(Photo:  Yahoo's The Contender Page)

Coming off of last week's knockout victory, plenty of heat was placed on Anthony.  Anthony was riding high off of the win, but his teammates felt he ducked Jimmy Lang for what they considered a weaker fighter.  Nevertheless, Anthony is safe for a couple of weeks.

Some of the guys were a little calmer after coming back to the house.  Ishe and Joey, however, weren't.  Joey packed his things and switched rooms, as he was Anthony's teammate and was "supposed" to be the one to fight Brent Cooper.  Ishe went on a rampage, throwing things and ranting about how he wants to get even for the doublecross.  TKO'ing Brent only made it worse.

Just when it looked as if there would be a confrontation, Anthony made it back to the training house and everything cooled off.  Tarrick ongratulated him for the victory and defended his choice.

We got an inside look at Tarrick's background.  Tarrick was actually a pretty good boxer when he was younger, even making it into the top ten by a couple of boxing organizations and was in line for a title shot.  However, the champ pulled out of the fight, and a disillusioned Tarrick never got his opportunity.  Tarrick quit boxing for a while, but then came back once he heard about The Contender.  This made him one of the most seasoned fighters of the bunch.

At the gym, Stallone gave Anthony the boxing glove necklace, as every fighter gets for their victory.  Anthony told the group that he wanted to give his gloves to Brent.  Stallone didn't like it, and hoped that Anthony would keep it for himself, but it was his choice.  In the end, Anthony said he would keep them. 

Due to the Anthony's potential gesture, Alfonso was a little cooler towards him, but Ishe was still angry.  In fact, he was so angry, he didn't go out with the guys for their reward.  Their reward this time was a night out...with Ja Rule.  Ja Rule?  I don't get it since Ja hasn't been hot for like, two years or so, nor is he a boxer, but they enjoyed it as they hit some clubs and enjoyed the nightlife.  Ja also presented them with some expensive watches.  Since Ishe didn't go, he didn't get one.

This week's mission was very important, as there were only four boxers left that hadn't had a bout yet.  Sugar Ray told them this mission would decide this week's and next week's fights, which makes since because the remaining two would have to fight each other. 

This week's mission was a little simpler than past episodes.  There were two walls made of cinder blocks.  One boxer had to use a sledgehammer to break up the wall.  The others had to grab the broken pieces and fill up the pickup truck (a Toyota....after watching the videos every week, I'm tired of that commercial).  Once the time limit was up, the trucks were weighed and whoever had the heaviest truck won.  This was a mismatch on paper, as Juan and Peter looked too small to be able to hang with Tarick and Joey, albeit Joey is injured.  My suspicions were right, as Joey was effective with the sledgehammer and the West won easily.

No drama for the picks this week.  With the West winning the mission, Tarick Salmaci challenged Juan De la Rosa.  These two were about as different as night and day, lifestyle wise.  Tarick is an experienced boxer at age 32 while Juan is only learning the game at 18 years old.  However, Juan went to Mexico at age 15 in order to turn pro there. 

According to Yahoo's profile, Tarick was actually an Olympic trials finalist, losing in the championship bout of the U.S. trials.  He turned pro, and became the NABO Middleweight Champion and was ranked #4 in the WBO and #6 by the WBC.  During that time, he only lost one fight.  After he quit the sport, Tarick's wife was expecting a child, and he went into residential real estate, making a six figure salary.  He now lives with his wife, Dena, and kid in Detroit.  So for Tarick, he's been there, and done that.  He's already a success, win or lose. 

Juan is a different story, as his extended family; his dad, three siblings, and grandmother share a two bedroom house in Texas.  His grandfather, who encouraged him to take up boxing, died a year ago, and is his motivation for winning.  So, far, so good, as he compiled a 12-0-1 record as a pro.

I'm not going to try to sugarcoat this fight; it wasn't that good.  There were some good punches landed and they stayed busy at the beginning of the fight, but it seemed as if both were out of gas in the fifth round. 

You could tell Juan was a Mexican fighter, because he fought like one: stand there toe-to-toe and swing until someone falls.  Juan was swinging haymakers, and would hit Tarick with one every once in a while to sting him.  However, Juan's technique was sloppy, and you could tell that he came into the fight real anxious and hyper.  He possibly won the round, but he was sucking air at the end of it.

