Saturday, April 16, 2011
Porn parody of TSA body search techniques.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The 03-08-11 International Women's Day was a flop here.
Read the Star Tribune story on the event and the comment I posted below. (hint: If you are having an event, state the date, don't assume people know this.)
http://www.startribune.com/nation/117615308.html
My posted comment:
Google had a banner today on the event and a link to a page on the gathering here and elsewhere. Nowhere on this page did it say what date these events were supposed to happen. I had to Google a bit to determine that it was for March 08, 2011. ...... One site listed for a gathering on Tuesday afternoon was the Lake Street/Marshall "Peace Bridge". ...... At 4PM Tuesday two people with a homemade sign on the "event". After shopping and seeing the "snow mountain" by the State Capital I headed across the bridge at five minutes to five PM. Two more people with a professionally made banner. Four people is not enough to form a "human chain" across the river. ... (hint: It helps to list the date of an event on a webpage announce an event!)
Saturday, February 5, 2011
My comment on an article "will pro-football fade away"
The concept of latent brain injuries like these was not discussed in the HBO series but the idea has rapidly caught on. I've heard it discussed a number of times in commentary during NFL games this year. The case of
local wrestler Verne Gagne has brought more awareness locally so we are ahead of the curve here.
That said, this seems low on the list of threats to pro football. Topping the list is the threat of labor unrest and the US Supreme Court ruling against revenue sharing. http://www.minnpost.com/derekwallbank/2010/05/24/18428/sports_armageddon_supreme_court_issues_landmark_ruling_favoring_vikings_and_individual_teams_over_nfl
I have tried to watch several soccer World Cups including last summers and am convinced that viewing that can cause someone raised on US TV brain damage
By contrast, during this NFL regular season eighteen of the twenty top rated network (and Fox) TV shows were NFL games. The ESPN NFL games also did very well. I heard a figure that the US pro football is an eight billion dollar industry. That is around $25 per capita in the US. More than two thirds is from broadcast rights. Contrast that with gymnastics, which had relatively weak broadcast appeal outside of the Olympics. (the Beijing Olympics were said to be a financial and ratings disaster for NBC.)
Our pro football is also adaptable. Pro football has already instituted rules and tends to be very adaptable. Also, our best and brightest tend to be fans and offer suggestions. People like me also do. My suggestion for late/hard hits. Besides the down and yardage penalty have an immediate game time penalty of five or ten minutes clock time for the hitter if refs make the call. The NFL has a premium "all games" cable/dish option so a "judgement committee" can review the plays and vote on additional team penalties and potential removal of the player from the rest of the game if they deem the charge legitimate. This can easily be done in five minutes of playtime. If I can figure that out the NFL can.
The "legislation through litigation" strategy has never been popular in the polls. The tobacco litigation, is something I consider mostly a "charade" (I quit smoking in the early 1970's) This involves the withholding of
"informed consent" as a legal claim. Heck, if an NFL player tapes or Tivos a game and watches it they will hear discussions on the head injury issues. Union reps and agents should be aware of this and suggest reasonable adaption in the game.
In the early 1970's, before his foray sheltering the Symbionese Liberation Army during the "lost year" Jack Scott" was a very vocal authority on the alleged dangers of college and pro sports. Most athletes he cited in articles and his book "The Athletic Revolution" were deemed "sour grapes" who didn't make the cut by the public.
The public support of the NFL might, in large term be a "backlash" response to the forces of "political correctness" and the Nanny state. This won't go away. Also there is "low hanging fruit" if someone wants to take this on. One prime example is cable wresting. Lot's of alleged brain damage there!
For what it's worth I didn't watch much pro-football until the Brett Farve era of the Vikings. I want our sports gladiators to "live long and prosper". We need creative adaption, not litigation in pro-football rules.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Powerlineblog.com: WHO'S CRAZY?
This bizarre news story struck me forcefully because the events described took place just a few blocks from my house:
[Rhonda] Arkley's husband, Stuart Arkley, said he was resting in a lower-level bedroom when his wife entered and threw gasoline on him, hurled a lit oil lamp at him and hit him in the head with an exercise weight. ...
The two struggled at the front door as Stuart Arkley attempted to flee and his wife, holding a steak knife, yelled, "I only want to kill myself."
Rhonda Arkley then grabbed a 5-gallon can and spread gasoline around the house, saying, "I don't want anyone else to see this house." He tried to stop her, but she threw more gas on him and lit a piece of paper. He fled out a back window to a neighbor's home and called 911.
When police arrived, they found the home ablaze and Rhonda Arkley in a locked car in the driveway, stabbing her chest with a screwdriver.
Arkley drove off. Eagan police put down stop spikes on Pilot Knob Road near Cliff Road, disabling her vehicle. Officers approached and saw her again stabbing herself in the chest with a screwdriver, using a hammer to drive it in.
The events described are sad, if not tragic. Mrs. Arkley's son had recently died of a heroin overdose. One can only have sympathy for her and her family. It is noteworthy, however, that Mrs. Arkley is not a random Minnesotan--rather, she was the Democratic Party's candidate for the Minnesota Senate in 2002 in District 37, my district. In that race, she received an "A" rating from the National Organization of Women. She is a prominent member of Minnesota's atheist community. And she ison record as believing that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is "nutty."
That last, of course, is an article of faith among liberals. But the contrast is a striking one: Congresswoman Bachmann is, in fact, a woman of great serenity, substantial professional accomplishment, invariably sunny disposition, and almost unnatural energy; she is the mother of five and foster mother of 23 children. This sad anecdote from my neighborhood illustrates a commonplace of sociology: scratch a conservative and you will almost always find a happy person; scratch a liberal and you are likely to encounter a seething cauldron of disappointment and rage.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
AOL JOBS: My Unemployed Life: The Forgotten Woman
Monday, November 22, 2010
Al Gore: U.S. corn ethanol "was not a good policy"
Redrant: I've read that Al Gore is now invested in cellulistic ethanol so this might be a "crazy as a sex poodle" ploy to pump that investment. Greg Lang
* U.S. ethanol consumes about 40 pct corn crop (?)
ATHENS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was "not a good policy", weeks before tax credits are up for renewal. ......
He (Al Gore) explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions. (READ FULL ARTICLE AT LINK)
Friday, November 19, 2010
Facebook peeks spark asthma attacks in dumped boy.
LONDON (AP) — Beware unhappy asthmatics: Italian doctors warn that Facebook could trigger an attack in some susceptible users.
Gennaro D'Amato and colleagues treated an 18-year-old man whose asthma attacks were apparently sparked by logging into Facebook and seeing how many men his ex-girlfriend had friended.
The man had been taking two inhaled steroid drugs several times a day to control his asthma. But when his girlfriend dumped him — and worse, unfriended him on Facebook — his condition deteriorated. (MORE AT LINK)