And with the ninth pick in the NBA Draft...

The Bulls got Joakim Noah. I don't know whether to gloat or plan future trades.

Luol Deng torches Heat...film at 11.

Luol Deng torches Heat...film at 11.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates stopped just short of setting a withdrawal date for Iraq. As soon as Iraq gets the sectarian violence under control, trains troops to patrol and protect the country and finds a cure for Chagas disease, Gates pledges the American forces will leave (a welcome addition after their performance in Haditha). He refuses to mark the calendar because he wants your children's children's children to be paying for this exercise in democracy for years to come.

The Iranian high court exonerated six individuals who killed five people that were deemed to be "morally corrupt." If that defense were permissible in the United States, how many Baldwin brothers would we have left, really?

Speaking of Iranian/U.S. relations, part-time musician and full-time comedian/conservative war monger/Presidential candidate John McCain was winning friends and influencing people when he delivered an impromptu rendition of the Beach Boys' song "Barbara Ann" with the lyrics "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran." That's a great way to win the voters who won't vote for John Edwards after his vigorous campaigning in Second Life video games. You can't win them all, and with these masterminds vying for office, everybody involved loses.

Apparently it was illegal for a deranged psychopath with a propensity for stalking college girls and a history of writing literature with references to incest and murder to purchase a hand gun. It was also illegal for him to buy two hand guns after his stint in the care of mental health professionals. Of course, these factors plus the Virginia Tech mass murder are not enough to get the Republicans or the Democrats to talk about gun law reform. Oh well. At least they'll still carry voters in the South.

Ohio University continues to dominate the (bad) news. OU graduate James Filiaggi sent in a last minute appeal for clemency after the governor refused his appeal from the murder of his wife. I haven't seen a Bobcat get beat up by the legal system like this since...football season.

In environmental news, a Stanford study determined that ethanol-powered vehicles would pose a threat to human health if widely used. They suggest moving out of the L.A. smog and to keep burning fossil fuels like a good little consumer.

In governmental news of the strange, NASA is becoming the new Post Office with a standoff that ended with a Nasa-employed gunman killing an engineer before turning the gun on himself. This comes a month after the diaper incident, so I'm thinking that the ranks of NASA aren't much better than the ranks of Republican Presidential candidates.

I don't know much about this particular case other than the fact that the guy is accused of some heinous crimes. Just looking at his mug shot, something tells me he will be found guilty.

Finally, I haven't spent any time hyping Pitchfork Fest, but since Slint, Sonic Youth and the GZA will be performing entire albums on Friday while a host of other indie mega acts fills up Saturday and Sunday, I should start now. As somebody who went last year, I guarantee it will be $50 well spent.

Imus is a Cowboy

Sometimes a cowboy gets in one too many gun fights his enemies and gets taken down in the crossfire. Don Imus is the cowboy. The response from advertisers, pundits, bloggers and everybody else with an ounce of common sense is the crossfire.

News about Iraq makes the typical top story. Today, it's raining Iraq stories. Soldiers had their tours of duty in Iraq extended by three months. While their duty is extended, however, the troops are slightly rudderless. Three retired four star generals have refused White House requests to become the new czar in charge of the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. I keep forgetting what that quote is about rats and a sinking ship, but I'm sure I'll remember it eventually.

A federal panel reported limited evidence of voter fraud in previous elections and suggested voter identification should be required for elections. Democrats oppose the move, saying they believe this will decrease their voter turnout. After losing the last two elections to Bush II, perhaps they should concentrate their efforts on putting a candidate up that has a chance of winning an election. In the last Presidential election, Bush was so unpopular that Bucky Dent would have carried Massachusetts if he ran as a Democrat.

In other reports of people I wouldn't vote for with a gun to my head, Rudy Giuliani has been dodging controversy all over the place since he announced his plans to run for President. First, his marital issue (divorcing his second cousin) came up. Then he defended screwball radio doofus Don Imus. Now he's dodging questions about his comments regarding the Terri Schiavo controversy. If I have to choose between Rudy and Hillary in the next election, I will move to Switzerland and lodge at Frank Serpico's former digs as soon as the votes are counted.

Medical news is also notable today. Brazilian researchers utilized hematopioetic stem cells from bone marrow to create islet cells, curing type I diabetes in the patients. The study is in early stages. There are dangers to the procedure, which uses cyclophosphamide, a substance that can cause bladder cancer and leukemia, and it currently can only be performed in patients recently diagnosed with diabetes. It also involves severe immunosuppression. As a type I diabetic, all I want to hear is more good news. The Dems are challenging the moral scientist George Bush's threat to veto fetal stem cell legislation in the U.S., so hopefully the utilitarian philosophy will prevail.

Media reports are currently all Imus, all the time. Imus, who might as well have been invisible before last week, had his show canceled at MSNBC after advertisers jumped ship. Finally that nappy-headed hoser will have an easier time returning to anonymity.

Although slightly less newsworthy, Taalam Acey has a new documentary featuring his dynamic poetry performances. Acey delivers at a level that most people can't imagine spoken word achieving. Just go see him.

Sports stories were also plentiful today. Four Italian soccer fans were arrested after violence erupted after a match in Manchester, U.K. Soccer, much like hockey, has trouble keeping relevant without the gratuitous violence. Unlike hockey, most of the violence is in the stands.

The legal circus that was the Duke lacrosse rape case finally came to an end with the prosecutor dropping all charges. This freed Court TV to cover Anna Nicole Smith material all day, everyday one day too late.

Baseball season has gotten off to an interesting start, with snow moving the Cleveland Indians' home opener to Milwaukee. Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey tells everybody that they should suck it up and quit complaining. With global warming where it's at, in a few more years we'll be complaining that it's too hot in Florida and Los Angeles to play baseball in July.

In feel good baseball news, the College Baseball Hall of Fame selected Jim Abbott in the latest class. Abbott, a pitcher born without a right hand, accomplished more with one hand than Mark Prior and Kerry Wood did combined with four hands.

The New York Knicks accused the Chicago Bulls of running the score up against them last night in Chicago's 98-69 victory. The Bulls claimed they were not running the score up. They were trying to score 100 points so the fans would win a Big Mac in a promotion with McDonalds. Former Bull Eddie Curry expressed displeasure with the score. However, since all he accomplished while he was in Chicago was eating Big Macs, he could at least let the fans eat one.

In crazy weird news, the Germs' drummer Don Bolles was arrested in Los Angeles after police tested a bottle of a cleaning agent in his car that allegedly contained the date rape drug GHB. Soap of this kind could be very dangerous if it fell into the hands of a devious rapist with a germ phobia. Stay tuned to this one.

In New Port Richey, Florida, a string of robberies has terrorized local gas stations in and around the town. The robber enters gas stations and threatens clerks with what he claims is a syringe filled with H.I.V. positive blood. In other words, the crazy junkie tells gas station employees to jump, and they answer, "How High?" while handing him all of the money in the register.