Mark Byron

Midweek Musings

We can now figure out how the Secret Service got into trouble; they had the Justice Department help round up the ladies, led by the Solicitor General;-). Given that he can't seem to argue his way out of a paper bag, one can see how he might have butchered the a-la-Cartagena episode as well.

Serously, the Obama team seem to have taken it in the neck again in oral arguments on the Arizona immigration law, with even Sotomayor being skeptical of the idea that the feds should preclude state help in enforcing federal law; having the first Latina justice come down with the conservatives on this case would be a major coup.

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It looks like a playoff might be in the offing for college football; a four-team playoff is being looked at, with the BCS bowls possibly hosting the semifinals. The idea of having the higher-seeded teams host the semi-finals was chucked, since they would be leaving money on the table if a small-stadium team got there.

The idea that a team would not have enough hotelage to manage a playoff game doesn't quite hunt, since they are set up to fill the stadium 6-8 times a year in the regular season; what the smaller stadia lack is seats, so a 60K big-city dome will trump a 30K mid-major stadium.

I think an eight-team setup would work well, but you have to start somewhere, and a 4-team playoff is a good start.

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Speaking of college football, we're now seeing million-dollar assistants, as the Honey Badger's handler, defensive coordinator John Chavis, just got a $1.1M deal from LSU. For the money, for the glory and for the fun.... but mostly for the money.

That's as big of a head scratcher as John L Smith leaving a new job at Weber State to be a temp at Arkansas. Calling him a mercenary is an insult to soldiers of fortune, for mercenaries are supposed to stay bought and do their job. However, the temptation of a loaded team that could contend for a national title and have Smith in the shoes of Steve Fisher and get the job full time by winning a title as a temp.

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Cute story of a soccer ball that floated from Japan to Alaska post-tsunami; the guy who found the ball has a Japanese wife, who was able to read the writing on the ball and get it back to its owner in Japan.

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Wal-Mart's been busted for bribing officials in Mexico and trying to cover the misdeeds up. That's endemic in Mexico, as low salaries and a tradition of palm-greasing make it hard to do business by the book lead a lot of otherwise reputable firms to find their way to the dark side. Of course, Wally World's critics will make more hay out of it than they should, for the outrage over something will be correlated to the political mileage you can get out of the bad news.

Tuesday Musings

The northeast is not good terrain for conservatives, so today's package of primaries was tailor-made for Mitt Romney. Still, getting a majority of the vote across the board sends a "game over" message.

Newt was trying to win in Deleware but he went Noware, as he managed only 27%.

All hail the Dullest Man in The World-"I don't always drink chocolate milk, but when I do I prefer Over the Moon. Stay thirsty my friends." That's a real East-coast brand which Romney might well consume; that was new to me, since I haven't spent any time in their territory.

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Seven games for the Artest formerly known as Pacer. That means he'll be out for most of the first round against either Denver or Dallas if they stay in the third seed. That creates a problem, especially if they get the Mavs; they won't have MWP there to give Dirk fits on defence.

Speaking of World Peace, here's a nice Henry Abbott TrueHoop piece on the Dalai Lama and MWP. I took a Buddhism class at CMU to polish off my gen-ed reqirements; Abbott went to India and Tibet on a summer program at NYU in his college days.

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The guy who gave us the Gaia idea of the world as one big organism, James Lovelock, is ratcheting down the rhetoric on global warming; the data hasn't been matching the theory in the 21st century-

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.

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Asked if he was now a climate skeptic, Lovelock told msnbc.com: “It depends what you mean by a skeptic. I’m not a denier.”

He said human-caused carbon dioxide emissions were driving an increase in the global temperature, but added that the effect of the oceans was not well enough understood and could have a key role.

“It (the sea) could make all the difference between a hot age and an ice age,” he said.

He said he still thought that climate change was happening, but that its effects would be felt farther in the future than he previously thought.

“We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said.

Note that he's not gone to the "dark side", but he's honest about where the numbers are at. There are things here that will comfort both the AGW fans and the skeptics, but the skeptics are likely going to crow more than they should. I'd be interested to see what the Connexions folks think on this one.

This piece yesterday should give you a clue-"Hands up if you still think human beings can’t change the atmosphere." That should get few takes, but the questions of note are "by how much?" and "what should we do about it?"

 

Sunday Night Musings

This summer, Metta World Peace made a bad name for himself, and he did so again this afternoon, with a MMA-worthy elbow to James Hardin. The only problem is that it's the NBA and he got the rest of the afternoon off, and likely the rest of the regular season. That might be his last regular season game in a Laker uni, for he's a good candidate to have his contract amnestied, even if he doesn't get an amnesty for that cheap shot.

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On a sadder note, Chuck Colson passed on yesterday. His Watergate prison term gave him an infamy that he turned to good with a prison ministry that flowed from his conversion while locked up. It sounded like a less-than-legit foxhole conversion at the time, but he made it stick for almost four decades of witness and ministry. 

No one else is quite in the position Colson was to speak about those in prison; he'll be missed by his Prison Fellowship ministry and Christians in general.

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Orrin Hatch is going to have a primary, just missing the 60% at the Utah GOP convention that would have short-circuited a primary per Utah rules. He'll have to fend off Tea Party-friendly Dan Liljenquist in June.

At least Hatch gets a primary; conservatives were so POed with Bob Bennett's establishment streak two years ago that he came in third at the convention and didn't even get a slot in the primary. Hatch has had two years to mend fences and might be able to keep the TPers at bay.

I'm of two minds on that; running off the Hatches might fend off some center-left victories where folks like Hatch are lured over into bipartisan solutions, but a party where a 90% ACU guy gets the heave-ho is starting to turn into a pup tent if not a mere sleeping bag.

Tuesday Musings

The Motor City Madman went after the president...rhetorically. However, the rhetoric matches some of the union rhetoric of "taking out" Republicans in the fall. The difference is that one could more easily see Nugent and friends backing it up... but not to the point where you have to sic the Secret Service on him. If that's the case, one should have the Secret Service keeping tabs on Jimmy Hoffa 2.0 as well.

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Interesting piece on the few remaining Blue Dogs-redistricting has not been kind, seeing them either (a) put into more conservative districts (b) put in with another congressman or (c) getting primaried from the left.

Angus King might be one add to the Blue Dog roster as a center-left Mainer senator if he replaces Snowe White.