Tarick's experience came into play in the second round, as Juan continued to throw wild punches, which was sure to sap his energy.  Juan's fighting style reminded me of Ricardo Mayorga; in other words, he didn't have one.  Meanwhile, Tarick used the jab, and got in some good combinations.  He looked like the better fighter after Round two.

But all of a sudden, Tarick seemed as he had lead in his gloves in Round three.  I don't know if it was due to conditioning, or what, but Juan was able to get some hooks in there and also do a bit of bobbing and weaving.  Tarick was stung by some of Juan's punches, and Juan took the round.

Juan tried something new in Round four:  boxing.  Instead of trying to dive in with punches, he worked inside, tried to work the body a bit and set up the hook to the head.  It worked perfectly, as he tagged Tarick three times with that combination.  However, Tarick at the end of the round gets a straight right hand in that cuts Juan above the eye.  We knew that was the beginning of the end for Brent last week.  But Juan finishes the round pretty solid.

Round five was more holding and sloppiness than anything.  Neither were landing punches that had any kind of effect whatsoever.  They duked it out at the end of the round, but the fight was pretty much over by then.

Juan won by unaminous decision.  Considering Tarick seemed as if he didn't come to fight, a sloppy fight by Juan sounds like the right decision.  However, I don't expect Juan to win his next fight, unless he fights a more technically sound fight than he did tonight.

Meanwhile, Tarick will go home.  Something tells me he didn't want it as bad anyway.  He has no regrets, and he's glad he finally got his opportunity.  Poor guy; now he has to go back home to his nice job and family.  Something tells me he'll be alright.

Next week is Joey vs. Jimmy.  That should be a decent fight as long as Joey's leg holds up.  See ya.

My Other Contender Posts:

1.  The Contender Quarterfinals:  Ishe vs. Sergio
2.  The Contender, Episode Eight:  Jimmy vs. Joey
3.  The Contender Episode Seven:  Juan vs. Tarick
4.  The Contender Episode Six:  Anthony vs. Brent
5.  The Contender Episode Three:  Ishe vs. Ahmed

Today the folks at Blogs for Terri received word that Mae Magourik has been transported to a hospital in Alabama and is receiving fluids and nourishment:

THANKS TO THE SUPPORT OF ALL OF THE FRIENDS OF TERRI, MY AUNT MAE MAGOUIRK HAS BEEN AIR LIFTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA-BIRMINGHAM MEDICAL CENTER

... and receiving IV fluids, nourishment and some of the finest medical care available in the United States! Praise be the name of the Lord GOD... Thanks to Terri's friends... It would NEVER ever have been possible without bloggers who love life , and the truth!! I am racing from my home to UAB now and will type a detailed update after I see my Aunt Mae! Thanks guys, your calls, emails, blogs and prayers did it ALL!!!

I so love you guys!!!!!!!!!!
Ken Mullinax, nephew of Mae

That's definitely good to hear.

No information as of yet on how she was released from the hospice, but Mullinax did mention that the "opposition", which I'm sure means her granddaughter, is trying to have her readmitted.  I'd imagine the judge met with the doctors assigned to Magourik and made the decision to give Mullinax and her brother custody.  Hopefully we'll hear more about that sometime tonight.

A few weeks ago, in my post "Death....and the Left", I said this:

How far will Schindler v. Schiavo go in allowing guardians and the government in terminating the lives of disabled patients?  Although evidence was presented in court by numerous doctors testifying through affidavits that she was not legally classified as being in a persistent vegetative state and that it was possible for her condition to improve, the order to starve her to death went through anyway.  The time where judges won't have to consider PVS for a death order to stand is coming sooner rather than later.

Well, it looks like that scenario did indeed came sooner rather than later.  The LaGrange (Ga) Daily News is reporting on another story where a family is desperately trying to save a 81-year old woman's life after she had her feeding tube taken out.

According to her nephew, Kenneth Mullinax, Mae Magourik hasn't eaten or received fluids since March 28th, and the hospice is keeping her sedated on morphine and ativan.

There's a problem, however (from World Net Daily):

According to Mullinax, his aunt's local cardiologist in LaGrange, Dr. James Brennan, and Dr. Raed Agel, a highly acclaimed cardiologist at the nationally renowned University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, determined that her aortic dissection is contained and not life-threatening at the moment.

