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Is Sal Johnson living in an alternate universe?Today

The editor(and owner?) of Golfobserver.com writes about golf bloggers

One form of coverage that will grow in '09 is blogs. Some of them are very good but most of them are very incomplete and poorly done. A Golfblog is nothing more than an individual that writes about golf.

First I will give Sal credit for not bloggers who write about golf aren't living in their mother 's basement. We'll leave such witty comments to the like of Bob Costas.

On the other hand what is the third sentence supposed to be a golf blog is a website not an individual. A golf blogger is an individual with an opinion about golf.

There are some good ones like Waggleroom.Com, Jay Flemma.Com, Geoff Shackelford.Com and The Golf Watch but the main problem is control of these blogs.

I'm not a real big fan of Geoff but that's just me. Till today I never heard of Jay Flemma or Golf Watch. How can Sal not mention The Constructivist at Mostly Harmless or Hound Dog's blog? They are the two of the best blogs out there focused on any of the tours.

Since most of them aren't owned by a company or have advertisers to answer to a good many of them are free to be very critica

The big enchiladaToday

One week after New Year's Day the Fox Network is gracious enough to finally show the final college football game of the year. The BCS Championship between the Florida Gators and Oklahoma Sooners kicks off tonight sometime between 7:00 and 8:00 pm CST. Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis will whip your ass call the game.

Watching the game on Fox has two positives - Barry Switzer in the studio and not having to put tape over the bottom of your TV screen to block the annoying sports minutia crawl ubiquitous to ESPN's coverage. On the down side, you'll be besieged by ads for American Idol and all the other Fox shows you don't watch during every four minute-plus commercial break.

Despite endless whinging about a playoff, this match up has all the elements to be a classic. The most prolific offense in college football history. Two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks squaring off. Both teams have an abundance of speed and talent on offense and defense. Throw in two of the top coaches in the game and it's a recipe for a barn burner.

Or the traditional big bummer.

As an OU fan I fully expect Oklahoma to come out flat and throw up for the fifth BCS game in a row. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the last time OU played in Miami, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm not basing it on the SEC's vaunted superiority to all other conferences or Florida's supposed speed advantage. OU just hasn't played

Passport, Spam, Toilet PaperToday

Things you may want to pack in case you accidentally crash on the shores of Cuba when sailing in the Caribbean. From AP-

Robert Vassallo and Angellette Smith never meant to spend the holidays in Cuba.

They were forced to wade ashore in the communist nation shortly before Christmas when the boat they were sailing around the Caribbean crashed into a reef off the country's western coast.

Eventually, they were jailed in Havana. American officials in Cuba who helped them get off the island declined to identify them because of privacy concerns but confirmed their general story.

I'm sure the Cuban government tries to know all the names of Americans working in Havana.

Vassallo and Smith had set out nearly a week earlier from Key West with plenty of food, warm clothes, even a laptop. What they didn't have were visas or, in Smith's case, a passport.

That's a mistake in my book. Even if you don't intend to drop anchor anywhere in the Caribbean while sailing, a passport should have been brought in case of an emergency.

The exhausted couple anchored the boat 10 to 15 feet off the shore. They knew they were near Cuba, but didn't intend to dock and needed rest. They planned to head toward Jamaica the next morning, but the waves were too strong.

Their anchor broke loose and the boat crashed as

NYPD Officer gives WWII Marine final respectsToday

I'll give you the prerequisite tearjerker warning for this one. An NYPD officer "adopts" a WWII Marine so that he won't have to spend his final days alone:

Sometimes when old Marines die they do fade away into unmarked graves in Potter's Field.

Such might have been the case for Gaspar Musso, USMC 925050, who fought in the Battle of Tinian in the Marianas Islands in 1944 and who died Nov. 15 at age 84 in a Brooklyn nursing home.

Enter Police Officer Susan Porcello, a PBA delegate at the 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge and one of those big-hearted New Yorkers who still make this the best city on Earth.

"No way was I going to let this brave old Marine who fought for his country in WWII get buried in Potter's Field," she says.

... "When my partner, Eddie Ennis, and I arrived at his apartment Gaspar seemed a little bit down about himself," Porcello says. "He said he felt alone in the world. We talked to him a bit and as I looked around his tidy apartment I noticed that he had served in the military - the Marines to be exact."

Porcello asked him about family and friends. "Look around you, what do you see?" Musso said. "I have no family or friends."

To which Porcello said, "Well, I'm your friend."

... "I told him I'd be back to visit him and take him to a senior center where he coul

Hungry for a bailoutToday

Times are tough even for everyone. From the NY Daily News-

Is the porn industry up next for a bailout? If porn titans Joe Francis and Larry Flynt have anything to do with it, it will.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, the titans of pornography are begging for a bailout.

Joe Francis, creator of the "Girl's Gone Wild" video series, and Larry Flynt, founder of Hustler, will ask Congress for a $5 billion bailout, according to TMZ.

Why does the porn industry need a bailout? Because apparently even porn is getting smacked by the recession.

XXX DVD sales have taken a hit - about a 22% hit, according to TMZ.

"With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind," Flynt is quoted as saying on TMZ. "It's time for Congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America."

That Flynt and Francis are 'suffering' comes as no surprise. It was reported 18 months ago that home made porn threatened the adult film industry.

Hugh Hefner is facing financial problems of his own. If he don't get a bailout, there may be playboy bunnies looking for work. We can't have tha