I think it's just a little bit ironic that Seattle Slew died last night, three days after the Kentucky Derby. Just on Saturday they were talking about how he was the last living winner of the Triple Crown (aside from Carl Yastrzemski ha ha).
Also, James Carroll has a great analysis on the less-than-secure nature of Israel proper because of the way that hardliners in the government don't want to wall off the West Bank and thus diminish their claim on the land as a legitimate part of Israel.
Even peoples that are friendly, like, say, the United States and Canada, depend on clearly demarcated borders. The maintenance and protection of those borders are the first duty of government. Doubly so if the neighbor is a potential enemy.
Yet no Israeli government can maintain or protect the border between the West Bank and Israel because it simply does not exist. There are, to be sure, military checkpoints along the vestigial ''green line,'' the borders of 1967, but the real line between the territories now and ''Israel'' is necessarily porous and ambiguous exactly because so many Jewish enclaves are located amid so many Palestinian towns and camps. That many Jewish settlers have valued that ambiguity because it has enabled them to claim more and more Palestinian land only makes their plight ironic.
While I am decidedly pro-Israel, I also feel that the Palestinians are more in the right on the issue of ownership of the West Bank. Certainly, it doesn't necessarily belong to the Palestinians without question and in total, but I feel that the situation today is exacerbated by the attitude of many hardliners that Israel's religious claims on the land trump all earthly and secular conventions for negotiation and compromise. That's an extremely dangerous attitude and a huge cause for some of the current problems, and Carroll rightly points it out.
The local news in New Orleans this morning was just breaking a story about a Catholic priest who was recently identified in a mildly controversial Mardi Gras photo. I don't think the story is that big of a deal save for the current controversy surrounding the Catholic church. What really caught my eye in the AP story is this quote:
Parishioner Richard Luquette said he was troubled by Bouterie's resignation.
"If you are going to judge somebody's dress at Mardi Gras, you must not be from here," Luquette said. "If Jesus came to Mardi Gras, where would he be? I have a feeling he would be right there."
True, but I doubt Jesus would be posing with his gay buddies for a picture. Unless, of course, you believed that jesus actually was gay, but I don't think these guys are Catholic.
Nichol Monaghan would like to share his opinion about yesterday's postings:
I just want to know which you are more addicted to: poker or the blog. I think that, if there was such a thing, you would do nothing all day but try to make money playing hi-lo blog until you had spent all your money and couldn't afford the free internet connection at the library talking high about low subjects competing with other nuts to see who can get it all straight.
I think Nichol is trying to be funny by making a lot of really bad puns here, but he has a point. If I could make money from writing my stupid crap and playing poker, I would do it full-time in a heartbeat.
Things to fix really quickly: I was in a hurry yesterday and I left out the Mr T photo and a link to Bill Safire's column about Yasser Arafat. Sorry about that.
OK, I am back at home. I have never been so glad to be back home in a long time - I hate business trips in general, but this one was just really really hard because it's now Tuesday evening and I still haven't recovered from Saturday night. I have been perpetually hungover since Saturday night. Ugh.
Luckily the flight home was good (First class, baby - OnePass elite finally paid off!) and I made it back here OK. I am going to blog a little bit, then go for a run and go to bed.
So now I have already spent an hour writing all kinds of personal crap that I haven't had a chance to comment on the news. Here is the stuff that should be on "JNN".
- Warren Buffet said that it's a "certainty" that the US will get hit by a terrorist nuclear weapon in the future. I don't know if it's really all that certain, but I do think it's a scary and credible threat.
- Thomas Jefferson's descendents are kicking out the Hennings clan. I don't know what to think just yet on that one.
- Finally someone is paying attention to that nut in Zimbabwe.
- Bill Safire says that it's all about negotiation in the Holy Land. A point I have been saying all along. Apparently there must not be a word for that in whatever language Arafat wants to use to describe what happened at Camp David.
- I didn't catch much of last year's HBO series on the Ravens training camp, mainly because we didn't get HBO then, but now we do and I get to watch the DALLAS COWBOYS all access! Maybe Nate Newton will make a cameo with an automobile trunk full of pot.
BTW, there is a stripper-type looking woman typing email at the computer next to me. She looks really loopy and strung out and is carrying a little lhasa-type dog in her backpack. Hmmm.... I wish my dog would behave as well.
Forrest sent me a very long email this morning that I have not had time to read yet, but it looks like he wrote a one-act play about the time of his little "revelation" back in the Summer of 1994 that he was gay. Once I get a chance to read it thoroughly (probably tomorrow night when I get back into town), I will post it and respond.
In any case, he has asked me to point out, and he is correct, that he never told me he "loves" me. He just said "John, I'm gay" to try and get a reaction out of me.
Judging by the looks of his essay from my hasty little glance at it, I think he is confused about the incident he is referring to and Tony's reaction the night he found out our neighbors in our sophomore dorm were gay and throwing a party that had spilled over into the bathroom we shared with them. Those were the days - good times all around as we witnessed Tony "enforcing" the entrance to our dorm as a hetero only location. Good times.
