UConn James

There's a hell of a difference b/w losing midterm elections --- which is a very natural thing as the country's political pendulum swings back and forth and depends on a lot more than one man --- and charismatic dithering of a president who's in over his head and has no compass on what he intends to do. Obama is out-Jimmy-Cartering Jimmy Carter. During the campaign, Obama leaned on a speech he 'borrowed' from MA Gov. Deval Patrick titled "Just Words." Basically, it was sarcastically saying that "The only thing we have to fear...," "Ask not what your country can do for you...," etc were just words. The speech's message was that words have some intrinsic power to them. And I think we've definitively found out that they don't. Words without actions or a well-formed plan really are "just words."

We're in the awkward position of seeing where energy production and consumption needs to head, and not having a path to get there. The Democrats are so focused on looking at the peak of Mt. Clean Energy with 99 percent of their gaze the whole time, that they hardly can acknowledge that we need to do quite a bit of climbing to get to the summit, nevermind that every path to get us there is filled with crags and fissures. Some people have and would rather force this country to sit on its hands and wait until a strategy for the mass consumption of clean energy renewables magically appears. In reality, a hydrogen-fuel economy will probably take another 50-60 years --- more, if the Japan perfect-storm incident causes much dithering here. Along the way, there'll be biofuels, etc. But for right now, we need to drill and conserve.

There's plenty of likewise examples in many places/countries that have been overrun with this mindset. That comment was meant in the sense that the Internet is worldwide, therefore people in the U.S. can read and do offer comment on things that happen in other countries, which also happens in their own. Bullying only happens in Australia? Only Australians are allowed to discuss it? There's not a new bullying discourse currently happening in the U.S.? You can stuff the pedantic /lulz/ rhetoric. Far too often, the concept of zero-tolerance is not invoked when the bullying has gone on for however long... it only comes into play when the victim has the audacity to fight back.

According to a certain set in this country, self-defense is/ought to be a crime. Sounds like that mother needs her ass kicked, too.

I fully agree with your argument that people do this. I just fundamentally disagree that having more gilded distractions makes ones life more meaningful, somehow. NYC brings with it many costs, few of them monetary.

All Ralph wanted to talk about were how the prices are still too high on the 4 p.m. senior specials menu.

Purple had to win for Stephanie and Krista to stay. They didn't. I'm not sure Dave would have directed and solved the puzzle faster. Maybe. That doesn't hold Sereta(?), who nominated Stephanie, in good stead with the other 5 after Stephanie is axed. She rubbed them the wrong way with that. But tonight featured the pipe dreams of several players thinking 10 moves ahead in a game where those players very well might be --- and one was --- jumped next. Stephanie and Krista put out feelers to Rob / Yellow that they were free agents when the merge happens. Won't matter a bit if they're gone before that point, which seems likely. Krista's observations at tribal of the two-person 'alliances w/in the alliance' has some impact once it gets down to where those alliances will have to play against each other, and Ralph's idol remains the wild card (he'll wish he kept that secret). That seems a couple of vote-offs away. For now, the Big 6 is alive and well. In Yellow camp, Natalie is still hot. Getting some facial bug-bites. From the next-week preview, it looks like this issue of "girls beach day" will be coming to a head. Philip would seem to be on the wrong side of that... but he's really got nothing left to lose and has to argue that he can offer more in camp work and challenges. Tho, he did try to form an alliance-like bond with Ashley, who despite saying "That was ages ago!" is still feeling a little burned by what happened to Matt. All of that depends on when the merge happens, and when the Redemption player comes back --- and if these happen at the same time or at different points. On the other side of it, especially the bolded, Rob is playing the game like the old vet he is. Everyone is being led around by his little pinkie. So, he has one idol, and now he's got the clue to another. (I didn't know they put two in play at one time. Is that new? Was another idol granted b/c they won the challenge?) He totally played Grant. "Ya gotta hustle to make a dollah. Everybody knows that!" And if the others find out about his deception, he should expect the same treatment as Russell. It doesn't look like that's going to happen, either, and he's potentially going to go into the merge with two idols. And oh, did I mention that Natalie is hot? Dancer. Hmm. At 19 and not particularly petite in ballet terms --- what kind of dancer, do you suppose? Oh, but let's not go down that path....

