Word of the Day

During the NFL Draft Combine this past week (yes, watched some of it…. guilty as charged), NFL Network draft guru, Mike Mayock, noted that a particular defensive back who was on display exhibited “tremendous alacrity” while performing the shuttle drill.

Upon hearing that, you would have most certainly agreed with us that arm-chair General Managers in living rooms across the country were stumped.

Did Mayock mean that the kid was an exceptionallly unbidden and sanguine participant in the drill or….. did he mean that he executed the drill expiditiously and with a degree of efficacy such as to be noteworthy?

Thanks for clearing that up, Mike.

This just in: Obama is running for President.

We’re trying to wrap our brains around how many trees and bytes could’ve been saved by not printing this article by the New York Times News Service that appeared in yesterday's fishwrap. Article here informs us that Obama might now be subjected to the same treatment of which any other Presidential candidate endures…. maybe, but then again, probably not. Check this out:

"For much of this year, Obama has been handled with relative care by Clinton and the other Democratic candidates before they dropped out. They generally do not have huge policy differences with him, and they have been wary of making a particularly harsh attack that winds up in a Republican TV advertisement this fall."

…. Didya get that? In the ultimate act of party unity, Clinton Inc. didn’t want to load the Republican cannons, themselves. The event of self-delusion which would cause someone to write that should be an insurable event.

The article claims that McCain has vowed a “tough if respectful campaign” and has gone on record as disapproving of the nature of some of the attacks on Obama. Camp Obama claims that the same tactics that were used against Gore and Kerry aren’t relevant anymore and will backfire.

… but why? Why, by this article’s admission, is it that Obama has escaped the slings and arrows that are all part and parcel to normal campaign politics?

Just what is it about Obama that makes him different from every other candidate in this race and indeed different from any other presidential candidate in history that apparently makes him immune from politics as usual?

The article never says and that’s a shame because we sure could use some help in figuring this all out.

Programming Alert

We're going to be hanging with family up in the OC this weekend but will be checking in from time to time with some pre-made blogs... just heat and serve. B-Daddy will be doing some WOG-type (civ) activities on Saturday but will have something for us on Sunday.


Have a great weekend, everybody.

More Bad News for the DNC

In addition to Ralph Nader announcing his candidacy for President last weekend, it was found by a Pew Center study that for the first time in the country’s history more than 1 out of every 100 Americans is behind bars. Story here.

Complexity and Conflict

Picture is of Bob Geldof and President Bush aboard Air Force 1. Article here from TIME is of Geldof’s conversations and reflections while traveling with Bush around Africa. Geldof, as mentioned here, has been extremely laudatory of Bush’s aid toward Africa which is something of which we are conflicted.

Of course, we want to help… Of course, we feel a sense of obligation and moral duty to help those less fortunate than us. Its part of humanity. Its part of the higher calling of most any religion on this planet for the well-off to assist the needy, the sick and the hungry.

But seeing Geldof sitting there reminds us of his own noble efforts back in the mid-80s to “do something” to stem the tide of starvation, sickness and disease which resulted in… truckloads of grain and rice foreign to the diet of the East Africans for which it was intended sitting and staying on the pier and which was held hostage itself by the governments and warlords in exchange for further power.

How does this happen? Don’t our intentions count? Isn’t our willingness to at least attempt to do the right thing amount to some Karmic justice where some fruit is borne for our efforts… at least as much as picking up the phone and dialing a 1-800 number counts for effort?

In Africa, it would appear that Bush is treated as a King. Perhaps that’s the wrong term as many of these people have seen other individuals exert undue influence upon their lives as self-styled “Kings” with disastrous consequences. A “savior?” Even worse, given Bush’s and this country’s own ecumenical sense of the word as it relates to spiritual salvation, self-reliance and individualism. And that in itself presents a danger for further commitment. One welfare state is enough, thanks.

In the article, Bush speaks or spoke of Africa playing no role geo-politically and how, again, aid for Africa is simply doing the right thing. With China’s long reach probing for oil in the Sudan and as a consequence resulting in the genocide in Darfur, how can this be true anymore? And how can we, as the lone global superpower (for the immediate time being) with the military, logistics and resources to affect positive change throughout the world in the face of disease, misery and yes, evil, square that with realpolitik where we turn a blind eye to naked aggression against entire peoples unable to defend themselves?

Its realized that this isn’t a new issue… that these aren’t novel foreign policy concepts just now being introduced. It would seem though with modern technology in T.V. and the internet that tend to shrink the globe, a possible recession looming here (certainly un-funded future domestic commitments), new geo-political challenges and the very simple American demand for financial accountability brings all that we do both here and abroad into sharper focus.

No answers here – just a lot of questions.

Is it possible to be fired while on the air?

Just when you thought the world’s greatest tournament couldn’t get any better, ESPN reduces the nation’s unemployment roles by one by bringing in Bobby Knight to do studio work during the NCAAs. ESPN story here.

Coach Knight recently stepped down as the Texas Tech coach handing over the reins to his son Pat and since that time there has been speculation as to what his next move will be. If we never again get to see him throw chairs, choke players or hold court at press conferences, we’ll have to make do with him as a studio analyst which isn’t too bad either when you think about it.

We’ll cop to a certain degree of intellectual laziness when it comes to our fondness for “The General”. That is to say our defense of his sometimes questionable and boorish behavior could be that he has always run a clean program and has graduated his players. While those are extremely admirable traits in leading a big-time college program as he did at Indiana while winning 3 national championships, its not really why we like Knight.

We like Knight because he is so loathed by teet-sucking, East Coast, liberal beta-males like Robert Lypsyte and Mike Lupica who is probably the most annoying personality in all of sports. Backhanded logic to be sure but we’ll run all day with it.

