Category: Uncategorized

86 Burns Redbeards (9-4-0)
56 Alamo City Spartans (9-3-1)

82 Mounds View Meerkats (9-4-0)
60 Masonville Marauders (3-9-1)

63 Silver Spooners (7-3-3)
54 Judean Peoples Front (6-7-0)

57 Valders Valkyries (7-6-0)
47 Winston Reverends (4-9-0)

53 Greenfield Grizzlies (5-7-1)
45 Black Mouth Curs (3-10-0)

Looks like some jockeying for playoff position this weekend, but the four spots are already sealed with Alamo City, Burns, Mounds View, and the Sister Kissers locking up their berths. Use this for your Sunday NFL discussion thread…. I have to admit, I’d just as soon have the Williams Bros. today than in the first round of the playoffs. One can’t really expect the Vikes to go far this year and I’d rather not see them let Detroit off the hook for a winless season again.

Sorry, gang, but it’s not quite finished yet. I’ll post it for you all tomorrow. Think of it as a last-minute reprieve to brush up a bit. To spur you on, I leave you with this inspiring image, complete with Obama and a unicorn.

Sadly, no rainbows.

Scientific evidence that science is for losers:

An Australian study into the sexual history of 185 students at the University of Sydney found male science “nerds” were the least likely to have had sexual intercourse.

If you want to banish an annoying Pharyngulan, it’s not actually the sign of the Cross over the chest that’s the most effective. It’s the sign of the L on the forehead. You know it kills them that every evangelical church and lunatic pagan astrology cult is filled with pretty young women who would be nauseated at the thought of a too-close encounter with their soft, pasty-white scientist bodies even if those bodies weren’t accompanied by the ubiquitous social autism of the self-described rationalist.

Perhaps one of these days Pharyngulans will wake up to the fact that the reason their ever-so-important scientific endeavors are so poorly rewarded is because they don’t hold any substantive material value for anyone. The fact that a large pack of avowed materialists can’t figure this out between them should suffice to demonstrate the plastic popguns that pass for intellectual firepower there.

At least they’ll always have their science degrees. I suppose there’s some consolation in that. It’s such a pity that Archbishop Dawkins didn’t have this evidence on hand to bolster his assertion of the superiority of atheist morals. He could have called it the Argument from Imposed Purity.

Lest you wonder why I don’t faint with awe at the sight of a flashed university degree:

Genius #1: Yeah! It’s fucked up! You can shoot yourself and anyone else you want in Texas, and you won’t get in trouble!

Genius #2: Man, that’s messed up. Are you serious?

Genius #1: Totally serious, dude! People can have all the guns they want, no limit, and they can legally shoot whoever they want! I’m serious dude! Watch the news!

Genius #2: Fuuuuuck, man. That ain’t right. No wonder they have so much crime down here.

I have travelled the world over and I have never been surrounded by more clueless idiots than when I was attending an expensive university on the East Coast. My favorite moment of observable madness was when the young woman with the second-highest GPA in the Economics department demanded to know why the USA didn’t deal with the problem of storing nuclear waste by sending it up on the Space Shuttle.

And yes, this was post-Challenger….

Forget the horrific jobs report, bankers are offing themselves:

Alex Widmer, the chief executive of Bank Julius Baer and a well respected figure in Swiss private banking, has died unexpectedly at the age of 52, the bank said. A source told Reuters he had been informed by close friends of Widmer’s family that the banker had committed suicide.

I’d be more inclined to be sympathetic if we hadn’t just witnessed the successful rape and pillage of the American taxpayer by Henry Paulson and his banking buddies. I can’t imagine too many taxpayers shedding tears should American bankers begin to follow Herr Widmer’s lead.

The ever-alert Nobel Prize winner is beginning to get scared about the economy. You know, the one that’s past numerous all-time market peaks and is reported to have been in recession for a year already:

I’ve been ruminating over economic prospects for next year, and I’m getting scared. Two points:

1. The economy is falling fast. We’ll see what tomorrow’s employment report says, but we could well be losing jobs at a rate of 450,000 or 500,000 a month.

2. Infrastructure spending will take time to get going — a new Goldman Sachs report suggests that projects that are “shovel-ready” are probably only a few tens of billions worth, and that a larger effort would take much of a year to get going. Meanwhile, it’s very questionable how much effect tax rebates will have on consumer demand.

Why is Krugman worried about losing a few more jobs anyhow? He’s a good Keynesian. Just have the government hire 450,000 or 500,000 people per month. After all, government jobs and private sector jobs are perfectly equivalent, right?

Question: just what do government employees produce anyway? And according to at least one report, we could reduce the number of workers by 25 percent without harming US productivity in the slightest.

The packages arrived today. Sure enough, the correct address and all of the required information was clearly written on the label. However, there was a printout of the information that had showed up in the system, complete with the nonexistent shipper and the nonexistent destination. As Spacebunny suspected, no one ever bothered to check what was actually on the label.

Nevertheless, Reason triumphed over Bureaucratic Madness.

Clark’s demolition of Welker was not, in fact, illegal:

It looked bad and surely it felt worse, but Ryan Clark’s explosive hit on Wes Welker on Sunday was neither illegal nor unnecessary. It was a consequence of what pro football is and what Welker has done to opposing teams the past few seasons. Most importantly, it was within the rules.

Just another bad call. Apparently the commissioner hasn’t gone off the deep end and the players are still permitted to play tackle football. Mistakes happen and it’s proper for the officials to err – slightly – on the side of player safety. But there’s no sense trying to turn the sport into flag football either.

But the marriage calculator indicates that we’re still favored by the odds:

People with similar backgrounds who are already divorced: 13%
People with similar backgrounds who will be divorced over the next five years: 10%

It’s anecdotal, of course, but in the last few years I seem to be noticing a lot more married couples in their sixties getting divorced, usually around the time their youngest kid graduates from college, than I can recall in the Eighties. At the same time, I only know three divorced couples my own age. Anyone else notice this?