New and Notable 1

Celebrity endorsements are not new to politics. Hollywood's elite have long been aligning themselves with Presidential hopefuls.It is no different this year. Barbara Streisand has endorsed Hillary, having been narrowly deemed as beneficial by the Clinton Pollsters. Barack Hussein Obama has persuaded Oprah to campaign and fund raise for him. These have been a mere leadup to the biggest celebrity endorsement yet. That's right - Curbing is officially endorsing former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee for President of The United States and leader of the free world. While this is bound to change the face of the Presidential race particularly for the Republican nomination, it does not as you might think render the contest a mere formality. Voters will not soon forget the AP photo showing a Curbing family member greeting the erstwhile NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Country music superstar Toby Keith will be performing at the Izod Center (formerly Continental Airlines Arena) on 2/15/08 at seven thirty PM as part of his Big Dog Daddy tour. Unfortunately, that is a Friday night and Sabbath observers will have difficulty attending. Interestingly enough, this is being advertised on the sports talk radio station WFAN.
Mike and the Mad Dog have not been the conventional forum for promoting country music concerts in the past, however, convention has never been a guideline for Keith before. Having announced that he will not attend this year's CMA's it is hardly a shock that his newest smash-hit album ''Big Dog Daddy'' was not even nominated for one award.

Tommorow night's battle between the Pittsburgh Steelers (8-3) and the Cincinnatti Bengals (4-7) is a big one for the Steelers ,and won't be an easy one. ''Big'' for reasons not just symbolic, but practical. Should the Steelers, heaven forbid, lose to the Bengals they could be tied in the standings with the Browns with four difficult games left to lose their tie-breaking lead. There would be no reason to believe that they would go better than 2-2 in the remaining games with New England and Jacksonville left on the schedule - not to mention the Ravens on the road the last game of the season. If they want any chance of a first round bye, losing tomorrow night is not an option. It hardly seems necessary to explain why the game should be difficult for a team that won and lost to the Dolphins and Jets respectively by a field goal. I will anyway. 1) To the best of my knowledge the Steelers have not implemented the suggestions in the post ''Ride Bus -Park Parker?''. 2) Let's just say Carson Palmer is motivated to play against the team that tore his ACL in the playoffs two years ago and knocked his team out of the playoffs just a year ago (in all fairness, this motivation hasn't really helped him against the Steelers in the past). 3) Injuries. Santonio Holmes (knee) will be sitting out the contest effectively removing the Steelers' deep threat. Marvel Smith (back) will also be on the sideline - I don't need to explain the significance of that. On the bright side, Polamalu won't be playing as he is nursing an injury to his hair.