Yeah. Streets not being plowed for days and days was a problem of success.

Link

What part of this wasn't tried six ways to Sunday with Nate Clements? And that was with a much better DL/LB set (Schoebel in his prime, Sam Adams, Fletcher, Spikes) than we have now. Putting a rookie CB on an island and expecting him to cover someone like Wes Welker for 6-7 seconds is a recipe for failure. And you'll break the kid's spirit in the meantime even if you do manage to build a Front-7 in front of him w/in a few years. There's a reason why you build a foundation before you put up trim.

OK, I stand corrected a bit... Link Per a poll by the Western New England College polling center, 52% of respondents think Scott Brown "deserves to be re-elected" and 28% say he does not. Brown's total job approval rating is 57%, which rivals Kerry's and Patrick's numbers. It's still super early and only one minor Dem candidate has declared. I'm still saying that if any Kennedy declares, it's going to tilt fast. Remember in CT last year before the politicking really started, ex-Congressman Rob Simmons had over 50% against Dodd....

I haven't either. It started probably 5-6 years ago. My upper left eyelid twitches probably 100-150 times a day from fall-back to spring-forward. It's very aggravating. In all the past 5-6 years, it's stopped exactly at spring-forward, even when the date changed. Yesterday after the switch, I had one twitch that was barely noticeable.

1) Christina's father is such an ass. If he's not yelling and complaining, he's spilling his belongings like a buffoon or just not thinking (tonight, he was thinking... with his stomach). At the outset, Christina said that since she's getting married, this would probably be the last time she spends so much time with her father. He's certainly not treating it like that. The Globetrotters saved their asses. Probably as a make-up for the pack incident (was anything further said about the penalty?). I would've thought their fluency in the language would have given them an advantage, but I would've thought wrong. 2) I know it may not be PC, and that 'normal' people have done the same or worse, but we saw the biggest drawback to racing with a slightly autistic individual. I missed the first ~15 minutes, but weren't Zev and Justin in the top few coming out of Japan? 3) Kent and Vixen. What more can I say? Gotta make sure you've got all your sh-- with you... especially the pack that has your passports and money. How the Christ do you take that off of your person or let it out of your sight? It's not that I have anything against people girls who dye their hair weird colors --- in fact, that was 90 percent of the reason anyone ever watched Alias --- but I'd like Ken's guyliner off of my teevee screen. Now. I'm not saying he's a horrible person, and nonconformity isn't bad, but come on! 4) So, for all the conspiracy theorists, we have the second we're-not-done-racing-yet faux pit stop. It saved the cowboys last time. I don't see how in the world it can help Kent and Vixen now.

Eye twitch is gone today, even after a crappy night's sleep. I really can't explain it....

Gregory Alan Isakov - Words http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFw7AaBxatA

Actually, I think this may be just what they needed after a several-game slide. Kemba Walker seems to have found some rhythm again. Having a slump isn't disastrous as long as you peak again at the right time. Some quality minutes for freshman Olander tonight --- he went to my high school alma mater!

It was LBJ.

For the past several years, I've had a severe eye twitch that lasts the duration of the fall-spring section of DST. When DST was shortened during the Bush administration, the twitch followed suit exactly. 'They' say it's related to sleep problems. I call bullsh--; I sleep fine and ~9 hours a night. So I, for one, welcome losing the hour to get back to normal.

Link Exciting find. Conditions for a possible excavation sound pretty hellish, tho. In the middle of a swamp accessible only during two scorching months per year, possibly 60 feet down (? this is unclear) and a layer of methane gas waiting down there.... The last sentence in the quote above also seems especially poignant given today's news. But it also may provide a little bit of solace/perspective that these events have always happened. It's not anything new, nor a signal of this being an "end time."

