NBA All Star Wrestling

After watching the NBA All Star activities it is hard to tell the difference between the NBA and the WWE.  First there was the Slam Dunk Contest where the league allowed Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson to take the Superman sketch to WWE-like levels.  The inclusion of the phone booth for Howard to morph into Superman combined with Robinson's use of the kryptonite thing would have been fine if it did not appear as if the whole thing was staged by an NBA version of Vince McMahon.  While the Slam Dunk Contest is meant to be more entertainment than sport, the activities of the All Star Game should make true sports fans feel a little sick and quite a bit used.  During the player introductions Shaq appeared with a mask.  Now, Shaq is a funny guy and if he had simply done this on his own, it would be easy for fans to say it was "just Shaq being Shaq".  But the League couldn't resist taking it to the next level by having a handful of dancers wearing the same mask and dancing around Shaq.  Once again, if it would have stopped there we might have been able to dismiss this as just "pure hollywood".  However, the real clincher was handing the game MVP to Shaq and Kobe together.  Are you kidding me?  Shaq scored only 17 points in 11 minutes of play.  Good but hardly MVP worthy.  This kind of blatant manipulation stinks of something less than sport.  Bash baseball Commissioner Bud Selig all you want, but he did make the baseball All Star Game something worth watching without turning it into the circus that the NBA did for their All Star game.  I guess the lesson to be learned is that if referees bet on the game and hence fix the outcome it is bad. If the NBA does it, its all in the name of entertainment.  Next year, lets just paint some faces and include a cage match.  At least, we wouldn't feel as if we were there to watch a game.

Size of the US Federal Government

I know that Obama is still in the middle of the honeymoon period, so this post might actually cause people to think that I want the new president to fail.  However, for those who believe in free enterprise and smaller government, it should be cause for concern that the size of the federal government's workforce is actually increasing.  This is exactly what conservatives and even moderates warned of when pointing out Obama's political philosophy.  Stay tuned.  Irrespective of the state of the economy, we will find a more government controlled America four years from now.

Aussie Open Final

I missed today's Aussie Open Men's Final.  The 3:30 am start makes it hard to watch.  However, I do regret not turning on the TV when I woke up at 7:00 am.  The fact that the final was settled in five sets is great for tennis.  For sports like tennis and boxing to garner the same attention that they did 20 years ago, it requires great rivalries.  Ferderer and Nadal is just that type of rivalry.  Hopefully it carries over to the US Open and Wimbeldon.