Stray Voltage

Ivan Maisel Can't Admit the Real Problem

2012-01-05T07:33:00.000-05:00

Ivan Maisel decides to blame the ACC for a problem that ESPN created

3. College football may be more successful and popular than it’s ever been. But the empty seats at the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday night and the vast swatches of unfilled real estate at the Orange Bowl on Wednesday night -- a friend texted me to ask if that was Clemson-West Virginia or a Marlins game -- indicate that the BCS has work to do. If I ran the Orange Bowl, I would suggest that ACC champion move to at-large status in the next BCS contract so that I could pick both sides of my matchup.

Look Ivan, I like your writing. I really do. But to suggest that the reason the Orange Bowl was half-empty was because of the conferences is stupid. Clemson and WV have HUGE followings. But those HUGE followings all have kids that went back to school this week. They all have jobs where Christmas vacations wrapped up on Sunday and Monday. They have a life that does NOT include traveling to south Florida on a Wednesday freakin' night after the holidays are over.

Your problem is NOT the ACC. Your problem is the BCS that wants every game to get their own prime-time viewing slot, and aren't willing to start *before* New Year's Day. When you stretch New Year's Day bowl games into midweek after New Year's you get crappy attendance because everyone has to go back to work/school/real life.

Get the bowl games back on New Year's Day where they are supposed to be. And if you can't squeeze them all in on that day, then play them *before* and not after so that the fans can actually travel while on vacation. Don't blame the ACC for a problem that *your* corporate overseers created in their quest for a monopoly on viewer eyeballs.

Brant Crashes Yahoo's Mailbag

2011-12-10T21:50:00.001-05:00

Yep, I got my letter picked for Yahoo's mailbag:
College football mailbag: Sequels sometimes tough - College Football - Rivals.com

Double standard
In the discussion of comparing one-loss teams, everyone seems to obsess over the team that inflicted the loss. Why don’t fans ever discuss the other side of the ledger - who did you beat? By any objective measure, Oklahoma State played a more meaningful schedule and beat better teams than Alabama, but Alabama lost to the No. 1 team in the country. Isn’t the point to win games? Shouldn’t we be talking about opponents a team beat to get where they are? Why aren’t we comparing the scores in game won instead of games lost?
Brant
Raleigh

A lot of folks in Stillwater are asking the same question.

One-loss Alabama will play LSU in a rematch for the national championship, and one-loss Oklahoma State and one-loss Stanford meet in the Fiesta Bowl.

Oklahoma State and Stanford have more notable victories than Alabama, whose most impressive victories were over Penn State and Arkansas.

Oklahoma State beat four teams in the final BCS standings. Stanford beat USC, which I think is one of the premier teams in the nation.

What’s ironic is that for years, unbeaten teams such as Utah, Boise State and TCU were denied shots at the national championship because their schedules were deemed inferior to those of teams in “Big Six” conferences.

Now, we see teams with identical records that may have played a stronger schedule than Alabama, but the “inferior schedule” argument conveniently doesn’t apply.

That’s why I was kind of hoping Houston would’ve joined LSU as the only unbeaten teams. Based on records, Houston would’ve deserved to play for the national title. But people everywhere, especially in Alabama, would have contended that Houston’s schedule wasn’t strong enough to deserve a place in the national championship game.

So, then you would have had the argument that strength of schedule mattered in one case but not in another.

Alas, Houston didn’t finish unbeaten, so that chaotic scene was avoided … for now.

Frankly, I can see the understand both sides of the national championship issue – the arguments in favor of Alabama and those in favor of Oklahoma State or Stanford.

All they do is reaffirm that no matter what kind of lies or propaganda that the BCS folks keep trying to spread, the system used in college football is hopelessly idiotic.

Some sort of a playoff is needed, but in college football, fairness and logic are sacrificed so an entitled few can exercise power and accumulate more wealth. And they can because despite all the outrage and complaints, fans gather by the tens of thousands and pay hundreds of dollars to see their teams play in bowl games.

You notice he never actually answered the question, right?

College Football Wins & Losses

2011-11-28T14:23:00.001-05:00

Sent to Stewart Mandel at SI.com

Stewart –
I hope this isn’t too long for your mailbag, but I want to take a second to lay out my point with my question. In the discussion of comparing 1-loss teams, everyone seems to obsess over the team that inflicted the loss. Why don’t fans ever discuss the other side of the ledger – who did you beat?
You illustrated the point quite well earlier in your comparison of Alabama and Oklahoma State. By any objective measure, OKSt has played, and beaten, a more meaningful schedule, but their loss is to a crappy team. Alabama has played an easier schedule (this is where LSU’s non-conference schedule really shines) but lost to the best team in the country. Everyone talks about the losses; no one talks about the wins.
We saw this the last time the Tigers were in the national title discussion in ’07, when we were parsing through 2-loss teams. LSU had lost to Kentucky, OU had lost to Mizzou, etc, etc. No one pointed to LSU’s demolition of Virginia Tech by 40 points. No other contender that year had anywhere close to comparable win.
In ’06, when the voters bumped Florida ahead of Michigan, despite each only having 1 loss, they might’ve actually gotten right (even if for the wrong reasons). Michigan’s signature win that year was against then-#2 Notre Dame, but other than the Ohio State game, their schedule was a dud. Florida went on the road to beat #13, and beat #25 and #8 on neutral fields.
In ’08, when the Big 12 South had their three-headed tie going on, everyone talked about which loss was better/worse. No one talked about OU hanging 60 points on 3 consecutive ranked opponents (2 on the road), or that that played (and beat) 2 more ranked teams than either Texas Tech or Texas. 2001, Colorado smokes Nebraska and wins the Big 12 title, but beats no one else of consequence (lost to Texas and didn’t have Oklahoma on the schedule). Nebraska, meanwhile, beats #17 ND and #2 OU.
How did we get so fixated on losses? Isn’t the point to win games? Shouldn’t we be talking about who a team *beat* to get where they are? Why aren’t we comparing the scores in games they won, instead of lost?

Good, Fast, Cheap

2011-10-26T15:27:00.002-04:00

Driver who pissed me off

2011-08-23T08:46:00.002-04:00

White BMW, tag: NC YZW-7447
Gunning engine to switch lanes from Lead Mine intersection to the back light @ Crabtree Valley Mall, then tore out of that light and plowed 70mph up Blue Ridge Rd

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What I sent to Yahoo tonight about their email "upgrade"

2011-07-08T21:15:00.001-04:00

Bottom line: I hate the new interface.
1. Contacts below the custom folders, means I have to collapse my folders to see my contacts when logged into messenger, and I am on the messenger web client all day at the office
2. No custom status in web client for messenger means that I can't tell people at work where I am when they might go looking for me - VERY frustrating for everyone involved.
3. "Choose your favorite way to communicate"? WTF does *that* mean?! I'm going to start with email, b/c it's a damn email program. When I want to send and IM, I'll go to my contacts list... buried wherever the hell you've moved it most recently.
4. The preview pane is not as easily manipulated as it was in the most recent version, where it was easier to switch btw preview and tabbed viewing of the message
5. The keyboard shortcuts do not consistently work. At least half the time I start typing an IM, the mail app starts executing the keyboard commands instead of typing the message

These are not frivolous complaints, nor are they the whinings of some luddite. I work in IT as a business analyst, and design interfaces and user paths through systems for a living. These changes - foisted on me with no consultation - are seriously detrimental to the way I work. If Yahoo can't accommodate my business needs, I'll go look into MSN or GMail as options.

I've been with Yahoo a loooooong time - most of it as a paying customer shelling out $10-12/month for my mail/web hosting services. I've already asked to switch back once, and was switched. Now, I've been forced to change to a substandard product a second time. If I am forced to use something I don't want, I will stop paying for it and find a different way to get my work done, from a provider who values me as a customer and does things *for* me, not *to* me.

I know you don't want to have to respond to everyone's individual issues. Fine. Just fix mine without ever bothering to email me, and I'll be happy. But don't muck with my email again, or some other service will gain the customer you will lose. And given your recent company trends in performance, you really can't afford to lose too many of us.

A Wonder-Strike

2011-06-18T07:26:00.001-04:00

Holy balls...

Cable News Ratings

2011-06-02T06:49:00.000-04:00

Cable News Ratings: Top 30 Programs For May 2011 (PHOTOS)

So the Fox News shows dominate the top of the listings here. However, I'm curious about their audience: how much of the audience is tuning in for that specific show, and how much of it is turning on Fox News and never changing the channel? I know a lot of people that reflexively recoil from anything on one of the "liberal networks" regardless of the type of show - news, entertainment, music, etc - and instead just put it on Fox News and leave it on.

Personally, I'm dismayed that Morning Joe is as low as it is, because it's a great show. I know it's on MSNBC, but anyone who can watch that and say "it's all liberal bias because it's on MSNBC" is full of crap.

Testing, testing

2011-05-25T08:52:00.001-04:00

Testing, testing

More Bad Geography

2011-03-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

I'm watching the CEO of the South Africa 2010 World Cup talking on Morning Joe right now, and he's talking about how for a long time after reunification, Germany still felt like 2 countries, and it wasn't until the 2006 World Cup that they all felt like one country. He says that for a long time after reunification, you didn't see the "new" German flag (really the West German flag) in the East.

And then he says that in 2006 when he "walked through Nürnberg and the other East German [cities] and you saw every draping themselves in the German flag."

Someone might want to point out that Nürnberg was never a part of East Germany, and that the only East German venue in 2006 was Leipzig.

AP Undercutting Themselves

2011-03-22T09:52:00.000-04:00

Look, I don't mind the AP editorializing. I mind when they pass it off as news. I know some people will day "the media has always been biased!" but rarely do you see biases this obvious.

100 years after Triangle fire, horror resonates - Yahoo! News

It was a warm spring Saturday when dozens of immigrant girls and women leapt to their deaths — some with their clothes on fire, some holding hands — as horrified onlookers watched the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burn.
The March 25, 1911, fire that killed 146 workers became a touchstone for the organized labor movement, spurred laws that required fire drills and shed light on the lives of young immigrant workers near the turn of the century.
The 100th anniversary comes as public workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere protest efforts to limit collective bargaining rights in response to state budget woes. Labor leaders and others say one need only look to the Triangle fire to see why unions are crucial.
"This is a story that needs to be told and retold," said Cecilia Rubino, the writer-director of "From the Fire," an oratorio inspired by the Triangle fire. "We don't have that many moments in our history where you see so clearly the gears of history shift."

Universities Don't Do Irony

2011-03-21T07:31:00.000-04:00

Let's see... student makes video "mocking" a minority group... student targeted by illegal actions... student decides she need to leave school because the university is not offering her any protections for her behavior... turns out the students ethnic group is actually a minority at the school... turns out that her free speech is apparently less privileged than free speech threatening her life... turns out her right to be a jerk is somehow less important than someone else's right to harass her...

Great lesson UCLA. Really great. Especially from a public university supposed to reflect the population of California (make sure you check out the breakdowns of the student population below). Let's try not to favor particular minorities/behaviors too much if we can help it, eh?

A student who posted an Internet video of her tirade against the Asian population at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday night that she is leaving the school, despite the university's decision not to discipline her.
In a statement to the Daily Bruin campus newspaper, Alexandra Wallace said she has chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA because of what she called "the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats and being ostracized from an entire community" in the wake of the three-minute video.
"In an attempt to produce a humorous YouTube video, I have offended the UCLA community and the entire Asian culture," Wallace said in the statement, her second apology of the week. "Especially in the wake of the ongoing disaster in Japan, I would do anything to take back my insensitive words. I could write apology letters all day and night, but I know they wouldn't erase the video from your memory, nor would they act to reverse my inappropriate action."
Earlier Friday, university officials said they would not discipline Wallace because her video was an exercise of free speech, not hate speech, and it didn't violate the student code of conduct.
UCLA's vice chancellor for student affairs, Janina Montero, said in a statement that campus officials were "appalled and offended by the sentiments expressed in the video," but it did not seek to harm or threaten a specific person or group.
In the video, Wallace said her complaints aren't directed at any individual and people shouldn't take offense, but "the problem is these hordes of Asian people that UCLA accepts into our school every single year."
She says the numbers would be fine if Asian students would "use American manners" and goes on to complain about Asians frequently talking on their mobile phones while she tries to study. At one point she mocks them with gibberish.
Wallace suggests in the video that people calling to check on the fate of Japan's tsunami victims go outside so they won't freak people out if they get bad news.
Wallace took down the rant shortly after posting it Sunday, but it had already gone viral and sparked a strong reaction at UCLA, where at least 37 percent of the school's 26,000 undergraduates are Asian, 32 percent are white, 16 percent are Hispanic and 4 percent are black.
Wallace could not be reached for further comment.

