Category: Uncategorized

17-3 at halftime. Okay, Daunte’s only thrown for one so far and Moe vultured Mewelde, but I’m standing by my prediction of three TDs passing and two rushing. Oh, and it was tough to see Mr. Volek’s streak of passes without an interception smashed so quickly. Final score = 38-17.

How unfortunate!

Last week: 8-6. Overall: 50-36. Fantasy: 3-3.

W-Philadelphia Eagles over Cleveland Browns

W-Minnesota Vikings over Tennessee Titans

L-Indianapolis Colts over Jacksonville Jaguars

Denver Broncos over Cincinnati Bengals

L-New York Giants over Detroit Lions

W-Baltimore Ravens over Buffalo Bills

L-St. Louis Rams over Miami Dolphins

L-Seattle Seahawks over Arizona Cardinals

W-Tampa Bay Buccaneers over Chicago Bears

W-Green Bay Packers over Dallas Cowboys

W-San Diego Chargers over Carolina Panthers

W-New Orleans Saints over Oakland Raiders

W-Kansas City Chiefs over Atlanta Falcons

W-New England Patriots over New York Jets

Last week started off unbelievably badly but we almost ran the table on the last seven games to salvage a respectable 8-6 finish. Despite last week’s thumping of the Grizzlies, we’re still trailing the White Buffalo by 13 points in the pool and we’re well off the pace of the leaders.

UPDATE – Good picks, bad shuffle. 9-4 so far and an easy fantasy win. Not perfect, but not bad either. A Denver win and we’ll pass up the White Buffalo and get back on the right side of the Annabella line. I’m kicking myself for the Seattle pick; I’d given serious thought to Arizona because I like their defense but didn’t follow through on at least backing down the priority.

We had another tournament this weekend and we went into it loaded for bear. I ran into one of my best players from last year the night before – he’s of an age to play for the team but has been playing up a level on my recommendation – and invited him along since I wasn’t sure we’d have a full squad or not. As it turned out, we did, but the rest of the boys were so happy to see him again that no one begrudged the possibility of lost playing time.

I was a little worried when we played a very young, very unskilled team in the first game. My kids have a tendency to forget everything and turn into a pack of wolves scenting weak and sick prey when facing such a team. I had to pull my attackers and tell them to settle down and just allow the goals to happen instead of greedily charging forward again and again. That worked, and after easily shutting out the first two teams, they were calm and disciplined when we finally faced a team of similar talent but no concept of tactics.

That game was a pleasure to watch, as the kids methodically broke down the other team with constant passing and ended up beating them worse than the first two teams. The fourth game was really funny, as it was against another weak team and I put our two defenders up front to give them a chance to score. (I also had to put my most aggressive little striker in goal; that was the only way to keep him in the game but out of the other team’s net.) One defender scored quickly, but despite the best efforts of his teammates, the other, who is the smallest and possibly the most gifted child on the team, was too generous to shoot the doggone ball.

Time and time again, they’d pass it to him in front of the net, but instead of shooting he would draw the defense to him and pass off to a wide-open teammate standing right in front of goal, who couldn’t help but kick it in. My best midfielder kept looking over helplessly and shrugging his shoulders after scoring; after the third time that happened, he started standing practically inside the opposing team’s goal and trying to block the ball so that he could pass it back out to our little defender. Even that wasn’t enough, unfortunately, but by the end the parents of both teams were cracking up at how the entire team was laboring to get their teammate a goal that he just refused to accept.

A communications mixup cost us a perfect shutout for the tournament in the fifth game, but the kids poured it on in response to win that game by five and set up for their sixth and last game against the strongest team. That team made an early mistake by breaking everyone on a long clearance from goal that one of our midfielders headed back over their onrushing team; our aggressive little striker was already breaking forward before the ball was even headed and put the ball past the goalie like a seasoned pro. The combination of selfless passing and constant movement without the ball just tore apart their defense as if it wasn’t there, and they controlled the ball so thoroughly that our goalie only touched the ball twice the entire game. I have no idea what the final score was, I quit counting at six.

