Time was that the most obnoxious fans on the planet were Yankees fans. Smug, single-minded, overly content.

Now, of course, we know there is something worse: Red Sox fans.

Especially ex-pat Red Sox fans.

Especially ex-pat Red Sox fans in Philadelphia this week.

They're everywhere. We're surrounded. We're already sick of them and Cole Hamels hasn't warmed up.  It's all Manny, Manny, Manny.

Manny, are we sick of this.

So, for the good of all, let's hope the Phils silence their crowing.

Otherwise, the next three days are going to be painful. 

Looking for free theater?

Look no further than the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, the subject of today's column. Bruce Castor, Jim Matthews and Joe Hoffel constitute the least swinging three-way in the suburbs.

You can read about it here:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/19967509.html

Brew heiress and potential first lady Cindy McCain revealed, though her husband's financial disclosure statement released Friday, that she owes at least $250,000 and as much as half a million on her credit card bills.

Cindy McCain carried debt of between $100,000 and $250,000 each on two American Express credit cards, according to the disclosure statements which reveal a range of debt not a precise figure.

Mrs. McCain reported income of more than $6 million in 2006. The couple's total household assets are between $24.6 million to $39.5 million, proving that Sen. John McCain truly landed the ultimate trophy wife -- 18 years younger, a babe and far wealthier than he is.

So why are the McCains carrying so much credit-card debt at an absurd rate of almost 26 percent interest? Is this fiscally conservative? Does this show the economic foresight to run our nation?

Would you want to give one extra cent to credit-card companies if it could be avoided? That's an awful lot of debt if you actually have the means to pay the full amount monthly.

Tim Russert, NBC Washington bureau chief and host of Meet the Press, has died of an apparent heart attack. He died Friday afternoon while recording voiceovers for the Sunday news program. Mr. Russert was 58, too young.

Tim Russert was a familiar voice, an avuncular face on all primary nights. He might be most remembered for his heavily utilized white dry eraser board during the endless 2000 presidential election contest as well has his prescient words that the outcome would all come down to three words "Florida, Florida, Florida."

It did all come down to Florida, Florida, Florida, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

It's hard to imagine the political landscape without Tim Russert The remaining months of the endless 2008 presidential campaign will be altered and seem a bit sadder due to his absence.  

This, supposedly, is a portrait of the true gentleman who inspired Jane Austen's Fitzwilliam Darcy in the sublime Pride and Prejudice, ultimately causing several million readers to swoon for the character as well.

This three-inch portrait of Irishman Thomas Langlois Lefroy, which comes up for auction in London this month, is thought to be only one of two portraits of "a gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man" as Austen wrote in a letter to her sister, Cassandra.

 The portrait was painted in 1798 by George Engleheart two years after the two sweethearts parted. They split ostensibly because Austen, the child of a Hampshire rector, was not nearly of enough means for the law student.

 "At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy," she wrote to her sister. "My tears flow as I write at the melacholy idea." Lefroy ultimately married an heiress and became chief justice of Ireland. Austen never saw him again.

Turning her tears into literary brilliance, Austen wrote the novel between 1796 and 1797 first under the title First Impressions. The book was ultimately published in 1813, four years before her death. Austen never married.

The ivory Lefroy portrait, with several locks of hair affixed to the back,  will be displayed next week at Grosvenor House Hotel as part of an antiques fair. The asking price is 50,000 pounds or $98,000 and change. 

Lefroy is, indeed, good-looking and pleasant to look at, but who would have ever thought the inspiration for Mr. Darcy was blond?

As everyone knows, the real Mr. Darcy looked precisely like Colin Firth.

(If you haven't watched the 1995 BBC production with Firth and Jennifer Ehle, best Lizzy Bennett of all time, please do so. You can thank me later.)

Democratic presidential nominee has time to email pillow-lipped starlet Scarlett Johansson, who admits to a crush on the Illinois senator?

Now, we're really worried.  Does't the senator have better things to do with his time?

