The Loop and The Lou

Phil Ivey

2009-11-08T23:59:00.002-05:00

As I type this post, the final table of the World Series Of Poker Main Event is underway. You've probably seen commercials on ESPN, you're probably familiar with the poker boom, how to play No Limit Texas Hold 'Em, and you have probably at least seen the gentlemen to the right's face a few times. The final table of the Main Event will air on ESPN on Tuesday night, and Phil Ivey will be one of 9 players who beat a field of over 6,000 entrants and made the final table. Beating a field of 6,000 is an incredible accomplishment for all players at the final table, but it caps off a pretty remarkable 15 year run for one Phil Ivey.

For those of you who don't know who Phil Ivey is, at the age of 18 he introduced himself to a table of 7-Card Stud regulars at a casino in Atlantic City as Jerome. On his 21st birthday he came in and reintroduced himself as Phil. Fast-forward 12 years, and he's widely considered the best poker player in the world. He plays (and wins) in the highest stakes you (he) can find, both online and live. Aside from making millions of dollars a year in poker, Ivey is also a part-owner of FullTiltPoker. (Cha-ching).

Money, talent and compulsion to gamble makes for a pretty insane life... one that I can't help but gawk at from time to time. Ivey has been asked by Tiger Woods how he handles the pressure of making million-dollar decisions. He's teased Michael Jordan, asking him why he's "nitting" it up, when Jordan "only" bets $10 grand a hand when they play BlackJack. You remember the last play of the first half of last year's Super Bowl? Ivey had the Cardinals in the first half. That play cost him $800,000 (he said he was watching the game with his mom, too, so he couldn't exactly express his true feelings at the time).

Before the beginning of the 2008 WSOP, a confident Phil Ivey laid a lot of people pretty favorable odds that he would win a bracelet in one of the tournament's 50+ events. He found many takers. Time passed, and no bracelets. More bets made. No bracelets. Big bets on NBA playoff games. No bracelets. The picture to the right sums up Phil Ivey's 2008 WSOP (Phil wasn't upset because he's a big Jazz fan).

Before the beginning of the 2009 WSOP, a confident Phil Ivey laid a lot of people even odds that he would win a bracelet in one of the tournament's 50+ events. Again, he found takers. It didn't take long before Phil won one (his 6th overall), and minutes later he was offering anyone who wanted double-or-nothing. He found takers, and won another bracelet soon after. He offered more action, but by that point no one was bold enough to bet against him.

The WSOP ends each year at the end of July with the Main Event. Ivey showed up for the Day 1 of the event coming straight from a 36-hour session at Bobby's Room. (Barry Greenstein, half-jokingly, said that unless Phil wins the $8.5 million first place prize, playing the tournament might have actually cost Ivey money. The games in Bobby's Room were pretty juicy, with pots over $1 million a few times a day.) Eight days later, play broke when Jordan Smith was eliminated in 10th place. Immediately thereafter, just like many of the seven days prior, Ivey was overheard on his mic whispering to a member of his crew, "Lock me up a seat at Bobby's."

Tournament promoters and sponsors finally got what they'd been wishing for: one of the most well-known and respected pros at the Final Table with a complete amateur like Darvin Moon, the lumberjack from Maryland. The perfect balance of a champ to pull for and a "hey, if this guy can do it..." Joe Average. Ivey only has about 30 big blinds going into the Final Table, good for 7th in chips. He'll need a little luck in the beginning to keep from being chased down by the blinds and antes, but if he does manage to chip up, look out (Las Vegas odds makers aren't too worried, laying the man 7th in chips 7:2 odds to win the whole thing).

Anyone else out there completely bedazzled by all this? Anyone else tuning in on Tuesday night to hopefully watch Ivey pull down his 8th bracelet?

Risking Death for Reproduction

2009-10-29T19:55:00.004-05:00

Have you ever noticed how many worms die on your driveway/sidewalk/curb/street? If not, the photo to the right and its informative caption should give you a frame of reference.

After a good rain, my driveway is like a virtual worm cemetery. My guess is that accidental suicide, not the hungry Robin, is the leading cause of death to Annelids everywhere.

So why do worms come up from their burrows when it rains? Is it because they will drown in their water-soaked homes? That sounds logical, but it's actually not the case. The truth is that worms don't have room to mate underground, and like its ancestors the armadillo and raccoon, must come above ground to procreate. But as many a sidewalk knows, coming up for a quick roll in the grass is a risky endeavor for these creatures. So they wait until Mother Nature sets the mood, so to speak, to keep their species alive. The only problem being that they often can't find their way back home!

I feel bad for the worms. After a moment of pleasure, they are probably too delirious to know where they're going. All of a sudden they're not on dirt anymore and just not smart enough to find their way back. Perhaps enough of the geographically-challenged members of the species will die off, and worms as a species will evolve to know how to get back to organic ground (or never leave it).

And that will make for some well-fed Robins.

And if they continue to evolve, well, we can only hope that Michael Gross is still around!

Ending the charade

2009-10-25T19:13:00.003-05:00

At this point in time, to call myself a contributor to this blog, would be like calling the University of Illinois Football team the favorites for the national championship. A few weeks or months ago, I don't know which, I tried to revive my blogability by giving new life to our Law & Order series. Not only did it send our few loyal readers back into print media, it virtually crippled ratings for the new season of L&O . . . so the research hasn't come totally back on that one yet, but the hate e-mail I got from the sole member of the Elizabeth Olivet fan club sounded pretty convincing.

The effort on my part was specifically designed to draw myself back into the blogosphere. Get blogolicious ideas floating around in my head. Get back that blogging feeling, whooooa that blogging feeeeeling. I knew no one was going to respond, but I thought maybe it would rid my brain of the only other idea I had for a post, which, fortunately for you, is the subject of this one.

I'm done. I am officially resigning my position as the Loop blogger. The only idea I've had for a blog post in the last six months was one about how I really have no desire to post anymore. While it is true that the blog has drifted in a direction that doesn't really fit my style, I can only blame myself for going into blog hibernation for 6 months at a time.

Marty, Austin or Jim (all aliases) would be more than suitable replacements for me, though only one is a true Loop native. By virtue of their commenting in the past year, they have all demonstrated that they would be a much better asset to the blog than I.

This isn't to say that I am done writing or blogging. I'm quite sure I can't delete myself from this blog and I doubt Roller is going to do it for me. Perhaps in six months to a year, we can revisit my participation on an internship level. In the meantime, my writing needs to focus on other areas. In particular, getting hired at a great company and scoring chicks. Preferably ones that have not have corrective surgery.

I can only end this by saying that this is as good as I've felt about a post in a long time. I just feel bad it had to be about me not posting anymore. Good luck everyone.

News Nits

2009-10-17T14:50:00.009-04:00

"All the news that's fit to reprint."

Whoah is we at News Nits. We have not been as on top of our game as we normally are. We apologize profusely and will do anything we can to get our readership back. Both of them. We are also excited by the addition of another contributor and hope he builds upon his debut piece. However, we will continue to count him among our readers so as not to alarm our advertisers.

It's been awhile, so News Nits is prepared to go on a tear, or a buddha shaped pear. In fact, we're going to go retrograde on your brain, reaching back for old material from before the last news nits only to switch and zoom ahead to the current time. We can not guarantee your lack of confusion. Brace yourself Neo, News Nits does not strive for coherence.

While Congress continues to expand into more corners of our lives, they cannot seem to protect what they should protect, as Chinese hackers have hacked in again to our (very expensive) Joint Strike Fighter program. For the runners among us, it appears that running shoes might be bad for your body. Run barefoot or in sandals! And while running, listen to Vatican radio. Who said religion and science are incompatible, the Vatican is building the largest solar panel field in Europe just north of Rome. Let's see Dan Brown try to undermine that.

Last April, the CFO of Freddie Mac, David Kellerman committed suicide. Let us never forget the cesspool of government corruption and regulation that has consumed more men than poor Mr. Kellerman, if it really was a suicide. If we still counted unemployment the way we did before the Clinton administration, it would be above 20%.

Recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, our president, has still failed to close Guantanamo Bay prison. Little Yemen won't even take back their own citizens. Remember when this was hailed as some sort of accomplishment? Looks like no one wants all these innocent saints. In fact, our peace loving president is reopening military trials. Perhaps he will hire Dick Cheney as a consultant. As more and more time goes by, Mr. Obama is appearing to be more and more like Mr. Bush. It is the height of arrogance or sophomoric intelligence to think that if we simply replace the regulators, things will work better.

With the swine flu starting to go around the U.S., let's take a moment to put it in context with the 10 worst epidemics in history. A man has successfully become the first U.S. patient to undergo a double hand transplant. For those of you with chilluns, do you really need the baby monitors? You're messing up my Wi-Fi, man! And if you ever get in some medical trouble, just twitter your friends, and they'll hit 911 if you can't.

In a painfully simple conversation, Rep. Steven Cohen makes a fool out of the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller. Watch for yourself, and continue to think about the differences between behavior and laws, and families and the federal government.

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
- H. H. Williams

Maybe our politicians could learn something from Mr. Williams. News Nits wonders in all honesty, WTF? What would Eric Holder think (WWEHT?). Global Climate change theories remain a work in progress, to say the least.

