Fish Fear Me

Hello, Monday

The Vikes started the week right with a 34-27 win over the Steelers in London. Backup QB Matt Cassel led a balanced offense and the defense came up with a big fumble recovery at the end just when it looked like they were going to collapse in the final minutes for the third game in a row. If coach Leslie Frazier doesn't have Cassel working with the first team through the coming bye week and slotted to start against Carolina in two weeks he's an idiot.

Remember when I said that Adrian Peterson had started the year too slowly to try for the NFL rushing record for a second year in a row? Through the first four games of 2012 he had 332 yards rushing. Through the first four this year he has 421, so he's actually ahead of last year's pace. Oops. It wasn't until week 7 last year that he really began his assault on the record in earnest. Funny how easy it is to forget stuff like that from season to season.

Team Dave has gone to 4-0 in fantasy football with a 57-37 win after yesterday's games. It was another solid week from my QB and two RBs joined by a 9 pt. performance from Anquan Boldin last Thursday night. I'll have to look at the stats after they post this week, but after three weeks I had only one player, Jamaal Charles, in the top 20 scorers, yet I was tied for second in team total points. More on that later this week.

The good news today is that I'm no longer feeling the effects of the spill I took last week. Now if I can shake this cold I came down with on Saturday. I went to the drug store to get a decongestant and some tissues yesterday and the total? $6.66. My head feels better today, but I can feel it trying to settle in my chest. Must not let it settle in my chest. 

I listened to a talk radio guy this morning go on and on about how ridiculous schools have become with their zero-tolerance gun policies. The latest was some kid with a miniature pistol key fob. "Crazy, this has just gotten crazy," he said. Well, it is crazy, but at this point I think it's pretty clear that there is a method to their madness. Those "educators" are trying to instill a deep-seated fear of guns in children that will last an entire lifetime. They don't give a shit how ridiculous they look to you and I now, all they care about is grooming the anti-gun public of the future. And they are succeeding.

I don't have much to say about the looming government shutdown. For the inside the beltway folks and the federal employees around the country it is obviously a big deal, but I care about them in a short-term shutdown as much as they care about the rest of us the rest of the year. So there you go. As far as any blame goes, it takes two to tango. Obama seems to believe that compromise means "I win," and he isn't even trying to reach some sort of agreement. That's his privilege, of course, but let's not pretend he's making any sort of effort to come to an agreement. He's making none at all, so we get what we get as far as that part of it goes.

Thank Goodness For Conjugation

Samuel L Jackson has some thoughts for President Obama on refined public speaking: 

The Pulp Fiction star said the US president should try harder to be a leader and stop dropping the "G"s at the end of words during an interview with Playboy magazine.

"We know it ain't because of his blackness, so I say stop trying to 'relate'. Be a leader," said Jackson. "Be fucking presidential." He added: "Look, I grew up in a society where I could say 'I ain't' or 'what it be' to my friends. But when I'm out presenting myself to the world as me, who graduated from college, who had family who cared about me, who has a well-read background, I fucking conjugate."

Well yeah, because when doing an interview that will be published to a wide audience you wouldn't want to poorly present yourself to the world by dropping the "G" in "fucking." That would be downright crude.

32 ft/sec/sec

We all know it deep down anyway, of course, but every so often Fate reminds us that gravity is often a mean son of a bitch. I got mine yesterday when I was distracted and missed a step, on the way down managing to get tangled in a patio chair so it both came down on my wrist and provided a brutal landing zone for my left thigh. 

I'll be okay, but yowza. It's amazing how fast that crap happens, and out of nowhere. One minute I'm getting set to take the trash and recycling to the curb, the next I'm contemplating an emergency room visit. I didn't need that. There's some pain deep down, but not much swelling or visible bruising, so I think I'm okay. 

Bad timing though. I need to get a few things squared away in the yard the next two weeks so I can go up north and do some grouse hunting in October. Unfortunately, I could barely get in and out of the car yesterday, let alone push a lawn mower. We'll see how the next few days go.

