Like the article says, it’s highly unlikely Obama actually was born in Kenya – Billary would have turned that up to win in 2008 if he had been.

But it IS about the mainstream media completely ignoring the fact that as recently as 20 years ago Obama’s own publications listed him as “born in Kenya” – which proves that either he’s willing to lie when it suits him or he actually IS ineligible to be president.

Dan Rather went live with made up “facts” on Bush skipping out on the National Guard.

And there have been a bunch of recent investigations into who Romney may have beat up in high school 40 years ago.

But when fairly recent biographies written by Obama or at least his publicist say he was born in a different country? Not a story.

When the president is linked to trying to auction off his former senate seat? Not a story.

When the president personal pastor turns out to be a raging, anti-American racist? Not a story.

It goes on and on… just unreal.

AL East

1. Yankees – most well balanced and deep team in baseball’s best division although Pineda injury is troubling
2. Red Sux – don’t like the Bobby V hire at all and lots of questions about starting pitching but don’t see them missing playoffs again
3. Rays – they’ll be in it ’til the end but most of the pitching is pretty young and Shields won’t come anywhere near 2011 #s
4. Blue Jays – getting better but not enough pitching to seriously contend in this brutal division
5. Orioles – it’s going to be a very, very long season

AL Central

1. Tigers – Fielder signing was huge… they will run away with this weak division
2. Royals – great young bats but no pitching… finishing above .500 would be a realistic (and big) accomplishment
3. Indians – lots of experts see them as a sleeper but I see their late 2010 collapse as their 2011 reality
4. White Sox – not much to get excited about
5. Twins – midwest version of the Moneyball A’s… years of fruitless playoff trips eventually turn into unfortunate reality

AL West

1. Angels – Yankees west? Stellar rotation and Pujols + Morales return will cure a lot of offensive ills as they take this top heavy division
2. Rangers – this will be a dog fight but exas eventually wilts and a 3rd straight post season run is too much to ask
3. Mariners – Angles & Rangers will battle for 1st, Mariners + A’s will battle for last
4. Athletics – even if Manny is back on the juice and Cespedes is the real deal they are in for a tough year

NL East

1. Phillies – need Howard to come back healthy at mid year but pitching is dominant enough to win the division either way
2. Nationals – probably at least a year away from serious contention but this looks like a dynasty in the making
3. Braves – after collapsing last year, i see them struggling out of the gate and a year of growing pains for their young players but wouldn’t be shocked by a dark horse run to the series either
4. Marlins – I’m calling it now: this team and the new stadium will both be epic disappointments. Oh, and Reyes will get hurt and miss half the year
5. Mets – they’ll be more competitive than many expect but still not very good

NL Central

1. Reds – love the Latos trade and other young arms like Cueto and Bailey will finally start putting it together to complement great offense
2. Cardinals – lost Pujols, get Wainwright back. Return trip to the playoffs a possibility but I see them just missing with 85 or so wins.
3. Brewers – Fielder is gone and something tells me Braun is going to see his #s drop off big time. Pitching is good enough that 2nd place wouldn’t shock me but think red birds are more well balanced
4. Pirates – getting better but still nowhere near enough pitching to even sniff .500
5. Cubs – they’ll be bad
6. Astros – they’ll be positively awful

NL West

1. Giants – love the Melky acquisition. That + healthy Posey and their staff makes puts them head and shoulders above the rest of the west
2. Dodgers – Ethier will bounce back and I like the signings of Lilly + Capuano to solidify the rotation
3. Diamond Backs – I like their offense but the starting pitching WAY overachieved in 2011… Kennedy + Hudson will come nowhere near the 37 wins they combined for last year
4. Rockies – like the lineup but Jamie Moyer is their 4th starter… ’nuff said
5. Padres – they are going to lose a whole of 2-1 type games

Post season
Wild Card games: Red Sux beat Rangers, Dodgers beat Nationals
AL Divisionals: Angels in 5 over Red Sux, Tigers in 5 over Yankees
NL Divisionals: Phillies defeat Dodgers in 4, Reds beat Giants in 5
ALCS: Angels over Tigers in 6
NLCS: Phillies over Reds in 5

World Series… the AL is the better league by far this year and the World Series will prove it as loaded for bear Angels earn all that money Moreno shelled out by dispatching the light hitting Phillies in 5

And while I’m not that old yet I have decided that as I begin my 37th year I am officially adopting this motto:

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable” – Oscar Wilde

In my day job at ESPN, we have been using Glassfish V2 for awhile now. The performance kicks ass, they always have the latest EE features first and the open source community is pretty vibrant.

