See, Palin's even dangerous to hockey players!

With all the hubbub about former Green Bay Packer QB Brett Favre's allegedly sharing inside information with then-Detroit Lions' GM Matt Millen, you may also have wondered to yourself: If the Lions knew what was coming and still lost by several TD's, then the Detroit football team must be -- to quote the esteemed Homer Simpson, the suckiest team that ever sucked.

The Detroit Free Press' NIcholas J. Cotsonika concurs.

• 1. The latest Brett Favre brouhaha would be a bigger deal from a Detroit perspective if, one, the Lions didn't get their butts kicked by Green Bay and, two, Matt Millen were still the Lions' president.
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  2. The Lions fell behind by three touchdowns in the first quarter and gave up 447 yards in the game. If Favre helped them prepare, that's just further evidence the Lions stink. And we already knew that.
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  3. Millen knows Favre from his days as a broadcaster. They have a lot in common as country boys. It would be no surprise if Millen called Favre to invite him over to hunt and then milked him for some football info.
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  4. Think of the Green Bay perspective, though. Imagine if Steve Yzerman had an ugly divorce with the Red Wings toward the end of his career, went to play for the Islanders and helped a lowly division rival like the Blue Jackets try to beat the Wings.
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  5. It would do Rod Marinelli no good to comment on the Favre thing if there's any shred of truth to it. If he lies, he's a liar. If he dances around the truth, he's shifty. If he comes clean, he makes everyone looks bad and invites more questions.

Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times checks the pulse of the Wisconsin locals on the subject. (Yeah, I know it's a long way from home, but it's not like he has an actual NFL team in LA to cover.)

On Brett Favre Pass, some folks are wishing he had thrown his last.

"I just wish he had stayed retired," said Ron Enke, manager of Champion's sports bar, located a Hail Mary away from Green Bay's Lambeau Field. "What coming back has done for his image, what it has done for the mood of the town, lots of people wish he had stayed retired."

Eight months after the face of the NFL tearfully announced his retirement, that face is bruised and blushing.

It is the face of an accused liar. It is the face of an alleged cheater. It is a face lost.

The works of a lifetime, tarnished in less than a football season. An American hero, undone by the American way.

That's the thing about freedom. It gives us the right to choose wrong.

The score is now final, and it's not even close.

Brett Favre, New York Jets quarterback, Green Bay Packers traitor, fast-leaking legend, should have quit when he said he was quitting.

The college football season lingers on here in Madison. but the Wisconsin State Journal's Tom Oates suggests that the UW has now become a hoops school.

It may be for this year only, but, as they do at Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and other basketball-first schools, UW fans have largely pulled the plug on football and are eagerly anticipating the start of the men's basketball season.

So are the Badgers, though it has nothing to do with football.

"We're just ready for basketball to start," junior guard Jason Bohannon said this week, the first full week of practice for the Badgers. "I don't know about everyone else, but we're ready for it to get going."

Why wouldn't they be?

They've won 30 and 31 games the last two years and last season won the Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles. The comparative lack of success in the NCAA tournament is an underlying issue only the Badgers can make go away, but aside from that, the program put together by coach Bo Ryan is rolling merrily along, methodically retooling every year and generally exceeding expectations.

Ryan admits, however, expectations are growing for a program that has averaged 24.7 wins per year during his seven seasons.

Of course, once upon a time, Wisconsin used to be a hockey school, so it's still a big deal when arch-rival Minnesota comes to town.

And when all else fails, says the Badger Beat's Todd D. Milewski,  you look to hockey gods for answers.

Their response to the Wisconsin Badgers on Friday, the way that goaltender Shane Connelly sees it, was that it wasn't yet time for them to get their first victory.

Minnesota rallied from a 2-0 deficit with a pair of goals off redirections in front of the net - the kind of plays that can be considered either highly skilled or highly lucky - and earned a 2-2 tie in front of 13,184 fans at the Kohl Center.

"The hockey gods aren't making it easy for us to get our first win," Connelly said. "At least a positive is a tie, but at the same time, we've got to hold onto these leads. It has to change pretty quickly."

Speaking of gods (or God or whatever), the religion writer for the Washington Post has a perfect explanation as to why the Tampa Bay Rays were able to make their miraculous "worst to first" run to the World Series. And as Dave Barry might say, I'm not making this up.

Devil be gone!

For 10 years, they were a losing baseball team with a fiendish nickname: the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Then the club exorcised the "Devil" from its name, and suddenly Tampa Bay is in the World Series.

The Rays won the pennant less than a year after they put the Devil behind them, and some Tampa pastors would like to think that's the reason why.

Rev. Wayne Newman of Bay Life Assembly of God says the Rays' turnaround may be God's way of saying, "If you get the devil out, you're liable to go somewhere." Rev. Tom Atchison of New Life Pentecostal Church of God says that at the very least, the name change has allowed more Christians to root for the team.