Mullinax also states that Gaddy did not hold power of attorney, a fact he learned from the hospice's in-house legal counsel, Carol Todd

GHPCO is a committed member and supporter of the Georgia Collaborative to Improve End of Life Care, a partnership of providers, academics, business leaders and community members that has worked together for the past 5 years to improve end of life care in Georgia. The accomplishments of the Collaborative include community education through Georgia Health Decisions' CRITICAL Conditions program; support of physician, nurse and allied health provider end of life education and training; outreach to community organizations; research on current practices and the Emmy award-winning documentary Final Choices: Changing a Culture. 

When I read the WSJ editorial praising the Justice Department for the job they had done on the Sandy Berger case on Thursday, I was a bit skeptical, but I didn't think it was anything worth noting.

In today's editorial, however, not only does it seem as if they're doing damage control on the behalf of the Justice Department, but they took a knock at doubting conservatives:

The confusion seems to stem from the mistaken idea that there were handwritten notes by various Clinton Administration officials in the margins of these documents, which Mr. Berger may have been able to destroy. But that's simply an "urban myth," prosecutor Hillman tells us, based on a leak last July that was "so inaccurate as to be laughable." In fact, the five iterations of the anti-terror "after-action" report at issue in the case were printed out from a hard drive at the Archives and have no notations at all.

and later:

Meanwhile, conservatives don't do themselves any credit when they are as impervious to facts as the loony left.

It seems as if the WSJ wanted to make this a mix between a news article and editorial.  However, it would have been better served as a news article, minus the commentary.

However, through it's editorializing the WSJ places the cart before the horse.  After all, informing readers about the facts while claiming they are being "impervious to facts" in the same piece doesn't make much sense, unless this assertion had been reported before.  WSJ never resported a statement like this previously, nor has any other media outlet - at least any that I've known - disputed any notes possibly destroyed by Berger.

Also, for Hillman to simply dismiss the note controversy as an "urban myth" is hot garbage.  People didn't make this up out of hot air.

The Washington Post:

The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

If people were engaging in an urban myth, it was due to the information reported by the press, and Hillman waited until now to respond to it.  It was his failure to respond to the allegations that allowed for these "myths" to foster for so long.

Maybe the WSJ and the Justice Department is correct in stating Berger wasn't trying to engage in a cover up for the Clinton Administration.  However, that's still no excuse for giving him a slap on the wrist for stealing and destroying documents from the National Archives.  I still say Berger should have his Archive privilege taken permanently, and possibly some jail time added as well.

But as I said before, I'm not holding my breath.

- Now that college basketball is over, I'll be preparing for the NBA Playoffs.  I know I haven't mentioned the NBA much with the exception of the trade deadline, but I'll get into it soon.

- After the Finals, I don't know what will happen next.  I'm not into baseball as much, so mostly talk will be about offseason acquisitions until college football and NFL preseason starts up.  I tell ya; June-August is the longest period of the year sports-wise.

- I'm trying to find a new name for my blog.  "Expertise's Politics and Sports Blog" is simply too long and too basic.  I'm looking for something a little more creative.  If you have a suggestion, let me know.

- I'm trying to increase my posts daily, but there is only so much you can talk about that's actually interesting and hasn't been talked to death by the rest of the blogosphere within an hour of the news breaking.  Luckily I am up late at night, so I get a fresh look at the newspaper websites, but even then there is only so much you can talk about.

- I'll be the first to tell you that I don't have the largest readership in the blogosphere, but for the ones that do come on a regular basis, thanks.  I appreciate it and I hope you'll continue to visit.  Feel free to comment and to place your John Hancock on the tagboard.

Throughout the day there has been a lot of talk in regards to the news that the memo was traced to a member of Florida Senator Mel Martinez's office.

Over at National Review's The Corner, Jonah Goldberg said this:

I think it's probably good news -- or at least there's a positive side to the fact -- that the memo turned out to be real. It will probably caution some bloggers that simply because something is politically inconvenient and doesn't have an obvious explanation, that doesn't mean there's a dishonest liberal/media conspiracy at work. Better to learn that sort of lesson on a minor episode like this than something that grabs more attention.

