Category: Uncategorized

ProFootballTalk is in awe:

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the first high-profile veteran that Childress sent packing from Minnesota delivers the death blow to Brad’s coaching career there? Though it might be premature to think that owner Zygi Wilf would dump the second-year head coach during the season, a posting on a little-known Vikings blog suggests that Wilf is pondering the possibility. Though we previously hadn’t heard of the blog in question and know nothing of its track record, there’s something eerily plausible about the tone and content of the report/rumor/whatever.

And we mention the possibility only because PFT headquarters is being flooded with e-mails from Vikings fans who are desperate to see Childress fired. In six-plus years of doing this, I’ve never seen such fervent and passionate displays of dislike for an NFL head coach.

I cried when Drew Pearson pushed off. I screamed in fury at Darren Nelson when he dropped the ball. I stared in disbelief when Anderson missed. I grimaced when we kept Denny Green and let Tony Dungy go. I covered my eyes when Tice got the job. And I remember the horror of the annus Steckelus.

But I have never, ever hated a Vikings coach like I hate Childress. Everyone – EVERYONE – knew that the QB situation was a massive problem. Everyone knew that Brad Johnson wasn’t the answer and that going into the season with Tarvaris Jackson was a massive gamble. And yet… and yet… you know the rest.

DW isn’t keen on the Huckster:

We were all relieved when Huckabee finished out his term as Governor of Arkansas! I just wish the world knew the Huckabee that was governor of Arkansas. He promoted illegal immigration in every way. He demonized two state representatives who tried to pass a state law requiring proof of citizenship to collect state benefits. He called them racist and unchristian. The law failed. He went to Mexico and negotiated with President Fox to get a Mexican consulate built in Little Rock Arkansas at tax payer expense. Isn’t negotiating with a foreign power illegal and unconstitutional except for the US State Department?

He wanted to give state backed college scholarships to high school graduates of illegals, yet two years earlier they claimed there was no funding to continue it for Arkansas students! He also loved taxes as much as Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. I just wish the world knew the truth.

Yeah, I’ve never been impressed with the guy either.

In which I take mild exception to Half Sigma’s conception of religious equality:

He correctly points out the hypocrisy of leftists who criticize Christians for denying Darwinism. But when he says “we are all equal before God,” he’s forgetting that during the era of slavery, exactly the opposite was said, that God endorsed slavery and that Africans were the descendants of Canaan, doomed to slavery because of the Curse of Ham.

The thing about religion is that it gives you a justification to believe in whatever you want. But science reveals inconvenient truths.

Given Half Sigma’s deep interest in IQ, I find it difficult to believe that he really thinks it likely that I have forgotten how some Christians historically made use of the Bible to defend their position on slavery. But I’m hardly in a position to complain about anyone else’s flights of rhetoric and the point is a logical fallacy anyhow; Christianity need answer for demonstrably bad Christian theology to the same extent that science need answer for demonstrably bad science. And when one considers that the only significant anti-slavery force in human history has been evangelical Christianity, it would seem very strange to attempt to blame it in any way for an old and enduring institution that long preceded it and is showing signs of reappearing in its absence.

Half-Sigma’s actual error is the idea that equality before God somehow precludes slavery. That is a category error. God is no respecter of either persons or property; since He does not even acknowledge human ownership of material property, He cannot possibly respect human ownership of other humans for good or for ill. He can and does, on the other hand, condemn poor stewardship of every kind; which is why the slave owner who thinks he owns his slaves is charged with treating them well.

No religion gives a blanket justification to believe whatever you want. And one can construct an argument for slavery on scientific principles even more easily than one can on Christian grounds since science offers no justification for equality of any kind.

But this is a minor issue and I applaud Half Sigma’s courageous stance against anti-scientific equalitarian correctness. In fact, the most interesting thing I noticed on Half Sigma’s blog wasn’t related to either IQ or religion, but rather his note that a mention in one of the New York Times’s most emailed articles only led to a maximum potential increase of 4,000 visitors. It is this sort of revealing tidbit, more than all of the various articles on declining newspaper circulations, that attests to the declining relevance of the increasingly decrepit Grey Lady to today’s culture.

The president’s new little French friend is avowedly anti-democratic. Instead of invading Iran, perhaps we should invade France in order to bring democracy there:

Referendums on the new European Union Treaty were “dangerous” and would be lost in France, Britain and other countries, Nicolas Sarkozy has admitted.

