Da Scent

Oscar preview

2006-03-05T15:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally saw my first Best Picture nominee of the year last night, and Brokeback Mountain was as good as advertised. Ledger and Gyllenhaal gave inspired performances, the scenery was beautiful and breathtaking, and the story was heartbreaking. I expect it to be taking home several statues tonight.

Here's my run down of the "mjaor" categories...

Supporting Actor
George Clooney - 40%
Paul Giamatti - 35%
Jake Gyllenhaal - 20%
Matt Dillon - 4%
William Hurt - 1%

This appears to be a two-horse race with a potential sleeper. Clooney has the advantage of being the major star, as opposed to Giamatti and Gyllenhaal, who are "actor's actors". But Oscar voters might be feeling a tad embarassed about snubbing Giamatti last year after his fabulous performance in Sideways and they might use this as a make-up Oscar. but then again, maybe they think that just giving him the nomination is making up enough...

Supporting Actress
Rachael Weisz - 75%
Michelle Williams - 15%
Catherine Keener - 5%
Frances McDormand - 4%
Amy Adams - 1%

Very close to a lock. Michelle Williams was wonderful in Brokeback Mountain, but she stands little chance of taking the award from Weisz, who cleaned up the other awards.

Actor
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - 50%
Heath Ledger - 30%
Joaquin Phoenix - 18%
Terrance Howard - 1%
David Strathairn - 1%

Hoffman won the SAG and the Golden Globe, which together indicates a high probability of success, but Ledger's performance was outstanding, and he has a very good chance if the Academy decides it's tired of handing out Acting Oscars for biopics. Phoenix has an outside shot.

Actress
Reese Witherspoon - 60%
Felicity Huffman - 35%
Charlize Theron - 2%
Keira Knightley - 2%
Judi Dench - 1%

It's either Witherspoon or Huffman, that much is certain, and the buzz is Witherspoon will come out on top. We'll see if that holds true - the indicator awards were sort of mixed (both won Golden Globes and while Witherspoon won the SAG, Huffman won the SAG for television for her role in Desperate Housewives and the SAG might have been trying to split those awards).

Screenplay, Adapted
Munich - 40%
Brokeback Mountain - 30%
Capote - 15%
The Constant Gardener - 10%
A History of Violence - 5%

It'll be Brokeback or Munich, and I'm going with Munich because I don't seeing it winning any other biggies and I also don't see it going home empty-handed.

Screenplay, Original
Crash - 40%
Good Night, And Good Luck - 35%
Syriana - 23%
Match Point - 1%
The Squid And the Whale - 1%

Crash got a massive screening right around the time of the SAG Awards and it reaped the benefit of the Award for ensemble acting. Here's saying it wins an Oscar, too - this one.

Director
Brokeback Mountain - 65%
Munich - 25%
Good Night, And Good Luck 8%
Capote - 1%
Crash - 1%

Ang Lee was upset by Stephen Soderbergh in 2000 when he did Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (although I was pretty sure that Soderbergh, who was nominated twice in that category that year, for Erin Brokovich and for Traffic, was going to win for one of those, and he did for Traffic), and this is his make-up Oscar. But you can never count Spielberg out of any Oscar race he is in, and Clooney has some support as well.

Picture
Brokeback Mountain - 85%
Crash - 10%
Munich - 2%
Capote - 2%
Good Night, And Good Luck - 1%

There is a lot of talk that the Brokeback Mountain will experience a backlash and that Crash has a lot of momentum, but I'm not buying it. A lot of Crash's supposed "momentum" talk is based on the movie's SAG win for Ensemble Performace, which is erroneously thought of as SAG's "equivalent" for Best Picture. Well, it's not Best Picture. It's ensemble acting. And Crash was a true ensemble movie, as opposed to Brokeback, which was largely carried by Ledger and Gyllenhaal, with some good supporting performances. Sideways won the ensemble award last year, and fat load of good that did that movie come Best Picture time Oscar Night (although Sideways did win Best Screenplay, which is what I'm calling for Crash to win). As far as Hollywood is concerned, this is the year of the Mountain.

New Abu Ghraib Photos

2006-02-15T17:38:00.000-05:00

Wow...just saw the new set of Abu Ghraib photos...this shit is just plain sickening. If you thought the Muslims went wacko over a few cartoons, wait till the full effects of this are felt. Once again, the Untied States military has put our lives directly in danger. How can anybody justify this sort of behavior?

The Pentagon is telling us that 25 officers and enlisted soldiers have been arrested and court martialed, but I'm wondering how many people are left that are so stupid to believe that this is just a series of isolated incidents purpetrated by a few soldiers on the ground in Iraq. This obviously goes up much higher than that, and I am convinced that the orders were coming from inside the administration.

Dick Durbin apologized for making this statement, but I will not. These are the sort of photographs you would expect to see coming from the prison camps run by autocratic regimes, not by a supposedly freedom-loving country like the United States. While you're watching our athletes representing our country in Italy these few weeks, understand that when the rest of the world sees and hears "USA", these pictures are the first things that will come to mind for many of those people.

It doesn't have to be this way; I love this country and I am appalled by what these people are doing to everything it used to stand for. It can stand for all of those things again, but we, the people, have to be willing to stand up to this and say, "enough".

Democratic Party takes another shot at their base

2006-02-14T21:58:00.000-05:00

The people in charge of the Democratic Party are scared. They're losing their grip, and they know it. So they struck back, and took out the latest blogosphere superstar, Jim Hackett. Well, congratu-fucking-lations. You've now cost us another Senate seat.

I swear to God, the Democratic Party has to be run by the biggest group of fuck-ups on the goddam planet Earth. Everytime the path to victory is opened up for them, they burn the motherfucker down. Everytime the netroots try and save them from themselves, they stab us in the back.

Well, those assholes aren't going to get another goddam penny from me. Any donations I make from now on will be directly to candidates only. I'm not going to let those fuckers take my money and use it to strong arm capable candidates out of races.

The Dems will never, ever, be able to compete with the Repubs in fund raising UNLESS they EMBRACE the one part of their Party that isn't comepletely and utterly dysfunctional - the netroots, instead of trying to participate in this bizzare battle for Party supremacy, they better step back and see exactly how it is they can win in general elections, not primaries.

Bye bye Meirs

2005-10-28T02:17:00.000-04:00

Harriet Meirs withdrew her own Supreme Court nomination yesterday, in a move which should have surprised nobody, seeing as I predicted it last night.

This is a pretty sad occasion, actually, as I had been enjoying this debacle whole-heartedly. However, all good things must come to an end - this one came to an end, coincidentally, just in time for Bush to make another nomination to take the focus away from all of the Plame indictments. So, what now?

We're still waiting for the Other Shoe to drop, of course, in the Plame Case, which is far, far, far from being over. And then we've got DeLay, and another Supreme Court nomination. So, keep your hands and feet inside the car, ladies and gentlemen, the ride ain't over yet. In fact, it's just starting to get interesting...

Till later, P&L...

Back, after a while

2005-10-27T01:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I've taken a couple of weeks off from the blog, as anyone who might read this has noticed. It's probably a good thing.

I'm gonna alter the format a little bit. First, I'll scale down the football content on this blog. This has become a football blog, and there really is no reason for that to be true. If you want football analysis, there are better places to go. I'd love to believe I know all regarding the gridiorn sport (hey, my fantasy team is whooping some serious ass this season...) but the fact is ESPN and Foxsports and cbs sportsline, etc, etc, all have guys who know more about the game than I do. That being said, here are the games I'll be following this week, pro and college:

College:
Georgia/Florida
Maryland/Florida State
Purdue/Penn State
Boston College/Virginia Tech (tomorrow)
North Carolina/Miami (FL)

Pro:
Redskins/Giants
Eagles/Broncos
Chiefs/Chargers
Bears/Lions
Vikings/Panthers

In other sports news, the White Sox won the World Series last night. The White Sox and Red Sox won the World Series in consecutive years in 1917 and 1918, neither won the World Series until last season, and now they have won the Series in consecutive years again. The odds against such an occurence must be astronomical - that's why I love baseball, and sports in general.

Rosa Parks died the other night. Rosa's legacy is, pretty much, the entirety of the Civil Rights Movement. While her death saddens me, she was 92 years old, so at least she wasn't cheated. The lesson of Rosa Parks, to me, is if you don't like something, goddamit, go take a stand. Who knows...you might change history. Before she sat down on the bus seat and refused to move, Ms. Parks was just another anonymous black woman in the South. Half a century later, we all know who she was, and we are all better for her having lived and done what she did.

Colbert Report (pornounced "re-pore") debuted last week. Brilliant as could be expected. Last night's episode was week, I thought, but then again I was pretty pissed while I was watching it, for unrelated reasons. Hopefully, tonight will be much more enjoyable for me...

The other shoe is finally looking like it may drop in the Plame Case. We're waiting and watching (the media make asses out of themselves, see last night's Daily Show)...hopefully something...soon...

The Harriet Meirs Debacle goes on...not for long though. This lady is gonna withdraw shortly. Almost a shame, this makes great TV.

Ok, all for now...P&L...

Pro Ball Week 6 Primer

2005-10-16T00:42:00.000-04:00

The last couple weeks I've been combining this with the college ball recap, but Saturday was probably the best day I've ever had watching college ball. Every game, or so it seemed, came down to the final minute. My point is, I'm too tired to adaquately recap today's (yesterday's) action right now, and it deserves its own post. So I'll pound that out tomorrow. As for right now, here are the top 5 games to look for on Sunday:

5. Dolphins/Buccaneers - There is a lot of good pro football being played in Florida this year. Both the Dolphins and Buccaneers have shocked the masses with their quick starts, although the Dolphins imploded last week in Buffalo. Both teams, in fact, are coming off of losses. Each team is also playing in a division where wins each week are important, so even though this is a cross-conference match-up, it's a pretty important one.

4. Redskins/Chiefs - Both of these teams are coming off of losses, as well, although the Cheifs had last week off. This is the second of two consecutive tough road contests for the Skins, who still find themselves atop the NFC East. Once again, each of these teams is in a very competitive division, and so each win is paramount. Another cross-conference match-up with greater than average importance.

3. Jaguars/Steelers - Well, the Jaguars seem to have their work cut out for them. Indy doesn't look like they will be losing anytime soon, so if Jacksonville has postseason plans, they need to win, win, win. It appears as if the Steelers are going to be challenged this year for the division title by the Bengals, so they as well need every win, especially at home. I don't see this being a tie-braker as far as head to head is concerned, but division record is important when determining post-season seedings, so each of these teams will want to have this one when the season is said and done.

2. Giants/Cowboys - The Cowboys came out like gangbusters and fucked up the Eagles something awful last week. Now they host the Giants, in their final divisional home game of the season. Once again, having lost one of their first two (14-13, to the Redskins) this is pretty close to a must-win for Dallas. At least, as close as you can be at this point in the season. For the Giants, a win here coupled with a Redskins loss would catapault them into first place in the division. Also, road divisional wins are a prize to be treasured, indeed. Big game.

1. Patriots/Broncos - Thanks to their dramatic win over Washington last week, the Broncos are sitting pretty atop the AFC West at 4-1. The Patriots are coming off of an emotional win over Atlanta, but Atlanta was playing without Michael Vick. This game has lots of impliactions, both potentially for the post-season, as well as right now about where these two teams stand amongst the AFC's best.

In other match-ups, the Ravens better fix their season in a hurry, because a loss to the Browns might mean they're headed for a last-place season; the Vikings and the Bears are ridiculously still in the hunt for a division championship, they get each other; the Panthers will try and reestablish themselves as an NFC power vs. the Lions; the Saints will try and pick up the pieces at "home" against the Falcons; the Bengals will try and rebound against a Tennessee team that is coming off of a rare win; the Bills are going to try to make it two division wins in a row against Vinny & the Jets; the Raiders are going to host San Diego in an important match-up for both teams, as well as my fantasy team; the Texans are looking for a win, any win, and the Seahawks are going to try and make sure they have to keep looking; and on Monday Night, the Colts will see if they can't hang 100 on the Rams' "defense".

Pro Ball Week 5 Recap & College Ball Week 7 Primer

2005-10-12T23:10:00.000-04:00

Ok, not a bad weekend of football in the NFL. In fact, I'd asy it was, overall, probably the best week sofar (this is Big Picture, of course; the fact that the Redskins lost is tragic & wrong - more on that later). Anyway, here were the big games:

The shocker of the week came in Dallas. The shock wasn't that the Cowboys won - it was one they HAD to win, after all, for reasons I explained in the primer. But the final score, 33-10, certainly raised some heads. Once again, the Eagles let their opponents get out to a large lead, USC-style, but this time they couldn't complete the comeback. Philly suddenly has questions in their secondary, once considered the best in the NFC, and their lack of a running game is as apparent as ever. With the other three teams in the NFC East so much better this season (so far), don't be too shocked if January rolls around and Philly isn't in the picture...

The Bengals lost on Sunday night at Jacksonville. This was their first loss of the season, and it was on the road against a tough foe, so we shouldn't read too much into it. This was a huge win for Jacksonville, who got buried at home two games ago by Denver, and are trying to make a playoff push this season. We'll be seeing a lot of these two teams on on Top 5 games lists this season.

Same, it appears, with the Redskins and the Broncos, who fought a thriller in Denver with the home team prevailing after the Skins failed to convert what would have been a game-tying two point conversion with just over a minute to go. For the Redskins, this loss was as impressive as their wins have been. The Broncos are by far the best team they have played this season (or are they? who knows after this weekend's Dallas/Philly game...) and hanging tough like that on the road showed that this is not just a team that has taken advantage of weaker competition. For the Broncos, this was a good win, and it sets up a big time showdown next weekend.

The Falcons were without Michael Vick, the Patriots were without a slew of people, but the two teams still played a classic in the Goeorgia Dome. Atlanta scored a TD and converted their game-tying 2 point bid late in the fourth quarter, but the Patriots did what they do...marched down the field and set up Adam Vintieri for the game winning figgie (although, is it just me, or are all of Vinitieri's game winners from like 20 yards away...I'm not saying it's not impressive that he hits them all, just that it's not that impressive...). What does this mean? Who knows? It seems like Shaub is a good QB, but he's not Michael Vick. I guess we'll know more as the season goes on, as always...

Finally, the Monday Night Game lived up to it's billing (but was completely overshadowed by the Yankees losing to the Angels that night). The Steelers made a game-winning figgie drive of their own, after the Chargers scored the go ahead TD and failed on a 2 point conversion that would have put them up by three (2PCs were the theme of the week, aparently). So, in the past three weeks, the Patriots have won at Pittsburgh, the Chargers have won at New Englan, and the Steelers have won at San Diego. What does that mean? That you can not make sense of the football season. And that one game doesn't really mean much.

In other action, the Packers beat the living shit out of the Saints (bad karma, GB, running up the score on a team knocked around from place to place by a hurricane); the Titans triumphed over the god-awful Texans; the Ravens went on meltdown mode committing 21 penalties in a loss at Detroit; the Dolphins also went into meltdown mode, committing 18 penalties and five turnovers on the road at Buffalo; the Colts offense was surprisingly quiet again, but good enough to beat the 49ers and improve to 5-0; the Browns got a big comeback win at home against the Bears; the Panthers beat the Cardinals, despite another big passing day from Josh McCown; the Seahawks took control of the NFC West with a big win in St. Louis; and the Buccaneers suffered their first lost at the hands of Vinnie & the Jets.

Ok, College Primer...

Lots of good games this weekend. The best of the best are as follows:

5. Wisconsin/Minnesota - these are two very similar teams at this point in the season. Both have one loss, Wisconsin's coming last weekend to Northwestern, Minnesota's coming to suprising Penn State. Both schools have a win over "preseason top five" team Michigan, who has been a huge dissapointment. Both teams are curretnly vying for the Big Ten Title, and neither can afford a second loss if they want to keep that dream alive. There's also the matter of Paul Bunyan's Axe, the trophy which goes to the winner of this game, currently in the possession of the Badgers.

4. Louisville/West Virginia - the prohibitive favorites to win the Big East this season, both schools have a single loss, although West Virginia's came outside of conference play. Louisville abslutely needs this win, after embarrassingly losing their Big East debut against the Bulls of South Florida. For West Virginia, they've had to hear all season about how Louisville was going to walk into their conference and dominate, and they have to want to get in their shot at the Cardinals. Since the winner of this game likely goes to a BCS Bowl, this game has huge implications.

3. Colorado/Texas - Texas has been pounding their opponenets into submission ever since their thrilling win in Columbus early in the season. Colorado is certainly the best team they have played since then, and is trying to win the Big 12 North. For second-ranked Texas, with Virginia Tech, Florida State, Alabama, Georgia, and Penn State all playing so well behind them, every game is a must win if they want to stay in the National Title picture. For Colordao, a win here would be a huge feather in their cap, as well as make them the prohibitive favorties in their division (if they aren't already).

2. Florida/Louisiana State - quite simply, each team has a loss, each team has a conference loss. That means whoever loses is not only completely knocked out of the National Title picture, but out of the SEC Title picture as well. With such high expectations for each squad, this game is going to kill somebody's season. If LSU were to win this game, that would put Georgia up by two losses in their division (unless they lose a shocker to Vanderbilt).

1. Southern California/Notre Dame - perhaps this game shouldn't be ranked so high (the Trojans are 11 point favorites), but I'm tired of putting SEC match-ups at the top every week. OK, so that's a lie, but I do have high expectations for this match-up. If the Trojans have a weakness, it's their defensive backfield, and Charlie Weiss has been able to exploit secondarys so far this season. And the Irish have certainly been able to win match-ups like this in the past, even if it has been the distant past. I think we'll see 100+ points in this game. The question is, can Notre Dame get enough of those to make this entertaining?

Ok, my Top 25 heading into this week (and their opponents):

1. Southern California (@ Notre Dame)
2. Texas (vs. Colorado)
3. Virginia Tech (Idle)
4. Alabama (@ Mississippi)
5. Georgia (@ Vanderbilt)
6. UCLA (@ Washington State)
7. Penn State (@ Michigan)
8. Florida State (@ Virginia)
9. California (vs. Oregon State)
10. Texas Tech (vs. Kansas State)
11. Notre Dame (vs. Southern California)
12. Michigan State (@ Ohio State)
13. Louisiana State (vs. Florida)
14. Miami (FL) (@ Temple)
15. Florida (@ Louisiana State)
16. Ohio State (vs. Michigan State)
17. Wisconsin (@ Minnesota)
18. Nebraska (@ Baylor)
19. West Virginia (vs. Louisville)
20. Colorado (@ Texas)
21. Tennessee (Idle)
22. Auburn (@ Arkansas)
23. Minnesota (vs. Wisconsin)
24. Oregon (vs. Washington)
25. Boston College (vs. Wake Forest)

Should be a good one. Till Later...

College Ball Week 6 Wrap-up & Pro Ball Week 5 Primer

2005-10-09T00:30:00.000-04:00

The Nittany Lions are back. More on that later...

This week's games were, as a whole, much closer than last week's. That does not mean there were not exceptions to the rule, but it was, for the most part, a very entertaining day. The top 5 games...

Texas Tech edged Nebraska in one of the day's nailbiters, 34-31. The loss was cross-conference, so Nebraksa still controls its own destiny in the Big 12 North, but the loss pretty much does in any thoughts they may have had about a National Title, and it shows that Nebraska is still a ways away from returning to its previous glory. For Texas Tech, the dreams are still alive, both of a Big 12 South and a National Title.

The Red River Shootout was a Red River Blowout, only this time it was Texas that did the trouncing, 45-12 over an Oklahoma team that looks just plain bad at this point. Oklahoma's season was already in trouble, although they could have salvaged it with an upset here. By getting blown out, Oklahoma's season is now pretty much completely destroyed. It's not even necessarily automatic that they get into a bowl, at this point.

UCLA eeked out a win, 47-40 over Cal, in a game that was even closer than the scoreboard indicated (UCLA scored a TD as time ran off the clock to turn a 1 point victory into a 7 pointer). The loss does not kill California's season; they still have a game with Southern Cal coming up and with one loss aren't necessarily out of the National Title hunt (especially if they could beat USC). As for UCLA, this win is a major feather in their cap, but they also have a game with USC on the schedule that will ultimately mean much more than this game. If today's game was any indication, the Trojans might have a couple of battles on thier hands, even if they don't take the first half off.

The Nittany Lions of Penn State got their biggest win in years, knocking off Rose Bowl hopeful The Ohio State University. For Ohio State, the National Title dreams are dead as disco with their second loss (the first coming against Texas in week 2). A Big Ten Championship is not out of the question, although now they need two teams to knock off the suddenly mighty Lions. Joe Paterno has now been completely redeemed, and this Penn State team could easily finish the season undefeated. Well, maybe not "easily", but they suddenly look like the best team in their conference.

Finally, Georgia dominated Tennessee, 27-14, in General Neyland Stadium. Tennessee's season is now shot, having lost to both of its big time SEC East rivals, and the Georgia loss coming at home. They still have a couple opportunities to play spoiler, but any thoughts of an SEC, let alone National, Title are now just that, thoughts. As for Georgia, tey have jumped into the driver's seat of the SEC East, although they still have to win at The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party if they want to play in the SEC Championship Game (and, of course, in the Rose Bowl).

Undefeateds not mentioned: Alabama had the week off; Florida State trounced Wake Forest; Southern California let Arizona hang around for a half, but then beat them down; Virginia Tech annihilated Marshall; and Wisconsin got upset by Northwestern in a game featuring no defense whatsoever(51-48 was the final).

So, the remaining undefeateds are (with their next week's opponents in parantheses):

Alabama (@ Mississippi)
UCLA (@ Washington State)
Florida State (@ Virginia)
Georgia (@ Vanderbilt)
Penn State (@ Michigan)
USC (@ Notre Dame)
Texas (vs. Colorado)
Texas Tech (vs. Kansas State)
Virginia Tech (Idle)

Yup...just 9 undefeateds remaining. Things are starting to get interesting in the land of College Ball...

As for Pro Ball...

Week 5 kicks off tomorrow. High entertainment valuse in sveral games. Here are the 5 best...

5. Eagles @ Cowboys - the Dallas Cowboys have had a bit of hard luck, losing to the Redskins by a single point after a ferocious comeback by said 'Skins, and then losing to Oakland last week after being in position to score what would have been the go ahead touchdown with under two minutes remaining. This week they host the Philadelphia Eagles, in a game that will either vault them back into competition for the division championship, or knock them out of it, at least for a while. Dallas already has one division loss at home, they can ill-afford two. As for Philly, they need to keep on rolling. Both the Redskins and Giants have been doing a lot of winning recently, but Philly could be in position to leap over them both if they win and the Redskins lose (more on htem later).

4. Bengals @ Jaguars - the Bengals of Cincinnati have almost everyone believing after a 4-0 start, but the competition they have faced thusfar is less than stellar. If they want to be an elite team, then they need to go on the road and beat a good, but struggling team (Jacksonville). This is potentially an opportunity to go up by two losses over the Steelers, who have a whale of a match-up this week that is going to be described later. For the Jaguars, this is a team that has been struggling of late, especially on offense. After being humilitaed by Denver on their own field last week, they can ill-afford another home conference loss. If Jacksonville does not win this game, I don't see them making the playoffs this year.

3. Redskins @ Broncos - the Redskins have shocked everyone with their 3-0 start, but the haters are quick to point to the fact that none of those three teams boasts a winning record (although that is due in a large part to the fact that the Redskins have beaten those teams). Also, wins of 2, 1, and 3 points are hardly convincing in and of themselves. This could be a big time statement game for the Redskins. For the Broncos, this is a game they are expected to win, especially if they want to take the next step. San Diego just trounced New England at Foxboro - Denver doesn't want to follow that by losing at home to a team that went 6-10 last year. However, this is cross-conference, so a loss would not cripple either team.

2. Patriots @ Falcons - once again New England finds themselves with their backs to the wall. The Falcons were close to heading to the Super Bowl to face the Patriots last year, this year they have already beaten the team that went instead (Philadelphia), and now they get a chance to knock off the team that won, as well. The Pats are banged up almost beyond recognition, and reeling off of an ugly loss. This is always the time in the past few years where Bellichek & Co have stepped up and reaffirmed their spot atop the heap. If they lose here though, it could mark the end of an era.

1. Steelers @ Chargers - San Diego pounded New England on the road last week, now they return home, but the opponent hasn't gotten much easier. The Pittsburgh Steelers had last week off to try and figure out what went wrong at the end of that Patriots game a couple weeks ago. For both teams, the potential stakes are high - each is looking to get as many conference wins as possible, as well as grab the head-to-head tiebraker that might come in especially handy. This is on Monday Night.

In other action, the Packers will be looking for their first win against the Saints; ditto for the Texans, who host the Titans; the Ravens and the Lions will be displaying some truly awful offense in Detroit; the Colts will see if they can't score 100 points on the pathetic 49ers; the Bears and the Browns will challenge the Ravens and Lions for fewest points in a game; the Panthers fly out to Arizona to meet the Cardinals in a battle of teams tat have dissapointed thusfar; the Dolphins are gonna go on the road and try and grab a firm hold on the AFC East lead they currently enjoy by half a game; the Seahawks and the Rams do battle in St. Louis for the early lead in the NFC West; and the Buccaneers go to New York to face Vinny Testaverde in is comeback to lead the Jets.

Ok, recap soon. P&L...

The Return of Hockey

2005-10-06T21:39:00.000-04:00

The NHL came back for real last night, with all 30 teams in action.

In addition to some of the new players, including the Capitals' Alexander Ovechkin and the Penguins' phenom Sidney Crosby, the much-balleyhooed rule changes also made their debuts, and the impact was felt immediately. One game went to a shootout (the Senators defeated the Maple Leafs) and the scoring went through the roof. The average score of the 15 winning teams was 4.1 goals, and only one of the 30 teams was shut-out.

Earlier, my buddy Dave wrote an entry in his blog where he blasted the rule changes. As is not uncommon, we disagree entirely. So, here is my counterpoint, and my explanation of why I think these rule changes are good, not only for the future of the game, but also in terms of making the game better.

First of all, hockey has not always been a low scoring game. In the 1980s, scoring was way above what you'd find in your rinks recently. The highest goal scorers in the league last year had 41 goals apiece - in the 1980s and early 1990s the goal scoring leaders always had over 60, sometimes over 70 and even a few seasons over 80. Now, mostly the goal scoring leaders were Wayne Gretzsky and Mario Lemiux, possibly the two greatest players ever to put on skates, but Jarri Kurri led the league with 68 goals in 1986 and Brett Hull put the puck in the net 80 times as recently as 1981. So it's not like the NHL is reversing a thousand years of tradition here - scoring used to be more prevalent in hockey, that's a fact.

It's also a fact that hockey's momentum is killed way too often. Every time the game seems to get into a flow, there's a whistle, play stops, and you have a face-off. If I wanted to watch a bunch of guys skate around in circles aimlessly, I'd go to the ice rink. Rules like touch-up icing and not allowing line changes on icing will keep the momentum of the game going, and drop this whole herky-jerky thing that has been plaguing the NHL as late.

The virtual elimination of the red line has double bonus effectiveness. Not only will it cut down on the number of play stoppages, but it also will open up the rink for long passes and award speed. Because to me, speed is what defines the NHL. I love watching hockey because the athletes fly around the playing surface much faster than they go in any other sport (NASCAR is neither a "sport" nor does it feature "athletes"). This facet of the game should be celebrated, not punished.

Saying the NHL changed the rink dimensions is misleading. The size of the surface of the ice is not affected (which is too bad, they ought to make it bigger - like the size they play on in international competition), but the lines have been moved to create bigger offensive zones (if you don't follow, don't worry about it - suffice to say the team with the puck now has more room with which to set up an offensive play). This will lead to more scoring opportunities, especially on the power play, thus giving talented puck handlers and speedy forwards better opportunity to showcase their skills.

The goaltenders pads have been reduced, which was necessary...I mean, look at this, and compare that to this. This will not only give the offensive players some goal at which to shoot (instead of increasing the size of the nets, which would have been a horrible idea), but it will also allow the goaltenders to be more flexible and showcase their athletic ability, rather than their ability to stand in front of the net and be bulky.

There's a rule about the goalies not being able to handle the puck in the corners, which I don't see making much difference one way or the other. If there is a purpose to it, great, because I don't see how it hurts, but I can't see the purpose.

The big rule change, of course, is a shoot-out, which normally I would hate. I hate it when games are decided by something that has nothing to do with the actual play of the game, like a shoot-out in World Cup soccer or the silly college football overtime. But the hockey shootout is acceptable to me, for two reasons:

1. The games don't mean as much. We're talking about regular season hockey here. 82 games. This isn't like college football, where one loss cripples your shot at a National Title and two losses kills pretty much kills your season. Or like the World Cup, where the winner moves on and the loser goes home (they even have shoot-outs in the final game of World Cup play, if it comes to that). When the hockey games really start to matter, in the postseason, they scrap the shoot-out and go to sudden death until somebody scores. If they keep it that way, then shoot-outs in the regular season are fine.

