Irony

OK..this is rich. Bud Light…the original moose-piss-in-a-bottle, the Clown Prince of Beers (an allusion to the “King of Beers” that Real Bud proclaims itself to be), that sorry excuse for beer (sorry, Erm. It is what it IS)…has the unmitigated gall to make fun of ND fans?

But. I have to admit it is sorta funny. But not coming from (ptui!) Bud Light.

(h/t: jCircadian…another member of Team Air Force)

It's Just Another Brilliant Day...

Via Chap… here’s an especially powerful piece by Christopher Hitchens. The introduction:

I was having an oppressively normal morning a few months ago, flicking through the banality of quotidian e-mail traffic, when I idly clicked on a message from a friend headed "Seen This?" The attached item turned out to be a very well-written story by Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times. It described the death, in Mosul, Iraq, of a young soldier from Irvine, California, named Mark Jennings Daily, and the unusual degree of emotion that his community was undergoing as a consequence. The emotion derived from a very moving statement that the boy had left behind, stating his reasons for having become a volunteer and bravely facing the prospect that his words might have to be read posthumously. In a way, the story was almost too perfect: this handsome lad had been born on the Fourth of July, was a registered Democrat and self-described agnostic, a U.C.L.A. honors graduate, and during his college days had fairly decided reservations about the war in Iraq. I read on, and actually printed the story out, and was turning a page when I saw the following:

"Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him … "

I don't exaggerate by much when I say that I froze.

Mr. Hitchens goes on to describe meeting Lt. Daily’s family and getting to know the young soldier through their eyes, and through Lt. Daily’s writings. To say the piece is moving is understatement of the highest order. Mr. Hitchens gives us yet another story that makes us ask "Where do we get such men?"

From the sublime to the ridiculous football… It was good yesterday, wasn’t it? Better than good, actually: it was frickin’ GREAT. I watched three games yesterday, and they just kept getting better and better as the day went on, beginning with Illinois’ upset of Number 5 Wisconsin, to the Red River Shoot-Out, and finally with LSU’s triumph over Florida.

Playing as a top-ranked team in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 1959, LSU was in serious trouble much of the game. Their top-rated defense was shredded by Florida's double-threat quarterback, Tim Tebow, who led the Gators to a trio of 10-point leads.

But they couldn't hold off the Tigers.

No, they couldn’t. But they sure as Hell gave it their best shot. This game simply has to rank up there among the best I’ve ever seen. Both teams played with an intensity seldom seen in any game, and not just for a quarter, or a half…but for the entire game. As I said in the comments to the post below following the game: This was more like a knife fight than a football game. You really missed something if you missed this one.

Footnote: It’s ironic (for me…the die-hard ND fan) no one televised, at least in my viewing area, what could be Notre Dame’s sole win this year. And they won convincingly over UCLA by a score of 20-6, aided by the fact UCLA’s starting QB went out with an injury in the first quarter. I caught Charlie’s comments on SportsCenter last evening talking about the win:

Coach Charlie Weis obviously was relieved.

"When you're 0-5, everyone in the country is laughing at you," Weis said. "The only thing you can do is do something about it on the field. I'm really happy for the kids.

"We never had a better week of practice since I've been here. I said good things will happen, and it happened."

But Charlie was all I saw. Too bad, that.

In other sports news… the Wings lost last night to Chicago in their second straight shoot-out. Two games, two shoot-outs. I don’t like the way the season is beginning…but it’s only the beginning, nu?

It’s dead calm outside this morning, which is a welcome relief from the past two days of unrelenting wind. While the wind hasn’t been destructive in nature, it’s certainly been annoying. And hot, too. Not to mention dusty, which is always the corollary to wind here on The High Plains. But today looks like it’s gonna be perfect for a ride out to parts unknown. After the coffee’s been consumed, of course.

Today’s Pic: Something similar (but not identical) to a pic previously posted…SN3 and me just before we took off on a jaunt into the foothills of the Front Range near Fort Collins, CO.