The Love is Ill-Deserved

2011-03-21T07:25:00.000-04:00

Yahoo News notes that a productive Congress gets no respect from voters.

Congress passed an $814 billion economic stimulus package soon after President Barack Obama took office, tapping a staggering sum of money to avoid a full-blown depression. Democrats have trumpeted the gains from that effort, but know it's not enough for restive voters. "Americans still see themselves in a ditch," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

The two other landmark acts of this session were the health care overhaul, a giant step toward universal coverage that had eluded presidents back to Franklin Roosevelt if not Teddy Roosevelt, and the Wall Street accountability act.
Obama has also signed into law at least a dozen other pieces of legislation of significance. They include:
_Making college loans more affordable.
_The Cash for Clunkers program that helped rejuvenate the auto industry.
_New consumer protections for credit card users.
_Making it easier for women to challenge pay discrimination.
_Increasing federal regulation of tobacco products.
_Cracking down on waste in Pentagon weapons acquisition.
_Making attacks based on sexual orientation a federal hate crime.
_Giving businesses tax incentives to hire unemployed workers.
_Tax credits for first-time homeowners.
So where is the love?

Wasps are notoriously productive in the way they build nests in the corners of your front porch, and there's not a lot of love for them, either.
Let's not confuse "productive" with "useful" when things like Cash-for-Clunkers did nothing but add to the federal debt with little - if any - real economic payoff. And "making attacks based on sexual orientation a federal hate crime"? Really? Why do we have hate crime laws anyway? Aren't all crimes still crimes?
And you don't want to even start talking about the hate crime on the basic structures of American life (personal choice & responsibility) that is the health care law...

English Football Humour

2011-02-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

If you've got a second to hear some really funny stuff on a podcast, you should check out this episode of Football Weekly from The Guardian and pick it up about the 15:45 mark or so...
The background: after the Milan-Tottenham game, one of the Milan players headbutted one of the Tottenham coaches on the sideline and everyone is upset about this. The "Joe Jordan" they reference is the coach from Tottenham.

CNN Talking Non-Partisan Sense

2011-02-22T07:24:00.000-05:00

The left is freaking out over Wisconsin - CNN.com

The newly elected executive began implementing his campaign platform in a tough economic environment.

The minority party in the legislature responded with a collective freak-out. Massive populist protests were held, drawing national press attention. A few signs in the crowd compared the newly elected executive to Hitler. Partisan cable TV opinion anchors doubled their duty, drumming up the crowds and then offering "analysis" on air. The language of apocalypse was invoked, the battle lines were drawn -- and domestic politics started to feel a little like a war.

No, this isn't a recap of Washington 2009 after Barack Obama's election, but Wisconsin 2011 after Gov. Scott Walker's election. And if you were offended by one, but cheering the other, you're part of the problem -- an atmosphere of hyperpartisanship in which extremes on both sides of the political spectrum act like wingnuts crying wolf.

Rage Against, what exactly?

2011-02-19T07:44:00.000-05:00

Wis. rallies renew history of political activism - Yahoo! News

Political activism to me implies that you are actively promoting a particular solution. These guys are promoting an anti-solution. They have no solution. They want a continuation of the endless dinner buffet that they've been pillaging for years, and now that the buffet is out of food, somehow it's the buffet's fault, and their solution is "keeping giving us food" without bothering to realize there's no food to give. I guess that's activism. But it's fucking dumb activism.

A birthplace of the progressive movement is crackling with a fervor not seen in decades, as students from the famously liberal University of Wisconsin team up with unionized state workers for demonstrations against collective bargaining rights pushed by the state's new Republican governor. The biggest rally yet is expected Saturday, along with an influx of conservative counter-protesters.
As many as 40,000 people swarmed the Capitol on Friday, raising the noise in its rotunda to earsplitting levels as they rallied to block Republican Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to ease Wisconsin's budget woes by cutting many government workers' pay, benefits and bargaining rights.
No stranger to political unrest, Madison has seen activists take to the streets to protest the Vietnam war, support civil rights and oppose cuts in social services. Riots ensued 15 years ago when police clamped down on an annual block party that began as an anti-war protest in 1969.

RIP Gary Moore

2011-02-07T06:42:00.001-05:00

The Official Gary Moore Website

It is with deep sorrow and regret, that we have to announce that Gary Moore passed away while on holiday in Spain last night.

Our thoughts are with his children, family and friends at this sad time.

Gary Moore, RIP

1952-2011

Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore dead at 58 - Yahoo! News

Bandmates say rock guitarist Gary Moore, a former member of influential Irish band Thin Lizzy, has died. He was 58.
Manager Adam Parsons told the BBC that Moore was found dead Sunday at a hotel on Spain's Costa del Sol, where he was on holiday. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Thin Lizzy drummer Brian Downey said Moore's death was a "total shock," and guitarist Scott Gorham said he was "a great player and a great guy."
Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1952, Moore was a member of Dublin band Skid Row before joining Thin Lizzy in 1973, playing on tracks for the "Nightlife" album. He left after four months, but rejoined four years later and played on the band's "Black Rose" album before going solo once again.
He had a successful solo career, and his accomplished, bluesy playing won plaudits from other musicians.

A Dominion-sized Beatdown

2011-02-02T15:38:00.003-05:00

click to enlarge

Amusing posters

2010-12-19T17:30:00.001-05:00

Saving these for future use :)

It's "Gripe About College Football Season" Again

2010-11-03T13:53:00.001-04:00

Plus-one only sensible way to anoint BCS champion from 2010 season - Stewart Mandel - SI.com

A year ago this week I unveiled the Mandel Plan, the only college football postseason model that achieves more clarity without overhauling the bowl system, devaluing the regular season, intruding on December finals or otherwise jeopardizing the status quo that BCS honchos work so hard to defend. College football doesn't need an eight- or 16-team playoff, because there aren't eight or 16 deserving teams in a season. But there are usually four.

The Mandel Plan sure sounds like a great idea - as long as the football gods cooperate and you end up with 4 unbeaten teams. What would you have done in 2004 with Auburn, USC, and OU? Invited Utah? I'm sure Texas and Cal and Louisville and undefeated Boise St would've *loved* your plan then.

What about 1993, when FSU beat Nebraska for their title, and the Golden Domers griped that they were left out of the title game, conveniently ignoring an unbeaten WV team that should've been in the game against Nebraska?

The BCS was created because we kept arguing over who was #1. Now we argue over who's #1 and #2. If we expand the argument to #1, 2, 3, and 4 or - eesh! - all the way out to #16, are we *really* going to cut down on the arguments?
Under your plan, the 2008 'playoff' would've been 2 SEC teams and 2 Big XII teams. Utah (the final #2) never gets in.

Expand 2008 to 8 teams, and now you're leaving out an unbeaten Boise St, as well as the Pac 10, ACC, and Big East champs.

Expand to 8 teams, and now you're telling me that a 9-2 Notre Dame gets in but a 9-2 Auburn or 10-2 VaTech gets left out?
You don't even want to know who gets to play for the title if you expand to 16 teams... (but for laughs, in 2007 you get Tennessee at 9-4, in '04, '08 and '09 you get 3 teams each with 3 losses)

So how about we just stick to the same BCS formula for about 5 years, instead of tinkering with it every year and encouraging the screaming masses who insist that their good idea be implemented every year, without bothering to look at second- and third-order effects over the course of 6 or 8 seasons.

2010-10-11T10:44:00.001-04:00

if you're ever curious why you're circling the drain, maybe you should look around at the actions you're taking and quit blaming the drain

buckle up!

2010-09-12T14:55:00.001-04:00

No, Mr Ken Brown of #5 Greenbrier Lane in Pinehurst, NC, on flight 844 from RDU-ORL on 9/12, you are not important enough to possess a seat-belt exemption card for commercial air travel. When the captain of the plane says 'sit down and buckle up' it applies to you, too.

checking out

2010-08-02T22:00:00.001-04:00

My tolerance level for bullshit has now reached a breaking point. As digital hangout after digital hangout has been over-run with whining, personal attacks, and ever-lowering standards, I'm finding myself more mentally exhausted after 10 minutes on the internet than after hours of putting up with Ohio State's bullshit.

I am sick of people with God complexes.

I am sick of people with "take my ball and go home" syndrome.

I am sick of fucktards on ideological crusades who spend their entire digital lives dancing the kabuki dance of obfuscation instead of answering a fucking question.

I am sick of 'news' websites whose editors (if they exist) can't spot the difference between "bare" and "bear" and can't laugh at themselves when it's pointed out.

I am sick of endless negativity and fight-picking and hiding behind the "devil's advocate" defense (note: you're not the devil's advocate, you're an asshole)

I am sick of people who can't follow basic fucking instructions about where to post threads and then whine when it's pointed out to the for the 3,405,833th time.

I am sick of people who get their 'news' from ideological bloggers and try to innocently claim it's legit.

I am sick of people who can't fucking write, or express a coherent thought in anything resembling a sentence, and then trying to claim "you still know what I meant!"

I am sick of people who twist an ankle jumping to conclusions, then after the fact try to graft on some other ideologically-based reason to be outraged.

I am sick of condescending nut-suckers whose primary goal in life is to put down people who are working their ass off, because somehow it doesn't reach some nebulous standard of "approval" they have.

I am generally sick of the incredibly low standards we have set for ourselves in our discourse, our writing, our discussion, our political thought, our willingness to examine other sides of issue, our treatment of compromise as surrender, and our path-of-least-resistance-itis.

And I am frustrated with myself that I have caught myself in a few of these traps from time to time.

Somehow, I'm actually glad that the community of comment and discussion I was hoping to build at Grognews never took off, because if it turned into what everything else I used to enjoy online has turned into, then I'd just fucking nuke the entire thing out of existence.

I still plan to keep news running over there, but don't look for me anywhere else, except the occasional Facebook family update with the new baby. If I decide to dip my toe back into anything online I will do with a very cautious manner, a very jaded sensibility, and one foot already out the door. I'm just worn the fuck out.

So hoist a tall cool one Pit-brain, Hairsnog, Walt, Grumpy, Whiny, Sneezy, and the rest of you fucking intellectual dwarves. You win. I'm leaving. I'll be somewhere else, trying not to shoot myself in the face with an ASCII gun while I wonder if I'll ever have another intelligent conversation online again.

p.s. - to those of you with whom I've had the odd stimulating and meaningful online discourse, this is not aimed at you. there's just far more of them than there are of you... it's like vuvuzelas - they just won't fucking stop and my head is buzzing.

