Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, is chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  He has been leading a congressional investigation into steroid use in professional wrestling but will be leaving to become chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.  He has written a letter to John Walters, director of the president's office of National Drug Control Policy.

"Waxman, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has led a congressional investigation into steroid use in professional wrestling for more than a year, spurred in part by the murder-suicide deaths of wrestler Chris Benoit and his family in Georgia in June 2007."

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From the official letter:

"Conclusion

The evidence obtained by the Oversight Committee indicates that illegal use of steroids and other drugs in professional wrestling is a serious problem that the wrestling organizations are not effectively addressing. One former wrestler who agreed to talk to Committee staff on condition of anonymity explained that, in the wrestling business, "steroids are like white socks and tape, they're just part of your gear,"

Since the Committee began its investigation last year, both the WWE and the TNA have made efforts to improve their steroid testing programs. But these efforts suffer from a lack of independence and transparency. As a result of these weaknesses, the organizations appear unable to effectively prevent the use of steroids and other illegal drugs by professional wrestlers.

Over 3 million children and teenagers watch professional wrestling each week. The apparently widespread use of steroids in professional wrestling sends the wrong message to youth. For this reason, I request that ONDCP examine steroid use in professional wrestling and take appropriate steps to address this problem."

 

26-year old Indycar driver Danica Patrick appears to have a lead foot off the track.  Somehow I don't think attending "traffic school" was the right answer for her.  I'm sure that taught her a good lesson.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Danica Patrick paid a $196 fine to settle a speeding ticket after the star race car driver was caught going 54 mph in a 35 mph zone last month.

Patrick, the first woman to win an IndyCar race, was due in traffic court Monday, but a Scottsdale City Court clerk says she paid the fine Wednesday.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I guess the best sports sound bytes of the year must be, well, I don't know, you decide for yourself.

This is what NBC Sports believes are the Best Sports Sound Bytes of 2008

Listen to them

You have your children wear bike helmets because you know it's the right thing to do.  It can save their lives.  You don't like wearing one...you didn't wear one as a child.  It's hard to get used to and you don't like how it looks.

Well Wired found a solution for you

Check it out HERE

My son and daughter-in-law live in Boulder, Co.  They hike, bike, ski and snowshoe.  They are very healthy people.

They have great bikes.  Boulder's streets are lined with bike paths and bikes have the right-of way everywhere.  Most of the busses have bike racks on them.  People bike to work.  People bike for fun.  People bike to bars.  People bike all winter.   People are healthy in Boulder.

BOULDER, Co. – As real estate agent Matt Kolb recently toured several properties he wore a helmet. It wasn’t a hard-hat fit for a construction site but a bicycle helmet.  Kolb sells homes from the back of a two-wheeler.

"Boulder is in the top-five bicycle-friendly cities in the world," said Kolb. "On a bike, you can get anywhere in town in 20 minutes or less."

Real estate firm Pedal to Properties has teamed up with a non-profit called Community Cycles, which supplies low-cost bikes and maintenance to local businesses as a way to encourage emission-free transportation. 

‘Outdoor deficit disorder’
Community Cycles, which was founded by a handful of Boulder bike-riders two years ago, has become a driving force in getting people out of cars and onto bikes. "We started out with a plan to distribute bikes," said Rich Points, Community Cycles’ executive director. "But now we want to address larger issues."

For Points, getting out of the office and onto a bike "combats ‘outdoor deficit disorder.’ You are more involved in the changes in the environment. You are more involved with your own community."  Even with the onset of winter, Points is not willing to give up the bicycling. He just shifts over to studded bike tires on snowy days.

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Can you imagine if Chicago should land the 2016 Summer Olympic Games and  in the planning, officials decided they would designate specific lanes of of traffic in Illinois/Chicago for 300 miles to VIPs only during the month?  With hefty fines for violators?

Impossible, you say?

England is planning on doing just such a thing for the London games.

No...I can't imagine.

"More than 250 miles of road are to be reserved for VIPs during the London Olympics.

Up to 80,000 officials, sponsors, politicians and athletes will have congestion0free lanes in London and at other venues. 

Ordinary motorists face fines if they stray on to the reserved routes, which include sections of the M25. Challenging the fines could lead to a penalty of up to £5,000. "

More than 200 traffic lights will be adapted to keep Olympic officials on the move in 2012.

Critics said the plans - outlined in a Department for Transport consultation paper yesterday - owed much to Soviet-style 'Zil lanes'.

In Communist times, these were used by high-ranking party and state officials to get around Moscow in their Zil limousines.


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Communist times?  That explains it.

As Mrs. Lonnie Ali, looks on. President George W. Bush embraces
 Muhammad Ali after presenting him with the Presidential Medal of
Freedom  on November 9, 2005, during ceremonies at the White House. 
White House Photo





I don't know how many of you are boxing fans.  I'm somewhat of a fan.  I wouldn't go out and watch a boxing match, but I would watch a championship match on television, and I like watching the matches in the Olympics.  I even enjoyed Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard's reality show "The Contender."  I suppose I first became interested in boxing because of Muhammad Ali   ...   "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee".  But I had first seen him while watching the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics with my dad.  He was Cassius Clay then.