My friend JJ just sent me this question. I think she has it right - it just sounds awkward - but if anyone has any suggestions, please send them to me:
What is the correct way to say, "Our Aunt Matilda waltzs in Australia and raises kangaroos," when how you really want to say it is, "Greg's and my aunt Matilda waltzs in Australia and raises kangaroos."?!?
The question stems from trying to create the possessive of a formal noun and pronoun -- and not using the "our" option. Can you help?
Back in the years before the blog, I used to write very long ranting emails to my good buddy Forrest. A couple years ago, I think he intended it as a mild insult to recommend the book A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES to me because apparently he thought that that if I grew a bushy mustache I could become a living version of Ignatius Reilly because I already had crazy rambling writing part down. Of course I use a computer and he used a Big Chief tablet, but let's not quibble.
My point is this though - whenever I come here, I always think of Ignatius Reilly and that book. It's a wonderful book written about a fascinating place from the perspective of someone who actually lives here and doesn't just know New Orleans as an airport and a street full of bars with a freeway connecting the two. Once again I am here and once again I find myself walking down Canal Street and Poydras Street and I see the "lucky dog" hot dog vendors and I think of the book and smile. It's great read - although it starts kind of slowly and is really strange and rambling in places, and even a little bit fatalistic in the end, I would recommend it to anyone. Trust me on this one.
Also - I forgot just how damn Bourbon street stinks. It's been a couple of years when I was last here (on the infamous trip where Canonico met Christine), but damn, it just REEKED with the unmistakable smell of human beings drinking alcohol in a swamp in May. Not that I didn't have a good time, but damn I don't remember it smelling that bad. I can't even imagine what Mardi Gras is like when it's just wall-to-wall people.
Nonetheless, before I hit the poker tables last night, I did make it up and down Bourbon St with Brian O'Rourke and all of the various brokers and counterparties who wanted to by us drinks. I got plenty of free beer, sampled some rather tasty pepperoni pizza (much better than I would have suspected), enjoyed a hurricane, and saw quite a few naked breasts being flashed. What a country!
This is a intended as personal message to Craig Friou although I wanted to share this message with everyone who cares.
Last Friday night we had to cancel poker night because no one wanted to commit to playing. Of course, after we had canceled, then four people called on Friday night and asked if we were still playing because their schedules had freed up, but no poker on Friday night. My poker money was buring a hole in my pocket last night and as I was walking back to the hotel from Bourbon St (note to self - self, you had about 4 more beers last night than the 1 you had budgeted), I decided to walk on down Canal Street to the new casino, which I had never seen or played in before.
So it's 2:00 in the morning and I'm going on about 4 hours of sleep from the party the night before and I find the poker room. They are spreading two games - $1-5 stud and $1-8 Omaha Hi Only. I shrug and sit down in the Omaha game and I have never ever ever ever had an easier time. I love playing Omaha, but I typically can't, or won't, play in cardrooms or casinos because it's usually spread hi-lo and the limits are so high that I don't like risking so much money to keep wading into family pots. (For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, you can drop out now). Omaha is a game that is very easily played badly and with the whole hi-lo aspect involved it can get very expensive to to get drawn down on the river and you're in for $200 because some yahoo with no teeth keeps capping the pot with his A2o.
Well, here is the beautiful part of the game last night - it usually only cost $2 to see the flop and because there was no split involved, everyone is playing with the same cards. It was extremely easy - after all normally, the rule in Omaha is to only draw to the nuts and "meld or fold". Nonetheless, it's hard to read people because you often can't tell which direction they're playing. This game was not like that at all - it was easier because there was only one nut hand and if a scare card came, it was easier to tell when to get out. I just sat there and played any hand that was paired or suited - if the bet got above $4 on the draw I just folded unless I had some monster cards (which didn't come too often). So I call the blinds, the flop comes, and then if I don't have the nuts or a chance at the nuts, I just folded my cards. ALL of the other guys at the table were of the bingo variety - one guy across from me told me that poker "was all luck" and the guy sitting next to me was too drunk to tell the difference between spades and clubs. (I am serious - on one hand he turned over an ostensible low-flush at the showdown and didn't realize that he had 7s3c and that the 3s was on the board - ugh).
So it was very easy - play for the nuts or fold - and I made a little money doing just that. Honestly, it was just like holdem with better winning hands because there were more cards to play with. Nonetheless there was some luck involved - I did see the the "all luck" guy hit AA(AA), 777(7), and (33)33 in the hour I was there - like I said, good hands, but that was ridiculous. His rivered 4A beat my nut straight on one mildly expensive hand and another guy at the other end of the table hit TTT(T) on the river after I had flopped QTT(QQ), but nonetheless, it was a very profitable game. Now I see why Omaha is usually played hi-lo - it puts a little more luck (and therefore poker skill) back into the game.
I would highly recommend playing in this game if you ever come to NOLA and you feel like playing poker. Just be patient there Axl, and it will come to you eventually.
