Rank these from most reprehensible to least:

a) Abusing and killing dogs

b) Committing rape

c) Being an accomplice to a murder

d) DUI, resulting in manslaughter

e) Scamming people out of large sums of money

Now rank your opinion of the following people:

a) Michael Vick

b) Mike Tyson

c) Ray Lewis

d) Donte Stallworth

e) Lenny Dykstra

One of the ESPN reports on Michael Vick's release this weekend compared it to Mike Tyson's prison release, noting that Vick's would spark a greater outrage. 

Also, what kind of man is Roger Goodell if he chooses to blackball a reformed criminal from his livelihood, condemning him to financial ruin?

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Vick to Play Again?

He has been offered a contract by the Albany Firebirds of ArenaFootball 2.


You know your life is messed up when you get out of prison, only to find that your best career option is to play in Albany for a minor league team, of a league who has suspended operations, playing a third-rate sport.

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One man's reaction to Vick's apology

Based on initial reactions, it seems like I'm the only one who's calling "bullshit" on Vick's painfully scripted apology.

Watch and judge for yourself, but the fact that he keeps stumbling and correcting his speech screams of a coached apology. Of course, to expect anything else would be ignorant. But there are a lot of ignorant people out there who apparently think Vick was honestly "speaking from the heart" as he stated.

So of course his apology was thought out and scripted in detail. This is not my complaint. My complaint is that the initial media response has been that Vick "took responsibility for his actions." And on that, I'm calling bullshit.

Vick had an opportunity to buy my forgiveness when he directly addressed the kids that look up to him as a role model. Vick said, "What I did was...immature." Immature? Try WRONG; disgusting, inhumane and twisted, to be more specific. As someone who spends every weekend with the exact type of kids that look up to Vick, they needed to hear him say that what he did was wrong, not "immature," which means nothing. Vick later said that dog fighting is "terrible," (a statement that was obviously a "you have to say this" statement) but once again he missed his opportunity to really take responsibility for wrongdoing.

One phrase that was used repeatedly was "bad judgement," which was the closest Vick came to accepting responsibility. But using that phrase, instead of using the dangerous word "wrong," proved only that Vick was sorry he got caught. Nowhere in the speech did I see a man who was sorry, or even a man that believes what he did was wrong.

To top it off, he appealed to religion ("Through all of this I found Jesus and asked him to forgive me"). Yeah, Jesus forgives him! So why are they still trying to put him in jail? Excuse me while I puke. For me, that was the proverbial icing on the cake.

There is a lot more to this case, and this is certainly not a complete summary of my opinions. But as far as the apology goes, I'm just stunned that no one is pointing out all the things that were horribly wrong with it. So I figured, what the hell, I'll do it.

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Mike Vickin'

Two stories I want to touch base on about current media whipping boy Mike Vick. I won't go into my whole grumpy rant about how it's a bunch of bullshit that people are so terribly up in arms about the whole dogfighting thing, but seriously, they're fucking dogs and I don't give a shit.

First story is one I heard on sports talk radio on my way home from work yesterday, and although I don't really pride myself on getting my sports news from talk radio, this one was too good to pass up.

Apparently, the NFL will not air this year's QB Challenge competition from some tropical island in which a bunch of crappy guys that aren't Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady battled over who has the best footwork on a three-step drop and who can throw the ball through a ring the most. The reason, you ask? Is it because they realized that a choreographed skills competition won by Josh McCown is utterly unwatchable and rendered laughable on its face because it was won by Josh McCown?

Nope. It's 'cuz Mike Vick was in it.

I'm cereal. The NFL, like so many South American dictators have chosen to make its embattled superstar a desaparecido.

"Mike Vick? Who's Mike Vick? Are you thinking of Vince Young? No, I'm pretty sure you are. Isn't Vince Young awesome? He's on the cover of Madden this year. Here, watch this highlight of Peyton Manning, he won the Super Bowl last year by himself. He's in a bunch of commercials. No, the Falcons quarterback is currently, and as far as I know, has always been Joey Harrington."

Seriously, Germans are more forthright about the six years between 1939 and 1945 than the NFL is about Mike Vick and his pit bullin' shenannigans.

Now, as if it couldn't get any worse for Vick than hearing that his two primary co-defendants have decided to roll on him, word is that prosecutors are going to attach additional charges to his federal indictment to make it a RICO case. In case you're wondering (Sever...) what RICO is or why this matters, just look up John Gotti and the Gambino crime family and you'll quickly find out that this really, really sucks for Vick. Now, if Vick doesn't plead out, it'll be even easier for the prosecutors to convict him.