So let's wrap this issue up with just a few more nits. A Russian billionaire has installed an anti-picture-taking laser on his ridiculously awesome yacht. And if you haven't read about how the Netflix challenge was finally won, it's worth the read. The method that created the solution is perhaps more interesting than the solution itself. And finally, even the head of the worldbank is cautioning against giving the Federal Reserve more power (more power that Bernanke insists is necessary for our safety). If things are bad now, it's going to really hurt if the world begins to reject the U.S. dollar as the vehicle currency.

And with that thought, we return to the present moment. Have a good weekend, dear reader.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
-- G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

Trying something new

2009-09-26T23:28:00.008-04:00

I was recently talking to Roller and he told me that at some point, he hoped that a lot of people would someday contribute to this blog. Now, I have no intention of being a regular contributor and at first I didn't think much about his comment. As you may or may not know, I haven't always been the first person to adopt new technologies- in fact, I am sure I was the last person who has ever posted, commented or even read this blog to have a cell phone. But now, I am trying to turn over a new leaf. At this point, I am 75% sure that these computers thingies are going to stay around, at least for the near future. In addition, since they got this internet thing on computers now, I imagine this is going to appeal to a lot of people, including all the kids out there with their new do-dads and whats-it-nots. If you haven't checked out this "web" that stretches "worldwide" you should try it right now.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 12% of Americans create or contribute to their own online journal or blog. So if I actually submit this entry to Roller and he decides to publish it on the blog, do you see what this means? I have, for the first time in my life, become an early adapter of new technology. I will be in the elite group of bloggers, looking forever down on the 88% of those of you who have either never blogged or got into this technology after I did. That's right- AFTER I DID. I haven't felt this superior since I signed up a long time ago for a Facebook account before most people did (and then proceeded to never check my account again).

I really am making an attempt to become technologically inclined and this January an event happened in my life that forever changed me- my wife got me an iphone for Christmas. I know that people say possessions aren't everything and that they cannot make you happy. I am hear to tell you that those people are a) full of crap and b) have never owned an iphone. My iphone is the greatest toy I have ever received. I am particularly fond of the app store which I explore on a regular basis looking for new apps to download. While you can find just about anything on the app store, I have listed a few apps that I hope to God will be available for download in the near future and that I am waiting anxiously for.

Personal weather app: I know what you are thinking- "Aren't there like 10000 apps that are out there for updating you on the weather?" and, of course, the answer is yes. But this is a "personal" weather app. What it does is create a high pressure system directly around you which ensures that at all times, there are only sunny skies above you with humidity that never exceeds 30%. If you are willing to pay a little extra you can get the Frenemie add-on that allows you to create a low pressure system around anyone that you have friended on Facebook but secretly cannot stand. This will ensure rainclouds around that person at all time, no matter what the local weather is supposed to be.

Love app: as we all know, Google acquired the rights to the emotion that we call love in 2007. Since that time they have been working with the folks at Apple and have created an app that actually takes care of all the messiness (which girls like to call "romance") of that thing that we call love. This app actually sends a signal to your brain that let's you know things that no guy is supposed to know. For instance, this app will update you on such important nuggets as "If you place 1500 candles in this poorly ventilated space in the second story of your house, the carbon monoxide that is released will be assessed by your wife/girlfriend/girl-you-just-met-at-the-bar's brain as romantic and you will increase your chance of intercourse by 40%." Please try to tell me that you wouldn't pay $1.99 for this.

Diaper changer app: here is a conversation that I have actually had with my son more than once (and I'm not kidding about this)- "My god, you weigh 20 lbs. How the hell could you have just placed a 6 lbs load in your pants? Have you been packing yourself like a musket just waiting for a moment until your mom left the house?" Once you download this app, this conversation will never happen again- this app will take care of all those number two's for you. Of note, this app is not necessary for parents to download until a child turns 4-6 months old and solid foods are introduced. As we all know, this is the age in which your little angel begins to make what I like to call "man poops". It is amazing how much you can love something and yet so despise something that comes out of their body.

Babysitter app: for some reason, the department of family services in St. Louis says to me that I cannot just leave my son at home with a whistle in his crib while I go out to a bar to have a beer. For some reason, the cops that have come to my house and ticketed me for this issue don't accept "this is bulls**t" as an explanation. Once I download this app, the man will no longer be able to interfere with my god-given right to get a beer at a bar while leaving my child at home without adult supervision.

I have been following this blog and I have seen how the dynamics of the comments section works so I can anticipate some of the possible comments that may arise. As a result, I would like to post my responses to these upcoming comments here to save time:
1) Response to G: If you truly want to have an open discussion about this issue, you are going to have to bring some debatable points to the table. You cannot just state that the iphone is the spawn of Satan without providing a shred of evidence. I am going to have to know exactly how Lucifer gave birth to an iphone before we will be able discuss this issue like two grown adults. Thus, either support your statement or retract it. While you are retracting, I am also going to have to have you retract statements 2,3,5,7,13 and 15 that you made as well. Statements 4, 6, 8 and 9 were totally incomprehensible so no need to retract those. Please do not retract the nude picture of Farrah Fawcett- your argument was quite convincing and I would like to hear more of it.

2) Response to Ryan: You elitist bastard. Also, I am not so sure that it is accurate to say that a cabal of computer programmers have acted in concert with the federal reserve to use the iphone to infringe on our personal freedoms in the way that you outline. Still, here is a link to a website that contains information about people doing good things for society that Sarah Palin would label as "dangerous to America."

Finally, in keeping with tradition, I will close with a loaded question that I will present for all to comment on- would you prefer to hang out in a closed room with one of Sarah Palin's death panels that wants to kill your grandmother or a room full of adorable puppies?

30 Years of Law & Order: Part VI.I Update

2009-09-18T10:31:00.001-04:00

Now that TLATL's readership is soaring at an unprecedented rate, it is time to rekindle the series on our favorite courtroom drama, Law & Order. We've taken quite a hiatus. Since our last installment, there have been many changes. Junior Detective Nina Cassidy left the two-seven after only one year and was replaced by Det. Cyprus Lupo. Then the unthinkable, Detective Green leaves. Cyprus Lupo moves to senior detective while Kevin Bernard takes his old position of junior detective. Bernard is no stranger to the 27th precinct as he was the Internal affairs detective who investigated a shooting involving Green. The new Executive ADA is Michael Cutter. A young no-nonsense go-getter, that reminds us all of a certain young DA whose brass was a little too shiny for his saxophone. That's right, I'm talking about Robinett.

Of course I'm talking about Jizzack McCizzoy. He assumed the role of District Attorney. TLATL has made some changes of our own. We've added a member to our blogging crew. Ryan has gone from lead commenter to kick-ass contributor.

So we had to ask ourselves, how do we finish this series without starting from the top? To fix this, Roller and I took our TLATL residuals and went to Vegas. We spent six days and seven nights pouring over not only all of our previous posts but also the newer episodes of this epic drama which will air its 20th season this fall (for those keeping score at home, that's a photo of roller reassuring Coovo that there's always next year). We came up with the following:

The subject of our final post and the final position of the show is the Asst. ADA, currently held by Connie Rubirosa. She dates back far enough (2006) that she would have been considered even before the changes.

None of the new characters, I mean crime fighters, while frigging awesome, had any affect on our takes in the previous posts. I thought for a second that Lupo's performance might cancel out Green's performance giving my nod to Junior Detective nod to Logan, but I think it was just too much of Roller's single-malt scotch.

For this last post, our comrade in arms, Ryan, will give his take through the comments as he was so adept at doing for the previous 6 posts. But, when we pick our L&O Dream Team, which might be before New Year's Day, Ryan will cast a vote right along side Roller and me.

To get you back in the mood we present a special bonus: The Shrink.

There have been two profilers that have assessed the mental capacity for the district attorney's office. First is Dr. Elizabeth Olivet. Practicing for the DA's office from 1991-1997, and then again in 2002 and again in '06, '07, '08 and '09, Olivet has received favorable comparisons to both Brett Favre and Michael Myers. She recently testified for the defense in a case that Cutter was trying. McCoy warned her that the gloves would come off. Cutter reveals that she had been romantically involved with a patient, a Detective, while treating him. Ouch. I turned the channel before the verdict. Olivet fun fact: She is one of five characters to appear in all 4 Law and Order series (Criminal Intent, SVU, Trial by Jury). They don't count the short lived Law & Order: Conviction, Law & Order: UK, or Law & Order: Evidence Schmevidence. The others: Ed Green, Arthur Branch, Elizabeth Rodgers (the Medical Examiner) and our man Lenny Briscoe.

In between Olivet's stints is Dr. Emil Skoda. While Olivet seems to be more caring and compassionate, Skoda just tells it like its is. "The guys a classic case of post-traumatic stress syndrome. He knew it was wrong. You going to finish that brownie?" Skoda is a psychiatrist whereas Olivet is a clinical psycologist. Skoda misses out on the L&O grand slam by having never appeared in Trial by Jury, however Olivet never appeared in a prison "group hug" scene.

Coovo's take: Have been and always will be a Skoda guy. Olivet is a good at what she does but Skoda doesn't read through the prisoner's b.s. Pardon my French abbreviation. I always kind of liked when they brought in the shrink and liked it better when they would piss off McCoy by disagreeing with him. Which would seemingly put me in the corner of Olivet. Not quite. BBS: Bring Back Skoda!!