I am a true internet junkie... I am definitely buying a laptop, this proves it. We get a break from the conference this afternoon and the first thing I think is... INTERNET!
Nonetheless, I am more than a little perturbed at the paucity of internet options available at the hotel. It would seem that a hotel as nice as the Intercontinental - an establishment - an international chain - that ostensibly caters to business travelers, does not have a single broadband connection for use by guests. Not even that, but they tried to charge me $7.50 to connect via a dialup modem and then $0.50 per minute to use the computers available in their "business center". I have never stayed at this hotel before, and up to now everything has been first class and very very nice, but they lost a lot of points with me here.
I did end up using the business center though - I borrowed the phone book and looked up the address for the Kinko's. I am sitting in right now. $0.20 per minute, no connection fee and 2 blocks from the hotel.
I am not a big horse racing fan - at least not as big a fan as my brother - but I happened to watch tthe Kentucky Derby yesterday and it was awesome. Great race. The winner led from wire to wire.
There is a good story posted on the NEWSWEEK site today about one of my favorite icons, Barbara Bush. I don't think I can say anything nice about her that doesn't sound like a cliche or soundbite, but I love the woman and I think the world of her - it's a great article about a very classy lady.
The worst part about having parties is that you have to clean up. We still haven't done that yet. Well, we have a little bit. Thanks to everyone who stopped by - we didn't quite make our goal of 200 guests, but we had enough people to float two kegs of beer and everyone seemed to have a good time.
What's the deal with this damn school in Georgia having its first integrated prom? Huh? I didn't really get it until I read the story just now - I saw the headlines all day yesterday, but this is freaking ridiculous:
Many Southern schools have kept social activities segregated years after court-ordered integration. Though some schools still crown dual homecoming queens or have separate social clubs, Taylor County High School was one of the last to hold separate proms.
I am a huge backer of personal property rights and I do not believe that the government has any authority to "force" private business to integrate or behave in ways different than the beliefs of the owner, but this kind of shit is just downright back hills George Wallace racism. These are public school for crying out loud - how in the hell have they been able to get away with this stuff for so long? The government, including schools, should be 100% color blind! I am going to look into this one and I will be revisiting the topic in the future. Damn.
"The videos focus on values without mentioning the value of Jesus," writes Otto Selles, of Calvin College in Michigan, in the intellectual journal Books & Culture. "I have another quibble: VeggieTales are sorely lacking in the gender equity department. They present vegetable characters that are mostly guys, created in the image and vocal talents of the series' (male) creators."
Nawrocki accepts this criticism, in part, but has his own views.
"We didn't want to show Jesus as a vegetable," he says. "We felt that would be stepping over the line."
Thus, most of the Bible stories adapted for VeggieTales come from the Old Testament, because the central characters, often prophets, are human and fair game for good-natured satire.
When I was staying with Tony's family three weeks ago and watching these videos with the kids, I did notice that they all seemed to be out of the Old Testament, but that was all. Very interesting that they don't do any New Testatment stuff. I guess they could sell this stuff in Israel, too? Ha ha.
I am not afraid of getting a speeding ticket in Houston, under most circumstances, especially on a freeway. Why? Because it's easy to go to court and raise hell and it's hard for the prosecutor and the cop to prove that there was a specific reason why you deserved a ticket while everyone else around you didn't. And if that one doesn't work, you can also argue that the cop pulled over the wrong car - how is he going to argue that he got the right car when there are 20 cars speeding by every second at 70 miles per hour? Trust me, I have gone to traffic court twice and gotten off twice. Never gone to trial - the judge and the prosecutors tend to just throw out the cases that make them feel like they have to do some work and that's what they've done to me both times. They would much rather just pick on immigrants and other people who don't understand the process and who would rather just walk in, pay a fine, and go home. It's a joke.
Red lights and lane changes are a different story - I don't want one of those tickets because then it all hinges on the cop's opinion and the whole system is just blatantly stacked against the defendent in those cases.
Anyway, there is an article in the HOUSTON CHRONICLE this morning about the new 55 mph speed limit that has been implemented because of "clean air" laws. The police admit that it's going to be hard to prosecute people under these limits because going faster than 55 mph isn't necessarily "unsafe".
First off, if there are any muslim countries that I am particularly worried about, they are in southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philipines. I say that because not only are these guys a bunch of crazy Koran-quoters, but they live in the jungle and can easily hide, and there are a lot of islands in those countries. There is a story today on the subject on MSNBC.
Saturday morning... big party at the house tonight.... expecting 200 people.... crap, I have work to do....
Probably not going to be a lot of updates the next few days. I'm going to be extra busy today and tomorrow and then I'll be at a conference in New Orleans on Monday and Tuesday. Couple of things I want to talk about right now, though.
