Reading Comprehension Begins at the Stable

It's been two days since 50-1 longshot Mine That Bird stunned gamblers, hicks and rich hicks alike by winning the Kentucky Derby, and I have yet to solve the mystery of the gelding's seemingly misspelled name beyond the discovery that it is a combination of his sire's name, Birdstone, and his dam's, Mining My Own (I've also learned that "sire", "dam" and "gelding" are fancy horse-talk names for "dad horse", "mom horse" and "horse with his nuts chopped off", respectively).

Optimistically, I hope that whoever named Mining My Own was a miner. Realistically, I am concerned that the person responsible meant to name the horse "Minding My Own" but spelled it wrong. If the latter scenario is accurate, not only did/has that dam live(d) her whole fool life oblivious to her egregiously misspelled handle, the error was passed down to her foal ("baby horse")--compounded, even, by the opportunity missed in the adjustment from the present participle to the present verb form.

Unless his dam's owner wasn't an excavation enthusiast and his current owner is (which would be one hell of a lucky coincidence), Mine That Bird is setting a terrible example for young horses everywhere by furthering the delusive notion that if you're good at sports, your education doesn't matter. He is in effect the Kobe Bryant of horses (save for the raping, of which MTB is incapable for reasons mentioned previously).

Then again, perhaps Mine That Bird isn't solely to blame. After all, he is a horse and therefore might have--in comparison to the humans around him--no idea as to where is or what he's doing or what the hell is happening at any time, ever; if that is the case, I'm glad that dumb sonuvadam has his wealth to rely on. (The horses get most of the money earned from their races, right? Because horse racing is a "sport" and they--like Floyd Mayweather Jr. in boxing and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car in car racing--are the essential participants? Maybe I'll look that up, too.)

Washington Post Lets the Suck Out

The Washington Post scooped the world on the more-desperately-than-is-appropriate awaited news that the Obamas have at last picked out a freaking dog...and how did they open their story? With five shameful words:

"Who let the dog out?"

Get it? That's kind of the name of a terrible song that was inexplicably popular for some time several years ago; it features the word "dog", which is the thing that the Obamas got and what the story is about! Hahahahaha!

This whole thing makes me make a frowny face--not just because of the patheticalness inherent to the newspaper of America's capital essentially sabotaging an exclusive by making the most obvious reference imaginable and thus driving additional nails into the coffin of print journalism, but also because I had hoped that the Obamas would have seen this coming and taken action to avoid it.

You deliberated your dog selection for over three months, Obamas; it must have occurred to at least one of you (likely one of the parents) that the first story about your selection--and perhaps many more thereafter--would make a cheap and lazy reference to the Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out" that would be detrimental to journalism. No, you could not have avoided the fact that the animal would be a dog, but--with a little creative thinking--you could have thrown the media a curveball and chosen a name other than "Bo". A name such as:

"Electric Slide"...

"Da' Butt"...

"Tubthumping"...

"Macarena"...

"Buffalo Stance"...

And many others.

You could have named the goddamn dog "Rollin' With Kid 'N Play", for chrissake: to have applied the title of any terrible song that was once inexplicably popular other than "Who Let the Dogs Out" as your dog's name would have handcuffed the members of the national media into possibly thinking for themselves...and if enough them had done so, perhaps America would have had a chance to pull itself out of the toilet.

But they didn't, so it won't--not anytime soon, at least.

In any case, though: cute puppy (not pictured).

Shark Eaten Despite Awesome Name

Good news: there exists an extremely rare breed of shark called the "megamouth".

Bad news: there exists one fewer as of Tuesday, when Filipino fisherman accidentally caught and then not-so-accidentally ate one.

The World Wildlife Fund attempted to talk the fisherman out of eating "Megamouth 41", but the fishermen were having none of it. To the victor go the spoils, I suppose...no matter how cool the loser's name.

How to Succeed in the News Business Without Not Driving Into a Police Horse

Full disclosure: I actually don't know how one would do that.

You know who else doesn't? Fox WNYW reporter (and former police officer) Mike Sheehan.

