Andy Katz has a nice article about Gonzaga guard Jeremy Pargo's chances of being a first-round pick in this year's NBA draft. Jeremy's brother is former Bull and current Hornet Jeremy Pargo. This part struck me:
But the Zags coach did want to caution Pargo that the moment he does sign with an agent, the fun of being on a college team is over. It's a business from that point forward. The feedback he has received from former Zags Morrison, Ronny Turiaf, Dan Dickau, Blake Stepp and Richie Frahm is that the collegial experience is missed.
It is indeed a business, but this made me feel a mini-rant coming on. Here goes.
Yes, for many (or maybe most) people, college is a great time. The basketball part is also good, as practice time is limited by NCAA rules and the season lasts no longer than about 40 games.
However, college isn't for everyone. There are lots of otherwise smart and motivated people who do not want to sit through school. They would rather be out doing things, getting paid, and gaining experience.
There are also lots of people (athletes especially) who are wasting their time in college. They aren't very bright to begin with, so they have to get some useless, lame, and easy major, like Communications. An athlete is at least getting some exposure and practice time for what he hopes to be a career playing a sport, but most don't have that as a realistic hope. Why would some people who have no business being in college and don't like school want to spend time there?
This brings me to the guy who metasizes these arguments most often, or so far as I can tell: Dick Vitale. He is always ranting here and there about how college is the best time of people's lives and how athletes should stay in school unless they are no-brainer top draft picks.
Well, Dick, college isn't for everyone. I didn't especially like it, for example, so I graduated early in hopes of working sooner and making money. There are lots of athletes who, for whatever reason, don't want to do it. It may mean they play overseas or in the developmental league, but they are willing to do so to make some money while they can and to not be in school. Everyone has that choice, and your one-size fits all attitude does not, in fact, fit all.
It just really grinds my gears (thanks, Peter Griffin) to hear people talk like that about college and the college experience. So to end, those former Zags who say that the college experience will be missed should really just say that they miss it, not that everyone does or will.
Friday, May 30, 2008
No, not literally
Ever since I heard Dan Dierdorf say during a Colts-Chiefs game a few years ago, "Peyton Manning is literally carving up the Chiefs defense right now," I have been fascinated by people using the word incorrectly. Why? Because Manning wasn't running around the field with a samurai sword chopping linebackers' arms off. Dierdorf, of course, should have said "really" instead, thereby both emphasizing how great Manning was performing while continuing to keep the metaphorical nature of the action alive.
Stephen F. Hayes is with me. For more reading, click on the link within the link to get to his article on this topic.
Stephen F. Hayes is with me. For more reading, click on the link within the link to get to his article on this topic.
The Strangers review
No, I didn't see it (those who know me know that I'd rather eat a bowl of broken glass than go to a movie theater), but here's one by Sonny Bunch over at The Weekly Standard:
As a thriller, The Strangers is effective insofar as it has a number of chest-tightening sequences created by little more than mood, shadows, and figures in the background. It doesn't rely on sharp crescendos in the music or moments of shocking violence to provoke a start in the audience (though a Carrieesque ending feels forced). The little violence there is in The Strangers is methodical and unsurprising--in a way, inevitable. Not to mention gruesome.
I post this because the commercials for it look amazing. I am fired up for it come out on DVD so I can get it from Netflix.
As a thriller, The Strangers is effective insofar as it has a number of chest-tightening sequences created by little more than mood, shadows, and figures in the background. It doesn't rely on sharp crescendos in the music or moments of shocking violence to provoke a start in the audience (though a Carrieesque ending feels forced). The little violence there is in The Strangers is methodical and unsurprising--in a way, inevitable. Not to mention gruesome.
I post this because the commercials for it look amazing. I am fired up for it come out on DVD so I can get it from Netflix.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Roger Ebert's not a huge fan of Sex and the City
He starts his review with this:
I am not the person to review this movie. Perhaps you will enjoy a review from someone who disqualifies himself at the outset, doesn’t much like most of the characters and is bored by their bubble-brained conversations.
I don't blame him for disliking it, I just can't believe he gave it 2 stars. From the commercials, it looks like a sure-fire -34 stars from me. God willing, I will never see it and have to find out.
