Just checking in from Praha, where team USA Cincy will be playing a 50 and Over team from the Dominican Republic in a couple of hours.

That is what Spencerblob is doing here, embarassing his country playing age-inappropriate basketball internationally.

Team Cincy has four players out of eight that could be playing in the 55 and over bracket. While Team Dominica has at least three players who can still dunk - one who can do so from a standing start under the basket. This may not be pretty.

But Prague is. It's a beautiful city with lovely churches, castles, cafes, women and beer. Casinos too.

We have two games under our belts. The first an easy win over a German team that may have been drunk before the game. They certainly were after. They cheerfully toasted us from a beer garden over the entrance to the gymnasium as we left.

Lost to the hosting Czech team by a point. The home fans were very proud of their old boys.

If Team Cincy loses by less than 20 tonight, it will be a miracle.

Spencerblog is in the Czech Republic or as we are now calling it, SpencerPrague. Postings will be light and will also depend on whether I can find an adapter for the nutty electrical outlets here.

In the meantime, while I will be off print-wise next week, I will have a column in this Sunday's Times about the Penn Delco School District and its weird treatment of the Aston Valley Baseball League.

Czech it out!

Dr. Jerry Lazaroff, the Media child psychologist acquited of molestation charges, informs me that his license to practice has been reinstated and he will go back to work for the county court system this Monday.

Good for him. And kudos to Judge Joe Cronin and Court Administrator Phil Damiani for helping make it happen.

Killer Ramir Steve gets life.

From our story:

Following the decision, the victim’s family issued a statement that “there is no winner in the outcome of this tragedy, only two families who have lost their son and brother.”



The statement handed out by the victim’s father, John Cunningham, expressed “no ill will toward the Steve family” and stated it will “continue to pray for them as well as Ramir.”

No blood lust. No anger. Just sadness and class. Makes you want to cry.

Ann Bayefsky at Forbes let's Obama have it for his Iran dithering.

Money Q:

This is a man who embodies the opposite of the courage to act. His appalling ignorance of history prompted him to claim at his press conference that "the Iranian people … aren't paying a lot of attention to what's being said … here." On the contrary, from their jail cells in the Gulag, Soviet dissidents took heart from what was being said here--as all dissidents dream that the leader of the free world will be prepared to speak and act in their defense.

Welcome to the "man-cession"

Am I reading this correctly. Are Steny Hoyer and George Miller saying Congress must pay as it goes for what it spends?

Because, if so, what's with Obama and the Democrats quadrupling of the deficit?

Oh, it's George Bush's fault. Nevermind.

South Carolina's Republican governor Mark Sanford disappears for a week and then comes home to admit to an affair with some woman from Argentina.

Mrs. Sanford is not pleased. She didn't appear at his mea culpa press conference. Good for her.

An affair is one thing. Disappearing for a week to break it off is another. He's done

A teacher in Germany has lost a lawsuit trying to down a website that allows students to grade teachers. The head of the teachers' association is unhappy.

From the story:"

It is inexplicable that the BGH values the personal rights of teachers less than an anonymous assessment of teachers by students on the Internet," Association president Josef Kraus said, referring to the federal court.

It is very explicable. It's called free speech and its nice to see it being protected in other parts of the world.

Coalbuster and government employee James Hansen gets arrested at protest.

Is that Cindy Sheehan next to him?

Thornbury Township is helping its residents go "green" by not charging for permits to transition to clean energy.

Township supervisor Jim Raith says like "geothermal and solar, etc."

Ecetera?

Does that mean we can expect seeing more windmills in Glen Mills? Probably not. Another term for "clean energy" is "expensive energy."

But as with many "green" ideas, it's the thought that counts.

Romar, I mean Ramir Steve, convicted in cabbie murder.

Tough case.

Perez Hilton punched in the face.

Go figure.

The good news? He made the Drudge Report again.

Saunders on whistleblower Walpin who was fired by the White House for murky reasons.

Didn't NASA's James "Chicken Little" Hansen manage to keep his job during the horrid Bush Administration? Apparently the Bushies were cowed when he took the Peter Venkman approach to his critics.

"Back off man, I'm a scientist."

UPDATE: See today's Daily Times editorial on Walpin.

Obama is losing the confidence of independent voters, like Spencerblog for instance.

But then we had little confidence he would lead the country in the right direction in the first place.

Interviewed by CBS last Friday about the protests in Iran and Obama finally comes out in support of the Iranian protestors. And CBS drops its scoop... of ice cream.

The U.S.S. Welfare State has hit an iceberg.

Money Q:

Any sober examination of figures like these suggests that the system has promised more than it can realistically deliver. We are borrowing not to finance investment in the future but to pay for today's welfare -- present consumption. Sooner or later, the huge debt will weaken the economy. Nor would paying for all promised benefits with higher taxes be desirable. Big increases in either debt or taxes risk depressing economic growth, making it harder yet to pay promised benefits.

President Obama is not responsible for the growth of the welfare state before his administration. But he is certainly responsible for it now. And he doesn't seem to think its a problem.

Your happy thought for the day: Al Qaeda would be happy to nuke the U.S. if it got its hands on one.

Headline: Al Qaeda says would use Pakistani nuclear weapons
What? Nork Nukes not good enough for ya?

Three apparent B.F. Skinner devotees have e-mailed (one all the way from Norway) to tell me the quote I attributed to the famed psychologist in Friday's column is wrong.

The quote: "The object of life is to gratify yourself without getting arrested."

I came across it while reading a Walker Percy novel called "The Thanatos Syndrome." The protagonist in the book, a psychiatrist, so quotes Skinner, incorrectly it turns out.

It turns out the object of some people's lives is to search the Internet for incorrect quotes attributed to B.F. Skinner and correct them.

We stand corrected.

The World's Shortest Slasher Flick. Pretty derivative but the surprise ending is worth it.

Nice Father's Day story by Patti Mengers on Coach Craig.

Protesters in the streets, violence, authoritarianism and our ice-cream eating President: The music video.

Of course, its not really fair but that didn't stop the left from composing similar unflattering ditties about his predecessor.

It's about time Obama spoke out forcefully against the mullah's crack-down and on behalf of Iran's democratic movement.

"Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama!" - Hugo Chavez.

Ed Fuelmer discusses the implications.