It’s simply delightful to watch these six, seven and eight year-olds operating like a ruthless machine, more interested in playing smart and destroying the other team than pursuing individual honors. When I asked the boy who usually plays up a level how many goals he’d scored today, he shrugged and said he had no idea, he wasn’t counting. At all levels, the lesson is the same. The better TEAM usually wins, not the team with the better players.

From WND:

Former Navy Secretary and 9-11 commissioner John Lehman says the U.S. knows where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is hiding but can’t reach him because he is in a region of Pakistan controlled by Islamic extremists opposed to President Pervez Musharraf. Lehman spoke to the San Bernardino Sun yesterday after delivering a keynote speech on terrorism at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif.

He said the terrorist leader is in South Waziristan in the Baluchistan Mountains of Pakistan’s Baluchistan region. “There is an American presence in the area, but we can’t just send in troops,” Lehman told the Sun. “If we did, we could have another Vietnam, and the United States cannot afford that right now.”

The paper said Department of Defense spokeswoman Capt. Ronnie Merritt confirmed the U.S. military believes bin Laden is in Pakistan. Also, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday bin Laden was alive and operating in the western part of the country.

From these statements, it sure sounds as if the accusations that Iraq is a distraction from the so-called War on Terror is more than a little accurate. Lehman doesn’t explain why the USA can’t afford going in and getting bin Laden right now, but presumably the fact that a large part of the US military is occupied with nation building in Iraq would have something to do with that.

Iraq was never a central base for the global jihad, and it is unreasonable to think that the global jihad could or will be defeated there.

Chris Naron writes:

My point was that the American electorate is in such a state of moral decay and avarice, they will never adopt the Libertarian ideal of self-reliance AND self-control.

That’s quite likely true. You may wish to note that in addition to be a libertarian, I am also an outspoken opponent of universal suffrage, of democracy and most particularly the mutant form of non-democratic, non-representative bifactional one party system currently operating in this country.

See how it all comes together? How do we get there from here? I don’t know. But I do know that neither Republicans nor Democrats will lead us there since neither faction is the least bit interested in advancing the cause of human freedom or invidual liberty, as both are in service to the central state.

#include

#include

#include

#inlcude // I hope you have Turbo C

int room(void)

{

char input;

printf(“You entered the room, which is well lit. Would you like to proceed? (y/n)n”);

input = getch();

if ((input == ‘n’)||(input==’N’)) return 0;

printf(“The lights turned off. Would you like to turn on the flash light?(y/n)n”);

input = getch();

if ((input == ‘n’)||(input==’N’)) return 0;

printf(“You see a monster, would you like to switch to the gun and shoot it? (y/n)n”);

input = getch();

if ((input == ‘n’)||(input==’N’)) return 0;

printf(“You have killed the monster, and are moving on to the next room.n”);

return 1;

}

int locker(void)

{

int lockercombo = rand()%1000;

printf(“You’ve found a PDA, would you like to listen to the messages? (y/n)”);

input = getch();

if ((input == ‘n’)||(input==’N’)) return 0;

printf(“Playing back message … “);

sleep(120000);

printf(“The combo for the locker is %d, would you like to open the locker? (y/n)n”, lockercombo);

input = getch();

if ((input == ‘n’)||(input==’N’)) return 0;

printf(“You found some ammo and a medpack.n”);

return 1;

}

void main(void)

{

srand(time(NULL));

int stillrunning;

do {

if (rand()%10

Paul Craig Roberts, banished from Townhall, writes:

Bush’s conservative supporters want no debate. They want no facts, no analysis. They want to denounce and to demonize the enemies that the Hannitys, Limbaughs, and Savages of talk radio assure them are everywhere at work destroying their great and noble country.

I remember when conservatives favored restraint in foreign policy and wished to limit government power in order to protect civil liberties. Today’s young conservatives are Jacobins determined to use government power to impose their will at home and abroad.

Where did such “conservatives” come from?