What I find interesting is that Roger Ebert is a hypocritical windbag. Let's see some movies that he gave zero stars to and didn't disqualify himself as not in the intended target audience as an adult movie reviewer:
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Freddy Got Fingered
Police Academy
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Tomcats
I am not defending these movies, just pointing out that I guess when it comes to chick flicks, he's too much of a pansy to rip them honestly.
I am not the person to review this movie. Perhaps you will enjoy a review from someone who disqualifies himself at the outset, doesn’t much like most of the characters and is bored by their bubble-brained conversations.
I don't blame him for disliking it, I just can't believe he gave it 2 stars. From the commercials, it looks like a sure-fire -34 stars from me. God willing, I will never see it and have to find out.
What I find interesting is that Roger Ebert is a hypocritical windbag. Let's see some movies that he gave zero stars to and didn't disqualify himself as not in the intended target audience as an adult movie reviewer:
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Freddy Got Fingered
Police Academy
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Tomcats
I am not defending these movies, just pointing out that I guess when it comes to chick flicks, he's too much of a pansy to rip them honestly.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
If Bryan Flory knew he had a blog, this would be in it
Scott Keith found this on the Wrestling Observer website. Only for pro wrestling dorks.
Book Reviews - STET, Damnit! and Ruthless
Since there's not much going on in election news and no one cares about what I have been doing, here are reviews of a couple of books I finished up in the past few days.
STET, Damnit! is the complete collection of Florence King's columns in National Review from 1991 through her retirement in 2002 (she has since come back to write a column in every other issue of the magazine). Most of them are from her back-of-the-magazine column that was in every issue for many a year called "The Misanthrope's Corner". Yes, she's my inspiration for this blog.
She's a crotchety, old (66 at the time of her retirement) Southern lady who never married and never had children. She reads voraciously, and in fact was for a very long time primarily a book reviewer. Her columns covered everything possible, so it was about much more than current events.
As I read it, I found that I could quote a passage from every one of them on this blog to show how AWESOME she is, but that would be tedious. The book is 496 pages long (and somewhat dense), but I had no problem reading it since she's one of the most fascinating writers whose work I've ever encountered. It gets a high recommendation from me, but I also realize it's not for everyone.
Ruthless: A Memior by Jerry Heller is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Heller, the co-founder of Ruthless Records with Eazy-E, tells his side of the story of the history of label. He was there from the beginning until shortly before Eazy's death, after which Ruthless quickly fell apart.
Any rap fan from the early 1990's knows that Heller was vilified by both Ice Cube and Dr. Dre after their departure from N.W.A. By Heller's account, they are not being honest. I won't give away too much of the history for those who don't know it, but he never liked Ice Cube. He thinks Dre listened to the wrong people (Suge Knight, primarily), which Dre would likely admit today.
Heller also says in the book that if those two hadn't left, they would have made tons of money together for years to come. His model was going to be similar to what the Wu-Tang Clan eventually did, which is dedicate everyone to one album at a time, be it the groups's album or a solo project for one of the members. I agree with him that with the combination of Dre's and Yella's production, Cube's lyrics, and Eazy and Heller's business sense, it could have worked.
I tend to believe Heller over Cube and others. Why? Little did I know, Heller was a very big manager in the 1960's and 1970's rock world. Among his clients were Elton John, Marvin Gaye, and Van Morrison. He hit a slump in his career from about 1975 to 1985, when he go involved in taking West Coast gangster rap national using his music industry connections. To me, he's got tremendous credibility when it comes to the business side of music.
At about 315 small pages with lots of space, this book is a quick read (I read it in two days). I give it a very high recommendation for anyone interested in the development of west coast hip-hop. He's also got lots of great stories from the 1960's and 1970's, too.
STET, Damnit! is the complete collection of Florence King's columns in National Review from 1991 through her retirement in 2002 (she has since come back to write a column in every other issue of the magazine). Most of them are from her back-of-the-magazine column that was in every issue for many a year called "The Misanthrope's Corner". Yes, she's my inspiration for this blog.
She's a crotchety, old (66 at the time of her retirement) Southern lady who never married and never had children. She reads voraciously, and in fact was for a very long time primarily a book reviewer. Her columns covered everything possible, so it was about much more than current events.