Bill Buckley weighs in with his opinion on the Jenin "massacre". This is similar to what I said earlier about the Palestinian's needing a massacre in order to help their cause, but he also has some pretty heavy stuff to say about them being dishonest:
[speaking of another supposed "massacre" during the 1967 war] Pryce-Jones's inquiry went beyond the streets of Gaza City. He found what he thinks now is a clue to understanding in these times. He found this in an unlikely book, the 19th-century memoirs of Isabel Burton, wife of the famous explorer and linguist Richard Burton. There was this sentence in her text: "Out of the very stones they will fabricate such a tower of falsehoods that you can only stand and gape in wonder and admiration at their fruitful invention." The stereotype of the Arab as a born liar had been acknowledged, when Mrs. Burton wrote, by experienced English observers including Sir Henry Layard, the excavator of Nineveh, Field Marshall Kitchener, and Lawrence of Arabia. We learn from Pryce-Jones that Mrs. Burton was exceptional in having the human sympathy to perceive "that the lying was a sign not of innate bad character but of creative self-defense in circumstances of relative weakness."
Tuesday afternoon, I got into a terrible argument with the guy who runs the tuxedo shop that was contracted for Nichol's wedding. His customer service skills are terrible and I get the distinct impression that he was vague about his return policy just so he could have a better chance of boning me for his excessive $20 late fee when I took my tux back that day. I will never give that store any of my business again - I sure hope none of my friends decide to get married and force me in that direction.
Nonetheless, I lost my cool and I said some bad words and it was just a bad situation on Tuesday that should not have happened. So I wrote the guy a letter and mailed it first thing wednesday morning. He called me yesterday and thanked me for my letter and apologized to me too and it was all rather cathartic. Like I said, I won't ever give the guy my business again, but I felt bad and I am glad I apologized.
Tony DeWitt is a pretty smart guy. I'm going to have to given him an actual title like "Associate Blogger" or something like that for all of the good stuff he sends me. Here is his taken in Jenin:
I think that something else entirely is going on here. Think about it. What would be the point, or outcome, of a U.N. investigation into Jenin? To come to a common understanding so all our history books are in sync? No. The Palestinians are trying to use the U.N. as a weapon to fight against Israel.
While the Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a massacre, they did find evidence of "war crimes". What just happened at the U.N.? They just voted the International Criminal Court into existence. The Palestinians are trying to use this artificial U.N. construct to try and get Israeli leaders extradited to Brussels and put on trial. Or, perhaps, to use the threat of doing so to pressure Israel not to carry out such operations in the future.
News broke this morning that FBI agents had asked for an investigation of
Arab men taking flying lessons in the US prior to 9-11. Have you seen
anything print worthy?
Nat
1.) Cynthia McKinney and her backers are going to see this a justification for her wacko comments a couple weeks ago, even though I do not believe that the FBI or the government would have let the attacks happen if they had known of the actual plot; and
2.) The scariest part is that none of the people investigated in the original alert were associated with 9-11. That means they are still out there, even though I am sure the FBI probably knows more about them now.
Mark Coplen, who normally likes to bitch about my spending time on the blog, sends in this contribution this morning. I wasn't going to comment on the story because I didn't have much to day. Luckily for me, Mark says it for me:
John - be careful - big brother may be guiding you to do the man's work.
Interesting read.
Mark
http://msn.com.com/2100-1103-897367.html
Aren't we all just rats in a cage? Despite all our rage?
Bojak is spending the day at the vet. His skin allergies have been bothering him lately - the damn dog can't keep licking himself and scratching and it's gotten so bad that he's worn away all the fur in a couple of spots on hit back. Damn dumbass dog.
So he's going to get a bath, a cortizone shot, and some TLC from Dr Bays for the whole day. Sounds to me like he's going to the spa instead of the vet - I'll just make sure he stays away from the pedicures...
Dr Bays is awesome - many thanks to her for babysitting and putting up with the most hardheaded mutt in the universe - it's great to have such a good friend as Laura.
I get the distinct impression that my posts just suck this morning. Nothing is flowing and I feel like I am trying to force some issues here. Sorry if this sorry crap isn't up to par with my usual not-so-sorry (but still crap) crap.
Here is an example of a business story that on the surface appears to be bad news, but in reality it isn't. I like THE ECONOMIST because it is an honest publication that reports facts and doesn't try to whip up any sort of emotion in its readers. In other words, it's unbiased.
The story itself is about the telecom industry and how the industry has pretty much got its ass kicked over the past couple of years because the fundamentals of the business were so skewed. A lot of companies have gone out of business and a lot of grand business plans have gone in the gutter. Shoot, I used to work in telecom and I lost my job in November. The article is very good and not only explains what happened in the industry specifically, but it also gives a good sense of how industrial fundamentals and business decisions will eventually end up reflected in a company's stock price.
It's never good on a personal level when people lose their jobs or when stockholders lose money, but from a purely economic point of view, it's good for the economy as a whole because all of that capital and labor, while it's no longer being employed in telecom, is being redeployed into industries that can generate a better return on them as inputs into the business cycle. The telecom industry isn't going anywhere - there will be plenty of supply to meet demand - it's just that there used to be too much supply and not enough demand. Now that situation is getting fixed.
