Fish Fear Me

Another Day...

...another leftist belches out some pointless and stupid pre-election diatribe. I'm not even going to excerpt it, because this one is even dumber than most and notable only for its blatant racism.

Democrats can try all they want to portray conservatives and the Tea Party movement as insane or stupid, but they have an insurmountable problem:

I'm sorry, but you can hunt up all the drooling idiots you want, nothing this election cycle is going to top that for both insane and stupid.

The Quality Of The Light

Each year around this time there comes a tipping point of sorts that tells me that fall has really arrived. It's not when the days turn cooler, which can happen around here before Labor Day. Nor is it when the leaves begin to turn. It's the moment when I realize that the daylight shadows have reached a certain length and the sunlight has acquired a quality that is hard to describe. Maybe it's the weakness of the light. The sun has been dropping in the sky since June, but it happens so gradually that I don't notice it until it suddenly hits me. Yesterday provided this year's moment on an early afternoon stroll:

It's fall.

50-50 Sports

A split weekend on the sports front here in the soon to be Great White North of America:

• Bad: An ugly loss for Gopher football this past weekend. Not only that, but supposedly that makes our head coach, "the first coach to lose three non-conference home games since 1898." Um...ouch. I'm not really that passionate about Gopher football, but even a somewhat detached fan like me is starting to feel embarrassed at the state of the program. Something is going to have to give soon.
• Good: Not a pretty win for the Vikings yesterday, but a definite improvement on offense compared to the first two games. Both the play calls and the execution seemed better after the first quarter. With the bye week now, the Vikings have two weeks to build on that and get ready for the Jets on the road and on Monday night. How the offense comes out and plays for that game will probably tell the tale on how the rest of the season will go.
• Bad: The Twins missed an opportunity to take the lead for home field advantage by getting swept in Detroit this weekend. It's more important to rest people and make the final evaluations about the first(ahem) post-season roster, but it would really be nice if they could be grab that. They are one game out with seven to go, but they would lose a tiebreaker with either the Rays or the Yankees based on head-to-head this year. That means they need to pick up two games and that's a tall order. Oh well, looking forward to the post-season any way it happens.
• Good: If the Bears can keep Greg Jennings from scoring 13 or more points tonight my FFL team will land in the winning column for the first time this year. If not, I'll chalk it up to an angry FFL god punishing me for leaving Mike Wallace's 15 points and Braylon Edwards'  TD on the bench yesterday. Oops. I have no idea what I was thinking.

I'll be happy to take half.

Great Moments In Third Person Blogging

A few weeks ago Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic went to Cuba and was able to sit down and chat with good old Fidel himself. His mostly fawning posts about it were remarkable to me only in the sense that I finally had to admit that the old bastard hadn't actually shuffled off to Hell as I had hoped. Well, it was more like asserted, but whatever. Crow eaten. In today's Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O'Grady gives Goldberg a few good whacks for his efforts and Goldberg responds with his own retort: That Unhinged Mary Anastasia O'Grady Column.

Well, I'm not really much interested in what Goldberg says in his defense, because anyone who can sit down with Castro and cordially interview that asshole is pretty much beyond redemption as far as I'm concerned. I don't care that he's a journalist "just doing his job." Castro deserves no respect, none. The only questions directed his way should be ones asking him how he justifies the thousands murdered by his regime and the decades that millions had to spend in the miserable totalitarian society that he created and ruled over.

What I do find interesting is how Goldberg starts his attack on O'Grady by referring to his blog like it is some kind of entity that is distinct from himself:

If I didn't know better, I would say that Mary Anastasia O'Grady, the Wall Street Journal polemicist who never met a fascist Central American oligarch she didn't like, is preparing to invade the Bay of Pigs all over again. Her column today, attacking Goldblog for interviewing Fidel Castro, is almost pathological in its disregard for reality. O'Grady is a prime proponent of a five-decade-old Cuba policy that has failed utterly to dislodge the Castro brothers. But why let failure get in the way of consistency?

He does it once more:

O'Grady is particularly bothered by Goldblog's decision to publish Fidel Castro's denunciation of anti-Semitism.

As far as I can tell, "Goldblog" consists entirely of the writing and publishing decisions of one Jeffrey Goldberg. O'Grady didn't attack some entity called Goldblog, she attacked an asshat named Jeffrey Goldberg. What are we seeing here, the birth of the writing style to be known as Third Person Blog? Of course, I could be wrong and there are more people at work on Goldblog than it appears. If any of them actually exist outside of Goldberg's head, I will humbly apologize.

In the meantime, Dave E. is very upset...very upset!*

*Not really...I was just itching to do a George Costanza imitation.