July 26 - Important Stuff

2010-07-26T06:13:00.000-04:00

July 26 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Events

657 – Battle of Siffin.
811 – Battle of Pliska; Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I is slain, his heir Stauracius is seriously wounded.
920 – Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims at Pamplona.
1309 – Henry VII is recognized King of the Romans by Pope Clement V.
1469 – Wars of the Roses: Battle of Edgecote Moor – Pitting the forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those of Edward IV of England.
1581 – Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Act of Abjuration). The declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II.
1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match took place near Guildford, England
1758 – French and Indian War: Siege of Louisbourg ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
1775 – The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress.
1788 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.
1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London.
1822 – José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet with Simón Bolívar.
1822 – First of the three-day Battle of Dervenakia, between the Ottoman Empire force led by Dramali Pasha and the Greek Revolutionary force led by Theodoros Kolokotronis.
1847 – Liberia declares independence.
1861 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.
1863 – American Civil War: Morgan's Raid ends – At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces.
1878 – In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box will be found later with a taunting poem inside.
1882 – Premiere of Richard Wagner's Parsifal at Bayreuth.
1882 – The Republic of Stellaland is founded in Southern Africa.
1887 – Publication of the Unua Libro, founding the Esperanto movement.
1890 – In Buenos Aires, the Revolución del Parque takes place, forcing President Juárez Celman's resignation.
1891 – France annexes Tahiti.
1908 – United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).
1914 – Serbia and Bulgaria interrupt diplomatic relationship.
1936 – The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.
1936 – King Edward VIII, in one of his few official duties before he abdicated the throne, officially unveiled the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.
1937 – End of the Battle of Brunete in the Spanish Civil War.
1941 – World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.
1944 – World War II: Soviet army enters Lviv, major city of western Ukraine, liberating it from the Nazis. Only 300 Jewish survivors left, out of 160,000 Jews in Lviv prior to Nazi occupation.
1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain.
1945 – The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing Winston Churchill from power.
1945 – The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.
1945 – The US Navy cruiser Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with the warhead for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
1946 – Aloha Airlines began service from Honolulu International Airport
1947 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.
1952 – King Farouk of Egypt abdicates in favor of his son Fuad.
1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
1953 – Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle orders an anti-polygamy law enforcement crackdown on residents of Short Creek, Arizona, which becomes known as the Short Creek Raid.
1956 – Following the World Bank's refusal to fund building the Aswan High Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.
1957 – Carlos Castillo Armas, dictator of Guatemala, is assassinated
1958 – Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.
1963 – Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.
1963 – Earthquake in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia (republic of southern Yugoslavia) – 1100 dead
1963 – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development votes to admit Japan.
1965 – Full independence is granted to the Maldives.
1966 – Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent.
1968 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.
1971 – Apollo Program: Apollo 15 Mission – Launch of Apollo 15.
1974 – Greek Prime Minister Constantinos Karamanlis forms the country's first civil government after seven years of military rule.
1975 – Formation of a military triumvirate in Portugal.
1977 – The National Assembly of Quebec imposes the use of French as the official language of the provincial government.
1989 – A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
1990 – The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into law by President George H. W. Bush.
1994 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders the removal of Russian troops from Estonia.

Space Shuttle Discovery STS-114 launch on July 26, 2005.
1999 – Cessation of combat activities after the Kargil War; Celebrated as Kargil Vijay Diwas in India.
2005 – Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission – Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003.
2005 – Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of rain (39.17 inches) within 24 hours, bringing the city to a halt for over 2 days.
2005 – Samir Geagea, the Lebanese Forces (LF) leader, is released after spending 11 years in a solitary confinement. His release came after the end of the Syrian occupation to Lebanon.
[edit]Births

1030 – Stanislaus of Szczepanów, St. Stanislaw (d. 1079)
1678 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1711)
1739 – George Clinton, 4th vice president of the USA (d. 1812)
1782 – John Field, Irish composer (d. 1837)
1791 – Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, composer (d. 1844)
1802 – Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (d. 1855)
1829 – Auguste Marie François Beernaert, Belgian statesman, Nobel Laureate (d. 1912)
1846 – Texas Jack Omohundro, American frontier scout, actor, and cowboy (d. 1880)
1854 – Philippe Gaucher, French dermatologist (d. 1918)
1855 – Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936)
1856 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Laureate (d. 1950)
1858 – Tom Garrett, Former Australian cricketer (d. 1943)
1865 – Philipp Scheidemann, First Chancellor of the Weimar Republic (d. 1939)
1874 – Serge Koussevitsky, Russian conductor (d. 1951)
1875 – Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1961)
1875 – Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (d. 1939)
1880 – Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Ukrainian statesman (d. 1951)
1885 – André Maurois, French author (d. 1967)
1886 – Lars Hanson, Swedish actor (d. 1965)
1888 – Reginald Hands, Former South African cricketer (d. 1918)
1892 – Sam Jones, American baseball player (d. 1966)
1893 – George Grosz, German painter (d. 1959)
1894 – Aldous Huxley, English-born author (d. 1963)
1895 – Jane Bunford, Britain's tallest-ever person (d. 1922)
1895 – Gracie Allen, American actress and comedian (d. 1964)
1896 – Henry Birkin, British racing driver (d. 1933)
1897 – Paul Gallico, American author (d. 1976)
1903 – Estes Kefauver, U.S. Senator from Tennessee (d. 1963)
1906 – Irena Iłłakowicz, Polish agent of Intelligence (d. 1943)
1908 – Lucien Wercollier, Luxembourgish sculptor (d. 2002)
1909 – Peter Thorneycroft, British politician (d. 1994)
1909 – Vivian Vance, American actress (d. 1979)
1914 – Erskine Hawkins, American musician and bandleader (d. 1993)
1914 – Ellis Kinder, American baseball player (d. 1968)
1918 – Marjorie Lord, American actress
1919 – Virginia Gilmore, American actress (d. 1986)
1920 – Bob Waterfield, American football player (d. 1983)
1921 – Jean Shepherd, American writer (d. 1999)
1922 – Blake Edwards, American film director
1922 – Jason Robards, American actor (d. 2000)
1923 – Jan Berenstain, American author
1923 – Hoyt Wilhelm, American baseball player (d. 2002)
1925 – Jerzy Einhorn, Polish-Swedish doctor, researcher and politician (d. 2000)
1926 – James Best, American actor
1926 – Ana María Matute, Spanish author
1927 – Gulabrai Ramchand, Former Indian cricketer (d. 2003)
1928 – Don Beauman, British racing driver (d. 1955)
1928 – Francesco Cossiga, 8th President of the Italian Republic
1928 – Ibn-e-Safi, Pakistani fiction writer and Urdu poet (d. 1980)
1928 – Stanley Kubrick, American film director (d. 1999)
1928 – Peter Lougheed, Canadian politician
1929 – Marc Lalonde, French Canadian politician
1929 – Alexis Weissenberg, Bulgarian-born French pianist
1929 – Joseph Jackson, American manager, former boxer and former musician
1931 – Takashi Ono, Japanese gymnast
1931 – Telê Santana, Brazilian football manager and former player (d. 2006)
1936 – Mary Millar, English actress (d. 1998)
1938 – Darlene Love, American singer
1939 – John Howard, 25th Prime Minister of Australia
1939 – Bob Lilly, American football player
1940 – Dobie Gray, American singer
1940 – Mary Jo Kopechne, American aide to Robert F. Kennedy (d. 1969)
1940 – Bobby Rousseau, Quebec ice hockey player
1940 – Tolis Voskopoulos, Greek singer
1941 – Bobby Hebb, American musician
1941 – Jean Baubérot, French historian and sociologist
1941 – Brenton Wood, American singer-songwriter
1942 – Vladimír Mečiar, Slovak prime minister
1942 – Teddy Pilette, Belgian racing driver
1943 – Peter Hyams, American film director
1943 – Mick Jagger, English singer (The Rolling Stones)
1944 – Kiel Martin, American actor (d. 1990)
1945 – Betty Davis, American funk, rock and soul singer
1945 – Helen Mirren, English actress
1948 – Herbert Wiesinger, German born Olympic pairs skater
1949 – Roger Taylor, English musician (Queen)
1949 – Thaksin Shinawatra, ex-Prime Minister of Thailand
1950 – Susan George, English actress
1950 – Nelinho, Brazilian footballer
1950 – Rich Vogler, American race car driver (d. 1990)
1951 – Rick Martin, Canadian ice hockey player
1953 – Robert Phillips, classical guitarist
1953 – Edie Mirman, American voice actress
1954 – Vitas Gerulaitis, American tennis player (d. 1994)
1955 – Aleksandrs Starkovs, Latvian footballer
1956 – Dorothy Hamill, American figure skater
1956 – Tommy Rich, American professional wrestler
1957 – Nana Visitor, American actress
1957 – Yuen Biao, Hong Kong actor
1957 – Hart Hanson, American television writer and producer
1958 – Angela Hewitt, Canadian classical pianist
1959 – Rick Bragg, American writer
1959 – Kevin Spacey, American actor
1959 – Michael Ross, American serial killer (d. 2005)
1961 – Gary Cherone, American musician (Extreme)
1961 – Andy Connell, English musician (Swing Out Sister, A Certain Ratio)
1961 – Dimitris Saravakos, Greek footballer
1962 – Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Irish musician
1964 – Sandra Bullock, American actress
1964 – Ralf Metzenmacher, German painter and designer
1964 – Danny Woodburn, American actor
1965 – Jeremy Piven, American actor
1967 – Anthony Durante, American professional wrestler (d. 2003)
1967 – Tim Schafer, American computer game designer
1968 – Olivia Williams, English actress
1968 – Frédéric Diefenthal, French actor and director
1969 – Greg Colbrunn, American baseball player
1970 – Joan Wasser, American singer and musician
1971 – Khaled Mahmud, Former Bangladeshi cricketer

1972 - ME

1972 – Nathan Buckley, Former Australian rules footballer
1973 – Kate Beckinsale, British actress
1973 – Chris Pirillo, American TV host and blogger
1973 – Lenka Šarounová, Czech astronomer
1974 – Dean Sturridge, English Footballer
1974 – Daniel Negreanu, Canadian poker player
1974 – Dan Konopka, American musician (OK Go)
1975 – Joe Smith, American basketball player
1976 – Brad Wilkins, American architect
1976 – Tanja Szewczenko, German figure skater
1977 – Martin Laursen, Danish footballer
1977 – Rebecca St. James, Australian-born singer
1979 – Friedrich Michau, German rugby player
1979 – Derek Paravicini, British autistic savant
1979 – Peter Sarno, Canadian ice hockey player
1979 – Mageina Tovah, American actress
1979 – Erik Westrum, American ice hockey player
1980 – Dave Baksh, Canadian guitarist (Sum 41)
1980 – Lee Dong-gun, South Korean actor
1981 – Abe Forsythe, Australian actor/director
1982 – Chez Starbuck, American actor
1982 – Mugdha Godse, Indian actress and model
1983 – Delonte West, American basketball player
1983 – Roderick Strong, American professional wrestler
1984 – Kyriakos Ioannou, Cypriot high jumper
1985 – Marcus Benard, American football player
1985 – Gaël Clichy, French footballer
1987 – Fredy Montero, Colombian soccer player
1987 – Miriam McDonald, Canadian actress
1988 – Francia Raisa, American actress
1989 – Areti Ketime, Greek singer and musician
1993 – Elizabeth Gillies, American actress
1993 – Taylor Momsen, American actress and singer
[edit]Deaths

796 – Offa, King of Mercia
811 – Nicephorus I, Byzantine Emperor
1380 – Emperor Komyo of Japan (b. 1322)
1471 – Pope Paul II (b. 1417)
1592 – Armand de Gontaut, baron de Biron, French soldier (b. 1524)
1611 – Horio Yoshiharu, Japanese warlord (b. 1542)
1680 – John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, English writer (b. 1647)
1684 – Elena Cornaro Piscopia, Italian mathematician (b. 1646)
1712 – Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, English statesman (b. 1631)
1723 – Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, English statesman (b. 1660)
1801 – Archduke Maximilian Franz of Austria (b. 1756)
1863 – Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas (b. 1793)
1867 – King Otto of Greece (b. 1815)
1919 – Sir Edward Poynter, British painter (b. 1836)
1925 – Gottlob Frege, German mathematician and logician (b. 1848)
1925 – William Jennings Bryan, American politician (b. 1860)
1925 – Antonio Ascari, Italian racing driver (b. 1888)
1932 – Frederick S. Duesenberg automotive pioneer (b. 1876)
1934 – Winsor McCay, American cartoonist (b. 1871)
1941 – Henri Lebesgue, French mathematician (b. 1875)
1942 – Roberto Arlt, Argentinian writer (b. 1900)
1952 – Eva Perón, Argentine First Lady (b. 1919)
1953 – Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b. 1883)
1960 – Maud Menten, Canadian biochemist (b. 1879)
1960 – Cedric Gibbons, American art director (b. 1893)
1964 – Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe, British politician and race driver (b. 1884)
1969 – Frank Loesser, American composer (b. 1910)
1970 – Robert Taschereau, French-Canadian jurist (b. 1896)
1971 – Diane Arbus, American photographer (b. 1923)
1980 – Ibn-e-Safi, Pakistani fiction writer and Urdu poet (b. 1928)
1984 – George Gallup, American statistician and opinion pollster (b. 1901)
1984 – Ed Gein, American serial killer (b. 1906)
1986 – Averell Harriman, American diplomat (b. 1891)
1988 – Fazlur Rahman Malik, Pakistani scholar (b. 1919)
1990 – Brent Mydland, American keyboardist (Grateful Dead) (b. 1952)
1992 – Mary Wells, American singer (b. 1943)
1993 – Matthew Ridgeway, American army general (b. 1895)
1994 – Christy Henrich, American gymnast (b. 1972)
1994 – James Luther Adams, American theologian (b. 1901)
1994 – Tonia Marketaki, Greek film director and screenwriter (b. 1942)
1994 – Terry Scott, British actor (b. 1927)\
1995 – Laurindo Almeida, Brazilian guitarist (b. 1917)
1995 – Raymond Mailloux, Quebec politician (b. 1918)
1995 – George W. Romney, American businessman and politician (b. 1907)
2000 – John Tukey, American statistician (b. 1915)
2001 – Rex Barber, American WWII aviator (b. 1917)
2001 – Peter von Zahn, German journalist (b. 1913)
2004 – William A. Mitchell, American food chemist (b. 1911)
2005 – Betty Astell, British actress (b. 1912)
2005 – Alexander Golitzen, American art director (b. 1908)
2005 – Jack Hirshleifer, American economist (b. 1925)
2005 – Gilles Marotte, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1945)
2007 – Lars Forssell, Swedish writer (b. 1928)
2007 – John Normington, English actor (b. 1937)
2007 – Skip Prosser, American basketball coach (b. 1950)
2009 – Marcey Jacobson, American photographer (b. 1911)

How old are you if you "grew up playing video games"?