As I read it, I found that I could quote a passage from every one of them on this blog to show how AWESOME she is, but that would be tedious. The book is 496 pages long (and somewhat dense), but I had no problem reading it since she's one of the most fascinating writers whose work I've ever encountered. It gets a high recommendation from me, but I also realize it's not for everyone.
Ruthless: A Memior by Jerry Heller is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Heller, the co-founder of Ruthless Records with Eazy-E, tells his side of the story of the history of label. He was there from the beginning until shortly before Eazy's death, after which Ruthless quickly fell apart.
Any rap fan from the early 1990's knows that Heller was vilified by both Ice Cube and Dr. Dre after their departure from N.W.A. By Heller's account, they are not being honest. I won't give away too much of the history for those who don't know it, but he never liked Ice Cube. He thinks Dre listened to the wrong people (Suge Knight, primarily), which Dre would likely admit today.
Heller also says in the book that if those two hadn't left, they would have made tons of money together for years to come. His model was going to be similar to what the Wu-Tang Clan eventually did, which is dedicate everyone to one album at a time, be it the groups's album or a solo project for one of the members. I agree with him that with the combination of Dre's and Yella's production, Cube's lyrics, and Eazy and Heller's business sense, it could have worked.
I tend to believe Heller over Cube and others. Why? Little did I know, Heller was a very big manager in the 1960's and 1970's rock world. Among his clients were Elton John, Marvin Gaye, and Van Morrison. He hit a slump in his career from about 1975 to 1985, when he go involved in taking West Coast gangster rap national using his music industry connections. To me, he's got tremendous credibility when it comes to the business side of music.
At about 315 small pages with lots of space, this book is a quick read (I read it in two days). I give it a very high recommendation for anyone interested in the development of west coast hip-hop. He's also got lots of great stories from the 1960's and 1970's, too.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Annual shareholder meetings
I own a few individual equites, and thus I get invites to attend their annual meetings. I never go, mainly because they are seemingly always on a random Tuesday in Virginia or something.
This Sun-Times article contains interviews with 3 local investors who frequently attend these meetings. I had no idea they give things away:
Best spread: Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which at the Swissotel Chicago in 2006 offered a full line of buffet items (sliced roast beef, turkey, ham), salads, dessert and open bar.
Then there is this, which made me laugh out loud:
Easiest to get a word in: Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. But one of the easiest this year was female condom maker Chicago-based the Female Health Co. He was the only shareholder in attendance. "They let me talk all I wanted."
This Sun-Times article contains interviews with 3 local investors who frequently attend these meetings. I had no idea they give things away:
Best spread: Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which at the Swissotel Chicago in 2006 offered a full line of buffet items (sliced roast beef, turkey, ham), salads, dessert and open bar.
Then there is this, which made me laugh out loud:
Easiest to get a word in: Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. But one of the easiest this year was female condom maker Chicago-based the Female Health Co. He was the only shareholder in attendance. "They let me talk all I wanted."
John McCain is a liar
John McCain saved his presidential ambitions last year by ditching his rhetoric about amnesty for illegal aliens. He started saying that he heard the American people, that they want border security first, and that he would work on that before he would push for amnesty as president.
I never actually believed this, but I was willing to at least believe him since despite his many flaws, he had a record of being a man of his word.
That's no longer true.
Here he is last night speaking to a business group:
He added: “I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it’s a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don’t do it before, and we probably won’t, a little straight talk, as of January 2009.”
Mr. McCain asked others on the panels for suggestions about how to “better mobilize American public opinion” behind the notion of comprehensive immigration reform.
John Hawkins reaches the following conclusion:
Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his "Read my lips, no new taxes pledge," except that Bush's father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.
Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. Since that is the case, I have already written the campaign and asked them to take me off of their mailing list and to no longer send me invitations to their teleconferences. I see no point in asking questions to a man who has no compunction about lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it.
I agree completely. McCain WILL NOT have my vote in November, regardless of what happens from now until then. If we have amnesty (and we likely will, since Obama is also in favor of open borders), I'd rather it not have the support of a Republican president. Let the Democrats be blamed for its disastrous results.
