I get tons of emails about playing soccer with me on Wednesday nights. (OK, that actual number might be closer to zero) Herewith is why I play. Ignore the glitz and glam. The scenes of playing are dead on. This was directed by the ever brilliant Guy Ritchie
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Let Us Install It!
So I went to the Big Box 'puter store. I was buying an external hard drive. I knew what I wanted and basically walked in and directly to the item I wanted and went to the desk to pick it up (they had them in the back and you had to bring an empty box to them). Conversation with sales dork as follows:
Sales Dork: Will that be all for you today sir?
Duffy: Yes, thanks.
Sales Dork: Do you need this professionally installed?
Duffy: ...
Sales Dork: Sir?
Duffy: It's an external drive
Sales Dork: Right and we can dispatch a tech to make sure everything is installed properly so you don't have to worry
Duffy: (thinking: I'll play along) And just how much is that going to cost me?
Sales Dork: We're having a special so we can do it for $29.99
Duffy: So, $30 to "install" an external hard drive. Does anyone say yes to that?
Sales Dork: (somewhat deflated) Sometimes...(looks around to see manager has departed) sorry, we have to do that with almost everything.
Duffy: No problem. Can we get this over with?
I feel for the poor guy. He's required by his manager to insult his customers in an attempt to charge them unnecessary fees.
Sales Dork: Will that be all for you today sir?
Duffy: Yes, thanks.
Sales Dork: Do you need this professionally installed?
Duffy: ...
Sales Dork: Sir?
Duffy: It's an external drive
Sales Dork: Right and we can dispatch a tech to make sure everything is installed properly so you don't have to worry
Duffy: (thinking: I'll play along) And just how much is that going to cost me?
Sales Dork: We're having a special so we can do it for $29.99
Duffy: So, $30 to "install" an external hard drive. Does anyone say yes to that?
Sales Dork: (somewhat deflated) Sometimes...(looks around to see manager has departed) sorry, we have to do that with almost everything.
Duffy: No problem. Can we get this over with?
I feel for the poor guy. He's required by his manager to insult his customers in an attempt to charge them unnecessary fees.
Daily Roundup
(An unpopular yet continuing feature)
First up, Obama's interview:
Wow. Markets work and we should be rewarding teachers by ability. Hmmm....is he triangulating because he knows Fox's audience or is he for real? I guess we'll find out one way or the other.
I've said nothing about Jose Calderon largely because he's not been in the news and I really know nothing of the man. I wasn't a fan of Vicente Fox but he wasn't all bad. It seems Calderon is doing much that needs to be done and at great cost.
Sounds familiar doesn't it? (In Iraq the IP's are unreliable but the Iraqi Army is not.) Kudos to Senor Calderon, I hope he succeeds.
The anti-war crowd frequently brays that there is no way that Al Qaeda would be in bed with Saddam as he was unislamic and that would make them natural enemies. Likewise they would never collaborate with Hezbollah or Hamas as they are Shia. Yet now we're getting word that Al Qaeda is teaming up with Mookie Sadr to fight the U.S. "But..but..but....how can that beeeeeeee?" I hear them sputter. "They hate each other." Yes but the old axiom of the enemy of my enemy is my friend always applies. People hold grudges and old hatreds do die hard but frequently interests, goals, objectives (call them what you will) usually trump those hatreds. I guarantee that if I offered you enough money you'd make peace with your enemies. This is, of course a losing deal for everybody. Despite Leftist crowing to the contrary, neither Sadr nor AQ is going to win this one. They aren't even going to be able to hold out much longer. Last time Sadr showed his hand he and his boys where crying Uncle inside a day and a half and he fled to Iran with his tail between his legs. The best part of this for us is that it unites the two opposing forces into one front. When we get inside their decision curve it will be on one front. When they have turncoats they will have a much more information to give. They may have the fervor of the righteous but they don't have the doctrine. Or the brains. Or the equipment.
The "Support Our Troops/Bring Them Home" crowd masks their anti-war stance as some sort of concern for the safety and well being of our troops. This one will test that theory. Many moons ago when my brother was stationed at Bragg he was giving me a tour of the base. He wryly pointed out that his office was in a building that had been condemned (due to structural concerns) and due to be demolished and replaced. When the requisite funding dried up the building was "uncondemned" and the structural deficiencies magically vanished. As an officer he was never required to live on post (aside from a short stay in BOQ while looking for a house). Yesterday I read this and today I saw this video:
I'll hold my breath while the anti-war crowd raises their voices in unison to right this wrong. That would be supporting the troops.