Think about it this way - unless you used to be a telecom employee or you lost a lot of money in the stock market because you thought PSINet was a bargain, you probably haven't noticed much of a personal effect on yourself from the telecom meltdown. You still have your DSL, you still have your cellular phone, and you can still call your parents in Minnesota whenever you want. And all of that can be done as cheaply as ever, right? So what's the big deal? There isn't one. That's the point. The economy is a great thing - it's efficient and it's clean and the stock market is a big piece of making sure that it keeps working that way.
And yet another example this morning that people who report on the economy and have platforms to make comments on the economy should at least learn a little something about economics before they go and run their mouths about how bad things are. Specifcally, I am referring to the news that the unemployment rate in April was as high as it's been in eight years.
The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 6 percent in April -- the highest in nearly eight years -- as the labor market struggled to recover from a recession that led to more than a million job cuts in 2001.
No kidding.
Do these people understand that the unemployment rate is inversely proportional to inflation? Do they understand that our economy is actually stronger because interest rates (as a reflection of inflation) are lower? To a degree, a little unemployment is a good thing because if everybody had a job there would be crazy pressure on real wages and inflation would go through the roof. It's basic economics, and instead of decrying the news, maybe they should be explaining what it means. I'm not bitching because I don't think it's relevant news - I'm bitching because the reporters are trying to be sensationalistic about a story that really isn't a big deal.
Here in Houston (Baytown, actually), a grand jury has recently found no cause to indict a group of police officers in the death of Luis Torres. Mr Torres wandered away from party late last year and got into some trouble with the cops. He got violent and he died accidentally when the cops tried to retrain him. His family and the hispanic community obviously think there was excessive force involved and that the guy wasn't completely competent due to a medical condition. The cops say the guy was threatening and wouldn't obey their commands.
Not a big deal, except that this quote caught my eye:
League of United Latin American Citizens local director Johnny Mata reacted angrily to the grand jury's decision.
"The message is very clear. It's open season to kill Mexicans and other Hispanics, people of color, African-Americans, and you won't get punished. I mean, irregardless of how horrific the scene is on video, autopsy reports,"' he said in a press conference.
Um, no. The message was that the cops didn't use excessive force in this specific case. Get it straight, Senor Hyperbole.
If there is anything that burns my ass, it's minorities decrying normal police actions as being racially motivated. It's leads to a waste of time and resources on the part of city governments and it lessens the credibility that those groups might have whenever a real racial incident takes place.
Would someone please explain to me what is so difficult to understand about what happened in Jenin? The place was a snakepit of terrorists and bad guys. Why is there so much debate and hand-wringing over what Israel did in the camp? The bad guys were there, they were inflicting damage on the Israeli civilian population, so the soldiers went in and wiped them out... that is the whole point of war.
If the Palestinian civilians don't want to be mistreated or policed, then the answer is very simple: don't support the terrorists and don't let them build bombs in your living room. If you do, then you are a terrorist yourself and you deserve the consequences.
What is especially funny, and completely indicative of the primitive Palestinian mentality and their duplicitous nature, comes from their insistence that a "massacre" occurred in Jenin when even Amnesty International says there wasn't anything of the sort.
No matter how few bodies have been found, people in Jenin remain convinced that Israeli soldiers committed a massacre here. But there is a growing consensus among human rights groups, international aid workers and even some Palestinians that no massacre took place.
Palestinians have maintained since Israel's attack on Jenin and the West Bank town's refugee camp last month that between 300 and 500 Palestinians were killed.
"Everybody saw what happened," said Abdul Karim Saadi, 26, who said he was wounded by Israeli gunfire while sleeping in his bed. He lifted his shirt to show a long raw scar on his stomach and a bandage on his shoulder.
However, Israeli government officials have said that 54 Palestinians died, all but seven of them members of militant groups that had turned the camp into a terrorist haven. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers also were killed.
They are "convinced" because, in a perverse way, these people want to be killed - they want there to have been bad things that happened because that's the only way they can justify their irrational hatred of all things Israeli. This is why they provoke fights and commit terrorist acts - no one is going to condemn their deadly acts, so they simply engage in more and more of them until they can elicit a violent response from the Israelis. They then turn around and parade the response as evidence of "oppression" to the foreign press. Unfortunately, it didn't work this time, the foreign press and all of the other foreign agencies involved, didn't buy the story and the poor little Palestinians are sad and whining about it. Not only did they not get their "massacre" - they lost their bomb factories and their houses. Oops.
The news is out... and I'm not on the list of PEOPLE MAGAZINE'S50 most beautful people. Dammit. I thought my new haircut was sure to put me over the edge.
I have been wanting to write about Musharraf's "referendum" in Pakistan this week, but I couldn't find the time to come up with something coherent to say. Good the we have THE ECONOMISTbecause it can say it for me.