Late May, this year.

A PSA and Weekend Update

This is interesting…

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If you want to clean out all tracking cookies from all your Web sites, here are links where you can download three programs that can clean out tracking cookies:

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Not all cookies are tracking cookies. Like most other Web sites, ours may place cookies on your computer, in addition to any placed by advertisers. But ours aren't "tracking cookies." They merely do things like save your registration information, if you choose to register. They do not tell us what you do or where you go online.

This is the first and only time I’ve ever seen a notice of this type on any web site I’ve ever visited, period. So good on the folks at All Things Digital. I’ve known about tracking cookies for quite some time and periodically “clean” my system using Ad-Aware SE (link above, and it’s freeware). But you’d have to clean your system every frickin’ day…or every hour… if you wanted to be truly free of these obnoxious things. I’ve set my preferences, as much as I can, to reject third-party cookies and the like. But every time I clean my system, there they are…by the hundreds.

Just thought all y’all might want to know. Tracking cookies are benign as long as you don’t mind advertisers (and possibly other people) knowing where you go on the ‘net.

Well, yesterday was quite the day for football, eh? I don’t remember another Saturday where so many ranked teams were upset. Let us not talk about the status of the two teams I root for, OK? Both teams are having miserable seasons, but I watch their games (when available) in both good times and bad. That’s what being a fan is all about. It surely hurts, though, when your team isn’t doing well…

And…just for the record, yesterday’s BEST game was the Auburn – Florida tilt, which was a cliff hanger right up to, and including, the final two seconds.

However, Auburn came up big in the closing minutes. Byrum attempted the winning kick, just as (Florida coach) Meyer called timeout. The kick was true, but Byrum had to do it again.

He did, and it was right down the middle.

"I was pretty excited," said Byrum, who missed his only attempt last week against New Mexico State. "I had a rough week last week. I wanted to make sure I came back."

Auburn used the final 4 minutes to set up the kick. Tate ran for 18 yards and Brandon Cox found Rodgeriqus Smith twice for 16 yards.

Byrum did the rest.

"He's got a tremendous leg," Cox said. "I was on the sideline about to throw up. Being a true freshman, after the first time he hit, I was sure he was nervous. To make two of them, that says a lot about him."

What it says… to me, anyway… is that boy has a frickin’ boxcar full of cool. That game could very well be the best game of the year. It’s gonna take a lot of doin’ to beat it.

Speaking of football, yet again…I’m suffering the effects of “too much barley-pop” today. I managed to completely exhaust the beer supply in El Casa Móvil De Pennington during the course of yesterday’s games. Which, of course, was a great good thing while it was happening, but much less so today. Like all uncomfortable things: this, too, shall pass. Thank God for Tylenol.

I sure managed to get it wrong, sorta, when it comes to hockey. I described the Kings as “an unworthy opponent” for the Ducks in yesterday’s NHL season opener and said Kings came out and stomped the Ducks in that game, 4 -1. But the Ducks got their revenge today…by the identical score of 4-1.

LONDON (AP) -- When the gloves came off, the British fans got exactly what they wanted.

A two-man brawl with fists flying midway through the second period drew the biggest cheers and a standing ovation Sunday in the Anaheim Ducks' 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings.

"They liked the physical play," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "They liked the fight."

Me, too. Best part of that particular game, it was. Say what you will: fighting is an integral part of the game, despite all the PC bullshit about eliminating it… one reason being it’s a bad example for our kids, yadda, yadda, yadda. I think taking steroids and running a dog fighting ring just might be worse examples for The Children…but Hey! That’s just my opinion, YMMV. Blogger thoughtfully provides a comment section on these here blog-thingies for those of you who might disagree. If you feel strongly enough to dispute my position on fighting in hockey, then have at me. Drop the gloves!