But the question is, what did we learn?  While there's no question that a number of bloggers went a tad overboard once it was found out that ABC News and the Washington Post could not verify the statements they made in their respective articles on this topic, that doesn't mean Darling's admission vindicates them. 

They still couldn't verify any of their statements before Darling's admission.  Usually a journalist writes an article based on facts he/she can verify beforehand to be true, and the MSM didn't do that in this case.  ABC News or the WP couldn't do this, or they would have done so within a couple of days after being challenged (and a couple of days is actually giving them more time than is really needed).  Thus, they aren't off the hook.

Tim Graham responds appropriately:

The real lesson of the Schiavo memo is this: to the liberal media, every piece of internal Republican communication is potential news meat, especially if it can be used to make Republicans look bad. (Hopefully, freshman legislators learn this at orientation...) Every internal Democratic memo leak is clearly a Republican plot that should not see the light of day. The Washington Post and assorted other liberal apple-polishers may have accuracy on their side on this one, but they don't have balance.

And contrast the reaction of the media with the Schiavo memo and the Rockerfeller memo.  The media didn't initially care who created the Schiavo memo and more or less assumed it was geniune based on the word of the Democrats.  That, after all, is what started this whole fracas, because they couldn't back up their article when challenged and in some cases backed off of their assertions.

But the Rockefeller memo is a different story.  Instead of criticizing Sen. Rockefeller for politicizing intelligence for political gain - precisely what the Republicans are being criticized for in the Schaivo case - the media was more interested on who leaked the memo and how.  The one constant between both memos is that the media followed the Democrats' lead, whom wanted to use the leak as a smokescreen for Rockefeller's obvious exploitation of national intelligence.

Yet, there's no leftist bias in the media.  Right.

Over at The Kerry Spot (Geraghty, dude, it's time to change the name of the blog), Jim Geraghty posts a statement from a reader:

The Washington Post is getting all the credit for solving the Schiavo memo mystery, but in reality, it was the Washington Times that did the digging and pushing to find out what happened. Mike Allen of the WaPost was only able to write his story after the pressure from two Washington Times Capitol Hill reporters forced Martinez to get to the bottom of this and release his statement last night to all media outlets.

The Washington Times published a front-page story that reflected lots of leg work on the story by reporters Stephen Dinan and Brian DeBose. They contacted all 100 senators (either in person as they came off the floor or though their staff) and discovered that not one Republican had ever seen the memo and only one Democrat did — Harkin...

A fair reading of how this story has played out shows that the Washington Post misreported the story and the Washington Times set the record straight.

And Geraghty says:

Needless to say, the usual suspects are declaring this complete vindication for the Post. Yeah, yeah, and the Burkett memos might have been typed on a $17,500 typesetting machine that just happened to be in a Texas Air National Guard office.

Exactly.

The Washington Post is reporting that the legal counsel for Florida Senator Mel Martinez has admitted to writing the infamous Schiavo memo.  The counsel, Brian Darling, resigned from Martinez's office, which he accepted.

At least that brings a much needed answer as to where the memo came from and who wrote it.  However, another question pops up, as the Post explains how it got into Democratic hands:

Martinez, a freshman who was secretary of housing and urban development for most of President Bush's first term, said he had not read the one-page memo. He said he inadvertently passed it to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who had worked with him on the issue. After that, officials gave the memo to reporters for ABC News and The Washington Post.

Harkin said in an interview that Martinez handed him the memo on the Senate floor, in hopes of gaining his support for the bill giving federal courts jurisdiction in the Florida case in an effort to restore the brain-damaged Florida woman's feeding tube. "He said these were talking points -- something that we're working on here," Harkin said.

First, I don't buy Martinez's explanation.  The idea that he just so happened to hand Harken the memo without knowing what he was giving him is not a reasonable excuse. 

Once Martinez was given the memo he should have:

(1).  Thrown it away and given Darling a reprimand.

(2).  Kept it away from the Senate floor and made sure there weren't any other copies.

I don't see how hard it was for Martinez to do this.  Maybe he somehow considered Harkin to be an ally (Harkin supported the Schiavo bill, but can hardly be considered a tweener) and didn't think he would spread the memo around.  Regardless, I think he knew what was on that paper.