2010-07-06T07:16:00.002-04:00

The Today Show had Kerry Sanders showing off the pilot stations where they operate the subs trying to repair the blown BP oil well. Sanders says that apparently the 20-somethings are the best operators of the vehicles, and he leaps to the conclusion that it's because they grew up playing video games.
Maybe it's because they have better twitch reflexes than 40-somethings.
Maybe it's because they have better concentration than 40-somethings.
Maybe it's because they have better tolerance for parking themselves on an isolated ship than 40-somethings.
Maybe it's because they have better environmental consciousness than 40-somethings.

But to say it's because "they" grew up playing video games, and the 40-somethings didn't, is completely wrong. Videogames go back a long, long way, and today's 40-somethings were the original purchasers of the Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, and Colecovision. They grew up in video game arcades in the 1980s (you remember those, right?) and didn't have to be taught to use a mouse when Apple released them on the original Mac. They were the ones who bought the original NES, which was released when today's 20-somethings were 3-5 years old. They bought the original Xbox in 2001, and might've played the games with their teenage kids, who are not 20-something and operating subs trying to repair the oil leak.

25 things

2010-07-02T12:24:00.000-04:00

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

***** Disclaimer... I didn't make it to 25 people ******

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I am married going on 9 years this year – could’ve done a much better job of being a husband (and trying to fix that).
2. I am amazed every day at how cool my son is.
3. I’ve moved 32 times in 36 years. I attended 11 schools in 13 years, from K-12, including 4 high schools in 3 years.
********** edit: 33 times. I was looking at my notes on my desk from yesterday when I was counting the moves, and I missed one. This also doesn't count times I moved *back* to somewhere I'd lived, like moving home for the summer from campus during undergrad.
4. My parents met in the Army, and my mom outranked my dad.
5. I can often narrow down a song’s year of release/popularity to within a few months because I can often remember where I was living when it was released.
6. I wrote my first computer program in BASIC in 1981 on a Commodore PET computer. I wrote my most recent one about two years after that.
7. After 9+ years of college, 4 years in the Army, and 4 years working at Kinko’s, I still can’t stand coffee.
8. I am conversant in German. I don’t claim fluency because I can’t write it very well and my grammar is atrocious. But I have no problem traveling around and carrying on conversations.
9. I’ve been playing soccer since age 6. I’ve played 2 seasons of baseball, and was pretty bad both times. I’ve played 1 season of basketball and was the high scorer for the league that year.
10. I was a DJ in college for a radio station, and had a ton of fun my senior year on the Friday afternoon show.
11. In high school, Dartmouth was my dream school.
12. I can’t ever remember playing more than 1 gig with the exact same band lineup while I was in college.
13. I’ve traveled all over Europe, and lived there 8.5 years. But it’s the only continent outside of North America I’ve traveled to (I’m 2 continents behind my wife).
14. I’ve only had 1 team of which I’m a fan win a championship while I was cheering for them, and that was this year’s Columbus Crew. I can’t really count the Carolina Hurricanes because I’m not a big hockey fan. NC State won their hoops titles before I cared. LSU winning BCS titles is great, but my primary NCAAF loyalty is NC State.
15. My family used to have a reading night once a week where my dad would read a chapter of a story to us (I specifically remember Swiss Family Robinson, and The Phantom Tollbooth). I want to start that with my family now that Kieran’s old enough.
16. My favorite cities to visit are San Francisco and London.
17. I visited Budapest, Hungary for Spring Break in 1985, while the Iron Curtain was still up. The thing I remember most was the small local restaurant where we ate for many of our meals.
18. I went to Prom three of my four years in high school. One of those years was before I was even attending *that* particular high school.
19. My grandmother’s youngest brother was KIA in Italy in WWII, and at one point there was a building at Ft Knox named after him.
20. I am a pack rat about certain things – games, music, books – but I lack sentimentality about clothes. They don’t fit, they get donated.
21. My favorite bands are Triumph, Thin Lizzy, Seven Nations, Mother Love Bone, and Van Morrison. With Van Morrison gaining as I get older. That said, I’ve seen The Black Crowes live 3 times and they’ve been fantastic every time.
22. I earned more high school varsity letters for Cross Country (2) than Soccer (1).
23. I once had a driver’s license that was legally valid without a photo or signature.
24. I grew up with cats, and the first dogs I ever had were when I moved in with my wife; the dogs were awesome and I miss them.
25. I enjoy candlelight and have resolved to light more candles around the house from now on.

.

Namesecure are busy fucking us

2010-06-29T20:38:00.003-04:00

Screen capture of official NameSecure website

Now if they really have 24x7 phone support, why has it taken be 3 days to get abso-fucking-lutely no one on the phone.

Bayonetgames.com has been down since the 20th. We've been trying to fix it with them since the 21st. We still can't get them to take our money. It's generally bad business practice to make it hard for customers to give you money. In the meantime, we're getting fucked by having our email down.

One wonders if the acknowledgement

2010-06-29T14:00:00.001-04:00

One wonders if the acknowledgement of my existence in the hall was only because the idiot in charge nearly tripped over me...

GOAL!

2010-06-28T14:52:00.001-04:00

Is it bad that the

2010-06-28T11:00:00.001-04:00

Is it bad that the financial aid office refers to your initial intake discussion as "triage"?

Show me the foul!

2010-06-21T07:00:00.001-04:00

Dear South Africa: Vuvuzelas suck

2010-06-14T10:26:00.002-04:00

Don't tell me I don't appreciate your culture.
Don't tell me they're an essential part of the experience.
Don't tell me they contribute to the atmosphere.

I can't hear the cheers of the actual fans of the game.
I can't hear the ebb and flow of the game.
I can't hear the commentators for most of the game.
I can't watch the game at work where I monitor the audio in the background and check it out when I hear things happen.

They might be *your* favorite thing in the world, but they're completely fucking useless for anyone who actually cares about the *game* and not the bullshit in the stands.
You want to make it a cultural experience? Fine. Blow like a Vegas hooker for the RSA games. But there's no reason at all - none - for them to overwhelm the US-England game, or the Holland-Denmark game, or the Slovenia-Algeria game. You're just being completely annoying, and by the time this tournament is done, I'll never come anywhere near an RSA sporting event again until you get rid of the greatest sporting annoyance since Tommy Smyth.

US v England @ XLSoccerWorld in Raleigh

2010-06-12T14:33:00.002-04:00

Soccer's Needed Statistic: Making $#!t Happen

2010-06-11T07:37:00.003-04:00

About 3 years ago, a great soccer blog talked about assist statistics, and recommended it be re-labeled as "Making Shit Happen".

That spiel made sense till last night when I watched the New England Revolution's Steve Ralson head a ball over his head toward goal; that semi-random action led to an Adam Cristman goal, the Revs' first for the night and Cristman's first all-time. It's not so much that Ralston consciously headed the ball with an assist to Cristman in mind; the action can more accurately be described as bonking the ball somewhere that seemed useful. Whether intended or not, that shows up as an assist to Ralston and, the more I think about it, the more fair that is.

Of course, there are "real" assists; in the same game, for instance, LA Galaxy midfielder Pete Vagenas played sharp pass against the grain - and through a thicket of defenders' legs - to teammate Kyle Martino; it was a spot-on, intentional pass and Martino slotted it home for the Galaxy's first goal. When people talk about assists, that's what they have in mind.

Even if Ralston's assist was more random, less skilled, etc. it falls under a kind of big umbrella concept: making shit happen. In a sense, that's what the assist stat should be: give it an acronym ("MSH's"?) to protect tender ears, but that's basically what's going on. The same principle applies on the defensive end as well. A well-time tackle (for instance, Frankie Hejduk picked Francisco Mendoza clean in the Columbus Crew v. Chivas USA game) could pick up the same statistical denotation.

Sure, this is imprecise and, sure, people will quibble about what really counts as an MSH, but we already quibble about assists and everything else under the sun so what's the harm? But the MSH fits a sport like soccer, in which so much positive activity cannot be readily quantified.

No, I don't think this will ever become an official stat - though I'd love to see league officials have to explain it to soccer neophytes. But it does help me look at Ralston's looming stroll into the league record books without wondering how many of those assists would require asterisks. The thing is, none of them do because all of them essentially say, "Let the record show that, on 113 occasions, Steve Ralston made shit happen."

Later that year, Grant Wahl made a case for MSH's in his wrap-up of the Champion's League final

Andrea Pirlo is total underrated class. Always steady, always hitting at least one or two breathtaking balls when his team needs them, Pirlo ratified the raves he got during last year's World Cup. His free kick that bounced off Inzaghi into the Liverpool goal could hardly have been planned, but he still served a cultured ball and gave it a chance to happen.

Let me rewrite that for you: "... but served a cultured ball and made shit happen."

And this year's preview of the World Cup includes an article about Clint Dempsey, the hard working American winger who is rapidly becoming a fixture in Europe. The coaches all agree that he's got the ability to make shit happen.

When Clinton Drew Dempsey, the U.S.'s most inventive and unpredictable soccer player, joined the national team in 2004, then coach Bruce Arena summarized his primary asset in three words: "He tries s---." It's an approach common in Latin America, where kids often learn the game on the streets, and rare among U.S. players, who are channeled into organized soccer from an early age. Dempsey's style is self-taught, intuitive, like a jazzman's. "It's a little bit of Pete Maravich," says U.S. coach Bob Bradley. "Clint's capable of making an attacking play that's a little different, that can create an advantage, that can lead to a goal. To have a player who can come up with something different at the right time, that's still such a special part of soccer."

yep

2010-06-04T20:47:00.001-04:00

or to use the correct form of "too"

8 of 31 in use

2010-06-04T15:12:00.001-04:00

8 of 31 in use this morning. 9 of 31 this afternoon. Selfish fucktard.

Ass-clowns in the restaurant

2010-06-04T13:30:00.004-04:00

Oh, and the twits next to us asked that the golf tournament go up on the big scereen instead of the soccer game. They're not actually *watching* it mind you...

If it was an actual World Cup game I'd've griped, but it's the local tournament here (the Memorial) and just an exhibition soccer game (JPN-FRA)

Inauspicious start @ The Montogomery

2010-06-04T13:17:00.001-04:00

Inauspicious start @ The Montogomery Inn... We've been sitting here over 10 minutes and all we've got is water and menus.

Brazil pwns the World

2010-06-02T09:49:00.001-04:00

The 1970 team...

RIP: Ronnie James Dio

2010-05-16T18:43:00.000-04:00

From the official website of DIO

Message from Wendy Dio

Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.

- Wendy Dio

He was one of my first musical heroes. What a bummer. He had a great voice and a great imagination with lyrics. His first 3 solo albums were fantastic, and side 2 of Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell is one of my all-time favorite album sides.

David Brooks explains why I don't get along with much of academia

2010-05-12T07:31:00.000-04:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Leading With Two Minds - NYTimes.com

It’s a wonder that more institutions aren’t set up to encourage this sort of alternating life. Business schools do it, but most institutions are hindered by guild customs, by tenure rules and by the tyranny of people who can only think in one way.

