So, the far-right group American Family Association is one of apparently many right-wing groups that use auto-correct to replace potentially offensive (to them at least) words in articles posted to their news streams.  I don’t even know if it’s legal to take an AP article and auto-replace words like that.

Well, the AFA has a problem with the word "gay" and so they auto-replace it with the word "homosexual".  (Any of you following the Olympic trials can see where this is going.)  Trouble is that "gay" isn’t always used to mean homosexual.  Not only can it mean happy, it also happens to be a not uncommon last name.  Such is the case with Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay.  Which of course leads us to the utterly hilarious headline that is the title of this post.

You can read more about this utterly pointless and unintentionally hillarious pseudo-censorship here.

Comedian George Carlin, whose off-color comedy caused him to run afoul of the FCC and led to a landmark Supreme Court case on decency and broadcasting, passed away from heart failure on Sunday in Los Angeles.

So it turns out, despite what the Bush administration and their supporters would have you believe, that many of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay had little or no ties to terrorism.  In fact, some were working FOR the U.S.  Certainly makes me feel safer knowing the government is locking up our allies for years without a chance to defend themselves.

For all the Mac users and now iPhone users out there, Steve Jobs’s keynote from the World Wide Developers Conference is underway.  So far, iPhone 2.0 features have been discussed, including enterprise support and the SDK.  Later today, the next version of OS X will be discussed as well.  If you are interested in reading, MacRumors.com is liveblogging here:  http://www.macrumorslive.com/

UPDATE:  iPhone 3G Announced

• 3G wireless
• GPS
• Improved battery life
• thinner
• improved audio
• will be available in 70 countries

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: In light of a) the much faster connection speed,
b) the new lower price (just $199 for the 8GB model, literally one-third of what the first iPhones cost last June), c) the various new
cool features (particularly GPS), and d) the fact that my Sprint contract recently expired, I would like to offer the following
graphical commentary, which roughly sums up my feelings:

P.S. But, I ask again: can you use it as a modem???

Who said spelling bees were boring!

Gays aren’t the only new couples in California. USC and the Coliseum have patched up their differences and worked out a deal to keep the Trojans playing at the Coliseum for another 25 years, about the same time Coach Carroll will be ready to retire.

The Connecticut legislature reached a compromise with UConn that will allow the university’s football team to schedule a six-year series against Notre Dame, even though none of the games will be played in Connecticut. The Irish balked at playing at the Huskies’ 40,000-seat home stadium, Rentschler Field in East Hartford, insisting instead that UConn’s "home" games played in larger stadiums elsewhere, most likely in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and/or New York. However, Connecticut lawmakers were unimpressed with the idea of UConn outsourcing its home games to other states. In the words of State Rep. Michael Christ,
D-East Hartford, who proposed an earlier bill that would have
required UConn to play all its home games at Rentschler, "Many of us felt we already had a beautiful facility in
Connecticut and it was built for UConn."

The newly announced deal requires UConn to play six home games at Rentschler Field each year, "as long as the NCAA rules permit a
12-game season and permits a team to use one Football Championship
Subdivision win per season as a bowl-eligible win." It also reduces the length of the series between UConn and Notre Dame from ten years to six. "I
believe we have crafted a reasonable solution," said Christ, who added that he hopes UConn can persuade the Irish to play at
Rentschler Field in the future. (Ha! Fat chance.)

The series will start in the 2011 season and go through 2017.  The three home games for the Irish will, of course, be played at Notre Dame Stadium.  The deal still needs to be approved by Notre Dame and venue officials.  Connecticut and Notre Dame already have a separate deal to play next season in South Bend.

UPDATE BY BRENDAN:  Rep. Christ wrote a scathing op-ed about this topic last week in the Hartford Courant. My dad suggested the headline, "Christ to Notre Dame: Screw you." Heh.

Anyway, here’s an excerpt:

Loyal Husky fans flock with family and friends to Rentschler for every home
game, rain or shine, in support of their beloved team. There are hundreds of
stadium workers who depend on a game day payday from parking cars, working
concessions and post-game clean-up. Many local school bands and clubs as well as
charities also use games to bolster fundraising. Should all those benefits move
to Massachusetts? I say no!

If Rentschler Field is too confining for the
Leprechaun army the Fighting Irish deploy each week, how come the similar
capacity stadium of the Boston College Eagles (formerly of the Big East) is not
too small? That series alternates between South Bend and Chestnut Hill,
Mass. …

There is no question Notre Dame will remain the "Wal-Mart" of college football as long as it is able to keep its national television
network deal. However, UConn officials can come out of this looking like heroes
both here in Connecticut and nationally by saying "no thanks." They could brag
that no one, not even the legendary Notre Dame, can tell Connecticut where to
play its home games. Even if the Fighting Leprechauns, after a few more years of
two-win seasons, do eventually find their television revenue dried up and are
forced to finally join a conference, it is very possible that the Irish will
abandon their pseudo Big East affiliation and join the Big 10 anyway.

