Sports Reporter Needs to Take Off the Blinders

Maybe this was true ten years ago, but even then I doubt it, but Notre Dame is not what other big time college football programs strive to emulate anymore. This unnamed AP reporter is now declaring that USC is the new Notre Dame as well. I am sorry but neither USC or Notre Dame are all that this year. Maybe in the future or past, but not now.

Iron Bowl 2008 - Alabama Beats Auburn

The end of the fingers.

Where Was the Dot Com Bailout

Reason TV reports on Pets.com demands that they get a bailout just like the banks and automakers.

Economic Turmoil In Iceland

The Scotsman reports on a protest and near riot in Iceland over the collapsing economy. Iceland had to close all three banks there and is getting a loan from the IMF to stabilize things. The problems were caused by heavy growth by Iceland's banks and the collapse of the local currency. The line of the article, though, is: "As daylight began to wane, demonstrators drifted away into the nearby coffee shops. Here, as currency tumbles, the price of a cup of coffee has shot up by about one-third since before the crisis struck." Doesn't sound like the French Revolution to me.

Random BrightKite Photos

I use Brightkite; which is like Twitter for photos. My stream is here. These are some of the photos I have taken over the last few weeks:

Huntsville Times Bias

Flashpoint, a right leaning blog about local politics that I read, had an article about the Editor of the The Huntsville Times, Mr. Wendt, meeting with local Republicans. One of the questions addressed the liberal bias of the opinion columnists. I try not to read the Times, especially their editorial pages, but because Mr. Wendt admitted that "Prather and Person are issues" I had to look today. Mr. Prather didn't disappoint. Here is his column today on land use issues. Key graph is: "And I'm guessing lots of people are going to have to become personally affected by lack of planning and zoning before they understand that, to some extent, this land was made for you and me." Mr. Prather is arguing to allow the state greater say over how land may be used. He masks it as for people to do this, but really he would like the state to make these decisions. Unstated: Don't worry if they take your land or prevent you from developing it you will be compensated.

Best Quote on the Bailout

Don Surber "The bailout stabilized the economy. So did the stock market crash of 1929."

Full post here.

Police Plans Against Mass Shootings

The biggest problem with Columbine is that the Police treated it as a hostage situation. As this story shows some police forces learned that lesson. Unfortunately the new tactics didn't work at Virgina Tech and now there is a further evolution. The thing is, though, that the new tactics to me make common sense, although they do risk the police officer in an attempt to minimize the shooter killing people.

More Bailout Nuttiness

The companies that provide home heating oil in Connecticut are now demanding that they be part of the $700 B TARP financial bailout. Somehow this makes sense to someone, but not me? As the Republican-American Newspaper reports here; some far sighted Connecticut residents signed contracts to get home heating oil this winter at a fixed price. Of course they signed these in the Summer so they got prices around $3.50 a gallon. Now prices have collapsed and you can buy a gallon for $2.40. Somehow this justifies the Federal government cushioning the provider by covering the difference. Sorry, a contract is a contract and we need to start letting people pay for their mistakes. Harsh as how that might sound.

Organ Donation in England

The Government of Labor Prime Minister Gordan Brown had proposed that every person is presumed to be an organ donor unless opting out. This proposal is expected to be rejected by the English Organ Donor Task Force next week. The UK Times reports on this here. I am pretty sure that Monty Python got here first:

The Irony of David Brooks

David Brooks has a column in the New York Times discussing the Federal Government's attempts to bailout businesses to try and keep the economy going (I think that is the goal?). He advocates letting the market make its choice and killing off the Big 2.5 of the US auto industry. Interestingly, if trends continue, his employer will be joining them. See this American Thinker article. Somewhat ironic that the market will take care of his bread-and-butter as well.

Raider Changes

I went to the Raiders game last Sunday and they had major issues on offense and special teams. Now they announce two major changes that will fix at least one of those problems.

Javon Walker, their big off season WR acquisition, is done with another ankle injury. That was the reason he was not playing for the Broncos. Oh well, another $10 M or so wasted.

Johnny Lee Higgins, who had been terrible at returning kicks and punts, will be replaced by former Jet Leon Washington. It has to help a little.

7 games to go and most are winnable, one would think.

Arsenal

Just when things seem bleak for Arsenal they do some amazing things. First they beat Man U last Saturday. Then on Tuesday they turn loose their youngsters in the Carling Cup. They easily won with a 16 year old mid-fielder leading the way. Wenger is already talking about playing this kid, Jack Wilshire, next to Fabregas in the middle. If he played as well as he did this week that would be quite a tandem. Anyway, see The Daily Telegraph for more.