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The French vote on Sunday in their presidential election, and a hard-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is making a late move to break into the top two. President Sarkozy is in trouble, as most incumbents are in a shaky political environment; moderate-sounding Socialist Francois Hollande seems to be the early favorite, but Hollande might be too pragmatic for the left as they look at the prospect of big budget cuts in order to balance the books.

Much of the early press focused on Marine Le Pen, the second-generation National Front leader, capturing the nativist-populist vote, but left-populism might sell as well. One of the two might sneak into the top two; having them both make the top two would be a game-changer.

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Bad but expected news for Kentucky fans-the entire starting five is going pro. With sixth man Darius Miller graduating, about 95% of UK's minutes are gone, with only Kyle Wiltjer's 11 minutes a game returning of the seven guys in the regular rotation. The freshman crop better be good, for the cupboard is rather bare in Lexington.

Midweek Musings

We're at a point where we're looking at a big anti-trust case in the e-book market; Apple and a number of publishers were trying to move away from price competition by letting the publishers pick the price and let Apple and other e-book sellers take a set cut of that list price. Amazon was the target of their wrath, as they were starting to try and do their own publishing and take the current publishers out of the loop when they weren't driving prices down.

I haven't gotten into the E-book realm as of yet, but Eileen very much likes the Kindle she got for Christmas. It seems crisp-screened and fairly user-friendly; Eileen has been able to dig into the public domain section to review some of the classic lit of the 1800s along with the occasional modern book. It is a bit of a head-scratcher that we're that far along on this digital economy where the market is big enough to be worth gaming.

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Sadly, Rick Santorum hung 'em up yesterday. There's quite a bit of missed-it-by-that-much frustration that can be put to bed now. It's hard for a non-establishment candidate to get traction when he gets super-PACed into the ground by establishment money either twisting your record (if you have one) or bemoaning your lack of a record (if you're a political novice).

The good news for Santorum fans is that Romney was in this spot last go-round; the runner-up in the GOP race is often the front-runner the next go round (Reagan 76, Dole 88 and McCain 2000 are three other cases in point). However, that's a bit of cold comfort for now.

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The diplomats are trying to talk Syria into a cease-fire, but I don't see that working. At this point, the Assad team is only going to respond to hard power; any sanctions would get Russian vetoes and not be overly effective if the Russians stood down, so the diplomats are left with taunting Assad a second time.

Sunday Night Musings

Interesting day in sports, where we had a slugfest in Detroit, with the Tigers sweeping Boston with a 13-12 win in 11 innings; strangely, Duane Below is now 2-0, backing into wins in relief two days in a row. The Tigers needed a three-run homer from Miguel Cabrera in the 9th to force extra innings and needed a two-run walk-off homer from Alex Avila to win it after Boston took a 12-10 lead in the top of the 11th.

One interesting feature of the 11th was Prince Fielder gaming the Williams Shift (for dead-pull lefties-the shortstop plays on the other side of second and the third baseman plays the shortstop's spot) they had on, poking a single through the unmanned third base position. That proved to be the tying run.

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While I was watching the Tiger game, I heard a hoot come from upstairs where my folks were watching the Masters- Louis Oosthuizen had holed out his second shot on the par-5 second for the first double-eagle at the Masters since 1935. That put him in the lead, but he wound up losing in a playoff to Bubba Watson.

Watson might not quite be up to Seve Ballesteros' fame as a shot-maker, but his second shot at 10 in the playoff will rank up with the Spaniard's best magic tricks. Then there was Phil Mickelson's fiasco at 4, where he found himself deep in the jungle and took four shots to get to the green, taking a triple-bogey.

A neat day of sports between the Tigers and the Masters.

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On a less edifing note, NRO's veteran curmudgeon John Derbyshire let loose with a black-bashing essay on a paleocon site; he's now their former veteran curmudgeon.

The sad part of the "Derb" essay is that there are germs of truth there buried in ex-Anglican cynicism. Yes, that's a counter-stereotypes, that ex-Anglicans are the most cynical folks on the planet, narrowly edging out ex-Catholics. However, when you take God out of the mix, the lesser angles of our nature have more room to thrive.

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I missed this while on vacation-it seems like Alberta will be going to the polls on the 23rd, the writ having dropped back on March 26th. The polls have the Wildrose Alliance leading the ruling Conservatives, putting the Tea Party-esque bunch in position to take over Canada's most conservative province.

 

Vacation Musings

We're down visiting my in-laws this week, so my routine is near non-existant, except bringing my on-line tutoring work with me.

I did get to watch UK's run to the title last night and could loosely picture some of the post-game chaos in downtown Lexington after living in suburbia there for a couple of years; we were there long enough to catch the UK bug and see the beginning of the Calipari era before moving back to Midland.

What was intersting is that defense carried the day in that Anthony Davis was MVP with only six points. Sixteen rebounds, three steals, six blocks and five assists added to a busy evening for the soon to be rich young man.

I'm not as jaded as some over the one-and-dones that make a single-season pit-stop in the Bluegrass on their way to the NBA; that's how the system works. Good coaches attract good players and good players often don't stay long. Yes, UMass and Memphis got busted during Cal's watch, but those were a result of said good players getting shady people hanging on to them rather than any action of Calipari that I can tell.

UK will likely lose their entire front line and probably Teague at the point. Lamb could use a junior year to blossom as a combo guard that would command a lottery pick; he'd be a late first rounder if he went now. Darius Miller will likely be in a NBA camp this fall as well and Wiltjer will likely come off of an NBA bench later this decade, but not now.

That leaves UK with Lamb, Wiltjer and the next crop of seasonal labor to go through freshman orientation next fall. However, Calipari has a way of reloading rather than rebuilding.

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Dick Cheney had a heart transplant; that comes as news to folks on the left, who thought he didn't have one to replace. It does remind me of a Doonesbury story-line a few decades back where a conservative got a liberal's heart (how could they tell?-they pulled the donor from a Volvo crash) and saw the recipient start evolving leftward. Fat chance here.

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Odd story out of Oakland at a Korean Christian college; a former student went postal and killed seven. That reminds me of a story a few years ago where a YWAM dropout shot up a facility in Colorado and then was killed trying to shoot up Ted Haggard's old church.

Going to a Christian school isn't an instant cure for emotional problems, even with Oikos' interesting mix of east and west, bringing traditional Asian healing tricks into the Western mix. Sometimes folks who don't get better in that setting feel more pressure to get with the program and can blow up in a variety of directions, one of which is to go out with guns blazing.

