This love triangle was just spacy...

NASA has continued to shovel off the fallout from the bizarre love triangle involving astronauts Lisa Nowak and William Oefelein. Oefelein was dismissed from the space program this week, returning to the armed forces from where he came.

Oefelein, a married man, had an affair with Nowak while having a girlfriend on the side, one Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak became aware of the extra relationship, believing that a man should apparently have only one extramarital affair at a time, and responded like any sane woman would. She tried to kidnap Shipman, while packing a BB pistol and an air hammer. Nowak was arrested at the airport when the kidnapping was foiled by the victim...rolling up her car window and driving away.

Nowak drove non-stop from Orlando to Houston to catch this woman at the Houston airport. This is where it gets weird.

To get there faster, Nowak reportedly wore diapers so she would not have to stop. I repeat: She wore diapers to be able to not stop driving to catch a woman that she believed was having an affair with her lover, who was married.

Now, most of my seven readers have been jolted at some points in their love lives. Breaking up is never easy to do, to be sure...and maybe we have had the thoughts of some sort of revenge on the third party as the emotions sort out. I can tell you that driving by someone's house to see if they are home is waaaaaaaaay different than to cross two time zones with weapons to try to abduct someone from a highly-secured area like an airport.

Doesn't the rage fade when you hit, oh I dunno, Tuscaloosa? Maybe Birmingham? The thoughts "This is crazy! What am I doing?" should have happened somewhere in there, right?

Oh, by the way, Nowak was married during the affair, too.

So, if you cheat on your spouse, and the person you are cheating with is also cheating on their spouse, should you be surprised when they in turn cheat on you? Shouldn't you expect it, or at least note the possibility of it? I sincerely hope that NASA studies the effect of space travel on morality after this escapade. Or, at least, gives the rights to Vivid Video for a proper re-enactment video for those who are so inclined...

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As noted in this space, Penn State grad and Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson is an idiot. The team has acted accordingly, first suspending the idiot for his homosexual slurs on his Twitter feed, then releasing him outright when the suspension ended.

The now-former Chief was baited into an online war of words with 'fans' of his Twitter feed, then raised it (or, more accurately, lowered it) to a battle of slurs. When given a chance to respond to the media after this came to light, Johnson used the same slurs that brought up the issue to begin with.

Two thoughts: One, I hate to be accurate in predicting the stupidity of athletes. Professionally, I saw it up close, and it never fails to come true from the guys who play sports for money and take it as a sign that they have 'something special' to offer. They do offer something special...on the field, between the lines, when the clock is running. Afterwards, they should be very, very careful, as all eyes are on them, waiting for a mistake. Truthfully, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Larry, for the record, you told that Twitter user that 'U can't stop me getting paid.' I believe he did. Dummy. Pull your act together, and see if the Canadian Football League can use a washed-up running back that likes to slam minorities.

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In another instance of 7DB being both accurate and possessing fortune telling-skills, please note that the San Francisco 49ers have proven me right once again. When 49ers WR Michael Crabtree began his preposterous holdout to demand being paid more money than his draft position warranted, 7DB introduced the Crabtree Corollary, suggesting that the bad mojo generated from such a move would backfire, plus the loss in earnings would be significant.

Crabtree ended up signing a contract for the same money he was offered after he was picked 10th in the draft. He did so after the 49ers came off their first loss of the year, a nailbiter against the Minnesota Vikings, that was lost on the last play of the game. Since he signed his contract, the 49ers are 0-4.

Hopefully for all involved, Crabtree discovered that he acted badly on the advice of an agent who may have different interests than young Michael does. Either that, or a young, greedy kid got smacked in the mouth to the tune of $2 million in lost salary. Either way, I'm good with it.

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There will be more said in this space about the horrific events that took place at Fort Hood this week, but at first blush there are two glaring things to note:

1) Asking a man of faith to prepare young men and women for battle against people of said faith can be tricky. Asking them to do so in a climate charged with a xenophobic media and already marginal ethics makes for a bad formula. No matter what a man can say to your face, getting people riled up with veiled hints that faith drives the fury will make that prophecy come true.

2) How does a man live on a military base (recently transferred there from an East Coast base) and then take to arms against men and women that he eats, sleeps and socializes with? There is a deep-seeded truth that we have yet to see, either in a radical background from the alleged killer or an atmosphere of chaos and tension that served as a tipping point. It is vital to the interests of the nation and its military that this is rooted out and exposed to daylight.