Don’t get us wrong. The Coach is a flawed man and there are many things you can say about him but don’t ever….. don’t ever question the man’s patriotism. Click here for an inspiring Marine Corps recruiting ad. NSFW warning.

Good luck, Coach! We’ll be watching.

Yeah, but can he hit the curveball?

He just led his high school team to its second straight Pennsylvania state championship with a stat line of 39 points, 24 boards, 6 assists and 10 blocks and in the aftermath he tells everybody that he probably won’t play basketball in college so that he can concentrate on his strong suit, football. That stat line looked familiar… so we did a little research. Yep, that’s what we throw down for an entire month in our weekly rec league downtown.

Anyway, Ladies and Gentleman, Terrelle Pryor.

Pryor, who is ranked as Rivals.com's #1 football prep recruit in the nation has yet to commit, but is leanly strongly towards either Michigan or Ohio State. Early on, the CW was that he would stay instate and play for JoePa at Penn St. The tide turned, though, the moment Rich Rodriguez took the Michigan job as his spread-option offense is thought to be the perfect fit for the uber-athleticism of Pryor and which proved to be the first tangible evidence that the hire was the good one we thought it was.

Possibly because he is holding out past the signing day earlier this month, we can't ever remember the intensity of interest displayed in where a prep recruit will choose to matriculate. Stay tuned.

Beijing '08 Olympics Update: It's the Olympics, Stupid.

(One in an occasional series provided during the run-up to the ’08 Summer Games in Beijing, China. Archived posts in this series can be accessed by entering “Olympics” in the blog search box above).

Yao Ming, Chinese national and Houston Rocket will miss the rest of the season and the playoffs with a stress fracture in his left foot. He’s taking a bit of grief in the media for saying he is disappointed most with the fact that he won’t be able to play for his country in this summer’s Olympics. The implied inference is that he is somewhat less disappointed that he won’t be able to win an NBA championship for his primary employer, the Houston Rockets.

We’re with Yao on this one. He is easily the most visible Chinese athlete on the planet and with all that is riding on these Olympics for his native country, Yao was going to be the Chi-com’s point-man in their P.R. campaign to make the world somewhat more sympathetic to the fact they are devouring the planet’s resources, polluting the land and sea in epic fashion and are intolerant of political and religious dissidents.

Yao has done an admirable job shouldering all the expectations burdened upon him since he came to the NBA 5 years ago so we can understand his emotion that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase his talents for his country, on his home turf, in front of the entire world has suddenly gone by the boards.

He will be in a Houston Rocket uniform next season, never again though in a Chinese uniform in Beijing in the Olympics.

Now that was a Life Lived

William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review, passed away today in the study of his home at the age of 82.

The man nearly single-handedly coalesced and synthesized the various factions of the post-WW II conservative movement while simultaneously marginalizing some of its less-savory elements. Elevating the discourse above the imagery of mere flag-waving and gun racks, Buckley provided the language and intellectual heft to the conservative movement it lacked before his arrival.

The architect of fusionism that made possible the Reagan presidency also provided the cafeteria conservatism at which the BwD staff slops.

We’ll be raising a glass of 1921 later on this evening in honor of his life and his accomplishments.

R.I.P.

Joe Lieberman's thoughts on the man here as well as the Godfather's here.

When we said the 'long knives would come out' - we didn't expect this

The hypothetical question of who would draw first blood in a showdown between Clinton and Obama supporters is answered here. Was there any doubt?

Of course, a Fred supporter would’ve kicked both their asses with his bare hands.

Fred, who?

Shut up.

Anyway, we never thought it would come to this… Hillary, barring a small miracle, going down in defeat in the primaries, that is. We always figured Clinton Inc.’s long knives would shiv Edwards first and then Obama. And whether or not Clinton Inc. was behind the release of the Obama turban photos, much of her behavior the past couple of weeks has appeared as a hopeless flail against the inevitable.

And while we were pondering all this, we wonder what sort of Senator she is going to be once her designs on the throne have been vanquished. By many accounts and from both sides of the aisle, Hillary has been praised for her hard work and her cooperativeness. Will she be the same Senator in the future that her 7 yr. presidential campaign from the Senate fashioned her as or will she revert to something completely different altogether?

Not that you would ever know it, but this man is mildly enthusiastic about his job.

We didn’t want to do it this soon but Deadspin forced our hand with their media approval poll for Gus Johnson, a rather excitable gentleman we teased here, who has become a cult-figure in the sports blogosphere for his over-the-top calls during March Madness. Click here for poll and as you will see, our support for Mr. Johnson is much more in line with the voting public than our endorsement of Billy P(ACC)ker, the electoral equivalent of George McGovern.

Here’s Johnson’s call of the final seconds of UCLA’s comeback win over Gonzaga from two years ago (nice aside by Gumbel, btw) and here’s his call of the Ohio St./Xavier thriller in the 2nd round last year. Ha-ha, indeed.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has his updated tournament bracket here. A few things of note: Texas moves up to a 1 seed in the West and Memphis’ loss didn’t hurt them at all as they remain the 1 seed in the South playing a 2-3 hour bus ride away in Little Rock. Gotta think this is where their tough non-conference schedule buys them some wiggle room.

And it doesn’t appear there would be anything that Duke could ever do, for better or worse, that would force them to play outside North Carolina in the first two rounds as despite their two-game losing streak last week, Lunardi still has them playing in Raleigh as the 2 seed in the South.

One for One

Because of our distaste for the whole modern movie-going experience, it would appear we chose to see the right picture in our lone foray to the multiplex. While most people qualified best picture winner “No Country for Old Men” with “that movie directed by the Coen Brothers”, our own tag was “that movie based on the book by Cormac McCarthy”. Though we have not read that specific book, we read his “All the Pretty Horses” and “The Crossing” which is one of the 5 best books we have ever read.