(photo credit: AP)

The weather continues to suck here in P-Ville. The wind has been unrelenting since Friday but appears to be calming down just a bit this afternoon. I thought the danged RV was going over on its side last evening on a couple of occasions, but then again that might have been alcohol-induced spatial disorientation. There’s a strong possibility…

Anyhoo…if the wind continues to diminish I’ll take Miss Zukiko out for a run later this afternoon. I want to go riding in the worst sort of way…but I refuse to ride in a dust storm. Or something a lot like it.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Gentle Reader.

Sundries

I loves me some late-summer days in September, especially when football season gets well under way. Yesterday was a typical late-summer Saturday (or early Fall, you choose.) at El Casa Móvil De Pennington, which is to say it was an orgy of college football. All day and into the night, as well. Three games (Oregon – UoM, ND – Penn State, and LSU- Virginia Tech), followed by SportsCenter. And then SportsCenter, again. I took time out to nuke some food, get refills from the fridge, and check a blog or two. But other than that? Not much.

I may have mentioned this before, so stop me if you’ve heard this. One of the BEST things about being single at this stage of life is I can be perfectly indolent and watch football and drink beer all damned day if I so choose. And I did so choose yesterday, Gentle Reader. And there was no nagging, no guilt, no looking over my shoulder or dodging pointed little comments from "interested parties" of the female persuasion, such as “Are you going to watch teevee ALL day?” Why, yes, now that you mention it, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And so I did. Yesterday was “Nothing But Net Football.”

Life is GOOD.

So. I scanned the Detroit papers this morning and the natives are restless after UoM’s loss to Oregon yesterday. Michiganders don’t take losing lightly, especially when it’s Big Blue doing the losing. Lotsa calls for Lloyd Carr’s head, but Mitch Albom isn’t one of those guys. Not that Mitch wasn’t critical; he was:

I hate to put it this way, but there have been Lions games less embarrassing than this.

No, coach Lloyd Carr does not need to be fired -- come on, calm down -- and U-M fans shouldn't throw themselves off a bridge. But let's be honest. The Wolverines are not very good right now. Doesn't matter what they were supposed to be. Doesn't matter what their preseason ranking was or which seniors were returning.

They have played two games now and the defense is apparently still checking into the dorms.

They have played two games and their senior quarterback, Chad Henne, has unhinged the team with uncharacteristic mistakes in key moments, including an opening-drive interception and several momentum-killing sacks Saturday. (To make matters worse, Henne left the game after the first half with a leg injury and is "highly doubtful" for the Notre Dame game, according to Carr. As Woody Allen once joked: "The food here is terrible." "Yeah, and such small portions!")

It's all upside down in Ann Arbor. Right now, this team cannot capitalize on offense. (How's 365 yards and only seven points?) Right now, this team cannot stop anything on defense. (How's six first-half possessions for Oregon, 32 points and no punts?)

Next week’s game against Notre Dame should be a doozy. Not for the quality of play, of course…two programs in deep doo-doo ordinarily would make for a snoozer of a game. But there’s serious drama here. Both Michigan and Notre Dame have a national fan base, and together Michigan and ND have the winningest records in college football, being Numbers One and Two, respectively. You can bet your boots the eyes of America (the college football eyes, anyway) will be on Ann Arbor next weekend. I predict it will be one Helluva game. There’s nothing really on the line in next week’s game except pride. And sometimes pride is everything.

Interesting article on cyber-war in The Times (UK) today…

China’s ambitions extend to crippling an enemy’s financial, military and communications capabilities early in a conflict, according to military documents and generals’ speeches that are being analysed by US intelligence officials. Describing what is in effect a new arms race, a Pentagon assessment states that China’s military regards offensive computer operations as “critical to seize the initiative” in the first stage of a war.

The plan to cripple the US aircraft carrier battle groups was authored by two PLA air force officials, Sun Yiming and Yang Liping. It also emerged this week that the Chinese military hacked into the US Defence Secretary’s computer system in June; have regularly penetrated computers in at least 10 Whitehall departments, including military files, and infiltrated German government systems this year.

