First off, get well wishes to HollyCornblog who is recovering from a bad ankle sprain sustained in a nasty fall at work.  Keep it iced and raised … and, as we like to say to Willie (and to Ruby – but with much less effect), “Heel!” [sic]

Between HollyCornblog and Hope Solo, things have been a tad painful here of late.  Ouch!

Speaking of Hope Solo, we’ve got another WPS combines coming up on the East and West Coasts next month.  “Combine participants include graduating college seniors who will have completed their eligibility following the conclusion of the 2008 season and other national and international talent from top level amateur leagues such as the W-League and WPSL”  It’s nice to see Villanova and the University of Pennsylvania represented, along with the usual suspects!  It’ll be interesting to see whether anyone from the Aztecs makes the step up to the Breakers!

Alice sent me an amazing video and story about a 5-year-old basketball prodigy.  Surely Vivian, Pat, Tara, and Gino will be fighting over her, as she nears college age!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l25bkqWPAQI

On the politics front, Obama seems to be moving ahead with his Cabinet posts (assuming the vetting all goes as hoped).  I like Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security (although the whole”Homeland” thing still really gives me the creeps).  Obama might want to think about changing the name.  (Consider that some low-hanging friut for your To Do List, Barack, okay?) Wondering how Boltgirl feels about the pick, though.  I’ll be keeping an eye out for her assessment – and then changing my view, if necessary.  😉

Looks like Missouri went to McCain – by 4355 votes – remaining red, just barely.

And while we have high hopes for the change that Obama promised to bring, that hope is tempered by realism and perhaps even an occasional smidgeon of paranoia.  Will Obama deliver?  Can we trust him?  Here, from Alternet, is a comprehensive piece about some of the folks who’ll be helping him shape and implement his foreign policies.  It gives pause …

“While the verdict is still out on a few people, many members of his inner foreign policy circle — including some who have received or are bound to receive Cabinet posts — supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Some promoted the myth that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. A few have worked with the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, whose radical agenda was adopted by the Bush/Cheney administration. And most have proven track records of supporting or implementing militaristic, offensive U.S. foreign policy. “After a masterful campaign, Barack Obama seems headed toward some fateful mistakes as he assembles his administration by heeding the advice of Washington’s Democratic insider community, a collective group that represents little ‘change you can believe in,'” notes veteran journalist Robert Parry, the former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter who broke many of the stories in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.”

Among those tapped, one of the more disturbing names is that of Jami Miscik.  Read on …

“Miscik, who works alongside Brennan on Obama’s transitional team, was the CIA’s Deputy Director for Intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. She was one of the key officials responsible for sidelining intel that contradicted the official line on WMD, while promoting intel that backed it up.

“When the administration insisted on an intelligence assessment of Saddam Hussein’s relationship to al-Qaida, Miscik blocked the skeptics (who were later vindicated) within the CIA’s Mideast analytical directorate and instructed the less-skeptical counterterrorism analysts to ‘stretch to the maximum the evidence you had,’ ” journalist Spencer Ackerman recently wrote in the Washington Independent. “It’s hard to think of a more egregious case of sacrificing sound intelligence analysis in order to accommodate the strategic fantasies of an administration. … The idea that Miscik is helping staff Obama’s top intelligence picks is most certainly not change we can believe in.” What’s more, she went on to a lucrative post as the Global Head of Sovereign Risk for the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers.”

Come on, Barack … be who you say you are … mostly … at least … please?  Getting nervous here.  Really.