Get out of your ivory tower and join the real world, instead of bragging about how you went from kindergarten thru to PhD without ever holding a real job, like it's a badge of honor to have done so.

so apparently the sidewalk is too unsafe

2010-05-11T15:42:00.002-04:00

Look between the cars in the construction site and you will see a lady standing in the street talking to the parked & stationary driver of the minivan. Because apparently standing on the sidewalk is less safe than in a congested street with utility work on one side.

OSU Comm School & Their Own Students (not me, either!)

2010-05-06T08:28:00.000-04:00

Gee... wouldn't have seen something like this coming....

Mike Harden commentary: OSU backtracks in arrest of "Lantern" photographer | The Columbus Dispatch

Until the matter was resolved, the OSU School of Communication was content to let Kotran twist slowly in the wind. It even managed to find a fine-print rule allowing it to withdraw a resolution commending the photographer.

You know, his arrest or exoneration does absolutely nothing for raising or lowering the research profile, personal power, or FIGJAM quotient of the powers that be at the Comm School. Therefore, they will not give a shit.

Just keep on stomping by

2010-05-05T15:11:00.002-04:00

Yes you, Mr I'm-In-Charge-Around-Here-Even-If-My-Name-Isn't-On-The-Letterhead and Mr I-screwed-You-By-Telling-You-Not-To-Appeal-The-Grade-From-The-Professor-We-Later-Fired. I'm still not going anywhere. I'm still going to graduate. And I'm still a better person than either one of you...

Traveler who pissed me off:

2010-05-03T10:59:00.001-04:00

Traveler who pissed me off: USAir flt 1088 on 5/3 sitting in 21C who put his carryon bag overhead at seat 8d. Why? I dunno. Lazy asshole maybe? Clearly selfish.

Unfortunate product design

2010-04-29T11:42:00.002-04:00

Yep. Someone signed off on this as an actual product you can buy. Sigh.

Driver who pissed me off:

2010-04-29T09:18:00.001-04:00

Driver who pissed me off: OH tag DIN3229. Lane chng w/ no signal while speeding thru stoplight @ Cannon & Woody Hayes 9:02 today

Watching decision-making in slow motion

2010-04-19T15:07:00.001-04:00

Watching decision-making in slow motion causes me physical pain...

If you're traveling from Honolulu

2010-04-17T09:15:00.001-04:00

If you're traveling from Honolulu with priceless handmade pottery for exhibit, why would you pack it in a softside suitcase?

WTF?!

2010-04-17T06:31:00.002-04:00

Why on Earth would you try to carry-on SEVEN cans of soup to an airplane!?
Are you Jodi Foster or something?!

And if you have to turn to the person behind you and say "sorry I've got so much stuff" as you pile it all up for the baggage scanner, you don't belong in the freakin' 'expert traveler' black diamond lane. Why isn't someone enforcing this at CMH?

Bit o' Humor

2010-04-16T13:59:00.001-04:00

I saw this over at CSW:

US beer is much like making love in a canoe: f***ing close to water!

Back on the plane

2010-04-16T09:53:00.002-04:00

I'm crammed into a window seat next to the starting middle linebacker for the Amazon State University Titanesses. Seriously. She's 6'3" and at least 280 and folded in half to fit in here. I think her name is "Lola" and she looks like Dustin Hoffman's "Tootsie" rendered as a Macy's parade balloon.

This flight better go fast or my knee is going to cave in. But at least she doesn't stink like this morning's hippies.

All sorts of entertainment at the airport

2010-04-16T09:05:00.003-04:00

Lessee... there's the foul-smelling couple on the plane up here...

there was a guy in a total pimp-daddy suit on the plane with us, too, sitting way up front. When we got on the bus to get to the terminal, he sat in the very first seat by the baggage claim, where there was no room for his legs in front of him (he was a -large- dude) and sat in the seat sideways so his legs were in the aisle, blocking half of it for everyone else loading the bus.

inside the terminal, I grabbed a surprisingly good breakfast burrito from California Tortilla, and pointed out to the staff that it looked like someone had left a rolling carryon there when they left with their breakfast. Despite overhead warnings every 30s about not leaving your bags unattended, the staff was completely nonplussed. No attempt at all to contact security. So I walked around, trying to be the good Samaritan that I am, to notify someone from TSA about it. Ever tried to find a TSA person when you actually need one? Good luck. It's like they have a "person looking for us" detector that instantly notifies them that someone at another location possessing a top secret security clearance is in urgent need of a rectal probe at the screen points and they're all clustered somewhere you'll never find them.

Oh, then the guy who was in waaaaaaay too much of a hurry to get him and his family on the plane, and stood right in the door where the deplaning passengers were coming through, effectively cutting them down to 1/2 of a lane, because he couldn't wait to sprint down the jetway with his family to get to Disney to something.

And a public service announcement for the 4 black women left on Earth who don't yet know how airport security works:
IT'S POST-9-11. IT'S ALMOST 9 YEARS AFTER 9-11. SECURITY CHECKPOINTS ARE STUPID, DEMEANING, AND ANNOYING, BUT VERY, VERY PREDICTABLE. IF YOU WEAR 5-INCH LONG TEARDROP-SHAPED EARRINGS AND KNEE-HIGH ZIPPERED STILETTO BOOTS FOR A 6AM PLANE TRIP, EXPECT THE PEOPLE BEHIND YOU TO BE FRUSTRATED AND ANGRY AS YOU SPEND 10 MINUTES CLOGGING THE LINE DEALING WITH FOOTWEAR, AND 6 DIFFERENT TRIPS THROUGH THE METAL DETECTOR BEFORE YOU REALIZE THE WEIGHT HANGING FROM YOUR EARS IS NOT YOUR BRAIN LEAKING OUT.

Thank you.

The plane to DC

2010-04-16T07:58:00.000-04:00

I had the two most vile-smelling people sitting behind me. They smell like they showered in an outhouse and dried off against a live goat before jogging 4 miles to the airport. It almost made me gag when they walked on. They're not malicious... Just a pair of old country hippies who have no idea how putrid they smell.

McCain a Maverick?

2010-04-14T07:52:00.000-04:00

John McCain says "Don't call me a maverick "

John McCain — who built his political persona and his 2008 presidential campaign around the claim that he’s a “maverick” — told Newsweek recently: “I never considered myself a maverick.”

note the author & title...

I've seen 4 different cars

2010-04-05T21:45:00.001-04:00

I've seen 4 different cars tonight driving around w/o headlights on... Sigh.

The Taxman Taketh Away

2010-04-02T17:47:00.002-04:00

Great.

We owe $5k between state and federal taxes.

Salary deferral for the win, baby!

Fuck.

Dominion Cards

2010-03-23T09:59:00.000-04:00

!possession, !torturer, !mountebank, !colony, !saboteur, !black market, throne room, smithy, pearl diver, minion, worker's village, city, militia, quarry, talisman, steward

The Op-Ed That the Wake County School Board Doesn't Want You To Read

2010-03-20T09:02:00.000-04:00

It'll be very, very interesting to see if George F. Will's latest column at washingtonpost.com ever runs in the Raleigh N&O.

Key paragraph below in bold...

George F. Will - Democrats Miss An Obvious Lesson Plan For Deprived Children

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, like many liberals, seems afflicted by Sixties Nostalgia Syndrome, a longing for the high drama and moral clarity of the civil rights era. Speaking this month in Alabama at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march, Duncan vowed to unleash on public schools legions of lawyers wielding Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They supposedly will rectify what he considers civil rights violations, such as too many white students in high school Advanced Placement classes.

Duncan said that "the civil rights struggle" has become "more complex since the days of Selma." He seems not to understand that today's complexities of equity are complex because they are not about "rights." He says his rights enforcers -- 600 of them, with a $103 million budget -- will "remedy discrimination," such as students being "treated unequally" by policies that have what is called a "disparate impact" on certain groups. For example, Duncan asks: "How can we assure that low-income Latino and African-American students get the same access to a college-prep curriculum, AP classes and college as other students?" But "access" obscures the problem.

The Supreme Court has held that Title VI bans "disparate treatment," meaning intentional discrimination such as denying access to minorities, not policies that have a "disparate impact" on minorities. No policy denies minority or low-income students "access" to AP classes.

The pertinent lesson of the 1960s is the futility of casting today's problems of social class, as Duncan does, in the anachronistic categories of the civil rights era. In 1966, the seismic Coleman Report concluded: "Schools are remarkably similar in the way they relate to the achievement of their pupils when the socioeconomic background of the students is taken into account." (Emphasis added.)

Plainly put, the best predictor of a school's performance is family performance -- qualities of the families from which the students come. Subsequent research suggests that about 90 percent of the differences among the proficiency of schools can be explained by five factors: days absent from school, hours spent watching television, pages read for homework, the quantity and quality of reading matter in the home -- and the presence of two parents in the home.

If Duncan is looking for the high SAT scores that correlate with, and often are consequences of, AP courses, he should look for schools where educated parents are intensely involved with their children. The best predictor of SAT scores is family income, which generally correlates with family structure -- two parents in the home. Family structure is pertinent to the 9/91 factor -- between their births and their 19th birthdays, children spend 9 percent of their time in school and 91 percent elsewhere. For many children, elsewhere is not an intact family.

Government can do next to nothing about family structure, which is why it is pointless for Duncan to suggest that "access" is why "the door to college still does not swing open evenly for everyone." It will not so swing as long as 71.6 percent of African American children and 51.3 percent of Latino children are born to unmarried women. The political class flinches from talking about those numbers, preferring to take refuge behind talk about "rights." But those numbers go far to explain numbers that Duncan does cite: White high school graduates are twice as likely as black or Latino graduates to have taken AP calculus classes. The political system cannot candidly discuss, let alone cope with, the reasons why, for example, there are few if any high-performing inner-city school systems.

Duncan seems to fancy himself an Earl Warren, expanding civil rights. Actually, he resembles Mrs. Jellyby.

While his lawyers seek evidence of displeasing enrollments in AP courses, he is complicit in strangling the scholarship program that enables 1,300 District of Columbia low-income minority students to escape from the District's execrable schools. Like Mrs. Jellyby in Dickens' "Bleak House," who was indifferent to her chaotic family while fretting about conditions in distant Borrioboola-Gha, Duncan practices what Dickens called "telescopic philanthropy." Sensitive about supposed injustices in distant AP classes, Duncan is worse than merely indifferent to children within sight of his office at the foot of Capitol Hill.

No segregationist politician is blocking schoolhouse doors against D.C. children; congressional Democrats are. Until Duncan and the talkative president he serves speak against the congressional Democrats who are strangling the District's Opportunity Scholarship Program, he should spare us the exhibitionism of explaining problems of social class in the '60s vocabulary of civil rights violations.

georgewill@washpost.com

Note that academic achievement has SQUAT to do with the number of kids attending who get free/reduced-price lunches.

Robert Samuelson talks sense about health insurance reform and the President

2010-03-16T14:34:00.002-04:00

By ROBERT J. SAMUELSON

"What we need from the next president is somebody who will not just tell you what they think you want to hear but will tell you what you need to hear."

- Barack Obama, Feb. 27, 2008

One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving "universal health coverage." The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.

There's a parallel here: housing. Most Americans favor homeownership, but uncritical pro-homeownership policies (lax lending standards, puny down payments, hefty housing subsidies) helped cause the financial crisis. The same thing is happening with health care. The appeal of universal insurance - who, by the way, wants to be uninsured? - justifies half-truths and dubious policies. That the process is repeating itself suggests that our political leaders don't learn even from proximate calamities.

How often, for example, have you heard the emergency-room argument? The uninsured, it's said, use emergency rooms for primary care. That's expensive and ineffective. Once they're insured, they'll have regular doctors. Care will improve; costs will decline. Everyone wins. Great argument. Unfortunately, it's untrue.

A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the insured accounted for 83 percent of emergency room visits, reflecting their share of the population. After Massachusetts adopted universal insurance, emergency room use remained higher than the national average, reports an Urban Institute study. More than two-fifths of visits represented non-emergencies. Adult respondents to a survey said it was "more convenient" to go to the emergency room or they couldn't "get (a doctor's) appointment as soon as needed." If universal coverage makes appointments harder to get, emergency room use may increase.

You probably think that insuring the uninsured will dramatically improve the nation's health. The uninsured don't get care or don't get it soon enough. With insurance, they won't be shortchanged; they'll be healthier. Simple.

