HAPPY FATHER'S DAY: You know who you are.

No thinking, a little linking. ESPN has this amusing little story up. Shaq's been mulling his departure since April, apparently. Excerpt:

Bryant called Shaq "fat" before the season. He said that Shaq begs out of games with mysterious injuries and that if he leaves the franchise, it'll be because of the big fella.

Shaq, somehow, never retaliated. When Kobe was late for meetings all year and late for practices, Shaq never said anything. When Kobe had his own mysterious injury [the sliced finger], Shaq kept his mouth shut. When Kobe wouldn't shoot that day in Sacramento, Shaq didn't say a word.

And the reason is, he'd promised Malone and Payton back in November he'd stay off Kobe's case.

"[The rift] didn't flare up again, because I promised Karl and Gary and all my other teammates," Shaq said. "I was advised to be the bigger man. To be corporate. Because he's already going through a delicate situation [in Eagle, Colo.] and I don't want to add to it. So I said, 'Just be the bigger man.' I'm big. I'm corporate.

"See, even though I'm Shaq, I still have people over me. People over me who I respect -- and when they speak, there's no questions asked. A lot of people called me. The owner of the Staples Center called me and said, 'You did the right thing.' I always have corporate meetings, and they said, 'You did the right thing. You're good, Shaq. Appreciate that.'

"See, with me and Karl and Gary and a lot of other guys, you can say something and it doesn't matter how you say it. They don't take it the wrong way. For example, I can say, 'Come on, Devean, mother------, play hard.' I can say that to Karl. But a sensitive guy will take that very sensitively."

Like Kobe?

"Like Kobe."

"See, even though I'm Shaq, I still have people over me." Heh.

Magic Eightball says about the T-Mac situation: Answer unclear. Try again later. But here are some possible situations.

Here's Ben Domenech on the horrible story of how Romania finally ended all foreign adoptions. There's a waiting list as long as Reed Richards' arm of American couples who want to adopt internationally. There are, according to Ben, 84,000 orphans in Romania. And there's one Cruella DeVille in the EU saying that since the possibility for child traffiking exists, all adoptions must stop. So tens of thousands of Romanian children will grow up as wards of the state. It doesn't get more depressing than that.

I mean, I'm sure you can grow up a ward of the state and have a happy life. All things being equal, I'm sure you--whoever you are--would hope your life proceeded in a different way, though.

Back to work.