Changing the subject to sports...I read this story today which I really like to see. I've talked about sportsmanship before and how I think it's a benchmark to judge people. Stories like this are not seen on a professional level and to a degree I understand but even seeing this on a collegiate level is a welcome thing. More please.
Back to politics...
"Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion. He was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter's being vilified for and Bishop Tutu's being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I'm anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago. He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century; that's what I think about him. . . . Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn't make me this color." - Jeremiah Wright
Nota Bene:
1. You were never in chains
2. You were never in slavery
3. The melanin in your skin made you that color
What makes this statement so reprehensible is the implication that because Farrakhan is black he is not the enemy. Inversely that must mean that anyone who is white;
1. Put black people in chains or bears responsibility for same
2. Enslaved or is responsible for enslaving black people
3. Is somehow responsible for skin color
My family didn't get here until long after slavery ended. Before that they were in Europe scraping out an meager existence and in no position to employ anyone let alone enslave them. Wright's comments and frankly, ideas are disgusting. They are unAmerican, unChristian and deplorable. Obama was right to disavow him but it will not explain his close, personal relationship with him for over 20 years.
First up, Obama's interview:
OBAMA: Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.
WALLACE: Such as?
OBAMA: Well, on issues of regulation. I think that back in the '60s and '70s a lot of the way we regulated industry was top-down command and control, we're going to tell businesses exactly how to do things.
And you know, I think that the Republican Party and people who thought about the markets came up with the notion that, "You know what? If you simply set some guidelines, some rules and incentives, for businesses — let them figure out how they're going to, for example, reduce pollution," and a cap and trade system, for example is a smarter way of doing it, controlling pollution, than dictating every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and oftentimes is less efficient.
I think that on issues of education, I've been very clear about the fact — and sometimes I've gotten in trouble with the teachers' union on this — that we should be experimenting with charter schools. We should be experimenting with different ways of compensating teachers that...
Wow. Markets work and we should be rewarding teachers by ability. Hmmm....is he triangulating because he knows Fox's audience or is he for real? I guess we'll find out one way or the other.
I've said nothing about Jose Calderon largely because he's not been in the news and I really know nothing of the man. I wasn't a fan of Vicente Fox but he wasn't all bad. It seems Calderon is doing much that needs to be done and at great cost.
Some 2,500 soldiers and federal police swept into Ciudad Juarez over the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas last month with heavy weaponry and helicopters to quell a surge in drug murders as gangs fight over smuggling routes into the United States.
Soldiers have taken over many security tasks from the often corrupt city police, making dozens of arrests and seizing arms and narcotics but the fight against common crime has apparently suffered.
Sounds familiar doesn't it? (In Iraq the IP's are unreliable but the Iraqi Army is not.) Kudos to Senor Calderon, I hope he succeeds.
The anti-war crowd frequently brays that there is no way that Al Qaeda would be in bed with Saddam as he was unislamic and that would make them natural enemies. Likewise they would never collaborate with Hezbollah or Hamas as they are Shia. Yet now we're getting word that Al Qaeda is teaming up with Mookie Sadr to fight the U.S. "But..but..but....how can that beeeeeeee?" I hear them sputter. "They hate each other." Yes but the old axiom of the enemy of my enemy is my friend always applies. People hold grudges and old hatreds do die hard but frequently interests, goals, objectives (call them what you will) usually trump those hatreds. I guarantee that if I offered you enough money you'd make peace with your enemies. This is, of course a losing deal for everybody. Despite Leftist crowing to the contrary, neither Sadr nor AQ is going to win this one. They aren't even going to be able to hold out much longer. Last time Sadr showed his hand he and his boys where crying Uncle inside a day and a half and he fled to Iran with his tail between his legs. The best part of this for us is that it unites the two opposing forces into one front. When we get inside their decision curve it will be on one front. When they have turncoats they will have a much more information to give. They may have the fervor of the righteous but they don't have the doctrine. Or the brains. Or the equipment.
