The Colorado Rockies will face the Boston Red Sox in the World series, beginning Wednesday in Boston.

The Red Sox "earned the right" to compete against them with their win against Cleveland Sunday night.

The Rockies have nothing to be afraid of, since they have a record of beating the Red Sox:

The Rockies have recent success on their side. During Interleague Play, the Rockies won two of three games at Fenway on June 12-14, as they outscored the Red Sox, 20-5, in the series. Additionally, the Rockies were one of just two teams to beat the Red Sox's top two pitchers, Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling. They lost the opener, 2-1, as Tim Wakefield outdueled Aaron Cook.

Go Rockies! Tickets go on sale at 10:00 this morning on the Rockies website. The game schedule is here. Who do you think will win the first game? Take the poll below.

Bump and Update: The Rockies win. The crowd's screaming. The team is going crazy. The Diamondbacks are just staring. There's fireworks, I can see and hear them from my terrace a few miles away.

It's the Purple Reign. Congratulations, Rockies!

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The floodgates just opened in the 4th inning. It's 6 to 1 and if the Colorado Rockies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight, they go to the World Series.

The crowd is wild. The Diamondbacks' manager looks totally defeated. The game is being broadcast on TBS. Even for a non-sports fan like me, it's very exciting. Tune in if you get a chance.

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Congratulations to Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today.

He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters.

It was a pretty boring game with a electrical blackout early on, but it got better in the 8th and 9th innings.

The crowd is electrified right now. It's 2 out in the bottom of the 9th inning.

The Rockies win. This town will be crazy for the next week.

Congratulations, Rcckies. You came out of nowhere and put us on the map.

Hmmmmmmmm:

. . . [Bartlett] and his wife, Denise, were on their way to the shop where he occasionally teaches Wicca and Reiki (RAY'kee) healing when they stopped at a liquor store and bought two $5 Mega Millions tickets for Friday night's estimated $330 million jackpot. On Sunday, he said one ticket was a winner. "If it wasn't for this place I wouldn't have won the lottery," Bartlett said Sunday at Mystickal Voyage, the New Age shop. Bartlett, an accountant from Dundalk, said he made a bargain with the multiple gods associated with his Wiccan beliefs: "You let me win the lottery and I'll teach."

I'm sneaking this post by J. cuz I loooooove my college sports, and especially college football. First games of the season tonight, headlined by LSU, a strong contender to challenge the defending national champions the Florida Fighting Gators (also two time defending NCAA basketball champions, yes it's great to be a Florida Gator!) facing SEC rival Mississippi State. Who are your favorites and who will win the BCS championship? My favorite and pick? One and the same - Florida. Tell me yours.

Richard Jewell, falsely implicated in the Atlanta bombing murders, died today. He was 44 and is believed to have died of natural causes, probably kidney or diabetes-related problems.

Jewell will always be known as a casualty of a police rush to judgment:

After 12 weeks of scrutiny following the bombing, Jewell was cleared by the FBI and U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander in an unprecedented government acknowledgment of wrongful accusation. "I am not the Olympic park bomber," Jewell told reporters after being cleared. "I am a man who has lived 88 days afraid of being arrested for a crime I did not commit."

Jewell's name was leaked to the media by the FBI. Thanks to Atlanta attorney Lin Wood, he was able to collect damages from several news organizations, including NBC.

Leona Helmsley, 87, died of heart failure this weekend.

While she will be remembered for the negative things people said about her, she should also be remembered for her philanthropy.

Leona Helmsley's charitable activities included a $25 million gift to New York Presbyterian Hospital, $5 million to Katrina relief and $5 million to help the families of firefighters after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In the late 1990s, she gave millions of dollars to help rebuild African-American churches that had been burned in the South.

In recent years, she was sued by a gay employee who alleged discrimination. He won an $11 million judgment. The Judge later reduced it to $556,000, saying Helmsley is not a multibillion-dollar pinata "to poke a stick at in the hopes of hitting the jackpot.

Her wealth, lifestyle and reputed meanness made her an easy target. I believe her contributions improved conditions for many more people than she personally hurt.

R.I.P. Leona.

The New York Times reports on the depressing statistics of Alzheimer's disease:

4.5 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s, 1 in 10 over 65 and nearly half of those over 85. Taking care of them costs $100 billion a year, and the number of patients is expected to reach 11 million to 16 million by 2050. Experts say the disease will swamp the health system.

Researchers and drug companies aren't even close to a cure. So what's a person to do when faced with a parent or loved one with dementia or Alzheimer's?

Take a cue from those of the '60's generation: Go with the flow.

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Eugene Volokh discusses a Univ. of Iowa definition of sexual harassment, and, it seems to me, unecessarily complicates what seems very straight forward to me. Volokh writes:

From Iowa's sexual harassment policy, which covers student-student interactions and not just employment:

Sexual harassment occurs when somebody says or does something sexually related that you don’t want them to say or do, regardless of who it is. . . .

This seems simple enough. And it makes sense. Don't invade someone's space with sex talk unless such talk is welcome. What is hard about that? Plenty apparently, according to Volokh. I'll explain on the flip.

Unlike most of the readership of this blog, and Democrats everywhere, I think George Herbert Walker Bush was a good President. Unlike many of you, I supported Desert Storm and thought Bush 41 did a masterful job of managing the situation, including, especially including, the decision not to continue the war to Baghdad, a much maligned decision at the time, most notably criticized by today's Neocons. So, I must say, I do feel his pain:

There are times in the life of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the United States and father of the 43rd, that people, perfect strangers, come up to him and say the harshest things — words intended to comfort but words that wind up only causing pain. “I love you, sir, but your son’s way off base here,” they might say, according to Ron Kaufman, a longtime adviser to Mr. Bush, who has witnessed any number of such encounters — perhaps at a political fund-raiser, or a restaurant dinner, a chance meeting on the streets of Houston or Kennebunkport, Me. They are, he says, just one way the presidency of the son has taken a toll on the father. “It wears on his heart,” Mr. Kaufman said, “and his soul.”

No kidding. To have being the father of the worst President in history as your principal legacy has to be hard to take after a having lived a distinguished public life.

All the brouhaha about lobbyists was stuck in my mind as I watched "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" tonight. While the filibuster scene is the most famous, I find this bit by Claude Rains, playing Senator Paine, Jefferson Smith's mentor, the most interesting:

Listen, Jeff--you--you don't understand these things--you mustn't condemn me for my part in this without--you've had no experience--you see things as black or white--and a man as angel or devil. That's the young idealist in you. And that isn't how the world runs, Jeff--certainly not Government and politics. It's a question of give and take--you have to play the rules--compromise--you have to leave your ideals outside the door, with your rubbers. I feel I'm the right man for the Senate. And there are certain powers- influence. To stay there, I must respect them. And now and then--for the sake of that power--a dam has to be built--and one must shut his eyes. It's--it's a small compromise. The best men have had to make them. Do`you understand? . . . [MORE]