The French president’s confession that governments could not win popular votes on a “simplified treaty” – drawn up to replace the EU constitution rejected by his countrymen two years ago – was made in a closed meeting of senior Euro-MPs.

“France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting no. It would happen in all member states if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments,” he said.

Needless to say, all the clueless “conservatives” at Townhall and National Review just love Sarkozy. He may be an anti-democrat working towards the completion of a corrupt neo-totalitarian empire, but he is willing to support an attack on Iran and more war is the only issue that neocon-led Republicans care about anymore besides retaining the last vestiges of their power in Washington.

I’m looking forward to eventually seeing the same declaration made regarding the European Union as well as the Union of the Several States:

Mr Brown, in his squalid and anti-democratic way, has since the first devolved parliament opened in 1999 firmly resisted any suggestion that the West Lothian question needs an answer. He sees no reason why Scottish MPs (and indeed Welsh ones – Labour has 29 of them) at Westminster should not be allowed to continue to vote on matters that affect only the English.

Since the Welsh Assembly has recently received a new tranche of powers, expanding its areas of competence, this means that at Westminster Labour can technically deploy 69 MPs to vote on questions that do not affect their constituents one jot, but which can change the course of law in England. That Mr Brown blithely affects to be unmoved by this outrage causes one to question not merely his intelligence but his sanity….

The Union is over, morally at least. When Scotland voted for devolution in 1997 the Union fell into a coma. When Alex Salmond’s SNP administration was elected in May the last rites were read, and the final process of sundering got under way. All that remains is for the Scots, in a referendum, to vote to stick the coffin in the grave, with the Union flag still on it, and pile on the earth.

This is the last thing Mr Brown and the rest of the Raj want. Because of Scottish separatism they are already illegitimate in the eyes of many English, which is why they bang on with such dishonesty and vulgarity about “Britishness”.

It is ironic, how on the one hand Brown and the Scottish Raj are blathering on about “Britishness” while at the same time doing their very best to hand England over to Brussels. Of course, why shouldn’t they? They aren’t Englishmen and they obviously have no loyalty to England or the English.

The sooner the English figure this out and throw them out, the better.

Rob Long on the financial disaster that is the television production business:

It’s fun to watch the color drain from the faces of these smart, entrepreneurial, risk-taking people when I tell them how much it costs to fail – and I mean fail, as in total loss – in the TV business….

Marc senses that what we’re seeing right now is a “rebuild” of the entertainment industry. And that may be the case. But it looks more to me, right now, like disruption. Like the current model of well-compensated, expensive failure – really kind of like the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy, around 1911, still riding around on horses, in bright red battle dress, about to face a cheaper, leaner, world – is about to get trampled on. I’m not sure rebuild is the word. Unless it’s what happens after “demolish.”

My Silicon Valley friends all shake their heads in amazement that the system has gone on so long.

I don’t care about the writers strike although I assume they’ve probably got a point, somewhere in there. I don’t like their industry or their product, although the points long raises does tend to make one ask that telling question… cui bono?

UPDATE – Okay, Scalzi makes it abundantly clear that the writers do indeed have a salient grievance:

Television networks not wanting to pay residuals on Internet viewings of their shows, because they’re “promotional,” even as they sell advertising on them? Kiss my ass.

Based on this display, BS should consider a career in the public schools:

The US public school system is one of the most richly funded in the world and also happens to be one of the worst performing educational systems in the world.

Funny how you are with those numbers. One might call it “intellectually dishonest”. Others might just say “math is hard for you isn’t it Vox?”

Check out the link BS provided – this is seriously what he cites in order to attempt proving that the USA isn’t “one of the most richly funded” school systems in the world.

“the U.S. devoted a greater share of public expenditure to education than all of the G-7 countries except Canada (Indicator 41). Further, relative to GDP per capita, the United States is among the highest spenders of the G-7 countries (Indicator 42). Finally, the United States outspent all of the G-7 countries except Canada on a measure of per student expenditure on primary and secondary education in constant U.S. dollars.”

