, “Never before in our nation’s history have we given such robust protection to combatants picked up on the field of battle.”

Barbed wire fences, camp counselors protect X-Ray detainees from wild bears.

Earmuffs, goggles are “like a v-chips for people,” explains Gonzales. “It’s truly ’see no evil, hear no evil.’”

Friday, September 7th
-General Petraeus writes a letter to American forces in Iraq. “Sectarian violence continues…albeit at considerably reduced levels of [sic] 8 months ago…In fact, the number of attacks across the country has declined 8 of the past 11 weeks.” The kicker: Shiite-on Shiite attacks, Sunni-on-Sunni attacks, and car bombings don’t count as sectarian violence.

General Motors is considering a recall of their Baghdad shipment, citing a tendency of many of the models to spontaneously combust.

Taking some of the fun out of one of the summer’s most enjoyable baseball stories, The New York Daily News reports that St. Louis’ slugger and comeback kid Rick Ankiel received a one-year supply of HGH from a Florida pharmacy in 2004. (The league added HGH to its list of banned substances in 2005, after New Era expressed doubts about their ability to make hats that would fit Barry Bonds’ expanding noggin.)

You don’t make a 9 3/4″ hat yet

Ankiel, as you may recall, came up as a pitcher with St. Louis in 2000. Only 20 years old, he wowed the league with a high-90s fastball and sharp curve before suffering a mental breakdown in the playoffs and throwing five wild pitches in one inning. After numerous psychological struggles and injuries, he reinvented himself as a slugging outfielder, hitting 32 home runs in AAA ball this year before being called up to the majors, where he hit three home runs in his first three games and 9 in 81 at bats. This epically successful comeback led columnist Charles Krauthammer to dub him “The Natural,” after the protagonist in the famous baseball movie of the same name.

The nickname stuck for a while, though it’s unlikely to be used in any way but mockingly now. Which is a bit of a shame–HGH’d or not, Ankiel’s accomplishment is pretty amazing (even if his current pace is unsustainable). And, of course, he might have been totally clean for the last two or three years—or since the league banned the substance. We’ll never know, thanks to baseball’s anemic testing regimen. (Perhaps John McCain can try to resurrect his presidential campaign with some more grandstanding and Congressional time-wasting on the issue.)

Reacting to the story, Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty said, “If it’s true, obviously it would be very tragic.” Perhaps he’s been taking tips from Doug Christie’s PR people. It’d be nice to see an executive ease up on the hyperbole and serious-speak and just tell it like it is. It’s too bad The Dude doesn’t do press conferences: “Rick was on HGH? That’s a bummer, man. Next question?”