2. Even if you lose the shoot-out, you still get a point. So it's not like you're getting screwed for losing a penalty-shooting exhibition. you just aren't getting the full 2 points your opponent is.

So, all in all, I think the new rules are great. They'll really open up the game, when the game most needs opening up. Add in the growing popularity of HDTV, which will make more of a difference watching hockey than it will watching any other sport, and hockey might have a chance this time around. No more turning off the TV because your team is down 2-0 after the first period. This will make games more exciting, more fun, and just plain better.

And if you've never watched hockey because you thought the game was too boring or too confusing, give it another shot. You'll like what you see this time. Promise.

Pro Ball Week 4 Wrap-up and College Ball Week 6 Preview

2005-10-06T20:30:00.000-04:00

It was indeed my intention to get both of these done earlier this week, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice & men...

We'll start with the Pro Ball Wrap-up.

In the five games I had slated as the games of the week, this is what happened:

The Falcons trounced the Vikings, 30-10. Daunte Caulpepper looked like the '05 (read: sucky) version of himself again, chucking 2 picks vs. 1 TD. Vick got hurt, but former UVA star QB Matt Schaub was up to the task of leading his team the rest of the way. Of course, since the Falcons got 285 yards on the ground, that wasn't too much of a task. For the Vikings, this meant that the first two weeks of the season were no anomaly - they simply look like a bad team that got lucky by matching up with a road-weary Sainst team (who looked really good at "home" in San Antonio - more on that later...) last week. For the Falcons, this was more proof that they are the best rushing team in football, and we all know that rushing and defense win championships.

The Broncos surprisingly ran roughshod over the Jaguars, 20-7. After an impressive opening win against Seattle, Jacksonville has looked extremely mediocre the last three weeks, their only win coming in overtime against a Jets team that was without their starting QB for most of the contest. The offense has struggled, and the defense hasn't looked good these past two weeks, either. Whther this says more about the Jaguars or Broncos is yet to be determined. The Broncos have now lept into first place in their division, and look poised to make a move into the upper ranks of the AFC.

The Redskins moved to 3-0 with an overtime victory over the Seahawks, 20-17. The Skins dominated much of the game, and the Seahawks were not able to do much on offense until Redskins CB Shawn Springs left the game with an injured shoulder. What the game really came down to was 3rd down conversion, with the Skins going an astonishing 13-18, including 3 long conversions in the extra session. If they can keep the chains moving on offense, that defense can carry this team.

Whoa! The Chargers blew the Patriots to smithereens, 41-17. It was the first loss at Foxboro for the Pats in like a hillion skillion years, and it was never particularly close. They were not able to do anything with the ball, and they certainly were not able to keep the Chargers offense the least bit at bay. This does not bode well for the defending champs, who have been bruised and battered to such a pulp that they now hardly resemble the team that has won three Super Bowls the last four years. They still have Tom Brady and Bill Bellichek - let's see if that's enough. It wasn't on Sunday...

Finally, the Kansas City Chiefs got started early against the Philadelphia Eagles, jumping out to a 24-6 lead...and then proceeded to give back every point and then some, until the Eagles had a 37-31 victory. So much for that improved defense, which has looked miserable the last two weeks. For the Eagles, this win kept them on pace with the Redskins and Giants, and established that they are never out of a game, regardless of the score.

In other action, the Bengals barely escaped with a win over the Texans; ditto with the Buccaneers over the Lions; the Colts found their offense in a 31-10 stomping of Tennessee; the Saints showed that home is where the heart is, posting an impressive 19-7 victory over Buffalo in San Antonio; Eli Manning threw all over the Rams and his Giants won, 44-24; the Ravens won a 13-3 decision against the Jets, in a game featuring no passes by an actual NFL quaterback; the Raiders held on for a 19-13 victory over the Cowboys, their first of the season; Arizona routed San Francisco 31-14 in front of 105,000 crazed Mexicans; and finally, Brett Favre ran out of Monday Night magic in the final minutes of a 32-29 heartbreaker loss at Carolina.

Ok, College Ball Primer:

The top 5 games of this week are:

5. Texas Tech vs. Nebraska - Two teams, undefeated thusfar (albeit not against much of a schedule in either case, although Iowa State had been ranked prior to losing to Nebraska last week). For Nebraska, a return trip to the Big 12 Championship Game is in sight, but they need every conference win they can get, and they can get this one. For Texas Tech, a division championship is a much taller order coming out of the Big 12 South with Oklahoma and Texas (more on them later), but anything is possible at this point. A loss in this cross-divisional game will cirpple neither team's chances, but one of these two teams will be undefeated no longer after Saturday, which at this point of the season makes this game compelling by itself.

4. Oklahoma vs. Texas - Nine times out of ten, the Red River Shootout is almost gauranteed to be in the top two games of the week - at worst - in spite of Oklahoma's recent dominance of the rivalry. However, this year the Sooners have not held up their part of the bargain this season, losing at home to Texas Christian and getting blown out on the road at UCLA (more on them later). Texas has Longhorn fans thinking National Championship, the biggest feather in their cap being a win at Ohio State in week 2. For Oklahoma, a National Championship is out of the picture, but a win in this game could save their season.

3. California vs. UCLA - Two undefeated teams go heads up in Los Angeles. Both Cal and UCLA have dreams of knocking off Southern Cal this season (good luck with that) and both are off to fast starts. The stakes are the same for both teams, and a loss would cripple each's dream of a Pac 10 and National Championship. The big game for both teams is when they play USC later on in the season, but this is gonna be the game where one of these two establishes themselves as the number one contender.

2. Ohio State vs. Penn State - Wow...Joe Paterno has his squad sitting pretty after a trouncing of previously undefeated Minnesota. That's a nice win, but the big prize is this weekend, as Penn State takes their shot at the big dog in the Big 10 pack, the Buckeyes, also coming off of a dominating win, theirs over Iowa. I've said it before, and it will continue to be said: the Big Ten is the most competitive conference this season. Every win is critical, every loss crippling. And for Joe Paterno, the stakes are even higher - a win here would be major redemption, as well as a pitcher of Shut The Hell Up for all of those who say it's time for Joe PaPa to retire.

1. Georgia vs. Tennessee - Once again, the Game of the Week comes to you from the SEC - the land of college ball. Florida looks mighty vulnerable after taking that pounding at the hands of the Crimson Tide, and now Tennessee and Georgia have a chance to jump in the driver's seat in Georgia's case, or get back into the passenger's seat in the case of the Vols. Of course, it's not just the SEC East that these teams are worried about. Undefeated Georgia and once-defeated Tennessee are both thinking National Championship, so of course for them every game is crucial - especially for the Vols, since another loss would knock them out of the picture entirely.

Here is my Top 25 for this week, and the opponents in parantheses:

1. Southern California (vs. Arizona)
2. Texas (vs. Oklahoma)
3. Virginia Tech (vs. Marshall)
4. Alabama (Idle)
5. Georgia (@ Tennessee)
6. California (@ UCLA)
7. UCLA (vs. California)
8. Florida State (vs. Wake Forest)
9. Penn State (vs. Ohio State)
10. Ohio State(@ Penn State)
11. Notre Dame (Idle)
12. Tennessee (vs. Georgia)
13. Wisconsin (@ Northwestern)
14. Texas Tech (@ Nebraska)
15. Nebraska (vs. Texas Tech)
16. Michigan State (Idle)
17. Louisiana State (@ Vanderbilt)
18. Miami (FL) (vs. Duke)
19. Florida (vs. Mississippi State)
20. Virginia (@ Boston College)
21. West Virginia (@ Rutgers)
22. Auburn (Idle)
23. Colorado (vs. Texas A&M)
24. Georgia Tech (vs. North Carolina State)
25. Minnesota (@ Michigan)

Ok, all for now...

P&L...

College Ball Recap

2005-10-02T20:45:00.000-04:00

The Crimson Tide is back. But more on that later...

Blow-outs ruled the day yesterday. Some were expected, some were not. Here is the recap of the top 5 games...

In the number 5 game, Michigan defeated Michigan State in overtime. This loss knocks Michigan State out of the National Championship picture, as well as mucks up the Big Ten standings. As for Michigan, this is the type of win which can turn around a season, if they let it. With 2 losses, a National Championship is out of the question, but they could still win the Big Ten.

Nebraska won a thriller over Iowa State in Lincoln. Kansas State and Colorado could each have something to say about it, but right now the Huskers are in the driver's seat to win the Big 12 North. Also, they're undefeated, but not impressively so. Iowa State now needs help to win the division, and their National Championship dreams are pretty much done.

Southern California has found an interesting way to challenge themselves...they let their opponents beat up on them for a half, then come roaring back. This time they were down 21-3 at the break, and ended up winning 38-28. Despite poor performances in the first halves of consecutive games, this So Cal team is the real deal (like they need me to say that).

Notre Dame pantsed Purdue. Whoa... This would be a top 5 team right now if it weren't for that loss vs. Michigan State. As it is, the Irish are looking at a big game with Southern California in a couple weeks that would definately get them back in the National Championship picture if they won.

The Irish aren't the only once dominant team that's thinking National Championship after a blowout of a good team. The Crimson Tide of Alabama whooped it up against the Florida Gators, 31-3. For Florida, this probably puts the National Championship out of reach, but they still control their destiny in the SEC East. Revenge in the SEC Championship Game? They better hope so...

Undefeateds not yet mentioned: Baylor lost to Texas A&M in overtime; California drubbed Arizona; UCLA got a game from Washington, but prevailed; Florida State trounced Syracuse; Georgia had the week off; Wsiconsin beat Indiana in a battle of the undefeateds; it was also a battle of the undefeateds as Texas Tech beat Kansas; Kansas State fell to Oklahoma; Minnesota got crushed by Penn State (yet another battle of the undefeateds); Oklahoma State got beaten down by Colorado; Texas beat the crap out of Missouri; Texas El Paso lost at the hands of Memphis; Toledo fell Tuesday night to the Bulldogs of Fresno State; Vanderbilt lost to Middle Tennessee State (yes, Middle Tennessee State); Virginia lost to the Maryland Terrapins in a shoot-out; Virginia Tech took out West Virginia, in one more battle of then-undefeated teams; and Washington State lost to the Beavers of Oregon State.

So, for those of you paying attention, the remaining undefeated teams (and their next week's opponents in parenthesis) are:

Alabama (Idle)
California (@ California Los Angeles)
California Los Angeles (vs. California)
Florida State (vs. Wake Forest)
Georgia (@ Tennessee)
Nebraska (vs. Texas Tech)
Penn State (vs. Ohio State)
Southern California (vs. Arizona)
Texas (vs. Oklahoma at Dallas)
Texas Tech (@ Nebraska)
Virginia Tech (vs. Marshall)
Wisconsin (@ Northwestern)

My new Top 25 when I do next week's preview tomorrow. Till then, P&L...

NFL Week 4 Primer

2005-10-02T12:09:00.000-04:00

Week 4 of the NFL season kicks off tomorrow (or, probably by the time anyone reads this, today). The match-ups this weekend do not appear to be quite as intriguing as the weekends of late, but then you don't really know until afterwards, do you?

These are the five games that most interest me:

5. Vikings vs. Falcons - The Vikings looked like the team a lot of people (not me) thought they would be this season when they dismantled a road-weary New Orleans team. The Saints, it seems, are so caught up in the injustice of playing a "home" game at Giants Stadium (and it was ridiculous, but you have to get over it - the Cardinals are getting robbed of a home game this weekend and I don't hear them complaining...) that they've come put completely flat-footed the last couple of weeks. Whether that had a little or a lot to do with the Vikings reemergence will be seen in a large part when they go up against the Falcons. For the Vikings, this game provides them with an opportunity to make a statement that they are ready to take control of the miserable NFC North. For the Falcons, every win is crucial since they are in one of the League's most competitive divisions AND they figure to be challenging for the NFC's best record.

4. Broncos vs. Jaguars - Denver is headed back to sunny Florida, where they were served a humiliating loss to the Dolphins in week 1. It's week 4 now, and the Broncos will be in Jacksonville, not Miami. But you'd better believe it's gonna be hot & humid there, as well. Denver, like Atlanta, is in a very competitive division and needs every win they can get. Jacksonville is trying to keep up with Indianapolis and therefore can not afford to be losing home games, especially home conference games.

3. Seahawks vs. Redskins - This is the first time I've put my Skins on this list, so don't be bitching. Washington is coming off of a bye week following that monster comeback in Dallas. The Redskins offense still has serious questions and no one knows what to expect from QB Mark Brunell. If the offense can merely be competent, this is a team that can do a lot of damage with their outstanding defense. If they look as weak as they did the first 116 minutes of this season, though, it'll be tough for them to win many games, at all. With a record of 2-0, the Redskins have, at least temporarily, inserted themselves into the NFC playoff race. If they want to prove they belong, they have to win their home conference games. As for the Seahawks, this has been a team that has been plagued by inconsistency and a horrible road record the last several years. A win here would go a long way towards putting that reputation behind them.

2. Chargers vs. Patriots - Rodney Harrison's knee has turned into a medical experiment, and now the Patriots find themselves missing the two biggest leaders of their defense. Of course, we all know what happens when Bill Belichek's team goes up against the wall, however. The Chargers are coming off of an offensive explosion against the Giants at home, but the Giants aren't exactly the Patriots, and San Diego isn't exactly New England (although it isn't really cold in the northeast quite yet...just cooler than the Chargers have had to play in, thusfar). For the Chargers, their 0-2 start still has them in dire straits even after their big win last week. Win here, and they're right back in the playoff race. Lose here, and their position becomes tenuous, at best. Pretty big stakes. As for the Patriots, the big win in Pittsburgh came at the cost of two very important players. They need to prove they can still win, minus Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weiss, Teddy Bruschi, Ty Law, and now Rodney Harrison and Matt Light. Pretty tall order...

1. Eagles vs. Chiefs - In the game of the week, the defending NFC Champion Eagles head to Kansas City to test their improved defense. The Chiefs were taken to Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison last Monday Night by the Broncos, but this time they'll be at home, in what may be the loudest environment in American sports. This is a cross-Conference game, so it's not critical to either team (although KC does not want to be dropping home games playing in that division), but it is certainly a potential statement game for both teams, and thus should be very compelling television.

In other match-ups, the Rams and the Giants will duke it out in what should be a high-scorer; the Cowboys vs. the Raiders is another potential shoot-out (Randy Moss loves playing against Dallas); the 49ers and Cardinals will be coming to you live from Mexico, in a game certain to turn off an entire generation of Mexicans from Americn football; the Packers and the Panthers will be doing their thing on Monday Night; the Lions will be big underdogs when they travel to Tampa Bay; the Saints will finally get to play a home game as they host the Bills at the Alamo Dome; at the Jets vs. Ravens game there won't be a legitimate NFL QB to be seen (the closest things to NFL QBs will be on the bench, in the form of Vinny Testaverde and Kordell Stewart - yuck!); the Texans will try to keep it close versus the suddenly mighty Bengals; and the Colts will try to right their offense against the depleted Titans in Tennessee.

College ball recap tomorrow...till then, P&L...

An Open Letter To Peter Angelos

2005-09-30T12:49:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Angelos,

I think the time has come for you to ponder taking the next step. No, I'm not talking about hiring a manager, or a general manager; I'm not even talking about selling the team. I'm talking about considering the possibility that it is time to die.

I mean, you've lived a long, fruitful life. You have been a successful attorney. You've owned a baseball team. You've traveled all over the world. Hell, you've even had a conversation with Fidel Castro. What is there to gain from hanging on any longer?

There are so many ways you could do it. You could hold a lit stick of dynamite in between your teeth. You could throw yourself in front of a moving bus, or a garbage truck. You could stab yourself in the gut with a sword, like a disgraced samurai warrior. You could rig up a homemade guillotine to cut your own head off. Or you could cut your head off with a chainsaw. You could leap off of the roof of the Warehouse, for instance. Or you could drink a whole bottle of Liquid Plumr. You could go to the zoo and leap into the lion den, and go pick a fight with the biggest one. Or take a boat out into the deep blue sea and feed yourself to the sharks. You could drive your car right off of a cliff. You could even cover yourself in gasoline and light yourself on fire, or boil yourself in oil.

But however you choose to do it, the time has come. So hurry up, before the free agent signing period begins. We'll all be better off.

Except for you, of course.

But fuck you.

Signed,

Baltimore

...if you can think of any other clever ways Peter Angelos can off himself, please put them in the comments and I'll add them...

DeLay indicted - steps down as Majority Leader

2005-09-29T00:17:00.000-04:00

This piece of shit is finally getting nailed to the wall. And in Texas, no less! 2 years in prison? Sounds too good to be true.

(Note, Roy Blunt steps in in his place. He's a piece of work himself...)

After the FEMA fuck ups, the Plame case, the declining popularity of this President, the disaster the Iraqi Debacle has become...holy shit, things aren't looking so hot for the Repubs right now, huh?

Fuckin' 2006 is too far away...

More fun... (different asshole)

College Football Addendum II: My Top 25

2005-09-28T14:49:00.000-04:00

Well, if it's not too early to be listing the undefeated schools, then it isn't too early to come out with my version of the Top 25, either. So here it is, along with what they're up to this week:

1. Southern California (@ Arizona State)
2. Texas (@ Missouri)
3. Virginia Tech (@ West Virginia)
4. Florida (@ Alabama)
5. Georgia (Idle)
6. Alabama (vs. Florida)
7. California Los Angeles (vs. Washington)
8. Iowa State (@ Nebraska)
9. Michigan State (vs. Michigan)
10. California (vs. Arizona)
11. Ohio State (Idle)
12. Minnesota (@ Penn State)
13. Florida State (vs. Syracuse)
14. Oklahoma State (vs. Colorado)
15. Texas Tech (vs. Kansas)
16. West Virginia (vs. Virginia Tech)
17. Nebraksa (vs. Iowa State)
18. Kansas State (@ Oklahoma)
19. Washington State (@ Oregon State)
20. Tennessee (vs. Mississippi)
21. Arizona State (vs. Southern California)
22. Notre Dame (@ Purdue)
23. Purdue (vs. Notre Dame)
24. Louisiana State (vs. Mississippi State)
25. Texas El Paso (@ Memphis)

I've Just Had An Epiphany

2005-09-27T22:06:00.000-04:00

I want the San Francisco Giants to win the World Series. Hear me out...

The Giants are 74-82, making their best possible record 80-82. However, Barry Bonds is back after missing most of the season, and the Giants are 8-2 in games where Bonds starts this season, which means that they could win this thing.

If the Giants - or any other team - won the World Series after going under .500 during the course of the 162 game regular season, that would instantly make the World Series the biggest joke in professional sports.

Do you realize how much easier that would make the summers for us O's fans? Knowing that the Orioles' impossible goal, the goal the Yankees and Red Sox chased so passionately, was essentailly meaningless anyway? I mean, who cares if the Orioles are in contention, when what they would be in contention for means nothing?

I might even start going to games again...

GO GIANTS!!!

College Ball Addendum

2005-09-27T21:27:00.000-04:00

I've been debating when to write this, before this coming week or after it, but I've decided to do it now - maybe it was the weather.

Anyway, this is right around the point of the college season where being undefeated becomes a noteworthy achievement. Undefeated teams from larger conferences can begin to dream of a National Championship, and mid-major undefeateds can begin to dream of crashing the BCS Party like Utah did last season. So here is a list of the 27 remaining undefeateds (there are 119 Division 1A schools), and what they are up to this week.

(All times EST, PM)

Alabama & Florida - playing each other in Tuscaloosa at 3:30 on Saturday (CBS)
Baylor - visiting Texas A&M at 12:30 on Saturday
California - hosting Arizona at 7:00 on Saturday (TBS)
California Los Angeles - hosting Washington at 10:15 on Saturday
Florida State - hosting Syracuse at 3:30 on Saturday (ABC)
Georgia - Idle
Indiana & Wisconsin - playing each other in Madison at 12:00 on Saturday (ESPN2)
Iowa State & Nebraska - playing each other in Lincoln at 3:30 on Saturday
Kansas & Texas Tech - playing each other in Lubbock at 7:00 on Saturday
Kansas State - visiting Oklahoma at 7:00 on Saturday
Michigan State - hosting Michigan at 12:00 on Saturday
Minnesota & Penn State - playing each other in Happy Valley at 3:30 on Saturday
Oklahoma State - hosting Colorado at 2:05 on Saturday
Southern California - visiting Arizona State at 3:30 on Saturday
Texas - visiting Missouri at 12:00 on Saturday
Texas El Paso - visiting Memphis at 8:00 on Saturday
Toledo - visiting Fresno State as I write this (ESPN2)
Vanderbilt - hosting Mississippi State at 7:00 on Saturday
Virginia - visiting Maryland at 12:00 on Saturday (ABC)
Virginia Tech & West Virginia - playing each other in Morgantown at 12:00 on Saturday (ESPN)
Washington State - visiting Oregon State at 4:00 on Saturday

All for now...P&L...

NFL Week 3 Wrap-up

2005-09-27T11:16:00.000-04:00

Week 3 of the NFL season wound up last night as the Broncos pounded the then-unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs 30-10 in Denver to grab first-place in the AFC by virtue of the tiebraker. Other notable results from the weekend:

The Dolphins shocked the Panthers with a last second field goal, to give them a 27-24 win. The Dolphins are now 2-1, and the Panthers are 1-2 (although the Panthers' win came against the defending Champions). If Nick Saban can muster 8 wins out of this squad, coach of the year should be a lock. As for the Panthers, they are in a highly competitive division, so every loss hurts.

The Michael Vick show proved to be more than the Buffalo Bills could handle, as Atlanta rolled, 24-16. The Bills have had a dissapointing last couple of weeks, especially on defense. Thought by many to be a playoff contender, they need to get better fast if they have postseason aspirations. And they'll have to do so without Takeo Spikes, who ruptured his Achilles' tendon and will have to miss the rest of the season.

Eli Manning proved more than capable of handling the pressure of playing in the city he once spurned, but the Giants' defense wasn't up to the task, and the Chargers won 45-23. LaDanian Tomlinson (don't call him "LT") had about a skillion yards and almost as many fantasy points. The Chargers' 0-2 start had them in seriously hot water, and while this win took off a lot of pressure, the next 5 weeks are all very losable games for San Diego. We'll find a lot out about this team very quickly.

The Jaguars topped the Jets in overtime, 26-20. New York lost two quarterbacks to injury in the game, including losing their starter for apparently the entire season. Unless the J-E-T-S do something dramatic and quickly, there is no way they are headed for the postseason this time around. As for the Jaguars, they are now 2-1 and have the next two weeks at home against potential playoff teams in Denver and Cincinnati. It might cause a bit of consternation amongst Jaguar fans that their team had to go to overtime to win a game against a team who's starting QB threw for only 76 yards, but remember that in this League no road win is cheap. Especially in conference.

And in the game of the week, it was the New England Patriots 23, Pittsburgh Steelers 20. Tom Brady once again established that he is the NFL's coolest customer, going 12-12 in the 4th quarter against a team that is as good as any team they'll play, in an environment that is as tough as any in football. This game had a playoff atmosphere, and will very possibly have big time playoff implications. I got one question, though: how come the Patriots always play the Colts at home, and the Steelers on the road?

Other results from Sunday: the Bengals are 3-0 after beating the Bears, but we're waiting for them to play a good team. The Raiders are 0-3 after losing to the Eagles, but we're waiting for them to play a bad team. Tampa Bay won in Lambeau by a point, in a game my friend Tristan swears was referee robbery. The Colts are 3-0 after beating Cleveland, but something appears to be wrong with their offense. The Rams and Titans, shells of the teams that went to the Super Bowl a few years back, played another thriller, with the Rams coming out on top 31-27. The Vikings finally looked good, against an exhausted and road-weary Saints team (which, sadly, does not appear to be headed for postseason play). Dallas staged a late comeback to beat San Francisco and screw my fantasy team. And Shawn Alexander ran all over the Cardinals as the Seahawks rolled, 37-12.

The Redskins, Ravens, Lions, and Texans had the week off.

Ok, look for the week 5 primer sometime Saturday. P&L...

College Ball Week 4 Wrap-up & Week 5 Preview

2005-09-27T00:06:00.000-04:00

As I write this LSU is in the midst of a monumental collapse. Up 21-0 at the half, their lead has slipped away and they find themselves heading into overtime, tied at 24 with the Tennessee Volunteers.

The LSU/Tennessee game, you may recall, was my number 1 game to watch this weekend. The number 2 game of the weekend was supposed to be the battle of the Techs in the ACC, but it wasn't much of a battle. 51-7 was the final score, Hokies over the Yellow Jackets. Virginia Tech looks like the real deal (Georgia Tech won at Auburn earlier this year). The number 3 game was also a trouncing, as the Buckeyes hammered the Iowa Hawkeyes 31-6. Keeping with the demolition theme, the USC Trojans spotted the Oregon Ducks a 10-0 lead, then woke up and scored the final 45 points of the game. Finally, Michigan lost to Wisconsin 23-20. Well, the Volunteers just scored a TD to complete the comeback over LSU.

Ok, upsets this week: South Florida demolished #9 Louisville 45-14, smothering the faint Rose Bowl hopes of the Cardinals. Minnesota took out Purdue, 42-35 in double overtime - the Gophers have a running back named Maroney who looks like a future big time NFL running back.

As for the National Championship - as I mentioned, LSU has fallen to Tennessee 30-27 in overtime. In the SEC, LSU will have a high enough quality of opponents that they could get back into the picture should there be room for a 1-loss team, but with Texas, Southern Cal, and Virginia Tech looking so good, that might not be the case. Besides, Florida looks to be the cream of the SEC crop right now, anyway. Purdue's outside shot a a National title is now extinguished, and Michigan and Iowa had the second (and final) nails driven in the coffins of their national title hopes.

Ok, week 5 of the College season starts tomorrow night, so here's my look ahead to the coming week.

Conference play continues, and we're starting to get some interesting match-ups. These are the top 5:

5. Michigan/Michigan State - this is usually a pretty good match-up, even though Michigan State rarely has the athletes to keep up with Michigan on paper, as they like to say. However, this year it is the currently unranked Wolverines who will be the underdogs. Two conference losses would bury any hopes Michigan has of a Big 10 title, and undefeated Michigan State has their own title aspirations for which to play.

4. Iowa State/Nebraska - this appears to be the battle for Big 12 North supremacy - although Kansas State is also in the mix. Iowa State announced their presence with authority by trouncing Iowa earlier this season, and Nebraska appears to be a program to be reckoned with once again, at least on the defensive side of the ball. The loser of this game will have a hell of a hard time winning this division.

3. Southern California/Arizona State - once again, the number 1 team in the country goes on the road to play a ranked opponent. And once again, I can't rate that game higher than this because, quite frankly, I don't see Arizona State keeping competitive. The Sun Devils have a nice offense and could put up four or five touchdowns, but that won't be enough to keep up with the Trojans, IMO. This USC team is special, especially on offense, and I can't wait until I get to see them on TV when they play Notre Dame.

2. Notre Dame/Purdue - speaking of the Irish, they head to Purdue to battle their in state rivals, the Boilermakers. Both teams have 1 loss, and so the loser of this match-up will be knocked out of the National Title picture entirely, with no possibility of parole. Notre Dame, even with Purdie's loss last week at Minnesota, is probably returning to the role as underdog for the first time since the Michigan game, but that'll probably help the golden domers more than hinder them.

1. Alabama/Florida - very possibly a sneak preview of the SEC Title game. Florida is the team to beat in the SEC right now, and 'Bama is looking to reestablish themselves as the premeire school in the SEC West (which is much more of a possibility after LSU blew that big lead in Baton Rouge tonight). It's cross-divisional, so a loss won't kill either team's chances of an SEC Title, but both teams are dreaming of Pasadena, and neither team can afford a loss in that regard.

Ok, it's late and I'm beat. NFL Week 3 wrap-up tomorrow. P&L...

NFL Week 3 Primer

2005-09-25T09:52:00.000-04:00

Today begins week 3 of the NFL season. My beloved Redskins, as well as the Ravens, Texans, and Lions all have this week off, so this week will be all about obersvation for me, and the good news is that there are several good match-ups to observe. The top five are:

(The AFC East Edition)

5. Panthers/Dolphins - The Carolina Panthers are coming off of a big-time statement win over the New England Patriots (in a rare match-up of teams whose "home" part of their names are neither states nor cities - Tampa Bay is the only other such team), and now they go on the road to Miami. The Dolphins are 1-1, 1-0 at home. The Fish will find that their opponents this time around are a little more used to the heat than Denver, however. This is a big-time chance for the Dolphins to step up and do something the Patriots could not. For the Panthers, this game is about avoiding an emotional hangover after a huge win last week.