The shooter turned himself in; too often, those cases end with the shooter either killing themselves or being killed by police and/or security (the YWAM case ended with a lady security guard plugging the shooter). Needless to say, Mr. Goh needs some prayers, as does the school and Goh's victims.

 

Tuesday Musings

Blackened Tuna, anyone? The Saints are in the funky spot of looking for a temp head coach while Sean Payton sits out the year for Bountygate, and Bill Parcells is the name on top of the rumor list. Somehow, the thought of Payton hiring his temp looks like a mom in hospice care looking for new parents in advance, except without the hankies (since he doesn't get much if any sympathy.

One league source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter on Monday night that he would be "shocked" if Parcells took the Saints job, largely because he likely would have to wait five more years to be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame if he returned to coaching.

At the level of acclaim that Parcells is at, he doesn't need a formal spot in Canton to be respected.

What's interesting is that the Saints are willing to take the PR hit to take Payton back after his suspension; it would indicate that they think he was overcharged. There is something to the thought that bounties have been part of the game on a small scale, usually a "Smith roughed up our guy last time we met, X dollars to the guy who sends Smith out on a stretcher" ad-hoc level. The Saints both did it on a ongoing basis and got caught in a more PC era for the NFL.

Given that you were trying to hurt people rather than have it merely be a byproduct of hard-nosed play, the Saints are lucky not to have RICO charges up on them. If this were the NCAA, Payton would have a three-year show-cause fatwa on him.

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The "Obamacare" case is getting heard at the Supreme Court and Anthony Kennedy seems ready to toss it out. I'd like to see at least one of the liberal bloc come on board to make it seem less of a right-left decision. That will likely be the biggest case since the 2000 election case and possibly bigger, since a ruling for the health care law will expand government's allowable scope and a ruling against it will set firmer limits on what the federal government an do.

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I haven't weighted in on the Trayvon case yet. It would look like (1) Mr Zimmerman oversteped his role (2) finding the right punishment, if any, is a thankless task (3) quite a few folks have got Zimmerman pre-hung as a personification of The Man and (4) CNN and other MSM outlets went over-the-top making this case a top-burner issue.

That doesn't mean that wrong was not done here, but Trayvon has gone from being a dead black teen in a hoodie to being a personification of black youth, troubled but worthy of respect and life nonetheless; Trayvon the icon has trumped the real person behind the icon. I have a feeling that some of the Trayvon brigade will be walking back some words a la the Duke lacrosse case, but I'm also not ready, like some on the right are doing, of making Zimmerman a hero.

Midweek Musings

Tebow's cheaper than the Aint's bounty program; it cost the Aint's two second-rounders, Sean Payton the 2012 season and the Commander Bligh of the USS Bounty, former Aints DC Gregg Williams, is out indefinitely.

That's about right, but I'd think Williams would be up for something along the lines of 2-3 years of exile. They'll review after a year, but if Payton gets only a year, it's hard to see Williams, who was running the program, getting the same.

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An Algerian al Qaeda backer has been identified as the Jewish school shooter and has been cornered by the French police. He now gets to extend his 15 minutes of fame if the media lets him.

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Miguel Cabrera broke a bone under the eye courtesy of a wicked hop at third; from what the savants are saying, it wasn't Cabrera rust at third that caused it. It was a bad hop that personifies the term "the hot corner" that would have put any third-baseman in the hospital.

Hopefully, he'll heal up in time for opening day. There doesn't seem to be any vision or concussion issues, just stitches and the small fracture. Sunglasses helped cushion the blow, which could have been a lot worse were he out there au natural.

The Idyls of March

We're having one of those premature-spring day where we've hit 70 in Michigan. Of course, you have to wear shorts, or, like the buff youth walking past the restaurant just now, wearning nothing but shorts. The fans are on at my pizza joint, likely for the first time this calander year.

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I didn't do any post-redneck-primary blogging, but Tuesday was a good day. Newt was shut out of any southern wins that might give him credibility as a viable candidate going forward. Barring some major blow-up from either campaign, the path to seeing a GOP convention turing to Newt is rather limited.

He does have a following of economic conervatives who want something less establishmentarian than Romney and something less preachy than Santorum (and something a few parsecs closer to Earth than Paul). Those of use of a certian age will fondly remember Newt from his speaker days; others of that same certain age will view him as the Devil's henchman, complete with the morals of an alley cat.

Hence, ain't gonna happen, Newton. Almost, but not quite.

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Good news for Detroit fans-Megatron reupped with a megadeal-$132 million. He still have a year to go before free agency, but he had a big cap number for this season, so the Lions locked him in early.

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The Tigers finally didn't tie, winning one in the 10th after having three 10-inning ties. 9-1-3 look like a soccer record.

Monday Moanin'

Here's some progress in the world. El Salvador is having elections and the conservative Arena party is poised to get a plurality of the seats with the ruling leftists coming a close second. Since they have a presidential system, we have the prospect of divided government.

That's better than the 70s and 80s, when Arena backers would hire goon squads to kill leftists (or folks they thought were of the left) as the left took to the hills in a civil war; now the left is in the presidency.

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Odd story out of Iraq, where some youngsters have taken up a goth-like meme, rebelling against local Muslim culture; that's gotten a few "emos" a bad case of lead poisioning from traditionalists who aren't above killing infidels.

I'm thinking of the bus scene from Star Trek 3, where a punker is defiantly blaring the eternal classic I Hate You on his boom box (thank the Lord for iPods to save us from the modern dreck in public places); Spock give him his Vulcan nerve pinch to KO him and turns off the noise, getting a sitting O from the rest of the people on the bus. Americans don't go to the point of thinking such youth need killin', but one can see where a culture where jihad is a valid option might go for the kill at their native punks.

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That was the movie where Kirk described Spock as doing too much LDS in the 60s. A guy who really was into LDS in the 60s (doing a mission tour in France in the late 60s) is poised to win Mississippi tomorrow. Rassumssen had Romney up eight while PPP has him down to Newt by 2. There aren't too many Mormons in Rebel territory, but the Casino Coast might have a few more-secular folks than the Squirrel Revival image might invoke; former Gov. Barbour has endorsed Romney, which might help.

It's probably do-or-die time for Newt as a serious player. If he wins both Alabama and MS, he has some bragging rights and can bring a large block of Southern delegates to Tampa. If he loses both (even close calls), he'd be hard pressed to go forward and see his backers peel off to either Romney or Santorum. If he wins one and loses the other in a squeaker, he'll likely be cocky enough to muddle on.