Journalism School, con't.

I can't find it right now, but some time back I posted a humorous YouTube video about how to do your typical broadcast news story. In the interest of continuing our education in the finer points of being a journalist, here's a link on how to write up an article that involves science:

In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?

Read the whole step by step process and write your way to your very own Pulitzer Prize.

Snort

Hahaha...Sen. John Kerry speaks:

“We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what’s happening,” Kerry told reporters after touring the Boston Medical Center yesterday.

And about 100 million Americans respond as one with, "Yeah, slogans like Hope and Change, you fool."

It's true, you can't make this shit up.

Thanks, Karl. Not.

Fall is being ushered in by heavy rains here. There has only been about 1.5" in the Twin Cities, but south and west of my place there are reports of as much as 6" of rain since yesterday. Flash flood warnings are in effect for pretty much the entire southern 1/3 of the state. Apparently all of this moisture is the remnant of what was Hurricane Karl and it will dump up to three more inches of rain across the state today.

Oddly enough, most of the worst effects may not be felt until next spring. Much of the ground in southern and western Minnesota will now be thoroughly saturated, if it wasn't before. If we don't get some unusually dry weather over the next month then once again spring will roll around and there will be little or no room for the ground to absorb snow melt.

Stuff

-The magic number is down to two for the Twins to clinch the AL Central. I've seen a lot of talk that the series this week between the Yankees and the Rays is a preview of the ALCS, but I wouldn't count on that. Last year the Yankees swept the Twins easily in the first round, but keep in mind that was after a grinding run to catch the Tigers and an emotional game 163. This year the Yankees and Rays are grinding it out and the Twins and Rangers are coasting into the playoffs. Home field advantage throughout is still in play and I expect the Twins to play for that, but not at the expense of a healthy and rested roster for the postseason.

-The inspiration for the name of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd has passed away. Leonard Skinner was 77.

-From the Dept. of Unintended Consequences: A number of health insurers have decided to stop writing child-only health insurance policies ahead of new regulations taking effect on Thursday. Democrats will blame the big meany insurance companies, but the reality is the Obama Administration has botched the regulations to the point where those companies are saying they don't want to play that game, at least for now. The botching and the excuse-making have just begun.

-Back to sports...many in the Twin Cities are wondering if the 0-2 start for the Vikings is a reason to panic. Let me say this as calmly and reassuringly as possible: YES! Sidney Rice's failure to take care of his hip problem on a timely basis has turned out to be a disaster. Officially Brett Favre had 3 interceptions, but one of those was Percy Harvin failing to secure the ball and another was due to Bernard Berrian's congenital inability to adjust once the ball is in the air. Hey, dumbass! If your quarterback under throws the ball a little you might, I don't know, slow down a bit and go back for the ball. Signing Vincent Jackson could be a big help down the road, but I think what would help immediately would be to adjust the play calls for the personnel they have this year. Berrian is no Sidney Rice who will protect the ball at all costs. Heck, even second year man Harvin is better at it. Get Camarillo more into the mix and realize what Berrian can and can't do. Is Brad Childress smart enough to recognize that? No, but I think Favre is.

-Speaking of football, my FFL team is off to an 0-2 start also. Week 1 I got two TDs and 100 yards from Chris Johnson, but just enough support from the rest of the guys to lose by one point. This week Johnson gave me nothing and I lost by eleven. I'll be checking the free agents tonight, but I'm not panicking yet. Close, but not yet.

If MLB Was Star Trek

"Damn it, I'm just an old country doctor, not some sort of baseball miracle worker. It's dead, Jim."

Done

It was not unexpected, but it still gave me a big boost to officially be done with physical therapy and released from any further doctor visits related to my hand surgery. It's still not 100% and realistically it never will be, however, the difference will probably not be noticeable to anyone else. I'll have a couple more months of using the splints to stretch the fingers out when that's needed and that will be it. My grip strength in that hand has gone from around 45 (lbs, I think), to 60, o 70, and today to 90. For comparison, the right hand is 115. Since the right is my dominant hand, normal would probably be around 100-105 for the left.

Having surgery at the beginning of June put a major crimp on my summer, but it has been worth it. When I had the same surgery done on the right hand years ago it was in winter and that was even worse when it came to getting around and dealing with Mother Nature for three months. I guess there's really no good time for it, but summer felt a bit easier.

Basically it is done and thank goodness. My left hand was essentially crippled by the time I got off my duff and had this taken care of. Now it isn't, and in addition I've had a checkup and I quit smoking cigarettes. Not what I really wanted to spend a good chunk of my summer on, but well worth it in the long run.