4. Falcons/Bills - The Michael Vick Show's next stop is in Buffalo, where the weather is not yet inhospitable and the turf will make Vick feel somewhat at home. The Bills are coming off of a pretty ugly (oxymoron alert!) loss to the Buccaneers last week, and want to avoid a 1-2 start in this division (although it is not inconcievable that the entire division could be 1-2 after this week). The Falcons, on the other hand, don't want to lose a game their divisional rivals just won. Both teams have exceptional defenses, coupled with developing offenses. Take the under.

3. Chargers/Giants - If I told you before the season one of these teams would be 2-0 while the other is 0-2, you'd probably think it was the other way around. Yet, the Giants and Chargers have the pundits scratching their heads as it is the Giants who have gotten off to a fast start, while the Chargers remain winless. For the Chargers (as well as for every other 0-2 team playing this week) this is quite simply a must win game - you do not want to try and make the playoffs coming from an 0-3 hole, especially in the AFC, and double secret especially with two of those losses coming at home. As for the Giants, a win would put them all alone in first place in the NFC East (like I said before, Washington is idle), and this is somewhat of a statement game, as the Chargers, unlike the Giants' two previous opponents, are coming off of a playoff season. Of course, this is Eli's first trip to San Diego, the team he spurned at last year's NFL Draft, and couple that with this game being in prime time (not a coincidence), the home crowd should be into it.

2. Jaguars/Jets - Obviously, this game has huge symbolic importance, as "Jet Jaguar" was the name of the robot who helped Godzilla in "Godzilla vs. Megalon". But even beyond that, these are two teams that a lot in common. Both teams are 1-1. Both are second bananas in their own divisions, the Jets to the Patriots and the Jaguars to the Colts. Both are trying to join the ranks of the NFL's elite this season, and each should see this match-up as an important stepping stone in so doing. This is a statement game for both teams, and as such should make for very interesting TV.

1. Patriots/Steelers - With all respect to Kansas City and Denver, how is this not on Monday Night? Like the Falcons/Eagles match-up in week 1, this is a rematch of a conference title game. Two of the AFC's "Big 3" (along with the Colts), the Patriots and Steelers have a match-up this week which could have potential implications way down the line (as in, home field advantage for the playoffs) as well as the obvious immediate answers it will provide - is Willy Parker the real deal? What about Ben Roethlisberger? Was the Patriots performance last week a fluke, or did Carolina provide a blueprint for good teams to beat New England? How much are the Patriots going to miss their two coordinators? This is a game where seemingly everything favors the Steelers going in, and that is the kind of game that Bill Belicheck's Patriots have always won the last two years. Without a doubt, this is the game of the week.

Ok, I'll do the college recap tommorow night after the LSU/Tennessee game, then the NFL recap and college ball primer Tuesday morning (as the College Weekend ridiculously starts Tuesday Night). Till then, P&L...

Angry "Fuck You" Post

2005-09-22T06:02:00.000-04:00

I'm going to try to limit these as much as possible, but this one can't not be written. Not only do I want all of my Republican friends being asked these questions, I want anyone on my side to yelling the exact same thing I am.

Well, you fuckers have gone and done it now. Hottest summer on record followed by 2 category 5 hurricanes hitting the gulf - two, in fact, of the most intense hurricanes in all of recorded history. THIS IS LIKE A GODDAM DISASTER MOVIE!!!!!

Well, you guys really showed us. You won't let those "scientists" tell you how to live your lives! Global warming? Just a theory! Just like evolution, the Big Bang, and the link between cigarettes and cancer. Seriously, people, how long are you going to remain in the Party of Ignorance?

Not only do you appear more and more stupid the further the rest of us advance into the future - what a conservative truly is, after all, at their most basic core, is simply somebody who refuses to acknowledge the passage of time - but now your ridiculous refusal to acknowledge a scientific discovery with such backing and credibility that we are the only industrialized country in the world that refuses to acknowledge its legitimacy, has produced an unprecedented FIRST MONTH of the hurricane season. 10,000 poeople died in Hurricane Katrina (thanks to your beloved economic policies which left thousands unable to flee an area they knew was going to be the site of a disaster because they were too poor), and now they are saying this one is going to be even worse.

You've derided the people who warned you this was coming - you called them "elitists", "pinheads", treehuggers", and told us to get out of our ivory tower. Well this is me telling you to pull your goddam head out of the sand. It's hard to admit your wrong, but coninuing to cling to these ridiculous ideas in the face of mounting evidence is doing you no favors. Come over to our side, and you'll be welcomed with open arms. Continue to deny reality, and it could well be the death of us all. Sounds hyperbolic, but, at this point, I don't know what to expect next.

Oh, and to all of you "In Case Of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmaned" assholes - this looks an awful lot like the beginning of the Rapture to me, and YOU'RE STILL FUCKING HERE!

Have a nice day...

The Single Happiest Moment of My Life

2005-09-20T17:18:00.000-04:00

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow.

Ok, so last night I have some friends over for the football game, Skins vs. Cowboys, on ABC. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect. Both the Cowboys and Redskins had narrow victories in week 1, but Dallas' opponent (San Diego) was supposedly better than the Redskins' (Chicago) and Dallas was on the road while the Redskins were home. Things began to look better on Sunday, when the Bears trounced the Lions 38-6 while the Chargers fell to the Broncos, who a week earlier had been thoroughly whipped by the Miami Dolphins. So it began to look like maybe everyone was wrong, at least a little bit, when comparing the relative strength of the two opponents.

The game started, and it started slowly, to say the least. Brunell looked an awful lot like the same Mark Brunell from last season, and while Bledsoe looked better than Brunell, he wasn't exactly leading his team up and down the field either. In fact, it was 3-0 at the half, when Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman, and Emmitt Smith were inducted into the Cowboys Ring of Honor.

In the third quarter, the Cowboys dug into their bag of Jap Plays and pulled out a flea-flicker for a 70-some odd yard score (Cowboy fans have been whining about how they dominated last night's game for 55 minutes but they haven't been mentioning that their only TD came on a gimmick play). They tacked on another figgie and it was 13-0 late in the 4th quarter.

With 4 minutes to go, the Skins were looking at 4th and 15 on the Cowboys 38 yard line. As I was on the extremeskins.com demanding that Gibbs put in rookie QB Jason Campbell immediately, Brunell threw a beautiful pass into the end zone that ended up in the arms of WR Santana Moss (yes, he's on my fantasy team, no I didn't play him). Nice play, I thought, where the hell has that been, oh I don't know, THE ENTIRE FUCKING GAME. Hey, at least the Skins were gonna get all those people who took them and the points a push...

But the Redskins' defense, as it had been doing mostly all night, kept the Cowboys from going anywhere on their next drive, so the Redskins wound up with the ball again, with just about a minute having been lost from the game clock. They got the ball up to their 30 yard line (as in 70 yards away from the end zone) when Brunell dropped back again. And chucked it again. At Santana Moss again. And he caught it again. And scored again.

*ecstacy*

Next thing I know, I'm lying on the floor screaming at the top of my lungs, something like "HOLY SHIT! THEY DID IT!" Maybe my folks remember, because I woke them both up.

Routes are nice. I love to watch my Skins whoop up on somebody (although that never happens these days...). But with a route all the joy is spread out over the course of an entire game. It's lot's of fun to watch, but you never get that one moment, where an entire game's worth of elation is all concentrated into one play. And because it was against the Cowboys, because it was in Dallas, in front of all those Dallas fans (and those up-till-that-point poor Redskin fans, whom I pitied all night long but now envy more than anyone else), and on the night they had their ceremony, and with 8 years of losing to those fuckers fresh in all our minds, the euphoria was concentrated and beautiful.

I do, of course, have better memories than the Redskins beating Dallas in week two of a regular season. However, as far as one moment of sheer unadulterated joy, I don't believe anything ever topped Moss scoring that second TD. I wish I could have bottled that shit up.

After that, it was two minutes of nerveousness, waiting for some BS pass interference call or some other such nonsense that the Cowboys ALWAYS got against us that would set them up at the 2 with just enough time for Jose Cortez to atone for his earleir miss by kicking the game winning figgie, but it didn't come. The Skins held on, and the celebration began. I went to bed at 3 AM. I got up this morning at 7, not because I had to, but because I couldn't sleep. I suppose I'll be tired at some point, but I've been up all day and it hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, as far as the rest of the NFL weekend went, it was more blowouts, more suprising results, and, for you Ravens' fans, more misery. My top five for the week were:

5. Dolphins/Jets - the Jets won this won, 17-7, which is hardly a stomping, but seeing as Nick Saban has the Dolphins playing better, a win is a win. I'm not ready to call the Jets a great team yet - that week 1 loss in still as ugly as it was a week ago - but this was an important game for them to win.

4. Chargers/Broncos - the Broncos held home field, beating the Chargers in Denver. This puts the Chargers in an 0-2 hole in a conference where 10 wins is necessary for a playoff berth, but they aren't out of it yet. The next few weeks are going to be very important for Schotty & Co., however.

3. Chiefs/Raiders - the Raiders were unable to hold home field against the hated Chiefs, which is doubly bad news for a team that is now 0-2. When you have only three divisional home games a year, you want to be damn sure you don't let them slip away, but that's exactly what happened here (although Randy Moss was robbed of that TD...pathetic call). Eventually the Raiders will learn (as the Redskins did) that the secret to success is chucking the ball as far downfield as possible and letting Moss catch it, as often as possible. I have no idea why they went to Porter in the end zone on 4th down at the end of the game. I mean, Porter is on my fantasy team, I think he's a great receiver...but he's no Randy Moss. Nobody else is. Go to your playmaker.

2. Patriots/Panthers - the Patriots went down to Carolina and got beat pretty decent. Stephen Davis had a monster of a game with 3 TDs, and the Carolina defense did a good job of holding the Pats to a reasonable 17 points. I wouldn't read too much into this game if I were a Pats' fan (although it does show that the mighty Patriots are not, in fact, invincible), but it has to be an enormous feather in the cap of the Panthers, who were coming off a divsional home loss to an emotionally riled up Saints team.

1. Jaguars/Colts - the Colts held home field, but barely. Byron Leftwich had a performance in the 4th quarter, while injured, that conjured up memories of the tear-inducing performance he had at Marshall when his offensive line was literally carrying him down the field after long completions. If there is a gutsier player in the NFL, I don't know who he is. As for the game, 10-3 was the final score. The good news for Indianapolis, besides the fact that they put themselves a game up against the only other good team in their division, is that they can now win, apparently, even when the vaunted offense isn't lighting up the scoreboard like a Christmas tree. They have held their opponents to 10 points in two games. That's 10 points, TOTAL. And 7 of those came on a garbage time TD by the Ravens. That makes them the most dangerous team in the NFL, at this point.

Ok, this week's college line-up (first game of the weekend is, ridiculously, tommorow):

We got some goodies, not quite as good as last week maybe, but still soome goodies...

5. Michigan/Wisconsin - a "preseason top 5 team", the Wolverines had high hopes for this season, but they took a major hit the weekend before last, when Notre Dame came into the Big House and beat them. Now they travel to undefeated Wisconsin. The Badgers haven't exactly distinguished themselves against high-quality competition, but they have given no reason to think they aren't capable of winning this year, either. If Wisconsin has any aspirations of winning the Big 10, they have to win this one. Same with thew Wolverines, for that matter.

4. USC/Oregon - normally you'd think the number 1 team in the country going on the road to face a ranked opponent would be higher than #4, but honestly the gulf between USC and the other schools is so high at this point that I would be suprised if this wasn't a laugher by game's end. If Oregon can make this close, it'll show the champs are vulnerable. Otherwise, we're back to where we started...

3. Iowa/Ohio State - two of the Big 10's "big three" (which all lost two weeks ago) meet in the Horseshoe in Columbus. The Big 10 is poised to be the most competitive conference in football this year, with as many as 7 teams potentially vying for the crown. Obviously, every game is direly important. Like Wisconsin/Michigan, and all the Big 10 match-ups this week and every other week, a loss could cripple a team's chances of winning the conference.

2. Georgia Tech/Virginia Tech - the battle of the Techs in the ACC. Both teams are currently undefeated, with Virginia Tech trouncing two overmatched opponents after winning a great opener against a game NC State squad, and Georgia Tech still shining after their week 1 victory at Jordan-Hare Stadium. This is a divisional game, soany hopes either team has of winning their division (and, thus, their conference) lies in winning this game.

1. Tennessee/LSU - who designed Tennesse's schedule this year? After a tough loss in the swamp, things get no easier for the Vols, who now get to go to Death Valley and play against the charged up Bayou Bengals in the first major football game in Louisiana since the hurricane. Because the Volunteers are so damn good, this will be a tough one for LSU, but I wouldn't be shocked if the emotion took over and the Tigers won by 20 points. One thing is for sure, it's gonna be rockin', and Tiger Stadium is a tough place to play in at night for a visitor. GEAUX TIGERS!

Ok, that's all for now. P&L...

College Ball Wrap-up

2005-09-18T10:49:00.000-04:00

Wow...what a day yesterday was. I was getting a good omen when Utah/Texas Christian and Houston/Texas El Paso, which were played on Thursday and Friday Night, respectively, were both superior games. But I had no idea that Saturday was going to be so good:

Notre Dame erased a three-touchdown defecit only to lose in overtime. Also losing in the extra session was Clemson, to Miami of Florida. Oklahoma got absolutely trounced by UCLA, which should lead to the school falling out of the rankings entirely, but the media loves to overrate the Big 12, especially the Big 12 South, so it wouldn't suprise me if I saw that they were still there (polls will be out later today - I'd post them here but I consider the polls to be largely irrelevant at this point in the season). Boston College made Florida State work for it, but they came through late with a come-from-behind victory to reestablish themselves as the premeire team in that division. After coming very close to knocking off (an overrated?) Georgia last week, Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks got the thumping the Bulldogs wanted to give them, but they got it from the Crimson Tide. Don't look now, but Alabama is undefeated and should be 4-0 when they host the Gators in two weeks. My number 1 game of the week was a little less dramatic than some of the overtime games, but Florida played some inspired ball to beat Tennessee at home, possibly establishing themselves as the best team in that division (they still have to get through Georgia, of course). With Florida, LSU, Georgia, and now possibly Alabama looking real good early, this should become one hell of a good season in the SEC this year. Of course, it's almost always a good season in the SEC, but still...

Not much on the upset front (although some would call UCLA dismantling Oklahoma an upset, but Vegas had UCLA by 7 - here's guessing a lot of angry Oklahoma fans lost their shirts betting that there was no way those California kids would beat their Sooners by more than a TD). Division 1-AA California Davis got a win over Stanford, which should pretty much make those players happy for the rest of their lives, beating a Pac 10 team, albeit not a very good one. Michigan State beating Notre Dame qualifies as an upset, but other than those three games, the weekend went pretty much according to plan, although the games were exciting.

On the National Championship Front, Notre Dame fell out of the picture at least temporarily with their loss to Michigan State (by temporarily I mean at least until November, and even then things would have to go exceptionally well for them to get back into it - they still have a game with Southern California left, so you can't discount them completely). Tennessee took a huge hit - it would now take Florida losing twice for them to win the division. The faint hopes of Boston College and CLemson were both pretty much extinguished, as was what was left of Oklahoma's bid to make three National Championship Games in a row. Still left: Southern California, who hasn't lost a game since September 17, 2003; Texas, still riding high off that big win in Columbus; Louisiana State, who has a huge test coming up this week (more on that Tuesday); Florida, who looks like they're the team to beat in the SEC East...for now; Georgia, who would probably be upset with my description of Florida; Alabama, who is off of most people's radars but has the schedule to shoot up quickly if they can win (remember, you read that Alabama could win the National Championship here first); Florida State, who managed to get out of that ugly game against Miami with a win, and have followed that up with a much more convincing performance against BC; Virginia Tech, which has not played a decent opponent since opening week (that changes next Saturday...again, more on that Tuesday), but has been blowing their opponents out like you would expect a top tier team to do (all aliteration aside); and Purdue, which is the Big 10's lone torch bearer since Ohio State, Michigan, and Iowa have all lost. Of course, lot's of teams could still be in the mix if they ran their schedule - Vanderbilt hasn't lost yet, for instance - but these are the scools whose games you should be keeping an eye on in the coming weeks.

Ok, that's plenty for now. Pro ball recap Tuesday, as well as my look ahead to next week in college, which comes early because the college weekend starts on Wednesday this week. Till then, P&L...

Pro Ball Look-Ahead

2005-09-16T08:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I did a preview of this weekend's college games. Today, we'll focus on Sunday.

After an interesting week 1 (interesting in retrospect, not in fact; there were a lot of blow-outs opening weekend) we find ourselves staing at week 2, and this is about the point in the week where fans who's teams either honked it or came out like gangbusters are beginning to look ahead to week 2 wondering if what they saw was an omen or an aberration (sp?). My top 5 is swarming with AFC teams, who take up 9 of the 10 spots on the list. Let's get right to it:

5. Jets/Dolphins - two teams that have their fans wondering whether last week was a fluke or not. The Jets are out to prove that it was, the Dolphins are out to prove that it wasn't. You hate to bury a team two weeks into the season, but if the Jets can't hold home turf against what should be an inferior opponent, it'll be tough to see them making the playoffs this year in a division where one team is the twice-defending Super Bowl Champions and the other two teams seem to be greatly improved. As for the Dolphins, they can't be thinking playoffs yet, but if they can go into New York and stick it to the Jets in their home opnener, then maybe they aren't as far away from the post-season as everyone thinks. That's a lot on the line for week 2.

4. Chargers/Broncos - in Denver, two teams are trying to prove that week 1 was a fluke. The Broncos had the more lopsided loss on the scoreboard (34-10 to those Dolphins), but they at least were on the road, in inhospitable conditions (90 degrees with 60% humidity - YUCK!). The Chargers lost at home, 28-24, to the Dallas Cowboys, a team they supposedly are much better than. In addition, this is a division game, so it's a chance for each team to put themselves a game up on the other.

3. Chiefs/Raiders - the other two AFC West teams are meeting in Oakland. The Chiefs made mincemeat out of the Jets in KC, now they head to Oakland, to meet a Raiders team that got pushed around in week one by the Patriots. The Chiefs defense is supposedly vastly improved, and they looked the part in the opener. But the Raiders are a lot more explosive on offense than the Chiefs are. In a division where all four teams have a legitimate shot, every divsion game counts extra. This should be a good one.

2. Patriots/Panthers - some people think this is a Super Bowl Preview. I don't, but it's tough to deny that these two teams aren't near, or at, the tops of their respective conferences. The Panthers had a miserable start to last season but rallied to almost make the playoffs, despite so many injuries nobody knew who exactly was playing by season's end. The Patriots are, of course, two-time defending Super Bowl Champions. Because it's an interconference match-up, the importance of it, relatively, is somewhat muted, but as compelling TV, there isn't much better on this weekend.

1. Jaguars/Colts - Peyton's crew stomped the Ravens down on their own turf last week. This week they head home, where they'll take on a Jaguars team that disposed of the Seahawks neatly last weekend. Byron Leftwich & Co. look to make the AFC South a two-horse race, and a good way to start would be beating down Indy on their home field. Meanwhile, Indianapolis is trying to take the next step to being in the Super Bowl, and if they want to show they've taken the step, they'll hand the pesky Jags their first loss of the season. Two great teams in a divisional match-up, this is my NFL game of the week.

Bill Maher drops The Fucking Hammer!!!

2005-09-15T14:02:00.000-04:00

This is so awesome, I've got to repost it:

America must recall the president. That's what this country needs. A good, old-fashioned, California-style recall election! Complete with Gary Coleman, porno actresses and action film stars. And just like Schwarzenegger's predecessor here in California, George Bush is now so unpopular, he must defend his jog against...Russell Crowe. Because at this point, I want a leader who will throw a phone at somebody. In fact, let's have only phone throwers. Naomi Campbell can be the vice-president!

Now, I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?!

Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in...Please don't. I know, I know, there's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.

Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans...Maybe you're just not lucky!

I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, "Take a hint."

Pro Ball Wrap-Up & College Ball Preview

2005-09-15T13:03:00.000-04:00

Well, week 1 of the NFL season is in the books. Actually, it's been in the books for a while, but I've been busy and I haven't gotten around to writing anything about it until now. Sorry, but the good news is now that I've had time to digest it, maybe my analysis will be more insightful.

The first thing that needs to be understood is that it is too easy to overestimate the importance of week 1. It is easy to do, because right now, all we have to go on is one single performance from each team, and that's an awful lot of weight to put on one game, especially one that happens before the teams have really had a chance to develop their chemistries and identities.

That in mind, here's a review of the big stories from the first weekend.

First, the Saints big win in Carolina. It was great for the players and their fans, and important because it shows how the players are ready to react to their situation, at least initially. I expect this emotion to carry them through the first half of the season, and it'll being to wear off around the same time they begin to get used to their odd circumstances.

Secondly, Atlanta wins at home against Philly. Don't go handing the title of NFC's best team over to Atlanta quite yet. Jeremiah Trotter was missing and it's tough to win on the road in prime time, especially on Opening Weekend. But Atlanta got a big win that could be very important come tiebraker time.

Thirdly, Colts romp in Baltimore. The Ravens let the Colts dictate the tempo of this one, and the result was disasterous. The positive effect that the Kyle Boller might have had, however (and this is no reason to cheer for an injury, Baltimore fans - Good God, when the Eagles' fans cheered Irvin's injury - and that was disgusting, too - at least he was playing for the other team!!!), is that the Ravens will toss the playbook where the QB drops back to pass 40-odd times and instead do the smart thing and hand it off to the NFL's best rock-toter.

Lions win - no suprise to me - I've still got them winning the NFC North; Redskins win a defensive battle, not the last time that'll happen; Rams fall to San Francisco, shocking only only to those who don't realize that any team in the NFC West is perfectly capable of losing to anyone on any given Sunday, including Chesapeake High, or me and 10 buddies; Pittsburgh runs all over Tennessee, who is in for a long season; so is Houston, who proved their inabilities against the Bills; Dallas beats San Diego, can Schottenheimer spell "fluke season"?; Giants roll over Arizona - don't know why everybody was so in love with the Cardinals; same goes for the Jets, who got stomped by KC, and the Broncos, who got trounced by the Dolphins (I mean, seriously, how do you get trounced by the Dolphins? TROUNCED, by the DOLPHINS?????); the extremely overrated Vikings made me look like a genius by honking against the Buccaneers; and the Bengals beat the Browns.

Ok, College Week 3 starts tonight with Utah versus Texas Christian, which was threatening to crack my top 5 before TCU blew it against SMU, which is probably the most consistently bad program in NCAA Divison 1A football (Army and Buffalo are up there, too). Anyway, that might not hold your interest (I'll be watching), but there are several games this weekend that should be mandatory viewing for all those who call themselves football fans. So many, that my top 5 did not have room for Michigan State/Notre Dame, or SMU's follow-up game against Texas A&M. The ones that did make it...

5. Oklahoma/UCLA - The fall of the Sooners, who lost to the aforementioned Horned Frogs of TCU then nearly blew it against Tulsa, comes as a great joy to me. They have their biggest test of the season thusfar when they travel to Los Angeles (although not, sadly, to get trounced by the Trohjans again). UCLA is supposed to be one of the Pac 10's best this season, and if they have any hope of competing with USC, they have to prove they can beat up on an Oklahoma team that looks like a shell of it's former self (although they have been overrated for about 5 years running, now). As for Oklahoma, they had better turn things around quick, their match-up with the Longhorns is coming up and Texas has a lot of frustration they can't wait to take out on Stoops' squad.

4. Alabama/South Carolina - Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks did much better than expected in his SEC redebut. You can bet Georgia wanted to stomp the Ball Coach silly, but they were simply unable. Two apparent future SEC powers will meet when the Crimson Tide comes to South Carolina. 'Bama has had probation problems recently, but they are moving away from that era and should reemerge as a powerhouse soon. Which team is closer to being a power, this game will help determine.

3. Miami/Clemson - Miami and Florida State both looked horrible in week 1, and both pratically had last week off (FSU was playing "The Citadel" - whatever the hell that is). Both better get their act together quickly, because they are each playing teams this week that have impressed thusfar. Miami gets to play Clemson, who have beaten Texas A&M at home and Maryland on the road. This is still a very winnable game for Miami, and they would be my easy pick if they weren't so terrible opening weekend, but with Clemson coming to play and smelling a possible division championship, Miami had better come with it this time.

2. Florida State/Boston College - Meanwhile, the Seminoles have to make the trip north to Boston, where they'll lock horns with the Eagles of Boston College. BC dissapointed last year by not winning the Big East, but have big wins this year against BYU and Army, but Florida State is obviously a big step up in competition. FSU, BC, and Clemson are all in the Atlantic Division, so this weekend has huge potential implications down the line.

1. Tennessee/Florida - The Gators are back under prodigy coach Urban Meyer and with prodigy QB Chris Leak. Tennessee failed to impress in its week 1 win over Alabama-Brimingham, while Florida has had no such problems with its two opponents, Wyoming and Louisiana Tech. This could be the game of the year in the SEC East, and it could decide who walks away with the division title (although Georgia certainly has something to say about that).

With so many great games in store, who can wait for Saturday? Not me...

Cincy Trip & College Ball Wrap-up

2005-09-12T20:09:00.000-04:00

Well, dad, Mr. Daniel Barchonowicz, and I took a trip to Cincy this past weekend to take in a couple baseball games at their relatively new stadium. While it was pleasant enough, with a definate mid-western feel, it was rather impersonal and underwhelming, to tell the truth. It wasn't a dump, like their old place, but it certainly wasn't on par with OPACY, PNC Park, or any of the other nice fields I have been to.

Anyway, because we spent all day Saturday and Sunday walking around Cincinnati/in the ballpark, I didn't get much opportunity to watch football, and while I had enough of a good time to say it was worth the trade-off, I would have liked to have seen some of the games this weekend that I either missed enitrely or caught only pieces of, most notably the Redskins opening day win over the Bears.

Bearing in mind that the football weekend isn't over until tonight, I'll recap the major college action here, and hold off on pro ball until tommorow:

My top five games, if you'll remember, were Tulsa/Oklahoma, South Carolina/Georgia, LSU/Arizona State, Notre Dame/Michigan, and Texas/Ohio State. If you're a college ball fan, you were ecstatic this weekend because none of these games dissapointed, and the last two even exceeded expectations. Oklahoma ended up beating Tulsa 31-14, but the game was close (17-14) with under four minutes to go. Georgia beat South Carolina, but the Ol' Ball Coach's squad kept it close, which might mean they are a lot closer to being competitive in the SEC East than people originally thought. That is a situation worth monitoring. LSU beat Arizona State in a thriller that had a lot more meaning than just football, and Texas had a 4th quarter comeback victory at the Horseshoe in Colombus. It's also worth noting that Iowa State pounded Iowa 23-3, which means all of the Big 10's big three (Michigan, OSU, and Iowa) went down in the same weekend.

Should be a hell of a weekend next weekend, highlighted by Tennessee/Florida, but more on that Wednesday. Til later, P&L...

Weekend Ball Preview

2005-09-09T16:45:00.000-04:00

Well, pro ball season started last night with the Raiders and Patriots playing a game that wasn't particularly exciting except for Tristan calling a missed extra point by the Patriots, which was pretty incredible.

Anyway, this weekend offers up an interesting set of games in both college and pro ball, so I'll give my 5 games to watch in each, starting with Saturday:

5. Tulsa/Oklahoma - Normally, this wouldn't be anywhere near any top 5 list, and in fact I am pretty sure that Oklahoma will end up winning this game. However, after TCU's victory in Norman last weekend, Oklahoma is in a very desperate position; they need to prove that last week was a fluke. Anything less than a complete annihilation of Tulsa tommorow, and Oklahoma is in serious trouble heading into their conference schedule.

4. South Carolina/Georgia - this is another game where the outcome is fairly certain in advance, but will be interesting to watch, anyway. Steve Spurrier is making his grand return to the SEC, and his first assignment is to head into Athens, where his name is an anathema, with a team that will be, physically, outclassed by the Bulldogs. The Georgia boosters will be demanding that coach Richt run it up on the Ol' Ball Coach, and if Georgia does go all out, this will provide a good benchmark to see exactly how far Spurrier has to go to establish his new school among the SEC's elite.

3. Louisiana State/Arizona State - this is a big step up from the first two games listed. The Tigers come into this one with a lot on their minds, obviously. But with 20 returning starters they figure to be the team to beat in the SEC West. We'll learn a lot about them on Saturday, against a very decent Arizona State team on the road (originally, this was supposed to be played in Baton Rouge). If the Tigers dominate this game, with everything that has happened the last 10 days, they will be a favorite to play in Pasadena in January.

