January 2009
31 posts
What a Year....
First things first, I don’t do Gaza. I don’t claim to get what’s going on there. Maybe I will read up over the long weekend but I doubt it. Second, I helped a Loyal Reader do the digital TV conversion thing. Very easy to pull off actually. Apart from the fact that some stations don’t seem to be broadcasting their non-HD stations yet, the signal is superior to analog...
December 2008
24 posts
Football
Days like yesterday demonstrate why the NFL has captured the #1 slot among American sports fans. I’m not sure a regular season slate of games in any other sport could have so many people interested. Sure, March Madness is big, but that’s the playoffs. Baseball playoffs, if everything lines up right, can also be quite the event. But this was just the last week of the regular...
Saturday stuff
Here is a good post by Josh Marshall on the Toussie quasi-pardon. The more I read about this, the more I am convinced that this guy will eventually receive his pardon via a federal court after President Bush leaves office. Nice pickup by the Giants of Randy Johnson. One year deal, relatively low risk. If he still has some gas in the tank and could replicate even his 2008, he will be a solid...
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to everyone. Hope everyone is doing OK. Who may be having an especially Merry day? 49ers interim head coach Mike Singletary. The Bee reports that the Niners have decided to make him a multi-year offer to be the head coach. The franchise really doesn’t have much of a choice. They are spending way too much money on a roster which was perceived as underperforming for much...
Cuomo for Senate (no not that one)....
Hedrick Hertzberg is one of the authors of the Talk of the Town pieces which appear weekly in the New Yorker. Here he writes online re: the potential appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the Senate. In part, he argues: …one of the plus sides of getting a senator by appointment is that he or she doesn’t have to “earn” it—i.e., doesn’t have to spend years...
No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die....
If you look at pages A8 and A9 (facing pages) in the print copy of the New York Times today you’ll see two scary shots. I would embed them in this post but since neither picture actually accompanied an article, they don’t appear online. So, the best I can do is link. Here is the first shot (and click quickly, I have no idea how long this link will be good). The Times’ caption...
For the record
My bus smells like a carpeted dive bar at last call. I hope the driver is uninvolved.
Torches and Pitchforks? Over the Top. Otherwise...
Maybe I’m missing something. Lawyers for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich are arguing that the wiretaps of him were illegal. Thus, he argues that the Illinois Legislature should not rely up on the contents of them as part of impeachment proceedings. Huh? Granted, the Clinton impeachment was almost a decade ago, but people need to remember - impeachment is a purely political process. In...
Indiana Hoops
Because I know I have a couple of Hoosiers out there reading, I couldn’t resist addressing this item in the news - Eric Gordon alleges that drug use ruined IU’s season in 2007-2008. For those in the dark, Eric Gordon is a rookie on the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA and he played basketball for one year at Indiana University. I’m sure this is causing quite the uproar (or maybe...
______________ for Senate
With Hillary Clinton’s ascendancy to Secretary of State, an opening has been created for a U.S. Senator in New York. Under New York law, a replacement would serve until 2010, when a special election would be held for the remainder of the term. Then, another election would be held in 2012 for the seat’s full six year term. After a lot of speculation, Caroline Kennedy declared her...
Fed Funds rate drop
The Federal Reserve has dropped the federal funds rate to practically zero. Apparently in an effort to spur interbank (and impliedly external) lending. Question - whatever the absolute rate, the relative change is fairly minor. And if the activities associated with TARP, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars of activity, haven’t had any effect, why would this? This looks a lot like...
Filibuster
During the Myers/Roberts/Alito free-for-all a couple of years ago, the GOP in the Senate came up with the rather straightforward response to the Democrats’ threat to filibuster judicial nominations - “we’ll eliminate filibusters for judicial nominees.” It is unconstitutional the GOP said. Which was undoubtedly true. Well undoubtedly partially true. Sort of. OK, it is...
Auburn
So Tommy Tuberville is canned for going 85-40 over his Auburn career, including an undefeated season. And to replace him, Auburn brings in…some former assistant who won 5 games over 2 years at Iowa State? (Who also, by the way, ended his Iowa State tenure with 10 consecutive losses.) Charles Barkley is peeved because Auburn stiffed current University of Buffalo head coach (and former...
A few Monday thoughts...
Since when is Xmas Halloween? The number of people dressed up as Santa or Santa’s Sexy Helper over the weekend was daunting. The Santas seemed to do OK in the cold. The Helpers, maybe not so much. The Miami Dolphins aren’t one of those “worst __ win team ever” clubs - they turn the ball over far too infrequently to not be worthy of some praise. But they’re not...
Why don't they....
…have movie theaters in airports? Set up a 1 or 2 screen theater in an airport for those with longer layovers. If you have a delayed connection, you can get a vibrating pager (think the kind that some restaurant chains give out to let you know your table is ready) for a small fee and give the issuing desk your flight number in case your airline starts boarding your plane. Alternative...
Sad News in Hot Truck Land
Inventor of Hot Truck passes away from Parkinson’s complications . Bob will be missed but his creations will live on.
Criminally Stupid
This is Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich YESTERDAY: Speaking to reporters Monday for the first time since the Tribune revealed federal investigators had recorded him and others as part of their corruption probe, Blagojevich said his discussions were “always lawful.” He also defended close confidant John Wyma, whose cooperation with federal agents helped lead to the recordings, as...
Wow. I guess the Chicago Way Still Is The Chicago...
A copy of the Complaint charging Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich with several federal crimes associated with the process of filling of Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat. They got him on tape and he will be going to jail for a long, long time. It appears from the Complaint that various Illinois constituencies, including the President-elect, were being pressured to line up money...
As soon as you get done berating the Detroit 3...
Not that they don’t deserve a good kick in the pants, but I recommend that folks who liked the Michael Lewis article from Portfolio also read this. Joe Nocera is one of the New York Times’ best business columnists, and this post on his Times blog helps get into the nitty-gritty of the consumer credit situation. Bad News? Banks aren’t lending. Worse news? Banks are not only...
Blame Canada!
The election of Barack Obama as U.S. President combined with the end of the Canadian dollar’s summer resurgence drastically reduced the chances that our neighbors to the North assuming a superiority complex of any sort over the southern neighbors. But, if this wasn’t enough, it turns out that many Canadians are waking up to the fact that the politics in what is still a Constitutional...
Plaxico (and this may be the last)
The NY Times has an interesting piece today in which they cite a study indicating that only 10% of the folks charged with the same crime as Burriss in New York City ended up being convicted of that charge, with the lion’s share being found guilty of lesser offenses. The point? Burriss shouldn’t be treated more harshly in terms of the use of prosecutorial discretion than the average...
Holiday note
Post-Thanksgiving means the return of the eggnog scone to Peet’s. Much like the old McDonald’s Shamrock Shake, it tastes better than it sounds.
Your daily Plax Update
The criminal complaint filed against Burress yesterday charges the Giants receiver with two counts of criminal possession of a handgun in the second degree - a class C felony in New York. The two counts involve: (1) an allegation that Burress possessed a “disguised gun” with the “intent to use the weapon against another,” and (2) an allegation that Burress possessed a...
Plaxico Burress Self-Inflicted Wound Update
According to this morning’s NY Post, NY Giants Wide Receiver Plaxico Burress told folks at the New York hospital where he was treated that his name was “Harris Smith” and that he had been shot at an Applebee’s. Hospital workers did not report the gunshot wound to police, even though New York State law requires it. Hospital folks continued to deny that Burress was treated...