Pants on Fire.

Roger Clemens pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he lied to Congress about using steroids. Can a guy be convicted of lying about not lying? Isn't that some kind of double-jeopardy or double-indemnity - or double-something? I wonder if his accuser, Brian McNamee would go to court and admit that he lied about Clemens' using steroids? Probably not. One of them is lying. Which do you believe? The guy who doesn't have a potential Hall of Fame election looming and a national presence or the guy who, two years ago, we didn't know from Adam?

Three guesses.

Meanwhile, another big-time media figure was in deep denial. Pictured above is the crowd at the Glenn Beck "Restoring Honor" rally last week. Never one to allow facts to stand in the way of a good story, Beck said that "the media" was reporting the crowd as being between 300,000 and 500,000." As a frame of reference, your standard professional football or big college stadium holds 100,000. That means that Beck thought there were 5 times that many people at the rally. Next time, maybe he should hold a rally at a stadium so that, as they say, tickets are available.

How ironic is it that at a rally called "Restoring Honor," the host would lie about the attendance? Pretty ironic. Seriously, does it look like there are a half million people in that photo? The National Mall is a popular place during the summer. Chances are, many of those people were tourists, wondering, "Who the f**k is up on the Memorial steps screaming?"

CBS News hired AirPhotosLive, a company who uses aerial photography to estimate crowds. They say they do it with an accuracy of plus or minus 9,000. They estimated the crowd at 87,000; which is significantly less than a half-million, plus of minus 9,000.

Whom do we think is lying here? An independent contractor using a photograph and technology or a conservative talk show host who might be looking to enhance his popularity by inflating crowd figures at a rally that may not have been as popular as once thought?

Fellow liar and Republican United States Representative Michele Bachmann told supporters at the rally that "we're not going to let anyone get away with saying that there were less than a million here today - because we were witnesses." Can she be indicted like Clemens, or does being a member of Congress grant one immunity to lying? Probably.

Separately, when asked, Beck said that "my penis is three feet long."

Much ado about - something, I guess.

Today's assignment - read and analyze the quotes outlined in bold type:

"I have never used steroids, human growth hormone or any other type of illegal performance-enhancing drugs," Roger Clemens, 45, said in refuting charges first made by Brian McNamee in a report requested by Major League Baseball and conducted by former Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell.
McNamee countered, "When I told Senator Mitchell that I injected Roger Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, I told the truth." McNamee said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, between 1998 and 2001.

Here's your question, class. Is someone lying? Answer (a) for yes or (b) for Hell yes.

Next. Read the following and analyze:

It seemed clear early the committee would not treat Clemens with kid gloves, despite face-to-face meetings he did with representatives in recent days - sometimes posing for photos or signing autographs for staff members. There was one wide-eyed fan moment, when Rep. William Clay, (D-Mo.), relayed to Clemens that a colleague "wants to know what uniform will you wear into the Hall of Fame?"

In the real world, isn't that known as "jury tampering?" Or, maybe I misremembered it. That's a word now, according to Clemens, his "good friend Andy Pettitte misremembers" Clemens' telling him that he used HGH.

My exciting conclusion:

What I can't figure out (among other things) is why the HGH and steroid issue is so big. They call them "performance enhancing drugs". If that's true, then any player who ever took a caffeine tablet, aspirin or any pain medication is guilty of using a performance enhancing drug. Anything that enables an athlete to perform when he otherwise could not is having his performance enhanced. What makes steroids any different than Tylenol?

On the Grammy telecast the other night, Tina Turner had enough Botox in her face to form a small country. She's a hundred years old, and people give her credit for looking half her age. Big deal. If I had access, money and time, I could inject my body with enough drugs to look like an infant. She's enhancing her performance.

Scads of celebrities go in for boob jobs, face lifts, tummy tucks and other such medical enhancements. Otherwise, they'd look like the rest of us, or worse. Who wants to see the "real" Pamela Anderson prancing around on a beach? The fake one is much more fun to look at. She, and others like her, enhanced her body, and enhanced her career by using medical technology to look better. She's enhancing her performance.

Baseball players and other professional athletes do what they have to do to allow them to continue their lucrative careers. If they want to destroy their bodies for our entertainment, I say let them. If you are pro-abortion and believe that a woman's body is her own (as I do) then you'd be a hypocrite to fight against steroid use in pro sports.

We pay these people astronomical sums of money, wear replica uniforms and collect their autographs because we idolize their performance on the athletic field. It doesn't matter whether it's Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Shawne Merriman or some minor leaguer - we want to see them run faster, hit further and throw faster than anybody else.

If you don't want them using modern technology to be better players, then maybe they should go back to using those tiny gloves like Ty Cobb used, and wearing those flimsy leather shoes and the baggy wool uniforms, too.

Have you seen a modern golf club? The driver head is bigger than a human head. Running shoes cost more than some people make in a week and football players wear padding that could cushion them from a three-story fall. The equipment is performance enhancing.

What athletes do to make their bodies better is none of our business - or the Congress of the United States. Have they ever called a celebrity to testify for using drugs to enhance a performance?

And while we're at it, let's keep this nonsense out of the Sports section of the newspaper. It isn't sports. I'm not even sure it belongs in the newspaper at all.