2. Notre Dame/Michigan - the status of this game shot through the roof when Notre Dame demolished Pittsburgh in their own building last week. Now they head to the Big House to take on #3 Michigan. With new head coach Charlie Weis and a new pro-style offense, Notre Dame can (obviously, thanks to last week) put up some points. Michigan's offense is loaded with talent, and both defenses are suspect, so this should be a shootout, which means it would be entertaining even if there were not potential National Championship implications for both teams.

1. Texas/Ohio State - Ohio State and Texas have never played. Ohio State is #5, Texas is #2. Whoever wins this game has the inside track to Pasadena. That's some pretty high stakes this early in the season...

And now for the top 5 pro games:

5. Packers/Lions - The early lead in the NFC North will be up for grabs when the Packers head to Ford Field. If Detroit is going to win the division like I predicted, they'll need to start by taking care of business at home against a divisional foe.

4. Saints/Panthers - The New Orleans Saints carry the hopes and dreams of a devestated city on their shoulders as they start their campaign off in Charlotte. Will that be a burden or a galvanizing force? I'd love to say it'll be the latter. We'll begin to find out on Sunday...

3. Jets/Chiefs - Well, well, well. For years it's been the same story in Kansas City, they can score points with anyone, but they coan't stop anyone. Well, now the defense has been revamped with several personnel acquistions. Will it be enough? And even if it is, has thier offense grown too old in the meanwhile? On the other side, the Jets expect to make the leap into the NFL's elite this season, and this is the kind of game that elite teams win. Both of these teams have something to prove.

2. Colts/Ravens - The Colts return to Baltimore. It's a prime time game. It's kickoff weekend. Think M&T might be hopping? I'd say it's a fair bet. Indy has an upgraded defense that it wants to show off and, coincidentally, Baltimore has upgraded it's offense in the offseason. But the real show will be the Ravens defense against the Colts offense. This should be a barn-burner (whatever that means...).

1. Eagles/Falcons - It's a NFC title game rematch, only at the Georgia Dome rather than the Linc. Both teams walked away from last year's postseason with a bad taste in their mouths, and each recognizes that they'll probably have to get past the other if they want to go to Super Bowl XL. Home field advantage in the playoffs could be critical, and so this is an important game in many respects.

Should be a hell of a weekend.

My projected winners: Oklahoma, Georgia, Louisiana State, Michigan, Ohio State, Detroit, New Orleans, Kansas City, Baltimore, Philadelphia.

Are you ready for some (pro) football?

2005-09-07T20:19:00.000-04:00

It's kickoff eve for pro ball so, as promised, here is my NFL preview. First, a look at my fantasy team:

QBs - Kerry Collins, Byron Leftwich
RBs - Edgerrin James, Clinton Portis, Thomas Jones, Reuben Droughns
WRs - Tory Holt, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Joey Porter, Santana Moss, Matt Jones
TEs - Antonio Gates, Chris Cooley
DEFs - Bills, Redskins
Ks - Sebastian Janikowski, Jon Hall

Let's run it down, division by division, starting in the AFC:

East - This division belongs to the New England Patriots, until further notice. The Jets and Bills will be looking at records in the 7-9 - 9-7 range, and the Dolphins will be improved, but I don't see more than 6 wins for them this season.

West - The Raiders stole Randy Moss from the Vikings, and will be rewarded with a division championship. The Chargers will fall back, and they as well as the Broncos and Chiefs will all be in the neighborhood of .500 at season's end.

North - 5 young QBs will break out and lead their teams to the playoffs, and the first one I'm listing here is Kyle Boller, whose Ravens should win the division with a stout defense as well as a healthy Jamal Lewis and Todd Heap. Cincy QB Carson Palmer is the second such QB, as the Bengals will be back in the eplayoffs for the first time since forever. The Steelers will struggle this season, looking at 9-7, and the Browns will be just awful, and in the hunt for the Matt Leinart sweepstakes.

South - Peyton Manning is still the NFL's best QB, and he's still good enough to lead his team to the playoffs, but they still have defense issues in Indy. Byron Leftwich is young QB #3 who's team is headed for the playoffs, as the Jags will eek in around 10-6. Tennessee and Houston will struggle.

NFC

East - This division is the property of the Philadelphia Eagles, until further notice, but one of those other three teams is gonna make a run this season. Here's saying it will be the Redskins behind Patrick Ramsey (QB #4) who will take the wildcard. Dallas and New York should both be good for 7-9 wins.

West - Perhaps the worst division in football, the aging Rams are still the class of this division. The Cardinals are on the rise but will miss out on the postseason, as will the Seahawks, who are on the fall. The 49ers are just plain awful.

North - If the NFC West isn't the worst division, the NFC North is. I'm looking for the Lions to take this division with Joey Harrington (#5) behind center, ahead of the Packers, who have decided to forgo playing with an offensive line or a defense, and the vastly overrated Vikings, who gave away their best player. And as for the Bears, well, they're the Bears...enough said.

South - The Saints have always had the talent to take this division, and I have no idea how Jim Haslett keeps his job. Here's saying (and hoping) that Hurrican Katrina can do what the head coach could not...that is, inspire the Saints to play up to their potential. It would be the feel good story of the season, that's for sure. The Falcons will grab a WC in this scenario, while Carolina just misses out. Long year for the Buccaneers, I'm afraid...but hey, hockey season is right around the corner...

That's all I got for now...

Southwest Airlines & College Football

2005-09-06T22:18:00.000-04:00

Well, I just got back from a four-day trip to Massachusetts to visit my sister & cousins and I had a hell of a time. During my stay, my sister and I talked about a variety of subjects, and this blog came up. She told me that I sounded too angry, all the time, here. In so many words, she told me that I write too many "Fuck You" Entries.

This is a legitimate point. When I get angry about something, this is usually where I come to vent. And this blog is called Da Scent (sounds like "dissent") for a reason. I represent a voice that is often marginalized, even attacked, in today's politics. Push me, I push back, and the best way I know how is with profanity-laced tirades. I write these tirades in the second person because it helps me vent if I imagine I'm talking to whomever is the object of my wrath, but I can see how that would also make the people who read this uncomfortable, because it appears as if I'm yelling at them, which is not (always) the case.

Anyway, the point is I saw something on Friday before I left that upset me a great deal, and had I not had this discussion with Kait, this would definately be another "Fuck You" Entry, and more intense than usual because it would actually be directed at someone who might read this. However, at my sister's request, I will put that column aside for another day, maybe after I've calmed down a little bit towards this person (I mean it, I'm really upset), and can write a more rational, and less profane, response, maybe saving a friendship in the process. Instead, I am going to write about two things which made me happy this weekend, specifically my experience with Southwest Airlines on Friday and the spectacular opening weekend of College Football.

First, if anyone wants to fly anywhere, and you don't have a dog you have to bring, Southwest is the only way to go. Not only are their prices the best by a long bit, but I just had a wonderful experience with their service. When I dragged myself to the airport on Firday, I got their and realized that I didn't have my wallet. I would have to go all the way back to Pasadena to get it, and then get back to the airport (big thank you to Jeff, btw, who picked me up, drove me back to Pasadena, then back to the airport, a 90-120 minute trip on his part, since he aso had to get to the airport and drive back to Pasadena himself). Anyway, I had to change flight times, and still arrived at the airport a mere half-hour before my flight. But thanks to everyone I talked to at Southwest, including the woman at the service desk, whose name tragically escapes me, I was able to get on the 5:30 flight no problem and with no extra expense. SWA is truly a first-class organization, discount fares and all.

As for college football, wow what a way to kick off the season. Opening weekend, like the rest of the pre-conference schedule, is usually a down time for college ball, because you have big boys beating up on little schools. And while there was some of that, Texas beating up Louisiana Lafayette 60-3 for example, there were also several instances where the games were plenty exciting, including some games that were not supposed to be.

The biggest shocker of the weekend, of course, was tiny Texas Christian University shocking the big boys of Oklahoma 17-10 in Norman. While you would be correct to assume that I would hesitate to cheer for any team with both "Texas" and "Christian" in the title, I'm always ready for a big time upset, especially when it involves Oklahoma going down.

Some of the other games that I got a kick out of watching on TV were Illinois's OT victory over Rutgers, Utah's win over Arizona, Colorado's win over in-state rival Colorado State, Georgia Tech's upset victory at Auburn, West Vriginia winning at Syracuse, Louisville holding on against a Kentucky squad that was not supposed to compete, Virginia Tech avengeing last year's loss at NC State, and Mississippi outlasting a Memphis team that lost their starting QB in the first series to a broken leg yet managed to hang in until the game's final minute. There were a number of close games I did not see on TV, including Tennessee over Alabama-Birmingham 17-10, and Maryland's 3 point victory over Navy.

Ironically, the game that most dissapointed me was Florida State/Miami. True, the game was close, but the two football teams looked, well, bad. I mean, I was simply not impressed with either squad. Bungled snaps, poor kicking, dropped passes, dropped interceptions, special teams breakdowns (other then all the missed FGs), all plagued the contest. To give an exampe of how bad it was, at one point Florida State blocked a punt, and recovered it at Miami's 2 yard line. They then proceeded to go backwards 8 yards before missing a 27-yard FG, and that was the team that ended up winning. So it was pretty bad. Neither team would have beaten either NC State or Virginia Tech, who played a hell of a game the night before.

Anyway, it was a heck of a weekend, and on Thursday night pro ball kicks off. I'll wriet my pro ball preview tommorow evening, after my fantasy draft. Till then...

P&L...

Krugman in the Times

2005-09-02T12:58:00.000-04:00

Best editorial yet:

September 2, 2005

A Can't-Do Government
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all.

There will and should be many questions about the response of state and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal government's response.

Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!"

Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard could keep order and deliver relief. But many members of the National Guard and much of its equipment - including high-water vehicles - are in Iraq. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," a Louisiana Guard officer told reporters several weeks ago.

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."

In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control spending.

Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's effectiveness? The administration has, by all accounts, treated the emergency management agency like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a mass exodus of experienced professionals.

Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership of the agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

Thursday Recap & Look Forward To Saturday

2005-09-02T00:21:00.000-04:00

Well, the first day of College football is nearly in the books, as I write this, only three games remain, two of which are blow-outs, although Idaho is managing to keep it close against Washington State, which is worth monitoring.

Anyway, Vandy and Wake was a hell of a game, at least, it would have been had I had ESPN U, which I don't. As it was, the most interesting game I got to watch was probably Steve Spurrier's South Carolina debut, which didn't exactly go smoothly, but they escaped with a 24-15 win.

Anyway, Vandy beat Wake 24-20 for the year's first upset, and 1-AA Northwestern State got an upset win over Louisiana Monroe.

Ok, bunch of big games coming up this weekend. The highlight, obviously, is Miami vs. Florida State on Monday night. Four other games to watch are, on Saturday, Texas A&M vs. Clemson, Georgia Tech vs. Auburn, Boise State vs. Georgia, and on Sunday, Virginia Tech vs. North Carolina State.

Be back for a recap next week. I'm off to Massachusetts for the weekend to visit Kait. P&L...

Three Columns

2005-09-01T10:58:00.000-04:00

I don't usually agree with Post columnist George Will, but every once in a while he pulls his head out of his ass and writes something reasonable. Usually, it's about baseball, but this is one of those rare instances where he is on point politically:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102258.html?nav=hcmodule

Also, we've got a good editorial from the Times, wondering why W is acting like a first-rate jackass while this country suffers from it's worst natural disaster in recent memory:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opinion/01thu1.html

Finally, another Post column (by Dan Froomkin) which asks the questions that every American should be asking themselves right now:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/08/31/BL2005083101127.html?nav=hcmodule

Good stuff x3.

Speaking of good stuff, I'm reading a book right now called Freakonomics by Steves Levitt and Dubner...it's a non-partisan book, and it makes a lot of connections most people haven't...a very interesting look at the world in which we live.

College Football Preview

2005-08-31T15:39:00.000-04:00

First of all, I just spent 30 bucks at the gas station today...30 bucks!!! To fill up a Corolla! The only good thing about this is those jackasses driving around in H2s have to be spending dame near 70 dollars...haha, assholes...

Ok, College ball season starts tommorow evening, with a slate of games highlighted by Wake Forest/Vanderbilt (yes, I know, that's a pretty crappy highlight). So without any further ado, here is my look ahead and predictions for the Power Conferences.

ACC

The Marcus Vick era finally begins at Virginia Tech, and younger Vick has quite a bit of pressure on him. In addition of trying to live up to his brother's name, he also has to deal with the pressure of playing on a team which won the League last season. Meanwhile, FSU is having all kinds of issues at QB, and Miami is trying to rebound from a very dissapointing last season. Going by the "It's Miami, so they can't be bad two years in a row" theory, I'm picking the 'Canes to win the ACC this fall.

Big 10 (11)

The power in the Big 10, as always, is with Ohio State and Michigan. OSU is returning no less than 18 starters. Michigan is coming off a League Title. It'll be a battle till the end, and the only reason Michigan will win out is because the season-ender is gonna be at the Big House.

Big 12

With Nebraska still in apparent disarray trying to install their West Coast offense, the Big 12 is still the property of perennial powerhouse Oklahoma, and their neighbors to the south, Texas. The Sooners have owned the Longhorns over the last few seasons, but their is reason to believe that will be turned around this year. Jason White is gone, and Vince Young is ready, in many people's opinion, to challenge for the Heisman. Still, until Mack Brown & Co. can knock the monkey off their back, it's tough to pick against the monkey. Look for Oklahoma to win the League again.

Big East

The Big East is getting some imports this season, and a lot of folks like one of those imports, Louisville, to win the League this year. But their starting QB from last year is gone, and West Virginia and Pittsburgh still have a recruitng advantage over what until this year has been a md--major school. WVU graduated a few players off of a dissapointing squad last season, so I look for a repeat winner here, as well, in Pittsburgh.

SEC

The nation's premeire conference is going to be a war zone this year. Last year's undefeated League Champ, Auburn, lost their entire backfield in the offseason, so a drop-off must be expected. Across the state, the Crimson Tide are statring to recover from their probation, so look for them to return to elite status shortly, although they are probably still a couple of years away. The class of the West this season appears to be the LSU Tigers, who are returning 20 starters (!!!), but NOT their head coach, who moved on to the NFL. Over in the East, the big story is the return of Steve Spurrier, although not to Florida, but rather to South Carolina. Florida has a new coach, too, and Urban Meyer has inheirted one hell of a football team, including a QB that is a potential #1 overall pick in an upcoming NFL draft. Tennessee is powerful, as always. I look for a barnburner of a Championship Game between LSU and Florida, and damned if I know who is going to win.

Pac 10

When Heisman Trophy Winner Matt Leinart decided to return to USC, that took, for many people, a lot of suspense out of this coming football season, especially in the Pac 10. UCLA will have a decent squad, and Coach Tedford will probably find someone at Cal to replace Aaron Rogers, but USC should be dominant one more time.

BCS Bowls

Fiesta Bowl
Michigan def. Oklahoma

Sugar Bowl
SEC Runner up def. Texas

Orange Bowl
Miami def. Pittsburgh

Rose Bowl (BCS Championship)
USC def. SEC Champ

Monday Night Ramblings

2005-08-29T20:59:00.000-04:00

Tonight is the last Monday night without a football game on TV till January. Next Monday Florida State plays Miami in the first big time match-up of the College season, and then the weekend after that the NFL kicks off, with a Monday Night match-up featuring the Falcons and the Eagles in an NFC Championship rematch.

As always on Monday, DU has their Top 10 Conservative Idiots of the Week up, and as always, it's hilarious yet frightening. I notice on that list that Rush Limbaugh is questioning my patriotism. I'll tell him the same thing I tell everyone else who does that. Fuck that, this is as much my country as it is yours. If you want to live in a country where the only political speech that is allowed is that which supports government policies whether we agree with them or not then it is you, sir, not I, who is living in the wrong place. And since all you did for the 8 years between 1992 and 2000 was bash then President Clinton, take your hypocritical ass - cyst and all - and go fuck yourself.

Tell Max Cleland, who left three limbs in Vietnam while you were off dodging the draft for some bullshit ass pimple and your fearless leader was hiding out in the Texas National Guard, about patriotism, you piece of shit.

Ok, my college football preview is coming up Wednesday evening. Till then, P&L...

Another Post Column

2005-08-27T11:04:00.000-04:00

This one is more recent (it's in today's Post). It's just as good, if not better. Don't be the last to read it...

Rallying the Troops and Avoiding Reality
By Colbert I. King
Saturday, August 27, 2005; A17
There is something almost surreal in the juxtaposition of President Bush's statements on Iraq and news reporting on the war. The two are simply irreconcilable.
Bush's upbeat take collides with recent news reports about events in Iraq as well as with the judgments of senior officials within his administration. If the media have got it wrong, then we deserve to get hammered. If, however, it turns out that Bush is not being straight with courageous U.S. service members and their families, then it will be the Bush presidency and his legacy that will pay dearly.
At the moment he's hitting it off in visits to military posts, where he dons his commander-in-chief hat. One Bush line always draws applause: "We will stay on the offensive. Whatever it takes, we will seek and find and destroy the terrorists, so that we do not have to face them in our own country." It went over well last year with a gathering of applauding Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne, Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group and the Night Stalkers, at Fort Campbell, Ky.
In June the president went to Fort Bragg, N.C., and in a televised address described Iraq as the latest battlefield in the war on terrorism, saying: "America's mission in Iraq is to defeat an enemy and give strength to a friend . . . . We will stay in the fight until the fight is won."
And to cheering military families at Nampa, Idaho, this week, Bush said: "Terrorists will emerge from Iraq one of two ways: emboldened or defeated . . . . for the sake of our children and our grandchildren, the terrorists will be defeated."
Bush's portrayal of America as a nation besieged by a cruel enemy that has made Iraq the battleground is one of the reasons America's military families willingly send sons and daughters off to war. Yes, it's hard duty, but what goal is worthier than defending America? Stated that way, there's no argument, at least where I'm concerned. That was one of the reasons that I, along with many in my generation, suited up during the Cold War.
The country should be grateful to all who wear the uniform of the United States and to the families that are sacrificing to achieve Bush's stated mission to fight the terrorists over there, and "stay until the fight is won."
But what if something else is in the works? Suppose staying on the offense "until the enemy is broken," an applause line, is just that -- an applause line?
There are good reasons to ask.
In an Aug. 12 Page One story that included interviews with U.S. officials involved in Iraq policy, The Post's Peter Baker wrote: "Administration officials have all but given up any hope of militarily defeating the insurgents with U.S. forces, instead aiming only to train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight themselves." Bush, the piece said, is only trying to buy time until the Iraqi political process moves along and Iraqi troops get up to speed.
Two days later, The Post's Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer reported an even gloomier assessment based on interviews with senior administration officials and analysts who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Washington now does not expect to fully defeat the insurgency before departing, but instead to diminish it," they reported. Said a U.S. official: "We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us."
In other words, while Bush is out rallying the troops and reassuring their families that their sacrifices won't be in vain, administration officials in Washington are quietly playing down expectations of what can really be achieved in Iraq.
Far from the cheering crowds, this is the word in the Nation's Capital: Forget all that prewar talk about a secular, modern and united Iraq emerging after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Get ready instead for some form of Islamic republic in Iraq that gives special status to clerics and majority ethnic groups, and less deference to women's rights. A new Iraq free of violence and divisions? Oops, never mind.
Which brings us back to the troops who are doing the suffering and dying. Are their sacrifices worth it?
Consider the Iraq now unfolding on the ground.
What's the value of Americans giving their lives so that cleric-dominated Shiites and northern Kurds can get their hands on political power and oil revenue?
Why are American women and men sacrificing lives and limbs in a country where women may have to settle for less?
Stay the course. What course? So religious-based militia can divvy up the northern and southern portions of the country? So Islam can be enshrined as a principal source of new Iraqi legislation?
Are any of those things worth dying for? Do any of those likely outcomes represent an American victory? They certainly aren't why Bush said we went over there.
Okay, the Bush folks also promised us weapons of mass destruction, and greetings with rice and rose water, and Iraqi oil money to pay for reconstruction, and a model new democracy in the Middle East, none of which has happened.
But this is different.
President Bush is out selling a vision of victory in Iraq while U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad are resigned to settling for less. George Bush can't make good on his original promise, and they know it. They also know that more Americans are going to die in Iraq for what may end up as a theocracy-tinged spoils system.
When those carrying the burden of this war realize what they have sacrificed and died for, the worst days of George W. Bush will have just begun.
kingc@washpost.com

Gary Hart's column in the Post

2005-08-27T10:57:00.000-04:00

It's a couple days old, but it's right on...

Who Will Say 'No More'?
By Gary Hart
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A15
"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative eraentered.
Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.
But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In theirleaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."
To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."
Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."
At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.
But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.
The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.
Who now has the courage to say this?
The writer is a former Democratic senator from Colorado.

Woo-hoo-hoo!

2005-08-27T00:34:00.000-04:00

It's been a hell of a good week for my two favorite pity parties...the Democrats and the Redskins.

Well, not so much a good week for the Democrats as it was a bad one for the Republicans, who decided to take some target practice out on their feet. The highlight, of course, was "Christian" leader Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Chavez. If I told you Chavez was the Progressive leader of an oil-rich nation, would you be shocked? Neither would I. But still, you have to wonder how *Jesus* feels about some asshole supposedly acting on *His* behalf telling us we should go killing people. A Scrivener's Lament puts it beautifully: "Will Pat Robertson now petition for The 9 Commandments to be displayed prominently in public buildings?"

It wasn't just Pat Robertson, of course. Our Great Leader was on vacation in Texas...again, he has broken the record for vacation time taken by a President and he has 3 1/2 more years to pile on to his record...when Cindy Sheehan showed up at Crawford and demanded that he tell her why he sent her son off to die for, well, nothing. So, he decided that his vacation wasn't going very well, so he took a vacation from his vacation to go to Idaho, where he can apparently still find some people who don't think he's a complete toolbox (you have to love his 36% approval rating...not quite as high as Richard Nixon's was at the height of the Watergate scandal). He then proceeded to bash the greiving mother of a dead American soldier by comparing her to another mother who (supposedly) told him that her sons would be happy to die for their country. Nice.

The Sheehan trashing (have these people no shame?) continued from other fronts as well, from Rush Limbaugh to a "grassroots" group called "Move America Forward". Only, this grassroots group is what we call "artifical turf" because it isn't a grassroots movement...that's horseshit. It is directly tied to the RNC. It's unethical, it's bad politics, it's the stuff that only complete scumbags do. And to tie it off nicely, it's only purpose is to verbally attack the mother of a dead U.S. soldier. Read that last sentence a couple of times, Republicans. Is this really what you want to be?

Watch Jon Stewart spank right-wing blowhard Christopher Hitchens all over the stage.

It would be nice for the Democrats to get off of their asses and participate, but since they're a bunch of jack-offs who would probably fuck it up anyway, maybe it's better that they're not saying anything. I am dissapointed in Howard Dean's silence, though.

Ok, on to the Redskins, who got their first preseason win, 17-10, over the Steelers. The good news is Ramsey looked pretty sharp overall in a half of play, with some really nice completions downfield (although no monster hook-ups) against a defense that absolutely stifled pretty much everyone they saw last year, including Ramsey & the Skins. The running game looked really good, from Portis to Betts to the two guys fighting for the third spot. Special teams was still shaky, and way too many penalties. Still, a good win for a team that needed one.

Later...

The Return of Dascent

2005-08-22T23:13:00.000-04:00

Goodness gracious, it has been forever since I've posted here. My bad, kids (ya, right, like anyone reads this...).

Anyway, it's been one hell of a busy summer, for reasons I mostly won't go into. I will mention - and I'm not trying to bring anyone down, here, it's just that I wouldn't feel right writing about this summer and not mentioning this - that a very close friend of the family's, Dorothy Barchonowicz, passed away after a four-year battle with various forms of cancer. She was my mother's best friend and things have been mighty gloomy around here all summer becasue of it.

The Orioles have collapsed spectacularly. They had an opportunity to be competitive but allowed the trade deadline to pass without a whimper. Well, fuck them. If they aren't interested in spending the money to contend, I'm not interested in wasting my time and money on them. If George Soros succeeds in buying the Nats, I'll have no problem swaping to a team that wants to act like it belongs in the Major Leagues. If they were spending the money and losing (like my Skins), I'd at least give them the credit for putting forth the effort, but it seems like Peter Angelos's only concern is the bottom line. The bottom line, Peter, is you just lost a fan, and if you don't pull your head out of your wallet, you'll lose a bunch more.

While baseball is unpleasant, football season is coming, and I couldn't be happier about that. College season kicks off Labor Day weekend, and we're going to get right to business with several very interesting match-ups, highlighted by Florida State-Miami. More on that as it approaches. Pro ball starts the weekend after. Should be a blast...

In other news, the war is still going on, kids are still dying, Bush is on vacation, Republican Senators are likening the conflict to Vietnam. There's a lady in Texas hanging around the Prez's vacation spot (hooray for W, by the way, breaking the vacation record it took Ronnie Reagan 8 years to set in a mere four-and-a-half rotations of the Earth around the Sun...), trying to get him to explain to her why her son got shipped home in a box, and the fact that the enitre Democratic Congressional Coalition isn't down there giving her their support is UNFUCKINGFATHOMABLE. This war is a sinking ship. It's a fucking disaster, and everyone who has a functioning brain is coming to realize this, including Chuck Hagel. The Democrats have to get on the boat now, and they'll send the Repubs to Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison in '06. If they continue to try to reach out to the right-center, well, we saw the results of that strategy in '04. And '02. And '00...

Speaking of which, Hillary Clinton can kiss my ass. She needs to spend less time worrying about video games, which, last time I checked, do not kill actual people, and more time parading against the war, which, last time I checked, had killed over 1,800 American troops, and God knows how many Iraqi civilians.

Ok, that's all for now. But I'm gonna be updating this badboy regularly from now on, which hopefully means everyday. So, till later (tomorrow?), take care...

Fuck Barak Obama

2005-06-09T23:15:00.000-04:00

Ya, this is a load of bullshit. We're trying to run a Party over here, and some jackass freshman Senator from Illinois is jumping on the bandwagon attacking Howard Dean.

Fanfuckingtastic, asshole. You're now trying to score political points at the expense of the Party. What was your percentage of the vote again? Like 80? What the fuck are you worried about?

Here's an idea, guys: let's stop being a bunch of pussies who let the Republicans get away with whatever they want, and then when one of us steps up and calls them out, we attack them for doing so. The Repubs didn't get into power that way.

This loser mentality the Democrats have adopted is simply sickening. Putting Dr. Dean in charge of the DNC was an absolutely brilliant move that SHOULD kickstart the Party and put us on the same track as our opponents. But as long as fucking losers like Barak Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton continue to attack Dean whenever he says anything with substance instead of hopping aboard and calling out the Republican Party for what it is, this will forever be a minority party. All the Democrats who have ever attacked Howard Dean since he assumed leadership of the Party are fucking traitors, and I say fuck them. They're worse than Republicans.

Go vote for Condi Rice again Barak, you fucking piece of shit.

Ummm...what?

2005-05-29T23:49:00.000-04:00

Thanks to DK, for pointing out this Washington Post article out to me.

We got a good one here, kids. It seems the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes that our military is treating detainees "humanely and with the dignity that they should be accorded."

You may recall my last post, which seemed to contradict General Myers' appraisal of the situation.

There are two possibilities here, both are equally frightening. The first, and most unlikely of the two, is that Myers has his head in the sand and has not a clue what is going on in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq (including Abu Ghraib - ya, remember that place? Apparently General Myers doesn't...).

The other possibility is that he does know what is going on, and he considers that humane and in accordance with dignity with which POWs should be treated.

I don't know about you, but I'm not sure which is worse. What I do know, however, is that the longer these people are in charge - that is, the ones who deny that there is any wrongdoing in our POW facilities and refuse to invesitgate, arrest, and punish those responsible - and by those responsible I don't mean a handful of privates and corporals who make handy scapegoats, I mean the sick motherfuckers upon whose orders these pawns were acting - the more danger our troops - potential POWs, all of them - face every day in what is already a Hellish environment.

You reap what you sow, and right now the U.S. Army is planting some deadly fruit. Unfortunately those doing the sowing aren't the ones on the front lines.

NY Times: In US Report, Brutal Details Of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths

2005-05-24T00:15:00.000-04:00

By TIM GOLDEN
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.
"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"
At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.
In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.
In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers describe one female interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning.
The Times obtained a copy of the file from a person involved in the investigation who was critical of the methods used at Bagram and the military's response to the deaths.
Although incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002, including some details of the two men's deaths, have been previously reported, American officials have characterized them as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated. And many of the officers and soldiers interviewed in the Dilawar investigation said the large majority of detainees at Bagram were compliant and reasonably well treated.
"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."
Yet the Bagram file includes ample testimony that harsh treatment by some interrogators was routine and that guards could strike shackled detainees with virtual impunity. Prisoners considered important or troublesome were also handcuffed and chained to the ceilings and doors of their cells, sometimes for long periods, an action Army prosecutors recently classified as criminal assault.
Some of the mistreatment was quite obvious, the file suggests. Senior officers frequently toured the detention center, and several of them acknowledged seeing prisoners chained up for punishment or to deprive them of sleep. Shortly before the two deaths, observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross specifically complained to the military authorities at Bagram about the shackling of prisoners in "fixed positions," documents show.
Even though military investigators learned soon after Mr. Dilawar's death that he had been abused by at least two interrogators, the Army's criminal inquiry moved slowly. Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.
Last October, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case.
So far, only the seven soldiers have been charged, including four last week. No one has been convicted in either death. Two Army interrogators were also reprimanded, a military spokesman said. Most of those who could still face legal action have denied wrongdoing, either in statements to investigators or in comments to a reporter.
"The whole situation is unfair," Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, a former Bagram interrogator who was charged with assaulting Mr. Dilawar, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, said in a telephone interview. "It's all going to come out when everything is said and done."
With most of the legal action pending, the story of abuses at Bagram remains incomplete. But documents and interviews reveal a striking disparity between the findings of Army investigators and what military officials said in the aftermath of the deaths.
Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes, even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides. Two months after those autopsies, the American commander in Afghanistan, then-Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse by soldiers had contributed to the two deaths. The methods used at Bagram, he said, were "in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques."
The Interrogators
In the summer of 2002, the military detention center at Bagram, about 40 miles north of Kabul, stood as a hulking reminder of the Americans' improvised hold over Afghanistan.
Built by the Soviets as an aircraft machine shop for the operations base they established after their intervention in the country in 1979, the building had survived the ensuing wars as a battered relic - a long, squat, concrete block with rusted metal sheets where the windows had once been.
Retrofitted with five large wire pens and a half dozen plywood isolation cells, the building became the Bagram Collection Point, a clearinghouse for prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The B.C.P., as soldiers called it, typically held between 40 and 80 detainees while they were interrogated and screened for possible shipment to the Pentagon's longer-term detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The new interrogation unit that arrived in July 2002 had been improvised as well. Captain Wood, then a 32-year-old lieutenant, came with 13 soldiers from the 525th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Bragg, N.C.; six Arabic-speaking reservists were added from the Utah National Guard.
Part of the new group, which was consolidated under Company A of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, was made up of counterintelligence specialists with no background in interrogation. Only two of the soldiers had ever questioned actual prisoners.
What specialized training the unit received came on the job, in sessions with two interrogators who had worked in the prison for a few months. "There was nothing that prepared us for running an interrogation operation" like the one at Bagram, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Staff Sgt. Steven W. Loring, later told investigators.
Nor were the rules of engagement very clear. The platoon had the standard interrogations guide, Army Field Manual 34-52, and an order from the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to treat prisoners "humanely," and when possible, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But with President Bush's final determination in February 2002 that the Conventions did not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda and that Taliban fighters would not be accorded the rights of prisoners of war, the interrogators believed they "could deviate slightly from the rules," said one of the Utah reservists, Sgt. James A. Leahy.
"There was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners of war, but nothing for terrorists," Sergeant Leahy told Army investigators. And the detainees, senior intelligence officers said, were to be considered terrorists until proved otherwise.
The deviations included the use of "safety positions" or "stress positions" that would make the detainees uncomfortable but not necessarily hurt them - kneeling on the ground, for instance, or sitting in a "chair" position against the wall. The new platoon was also trained in sleep deprivation, which the previous unit had generally limited to 24 hours or less, insisting that the interrogator remain awake with the prisoner to avoid pushing the limits of humane treatment.
But as the 519th interrogators settled into their jobs, they set their own procedures for sleep deprivation. They decided on 32 to 36 hours as the optimal time to keep prisoners awake and eliminated the practice of staying up themselves, one former interrogator, Eric LaHammer, said in an interview.
The interrogators worked from a menu of basic tactics to gain a prisoner's cooperation, from the "friendly" approach, to good cop-bad cop routines, to the threat of long-term imprisonment. But some less-experienced interrogators came to rely on the method known in the military as "Fear Up Harsh," or what one soldier referred to as "the screaming technique."
Sergeant Loring, then 27, tried with limited success to wean those interrogators off that approach, which typically involved yelling and throwing chairs. Mr. Leahy said the sergeant "put the brakes on when certain approaches got out of hand." But he could also be dismissive of tactics he considered too soft, several soldiers told investigators, and gave some of the most aggressive interrogators wide latitude. (Efforts to locate Mr. Loring, who has left the military, were unsuccessful.)
"We sometimes developed a rapport with detainees, and Sergeant Loring would sit us down and remind us that these were evil people and talk about 9/11 and they weren't our friends and could not be trusted," Mr. Leahy said.
Specialist Damien M. Corsetti, a tall, bearded interrogator sometimes called "Monster" -he had the nickname tattooed in Italian across his stomach, other soldiers said - was often chosen to intimidate new detainees. Specialist Corsetti, they said, would glower and yell at the arrivals as they stood chained to an overhead pole or lay face down on the floor of a holding room. (A military police K-9 unit often brought growling dogs to walk among the new prisoners for similar effect, documents show.)
"The other interrogators would use his reputation," said one interrogator, Specialist Eric H. Barclais. "They would tell the detainee, 'If you don't cooperate, we'll have to get Monster, and he won't be as nice.' " Another soldier told investigators that Sergeant Loring lightheartedly referred to Specialist Corsetti, then 23, as "the King of Torture."
A Saudi detainee who was interviewed by Army investigators last June at Guantánamo said Specialist Corsetti had pulled out his penis during an interrogation at Bagram, held it against the prisoner's face and threatened to rape him, excerpts from the man's statement show.
Last fall, the investigators cited probable cause to charge Specialist Corsetti with assault, maltreatment of a prisoner and indecent acts in the incident; he has not been charged. At Abu Ghraib, he was also one of three members of the 519th who were fined and demoted for forcing an Iraqi woman to strip during questioning, another interrogator said. A spokesman at Fort Bragg said Specialist Corsetti would not comment.
In late August of 2002, the Bagram interrogators were joined by a new military police unit that was assigned to guard the detainees. The soldiers, mostly reservists from the 377th Military Police Company based in Cincinnati and Bloomington, Ind., were similarly unprepared for their mission, members of the unit said.
The company received basic lessons in handling prisoners at Fort Dix, N.J., and some police and corrections officers in its ranks provided further training. That instruction included an overview of "pressure-point control tactics" and notably the "common peroneal strike" - a potentially disabling blow to the side of the leg, just above the knee.
The M.P.'s said they were never told that peroneal strikes were not part of Army doctrine. Nor did most of them hear one of the former police officers tell a fellow soldier during the training that he would never use such strikes because they would "tear up" a prisoner's legs.
But once in Afghanistan, members of the 377th found that the usual rules did not seem to apply. The peroneal strike quickly became a basic weapon of the M.P. arsenal. "That was kind of like an accepted thing; you could knee somebody in the leg," former Sgt. Thomas V. Curtis told the investigators.
A few weeks into the company's tour, Specialist Jeremy M. Callaway overheard another guard boasting about having beaten a detainee who had spit on him. Specialist Callaway also told investigators that other soldiers had congratulated the guard "for not taking any" from a detainee.
One captain nicknamed members of the Third Platoon "the Testosterone Gang." Several were devout bodybuilders. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, a group of the soldiers decorated their tent with a Confederate flag, one soldier said.
Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.
Eventually, the man was sent home.
The Defiant Detainee
The detainee known as Person Under Control No. 412 was a portly, well-groomed Afghan named Habibullah. Some American officials identified him as "Mullah" Habibullah, a brother of a former Taliban commander from the southern Afghan province of Oruzgan.
He stood out from the scraggly guerrillas and villagers whom the Bagram interrogators typically saw. "He had a piercing gaze and was very confident," the provost marshal in charge of the M.P.'s, Maj. Bobby R. Atwell, recalled.
Documents from the investigation suggest that Mr. Habibullah was captured by an Afghan warlord on Nov. 28, 2002, and delivered to Bagram by C.I.A. operatives two days later. His well-being at that point is a matter of dispute. The doctor who examined him on arrival at Bagram reported him in good health. But the intelligence operations chief, Lt. Col. John W. Loffert Jr., later told Army investigators, "He was already in bad condition when he arrived."
What is clear is that Mr. Habibullah was identified at Bagram as an important prisoner and an unusually sharp-tongued and insubordinate one.
One of the 377th's Third Platoon sergeants, Alan J. Driver Jr., told investigators that Mr. Habibullah rose up after a rectal examination and kneed him in the groin. The guard said he grabbed the prisoner by the head and yelled in his face. Mr. Habibullah then "became combative," Sergeant Driver said, and had to be subdued by three guards and led away in an armlock.
He was then confined in one of the 9-foot by 7-foot isolation cells, which the M.P. commander, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, later described as a standard procedure. "There was a policy that detainees were hooded, shackled and isolated for at least the first 24 hours, sometimes 72 hours of captivity," he told investigators.
While the guards kept some prisoners awake by yelling or poking at them or banging on their cell doors, Mr. Habibullah was shackled by the wrists to the wire ceiling over his cell, soldiers said.
On his second day, Dec. 1, the prisoner was "uncooperative" again, this time with Specialist Willie V. Brand. The guard, who has since been charged with assault and other crimes, told investigators he had delivered three peroneal strikes in response. The next day, Specialist Brand said, he had to knee the prisoner again. Other blows followed.
A lawyer for Specialist Brand, John P. Galligan, said there was no criminal intent by his client to hurt any detainee. "At the time, my client was acting consistently with the standard operating procedure that was in place at the Bagram facility."
The communication between Mr. Habibullah and his jailers appears to have been almost exclusively physical. Despite repeated requests, the M.P.'s were assigned no interpreters of their own. Instead, they borrowed from the interrogators when they could and relied on prisoners who spoke even a little English to translate for them.
When the detainees were beaten or kicked for "noncompliance," one of the interpreters, Ali M. Baryalai said, it was often "because they have no idea what the M.P. is saying."
By the morning of Dec. 2, witnesses told the investigators, Mr. Habibullah was coughing and complaining of chest pains. He limped into the interrogation room in shackles, his right leg stiff and his right foot swollen. The lead interrogator, Sergeant Leahy, let him sit on the floor because he could not bend his knees and sit in a chair.
The interpreter who was on hand, Ebrahim Baerde, said the interrogators had kept their distance that day "because he was spitting up a lot of phlegm."
"They were laughing and making fun of him, saying it was 'gross' or 'nasty,' " Mr. Baerde said.
Though battered, Mr. Habibullah was unbowed.
"Once they asked him if he wanted to spend the rest of his life in handcuffs," Mr. Baerde said. "His response was, 'Yes, don't they look good on me?' "
By Dec. 3, Mr. Habibullah's reputation for defiance seemed to make him an open target. One M.P. said he had given him five peroneal strikes for being "noncompliant and combative." Another gave him three or four more for being "combative and noncompliant." Some guards later asserted that he had been hurt trying to escape.
When Sgt. James P. Boland saw Mr. Habibullah on Dec. 3, he was in one of the isolation cells, tethered to the ceiling by two sets of handcuffs and a chain around his waist. His body was slumped forward, held up by the chains.
Sergeant Boland told the investigators he had entered the cell with two other guards, Specialists Anthony M. Morden and Brian E. Cammack. (All three have been charged with assault and other crimes.) One of them pulled off the prisoner's black hood. His head was slumped to one side, his tongue sticking out. Specialist Cammack said he had put some bread on Mr. Habibullah's tongue. Another soldier put an apple in the prisoner's hand; it fell to the floor.
When Specialist Cammack turned back toward the prisoner, he said in one statement, Mr. Habibullah's spit hit his chest. Later, Specialist Cammack acknowledged, "I'm not sure if he spit at me." But at the time, he exploded, yelling, "Don't ever spit on me again!" and kneeing the prisoner sharply in the thigh, "maybe a couple" of times. Mr. Habibullah's limp body swayed back and forth in the chains.
When Sergeant Boland returned to the cell some 20 minutes later, he said, Mr. Habibullah was not moving and had no pulse. Finally, the prisoner was unchained and laid out on the floor of his cell.
The guard who Specialist Cammack said had counseled him back in New Jersey about the dangers of peroneal strikes found him in the room where Mr. Habibullah lay, his body already cold.
"Specialist Cammack appeared very distraught," Specialist William Bohl told an investigator. The soldier "was running about the room hysterically."
An M.P. was sent to wake one of the medics.
"What are you getting me for?" the medic, Specialist Robert S. Melone, responded, telling him to call an ambulance instead.
When another medic finally arrived, he found Mr. Habibullah on the floor, his arms outstretched, his eyes and mouth open.
"It looked like he had been dead for a while, and it looked like nobody cared," the medic, Staff Sgt. Rodney D. Glass, recalled.
Not all of the guards were indifferent, their statements show. But if Mr. Habibullah's death shocked some of them, it did not lead to major changes in the detention center's operation.
Military police guards were assigned to be present during interrogations to help prevent mistreatment. The provost marshal, Major Atwell, told investigators he had already instructed the commander of the M.P. company, Captain Beiring, to stop chaining prisoners to the ceiling. Others said they never received such an order.
Senior officers later told investigators that they had been unaware of any serious abuses at the B.C.P. But the first sergeant of the 377th, Betty J. Jones, told investigators that the use of standing restraints, sleep deprivation and peroneal strikes was readily apparent.
"Everyone that is anyone went through the facility at one time or another," she said.
Major Atwell said the death "did not cause an enormous amount of concern 'cause it appeared natural."
In fact, Mr. Habibullah's autopsy, completed on Dec. 8, showed bruises or abrasions on his chest, arms and head. There were deep contusions on his calves, knees and thighs. His left calf was marked by what appeared to have been the sole of a boot.
His death was attributed to a blood clot, probably caused by the severe injuries to his legs, which traveled to his heart and blocked the blood flow to his lungs.
The Shy Detainee
On Dec. 5, one day after Mr. Habibullah died, Mr. Dilawar arrived at Bagram.
Four days before, on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.
Mr. Dilawar was not an adventurous man. He rarely went far from the stone farmhouse he shared with his wife, young daughter and extended family. He never attended school, relatives said, and had only one friend, Bacha Khel, with whom he would sit in the wheat fields surrounding the village and talk.
"He was a shy man, a very simple man," his eldest brother, Shahpoor, said in an interview.
On the day he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar's mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. But he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.
At a taxi stand there, he found three men headed back toward Yakubi. On the way, they passed a base used by American troops, Camp Salerno, which had been the target of a rocket attack that morning.
Militiamen loyal to the guerrilla commander guarding the base, Jan Baz Khan, stopped the Toyota at a checkpoint. They confiscated a broken walkie-talkie from one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers. In the trunk, they found an electric stabilizer used to regulate current from a generator. (Mr. Dilawar's family said the stabilizer was not theirs; at the time, they said, they had no electricity at all.)
The four men were detained and turned over to American soldiers at the base as suspects in the attack. Mr. Dilawar and his passengers spent their first night there handcuffed to a fence, so they would be unable to sleep. When a doctor examined them the next morning, he said later, he found Mr. Dilawar tired and suffering from headaches but otherwise fine.
Mr. Dilawar's three passengers were eventually flown to Guantánamo and held for more than a year before being sent home without charge. In interviews after their release, the men described their treatment at Bagram as far worse than at Guantánamo. While all of them said they had been beaten, they complained most bitterly of being stripped naked in front of female soldiers for showers and medical examinations, which they said included the first of several painful and humiliating rectal exams.
"They did lots and lots of bad things to me," said Abdur Rahim, a 26-year-old baker from Khost. "I was shouting and crying, and no one was listening. When I was shouting, the soldiers were slamming my head against the desk."
For Mr. Dilawar, his fellow prisoners said, the most difficult thing seemed to be the black cloth hood that was pulled over his head. "He could not breathe," said a man called Parkhudin, who had been one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers.
Mr. Dilawar was a frail man, standing only 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 122 pounds. But at Bagram, he was quickly labeled one of the "noncompliant" ones.
When one of the First Platoon M.P.'s, Specialist Corey E. Jones, was sent to Mr. Dilawar's cell to give him some water, he said the prisoner spit in his face and started kicking him. Specialist Jones responded, he said, with a couple of knee strikes to the leg of the shackled man.
"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."
Other Third Platoon M.P.'s later came by the detention center and stopped at the isolation cells to see for themselves, Specialist Jones said.
It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."
In a subsequent statement, Specialist Jones was vague about which M.P.'s had delivered the blows. His estimate was never confirmed, but other guards eventually admitted striking Mr. Dilawar repeatedly.
Many M.P.'s would eventually deny that they had any idea of Mr. Dilawar's injuries, explaining that they never saw his legs beneath his jumpsuit. But Specialist Jones recalled that the drawstring pants of Mr. Dilawar's orange prison suit fell down again and again while he was shackled.
"I saw the bruise because his pants kept falling down while he was in standing restraints," the soldier told investigators. "Over a certain time period, I noticed it was the size of a fist."
As Mr. Dilawar grew desperate, he began crying out more loudly to be released. But even the interpreters had trouble understanding his Pashto dialect; the annoyed guards heard only noise.
"He had constantly been screaming, 'Release me; I don't want to be here,' and things like that," said the one linguist who could decipher his distress, Abdul Ahad Wardak.
The Interrogation
On Dec. 8, Mr. Dilawar was taken for his fourth interrogation. It quickly turned hostile.
The 21-year-old lead interrogator, Specialist Glendale C. Walls II, later contended that Mr. Dilawar was evasive. "Some holes came up, and we wanted him to answer us truthfully," he said. The other interrogator, Sergeant Salcedo, complained that the prisoner was smiling, not answering questions, and refusing to stay kneeling on the ground or sitting against the wall.
The interpreter who was present, Ahmad Ahmadzai, recalled the encounter differently to investigators.
The interrogators, Mr. Ahmadzai said, accused Mr. Dilawar of launching the rockets that had hit the American base. He denied that. While kneeling on the ground, he was unable to hold his cuffed hands above his head as instructed, prompting Sergeant Salcedo to slap them back up whenever they began to drop.
"Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him about being a man, which was very insulting because of his heritage," Mr. Ahmadzai said.
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to sit in the chair position against the wall because of his battered legs, the two interrogators grabbed him by the shirt and repeatedly shoved him back against the wall.
"This went on for 10 or 15 minutes," the interpreter said. "He was so tired he couldn't get up."
"They stood him up, and at one point Selena stepped on his bare foot with her boot and grabbed him by his beard and pulled him towards her," he went on. "Once Selena kicked Dilawar in the groin, private areas, with her right foot. She was standing some distance from him, and she stepped back and kicked him.
"About the first 10 minutes, I think, they were actually questioning him, after that it was pushing, shoving, kicking and shouting at him," Mr. Ahmadzai said. "There was no interrogation going on."
The session ended, he said, with Sergeant Salcedo instructing the M.P.'s to keep Mr. Dilawar chained to the ceiling until the next shift came on.
The next morning, Mr. Dilawar began yelling again. At around noon, the M.P.'s called over another of the interpreters, Mr. Baerde, to try to quiet Mr. Dilawar down.
"I told him, 'Look, please, if you want to be able to sit down and be released from shackles, you just need to be quiet for one more hour."
"He told me that if he was in shackles another hour, he would die," Mr. Baerde said.
Half an hour later, Mr. Baerde returned to the cell. Mr. Dilawar's hands hung limply from the cuffs, and his head, covered by the black hood, slumped forward.
"He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed 'a shot,' " Mr. Baerde recalled. "He said that he didn't feel good. He said that his legs were hurting."
Mr. Baerde translated Mr. Dilawar's plea to one of the guards. The soldier took the prisoner's hand and pressed down on his fingernails to check his circulation.
"He's O.K.," Mr. Baerde quoted the M.P. as saying. "He's just trying to get out of his restraints."
By the time Mr. Dilawar was brought in for his final interrogation in the first hours of the next day, Dec. 10, he appeared exhausted and was babbling that his wife had died. He also told the interrogators that he had been beaten by the guards.
"But we didn't pursue that," said Mr. Baryalai, the interpreter.
Specialist Walls was again the lead interrogator. But his more aggressive partner, Specialist Claus, quickly took over, Mr. Baryalai said.
"Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him, not me," the interpreter told investigators. "He gave him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming his chest into the table front."
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to kneel, the interpreter said, the interrogators pulled him to his feet and pushed him against the wall. Told to assume a stress position, the prisoner leaned his head against the wall and began to fall asleep.
"It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate, but he couldn't physically perform the tasks," Mr. Baryalai said.
Finally, Specialist Walls grabbed the prisoner and "shook him harshly," the interpreter said, telling him that if he failed to cooperate, he would be shipped to a prison in the United States, where he would be "treated like a woman, by the other men" and face the wrath of criminals who "would be very angry with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks." (Specialist Walls was charged last week with assault, maltreatment and failure to obey a lawful order; Specialist Claus was charged with assault, maltreatment and lying to investigators. Each man declined to comment.)
A third military intelligence specialist who spoke some Pashto, Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis, had questioned Mr. Dilawar earlier and had arranged with Specialist Claus to take over when he was done. Instead, the sergeant arrived at the interrogation room to find a large puddle of water on the floor, a wet spot on Mr. Dilawar's shirt and Specialist Claus standing behind the detainee, twisting up the back of the hood that covered the prisoner's head.
"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."
"What the hell happened with that water?" Sergeant Yonushonis said he had demanded.
"We had to make sure he stayed hydrated," he said Specialist Claus had responded.
The next morning, Sergeant Yonushonis went to the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Sergeant Loring, to report the incident. Mr. Dilawar, however, was already dead.
The Post-Mortem
The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct. He had had some coronary artery disease, the medical examiner reported, but what caused his heart to fail was "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities." Similar injuries contributed to Mr. Habibullah's death.
One of the coroners later translated the assessment at a pre-trial hearing for Specialist Brand, saying the tissue in the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."
"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus," added Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the coroner, and a major at that time.
After the second death, several of the 519th Battalion's interrogators were temporarily removed from their posts. A medic was assigned to the detention center to work night shifts. On orders from the Bagram intelligence chief, interrogators were prohibited from any physical contact with the detainees. Chaining prisoners to any fixed object was also banned, and the use of stress positions was curtailed.
In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.
The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent home from Guantánamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed "no threat" to American forces.
They were later visited by Mr. Dilawar's parents, who begged them to explain what had happened to their son. But the men said they could not bring themselves to recount the details.
"I told them he had a bed," said Mr. Parkhudin. "I said the Americans were very nice because he had a heart problem."
In late August of last year, shortly before the Army completed its inquiry into the deaths, Sergeant Yonushonis, who was stationed in Germany, went at his own initiative to see an agent of the Criminal Investigation Command. Until then, he had never been interviewed.
"I expected to be contacted at some point by investigators in this case," he said. "I was living a few doors down from the interrogation room, and I had been one of the last to see this detainee alive."
Sergeant Yonushonis described what he had witnessed of the detainee's last interrogation. "I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking," he said.
He also added a detail that had been overlooked in the investigative file. By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."
Ruhallah Khapalwak, Carlotta Gall and David Rohde contributed reporting for this article, and Alain Delaqueriere assisted with research.

Mother of God. What has this country become?

4 Movie Reviews

2005-05-23T15:15:00.000-04:00

Since I blogged last, I've seen four movies that I had not seen before, two at the movies and two on DVD. I'll review them in the order I saw them:

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy ***
First, it should be noted that I am a huge fan of the books. When I saw the trailer for the first time, I was simultaneously enthused and apprehensive. Enthused because the books were classics, and if the movie did the book any justice, it would be one of the best movies I'd see this year. Apprehensive because if it was a bad movie, it would be doubly so, considering the original source.

I walked out of the theatre feeling relieved, becuase the movie, while not being great by any stretch, did not whip it out and piss all over the good name that is Hitchhiker's. The cast was very good (although it could have used a couple more English accents, especially from Mos Def and the lady who played Trillian). The special effects ranged from very good to fantastic, especially the Vogons and the inside of the planet factory. The romance angle between Arthur and Trillian should have been a tad more subtle, and the movie must have been very disorientating to anyone who hadn't read the books (although, if that's the case, fuck you, go read the goddam books...). I wasn't blown away by the film like I was with the books, but they did make a picture worth watching.

Garden State ***1/2

The best of the four movies. I was astonished to find out that this movie was written, directed, and starred in by the guy from Scrubs. Both he and Natalie Portman were amazing, the script was fantastic, the story was compelling, the characters were real. If you haven't seen it, go rent it. It's a good couple movie, too.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith ***

This movie was thiiiiiiiiis close to being a classic like the first three. The difference - the big difference - was the screenplay. Like the first two prequels, George Lucas insisted on writing the screenplay, which simply is not where his talents lie. If he could have checked his ego and given someone else the go-ahead to write the dialogue, than all three of these movies - and certainly this last one - could have stood up to the original series.

As it is, this is by far the best of the prequel movies. The special effects were dazzling - once again - and the story and characters were compelling. Even though we all knew the end of the movie before we set foot in the theatre, we were still very inetersted in seeing how everything unfolded. Worth seeing.

Saved! ***

Three stars for a Mandy Moore film? I was as shocked as you are, but Moore was great in this movie. Written and directed by a UMBC grad, this movie did a great job of capturing the Christian subculture here in the US. In other words, these people are freaks, and it was pretty well documented in the film. Worth watching by any normal person.

Ok new Minesweeper times:

Beginner - 6 seconds
Intermediate - 47 seconds
Expert - 176 seconds

I'll note here that Dave - yes, the Pat Sajak Dave - reported a time of 5 seconds on Beginner.

Congrats to Kate and Fuck You to Pat Sajak

2005-05-14T00:58:00.000-04:00

Kate graduated today. Beautiful day, nice ceremony. Mercifully short, as her College, SMCM, had a graduating class of only 465 (or was it 456?). Kate graduated cum laude, with a Bachelor's in History and English.

Now, I'm gonna go ahead and vent on an article I read on Dave's Blog, written by Pat Sajak. It's such a complete piece of shit that critiquing it is like shooting fish in a barrel, but if there's one thing I love, it's pointing out the idiocy of Repubs, especially the stupid Repub celebrities (ever notice how Repub celebrities are always no-talents like Sajak, Ahhnold, or Sly? Oh, wait, I almost forgot the Ultimate Warrior...).

Ok, here we go...

A distasteful glee emanates from the Left upon the arrival of any bad news from the Middle East. It’s as if they are saying, “So, W, where is all the Democracy we’re supposed to be spreading through the area? See, we were right, and you were wrong. And deceitful. And dumb.” And as bad news is welcomed as an indictment of the President and his policies, good news (and there has been plenty) must be minimized or ignored.
It’s one thing to oppose an Administration’s foreign policy, but it’s another to publicly gloat over and appear to smugly enjoy any of its setbacks. The long tradition of a Loyal Opposition in this country now appears to be an old-fashioned notion. There may have been widespread resistance to America’s entry into World War II, but once we were in it, there wasn’t much doubt about whom Americans were pulling for.

This is the same shit we've been getting from the right since the start of the war in Iraq. Basically, we're being told that if we don't fall in line with Administration Policy, we hate America. Well fuck you, everyone who says that. Everyone. My father worked for the government of this country - for the NSA, in fact - for almost 30 years. You want to tell me you love America more than he does? Or even more than I do, for that matter? I HATE it when right-wing fucks try and tell me I'm not a True Patriot. You don't know jack shit about my Patriotism. Besides, I don't know what could possibly be more Anti-American than "fall behind the President, or else."

Do we revel in the President's failures in the Middle East? That suggestion could not be more ridiculous. Do you think we like the fact that Osama Bin Laden is still at large, waiting to attack us again? The Repubs out in Kansas don't give a shit, because who the fuck is going to attack Kansas? But the folks here in the Northeast, where the 9/11 attacks took place, we're plenty upset about it.

Sajak is right about one thing, Loyal Opposition is a thing of the past. That's because whenever anyone raises any kind of opposition whatsoever, they are branded as Traitors and People Who Hate America.

If our country’s Middle East policies prove to be the disaster some claim, there will be plenty of time for recriminations. And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with voicing concerns about these policies, what is to be gained by actively working to undercut them or rooting for their failure? Wouldn’t it be better if they succeeded? Isn’t bringing millions of long-oppressed people a chance to live in freedom a noble achievement? Isn’t ensuring women the right to vote and the right to an education something to be celebrated? Won’t the world be a safer place if hope replaces despair in the lives of that region’s youth?