Touré Can See Kenya From His House

And Sarah Palin is the stupid one:

"Here's your Monday geography refresher, Kenya's located on the northern coast of Africa..."

 

W00T

A solid 50-28 win this past weekend leaves me 3-0 in FFL, my best start in some time. Unfortunately, another team in my division looks likely to go to 3-0 also, so I have to share the division lead. We're the last two undefeated at this point and will meet up in three weeks.

It was another solid week for my RBs. Jamaal Charles got me 12 points last Thursday and Joique Bell, in place of Reggie Bush yesterday, got me 10 more. A respectable 9 points from Stafford and an excellent 14 point performance from Justin Tucker took care of the bulk of the scoring.

I'm unhappy that Anquan Boldin, Vincent Jackson, and Brandon Marshall combined for only 5 points. Jackson left the game early with a rib injury and we'll have to see how serious that is. It looks like Marshall had a down game simply because Chicago jumped to an early lead and didn't do a lot of passing. Anquan Boldin worries me the most right now, as I watched most of the 49ers game and his quarterback, Kaepernick, looked awful. What made it even worse was it looked like they had established the running game with Frank Gore, so it should have been even easier for Kaepernick to both run and open up the passing game. Clearly teams have adjusted to his style and he and his coaches are going to have to do some adjusting of their own. 

Sitting on the bench is Cecil Shorts for Jacksonville, who didn't get in the end zone yesterday but had a very respectable 143 yards against a tough Seahawks defense. Then there's Tavon Austin, who I picked up after I dropped Sidney Rice yesterday. Naturally, Rice had a huge game with two TDs yesterday. I'll have to see who makes it through the waiver wire Wednesday night.

In the real world, the Vikes went to 0-3 after losing at home to, gulp, the Cleveland Browns. They simply got outplayed and outcoached. The offensive line that cleared the way for Adrian Peterson last year and did a decent job of protecting Christian Ponder is in complete disarray. Ponder was sacked six times yesterday and Peterson had to work awfully hard to get to 88 yards. Ponder looked decisive on short passes and had some zip on the ball, but he was terrible passing downfield.

Unlike my FFL team, it may be time to write this season off.

My Part For The Economy

Good news! I get to shop for a new water heater this weekend. Anybody got some advice?

I can't really complain, because the old one had the good grace to just leak a little instead of failing catastrophically. Plus, it's the same 40-gallon Kenmore Economizer 5(gas) that was reasonably new, uh, 23 years ago when I bought the house. I'd say I more than got my money's worth out of that one. 

It looks like Sears has a replacement version that's pretty close to the same, though I guess I'll check out Menards and Home Depot too. Fun, fun, fun.

Buddhism Must Not Be Politically Correct

I don't recall a similar story from the Washington Post about Muslims when Nidal Hasan murdered 13 soldiers:

Buddhist community ponders apparent link between their faith and Navy Yard shooter

Buddhism in the US has cultivated a reputation as peaceful, but anyone who has paid attention to international news knows that there have been very violent outbursts from Buddhists around the world. For months now, vicious anti-Muslim riots have wracked Burma. Going back further, Buddhists supported and justified Japanese militarism before WWII. That's not to say that Buddhism is violent at its core, from my limited understanding it's just the opposite, but just like all religions it has seen its violent side.

As far as I can tell there is no evidence that Buddhism influenced the actions of the shooter on Monday, so why the story? They wouldn't do one if he was Catholic or Jewish, and for damn sure they wouldn't do it if he were Muslim. I've read more details about him, but his connection to Buddhism didn't stand out to me any more than his connection with the US Navy.

I don't get it.

On a much lighter note, the original online version of the article apparently misspelled Buddhist as Buddist, which made me wonder if there was some kind of cult out there dedicated to worshipping Bud Bundy:

It's possible you know. How's that for a scary thought?