With this article another piece has been added to the puzzle.  Of course, some would think the puzzle is complete, but that isn't the case.  You see, all of the Republican senators have been placed on record as saying they hadn't seen the memo.  Now this could go two ways.  Either there were some senators that were lying, as Martinez obviously was, and indeed saw the memo, or Martinez didn't pass it to anyone but Harken, who went to his party colleagues and smeared the Republicans with it. 

My intuition tells me that a little bit of both happened.  I don't think Harken was the only one that Martinez showed the memo to, but I think once Democrats got a hold of it, they were determined to make some political fortune out of it, which of course is how the Washington Post, New York Times, and ABC News got a hold of the story.  Having said that, I doubt if this story will be investigated any further than it already has, but it would be interesting to find out how it was truly distributed.

Finally, Hindrocket over at Powerline makes the case for retractions and corrections to be made by ABC News and the Washington Post:

Mike Allen, the Post's reporter, has previously said that the memo came from a Democratic Senator who said he got it from a Republican Senator. That is consistent with the current AP account. But the story that Allen wrote with a Post colleague on March 19 is not consistent with the current version of the facts. On March 19, Allen wrote:

Republican officials declared, in a memo that was supposed to be seen only by senators, that they believe the Schiavo case "is a great political issue" that could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.

A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record) (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

In fact, if the current AP account is correct, the amazingly inept "talking points memo," which got the number of the Senate bill wrong, misspelled Terri Schiavo's name, and contained a number of other typographical errors, did not come from "Republican officials" or "party leaders," but rather from an anonymous, unknown staffer. Senator Martinez himself--forget about members of his staff--is a freshman senator, in office for three months, not a "party leader" or "Republican officials." (The plural in the Post's original article is interesting.) Also, the reporting by ABC and the Post suggested that the memo was widely or universally distributed among Republican senators, while a survey reported by the Washington Tmes indicated that none of the 55 Republican senators had seen it. So, if the current AP story is correct, it confirms that ABC and the Post mis-reported the story--in the Post's case, in an article that was picked up by dozens of other newspapers off the paper's wire service.

I bet I can guess what the Post and ABC News did:  they simply took the word of Harkin and the Democratic staffers at face value. 

"What's this?"

"A memo by those dirty Republicans."

"Who's is it?"

"We don't know...but it's been passed around the whole Senate floor by those guys."

"Well...it looks like I have a story to write."

That's pretty much how it went down.  I'll be surprised if the fact that they still haven't concocted proof that this memo was distributed on the Senate floor isn't swept under the rug.

---

UPDATE:  Malkin has responded to the Post article here and here.  There are a couple of points that I want to address.

First, did Mike Allen, the WP reporter who broke yesterday's Martinez story, try to set Malkin up?

Judge for yourself.  Here's the email he sent Malkin:

From: "Mike Allen"
To: "Michelle Malkin"
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 1:37 PM
Subject: WP request

Howdy--I'm doing an article for tomorrow about what senators are saying about the Schiavo memo--I'd love to include your comments--I'd be interested in how you took an interest in this, where you think the memo originated, why you think it came from Democrats, etc.--We remain anxious to pin down the author and if you have clues, I'd love to pursue them--Appreciatively, Mike

Is it possible that by the time Allen emailed Malkin he knew about Martinez and Darling's role in the Schiavo memo?  If he did, that would mean he was trying to do a hatchet job to Malkin and possibly other conservative bloggers (he emailed Hindrocket too, but to the best of my knowledge only to relay the article to him, as that's the only correspondence Hindrocket mentioned).  I'm not saying they wouldn't have deserved it if they gave him the soundbites he wanted, but still; I think he tried to pull a "gotcha".

Also, I think Malkin went a bit too far with this statement:

After I blogged my criticism of Claybourn, he quickly and contritely retracted the post--unlike ABC News or the Post.

That's stretching the truth, as Claybourn retracted the story four days after Malkin and others questioned Claybourn's sources.  Others might call that quickly, but I wouldn't.  It's true that Malkin was on top of the matter in the middle of the night and wrote a critique questioning the validity of Claybourn's sources.  But Claybourn only retracted his story once he could no longer rely on his sources.  That's not a knock on Claybourn either; he took credit for the errant story and did so responsibly.

As far as Claybourn's link to Martinez's office, it will be interesting to see how Claybourn moves forward with this information.  But I'm starting to wonder whether he can actually confirm that the two sources that claimed to work for Martinez actually does.  Claybourn's already responded to the WP article here, but didn't mention his connections with the Martinez office. 