Ahem. It was a three-win season, thank you very much.

Incidentally, to answer the question posed by the title, I will, of course, root for Notre Dame, my alma mater. But as I said in comments, "if I had to pick one game (other than USC) for ND to lose, it would be
the UConn game. Imagine what a huge win that would be for the Huskies
program."

That said: Gooooo Irish! Beeeeeat Huskies! :)

Will the third time be the charm for the power of the Pontiff? Pope Benedict XVI will attempt to purify the most unholy ground in all of America tomorrow when he says mass at Yankee Stadium. Two previous Popes, John Paul II in 1979 and Paul VI in 1965, have said masses in Yankee Stadium, but sadly neither was able to dispel the evil aura surrounding the field. Perhaps Benedict will have more luck, and come Monday, George Steinbrenner will announce his bold plans for an MLB revenue sharing agreement, or Alex Rodriguez will donate half his monolithic salary to build new ballparks across America. Despite his holy powers, I think the Pope will fail and the Yankees will continue their diabolical ways, but hey, a guy can dream can’t he??

To be perfectly honest, I really don’t much care for the NBA.  I’d rather watch an NHL game than an NBA game (NFL and MLB beating both, MLS coming in a distant last place).  When I heard that the Sonics had been sold to a group of investors from Oklahoma City, I didn’t much care if they stayed in Seattle or went to Oklahoma (which, despite what we were told by this new group, was really what everyone assumed would happen).  There were exorbitant demands for public funding of a new arena followed by efforts of other local cities to come up with competing offers.  The mayor, the legislature and the governor all chimed in, and in the end, it looked like the Sonics were as good as gone.  But this week it got much more interesting.

First came e-mails that were obtained from Clay Bennett and the other owners of the Sonics that showed, despite their promises of a good-faith effort to work out a deal to keep the team in Seattle, that they pretty much intended to move the team all along.  It certainly showed what most of us believed all along, that these Oklahoma City investors were lying through their teeth, but it still probably is not enough to keep the team in Seattle, as basketball commissioner Howard David Stern seems to fully support the efforts to oust the team. 

The latest twist is probably the most unexpected.  Former owner and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz is planning to sue Bennett, alleging that he broke the good faith agreement that was part of the deal to sell the Sonics to the OK City group in the first place.  He is not seeking financial damages; he just wants to roll back the deal.  It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. 

Homer is out, the Hoff is in down in Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez recently demanded "The Simpsons" be pulled from its 11am timeslot because it has been deemed inappropriate for children.  It’s replacement?  Baywatch.  Cause nothing says wholesome family entertainment like Pamela Anderson running down the beach with her life preservers along for the ride!

So was it some conservative t.v. watchdog group or upset parents who forced the change?  Nope, the station insists it had recieved no complaints about the show which has been a huge success for them in that timeslot, the highest viewership in that timeslot in the stations history.  And you thought New York was a nanny state!

An aide to the famed science fiction writer has reported his passing.  Details to follow as they become available.  Sir Arthur C. Clarke was 90.

Clarke was a prolific science fiction writer and futurist, most famous as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was later turned into an epic film under director Stanley Kubrick.

UPDATE: A little bit more here.

Last Thursday, Tulsa, Oklahoma joined Boise City, Oklahoma in a strange brotherhood. Both cities have now been bombed by American forces. A National Guard plane en route to a bombing practice run at a range in Kansas apparently lost one of its bombs, which crashed through an apartment complex in Tulsa. The bomb was a 22-pound dummy bomb, and no one was at home at the time it crashed into the bathroom of Tulsa residents Jeremy Isbell and his wife.

Jack Kevorkian is planning to run for Congress.

Alternate headlines considered: 
-  Kevorkian hopes to inject some honesty into Congress
-  He’s dying to be elected

The girl who appears in the now infamous “3 AM” ad that the Clinton campaign aired in Texas prior to last week’s primaries supports Obama. Casey Knowles filmed some footage for a railroad company advertisement 10 years ago; the Clinton camp bought it from Getty Images. Knowles will be 18 next month and met Obama at a rally held last month in Seattle. She has already been in touch with the Obama campaign and may work with them to film a counter ad.

The eco-terrorist whack-jobs of the Earth Liberation Front are the likely culprits behind an arson attack which burned down three homes and damaged a fourth in a suburb of Seattle earlier this morning. Whoever set the fires left behind graffiti with the initials ELF which slammed the houses, built as part of the Street of Dreams last year. The multi-million dollar homes were certified green homes, one of them achieving the highest possible rating. All the homes included recycled materials in their construction, water conservation, and other green techniques. Fortunately none of the homes were as yet occupied and no one was harmed.

The eco-morons from the ELF have been responsible for other such attacks in the Pacific Northwest, including setting fire to a horticulture lab at the University of Washington in 2001.