As Hayek famously explained with regards to “social justice”, a “strong government” or “compassionate” conservative is no conservative at all. It will be interesting to see how quickly these “conservatives” will return to the intellectual fold should Kerry win, (or more likely, when a Democrat wins in 2008), and the other faction begins to wield the expanded powers created by the present administration so beloved by them.

On a related note, Polemics reminds us of when conservatives were conservative and quotes Russell Kirk writing about Edmund Burke:

And Reason, dear to the illuminati of the eighteenth century, seemed to Burke a tool weak at best, frequently treacherous. The mass of mankind, Burke implies, reason hardly at all, in the higher sense, nor ever can: deprived of folk-wisdom and folk-law, which are prejudice and prescription, they can do no more than cheer the demagogue, enrich the charlatan, and submit to the despot. (p. 42)

It’s clear to me that both Kirk and Burke were nothing but Bush-hating liberals ahead of their time.

I finally got around to adding a specific Northern Alliance section… including the man who stole what should have been MY space in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Mr. Craig Westover. (I wrote a game review column there for five years and I’ve since been turned down for editorial space there by not one, but two editors in succession.)

Craig’s stuff is very good, though, and he’s probably a much better choice for the op/ed page at a mainstream newspaper since he’s got the patience to pay attention to the process details with which I can’t be bothered. That and he’s significantly less likely to inspire left-leaning pitchfork-wielding mobs of DFLers to storm Cedar Avenue looking for him.

I do find it mildly amusing that the Pioneer Press keeps importing people from out of state – inferiority complex, what inferiority complex? – but all the same it’s good to see that there’s at least one right-thinking individual spilling ink on the paper’s sacred editorial ground.

Check out his new blog and you’ll see what I mean.

More back-and-forth with JC of the Evangelical Outpost:

By claiming that drug users can “adequately function” Vox is setting the standard rather low. If that is all that libertarianism has to offer it should be no surprise that most people reject it. I also think that he (and many others) are falling for a false dichotomy between libertarianism and statist interventionism. My only contention is that it is precisely because libertarianism doesn’t care if a person is virtuous or not that it is ultimately doomed to fail. According to Christian belief, man is inherently corrupt and will not naturally choose to do good. Society either has to find a way to help develop character (my preference) or it will eventually require a form of government where the state steps in to correct the mess that people make of their lives. Libertarianism prefers not to have either which is why it is untenable. (The comments section on Vox’s post are also worth reading.)

Actually, the reference to functional drug users was not a broad-based defense of libertarianism, only a demonstration of how a part of Joe’s argument rested on a false assumption. It would be very strange to attempt to reduce the full measure of human freedom and liberty to socially functioning drug users. I also disagree that there is a false dichotomy between libertarianism and statism, as I seem them as polar opposites showing the true breadth of the political spectrum.

Neither libertarianism nor God “cares” (to use Joe’s word) if a person is virtuous or not. The authoritarian nature of conservativism shows the skull under the smile here, as with socialism, it is willing to use raw force to impel what conservatives consider to be virtuous behavior. But “to care” is obviously equal with the concept “to force” in both conservative and socialist parlance. And yet God does not behave in this manner, indeed, He refrains from using His almighty power in allowing individuals to behave how they desire and to suffer the natural consequences of their behavior.

Exactly like a libertarian.

I’ve never thought that Bush was stupid. Nor am I surprised to hear that he is almost surely more intelligent than John Kerry, who strikes me as a very average mind. According to a guy who has put far more effort into this than would ever occur to me, Bush probably has about a ten-point advantage on Johnny Clueless, 125 to 115. Average, remember, is defined as 100.

Now, these are not exactly the most formidable intellects around, but then, intellectuals don’t have the best track record when it comes to governance either. The problem is that no matter how brilliant you are, complexity will defeat you every single time. It’s humbling and frustrating. There are simply too many variables for which to account, which is why some of the brightest people are often able to reach incredibly stupid conclusions as they count out the wrong variables in a futile attempt to simplify that which cannot be simplified.