Doesn't Oregon have violation troubles of their own? If they took a deeper look at every D-1 program, they'd probably all be disqualified.

I'm not the most science-minded person. Is this the process developed a couple of years back that was supposed to wipe out the debate of embryonic vs. adult stem cells? If so, this is idiotic. This is tissue cloning, not cloning an entire human being. I really wish they would stay away from these losing side issues and concentrate wholly on the economy and defense.

I don't care if Russell thought he should have won. He didn't. That's all that matters. I've lost at Monopoly when I've had 4 monopolies with hotels on everything. It's the best strategy --- collect and build. But the other person had Boardwalk & Park Place and the railroads, got extraordinarily lucky on the dice, and I got owned. I played the game the exact right way and I lost. [shrug]. At first, I thought 'Here he was calling everyone else a bunch of bitches, but who's the one sobbing like a little girl. And then, I thought what you just wrote. And then when he went on to try to claim some kind of moral victory by semi-revealing that Ralph has an idol, that was lame as hell. It's information for yellow, sure. But the value of it at this point in the game is friggin' nil. I'm not going to deny that he was an innovator. He just didn't innovate enough. He came back this time and tried to play the same exact game. You can't do that! One-trick ponies get bounced, especially when their MO is screwing everyone over with idols (and, this time, idol clues) and picking people off one at a time. The discussion about second chances at tribal had just as much pertinence to Russell as it did to Kristina or Philip. You can't come back on that second chance and do the same thing that got your ass on the outside looking in the first time. Russell had a third chance after his second chance somehow nearly worked. He still didn't change his game. Even complete idiots get wise when their opponent keeps doing the same thing. Purple showed last night that once they took their chemo and got rid of their cancer, they were back to winning challenges and still have a 2-person lead. If Stephanie and the blonde girl want to come back into the fold, OK, but Russell's gone now. His shadow doesn't cast a vote. Really, they'd better hope purple keeps winning. I'm loving Rob's game. He's back to Robfather status. Loved his "Don't you work for me!??!" aside comment after Philip was lobbying for Kristina after they came back from Redemption. Philip now knows he's the next one in line. It'll be interesting to see what happens now if they can't win immunity. Once the merge comes on, the purple tribe has shown they don't put up with connivers. Rob's saving grace may be to keep that idol as long as he can. He may really need it that first week of the merge. Who was it on the purple team who said he hasn't thought about sex in the past two weeks? Quite obvious he's in the same tribe as Natalie. All I've got to say is that was a very nice yellow bikini reclining shot last night!

Awww, man... That sounds like work.

Oh. I didn't know he was a celebrity besides "Amazing Race." Or that his father has such a... uh... history. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I don't know about that movie. Sophomoric comedy ain't really my thing. Yeah, that's probably it. It would be downright inhumane to make them go back out there. They looked hypothermic in the ambulance. And I think that's the moment when you know this chapter in your is over. No shame in it.

Our previous GSP (from a litter that we raised, so he was here all his life) had to be put down very suddenly nearly 3 years ago, a year to the hour that we had to make a compassionate decision to put down his father. Combined with other losses, it nearly wrecked me. Spent almost 2 years w/o a dog after having them all my life. A lot of the joy was really sucked out of this house. I think the last straw toward getting another was the drunken ice fisher who entered our basement the weekend of the Super Bowl last year. That was a little scary. You'd be surprised how fast a low growl and a full set of canines can make even drunks aware of the moment. The upshot of it is, now we have this crazy little kraut. If we could just get him to calm down/slow down a little. Especially when they're young, this breed and its close cousins are very much "1,000 miles an hour down a dead end street." EII, and AJ, I can honestly recommend that if you can handle it space-wise and sanity-wise, and if you can afford it, getting a puppy as the older one gets closer to the end of the average lifespan is a good idea, 1) so s/he can teach the young one the ropes, which is many times more effective than any teaching method you alone can do and 2) it really cushions the blow when it happens --- especially for children, I'd say.