Oh yeah, about that post the other day? Now Obama isn't the only one I'll be going after.
UPDATE: Ace is with me, and of course does a better job of saying it:
What surprises me is that John McCain fetishizes his own integrity and honor and yet apparently doesn't think a promise made to conservatives "counts" -- perhaps he imagines we're children, or perhaps legally incompetent lunatics, who cannot enter binding contracts, and thus the contract he made with us can be voided without consequence?
I don't know. For a man to whom integrity and honor is supposedly so important one would imagine he'd be slightly less cavalier about lying and breaking a promise, even if he didn't like that promise.
...and...
This is the nasty edge of McCain's conception of himself as impeccably righteous -- he believes he's so above the rest of us in terms of honesty and integrity he can also decide what constitutes a lie and what constitutes bad behavior and what represents a broken promise. As in, his mind, his presidency is absolutely indispensible to America, tiny deceptions like this are not merely excusable, but downright imperative, and thus justified.
I never actually believed this, but I was willing to at least believe him since despite his many flaws, he had a record of being a man of his word.
That's no longer true.
Here he is last night speaking to a business group:
He added: “I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it’s a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don’t do it before, and we probably won’t, a little straight talk, as of January 2009.”
Mr. McCain asked others on the panels for suggestions about how to “better mobilize American public opinion” behind the notion of comprehensive immigration reform.
John Hawkins reaches the following conclusion:
Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his "Read my lips, no new taxes pledge," except that Bush's father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.
Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. Since that is the case, I have already written the campaign and asked them to take me off of their mailing list and to no longer send me invitations to their teleconferences. I see no point in asking questions to a man who has no compunction about lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it.
I agree completely. McCain WILL NOT have my vote in November, regardless of what happens from now until then. If we have amnesty (and we likely will, since Obama is also in favor of open borders), I'd rather it not have the support of a Republican president. Let the Democrats be blamed for its disastrous results.
Oh yeah, about that post the other day? Now Obama isn't the only one I'll be going after.
UPDATE: Ace is with me, and of course does a better job of saying it:
What surprises me is that John McCain fetishizes his own integrity and honor and yet apparently doesn't think a promise made to conservatives "counts" -- perhaps he imagines we're children, or perhaps legally incompetent lunatics, who cannot enter binding contracts, and thus the contract he made with us can be voided without consequence?
I don't know. For a man to whom integrity and honor is supposedly so important one would imagine he'd be slightly less cavalier about lying and breaking a promise, even if he didn't like that promise.
...and...
This is the nasty edge of McCain's conception of himself as impeccably righteous -- he believes he's so above the rest of us in terms of honesty and integrity he can also decide what constitutes a lie and what constitutes bad behavior and what represents a broken promise. As in, his mind, his presidency is absolutely indispensible to America, tiny deceptions like this are not merely excusable, but downright imperative, and thus justified.
Warning
Since last night was the Corporate Challenge, and since my job was company denmother and I spent the race drinking a sixer of Budweiser and reading the latest issue of Forbes and watching the pile of jackets and bags, and since I blacked out and was out until who knows when, there will be nothing insightful today.
"So how is that different than usual?" asks the regular reader. To that I have no response. In other news, at least, the Sox have won 8 games in a row! Wait until they win the World Series again and the Cubs fans will be on 101...
OK, I'm clearly still drunk. I am listening to what is possibly the greatest album of ALL TIME - Death Certificate by Ice Cube. 20 tracks, every single one of them being great.
"So how is that different than usual?" asks the regular reader. To that I have no response. In other news, at least, the Sox have won 8 games in a row! Wait until they win the World Series again and the Cubs fans will be on 101...
OK, I'm clearly still drunk. I am listening to what is possibly the greatest album of ALL TIME - Death Certificate by Ice Cube. 20 tracks, every single one of them being great.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Corruption and a one-party system
Yes, yes, we all know Chicago's political system is corrupt. More stuff is coming out today, and I hope Patrick Fitzgerald keeps it up. No one is surprised, so I don't even find the details interesting.
