ATTEMPT TO PROACTIVELY HEAD-OFF A CATASTROPHIC REPEAT COLLAPSE VIA THE SUBTLE ART OF THE REVERSE-JINX:

C'mon Mets. Let's finish this season the way we did last year!

IRONY OF THE DAY:

That of all the Americans who did highly questionable and probably illegal things in reaction to the 9/11 attacks (The war, Guantanamo Bay, the Presidential signing statements, the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, the abuses at Abu Graib etc.), the only individual to actually get fired for his actions was Bill Maher.

George Tenet, it will be remembered, was given a Presidential Medal of Honor and Rumsfeld was hailed as the greatest Secretary of Defense in the History of the U.S. by Cheney.

DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE OF THE DAY:

The only remotely positive thing about the Palin selection is that it guarantees that there will finally be a half-way decent hoops player in the White House.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"If you don't stop spreading lies about me ~ I'm gonna have to tell the truth about YOU!"
- Attributed to Barack Obama, Sept 12, 2008 New Hampshire in some post on the internet, but perhaps in the mode of highly creative wish fulfillment. In any event, a fine rhetorical moment and a damn good political strategy.

PRAYER TO LUDUS: GREAT GOD OF SPORT:

PLease O great God of the Game, do not allow the joy Usian Bolt and Carlos Delgado have brought me in the last few months to end up getting retroactively tainted by revelations of Juicing. Please please please--Great Sporting Deity-- let us have a rare instance of our silent fears not getting confirmed. Oh, and if it's not too much to ask: Please give Joe Morgan laryngitis for the duration of his broadcast career.

LFAQ:

(Meditated upon soulfully during tonight's jog in the park) In terms of fitness, does Theodore Vegas more resemble a pre-menopausal cream puff or an elderly trans-gendered bon bon? (Full disclosure: I'm leaning towards the cream puff.)

RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

He was a piller of the community--mainly Xanax and Clonazapan.