Wow. Plenty of time for recriminations? What the fuck does that mean? What about the over 1,500 dead US troops? Is there still plenty of time for them? And what the fuck is this business about "actively working to undercut" Administration Policy? Who has done this? Name a single person! "Rooting for their failure"? Who's rooting for failure? No one is rooting for failure...they're criticizing bad policy. We don't have to root for failure, because this policy will NEVER WORK. And when it doesn't work, and we say "See, we fucking told you so", we get accused of being disloyal. Pretty fucking convienient if you're a Repub, I'd say. Anytime someone points our your mistakes, you can just accuse them of Hating America.

You know who does Hate America? The Arabs do. Partly because we support corrupt, repressive, murderous regimes in the area. Partly because we're one-sided in our handling of Arab-Israeli disputes. Partly because they perceive us as exploiting their oil. Partly because they're a bunch of crazy religious fanatics - like Jerry Fallwell times a hundred million. But mostly because we're on their land. And even if - if - the Arabs wanted Democracy, they're sure as shit not going to be told how to do it by the Americans. That's not my opinion, that's not something I'm rooting for, that's fact. And next year, when the elections come around, we're going to point out that this Administration has been bungling things from day one, and you may not like seeing your Party get exposed, but we're not going to allow ourselves to be silenced because you think that Opposition is not a legitimate part of a Democracy.

Democrats continue to puzzle over their losses. They blame them on people who are too addlebrained to know they are voting against their own interests. Then they go to these same voters they’ve trashed and ask for their support. They seem to revel in any American setbacks overseas and yet protest when they are characterized as “weak” on defense issues. They stereotype Christians but cry foul when they are accused of not sharing their “values”.

You know, I love how the Repubs tell us that Dems are weak on defense...and that the whole country knows it. Hey, I got a question. You know what part of the country is the most likely to be hit with a foreign terrorist attack? I'd say the northeastern seaboard, the area of the country between Boston and Washington, D.C. How many states in that region did Bush win in '04? None. Zip. Zero. Nada. The people who actually live in the region that terrorists may strike spoke loudly and plainly that they trusted the Democrats to keep them safe a lot more than the Republicans. Everyone else in the country is just talking out of their ass. We're not puzzling over our losses. We lost because there are a lot of stupid rednecks out there who hate fags and vote on single issues. Our problem is we have to create the same kind of fervor come election time as our opponents do, which is a difficult problem, because our opponents use Fear, Ignorance, & Hate to rive their "base". Hope & Tolerance don't sell quite as well.

There are plenty of issues over which you can disagree with George W. Bush, including Iraq and his push for democratization throughout the world. You may find him wrongheaded or naïve. You may think his policies will blow up in our faces. But if you feel that way, shouldn’t you at least hope you’re wrong and he’s right.

How stupid was that? Seriously, President Bush's policies are stupid and naive, but I sure do hope he's right! I sure do hope that the Arabs will look at the abuses of Abu Ghraib, and decide that they DON'T hate us and that we can work together! I sure do hope that they can ignore the fact that more Iraqi civilians - many, many more - have been killed since the start of the Iraq War than American civilians were killed in the 9/11 Attacks. I sure do hope that if we give the vote to a bunch of religious fanatics, they won't elect a de facto theocracy. I sure hope that the Arab terrorists, who attacked us for merely BEING in Saudi Arabia, don't attack us for up and STARTING A WAR in Iraq.

The policies of this Administration are not merely naive or wrongheaded - they are completely out of touch with reality, they are responsible for thousands of deaths already, and they could be responsible for thousands more before we've reversed course. So excuse us for not keeping our mouths shut. At some point somebody has to restore sanity to this country's leadership, and we're not going to sit here and watch whilst you fuckers lead us into Armageddon.

Fuck you Pat Sajak, and all of your ilk.

'ROID RAGE!!!!!

2005-05-09T09:24:00.000-04:00

I promised you a fantasy baseball update (bet you were holding your breath), and here it is.

First of all, the Paper Street Soap Co released MI/OF Chris Burke and signed 3B Dallas McPherson.

It wasn't a good week on Paper Street, as the Soap Co fell into 7th place. C Joe Mauer was the star of the week for Paper Street - he 2 HR, 5 RBI, and a SB.

On the other hand, 'Roid Rage had one hell of a week. They remain 3rd in the standings, although they gained a lot of ground on the top two teams, and are now only 2.5 games out of first. The team totals for the week were astonishing: they set league season-highs each of the following categories: Runs (49), HR (19), RBI (49), TB (149), AVG (.365), OBP (.448), and WHIP (.93).

The star of the week was 2B Alfonso Soriano, who scored 9 runs, drove in 13, socked 5 jacks, hit for 28 total bases, and stole a base. Honorable mention goes to 1B Justin Morneau, who went yard 4 times, touched the plate 5 times, drove in 10 runs, and totaled 24 bases.

Ok, that's it for now. Get back at you later on, hopefully today, if I don't forget.

P&L...

Happy Mother's Day

2005-05-08T23:07:00.000-04:00

Hope you had a special Mother's Day, all of you mothers who are out there reading my blog. Although I'm not sure how many mothers there are out there who like to keep up with the exploits of a 23 year old aspiring novelist/college student and the successes and failures of his fantasy baseball teams. But, hey, if you're out there, Happiest of Mother's Days to you.

Anyway - wow, what a weekend. The Birds took 2 of 3 from the visiting Royals, and I was fortunate enough to be at OPACY for both wins. Then today we had the Barchanowiczes over for Mother's Day dinner, for which I had prepared my Special Marinade and BBQ Sauce (ok...I jacked the recipies from the internet, but they're still delicious; I'll make some modifications to the recipies when I get more experienced with that sort of thing) to put on some country pork ribs that dad grilled. Anybody who has ever had this combination can attest to how wonderful they are together.

I've finally got some of my novel down on paper. I haven't been able to really get much done on it, having school and all that to deal with, but it's nice to get some momentum going on this thing. I expect to get a whole lot done this summer.

Sorry I haven't been updating this more regularly...I'd say it's because I'm so busy - and while I am busy, that isn't really the reason - but it's mostly because I'm completely scatterbrained, and if I'm not thinking about doing something, it won't get done. What I need to do is come up with segments, like on talk radio shows. I'd write about one subject on Mondays, another on Tuesdays, and so forth. I'll come up with some ideas tonight and tell you what I come up with tommorow. Also, look for my weekly fantasy baseball update tommorow...it's a doozy...'Roid Rage kicked some major ass this past week.

Ok, get back atcha in the morn'...

P&L...

P.S. I shaved another 3 seconds off my best Minesweeper time on Intermediate. It's at 52 now.

Fantasy Baseball Update

2005-05-02T17:22:00.000-04:00

No transactions this week. I'm really quite satisfied with the current make-up of both rosters at this point and don't foresee any major changes anytime soon, barring injury.

It wasn't nearly as productive a week last week as it was the week before, but 'Roid Rage still managed to climb another spot in the standings to sit in third place. The big hero of the week was 1B Mark Teixeira, who hit .360 with 2 jacks, 4 RBI and 4 runs scored, and hit for 16 total bases. For the Paper Street Soap Co, who remained in 6th place, the big star was none other than Miggy T, who absolutely went off last week to the tune of a .565 OBP, 4 HR, 10 RBI, and a SLG of 1.182.

New Best Time for Minesweeper, Intermediate level - 55 seconds. Still 8 on Beginner and 191 on Expert.

Sweep...again

2005-05-01T21:50:00.000-04:00

I'm officially addicted to the 2005 Baltimore Orioles. I can not get enough of them. I spend the hours between games counting the time until they play again. I know their record by heart (17-7). I know how many games in a row they've won (8), I know how many games ahead of the Red Sox and Blue Jays they are (4), how many games they are ahead of the Yankees (7.5) and Devil Rays (9.5). I know that they lead the League in runs scored, hits, home runs, stolen bases, batting average, sluggin percentage, OPS, extra-base hits, total bases, most Ks by their pitchers, fewest Ks by their hitters, and save conversion percentage. I know that Miguel Tejada is leading the League in home runs and RBI, and that he and Brian Roberts are in the top 5 in each of the three triple crown categories.

I also know that when Manny Ramirez hit a 3-run homer that put the Red Sox up 8-3 over the Orioles in the 4th inning a week ago, I didn't dare turn off the TV, because this team is special, and that something extraordinary might happen. And you know what? It did. I know that the morning after that game a guy called up the Mark Vivano Show and told him how his daughter's team had lost a softball game that evening, and they turned on the O's game, and what they did made it all better.

I know that baseball is my favorite sport, that the Orioles are my favorite team - the Skins a distant second - and that it has wrenched my heart to see them be so bad for so long. I know that this town has the most abused baseball fans in the country, and yet they keep coming back, because they love the sport and they love their team.

I don't know how long they can keep this up, but I do know I'm ready to ride it out as long as they can keep going.

I have a feeling this is going to be one magic summer. Why Not?

Another Night at the Yard

2005-04-30T14:52:00.000-04:00

I was back at OPACY last night to watch the Birds take on the Devil Rays. The first thing I want to say is that I was dissapointed with the attendance - under 25,000 folks showed up for a Friday night game. The Birds just started a 12-game homestand. All O's fans who live somewhere in the area should make an effort to see at least 2 games over the next two weeks. We finally have a first-place club, and if you want the club to continue to win, we have to show Angelos that a winning team will continue to draw, Nats or no Nats.

Other then that, the night was perfect. Rain threatened, but nary a drop fell. The Birds trounced Tampa Bay 5-0, with jacks coming from Miggy T, Jay Gibbons (who came damn close to hitting a second), and Javy Lopez. Erik Bedard was masterful, pitching 8 innings, scattering 5 hits, and (perhaps most important) walking none. If that weren't enough, by the 7th inning the out-of-town scoreboard was showing that the Blue Jays had defeated the Yankees, 2-0. And by the time the game ended, the Red Sox had fallen behind Texas 7-2, a defecit from which they would not recover.

So, as of right now, the standings are as follows: The Birds find themselves in first place with a 15-7 record. The Blue Jays are in second, 13-11 and 3 games back. The Red Sox are an even 11-11, 4 games behind the O's. The Yanks are in fourth, 6.5 games back with a 9-14 record. Sitting in last place are the Devil Rays, 8-15, 7.5 games behind.

Birds are at home against Tampa Bay again this afternoon at 4:35, weather permitting.

K-L-G Movie Awards - Final Results - Fantasy Baseball

2005-04-25T17:56:00.000-04:00

Last week I announced the Finalists for the movie awards from my personal DVD collection. As you'll recall this was the third step in a process that started with 8 Nominees for each category, and then that list was cut to 4 Semi-finalists, and then to the 2 Finalists.

Now we have only the winners to announce. So, without further ado:

Best Supporting Actress
Winner: Minnie Driver - Good Will Hunting
Runner-Up: Anjelica Huston - The Royal Tennenbaums

First of all, I'm not going to say that this was a tough category, because all of the categories were tough. So, just let that go without being said for here on out. And it is certainly no knock on Huston, nor any of the other nominees, for that matter, that she (they) didn't get chosen. But Driver's performance was superb, and the fact that she wasn't able to use this performance to springboard into becoming one of Hollywood's biggest starlets is simply a shame.

Best Supporting Actor
Winner: Morgan Freeman - The Shawshank Redemption
Runner-Up: John Goodman - The Big Lebowski

This may have been the toughest category (Best Actor, Best Director the other two which stood out as excessively tough), from the first cut right on down to the last. I love movies where the supporting characters are as dynamic and interesting as the leads, and that really showed in the list of great supporting perfomances from which I had to choose. But Freeman here was ultimately the best choice. Here is one of the finest actors ever to grace the screen, in my opinion, in what is, also in my opinion, his career defining performance. His speech at the very end of the movie ranks among the finest monologues ever produced by Hollywood, and it puts a tear in the eye of anyone with a pulse every time, no matter how many times they have heard it. And anybody who knows how much I lived Goodman in Lebowski can tell you that for me to give this to someone else is proof of how great that other performance must have been.

Best Original Screenplay
Winner: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - The Big Lebowski
Runner-Up: Ben Affleck & Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting

Jesus Quintana: Are you ready to be fucked, man? I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're gonna fuck you up.
The Dude: Well, that's just, like, you opinion, man.
Jesus: And let me tell you something pandejo, you try any of that psycho stuff on us, you flash your piece out on the lanes, I'll take it from you and shove it up your ass and pull the trigger till it goes click.
The Dude: Jesus.
Jesus: You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
Walter: 8-year olds, dude.

'Nuff said.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Winner: Frank Darabont - The Shawshank Redemption (Short Story by Stephen King)
Runner-Up: Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Terry Gilliam, & Tony Grisoni - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas (Novel by Hunter S. Thompson)

Remember that monologue I talked about, the one that ranks right up there with the greatest in Hollywood history? Well, this is where it came from. As well as about 5 others that are almost as memorable.

Best Lead Actress
Winner: Annette Benning - American Beauty
Runner-Up: Frances McDormand - Fargo

Choosing between these two performances is like choosing Best in Show at the Westminster Dog Show. Both are so good that no one would blame you for picking either of them, but at the same time both are so good that it is insanely difficult to choose which one is best. This is probably the toughest category to choose between the two Finalists. I knew from the moment I made the list of nominees which two it would come down to, and so picking between them became a 3-week project. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what about Benning's performance was better than McDormand's, and I don't think that there is any way that McDormand could have been better in her movie. I guess it was Benning, flat on her back with her ankles around her ears yelling "FUCK ME, YOUR MAJESTY!" that put her over the top. But honestly it's a completely arbitrary decision. That said, I'm happy with my pick.

Best Actor
Winner: Johnny Depp - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Runner-Up: Edward Norton - Fight Club

You know how hard it is for me to pick against my favorite actor in one of my favorite movies? Insanely difficult. But let me tell you a story:

I showed my mom Fear & Loathing once. That's the only time she's ever watched it, start to finish. I mentioned to her that Depp's character was based on a real person. One day she was watching TV, and I was in another room. She called me into the room where she was watching TV, because Hunter S. Thompson was being interviewed on TV. Now, she had no idea who Thompson was - she had never heard of him. But she knew, from seeing Depp portray him one time, exactly who he was, because Depp did such a marvelous job in his portrayal. Now, how do you not pick that?

Best Director
Winner: Quentin Tarantino - Kill Bill
Runner-Up: David Fincher - Fight Club

This simply had to go to Quentin. Kill Bill was an intensive, 2-volume production, and it was awesome. Actors from different continents worked together flawlessly. The cinematography was, at times, breathtaking, and the action was pure entertainment. The deal maker, for me, was the scene in Volume 2 where The Bride was buried alive. I remember sitting in the theater feeling like I was in that coffin with her. Tarantino is, right now, the best director making movies in Hollywood, and Kill Bill is his directoral masterpiece.

Best Picture
Winner: Fight Club
Runner-Up: The Big Lebowski

Regarding this one, I knew where I was going from the get go. By the way, I lied when I said, in the explanation for Best Actor, that Fight Club was one of my favorite movies. It is my favorite movie - no "one of the"s needed. It is as funny as Lebowski, as cool as The Matrix, as poingiant as American Beauty, as well-acted as Fear & Loathing. The cast, form the three stars all the way down to the tiniest characters from one scene, is incredible. The dialogue, from the opening line to the final one, is phenomenal. The directing, the special effects, the chemistry between all of the players - everything about this movie is top-notch. I cannot point to a single flaw. If anyone out there is interested in making movies and wants to know which film to study, I would point to this one.

Ok, fantasy baseball update.

First off, 'Roid Rage released SS/3B Jose Valentin and signed SS/2B Clint Barmes. Also, 'Roid Rage activated Justin Morneau from the disabled list and released RP Shingo Takatsu.

Paper Street Soap Co released RP Mike Stanton and signed RP Todd Williams.

This was another good week for both 'Roid Rage and Paper Street. 'Roid Rage moved up another spot in the standings to 4th, which is the final playoff spot. Paper Street is currently 6th in their league. The big star of the week for 'Roid Rage was SP Mark Mulder, who had 2 wins and one complete game shut-out after pitching 18 innings without giving up an earned run, and boasting a miniscule whip of 0.56. For Paper Street, it was OF Cliff Floyd, who belted 2 jacks, drove in 7 runs, scored 7 times, stole 2 bases, posted an OBP of .448 and a SLG of .615.

Got some stuff to work on, but I'll try and come back at you later tonight. Till then, P&L...

How 'bout them O's?

2005-04-25T12:00:00.000-04:00

Man, it's been forever since I've posted. Sorry about that, loyal readers.

It's been so long, I have so much to talk about, mostly sports related. We'll begin with the Birds.

The O's busted out the brooms again, this time, for the first time, on the road, as they beat the Blue Jays 13-5, 4-1, and 7-1 - the last game was an absolute gem tossed by Sidney Ponson. That's nothing to poo-poo...the Jays came into the series 9-8, having taken 3 of 5 on the year from the Boston Red Sox. The Orioles, at 12-7, find themselves in 1st place in the American League East, with the 2nd best record in the AL (behind the Pale Hose of Chicago) and the 4th best record in MLB (behind the Dodgers and Cardinals). A three game set with the aforementioned BoSox is on deck, with 1st place at stake (the Sox are a game back with a record of 11-8).

I went to two baseball games last week, my first two of the season. On Monday, I had the opportunity to go check out DC's new club, and their old stadium. Simply put, RFK is no baseball park. It's a football stadium in which they put a diamond. I guess it's ok, since it's only a temporary home, but it's pretty dumpy, especially compared to the jewel we have in Baltimore. It wasn't a good night for the Nats, as they got dumped by the Marlins 9-4.

Speaking of the jewel in Baltimore, I was there Thursday night for a pitcher's duel against Boston, of which the Birds unfortunately fell on the losing end, 1-0. The important thing about that game, though, was that Rodrigo Lopez was able to match Matt Clement pitch for pitch (the Red Sox's run was unearned). It seems that he can truly be the ace for whom we've been looking.

The other big item this past week was the NFL Draft, which began at noon on Saturday and concluded just a few hours ago. The 'Skins had a pair of first round picks, which they spent on a couple of Auburn Tigers, CB Carlos Rogers and QB Jason Campbell. That the 'Skins were targeting Campbell was perhaps the worst-kept secret in the NFL. In fact, it was so well-known that I was erroneously certain that it wasn't going to happen. I guess now is Patrick Ramsey's time to prove he is the man here. Because if he can't get it done, Coach Gibbs already has Plan B lined up...

Ok, it's late & I'm tired, so I'm gonna have to put an end to this one. I'll be back tommorow afternoon to post the final results of my movie awards and give you an update on 'Roid Rage & the Paper Street Soap Co. Till then,

P&L...

New Pope

2005-04-19T13:37:00.000-04:00

It's Ratzinger. This is an unmitigated disaster for the Catholic Chruch. It's march towards irrelevance continues...

The New Pope Elections

2005-04-19T10:16:00.000-04:00

It seems the Cardinals are having a dificult time electing a new Pope. According to CNN, there are three main candidates.

1. The first is a guy named Joseph Ratzinger, and, if what CNN says about him is true, his election would be the latest in a series of self-inflicted disasters for the Catholic Church. His positions on homosexuality, role of women within (and, by extension, outside of) the Church, and birth control are just as backwards as those of the man's who just left office. If the Catholic Church really feels like they are in the midst of a crisis with declining membership and declining participation of that membership, they'll pull their heads from their asses and not elect this tool. The only good thing about this guy is that, at 77 years of age, his reign wouldn't last very long.

2. Secondly, we have Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan. 70 years of age, he is seen as the "moderate" candidate. This would be a treading water approach for the Church. But today's moderate is ludicrously backwards 15 years from now (and today's Catholic "moderate" is backwards NOW). If they want to elect a new Pope who can fix the problems facing the Church, they'll have to look elsewhere.

3. Thirdly, there is Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, 64, of Honduras. What a Pope this guy would make. First, the guy is cool - he campaigned with Bono for debt relief, and he plays the saxophone; in other words, he's a guy who might make people under the age of 70 think the Church has something for them. Secondly, he is from Honduras, which many of you know is in Central America. Latin America has been the home of possibly the world's most loyal Catholic contingency, certainly outside of Europe. It would be great to see them represented in such a significant manner. The guy is not the dream candidate or anything, but he'd certainly bring a fresh attitude to the office which has been missing the last few years.

Of course, in typical "liberal media" fashion, CNN barely mentions Rodriguez, instead focusing on, their words, the "arch-conservative" and the "moderate" - who is only moderate compared to the first clown. Catholics everywhere, pray for the election of Cardinal Rodriguez, or the Church might very well lose what little remaining importance it has.

K-L-G's Movie Awards - Finalists & Baseball

2005-04-18T13:31:00.000-04:00

We've announced the nominees, we've trimmed the list down to the Semi-Finalists...so here are the results of the second-to-last cut. Merely two contenders remain for each award. Let's see who they are...

Best Supporting Actress:
Minnie Driver - Good Will Hunting
Anjelica Huston - The Royal Tennenbaums

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Franka Potente - The Bourne Identity

Best Supporting Actor:
Morgan Freeman - The Shawshank Redemption
John Goodman - The Big Lebowski

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Geoffrey Rush - Pirates of the Carribean

Best Original Screenplay:
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - The Big Lebowski

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino - Pulp Fiction

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Terry Gilliam, & Tony Grisoni - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas (Novel by Hunter S. Thompson)
Frank Darabont - The Shawshank Redemption (Short Story by Stephen King)

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Jim Uhls - Fight Club (Novel by Chuck Palahniuk)

Best Lead Actress:
Annette Benning - American Beauty
Frances McDormand - Fargo

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Helena Bonham Carter - Fight Club

Best Lead Actor:
Johnny Depp - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Edward Norton - Fight Club

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Gene Hackman - The Royal Tennenbaums

Best Director:
David Fincher - Fight Club
Quentin Tarantino - Kill Bill

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Joel Coen - Fargo

Best Picture:
The Big Lebowski
Fight Club

Last Semi-finalist Cut:
Pulp Fiction

Couple of baseball things to talk about.

First, fantasy update...not a bad week for my two fantasy teams, as both climbed up two spots in the League Standings. 'Roid Rage is up to 5th place out of 8 teams, and the Paper Street Soap Co is up to 8th place out of 12. Both are still recovering from a disasterous opening week, but if they can climb two spots a week I'll be in first by the time school lets out. The star of the week for 'Roid Rage was none other than OF Sammy Sosa, who smacked 2 jacks and knocked in 7 runs while hitting .400 and amassing 21 total bases. The star of the week for Paper Street was also an Oriole, SS Miguel Tejada - he blasted 3 jacks, knocked in a whopping 13 runs, and had an astounding SLG% of .958. No wonder the Birds can't lose.

'Roid Rage has released SS Kahlil Greene and signed SS/3B Jose Valentin. Also, 'Roid Rage has placed 1B Justin Morneau on the Disabled List and signed RP Danys Baez. The Paper Street Soap Co has released SP Sidney Ponson and signed SP Mike Hampton.

Secondly, I've heard this question a lot from the national sports media: "What's wrong with the Yankees?"

I understand that the Yankees are supposed to beat the Orioles silly, like they did last year. I know it's difficult for anyone to think that the Orioles just might have a pretty good team, on the heels of 7 straight losing seasons. But at some point, the Birds have to be given some credit.

First of all, the Yankees have played 12 games, 6 against the O's, and (in case you haven't heard) 6 against the Red Sox, who happen to be (again, in case you haven't heard) the defending World Series Champions. If the Yanks are struggling against the pitiful Orioles, then surely the Red Sox must have hammered them to smithereens in their 6 contests, right?

Well, no, not exactly. The Yankees are 3-3 against the Red Sox, having won 2 out of 3 at Yankee Stadium and 1 of 3 at Fenway. The Yankees have been outscored on the season 77-53, but they've been outscored by Baltimore 47-26. That means that they've only been outscored by Boston 30-27.

Could it be that the Orioles are simply playing outstanding baseball? Judge for yourself:

In the American League, the Birds rank 1st in runs per game, hits, 3Bs, total bases per game, RBI, batting average, OBP, SLG, OPS, extra base hits per game, and fewest strikeouts by their hitters. In addition, they're second in total runs scored, home runs, total total bases, stolen bases, and total extra base hits.

It's early, but you can not deny that the Orioles are playing extremely well. I just wish someone would mention it.

Bust out the brooms, baby!

2005-04-17T18:16:00.000-04:00

Birds beat the Yankees again this afternoon, 8-4. That's 5 wins in 6 games against the Yankees so far this season (they were 5-14 against them last year), not to mention a sweep of this most recent series at OPACY. It is so nice to see the team playing so well, especially their starting pitching. Daniel Cabrera gave them 6 good innings, surrendering 3 runs, in what was his first good start of the season. It looks like they'll have a winner this year. The question is, how many wins can they get?

Sheff v. Drunk Fan

2005-04-16T01:49:00.000-04:00

By now you've all seen (several times) replay after replay of Gary Sheffield's incident with a Red Sox fan down the right field line Thursday night. I was watching the game, and here's what I thought.

First, the fan was being a jackass. I don't know what possesses fans into reaching on to the field of play after balls in play (or whatever he was reaching for), but it's something you just don't do. MLB should not put up with it. If the ball is in play and the fan reaches after it, he needs to be ejected immediately. Take away fans reaching out over the wall for balls in play, and this incident does not happen.

Secondly, Sheffield needed to show a little more restraint. He did show some restraint, which was admirable, but he never should have gone back to confront the fan. He should have talked to an umpire, or security, but he never should have turned and faced the fan after he threw the ball. Nothing good could have come from that, and he placed all of his teammates in jeopardy. Things could have escalated, and just because they didn't, doesn't mean he should get off scot free. I think a 1 or 2 game suspension would be in order.

Thirdly, and this was mentioned by Woody Paige a couple times today on ESPN, but major kudos to the Fenway Security guy who hopped in and kept the parties separated. It wasn't so much Sheffield's restraint, it was this guy restraining Sheffield. Sheff can send this guy a thank you note, because without him I'm not so sure that Sheffield doesn't become baseball's Ron Artest and start something REALLY ugly.

Birds trounced the Yanks tonight. It's only been 10 games, but damn, we might have a real bal club on our hands. I'll be at it again tommorow, till then...

P&L...

Sawks/Yanks

2005-04-15T11:25:00.000-04:00

Another Yankees/Red Sox series ended yesterday with an 8-5 Red Sox win. It was a good enough game, I suppose. Plenty of drama, with the Sox scoring the winning runs in the bottom of the 8th and then nearly blowing it in the 9th. But I am at the point where I simply can not give a shit what happens when the Red Sox and Yankees play anymore. I used to cheer for the Red Sox when they played the Yankees, of course, because I hate the Yankees, always have. I've never felt the same sort of antipathy towards the Red Sox, and I suppose I still don't, really, but the two teams are a lot closer in my book now than they were a few years ago.

The first signs that I was really starting to hate the Red Sox started showing up at Camden Yards en masse a few seasons ago. Understand, back when it was the Orioles and Yankees duking it out for the AL East - 1996-97 - Red Sox fans would show up to OPAC, but they'd hardly take the place over. And they CERTAINLY weren't selling out every game at Fenway. They call Boston a great baseball town, but in fact it's just like every other city in the northeast - when the team is winning, the fans show up, when they're not, they don't. And it's really fucking obnoxious when they come to your park by the thousands because the team is good. I understand that if Orioles fans would go see their team more often, they're wouldn't be as many tickets available, but don't tell me about how Red Sox Nation lives and dies with their team more than any other team in this part of the country, or more than the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs, or White Sox, because it simply ain't true.

Then they started going Yankees Light with the payroll. The Yankees are spending over $200 million on payroll, which is a fucking travesty. But the Red Sox are at like 150, and the next team after that is spending about 2/3 of what they are. If the Yankees are the Evil Empire, the Red Sox are but slightly less evil, and slightly less empiric.

Now, we have to watch trailers for dumb-assed movies about being a Red Sox fan. For Christ-fucking-sake, make it stop.

Here's a good column on why you too can hate the Red Sox almost as much as the Yankees. Some of the items are Mariners-fan specific (it was written by a Mariners fan), but you can probably come up with your own items to replace them. Here's another one.

But I don't want to just write about hating the Red Sox, it's the whole damn rivalry that's pissing me off. First of all, it is NOT the best rivalry in sports. Perhaps the best rivaly in professional sports, but give me Michigan/Ohio State, Alabama/Auburn, Army/Navy, Texas/Oklahoma, USC/UCLA, Stanford/Cal...any of those. College rivalries are always better than professional rivalries, because college players don't jump around from team to team. How much could Wade Boggs have hated the Red Sox when he was on the Yankees, considering he had spent the majority of his Hall of Fame career there? For the record, the best rivalry in sports, on this continent, is Duke/UNC basketball.