Nice touch having Tom Hanks throw it over to some service men and women in Baghdad introduce the nominees for best short documentary. For a town and industry that is seen as anti-military (thank g#d, they didn't have them introduce the feature length docs where "Taxi to the Dark Side" was the winner), this is a no-brainer - they should do it every year. Hanks has the credibility to not make it appear as pandering.

And what’s the Oscars without the Razzies? Eddie Murphy and Lindsay Lohan were big winners this time around.

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

That’s funny…. thought we heard something. Like the screams of millions of anguished souls seeing “hope” vanish and “change” evaporate like water on blacktop in August.

Anyway, just when you thought these presidential primaries couldn’t get any wackier, the wack-meister himself, Ralph Nader, is throwing his hat into the ring as he confirmed today he will be running for President. Story here.

We guess she’s figuring that if she’s gonna lose she might as well go down swinging… and have some fun while doing so. Click here for some of Hillary mocking the Messiah and here she calls out B. Hussein on his healthcare fliers. It appears that Hillary doesn't truly believe that Obama will affect all the change he has been promising on the sheer strength of his awesomeness.

And Foxfier has linked to story on some interesting post-natal care being offered by the Dutch. Click here, por favor. It’ll make you all warm and fuzzy inside. Trust us.

H/T: Hot Air Drudge

No. 2 No Longer

To quote Chick Hearn, “It wasn’t an oil painting” but it was a highly entertaining in-season out-of-conference affair nonetheless. #2 Tennessee knocked off #1 Memphis last night in Memphis, 66-62 and ended the Tigers bid for an undefeated season and exposed what many think is the Tigers’ achille’s heel: free throw shooting. Tigers went only 8-17 from the charity stripe. Story here from SI.com

Forgot who it was but one of the ESPN commentators claimed the match-up had a Final Four feel to it. Uhhhh… not really. You see, unlike the Final Four which has gone Super Bowl with respect to its highly sterile, Domed-stadium, corporate feel, this game had an electric atmosphere with vocal partisan fans and maximum effort and energy displayed by the players.

All that and the fact that we don’t think either of these teams will make it to the Final Four. As for Memphis, you can’t hover around 50% from the line and expect to make it far in the octagon that is the NCAA tournament and both Memphis and Tennessee both rely a bit too much on the the 3-ball for our liking. A fickle thing, the trifecta is when the screws are tightened-down in single-elimination ball in March.




By the way, Priscilla Presley was in attendance last night supporting the Tigers. So was Peyton Manning (not pictured), representing for Rocky Top. Did she ever remarry? Replacing America’s first Protestant saint would be a tall order, indeed.

Proud Of My Bank

B-Daddy here. An article in yesterday's Washington Post publicizes the outrage that some Americans are feeling that their home equity lines of credit are being frozen. (Full disclosure: Mrs. Daddy and I have maxed out our own line of credit. I am just glad that I asked for much less than the bank tried to push on me.) At first blush, I thought, here goes another greedy corporation hurting the little people story. But I read on anyway. Here are the salient facts. The value of the underlying asset, the home had dropped precipitously in value. So much so, that it could no longer guarantee the loan amount. Second, the family was using the loan to fund current expenses. The bank did this family a favor. KT has a great post on the subject of family finances that explains why in more detail. Forcing this family to face the fact that they are consistently spending more than they earn will help them avoid a downward cycle of ever increasing debt that may end in bankruptcy. Also, those with savings invested in this bank might not like the bank lowering interest rates for investors due to losses from equity lines. Finally, taxpayers may avoid a bank bail out as well. Despite some Ivy League populism from Obama and Clinton, I hope there is no government bail out, because the markets are working out this excess on their own.

Hat tip: Hotair

So, what was the motivation?

Is the NYT clever enough to run their McCain story in order to benefit McCain? We know... we’re treading into Ollie Stone territory but honestly, how does that story benefit the Times?

And this would assume they actually want a McCain victory in the general election. One may scoff at the notion but McCain-Feingold is Big Media’s blank check come election time.

Running a lead story “documenting” a handful of past gray-area lobbyist incidents and hi-lited by rumoring a completely unsubstantiated extra-marital affair only solidifies in the minds of many the overt bias displayed by the paper.

Even the more astute operatives within Clinton Inc. and Camp Obama had to slap their foreheads in disgust knowing that the inevitable backlash would manifest itself as sympathy and thus support for McCain. Again, what were they thinking?

Editor Bill Keller appears to be genuinely taken aback regarding the across-the-political-spectrum and overwhelming negative reaction to the article. His response, here. Do these people really live in that insular and hermetically-sealed of a bubble? The Hudson and East Rivers – not just bodies of water but socio-psychological moats.

KT, with his thoughts here which includes a link to one of our journalistic guiding lights.

And piece here from Power Line reminds us that as bad as the McCain article is, it pales in comparison to their reporting on the Duke lacrosse rape case for which “shameful” is too charitable and for which the old gray whore should’ve been taken out at the knees.

… and speaking of which… The gang of four from East Coast Bias do an outstanding job breaking down the details of the lawsuit brought against Duke University by those former members of the Duke lacrosse team accused of rape. Read here.





H/T: Little Green Footballs

Threatened?

We’ve noticed lately that male-bashing and its reflexive counterpart, male-bashing complaining have become minor cottage industries unto themselves.

Read piece here illustrating this modern cultural phenomena.

Personally speaking, we choose to sit-out these whine and cheese affairs and will gladly let our pro Western, pro differences-in-gender sisters-in-arms, such as, Camille Paglia and Tammy Bruce fight the proxy battle. We’ve got bigger steaks to grill.

