Breaking Fake News Update (v26)

 Fake News Broke on November 16, 2025!

I have to say, no one is more shocked than I am, seeing two consecutive breaking fake news reports related to professional sports! Last week, it was the NFL's Dynamic Kickoff, and today, it's the NBA All-Star Game? Who had that on their bingo cards for 2025? 

The NBA, for unknown reasons, has decided to totally revamp the format for its mid-season celebration, which will be played during the same time as the Winter Olympics. I'm guessing that might be one reason for the change to the 'USA against the World' team alignment, outlined in the bulletin above. 

I understand from my fake news sources that, if two or more teams end up with the same record after the seven rounds, a draft of the tie-breaker indicates that bonus points will be awarded to the team with the most Americans, but they haven't seen the final plan.

In a 'we thought of everything' move, the league has even devised a way to make sure they can field the teams they want if the voters don't pick enough of the right players. After all, it would be horrible if folks did a little too much America First-ing when they voted. 

If NBA All-Star voting does not result in the selection of 16 U.S. players and eight international players (which can include American players with ties to other countries if necessary), then NBA Commissioner Adam Silver will select additional All-Stars to join either group to reach that minimum.  In that case, at least one team would have more than eight players.

One would hope that they'd do a whole lot of  'splaining on the new process so that they won't have to resort to the backup plan - especially now that there are four fake teams in the mix. And one would hope that the league's betting partners are well-versed on all of the changes so they can adjust their plans accordingly, too.

As always, if fake news is breaking, I've got you covered. And if you have a fake news tip for me, let me know!

Breaking Fake News Update (v25)

 Fake News Broke on November 12, 2015!

Lordy, lordy, what do we have here? More breaking fake news, that's what! 

Yesterday, the FOTUS stepped away from honoring veterans by telling them and their families all kinds of crazy, irrelevant stuff (that's real news I'll address later), and called in to chat with the guys on the Pat McAfee Show. At that time, he expressed his dislike for the kickoff format the NFL has adopted. 

According to the linked article, the president said the change was "demeaning to football" and added that he doesn't think it makes things any safer. 

I mean you still have guys crashing into each other. And it’s the opposite of what the game… the ball is in the air and nobody is moving. It’s supposed to be when the ball is in the air, when the ball is played, you’re supposed to be moving.

My favorite part of his remarks? The part he left unsaid.

I don’t want to say what it reminds me of because I’ll get myself into big trouble but it is not football.

What on earth does it remind him of? Why will saying whatever that is get him in big trouble? If saying that avoiding STDs during the 70s was his personal Vietnam War, and saying he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes, and cheating on all his wives didn't get him in trouble, what on earth is he worried about? 

I can't wait to hear the results of the MAHA leather helmet study - I'm dyeing to hear what the hairdressers comb up with! 

As always, when fake news breaks, I'll have it for you here!

Wondering on Wednesday 4/3/24

Ready... Set... Wonder!

I saw an article in The Week about 'passive investing' - using index funds to do the work for you, or for your 401(k). The Week, if you aren't familiar with it, presents news items with multiple viewpoints from different media outlets. Here's a bit of the piece on index funds, with my emphasis added.

A market doesn’t work if everyone just “sits back and watches their money grow,” said Katie Martin in the Financial Times. It sounds “a little snobbish” to rail against passive investing, “which has unlocked wealth for millions of people who otherwise might not be active in financial markets at all.” But several recent studies have found that indexed stocks have begun to “show lower sensitivity” even to major economic shocks than their non-indexed counterparts. That turns investing from a process of “seeking out, rewarding, and profiting from successful companies” to a “circular bet” on more money flowing into the market.

The article came out before Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT on the Nasdaq)  went public with a value of some $8B, even though the company has ridiculously poor financial performance.

Is this the kind of company you'd 'seek out and reward,' I wonder?

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Perhaps as many as half a million folks in California got a raise this week, as the minimum wage for most fast-food workers - and only those workers - increased from $16/hour to $20/hour. The raise stems from a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, and comes a few weeks after workers formed the California Fast Food Workers Union.

Generally, I'm not a fan of politicians singling out a category of workers and changing their minimum wage without adjusting the minimum wages for other low-paid workers, but I don't wonder why politicians do it.

What I do wonder is why so many people think it's OK for the government to make a random distinction between a fast-food worker and a day-care worker, a home health aide, or a janitorial staffer. And I wonder why, when the politicians do this for some but not for all, people are so comfortable telling the other workers to 'just go ask for a raise,' or 'organize and fight for themselves.'

