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Rupert Murdoch's investment in hard news at the Wall Street Journal is paying off—the paper recently covered the fact that that three Spaniards are the unlikely team behind HoopsHype.com! (Embarrassing silence.) Okay, explanation: Hoops Hype is the most closely read website of rumors and news among NBA insiders, and the fact that it's written by some random guys in Spain who had never even been to an NBA game until recently is indicative of the power of the internet to open the media's frontiers. The guys sold it for millions! Remember James Kurisunkal, the college kid from Illinois who turned out to be the writer behind Park Avenue Peerage, the socialite website that had New York society all atwitter last year? Yep, he was indicative of the same trend. This is probably all part of that Long Tail we've been hearing so much about. But Hoops Hype does have one advantage that Park Avenue Peerage never did: a blog by former Charlotte Bobcat Gabe Muoneke, in which he opines on religion and linguistics. Witness the power of the web at work:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness...." Romans 1:18.

For those Bible readers that say Revelation is the scariest book in the Bible, check Romans out. It is one of the books I read the most and that verse is the one I try to always remember. If you read on, you would read it goes on to say God's wonders have been demonstrated in plain view since the beginning of time so men, we, are without excuse. I personally get so tired of that statement, "game recognizes game" because it's so true and it doesn't comfort me. That statement offers me no solace for the simple fact that it only serves as a catalyst to perturb me in an area I'd much rather ignore. The truth is "Game" does recognize game and "Game" does all it can to suppress, ignore or utterly decimate it.

Quick...

I love that word. Decimate. You know where it comes from? It's Latin from "deci" meaning "ten" and "mate" meaning kill. If Caesar's army, men or what have you would lose a battle, fight or all in all mess up, he would order something passed gangster. He'd order 10 men from his army bound and gagged in public view and, you guessed it, slaughtered. Just to get his point across to the rest that he wasn't in business for tolerance of failure. All these little Latin barbs I know are thanks to Latin classes I had while growing up in Catholic school. Actually made the English portion of the SAT a turkey shoot.

[pic via WSJ]