Mission accomplished?

hp9-29-04qq, originally uploaded by lotifoazurri.

The country's favorite pastime is returning to our nation's capitol. D.C.'s Mayor Anthony Williams announced yesterday that the District would have a professional team starting next season. The best part of the news, though, is that the yet-named Washington team is being moved from Montreal. As everyone knows, Canada is a nation that has a long record of screwing up perfectly good sports. I know hockey is terribly exciting for seven games every year, but Canadian football? The Expos showed why they're one of the worst teams in baseball again two weeks ago when they fell for the hidden ball trick in a game against the Marlins. One can only hope that this move will give the franchise new life. Washington is building a new stadium on Capitol Ave as part of the deal with MLB and the franchise, and local businessmen are expected to buy the team for an estimated $300 million when it goes up for auction in the off-season.

Tonight is the first debate in what has become an increasingly yawn-tastic Presidential campaign. Al Gore offers tips to John Kerry on debating George W in yesterday's New York Times. Maybe instead of the top names on the ballot debating, they should let the VP candidates do it - an opportunist lawyer debating a board room shark.

Yesterday marked the first private flight into space. Scaled Composites, the company that backed the flight, only has to send one more rocket up to claim the $15 million Ansari X Prize for spaceflight. Not like the money should matter if you have the cash to build a rocketship - one of the company's backers is Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft

Oh, and North Korea announced it had weaponized plutonium to make a nuclear bomb. Have a nice day.

The Tyler Hamilton doping case is still unresolved. More on that tomorrow.