If the Industrial Revolution has removed us from 12 hr. days in the field or factory and plopped us down in this post-post-modern existence where the biggest threat to our malesmanship is a gaggle of lettered nags that no one pays attention to, then we certainly feel we came out ahead of the game.

Hey, here’s a good guy.

H/T: Instapundit

Ah, Yes. Hit by the dreaded T.P.

... on the way to work this morning and saw this. Used to see this sort of thing quite often while growing up. It was usually related to achieving a rite of passage or a high school accomplishment like making the cheerleading squad or being selected for a part in the drama club. Any more, not so much.

Anyone remember "forking" lawns with white plastic forks as alternative to T.P.-ing?

Great Britain: That whole Western Civ thing was cool while it lasted.

Nice little round-up here of England’s ongoing, self-induced death spiral. This is on top of Rowan Williams’, HMFIC of the Anglican Church, recent declaration that England just needs to get over itself and accept elements of Sharia law into British law. We had some thoughts, previously on Williams, here.

There is simply no rational explanation for a willing and conscious effort to tear down all the political, social and technological advances that have been made possible by liberal Western democracy. None whatsoever.

Same piece also documents California’s public school system not wanting to be left out of the act. We always thought that education was highly overrated anyway.

.

Image is of England's seminal political document, the Magna Carta.

Mid-Majors: Please quit wasting this man's time

… the man to the left of the Figurehead, that is.

Selection Sunday is just over 3 weeks away when the field of 64 will be set for the best tournament in all of sports and one for which the 23 yr. old female intern always seems to win the office pool.

There were two specific instances that inspired us to give this blogging thing a start: One was a flurry of email exchanges last July regarding college football and the other was a frenetic round of email carpet-bombing revolving around college hoops last March.

Of course, March Madness means the return to center stage of that Oscar the Grouch of college hoops announcers, Billy Packer.

There are a few things you can nearly take to the bank come March every year: Duke playing its first and second round games in North Carolina, Packer broadcasting early round games in the East Region exclusively and this same person making cranky/snide comments about certain teams making the tournament that he did not feel were worthy…. and cheesing-off the maximum number of people possible in his manner of doing so.

Despite his curmudgeonly persona, we love the guy... probably because of it. How Jim Nantz puts up with him, though, is anyone’s guess. We imagine Packer phoning Nantz’s room at 1 in the morning to bitch about a technical glitch during the previous afternoon’s broadcast and then chuckling himself to sleep over waking up his broadcast partner.

Anyway, we hope to have much more college hoops in the weeks to come including an audio montage’ of Gus Johnson, probably the most insanely enthusiastic of all the March Madness announcers and a near cult figure in the sports blogosphere.

Click here for a Billy Packer approve/disapprove poll at Deadspin. The results of which show us to be in a Mondalian electoral minority.

Just the Facts, Ma'am.

Good article here regarding Michelle Obama’s “for the first time in my adult life I am really proud of my country" comment. Author does a good job of breaking things down the middle and we really liked her analogy of a hypothetical adult conservative circa 1980 saying something similar when after nearly two decades of receding influence of American institutions, social upheaval, the Vietnam War, Watergate, Jimmy Carter and of course, hippies… Ronald Reagan was elected President.

A friend of ours emailed yesterday and in referencing this incident called her an “Anti-American, ‘blame America first’ socialist, limousine liberal.” We responded by saying, "...at worst, she is who you say she is and at best it was a very poor choice of words for which she should clarify/apologize for in person and not through her flaks". Apparently, she has.

Though our red meat-eating brethren are really worked up about this, we can’t find the energy to get too excited about it. We chalk up this particular malaise to what we will coin the “Jane Fonda syndrome”

In years previous, we would get these forwarded emails that would detail Jane Fonda’s visit to a POW camp in North Vietnam and how during this visit she ratted out the American prisoners there who tried to pass her messages so that family back in the States would know they were still alive. We don’t know if those stories were true and we didn’t care because, frankly, it didn’t matter. Jane Fonda was/is(?) a traitor and a despicable human being for the things we know to be true. No amount of uncorroborated emails is going to make us think any less of her.

We know Obama has secured a deathgrip on the ranking as the most left-leaning/liberal Senator on the Hill based upon his public legislative record. This is fact. No amount of platitudes from him or verbal gaffes from his wife is going to make us think any different.

.

Because what we’re concerned with is how the Senator intends for this country to pay for his Global Poverty Act?

.

And what we really want to know is why is he sending on his behalf that personification of a foreign policy grease fire, Zbigniew Brzezinski, to Syria for talks with Assad?

.

And for all his talk about compassion for the less fortunate, how does he square that with the fact that as an Illinois state senator he actively campaigned against and voted against a law that would’ve protected the survivors of unsuccessful abortions (aka infants)?

These are the facts and these are the issues. So let the woman alone so we can deal with her old man who has a few things to answer for himself.

H/T: Instapundit

Warming Trend Pt. II

.... so, John... about that endorsement...

Nothing like a NYT hit piece to rally the base. Haven’t they figured out that we’re the only ones that can bash McCain? Piece here bookends gray area campaign-finance violations with an alleged extra-marital affair….. from 8 years ago.

We’re not sure what is more puzzling about this article: the breathless tone that doesn't reveal anything new or substantive or the fact it took 6 people to put together what could’ve been accomplished by a couple hours of internet archive searches and a handful of follow-up interviews.

Monkeys, here’s your football… now get to it.

Wanted: Photogenic Reader

Cable News Anchor? Honestly, how hard could it be? Your face is airbrushed for a full two hours before going on-air, you get to read from a teleprompter and if you can’t come up with anything "fair and balanced" to say while reading the news, corporate is more than happy to oblige in ginning-up the talking points.