Think again. I've written before that expanding health insurance would result, at best, in modest health gains. Studies of insurance's effects on health are hard to perform. Some find benefits; others don't. Medicare's introduction in 1966 produced no reduction in mortality; some studies of extensions of Medicaid for children didn't find gains. Economics writer Megan McArdle of The Atlantic examined the literature and emerged skeptical. Claims that the uninsured suffer tens of thousands of premature deaths are "open to question." Conceivably, the "lack of health insurance has no more impact on your health than lack of flood insurance," she writes.

How could this be? No one knows, but possible explanations include: (a) many uninsured are fairly healthy - about two-fifths are between 18 and 34; (b) some are too sick to be helped or have problems rooted in personal behaviors - smoking, diet, drinking or drug abuse; and (c) the uninsured already receive about 50 percent to 70 percent of the care of the insured from hospitals, clinics and doctors, estimates the Congressional Budget Office.

Though it seems compelling, covering the uninsured is not the health care system's major problem. The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets. Obama claims his proposal checks spending. Just the opposite. When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises. By the government's latest forecast, health spending goes from 17 percent of the economy in 2009 to 19 percent in 2019. Health "reform" would likely increase that.

Unless we change the fee-for-service system, costs will remain hard to control because providers are paid more for doing more. Obama could have attempted that by proposing health care vouchers (limited amounts to be spent on insurance), which would force a restructuring of delivery systems to compete on quality and cost. Doctors, hospitals and drug companies would have to reorganize care. Obama refrained from that fight and instead cast insurance companies as the villains.

He's telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to know. Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama's plan evades health care's major problems and would worsen the budget outlook. It's a big new spending program when government hasn't paid for the spending programs it already has.

"If not now, when? If not us, who?" Obama asks. The answer is: It's not now, and it's not "us." Pass or not, Obama's proposal is the illusion of "reform," not the real thing.

Driver who pissed me off:

2010-03-16T14:04:00.004-04:00

Driver who pissed me off: silver Vue, NC tag YWW-3289. 75 on beltline while chucking cigarettes out the window like the world's his ashtray...

Leonard Pitts Assumes Racism Where It Isn't

2010-03-05T16:08:00.000-05:00

Leonard Pitts makes a huge assumption here. Are there racist elements in the Tea Partiers? Probably... But is that what they're all pissed about? Not even close. I'm not a Tea Partier, but I understand their frustration and anger.

Pitts: What's brewing, tea or racism? - Editorial Columns - TheState.com

Pitts: What's Brewing, Tea Or Racism? - Editorial Columns

A few words on the meaning of tea.

They are occasioned by a recent commentary from Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. The commentary - you can find it on YouTube - scores the tea party movement as the outcry of people who haven't yet made peace with the fact that their president is black.

Everything else, said Olbermann, is euphemism. Taxes? Socialism? Budget deficit? No, he argued, when you strip away the pretenses and rationalizations, "it's still racism," and they hate the president only because he is black.

One is reminded of the 2008 campaign in which many of Barack Obama's opponents insisted people only supported him because he was black.

It was an offensive claim, in that it assumed black was black was black and that people were so imbecilic that skin color - alone and of itself - was sufficient to win their votes. As if you could sub in rapper Flavor Flav, and they would not care.

The truth, it always seemed to me, was more nuanced. People liked Obama's policies, his eloquence and his fierce intelligence, and the fact that he was black, that his election would turn history on its ear, was a desirable bonus, but only that - icing on the cake, but not the cake itself.

I submit that a rough inverse of that dynamic now helps define the tea party movement.

Ask yourself: Would we even be having this discussion if Condoleezza Rice were president? If Rice, Republican stalwart, conservative icon and black woman were chief executive, would the first pot of tea ever have been brewed?

One suspects the average tea party participant would tell you emphatically, "no," and that this "no" serves as his personal shield against charges of racism. How can I be racist, he would demand, when I know in my heart that I would've supported Condi to the max?

If you concede him that, then you have to ask yourself what it does to Olbermann's contention that racism is the whole raison d'etre of the movement.

The answer leads us back again to nuance, albeit in mirror image. The tea party people distrust Obama's policies, his eloquence, his fierce intelligence, and the fact that he is black then becomes the final straw, the difference maker and deal breaker. To put that another way: I doubt most of the tea partiers hate Obama strictly because he is black, but it sure doesn't help.

My point is not that the argument is wrong but, rather, that it is incomplete.

Yes, race is obviously a component, and a major component at that, of the reaction against the president. The recurring use of racist imagery and language, the attendance at tea party events of a racist group such as the so-called Council of Conservative Citizens, settles that definitively.

But ultimately, people seem moved by something even bigger than race. This is race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, culture, and the fact that those who have always been on the right side, the power-wielding side, of one or more of those equations, now face the realization that their days of dominance are numbered.

There is a poignancy to their responsive fury, because one senses that the nether side of it is a choking fear. We are witness to the birth cries of a new America, and for every one of us who embraces and celebrates that, who looks forward to the opportunity and inclusiveness it promises, there is another who grapples with a crippling sense of dislocation and loss, who wonders who and what she will be in the nation now being born.

One hopes they will find answers that satisfy them, because the change they fear will not be turned back. No one ever volunteers to return to the rear of the bus.

So for all the frustration the tea party movement engenders among the rest of us, one also feels a certain pity for people like the woman last year who cried, plaintively, that she wanted her country back.

My feedback to Leonard Pitts...

"So for all the frustration the tea party movement engenders among the rest of us, one also feels a certain pity for people like the woman last year who cried, plaintively, that she wanted her country back."

The country I want back is one in which the government has no ownership of private enterprise.
The country I want back is one in which the government respects private property rights and doesn't take private property for 'public' good by handing it to commercial investors.
The country I want back is one in which the government does not discard and disregard contracts for their own convenience.
The country I want back is one in which the government does not take private enterprise and hand a majority stake of it to the ruling parties campaign contributors, especially when their behavior directly contributed to that enterprise's financial woes.
The country I want back is one in which the government does not force me to buy something I might choose not to.
The country I want back is one in which the government doesn't ram thru shotgun weddings between banks to keep bad ones afloat.
The country I want back is one in which the government doesn't selectively target unpopular recipients of government aid with banana-republic taxes because newspaper letter-writers are "outraged".

And you'll notice half of these problems were from the last administration...

2010-03-04T11:45:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to my sweetie!

Selfishness

2010-03-02T14:28:00.003-05:00

So here's something interesting about my office...

About 6 weeks ago, I asked about the emptying of the recycle bins that are near the printers. Apparently they need to be taken to the *big* recycle bin in the back and dumped, since that's where the actual recycling company picks up. We are responsible for dumping them in the back ourselves.
Since that conversation, in front of a company meeting attended by everyone. The recycle bin right by my pod of desks has been dumped at least twice by me, and once by someone else.
The one at the front of the building? Rapidly stacking up over 2 feet above capacity. I'm curious to see just how long it takes before one of them shows *any* pride in this place at all and wants it to look nice because they care about where they work and want it to be nicer than it currently is, in part thanks to their neglect.

Socialism

2010-03-01T14:54:00.001-05:00

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

—Margaret Thatcher

Bill Gates lets loose a "buh-zinga"

2010-02-17T07:35:00.001-05:00

"In China, when you're one-in-a-million, there are 1,300 other people just like you."
-- Bill Gates

Who Dat?!

2010-02-08T07:29:00.000-05:00

Saints win 1st NFL title by beating Colts 31-17

The New Orleans Saints turned the Super Bowl's postgame celebration into something out of the French Quarter.
From the trophy podium on the field, Drew Brees blew kisses and caught confetti raining down as Dr. John and Professor Longhair blared from the stadium speakers. Sean Payton hung over the railing clapping and shouting down to the crowd as if he were rolling on a Mardi Gras float, then waved a newspaper with the banner headline "WORLD CHAMPS."
Who are the champions? The New Orleans Saints, dat's who.
The Saints overcame an early 10-point deficit, pulled off a risky onside kick and won their first NFL title by beating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 Sunday night. Brees tied a Super Bowl record for completions and was voted the game's MVP, while the Saints held Peyton Manning to a single score in the final three quarters, intercepting him for a touchdown that sealed the victory.
New Orleans knows how to celebrate, but for the beleaguered city and its long-bedraggled NFL franchise, the championship touched off a new kind of joy.

Raleigh needs someone who can manage the roads

2010-02-03T06:55:00.002-05:00

So the city of Raleigh bought rock salt. Yip-fucking-eee. They just didn't use it on the day they should have to maximize effect.

Friday - starts snowing

Saturday - 2-4 inches of snow in town, frozen rain/sleet falling most of the day, no one was out clearing roads but no one was out traveling either (a few nut jobs made it to some non-canceled sports events). End result is 1-3 inches of snow on top of an inch or so of ice in most places (instead of ice on top like you usually find it)

Sunday - Sun's out, temps above freezing, streets starting to thaw and ice loosened enough to scrape the asphalt clear and NOT ONE FUCKING PLOW TRUCK ON THE ROAD. So instead of scraping at least the main roads through town in preparation of the week, the partially-thawed snow on top of the ice re-froze, and instead of clearing anything, we've not got 2-4 inches of ice everywhere. For perspective, parts of my driveway where I was breaking/clearing ice by hand aren't just ice-free, but DRY by the end of the day after the sun was able to hit it.

Monday - School canceled because the roads aren't clear. Got it. Even if the fuckers in the plow trucks had made it out, too many secondary/tertiary roads need clearing. Salt/plow trucks finally on the road, but they're dropping salt on 3 inches of ice. In other words, their fucking laziness on Sunday results in 5-6 tons of wasted fucking salt on Monday. By the end of the day, only about half of the MAIN roads are cleared, and nothing on the secondary roads.

Tuesday - School canceled again as salt fails to melt fuck all. Sort-of kind-of making a half-assed effort at finishing clearing the main roads, but since a freezing rain is falling things are icing back over. Again, I can't stress enough... the fucking ice is left over from the re-freeze Sunday night that could've been cleared DAYS ago.

Today - Fucking school canceled again because the parking lots are still frozen over. "Why are they frozen over?" you ask... well I'll tell you... It's because the city is running low on fucking salt! Seems the 5 tons they dropped on Monday were useless (duh!) and the 5 tons they dropped on Tuesday didn't work either, so now that we're about to have a 50 degree day, there's no salt to add to the roads to make sure they don't refreeze on Friday/Saturday when the next round of rain/snow is coming.

AAARGH! FUCKTARDS! It should be legal to shoot them. They should have a fucktard-hunting season so we can thin them out. You should be allowed to fire the lazy fucktards that have unnecessarily shut down a whole fucking city for basic incompetence.

Grammy Song of the Year a blatant rip-off for 3-year-old tune

2010-02-01T06:57:00.002-05:00

(links are to full lyrics listings)

Taylor Swift's song of the year from 2009

But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers
Dreaming bout the day when you wake up and find
That what you're lookin for has been here the whole time

If you could see that I'm the one who understands you
Been here all along so why can't you see?
You belong with me
You belong with me

Saving Jane's minor hit "The Girl Next Door" from 2006

She is the prom queen I'm in the marching band
She is a cheerleader I'm sitting in the stands
She gets the top bunk I'm sleeping on the floor
She's Miss America and I'm just the girl next door

Oh yeah, and there was a country remix of Girl Next Door released in 2006, too. Would be nice if Taylor Swift would at least acknowledge she ripped off someone else's song...

First Appearance of Baby G

2010-01-25T18:01:00.000-05:00

Something all phones should have...

2010-01-25T11:37:00.002-05:00

Why is it that cell phones have the ability to 'backspace' when you're dialing a phone number, but landlines don't? Can someone please, please figure out a way to implement this on 'real' phones so you're not hanging up and re-dialing b/c you fat-fingered the last button of a 10-digit phone number...

August

2010-01-20T16:34:00.002-05:00

Another new Guillory... arriving in August to a theater near you :)

Yay! We're just like our hero, Putin!

2010-01-16T07:56:00.001-05:00

Obama pitches bank tax to recover bailout costs - Yahoo! News

President Barack Obama on Saturday pitched his proposed tax on banks to recover the cost of bailing them out during the financial crisis, saying if they can afford billions more in bonuses, they can pay back the taxpayers, too.
The banks and Republican lawmakers oppose the tax, which Obama announced this week.
"We're going to pass this fee into law," the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Boy, I love narrowly-targeted penalty 'taxes' that wield the power of government for the purpose of targeting political enemies or currying public favor. Sniff. Reminds me of the time our boys took down Yukos with some well-aimed and arbitrary taxes that resulted in a show trial for tax evasion and the CEO in jail. Just like old times.