We are in the process of FINALLY upgrading to V3.

One of the things that came up was the HTTP stats / counts we traditionally monitor such as count2xx, count5xx, etc seemed to be missing. In V2.1, they were available under the mbean com.sun.appserv:type=GlobalRequestProcessor,name=http but that went bye-bye in V3.

Long story short, they just moved to a new place. Here’s how to find them:

asadmin enable-monitoring
asadmin set configs.config.server-config.monitoring-service.module-monitoring-levels.http-service=HIGH

Now look for this mbean: amx:pp=/mon/server-mon[server],type=request-mon,name=http-service/server/request

Or, and this is where V3 monitoring starts to get cool, you can hit the REST monitoring end point http://localhost:4848/monitoring/domain/server/http-service/server/request.json

Off to figure out how these probe thingys work as they look pretty powerful.

And fresh off nailing the Packers as 2010 champs, I’m back with my 2011 picks. Place your bets now ladies.

NFC
East = Eagles (12-4), Cowboys (9-7), Giants (8-8), Redskins (6-10)
Central = Packers (14-2), Lions (8-8), Bears (7-9), Vikings (5-11)
South = Saints (12-4), Falcons (12-4), Buccaneers (7-9), Panthers (2-14)
West = Cardinals (10-6), Rams (9-7), 49ers (6-10), Seahawks (3-13)

AFC
East = Belicheats (12-4), Jets (10-6), Dolphins (6-10), Bills (5-11)
Central = Steelers (13-3), Ravens (12-4), Browns (7-9), Bengals (1-15)
South = Texans (11-5), Colts (8-8), Jaguars (7-9), Titans (5-11)
West = Chiefs (10-6), Chargers (8-8), Broncos (7-9), Raiders (6-10)

Playoffs
Wild card round = Saints over Cowboys, Falcons over Cardinals, Jets over Texans, Ravens over Chiefs
Divisional round = Steelers over Jets, Patriots over Ravens

Super Bowl
Fitting that defending champion Packers will play the Belicheats (the last team to win back to back titles AND first team to cheat their way to back to back titles). A Green Bay team that’s even better than last year’s brings home Vince’s trophy again, everyone realizes Aaron Rodgers is a WAY better QB than Tom Brady…. Green Bay 37, New England 21

Bonus Super Bowl prediction – Belicheat actually sticks around for the handshake this time but Tomwina sits on the sidelines crying like the little girl that he is.

Last year I picked…. err, as Mark McGwire said, I’m not here to talk about the past.

A long, brutal winter is finally loosening it’s grip here in the northeast and baseball season is here. Here’s how it’s going to go down once the temps warm up and the games go down.

AL East

1. Red Sux – Crawford and Gonzalez give them the best lineup in the majors, Ellsbury, Lackey & Beckett will rebound from rough seasons
2. Yankees – Still plenty of offense but their rotation looks like Sabathia and “pray for rain” – Hughes 2nd half struggle wasn’t bad luck
3. Rays – They’ve lost too much talent to contend in this division
4. Orioles – young pitching and some nice bats… wouldn’t be shocked if they made a run at .500
5. Blue Jays – The rebuild is under way and it could be long

AL Central

1. White Sox – Dunn could hit 50+ thanks to the Cell. Tons of offense and solid pitching.
2. Tigers – If VMart is healthy and productive, they could win the division or maybe even steal the wild card from the Yankees
3. Twins – Minny’s run is over… Mauer & Morneau can’t stay healthy. on the bright side, they don’t have to worry about getting swept by the Yankees again
4. Royals – Getting better but still a loooong way off
5. Indians – Even Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn and Pedro Cerrano’s voodoo can’t save this team from last place