Case in point: CNN felt compelled to issue a memo to assist their people in the coverage of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s stepping down from his position as President-for-life. Full story here. Excerpt of same:

.
* Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.

.

* Also the Cuban government blames a lot of Cuba’s economic problems on the US embargo, and while that has caused some difficulties, (far less so than the collapse of the Soviet Union) the bulk of Cuba’s economic problems are due to Cuba’s failed economic polices. Some analysts would say the US embargo was a benefit to Castro politically – something to blame problems on, by what the Cubans call “the imperialist,” meddling in their affairs.

.

* While despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero, especially with leftist in Latin America, for standing up to the United States. Any questions, please call the international desk.

Please…..? Please…..? And this international (“help”) desk…. Will Raul will be patched-in from Cuba to help fill-in any gaps?

Our favorite part of this memo is in the first bullet: “… in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.” The point CNN makes is not that the son of a bitch actually did oppress his people, mind you, but that he was merely criticized for it. Unbelievable.

Then there’s the issue of the reasoning behind this memo…. like CNN anchors needed to be reminded of their official Castro policy? As if it has not been seared into their very DNA by mere repetition?

But far beyond any bias that is exhibited, what really stuns us regarding the conduct of news outlets these days is the absence of sophistication and the complete lack of critical self-awareness. The kind of self-conscious behavior to where the author of this memo finishes writing it, gets up to go for a walk or grab a bite to eat, comes back to his office to proof-read it and in doing so, smacks his head saying, “What the hell am I thinking?”

Again, a memo like this is evidentiary of a herd mentality that does not possess the ability for introspection or objective analysis… and they wonder why they lose viewers and readership.

We'd Like to Reconsider

In a previous post of places we would like to hang for various amounts of time, one of our selections was an October in SEC country. In making this choice, we neglected to fully appreciate the opportunity to rub elbows with the other half of John Edwards' two Americas that this would potentially provide.






Good Lord. The shag pennant. The Probe masking as an IROC. The reflective shades. The ill-kept ‘chu and of course, the mullet….. THAT’s what we’ll have to deal with during our visit to Rocky Top?

Photo above is courtesy Losers with Socks. Of all the blog genres out there, we’re of the opinion that, by far, the most outrageous and most entertaining are the college football blogs. We’re predisposed to think that way to a certain degree because of our love for the game but it goes beyond that. The passion is undeniable and any time you can bring that fire and combine it with a lot of free time in the folk’s basement, superior photoshopping skills and the best fart jokes…. qualities all possessed in abundance by under-employed twenty and thirty-somethings… then you’ve got a shot at a decent college football blog. Our faves are linked to on the right-hand margin.

Bush is in Africa?

Irish rock’n’roller and Band Aid/Live Aid organizer Bob “Rip Van Winkle” Geldof has apparently been unaware that President Bush doesn’t get a fair shake from time to time from the press.

While speaking to reporters who were waiting for a press conference with Bush and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Geldof praised Bush for spending billions of U.S. dollars on Africa to fight disease and poverty while slamming the press corps for largely ignoring it.

Here’s Bob, who like us, doesn’t like Mondays:

"This is the triumph of American policy really," he said. "It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion."
"What's in it for [Mr. Bush]? Absolutely nothing," Mr. Geldof said.
Mr. Geldof said that the president has failed "to articulate this to Americans" but said he is also "pissed off" at the press for their failure to report on this good news story.
"You guys didn't pay attention," Geldof said to a group of reporters from all the major newspapers. Story here.

In fact, we were vaguely aware that Bush was over there or was scheduled to be over there in the very near future. We let our minds wander, though, to fantasize about the spectacle this would’ve been had it been Himself, America’s first black President, descending upon Africa to “make it rain” U.S. dollar bills on the dark continent. Pure rapture and unbridled adulation, we believe.

But he didn’t and you gotta think Geldof saying Bush has done more for Africa than any other U.S. President has to chap Himself’s hide. First, Bush stole his 9/11 moment and now he has the audacity to be given credit by some long-haired, F.M. radio type for doing more for Clinton’s own people than Clinton, himself! Another revisionist legacy-building opportunity shot to hell.

With his own chances of performing some Lincoln Bedroom fundraising looking slimmer and slimmer every day, these can’t be good times for ol’ boy.

.

.

(The picture above captures the dramatically hideous moment when the man to Bush's left snapped his own neck as a result of a violent whiplash that was an involuntary response to witnessing Bush perform his tribe's dance. Perhaps to avoid further tragedies such as this, the Bush Africa policy should also provide Africa with tapes of American caucasian wedding receptions to better socialize the people of Africa so they aren't caught off-guard in their initial face-to-face encounter with these unfortunate situations).

Its 10 P.M. Do you Know Where Your Delegate Is?

Newsweek’s cover last week was titled, “There will be blood: Why the Right hates McCain” which is also the name of a multiple Oscar-nominated film starring Daniel Day Lewis. Saw the trailer – looked violent. This aspect of a Republican party internecine Armageddon with McCain and his supporters versus conservatives like Rush and Hannity represented on the cover has been a hot topic in political circles since McCain became the presumptive Republican nominee.

While this ideological fight looms over the Republican party there is a similar meltdown brewing on the Democrat Party side the cause of which, though not ideological in nature, is more of a procedural thing but potentially no less volatile… in fact, a lot more volatile.

This particular foodfight is over the delegates of Michigan and Florida which the DNC deemed null and void as punishment for state pols pushing up the primary dates of those two states. Clinton Inc. along with all the other candidates promised they would abide by this procedural ruling but since Hillary’s ascension is now imperiled, Clinton Inc. has now petitioned the DNC to get them reinstated. Because every vote counts, you know.