Even with the fudged numbers provided – the USA has a high GDP per capita so using the relative figure rather than an absolute dollar-to-dollar per capita comparison tends to lower the USA’s relative position to less wealthy nations like Hungary – the USA has, well, one of the most richly funded school systems, exactly as I described it. Moreover, if private expenditures were included in the figure, this would likely send the USA to the top since the USA spends more on private education than any nation except Japan.

Regarding his defense of Nazi and Communist government-run schools, it would be very interesting to know precisely what other National Socialist policies BS advocates as well as which of the nine other pillars of the Communist Manifesto he deems worthy of support.

With critics like these, no wonder some people suspect I’m inventing them just to make myself look good. Math isn’t hard for me, but reading is clearly beyond Bob’s capacity. And about the only thing that anyone examining the numbers is going to say is “Wow, that Bob sure knows how to shoot himself in the foot!”

RM explains why he’s not buying the usual line this time:

The argument that we would be helping elect Hillary or some other socialist by not voting for the GOP candidate no matter who that candidate might be doesn’t work on me any more. For 30 years I told people to vote Republican. I pushed and prodded them, convincing friends and relatives vote for those I thought were good Republicans. I towed the party line telling people that all we needed was a Republican congress and Republican president to get this country’s fiscal house in order. That goal was achieved seven years ago.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY MADE A LIAR OUT OF ME!

And it’s not going to happen again! I am still registered as a Republican, and in fact, I am a party official in my county. My opinions are valued by others and many ask me my opinion and how to vote on issues and candidates.

It is obvious from current events and as stated in your article that I am only one of hundreds of thousands who have come to the conclusion that just preventing the worst candidate from being elected is not good enough. We will all certainly be judged by God by how we vote, just as I judge Fred Thompson by his vote to acquit Bill Clinton during the senate trial.

Fred, Rudy, McCain, Mitt the homosexualist advocate, you have got to be kidding! No way, never, ever, ever, will I support, promote, or vote for people of that quality. The Republican party has moved two steps to the left and those of us still representative of the old Republican party don’t need to form a new party, one only needs to look just a little to the right to find a political party that is now much more in line with the CONSTITUTIONAL values of the grand old party of the Gipper!

I left the Republican party a long time ago. Now, the Republican party has left its core support behind in pursuit of a “permanent majority” that was always a mirage. Basing a “conservative” strategy on winning the support of a massive influx of Mexican socialists – the two major Mexican parties, the PRI and the PRD, are both socialist parties – was about as absurd as the idea of establishing democratic government in the Middle East.

83 East Mesa WhiteTrash
73 Winston Reverends

76 Black Mouth Curs
49 Burns ICU

71 W.C. Silver Spooners
45 Masonville Marauders

60 Mounds View Meerkats
53 Greenfield Grizzlies

43 Cranberry Bogs
39 Village Valkyries

Finally got some much needed REVENGE against the alabaster bearded cow and dragged him down to join me in the league basement. Misery just loves company, don’t you know. Nate continues to sink lower into the abyss and the Silver Spooners pull Masonville back towards the pack as they make their move towards a playoff run. East Mesa is looking dangerous again, even though LaDainian Thomlinson isn’t running rampant like last year.

Meanwhile, in the real NFL, Vikings fans are wondering why Winter Park passed on the opportunity to grab Simeon Rice for the veteran minimum. It’s not as if our pass rush doesn’t need any help.

The Responsible Puppet recently announced his support for the various school levies in his area. I have no doubt that they passed, few Minnesotans have ever seen a tax they didn’t like. Very well, let us consider his justifications:

1. Teachers are generally good people and they aren’t paid enough.

2. It is the government’s job to pay for schooling K-12. And our nation is better because it does.

3. There are poor or uneducated people who can’t home-school.

4. Our school systems need to be improved, and not funding them is not going to help.

1. Teachers are massively overpaid. Other than politicians, there is no group of people who work so little, to so little positive effect, and are so handsomely overcompensated.

2. It is not the government’s job to pay for schooling. The high priority that Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler placed on government-funded, government-controlled schooling should suffice to demonstrate that in this regard, our nation can only be considered better off if you are a Communist or National Socialist.

3. This does not mean that government schools are the only option.

4. The US public school system is one of the most richly funded in the world and also happens to be one of the worst performing educational systems in the world. This absurd logic is no different than arguing that the Vikings should cure their quarterback problem by increasing the salaries of Tarvaris Jackson, Brooks Bollinger and Kelly Holcomb.