I was over my friend Jeff's house Wednesday Night, and he was upset that the Yankees/Red Sox game that night was not being shown in our region because we were seeing the O's/Devil Rays game. Now, Jeff is a Red Sox fan, and I have no problem with him being upset, because that's his team and he thought they were going to be on. But as the night went on, he went on to inform us that Red Sox/Yankees would have drawn higher ratings in Baltimore than the O's game. I mean, the arrogance is amazing. He then told us that the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry was "saving baseball", as if a bunch of fans in Milwaukee or Pittsburgh are reveling in all of the attention paid to two teams who's payrolls are in the stratosphere, while their own teams will never get any attention or glory because they can not spend half of what either of those two teams spend. What a jackass. But it's not his fault, he is fed this crap every day by the National Sports Media, who are right up there with the regular media in terms of being jackasses who have no idea how to do their jobs.

And dojn't get me started about the Gary Sheffield/drunk jackass Sox fan "incident" because it is a complete non-story that we'll be hearing about every day for a month, and then they'll bring it up again whenever the Sox and Yankees play, as if anything actually happened.

Fuck this. I'm good and pissed now.

P&L...

New Minesweeper Times

2005-04-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

On Expert and Beginner Levels...

Beginner - 8 seconds
Intermediate - 57 seconds
Expert - 191 seconds

Quick post, then sleepy time...

2005-04-14T00:51:00.000-04:00

Took a pleasure trip today...I dropped my parents off at the airport.

(Hahahahaha)

Seriously though, Mom & Dad have headed for sunny Florida, leaving me & the puppy here by our lonesomes. I'd throw a party, but I already got plans for Friday & Saturday nights. Besides, I wouldn't throw a party anyway.

What I really want to blog about, though, is the early-season performance of the Birds. Through 8 games, the O's find themselves 5-3, and have won consecutive series on the road. After scoring 5 runs the first three games versus Oakland, they've averaged just over 7 runs a game against the Yankees and the Devil Rays, so my doomsday predictions about their ability to score may have been off. More importantly, their starting pitching has been very good so far. Cabrera has had two rough outings and Ponson looked a little shaky vs. the Yanks - although A) he did get the win, and B) it was the Yanks - but the other three have looked pretty good, especially Rodrigo. Historically, the O's have had problems with the Rays, and last year the Yanks beat the O's up and down both Yankee Stadium and at OPACY. So seeing them look good against those two teams is especially encouraging.

Ok, 1 more game vs. Tampa Bay, tommorow night. Like I said, they've already won this series, now they're going for the sweep, which would be gravy. Can't wait. Till tommorow, P&L...

What if I were Commissioner?

2005-04-12T23:59:00.000-04:00

Birds won, 7-6 this evening. This is the type of game they've found ways to lose in the past, especially in Tampa Bay. The D-Rays got to Daniel Cabrera early and often, but the Birds kept scoring until they were on top.

Today as I was driving home, and I started to ask myself what I would do if I were made MLB commissioner. The biggest problem in baseball right now, regardless of what the sports media may tell you about steroids, is competitive balance. The Yankees and, to a lesser extent, the Red Sox pretty much get their pick of the litter when it comes to the free agent market every offseason, and lower-payroll teams have no chance to compete. Fans in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee may as well forget about baseball entirely, because there is no way their teams can win under baseball's current economic conditions. So my first acts would be to install a real revenue sharing program, one that mirrors what they have in the NFL, as opposed to the facade MLB has right now. I would also install a salary cap and floor, probably something like 60 million for the floor and 100 million for the cap. It would leave some room for salary disparity, but it wouldn't let the Yankees have their run away payroll. I would also make all contracts guaranteed (unlike the NFL) and I'd allow the salaries of players who had been with a team for a long time (like 5 consecutive years) to count for less against the salary cap - that way more players would play on one team for their entire careers.

Item #2 on my list would be blood testing for performance enhancing drugs - the current piss tests won't pick up human growth hormones. Unlike what a lot of people believe, I find the current disciplinary action against players in violation of the performance enhancing drug rules adaquate.

I've got more ideas, and I'll post them later. It's late now though and I have to get up early. So, till later, P&L...

Minesweeper & Teacher's Exams

2005-04-12T00:25:00.000-04:00

I set a new personal best time in Minesweeper this afternoon - this time on the Intermediate level. My records are now:

Beginner - 9 seconds
Intermediate - 57 seconds
Expert - 233 seconds

Anybody who has better times than these, please post them in the Comments section.

In another bit of news, I got back the results of the Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure that I took last month. Needing a 70% to pass, I got a 97% on the Reading subtest and an 85% on the Writing subtest of the Communication & Literacy Skills portion of the test. On the Mathematics portion of the test, I got (swear to *GOD*) a 71%. So, upon graduation from college, I will be eligible to teach high school math in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I have, at present, no desire to teach high school math in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (I am an aspiring, soon-to-be Nobel Prize nominated novelist, after all), but if I had to, it's something I can always fall back on, which is good.

Congratulations are also due to my sister, who will be simarly eligible to teach high school history in Massachusetts upon her graduation.

Finally, I want to point your attention to (thanks DU) this hilarious statement from the UConn College Repubs regarding a speech they sponsered featuring former WWF Champion The Ultimate Warrior, whom they invited to campus to give a political speech. Seems the Warrior offended everybody who wasn't, well, him, and now the College Repubs have to pretend that they don't agree with every racist, sexist, and hompophobic thing he could spew out. The funniest part is the list of different student organizations to whom they had to hand write apology letters after the debacle. And it turns out that that's just a small sample: they wrote, by their own count "personally signed apology letters to more than twenty organizations on campus." LOL - as they say in cyberspace.

Till tommorow, P&L...

Whoa

2005-04-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

Thanks to DU for bringing this article to my attention. I'll repost the whole thing - it's rather incredible...

washingtonpost.com
And the Verdict on Justice Kennedy Is: Guilty
By Dana MilbankSaturday, April 9, 2005; Page A03
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer -- and perhaps a few more bodyguards.
Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse.
Phyllis Schlafly, doyenne of American conservatism, said Kennedy's opinion forbidding capital punishment for juveniles "is a good ground of impeachment." To cheers and applause from those gathered at a downtown Marriott for a conference on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," Schlafly said that Kennedy had not met the "good behavior" requirement for office and that "Congress ought to talk about impeachment."
Next, Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Kennedy "should be the poster boy for impeachment" for citing international norms in his opinions. "If our congressmen and senators do not have the courage to impeach and remove from office Justice Kennedy, they ought to be impeached as well."
Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."
Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.
The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.
A judge in Atlanta and the husband and mother of a judge in Chicago were murdered in recent weeks. After federal courts spurned a request from Congress to revisit the Terri Schiavo case, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) mused about how a perception that judges are making political decisions could lead people to "engage in violence."
"The people who have been speaking out on this, like Tom DeLay and Senator Cornyn, need to be backed up," Schlafly said to applause yesterday. One worker at the event wore a sticker declaring "Hooray for DeLay."
The conference was organized during the height of the Schiavo controversy by a new group, the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. This was no collection of fringe characters. The two-day program listed two House members; aides to two senators; representatives from the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America; conservative activists Alan Keyes and Morton C. Blackwell; the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents; Alabama's "Ten Commandments" judge, Roy Moore; and DeLay, who canceled to attend the pope's funeral.
The Schlafly session's moderator, Richard Lessner of the American Conservative Union, opened the discussion by decrying a "radical secularist relativist judiciary." It turned more harsh from there.
Schlafly called for passage of a quartet of bills in Congress that would remove courts'
power to review religious displays, the Pledge of Allegiance, same-sex marriage and the Boy Scouts. Her speech brought a subtle change in the argument against the courts from emphasizing "activist" judges -- it was, after all, inaction by federal judges that doomed Schiavo -- to "supremacist" judges. "The Constitution is not what the Supreme Court says it is," Schlafly asserted.
Former representative William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) followed Schlafly, saying the country's "principal problem" is not Iraq or the federal budget but whether "we as a people acknowledge that God exists."
Farris then told the crowd he is "sick and tired of having to lobby people I helped get elected." A better-educated citizenry, he said, would know that "Medicare is a bad idea" and that "Social Security is a horrible idea when run by the government." Farris said he would block judicial power by abolishing the concept of binding judicial precedents, by allowing Congress to vacate court decisions, and by impeaching judges such as Kennedy, who seems to have replaced Justice David H. Souter as the target of conservative ire. "If about 40 of them get impeached, suddenly a lot of these guys would be retiring," he said.
Vieira, a constitutional lawyer who wrote "How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary," escalated the charges, saying a Politburo of "five people on the Supreme Court" has a "revolutionary agenda" rooted in foreign law and situational ethics. Vieira, his eyeglasses strapped to his head with black elastic, decried the "primordial illogic" of the courts.
Invoking Stalin, Vieira delivered the "no man, no problem" line twice for emphasis. "This is not a structural problem we have; this is a problem of personnel," he said. "We are in this mess because we have the wrong people as judges."
A court spokeswoman declined to comment.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Wow. In case you doubted the true meaning of Delay's or Cornyn's statements, this Vieira character has spelled it out nice and clear, and there is no mistake. The Right-Wing is now actively advocating violence against federal judges with whom they disagree. If you're a Republican, do you want your party to stand for this? Because right now, it does.

K-L-G Movie Awards - Semifinalists

2005-04-11T13:22:00.000-04:00

Ok guys, you all remember how last Monday I announced the nominees for my own movie awards, decided by me, out of my personal DVD collection. Well, I've made the first round of cuts, and I'm pleased to announce the semi-finalists for each award:

Best Supporting Actress:
Minnie Driver - Good Will Hunting
Anjelica Huston - The Royal Tennenbaums
Carrie-Anne Moss - Memento
Franka Potente - The Bourne Identity

Last Nominee Cut:
Uma Thurman - Pulp Fiction

Best Supporting Actor:
David Carradine - Kill Bill
Morgan Freeman - The Shawshank Redemption
John Goodman - The Big Lebowski
Geoffrey Rush - Pirates of the Carribean

Last Nominee Cut:
Samuel L. Jackson - Pulp Fiction

Best Orginial Screenplay:
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting
Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson - The Royal Tennenbaums
Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino - Pulp Fiction
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - The Big Lebowski

Last Nominee Cut:
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - Fargo

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Terry Gilliam, & Tony Grisoni - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas (Novel by Hunter S. Thompson)
Frank Darabont - The Shawshank Redemption (Short Story by Stephen King)
Christopher Nolan - Memento (Short Story by Jonathan Nolan)
Jim Uhls - Fight Club (Novel by Chuck Palahniuk)

Last Nominee Cut:
Tony Gilroy & William Blake Herron - The Bourne Identity (Novel by Robert Ludlum)

Best Lead Actress:
Annette Benning - American Beauty
Helena Bonham Carter - Fight Club
Frances McDormand - Fargo
Uma Thurman - Kill Bill

Last Nominee Cut:
Joey Lauren Adams - Chasing Amy

Best Lead Actor:
Johnny Depp - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Gene Hackman - The Royal Tennenbaums
Edward Norton - Fight Club
Tim Robbins - The Shawshank Redemption

Last Nominee Cut:
Kevin Spacy - American Beauty

Best Director:
Joel Coen - Fargo
David Fincher - Fight Club
Quentin Tarantino - Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino - Kill Bill

Last Nominee Cut:
Christopher Nolan - Memento

Best Picture:
The Big Lebowski
Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Fight Club
Pulp Fiction

Last Nominee Cut:
The Shawshank Redemption

Note: Sideways, being a movie I obtained after I started this, is ineligible for this year. Next year I'll do another one of these for all of the movies I have obtained between now and then. You can bet it'll be a big player in several categories.

Quick note on my Fantasy teams: with one week gone by, the early returns are...not good. 'Roid Rage is in 7th place out of 8 teams and the Paper Street Soap Co is in 10th out of 12. The problem, simply, was a complete lack of offense for both teams. However, it is a marathon, not a sprint, and I am confident that the bats for both will heat up, and sooner rather than later. The stars for the week: for 'Roid Rage, SP Jon Lieber, who recorded 2 wins with an ERA of 3.29. For Paper Street, it was OF Cliff Floyd, who had a .385 OBP and socked 2 jacks.

It's A Beautiful Day, Don't Let It Get Away

2005-04-10T23:54:00.000-04:00

Well, today was quite a day, indeed. First, the weather was gorgeous. They expect it to cool off this week, but what they say should always be taken with a grain of salt.

I spent the early part of the day finishing a movie called Stir Crazy, a 1980 comedy starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. It was pretty good - Pryor and Wilder are always funny individually and together they have - or had, rather, since they haven't done any movies together in a while - fantastic comedic chemistry. I'd love to see them do something together again.

Then it was out in the backyard to move some sticks and logs around. Not my idea of a good time, but it got me out of the house and doing something physical, plus the weather, as previously mentioned, was excellent.

I got back to the house and turned on the ballgame to find - much to my delight - that the Birds were beating the Yankees 7-1 (it was a 7-2 final).

Then I watched the Masters, which had one hell of an ending, maybe the best I've ever seen. I watch golf about once a year, and the Masters is it. And this year, it did not dissapoint on any level, although I wanted DiMarco to win.

We had a nice dinner (grilled turkey, baked potato, and ceaser salad), and then Kait, Mom, & I watched Sideways, upon whose virtues I have already extolled several times.

Ok, tommorow afternoon expect an update on my fantsay baseball teams, as well as the semi-finalists for my own private movie awards. Till then, P&L...

Saturday, Saturday, Staurday Night's All Right

2005-04-10T02:18:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, been a while. Few things, then I'm off to bed.

Firstly, I just now realized how painfully boring reading about the exploits of my fantasy baseball teams must be for everyone who isn't me. I apologize. I'll keep you updated every Monday, but no more daily updates. Promise.

Secondly, UND lost to Denver 4-1 tonight. Oh well. The Sioux'll get 'em next year.

Thirdly, I got Sideways on DVD today, which totally makes up for the rest of the day's dissapointments. Sideways was the funniest movie I've seen in a theater for a long time, maybe since The Big Lebowski. If you haven't seen it, go rent it. Or better yet, just go ahead and buy it, since you'll end up buying it anyway. It's a complete classic.

Finally, Corey, Jeff, Mike Jungerheld, & myself went to Fell's Point this evening and had a few beers. I love Fell's, and there are two bars in particular I think are money. First, Gemini: Gemini is the kind of place you go if you just want to sit at the bar and have some drinks. It's just a chill place, with moderately priced drinks. The other bar is Max's On Broadway. Max's is different, mostly because it's huge. It's also always packed, so it's a better place to meet people than Gemini. Also, they have every variety of beer there that I have ever heard of, and even more that I haven't heard of. I got some German beer tonight that was, swear to *GOD*, served to me in a goblet.

Ok, that's all I got for you tonight. I'll have some good stuff for you tommorow.

Friday Afternoon

2005-04-08T14:28:00.000-04:00

First of all, my explanation for not posting this last night: for some reason my internet was fucking up all evening last night. I tried posting a couple times, but my posts were lost in cyberspace.

Anyway, North Dakota won 4-2 last night. The National Championship game will be tommorow night at 7:00 on ESPN, UND vs. Denver.

It was a pretty miserable night for both Fantasy teams and the Birds, the latter dropping the finale of their three game set with Oakland. For such a supposedly star-studded line-up, they've been having trouble scoring runs so far this season. Maybe their bats just need time to warm up, but it's been my contention that they still have serious holes in their line-up that they need to address. We'll see.

For 'Roid Rage, we got a decent pitching performance, and a win, from Tim Hudson. We also got a two-inning win from RP Chad Cordero, a nice suprise. However, a save oportunity went up in smoke when Shingo Takatsu gave up a remarkable 3 solo home runs in 2/3 of an inning. Offensively, we got a home run from Alfonso Soriano and a couple of RBI from Steve Finley, but that was about it. All in all, a mediocre performance.

But it wasn't a complete disaster, like it was for the Paper Street Soap Co, who only scored 2 runs and had 2 runs driven in all day. They also recorded 1 strikeout. Oh well, we got the weekend serieses coming up, so hopefully all three teams will be more fortunate.

On to the memo scandal...you'll love this column by Cliff Kincaid of AIM.org. The audacity of it is simply astounding. After it has come to light that, duh, a Republican did write the memo, and it wasn't forged by Democrats, Kincaid is demanding an apology from the Washington Post, for saying that a memo that was written by a Republican and distributed to Republican Senators was, well, written by a Republican and distributed to Republican Senators. What a complete and total asshole. Hey Repubs, is this really what you want to be?

Till Later, P&L...

Fighting Sioux Hockey

2005-04-07T19:57:00.000-04:00

As posted earlier, the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota are playing the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the National Semifinal this evening. They just scored as I'm writing this. I'll check in during the intermissions and let you know what's going on, but if you want to watch for yourself, it's on ESPN2.

------------

UPDATE: At the 1st intermission, it's still 1-0 Sioux. UND has been outplaying Minnesota - it could easily be a 2 or 3 goal lead. In other sports news, the O's and A's are tied 1-1 after 2 innings out in the rain. The Braves and Marlins are scoreless through 2 1/2 - Tim Hudson is making his Braves and 'Roid Rage debut.

Heh...

2005-04-07T12:44:00.000-04:00

This would be funny if it weren't so pathetic...

Ok, here is The St. Petersburg Times on then newly elected Republican Senator Mel Martinez:

When challenged, Martinez was too eager to assign blame to his staff or to groups he said he couldn't control. As a senator, he will need an office and a staff that speaks with the measured and centrist tone he says will be his own. He can't pretend to be above it all if the people he employs are not.

And here is an article appearing in today's edition of the Times:

A high-ranking staffer for Florida Sen. Mel Martinez resigned Wednesday after admitting he wrote a memo that outlined the political advantages of Congress intervening in the Terri Schiavo case.
Martinez, the sponsor of the Schiavo bill in the Senate, said when the memo surfaced weeks ago that he had not seen it before the media reported its existence.
On Wednesday night, Martinez acknowledged that a senior member of his staff was "unilaterally responsible" for the document, and that it was not approved by him or other staffers.

Thanks, DK. For that, and for this...

Here's Tucker Carlson on the matter a few days ago:

"Last week a memo surfaced, reportedly written by the Republican members of Congress explaining how to make hay with the Terri Schiavo case, the Talking Points Memo, Ah, I think within a week or two it will become clear that that memo was a forgery, possibly written by Democrats on the hill in an effort to discredit Republicans. Bloggers are saying that now and it sounds like they may be right."

Umm, Tucker...you're a dumbshit. And so are your bloggers.

Rush Limbaugh, from his website:

"Truth Detector: Supposed GOP Schiavo Memo Forged by Democrats."

Truth Detector: Rush Limbaugh is full of shit.

I could go on (there's this great column at AIM.org), but honestly this whole thing is pissing me off as much as it is amusing me.

P&L...

Homers Galore on Paper Street

2005-04-07T01:27:00.000-04:00

It's late & I'm tired so I'll make this fast - no links. (UPDATE: Links added)

'Roid Rage had a decent, but forgettable, day. David Wright homered against the Reds and Odalis Perez pitched 5 innings, giving up 1 run, and earned a win against the Giants.

For Paper Street, the results were much more impressive, offensively. No fewer than 4 players went deep for the Soap Co tonight, and it would have been 5, but I had Michael Barrett on the bench. The four whose homers counted: Tino Martinez, Jermaine Dye, Jose Guillen, and Brett Boone.

As I write this, the Rangers/Angels game is still going on, with Alfonso Soriano and Mark Teixeira playing for 'Roid Rage, and Teixeira and Steve Finley playing for Paper Street Soap Co. (UPDATE: Soriano homered)

Paper Street Soap Co has placed 1B Frank Thomas on the Disabled List and signed SP Sindey Ponson.

MLB Predictions

2005-04-06T13:51:00.000-04:00

We've got a full slate of games today, all 30 teams in action. You already have my World Series pick, so I'm going to go ahead and give you all of my predictions for this season.

National League:
East: Atlanta Braves
Central: St. Louis Cardinals
West: San Francisco Giants
Wild Card: New York Mets

MVP: Albert Pujols, Cardinals
Cy Young: Tim Hudson, Braves
ROY: Garrett Atkins, Rockies

American League:
East: New York Yankees
Central: Minnesota Twins
West: Los Angeles Angels
Wild Card: Texas Rangers

MVP: Miguel Tejada, Orioles
Cy Young: Randy Johnson, Yankees
ROY: Huston Street, Athletics

Post-season:

Division Series:

AL:
Yankees 3, Rangers 1 - MVP: Hideki Matsui
Angels 3, Twins 0 - MVP: Vladimir Guerrero

NL:
Braves 3, Giants 2 - MVP: Chipper Jones
Cardinals 3, Mets 0 - MVP: Scott Rolen

League Championship Series:

AL:
Yankees 4, Angels 3 - MVP: Randy Johnson
Braves 4, Cardinals 2 - MVP: Chipper Jones

World Series:
Braves 4, Yankees 3 - MVP: Tim Hudson

Quick Fantasy Update

2005-04-06T01:08:00.000-04:00

Birds had off today, they resume play tommorow night at 7:05.

'Roid Rage had a much more productive day today than yesterday. Jim Edmonds had a 3-run jack and finished the day 1/2 with a BB and 4 RBI. Mark Teixeira also went deep, a solo shot. He finished 2/4 with 2 RBI in Texas' loss to Anaheim. Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau both had solid evenings as well. Mauer finished 1/4 with a BB, an RBI, and a Run Scored, while Morneau went 3/5, and also had an RBI and a Run Scored. Carl Pavano had a solid start, albeit for a No Decision.

Of course, anything Teixeira, Mauer, and Pavano do for 'Roid Rage they also do for the Paper Street Soap Co. Paper Street had one more solid performance, as well: Chris Carpenter went 7 strong innings to pick up a win vs. the Astros.

'Roid Rage has released RP Danys Baez and signed RP Shingo Takatsu.

Ok, that's all for tonight. More tommorow...P&L...

The O.J. Legacy

2005-04-05T12:49:00.000-04:00

My list of complaints about the mainstream media runs longer than my arm. But right near the top is a phenomenon I like to call the O.J. effect. Yes, after that O.J. The O.J. effect is the complete abandonment on the part of all national and cable news networks of any other story than the one deemed the story of the week, or the month, or for however long the story lasts. Last week, it was Terry Schiavo. This week it's the death of the Pope. CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Foxnews.com, all of them are absolutely dominated by a story that happened 3 days ago. Watch the cable networks, and it's the same thing. More on the Pope, more on the Pope...

Ignore the rest of the news.

That's why you have to love blogs. They don't ignore the news. Like this little story you may have missed...

This is Republican Senator John Cronyn (thanks DK):

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.

Wow. A Senator threatening judges. Unbelieveable. Yet, nary a word of it from FOX "news". Nothing on CNN. No sign of a story on MSNBC. Just goes to show you how blind the networks are when there's a "big story". Like, if they focused their attention on something else, they'd lose millions of viewers craving more Pope coverage.

Here's something else I found interesting, again courtesy of DK...

It seems Bush's approval rating is down. Way down. As in, 45%. The main stream media will definately ignore this one...not only would it cut into their "Pope only" coverage, but it would also fly in the face of conventional wisdom - that Bush is a popular President with a mandate to do whatever he wants. And we all know how the networks love their conventional wisdom. After all, it makes reporting so much easier when you don't actually have to do any analysis.

Ok, I'm done for now. I'll be back this evening. P&L...

Tar Heel Nation

2005-04-05T00:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I was wrong. I'm not going to apologize for picking a team that entered the tournament 32-1 and will, despite their loss, be tied for the all-time winningest record in NCAA history. However, I was wrong. The game was close, really close, but if they played again tommorow, I would pick Carolina to win again. Why?

Sean May. I completely underestimated Sean May. Illinois simply had no answer for the big man inside. He was like a collegiate version of Shaq. In fact, if he were two or three inches taller, he would be the first pick in the NBA Draft, no doubt about it. As it is, I think he'll be twice the pro that Bogut will be.

The Paper Street Soap Co has released 1B/OF Terrmel Sledge, SP Erik Bedard, 3B/OF David Newhan, and SS Kahlil Greene and signed RP Rheal Cormier, RP Mike Stanton, RP Jim Brower, and 2B Chris Burke.

The biggest game for the Paper Street Soap Co tommorow will be the Yankees vs. the Sox, in which Paper St will have at least 3, maybe 4 participants. For 'Roid Rage, the biggest game will be the Rangers vs. the Angels, which will feature 3 'Roid Ragers starting.

Done blogging for tonight. Will update again tommorow. P&L...

1/2time...

2005-04-04T22:30:00.000-04:00

Man, seems like just a few minutes ago I wrote that we were gonna have a close game to entertain us, now Carolina is stomping the Illini at the half. In other college basketball news, Andrew Bogut won the Naismith Trophy as the year's top college basketball player. Hard to argue with a 20 point, 12 rebound average and 62% shooting from the field.

Back at games end. P&L...

Yay! O's Win!

2005-04-04T21:48:00.000-04:00

Well, the Orioles won their season opener against the A's today, 4-0. It's really good to see that goose egg, especially considering that starting pitching is without a doubt the biggest questionmark facing the Birds this season.

It wasn't quite as good a day for 'Roid Rage. Our biggest star was probably Mike Piazza, who had a rather uninspiring line (for the biggest star of the day) of 1/4, with a 2B, a BB, and a Run Scored.

The Paper Street Soap Co didn't fare much better, although at least they got a 2-run jack from Cliff Floyd, who finished the day 3/5. We also got a really nice pitching performance from Ben Sheets, who went 7 Innings, gave up 2 ER, struck out 6, walked none, and picked up the win in the Brewers' 9-2 win over Pittsburgh.

As I write this, UNC is up by 3 in the Championship Game. It looks like we'll have a very decent one on our hands. I'll blog again at the half. Till then, P&L...

K - L - G's Movie Awards

2005-04-04T12:58:00.000-04:00

You know, seeing Sin City last night got me in the mood for thinking about my favorite movies. So, I've decided to do an Academy Award-style way of recognizing my favorite movies, and the great performances given in them. So, all of the nominees in the following categories come from the films in my DVD collection. Each category has 8 nominees. Next week, I'll cut that list down to 4, then 2 the follwing week, and 3 weeks from now I'll announce the winners. So without further ado, the categories:

Best Supporting Actress:
Thora Birch - American Beauty
Minnie Driver - Good Will Hunting
Anjelica Huston - The Royal Tennenbaums
Carrie-Anne Moss - Memento
Franka Potente - The Bourne Identity
Rene Russo - Get Shorty
Mena Suvari - American Beauty
Uma Thurman - Pulp Fiction

Honorable Mentions:
Darryl Hannah - Kill Bill
Lucy Liu - Kill Bill
Julianne Moore - The Big Lebowski

Best Supporting Actor:
Ben Affleck - Good Will Hunting
David Carradine - Kill Bill
Chris Cooper - American Beauty
Morgan Freeman - The Shawshank Redemption
John Goodman - The Big Lebowski
Samuel L. Jackson - Pulp Fiction
Geoffrey Rush - Pirates of the Carribean
Robin Williams - Good Will Hunting

Honorable Mentions:
Steve Buscemi - The Big Lebowski
Steve Buscemi - Fargo
Chris Cooper - The Bourne Identity
Brian Cox - The Bourne Supremacy
Dennis Farina - Get Shorty
Laurence Fishbourne - The Matrix
Gene Hackman - Get Shorty
William H. Macy - Fargo
Alfred Molina - Spiderman 2
Joe Pantoliano - The Matrix
Joe Pantoliano - Memento
Brad Pitt - Snatch
John Turturro - The Big Lebowski
Hugo Weaving - The Matrix
Hugo Weaving - The Matrix Reloaded
Bruce Willis - Pulp Fiction
Owen Wilson - The Royal Tennenbaums

Best Original Screenplay:
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting
Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson - The Royal Tennenbaums
Roger Avary & Quentin Tarantino - Pulp Fiction
Alan Ball - American Beauty
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - The Big Lebowski
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - Fargo
Guy Ritchie - Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Quentin Tarantino & Uma Thurman - Kill Bill

Honorable Mentions:
Tom Jankiewicz - Grosse Pointe Blank
Guy Ritchie - Snatch
Kevin Smith - Chasing Amy
Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski - The Matrix

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Michael Chabon, Alfred Gough, Miles Millar & Alvin Sargent - Spiderman 2 (Comic Book by Steve Ditko & Stan Lee)
Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Terry Gilliam, & Tony Grisoni - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas (Novel by Hunter S. Thompson)
Frank Darabont - The Shawshank Redemption (Short Story by Stephen King)
Scott Frank - Get Shorty (Novel by Elmore Leonard)
Tony Gilroy & William Blake Herron - The Bourne Identity (Novel by Robert Ludlum)
Tony Gilroy - The Bourne Supremacy (Novel by Robert Ludlum)
Christopher Nolan - Memento (Short Story by Jonathan Nolan)
Jim Uhls - Fight Club (Novel by Chuck Palahniuk)

Best Lead Actress:
Joey Lauren Adams - Chasing Amy
Annette Benning - American Beauty
Helena Bonham Carter - Fight Club
Minnie Driver - Grosse Pointe Blank
Keira Knightly - Pirates of the Carribean
Frances McDormand - Fargo
Carrie-Anne Moss - The Matrix Reloaded
Uma Thurman - Kill Bill

Best Lead Actor:
Benecio Del Torro - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Johnny Depp - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Carribean
Gene Hackman - The Royal Tennenbaums
Edward Norton - Fight Club
Brad Pitt - Fight Club
Tim Robbins - The Shawshank Redemption
Kevin Spacy - American Beauty

Honorable Mention:
Ben Affleck - Chasing Amy
Jeff Bridges - The Big Lebowski
John Cusack - Grosse Pointe Blank
Matt Damon - The Bourne Identity
Matt Damon - The Bourne Supremacy
Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting
Tobey Maguire - Spiderman 2
Nick Moran - Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Guy Pearce - Memento
John Travolta - Get Shorty
John Travolta - Pulp Fiction

Best Director:
Joel Coen - Fargo
David Fincher - Fight Club
Terry Gilliam - Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Christopher Nolan - Memento
Guy Ritchie - Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Kevin Smith - Chasing Amy
Quentin Tarantino - Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino - Kill Bill

Honorable Mentions:
Wes Anderson - The Royal Tennenbaums
Joel Coen - The Big Lebowski
Frank Darabont - The Shawshank Redemption
Sam Mendes - American Beauty
Barry Sonnenfeld - Get Shorty
Guy Ritchie - Snatch
Gus Van Sant - Good Will Hunting
Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski - The Matrix

Best Picture:
American Beauty
The Big Lebowski
Fargo
Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Fight Club
Kill Bill
Pulp Fiction
The Shawshank Redemption

Honorable Mentions:
Chasing Amy
Get Shorty
Good Will Hunting
Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
The Matrix
Memento
The Royal Tennenbaums

Whew! I got some tough cuts to make next week...

