From last night’s "Fox Sports World Report" (I know, it’s Fox, but it’s
also the only place a cricket fan in North America can see a minute or
two of highlights):

Picture a jocular sports anchor named Carlos sitting next to his
reporting partner Michelle, who is normally dressed in the standard boxy jackets one
expects from newsreaders, but on this occasion is wearing a slinky
black shoulder-baring outfit which is vastly sexier than anything
you’ve ever seen at a news desk.

Carlos, to his credit, manages not to say anything about Michelle’s eye-popping fashion choice.

And then Carlos tosses Michelle the intro to the India/Pakistan cricket test, giving the locale an unfortunate prominence:

Carlos: "… with the latest highlights from Lahore."

Michelle: [tiny but noticeable pause] "Thanks, Carlos…"

I’m certain Carlos never realized how he phrased it, and Michelle
managed the impending-train-wreck moment so smoothly she can plausibly deny she even
noticed.  So this is the last you’ll hear of it, I’m sure.  Didn’t
happen.  From here on, let’s assume I only imagined that two-frame look
of "well, that could have been phrased better" in her eyes.

Still, it was one of the most graceful saves of a deliciously unexpected moment I’ve ever seen.  If Michelle ever reads this, nicely done.

Incidentally, if you’ve screwed anything up today, take some comfort in what
happened in that test: the Indian openers batted for roughly six solid
hours without making a mistake, eventually nearing a 50-year old record
for runs scored to open an innings.  And then, with only one more good
whack needed to break the record… whoops.  Oh well.

Happens to all of us.

Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, not quite the speaker MLK was.

I don’t point out the obvious here because it’s as if the mainstream
won’t mention it.  Quite the opposite: a Democratic mayor says
something stupid, it’s Headline News.  A Democratic former vice
president accuses the sitting president of intentional repeated
criminal acts, it’s sandwiched between a space probe and a cake for Ben
Franklin.  (Gore would have gotten more coverage if he’d taken
hostages, spilled toxic waste on a highway, or both.)

I mention Nagin here out of basic fairness: sure, it’s offensive when
the Pat Robertsons of the world invoke some weird notion of god as
projections of their own ego and desires.  But it should obviously be
just as offensive and idiotic when someone else does it, too.

If not, then I hereby justly declare that God Almighty, the Infinite
and Unknowable, Creator of All That Is Beyond Comprehension, is
cheating on his diet with a tuna sandwich at the moment.  He also bats
left-handed but throws with his right, loves the ketchup-flavored
Twisties snacks you can buy in southeast Asia, and hasn’t played the
banjo in almost a year.

Oh — and God Almighty really, really thinks it’s incredibly stupid-sounding when anyone claims with certainty to speak for Him.

So I arrive home to find that 2 million gallons of sewage has just been released not far from where I live:

Bondi… wherefore art thou, Bondi?

(PS: yes, I know there’s pollution in Oz.  But this is what the water is currently like here after any winter rain.)

So I arrive home to find that 2 million gallons of sewage has just been released not far from where I live:

Bondi… wherefore art thou, Bondi?

(PS: yes, I know there’s pollution in Oz.  But this is what the water is currently like here after any winter rain.)

From today’s Los Angeles Times.

This estimate includes costs the government will have to pay for years
to come (e.g. disabled veterans’ benefits) and the cost to our economy
and society (e.g. the dislocation of the work force), compiled by a
former assistant secretary of Commerce and a professor at Columbia who
won the Nobel Prize in economics: