Housekeeping

First off, an apology… Foxfier (aka Head Noises) has been blogrolled under our “Friends of…” section for a couple of months and it is only now that we are getting around to formal introductions. Please stop by the blog of a proud former member of our nation’s armed forces when you get a chance. Welcome aboard, Foxie!

And in keeping with the general American attitude of not paying any attention to the NBA until the playoffs, we present Free Darko which of course will be ‘rolled under our Recommended Sports sites. If you are into a more free form, existential style of writing AND you are into the NBA then… then you probably know about the site already. Hell, you probably write for the site. Seriously, its one of the most original and creative sports-related sites we’ve run across in our journeys.

And we’ve updated our “Ass:…” feature. They were one of our first KBwD performers and we’re inserting Fishbone into the rotation for a spell. Bono and the Boys have been up there for a while… longer than we had intended. We will endeavor to do a better job in refreshing what is supposed to be emotionally uplifting and physically energizing music for life’s dead spots.

Finally, this evening we our proud to ‘roll two of the most prominent political websites in the ‘sphere: that would be of course, the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos. Hey, what’s with the blank looks? Just thought it would be a good idea to be a click away from seeing what’s going on with our friends on the other side of the aisle, that’s all. There were a couple of pieces that jumped out at us which we’ll share later.

Good night, all.

Update #1: Woops. Totally forgot about rolling East Coast Bias in our recommended sports blogs. We were alerted to these D.C./ACC-centric gents a while back by DeadSpin for their coverage of the suit being brought against Duke University by the Duke LaCrosse team over the unholy and felonious mess the U. made of the alleged rape case. They are very comment friendly so drop on by when you get a chance.

We'll remain selective of our Australian imports

The excellent theo-katic politics/religion/culture blog, Blue Crab Blvd. aka Prelate to the Primates has a round-up of Australia’s recently concluded “idea conference”.

“Some 1,000 experts, activists, politicians and celebrities put forward more than 40 proposals after two days of brainstorming.”

Experts, activist, politicians and celebrities…? Well, shoot-howdy. You just KNOW there are going to be some useful and entirely credible ideas to be generated with that stellar cross-section of folks.

The American version of this would look like that IBM ideating commercial but with the likes of Tim Robbins, Puff Daddy, Ward Churchill, Harry Reid, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell all in the reclined position brain-storming their way to a better American tomorrow.

Thanks, no.

Beijing '08 Olympics Update

(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).

The dunder-headed IOC has got your politics, alright.

The U.S. women’s softball team is making a 45-city barnstorming tour throughout the United States currently that is dubbed Bound 4 Beijing and which from account here is part sold-out rock band tour and farewell tour. Farewell tour? What say ye? Apparently, softball is viewed as being to Americanized by the International Olympic Committee as they voted 52-52 (a majority is needed) to drop the sport after the Beijing Games. The American side has won all 3 gold medals since being included as a medal sport in ’96 and most recently outscored its opponents in Athens ’04 by a combined score 51-1.

Of course, this business about the sport being too Americanized or too dominated by Americans is petty, selfish and extremely short-sighted. It was precisely the beat-downs handed out by the American men’s basketball Dream Team in ’92 that kicked what was already a popular international sport into over-drive as the world got an up-close look at the game’s superstars like Michael, Magic and Larry. The image of the Angolan player gleefully showing his Charles Barkley autograph to his teammates and friends after that same Charles Barkley cheap-shotted an elbow into this guy’s chest is the indelible moment of those Games for us.

One can draw a straight downward-trending line from those Olympics to the present as representative of declining American performances and results, and conversely, rising international peformenaces in the Games.

Though we are no means real followers of the sport, we do enjoy the game and will catch what we can when ESPN broadcasts the women’s college world series. Unlike baseball, softball is briskly-paced and one whose participants are very often quite attractive. Sue us!

Anyway, it is hoped the IOC can pull its head out of its rear end long enough to realize that women like Lisa Fernandez and Jennie Finch (pictured) aren’t just heroes to young women here but represent democratizing and gender-equalizing influences around the globe and re-instate softball as an Olympic sport.

Buckley, the Birchers and the original Arizona Maverick

Alright, gang. After having been shut out of the beer convention going on here in San Diego (“whaddya mean there’s no tasting room?”) Mr. Styles and ourselves are taking matters into our own hands by paying a visit to the Stone Brewing Company up in Escondido today so blogging will be light.

In our absence, though, we left you all with a little history lesson from WFB describing a critical juncture in the development of the modern American conservative movement… the purging of the kooks. Enjoy.

Its all micro-economics to us

Whether they do or don’t harvest shade-grown coffee beans or regardless of causes they may or may not support, we’ll continue to purchase our $1.85 grande’ cup of very mediocre coffee and occasional pastry if it helps prevent shuttering of storefronts like the ones right next door.

KBwD is on the Air

Pulled from our iPod Playlist “Quite possibly the coolest songs of all-time”. Culling the iTunes selections for George Baker reveals the Dutch singer-songwriter wrote some bad music…. really awful stuff. But he will always have this. #21 on the U.S. charts back in 1970 and near #1 in our hearts, Ladies and Gentleman: The George Baker Selection performing… (and doing a lot of walking around the countryside) "Little Green Bag".



… and nothing says old-school like riding side saddle.

Oldest Tree has a story to be told, hope scientists

The world’s oldest tree has been located. Story here.

Wow… if that tree could talk, it would…. it would… damn thing would put us to sleep.

Central Sweden? Not Jerusalem or Rome or even Moscow…. central Sweden…?

Whatever.

Steve Rosenthal would like you to know he's a pretty big deal

Video below has been making the rounds for a few days now and takes some light-hearted but insipid shots at John McCain and specifically John McCain’s age. It’s a curious ad as it doesn’t raise any serious misgivings about the Senator’s age or suggest why his relative old age might pose a problem…. so, what is the point?



Commentors are of basically two themes: one in which we agree and the other in which we disagree. Agree that this ad is counterproductive as there is nothing like potentially offending the voting block that turns out the best. Disagree that this ad should be viewed as offensive as no one questions Hillary being a female or Obama being black (or half-white, if one wants to get genetically technical) so why should people question McCain's age?

Age is different from gender and race. We can’t quite place our finger on it but it just is.

No one gets birthday cards from friends ribbing them about being a woman or being a black male. Perhaps joking around about age is some sort of subconscious gallows humor…. as if, we’re all going to get there (old) eventually, so we might as well yuck it up at someone else’s expense while we can.

Video directs you to YoungerthanMcCain.com which is supposedly run by some guy named Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic operative who humbly refers to himself in the 3rd person on his blogger profile page and quotes the New York Times about himself: one of the Democratic Party’s “smartest and most influential strategists”.

After viewing this “ad”, Beers with Demo fully believes that is precisely what the New York Times would say about Steve Rosenthal. “Nice work, Steve”, says Beers with Demo and “keep it up”.

Laissez les mal temps roullez!

Several years back as the housing market was just starting to take off and the median price for homes here in San Diego was rumbling past $300,000 (300 grand!), two of our office mates were concerned and perplexed that “no one would be able to afford a home at those prices”. We took pains to inform them that someone, in fact, many people must be able to afford them or the prices would not continue to rise as they were.

It turns out though, our colleagues were, in a sense, correct – it’s just that they didn’t know in what manner they were correct or why they were correct in their assessment.

At the time, some 7 years ago, we were not yet hip to the “creative financing” and sub-prime lending practices that were being effected to get a feverish public (“home rushers”?) into their new homes so we mistakenly equated “purchased” with “afford”.

Recent data now shows that the San Diego median home price has fallen under $400,000 for the first time since November of ’03. Story here.

And this is just one of the many things that bothers us about the proposed Congressional bailout plans…. Did any of you out there who own a home honestly think those prices of some 2 years ago were going to keep going up or at least stay steady? Did you? We don’t think any sensible homeowner started making early retirement plans after their home’s value doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in the span of 5 years. We sure as heck didn’t.

And now Congress is trying to paper over what can be accurately described as a correction (because, again… no sensible person expected the good times to keep rolling). And we have to laugh at this notion of a “crisis”. A crisis? The current median price is still just under 2 times what it was back in ’99 when we purchased our crib. Some crisis.

One of the arguments we’ve heard by the bailout proponents is that it will get empty houses occupied quicker because empty houses are bad for morale, we suppose. Fair enough but guess what? We’ve lived next door to an empty house for over a year now (it was just purchased this week). Didn’t like it, but we kept the weeds down in the front lawn, made a couple of responded-to emails to the property management firm as to the status of the property and made nearly daily checks around the property to prevent any unsavory activity. We dealt with it.

The house was originally listed at $630,000 and ultimately sold for $360,000. The realtor had to “correct” downward to the more sensible market value. We can only imagine that Congressional meddling to falsely prop-up the price of this house would’ve only invited more sub-prime shenanigans… the same that ultimately did in the previous owners.

Dear Congress, Let it go…. just leave this one alone and it will all sort itself out.

A Reversal of Fortune?

Your antidote for future-generations hand-wringing can be found here.



H/T: The Coffee Shop Blog via The Scratching Post

The term "finest" is not meant to be univerally applied, here.

Apparently, even the clueless can be the beneficiaries of a boot in the ass every once in a while. Amid sweeping proposed budget cuts made by Mayor Jerry Sanders,
the San Diego City Council voted themselves a 24% raise (to $93,485) earlier this week.

They also voted to eliminate an annual $9,600 auto allowance whose legality had been called into question. So they avoided the nasty little legality/ethicalness question by simply rolling up that $9,600 as part of their raise. Problem solved. Nice work, gang. (It was suggested during the council meeting that the auto allowance be added to the base salary plus a 3% raise. Councilman Ben Hueso thought that was pretty good but had an even better idea: How about the base plus the auto allowance and a 10% raise? Rock on, Ben!)

And though the 5-3 vote was veto-proof it may not have been riot-proof as yesterday 2 of the "for" votes (including Hueso) reacting to getting pummeled by emails and talk radio, consulted their inner-political survival instinct and withdrew their support for the raise. Story here.

The more we live and learn, the more we are convinced that the greatest amount and degree of incompetence, ineptitude and corruptness in any level of government, exists at the city/municipal level.