So Cuban national baseball teams don't win every tournament they compete in. Venezuela's best ten year-old beisbolistas defeated the Cuban kiddies 4-1 in the final of the V Mundialito Preinfantil at the Jose Antonio Casanova stadium in Caracas on Saturday.

Nominations closed for candidates for the federal elections on Thursday, and the Australian Electoral Commission announced them on Friday afternoon. Only five candidates in my electorate of Grayndler - that's a surprise. Not so surprising is the 78 candidates for the 12 senate vacancies in New South Wales, making up thirty different groups. That's right - the NSW senate ballot paper on October 9 will be thirty columns wide.

What a week for ice hockey! Canada wins the World Cup, then the NHL lockout begins. And aren't the gloom merchants having a field day!

I'm not personally going to go into much depth on this - I couldn't care less about ice hockey really - except to track a few perspectives on events, mainly from a Canadian angle.

It's on, or should that be off. There will be no professional baseball in Japan this weekend. Talks between the Japan Baseball Players Association and the owners broke down on Friday night.

At issue is the planned merger between the Orix BlueWave and Kintetsu Buffaloes. The association, concerned about player redundancies, opposed the merger then offered a compromise of deferring the merger till 2006 so that another club could take its place. The owners refused.

May 4, 1886: About a dozen deaths at a labour rally in Chicago when dynamite was thrown into a police line. They retaliated by shooting at the crowd. A memorial was unveiled this week (reports from New York Times report | Chicago Tribune).

Frustrated with the refusal of John Howard to cut and run into retirement? Try doing the following to relieve some of the election frustration:

1. Create a "new folder" on your computer.
2. Name it "John Howard".
3. Send it to the trash.
4. Empty the trash.
5. Your computer will ask "Do you really want to get rid of 'John Howard'?"
6. Answer calmly "Yes" and press the mouse button.
7. Repeat as required.

(Source: Crikey's subscriber newsletter.)

Three home runs by Aramis Ramirez as the Cubs beat the Reds 5-4 on Thursday night. Blog reportage from Al Yellon.

Cork beat Kilkenny in the final of the All-Ireland Hurling Championship at Croke Park last Sunday. I won't stop bemoaning the fact that this wasn't on television in Australia and apparently will not be shown at a later date.

Cork's victory was something of an upset, the final score being 0-19 (19) to 0-7 (7).

A big day for Sammy Sosa Wednesday. He hit a grand slam homer in the Cubs' 13-5 win over Pittsburgh, following one he had already hit in the first inning.

Vote now for the Official Amphibian and Official Reptile of the US State of Illinois:
http://www.state.il.us/ltgov/zoo.asp

Sourced via The Miami Herald's Dave Barry Blog