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Welcome to a US nightmare in Afghanistan, where a soldier went rogue and killed 16 civilians. No word as to why as of yet and no violent protest has been reported. The lack of backlash is interesting; when a threat to burn a Koran in Florida gets a murderous response, an actual slay ride by a US soldier gets crickets chirping by comparison.

If this gets the responce it could easily get, we might need to pack our bags and get in the practice of Preditor-droning the Taliban from a distance rather than try to build a country that can provide a viable alternative to a harsh jihadish theocracy.

Friday Musings

It's a nicely snowy Friday; most of the schools in the area were off today. Eileen's preschool charges only come Mon-Thurs, so she was off anyway.

The Romney character assassination crew has done its dirty work; Mitt's now inched into a slight lead over Santorum. One thing that could be interesting is to see how much crossover voting aids Santorum, both from blue-collar social conservatives who might appreciate him and from secular liberals who consider him nuttier than a Planter's factory and thus an easy out. That might have some folks coming out on Tuesday that don't meet the "likely voter" screen.

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The NBA had a couple of interesting games yesterday. Miami made Jeremy Lin look like a D-leaguer, at least in the box score. It happens to the best of folks, but Lin will have the All Star break to stew over that stinker.

The other one that seemed notable was OKC dispatching the Lakers, with a highlight clip of Kobe exchanging nuclear looks with James Hardin, who looked like he was prepping to be the henchman for the next Bond big bad guy. The Thunder now are seven games up on the Lakers, who are now tied for fifth in the West. That would bracket them in for a second-round match with the Thunder if they get the 5-seed, which would be a major changing-of-the-guard match.

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Syria.... It's easy to say "arm the opposition." However, if you are going to take out a rather ruthless regime that is willing to trash whole cities in order to get its way, a few extra AK-47s aren't going to do the job. The Syrian army is design to go toe-to-toe with the Israelis, not like the lightly-armed Libyan army.

We'd likely be looking at something on the order of our Iraqi conflict if we were to do it "right"; a half-baked responce will give the opposition false hope and make them look like foreign stooges in the process. I'm not sure if the Obama administration and our European friends are up to the effort to do it right.

Monday Moanin'

I just got done watching Syracuse nip Louisville; I'm still plesently amazed at the live TV you can get online. I watched the last four minutes of the game via ESPN3 while starting my tutoring shift online.

One odd thought from the game; Rick Pitino had a white suit on that looked either like he was heading for a gig on TBN (the suit looked like it was up Benny Hinn's alley) or was auditioning for the role of Mr. Roarke in a Fantasy Island remake.

Second odd thought; Fab Melo is the  'cuse big man after Melo Anthony played there last decade. Fab Melo sounds like a rapper's nom de guerre.

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Strange political year; Santorum and Romney are neck and neck nationally and Santorum has a 39-24 lead in Michigan. People are quick to note that most folks here are too young to remember George Romney, but those who do might remember him as rather RINOey; the prophet has no honor in his home town, especially when his dad was squishy.

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I'm not a big pop music fan, but Adele's wins seems refreshing, picking a singer rather than a video artist.

Of course, the whole thing got taken over by Whitney Houston's passing, right at the hotel where the big Clive Davis pre-Grammy party was being held that night. Sad story, of a gal who grew up in a gospel-singing realm but had issues with substance abuse; it might have been sleeping pills that did her in, but that won't be found out for sure for a while.

Sunday Musings

Good Super Bowl, although I thought the idea of downing the ball at the one rather than scoring a touchdown was too clever by half; as it was, Ahmad Bradshaw backed into the end zone for the winning TD after thinking about stopping at the one and letting the Giants kick a chip-shot FG at the gun.

Bradshaw's instinctive move gave Brady and the Pats a minute to retaliate, but a Hail Mary wasn't answered.

Eli Manning now has more SB rings than big brother.

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One nasty but effective political ad essentially kicked off the Senate campaign in Michigan, where former Congressman Pete Hoekstra had a Chinese girl in passable English thanking Debbie Spend-it-now (a.k.a. Stabenow) for all the jobs the US was sending their way. He's casting himself as Mr. Spend-it-not and the Democrats are TARPing about that. Is it an Asian TARP carp?

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It seemed like the ads were off from their normal quality. The Coke Polar Bears were good but generic, Doritos had a couple of good sight-gags, a car company that escapes me had Matthew Broderick doing a Ferris Bueller homage. Lastly, the stock-trading baby had to protect his newborn sister from a friend trying to speed-date in the nursery (taking robbing the cradle to new levels).

Tuesday Musings

It looks like Romney's poised to take Florida today, as Newt seems more nasty and desperate by the day. When he sticks to the issues, Gingrich is an interesting and appealing candidate, but he has a mean streak that can be both effective and off-putting. When he takes that mean streak and tries to play bash-the-rich-guy, it doesn't sound right, especially coming from a free-market guy.

Anyways, this piece on his stop in Plant City struck a cord. Plant City was just outside of my stomping grounds of Winter Haven-Lakeland when I lived in Florida (on the Tampa side of Lakeland and in Tampa's county); I even interviewed for a teach job there. Even with a winter thaw bringing temperatures up to 51 today, seeing the old home turf in the news was touching.

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"Why should the Devil have all the good music?" the Larry Norman oldie asks. Newt and the Eye of the Tiger people are at it now in the ritual suing of conservatives using liberal-owned pop culture.

At least Brooks and Dunn are bipartisan, letting their stuff be used by both sides without complaint.

Midweek Musings

I haven't gotten around to comment on Paula Deen coming down with type-2 diabetes. It's a cheap shot to call it a self-inflicted wound, but a shot that many will take at her old-school southern cooking that doesn't skimp on the sugar or fat. Moderation, folks. A steady diet of fatty stuff isn't good, but some comfort food now and then is just fine.

I'm not sure if this holds across the board, but people that don't like Paula often don't like the South and everything it stands for. Anthony Bourdain doesn't like her, but I don't think he would like living in Savannah as opposed to New York or some global hot spot. I channel-surf into his shows on a regular basis (more so than Deen's stuff), but I'd rather have her as a next-door neighbor than he.