A couple weeks ago, Andrew Cuomo made some comments about George Pataki's seeming irrelevance during the 9/11 attacks and the response and cleanup. These were very calculated remarks designed to attack Governor Pataki and plant some seeds of doubt into the minds of New York voters. Now it seems that Cuomo is the one who is fast becoming irrelevant as his remarks seems to have had the exact opposite effect than he had intended. His poll numbers are sinking fast, thanks in no small part to his comments. Oops.
You know, normally I think the atheists and agnostics who sue governments over 1st Amendment issues are whacko and need to just shut up and realize that our country is a Christian country. If you don't like nativity scenes, don't look at them, but don't sue the government just because you want to call attention to yourself as an atheist. Normally.
But I think that this case is different. It seems that there is a high school in Iowa where it's traditional for graduating seniors to sing the Lord's Prayer, and I agree, that's wrong. There is a difference between recognizing a religion and actively compelling participation by people who don't share the same beliefs.
Ahh... Ahhh... Ahhh... awww, so close. For once I thought Jill Nelson had written a thougtful piece for MSNBC instead of a politically-motivated shreik of political hysteria ("Soylent Green is people, but just WHITE people. How typical in America!"), but alas, it didn't quite turn out that way. What started out hopefully:
IN A WORLD in which so much seems beyond our control, this move to regulate what consenting adults do in the privacy of their homes strikes me as be absurd but not surprising. Can’t protect ourselves from terrorist attacks, gas-gouging and economic conspiracies by the oil companies? Depressed about manipulation of the financial markets by the scions of Wall Street and the right-wingers running the used-to-be-called Justice Department? Don’t despair, America! You can always attack everybody’s favorite evil-doers, the smokers!
Turned into more familiar territory for Ms Hysteria:
Call me paranoid, but I see an unintended but decidedly fearful symmetry between the attack on the rights of smokers to do what they want in their own homes and the ever-increasing curtailment of our civil rights by the Justice Department.
Concerned that it's a slow news day and you need something to scream about instead of taking the time to write a thoughtful piece on legitimate news stories? Don't despair, Ms Nelson! You can always attack every liberal's favorite monster, John Ashcrot's Justice Department!
See, I usually don't even read Ms Nelson's work because it's way too predictable - too much bitching about supposed "injustices" and not enough actual news value. Anyone wonder why?
And actually, the rest of the article is pretty sensical and lays out her opposition to the story about banning people from smoking in their own homes, but the cheap shot is just sorry. Sorry sorry stuff.
Natalee Newton contributes a little morality tale this morning:
>This is funny. Hope all is well in your world today!
>
>The Ant and the Grasshopper
><
>CLASSIC VERSION:
>
>The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
>long, building his house and laying up supplies for
>< the winter.
>
>The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and
>dances and plays the summer away.
>
>Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The
>grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in
> the cold.
>MODERN VERSION:
>
>The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
>long, building his house and laying up supplies for
>the winter.
>The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and
>dances and plays the summer away.
>Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press
>conference and demands to know why the ant should be
>allowed to be warm and well fed while others less
>fortunate are cold and starving.
>CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the
>shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in
>his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
>America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this
>be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
>grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
>Kermit, the Frog, appears on Oprah with the
>grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "It's
>Not Easy Being Green."
>Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the
>ant's house, where the news stations film the group
>singing "We Shall Overcome."
>Al Gore exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings
>that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the
>grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on
>the ant to make him pay his "fair share".
>Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and
>Anti-Grasshopper Act, retroactive to the beginning of
>the summer.
>The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate
>number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay
>his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the
>government.
>Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to represent the
>grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and
>the case is tried before a panel of federal judges
>that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of
>single-parent welfare recipients.
>The ant loses the case.
>The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up
>the last bits of the ant's food while the government
>house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old
>house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain
>it.
>The ant has disappeared in the snow.
>The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related
>incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over
>by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once-peaceful
>neighborhood.
>And that's why I'm a Republican!!!
From the mail bag, Craig Friou is back with another good one. And you know, I was thinking, I don't write enough about poker in this blog, and I love to play poker, so let's talk about poker, which is the subject of Craig's email.
Ethical question #1- What should you do if you see another guys cards?
Tell him or keep quiet?
Is it unethical to use it to your advantage?
Does your answer change in a casino vs home game?
Does your answer change if the dealer dealt it too high vs the player
holder his cards too far from his chest?
Do the stakes change your answer?
Like all other answers in questions when it comes to poker, my first answer is to say "it depends".
First off, I would never cheat or otherwise try to see someone else's cards. No way. That's wrong. But if someone is accidentally showing his cards to me thanks to his own incompetence or his own cluelessness, then my answer changes, although my basic opinion is this: poker is a game of edges and advantages, and it is not wrong or unethical to take advantage of someone else's mistakes - taking advantage of such information would then be purely my own decision and everything I do with such information is perfectly ethical.