[…]

The Pentagon logged more than 79,000 attempted intrusions in 2005. About 1,300 were successful, including the penetration of computers linked to the Army’s 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the 4th Infantry Division. In August and September of that year Chinese hackers penetrated US State Department computers in several parts of the world. Hundreds of computers had to be replaced or taken offline for months. Chinese hackers also disrupted the US Naval War College’s network in November, forcing the college to shut down its computer systems for several weeks. The Pentagon uses more than 5 million computers on 100,000 networks in 65 countries.

The interesting thing about all of this hacking and cracking activity is that we just let it go… publicly, anyway. There’s no denying unauthorized access to computer systems or denial of service (DoS) attacks are acts of aggression. But the problem is that no one dies and nothing is physically blown up. Therefore it’s pretty hard, if not impossible, to retaliate under these circumstances. One would hope the CIA and DoD are cooperating in an effort to develop our own offensive cyber-war capabilities, because playing defense just isn’t enough in this arena. A few narrowly-targeted but pointedly specific covert attacks on the PLA’s IT infrastructure on our part (with plausible deniability, of course) just might send a message. And it would be great training for our guys, too.

Also in The Times…the Brits can rest easy; it’s not as bad as they think. In quantifiable areas, anyway. I don’t think there’s a way to measure a nation’s Political Correctness Quotient. The Brits would have serious cause for worry if there was a way to measure that sort of stuff. As would the US of A…

Further from The Times… “Valium Fred, the panacea of the people.” Excerpts:

People like Fred Thompson. So far as I can tell, that is currently the prime rationale for his candidacy for president of the United States. He doesn’t need to launch a media blitz to achieve this level of public fondness. His avuncular, crumpled tower of a personage is well known from many episodes of Law & Order.

In this year’s race, only one other Republican candidate has even minimal charm – the obscure Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who is obviously (and rather successfully) running for vice-president. Rudy Giuliani is many things, but likable isn’t one of them. Mitt Romney has failed to win over many conservatives despite an impeccable family life and a platform largely dictated by the far-right activist base. The slickness and eagerness to please seem to glide past any political traction. John McCain is too prickly to be cuddled. But good old Fred has the shtick down.

[…]

Thompson is accused of being lazy. So was Ronald Reagan, of course. But there is a key difference between the Reagan of 1979 and the Thompson of 2007. Reagan had spent a lifetime honing arguments, finessing policy, articulating a broad philosophical view, while proposing concrete and radical policy options.

Thompson has a legislative record as a senator from Tennessee that is all but invisible. Yes, he has a solid conservative record on taxes and other people’s spending. But he was a hog for his home-state pork barrel projects. He was, in other words, a popular backbencher – but no more. At times his candidacy feels merely like a rationale for a man who senses that Americans are deeply uneasy about their current leadership, wants to reassure them, but has no idea substantively how.

A thinker he isn’t. He’s rather a conveyor of mood. In a period of less moment, when less is at stake, this might be an aesthetic preference: a calm presence in a storm. But on the substance of war, and foreign policy, the Thompson shtick can seem somewhat detached from the needs of the moment.

Just so. One might think it odd I agree with the opinion of Andrew Freakin’ Sullivan, of all people. And yeah, it IS strange, given I don’t agree with Sullivan on nearly anything. But I think he’s right about Thompson.

I haven’t made up my mind about who I’m going to support as of yet. But Fred ain’t in MY top tier at the moment, for the reasons quoted above and others that are mentioned in the text of the entire article. Fred’s a nice, likable sort of guy. But being likable ain’t exactly the be-all, end-all quality for the leader of the Free World, now, is it? Substance, please.

Today’s Pic: OK, it’s yet another video. This time it’s SN3 motoring around the premises on his plastic motorcycle, which was one of his Christmas presents back in 2000 (making him three years old at Christmas, but four years old when this video was shot). My first attempt at cultivating a "chip off the old block."

Commentary by The Second Mrs. Pennington.

Somewhere in Colorado. April, 2001.