Oh wait, that wasn't the US? That was, what?! Russia?! No way! Man, are we fucked.

Soccerishness

2010-01-13T07:19:00.001-05:00

We played a great game on Monday night, beating a team we normally never beat. Their keeper totally bailed them out, too, and without him we might've won by 6 instead of 1. We were up by 3 and then the defense started to break down and we were scrambling. In any event, it's always good to win, but especially good to win one you weren't expecting.

Man vs Blimp

2010-01-04T15:40:00.000-05:00

Man vs Blimp

Very funny. Go enjoy.

Must be his lungs

2009-12-31T10:35:00.001-05:00

because we know he doesn't have a heart...

Rush Limbaugh hospitalized with chest pains - Celebrities- msnbc.com

Conservative U.S. radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was resting comfortably at a hospital in Hawaii after suffering chest pains, his Web site said.

History vs Religion

2009-12-23T08:44:00.001-05:00

OK, color me stupid, but why in the world is the Catholic Church really worried about the outcry from Jewish groups about whether or not to bestow Sainthood on a former Pope?

Vatican defends move on World War II-era pope - Yahoo! News

The Vatican sought Wednesday to quell its latest public dispute with Jewish groups, saying the pope's decision to move Pope Pius XII closer to sainthood isn't an act of hostility against those who say he didn't sufficiently denounce the Holocaust.
In what has now become a routine effort at fence-mending, the Vatican issued a statement saying the German-born Benedict feels great respect for and friendship toward Jews — a sentiment he hopes to reinforce during his first visit to Rome's synagogue next month.
Benedict sparked renewed outrage among some Jewish groups on Saturday by signing a decree on Pius' heroic virtues, paving the way for him to be beatified once a miracle attributed to his intercession is confirmed.
Some Jews and historians have argued Pius should have done more to prevent the deaths of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.

How to fix RR crossings? Or should we fix the idiots instead?

2009-12-19T08:43:00.001-05:00

Roomier crossings - Letters - NewsObserver.com

The terrible tragedy that befell the mother of two young boys in Durham at a railroad crossing should be a rallying cry to the county and state to provide more safety at crossings. The news media can help by reminding us that this occurrence is not isolate and giving us local and statewide history on the subject. The media can also help by publicizing safety procedures on traversing a railroad crossing and on what to do if you get stuck in one.

Traffic engineers talk about waiting for federal money to build an overpass or underpass. Instead, I propose a change for 1/20th the cost that would increase the margin of safety now: Simply reposition the four crossing barriers outward away from the tracks so that if you were caught in your vehicle between the barriers, you could back up or move forward off the tracks because enough room would be available between the tracks and the barriers.

Here's a thought - DON'T DRIVE ONTO THE TRACKS UNLESS YOU KNOW YOU CAN EXIT THE OTHER SIDE!
Why the f*&$ would you ever stop on the tracks?!

Brant crashes the N&O

2009-12-17T07:49:00.001-05:00

Resident says helicopter flew too low

Many ambitious folks woke up early by choice Nov. 27 to take advantage of Black Friday bargains at local stores.

Brant Guillory and his wife were not among them.

"We were sleeping in," said Guillory, who lives on North Hills Drive near Crabtree Valley Mall.

But his family's slumber was interrupted about 6:50 a.m. when a WTVD-TV (ABC 11) news helicopter hovered over his neighborhood to record the shopping craze at the mall. The chopper angered other neighbors, too, Guillory said, and he thinks it was flying too low over a residential neighborhood.

John Idler, president and general manager of ABC 11, confirmed that the chopper was in the Crabtree area for 15 to 20 minutes on the morning of Black Friday. He said its altitude was within what the station considers a proper range.

The helicopter typically stays at 1,300 to 1,500 feet, Idler said, and it doesn't fly or hover below 750 feet. "That was the case that morning," he said.

The pilot changed location three or four times so nearby residents wouldn't have to deal with the noise for too long, Idler added.

Guillory, an Army veteran who said he's been on helicopters several times, thinks the TV chopper was actually flying below 500 feet.

The Federal Aviation Administration regulates all aircraft, including news helicopters. Usually, pilots for news choppers agree not to fly below 1,500 feet, said Kathleen Bergen, communications manager for the FAA's Atlanta office. But choppers are allowed to go lower as long as conditions are safe, she said.

The FAA says no aircraft can fly below 1,000 feet over congested areas and 500 feet over non-congested areas. Again, choppers can go lower if it's safe, Bergen said.

Idler said his station gets about 10 complaints a year about helicopter noise. "We're very careful over neighborhoods," he said.

Idler said he wouldn't be surprised if the ABC chopper flies above the Crabtree area more than some other neighborhoods. Traffic jams are common there.

If several residents in a neighborhood complained, Idler said, the station likely would let the pilot know. But it wouldn't necessarily mean the helicopter would avoid the area, he said.

Guillory, who has lived in his neighborhood about a year and a half, said he can recall at least two other times he was troubled by a news helicopter near his home. "My biggest problem is, I don't know who to complain to," he said.

On Black Friday, Guillory said, he sent three e-mails to ABC 11, and he admitted he used profanity in one message. He hadn't heard back as of late last week. Idler said his station gives complaints filled with profanity a lower priority.

The station didn't get any other complaints on Black Friday, he said.

Guillory said he also contacted the FAA office in Greensboro. A representative told him about helicopters' guidelines, he said.

If people suspect an aircraft is flying too low, they should contact the FAA, Bergen said.

The FAA will investigate complaints, she said, but investigators need to know the aircraft's identification number, which is printed on the aircraft. At the very least, she said, they need to know what company the aircraft is affiliated with.

Minimum sanctions for flying too low could include warning letters to pilots, Bergen said. But the FAA would need evidence.

The FAA got no complaints about low-flying aircraft in the Raleigh area on Black Friday, Bergen said.

Guillory said he wishes news choppers would linger less if they must be over his neighborhood. And he'd prefer they not show up on days his 6-year-old doesn't have to get up for school. "Unless you're the police looking for an escaped fugitive," he said.

Sarah Nagem is filling in for Troubleshooter LeahFriedman, who is on maternity leave.

Here are the comments:

walshaw wrote on December, 5 9:29 AM:
Death of common sense again. Frankly, there's really nothing newsworthy in a crowd gathered for Black Friday shopping - just goes to show you how degraded and insensible the American press has gotten - and how self-indulgent they have become while hiding behind their "free press" protections. This kind of stupidity is what got the U.S. in the mess we are in now - everyone wants to be an expert, but no one wants to take any personal responsibility for one's selfish actions. A good long organized boycott of this TV channel's news programs would fix this problem in a heartbeat - waiting for the FAA to actually respond to a citizen complaint could take years, as they can't even investigate air crashes in a timely manner. Broken system - death of common sense - self-aggrandizement and failure to know what is really important to those of us out there in the world who have to get up and do real work every day.

Annoyed_Commenter wrote on December, 5 7:45 PM:
Bottom line is this - it doesn't matter how high/low the helicopter is flying if it's waking people up before 7am on a holiday. Anyone who cares about the line outside Best Buy at 7am is already at Best Buy by 7am.

aquaman4life68 wrote on December, 5 8:14 PM:
I couldn't agree with you more!!! This is just plain stupid. This surely shows what little news that the news stations actually care about reporting...
I wonder who knew about black friday? Hmmm.. EVERYONE
I wonder who knew about the sales...hmmmmm EVERYONE
I wonder who knew there were going to be long lines early .....hmmmmm EVERYONE
I wonder who knew the parking lots were going to be jammed packed..hmmmmm EVERYONE
I wonder if there's going to be future Black Fridays...hmmmm....as long as we have Thankgsgiving we will have a Black Friday the day after it.
SEE...NOTHING NEW to report!!
I'm glad i don't liver near the malls....because this is down right STUPID. And even if they want to fly over adn report....do it...BUT do you you need to hover over the area 30 minutes or more...I think ONE SHOT will do it for folks.

dougdeep wrote on December, 5 9:08 PM:
I put up with the helicopters buzzing me on their way to and from Rex hospital. They come in real low! Maybe I should complain.

bonexx wrote on December, 6 1:11 AM:
Wow, its amazing what people can find to complain about. I live next to the Beltline, but its part of urban living and I accept that. My friends bought out in North Raleigh and live under the RDU flightpath. They accept that. I sometimes get woken up by the dumpster guy over at North Hills and I....roll over and go back to sleep. I can't believe this guy got so wound up as to send 3 emails to the TV station. America is now officially a nation of NIMBY crybabies.

And on a completely different topic, when is the city council going to pass a law requiring deer in the city limits to pick up their own poopie? It's getting out of hand!

Annoyed_Commenter wrote on December, 6 8:31 AM:
Bonexx: there's a difference between buying a house under the RDU flight path (which hasn't changed in 25+ years) or buying a house near the hospital (where you *know* helicopters fly) and having a helicopter parked on your roof to cover a non-story just so the news can show off that they have one. If there's a *legit* news story there - say a bomb went off outside Best Buy while everyone was lined up - then yeah, put a bird in the air to cover it. But covering a line outside a store on a say you *expect* a line outside the store? Big f'n deal!

Bitch!

2009-12-12T14:39:00.001-05:00

BBC News - US woman of 98 accused of choking roommate aged 100

A Massachusetts jury has charged a woman of 98 with suffocating her 100-year-old nursing home roommate after complaining of too many visitors.
Police in Dartmouth initially believed Elizabeth Barrow had committed suicide but eventually recommended a murder charge against Laura Lundquist.
A judge ordered Ms Lundquist to be placed in a local hospital to assess her fitness to stand trial.
The women had been sharing a room for about a year when the death occurred.
Ms Barrow was found with a plastic bag tied around her head in her bed at the Brandon Woods nursing home on 24 September.

Hey - A solution!

2009-12-10T07:03:00.001-05:00

Promotion day arrives for white Conn. firefighters - Yahoo! News

A group of white firefighters who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to sanction their promotions over black colleagues are receiving their new badges Thursday in a ceremony that provides symbolic recognition of their victory.
The high court ruled in June that New Haven officials violated white firefighters' civil rights when they threw out 2003 test results in which too few minorities did well.
The case became an issue in confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled against the white firefighters when she served on a federal appeals court.
Fourteen firefighters who sued are being promoted Thursday to lieutenant and captain. Another 10 firefighters, including four minorities, who took the 2003 tests but were not plaintiffs in the court case also will be promoted.

Yeah, that's right - they can use the Supreme Court to try to make the case that they should have unqualified minority candidates promoted in positions of increasing responsibility ahead of more highly-qualified non-minority candidates, especially in jobs that involve saving people's lives!

Solutions?

2009-12-10T07:01:00.001-05:00

Black lawmakers grow impatient with White House - Yahoo! News

Black lawmakers who have held their tongues during most of President Barack Obama's first year in office are stepping up their demands that the nation's first black president do more for minority communities hit hardest by the recession.

yeah, I dunno - maybe they can institute some kind of cool minority hiring preferences for fat government contracts, or redraw Congressional district lines to ensure that black candidates get elected, or maybe take the highest-profile sports league in the nation and force them to interview and hire black candidates for coaching gigs... I mean, there's got to be something they can do, isn't there?

Haven't been great add adding things here...

2009-12-09T07:32:00.002-05:00

I've been commuting to/from Fort Bragg for work this week, and that cuts into the time I've got to hop online, plus limited access down there... ugh.

First reactions to 2010 World Cup Draw

2009-12-05T07:33:00.003-05:00

Yes, I'm a soccer nut who wants to watch as much of the World Cup as I can.

My picks for who gets out of which group? In bold...

Group A South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France - SA becomes first host to not advance. Tho I'd love to see them over Mexico . If Mexico or France falter, look for Uruguay to go before SA.

Group B Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece - Upset city. Nigeria gets very frustrated when they can't run free; Greece will get under their skin.

Group C England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia - All it takes is a draw v England and the US has a chance to nick the group.

Group D Germany, Australia, Ghana, Serbia - Neven "the Traitor" Subotic goes home early. Waah.

