By the way, I’m posting this from Route 40 in Tennessee on our way to California for Monday’s show. So far nothing more exciting than driving an RV in the middle of a pouring rainstorm until 3AM has happened.

I wrote an Op-Ed on Christine O’Donnell’s campaign for Senate. The Philadelphia Inquirer will publish it tomorrow. I’ll post the link when I get it, so check back in.

Also, later today, I’ll be departing for, if I’m counting properly, my sixth cross country trip. This time I’m not going to end up living in Vegas. At least not yet. Details, pictures and accounts of the trip will be documented hear as well as on the radio. You’ll have a hard time avoiding it.

When the season ended on such a high note, it was obvious the Flyers needed to upgrade their goaltending. The Los Angeles Kings have a young starter and a highly touted prospect. Since the draft, I’ve been waiting for the Flyers to use Simon Gagne or Jeff Carter to get one of them, or another suitable starting goaltender and go into next year trying to win the Stanley Cup.

While I was waiting for any of this to happen, Ilya Kovalchuk was taking forever to negotiate his lifetime contract with either the Kings or the New Jersey Devils. Today he decided. Almost immediately following that, the Flyers trade Simon Gagne to Tampa Bay for nothing.

The Kings just lost out on a goal scorer they desperately need and the Flyers have a goal scorer they desperately need to get rid of to get under the cap. Was it even considered?

How do the Flyers end up with nothing except cap room, Tampa Bay get Gagne and the Kings still a need a winger? How does Gagne, who becomes the best player available after Kovalchuk signs, still have no trade value at all? Why do the Flyers immediately take this deal with Tampa Bay rather than wait 45 minutes to see what other offers arise? All I have are questions at the moment.

None of this makes sense. I hope there is a part two to this move planned that will make it less disastrous, but what would that be? They don’t have, or wont give up, what it would take to get a goalie from the Kings. The best free agent left is Marty Turco, and he sucks. And, best of all, they are down a winger from their top line with nothing coming back for him.

I’m not as big a Gagne fan as a lot of people who are upset with this trade today. What bothers me is that they gave up an asset for nothing when better options had to have been available.

Happy Bastille Day everyone. Let us commemorate the occasion by remembering all of the beheadings, both deserved and undeserved, that followed. Take a moment today to inspect your neck, make sure it is healthy and remember to keep it away from slanted, sharp, descending steel blades.

In grand French tradition, the government has invited foreign armies to march through Paris so today’s youth can experience what previous generations of citizens grew accustomed to.

VIVE LE FRANCE and check your neck.

The great reporting is an added bonus. Happy Fourth of July.

The other group that isn’t watching the World Cup are the poor in South Africa. Not only can they not afford to buy tickets to attend the games or fine Southeast Asian manufactured televisions to watch the games in the comfort of their meager residences, in fact, they are being evicted from their homes and interned in tin shacks.

Soccer, the beautiful game of friendship and brotherhood seems to have left the most fragile and broken behind while it showcases to the world how uplifting it is.

Here’s a link to FIFA’s website where they claim to “use the power of football to achieve sustainable social development.”

Here’s another link, from the Win with Africa page where FIFA “sense’s a duty to assist the continent of Africa beyond the world of sport.”

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting their intentions. All that stuff seems to me like it means they want to help lift up the neglected and forgotten in the world through the Beautiful Game. It seems like they are trying to bring them hope and build a better functioning society. However, now I’m thinking it just means taking away everything they have and relocating them to a different ghetto where nobody has to see or worry about them anymore.

Somebody should warn the 35 million poor people in Brazil that the World Cup is landing on them in 4 years. Start getting your stuff together, tent cities are lovely this time of year.