Roller's take: This is an interesting choice. I've always been a fan of J.K. Simmons; I think he's an excellent character actor, with the range of comedy to creepy. I never liked the Skoda character too much, but I think Simmons delivers the role exceptionally. Kind of like Casino, where I loathe Sharon Stone's character, but I think her acting was surprisingly top-notch. I don't have any complaints about Olivet, but I think the way the role was written and delivered was, in retrospect at least, somewhat typical. I'll give the nod to Skoda.

We hope you enjoyed the return of L&O, and as always, we'd like to hear your takes as well!

Law & Order

2009-09-16T13:54:00.003-04:00

TLATL's own Roller and Coovo devoted quite a series of posts to, well, quite a series on TV. It appears that they aren't the only two devotees to the great show of Law & Order. A comic I saw on Comedy Central (who did an overall pretty funny show) had some stuff to say about TLATL's favorite guilty pleasure:

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John Mulaney - Jerry Orbach

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The Audacity of Change

2009-08-27T20:03:00.003-04:00

Recently at TLATL a spirited debate over the radical healthcare reform proposed by the Obama administration and opposed weakly by the properly neutered GOP was had in our comments section of News Nits. As with many good parties, sometimes the welcome particpants get a little too drunk, stay a little too late and end up in the kitchen unwilling to go home or go to bed, so it was shut down.

In any event, the debate was complex and interesting, ranging from exploring if healthcare insurance should be considered a "right" to wondering if a program run by the federal government would even be effective at all.

In more recent posts, a video of an incompetent high up in Goldman Sachs whose job it is to oversee/investigate/audit the disbursement of public funds raised little discussion. But the same people who have poorly run the bailout fund would be running the new healthcare system in our country, which would quickly subsume 100 million Americans. So is that OK? As long as our appointed, endorsed economists are from the Ivy League and win Nobel Prizes? As long as they write for the NYT like Paul Krugman? As long as (the GOP insists) the new giant government program is bi-partisan? As long as the guy we voted for is in office? How quickly, it seems, promises are reversed and award-winning models crumble.

President Obama, for example, has maintained or even increased every single bad Bush administration policy of importance. Our aggressive foreign policy continues to expand. Although the smoke screen has been laid by closing Guantanamo (the order was signed, but it has not been executed because it's logistically maybe impossible) and by Eric Holder investigating the Bush-era behavior of the CIA (an investigation that will go nowhere), Obama has just reinstated the policy of "rendition", which essentially outsources torture. Also, Ben Bernanke (a Bush appointee) has received the full backing of Obama. No change is good change. I thought the Bush family had broken promises. This should destroy all hopes for us honest voters that meaningful change to the power establishment can be brought about by smooth talking, globalist lawyers.

This video is the best concise summary I have come across concerning not just the bailouts but the inpenetrable core of our country's financial system. And Ron Paul wants to audit the Fed, he must be crazy... Crazy like a pear!

The Most Underrated Fruit

2009-08-17T16:52:00.003-04:00

It's not the prettiest, it's not the most "passionate", it's doesn't have the most anti-oxidants, but it is the most underrated. By the power vested in me, I declare The Pear, to be #1 on Roller's List of the 100 Most Underrated Fruits.

I suggest you all go out and buy a few pears and see what you've been missing.

A word on timing: Pears that are still pretty hard to the touch can be purchased, but keep them in a bag for a day or too. When a pear feels slightly soft, they are perfect for consumption. Too soft, and they are just that - too soft and mushy.

If anyone would like to offer their own most underrated fruit list, or dispute my claim, please add your comments below, and I'll tell you why you're wrong.

America's Best and Brightest

2009-08-13T12:28:00.004-04:00

The point here, is that no matter how "smart" or "qualified" the people in place are, large sums of taxpayer money can simply disappear from oversight. Not to mention, Goldman Sachs has reported record profits. On this day, retail sales have been reported to drop again, and unemployment has gone up yet again.

Remember when we were told that if we did not bail out these giant financial institutions, then the whole world would fall apart? (this was the most concrete argument I heard during that whole time period) Well, normal people are still getting screwed, the stimulus isn't working, and the bailout worked great -- for the financial industry and banking cartel that is at the inpenetrable center of our governmental power.

And yet powerful Democrats still block Ron Paul's bill to allow Congress to audit the Federal Reserve? And Ben Bernanke's claims that he wants to expand the powers of the Fed are met with serious consideration?

It's time to start a new political party based on private people not government power. These Capitalist bankers have done such a horrible job with our country, that now people are seriously considering a Socialist alternative. We have been lied to that these are our only choices.

News Nits

2009-07-23T23:45:00.008-04:00

"All the news that's fit to reprint."

It's been awhile for news nits. And we apologize to our reader. Fact is, it looks like 95% of blogs have been abandoned by their owners. Is there a blog pound? Will blogs get put to sleep? Will large companies or Jesuit schools declare eminant domain over, uh, your old domains? We will blog about ongoing developments, irony noted.

Cool picture above is of a new cloud type that has been turning up around the world more frequently since 2005. These new clouds are being called "asperatus" which is going to totally make the weather channel more fun to watch.

A lot of people have died as well. In a short amount of time, Ed McMahon, Farrah Faucett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays all died. Only Ed McMahon was old. Farrah meant more to a previous generation, when she was super hot. Out of all these people, I felt the most sorry for Billy Mays, dead at 50. Billy Mays was the fringe product schill who turned OxiClean into a household name with a legitimate national market share. Quite a story, and through the loud pitch and funny gimmicks, you got a sense that he was a real guy just trying to make it -- refreshing honestly somehow poking through a thin but entertaining shtick. MJ was very controversial and had long ago become more myth than man, if he was ever much of a man to begin with. Anyway, behind the media images and hype of these real people, may they each rest in peace.

Fast forward nits: A 14 year old boy in Germany was walking to school and got hit by a meteorite (the size of a pea) on his hand and lived to talk about it. Unfortunately, he only spoke in German, so I couldn't understand a word. Our brave soldiers fighting our politician's wars in Afghanistan may be in this longer than they or we would have thought. According to Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Christian Cabaniss, "we're going to seize the population from the Taliban and never let them go". Hang in there guys, we'll get some real leaders in office as soon as possible. (More on that at the bottom.)

Monkeys who ate 30% fewer calories but maintained the same high levels of nutrition lived longer and way better lives. This wasn't about obesity, this was about low calorie, high nutrition diets. It's been showing up in the literature for awhile now in mice and such (and in my own experiments on my fish, Bill) but the findings in monkeys are getting us closer to our own selves.

Ben Bernanke, our nation's favorite superfreak, says he wants the Federal Reserve (a private bank run by unelected officials) to expand its role and become "supercop". Mr. Benanke sites the recent awesome jobs his little cartel has done controlling the money supply and the effects that has had on the current economy. He also sited his boy Geitner's job in doling out trillions in taxpayer money to all their old buds from Goldman Sachs. In this picture, he shows you how he will squish your little brains as you relax in the pulsing, gooey matrix and lounge on cheap patio furniture while eating bags of funions.

At least some people are getting the joke. Russ Carnahan (D - MO) runs chin first into a crowd of good old, "show me" Missourians, who just will... not.... buy this farce of a centralized, socialist style takeover of healthcare being championed by Comrade Obama (especially precious are the looks on the women's faces who sit aside their wise leader as they are shocked that anyone would question his authority, benevolence, and supreme knowledge):

"In America, we have a two-party system. There is the stupid party. And there is the evil party. I am proud to be a member of the stupid party. Periodically, the two parties get together and do something that is both stupid and evil. This is called bipartisanship.” -- Sam Francis

A Call for Class

2009-07-10T13:57:00.005-04:00

I bring to you today a tragedy I have just recently learned about. A young man named Willard Bryant Payne was recently found dead in St. Louis Forest Park. Please read a touching tribute to this man's life written by Bill McClellan in the St. Louis Post Dispatch online. I never knew or met Mr. Payne, a SLUH alum, but my brother was acquainted with him, and others in my brother's circle knew him well. They described him as "a good guy." They were shocked to learn of his death, and as they emailed each other about it, they were even more shocked to read the way his death was treated by the Riverfront Times.

I ask you, to my own dismay, to please click on the following link and read the way Chad Garrison -- a professional journalist -- wrote about Mr. Payne's death. The sarcasm and complete lack of respect, class or even basic professional prudence disgust me as much as it outraged my brother's friends who knew Bryant well.

I would ask each of you reading this, then, to make the smallest effort with a few clicks of a mouse and a few strokes on the keyboard to not only protect the honor of Mr. Payne's life but to uphold the honor we all share as being part of a class. This is not just about where you went to high school. This is about anyone who has ever belonged to a group of friends, family, or classmates whose combined honor and virtue becomes greater than that of any separate individual; so that, in turn, such honor and mutual respect is shared by all of her members.

Please take a moment to forward this post on not just to other SLUH classmates and other friends of Mr. Payne, but to other people in St. Louis who demand basic respect for their own from, at the very least, the professional media funded by businesses we own, work for and support as customers.

Then, please click here to write a brief note to the editors of the RFT requesting that Chad Garrison make a full public apology for his outrageous behavior as well as a private apology to the Payne family.