Maybe Malkin's right.  There is a lot more of this story to be told.

He let a herb like Rod Blagojevich hustle him.

Aiight, there was a bet on the NCAA Title game.

So, Easley goes all out. He puts up barbecue, of course. But check this out...he gets Western AND Eastern NC style. From the west, he gets the classic Lexington BBQ, and then would get some eastern style from The Barbecue Joint in Chapel Hill. That's two different pounds of barbecue, AND he adds some cole slaw, hushpuppies, and a six-pack of Cheerwine.

And what does Blago bet in return?

A goddamned pizza...from Champaign. And a two liter of Orange Crush. WTF?

And I bet that fool was all hyped after Carolina won. Probably running around like, "yeah I'mma get me some PIZZAAAAA"

One of his aides probably said, "But sir, we can get pizza two blocks down the street. You could have had that shit delivered in half an hour, or it was free."

I mean, THIS motherfucker. How you gonna get got by a dork like Blago?

At least Obama and Durbin had to come out of the pocket for Dole and Burr. They get some Eli's cheesecake and D'Arcy's horseshoe sandwiches out of the deal. Easley ain't get shit but some tired pizza and some soda that he could have gotten in the drink machines in the lobby.  The pizza will be cold and the soda will be warm by the time it gets there.  At least you can reheat barbecue with no problem.

He should be impeached for this incident.

(Photo:  AP/Yahoo)

This is what it's all about.

The North Carolina Tar Heels complete the Big Ten Massacre:  defeating three Big Ten teams in the Elite Eight, Final Four, and the NCAA Championship Game to give Roy Williams his first NCAA Title and the Tarheels' fourth championship in the school's history.  I remember the Tarheel win in 93, and this one is much sweeter than that one because of everything this team went through.  They went 8-20 two years ago, and now they're the National Champions.

One day a movie producer or a documentary film maker will get smart and place this story on the big screen.  The last five years has been a roller coaster for Tarheel fans and and for those seniors, and would make one helluva story.  The Maryland documentary was great, but UNC's has the potential to be even better

The Tarheels proved two things on Monday night:

   1.  They are a team.  Not simply individual talent, but a team.  Led by Sean May, whom Illinois had absolutely no answer for, everyone had their roles.  Felton was the play caller and the assist man.  McCants was the mid-range scorer.  Manuel and Noel were the defensive guys.  Jawad helped run the floor on transition.  All that noise we heard from the talking heads throughout the weekend turned out to be completely wrong, and you could tell they didn't have a clue of what they were talking about.

   2.  This is Roy Williams's team, not Matt Doherty's team.  Another myth generated by the talking heads.  Yes, Doherty recruited them, which gives him, say, 10% of the credit.  But make no mistake about it; Roy Williams made them a great team.  In fact, I'd say that McCants and Felton would have transferred if Doherty had stayed.  Sean May wouldn't have been as good as he is right now either.  With Doherty at the helm, UNC would have been lucky to have made the NCAA Tournament, much less win the championship.

Next year is still looking up for the Heels, and with May returning we are an instant title threat again.  I expect Marvin Williams to return for one more year, and possibly Raymond Felton as well.  David Noel will be a defensive specialist and his athleticism will help the Heels on both ends, and hopefully Williams has recruited some guards to help with ballhandling.

Regardless, the road to the NCAA title will once again come through Franklin Street.  If those guys stay, I have no doubt that there isn't a team in the nation that will be able to handle the street.  If Duke could do it in 91 & 92, why can't we do it in 05 & 06?

whether or not I will liveblog the national championship game tonight.

Why?  Well I'm tempted to take a trip up to Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.  If I do, and the Tarheels win, I definitely won't be here.   And you probably won't hear from me again until Tuesday night (a brother gotta recover).

I probably won't make the decision until the last minute.  Just check in anyway.

I mean, can you really blame me for not missing out on this kind of fun?


(Photo:  WRAL Channel Five)

I didn't think so.

And folks, that was only Saturday, when they came out 7,000 strong in a span of a half hour after UNC whored Michigan State.  They're expecting 20,000 plus for the victory party tonight.

*nods*  I think I'mma have to go.  Yeah.