If people are not given an explanation for what made this event happen, there will be an even louder chorus of distrust coming from those who believe that even having a military causes it to go find wars to sustain itself. No benefits can be taken from an ill-informed public when it comes to the murder of those we train to defend a way of life.

The thoughts and prayers of the 7DB family go out to those who were lost in this tragedy.

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Jennifer Lopez is suing her first ex-husband to stop the release of a 'honeymoon tape'. The tape is purported to include Lopez in various states of undress, plus includes a verbal disagreement between Lopez and her mother.

First things first. What kind of honeymoon includes anybody's mother? The thought of a mother being near a video camera within the same time zone as a honeymoon should be horrific to anyone who is married or wishes to be someday. (shudder)

Secondly, this suit has a history. Lopez has already blocked in court a tell-all book from the first husband, one Ojani Noa. Since he is the only former or current spouse of Lopez' who was not famous, she wants to make sure he gains no notoriety off of her past with him.

As it turns out, Noa is trying to sell a film about his life story. He has eleven hours of footage, and someone got in his ear and told him to get paid off of it. Lopez has been granted a temporary restraining order blocking the release of the video. Noa's comments, you ask?

"It's a movie about my life," Noa said outside court. "They're trying to ruin my life again ... She don't want me to succeed and that's the problem." (thanks to Kansas City Star.com)

Noa is obviously a scholar of high esteem. He will also lose this, and hopefully leak the video out anyways, just to piss Lopez off. She's not nude in any of it, according to reports, so the case behind it being 'damaging to her career and reputation' gets a bit more difficult to prove. Nonetheless, anyone with aspirations of a career of fame and fortune should be wary of anyone holding a video camera. Also, Lopez is a publicity hound of the highest regard, who has only become reclusive after marrying her third husband (not counting Ben Affleck, whose wedding to her was called off hours before it was to take place) in 2004.

I believe I speak for many when I wish that Mrs. Noa-Judd-Almost Affleck-Anthony-Lopez would just go play with her mad stacks of money and stay away from a camera or a microphone for awhile. Please?

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A Northwest Airlines pilot and co-pilot apparently fell asleep while flying a plane. While normally not too disturbing, as the pilot and co-pilot are by protocol to take turns getting rest on long flights, these two flew past their target city by hundreds of miles!

If it was a small airport, maybe you could understand them missing the runway and having to turn around or something, but it was Minneapolis! Very, very big airport, I can tell you from experience...oh, and one of their corporate hubs. Do you think any bosses were there to meet the pilots when they came off? They better have been. Since the airlines recent merger with Delta, customer service has been reduced to referrals to Delta's website, and their pilots are either overworked or undercaffienated. Feel free to throw some coffee onto the plane, boys....yeesh.

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The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago this week, a lasting reminder of what was a horrific early 20th Century in Germany reduced to rubble by the hands of the citizenry. President Reagan told the leader of the then-Soviet Union "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" and the people then did.

Can you imagine building a wall to split a city like Berlin? Anecdotal stories of people escaping to the West during the wall's construction, dodging bullets from sniper towers as they ran, populated the youth of 7DB. The most amazing part was what happened over the next 40-odd years after the wall was built.

The pictures from both sides of Berlin are equivalent to black-and-white versus high-definition televisions. Dreary, plain mass housing and buildings not repaired from World War II to one side, ancient and glorious architecture, bursting with color and life, that has survived many wars on the other. One example of a lesson learned: no one my age or younger could imagine doing that to a great city ever again. Gooooo progress!

And now, finally, after his life was extinguished tragically some 45-plus years ago, John F. Kennedy could finally be the jelly doughnut he dreamed of being.

(Dangit. I was gonna let the reference go, but I fear some of my readers may not have been taught the historical point during their schooling. JFK travelled to West Berlin as it was then referred to, and proclaimed in a speech that 'Ich bin ein Berliner'. It was meant as a chant of solidarity with the Germans, but translates to 'I am a jelly doughnut'. There. Conscience cleared.)

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New post tomorrow, including fun stuff about Bear Stearns, the Green Bay Packers being absolutely terrible and a suicide-by-rail that has shocked the sports world, but not America, as soccer is not a sport here. See ya soon.
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