Anyway, that may suck on its own, but on top of that, now there's this story. A South Carolina inmate is now suing Vick for $63 billion because, he alleges, Vick stole his pitbulls and sold them to, wait for it, buy missles from Iran.

Read that last sentence again. This guy seriously thinks Mike Vick was buying missles. From Iran. A famous NFL quarterback was buying missles, this guy says. Buying them, he says, from Iran.

No, really, it's a real lawsuit.

Seriously.

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Do I smell some funny business goin' on?

I don't watch Law and Order, so I know next to nothing about our legal system, my rights, or even the name for the mallet thingy the guy in the robe holds. So can someone please explain this latest Vick development to me, preferably as you would to a child? I'm looking at you, law school boy (Mike), and also at you, Mr. I Have a Degree in Criminology *Vinnie chortles* (Matt).

Are plea bargains inherently shady? Would it be as easy to set up a targeted defendant as it seems to an unlearned dum-dum like me? I ask because I sense that Vick has been double-crossed by his co-defendants and, potentially, by law enforcement involved in the case.

This is essentially what I'm trying to figure out: In a case like this one where there's a high-profile defendant and a few Joe Scumbum co-defendants, what's to stop the powers that be (aside: I love that term because it's such a fantastic cop-out when I don't know who the hell I'm actually talking about) from giving the co-defendants a sweeter-than-usual plea bargain in order to get their cooperation early on, forcing the high-profile defendant from caving or facing an unwinable trial? Had Vick been the first to accept a plea bargain for some reason, would he have gotten a deal on par with those he co-defendants received?

Answers guys, answers.

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Read this entire post, or you'll have made me waste the last twenty minutes

Obama invite Bonds? Probably

Tribune
August 9, 2007

Asked at a news conference in Oakland on Wednesday whether he would invite Barry Bonds to the White House if he were president, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he "probably would."

"It's a remarkable achievement," Obama said. "And he deserves, I think, our congratulations. I remain concerned about the cloud that exists not just in baseball but in everything from basketball to the Tour de France. I mean you just get a sense right now that sports is suffering from a crisis of confidence and my hope is that all the various sports leagues take those responsibilities seriously. I left out Michael Vick and what's happening in the National Football League.

"So you basically have every single sport suffering from some major questions."

Asked how he would have combated the growing steroid problem over the past decade were he president, Obama responded, "First of all, I would not have entered into an illegal war based on false pretenses," to which the crowd responded with a thunderous ovation. "But when I'm president, if we have actual information about big time athletes using steroids, and if Commissioner Selig won't act, I will."

Obama then further detailed his plans to address improprieties in professional sports were he elected president.

"If that means having federal agents storm Tim Donaghy's house with helicopters and tear gas, we will do that," Obama said. "If it means sticking a catheter in Floyd Landis's urethra while he sleeps to draw a urine sample, we will do that too. Or if it means dipping Michael Vick in corned beef hash and tossing him to a pack of starving pitbulls, we can do that also."

After several audience members chuckled in response to the latter comment, Obama added, "No, for real. Thanks to laws passed since 9/11, that's actually legal, and I would gladly do it."

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Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Bad news for all of the Michael Vick fans out there. This dogfighting scandal keeps getting uglier by the day, with recent reports stating that Vick has been much more involved with this than previously admitted. It may be time for Joey Heisman to take a break from his piano lessons and start getting prepared for a much bigger role than planned on for the Falcons next season.

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Clinton Portis--Not much of a criminologist

"I don't know if [Vick] was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property, it's his dog," Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis told WAVY-TV in Virginia. "If that's what he wants to do, do it. I think people should mind their business."

When told that dog fighting is a felony, Portis replied, "It can't be too bad of a crime."

Reporter who had just informed him that dog-fighting is a felony: Ummmm, Clinton?... Did you just... I just said... Never mind.

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A Proposed Defense for Vick

What do you do when authorities find dozens of dogs, many injured and malnurished, along with dog-fighting equipment? Well there aren't many good explanations for that.

...Unless you're Michael Vick. An inside source ("inside" being inside my head) has reported that Vick used the dogs for training. What better way to train for the NFL season than running through a room of hungry, vicious dogs with a steak in your hand? Injured? Damn right they're injured, cuz they got served by the best pure athlete in pro sports.

An unnamed source told YCS, "Watching Vick run with those dogs was the best entertainment that $10 can buy. Sometimes you'd just be like 'dude, throw the steak and they'll leave you alone.' But he just refused to do it."

The real story here is how this will affect our potential business of smuggling fighting cocks in from Puerto Rico. PETA's all over this shit now.

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