“One is a kleptocratic dictatorship founded on blood and ethnic strife; the other is the Chechen Republic.” That sentence was worth waking up for this morning. Kudos, sir.

No sport needs a union more badly; no sport is less likely to get a union. It’s bleak.

UFC president Dana White said the promotion is only now falling in line with what has been standard practice in other professional sports organizations for years.

UFC president Dana White said the promotion is only now falling in line with what has been standard practice in other professional sports organizations for years.

“We were somewhere around LA Live on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…’ And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge Skippers, all swooping and screeching…

For what it’s worth, I had no idea that wasn’t just a commonly used phrase. I’ve heard it a thousand times in conversation or writing. Whether a pro wrestler coined it or not, I think it’s way beyond that and just part of common American vernacular now.

Tom, You totally aren’t in on the joke.

Russia Today.

They really are something!

It’s kinda funny that Bill Simmons’s response to all this is exactly the same as John Travolta’s response to Going Clear.

Meanwhile, over at Grantland, we are 36 hours into this, and nary a peep.

Yes. Thank you, and good night. That is the magnificent bottom line. Cheaters should not be permitted to win. There should be no qualifier to that sentence.

Brady is the jock. These guys are the nerds that write his term paper. When they get caught, the nerd’s lives get ruined for cheating and the jock has his part swept under the rug and goes to college on a scholarship. Then he wins several Superbowls and gets to have sex with a Brazilian Supermodel.

He certainly didn’t have enough attention to detail to prevent this:

HTF does this add up to a finding of only “more probable than not” that they participated in violations of the Playing Rules? This seems more like it amounts to “blatantly, hilariously obvious.”

Yeah, this definitely seems like the kind of thing that would go on without Belicheck knowing about it.

You mean the strategy of lets not kill each other over this awesome guaranteed pay day?

I don’t believe that shit. He was shaking hands with his right arm after the fight. He raised his arms, effortlessly, above his head at the end of the fight.

Bail has been set at $1,000 each, with the NBA to fund the remaining $48,000.

I even invented imaginary takes: the announcement of the Bruins firing their GM came about 15 minutes later, for instance—surely someone would make an ill-advised attempt to tie the two together?