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Interesting re-up for Kevin Love, signing a four-year extension with Minnesota. Interesting tweet from him leading up to today's announcement-

Asked last week by the Minneapolis Star Tribune if he could imagine not finalizing an extension before the deadline, Love said: "It wouldn't be ideal. So it would be nice to work something out. I enjoy it here, I enjoy my teammates, I enjoy the coaching staff, I enjoy the Twin Cities, even when it's cold.

For a SoCal kid, that's saying somethng. His lunch-pail ethic under the boards makes him a bit more midwestern than a candidate for Lob City.

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Alan mentioned the weight issue with Prince Fielder. He will need to start watching his weight, lest his knees and back start to be an issue. If he continues to carry an extra 50 pounds or so of weight, he'll not be all that productive at the tail-end of that nine-year deal.

One thing about the fresh Prince, he could not bat his weight (275 officially, but I've heard numbers a bit north of that) and still make the All-Star team. Mind you, that's on a 5'11 frame, so it's tubbier than it sounds at first.

Thursday Morning, 5AM

Had Paul Simon on the mind as I started writing this, so I went with a funky title 26 hours ahead of an old album title of his.

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Here's an interesting footnote from the NBA wire-the Cavs " named Zydrunas Ilgauskas special assistant to the general manager. "Z" spent last year with the Heat, having followed a certain Akron native south. At least the Gilbert regime seems to have forgiven Z his transgressions.

An interesting parallel might be brewing. Another Cav big man, Danny Ferry, made the move into the front office. Z might not have the advantage of growing up with a GM dad like Ferry did, but a smart player with a European background might well be a good asset to have, especially as I was watching a pack of Spaniards and Montenegrins make short work of the Pistons last night.

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Idle tweets... what'ya gonna do. Rob Lowe prematurely sends Payton Manning packing.

Lowe might be a tad ahead of the game, since I don't quite expect him to retire. However, Manning will be put in an awkward spot in the weeks to come.

March 8th is D-day, where the Colts have to pony up $28 million to keep him. If they are going to hand the reigns over to Andrew Luck with their first pick in the draft, that's money that could be better spent giving Luck a couple of good offensive linemen to keep him vertical.

If Manning doesn't agree to get that price-tag lowered, he might be forced into free agency given NFL hardball.  Manning then would have to see if he wanted to follow his dad's lead and move on from his signature team. Unlike Archie, Payton has some left in the tank and many clubs could be happy to have him at QB next year, assuming his neck has healed up properly.

That neck is a big if, which is why the Colts might want to not press their luck and pass on Luck.

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The Keystone pipeline got the back of the hand from the Obama team. They're trying to get in on a longer and less envrionmentally-dicey path.

I'm waiting for Obama to be at the groundbreaking of a gay-rights memorial, so that he can be putting the keystone on the Stonewall and the stone-wall on the Keystone.

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Mamma, don't take my Kodachrome away. Here's where rhymin' Simon showed up-bad earwig in the early morning as Kodak goes Chapter 11. They've tried to make a go of it in the digital era by making good cameras, but when modern cell-phones fill the casual photography niche, even that is problematic these days.

Phlegm-Bloggin'

What do you do at 3:36AM when you can't sleep thanks to bronchitis and infomercials rule cable? Get the blogging muse out from under the mucus and catch up on some news.

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We had an interesting debate where Newt had a hole-in-Juan; however, he forgot to buy everyone drinks at the 19th hole. How does being able to master political improv translate to being able to run the country?

What hasn't been as helpful is his faux-populist run at Bain after taking the high road most of the race. I might not trust Romney's political instincts to do the right thing rather than just the prudent thing, but Newt is showing where his disingenuousness makes it hard to trust him in general.

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The next rhetorical flourish is to try and smoke out Romney's tax returns. That's not the greatest strategy, since it might make him more human rather than less human. It also caters to the fear people have that the rich are getting away with stuff, so there is a bit of faux-populism in the effort.

Mitt's 2011 taxes aren't going to be ready right now, since he isn't exactly filing a 1040-EZ with just wage income. However, his past returns would be available if he wants to get this behind him. Also, since he likely has to file quarterly estimated taxes, he should have the first three quarters of 2011 covered in rough-draft form already.

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Ricky Rubio will be interesting to watch. He had an off-night and still helped the Wolves past the Pistons with six steals and eight assists. I didn't know you could field a starting line-up with only one person of African descent these days, which the Wolves did last night.

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The Hot Stove league heated up yesterday when news hit that Victor Martinez had blown a ACL and will be out most, if not all, of this season. That puts the Tigers suddenly in the market for a DH or an outfielder that can allow Delmon Young to slide into the DH slot, since he's not exactly the second coming of Yaz in left (boy, am I dating myself).

The default value would be to have Young be the default DH, letting Rayburn and Dirks platoon in left with Young playing some LF if you DH Avila on days off as a catcher. Before the Tigers go out and blow big money on a high-profile replacement like Vlad Guerrero, they might want to think of what the baseline production would be with that they have.

I have a feeling that Andy Dirks could become a, say, Johnny Damon level package given some playing time. However, I'm not the one cutting the checks or making the big calls.

Thursday Musings

It's sleety outside, I'm fighting off another bout of bronchitis and the Pistons are 2-8. However, the weather will improve, my health will improve and.... if the Clippers and T-Wolves can get better, there is hope for the Pistons.

Ricky Rubio and Ahmadinejad, separated at birth?

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Interesting piece from Ken Dryden on the decline in brawls in the NHL. He may have lousy taste in political parties but he has always been a thoughtful guy about hockey. Fighting is down 25%, some enforcers are out of a job and some good-ol'-boys don't like it.

The interesting thing is that this drop came with former Red Wing great Brendan Shanahan in charge of league discipline. He was no softy in his day; he's getting a message across that real men can get things done without starting fights.

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WHen I'm feeling a bit better, I'll get to Romney's faux pas from earlier in the week. For now, his "I like being able to fire people" line comes in the context of changing insurance providers, but it's too good of a line for his foes to leave alone.

I'm enough of a free-marketeer to have quoted "creative destruction" more than once here, but Romney's work had him being that economic Vishnu, the destroyer of worlds underperforming divisions, on a regular basis. It works well in theory, but that is going to be the line that will be fed back via a thousand 527 ads this fall.

Thursday Musings

The WaPo "factcheckers" go for some low-hanging fruit on a Santorum rhetorical flourish that everyone on the West Bank are Israelis. Yes, I'm about 99.99% sure that the former senator knows about the facts on the ground, but was merely stating his thought that Israel has historial rights to the territory.

