Apparently Detroit Lions fans are so appalled by the decision to have Nickleback — yes, Nickleback — as the halftime show of their Thanksgiving Day game against the Green Bay Packers, they’ve started a petition, which is, well, kind of hilarious. As UMich grad student/Michigan native/Lions ticket holder Dennis Guttman explains it:

This game is nationally televised, do we really want the rest of the US to associate Detroit with Nickelback? Detroit is home to so many great musicians and they chose Nickelback?!?!?! Does anyone even like Nickelback?

Want to sign it? Change.org.

ocandrew1 asked: Will you be doing a story about Al Davis' passing and his imprint on football?

We ran a short item on The Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet when he died, but I’m unsure of any edit plans for a larger tribute or story. If it happens, we’ll be sure to post on the tumblr. In the meantime, here’s a fantastic Sports Illustrated profile on the genius of Al Davis from 1974.

architizer:

A rendering of what the Netherdland’s purported $300 billion man-made mountain could look like. 

Needs more big sheep.

TIL: Saints fans buy 520 Crawfish pies, 645 Shrimp platters, 750 Alligator sausages, and 2,500 orders of jambalaya at the Superdome during home games.

[Newsweek Infographic by Liz Meyer; See it full-size here.]

For the duration, Angela Jimenez will be hanging out in bars, and shooting really great pictures of people watching the World Cup. 

givemesomethingtoread:

That first day in the minimum-security prison, Jones was determined that other inmates not see her in tears, so she went out to the prison track. Eventually she would buy sneakers and several pairs of shorts and T-shirts from the prison commissary. But on that day, she wore what penitentiary officials gave her after taking away her clothes: a pair of cotton slipper shoes, a worn T-shirt and pants several sizes too short. Then she started running.

This is a really nice read, for those of you wondering what happened to MJ.

Apparently when your profession involves speeding down an ice track at 90 mph, insurers take that as a red flag.

My latest Newsweek story, on the bizarrely interesting and complicated world of insurance for Olympic athletes. (via sarahkliff)

A red flag of Awesome…

Harry How/Getty Images Sport

I can’t count the number of times that I have picked up the newspaper at a time of crisis and found whole swaths of the front page given over either to the already known result of some other dull game or to the moral or criminal depredations of some overpaid steroid swallower. Listen: the paper has a whole separate section devoted to people who want to degrade the act of reading by staring enthusiastically at the outcomes of sporting events that occurred the previous day. These avid consumers also have tons of dedicated channels and publications that are lovingly contoured to their special needs. All I ask is that they keep out of the grown-up parts of the paper.

Chris Hitchens, sports hater.

We’re both intrigued and threatened by this NPR piece on a computer program that generates sports stories from box scores.

(via Smarter Planet)