Plushenko Discredits Saints Super Bowl Victory

Yevgeny Plushenko, who recently criticized Evan Lysacek's Olympic gold medal performance has recently turned his sour grapes ire toward the Super Bowl Champion New Orlean Saints.  Through an interpreter, Plushenko was quoted, "I was positive that the Colts should have won that Super Bowl.  Maybe they felt the Saints needed it more and the Colts already had one.  I don't know how you can consider yourself a world champion when you have a defense made of swiss cheese."  Plushenko was referring to the Saints winning the championship despite giving up an average of 52 points per game during the regular season.

Plushenko continued, "If you can win a championship by playing offense only, it's not a sport.  It's arena football."  Drew Brees was shocked and hurt by the comments. "I guess I was a little disappointed that someone who was my role model would take a hit at me in probably one of the most special moments of my life that I'll never forget, regardless of what anyone said there.  I've even attempted to grow a wicked mullet like Yevgeny in his honor."

Brees was also quoted, "For him to discredit the Saints is not right, it's probably the strongest Saints team there has ever been.  In fact, as soon as this interview is over, the Plushenko posters in my bedroom are coming down and I'm shaving off the mullet.  But maybe he said some things in the heat of the moment and I should give him the benefit of the doubt.  So I'll still keep the autographed 2005 world championships leotard."

Later that day, Plushenko was also overheard criticizing last year's American Idol winner, Kris Allen.  "I don't know how you can be the American Idol when you cannot even hold a C flat for at least 45 seconds.  It's no longer singing, it's rapping."

Allen could not be reached for comment.

Hacked off at China: Google takes on the Red Dragon

I realize this news isn't as mainstream as Heidi Montag getting 34 plastic surgeries last month at a drive-thru clinic in California, but I argue that it's slightly more important.  Over the past decade, the Chinese have been perperating extremely sophisticated and coordinated cyber attacks on a variety of U.S. interests from goverment to large corporations.  These attacks rarely make big news for a variety of reasons, but recently Google has decided to raise a red flag.

Google has threatened to shut down their Chinese search engine and pull out of the country unless the government agrees to allow uncensored search in the communist country.  The event that prompted their tough stance was a serious attack on their infrastructure.  An attack that Google has all but officially accused the Chinese government of conducting.  Of course the Chinese deny involvement.  Right.  And Mongolia built that wall to keep the Chinese out.

We all know that the Chinese are dirty players and power hungry, but these attacks can be construed as an act of war-like agression.  Interpol estimates roughly $1 trillion in stolen intellectual property was stolen through hacking in 2008.  The vast majority of attacks originate in Russia and China and even though their governments deny involvement, their words are meaningless.  They stand there like four-year olds with icing all over their faces, and deny eating the cake.

So why do we treat cyber theft so lightly?  If the Chinese government waltzed into Bank of America and stole $1 billion dollars, we'd have the entire Pacific fleet parked off of the coast of Japan.  Yet because the crimes happen electronically, nobody seems to care.  They are on the other side of the world, not at our borders but their intent is the same:  cripple us, while they grow stronger.

So how much is enough and what should our retaliation be against the Chinese?  Government sponsored cyber warfare?  Boycotts?  Miltary action?  I don't believe Military action is the right answer, and cyber attacks might escalate into mass chaos.  But maybe the old adage of living and dying by the sword could still apply.  They attack us with computers; we attack them with computers.  The difference is that we drop our from airplanes over Beijing and Shang Hai.

Would several thousand desktops cause billions of dollars in damage?  No, but it would sure get their attention.