Finally, take a moment to say a prayer for Willard Bryant Payne and his family. May he rest in peace.

Read My Mind

2009-07-10T12:21:00.003-04:00

A long time ago, on a blog not-so-far away, I promised a post on Google Reader. Like everything on this blog, it just takes a while.

Google Reader is a one of many "feed readers" that are available for free. If you are unaware of the term, a feed reader is an application that allows a user to aggregate all the "feeds" to which they subscribe in one handy place. "Feeds" are just syndication of content. You've probably seen the icon on the right on various websites (including this one). It means that this site syndicates its content, and when there is new content available it will publish that content to its subscribers. This saves the subscriber from having to always go check the site for new content, and allows the publisher yet another way to get its content out to subscribers.

Is this the most exciting post ever, so far, or what? OK, so why this is cool...

The most basic reason to use Google Reader or any feed reader is that it allows you to go to one place to read all the content you normally read. Instead having to remember to go to xtreme-knitting, Angie's Romance Reviews, Curling News, The Antarctic Sun, 99 Sense, (and many more) every day, I just open Google Reader, and the latest content from each of those is right there for me to read.

Google Reader advertises itself as "the inbox of the web" you basically have all your feeds in a column on the left, and the content from each of these feeds is displayed in the center of the window. Content is either displayed as the title of the artical only, or the full article itself (I prefer the latter). You can scroll through the content pane, perusing all the latest content from your numerous feeds, sifting through until you find something you like. You can also apply labels to your feeds, and filter the content pane on those labels.

That's the jist of how feed readers work, but Google Reader has a number of other features besides syndication aggregation. For each piece of content you have the option to:

E-mail a link to the article to someone.
"Star" the content. (I think of this as bookmarking it, making it easier to find later)
Apply new labels to that content (sometimes if I want to read something but don't have the time, I label that particular item with my "Reading List" label. Then later I can filter by "Reading List" and see what I have to catch up on.
"Share" the content. Anything you "Share" will be published into a feed of all the items you have shared. And anyone else can subscribe to that. What is incredibly cool about this feature is that I can subscribe to your shared items, and then I can comment on your items, and anyone else can read that, and a discussion can happen. This "social" feature makes it so simple to see what your friends are interested in, and discuss. And of course, the only things that are published are those that you explicitly mark "Share".

Hopefully now you can see the benefits of Google Reader. It allows you to read and manage the content you want more efficiently, and at the same time share and discuss with your friends! For more animated demonstrations of Google Reader, check out the videos below. I hope you all try it out, and please let me know your thoughts!

You Make The Call! (Or Fold)

2009-06-29T20:04:00.004-04:00

Played an interesting hand of poker I thought I'd relay to everyone.

Post-tourney cash game, .50/$1 blinds. I start the hand with somewhere around $55-60. Chris has a little more than me in front of him, but he's stuck on the night. Al has maybe around $30 in front of him.

I'm the big blind. Al raises to $3 from Under the Gun (player to the left of the big blind). Action folds around to Chris, in the small blind, who calls. I look down at 7h-Th (7 hearts - 10 hearts). Calling is a little loose, but it's getting late and in the later hours we all have a little more gamble in us, Al, Chris and myself included. So I make the call. There is now $9 in the pot.

Flop comes Tc-Ts-2c. Jackpot. Chris checks. I check, expecting Al, the pre-flop raiser, will continuation bet. He doesn't.

This is where it gets interesting. Turn is a Qs, putting 2 flush draws on board. Chris bets $2. I pause for a second, and make it $7. Al thinks for a while, and just calls. Chris then raises to $14. Now there is $39 in the pot, and with the call from Al and re-raise from Chris I have to consider that I don't have the best hand.

I have three options here, fold, call or raise. With 2 flush draws on board, having to only call $7 into a pot of $39, and a very strong hand, folding isn't really an option. I glance over at Al and I can see he's holding the rest of his chips (maybe $20) in between his thumb and index finger. He's thinking of pushing. If I shove, I'll be raising a pot of $46 about $45, giving about 2-1 odds to Chris and about 3-1 to Al (as he only has $20 to call with). It's probably a play that would chase Chris and MAYBE Al off a flush draw.

Instead, I elect to just call the $7 to see what Al does, and if he pushes, to see what Chris does after that. If he pushes and Chris calls, I'll have a tough decision. Al makes a tough fold (based on his cursing under his breath). The pot is now $46.

The river is a red 3. Chris takes a few seconds, looks at his chips, and announces all in. Chris has me covered, so I'd be calling all of my $45 to win $91.

I'll post the end of the hand in the comments section in a couple days. But first, I thought it might be fun to give everyone (or at least just Ryan and Coovo) a chance to say what you'd do. I would like to hear it!

Twittermania

2009-06-24T20:39:00.006-04:00

A couple years ago, I started hearing all the tech podcasters talking about the newest fad, Twitter. Described as "micro-blogging", well you know what Twitter is. A way to syndicate a quick thought or your location to people who are interested stalking you.

Twitter grew, and grew, and with the rise in popularity came numerous outages in the service (I suppose it's hard to afford the infrastructure for ever-increasing volume when the company doesn't really have a way of generating money). But it just got more popular.

The tech podcasters had a good prediction, though. Once a celebrity (Britney was the oft-cited example) figured out how easily they could easily leverage the app as a way to reach their fan base, Twitter would explode.

And it has. Britney was perhaps one of the first, biggest stars to join (although it's believed that it's her PR people actually "tweeting"... probably because of the lack of grammar and spelling mistakes). Ashton Kutcher got in early. It was one of the many Web 2.0 tools employed effectively by the Obama campaign. Shaq started using it to give away tickets before games. Of course, the adoption of Twitter as a marketing platform by celebrities hasn't come without it's flops and moments of humor.

Then a few months ago I saw Jimmy Fallon using Twitter as a way to let fans send questions for his guests on his show. A month later I saw SportsCenter posting athletes' tweets. Pokerroad has teamed with Twitter to provide up to the minute updates during the WSOP. It's no longer a geek buzzword, it's everywhere now.

And there have been numerous rumors of tech giants in talks to buy Twitter - even though Twitter still has no way of making money!

I personally have no problem if people like to use Twitter to stay in touch with friends, follow people of interest, etc. To each his own. I think my attitude towards it kind of falls in line with this Conan bit, though:

But then, just when I feel somewhat justified for believing Twitter is a little silly, it becomes one of the only methods for getting on-the-scene news out to the world from the riots in Iran. The credibility of Twitter-based news can always be questioned, but it may be the best metaphor for the shift in "breaking news" journalism. The average citizen with a camera phone and Twitter now dictate the stories for journalists to run down.

And it's no different at TLATL. Instead of Coovo telling me what to write, me telling Ryan what to write, and Ryan telling Coovo what to write, we will be following the crowd. And what better way to dive right in than to head to Iran, meld in with the crowd, and work as undercover journalists. And you can follow it all on our Twitter feed! Hope to hear from you all soon.

Yikes!

2009-06-11T12:33:00.005-04:00

A friend of TLATL recently went on a float trip. In the morning he put on his shoes (barefoot) and even took a couple steps before he felt something fuzzy and found this guy inside. <<>>

Around The Horn

2009-05-16T13:38:00.007-04:00

"All the Hits the Nits Missed."

Hello Sports Racers, it's time for another edition of Around The Horn, or as Coovo likes to call it, "Roller's News Nits Nockoff".

South Korean scientists have cloned dogs. That glow red in the dark. No kidding. When I first heard of this, it reminded me of a trick we computer geeks use to spin our defects as "features".

User: Why was there an "H" appended to all the information I entered?

Geek: Uh, that's our new "Info+H" feature. Do you like it?

User: Can I fix it by rebooting?

The scientist have inserted "fluorescent genes" into the dogs (this is actually similar to another computer science pattern known as Dependency Injection). The success of this experiment suggests that scientists could inject other types of genes. Said South Korean scientist Jin Fong-du, "Having proven that we can inject genes into a living animal, we can now expand our research to include injecting other types of genes. By 2011, we could have dogs that glow blue, or possibly purple." OK, I made that quote up. Pretty cool, though.

Religious fanatics have denounced the testing, noting that if you spell "glowing dog" backwards, you get "god gniwolg". It's hard to argue with that.

This isn't the most recent of news, but has been on my plate for a while. A little over a month ago, AT&T network lines were vandalized in the San Franscisco Bay area. In two separate locations, someone opened a manhole, climbed down 10 feet and cut some network cables. For most of the next day, there were outages to cell phone, internet, land line and even 911 Emergency access.

Conspiracy theorists were quick to paint this as a terrorist rehearsal for a major nation-wide coordinated attack. But I don't think that adds up, as terrorists most likely would have blown themselves up to sever the network cables.

Lending even less credence to the terrorist theory is the fact that the AT&T's contract with the Communications Workers of America expired about 5 days prior to the "attack". Union leadership downplayed the notion that a union member could have been involved. Right. Because everyone knows which manhole covers lead to AT&T's network cables, and which lead to secret Craigslist parties.

Maybe AT&T should follow Texas' lead in equipment protection. Texas fire ants can inflict up to $1 billion a year in damages to electrical equipment (and those are non-arsen related numbers). The solution? As described in a recent US News article, introduce a South American phorid fly that somehow lays eggs inside the ant. Then when a maggot hatches from an egg it eats the ant's brain. The ant still wanders around for a couple weeks like a zombie, before its head falls off and the fly pops out and goes after another ant.