Gonna Have To Try This One

Outside of meatloaf and lasagna I don't do a lot of baking. Well, the occasional Totino's party pizza too. Ahem. But I stumbled across this recipe and I'm going to have to try it:

Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits-Top Secret Version

2 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix
4 tablespoons cold butter
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
3/4 cup cold whole milk
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Brush on top
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1 pinch salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Combine Bisquick and cold butter. Don't combine too thoroughly. There should be small chunks of butter about the size of peas.
3. Add cheddar, milk and 1/4 tsp garlic.
4. Mix by hand until combined, but don't over mix.
5. Drop 9 equal portions onto greased cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until tops are light brown.
7. Melt 2 tbsp butter in a bowl. Stir in 1/2 tsp garlic powder and parsley flakes.
8. Use a pastry brush to spread garlic butter over tops of biscuits.

I love those Red Lobster biscuits, and I'm not a big bread eater. This is one of those things that I'll probably only make for company, but I'm going to try it just so I can add it to my skill set. 

Mike Lupica And The NY Daily News: Synonyms For "Epic Fail"

As bad as it gets sometimes, only rarely do journalism and punditry sink to this level of hysterical foolishness:

Mike Lupica chimed in with this:

Lupica: AR-15 is the rifle for the 'sport' of hunting humans

They call semiautomatics like this sport rifles. You bet. Mostly for the sport of killing innocent people, and killing them fast.

It turns out that reports of the shooter using an AR-15 style rifle were false. According to the FBI he used a shotgun and then took a pistol off of a security officer he shot. There's now a note above Lupica's rant explaining that he wrote it when "reputable law enforcement sources" were saying the shooter used an AR-15. Maybe, but I bet those weren't "official" law enforcement officials who were authorized to speak to the media.

Everybody knows that initial reports are almost always wrong to one extent or another. The prudent thing to do before jumping in with both feet would be to wait for official confirmation. But journalistic malpractice comes easy to close-minded people who are eager to push their agenda. I might cut them some slack if they didn't have a history of deceiving their readers on multiple occasions. 

And to Lupica's point, estimates vary widely, but there are millions of AR-15s or similar variants in the hands of the US public. According to the FBI, in 2012 all rifles combined(meaning tens of millions more) accounted for 322 murders out of 12,765.

"Mostly for the sport of killing innocent people, and killing them fast," eh? No, not even close. 

I'm open to listening to gun control advocates who sincerely want to examine options for helping to end, or at least reduce the likelihood of mass shootings. But people like Lupica and his editors actually lesson the chance of finding common ground when they spew out this sort of ignorance and vitriol.

More: CNN tries to match them with this:

The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle, which is vastly different than a shotgun. I've said this before and I'll say it again: If you want to have anything you say in the gun debate dismissed out of hand, make an egregious mistake like the one pictured above and then compound it by refusing to understand why it matters. 

Shield Laws

A federal shield law giving some assistance to people in protecting their anonymous sources has made its way out of a Senate committee:

In a 13-5 vote, the committee approved S. 987, the Free Flow of Information Act (FFIA), which is sponsored by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.  The bill would require anyone seeking confidential source information to exhaust alternative sources, demonstrate a high degree of relevance for the information sought, and would require a federal judge to conduct a balancing test to determine whether to allow a prosecutor or litigant to subpoena a journalist in federal court. Although 48 states and the District of Columbia protect journalists from compelled testimony either by statute or common law, Congress has not yet provided similar protections.

I'm okay with the general principle here, but I get nervous when it includes stuff like this:

Similarly, the bill’s protections are not limited to people who produce journalism for financial gain.  Indeed, the FFIA does not contain any requirements regarding compensation.  The bill covers a wide range of bloggers, student journalists, and others, as long as their primary intent is to gather news and information for the public.[emphasis mine]

I'm not sure what they mean by "primary intent." Does that apply to a blog or blogger in general or can it apply only to a specific post?

For example, I don't think the "primary intent" of this blog is to "gather news and information for the public." However, if I get a story from an insider at city hall and publish a post on it, shouldn't I get the same ability to protect my source as a beat reporter from the Strib? After all, freedom of the press doesn't apply to a special class of citizens, it's the right of all Americans. 

If not, why not?