Bush Administration Deems Scientists Unnecessary

Continuing its quest to turn their president into an actual cartoon character before he leaves office, on Monday the Bush administration ruled that when it comes to deciding if construction projects could endanger animal species, scientists--what with their fancy book learnin' and "knowledge"--will no longer have a say in the matter.

Who will be making those calls from now on? Why, the agencies working on the construction projects, of course. No possibility for conflicts of interest there.

Suck it, nature!

Hank Steinbrenner's Attack Hawk a Failure [OR NOT--See Retraction]

[UPDATE (4/10): In Metroville's defense, the Yahoo story--which has been updated since it was linked--originally did not cite the girl's name. I'm too fast in uncovering hot scoops for my own good.]

Some people might accept the possibility that Thursday's hawk-attack on a middle school student touring Fenway Park was nothing more than an unfortunate fluke, but I happen to suspect that the bird was planted by Yankees pseudo-owner and doughy jackass Hank Steinbrenner after it was trained to strike at Red Sox fans, all in an attempt to cut back on attendance at his division rival's park. The reasons behind this theory are as follows:

1. The animal in question was not a Blue Jay, oriole or a devil ray (I'm sorry--just "ray"), thus clearing the remaining AL East teams of suspicion.

2. The hawk singled out an adolescent girl as its intended victim, which indicates that whomever orchestrated the attack is a pussy.

3. The attempt, like all other Yankees endeavors undertaken in this century to date, did not succeed.

Better luck next time, Hank.

UPDATE (4/10) (continued): I should have known that Hank Steinbrenner was too stupid to train a hawk. As seen in the comments below, the eagle-eyed Coggblogger has informed Metroville that the name of the girl attacked was "Alexa Rodriguez". Fly on and fly true, winged defender of Fenway!

Monkey Desperate to Avoid Working with Emile Hirsch

MSNBC.com is reporting [Ed. note: or, I guess, "scooping"; I'm told that "Jeannette Walls delivers the scoop"] that PETA is up in arms over confirmed reports that a chimpanzee on the set of the upcoming live-action Speed Racer adaptation bit an actor, leading to allegations that the animal has been beaten. (Unless directors Larry and Andy Wachowski have opted for an all-chimpanzee cast, one has to assume that the simian in question is portraying Chim-Chim.) The film's producers have responded with assurances from the American Human Society that no animals in the movie are being abused, but PETA remains unconvinced.

Both sides are apparently choosing to ignore the most obvious explanation for the chimp's behavior: he was merely trying to demonstrate for the movie's lead actor, lifeless slouch Emile Hirsch, how to properly emote.

Keith Richards Will Share with Anybody

When the Rolling Stones perform for more than 100,000 people at the Hippodrome in Belgrade on July 14, they will be doing so a few meters from 300 stabled horses (the Hippodrome, Belgrade's largest fenced space, is a racecourse). They've decided to do the horses a solid by pumping every last one of them full of dope--at no charge--during the concert, but a bunch of square Serb animal lovers aren't down with that plan. Serbia's biggest animal protection society, ORCA, wants the show to be moved to another venue, claiming that it would be damaging for the party-hearty quadrupeds.

We all know what the real reason is, though: They just don't know how to rock.

Lawsuit Won't Stop Amazon.com from Fulfilling All Your Cockfighting-Related Needs

Following up on a threat made over the summer, on Thursday the Humane Society of the United States filed a civil lawsuit in District of Columbia Superior Court against online retailer juggernaut Amazon.com, accusing the website of illegally promoting animal fighting because it offers two cockfighting magazines for sale. The Humane Society is claiming that the magazines violate federal animal cruelty laws; Amazon.com's position is that refusing to sell books or magazines simply because their messages may offend is censorship...but one particularly astonishing fact has arisen from this dispute that, curiously, neither side is paying much heed to:

There are at least two magazines in existence in the United States that are dedicated to cockfighting.