Another element of this battle that promises to make the Democrat Party Convention must-see T.V. this summer is the battle for the super delegates – delegates that are not bound to vote for the candidate that won the primary in the state from which they hale. To say that there is some courting going on right now for these delegates would make heavy petting blush.

Oh, and this from Politico.com which claims that Clinton, knowing she can’t win even with the super delegates, is going after the “pledged” state primary delegates – a definite no-no. Article quotes former Virginia governor Doug Wilder as saying there will be rioting in the streets and chaos at the convention if this happens. More Wilder: ““If you think 1968 was bad, you watch: In 2008, it will be worse.” Awesome! We were too young for both the MC5 and the ’68 convention so we’d gladly take a do-over on at least one of them.

Flash Technology.... so 10 minutes ago.

Is flash memory already on its way out? Chart Smart has post here regarding the next step in memory storage brought to us by Nanochip out of Fremont, CA which has the potential to store terabytes’ worth of information vs. only 10s of gigabytes with the current flash technology and which can be produced at a cheaper per unit price as well.

To illustrate our technological delinquence, we bought our first (and only) thumb drive only about 4 months ago (see also, last post) - its laying around somewhere - so this sort of development, though interesting is highly theoretical and personally hypothetical. Regardless, we look forward to purchasing our first Nano-drive in one or two years just as that technology is being overtaken by another.

Test Post

... Going to give the "scheduled posts" bit a shot here as recommended by the Theocracy's Official Artist. Apparently, its been a feature of blogspot for a while but its always nice to have people point this stuff out just the same.



And since there's been a glitch with permalinks, there is also a work-around. To try that out we'll link you to Shire Network News, here. Over on the right hand side, click Podcast 117. At the 13:30 mark, they have an interview with Ezra Levant, the embattled Canadian publisher who is being hounded by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for his republishing of the Mohammed-as-terrorist cartoons. In it, he reveals that his interrogator, Shirlene McGovern, has stepped-down from her position as role model for authoritarian bureaucrats run amok because of the public scorn being heaped upon her. There'll be another inquisitor to take her place but its makes us all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that a message has been sent... and received.



... oh, this post should pop-up at 9 A.M. this morning.

Atta boy, Dino!

Way back in the infancy of this blog we wrote here about Dino Gaudio who had just taken over as head coach of the Wake Forest men’s hoops program from his friend and mentor, Skip Prosser who passed away after a morning jog in July. This was notable as Skip Prosser was a fellow alum from Seminary and we were friends with a fellow Seminarian who played for coach Prosser in high school.

We followed and rooted for Prosser’s teams at Xavier and Wake Forest as our love for college hoops was highlited by the fact that one of our guys, from an institution not known for much of anything in the way of athletics, was experiencing tremendous success against the highest levels of competition.

Anyway, we blanched a bit when in Coach Gaudio’s first press conference he likened the upcoming season to a “storybook season” and a “Shakespearean play”…. Wow. That’s good work if you can get it but the pre-ordaining seemed risky at best.

We mention all this because the Demon Deacons notched their first signature win of the season upending #2 Duke last night, 86-73 and putting the Dekes at 16-8 overall and 6-5 in the ACC. That win last night played Wake Forest onto the bubble for upcoming tournament consideration although ESPN’s Bracketologist, Joe Lunardi doesn’t have them “in”. Mock bracket, here.

Who do we like? If you stuck a gun to our head we’d put Memphis, Kansas, UNC and UCLA in the Final Four right now.

Memphis is insanely athletic but we don’t like the fact that they play in a very weak Conference USA. They escaped UAB Saturday night with a one-point win setting up a No. 1 v. No. 2 showdown against Tennessee this Saturday night in Memphis. We reserve the right to shake-up our Final Four predictions depending on the outcome of this game.

Kansas and UNC are probably the most balanced teams we’ve seen this year. Too much talent on both these squads and anything short of an Elite Eight appearance should be considered disappointing.

And for years of suffering through Jim Harrick and Steve Lavin-coached UCLA teams that though physically-gifted, always lacked focus and purpose, its so nice to see a Bruin team coached by Ben Howland that has a plan each and every offensive possession and one that plays perhaps the stickiest and most fundamentally sound man-to-man defense in the nation. Also, for not quite being old enough to recall Bill Walton's play at UCLA, its nice to be able to watch and enjoy freshman center Kevin Love do many of the same things we're told by those that did watch Walton.

And Duke? One might think we set up this entire post to rip Duke. That person would be wrong but also couldn’t be blamed for that sneaking suspicion because, in our alleged mind, Duke really is the Notre Dame of college hoops. Afterall, we thought that the Dookies #2 ranking before last night’s loss was a tad misleading because of, in part, the name on the front of the uniform.

It may seem ironic to state this but Duke doesn’t matchup athletically, 1 through 7 or 8 on the roster, very well against the aforementioned teams. For whatever reason, rigorous admission standards, being the excuse we hear the most, Duke’s offense the past 4-5 years has essentially been a spread-the-floor, drive, draw and kick-it-back-out for a 3-pointer system. A system that is employed, we believe, because the Dookies do not have the athletic swingman-type ballplayer that can create his own shot for open jumpers or take it strong to the tin for layups and dunks.

This system has been borne of necessity and refined by Coach K after spending time with Coach Mike D’antonio of the Phoenix Suns this past summer as an assistant on the Olympic team coaching staff and who himself brought it over from Europe in his days as a player there.

If the outside shot is falling, everything is peachy…. If its not then it could spell another early exit in the tourney. To wit, Duke was 8-28 from behind the arc last night for 29%.