Awesome! Until next time...

You want a post?

2009-05-08T08:37:00.007-04:00

I'm your Huckleberry.

Manny. Big news. The primary use for the drug he used is to help increase ovulation. Manny being trans-Manny. I'm not sure I feel caught up on what happened though. I'm watching Mike and Mike in the morning and so far they've only interviewed, Peter Gammons, Jayson Stark, Bob Ryan and Buster Olney. If only I knew what Jose Canseco was thinking. Oh wait, they played audio clips from him too. Remember when Canseco said no one wanted Manny because he was on that list that A-Rod was on? Please stop giving this guy credibility. PLEASE!

There's a few other television related items that are "grinding my gears" so to speak. When I went to espn.com to link the above story, I was met with a video commercial for what is now my least favorite jingle. It was never my favorite, but when I hear "Five. . . Five dollar . . ." I cringe. I love to eat them, but I don't want to hear anyone sing that song ever again. Give me Jared and John Cena arm wrestling.

I fell asleep with the TV on the other night. In my daze, I heard " Oh, it's a double-pisted chesty!" I sat straight up, grabbed my Louisville slugger and beat my TV to a pulp.

Lastly, since I don't have digital cable, DirectTV or Tivo, I still channel flip. VH1 has seemingly cornered the market on sleazy dating shows. There newest is The Cougar. I didn't link it but I'm sure you can find it if you want. Memo to anyone who is considering going on any of theses shows, male or female: You are a dirty human. (p.s. sorry that third chick is only half in the picture).

Country Music Marathon

2009-05-01T13:33:00.008-04:00

Late last year, friend of TLATL Matt D. asked me if I wanted to run a marathon with him. I'd always wanted to do one, and I figured it would be great to train with someone else. So we started training at the beginning of February with our sites on the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, TN.

The training regimen is pretty strait forward: run 4-6 miles 3-4 times during the week, and then do one long run on the weekend. The first long run should be about however long you can run at the time, and then add a mile or two onto that each week. Your last long run should be two weeks before the marathon, and should be about 22-23 miles.

Matt and I did as many long runs together as we could, but it became apparent as we got to the 18 and 20 mile runs that he was running at a faster pace. I didn't want to slow him down, and I actually did better running solo anyway, because I wasn't trying to keep his pace. So we decided to run the marathon separately.

We arrived at the race together and split up into our respective "corrals". Each runner is assigned a corral based on their projected finish time, and each corral is released 2 minutes after the previous corral. The idea, of course, is that runners spend as little time passing other runners because the faster runners are ahead of them and the slower runners are behind them. In crowded races that makes a big difference. Just like the previous two half-marathons I'd run, though, there were plenty of "walkers" and people who were obviously not going to finish in their corral's projected time. It's pretty frustrating having to make your way around them. But enough complaining...

My assigned corral was 13, based on a 4:20:00 projected finish (just under 10 minutes / mile). Unfortunately my start was delayed by a... biological issue... coupled with some poor execution by the event planners. Probably not something everyone wants to read about, but in retrospect it was kind of comical. I ended up leaving with corral 18... and off I went on my first marathon.

I have a running playlist in my iPod, but didn't feel like getting to that right away. I'd also enjoyed listening to podcasts/audiobooks on my long runs, as they helped me maintain a consistent pace. But I felt like music... and felt like Gomez' "Bring It On".

I hit the first water stand around 2 miles in and chugged two Cytomax's (some athletic drink that must have paid more money than Gatorade to sponsor the event). The high for the day was going to be 87... way higher than anything in which I'd trained, and generally really hot for a marathon. I decided before the race I'd get at least 2 cups of Cytomax or water at each of the 20 water stands throughout the race.

I also passed the first of 27 bands playing along the marathon route. Pretty cool...

In the commotion of passing people in the first crowded few miles, I didn't actually see a timer at any mile markers until mile 5. I checked my iPod as I crossed the starting line and noticed I was starting 35 minutes late. Some quick math I realized I had done the first 5 miles in 40 minutes. Whoops. I felt great, but that was way too fast for my projected time. I was able to catch the mile markers in the next five miles, and was going about 10 minutes / mile... and felt great.

Next album... Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" (skipped No Quarter). Around mile 11 the half-marathoners peel away and head for their finish line. It was nice to get some space!

I completed the first half of the marathon in 2:05. A little faster than I probably should have, and I was starting to feel the effects of the heat a little. I put on a podcast in hopes that I could slow my pace a little. The first half of the marathon was pretty hilly, but fortunately the second half wouldn't be too bad.

My gut was starting to churn some more, and as frustrating as it was, it was becoming evident that I wouldn't be able to hold it off the whole race. By mile 18 my biological issues were calling again and I had to duck into a Johnny on the Spot for about 8 minutes (I kept track on my iPod and figured I would be justified in subtracting this from my finish time). Back on the course and feeling a little rejuvenated, I turn to "Paul's Boutique". Haven't listened to that album in a while... it's still great ("Drive By Eggings - plaguing L.A.! - 'Yo, they just got my little cousin, ese!'").

Around mile 20 I'm pretty tired, but I know I only have a 10 K to go. Saw a great sign "UR Feet Hurt Cuz You Kick Ass" on the sidelines. The many people cheering at all phases of the race is great...

My longest training run was a little over 22 miles and as was the case with each long run, I never felt too bad until I eclipsed the distance of the previous run. Then you really start to ache. It's not your lungs at all, like in a short race. Basically everything from your hips on down is just sore, and if you try to push it a little harder your legs yell at you.

Mile 24... Pain, but the end is so close! Lots of people walking at this point, which is actually helpful, as it's a psychological lift to pass them.

Halfway through mile 25 I start "Working Man" by Plants and Animals to carry me in. It's a great running song.

At mile 26 I see Matt and his wife Lisa (who snapped the photo) and their friends. Time to pick it up and cruise on into the finish. Lots of cheering fans on both sides, a fun experience to finish!

After the race I ate a huge meal, took a nap and then went to an old friend's for dinner that night. They asked me if I would ever run another one, and at that point I didn't think so. Up to the race I was planning on it being a "one and done", as most doctors will tell you that being a distance runner is horrible for your body. But by the next day I had the itch to do it again. I can't imagine that I'll do another soon, as it takes too much time away from my family to do these too often. I may or may not ever do another one, but I at least hope to maintain my fitness level - over the course of training I dropped 17 lbs. that I definitely didn't need!

And of course, a special thanks to my wife, who supported me throughout the training and never complained once!

Oh, yeah, I finished in 4:46:44 (that's before subtracting my "break"). A lot slower than I was hoping for, but I'm happy to have completed it. Matt finished in 3:55:48, his best time in the 3 marathons he's run!

Here are the winners (surprise, they're Kenyans!). Just before this picture was taken, the M.C. said "How can you be a Kenyan and NOT win a marathon?"

News Nits

2009-04-16T19:34:00.006-04:00

"All the news that's fit to reprint."

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
- Richard Feynman

News Nits tries to update all the news that isn't bled to death in the mainstream media. However, sometimes the news is too interesting to deny its coverage. How 'bout them pirates? The activity off the coast of Somalia has been on the uptick, with modern pirates having been paid off to the tune of $150 million this year alone. They have apparently not killed anyone, but as we've come to see, they mean business and the stakes are high. News Nits wonders if they go bankrupt, are they too big to fail? Oh, Jack Sparrow, why can't all pirates be like you?

Lots has been going on in the news. In no particular order...Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was apparently clean of illegal wrongdoing (no word on if what Senators do is "ethical"). The judge is now launching an investigation into the ethics of the prosecuter's office. Pretty nasty when politics enters the courtroom. Sounds like a case of Law & Order, but no body.

American business dude, Charles Simonyi, went to space for the second time, hung out in the space station, probably ate a few burrittos, called it science and got back safely. Either way, cool for him. He's now $35 million lighter, so to speak, and I guess the Russians are the only ones honest enough to just open their program up to high bidders.

Although our Presidential Face has signaled for light at the end of the tunnel, wholesale inventories dropped by their largest amount in 17 years. That's a sign that businesses are still ramping down. Expect more layoffs. Expect lower earnings. Boooooo. News Nits wishes it could blame the Commies for this economy, but it's the Capitalists' fault this time.

For all the "conservatives" out there, be careful what you wish for. All the power expanded and usurped by the Bush administration under the Patriot Act has now switched hands. In a weird move, the Obama administration is lumping veterans, anti-abortion activists, and third party candidates all into the same, vast right-wing wastebasket to target for criminalization. In my own dear Missouri, the Missouri Information Analysis Center has issued official warnings to the state patrol identifying the new generation of terrorists in our country:

The report warned law enforcement agencies to watch for suspicious individuals who may have bumper stickers for third-party political candidates such as Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.

It further warned law enforcement to watch out for individuals with "radical" ideologies based on Christian views, such as opposing illegal immigration, abortion and federal taxes.

Does this woman look like someone whose judgement you trust? In related news, a 25-year old man, Steve Bierfeldt, was detained for half an hour in a windowless room and interrogated at Lambert Airport for daring to get onto a plane with $4700 in cash. News Nits know our currency continues to be worth less and less, but apparently it is now also contraband. It won't be long until the next Janet Reno is knocking on, or down, your door.