Two Rockets, no waiting.

I'm on this movie jag lately. Tonight, I caught up with one I wanted to see in the theater but missed called "The Astronaut Farmer." It stars Billy Bob Thornton as a farmer (named Farmer) who, through a series of complicated life events, builds a rocket in his barn with the intent to launch himself into Earth orbit. Does it sound far fetched? Sure it does, but it's more of an allegory about living ones dreams rather than a scientific account of a guy building an Atlas launch vehicle from scrap parts and bootlegged rocket fuel. As a film it is average, but for me being a bit of a NASA geek, having grown up during the space race and all, it's an interesting story. It's preposterous and inaccurate scientifically, but it's still a worthwhile film about family, dreams and belief in yourself that could have been built around a lot of things. This one is about a rocket. If you see it and judge it based on the idea that a guy could build a rocket in his barn, you're missing the point.

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The more I hear about this Roger Clemens interview on 60 Minutes Sunday, the more aggravated I get. It's nothing but a big set-up by George Steinbrenner's pal Mike Wallace who asks a bunch of leading questions to a guy who probably had a lawyer sitting next to him and final approval of the questions. Wallace calls Clemens his "friend", and forgive me for not being a journalist, but I don't see how one could do an impartial story about a person accused of a crime if that person is your friend.

60 Minutes has seen better days, and their recent missteps lead me to believe that maybe the entire franchise is a bit of a fraud. After all, it's television - disguised as journalism. We buy it because they put the hard face on it, but really it's just a TV show. Part of me feels like a sucker for buying into the concept for most of my life.

You'll probably watch the program (after the football game, so don't tune in at 7 - more like 8) and I'd be willing to bet that it will strike you as a big lie and a publicity stunt by Clemens and his gang. Do I sound skeptical? If he says he had Lidocaine injected in his buttocks, ask yourself why anyone would have a medicine designed to treat inflammation and joint pain injected into your ass. That's the first question Mike should have asked, but he's too far up Roger's ass to breathe. Question #2, why would he have a trainer do it and not a doctor?

Clemens is too smart to lie in an actual courtroom, and his people know the perfect forum for his denial. Pick a media pal and go on his program. He's scrambling to save his Hall of Fame induction, and I, for one am not buying any of it.

tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick...

God help us, Iowa is in charge.

Iowa. Population 2,926,324. Ranked 30th in the United States.

New Hampshire. Population 1,235,786. Ranked 41st in the United States.

Between the two of them, they will have a huge impact on who are the next candidates for President in a country of 303,619,006 (as of 12/18/2007). 1.4% of the American public is about to make a decision that will affect the rest of us, followed by Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, Florida and Maine. By the time Super Tuesday rolls around (February 8) we will have heard from over half the states, and millions of dollars will have been spent and we will may not be any closer to knowing who is going to run for president than we were yesterday. What will happen is that the candidates without the big funding (i.e. everybody except Edwards, Clinton and Obama) will have dropped out. All that money spent for what, exactly?

In a country where we have a pill that can give you a 4-hour boner, wouldn't you figure that we would have come up with a better way to decide who is going to run for President? I know, the 4-hour boner is a higher priority, but seriously...

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First, Roger Clemens said he did not receive any injections. Then, Roger Clemens said he received injections, but they were vitamin B-12 and Lidocaine. One thing is certain: Roger Clemens is either lying now or has already lied. Sunday, he'll be appearing on America's favorite TV courtroom - 60 Minutes. Great idea Roger. Americans believe everything we see on TV.

Just once, I'd like to hear one of these guys admit that he did what they said he did. Deny, deny, deny. If they have pictures, they deny. If they have betting slips, they deny. If they have witnesses, they deny. They deny in front of Congress, under oath and on American television.

Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear this:

"I make a lot of money playing a game. I'm getting older and the younger players are trying to take my job. I weighed the consequences and I decided that my lucrative career was worth the health risks involved with using anabolic agents. As a competitive athlete, I need every advantage I can get. Since [the sport] is not actively prosecuting star players for using drugs or altering the records we achieve, I decided that the combination of the excitement that my play brings to the fans, the money I earn for the league and the money I earn for myself justified my use of drugs. I only regret that I was caught."

Those stories and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 Minutes. tick-tick-tick-tick-tick...

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It's New Year's resolution season, and millions are making pledges to stop smoking, drinking or gaining weight. Go for it. What I'd like to see are simpler ones:

• I'd like to see SUV and giant pick-up truck drivers stop tapping the brakes when they go over railroad tracks. What's the point of driving that 5-ton pile of steel if you're going to drive it like a Nissan Sentra? And, take it out in the snow once in a while. I see them parked outside the supermarket with the other paniced shoppers when snow is in the forecast. What are you afraid of? Your vehicle is bigger than my condo.
• I'd also like highway drivers to resolve to learn the meaning of the Yield sign. It means, Yield the Right-of-Way, specifically, when you're entering a high-speed highway. It does not mean that you put your left turn signal on and muscle your way (at 45 mph) into traffic, causing the drivers in the right lane to either hit the brakes or go left to avoid your slow ass. One copy of the driver's manual, please.

Either of those are easier to accomplish than losing 50 pounds or laying off the Jack.