I’m not one of these people that interjects “Merry Christmas” whenever someone offers wishes of “Happy Holidays,” but I bet that most of you, especially our chosen readers, can handle this latest gem from Lakers big man Ron Artest, who was asked about Kobe Bryant’s ejection from Tuesday night’s game, which somehow led into a conversation about how Jesus would have fared in the NBA.

“It happened in the past, it happened in the present, it happened in the future,” Artest said. “Not just for him. All players (get ejected). That happens a lot of times. You see guys get ejected. Rip Hamilton got ejected (recently) in Detroit. Bob Cousy got ejected … The only person who never got ejected was Jesus.”

Artest was asked if he had checked Jesus’ box scores. “No ejections,” Artest said. “He was 10 for 10s, a lot of 20 for 20s (in shooting). Perfect from the free-throw line. Infinity rebounding stats.”

FanHouse, via The Basketball Jones.

I’m betting that Jesus probably would have hated sports, and it’s obvious why: he would have been terrible at them. He would have been a fourth line winger in the AHL if he was lucky, and even then he’d have to drop the gloves once and a while, and he hated that. Maybe not as much as he would have hated sitting next to an extremist on an airplane, but you get the idea.

American figure skater Johnny Weir finished sixth in the men’s singles, which ended last night. A lot of people are wondering why Weir, whose flamboyant style was matched by his technically sound skating, seemed to get the short end of the judging. And support for Weir is coming from the oddest places…like the Christian Science Monitor.

Part of that, he acknowledged, was because “I did a lot of leave-outs,” lowering the difficulty of his routine.

Yet his execution kept him in medal contention. His technical score of 79.67 was 6.19 points higher than that of bronze medalist Daisuke Takahashi.

So how did Weir lose his chance at bronze? Simply put, the judges didn’t like his routine much. Weir scored 77.10 points in the more subjective program components. Takahashi scored 84.50 – 7.4 points higher.

Weir–who hosed down his dorm room in the Olympic Village with Pledge to prepare for his long program routine–might be a freak, but dammit, he’s America’s freak. I happened to watch his short program routine, which I found inspiring and technically sharp, and couldn’t understand why the judges (and even the announcers on NBC) seemed to be mistreating him. It’s disappointing that even in the 2010 Olympics that we expect our figure skaters to be so butch.

UPDATE From Rob Iracane:”Technically, the CSM isnt a religious newspaper. It is owned by a church, yes
but not one bit a religious paper. It’s run by the First Church of Christ Scientists in Boston. Far from jesus freaks.” Our mistake.

I don’t really get worked up about the calendar going from a year ending in 9 to a year ending in zero, so all of these “__ of the Decade” posts that seem to be popping up everywhere can just eat it. Oh, you’re a sports blogger AND a historian? That’s a lot of hats for such a fat head. Anyway, here’s New York Islanders goalie Dwayne Roloson saving his own ass–twice–after trying to play a puck that takes a goofy carom off the back boards. I’ll go ahead an call this the best and second-best saves of the decade. Now I need to go to 7-Eleven and get the coffee of the century and the sausage biscuit of the millenium. Big umlauts to Röbert for this.