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April 19, 2008

"Now"?

At the bottom of this NY Post article on Obama and Clinton whining about the media and each other is an interesting sentence.

A majority of those surveyed now view Clinton as untrustworthy.

And it only took 16 years of national exposure to this woman for them to figure it out? I guess Americans may be slightly sharper on average than we sometimes give them credit for - I didn't think that a majority would figure it out until halfway through her first term as president. But it's been months since I figured she would win the election.

My apologies, America.

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April 17, 2008

Mike Wise and Playoff Hockey

Beer in hand and hockey on TV, I am loving life right now. While it would certainly be accurate to say that I am a die-hard fan of the Buffalo Sabres, it is probably more accurate to say that I am a fan of all hockey. So even though the Sabres didn't make the playoffs this year, I am quite happy to be watching the Washington Capitals take on the Philadelphia Flyers tonight.

Hey, how about that Mike Wise article in the Washington Post? (free subscription required) What's that? You haven't heard anything about this article? Well, it's got some hockey fans and commentators pretty hot right now. Rumor has it that 20,000 copies of it were printed out to be given away to fans at the Wachovia Center in Philly, but the plan mysteriously fell through at the last minute.

Wise doesn't like the way the rough-and-tough Flyers are physically dominating and punishing the graceful, offense-minded Caps. He complains that fights are shown on the video scoreboard, and the Philly fans are too bloodthirsty. He wishes Gary Bettman could only realize that this is just bad for hockey.

I am happy to make the argument that this is simply what playoff hockey is all about. The Caps - and other pretty teams who skate and shoot beautifully but don't have grit and gristle - get cut down by teams who might have less talent but who have more guts. That's how the game is played, and that's why my beloved Sabres were eliminated soundly by the Ottawa Senators last year despite having the best regular-season record in the league. You don't have to be happy about it, but every team knows that's reality.

Wise and others who pine for more grace and fewer fights need to come to the realization that the sport they like is not the sport these players are playing, and that's not wrong. There are many things a team needs to go deep in the NHL playoffs, and physicality is tops on the list. To wish it were otherwise is to ask hockey to become some other sport.

But rather than turn this into a long treatise on what place violence should have in the sport, I'm going to point out that Wise's article probably doesn't much offend Philly fans. Consider this paragraph:

For most of the evening, there was this unmistakable air of testosterone coming from the Flyers' direction that just reeked of physicality, a way of exerting their mauling style on the Capitals that just sent their denizens into some medieval state of euphoria.

The Flyers, who in years past have gone by the nicknames "Broad Street Bullies" and "Legion of Doom", attract their fans specifically because they reek of physicality. In fact, most hockey fans would rather see their team get physical and dominate, rather than be pretty and eliminated - just ask any fan of the Buffalo Sabres. I would be proud to see my team eliminate another team by any means, including physical domination.

So Mr. Wise, don't gripe about the Flyers. Gripe about the Caps. They are a phenomenally talented and exciting young team, and they don't need the refs to toughen up - they need to toughen up themselves. If they can't get physical against Philly, they deserve the early summer vacation - and I say that as a fan.

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April 14, 2008

The joys of teaching

All teachers enjoy sharing the accidentally humorous responses given by students. Here is one from my latest test:

Q: Define a covalent bond, or describe what happens in a covalent bond.

A: The shaming of electrons.

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April 13, 2008

Pennsylvania Poll on Barack Obama

A new poll has been released on Barack Obama's now-infamous San Francisco speech, where he claimed that small-town Pennsyvanians cling to religions and guns because they are bitter and bigoted.

According to the poll, approximately half of the Pennsyvanians that were questioned about the remark responded that they would pray for Mr. Obama. The other half said that they wanted to shoot him.

(H/T Mrs. Rammage)

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April 12, 2008

Know Nothing about Immigration

It's funny how long this same argument has been around:

"The Know Nothing movement was a nativist American political movement of the 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to American values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. Mainly active from 1854-56, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, though its efforts met with little success. There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class and Protestant membership fragmented over the issue of slavery, most often joining the Republican Party by the time of the 1860 presidential election."

We should have built a fence around Boston and New York. Now look what we've got: Damn Irish Catholics and their Rock and Roll music. Oh, and Bono.

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OH...My...BAMA, Magnum!*

I sent this email to the Atlantico list on February 20th, 2008:

Barack Obama's website is absolutely immaculate.

I mean, it's perfect: colors, ergonomics, headlines, slogans, font, navigability, easy-to-read, well laid-out, etc.

This guy is unbeatable, in every category. We are going to see a domination in November the likes of which has not been witnessed since the Warren G. Harding landslide of 1920. Race, age, rock-star quality,charisma, speech, demagoguery, background, name, wife, you name it. Barack's got it all. Substance is largely ancillary in this contest, and even there, I think Barack is chock-full of substance. Maybe not good substance, but he's got plenty of substance.

I have to tell you, I admire this man, in much the same way that the android science officer in Alien admired the alien creature for its sheer, evil, perfection. Barack is beautifully perfect.

He will single-handedly deliver America unto a European-style socialism, and there's not a damn thing that anyone can do to stop him.

It's a little ironic that the only way we were given freedom is that it was forced upon us by an elite few. So-called Americans never really asked for it: at least not the majority. We are too willing to exchange individual freedoms for a slight alleviation in mental and physical labor, for self-reliance and self-responsibility. And now, we as a country, are demanding it. The era of the American Rugged Individual is finally at the culmination of its wane, and we're now ready for the cold comfort of the collective.

It's amazing how much can change in just under two months. Between Michelle Obama's frequent gaffes, and now this:

"...It’s not surprising then [that small-town Pennsylvanians] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Had they kept their mouths shut and stuck to the empty "change" rhetoric, the Obamas would have sailed through to November. A commenter on Malkin's website sums up my exact feelings on the matter: "What an arrogant, condescending jerk."

PA Democrats aren't like Massachusetts or California Democrats. I think he's going to find this out the hard way.

(Headline explained here)

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April 4, 2008

Biometrics

Schools using fingerprint scans for lunch payments:

Okay, is this
A) a brilliant way to desensitize the next generation to biometrics,
B) a brilliant way for school officials to learn the extent to which some people would go in order to get into a "secure" computer system full of biometrics,
C) the most efficient way to have every germ-riddled student touch the exact same object immediately before eating.
D) all of the above.

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April 1, 2008

Preemptive Strike: Food Stamps and Remedial Math

We love Captain Capitalism. Currently, he has one of my pet peeves sitting smack in his crosshairs. Cap surmises that some e-mail is being forwarded in leftist circles as to this latest egregious "atrocity" against the American people. I haven't seen any such email (yet), so I hope my lefty friends aren't on to me being libertarian. But I'm not waiting for the email - I'm linking to the Captain right now in an antisocialist, math-respecting, preemptive strike.

According to the Independent,

a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis.

Maybe that's the answer. Or maybe it's 4th grade math.

All hail the Captain's graphing skills:
food%252Bstamp%252Brate2.JPG

Pass it on, my friends.

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