Kids, here's a bit of advice:  if a cop pulls you over and tells you to get out of the car, stop what you're doing and get out of the car.

A woman in Boynton Beach, Florida had to learn that the hard way.  As you'll see in the first of two videos, the woman was pulled over for speeding - the cop said she was going 51 in a 35 - and she had a broken tail light, cracked windshield, and wasn't wearing a seatbelt.  As soon as the cop out out of the car she tried to open the door of the SUV and get out.  When the cop told her to stay in the vehicle she informed him that she would do what she wanted, and cursed him out at every turn.

The officer calls for backup, finally gets her license and registration, and goes back to the car to run a check on her.  In the second video, he comes back and tells her to get out of the vehicle, but she refuses, saying she's on the phone with someone to come to the scene.  The cop told her to get out of the SUV SIX TIMES, and in the last four warned her that she would be tasered if she did not comply.   Another officer came on the scene on the passenger side, and when he tried to take the cell phone out of her hand, she swung at him. 

That's when the officer finally tasered her.  You'll hear a very high pitched scream from the woman as she was tasered, and she hit the ground.  After she failed to place her hands behind her back, she was tasered again.

After hearing about a prior incident that left a man dead, I haven't been a big fan of taser use.  But in this instance, the officer appropriately did his job.  This woman was hostile the whole time, despite knowing she was in the wrong from the get-go, she cursed the officer out, she never responded to his requests, he asked her several times to get out of the vehicle yet failed, called someone on a cell phone and told him they had a gun pointed at her, and started to resist when they moved in on her.

She had no one to blame for that incident but herself, and even in that I bet she was being a bit melodramatic.  She acted as if she was about to die.

Last week in Durham, NC three burning crosses were found in different places around the city.  One was near St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Hillandale Rd, another was found on South Roxboro St. just off MLK Parkway (is there a city in the nation that doesn't have something named after MLK?), and there was one found downtown on Dillard and Holloway streets.

Sean Hannity is demanding an apology by Arizona State Representative Krysten Sinema over her incorrect allegation that he broke federal law by crossing the U.S./Mexico border in April. 

On his radio show today, Hannity says if he doesn't get the apology in a week, he will sue Sinema for defamation of character, and he'll have legal counsel and fellow talk radio host Mark Levin defend him in court. 

I'm not the biggest Hannity fan, but I think the woman should apologize.  If she didn't know the law, and didn't know where the actual border was, then she shouldn't have said anything about it.  Period.  She was in the wrong, and I don't think she wants to call Levin's bluff.  If the apology hasn't been given by next Friday, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about a lawsuit being filed in Arizona on the following Monday.

Now sure, this incident didn't hurt Hannity at all.  All he wants to do is embarrass this woman and the Arizona Democratic Caucus.  If I was the judge, I'd award Hannity a $1 judgement and charge Sinema with court costs, which would be stiff for wasting the court's time.  It's nothing more than a trivial lawsuit, so the best thing for Sinema to do is apologize and get this over with.

It's not that hard to figure out, actually.  The Spurs is probably the most adaptable team in the league, and can adjust their performance to suit their opponent.

But the Suns only know how to play one way:  run and gun.  Sure, Stoudamire can go buckwild on offense, but what is he going to do on defense?  Nothing.  Steve Nash has never been a defensive threat (his defense is about as easy as walking through a bubble), and thus never provided a threat to either Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili.

In other words, Steve Nash left the old Dallas in order to go to the new Dallas.  And just like the old Dallas, the new Dallas will watch the NBA Finals either at home or in the stands.  Meanwhile, the Spurs can take eight days off while they await Detroit or Miami.  That's what happens when teams try to play on only one end of the court.

Ha.  I wonder if Ambra heard about this.

At a Seattle concert featuring rapper Snoop Dogg on Saturday night, a fan caught a beatdown after getting on the stage and grabbing Snoop's shoulder.  The fan, Richard Monroe, claimed they allowed fans to come on stage.  Once he came towards Snoop and touched his shoulder, the other rappers on stage grabbed him and they gave him the worst whupping of his life.

This is the result of the beatdown:

A decades-old mystery has been solved, as the man who constantly tipped Washington Post writers Bob Woodward and Carl Woodward about the break-in of the DNC headquarters at the Watergate Hotel that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon revealed himself.  W. Mark Felt, who was the FBI's Deputy Director - second in charge of the bureau - was the man who started it all.

All of a sudden, Deep Throat doesn't seem like the legendary hero everyone thought he would be.  The fact that the FBI's number two guy would run off to the press to force Nixon to resign rather than investigate the manner themselves seems more like a devious act rather than one of courage.

Why?  The FBI was having their own secret war against the Nixon Administration.  J. Edgar Hoover had died just a month before Watergate happened, and the Nixon Administration was trying to gain control of the bureau.  As Slate.com's Thomas Noah stated, the acting FBI director, L. Patrick Gray, had passed FBI Files on the Watergate case to Nixon White House Counsel John Dean.  Felt was also sore due to being passed up for the FBI Director spot.  All of these things compelled Felt to become Deep Throat.

The irony of the whole Deep Throat saga was that Felt himself was convicted for bypassing warrants while investigating the Weather Underground organization in 1980, and was eventually pardoned by Ronald Reagan.  Hence, Felt received a taste of poetic justice in that instance. 

UPDATE:  I've been doing some web surfing, and here's a good piece by Mark Russell from 2001 pointing to Felt.  Felt being Deep Throat isn't that big of a surprise since a number of people knew Felt had been a leaker to the press prior to Watergate.  Also, Thomas Mann had fingered Felt as Deep Throat in 1999.

- I took a long vacation over the weekend, and it was lovely.  Got to chill with some family members, and watch some sports.  And no, I didn't watch the Indy 500 or Coca Cola 600 (I don't watch many racing).

