Ok — it’s one thing when you read in the Weekly World News that magic pills will make you fitter. It’s quite another thing when that news is found inside the pages of the New York Times.

Haven’t you ever wondered why there are no cars that fly, no cool ray guns and no rocket belts? After all, this is the future, right? Well, according to the New York Times, a guy from New Zealand has invented a practical jet pack. This is different from the rocket belt you might have seen in Thunderball.

Showing the absolute freedom from logic of the enforcement process, the French busted a Kazakh rider with no chance of winning the race while Carlos Sastre finished first for Spain. Dimitry Fofonov tested positive for heptaminol - it’s a vasodilator that helps relieve bronchial spasms. Fofonov, probably a few spokes short of a wheel, bought his dope on the internet.

Showing the first undeniable proof that there is an fact a G-d, beautiful women all over Beijing now get their aerobic exercise by dancing on poles. According to the New York Times, women over there see pole dancing as a way of spicing up their aerobic workouts.

In a move that sort of defines idiot, Rudy Giulani’s son Andrew sued Duke because they cut him from the golf team. He alleges that they cut him without cause — since they wanted to halve the size of their golf team. Of course, to anyone who resides in this place we all call reality, the school’s desire to make the team smaller would be the cause.

Lance Armstrong prepares to do the Livestrong Challenge 100-miler in San Jose while Kate Hudson stands there, simply looking awesome.

The U.S. Open golf tournament begins tomorrow at Torrey Pines in California. As usual, Tiger Woods is the big headline-grabber.

Tiger is coming off knee surgery and everyone’s wondering how he’ll play. He missed the cut at last year’s Open after a lay-off to mourn the death of his father. He admits he hasn’t played much since having his surgery. He will be grouped with Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott in the first two rounds. Everyone will be watching him and Phil for signs of animosity. Mostly they will ignore each other cause that’s what golfers do. They each exist in their own little universe.

Woods and Mickelson are probably the favorites given their past histories at Torrey Pines. No one is talking about Trevor Immelman, the Masters Champion, who would be halfway to a Grand Slam if he won the Open. Immelman has history at Torrey Pines too - he won the Amateur Pub Links there at 18.

Of course Immelman is not going to win, and neither are Tiger or Phil. Just going by recent history, the winner will be someone completely out of leftfield. Like Angel Cabrera who won last year, or Geoff Ogilvy who won two years ago or Michael Campbell three years ago. You have to go back to Retief Goosen in 2004 to find a top-ranked guy who claimed the title.

This year’s winner could be someone completely crazy like Artemio Murakami or Soren Hansen. Or maybe it will be a guy who’s on the verge of breaking out…like Boo Weekley, who everyone likes because his name is Boo.

It’s pointless picking winners of golf tournaments because there are too many guys in the field and too much wacky stuff can happen. The only sure things about U.S. Opens are that scores will not be great, guys will bitch about the set-up and Phil Mickelson will do something crazy like try to drive a green when he doesn’t need to an end up in some impossible spot, costing himself the tournament.

(picture: thenastyboys)

Big Brown was a mortal lock to become the first horse since roughly the Middle Ages to win the Triple Crown. Unfortunately, “mortal lock” apparently doesn’t mean what it once did - cause Big Brown didn’t even come close to winning the Belmont Stakes, the third jewel in the crown.

It was a huge choke for Big Brown…huger than the yankees yakking away a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox in the ALCS a few years ago. Huger than Chris Webber calling that time out. Huger than Hitler letting the Brits go at Dunkirk.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that huge. But it was pretty big. The mortal lock horse finished dead last. Something called DaTara won the race. That horse was a 38-1 shot. Thousands of people just said in unison, “Damn, why didn’t I put some money on Da’Tara?”

Sucks to be us. But not as bad as it sucks to be Big Brown who is now just another giant Triple Crown bust like Smarty Jones.

Nobody really cares much about the first couple rounds of golf tournaments, even big important tournaments like the U.S. Open.

The USGA would like to change that this year at Torrey Pines however…and to help do so, they’ve decided to group the top 3 players in the world, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, together on Thursday and Friday.

This move is expected to create the most massive gallery in the history of the known universe. There will be so many people following this group that it will be necessary to actually bulldoze trees and other obstructions.

Also, the hugeness of this gallery guarantees that Tiger and his caddie Steve Williams will be driven insane by an ill-timed camera snap at least four times. Network microphones will pick up Tiger cursing very loudly and sharply. Meanwhile, Mickelson will be standing over on the other side trying not to giggle.

By the way, the grouping of these three players is being referred to in other places as a “pairing.” I realize that it is traditional to call any group of golfers, no matter how large, a “pairing,” but since “pairing” technically refers to two people, I refuse to use the term when referring to three or more. I actually care about America’s children and don’t want them growing up thinking it’s okay to write like sports writers.