P&L...

Sin City & Sawks/Yanks

2005-04-04T00:25:00.000-04:00

Eventful day. Err, eventful evening, anyway. At 5:30, Kait, Sean, & myself went to go see Sin City. That movie was cool beyond words, definately getting added to the DVD collection when the time comes. Recomended...by far the best movie out right now.

After that, it was over to Jeff's house to watch the Sox get creamed by the Yankees, 9-2. Gary Sheffield went 1/4 with a walk, 2 runs scored, and an RBI for 'Roid Rage, while Bernie Williams went 0/2 with 2 walks and an RBI and Tino Martinez had a walk and a run scored for the Paper Street Soap Co.

Tommorow the season starts in earnest, as we have no fewer than 10 games being played, including the Orioles opener against the Athletics. The biggest games for 'Roid Rage are going to be the Twins vs. the Mariners, the Mets vs. the Reds, and potentially the Nationals vs. the Phillies (2 players each). The most important game for Paper Street Soap Co will be the O's and A's, as that team is loaded with Orioles - a whopping 7 of them (for now). Also of note for the Paper Street Soap Co is the game between the Pirates and Brewers, for which I have both starting pitchers and a reliever for the Pirates.

Ok, that's all for now. Tommorow night I'll let you know if any of my players had big games. Till then, P&L...

Final Four Minus Two

2005-04-03T00:04:00.000-05:00

Well, we're down to the two teams that will square off Monday Night in the National Championship Game, and, as promised, they are Illinois and UNC. I saw nothing tonight that will make me change my other prediction: Illinois will be the National Champions.

There is another sports highlight this weekend, of course. Baseball season starts, for the Red Sox and Yankees, anyway, tommorow night on ESPN. Most other teams, including the Orioles, kick off the season on Monday, and the rest begin on Tuesday. I don't see 85 wins to be unreachable for the Birds, provided their starting pitching picks up where it left off at the end of last season, and doesn't regress to where it had been for most of the campaign. As for the rest of Major League Baseball, I'm going to go ahead and project the Braves to be my World Series Champion for 2005, over the Yanks. With John Smoltz and Tim Hudson coming into the rotation, that gives Atlanta all the pitching in the world. And pitching, as we all know, wins championships.

Ok...more, better stuff tommorow. Promise. P&L...

1 Down, 1 To Go

2005-04-02T20:40:00.000-05:00

Well, the Final Four is down to three. Illinois defeated Louisville in the first semifinal, 82-57 to claim a spot in the National Championship game, a first for the school (which happens to be the alma matter of my two cousins, Mark & Eric). It was entertaining for most of the game, but Illinois pulled away at the end. The second game should be as entertaining, but I'm not changing my prediction from the beginning of the tournament. It'll be UNC vs. Illinois in the final. I'll blog after the game. P&L...

RIP: Pope John Paul II

2005-04-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

Well, the Pope died this evening, as you all know by now. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the Pope was a lover of peace and made progress by apologizing for the non-role of the Church during the Holocaust, visiting Cuba as well as a synagogue, and criticizing Gulf War II; on the other hand, however, this gives the Catholic Church an opportunity to move forward on a whole host of other issues. With the election of a new Pope probably between 25-30 years younger than John Paul II, the Catholic Church's position on birth control, divorce, the role of women within the Church, and maybe even abortion or homosexuality (although we might have to sit through another Papal reign before we get to those issues) could modernize, if only a little bit. A lot depends on where the new Pope is from. If he's Italian or French than we might see some progress. If they elect another Slav or (it pains me to say this) an Irishman or an American, then the Church might be stuck with the same outdated attitudes for another generation. I have no idea who the main contenders are, but I'll be following the developments and posting on them on this blog.

I'll post again after the first Hoops semifinal. Til then, P&L...

Couldn't Have Said It Any Better Myself...

2005-04-02T14:06:00.000-05:00

Crazy "Christian" Republicans are stupid and ignorant. But don't take my word for it, ask them (thanks, DU):

"Christians are a lot more bold under Bush's leadership, he speaks what a lot of us believe," said Mummert.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," he said

More Fantasy Baseball, etc.

2005-04-02T13:39:00.000-05:00

'Roid Rage has released SS Alex Gonzalez and signed SS Kahlil Greene.

Also, DailyKos has a 12-team Fantasy League that drafted yesterday. Here's my team, the Paper Street Soap Co:

Joe Mauer, Mark Teixeira, Brett Boone, Juan Uribe, Miguel Tejada, Rafael Palmeiro, Kahlil Greene, Sammy Sosa, Steve Finley, Jose Guillen, Jermaine Dye, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, Cliff Floyd, Frank Thomas, Michael Barrett, David Newhan, Larry Bigbie, Terrmel Sledge, Ben Sheets, Roger Clemens, Oliver Perez, Carl Pavano, Chris Carpenter, Jon Lieber, Erik Bedard, Ray King, Salomon Torres, Jorge Julio

The NCAA Tournament resumes this evening. We've got Illinois vs. Louisville at 6:07 and North Carolina vs. Michigan State at 8:47.

Not much else to report at present, but I want to bring this piece to your attention (thanks DK). It's a hatchet job on our boy Tom Delay, which is great in and of itself, but it's made even better by the fact that it was written by a right-wing hack on the uber-conservative RedState.org:

It appears that the [conservative] movement is now beholden to the furtherance of the haphazard career of Tom DeLay. Tom DeLay, who in terms of tugging at social conservatives for money and support -- and then stabbing them in the back behind the scenes -- among the worst the United States Congress has to offer. Tom DeLay, who threatened the career of a Congressman's son to help ram through the disastrous, un-conservative Medicare bill. Tom DeLay, who knew full well that Jack Abramoff was the sort of man that any ethical public servant would assiduously avoid -- and went on junkets with him anyway. Tom DeLay, who has had a grand jury chipping away at his inner circle for months. Tom DeLay, who helped erode the informal checks that maintain republican governance in America by pioneering the detestable practice of off-year redistricting. Tom DeLay, who is, unlike his Senate counterpart, not incompetent, but nonetheless dirty. (Update: I am reminded, too, that this is also the Tom DeLay who forced through changes in the House ethics rules on indictments to safeguard his leadership position -- another nail in the coffin bearing the corpse of GOP rectitude.)

That's all for now, P&L...

Superfluous Post

2005-04-02T03:25:00.000-05:00

Hey all. The only reason I'm writing this post is because I try and update every night. I just got back from playing poker all night at one of Kait's friends places, and now I'm too tired to write much. I will say, however, that I was wrong about the experts all picking against Illinois. It looks like the Illini are the consensous pick after all.

Ok, I'll write more when I wake up tommorow. P&L...

TV Report

2005-03-31T23:21:00.000-05:00

Thursday is always a good night for TV - you got a new CSI episode, and you have MXC on Spike all night. And tonight, as an added bonus, we had the NIT Final between South Carolina and St. Joe's. CSI and the basketball game were polar opposites...the CSI episode was compelling television for about 50 minutes or so, but then the end came and (as it does from time to time) totally ruined the rest of the show. Meanwhile South Carolina and St. Joe's played absoluetly rancid basketball for 39 and a half minutes, then provided one of the most dramatic finishes to a basketball game I'd ever seen. Just goes to show, I guess, that - scratch that, I have no idea what it goes to show. Don't judge a television program until it's over, I guess.

We've also got an encore presentation of Invasion Iowa, William Shatner's new reality show where he cons an entire town in Iowa into believeing that he's shooting a movie, when in fact he's shooting, well, a reality series. Not a bad concept, and Shatner is truly a funny guy, so it could work. I'm watching it as I'm typing this, and it's pretty good so far.

Alright kids...I'll let you know tommorow if it's worth watching. 'Til then, P&L...

New Favorite Website

2005-03-31T18:57:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Whoosh for having this on his blog...this is a site where you can find your favorite music video, copy a code to your website, and it'll play whenever you open that site up. It's just too fucking cool for words. I shall be using it early and often on this site...

Video code provided by MusicVideoCodes.com

Browsing the New York Times

2005-03-31T15:25:00.000-05:00

The major headlines on a Thursday afternoon:

First, Terri Schiavo died today. Contrary to what the Freepers would have you believe, there is no great liberal rejoicing over the death of this woman. What we feel now mostly is relief; relief that her suffering has ended, relief that this part of this ordeal has ended for her husband and family, relief that the wingnuts didn't take the advice of some Repub voices and attempt some sort of bloody insurrection, and relief that this terrible issue can finally go away. If Delay and Company will finally let this issue rest along with Mrs. Schiavo, then I will be happy to never type another word about it. The early results, however, are none too promising (thanks, DK).

Ted Koppel will be leaving Nightline after this year. He'll be joining Dan Rather & Tom Brokaw. Why all these departures at once? My contention is that these once-proud journalists are sick and tired of their profession having become little more than a mouthpiece for BushCo.

Gotta love this headline: "Report Calls U.S. Intelligence 'Dead Wrong' On Iraq Weapons".
Well, no shit. The first sentence, though, is what's really telling: "The American intelligence community was 'dead wrong' about Iraq's weapons arsenal in large part because of an outdated Cold War mentality and a vast, lumbering bureaucracy that continues to shackle dedicated and capable people, a presidential commission said today."
An outdated Cold War mentality, you say? From the same Administration that is still trying to sell us the "Star Wars" missle defense system and the one that has made a Soviet Historian Secretary of State? Get out of town!

Finally, here's a fantastic editorial on the current state of the Republican Party by former Senator and current minister and UN Ambassador John C. Danforth (R) of Missouri. I would love - LOVE - to see what my Repub friends' reactions to this are. Please read and comment...

Ok, enough out of me for now. NIT Final is tonight at 7:00. South Carolina vs. St. Joe's. I'll probably blog afterwards. 'Til then, P&L...

Minesweeper

2005-03-31T00:51:00.000-05:00

2 Quick things, then I'm off to bed.

1 - CSI: New York wasn't particularly great. Gary Sinise and David Caruso would both do well to study how William Peterson is so wonderfully understated in his role in the original.

2 - I got a new best time in Minesweeper tonight, on the Expert Level. My Best Times are now:

Beginner: 9 Seconds
Intermediate: 61 Seconds
Expert: 233 Seconds

Not exactly record breaking times, but I'm proud of them...

'Roid Rage

2005-03-30T20:38:00.000-05:00

Well, our League (The Big Knockers) had its fantasy draft this evening. Of course, everyone is happy with their team after the draft - nobody drafts players who they think stink, after all - and I am no exception. I got a ton of players who I think are going to hit a ton of Home Runs for me this summer, and HRs has a way of carrying the other statistics along with it. So, without further ado, I present my team, 'Roid Rage:

Starting Line-Up

2B - Alfonso Soriano
3B - David Wright
OF - Jim Edmonds
1B - Mark Teixeira
OF - Gary Sheffield
OF - Sammy Sosa
DH - Justin Morneau
C - Mike Piazza
SS - Juan Uribe

Bench
C - Joe Mauer
SS - Alex Gonzalez
OF - Steve Finley

Pitchers
SP - Tim Hudson
SP - Carl Pavano
SP - Mark Mulder
SP - Odalis Perez
SP - Jon Lieber
SP - John Thomson
RP - Eddie Guardado
RP - Danys Baez
RP - Chad Cordero
RP - Jose Mesa

I feel pretty good about my team.

Here's a link I found via DU, and it's from right here on blogspot. It's a terrifically funny editorial run in Scientific American. I won't repost it, just link to it. Here.

Not much else to write about. Maybe I'll blog again after CSI: New York. Maybe not. We'll see.

P&L...

I'm Speechless

2005-03-30T12:51:00.000-05:00

This one is from the NY Times, via DK.

Let me first say that I have never, ever advocated any kind of personal attack on the parents of Terri Schiavo. It has been my belief that these poor people have been deluded into believing that there is some way for their daughter to be resucitated, and that they have been used as pawns by creeps like Delay who have, on at least two occasions, admitted to being overjoyed that this case fell into their laps so they could use it for political gain.

But now they've gone and done something that is just plain disgusting. It seems they are selling the list of the people who have supported them in this fight to a right wing direct-marketing firm. Now, all of the people who sent this family money for their legal battle are going to be receiving solicitous snail and e-mails from every pro-life organization in the country.

Do we really live in a society where it is acceptable for parents to milk their suffering daughter's drawn-out death for every dollar it is worth? How much of a cut of this money - $150 to $500 a month per customer - is going to the firm? How much are they going to profit from this poor woman's death? These people see dollar signs everywhere they look, and if you don't see a problem with that, well, it's seriously time to reevaluate.

NIT Semifinal

2005-03-30T00:03:00.000-05:00

I'm only posting because I said I would. This game was a microchasm of the Terrapins' entire season - an absolute goddam disgrace. These fuckers have all the athletic talent in the world, and they showed in the first few minutes that they could have mopped up the floor with this South Carolina team if they were mildly interested in doing so. There is no reason that a team that could beat a number 1 seed twice should even be in this tournament, let alone losing to South fucking Carolina - not North Carolina, SOUTH Carolina- unless most of the time they simply didn't give a shit. And that is on the head coach. This is the most pathetic job of coaching Gary Williams has ever done. It has been all downhill ever since their Championship, and it looks suspiciously like Gary has lost his drive. If the Terps have another embarrassing season like this one next year, maybe it's time they started looking at going in another direction.

On a more positive note, I would like to announce that I intend to nominate myself and several of my friends for the Nobel Prize. Now, we can all go on FOX News and pretend to be experts. If you would like Sean Hannity to refer to you as "Nobel Prize Nominated", let me know sometime in the next month, so I can get your letter written.

There has been some debate among liberals about how the Democrats should be reacting to the Schiavo mess (I know, I know, I said I didn't want to post about this, but I can not ignore what is by far the largest story in politics, however much I do not want it to be). Maureen Dowd wants the Dems to go on an all-out attack (it would be nice to see that, if only to know that they were capable of it). Others believe that this is an issue of which the Dems should steer clear, because it is no-win for them. As usual, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Congressional Democrats should avoid saying that the feeding tube should or should not be removed. What they should be saying, and saying loudly, is that the United States' Congress has no business getting involved in a matter that should be left up to the family and, if necessary, which it tragically is in this case, the Courts. They should be saying this for 2 reasons:

1 - It's true. Congress hasn't the least bit of jurisdiction here. Didn't anybody read the Constitution they swore to uphold?
2 - It's politically expedient. The majority of Americans favor the removal of the tube, but more importantly, the VAST majority of Americans, regardless of party line, feel that Congress has no business inserting itself in the issue. Even EVANGELICALS feel that way. Link. Every time they are asked about this issue, every Democrat should say, "It is irrelevant how I feel about this. It should not matter. Congress has no business getting involved." It will only make Delay and BushCo look more ridiculous as they continue to press this monumentally unpopular course of action. It's looking more and more like Delay's "Gift from God" Theory was not quite in line with reality...

Ok...it's midnight now, and I'm heading to bed. P&L...

Checking out the news on a Tuesday Afternoon

2005-03-29T17:54:00.000-05:00

Hey guys...looking around the web for some interesting little tidbits, here's what I found:

Via DU:

http://www.cq.com/corp/show.do?page=crawford/20050325_homeland

So, now according to official Department of Homeland Security Policy, it's ok (apparently) to be a domestic terrorist, as long as you're a right-wing domestic terrorist, because then you're not really a terrorist at all. Never mind Oklahoma City, never mind the 1996 Olympic Bombing, never mind all of the abortion clinic bombings, never mind the KKK. The REAL threats are those environmentalist groups. Unbelievable.

Also from DU, more on Schiavo...

First up, we have Hal Harris, radio Repub. Here's the Right-to-Life movement at its finest.

"I advocate the use of force to rescue Terry Schiavo from being starved to death. I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue."

Who would interfere with such a noble cause, you ask? Well, police officers who are just doing their jobs. That's right folks, the right-wingers want you to kill cops.

But hold the phone...something made Harris change his mind. Change of heart? Did he realize his position was paradoxical, hypocritical even? Not exactly...

"Seeing as racial jews are the lowest form of scum on the planet ... maybe starving Terri to death isn't too bad a thing at all."

Words fail to adaquately describe that...

Words also fail to adaquately describe this rant by Tom Delay...

"One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America."

What might that be, Tom?

"This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others."

Tom Delay believes that *GOD HIMSELF* crippled & vegetated Mrs. Schiavo so that she could be used as a pawn in Republican political chess. Nice.

From the American Constitution Society Blog via The Decembrist via DailyKos:

http://www.acsblog.org/equal-protection-and-due-process-1066-guest-blogger-if-roe-falls-would-the-culture-of-life-trump-federalism-yet-again.html

I'll just go ahead and repost this in full:

by Sarah C. von der Lippe, of The Law Offices of Sarah C. von der Lippe.

Republicans acknowledged that the intervention was a departure from their usual support for states' rights. But they said their views about the sanctity life trumped their views about federalism. ("Congress Steps In on Schiavo Case, Lawmakers to Pass Bill to Resume Feeding, Allow Court Review", By Mike Allen and ManuelRoig-Franzia, Washington Post Staff Writers, Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page A01)

This piece of reporting highlights a terribly important bit of legal hypocrisy on the part of right-wing conservatives. Everytime they call for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court who will overrule or undermine Roe v. Wade, they assert that the matter should be left to the states.
They assert that even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it won't eliminate abortion in the states in which the duly elected state representatives do not take steps to outlaw the practice. But the Schiavo case reveals the true priorities of the right: they are happy to abandon the principles of federalism if the issue is related to questions of "life." But if they are willing to cast aside federalism in the Schiavo case, won't they be willing to do the same in the context of abortion? And if they are, won't that inevitably lead to attempts to pass federal legislation banning abortion? The actions of conservatives in the context of the Terri Schiavo case should give us pause as Bush nominates new justices to the Supreme Court -- especially, given conservatives' admitted goal of denying women's constitutional right to privacy and reproductive choice.

That just about says it all.

Ok kids - Maryland vs. South Carolina @ around 9:15. I'll blog again after the game.

P&L...

Napoleon Dynamite

2005-03-28T23:20:00.000-05:00

Jeez! I saw Napoleon Dynamite finally for, like, the first time ever. It's pretty much the best movie I've seen since, well, Ong Bak.

Ok, so it was a little overhyped. But the guy who played the title character was great, and he's a pretty decent dancer, too. And besides, I'm not going to pretend that I didn't enjoy the movie. But I think some of the praise the movie received (Stephen Hunter called the character "one of the most winning movie creations in years", http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50969-2004Jun17.html) was overstating the case quite a bit. If you have to choose between Dynamite and, say, Sideways, chose the latter.

Tonight's episode of CSI: Miami was pretty decent.

Finally, Time did a poll of Americans and asked them how they felt about the Schiavo business. The responses:

Question 1: Was it right for Congress to intervene in this matter?
Yes: 20%
No: 75%
Don't Know: 5%

Question 2: Was it right for President Bush to intervene in this matter?
Yes: 24%
No: 70%
Don't Know: 6%

Question 3 (from the You Can Fool Some Of The People All Of The Time... Dept.): Do you think that Congress's and the President's intervention had more to do with their values and principles or more to do with politics?
Morals & Values: 25%
Politics: 65%

Question 4: If your member of Congress voted to move the Schiavo case to the federal courts, would this make you more likely to vote for or against him or her?
For: 21%
Against: 54%
Doesn't Matter: 18%

Let's hope the people keep their word...

and thanks to DailyKos...

One last thing, then it's off to bed. Just a quick reminder that Maryland's NIT semifinal against South Carolina is tommorow night sometime between 9 and 9:30, the exact tip time depending on the other semifinal, between Memphis and St. Joesph's, which starts at 7:00. Both games will be on ESPN.

Ok, night all. P&L...

Final Four

2005-03-28T00:47:00.000-05:00

Ok, this post is going to be pretty much completely college hoops, although I'll use the first paragraph to talk about my day...

Woke up about 10:30 or so, came down here and posted on the Schiavo business. Didn't accomplish much else until about 12:30, when Kate, Duncan, & I went over to the Rodgers for an all too uncommon visit. The dog is a complete attention whore, and so he loved being somewhere where he had four people fawning all over him. Then Kate's friend Sean came over - he's a pretty cool guy from Trinidad. He ate *EASTER* dinner with us (lamb - delicious, as lamb always is when dad cooks it), and we all watched the ball games (more on that later). He also explained a lot to me about cricket - the terminology, anyway. We played a few rounds of Texas Hold 'Em, and Kate pulled a straight flush to the 6, the best hand I've ever personally seen in that game. Then I went over to Jeff's house to play some more poker, and ended up winning 3 bucks, which I promptly blew at Taco Bell. So thanks Mike & Jeff (the big donators) for that grande soft taco & medium Cherry Pepsi (I love Value Menus).

Ok, now onto hoops. The Final Four was set today, as we all know. We got Illinois vs. Louisville in one semifinal, and North Carolina vs. Michigan State in the other. At this point, I don't see how you can not pick Illinois. They are now 36-1 on the season. We were told that the Big 10 was a weak conference, but they had 3 teams in the Sweet 16, matched only by the ACC, 3 teams in the Elite 8, matched by nobody, and now 2 teams in the Final Four - again, matched by nobody. They certainly played better competition than Louisville (33-4), whose toughest opponent in Conference USA was Cincinnati, who didn't even make the Sweet 16. North Carolina (31-4) has to deal with Roy Williams' perennial March failures (they've already lost one Tournament this March - the ACC Tournament), and Michigan State (26-6) has already lost to Illinois twice. Nobody wants to pick Illinois though - I guess they're too obvious - so here's what you're gonna see. For the next 5 days we'll hear from all the experts how Louisville is going to beat Illinois, and then for the next two after that we'll hear about Carolina is going to beat Illinois, and then after the Final all the pundits will be wondering why nobody was picking the team with one loss that waltzed through the NCAA Tournament as easily as they did the regular season and Big 10 Tournament.

Quick note on the NIT, which I am only interested in because Maryland is playing in it. It looks like the Terps have to be considered the favorites to win this thing, especially after Georgetown bowed out in their bracket's final. They've been playing some really good ball so far in the tourney, albeit at home and against less than stellar competition. One more win (against South Carolina, 7:00 on Tuesday @ MSG) would put them at 20 for the season, and place them in the NIT Final, against probably Memphis, who they already trounced earlier this year. One cannot help but notice that they are playing this way without John Gilchrest, although it is not fair to forget Gilchrest's achievements last season, especially in the ACC Tourney. Also, once again, the Terps have been doing it against Oral Roberts, Davidson, & TCU. These are games they should win with 2 starters in, let alone 4.

One final bit, then I'm off to bed - my dad's alma matter, the Fighting Sioux of the University of North Dakota, have reached their 15th Frozen Four. The Sioux will be after their 8th National Championship. Their Semifinal will be on April 7th against either Minnesota or Cornell on ESPN2. So, if you're suffering from hockey withdrawl, turn on the game and cheer on the Sioux for my dad.

Ok, that's it for now. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to report tommorow evening. Till then - Peace & Love...

Addendum

2005-03-27T12:09:00.000-05:00

Couple things to add, now that it's a more reasonable time of day and I'm not falling asleep at my computer.

First, I saw a terrifically interesting documentary last night called Control Room about Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network. It is definately worth a rental, especially if all you know about Al Jazeera is what BushCo wants you to know (which is probably the case - it definately was the case with me). I'm not saying that the documentary isn't biased or slanted in any way; we have to come to grips with the fact that any way we get our information is going to be biased or slanted - news does not happen in a vacuum, and reporters do not live in one. This can be a good thing, however, provided we do not rely on one source or point of view for all of our information. This documentary provides us with another point of view, and it's one that you really ought to have if you want to be able to form well-grounded meaningful opinions on the Middle East region in general and especially on Al Jazeera in particular.

Secondly, and I really don't want to do this, since I think the story is terribly overplayed as it is already, I'm going to go ahead and comment on the Schiavo affair. How these Right-To-Lifers look themselves in the mirror when they get up in the morning is quite beyond me. They plug their heads in the sand, ostrich-like, whenever any evidence comes up showing that we're executing innocent people in this country, and they rail against the Supreme Court when it rules that we should not be the only civilized country on the planet still executing children, but when it comes to euthanzing somebody who is stretching the definiton of "living" to a include a state of limbo from which the patient will never emerge, all of a sudden life becomes sacrosanct. Executing people who were convicted of crimes they did not do = good, removing the feeding tube of somebody who's life is effectively over = bad. It's absolutely crazy, and it's also damn scary. What if you were Ms. Schiavo, or her husband? How wold you like to be married to the woman you loved, then see her through this entire tragedy, make the agonizing decision to end her "life", and then have Congressional leaders call you barbaric.

Which brings me to Mr. DeLay. In 1988, Tom DeLay's father was removed from medical assistance keeping him alive. His father had no living will. He was in a vegetative state. It was, basically, the Schiavo case before there was a Schiavo case - except without the intervention of Congress & the Courts & the Protestors & Everyone Else Making Mr. Schiavo Even More Miserable Than He Already Was. This time, Tom DeLay actually had a reason to have a part in the decision whther or not to keep the patient alive - and he chose not to. If it's his father, let the patient die. If it's your wife, letting the patient die is an act of barbarism. Tom DeLay is a piece of shit. I know this isn't news, but the extent to which he is one grows more and more remarkable by the day. If this is the party of *JESUS*, then I am proud to consider myself not a Christian, as that word has been savagely twisted to mean.

The First Entry

2005-03-27T01:56:00.000-05:00

Ok kids...SubProfile is dead & gone...good riddance...more trouble than it was worth...

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, I present you with Da Scent. This is a real, honest to *GOD* blog, with room for user feedback and everything. I'll even put my picture up here some day, when I get around to it...

So what is this gonna be? Venting space, look for responses to posts in other blogs, clever links I spot during my web Adventures; and, oh yeah, I'll definately keep you guys informed on how My Novel is coming.

WTF? Novel?

Yeah, I've decided to write something (other than this, obviously...). Tenatively, I'm titling it Rewired. I'd post more about it but I'd rather not. If you're interested, please e-mail (gday81@aol.com). First update: I've just started the damn thing.

In other news, it's *EASTER* tommorow, but more importantly (?) we'll finally be down to the Final Four in the NCAA Hoops Tourney. Illinois, the team I picked to win, still looks good. I'd say more, but if you care, you already know, and if you don't, you don't want to.

Oh...my Spring Break Trip. Went to Louisiana for a week w/The Family, including Duncan (the dog) but not including Kate (the sister) who had Spring Break last week, because her school is run by boobs. And I apologize for offending any boobs. Great time, great food, great weather. Oh, there was that bit about my mom going to the hospital with asthmatic bronchitis, but we don't like the details to get in the way of our fun. Duncan showed glimpses of what a chick magnet he can be with application. I plan on taking him to the park as soon as the weather is as nice up here as it was down there (seriously, you should see this guy in action...I could train him for 5 years and not get any better results than what he does naturally...I'd rent him out if he was mine to rent out).

Ok, done writing for now. Expect regular postings. I'll write again tommorow if I get the opportunity.