And, of course, I wonder how the pols come up with the convoluted rules they apply. This law applies to "restaurants offering limited or no table service and which are part of a national chain with at least 60 establishments nationwide. Restaurants operating inside a grocery establishment are exempt, as are restaurants producing and selling bread as a stand-alone menu item."  

A shoutout to anyone who can make this make sense. I sure can't.

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This one has me scratching my head with wonder. I was not aware that there's a thing out in the Interwebs asking, "Who actually eats at Arby's?" And, until this morning when I saw this article that Arby's is going to give "skeptics" four free sandwiches this month, to try and convince them how good the food is. According to the company's Chief Marketing Officer, the chain is "putting our money where our mouth is," and that April is

the perfect opportunity for any skeptics out there to try any of the sandwiches they've been eyeing.

There's just one catch: the 'skeptics' who have been "eyeing" the sandwiches have to be enrolled in the company's rewards program to get the free sandwiches. Call me skeptical, but I wonder how many of the free sammies are going to go to existing rewards members, not to new customers?

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It seems 'the right' found itself in a bit of a snit over Easter Sunday. It seems that 'the left' has attacked Easter with the same zeal as it fights the war on Christmas. First, President Biden dared recognize the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, celebrated annually on March 31st. That's a bad thing, it would appear, when Easter also falls on March 31st - at least according to House Speaker Mike Johnson and the other usual suspects. But that's only half of the problem. 

The other issue? A ban on religious Easter eggs at the Biden White House. I kid you not.

...guidelines for the contest in which kids submit decorated eggs for a White House display specify that the art "must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements. 

There's only one problem: the guidelines don't belong to 'the left' and they don't come from the Bidens. They come from the American Egg Board, which has had the same rules since the 70s. And that means former president Donald Trump attacked Easter using one of the exact same weapons as President Biden used.

So, what am I wondering here? With all the effort 'the right' puts into manufacturing wars by 'the left' against Christian holidays, I wonder why they don't put even one iota of effort into attacking the very un-Christian, unreligious, unpleasant, unpatriotic Easter 'truth' posted by their fearless leader. 

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Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R-MAGA) is unhappy that LSU's women's basketball team wasn't on the floor for the playing of our country's National Anthem (not to be confused with "America's most recognized patriotic anthem," Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA) at their Elite Eight appearance in Albany on Sunday. 

So unhappy, in fact, that he wants the state's Board of Regents to create a policy requiring student-athletes "be present for the National Anthem or lose their scholarships." He even managed to bring his mother into the mix with his tweet on the subject, which said, in part,

My mother coached women's high school basketball during the height of desegregation, no one has a greater respect for the sport and for Coach Mulkey. However, above respect for the game is a deeper respect for those that serve to protect us and unite us under one flag !

Landry apparently doesn't know that college athletes in his state, and others, typically aren't on the court or field for the anthem, which is played several minutes before the game starts. And he apparently doesn't know that they haven't been, for many years. And he apparently doesn't know that the Regents have nothing to do with scholarships. 

It kind of makes me wonder whether he gave this whole thing any thought at all, or if he just shoots from the lip like the guy who endorsed him for governor.

*****     *****

Oh - in case you're wondering, here's the current status of the GoFundMe to raise money to help the former president pay his judgments. I'll continue to report on this each week, but for now, it looks like it's gonna take a while.

*****     *****

What's on your wondering mind tonight?

Sunday School 8/30/20: Extra Credit

In this week's Sunday School, we heard from two pretty good non-answer-people, one from each party. Today, I wanted to switch gears and hear from people who are not politicians, who are not afraid of answering questions, talk about a subject that they are uniquely qualified to talk about (and that the politicians are uniquely not qualified to talk about): professional athletes, talking about professional athletes and social justice. 

First up? Chuck Todd on MTP, talking with former NBA player (and SU alum) Etan Thomas, and current WNBA player /VP of the Players Association Sue Bird. The interview comes after last week's actions across multiple sports leading to the cancellation of nine NBA games, 11 MLB games, six WNBA games, four NHL games, and more. 

