Required Reading for June 2011

• From Foreign Policy, The Cynical Dairy Farmer's Guide to the New Middle East (quite funny): http://tinyurl.com/3fp5aep


• I'm finding it hard to keep up with all the content on (the Bill Simmons/ESPN collaboration) Grantland.com. That said, this fake Derek Jeter DL Diary was rather funny: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6713507/derek-jeter-dl-diary

Required Reading for May 2011

• Christopher Hitchens letter to American Atheists (presented at the 2011 American Atheist Conference): http://richarddawkins.net/articles/618232-message-to-american-atheists



• From Foreign Policy, "How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis".. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis?page=0,1



• An op-ed from the Daily Beast regarding Pakistan's blatant support for Islamic terrorism (and the US continuing to pretend it doesn't): http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-02/osama-bin-ladens-pakistan-haven/



• The SportsGuy's latest piece for ESPN. In it, Bill Simmons assigns quotes from The Wire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire) to this year's NBA post-season. To be honest, it's sort of a bizarre column.. if you're a fan of The Wire, you'll love it. If you've never seen The Wire, you'll ask, "what the fuck?" http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/part1/110503&sportCat=nba



• I read today that the team behind "The Hurt Locker" is planning to make a movie about the Bin Laden hit/assassination. Based on the blow-by-blow account from Today's Toronto Star, I will definitely be seeing this movie. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/984367--obama-watched-anxiously-as-raid-on-bin-laden-s-hideout-unfolded?bn=1



• From the National Post's Lorne Gunter: "The Real Surge Was Harper's". Among the best/most accurate analyses I've read about the election results. http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/real+surge+Harper/4722168/story.html



• I always enjoy reading ESPN's "Outside the Lines" columns. The most recent OTL looks at Rio de Janeiro's violent favelas (slums), many of which are located just minutes from the sites of the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=110510/Rio



• It looks like the SportsGuy is actually writing sports columns again. His latest is a retrospective on the career of Phil Jackson. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/110513&sportCat=nba



• From Vanity Fair: "in an exclusive book excerpt, former Team Six member (the unit that killed Osama bin Laden) Howard E. Wasdin describes his progress through SEAL training and its notorious Hell Week, an unthinkably brutal training gauntlet designed to separate the born warriors from the merely mortal." http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/05/navy-seal-team-six-excerpt-201105?currentPage=all



• Via Zero Hedge, an analyst from Deutsche Bank argues the human population will stop replacing itself by the early 2020s. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/human-race-doomed-deutsche-bank-one-most-important-future-turning-points-history

NBA Round 1 Wrap Up

It's sad to see the end of the Tim Duncan era. But at least he can hold his head up high having retired without ever committing a foul (according to Tim Duncan).

A Marriage Wish for Kate and William

There's nothing quite like a Royal Wedding to remind you of how absurd it is that we still have a monarchy in the twenty first century. That said, best of luck to the happy couple, if those two imbred welfare recipients can't make it work, what hope is there for the rest of us?

"The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance." - Sue Townsend

Friday Haiku

Acceptance is Step

Five.

What's another fifteen

centimetres.

After seven months of snowy

hell.

Required Reading for April 2011

• Brian Wilson has quickly become my favorite pro athlete. Seriously, how can you not like the guy. Anyway, just in time for his activation from the DL list, an excellent ESPN piece on the Giant's closer: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6304952


• Matt Taibbi's latest for Rolling Stone: Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs? (not to mention subsidizing tax evasion) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411?print=true


• From the Financial Post, an interesting take on the constitutionality (or lackthereof in both my and the authors opinion) of a Canadian cap-and-trade system. That this isn't a bigger election issue shows how little Canadians actually know about the policies being proposed by the federal parties. http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/25/cap-and-breakup/

This Week in College Hoops

On Wednesday, #3 ranked BYU dismissed starting center Brandon Davies for having premarital sex with his girlfriend. But cheer up Brigham Young fans, at least now BYU won't have to dismiss itself for "flirting" with a national championship.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=6175090