Veterans Day

Posting

I have been really busy trying to get my new site off of the ground BNET:Government as well as keeping DefenseProcurementNews.com going so that has reduced posting here.

I will try to do some tonight.

Local Election Roundup

In the local area two little comments about the election. First, the Huntsville Times had an article headlined "When Will Alabama Elect a Black President?"; really it should say "Democratic President". Obviously Alabama will vote for a Republican over a Democrat right now, so if the Republicans had run a Black man or woman probably Alabama would have voted for him. Maybe I am being to generous to my fellow citizens but I think that would have happened - maybe not 62-38, but they still would have one.

Our local Congressman retired. He was a Democrat and there was a particularly nasty race to replace him. The Democratic candidate won 52-48. Today analysis shows that about 3% of people either wrote in somebody or refused to vote in that election. Maybe if the election had been a little more strait forward and issue oriented the result might have been different.

My Mazdas

I own and drive two different Mazda vehicles - a 2002 Protege5 and a 2009.5 Mazdaspeed3. The 3 replaced the Protege in Mazda's lineup and the Speed3 is really teh successor of the Protege5; although you can get Mazda3 wagons as well. The Protege5 was known as a driver's car with more than adequate power and good handling. The Mazdaspeed3 is it's big, somewhat brutish brother. The Mazdaspeed3 has twice the horsepower of the Protege5 - 263 versus 130 or so and is actually a smaller car.

The Progege5 has enough power and handling to meet most situations, the Speed3 has more than ample. The simple solution with that car is to put the foot down and just take off. The two cars are very solid and play tricks with your mind on how fast they are going. It is easy in the Speed3 to drive along and look down at the speedo and see that you are going 80+ mph it is so solid. So here is a toast to my two cars, and a nice photo as well.

The Corrs

The Corrs are a family band from Northern Ireland that in the Nineties were huge in that part of the world. They were the most popular band for several years. The band was made up of four siblings, three sisters and a brother, who had basically planned for this all their lives. Their parents were both professional musicians and the children deliberately learned certain instruments so that they could have a band. It helps, of course, to be very talented, and the sisters are drop dead gorgeous as well.

See this early video, "This Is The Right Time" for a good example:

Elections Have Consequences

If you don't think these are not related to the US election then you are a fool:

Hamas fires over 35 rockets toward Israel and Israel: We are committed to cease-fire; but will fire back.

People in Cali are Looking for an AR-15

The Federal Government got rid of their "assault weapon" ban. California has their own. The law bans all AR-15 made by the original manufacturer, but copies from other companies are allowed as long as they don't have 30 round clips, pistol grips or flash suppressors (as well as a host of other cosmetic things - like a bayonet). A few months ago I linked to a site where they had made a CA legal AR-15, and just to make a point made it a Hello Kitty version. I constantly get hits from people in CA looking for a "legal AR-15" going to my post and then on to the Hello Kitty site. So here it is bumped up as it is so popular.

Riflegear.com shows us a perfectly legal AR-15 in California. It is also darn cute, but I wouldn't carry it around manly men. See this post. Also, if you don't get the joke, I am sorry.

First Great Quote of the Election

From an article on the first exit polling at Gawker.com. "
5:33 PM

Ok, you need to stop with these posts. I AM VERY SENSITIVE TODAY, OK?!"

Good luck to all of the candidates.

New Blog - BNET Government

As an extension of my work at DefenseProcurementNews.com I have begun writing a blog on government contracting for BNET. That new site can be found here.

Wonders Never Cease, Washington Post Admits Liberal Bias Bad for Business

Over the last year of the election the Washington Post's Ombudsman, Ms. Howell, has been writing article after article defending the Post's coverage of Obama and McCain. She has offered editor's platitudes as to why Obama got twice as many articles as McCain, or many times more photos then the Republican. Obama is new, different, and McCain is old and been covered over and over.

Now the Post announced that revenue fell 86% in the 3rd Quarter compared to last year. Ms. Howell says that maybe this is due to bias, arrogance and the fact that they have been getting rid of their best people to save money. (That worked so well for Circuit City). In fact, she admits this is not really what their readers want.

She does not make the connection between the bias and arrogance part, but at least this article is a step in the right direction. Perhaps somebody in management will listen to her, but I doubt it. When she did the columns about articles and photos she couldn't find a reporter or editor who understood why that might demonstrate bias, or be wrong.

Well good luck Washington Post. The New York Times is doing the same thing and is collapsing even faster, but good riddance to that.