On those grounds, these folks would give JFK four Pinoccihios for "Ich bin ein Berliner"-- if he were a Republican.

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The Broad Street Bullies are alive and well; just ask these poor NY Ranger fans who went south to Philly.

The graphic video shows three suspects wearing Philadelphia Flyers jerseys beating and kicking the two victims outside Geno's Steaks in South Philly at 7:15 p.m.

If they listened to Santorum, they would know better than do the wit or witout shtick-that's a Pat's thing.

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Meanwhile, while we're digesting all things Iowa (and thinking about digesting a classic cheesesteak), the president is trying to pull a fast one by trying to recess appoint three NLRB members and the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The fine print of the CFPB law might keep the new boss, Richard Cordray, from taking control, since it keeps that authority in the Treasury department until a head is approved by the Senate.

That doesn't affect the NLRB folks, however. The problem is that the normal rule for recess appointments is that Congress has to be out of session for at least three days for it to be considered eligable for a recess appointment, lest the President use it in the middle of the night when Congress is not in session.

The Senate has been in pro-forma session over the Christmas break, just showing up every few days and counting heads, in order to block such a recess appointment. That's a trick both sides of the aisle have used; Democrats used that trick to block Bush appointees in the 2007-8 session.

Thus, there is game-playing on both sides here, but the Senate pro-formas are at least constitutional if not sneaky. Trying to use a recess appoitment on an overnight adjournment is a lot like calling not buying something interstate commerce.

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Speaking of Santorum, he's single-handedly redeeming the sweater-vest after Jim Tressel gave it a bad name in Tattoogate. He's got vested authority even without holding office.

 

Bowl Morning Musings

DeMarcus Cousins might be on the move, as he seems to have had a falling out with Sacramento management. The Kings picked him just before the Pistons snagged Greg Monroe in the 2010 draft; having been down in Lexington for Cousins' one year there, I was disappointed at the time. However, Monroe has turned into a very serviceable big man, looking more and more like a young Tim Duncan.

Cousins is emotional and a bit of a head case, but I recall Rasheed Wallace had that same rep when he hit Detroit; he became a key cog in the Piston's good late-00s clubs. Cousins could be had for a late (or delayed) first-rounder if he's become persona non grata in SAC. Detroit has a need for a good big man, and Cousins might be worth rolling the dice for.

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Santorum on the move. The polls seem to point to him in a sold third and closing fast. If some Perry, Newt and Bachmann voters opt to slide to Santorum, he could become part of the lead pack.

Someone from the right needs to emerge for that part of the electorate to the right of Newt and Mitt and not in orbit in the Paul system. Santorum might not have the money of the big boys in the race, but a 20% or better showing gets him at the adult table.

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Detroit and Denver backed into playoff spots. It's odd to see Denver hosting Pittsburgh in a first-rounder, as the Steelers just missed being the top seed.

Midweek Musings

Eileen's been out of commission with the flu the last two days, so I've been playing dutiful husband. Hopefully, she'll be back up to speed by next week when school starts back up and her young charges at a local elementary school get back.

The flu is tough, since the doctor can't do much of anything than say go home, rest, drink plenty of liquids and try not to get the rest of the household sick. Since the flu's a virus, antibiotics don't do any good, so you're left with painkillers, decongestants, Jewish penicillin (Mrs Grass' chicken-flavored noodle is our version of that), Gatorade and TCL.

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The Piss-tons. An U-G-H-L-Y Ugh-ly start to the season. The only redeeming value was Brandon Knight going off for 23 off the bench. He needs to start; slide Stuckey to the 2 and let Gordon come off the bench.

Thankfully, I managed to minimize the frustration by watching MSU beat Indiana in a game with more runs than a group of touristas coming back from Mexico.

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Interesting piece on Mitt's roots; politics as a Harvard Business Review case study. While the piece doesn't mention HBR directly, Mitt's Harvard MBA-JD combo does come from a very quant-oriented and problem-solving framework. HBR cases are fixtures in a lot of business classes, being on quite a few syllabi I have taught out of over the years.

Such training gets good answers from a bottom-line standpoint, but lacks verve. However, I'm fearful that the bottom line is to maximize GDP from a stock GOP standpoint, losing sight of bigger moral pictures both left and right.

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Newt is cratering in Iowa, slipping to a weak third. CNN even has Santorum slipping past him into third behind Romney and Paul. It might be South Carolina and Florida where Newt makes a stand and wins one.

The conservative trio of Santorum, Bachmann and Perry all seem to be fighting for fourth, with the exception of the occasional outlier poll. If that CNN poll proves accurate, Santorum could become that conservative alternative.

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Very interesting piece on Ron Paul's newsletter history. His right hand man on those was Lew Rockwell, who veteran bloggers will recognize as a key paleolibertarian with a bad ethnocentric streak. One of my better early posts was a defense of Lincoln from a Rockwell-posted piece trashing him on libertarian grounds as a protectionist, big-government autocrat. Many of the Rockwellians had a Dixiephile streak which was not becoming.

Rockwell and others tried to redo the libertarian sector by running off the left-libertarians who were often there for repealing drug laws and replacing them with paleoconservatives, tacking a Pat Buchanan-style ethnocentrism onto a free-market, free-trade framework. Thus, the only difference between the two paleo camps was free trade.

Rockwell might have ghost-written the stuff put out under Paul's banner, since Paul doesn't seem particularly ethnocentric or racist. Paul should have parted company with Rockwell, or at least not put out some of the race-baiting pieces that did go out.

That should put a ceiling on how well Paul can do, but everyone has seemed to hit a 25% ceiling before coming back down.

 

Thursday Musings

Interesting piece on some Texans in a DMZ of sort, south of the border fence but still in Texas. Since they can't build the fence on the flood plane of the Rio Grande, there's a large spot of territory in that no-man's-land.

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Yesterday was trash-the-Buckeye day at the NCAA. OSU gets a bowl and Big 10 title game ban for next year and Mr Vest gets a five-year effective block on working in college football. If we rewound the tape thirteen months before Tatoogate hit Columbus, I would have had Tressel and JoePa in the five least likely coaches to be ridden out of town on a scandal-rail.

It will be interesting to see if an NFL team opts to bring Tressel on board for the long haul; he had a front-office job with the Colts (if you believe in some Lennonesque instant karma, the Colts might have brought the 1-13 on themselves) this season.