What interests me is how often corruption festers in any system (local, state, or federal) where the levers of power are controlled by one party for too long. It's a pet theory of mine that any time that happens and we see dirty stuff, it's generally good for power to shift to the other party. Why? Then there is a totally fresh set of eyes and minds to clear out older practices. That means everyone from the politicians themselves to the staffers who perform much of the grunt work of running the operation.
(As a caveat, I understand that there are examples where a transfer of power makes no difference, such as the Illinois governor's mansion, where I thought it was actually a good thing for Blagojevich to take over for George Ryan and Republicans who had controlled it for 30 years or so. There are others, like the entire state of Louisiana, where corruption is just endemic in the entire culture, though they have a new governor who it trying to change that right now. Good luck to him, I say.)
That's one reason why I wasn't terribly worked up about Democrats taking over Congress in the 2006 elections. It's not that Hill Republicans were very corrupt or anything, especially compared to Democrats, but they had definitely gotten too comfortable with themselves and their power in the 12 years they were in charge (ignoring the brief Democratic Senate control earlier this decade due to a party-switcher). They still need to clean up their act to a degree, which is one reason Democrats can expect another big year in 2008.
The biggest example of such a shift that I can easily think of was in 1995 when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. Democrats had it since 1954, and there were a fair number of scandals in the prior 15 years or so that played a factor. Besides my obvious bias towards the Republican party, it was certainly good for the sake of cleaning up the institution.
I often wonder what would occur in a city like Chicago if Republicans ever won the mayorship and a majority of the city council. Obviously such a thing is unlikely, but I'd be curious how that would affect the calcified beaurocracy.
Again, it's just a theory of mine.
What interests me is how often corruption festers in any system (local, state, or federal) where the levers of power are controlled by one party for too long. It's a pet theory of mine that any time that happens and we see dirty stuff, it's generally good for power to shift to the other party. Why? Then there is a totally fresh set of eyes and minds to clear out older practices. That means everyone from the politicians themselves to the staffers who perform much of the grunt work of running the operation.
(As a caveat, I understand that there are examples where a transfer of power makes no difference, such as the Illinois governor's mansion, where I thought it was actually a good thing for Blagojevich to take over for George Ryan and Republicans who had controlled it for 30 years or so. There are others, like the entire state of Louisiana, where corruption is just endemic in the entire culture, though they have a new governor who it trying to change that right now. Good luck to him, I say.)
That's one reason why I wasn't terribly worked up about Democrats taking over Congress in the 2006 elections. It's not that Hill Republicans were very corrupt or anything, especially compared to Democrats, but they had definitely gotten too comfortable with themselves and their power in the 12 years they were in charge (ignoring the brief Democratic Senate control earlier this decade due to a party-switcher). They still need to clean up their act to a degree, which is one reason Democrats can expect another big year in 2008.
The biggest example of such a shift that I can easily think of was in 1995 when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. Democrats had it since 1954, and there were a fair number of scandals in the prior 15 years or so that played a factor. Besides my obvious bias towards the Republican party, it was certainly good for the sake of cleaning up the institution.
I often wonder what would occur in a city like Chicago if Republicans ever won the mayorship and a majority of the city council. Obviously such a thing is unlikely, but I'd be curious how that would affect the calcified beaurocracy.
Again, it's just a theory of mine.
The reasons behind our high gas prices
Greedy oil companies, as to many Democratic Senators think? Not at all, according to John Hinderaker's analysis over at Powerline.
I recommend reading the whole thing if you think the oil companies are behind gas prices. Among many other reasons:
Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes.
Not that anyone who follows politics closely would be surprised that liberal Democrats are most concerned with having lots of money coming into the government through taxes.
Another big point was raised by John Hofmeister of Shell:
Meanwhile, in the United States, access to our own oil and gas resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit of the American people.
Senator Sessions, I agree, it is not a free market.
According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Finally, it's important to keep in mind that most Democrats, because they are beholden to the environmentalist left, want high gas prices as means of both punishing our economy (and those people especially who use lots of petroleum personally, like SUV drivers) and weaning the world off of petroleum-based fuel sources. That's an understandable enough position (not that I agree with it), but the Washington Democrats who agree with it don't have the courage to actually come out and say it. Instead, they do the one thing that accomplishes nothing toward reducing gas prices (berating oil executives on the Hill) and push for something that would make prices even HIGHER (a windfall profits tax) by discouraging investment in new technologies and exploration.