“I am engaged to Barack Obama,” the 23-year-old actress said  in January.  “My heart belongs to Barack.” She joked. But she does have his email.

Though they've met only briefly, he regularly sends her email, something that astonishes the actress. 

“You’d imagine that someone like the senator who is constantly traveling and constantly ‘on’ — how can he return these personal e-mails?” she tells politico.com. “But he does, and in his off-time I know he also calls people who have donated the minimum to thank them. Nobody sees it, nobody talks about it, but it’s incredible.” She adds, “I feel like I’m supporting someone, and having a personal dialogue with them, and it’s amazing.”

He's followed her career, telling her that his favorite performance in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. He’s a “huge movie lover” she says and “knows who every actor is.” 

But he may be only emailing the ardent, beautiful ones who profess their undying love.
 

What to serve for dinner on a night like this? Especially if the kitchen is without air conditioning?

You can always cut up some tomatoes, toss them with salt, garlic and basil, boil some pasta , add some parm. But now you're eating HOT food in a hot setting.

Growing up without air conditioning in the swamp that is D.C., our family often had coffee milkshakes on pea-soup nights like this one.

Now, that we're older, a vodka and tonic (or gin and tonic or rum and tonic) served with copious amounts of lime seems particularly inviting.

Or, you could just head to the local tavern where the a.c. is blasting, there are 17 great beers on tap, and the burgers are good. The only thing missing to make the evening perfect would be the Phillies on the flat screen given they they're as scorching as the weather. 

Do you know this horse?

Probably not. This is Da'Tara, the horse that is not Big Brown.

Incidentally, Da'Tara won the Belmont Stakes Saturday but you wouldn't know it.

 ABC kept all attention on Big Brown, and his jockey and trainer. I turned the television off after 15 minutes when the network had still failed to honor Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito, who thwarted Smarty Jones in 2004 with 36-1 longshot Birdstone, or jockey Alan Garcia.

Da'Tara was a 38-1 longshot at the Belmont, the longest odds posted. Virtually every paper in the country, including the Inquirer, chose to picture Big Brown on the front page Sunday instead of Da'Tara.

This is a great story. Peruvian jockey Garcia is only 22. Zito had another upset. Big Brown had beat the horse by 23 lengths in the Florida Derby. This was one of the greatest upsets in the history of the 140-year-old Belmont Stakes. But, no, it was Big Brown all the time. The Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner didn't just lose. He came in dead last.

 This is another case of news organizations wanting to create a narrative before the facts are assembled. This is especially true in sports but common in politics as well. Everyone wanted a Triple Crown winner after a 30-year drought so that's the text, the playbook, that was followed.

It's precisely what happened with the Patriots and the Super Bowl. The commentators and columnists couldn't believe that Tom Brady and Co. could be denied a perfect season, yet that's what makes sports so compelling in the first place. You can't script the outcome.

 Triple Crowns are an increasing rarity and as the longest race, the Belmont, is often a thoroughbred's downfall. There have been only 11 Triple Crown winners in almost 80 years but, after three decades, no wanted to believe the drought would continued. There's a lot being written about inbreeding, how little these horses race, and how it's all about breeding. Still, Da'Tara should have been given his due.

 It seemed exceptionally unfair on Saturday that the winning horse, trainer, jockey and owner Robert LaPenta were completely ignored because the story everyone wanted, despite history and the long odds, failed to materialize.

On Thursday, Philadelphia City Council got down to some serious business: recommending that the U.S. Postal Service commemorate the greatest athlete the city has ever produced.

But how do you go about depicting Wilt Chamberlain on a teeny, tiny stamp? The man was beyond big.

OK, 7-foot-1.

But when the Dipper lept to the rim he assumed superhero proportions.

The stamp would have to depict The Stilt in midair.

And in those teeny, tiny shorts.

And that serious Fro.

If the USPS is as wise as we think it is and follows council's recommendation, Chamberlain would become not only the tallest person commemorated on a stamp but also, if his claims of 20,000  women conquered are to be believed, the most amorous.