Now, if it's a friend of mine and I am more interested in playing for fun than for money, then I will tell him of his mistake and I probably wouldn't use the information (as best I could) against him. If it's a friend of mine we are playing seriously and competitively (for higher stakes, usually) and the friend should know better then I probably wouldn't tell him and I would use the information. That's just poker. Obviously, the skill level of the said friend comes into play - I would probably be more inclined to speak up to a friend who is new to poker than I would to a friend who is not and knows how to play.
If it's due to dealer error, then I will speak up because then it's the dealer's fault and it's probably hurting me as much as it's hurting everyone else.
Ethical question #2- If you make a deal with your buddy to split
tournament winnings prior to going into a tournament, can you adjust your
play accordingly? Specifically, can you intentionally lose a hand to him
to build up his small stack?
As I don't play in many tournaments, my answer isn't as easily given. My instinct is to say "no", but I really can't verbalize why.
Ethical question #3- If a guy calls his hand differently than the cards
call it and nobody notices but you, are you under a moral obligation to
tell everyone?
This depends on the house rules, and as most games, even casino and vegas games, are "cards speak" then there is usually no ethical problem speaking up because we are just clarifying information that is apparent to everyone in the game. If we are playing in a "call your hand" game, then the answer is a little more touchy. Again, my answer depends on the skill level of the players involved and my motivations for playing (higher stakes make it more serious, btw). I would probably say something earlier in the night and be less inclined to speak up once the guy should have had time to get used to the rules.
Ethical question #4- Is is ok to give bad advice to another guy, knowing
that if he takes your advice, either you or your buddy will win?
Does your answer change in a casino vs home game?
Do the stakes change your answer?
I will NEVER knowingly give bad advice with the express purpose of cheating someone out of their money. That is cheating and it completely turns the game from a poker game into a dishonest game of conning someone out of money. I would never do that, even if it's someone I cannot stand or someone I don't like. Generally, if someone asks me for advice, again depending on who it is and depending on my motivations for being in the game, I might give the best advice possible or I won't give any advice at all. That's an easy question.
Now, if someone is playing and they don't understand the game, depending on my motivation, I would have no problem taking advantage of their ignorance of the rules, especially if it was someone I didn't like. If they asked a question about the rules themselves, I would give an honest and complete answer, but the question of specific advice would remain. Ask Canonico about the time we played with Mike Terrell last summer in Snyder. To this day he claims we cheated him out of about $300 in one night playing Omaha. We didn't cheat him - we just took his money because he was too drunk to understand the game and too dumb to ask the right questions about the rules.
Anyone else have any comments?
ALSO, poker night for tomorrow night is very likely to be canceled due to lack of interest. If anyone would like to play with us tomorrow night (we need at least one, and preferably two, more players) send me an email before the end of the day.
Bill Clinton wants his own TV talk show? What? While I think the man would do a better job of it than, say, Magic Johnson, does he have any sense of shame? Does he have any concept of the dignity of the office of the president? I thought the whole point of giving ex-presidents a salary was so that they could go off into retirement and live comfortable, dignified lives without having to resport to capitalizing on their fame to pay the bills. I'm not saying that ex-presidents shouldn't be in the public eye, but there is a HUGE difference between Jimmy Carter working for Habitat for Humanity and "Bill's Book Club".
Although the talks are only preliminary, one source said Clinton's interest was serious and said he was demanding a fee of $50 million a year and had aspirations "of becoming the next Oprah Winfrey," the paper said.
NBC officials would not comment on Wednesday, and Clinton's office in New York did not respond to an inquiry about the prospective talk show.
Television industry sources say chances are slim that Clinton would commit to such a plan once he understands the demands of the job, the Times said. The 55-year-old former president has told some Hollywood executives who have asked about a potential TV career that the rumors are untrue.
Of course he denies it, but how many other times have we heard him deny things?
Brent Bozell had a pretty scathing criticism of Jesse Jackson last week. I am not a big fan of Jesse because I feel he doesn't do much of anything except get indignant about things that he has no connection to and I just can't figure out why people seem to like him so much for doing so little. So he was on the balcony with Martin Luther King when MLK was shot. So what? We don't worship the janitor that found Elvis dead in the bathroom, do we?
But I digress. Bozell's comments are aimed at the media's fawning over him, and he makes some good points:
In the bubbling fury after the contested 2000 election, the National Enquirer took the glow off the Jackson aura by publishing internal documents that revealed that the political preacher of progressivism was paying off a former lover (complete with love child) in exchange for her silence. When Jackson was forced to admit his multiple mistakes, reporters didn't go into scold mode, which would have been de rigueur with a Republican. This was Jackson; they went into mourning. As ABC's Cokie Roberts puts it, "I think he's an important voice in public debate, and I think that having it now lose some authority is too bad."
That attitude -- preserving Jackson's cracked Humpty Dumpty appearance of moral authority because it's good for America -- is still on display.
The titan arum at London's Kew Gardens is blooming again. A very rare flower, but probably not appropriate for a prom corsage. It's 10 feet tall and smells like a mixture of rotting flesh and dog excrement. Ugh.
