8 p.m.

• So in the mornings on the way to work, the better half no longer lets me listen to the local RIGHT-WING RADIO guy. It’s not that she hates the host, it’s because she HATES the female co-host. What do we listen to instead? ESPN’s Mike and Mike in the Morning. Why? Because their voices “relax her.” Whatever. Now generally I can tolerate these two, but today they were getting on my last nerve. I guess this weekend is inter-league play for Major League Baseball. In fact, it’s RIVALRY WEEKEND. Whatever. These two dolts on the radio were rating each of these MLB RIVALRIES. Uh, guys, just because two teams play in the same city/state and in different leagues does not a rivalry make. The Indians and Reds are NOT a rivalry. The Cubs and Cardinals are. The Devil Rays and Marlins are NOT a rivalry. The Yankees and Red Sox are. I can’t stand it when the media try to manufacture hype with this inter-league shit.

The other thing that got on my nerves this morning was the talk about Kyle Farnsworth talking about Roger Clemens’ “family friendly” work schedule.

Farnsworth was on Chicago's 670 AM The Score yesterday morning when he first criticized the "family plan" clause in Clemens' one-year, $28 million contract that allows the right-hander to leave the team for personal matters when he's not pitching.

 

Farnsworth reiterated his beliefs in the clubhouse before the Yankees' 4-1 loss to the White Sox.

 

"As far as a teammate and a player, I think everybody should be here whether they're pitching or not," he said. "You don't see guys who are hurt not sit on the bench. They're always there."

 

Even so, Farnsworth doesn't think it's going to be a problem and didn't foresee any clubhouse tension over preferential treatment for one of the game's greatest pitchers.

This of course got the Mikes’ panties in a wad. How DARE someone actually give their opinion. If Farnsworth would have said, “It doesn’t matter because we’re all a team, not I’m going to go out there and give my 110 percent,” these sportscasters would be bitching about how everybody’s afraid to speak their mind. It’s not like Farnsworth said he’s going to beat up the Rocket for getting a deal that any starting pitcher would take in a heartbeat. I understand the whole “don’t talk bad about your teammates” rule, but it’s not like Farnsworth is on the Giants and told a radio host that Bonds is a roided-up freak. Talk about making something out of nothing.

• Honestly, who really gives a shit?

Abraham Lincoln might have survived being shot if today's medical technology had existed in 1865. Given that scenario, the question is whether Lincoln would have recovered well enough to return to office, a doctor and a historian said Friday at an annual University of Maryland School of Medicine conference on the deaths of historic figures.

And if only we used more stem cells, I bet Honest Abe could have leaped tall buildings in a single bound.

• Well no kidding.

In a powerful demonstration of the way the Internet has opened up the mainstream media to intensive second-guessing, bloggers are charging that news outlets have ignored the rape and murder of a young Knoxville couple because of the racial implications of the story.

 

The two victims were white; the five defendants are black.

Of course there’s the ol’ double standard. Is this really a surprise? However, the next sentence got a laugh out of me.

The critics include mainstream conservatives, such as the National Review, and white supremacists.

So white supremacists are “mainstream conservatives”? OMG AP LIBERAL BIAS~! Yeah, I know the comma separates the rednecks from the Neocons, but so what. Oh, and peep the crime and read the bullshit in the last paragraph of this article.

The critics include mainstream conservatives, such as the National Review, and white supremacists. They have drawn comparisons to the Duke lacrosse rape case and wondered why the killings of Channon Christian, a 21-year-old University of Tennessee student, and her 23- year-old boyfriend Christopher Newsom are not getting the same attention from what the bloggers regard sneeringly as the liberal media….

 

…Local media in Knoxville have covered developments in the carjacking case since the bodies were found, and The Associated Press ran stories that were transmitted nationally. But the killings have received scant attention from other media outlets…

 

…Christian and Newsom were last seen Jan. 6. They were carjacked as they were leaving a friend's apartment. Newsom's shot and burned body was found the next day along the railroad tracks, and Christian's corpse was discovered two days later in a trash can at a house rented by one of the defendants. Both had been sexually assaulted. Household cleaner had been poured in her mouth to remove evidence, according to court records.

 

Some Internet postings have suggested the killings should be treated as a hate crime. But Police Chief Sterling Owen said: "We have no evidence to support the notion that this was a race-based crime. We see this as a cold-blooded murder."

 

Similarly, claims made over the Internet that the couple were sexually mutilated are "absolutely not true," John Gill, special assistant to District Attorney Randy Nichols, said Friday.

 

Christian's father, Gary Christian, wore a Confederate flag T-shirt to the first hearing for one of the defendants and then pointed at the man as if firing a gun. But family lawyer Joe Costner said Channon Christian's parents have repeatedly said they do not believe their daughter's killing was race-related...

 

…More than a dozen e-mails to the Cleveland Plain Dealer in recent weeks have raised similar concerns, reader representative Ted Diadiun said. "Why are you guys covering this up?" they ask.

Diadiun said that based on the AP stories, it appeared that the crime was horrible but not substantially different from ones that "regrettably occur all over the country every day."

 

Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates Instapundit, a current events blog, said he was branded an apologist after he wrote that he had seen no evidence the killings were a hate crime.

 

However, he said: "I think it is totally true if the races of the perpetrators and the victims were reversed, the press would make a bigger deal about it. I think some people have been hanging back for fear of inflaming things."

 

Ted Gest, president of the Criminal Justice Journalists group, a national organization of reporters who cover crime, courts and prisons, said interracial crime tends to get more coverage than when the criminal and victim are of the same race.

 

"But I can't say that this one would have had any more coverage if five whites had been accused of doing these things to two blacks, absent a blatant racial motive," he said. "As bad as this crime is, the apparent absence of any interest group involvement or any other `angle' might also explain the lack of coverage."

How exactly can you tell if this was a HATE CRIME or not? Would these two victims have to have "cracker" carved into them or something?