One's called The Gamecock; the other, Feathered Warrior. What I've gleaned from the customer reviews (scroll down--they're worth a read) on Amazon.com is that The Gamecock is the New York Times of cockfighting magazines--the gold standard by which all others are measured (one reviewer actually states that the monthly contains "lots of sage advice from elders")--while Feathered Warrior, despite having been around since 1903 (according to its Amazon page) (and, for my money, boasting the superior name) appears to fulfill the market role of a distant second banana (while The Gamecock currently holds the 80th position in magazine sales on Amazon.com, Feathered Warrior is languishing at #928)...not so much the Pepsi to Gamecock's Coke as it is perhaps its Shasta.

The good news for both is that, as of this writing, the two magazines remain available for purchase on Amazon.com, who stands defiant in the face of the Humane Society's lawsuit. As Feathered Warrior owner-editor Verna Dowd, 77, told reporters: "The Humane Society are crazy people...I don't know what's wrong with them."

Amen, Verna. In a world where the practice of training birds to murder other birds for amusement and profit might possibly be seen as wrong...I don't want to be right.

Anaconda 3: Anaconda vs. Old Man

A 66-year-old Brazilian man has accomplished on his own something it once took the combined efforts of the late-20's incarnations of Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube to do: defeated an anaconda.

When Joaquim Pereira came upon the sight of his 8-year-old grandson Mateus with a 16-foot-snake coiled around his neck and squeezing the life out of the boy on Thursday, he beat the thing with rocks and a knife (I wonder what his choice of alternating pattern was--bash, bash, stab? stab, bash, stab?) for half an hour until it released his grandson. Mateus survived, receiving 21 stitches on his chest where the snake had bitten him.

A 66-year-old man took on an anaconda and won! If only he could have been there for Owen Wilson back in '97. (SPOILER ALERT: Yeah, Owen Wilson gets eaten by the anaconda in Anaconda.)

Ron Artest Must Love (Not Feeding) Dogs

You would think that Sacramento Kings forward and model citizen Ron Artest (pictured charging into the stands to attack a fan in Detroit when he was a member of the Indiana Pacers in 2004) would be great at taking care of animals, or at least not have been visited seven times since July by animal control officers due to complaints from neighbors that his dogs weren't being taken proper care of, or at the very least not had his dogs impounded for a total of 77 days over that same period.

If you thought these things, you'd be wrong.

The latest showcase of Artest's mad skillz in the field of animal care came on Sunday, when animal control officers took possession of his Great Dane--whom Artest calls "Socks" but the president of Friends of Placer County Animal Shelter Rosemary Frieborn more colorfully describes as "a rack of bones"--because he wasn't feeding it. In defense of his actions, Artest stated, "I love my dogs and think they should be able to live (as) freely as possible".

Way to be, Ron. Unlike most nancypants pet owners, you understand that for an animal to truly be free, it has to be left alone for days at a time without food to fend for itself. And if they should happen to die as a result, that just means that they didn't appreciate their freedom.

Future of Horse Racing Lies with Frank Stallone of Animals

I'm no psychologist, so it's difficult to determine whether the horse racing world is in the "denial" or "bargaining" stage of grief over the recent death of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, but everyone is almost definitely setting themselves up for disappointment by counting on his brother to carry on his legacy. Though it is no doubt heartbreaking for those close to the sport to know that Barbaro's potential to develop into the next Seattle Slew or Secretariat will never be fulfilled, you might want to rethink transferring all of those eggs into the basket of a horse with (literally) no name.

Just because the yearling in question shares the same mother and sire as Barbaro (or that the sire's name, Dynaformer, may be doubly encouraging in that it makes one suspect he's an Autobot), that doesn't necessarily mean that he's cut out for racing. Maybe, like Jimmy Carter's brother Billy, he'll make a career of endorsing a namesake beer, or, like Patrick Swayze's brother Don, he'll, uh...occasionally hang around with Patrick Swayze. The point is, if things don't pan out for Barbaro's younger brother in the realm of horse racing, it won't be the end of the world.

After all, Barbaro's mother is currently in foal again to Dynaformer...and that horse could easily turn out to be the next Jim Hanks.