Again, I encourage anyone with the interest in this topic to read the whole thing.
Of course, it wouldn't be something I disagree with if John McCain didn't get involved (scroll down to see his part):
“Um, I don’t like obscene profits being made anywhere–and I’d be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax–that’s not what bothers me–but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people, that or industries or corporations that are distorting the market.”
I recommend reading the whole thing if you think the oil companies are behind gas prices. Among many other reasons:
Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes.
Not that anyone who follows politics closely would be surprised that liberal Democrats are most concerned with having lots of money coming into the government through taxes.
Another big point was raised by John Hofmeister of Shell:
Meanwhile, in the United States, access to our own oil and gas resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit of the American people.
Senator Sessions, I agree, it is not a free market.
According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Finally, it's important to keep in mind that most Democrats, because they are beholden to the environmentalist left, want high gas prices as means of both punishing our economy (and those people especially who use lots of petroleum personally, like SUV drivers) and weaning the world off of petroleum-based fuel sources. That's an understandable enough position (not that I agree with it), but the Washington Democrats who agree with it don't have the courage to actually come out and say it. Instead, they do the one thing that accomplishes nothing toward reducing gas prices (berating oil executives on the Hill) and push for something that would make prices even HIGHER (a windfall profits tax) by discouraging investment in new technologies and exploration.
Again, I encourage anyone with the interest in this topic to read the whole thing.
Of course, it wouldn't be something I disagree with if John McCain didn't get involved (scroll down to see his part):
“Um, I don’t like obscene profits being made anywhere–and I’d be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax–that’s not what bothers me–but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people, that or industries or corporations that are distorting the market.”
I love the South
Some dude fell 150 feet at a Braves game last night and died:
A 25-year-old man died from injuries sustained after falling about 150 feet down a stairwell at Turner Field during Wednesday night's game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.
Not surprisingly, good ol' boy horseplay was involved:
Campbell said Hayes may have been sliding down the hand rails when he fell and that alcohol may have been involved.
A 25-year-old man died from injuries sustained after falling about 150 feet down a stairwell at Turner Field during Wednesday night's game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.
Not surprisingly, good ol' boy horseplay was involved:
Campbell said Hayes may have been sliding down the hand rails when he fell and that alcohol may have been involved.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Ranking of my alma mater
Here are the top 5% of high schools in the country by some kind of AP-test measure. Mine is #721, but in fairness, we are a state-wide magnet school. I still don't know how I ever got in.
Anyway, a certain school that is supposedly populated with the progeny of the Purdue professorate is missing. Hmmm. I'd heard such good things...
Anyway, a certain school that is supposedly populated with the progeny of the Purdue professorate is missing. Hmmm. I'd heard such good things...
The Senate's mini-amnesty goes down
Thankfully, as Michelle Malkin again links to the details. Note the following:
Opposition to the Feinstein/Craig provision came from open-borders Democrat Robert Menendez, who complained that the mass amnesty didn’t do enough for illegal aliens.
I guess it's good that it was defeated, regardless of the reason. It reminds me of the amnesty debate last summer where more than one observer noted that it was a compromise bill that pleased no one, and was thus defeated by a strange combination of the open-borders left and the pro-amnesty right.
Opposition to the Feinstein/Craig provision came from open-borders Democrat Robert Menendez, who complained that the mass amnesty didn’t do enough for illegal aliens.
I guess it's good that it was defeated, regardless of the reason. It reminds me of the amnesty debate last summer where more than one observer noted that it was a compromise bill that pleased no one, and was thus defeated by a strange combination of the open-borders left and the pro-amnesty right.
Praise McCain, get a cookie
OK, not a cookie, but points or something from the campaign website for leaving pro-McCain comments on certain blogs (not this one). Michelle Malkin has the details. She also has this following suggestion, snarkily:
In the spirit of open dialogue and outreach, I encourage the rest of you all to reciprocate and leave your thoughts about McCain–say, his decision to retain Juan Hernandez, speak at the the La Raza/The Race conference, embrace anti-assimilationist campaign finance co-chair Jerry Perenchio, and perpetuate global warming hysteria, for starters– on the McCain campaign blog.
