Locally, besides the election that is, the big story is whether Wisconsin will show up for their night home game against Penn State. Coach Joe Pa gave the New York Times a blunt assessment of the Wisconsin Badgers' woes.

"They let Michigan off the hook, and I think they let Ohio State off the hook," Penn State's Hall of Fame coach said.

ESPN says that playcalling by both teams will be informative as to their respective fortunes for the rest of the season

Penn State fans hope the Lions offense went conservative in last week's unstylish win at Purdue and will open things up again against Wisconsin. Galen Hall and Jay Paterno likely will expand the playbook, particularly with top wideout Jordan Norwood back, but quarterback Daryll Clark must continue to play smart on the road. Wisconsin reserve running back John Clay has provided a lift in each of the team's last two losses. Clay has to touch the ball more for the Badgers to have a chance at an upset.

Well, another wheel may have fallen off the Straight Talk Express last night when Sen. McCain actually found the common (or maybe, not common) decency to defend Sen. Obama during one of his fakey psuedo-town-hall-meetings last night in Minnesota. The GOP Presidential nominee was actually booed when he said, "I have to tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,"

My question is, where did they find so many angry people in Minnesota, yah dere hey? Aren't they all warm and fuzzy like Garrison Keillor? Another sportswriting colleague Steve Rushin once said that if it was up to Minnesotans, they'd be called the Prettty Darn Good Lakes, as in, "they're not so great, but..."

Dave Barry observed the following when he covered the GOP Convention last summer in St. Paul.

Nobody here is bitter or angry. As far as I can tell, nobody in Minnesota ever gets riled up about anything. Minnesotans really are, as the expression goes, "Minnesota nice." They are beyond nice. They make Mister Rogers look like Hitler.

If you drove your car at 85 miles per hour into a Minnesota family's house, their reaction, once they pulled you out of the wreckage and gave you some hot cocoa, would be to apologize for building their house in a location that you would eventually want to drive through.

Which may be why no Minnesotan has ever been elected president.

Still, lest you think that the McCain camp is the only one slinging mud at the electorate, witness the Senatorial race in Minnesota where the New York Times reports that Norm Coleman has had to "put the kibosh" on his own negative ads.

The hometown Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports, Coleman told reporters that after a day of fasting and prayer for Yom Kippur, a "time of fasting, soul-searching and refocusing on your life," he had decided to change the tone of his campaign.

"We're in a place that I don't think any of us of this generation, this time, have ever seen before," Coleman said. "At times like this, politics should not add to the negativity. It should lift people up with hope and a confident vision for the future."

Almost wryly, Coleman added that he also "decided I was not all that interested in returning to Washington for another six years based on the judgment of the voters that I was not as bad as the other guys. I want voters to vote for me and not against the other folks."

Meanwhile, phillyburbs,com suggests that Flyers' fans might want to plan on leaving early for the team's regular season home opener if they want to see vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin take part in the ceremonial opening faceoff at 7 p.m.

Security is expected to be somewhat tighter than usual for Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Pailn, who Dave Barry once observed combines "the fresh-faced feisty toughness of a small-town Alaska hockey-mom snowmobiling mayor governor who can kill and field-butcher a mature grizzly bear using only a nail file and her teeth."

As reported here previously, the governor of Alaska and the nation's "most popular hockey mom,'' will join the winner of the Flyers' regional search for the "Ultimate Hockey Mom" contest and drop the puck at center ice.

 In another "I don't know what this has to do with sports, but..." story, the Los Angeles Times reports that the Golden Gate Bridge is crafting a stainless steel net to catch would-be suicide jumpers.

Writing to the board last summer, San Francisco resident Paul J. Miller expressed a view that many others had raised: "Attention should be given to mental health assistance," he wrote, "not paying tens of millions of dollars to contractors who are just trying to milk money from citizens."

On the other hand, the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California has supported the idea, contending that the effectiveness of barriers has been "dramatic" at such landmarks as the Empire State Building and Eiffel Tower.

The group also cites a study of 515 people who were stopped from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. It concluded that 94% of them were alive or had died naturally long after their thwarted attempts.

In its 14-1 vote Friday, the agency's directors determined that a net would be the least visible of five alternatives.

The others included extending the height of the bridge's railing from four to 12 feet -- an option widely criticized as too obtrusive.

All of the possibilities -- except doing nothing -- would cost $40 million to $50 million.

Finally, the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings will visit the White House this weekend. They don't play in Washington until Jan. 31., but a new President will be settling in.

Still, most of the players on these teams for these photo-ops are Republicans -- call it a Charles Barkley anti-populism. When the Atlanta Braves were summoned to the White House for their photo-op moment with then-President Bill Clinton, relief pitcher Mark Wohlers leaned over to say, "Sir, I think I'm the only one up here who actually voted for you."

If that wasn't funny enough, the Mark Wohlers Obsession page reveals that when the Braves' pitcher met Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, he told his child, "Austyn, dear, don't use any of the words that Chuck D uses. Only Daddy can use those words..."