Back to the cool parts of the world. An Australian cattle dog named Sophie Tucker was knocked off of the sailboat her masters were on off the coast of Australia. She swam 5 nautical miles to a deserted island, where she lived on baby goats for 4 months. She became somewhat wild and was difficult to subdue when rangers discovered her. However, her owners say it took no time for her to readjust to the comfy life. That's just Sophie being Sophie.

Even the sun is in a slump. The sun's cycle of sunspots has hit new lows, 100 year lows, and could provide interesting data going forward. One of the main theories to explain global warming is the increase in sunspots over the past 100 years has warmed the oceans, which have then burped more CO2 into the atmosphere. Yeah, planetary warmth leads CO2, not the other way around: stay tuned, nerds.

In more fun science, there's a tiny plant that feeds on poop and could help solve some very big problems in our world, if the corn lobby doesn't get in its way. It's a classic "poop-win-win" scenario.

News Nits has gone under deep cover to find out that the CIA has fired its contractors running the infamous "secret prisons". This could only mean one thing, though, a new black market for secret SECRET prisons.

Back to science, the edge of space has been found, and it's surprisingly not in North Dakota. But if you are ever fishing in North Dakota, or anywhere else, and you get a fish hook stuck in you, here is how to remove it. This is only useful if you are dumb enough to fish without dynamite. No cure has been found for getting dynamite stuck in you. We think the secret SECRET prisons are working on it though.

In some bummer news, the Shriners have announced they need to close a bunch of their hospitals due to a downturn in contributions and a drop in endowment. The Shriners, in addition to entertaining untold thousands with goofy hats and tiny vehicles, have done a lot of good for a lot of people, so it is sad to see this happen. They are apparently not big enough or corrupt enough to be bailed out.

And finally, comrade Roller dished out a serious examination of alternative media sources in a previous post. Steven Levy of Wired apparently read the column and wrote up some of his own experiences as well. There's just no replacing big screens and high quality I guess. But don't throw away your internet connection just yet. The LoopAndTheLou continues to serve our loyal readers!

If only we could turn a buck or two on this site, we might even be able to help out those Shriners.

One time, this guy handed me a picture of him, he said,"Here's a picture of me when I was younger." Every picture of you is when you were younger. "Here's a picture of me when I'm older." "You son-of-a-bitch! How'd you pull that off? Lemme see that camera!" - Mitch Hedberg

[Disclaimer: News Nits apologizes in advance for posting such a large picture of Janet Napolitano.]

An Opening Day Manifesto (sort of)

2009-04-06T20:01:00.013-04:00

Even though it was snowing here in Champaign-Urbana, (my Loop cohorts got 3-5 inches) there was something in the air today that let you know that today was different than last Monday. Ok wisecracks, yes, there was snow. However, there was a some kind of sensation that made you know there was baseball yesterday. It was in Philadelphia, where the defending champion Phillies dropped a game to the Braves, 4-1. Derek Lowe picthed 8 scoreless innings, which is awesome, because he's on my fantasy team.

As I always, I begin this baseball season wondering if the Cubs can do it. If you don't know what it means, pull up your favorite search engine and type in Cubs and World Series.

My excitement is tempered by last years postseason flop, even though the pundits are calling for the Cubs to claim the Central division for a third straight year. Other things have changed too. For the first time in 8 years, I'm don't live in Chicago for Opening Day. Champaign-Urbana is a hybrid of Cubs and Cardinal fans with some White Sox fans sprinkled in. Much to my dismay, no Kerry Wood on the Cubs for the first time in 11 years.

I also begin this season with one less person on my roster of Cub fans. My Nana, known to the government as Rosemary Dowling Boyle, passed away last June. When I lived in St. Louis, there wasn't a Chicago Tribune pre-season special section that wasn't shipped to me by her. As she got older and lost a lot of her mobility, she found comfort and enjopyment just sitting and watching the Cubs. She learned more about baseball after the age of 75 then I think a lot of people learn their whole lives. She would be soooo upset if she found out it was a day game and she missed it. Here are some of the great baseball Nanaisms from over the years.

She always impersonated Carlos Zambrano's point to the sky whenever she saw it on TV. And in the last game she attended, which Zambrano started.
"Oh hi Tim, are you watching the game?" "They played this afternoon Nana, you're watching a replay of the game." "I was wondering why it was so light! Well, don't tell me who wins . . ."
My brother overhearing Nana explaining what an RBI was to her Filipino caretaker. Marty has never been so proud.
"You know I actually saw Wood smile the other day . . ."
"Oh! Look at coach! " Usually when Pinella had a nasty snarl on his face.
Her trying to say Fukudome.

The Cubs have become very fashionable over the last couple years. And at times, it's irksome to go to a game and see people with Cubs beads and Prior shirts who don't know that Prior is gone, but the Cubs are so entrenched in my family roots, I can't tear myself away from them. I am watching them play the Astros right now and I can't believe I am rooting for Milton Bradley! But he's a Cub.

I know many of our loyal readers, despite your probable allegiances to the team from the Lou, have similar stories and similar feelings. Feel free to share them in the comments. I'm not going to read them, but I love when people comment on my posts. Its the only thing that gives me self-worth since they canceled Coach.

While I don't think the spike in bunting sales will bring back the economy, baseball being back is good for this country, but not good for my tendencies in putting off homework. Play Ball!

A Conservative Manifesto

2009-04-01T19:08:00.007-04:00

"If Western man in the future should recover his analytical ability, our times will be known as the age in which trivia replaced culture and bureaucracy replaced life." – Clyde N. Wilson

It has discouraged me to see how unable or unwilling people in our country are to find constructive change. Instead, public brands are swapped with shallow victories being claimed by either side; the lesser of two evils being still evil.

Then it occurred to me that maybe it's because there's a real shortage of ideas and leadership, afterall, listening to the news and the political parties speak is worse than listening to the bleating of sheep. At least sheep give wool. Maybe the genuine efforts for change have simply not been said outloud enough times to introduce them to people as real possibilities. Maybe it is time to remove the trivia and bureacracy from our lives and push for the substance of culture and a vivid life.

I present to you a common sense, conservative manifesto. This is free for debate, but it is not open to the criticism of being too radical or impossible, those being hollow charges since everything proposed here, at one time, has existed in some form.

Taxation

Taxation should never be a consideration in anyone's life. The fact that it not only weighs on our time and minds every April 15th; the fact that business people actually make otherwise pure business decisions on its consdideration; the fact that politicians are constantly manipulating we the people with the minutia of it all lead to the conclusion that it is a big, huge mess that no politician has ever dealt with. The GOP offers tax cuts, pitting the middle class against the working poor. The Democrats raise taxes on the rich to transfer it to the non-working poor, pitting the poor against the rich and the middle class against eveyone. This absurd policy in combination is designed to keep the average taxpayer dizzy and voting along simplistic lines.

So let me start the proposed tax code off along some simple guiding principles. Every citizen should be taxed in some way – no one is above or below paying their share. Taxes should be simple and easy to pay – there is no comfort or advantage to the people in complexity. The goal is to have every person pay their taxes for the year in what would be a 15 minute ordeal on a form the size of a postcard. The current tax code is over 16,000 pages, and if you order a copy from the guvment, it comes in 20 volumes and costs $974. I see no reason the code can't be simpified to the front and back of single sheet of paper.

The first stab: A flat tax of 15% on the combined income from wages/tips, dividends, interest, and capital gains. If I left anything out, I didn't mean to. All income, including SS, combined into one pot minus 15%. No deductions, no loopholes, no rebates. The rich currently hide their great wealth in trust bundles and other such paid-for loopholes. Many poor currently don't pay taxes (rather receive paychecks from the guvment) and develop bad attitudes that deepen the nasty cycle of poverty and helplessness. This would also apply to all corporate taxes which are currently at record highs in our country.

The 15% reflects a replacement rate as calculated by several economists (who actually estimated the number in the lower teens, but I'm making it simple). Critics who multiply 15% by the stated income of citizens in some year and claim it wouldn't be enough are not doing an accurate estimation. The rich always hide income from high tax rates, thus income declared would go up (this has been proven over and over again).

People who cry for the poor and say they should pay no taxes are free to subsidize any charity they want with their own money and get involved with social work if that is their calling. But our country is in desperate need of a citizen identity, and this is a great way for the poor of our country to take pride and sign up! It will also draw a firm line in the sand between honest citizens and illegal aliens.

National Economics

National Economics is tricky to even talk about because we have been lied to for so long, and our words now have slid around so much that even an honest debate is confusing rather than enlightening. We have been tricked into thinking that the off-shoring of jobs is a good thing since we can now buy cheap crap at Wal-Mart. We have been tricked into thinking that whatever is good for Wall Street or global bankers, must be good for the country since instead of a loan costing 7% interest, it costs 5.5%. We have been tricked into thinking that an invented and construed "Economy" based on 70% consumption is truly creating wealth for anyone but the owners of the companies who have off-shored jobs and pocketed the profits rather than passing on the savings. We have been tricked into thinking that the Consumer Price Index controlled and manipulated by bankers reflects inflation, rather than the actual money supply in our economy. And we have been tricked into thinking we can grow economically through increased debt in order to make our current debt seem smaller - yet this borrowed growth is from buying stuff, not from making good investments.