Some Very Important Thoughts on Steroids and Baseball

While doing some Keating Five research, we barely surfaced for air long enough to notice that faithful commenter Road Dawg left a message on our cell phone wanting to know when we were going to submit a post on the Roger Clemens steroid hearings last week. We listened to a portion of the hearings on radio and of course saw the low-lights on T.V. where the tone of questioning of Clemens and Clemens’ former trainer Brian Mcnamee broke unmistakably along party lines. So, what did we think of that 3-ring circus?

Well, after much pondering and chin-scratching this is what we think: Why did NFL commissioner Roger Goodell destroy the 6 tapes that were handed over to him at the beginning of the season by the New England Patriots as part of the spy-gate scandal? And is there any truth to the rumor that former Pat video assistant Matt Walsh taped the St. Louis Rams Saturday walk-through prior to their 2002 Super Bowl matchup against the Pats?

Senator Arlen Specter (Rino-PA) met with Goodell last week to discuss the handling of the tapes and didn’t appear to be satisfied with Goodell’s reasoning that he destroyed the tapes because he wanted to keep the tapes out of the competition’s hands. Specter opined on the use of safes for such predicaments. And in what has been pro forma for years when this country’s professional sports leagues are behaving in an untoward or unseemly manner in the eyes of our lawmakers, Specter dropped the “A”-bomb, as in “anti-trust exemption”. Stories here and here.

Its been a popular refrain heard on T.V. lately, particularly by ex-jocks turned talking-heads who want to sound like smart cocktail party guy: “Doesn’t Congress have more important things to worry about than steroid hearings and potential spy-gate investigations?” Why, yes they do and that’s precisely why we need to keep Congress tied-up with more steroid and spy-gate stuff considering all the wonderful legislation they have lined-up for us.

Continue funding the War on Terror, protect our borders, punch the hippies and find us Matt Walsh!

Saturday Field Trip

As promised, we sent the staff to San Diego's great outback for some photo-journalism. Up and over the mountains and into the desert. Here's what they came up with:


Cuyamaca Resevoir and Stonewall Peak looking south

The northern end of the resevoir looking across to Sunrise Highway which appeared to still be closed at the time to vehicles without chains.

... and dropping down into Borrego Valley with the Santa Rosa moutains to the north as the backdrop.

A look at Indian Head up the side of Palm Canyon. There's bighorn sheep in there somewhere. See if you can find it/them.

The water was flowing nicely as you got closer to the palm oasis.

.... and the oasis itself. First nice weekend in a while so there were quite a few people out on the trail.

A look at Borrego Valley coming back down the trail.

Gratuitous beer'n'lifestyle shot. This is Coyote Creek at the upper end of Coyote Canyon north of Borrego Springs. There are 3 crossings, this being the last and the deepest. Don't recall seeing this much water ever here.

Coming back down the trail in Coyote Canyon.

This falafel hut has been here on DiGiorgio road north of town for as long as we can remember. There are sacks of grapefruit laying on the table inside and its an on-your-honor pay system. Kinda nice to know places like this exist and that they've been around for a while.

A look at the town of Borrego Springs and the surrounding valley from the climb up S-22 to the west.

Tried to capture some of the uncommon green-ness towards the top of S-22 before entering Ranchita

...and finally, the inevitable result of trying to capture a sunset with a digital camera pointed out the window while on the highway.

Do Burqas come in Pink?

The gentle lads at Weasel Zippers have an excellent photo essay here of the Code Pink demonstrations and counter-demonstrations up in Berkeley on Tuesday of this past week.

What jumped out at us in looking at the pictures is the overwhelming causal evidence of anti-Americanism and Leftism to Fugliness in its adherents. It was really quite remarkable.

Not to be outdone, we are sending the BwD photo staff out to the mountains and deserts in San Diego's great big backyard to see what all the recent winter storms hath wrought. Hopefully, we will be posting pix later tonight or tomorrow.

Y'all have a great day.

John McCain dodges a bullet....

… Nicaraguan President and unreconstructed Marxist, Daniel Ortega, endorses Obama. Article here.

If and when people get over their adolescent crush on the man, they may want to take a look at what this guy has been up to when he’s not out on tour feeding the hungry and healing the lame.

The Rock Star has sponsored something called the Global Poverty Act which will commit the U.S. taxpayers to $845 billion over what they already spend on foreign aid over a 13 year span which works out to $65 bil/year. The annual Foreign Appropriations Bill of ‘04 was over $20 billion dollars. And this does not even include military aid to our allies, government loans to developing countries, private donations made by citizens, HIV/AIDS money, work done by religious groups and overseas disaster relief performed by the military such as tsunami relief.

And people bitch about how much the War is costing. The War on Poverty, that is, which is 44 years old now and is one in which we have neither an exit strategy nor any end in sight. Yes, declaring war on global poverty is just a logical extension of this brilliant domestic strategy into which we have sunk $9 trillion as of 2004.

But we’d gladly pony-up for this tax if it prohibited all the other insanity to which this Act commits us. Its as if all the sovereignty-stripping wackiness of the International Left was wrapped up in one Big (bad) Idea. Its all there: The International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. etc. What… no condemnation of Israel?

If we are guilty of an ever-reflexive defense of this nation’s sovereign wholeness its merely in response to what we see as an ever-reflexive impulse by our elected leaders to give away, bit by bit, this country’s collective self-determination. We can only hope our knee-jerk reaction then, is directed in such a manner that it results in a boot up the ass of those deserving it in Congress.

At least its one big fat juicy target that’s making its way through Joe Biden’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee as we speak.... easier to track. We’ll try to keep tabs on it and report out as necessary.

News Flash: Berkeley Leftists hate Marines.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are aware that the city of Berkeley, California issued and then later rescinded a letter asking the Marines who have a recruiting office there to leave town. They have also allowed Code Pink a reserved parking spot in front of the recruiting office to facilitate easier harassment and general ass-hattery of which they are experts.