I enjoy that she is treating this election much like I am, by disliking both candidates.
In the spirit of open dialogue and outreach, I encourage the rest of you all to reciprocate and leave your thoughts about McCain–say, his decision to retain Juan Hernandez, speak at the the La Raza/The Race conference, embrace anti-assimilationist campaign finance co-chair Jerry Perenchio, and perpetuate global warming hysteria, for starters– on the McCain campaign blog.
I enjoy that she is treating this election much like I am, by disliking both candidates.
Obama's team on the general election
The Telegraph of London has an article about how Obama's senior advisors are (behind closed doors) predicting a November blowout of McCain.
There is a LOT in here that I'd like to comment on, but it would take a big chunk of time for me to do so. I want to read it another time or two before I do (if I ever do, as I know I have a history of promising follow-ups that never, um, follow up).
It's not that I think their premise is wrong, that Obama will win handily. I just think there are a lot of things working for and against both candidates, and we are still 5 and 1/2 months away. It's far too early to be making predictions like this, and Team Obama better not get too cocky too early. For an example of that, think about how 5 and 1/2 months ago the nominees were supposed to be Hillary and Giuliani. Hillary in particular never put together the ground game in the caucus states, and that basically lost her the nomination.
Like I say, I'll attempt to have more later.
There is a LOT in here that I'd like to comment on, but it would take a big chunk of time for me to do so. I want to read it another time or two before I do (if I ever do, as I know I have a history of promising follow-ups that never, um, follow up).
It's not that I think their premise is wrong, that Obama will win handily. I just think there are a lot of things working for and against both candidates, and we are still 5 and 1/2 months away. It's far too early to be making predictions like this, and Team Obama better not get too cocky too early. For an example of that, think about how 5 and 1/2 months ago the nominees were supposed to be Hillary and Giuliani. Hillary in particular never put together the ground game in the caucus states, and that basically lost her the nomination.
Like I say, I'll attempt to have more later.
The hangover
The New Yorker finally tackles this important subject. The whole thing is worth reading. Here's a sample:
Application of the hair of the dog may sound like nothing more than a way of getting yourself drunk enough so that you don’t notice you have a hangover, but, according to Wayne Jones, of the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Medicine, the biochemistry is probably more complicated than that. Jones’s theory is that the liver, in processing alcohol, first addresses itself to ethanol, which is the alcohol proper, and then moves on to methanol, a secondary ingredient of many wines and spirits. Because methanol breaks down into formic acid, which is highly toxic, it is during this second stage that the hangover is most crushing. If at that point you pour in more alcohol, the body will switch back to ethanol processing. This will not eliminate the hangover—the methanol (indeed, more of it now) is still waiting for you round the bend—but it delays the worst symptoms. It may also mitigate them somewhat. On the other hand, you are drunk again, which may create difficulty about going to work.
Application of the hair of the dog may sound like nothing more than a way of getting yourself drunk enough so that you don’t notice you have a hangover, but, according to Wayne Jones, of the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Medicine, the biochemistry is probably more complicated than that. Jones’s theory is that the liver, in processing alcohol, first addresses itself to ethanol, which is the alcohol proper, and then moves on to methanol, a secondary ingredient of many wines and spirits. Because methanol breaks down into formic acid, which is highly toxic, it is during this second stage that the hangover is most crushing. If at that point you pour in more alcohol, the body will switch back to ethanol processing. This will not eliminate the hangover—the methanol (indeed, more of it now) is still waiting for you round the bend—but it delays the worst symptoms. It may also mitigate them somewhat. On the other hand, you are drunk again, which may create difficulty about going to work.
Election coverage
As anyone who regularly reads this space knows, I am no fan of John McCain. He's not a conservative (no matter how much he fooled people in the primaries), and he would be destructive to the Republican brand if he won the presidency. His stands on illegal immigration and global warming show this clearly enough.