All of these tricks have worked to the benefit of the tricksters and the harm of the average American. The silence of the middle class bought through inordinately large gains in the stock market for our retirement funds has been shattered when false gain after false gain has been burst like a bubble. The manufacturing base of our country has been auctioned off, and the profits pocketed by the few. The dollar has been debased and weakened to fund this mania and, as a result, our wages and savings have gone down.

First step: dissolve the federal reserve and give Congress direct audit over the money supply of the Treasury. The current federal reserve is actually the third instance of a national bank in our history, the other two having been destroyed by the people for their greed and dishonesty. It can happen again. Interest rates can be controlled by the free market of local and regional bankers, it doesn't need to be "established" by a central authority. We at least have all seen the harm Alan Greenspan has caused that would not have been so easy to do by spreading out risk assessments to all bankers. Not all bankers are foolish, especially if they know they hold their own loans and know there will be no bailouts for them if they go bust.

Return to the gold standard or some hard asset standard. People think this is arcane or foolish, but it had governed our country well until 1971. Read about the Bretton-Woods agreement on your own time. Look at graphs of the value of gold and the dollar and oil since 1971. Gold or precious metals make an ideal backing of currency. They do not prevent inflation by their own virtue, but they give us an honest way to make measurements. Imagine in contrast, if the federal reserve changed the size of a 12-inch foot whenever it wanted to, how that would throw so much uncertainty into the builders across our nation. This is the problem that is most fundamental to the recovery of our currency, or else all other efforts will only have temporary effects and then fail.

Undo all bailouts. Reduce spending at the national level by at least $1 trillion. This would return us to those poor, horrible days of 2006, when we only spent $2.6 trillion. Remember how poor we all were back then, when the government spent so little? It is shocking that so many honest men still think the government has, at any point in history, ever helped spend our way into prosperity – that it controls the economy. What slaves we've become!

The argument over earmarks is silly. If our national budget in 2008 were scaled down to $30,000 (a number we can all understand), earmarks would be $16. A much more prominant part of our budget would be spending on military adventures and security, to the tune of $1 trillion, or in our scaled version, $10,000 – roughly 1/3 of our expenditures. That is insane and needs to be reduced sharply.

Honor all promises for Social Security, yet tourniquet it. We have an outstanding promise of $40-50 TRILLION (4x-5x our current national debt) in benefits that our leaders have ignored. This is a broken system which we need to give people a way out of. Enable people entering the workforce to opt-out. I would gladly do this now, surrendering even what I have already paid in, if it meant I would pay no more and not receive any either.

National Sovereignty and Border Control

Since we have already stated all citizens will pay taxes, then all non-citizens must go. That's right, deport all 12-20 million illegal aliens in this country. This would not only reduce the amount of financial burden on our country but would eliminate huge state costs that are rarely added up and totalled. It would also have the benefit of creating 12-20 million jobs overnight. These jobs are preferable to the jobs the government is claiming to create out of thin air, because these jobs are in demand by industry and are sustainable.

The many troops we have out patrolling the borders of other nations could come home and in relative peace and at a fraction of the cost could patrol our own borders to fill out the remainder of their tours. The situation along the Mexican border is getting really violent, although we'll deal with the causes of that next. But let's also not forget all the terrorists who committed 9/11 came through our friendly northern neighbor's borders.

An additional aspect of national sovereignty is to acknowledge that we have an economic border as well. Those people who wish to conduct business across our borders should pay the cost of opening such breaches of physical and economic security. A simple 1% import tax on all goods and services should do the trick and hopefully reinforce the true cost of shipping jobs overseas (which always depends on shipping cheap products back to our large consumption markets). It is not that no jobs should ever be shipped overseas, but we should not overtly encourage this behavior nor subsidize the profitability of it.

A final point about national economics. Nations rich in a diversity of natural resources do not rely upon imports to survive. Nations like Saudi Arabia need imports, so their approach might be different. But technically speaking, we should need to import nothing of basic importance, just luxury items from other cultures. We are capable of producing and supplying all of our own needs in our own free markets. The drive for profits that destroys these markets within is an unpatriotic one. All discussions on "free market" economics are thrown out the window when it comes to international trade; especially, when we do not even allow free markets within our own borders.

Wars on Concepts and Inanimate Objects

We must stop fighting wars on concepts and inanimate objects, like terrorism and drugs or guns. These wars can never be won. They are indeed targeting very big problems to the people of our country, just not problems that should be fought by the military. The war on drugs diverts billions of dollars away from security or paying down the debt and increases the strain on our borders (which costs us more money in border control). The violence it causes within our country is undeniable and rips apart communities even moreso in supply nations throughout Central and northern South America. Yet, the benefits of the war on drugs is not clear at all. Making puritans feel better about themselves or relieving parents of talking to their children about reality do not count.

At least let's start with decriminalizing marijuana. From what I understand, Amsterdam – where pot and other drugs are extremely tolerated – has a lower abuse rate than the U.S. So where is the benefit on that front? We are also missing out on a huge form of tax revenue as well as stomping all over civil liberties with this silly war started by Nixon. Drug addiction, a horrible problem, is mostly a medical one and should be treated as such. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This does not speak well of a rich, free society; no, this is the same way communist Russia behaved. It is also an unnecessary drain on our taxes. Half of these people in jail are non-violent drug offenders. This policy has especially decimated minority communities to no good end, turning future fathers, business, and commumity leaders into drug-selling criminals.

The War on Terror is no different. The language about it is exactly the same as the language from the War on Drugs. This is not about ignoring the real threats to our people – quite the opposite. This is about not flying off the handle and committing our brave soldiers to doing things the military shouldn't do. The military shouldn't be in charge of building hospitals and schools and other nation-buiding nonsense. The military shouldn't ask our brave soldiers to be sitting duck targets for cowardly terrorists. The military should be in charge of killing as many enemies as possible, blowing up all their assets and coming home job well done.

These unending conflicts are so harmful to our people. Return to the Christian Just War theory, which says at the very least, we should not attack someone who has not attacked us first or who is not very clearly about to (and able to) attack us. The follies in the Middle East, Vietnam, and Korea have all departed from this theory and have all sacrificed the lives of far too many brave and honorable men while squandering our globally deserved good will as a righteous nation. As Eisenhower told JFK when he assumed the presidency, "America is carrying far more than her share of the free world defense." This remains far more caricatured today.

Judges and Governance

We need to return to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was originally written to constrain the federal government from becoming overbearing against the people. Now, it has been switched around to enable the federal government to constrain our rights! The concept of true liberty is almost dead in our country. Being free is so much more than just being able to go to the mall with a new credit card. Our inner cities are filled with economic slaves living in a rotten culture. Our suburbs are filled with the silence and contentment of paid people. We are more afraid to hurt people's feelings than we are to stand for truth and be critical of falsehoods when we see them.

Our federal government is in a shambles now and has been for at least my whole life. The President is either a hero or scapegoat, but a false idol to all. The Congress stands for almost nothing, as these elected representatives become soft and corrupt after just a few months in D.C. To fill that mushy gap, our judges have been legislating from the benches, interepreting laws based on the effects they have on people, the popularity of the laws, and how they, themselves, feel about politics. Such judges need to be replaced, from the top down, with judges who only seek to square any current rulings with the standard laws of the past.

Presidents need to stop signing into law every piece of dishonest legislation that comes in front of them, which today is almost every single bill. If only a man could be more concerned with his country than his own perceived legacy. Keeping Congress greased and the people dull is a horrible way to waste a legacy. We should only elect honest people to the Congress and Senate. Term limits have not worked, and they have not gotten us off the hook.

***

Our country used to be a free republic, where people could live as they pleased within their own communities. Taxes were not so high so as to make living off of one's own private land impossible. The economics were not so skewed and dishonest so as to make having more than two children nearly impossible. The morality of the people on average was high enough to consider all of us free men without the need for a nanny state.

This republic has been bought and sold like a slave in the name of progress. We are now left with its ruin and the prospects of a crumbling empire. Unless these fundamental problems in our government are dealt with, we will have to settle for more brand-switching and lying manipulation. We will have to have fewer children who will inherit less, financially, morally, and culturally. The founders of our country would not recognize the state of affairs if they could see us now. They would assume their country has been destroyed and a different one stole their name and existed in its place.

We must look to the past to see what has worked, so that we might look to a more enduring future. May God bless us all in these efforts.

News Nits

2009-03-24T19:29:00.008-04:00

"All the news that's fit to reprint."

It's been awhile for News Nits. If you have been following the news at all, then it's clear there are too many nits to pick since our last installment. So, let's keep this just to the main news items that might be slightly downplayed in our press.

It's been an exciting month with our long time friend, China. China is much bigger than us in people and much smarter than us in their patience. Why strike an enemy when they are strong? Well, things are starting to cook between us, and the U.S. has never been weaker than she is now.