Meanwhile, those Tampa Bay Rays fans (or is it, Tampa Ray Bays fans) are up in Philadelphia for the weekend and the hometown paper, the Inquirer is doing its best to be good hosts.

Just to clarify, we did not boo Santa Claus. We merely pelted him with snowballs. And most of the batteries we heaved at J.D. Drew were rechargeable. So lay off us, mainstream media.

Anyway, you have nothing to fear. As long as you follow these few commonsense guidelines, you should leave here with nothing worse than a fractured clavicle:

Make sure your health insurance premiums are paid up.

Pack heat.

Do not wear Rays gear, assuming there is any Rays gear and, if there were, anyone would wear it.

If you arrive early for Sunday's game, do not, under any circumstances, wander into the Eagles' parking lots. (If you're confused, the Eagles' lots are those where the balloons of nitrous oxide are going for $20 and the tailgaters are grilling Dallas fans.) The last out-of-town baseball fan who made that mistake was cornered, beaten, and forced to watch Eagles Post Game Live.

And since the games aren't scheduled to start until after 8 p.m., you'll have plenty of time to sightsee and partake of some of the city's historic culinary treats, and other items of interest.

Here are a few suggestions from a native: This is where the founding fathers approved the Declaration of Independence, drafted the Constitution, and ordered out from Joe's Peking Duck.

Independence Hall.

Morimoto. If you like sushi - and who among us doesn't enjoy raw fish wrapped in gummy rice and smeared with green paste hot enough for Beelzebub? - this tony restaurant is the place for you.

The fall foliage. Take a walk along beautiful Kelly Drive to see the lovely fall colors before they, like Jimmy Rollins' bat, vanish.

Geno's. The cheesesteaks are good, but the rocket scientist who runs the place asks that customers order in English, as if "Yo, gimme one wid" is the Queen's English.

Any Quaker meetinghouse. Take in a service on Sunday and you'll be amazed. Worshippers just sit there and meditate. They don't talk. They don't move. Sounds a lot like B.J. Upton, doesn't it?

You'll find out pretty quickly that, compared with Florida, Philadelphia is an unusual town.

People who live here actually were born here. There are no beaches, no early-bird specials and, thankfully, no Cuban sandwiches. (For Philadelphians unfamiliar with Cuban sandwiches, think stale Oscar Mayer Lunchables.)

So enjoy yourselves. Before you know it, that Mini Cooper will be here to take you back to Tampa-St. Pete.

Yes, this column has been rather Sarah Palin-centric of late. You might even say it's bordered on the Palin-oxious.

But jeez louise, the woman isn't even safe to hockey players!  As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Jeremy Rutherford reports:

The Blues invited Palin to drop a ceremonial puck Friday, and before the game, arena workers laid out a roll of carpet in front of the team's bench. But before Palin came out, the Blues players took the ice and Legace was the first player on.
 
"I was going to ask (the arena worker) to move (the carpet), but he had his foot there, so I figured he was trying to secure it," Legace said. "He's yelling at us, 'Careful, the carpet ... Careful, the carpet.'

"I'm like I can't jump over it. It's too far and my little legs won't jump that far. I just figured he's holding it and the other end is usually secure, so I'm just worried about it sliding (one) way. As soon as I went down, he lifted his foot off the carpet ... I knew I was coming down and I just couldn't catch myself.

"It's not that serious ... we'll just see what happens tomorrow."

Legace is questionable for tonight's game against Florida at Scottrade Center, and if he can't play, Bishop would likely start and Marek Schwarz would be the backup.

As with Tina Fey, Palin is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Still, I haven't been this viscerally angry about somebody on my TV set since Barry Bonds slinked away from Major League Baseball. And he was simply ruining the National Pasttime. (I know, I just said that but please forgive me.)

This woman could bleep up a one-car funeral. Forget Canada. if she's President, we might need to look for a new planet.

I mean, we just went through eight years with an intellectually discurious person in the White House and we allllll know how well that worked out, eh?

And yet, if you asked Gov. Palin if she was intellectually inclined, she'd likely answer, "you betcha."

"And you have to be up on not only current events, but you have to understand the foundation of the issues that you're working on," Palin said in an interview with People magazine. "You can't just go on what is presented you."

Although Palin didn't name a single newspaper or magazine when CBS News anchor Katie Couric asked where she got her information, the Alaska governor told People that she has always been a "voracious reader" and named reading - anything from biographies to historical works - as her favorite thing along with her children and sports.

Besides author Lawrence Wright's terrorism history, "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11," Palin said she's reading a lot of briefing papers.

"I appreciate a lot of information. I think that comes from growing up in a family of school teachers," she said.

Palin said if she and husband Todd had had a sixth child, they had already picked a name for a boy joining siblings Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig.

"I always wanted a son named Zamboni," she said.

Finally, director Ron Howard would also like to talk to you about this election.  And so would Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler.

You see, even Opie Cunningham is endorsing Barack Obama!