Not wanting to be left out of the fray, Congress is attempting to pass the Semper Fi Act which will withhold $2 million dollars in hidden earmark funding for the city (hey, we thought Congress did away with those things). The latest here from HotAir.

Are we missing something? The Marines are big boys – they can handle themselves. Do they really need Congress, a collective body which couldn’t get laid in a whorehouse with $100 bills hanging out of its pockets, attempting to execute a constructive reprimand or punishment on their behalf?

Don’t get us wrong… tweaking those over-the-hill hippies up there is something that should be done from time-to-time just on principle but it just looks like grandstanding and bullying when it comes from the U.S. Congress.

Besides, isn’t this the natural order of things? Not to stretch an analogy too far but there’s this Book out there, not called the Koran, that warns it adherents that the world will always hate them for what they believe and what they practice. To put it differently, if Code Pink starts holding bake sales on behalf of the Marines… then we’ve got a problem.

School Prayer (thoughts here), the Flag Burning Amendment and now this Semper Fi Act… all examples of some of our right-wing brethren being full of fight for the wrong battles.

Again, we think the Marines will be just fine. The fraternal ancestors of the men and women in that recruiting office have spilled their blood literally around the world in the name of freedom and liberty for this country and others. We think they’ll be able to handle a few pony-tailed dorks in tie-dies. Perhaps they could petition the Berkeley City Council under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to park one of these in front of the Code Pink offices.

So back off, Congress. Let us handle this. Dear readers… you want to do something constructive to show your support for the Corps? Drop a line to the Berkeley Mayor (contact info, here) and let him know what you think. And you wanna cheese-off Code Pink? Visit here, here and here and give as the spirit moves.

Peace Out and Semper Fi!

Proceed with Caution

Again, it would appear that the demise of those Reagan-era feel-good shock troops, Up with People has been greatly exaggerated. Ever since their swan song at the Holiday Bowl some 4-5 years ago, they pop up every now and again, pepping and stepping their way back into our hearts with Obama-esque platitudes of self-affirmation and positive reinforcement.

This latest come-back effort though shows them eschewing their uniform of khakis and pastel-colored polo shirts in favor of yeoman-looking blue jeans and t-shirts because after all, as the Ass Baboon of Venus reminded us, Hillary’s the “work horse” and the rock star is merely the “show horse”.

Should you believe yourself to possess the grit and fortitude to start watching this video, be advised that no one will hear your feeble cries for help as the air is sucked from your lungs, your eyeballs sink back into your skull and your flesh melts off your face as its effects have been compared favorably to gazing into the Ark of the Covenant. Remember, you were warned.

Catchin' Up with Ezra

(A semi-regular installment meant to keep tabs on the latest developments concerning Canadian Ezra Levant who because he reproduced the Islamo-angering Danish cartoons in his newspaper two years ago has been hauled before a “human-rights” star-chamber in Alberta to answer for his transgressions. Previous posts here and here).

It seems that the angry little imam, Syed Soharwardy, who got this ball rolling by filing his complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission against Levant may just let the whole thing drop… or, maybe he won’t. At any rate Ezra has some thoughts here as to why it is that Syed could be thinking about letting this nasty little episode which was simply the result of a terrible misunderstanding go by the boards.

And… Iowahawk did some dumpster diving out back behind the AHRC headquarters and fished out a copy of the investigative hearing report that was being filled-out by Shirlene McGovern, the poor hapless woman who has been the object of Levant’s verbal beatdowns during these "hearings".

A Warming Trend?

Dude has a long way to go towards making us feel like we’re out at the Track on a Saturday afternoon in August but his victory speech last night was a step in the right direction. Most of the hilites of the speech, here. (at the 2:45 mark he takes dead aim at Obama. Ouch.)

And combine that with the real possibility that another Clinton or a messianic rock star may occupy the Oval Office and we may be forced to cut back our McCain hit-pieces to once a week. ... sheesh.

KT’s assessment of either a Mac v. Hillary or Mac v. Obama matchup can be found here… but check out the comments also which were extremely insightful.

Our Homework Assignment

We were tasked by our TopKat, KT, to name 4 places that we would live for a week, a month, a year and a half a life-time respectively. We’re supposed to “tag” 3 other bloggers but we’ll do that later after we’ve done our bit. Here goes:

A week: West Yellowstone in January or February. We know, we know… it appears we took the easy way out after just returning from there but we could’ve done what we were doing for another 3-4 days. We were only just getting used to our sleds at 65-70 mph on straight-aways and grabbing 4-5 feet of air off of jumps by the time we left.

A month: We’re going to cheat on this one. A month in San Francisco and one October in SEC country taking in Wednesday evening-starting tailgates and of course the games on Saturday. Mandatory stops: A night game at Death Valley and the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. We’ve had two opportunities to live and work in San Fran for 3-4 week stretches and absolutely loved every minute of it. But thank goodness for per diems… chianti and gnocchi in North Beach and courting the fairer sex will break a man in a hurry without a little help.

One year: hmmm…. We’ve done two roadies through the region in the past 2 years and read an outstanding book on the same’s patron saint, John Wesley Powell (by Wallace Stegner). The Colorado Plateau/Four Corners area remains the most visually arresting and fascinating physical locales we have ever seen. Give us a year and perhaps we will have merely scratched the surface to exploring this place.

Half a life-time: We’re well on our way already so why change horses now. We still have friends in the LA/OC area who are wondering when we will end this near-18 year “experiment” down here and move back up there. We pity them… we truly do. Even a fantastically corrupt and inept city hall can’t ruin this love affair with our adopted hometown.

KT, Can we go outside and play now?