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Players can get suspended for bad language that is aimed at a demographic group in North American sports, but I've yet to see someone get arrested for it. A top British soccer star, John Terry, is up on charges for using "racist language" towards a foe of African descent. Terry isn't a choir-boy, but he is the captain of the English national team.

Here's the official write-up

On 23 October 2011 at Loftus Road Stadium, London W12, you used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress which was racially aggravated in accordance with section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

If I'm reading the Wikipedia of that 1998 act right, he could get up to six months for n-bombing (or whatever he said) someone. That seems a bit odd sitting in the land of the First Amendment.

Wednesday Musings

I saw an interesting site this afternoon; a truck sporting LED screens on the back and sides showing various ads. That's one way to get around the declining number of billboards available.

While it's new to Midland, it's not new elsewhere. Many big cities have banned them. They might be a bit distracting, but so are stationary billboards, and many cities put ads on their busses.

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Here's an alternative to being turned into worm-food; get turned into electric power.

In Durham, England, corpses will soon be used to generate electricity. A crematorium is installing turbines in its burners that will convert waste heat from the combustion of each corpse into as much as 150 kilowatt-hours of juice — enough to power 1,500 televisions for an hour. The facility plans to sell the electricity to local power companies.

Hannibal 'lectric, anyone?

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Normally, it's Candiadian poltiicians who can't speak French well that get the ire of Quebec folks; now, it's the new Anglophone head coach of the Montreal Canadiens, Randy Cunneyworth.

A Toronto native, the 50-year-old Cunneyworth played 16 seasons in the NHL with the Sabres, Penguins, Jets, Whalers, Blackhawks and Senators, scoring 414 points in the regular season.

"I have the utmost respect for the language here and I am very aware of how important it is to try and learn the language," he said after running his first practice. "Obviously I know a few words, and not all the good ones."

With a number of Quebec players in the league, he's likely been cussed at en Francais, and possibly learned to question your mom's vices in French.

Monday Moanin'

Quebec is on the verge of having a political overhaul, as a party of the Francophone right has emerged, merging the ADQ with a new Coalition-Avenir-Québec headed up by ex-Pequiste François Legault. How much of a future does the Coalition for Quebec's Future have?

A poll conducted by CROP for La Presse newspaper found 39 per cent of respondents in favor of the CAQ, with 28 per cent favoring the Liberal Party, and 18 per cent favoring the Parti Québécois. A second poll, conducted by Léger Marketing for Le Devoir newspaper, found 37 per cent in support of the CAQ, with 24 per cent supporting the PQ, and 22 supporting the Liberals.

By those numbers, if an election were held now, the CAQ could win close to 100 of the national assembly's 125 seats, easily forming a majority government.

The PQ and Liberals could be reduced to about a dozen seats each.

I'd only been following the Legault party sporadically, but it seems to be doing well. It has the advantage of not having a recent track record, since Legault is a retired PQ leader coming back into the fray. Right not it's the not-PQ and not-Liberal party, which holds roughly the same spot as being the not-Mitt in the GOP race.

Those poll numbers portend an interesting future for Quebec. Throwing in the Quebec City centric ADQ into the mix will make vote-splitting on the right a non-problem.

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The Lions got their first winning season in a decade, pulling off yet another 4th quarter turnaround, with a 28-27 win over Oakland. Megatron finally broke out of a mid-season slump and went off for a career-high 214 yards and a pair of TDs, including the gamer.

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This has been all over the conservative Blogosphere over the weekend; Christopher Hitchens passed on, getting to find out he was wrong about his devout atheism. He had been fighting cancer and was in an awkward spot of being an atheist being prayed over for healing by friend and foe alike. He was one of the bigger thorns in the side of theists, but also was a thinking liberal (no, not an oxymoron) who was on the conservative side on fighting Islamic radicals.

Tuesday Musings

I'm not sure what rung of Hell is getting a room set up for Jerry Sandusky's lawyer. They at least had the good grace to pass on a preliminary hearing and skip on to the trial proper, but that keeps the accusers' stories outside of the public eye for a bit longer and lets them have a few more days to demonize them before cross-examining them. Good legal strategy, but seemingly evil.

That assumes there is some smoke there and Sandusky's story about loving kids but not that way isn't valid. Sandusky has been sent up the river for life in the court of public opinion, disappointed that some of the things they'd like to see happen aren't constitutional.

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Speaking of pleas of innocence, what have we heard on the Herman Cain front post-withdrawl? He's not admitted a thing improper, but can't prove four negatives in that CoPO. Nor have we seen the accusers pile more evidence that I have seen, even though I haven't gone looking much.

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I don't care much for Michelle Bachmann's idea of making everyone pay some income tax. My mind has a SNL skit of her making sure to get Uncle Sam's 50 cents out of Johnny's $5 lawn-mowing and a nickle out of Susie's 50 cents of lemonade sales looping in my mind; it's not pretty. Making a burn patient have some skin in the game might not work well.

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Are we in a Bizzaro universe? Chris Paul seems cool with the idea of Sterling silver, but the Clippers want to have someone other than Blake Griffith and Mr Big Shot to play with Paul, since the league wants about half of SoCal back in return. We might be seeing the Clippers be a force to be reckoned with out west. Hey, if the Lions can make the playoffs, anything is possible.

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The Donald ducks the Iowa debate. I guess Trump learned that Buster Douglas wasn't part of the Lincoln-Douglas debate, so he couldn't put it on pay-per-view.

Monday Night Meanders

Tariq Aziz... the nominal Christian foreign minister for Saddam during the first Gulf war, is slated to be executed.

Aziz was sentenced to death in October 2010 by the Iraqi High Tribunal for his role in eliminating religious parties during Hussein's regime.

Unless they were eliminated by shoving the members into a mass grave, that doesn't quite sound like a capital offense. There are probably other things he might have had a hand in during Saddam's rule that are worth a trip to Ol' Sparky, but he seems to have been overcharged here.

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Gary Johnson wants more attention, so he's toying with a run as a capital-L Libertarian.

I don't recall him being quite the small-government guy as NM governor, making a name more on wanting to decriminalize pot, so he seems a poor fit for the Libertarians unless they want to play up the civil-liberties side of the equation. Jesse Ventura, who last I check was headed for Mexico after a run-in with the TSA, is higher on their list, and he wasn't exactly the second coming of Ron Paul when governor. The Libertarians might be looking for name recognition more than ideological purity this go-round.

