Happy now, you simpering pollyannas? Is a 5-0 deficit, which might as well be 5,000,000-0 with the way the bats are going, enough to convince you?

Torre is running circles around Pinella. If Zambrano murdered DeRosa and Lee, there wouldn't be a jury that would convict him.

I put the over/under on Cub baserunners for the rest of the game at 2.

This is the most disgusting, pathetic performance I've ever seen by an alleged good team. Perhaps they have golf dates. Perhaps they don't give a hairy rat's butt.

Different this year my ass.

This is a post for you to vent. This isn't for the people that say, "Well, if we hit a grand slam, it's 5-4!"

That will not happen. This game is over. This series is over. This season is over.

And by the way, a team that commits two errors in an inning IS NOT THE BETTER TEAM! Let's end that garbage right now. When the Dodgers win Game 3, it will not mean the better team lost.

This is for every Cubs fan that wants to vent, without worry for the pollyanna post police that infect every thread.

This is the place for you to call Dempster a gutless punk. This is the place for you to gripe about Soriano swinging at anything in the same zip code. This is the place for you to wonder exactly what Lou did to make these guys tighten up.

This is the place for you to think Marshall and SU*$^Q!%)(!#%djza are overrated goobers who couldn't keep a 4-2 game close. And what a wondrous decision THAT was, putting those guys in key situations in the playoffs.

This team let us down tonight. I know they tried. They didn't mean it.

That don't feed the bulldog. Figure it out, boys.  DO NOT embarrass the city and the fans again this year with an NLDS sweep.

And I hope the fans boo their m-fing lungs out.

Tired of the pollyannas telling you that you're too negative? Come on in here. Vent, hate, rage, whine, bitch, whatever.

You deserve it.

Jeff Spellcheck is helping Lou make his postseason roster decisions.

Thanks, Jeff! Way to pick up Harden, who was having, for him, a bad day. Good to know you have some of that old Notre Dame choking spirit in you!

So, who gets to be on the postseason roster?

Zambrano; Lilly; Dempster; Harden (4)

Wood; Marmol; Howry; Gaudin; Marquis; Marshall; Hart; Guzman (8)

Soriano; Edmonds; Dome; Johnson; Pie (5)

Lee; DeRosa; Theriot; Ramirez; Fontenot; Ward (6)

Soto; Blanco (2)

Bleep Spellcheck

For those that don't follow the NFL, here is where we stand:

1) Chargers-Broncos. Ed Hochuli makes a bad call. Blows a play dead. Denver keeps the ball. Scores TD to make it within one.

2) Replay is useless because the play was blown dead

3) Broncos go for two, get it, win the game

4) Chargers coach livid. Ref admits he blew it.

5) Ref downgraded. Might not get to work playoffs. Gets hate mail at his office because some lowlife San Diego radio person or Internet dude publishes it.

6) Lots of gnashing of teeth about replay

Here are some thoughts, put as delicately as possible.

To the Chargers players and coaches: SHUT UP YOU PATHETIC PIECES OF WHALE VOMIT! LEARN TO STOP SOMEONE!

To Norv Turner: YOU HAVEN'T WON A DAMN THING IN YOUR LIFE AS A HEAD COACH. THAT REF IS 1,000 TIMES BETTER AT HIS JOB THAN YOU ARE AT YOURS

To the NFL: NICE JOB OF THROWING THE REF UNDER THE BUS, YOU COWARDS

To the Chargers fans: MAY THE FLEAS OF 1,000 CAMELS INFEST YOUR ARMPITS, EYEBROWS AND OTHER VARIOUS HAIRY PLACES!

Sorry for the caps. I've been simmering something fierce about this one.

I go off for a few days to get married. Saturday, Aug. 30, I became a kept man. As you might expect, I didn't get near a TV that day.

Cubs lost.

Sunday. Day after stuff. Packing for honeymoon. Wife insists on getting the thank you notes done BEFORE we leave. No TV.

Cubs lost.

Then I'm in Playa del Carmen from Monday to Monday. I can see the little crawl on ESPN Deportes in my room in the few minutes I have while the wife is getting ready for dinner.

Cubs lose every game but one.

I expected better from ALL of you while I was gone. This is unacceptable. Clearly, I can't leave. The Cubs need me too badly.

I can't believe this is a serious debate, but apparently, it's quite the in thing to suggest that the 2008 "Redeem Team" could be better than the 1992 "Dream Team"

Poppycock and Balderdash!

