No word if they were also outfitted with... lasers

A Sharm El Sheikh marine biologist slammed the conspiracy theory circulating around the country that last week's shark attacks off the South Sinai resort of Sharm El-Sheikh were part of an Israeli conspiracy, but the South Sinai governor supports it.

Mahmoud Hanafy, a professor of marine biology at the Suez Canal University, told Ahram Online that it is "sad," that Egyptian national TV helped propogate the theory that the shark attacks, which resulted in one death and four serious injuries this week, may have been controlled by Israel.

Speaking on the public TV program "Egypt Today" yesterday, a specialist introduced as "Captain Mustafa Ismail, a famous diver in Sharm El Sheikh," said that the sharks involved in the attack are ocean sharks and do not live in Egypt's waters.

When asked by the anchor how the shark entered Sharm El Sheikh waters, he burst out, "no, it's who let them in?"

When the Joooooooos are done taking out tourist bathers, we'd request that they pass these sharks along to this guy.

We (Heart) Obama

Wow…. That was kinda strange. It appears after being identified as a potential Spam Blog by Google/Blogger, we were taken out of rotation until our files could be properly reviewed….. on our one-year Blogoversary, no less.

First, we want to thank everyone who stopped by to offer their support. It was all very gracious and much appreciated by us.

How did it all come to this? We’re not sure but our original and most logical thought was that Blogger had an unmanned search algorithm that sniffed out spammy-type material and indeed, just a day before being put on probation, we linked to a quiz site that contained a quiz called “What type of American accent do you have?”. This site was littered with adverts and since we had never before linked to a site with so many of the same, we went ahead and deleted the post hoping that would bolster our case before the Blogger Board of Review.

Then…. last night, we stopped by Foxie’s place and she had posted a very nice tribute to the merits of free speech, tolerance and dissent as a way of explaining our plight. The page locked up and we were greeted with the “Website cannot be located. Mission Aborted” pop-up before then being banished to the internet cornfield.

We realize Google owns the very apparatus that allows us to blog for free, so they are perfectly in their right to do whatever they want. Speaking to some of the internet buzz, though, it would be very disappointing to discover that people who don’t agree with the particular editorial bent of a site, would “flag” that site as “spam blog” if that is indeed the case.

So our apologies… we aren’t taking any chances from now on….

We (heart) Obama. We really do.

It was disappointing and frustrating… once we figured-out the “scheduled post” feature 2-3 weeks back, we noticed an appreciable jump in readership and that was encouraging so now we’ve got to regain a little lost momentum.

Its good to be back. Life is good – we’ve got the 27th annual Rolando Beach Block Sale going on today and the first football, albeit pre-season football but football nonetheless, tomorrow.

Thanks again to everybody for hanging in there with us.

Just when David Stern thought it was safe to go back in the water.

In the midst of the dream matchup that will put the cherry on top of what has been one of the most successful NBA seasons in years, the Association once again has to deal with the specter of Tim Donaghy and game-fixing. (Our thoughts on the Donaghy scandal when it broke, here and here).

Former NBA ref, Tim Donaghy, who was convicted of betting on NBA games, alleges that other NBA referees manipulated games to better serve the NBA’s broader economic interests.

There is no other sport or league where the referees and the refereeing is more a prevalent topic than the NBA, in fact, its not even close. Refs will blow calls in the NFL and umpires may be criticized for an inconsistent strike zone or misjudging a foul pole home run but, invariably, these botches never carry the taint of conspiracy or “fix”. Indeed, the storyline in this very championship series has been the refereeing and specifically Game 2 where Boston enjoyed a 4 to 1 advantage over L.A. in going to the charity stripe.

And if you are a floundering Tim Donaghy, awaiting sentencing, what else is there to do but trot out one of the crown jewels of the conspiracy theorists: Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals where the Lakers prevailed over the Sacramento Kings on their way to a seven game series victory?

For their part, David Stern and the Association have dismissed these charges as the predictable actions of an untrustworthy and disgraced man who is willing to throw anything against the wall and anybody under the bus if it will possibly lessen his time in the can. Then again, David Stern is the same person who told us all the mechanisms to monitor and detect untoward behavior by their referees were in place and working just fine when the Donaghy scandal broke last summer… so why didn’t they catch Donaghy?

We’re always wary in taking to much from commenter reaction but the overwhelming majority from story here seems to be of the “Tell us something we don’t know” variety and therein lies the rub. The NBA and its refs could be completely 100% pure-as-the-driven-snow clean in all this but perception is reality and the perception among many, even some self-professed Laker fans, was that the Game 6 back in ’02 was rigged and that there was definitely something amiss in Game 2 of this series.

Too bad for David Stern because this season has been a lot of fun. He had a relatively incident free season for his players on and off the court, a rise in T.V. ratings and despite a horribly boring and mundane set of playoff series, he’s got the Association’s two flagship franchises back on top again and playing for the NBA championship. This conspiracy business, though, is a large factor in setting the NBA back as a second-class citizen to the NFL and it’s a problem Stern is stuck with and is a problem that will probably always dog the NBA thus keeping them in their current status in pro and college football’s rearview mirror.