The "Support Our Troops/Bring Them Home" crowd masks their anti-war stance as some sort of concern for the safety and well being of our troops. This one will test that theory. Many moons ago when my brother was stationed at Bragg he was giving me a tour of the base. He wryly pointed out that his office was in a building that had been condemned (due to structural concerns) and due to be demolished and replaced. When the requisite funding dried up the building was "uncondemned" and the structural deficiencies magically vanished. As an officer he was never required to live on post (aside from a short stay in BOQ while looking for a house). Yesterday I read this and today I saw this video:
I'll hold my breath while the anti-war crowd raises their voices in unison to right this wrong. That would be supporting the troops.
Changing the subject to sports...I read this story today which I really like to see. I've talked about sportsmanship before and how I think it's a benchmark to judge people. Stories like this are not seen on a professional level and to a degree I understand but even seeing this on a collegiate level is a welcome thing. More please.
Back to politics...
"Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion. He was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter's being vilified for and Bishop Tutu's being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I'm anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago. He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century; that's what I think about him. . . . Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn't make me this color." - Jeremiah Wright
Nota Bene:
1. You were never in chains
2. You were never in slavery
3. The melanin in your skin made you that color
What makes this statement so reprehensible is the implication that because Farrakhan is black he is not the enemy. Inversely that must mean that anyone who is white;
1. Put black people in chains or bears responsibility for same
2. Enslaved or is responsible for enslaving black people
3. Is somehow responsible for skin color
My family didn't get here until long after slavery ended. Before that they were in Europe scraping out an meager existence and in no position to employ anyone let alone enslave them. Wright's comments and frankly, ideas are disgusting. They are unAmerican, unChristian and deplorable. Obama was right to disavow him but it will not explain his close, personal relationship with him for over 20 years.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Two Items From Europe
Why is it then that so many Americans - and foreigners who come here - feel that the place is so, well, safe?
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."
This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
"It seems so nice here," they quaver.
Well, it is!
Violent paradox
Ten or 20 years ago, it was a different story, but things have changed.
And this is Manhattan.
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.
They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
Peace and serenity
What surprises the British tourists is that, in areas of the US that look and feel like suburban Britain, there is simply less crime and much less violent crime.
Doors are left unlocked, public telephones unbroken.
One reason - perhaps the overriding reason - is that there is no public drunkenness in polite America, simply none.
I have never seen a group of drunk young people in the entire six years I have lived here. I travel a lot and not always to the better parts of town.
It is an odd fact that a nation we associate - quite properly - with violence is also so serene, so unscarred by petty crime, so innocent of brawling.
Virginia Tech had the headlines in the last few days and reminded us of the violence for which the US is well known.
But most American lives were as peaceful on this anniversary as they are every day.
Well, yes. Having lived in NYC as well as the Deep South, I can tell you I was much safer in Deep South which was bristling with (legal) guns. (I will qualify that by saying that I was living in NYC during the Dinkins years when things were really grim. Not so now.)
Item #2:
Europeans apparently got the memo that Global Warming ended in 1998 because they're moving full tilt boogie back to ugly polluting coal.
"Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.
And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades."
I'll brook no more comments from Europeans or preening Americans about how much better/wiser/more environmentally responsible Europe is. That ship has sailed (and it's powered by coal).
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."
This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
"It seems so nice here," they quaver.
Well, it is!
Violent paradox
Ten or 20 years ago, it was a different story, but things have changed.
And this is Manhattan.
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.
They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
Peace and serenity
What surprises the British tourists is that, in areas of the US that look and feel like suburban Britain, there is simply less crime and much less violent crime.
Doors are left unlocked, public telephones unbroken.
One reason - perhaps the overriding reason - is that there is no public drunkenness in polite America, simply none.
I have never seen a group of drunk young people in the entire six years I have lived here. I travel a lot and not always to the better parts of town.
It is an odd fact that a nation we associate - quite properly - with violence is also so serene, so unscarred by petty crime, so innocent of brawling.
Virginia Tech had the headlines in the last few days and reminded us of the violence for which the US is well known.
But most American lives were as peaceful on this anniversary as they are every day.
Well, yes. Having lived in NYC as well as the Deep South, I can tell you I was much safer in Deep South which was bristling with (legal) guns. (I will qualify that by saying that I was living in NYC during the Dinkins years when things were really grim. Not so now.)
Item #2:
Europeans apparently got the memo that Global Warming ended in 1998 because they're moving full tilt boogie back to ugly polluting coal.
"Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.
And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades."
I'll brook no more comments from Europeans or preening Americans about how much better/wiser/more environmentally responsible Europe is. That ship has sailed (and it's powered by coal).
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