Folks, that is lifetime dream that has just been given the green light.

The flag traveled around the world and through the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq. Sgt. Felix Perez brought it from home as a reminder and an amulet. The flag never left his Army backpack.

It accompanied Perez to Dolphin Stadium on Tuesday night.

Team USA baseball has been pretty much a disappointment in recent years. More often than not they’ve stumbled badly. But their comeback win against Puerto Rico is a big story, and Perez was there to see it. In a wheelchair due to wounds suffered in the Army, he cheered for USA even though the vast majority of the crowd was pulling for Puerto Rico. He had the last laugh as USA came back in the bottom of the ninth to win.

On the way out, the 27-year-old Perez placed the flag in his lap and leaned over to a security guard manning Gate G. He was hoping some players from Team USA might sign it. The security guard led Perez and his sister to the U.S. clubhouse, and the flag went inside.

“The next thing I know,” Perez said, “I’m getting called to come back in there.”

He spent a half-hour in the clubhouse with the team, and everyone signed the flag.

Though a lot of folks in America don’t take the World Baseball Classic very seriously, Perez isn’t one them:

“We’re the U.S.,” Perez said. “This is our game. … This is the world. You’re representing your country. What is more honorable than representing your country?”

Just askin’…

Todd Kobus, who used to blog at lostiniraq.com, was arrested for tackling Junior Seau during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game. Not only did Todd leap over a seven foot wall, but he tackled one of the toughest NFL players in the league. If you ask me, Todd is pretty hardcore but not the sharpest tool in the box.

Also, WaPo sports columnist John Feinstein writes the second amendment “should be abolished“. Executive summary: He’s a moron.

What a moron.

Sometimes, no matter how much harder you push yourself, you just keep slowing down. This was the case over the last few miles yesterday morning. I think I ran as hard as I could, and I didn’t make any significant mistakes. Though I missed my best-case goal by just over a minute, I’m quite pleased with my race.

My legs, on the other hand, are more than a little upset about things right now.

Regular blogging to resume shortly.

Anyway, Runner’s World writes a bit about the fact that Sarah Palin is a fairly serious runner:

Not just a “oh, I go jogging once in a while” kind of runner, but a “I’ll get my run in or else” kind of runner. The woman named her first born “Track” for Pete’s sake, because he was born during track season…

Palin’s routine is to run 7 to 10 miles almost every day but she has been known to take time off, not during an election year, but during a pregnancy year (she’s a mother of five). She returned to work three days after giving birth to her fifth child, Trig, in April (is her husband a math teacher?) and is now back to running three miles every other day.

Though they talker her up a bit due to her running, they’re not closed-minded:

We’re not saying you should vote for someone just because they run (although this could be our chance to lobby successfully for wood chip running lanes between sidewalks and roads). So in the interest of fairness, we would now like to invite Democratic veep nominee Joe Biden to give birth to eight children, name one “Fartlek,” and run an ultra. Then we’ll write about him.

Some of the comments are, predictably, fairly amusing. The running crowd I’m familiar with is, largely, fairly liberal (ooops, they like to call it “progressive”) and Murdoc doesn’t really fit in so well. Environmentalism is a big draw, which is understandable, but they mostly seem fairly uninformed. I doubt many of them are gun owners, either.

UPDATE: Forgot the link earlier.

The Telegraph picked up a story in the Chinese newspaper the Beijing Times which explained that filming the 29 firework “footprints” from the air would have been impossible. So visual effects artists spent a year creating a computer-graphic simulation — inserted precisely at the same time the real fireworks went off — to bedazzle home viewers as if they were at the actual ceremony. The fireworks themselves were real enough, but if you were watching on TV, what you saw was a CG simulation of that reality, happening in real-time.

Also: Olympic opening uses girl’s voice, not face

A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another little girl with a pixie smile lip-synched “Ode to the Motherland,” a ceremony official said–the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games.

A member of China’s Politburo asked for the last-minute change to match one girl’s face with another’s voice, the ceremony’s chief music director, Chen Qigang, said in an interview with Beijing Radio.

At this point, assume everything was faked.

UPDATE: Oh, and don’t forget the landlocked aircraft carrier, either.

Anti aircraft artilleries are being set up near by the regatta venue of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Qingdao, eastern China’s Shandong province, 28 June 2008. According to media, China stations ground-to-air missiles near Olympic Games venues to tighten security for the Olympic Games

My guess is that we won’t be seeing a lot of this on TV.