Will Tim Donaghy's Book Bring Down the NBA?

Smart gamblers stay away from basketball because they know the games are the most easily fixed. 

There are only ten players on the court, so it's easier for one or two guys to change the outcome of a game. Since the games move at such a quick pace with fewer breaks in the action than football or baseball, the refs can have an enormous influence on outcomes by calling (or not calling) fouls.

Disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy, convicted of giving insider tips on NBA games to professional gamblers, used his fifteen-month prison stay to pen Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA, an exposé of not-so-honorable tactics used by both refs and the NBA league office.

Once Random House announced a release date for Donaghy's book, the NBA's lawyers went into overdrive and intimidated the publisher into canceling the book.

Deadspin obtained an advance copy of Blowing the Whistle and has published excerpts that include allegations about referee gambling, personal prejudices of individual officials in favor or or against certain players or teams and orders from the league office that certain players shouldn't be touched.

"If Kobe Bryant had two fouls in the first or second quarter and went to the bench, one referee would tell the other two, "Kobe's got two fouls. Let's make sure that if we call a foul on him, it's an obvious foul, because otherwise he's gonna go back to the bench. If he is involved in a play where a foul is called, give the foul to another player."

ESPN reports that the NBA has now responded to the Deadspin post, promising to look into the allegations in a book the league didn't read before they shut it down.

Microsoft Does Know Something About Bloated

In Japan, you can enjoy a special Windows 7 Whopper, featuring seven meat patties on the same sandwich. Explain this, Microsoft: when you launch a new operating system that's supposed to correct the oversized mess of Windows Vista, why connect it to a sandwich that's guaranteed to make people feel sick?

Because "Inside the NBA" is Usually More Interesting Than the Actual Games

Let's hope everyone in the basketball world ignores Charles Barkley's new ambition to be General Manager of an NBA franchise, because he has the perfect job at TNT, at least until he's eligible to be Governor of Alabama in 2014.

Should the NRA Offer Its Support to Lil Wayne?

MTV reports that rapper Lil' Wayne pleaded guilty to a 2007 weapons possession charge resulting from a New York City traffic stop. 

NYC cops pulled over Wayne's bus in Columbus Circle and discovered a .40-caliber semi-automatic weapon hidden in a Louis Vuitton bag. Prosecutors tied the gun to Weezy through DNA testing.

Wayne's detractors will focus on his songs about his love of the sizzurp and the sizzurp-related drug charges he's facing from a 2008 MLK-day traffic stop in Arizona. 

Supporters will point to T.I., an Atlanta rapper who got busted after buying guns from undercover FBI agents. Now serving time after also pleading guilty, T.I. was looking to up his personal protection firepower after his best friend was killed after an Ohio concert and police failed to make an arrest or identify a suspect.

Here's the situation spelled out for the NRA: Lil' Wayne is an American citizen with no prior convictions, dinged on an "attempted weapons possession" charge that will result in jail time and negatively impact his ability to travel outside the U.S. for work once he's released.

Moreover, that arrest came after a questionable traffic stop in New York City, a city that's aggressively trying to interfere with gun ownership both in and outside of its jurisdiction.

Wayne's not the most attractive poster boy for gun rights in America, but it's the hard cases where you really prove the power of your convictions. Are you in or out?

Let's Blame CNN for the Real Balloon Boy Hoax

Without the overwhelming media firepower that CNN brought to his cause, Colorado nut case Richard Heene would have been just another guy in a tinfoil hat who believes our government is controlled by the Lizard People. 

Because his family's first call was to a local TV station that owned a helicopter, Heene's claims that his son Falcon had been carried away should have just made the local news and been one of those filler pieces where the anchors laugh that the "kid was hiding in the attic the WHOLE TIME!"

Instead, the national cable news network (with an assist from Fox News and MSNBC, loathe to be left behind on some ratings gold) blew up the story and wasted everyone's time last Thursday. 

No one wondered if a guy on put his family on a reality show called Wife Swap might have overwhelming desire to get himself back on television. CNN saw the pretty video and a chance to create the kind of manufactured drama that we usually see on Survivor or The Amazing Race.

Granted, everyone might have needed a break from cable news' endless bickering about the politics (not the substance) of the health care debate and the war in Afghanistan. If the kid's broken body had been in the balloon when it crashed last Thursday, who needed to see that live?

You really have to feel bad for the Heene's neighbors. The video below is a confrontation between a neighbor and the news crews blocking the streets and camped out in front of the Heene home. 

The sense of "journalistic" entitlement from the news crews is really the most shocking thing here. They get punked by a crazy man who tricks the news channels into giving him hours of airtime and they're not even a little embarrassed?

Seriously?

Boom Goes the Dynamite for Barack Obama

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Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert is outraged by President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. "That's like giving an employee a gold watch for completing his W-2."

Rush Limbaugh Inspires an NFL Labor Revolution

Rush Limbaugh wants to buy the St. Louis Rams and the media's going crazy. 

Even Al Sharpton's trying to get in on the action by sending a letter urging NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to block Limbaugh's bid.

Let's not lose sight of the real news here. After years of ineffective guidance from former Oakland Raider Gene Upshaw, the NFL Players Association may have actually found some leadership from new director DeMaurice Smith. ESPN reports that Smith took a shot a Limbaugh this weekend in an email to the union's executive committee, a missive that courts the kind of controversy that Goodell wants banned from the NFL: 

"I've spoken to the Commissioner and I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages. But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred."

If Smith and the NFLPA are willing to court the wrath of Limbaugh, their next round of contract talks with NFL owners might involve actual negotiation instead of continuing Upshaw's practice of signing whatever agreement that Goodell put in front of him.

John Elway's Eight Signs of a Terrorist Plot Sound a Lot Like He's Describing Bill Belichick

Former Denver Bronco quarterback and NFL legend John Elway joined forces with the privately-funded Center for Empowered Living (CELL) and Learning to make this video designed to help you identify and expose any terrorists that may be living in your neighborhood. 

Pretty much everything described in the video could be equally applied to Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots' scheme to videotape other NFL teams' practices back in the early '00s. 

While I'm sure there are plenty of NFL fans who wouldn't mind seeing Belichick rousted by Homeland Security, Elway and CELL might have considered narrowing their focus and avoided making a film that so strongly echoes these films from the '50s.

Glenn Beck Can't Get His Muse Story Straight

Self-described "rodeo clown" and radio personality Glenn Beck has run into some trouble with British rock band Muse, currently on tour opening for U2. 

Beck has championed the band Muse on his radio program, going so far as to play their song "United States of Eurasia" on the air and declare that the band shared his "Libertarian" views.

Beck later announced that the band's management emailed him and asked him to withdraw his endorsement, sparking a minor online controversy that had music news sites asking the band what it had against Glenn Beck.

The Guardian reports today that Beck's reps now claim that he was just "joking" and that he has no idea what the band thinks of him.

Muse, preoccupied with their new album and tour, refuse to participate in American political debate and offer no comment on the subject.

Here's a video of their latest single "Uprising," taken from their new album The Resistance.

Mean Joe Greene Would Not Approve of Your Modern Training Methods

Back in the '60s & '70s, NFL players took care of their bodies with a T-bone steak and a fistful of painkillers. Men's Fitness reports that modern athletes are going all new age, incorporating Bikram yoga, acupuncture, kettlebell training and mixed martial arts into their workout regimens. The old guys would have no time for this hippie nonsense, but, then again, lots of the old guys need a walker or a wheelchair to get around these days.