Some Quickies…

Obama’s speech last week regarding his reasons for intervening in Libya (which I touched on here) took place with the typical results. Innocent civilians this, America’s responsibility that. I was neither moved, nor angered by the address, and I think it just continues his status quo standing. I was, however, very impressed with the honesty of Obama when he boiled the reasonings behind the action down to a simple, singular one: “When our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act”. Dude gave it to us straight as to why we’re not going to help out in the Ivory Coast, or why we stayed out of Sudan- we’ve got no interests in those countries. Libya holds valuable interests for us, namely oil, and that’s why we’re bombing them.

I can respect that honesty. At least there was no fabrication of WMD’s, or a USS Maine like blame game. It boiled down to Gaddafi fuckin up our money flow, and Barracka Flakka let that be known.

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I’m still bumpin that Big K.R.I.T. album hard. Return of 4Eva is a must-have folks. Dude jam-packs the disc with 20 tracks (+ 2 edited versions) of brand new material. It’s downloadable for free all over the net, check out datpiff or simply Google it for a link.

Krit’s from Mississippi, and his style’s definitely Southern. And he’s got some lyrical skill to go along with a sound that hearkens memories of an early 3-6 Mafia. Throw in some definite Outkast inspiration, and some West Coast flair that reminds me of Warren G in his prime and you’ve got Krit. Check this track, “Time Machine”, from the album:

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A Scene Featuring The Dapper Dons

Just watched the movie Takers, which has a heavily hip-hop influenced cast led by T.I. Starring alongside TIP is Chris Brown, pre-dresing room freakout, post-woman beating, and Idris Elba, famous in hip-hop circles for his timeless role as Stringer Bell on HBO’s The Wire. What most people don’t know about Elba is that he’s a native Englishman, and he has a HEAVY British accent which is on display in this movie (he deserves all the awards in the world for playing Bell, a Baltimore drug lord, WITHOUT a British accent). Hollywood will definitely be calling Brown again, as he was enjoyable to watch in this film.

Overall, a quality flick. Check it out if you’ve got time to spare on an exceptional action-thriller. Nothing ground-breaking in the plot department here, just the typical rat-pack, bank robbing joint. But it’s made well, and proves to be entertaining.

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India won the World Cup of cricket over the weekend, defeating Sri Lanka. Wahoo! I don’t care. You don’t care. Few in the USA care. But they won it for the first time in 28 years, so good for them.

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The 2011 NBA Hall of Fame class was announced today. Headlining the group are Dennis Rodman and Chris Mullin. Rodman gets voted in for his outstanding rebounding and defensive skills as well as for his part with the original Bad Boys of Detroit and the 90’s Chicago Bulls dynasty. Not entirely sure why Mullin made it in. He was a star at St. John’s, and an above average ballplayer throughout his career, but he never struck me as much more than a white Mitch Richmond, and he surely wasn’t elected based on his horrendous GM stint with the Golden State Warriors.

Alongside Rodman and Mullin in the class are coaches Tex Winter, Tara VanDerveer and Herb Magee as well as NBA players Arvydas Sabonis and Artis Gilmore, and Olympian Teresa Edwards. Good look on that Sabonis election, and here’s to the anticipation for Rodman’s acceptance speech in August!

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The Barry Bonds perjury trial is on hold for now, as one of the jurors is apparently battling side effects related to gallstones. The trial will likely resume within a week, so the Feds’ raging hard-on for making Barry squeal will certainly not be subsiding.

I hate this trial. I hate everything having to do with the government’s involvement in steroids in any sport. People laugh and throw criticism at the Utah senator trying to make the BCS a political matter, then cheer when senate devotes an entire session to steroids. The only difference between the two is that the BCS places power in the hands of the superior, while steroids seemingly places the power into the subordinates.

You’d be hard pressed to find 15 baseball fans who truly believe Bonds did NOT take some sort of PED. The guy’s public image in everywhere but San Francisco is down there on-level with such media darlings as Jack Kevorkian and OJ Simpson. I can almost GUARANTEE he won’t make the baseball hall of fame (see: Mark McGwire), and despite his stats, not a single baseball expert will even glance at him when talking about the best players of all time.

This huge stink comes down to Bonds lying under oath. Do we really need to invest such time and money into a trial for this? When Bonds denied knowingly using PEDs in the first place, the judge should have simply stopped, told the court to regard Bonds’ previous statement as fiction, and resumed. Instead, a massive dragging out is going to take place. It’s ridiculous. It’s comical. It’s simply, excess.

And about Barry: yeah he roided. So did Mark McGwire. So did Jose Canseco. But so didn’t Nook Logan, Marvin Benard, Adam Piatt and Todd Hundley to name a few. You see any of those bums jacking homers like Barry did? Aside from McGwire (who’s still 179 jacks behind Bonds), no. There’s a reason Bonds hit them out more than anybody else, and that’s because the man’s one of the greatest left-handed hitters of all time. His swing is a work of art. I dare anybody to try to go inside on Barry Bonds. That ball’s going OUT. What he did off the field is one thing, and if he wasn’t such a prick to the media or a social recluse, people’s opinions of him might be less harsh. But, Barry was Barry. And his off the field issues do not overshadow, in my opinion, his historic on the field talent, or statistics.

Almost Sweeter than Griffey's. I SEE YOU BARRY!