Johnson would hold them to their traditional half-percent or less of the vote, but Ventura would have a shot at replicating his one governor run; Obama would play Skip Humphrey well, while Mitt Romney might serve as a good Norm Coleman. Ventura could run to Romney's right on health care like he did with Coleman on taxes, especially if he were running as a Libertarian.

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The NHL gets four conferences. The big question from a Michigan perspective is whether Detroit will get into the inland East conference with Toronto, Montreal and Pittsburgh or whether they'll stay in their current Central time-zone locale. According to this from USA Today, they are in the Central, an eight-team set up. That would be an improvement than having to do a lot of west-coast trips.

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We've got an early candidate for your evacuation of the solar system. Kepler 22b, about 600 light years away and with an expected temperature of 72 degrees. No life found as of yet, but it's in an orbit that could well be habitable.

Monday Moanin'

Here's one to warm a Occupier's heart-call it Tokyo Drift..into the Railing

A luxury sports car outing in Japan has ended in what may be one of the most expensive car crashes in history.

Eight Ferraris, three Mercedes-Benzes, a Lamborghini and two other vehicles were involved in the pile-up in the southern prefecture of Yamaguchi.

...

Police say they believe the accident, which took place on Sunday, happened when the driver of one of the Ferraris tried to change lanes and hit the crash barrier.

Envy isn't a pretty thing.

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Speaking of Things Eurocrats Like, they want to double-down on the Eurozone-

The statement from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel came after they held crisis talks in Paris.

They said eurozone states should face greater checks on their budgets and face sanctions for running up deficits.

Mr Sarkozy said steps had to be taken to ensure that what had happened in Europe "must never happen again".

The Euro has been an accident waiting to happen, with toothless rules to keep deficit spending in line. Adding teeth to them will further centralize power in Brussels, which isn't a good answer; the better answer would be to punt on the Euro experiment, but sending good money in after bad is the name of the game for folks too wedded to the system to pull the plug.

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Speaking of pulling the plug, this was an interesting piece in the NYT on sleeping pills that have the inverse effect of snapping people out of vegetative states temporarily. That's not the first counter-intuitive drug application, as stimulants are often used on ADD kids to calm them down.

The name of Terri Schiavo wasn't mentioned once in the piece, but the topic of prematurely pulling the plug was broached, as was the cost of supporting such folks when they become a "drain on society." It's cheaper to pull the plug, and a cost-obsessed medical system might increasingly push to get such folks out of the way

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The Donald's hosting a GOP debate and is getting into an exchange of urinary products with Ron Paul. I don't have a dog in that fight; they can treat each other like fire hydrants if they want.

Trump wouldn't be my first choice to host a GOP debate, since Trump is more of a center-left nativist. However, he might ask some interesting questions, more so than your stock Washington reporter.

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LSU-Alabama after all. Alabama nudged out Oklahoma State for the #2 slot; OSU not being OU might have cost them a shot at the title, for Alabama's cache from Bear Bryant on could well have made a difference.

We need an Occupy BCS. You have Boise State and Kansas State at 7 and 8 bypassed for 11 and 13th ranked Virginia Tech and Michigan. It's an economic decision for the bowls, as the more traditional VT and UofM programs will bring more alums and more eyeballs than KSU or BSU will. As a Michigander, I'm not too upset, but it makes the point clear that big-time college football is a business by elites for elites and not a meritocracy.

THe big downside is when good small-conference teams get snubbed is that they go to far lesser bowls; BSU gets the Las Vegas Bowl for it's 7th ranked effort, since there is no way in the current system to get a non-AQ school match up at its proper weight if they fall short of catching the BCS eyes. Kansas State, with its Big 12 ties, gets a very nice Cotton Bowl match with Arkansas.

Thursday Night Musings

We have another person below the Pauldoza line-David Stern-

While it's true that before the tentative agreement, hardly anyone on Twitter had his back, it was still true even that euphoric Saturday when the tentative deal was announced. That day positive Tweets about the commissioner climbed just three percent, from a measly eight to an almost-as-measly 11.

Lucky for Stern, this is not a democracy, and he's not up for reelection, because those numbers are miserable.

Hey, Rick Santorum would give his back teeth for 11% right now;-).

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Speaking of Pauldoza lines, Newt has four times it in a Rassumssen national poll; 38 Newt, 17 Romney, with Cain and Paul tied at 8. No one else breaks 5%.

Yours truly, October 28-

• Newt is slowly gaining traction. He's just under the Pauldoza line (11%-10%) and could be a lot of caucus goers' second choice; expect him to do better in delegate count than in popular vote, as 15% is the cutoff for getting delegates if memory serves, and he could be a landing spot for less-popular candidate's fans.
• If Newt does break pass the Pauldoza line in Iowa and comes in third, he's in position to walk away with it all if one of the two leaders (most likely Cain) melts down.

This was pre-harassment-and-affairs, but Cain's meltdown has opened the door wide open for Newt.

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The Norwegian political murderer has been deemed insane. He saw himself as something of an anti-jihadi jihadi; is he any crazier than the terrorists he fears?

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Hockey had three enforcers do themselves in over the summer and soccer just lost Welch national team manager Gary Speed to suicide. Soccer is now going through some of the mental health double-checking that hockey is going through. Macho cultures aren't good places to admit to emotional and mental problems.

Thursday Night Musings

Nebraska folks are nervous about going to Penn State Saturday after some PSU folks rioted last night after the news of Joe Paterno's firing came out. It's not good to see PSU fans taking lessons from Michigan State fans about how to be classy after losing.

My hunch is that Cornhusker fans are safe as they'll ever be. The goonishness that marked their last trip to "Happy Valley" is ancient history and fans would be more frustrated with PSU personnel than anyone from Nebraska. A police escort might be inviting trouble, since any would-be goons would be more upset with the PSU police than with Nebraska. Tom Osborne hasn't covered up any pedophiles that I know of.

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UCF is in trouble for breaking NCAA rules and George (LIT 321:The American Resume as Fiction) O'Leary tells us that things are "isolated." If you take that at face value, I have some toll roads in metro Orlando to sell you.

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A rogue US soldier got convicted of murder for dispatching three Afghanis without cause. That would be the kind of thing that would warrant war crimes trials at the Hague were we not up to trying them ourselves. Others want the whole war (or large chunks of it, like waterboarding suspects) chalked up as a war crime, which is why the US is not generally open to having Americans hauled there.