Bill Safire has an interesting piece on what he calls the "Intrusion Explosion" - the increasing tendency of the government and businesses to encroach on the privacy of individuals through more advanced technology. One thing that bothers him (and me) is the idea of using surveillance cameras not just for limiting losses from shoplifting, but to also monitor customers' movements and browsing patterns within a business.
Forget all about old-fashioned consumer surveys or even focus groups. The hot new technique in exploring your buying decision is called "observational research" or "retail ethnography." This buying-spying uses hidden surveillance cameras, two-way mirrors and microphones concealed under counters.
Stephanie Simon reports on the front page of The Los Angeles Times that cutting-edge market researchers are now zooming in on faces and fingers as customers ponder a decision to buy a product. Though a subtle sign at the entrance says the experimental store is "in test mode" and "your opinion counts," most people are unaware that their every facial tic is recorded and analyzed.
First off, Arafat got out of jail yesterday, and for a while it looked like the situation at the Church of the Nativity was going to hell until it calmed down somehow. I am not pleased with Arafat's release, because now, what has changed from last month? Absolutely nothing. The suicide bombers will start all over again and the Palestinians will actually benefit from the deal because now they have more "injustice" to cry about.
Speaking to reporters at his office minutes after Israeli tanks lifted their siege of his Ramallah headquarters, Arafat shook with anger and pounded the table with his fist, calling Israelis “terrorists, Nazis and racists.”
“It’s an ugly crime,” Arafat said of the fire. “I call on the international community to take immediate measures in the face of this horrendous crime. Those terrorists, Nazis and racists, how can we tolerate them after committing this crime?”
Is this guy just supremely stupid or am I missing something? I suspect the former. Who is surprised that there is absolutely no remorse from Arafat? No inkling of a realization that it is he and he alone who is responsible for all of the crap that falls down on him? He can blame Sharon and the current Israeli government - the world can blame Sharon and the current Israeli government - but the fact is that the current government came about because Arafat wouldn't deal with the previous government that was much more favorable towards him.
All it would take - ALL it would take is for Arafat and the Palestinians to quit murdering Israeli civilians and agree to live in peace and all of this would stop. It's that simple. Yet they won't, and now, instead of this being a turning point - instead of the world finally moving into a direction where an end is in sight, the past month will just be another nasty incident in a history full of nasty incidents. Nothing has changed, nothing was accomplished, nothing was gained. This makes me sick.
But at least I'm not dead - which I am afraid will be the result of this for some unwitting innocent Israelis in the near future.
Veganism is cool - I respect that decision - but it's a decision that only consenting adults can make. A couple in New York has been arrested for endangering their infant daughter by feeding her only vegan foods. Babies need a lot more protein and other nutrients than adults.
First, look at this picture - ignore the ad part and just look at the picture of Kenney Chesney. I may be alone in my opinion here, but the photo is simply not flattering and don't think it conveys the image that 'ole Kenny is trying to portray. He looks less like a cowboy and more like an effiminate 10th grader or maybe an alien ranchhand. Or a bobblehead doll...
The picture is a cropped image from the album cover, which itself is much more flattering.
There is a bizarre story out of southern California today about a rift between some Christians and some witches. Seems that the witches were holding some kind of pagan ritual in a parking lot when some Christians showed up and tempers flared. The pagans claim that the Christians, including an off duty sheriff's chaplain, interfered in the ceremony and therefore conspired to violate the civil rights of the pagans. The Christians claim that they were just there to pray and where within their rights to be there. Very interesting indeed - I am sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Nonetheless, I am a little bit intrigued by some of the details of the pagan ceremony, which don't sound much like any true pagan ceremony I have ever seen.
The witches and warlocks of Lancaster, California, also happen to practice an ancient, Earth-centered religion known as Paganism, which involves invoking spirits and spells, concocting herbal potions, praying to an array of gods and goddesses, and performing mock "animal sacrifice" rituals by melting chocolate bunnies in fondue pots and eating the gooey remains...
They interrupted a sacred ritual, she told Reuters. "When we yelled 'Sacrifice the chocolate rabbit' they jumped out of their parked cars and started to circle us. They were praying hard. It was really chaos. But we were focused because we were determined they weren't going to stop us and force us to hide."
"They believe we are Satan-based and we're not. We don't believe in the entity so therefore he doesn't exist."
An argument ensued. The sterno flame blew out, thus sparing the bunny from sacrifice. The Pagans, men, women and children, pressed on, making-do by eating pretzel sticks dipped in pretend melted chocolate, to symbolize the joining of God and Goddess. Meanwhile one from their ranks called sheriff's deputies to report a disturbance.
Is it just me, or does this sound more like a Monty Python skit?
Michael Moore is an idiot. The buzz surrounding his new film on the Columbine tragedy proves it all over again. He likes to say things that are clearly divisive, just for the sake of being divisive and therefore thinking he has somehow made himself look smarter in the process. He is an egomaniac, and a stupid egomaniac to boot.