Sadly, Ali became afflicted with Parkinsons Disease later in life.  An article fom 1984 discusses this issue:

"Specialists in boxing injuries are not surprised that Muhammad Ali has developed symptoms similar to those of Parkinson's disease. Examinations of former boxers and autopsies of those who have died have shown a substantial number with symptoms similar to those of Parkinsonism. "

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Yesterday, Oscar De La Hoya had a horrible loss to Manny Pacquiao, in Las Vegas.  De la Hoya wants to continue boxing.  His peers say it's time to call it quits.  It's easy to see why a boxer doesn't want to give up.  It's all they know...all they have.  But what's left if they don't stop?  And even if they do stop, what are the chances they won't be losing their health anyway?

"Pacquiao probably will go on to even greater things, with big fights and even bigger money still to come. Assuming he has any brain cells left after the beating he took Saturday night, De La Hoya will go on to a life as a businessman and forget any thoughts of returning to the ring.

“His close friends and family should tell him it’s over,” trainer Freddie Roach said. “I don’t want him to end up with some disease like Parkinson’s. He’s very clear-minded right now, but that could change.”

Click to go to article



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Golden Boy ~ A Look At The Career Of Oscar De La Hoya (In Photos)



Holly Stein / Getty Images  Oscar De La Hoya shows off
his gold medal before a fight between Jesus Cardenas
and Zack Padilla on Aug. 26, 1992

 

Have you ever heard of "broomball?"

I never did before.  Another discovery from looking around Vermont. 

The following video clip is from the 1980s and is a championship match  - I believe Australia /Canada.  I thought it best showed what broomball could be.  It seriously is wearing shoes and using a stick with a flat plastic-like broom.

The Central Vermont Women's Broomball
League took to the ice at the Central Vermont
Memorial Civic Center Sunday night. Broomball
isn't for the timid. It's a tough, competitive sport
that brings a whole new meaning to the word "broom."
Kyle Martel/Times Argus




MONTPELIER – The only cleaning up these ladies use brooms for is sweeping up the competition.

They play broomball, eight teams of women who use a hockey-stick-like "broom" to bash a hard leather or plastic ball down the ice and into a goal. They don't skate; they run in shoes with rubber soles that grip the ice, occasionally falling to their knees and sliding into a play.

Broomball is rough. Broomball is competitive. Broomball is not for the faint of heart.


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It’s sweet and at the end, if you are human, should give you that little twinge in your heart.

And you’ve heard stories like it before.

But we need to hear these stories.

We need to know our children are doing what’s right.

It makes us realize that there are adults teaching them what’s right.

And that we can all be all-American.

Please read the entire story...you'll be glad you did...

NBCSports.com
By Alan Abrahamson

Even while losing, these kids learn to win
Manattan Beach, CA. 

"If this were a movie, Garrett Roth, who is 8 years old and autistic, would have stepped up for the last penalty kick in his youth-soccer league game, the Blue Lightning against Manhattan United, and knocked it home to deliver a playoff victory for Big Blue.

That didn't happen.

Life isn't a movie."

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Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders wear an Air Force outfit as part of an
Armed Forces appreciation day at the game with the Green Bay Packers.

You’ve gotta love team mascots!

What would we do without Bernie Brewer?

And the Racing Sausages, though not official mascots, well, we love them.

But there are some teams across the nation who have mascots that you just love to hate.

Click on the group picture and check a slideshow of the Top 10 Weirdest Mascots from Real Clear Sports

Click for Larger Image

1968: Beamon breaks long jump record

"Bob Beamon broke the world long jump record in a crowded Olympic stadium in Mexico City today with a startling 29-foot 2 ½-inch jump. The previous world record was set at 27-feet 4 ¾-inch.

"Beamon's body formed in his unique jack-knife style and he hit the sand perfectly, falling forward and out of the pit," the Oakland Tribune reported on October 19, 1968. "

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City Robert "Bob" Beamon performed a jump that would land him at a distance of 8,90 metres. He would hold this record for almost 23 years when Mike Powell reached a distance of 8,95 metres in 1991.

The end.

 

Various cases of assorted common calibers.

British scientists have developed a new crime-fighting technique that allows police to lift fingerprints from bullets even if a criminal has wiped down a shell casing.Authorities in Britain and the United States used the method to re-open three cold cases, including a U.S. double murder that police are now optimistic of solving, said John Bond, the physicist who developed the technique.

The conventional method of taking fingerprints has been around for more than 100 years and involves creating a chemical reaction with the sweat left behind on an object to produce an image police can use.

But if a criminal wipes away the sweat, there is little left to react with the chemical and regular methods are useless, Bond said in a telephone interview.

The new technique allows police to outwit a criminal and produce a fingerprint even if there is no sweat impression to work with.

Continued HERE

MYERS: JETS, GIANTS DEAL WITH THE DEVIL