AL West

1. Rangers – losing Lee hurts big time but they still have enough to win a week West
2. A’s – they once again having a great young pitching staff and added a few pieces to their anemic offense
3. Angels – they knew they needed to make a big splash in the off season… but they ended up with Vernon Wells’ contract
4. Mariners – Felix, Ichiro and a whole lotta nuttin

NL East

1. Phillies – With their pitching, if Rollins, Utley and Howard start hitting again… look out
2. Braves – They are on the rise again… they’ll stay closer to Phils than you might think
3. Marlins – they’ll be competitive but not great… somewhere in the 80-85 win range
4. Nationals – Much improved offense… unfortunately they still have no pitchers until Straasburg returns
5. Mets – Madoff investors must be happy to know some of their lost money is going to pay Bobby Bonilla and Oliver Perez

NL Central

1. Brewers – Bolstered the pitching with Greinke and Marcum… good enough to take a weak central
2. Reds – all their young talent makes them trendy pick but something tells me they won’t be as good as last year
3. Cardinals – losing Wainwright hurts… losing Pujols after not even making the playoffs will hurt even more
4. Cubs – not much improved from a team that won 75 last year
5. Astros – Their pitching is solid but they don’t have much offense
6. Pirates – could this team even win in AAA?

NL West

1. Giants – arguably their pitching and offense will both be better this year
2. Rockies – a distant 2nd
3. Dodgers – this team wasn’t in great shape before the Mccourt took over the tabloids
4. Diamondbacks – seems like 30 years ago they won the series
5. Padres – AGonz is a-gone and last year was a fluke

AL Playoffs
Red Sux over Rangers
White Sox over Yankees
Red Sux over White Sox

NL Playoffs
Phillies over Brewers
Giants over Braves
Giants over Phillies

World Series – after knocking off the “unbeatable” Philly 4some, the “underdog” defending champs, with an improved offense and even better pitching, upset the Red Sux… Yankees fans delight that their team isn’t the only one who can spend a billion dollars and still lose

By piecing together tips from a couple different message boards, I realized the fix was pretty simple: delete the Software Update prefs file

Just open your Terminal and execute this: rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist

Now I can easily update to the latest version of Mac OS so I can get to the App store so I can download Angry Birds on my laptop and make my work day go that much faster!

2009 marked the 2nd straight season in which both of my predicted Super Bowl teams failed to even make the playoffs. So hopefully I avoid becoming a kiss of death this year.

NFC
East = Cowboys (11-5), Giants (9-7), Eagles (7-9), Redskins (7-9)
North = Packers (12-4), Vikings (10-6), Bears (9-7), Lions (6-10)
South = Saints (12-4), Falcons (9-7), Panthers (5-11), Bucaneers (3-13)
West = 49ers (10-6), Cardinals (7-9), Rams (5-11), Seahawks (3-13)

AFC
East = Dolphins (10-6), Jets (9-7), Belicheats (9-7), Bills (5-11)
North = Ravens (11-5), Bengals (9-7), Steelers (8-8), Browns (7-9)
South = Colts (13-3), Texans (10-6), Titans (7-9), Jaguars (5-11)
West = Chargers (10-6), Chiefs (8-8), Raiders (7-9), Broncos (3-13)

Playoffs
Wild card round = Cowboys over Falcons, Vikings over 49ers, Jets over Dolphins, Texans over Chargers
Divisional round = Saints over Vikings, Packers over Cowboys, Colts over Jets, Texans over Ravens
Conference Championships = Packers over Vikings, Colts over Texans

Super Bowl
Green Bay has enough to defense to go with what looks like the NFL’s best offense while Peyton comes up short again… Packers 31, Colts 24

Star players frequent under age prostitutes? Check!

Send a top player home from the World Cup for being a douche then have players refuse to practice in protest which leads to a coach quitting the team mid tourney? Check, check and check!

Go winless in the world cup? Check!

After all that and being officially eliminated, coach refuses to shake hands with opposing coach after the game? Check!