Thomas talked about the leagues standing in solidarity, and making "their powerful statement heard really around the world" and said they've gone above and beyond, not only by not playing, but through the new social change fund, and through focused advocacy work. And he pointed out how it was "interesting" to hear people complaining that the athletes went back to work after their 'strike' or 'boycott' or whatever it should be called, noting that

...it's also not the job of professional athletes to solve the policing problems that we have in this country. You know, that should be the focus of all the people we just saw at the Republican convention this past week. And I would say, instead of Donald Trump screaming "law and order" at the American citizens exercising their right to protest, that he should be screaming "police accountability." But I bet we probably won't hear that. 

Todd, noting that when players boycott, they're taking money out of the hands of the owners, sponsors, and the leagues, asked Bird what role owners and sponsors should play in all of this. She noted that in the WNBA, the owners support the players, noting that she and others heard directly from their owners saying, "We support whatever you want to do."  That being the case, she said, 

I think a lot of it is more so about, like you said, the corporate sponsors, trying to get them to understand where we stand, what we believe in, what we're fighting for.

And, she added, "this isn't new for us. We've been doing this for year, and years, and years."  She said that

what was so special about this moment was an opportunity, like Etan said, for all of these leagues to be unified. And that’s, that’s when, you know -- we've learned in the WNBA when we're unified as one voice, that's where the impact is felt for us. So to have all these leagues together, I mean, you've seen what's happened. 

Todd asked Thomas about some athletes suggesting that, while they're doing a lot, they're not doing enough. Thomas said people always want to do more, and he also wanted to make clear that "this has nothing to do with being for the police or against the police. That's just the right redefining the issue." He used his kids to illustrate the difference between being supportive and being an enabler.

So, for instance, I love my baby Sierra. You know, that's my girl. But if baby Sierra came to me and said, "Daddy, I want to have chocolate chips for dinner," I wouldn't be supporting her by telling her that she can go have chocolate chips for dinner, you know what I mean? That's not supporting her.

And Trump and the right believe that you have to allow the police to do anything that they want to do and then that equals supporting them... Applauding someone and saying, "Everything that you do is wonderful" is not supporting them. It's actually enabling them. And, you know, so I would say Trump is actually acting more anti-police than what he's claiming to be.

Todd turned to Bird, asking if she understood the need or desire to do more. She talked about being in the 'wubble' (the WNBA bubble) and how all of the players being together, being able to talk about the emotionally and mentally draining, "traumatizing and re-traumatizing" experiences the black players have had, makes people feel like they're not doing enough.

We've actually been doing the work. And to be honest, I've had a front row seat with, you know, my girlfriend Megan Rapinoe. She took a knee four years ago. It took four years for that to come back around. So personally for me, I like to share that message with the players because, while it doesn't feel like you're doing enough and while people are going to come at you and be, like, "Well, what are you going to do about it." Just you have to, like, find solace in the fact that we actually are doing the work.

Thomas was asked about NBA players speaking out more than athletes in other leagues like the NHL and MLB, with Todd noting "here're two sports that are whiter and certainly their fan bases are very white," and asked about the importance of the sports world uniting "across racial lines."  Thomas said it's "definitely important," adding

Right now, you know, when you see from the right there's so much of a divisive type of a tone. I mean, just looking at the Republican National Convention, you know, everything is divisive. And so sports has the opportunity to be able to bring people together. And so -- and it's a matter of empathy. So some of these sports that you say, you know, as you say are whiter, you know, they might not be dealing with the same things that I'm dealing with as a Black man in this country. 

He talked about "the conversation" that black parents have with their sons - and daughters -about what to do when they're stopped by the police. Not if, mind you -- but when they are stopped, and how they can't act like their white friends might, because "they will get to live."  And, he pointed out,

... the fact that you are making millions of dollars in the NBA doesn't save you from being Black. And that's the difference. So when the policeman pulls me over... it doesn't matter what I've accomplished in life or who I am or, you know, what tax bracket I'm in or anything like that. I'm a Black man and I'm a threat.

Final question was to Bird, about what she'd say to the politicians who "don't like it when the sports world speaks out on social issues." 

... as a female athlete, the one thing that I've come to realize is we're judged on everything except our sport. We've been judged because we're Black, gay, because we're women. Nobody talks about us playing. So you fast forward, you know, ten, 20 years of this and we've developed an identity. And we're being authentic to it. And so for us, when people say, "Stick to sports," it's kind of, like, yeah, 20 years ago, we tried. You wouldn't let us. And now you're saying that? So it makes no sense to me.

Or to me, frankly.