Here are the rosters:

1992: Christian Laettner; David Robinson; Patrick Ewing; Charles Barkely; Scottie Pippen; Michael Jordan; Clyde Drexler; Karl Malone; John Stockton; Chris Mullin; Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

2008: Chris Bosh; Jason Kidd; Lebron James; Dwayne Wade; Michael Redd; Dwight Howard; Tayshaun Prince; Kobe Bryant; Chris Paul; Carmelo Anthony; Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams

The arguments appear to be the following

* The 1992 team had an aging Larry Bird, collegian Christian Laettner and a semi-retired (and aging) Magic Johnson, whereas the 2008 team is young and frisky.

Counter: Except for LeBron for Laettner; Kobe for Bird and Chris Paul for Mullin and maybe, maybe Dwight Howard for Ewing, you wouldn't trade any of the 1992 team for the 2008 team. So it is idiotic to say 2008 was better. Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, Tayshaun Prince, Michael Redd and Carmelo wouldn't have been fit to wash the jocks of the 1992 team.

Further, the 1992 team wasn't even the best possible that year. Jordan refused to pay if Isiah Thomas was there. Laettner was thrown in as a nod to the college kids, but he wasn't even the best choice. It should have been Shaq.

* The 1992 team had no competition. The 2008 team did, and destroyed them.

Counter: It is ludicrous to think that a team that included Magic, Jordan and Bird, three of the greatest winners in NBA history, would have not responded to competition. Had any 1992 opponent dared come within 20 points, Jordan would have shut them down completely.

In a 7-game series, the 1992 team wins 4-1. Maybe 4-2 if LeBron goes off one game.

Discuss.

Times of London piece

In response to a U.S. computer security expert's findings, the IOC has finally opened an investigation into the age of gold medalist He Kexin.

Blogger's site

The above link details how he did it. If I understand it right, he essentially used the Chinese version of Google to do a search for Excel spreadsheets. He found one page the Chinese goverment hadn't gotten to.

Couple of observations:

1) Clearly, the IOC had to be bullied into doing this, and they weren't going to do it until the Games were nearly over. They will quietly send the U.S. team the the team gold and Nastia Luikun the uneven gold.

2) It's hysterical that there are about 400,388 journalists over there, flying kites, getting acupuncture, touring the Great Wall, doing cute features on cab rides and using their computers' thesaurus to figure out new words to describe Michael Phelps, and not one of them breaks this story. It was broken by a blogger.

3) Get Bela an interpreter

The federation of gymnastics must love this. That is the only explanation. They understand that the all-powerful American market will have, in general, three reactions to any event with an American gymnast.

1) The American kid got screwed!

2) The American kid won, even though they tried to screw her/him

3) The American kid has no chance. What else is on?

Clearly, Option 3 is not acceptable to gymnastics or NBC. So, we go for Option 1 & 2, as evidence by the uneven bars thing last night.

My favorite was when Al "The American Baghdad Bob" Trautwig yammered on about how some judges represent countries that have never medaled in gymnastics. So... only Americans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese and Romanians should be judges now?

I've having a harder and harder time recognizing gymnastics, or any judged activity, as a real sport. Yes, yes, these young men and women are absolutely amazing, but you know what? So is the Undertaker. So is Jackie Chan. We don't consider pro wrestling or movie stunt work a sport.

I'm good at fixing things. My award-winning work on the technical balk is legendary. I've got a plan for gymnastics.

1) Make the routines compulsory. So much of this garbage has come from whether a routine is harder or easier. Everyone does the same routine, period.

2) Get mean. You fall off the beam, bar, rings or horse, you get a zero. Knees touch the mat on the vault, or you go out of bounds, zero. Butt hits the mat on the floor exercise, get out. That will at least alleviate the "Chinese girl fell, but still won bronze!" nonsense.

3) MORE, not less judges. This seems counter-intuitive in a rant about judging, but the more judges, the less any one can overly influence things.

4) Give every home gymnast an automatic .05 deduction, just to account for the crowd effect on the spineless, corrupt judges.

5) Give Bela and interpreter.

Ted Lilly showed his hitters, the Braves, and the rest of baseball that there is NOT a bullseye on the backs of Cubs hitters.

He didn't go headhunting. He put the pitch where it needed to go. The Braves player got all twitchy, but even Bobby Cox pointed him to first base.

Umps didn't eject anyone. No one got hurt. There will likely not be a suspension, although I guess there could be a fine.

Meanwhile, the pitcher who instigated all this, Bueno, got three games, but the Braves, classy as ever, sent him down. Nice way to reward your paid assassin, Bobby.

He's got a 5.02 ERA and a .284 average against in AAA. He's a thug with an arm, brought up to do a job. It's 50-50 whether he sniffs the majors again to even see that suspension. I'd bet $50 the Braves trade him first.

The high road is great and all, but baseball was impotent to deal with this. Lilly dealt with it the right way.

Hunting season on the Cubs is OVER.