Rest in Peace, Sally Ride. She will be remembered as the first American woman in space, but to me she represented the realization of a new age in space exploration, one where civilians would participate along with those who had taken the traditional "Right Stuff" path. The Shuttle program never fully lived up to its promise, but that was not through any fault of hers. In fact, her contributions were important in wringing what value and meaning we could from the Shuttle era. Her life was cut too short, but it was one well lived. RIP, Sally.
Drought? What drought? Our dry weather pattern broke last week with a couple of batches of rain that added up to 1" or more. Over the weekend and into today we had a few more bands come through the forecast says there's a chance of rain every day through the end of the week. Other parts of the state that also needed some rain have been similarly blessed. I haven't seen anything official yet, but anecdotes from relatives in SE Minnesota point to good crops in what is looking like a tough year for other parts of the country.
Speaking ill of the dead is still not well received in these parts, so it's a bit surprising to hear it coming from a mild-mannered guy like ex-Viking "Benchwarmer Bob" Lurtsema. Chalk this up to "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."
Not everybody was a fan of Mike Lynn, the former Vikings general manger who died Saturday, July 21, at age 76.
"I'd run through a wall for Jim Finks," retired Vikings defensive lineman Bob Lurtsema said Monday. "For Mike Lynn, I'd run through him. That's the difference."
Finks would have been a tough act for anyone to follow, but there's no doubt that Lynn seemed to go out of his way to piss off people.
The extent of the fallout from the St. Paul crime lab revelations is still unclear. Potentially thousands of settled cases could be reviewed, however many of those deal with small-time amounts of drugs and probably won't be in anybody's interest to retry. Time will tell. In another story on the same subject, I spotted this tidbit(emphasis mine):
The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors accredits state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension labs in St. Paul and Bemidji, the Minneapolis police lab, the Hennepin County sheriff's lab and a lab at Target Corp. The organization accredits 388 U.S. labs and five internationally.
Target Corp. has an accredited crime lab? Yes it does. A quick check shows it is accredited in "Digital and Multimedia Evidence and Latent Prints," which makes perfect sense from a loss prevention standpoint.
Rumor has it that the Twins are willing to deal pitcher Fransico Liriano and some teams are interested. Make that, were interested. Last night's dismal outing against the White Sox may have put the kibosh on that. Liriano's line: 2.2 IP, 7 ER, 3 HR. There's no doubt that he has talent, but 10 and 15 strikout performances don't really matter if your momentary lapses of reason still cost you the games. The man's a head case, and after six years it is quite clear that the Twins don't have what it takes to fix him. If there is a team out there that thinks they have a Liriano Whisperer then Twins GM Terry Ryan should see if he can get a couple of cheeseburgers for him to tide him over while he ponders other trades. Whatever the Twins do, they shouldn't drop a 1-year, $12.5 million contract on him. Uh-uh, no way.
The sun is out now and the humidity is something less than rain forest level, so maybe I'll get out in the garden this afternoon and clean things up a bit for a picture. Stay tuned.
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