- Over the next few days I'm going to work on adding more feeds and the like.  If you want to subscribe to this blog, the xml feed is here.  I'll try to place a link on my sidebar.  For NewsGator and Bloglines subscribers, just click the respective icon on the sidebar in order to subscribe me.

- I plan to liveblog the NBA Finals, and if last week was any indication, that will happen soon.  San Antonio received a little bump by the Suns, but I don't see them defeating the Spurs three more games to win the series.  Miami and Detroit will take a little longer, but I think Miami will get it done.  Miami is simply too talented for Detroit to keep Miami contained and win low scoring games.

- Give me some time to get back in the mix.  I'll probably post a few entries tonight.

Michelle Malkin noticed a story that's only making a small bleep on the radar.  From the AP/USA Today:

The Democratic Party, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and two groups associated with the civil rights activist have agreed to pay a total of $200,000 in civil fines for campaign finance violations in the 2000 elections.

At issue in the Federal Election Commission case was about $450,000 in election spending by Jackson, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the Citizenship Education Fund using funds from the groups. The two non-profit groups were incorporated, making their money corporate and subject to restrictions under federal campaign finance laws.

According to the FEC, the money was used for a partisan get-out-the-vote effort and voter registration speaking tour that was coordinated with the Democratic National Committee and included appearances by Jackson and Democratic House and Senate candidates.

If this was the RNC and James Dobson, this would be all over the news.

But I can't blame the media for this.  After all, we hear about the Democrats being busted on campaign finance violations so much it really can't be considered news anymore.

Drudge reports on last night's episode of NBC's Law & Order about a judge killer that is identified as wearing a t-shirt with Tom DeLay on it.

Oh, and the judge was black.  Here's some of the transcript:

ADA RON CARVER (COURTNEY B. VANCE) : An african-american judge, an appellate court judge, no less.

MAN: Chief of DS is setting up a task force. People are talking about multiple assassination teams.

DET. ALEX EAMES (KATHRYN ERBE): Looks like the same shooters. CSU found the slug in a post, matched it to the one that killed Judge Barton. Maybe we should put out and apb for somebody in a Tom DeLay t-shirt.

This is despicable.  DeLay never called for the death or harm of any judge.  Law & Order's producers and writers are making an obvious political statement to imply DeLay wishes harm to judges, and it was more than just a coincidence that the judge killed in this episode was black.  So not only are they trying to picture DeLay supporters as knee-jerk reactionary extremists, but they're also racist.  What lowlifes.

If Republicans want to get a little bit of revenge, the time is ripe for it.

Yesterday John McCain introduced the Clean Sports Act, designed to enact tougher penalties onto professional athletes.  McCain didn't come up with the idea; Rep. Cliff Sterns did, and his bill just passed committee in the House yesterday.  Of course, the spotlight grabbing McCain had to sign it up as his own idea, just as he did with the Senate plan earlier this week.  You thought McCain would do the honorable thing and give credit where credit was due?  Ha.  Don't hold your breath.

Now if you want to piss McCain off, screw with his sports projects.  He already acts as if he is the President of U.S. Sports, as he's tried to act tough towards every sports organization as well as any legislator that interferes with his work.  We saw that last year, when he threatened to hold up telecommunications bills in the Senate due to the House refusing to place his Boxing bill, which would establish a federal boxing commission, on the floor for a vote at the end of the session.  Dennis Hastert didn't budge, and it still hasn't passed the House yet.  It passed the Senate two weeks ago. 

By killing both bills Republicans who were railroaded earlier this week could send a strong message to John McCain:  we aren't going to put up with your stunts anymore.  In fact, poetic justice would be for McCain's bills to be on the receiving end of a filibuster.  I'm sure he wouldn't like that, and maybe he'd think twice before he tries anymore backdoor deals that would cut the knees off of the Republican majority. 

But Republicans don't need McCain's antics to justify voting down these bills.  The idea to use similar standards athletes who are subject to tests maybe once or twice a year (U.S. and World Championships along with the Olympics) on professional athletes doesn't make sense.  MLB players have a 162 game season.  The NBA season has 82 games.  Football only has 16, but they place a lot of punishment on their bodies every week.  All of these players get injured from time-to-time, and they are given medication that could alter their testocerone levels.  The idea that you would be barred from playing sports for two years on the first offense, and banned completely on a second one is ridiculous.  A two-year suspension from any of the major sports would end most careers anyway.

Besides, the idea that the federal government could actually "clean up" anything is about as laughable as Barry White being able to sing soprano.  The American people have seen the cutthroat tactics the Senate employs this week.  McCain would have us believe that the government is the answer to the corruption of boxing, baseball, and all other sports.  They can't even handle the corruption in the Senate, much less in sports.

The true problem behind steroids wasn't the punishment anyway; it was the distribution and the attempt to hide the use.  Does anyone really believe BALCO was the only group that were creating drugs and inventions that were beating steroid tests?  The Vikings' Ontario Smith was caught with a Whizzinator, which consisted of clean dehydrated urine in order to fool the tests.  As long as it is possible, there will always be someone that will create something to beat the tests. 

The Commerce Secretary and the Drug Czar won't be overly concerned about it either.  After all, they have real work to do.  I would expect them to focus on the economy and major drug trafficking, respectively.  When it comes down to it, sports simply isn't as important as what was Bonds taking to hit 73 home runs.  Washington needs to set their priorities straight.

So here's hoping John McCain gets his heart broken on both of these bills.  It's time someone gave him a taste of his own medicine.
UPDATE:  Here is a lengthy but very good column by Charles Jay of BoxingInsider.net why he opposes McCain's boxing commission.  It is definitely on point.