Group E Holland, Japan, Cameroon, Denmark - Dutch will dominate the group with a +7 goal differential and lose in the first knockout game. Why? They do it all the time.

Group F Italy, New Zealand, Paraguay, Slovakia - Kiwis are just happy to be here; Paraguay is a rugged team that'll push people around and win ugly.

Group G Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal - Portugal almost didn't make it, having to get in by playoff in a group dominated by Denmark. Ivorians will win with flair and style. North Korea looks worse than US did in '98.

Group H Spain, Honduras, Chile, Switzerland - CONCACAF puts 3 teams in knockout rounds with Honduras playing a bunch of EPL veterans and riding them to a 2 wins. Jonathan Bornstein gets free vacations for life in Honduras.

Not going to try to pick the next rounds, b/c I don't have the matchups in front of me. GO U-S-A!

Great perspective from Friedman about Afghanistan

2009-12-05T07:17:00.001-05:00

The State | 12/03/2009 | Friedman: What I believe about Afghanistan: "Friedman: What I believe about Afghanistan"

Friedman: What I believe about Afghanistan
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The New York Times
Let me start with the bottom line and then tell you how I got there: I can't agree with President Barack Obama's decision to escalate in Afghanistan. I'd prefer a minimalist approach, working with tribal leaders the way we did to overthrow the Taliban regime in the first place. Given our need for nation-building at home right now, I am ready to live with a little less security and a little-less-perfect Afghanistan.

I recognize that there are legitimate arguments on the other side. At a lunch on Tuesday for opinion writers, the president lucidly argued that opting for a surge now to help Afghans rebuild their army and state into something decent - to win the allegiance of the Afghan people - offered the only hope of creating an "inflection point," a game changer, to bring long-term stability to that region. May it be so. What makes me wary about this plan is how many moving parts there are - Afghans, Pakistanis and NATO allies all have to behave forever differently for this to work.

But here is the broader context in which I assess all this: My own foreign policy thinking since 9/11 has been based on four pillars:

1.The Warren Buffett principle: Everything I've ever gotten in life is largely due to the fact that I was born in this country, America, at this time with these opportunities for its citizens. It is the primary obligation of our generation to turn over a similar America to our kids.

2.Many big bad things happen in the world without America, but not a lot of big good things. If we become weak and enfeebled by economic decline and debt, as we slowly are, America may not be able to play its historic stabilizing role in the world. If you didn't like a world of too-strong-America, you will really not like a world of too-weak-America - where China, Russia and Iran set more of the rules.

3.The context within which people live their lives shapes everything - from their political outlook to their religious one. The reason there are so many frustrated and angry people in the Arab-Muslim world, lashing out first at their own governments and secondarily at us - and volunteering for "martyrdom" - is because of the context within which they live their lives. That was best summarized by the U.N.'s Arab Human Development reports as a context dominated by three deficits: a deficit of freedom, a deficit of education and a deficit of women's empowerment. The reason India, with the world's second-largest population of Muslims, has a thriving Muslim minority (albeit with grievances but with no prisoners in Guantanamo Bay) is because of the context of pluralism and democracy it has built at home.

4.One of the main reasons the Arab-Muslim world has been so resistant to internally driven political reform is because vast oil reserves allow its regimes to become permanently ensconced in power, by just capturing the oil tap, and then using the money to fund vast security and intelligence networks that quash any popular movement. Look at Iran.

Hence, post-9/11 I advocated that our politicians find sufficient courage to hike gasoline taxes and seriously commit ourselves to developing alternatives to oil. Economists agree that this would ultimately bring down the global price, and slowly deprive these regimes of the sole funding source that allows them to maintain their authoritarian societies. People do not change when we tell them they should; they change when their context tells them they must.

To me, the most important reason for the Iraq war was never WMD. It was to see if we could partner with Iraqis to help them build something that does not exist in the modern Arab world: a state, a context, where the constituent communities - Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds - write their own social contract for how to live together without an iron fist from above. Iraq has proved staggeringly expensive and hugely painful. The mistakes we made should humble anyone about nation-building in Afghanistan. It does me.

Still, the Iraq war may give birth to something important - if Iraqis can find that self-sustaining formula to live together. Alas, that is still in doubt. If they can, the model would have a huge impact on the Arab world. Baghdad is a great Arab capital. If Iraqis fail, it's religious strife, economic decline and authoritarianism as far as the eye can see - the witch's brew that spawns terrorists.

Iraq was about "the war on terrorism." The Afghanistan invasion, for me, was about the "war on terrorists." To me, it was about getting bin Laden and depriving al- Qaida of a sanctuary - period. I never thought we could make Afghanistan into Norway - and even if we did, it would not resonate beyond its borders the way Iraq might.

To now make Afghanistan part of the "war on terrorism" - i.e., another nation-building project - is not crazy. It is just too expensive, when balanced against our needs for nation-building in America, so that we will have the strength to play our broader global role. Hence, my desire to keep our presence in Afghanistan limited. That is what I believe. That is why I believe it.

Driver who pissed me off:

2009-12-03T18:29:00.002-05:00

Silver Passat
NC tag XZR-5679
Crossed 2 lanes thru left turn at intersection of North Hills & Lead Mine, and kept crossing them after multiple honkings of the horn.

Follow-up to the FAA complaint

2009-12-01T05:21:00.001-05:00

I've actually got the FAA and the local newspaper contacting me about the complaints over that damned helicopter.

My email to the FAA

2009-11-29T15:30:00.002-05:00

Hello,

I'm trying to find out the best solution to low-flying news aircraft. A local news station in Raleigh, NC (ABC 11, WTVD) has repeatedly placed a low-hovering helicopter (below 500ft) over a residential area.

This aircraft is there to provide camera shots of a major highway interchange and the largest of the local shopping malls. However, the helicopter goes into a low hover over the neighborhood before 7am, to provide fewer than 30s worth of camera coverage to the morning news. In the meantime, the helicopter is flying so low that it's disturbing the residents, waking folks early.

One of these incidents occurred on the Friday after Thanksgiving, when many folks are intentionally sleeping in to avoid the shopping insanity at the mall. The last thing we needed was a helicopter waking us at 650am to provide a 'traffic' report to the mall. Pretty much anyone who cared what the traffic was like at the mall was already at the mall.

What is the best solution for stopping these intrusive disturbances? This is not a flight necessary for military maneuvers, nor was is a pre-existing flight route with a neighborhood built under it. This is a TV station showing off the fact that they have a news helicopter with no regard to the level of disturbance they inflict on the local residents.

Who's your vote for the MLB Hall of Fame?

2009-11-29T08:29:00.001-05:00

Alomar, Martinez, Larkin & McGriff on Hall ballot - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

Roberto Alomar is among 15 first-time candidates of this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, joining holdovers Mark McGwire, Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven.

Edgar Martinez, Barry Larkin and Fred McGriff also are new to the ballot this year. There are 26 candidates, three more than last year when Rickey Henderson was elected in his initial appearance and Jim Rice made it on his 15th and final try. Dawon fell 44 votes shy of the 75 percent needed and Blyleven was 67 short.

Also on the ballot for the first time are Kevin Appier, Ellis Burks, Andres Galarraga, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, Ray Lankford, Shane Reynolds, David Segui, Robin Ventura and Todd Zeile.

Other holdovers on the list announced Friday include Harold Baines, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Tim Raines, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell.

My vote, if I had one?
Roberto Alomar
Bert Blyleven
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Don Mattingly
Mark McGwire
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Tim Raines
Lee Smith
Alan Trammell

Ah yes, the stray commas...

2009-11-29T08:09:00.001-05:00

CNN Political Ticker: Pres. Obama cheers on brother-in-law at basketball game

Robinson, who coaches the Oregon State Beavers, was cheered on by the President, who snacked on popcorn, the First Lady, Sasha, Malia and the girls’ grandmother Marian Robinson.

Is it just me, or would you be full after snacking on the First Lady, your daughters, and mother-in-law? Oh, and popcorn.

Reason number 547586 that Africa isn't worth saving

2009-11-29T07:59:00.001-05:00

Report: Scores of albinos in hiding after attacks - CNN.com

As many as 10,000 albinos are in hiding in east Africa over fears that they will be dismembered and their body parts sold to witchdoctors, the Red Cross said in a recent report.
The killings of albinos in Burundi and Tanzania, who are targeted because their body parts are believed to have special powers, have sparked fears among the population in the two countries, the report said.
Body parts of albinos are sought in some regions of Africa because they are believed to bring wealth and good luck. Attackers chop off limbs and pluck out organs to sell to dealers, who in turn sell them to witchdoctors.
Scores of albinos have fled to Tanzanian schools for the disabled or in emergency shelters set up by police in Burundi to avoid attacks, according to the report.
"Thousands more albinos across a huge swathe of countryside ... are unable to move freely to trade, study or cultivate fields for fear of albino hunters," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
Tanzanian government officials have said they are mobilizing police to help the embattled population, but admit it is hard to quell the attacks.
Most happen in rural areas, where there is not enough police presence, according to Lucca Haule, assistant commissioner of police.
"We don't have the resources in those places ... it is not easy, but we are trying to map out locations where albinos live so that we can better protect them," he told CNN earlier this month.
In early November, a court sentenced four people to death in northern Tanzania for killing an albino man and selling his body parts. So far, seven people have been sentenced to death for the killing of more than 50 Tanzanian albinos, including children, in the past two years, Haule said. Dozens more are awaiting trial.

Yesterday's entertainment

2009-11-28T08:15:00.002-05:00

John and Steve and a table of dice:

Counterattack at Salyan - Liveblogging today's Warfighter game - ConsimWorld

Liveblogging Warfighter game 2 - ConsimWorld

Black Friday madness

2009-11-27T07:14:00.003-05:00

No, no, not the stores, the fucking ABC 11 News helicopter that was hovering over the neighborhood at 300ft for 20 minutes before 7am on a non-school holiday. Why? To get an exterior shot of Crabtree Valley Mall. Talk about fucking stupid. Anyone who gives a crap about the traffic at the mall at 7am is already at the fucking mall!

The damn chopper woke my wife up and annoyed the shit out of an entire neighborhood on a morning when most people sleep in.

The Parade

2009-11-26T09:31:00.004-05:00

Yep, we're watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I don't mind the musical numbers, but I'm wish it was a bit more holiday sentiment and less NBC TV infomercial. They've got everyone but Leno on there, and that's probably because he's asleep.

The "national high school band" or somesuch is out there right now, and the dancing girls in the middle of the formation are decked out in Macy's logos that make them look like the Star-Bellied Sneetches from Dr Seuss.

Too much to do

2009-11-25T07:57:00.000-05:00

Being a dad

Getting ready for holidays

IRB for dissertation & finish dissertation proposal

Coordinate it with ROTC dets

Turkey Day

work

ugh!

Soccer

2009-11-24T07:44:00.002-05:00

Missing many of our better players, we nonetheless hung on last night in a game of attrition. We had 1 sub and played on the big field, but still punched in a few extra goals and won 7-5.

Standings and results

Forcing it

2009-11-23T07:22:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to force myself to write something each day, in the attempt to accidentally get around to something meaningful. I admire Mark Walker for churning out something worth reading each day, but then I remember that he's retired and his kids don't need a lot of supervision in the morning, either.

Repeat it enough and it becomes true...

2009-11-20T11:03:00.001-05:00

So there's this whopper of a pile of bullshit about about women working in the sciences

Since Lawrence Summers's ill-considered remarks at a 2005 economics conference (he blamed the lack of tenured female scientists on their biologically inferior intelligence and aptitude; he was president of Harvard University at the time) there has been a steady stream of books, reports and panel discussions chronicling the woes of women who wear lab coats.

That's not even fucking close to what he said.

What he said was that no one had ever investigated why there weren't more women in science. He said no one had ever looked into whether or not the might have different forms of intelligence or aptitude, or whether women just didn't like science, or whether it was being taught improperly to them back in elementary school so they didn't like it, or because lab coats make them look fat. He never - EVER - said it was because they're dumb. He said no one knows and they ought to look into it without ruling out any option for political correctness.

Amazing that the PC police will trump up such a blatant lie because it makes for good copy. What crap.

Congress

2009-11-17T16:12:00.001-05:00

"Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature ... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation...it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces."

-James Garfield, 1877

Best. Penalty. Call. Ever.

2009-11-14T18:25:00.001-05:00