I also don't like Barack Obama, as you might guess. He's playing the usual game that the Democratic nominee has to every four years of pretending he's not as liberal as he really is. If he came out and said what he really thought about issues (and the media highlighted his past votes the way they scrutinize Republicans), he'd be lucky to get 40% of the vote in November. The liberal media is thus complicit in this deceit. Obama had the most liberal 2007 voting record in the Senate, which says a lot when you have the likes of Barbara Boxer and Ted Kennedy populating the chamber. New kind of politics and bringing people together? He couldn't even vote to confirm the superbly qualified John Roberts as Supreme Court Chief Justice. He's a left-winger who has come up through the twin pillars of corruption that are the black urban political system and the Chicago Democratic machine. On foreign policy he would be a disaster for our country on the scale of Jimmy Carter.
Given that, you might then conclude that I would hold my nose and vote for McCain. Not so, at least not at this point. Given McCain's history, he has to earn my vote. Being not-Obama isn't good enough.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that although I have basically stayed away from commenting on the Democratic candidates, that's now going to change. There will be tons of anti-Obama stuff coming, but for you Obama fans, don't despair! McCain will no doubt continue to annoy me to levels a Republican presidential candidate shouldn't, so while there may not be equal time, it won't be because I am trying to tear down Obama and prop up McCain. I want to tear them both down.
Besides, my vote won't matter anyway. Jesus Christ himself could be resurrected and run as the Republican nominee, and Obama would still win Illinois.
I also don't like Barack Obama, as you might guess. He's playing the usual game that the Democratic nominee has to every four years of pretending he's not as liberal as he really is. If he came out and said what he really thought about issues (and the media highlighted his past votes the way they scrutinize Republicans), he'd be lucky to get 40% of the vote in November. The liberal media is thus complicit in this deceit. Obama had the most liberal 2007 voting record in the Senate, which says a lot when you have the likes of Barbara Boxer and Ted Kennedy populating the chamber. New kind of politics and bringing people together? He couldn't even vote to confirm the superbly qualified John Roberts as Supreme Court Chief Justice. He's a left-winger who has come up through the twin pillars of corruption that are the black urban political system and the Chicago Democratic machine. On foreign policy he would be a disaster for our country on the scale of Jimmy Carter.
Given that, you might then conclude that I would hold my nose and vote for McCain. Not so, at least not at this point. Given McCain's history, he has to earn my vote. Being not-Obama isn't good enough.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that although I have basically stayed away from commenting on the Democratic candidates, that's now going to change. There will be tons of anti-Obama stuff coming, but for you Obama fans, don't despair! McCain will no doubt continue to annoy me to levels a Republican presidential candidate shouldn't, so while there may not be equal time, it won't be because I am trying to tear down Obama and prop up McCain. I want to tear them both down.
Besides, my vote won't matter anyway. Jesus Christ himself could be resurrected and run as the Republican nominee, and Obama would still win Illinois.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Was Obama ever a Muslim?
Some people go through great pains to say that Obama isn't a Muslim. True enough, he is a Christian (if you can call his church's insane teachings Christian).
His campaign says that he was never a Muslim. That's not quite accurate, as Daniel Pipes points out.
Does this matter? Not to me, since he can't be held accountable for how he was raised. However, my concern is similar to Pipes':
Obama's having been born and raised a Muslim and having left the faith to become a Christian make him neither more nor less qualified to become president of the United States. But if he was born and raised a Muslim and is now hiding that fact, this points to a major deceit, a fundamental misrepresentation about himself that has profound implications about his character and his suitability as president.
His campaign says that he was never a Muslim. That's not quite accurate, as Daniel Pipes points out.
Does this matter? Not to me, since he can't be held accountable for how he was raised. However, my concern is similar to Pipes':
Obama's having been born and raised a Muslim and having left the faith to become a Christian make him neither more nor less qualified to become president of the United States. But if he was born and raised a Muslim and is now hiding that fact, this points to a major deceit, a fundamental misrepresentation about himself that has profound implications about his character and his suitability as president.
Monday, May 19, 2008
I hate the French
Every good American doesn't like the French people. Here is another reason:
France is considering a ban on happy hours in bars and on the sale of bottles of vodka and other strong liquor in nightclubs as part of efforts to curb binge drinking among young people, an official said on Monday.
France is considering a ban on happy hours in bars and on the sale of bottles of vodka and other strong liquor in nightclubs as part of efforts to curb binge drinking among young people, an official said on Monday.
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