Happy Saturday morning ... as the clouds roll in, bringing some much needed rain to these parts. I went for a run yesterday after work and jogging by the fire house, noticed the sign saying that the fire danger was "extreme." (Breathed a small sigh of relief that I wasn't lounging by the chiminea, endangering the neighborhood without realizing!

Check out MatchTracker starting at 7AM ET to follow the USWNT's opening game of the Algarve Cup.  They start off against Denmark, in a match-up that could prove one of their more difficult of the tournament. "It's not a World Cup year or an Olympic year, so we can try different things and one thing we [.

... but that didn't dampen the spirits of the nearly 5,000 Breakers fans who trooped to Cambridge to see their Boston Blues defeat the St. Louis Athletica 2-0 in their home opener at Harvard Stadium. Here are the Week 3 WPS Power Rankings by Jo-Ryan Salazar. (I'll track these through the season on my WPS page.

First off - Beulah's match report is up! (This is on the Breakers' win over the Freedom ... which ranked somewhere below a broken windshield in Beulah's book ... understandably!) Sorry to hear about your windshield! As for Abby not getting up - that was a huge gripe of mine (and my compatriots) back in the WUSA days when "Get up Abby" was a favorite refrain when the Freedom were in town.

First - I watched a snippet of Maddow in which she interviewed Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson about Cheney, et al. He's the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell. One of the most interesting (to me) points he made with Maddow was to note what a fearful person Dick Cheney is. I've always seen him as fear mongering - but seeing him as himself fearful was fascinating.

Ready for round 2 of the play-offs? Sky Blue and the Athletica are set to square off in St. Louis 7PM ET tonight on FSC. After rough starts, both teams find themselves in contention to take on the LA Sol this weekend.

On the rough start front, Sky Blue definitely has the upper hand, as is recapped in this article from the NY Times .

Yup, after all was said and done for week 4 on the WPS, who should top the power rankings but our own Breakers. Rightly so, I'd add, IMVVHO! Next up for the Breakers, the hungry Chicago Red Stars, who played Sky Blue to a 0-0 draw in the televised game yesterday. The LA Sol beat FC Gold Pride 1-0 on the strength of Marta's third goal of the season.

Phillies won, Red Sox won .. and I've got the Slingcatcher hooked up and working in Dewd's room!

Meanwhile, the Breakers will be honoring soccer great Maren Meinert at the game with the Freedom on May 17th at Harvard Stadium. WUSA fans remember her fondly as a key ingredient in the Breakers' success - most especially in their final year (with Pia coaching).

While this past weekend didn't bring as many goals as last weekend did in WPS play, it was nice to see the Athletica and FC Sky Blue come away with a couple of first-time wins! The Boston Breakers and the LA Sol were the marquee game of the weekend (unfortunately not televised) and played to a 0 to 0 draw.

Read Naomi Wolf's thorough and absolutely horrific article about the sexual perversity perpetrated by the Bushies in Iraq and elsewhere. I do not understand why Obama is rationalizing and temporizing about releasing the photos and really going after these sadomasochistic pricks.

The activities of these dudes so speaks to the fruits of the kind of self-righteousness and repression that is so often the hallmark of Bible thumping fundamentalism.

Soooo ... Congrats to Sky Blue FC (Beulah will be writing this one up late Tuesday, most likely). Next up the Athletica at 7PM ET on Wednesday on FSC.

Now onward! Grass to mow ... water to drink ... more grass to mow .. more water to drink. A sweaty, zen-like day in the works here! (Oh, and we had a very nice couple of days at the lake, where ChristopherCornblog remains stranded while he waits for his car to be repaired .

The crow has to do with my third erroneous WPS prediction ... a Freedom loss. Not! Looks like an awesome second half (and the first wasn't half bad, either). Beulah will be happy (but no post this week - too bad)!

On the school connections front - first the happy part - a friend request on Facebook from Denise Montana - who I remember as Denise Dormer - and who had an amazing voice (and still does).

Yesterday was the 37th anniversary of Title IX ... 37 years. I like that the milestone coincides with the 10th anniversary of the 1999 Women's World Cup. Alice (thanks!) sent me a link to "License to Thrive" a documentary chronicling the passage and impact of Title IX. We're hoping it'll come to Red River .