Despite early reports today, speculation that right hander Matt Clement was picked to be the ninth man in the Supreme Court rotation are apparently untrue.

Sources within the administration, speaking on condition of anonymity, told annika's journal that Matt Clement was never under serious consideration.

However, some experts say Clement would have been an awesome choice, despite his 4.21 ERA and mediocre WHIP. Said annika: "Heck, he's been on my fantasy team three years in a row. i don't know what kind of justice he'd make, but he's got ten wins and 101 K's this year. And the way my team's been doing, i've needed every damn one of 'em."

Developing . . .

Update: Speculation continues to circulate around Gonzalez as a possible nominee. Some pundits say President Bush is under pressure to nominate another Arizonan to replace Justice O'Connor, who grew up in Duncan, Arizona. However, some conservative activists are wary of the veteran outfielder for the Diamondbacks.

Said prominent right wing blogger annika: "Sure Luis throws right handed, but he bats lefty. And everytime i've seen him, he's way out in left field. Can we really trust him?"

Developing . . .

Update 2: The news is out! It's Roberts! i'm ecstatic. His stats aren't outrageous, but he's got good speed and was a quality guy when he played for the Dodgers. This year Dave's been a solid contributor to the first place Padre team. Democrats who wanted a center fielder should be happy with this lefty batter.

Developing . . .

[If there's a rule about beating a joke to death, you might want to invoke it now.]

Update 3: Preston wanted a justice with strings attached. Or someone who can pull all the right strings. Or something like that.

Posted by: annika at 04:23 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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On this off day for the Tour, i thought you all might enjoy this bit of Tour de France historical trivia.

Question: What dinosaur was also an excellent biker in the time trial events?

Answer in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: annika at 06:36 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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DMC at Ridgecrest Blog has a couple of really good Tour de France updates.

The first is something Tour fans already know. Lance Armstrong is a class act.

Today Lance Armstrong showed up for the big roll out wearing his normal Discovery Channel jersey, not the yellow jersey of the race leader that he was entitiled to wear.

. . .

After the rollout the race referees told Lance that he would have to wear the yellow or risk being disqualified from the race. So Armstong is racing with the yellow jersey pulled on over his discovery jerset. Let's hope it doesn't get hot today.

So there you go, in a day of overpaid, over egoed proffesional athletes we have one here that tries to take the high road and do the right thing and the race officials have to get involved and drag him back into the muck.

To Bjarne Riis, you made a tough call ordering the team to ride on withour Zabriskie. But was it the right call? YOu should have left a rider behind to help him. To bad you don't respect the yellow jersey as much as the guy who was wearing it and the man today who is reluctantly wearing it today.

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We're a week away from the All-Star break, and i'm sure everybody's wondering how annika's A's are doing in annika's own fantasy baseball league, MLBloggers.

i suck.

Every other owner has been in first at least once. i've set a record for being in last place the most consecutive weeks.

Yep, pretty much all of them.

i drafted poorly. i built my team around Eric Gagné, who went on the DL almost immediately, came back briefly, and is out again. i got no runners except for Podsednik, with his sub-par offensive stats.

But that's only for starters.

i'm in the bottom three in the following stats: runs, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, batting average, on base percentage, wins, saves, strikeouts, earned run average and walk+hit ratio.

Yep, pretty much all of them.

i'm even behind Ted, who doesn't even like baseball. i'm way behind gcotharn, and he's never played fantasy baseball before. (In fact, gcotharn is in first place!)

Victor and Matt tried to help me out with some very generous trades, and yet i still suck. While Dawn and The Maximum Leader never make a roster change and they're beating me.

i'm losing to Paul, who apparently gave up his blog so he could devote more time to kicking my ass!

Even a Geek knows more about baseball than i do.

It's hard to believe, but i'm even losing to a bunch of Zombies and Rats.

Yes, as Charlie Brown said: Rats.

Posted by: annika at 09:25 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Cal's football team again starts the season highly ranked at number 15 in the Sporting News Poll. But while the Golden Bears' finish last season was less than heroic, their freshman offensive lineman Mike Tepper should be a hero in anyone's book.

A University of California, Berkeley, football player was seriously injured when authorities say he was allegedly intentionally struck by a car driven by a group of men leering at a female friend.

Mike Tepper, 19, was walking with the woman near campus during the weekend. The men began taunting the woman, a Cal volleyball player, and eventually cut the pair off with their car, police said.

When the men refused to leave the woman alone, the 6-foot-6, 312-pound lineman jumped between the car and the woman. The men allegedly then ran over Tepper twice, breaking his leg.

'My season's toast,' Tepper said Wednesday as he recuperated from surgery to repair a broken fibula and torn ankle ligaments. He had nine screws and one plate put in his leg and can't walk on it for eight weeks.

Police have arrested Johnny Ray Smith, 33, and Calvin Joe Kelley, 29, for violating terms of their probation or parole, authorities said. Officers also arrested a third man, but prosecutors declined to file charges against him because of scant evidence.

Police are investigating the incident as an assault with a deadly weapon.

Cal football coach Jeff Tedford said he was 'proud of the courage Mike showed Saturday night.'

Update: Mike's dad describes the incident here.

Mike was walking on Telegraph Saturday night. A good looking girl was on her way home just ahead of him and was trying to cross the street (I think at Dwight) and a car pulled up with 4 or 5 men in it. They started taunting the girl, making unwanted propositions. She said she wasn't interested and was trying to get by. As she started to walk ahead of the car to pass in front of it, they sped up and blocked her.

By this time, Mike caught up with the girl and told the guys she wasnt interested and together they walked behind the car to get by.

As they were crossing the street behind the car, the driver put the car into reverse and punched it, intentionally attempting to hit them. Mike immediately pushed the girl out of the way, but could not get out of the way himself. She landed across the street with scraped knees and a scraped up face.

Mike wasnt as lucky, the car hit him, he fell, then the car ran over mike's leg. Then, the idiots put the car in Drive and ran over him again (over the ankle again).

A police lieutenant witnessed the whole thing from about a block away. He was at Mike's side within seconds and called an ambulance. He took statements from 5 witnesses at the scene. The lieutenant put a turniquette on Mike's leg (he has a very deep gash), because it was bleeding fairly severely. The lieutenant also said that it was intentional.

At the hospital, they x-rayed Mike, and found he had a broken Fibula, and ligament damage. He also has a dislocated Tibia. They had to spend a little time trying to stop the bleeding.

He had an operation this morning, where they put a plate and two screws into the broken bones, and will repair the ligament damage. He will be in a cast for 6-8 weeks before they take the plate off. After that he will be able to jog lightly on it, but will not be in any condition to "play hard" at least until November at the earliest.

The lieutenant called for backup and had the guys arrested within 5 blocks of the incident as he came to Mike's aid. The driver was on parole, and another passenger was on probation.

The driver is going to be charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and both of those guys had had their paroles/probation revoked that night. They will both finish their earlier convictions behind bars, and are behind bars now.

. . .

Personally, I think Mike saved a life that night. Had he not been there, who knows what those scumbags would have done to that girl, the least of being run over by a car. I think he deserves a medal for what he did. I am proud of his behavior.... He is a great kid, and an outstanding citizen, and I am constantly reminding him of that.

In his meeting with the surgeon yesterday, he was told that he would heel 100%, and that 4 or 5 CAL players have had similar surgeries and have gone on to play in the "pros." That was great news, and we are looking to a speedy recovery and a fantastic year, next year. He will be working out with the team, but staying off the foot until such time he can play again.

Posted by: annika at 02:58 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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