For years, China has been buying up U.S. reserves and treasury bills. They are not alone, but they are doing it on an incredibly grand scale. Our currency and our T-bills are the foundation of our entire economy. As long as China plays by the rules of the international bankers, there should be no problems. But what if China says "screw the white devils" and starts to sell off all their U.S. reserves? This has been referred to as China's "nuclear option". Playing into this trap by borrowing more and more while exporting less and less while also importing more and more from China has been how the past several U.S. presidents have bought their way out of recessions. It's been a hot potato time bomb, and our current president is accelerating the process.

As our economy really started tanking and the new face in the White House did not magically improve the economy, some funny things started happening in close succession. This is important. First, some Chinese Navy ships started bumping butts with an unarmed U.S. Naval vessel in international waters. Keep in mind, China has 20-30 million surplus males in their 20s-30s who have no hope of getting married or becoming family men. These "bare branches" are mostly being absorbed into the military.

Then, a few days later, China's Premier, Wen Jiabao announced that he is concerned with the health of the U.S. economy and our ability to honor our nearly $2 trillion committment to the health of the Chinese economy. (That's right, every time we borrow more money to "stimulate" the U.S. economy, we are really stimulating the Chinese economy!)

Finally, just today, China has announced that it is time to remove the U.S. currency as the standard currency (or "vehicle currency") of the world. This is sort of like if a huge part of the U.S. suddenly rejected Mastercard, but we're Mastercard. This is not good. Putin has been beating the drums in the background as well and is no doubt joining China in this effort.

"I just want to remind you that, just a year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasised the US economy's fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects... Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist. In just twelve months, they have posted losses exceeding the profits they made in the last 25 years. This example alone reflects the real situation better than any criticism." -- Vladmir Putin, at the Davos meeting in Switzerland, 2009

If you don't think our system is broken, then you are not following the news. News Nits will not cover the AIG bonus scandal because it is so ridiculous, it is not worth reprinting. The bailout is ridiculous; the bonuses are ridiculous; the posturing of outrage by politicians is ridiculous; the half-assed attempt to tax the bonuses back is ridiculous; the coercion of getting bonuses back from 9 of the top 10 bonus "earners" is ridiculous. How these crooks get paid so much money and then get subsidized by our government (supposedly, sworn to represent the people, not some people) to run a company and a large part of the country into the ground when they should at least be going broke like the rest of us if not going to jail is beyond News Nits.

In other news, can you trust your doctor? In an interesting commentary, a recent article in Newsweek explains "Why Doctors Hate Science." Ms. Begley explains that local cultures dictate practice moreso than scientific standards.
Along these lines is a rapid increase in exposure to radiation that Americans have experienced from an increase in scans since 1980. It remains unclear how much local medical practice is affected by profits, patient ignornance, or inertia from old standards.

What happens when there are no more nukes to knock out of the sky with lasers? Easy, turn the lasers on mosquitos. What? Yup. Throw away that old bug zapper, using the same basic technology that was used for the missile shield, this laser kills mosquitos one by one from a hundred feet away.

Deborah Solomon conducted an interesting, albeit brief, interview with Zambia native Dambisa Moyo, who explains why massive foreign aid from the U.S. government causes far more problems than it solves. If you don't read his interview, be clear, he is not knocking active charities who are proactively helping real people solve problems, and connecting your bankbooks with them. He is knocking the phoniness of celebrities who care and the incredible harm that large governments do when dishing out "charity" through "proper channels."

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it. -- Mitch Hedberg

I Browse

2009-03-17T21:50:00.001-04:00

If you were viewing this blog in the mid 1990's you would most likely be trying to escape from your roommate shouting along with his 2-Pac cd, while he glares intensely at your Alicia Silverstone poster. All you wanna do is read about Law & Order on this futuristic "blog" thing. You can read about one line at a time as your Netscape Navigator browser and 14.4 baud modem slowly render the page.

If you were viewing this blog in the late 1990's you would most likely be trying to escape from your roommate who, every time you looked at him would yell "Waaaaazzzzzzzuuuuuuppp!!!" at you while he pumped "Who Let The Dogs Out!?!" on repeat. Unfortunately, your 56 K modem was still pretty slow, and Internet Explorer 4 crashed pretty frequently. And who were these crackpots talking about a black president, anyway?

Fortunately, the days of a single dominant browser are over. There is competition aplenty, and you can choose from several different applications to get your internet on.

Let's start with what is still the king. Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on Windows Operating Systems, and because a lot of users don't know that there are other options, it is still the most commonly used browser. In it's glory days, IE 6 was used in over 90% of all browser traffic, and did more than its part to spread viruses and trojans around the world. I'm sure IE 6 was a hacker's favorite browser.

IE 7 was introduced in the last 2 years, its selling point that it was more secure than v6 and offered multiple tabs per browser window, an obvious response to the popularity of that feature that Firefox had been providing for a while. IE 8 is still in beta testing, but boasts even better security than v7 and performance that is at least in the same conversation as high performing browsers.

The next most popular browser, and my favorite, is Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is fast, has a number of shortcuts, and best of all it's extendable. Firefox allows for a number of custom build add-ons to its browser, providing even greater functionality. My favorites:

Ad Block Plus: Too many ads on the page you're trying to read? Are the slowing down the rendering of the page? Ad Block Plus will detect ads and stop them from rendering.
Cooliris: This is an incredible cool way to search for images. I can't really describe it; you'll just have to check it out for yourself. But take the tour - it's great (especially with two-finger-scroll).
Foxmarks: Do you have more than one computer? Doesn't it get annoying managing different sets of bookmarks on each one? Foxmarks takes care of that for you by synching all your bookmarks. Just install Foxmarks on each computer you use, and it does the rest. Very useful.
Fire.fm: Puts a small bar at the top of the browser that lets you listen to your last.fm stations while you surf.

These are just a few; there are countless to choose from. I do want to note that these are applications that are written by Joe Developer. So there are security risks. I generally stick to the add-ons that are very highly rated and used by tens or even hundreds of thousands of people.

If you own a Mac, you have Safari installed on your machine. Safari is a good browser. Secure, fast, and along with the Mac itself, it's slowly penetrating the market.

Opera is an interesting story. Strait out of Norway, the Opera browser has been around for over a decade. It is another good, fast browser. It has a small number of die-hard users, but has never gained traction in the mass market.

Lastly, there is Google Chrome. Only recently released, it boasts that it is the fastest browser yet. Speed, in all of these cases, is not determined by your connection speed (which for the most part is out of the browser's control), but the speed by which the content returned is rendered. As sites get more and more complex/fancy, the speed of a browser is actually pretty noticeable. If you want to test this, use different browsers to load a site like ESPN, which is a pretty busy site. A drawback to chrome (for the time being) is that it only runs on Windows. No Mac or Linux version yet, but they are in the works. Sign up here, if you want to be notified when it's available.

There are new beta versions of the browsers all the time, and with each new release comes the claim that "this browser is now the fastest." It's hard to keep up with all of it. From the news that I browse, I would venture that IE is the slowest and Chrome is the fastest. In fact, I saw an article today about a new beta version of Chrome that is 25% faster than the current release. That's fast.

While I use Firefox as my primary browser, I do use Opera and Safari for certain circumstances, such as maintaining multiple logins (if I want to log into a different Google id, for example, I do it in a different browser so I don't have to log out of my normal id in Firefox). Browsing privately is another reason to use multiple browsers. You can configure most browsers to disable cookies, javascript, plug-ins, etc. if you want to browse somewhere but want to make sure your identity is protected. Having a separate browser that is always configured like this is handy so you don't have to modify the settings of your normal browser.

I just learned that Chrome is supporting add-ons. Once they get a Mac version, it will be hard not to switch if the performance is still there...

Anyway, I hope you guys find this to be as exciting as Carlos Zambrano did when I sent him a rough draft for review. I'd be interested to know what browsers you use, what your experiences have been, and if you find info like this helpful.

And faithful reader Marty only uses browsers while in their Beta version, so he should be able to field any questions anyone has about those.

Oh yeah, and Happy St. Pat's to all my Irish friends!

Cutting Cables and Breaking Dishes

2009-03-04T23:31:00.005-05:00

Each month, I shell out $65 to Direct TV. I don't get HD, and I don't even get the movie channels anymore. There are some programs to which I am pretty devoted, but for the most part I don't care about 98% of what's on TV.

I am going to make it my mission to find a way to get the content I really want without going through satellite or cable, for less than either would charge. Here are my basic requirements:

Must be able to watch:

Cardinals Baseball
LOST
30 Rock
The Office
Whatever the kids watch

Would be nice to watch:

ESPN
HBO content (not every show, but being able to watch content a la carte)

I know there are various ways that I can get all of this content. Some of it for free, some of it not for free. LOST, The Office and 30 Rock should be available in HD over-the-air. Most of the kids stuff we can probably get at the library. Cardinals Baseball may be a little tougher. I may have to buy it from mlb.tv, download it to the computer and watch it on our TV. Oh, and whatever the setup, I'll need to have something serving the purpose of a DVR. And to be able to watch it in the bedroom, basement, or living room would be ideal, although we may have to compromise on that.

I'm going to take a look at Hulu, Roku, YouTube, iTunes (and AppleTV), NetFlix, Amazon Unbox, etc. I may have to cobble this together somewhat, but if I can make a dent in that $65 / month, perhaps I can justify getting a nice HD TV.

Blogging this project gives me a chance to share it with you all, and hopefully learn some tips from you guys if you have already looked into these options. Anyone have anything to start off?