Archive for April 2011
Political Rehab, Day 18: The challenge was 30 political-free posts in 30 days. I’ve managed 5 in 18. I definitely have to step it up. BTW, I’m classifying this as a post about business and judiciary actions.
MINNEAPOLIS — The NFL filed a brief with the 8th U.S. District Court of Appeals in St. Louis on Monday, arguing that the lockout should remain on hold permanently while the two sides hash things out in court. A three-judge panel of the appeals court put an order lifting the lockout on hold temporarily last week and the owners reinstated the lockout a few hours later. In an 18-page brief, the NFL again argued that U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson shouldn’t have jurisdiction over a matter that grew from a labor dispute.
Source: AP
As much as I hate both sides for putting the season in jeopardy, can someone please tell me where the hell this Judge Nelson gets off telling the owners they had to open their facilities to the players? If someone buys a team and owns the facilities, how do you imagine you have the right to force them to open the doors of their facilities to anyone?
With that kind of logic, if your nanny and your cook started demanding more money than you wanted to pay and you told them not to come over to the house anymore until you were able to reach an agreement, a judge could come along and tell you, “I have decided that you will continue to allow your employees into your home whether you like it or not.”
That’s all sideshow, really, but I found the previous judge’s ruling pretty hard to fathom. Just figure it out guys. Life with $5 gasoline is bad enough, life with $5 gas and no NFL might be enough to make law abiding citizens riot.
Political Rehab, Day 14: Well, the blog has remained politics free, although probably should consider a couple political posts on Facebook as some sort of relapse. Not only that, but where the challenge was 30 political-free posts in 30 days, I’ve only managed 5 in 14. Yikes, it is harder than I thought switching gears.
Sad news regarding one of my favorite lunatics in baseball:
LUTZ, Fla. — Former major league outfielder Carl Everett was in a Tampa jail Tuesday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after putting a handgun to his wife’s head, according to police records. Everett, 39, was arrested Monday night at his home in the Tampa suburb of Lutz. He was also charged with tampering with a witness and was being held in the Hillsborough County Jail.
source: ESPN
That is such a bummer to hear, I always loved the fact that Carl Everett was maybe the most outspoken player of recent memory. I did not dig the fact that his views on homosexuality are about 100 or 200 years behind the times, and I’m sure many gays out there are probably smiling at the news today, but if true tolerance is a wide acceptance of lifestyles and beliefs, how can I be tolerant of gays and not also hold some tolerance for those Christians and Muslims whose convictions lead them to believe homosexuality is a sin with no hate in their hearts.
So I tried to look past his views on homosexuality and just marvel at a guy who may have been the farthest “out-there” baseball player of recent memory. “C-Rex” was a man who stood by his convictions, whacky as some of them were. Witness the following:
Carl Everett is a man of conviction. As an Apostolic Christian, he believes that the Bible, interpreted literally, is the infallible authority on all matters. As the cocksure centerfielder for the Boston Red Sox he believes in taking on pitchers and questions alike with the same absolute assuredness. The man plays and talks with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Just ask.
Interleague play? “Don’t like it,” Everett responds. “They only have it because of two teams [the New York Mets and the New York Yankees]. It’s all about the money.” Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter? “Not a star.” The Mets, one of his former teams? “All those [management] people are hypocrites and idiots.” The Atlanta Braves’ starting pitchers? “You can run on them all day.” Big cities? “Hate ‘em. I need space.” American League baseball? “Boring.” Dinosaurs? “Didn’t exist.”
Uh, come again?
“God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve,” Everett said last Friday, before the Red Sox lost two of three in Atlanta. “The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can’t say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex.”
What about dinosaur bones?
“Made by man,” he says.
Everett has trouble, too, with the idea of man actually walking on the moon. After first rejecting the notion, he concedes, “Yeah, that could have happened. It’s possible. That is something you could prove. You can’t prove dinosaurs ever existed. I feel it’s far-fetched.”
source: Sports Illustrated
That is one of my all time favorite sports articles, the whole article is just priceless and well worth the read, as much as for some of the quotes his teammates make about Carl as for some of the other blasts he gets off.
Hope very much for healing for the whole Everett family.
Political Rehab, Day 8: nothing like a royal wedding to take the mind of politics.
Just days before the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton (which will have an estimated 2 BILLION viewers on television) we get this interesting bit of historical info on the Prince’s father.
Prince Charles on Wednesday become the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, having waited to take over from Queen Elizabeth II for 59 years, two months and 14 days. Charles has overtaken the record set by his great-great grandfather king Edward VII.
When you think about the fact that the history of the British monarchy spans back over 1,100 years, that’s pretty damn amazing. Obviously, life expectancy is higher now than ever, but still pretty amazing to think that this guy has been waiting to ascend to the throne longer than anyone in eleven centuries of British history.
You’ve heard it said, “It’s good to be king,” and yes, 59 years is a long, long time to wait. If the current queen lives to her mother Elizabeth’s age, then we’re talking 74 years in waiting to be the king, but I seriously wonder, how does Prince Charles’ life change in any way when he becomes King Charles?
Back in the day, there was absolute power to be inherited, but I would imagine now, not a whole lot will change when the prince becomes king and the lifestyle for the new king will be just as fabulous as it ever was.
Political Rehab, Day 7: Reporting here on my seventh day in Political Rehab, I made a challenge to myself, I was shooting for 30 non-political posts in 30 days, but days 2 through 6, family issues had my head spinning and I just couldn’t bring myself to post on anything, so I’m behind the pace of 30 in 30, but back today with another non-political post. Regarding this post, it’s true that Sheriff Joe is known as a national political figure as much as he is known as a law enforcement officer, but I would still say this story is more in the realm of sociology experiment than straight politics.
You may have heard of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff who seems to believe wholeheartedly in shaming offenders into never coming back with such humiliations (and cost saving measures) as having all the inmates quartered in tents out in the middle of the desert, issuing nothing but pink underwear and feeding the inmates green bologna? Wearing pink underwear in a tent out in the middle of the desert with green bologna for lunch and dinner? Now there’s a version of “three hots and a cot” I think even the hardest criminals would want to avoid.
So Sheriff Joe is at it again with his latest spin on crime deterrence through humiliation. This time it’s with his “Mugshot of the Day” program at the website and you too can vote on the wackiest outlaw (er, alleged outlaw) in Maricopa County.
Check out the second mugshot from the left, how the heck did Nick Nolte get booked under the alias Barbara Cyran?
Source: Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office
Political Rehab, Day 1: Reporting here on my first day in Political Rehab, and right off the bat, I see a story about a Democrat senator who’s introducing legislation to start taxing Internet sales but no way am I going to touch that one and slip up on my very first day.
An Australian business called The Chilli Factory is laying claim to having developed the hottest chilli in the world.
The fiery Trinidad Scorpion Butch T registers 1,463,700 Scoville heat units, placing it ahead of the current leader recognised by Guinness World Records, the Naga Viper, which comes in at 1,382,118. Jalapenos measure about 2500-5000 and the hottest Tabasco is 30,000.
“They’re just severe, absolutely severe,” says Marcel de Wit, The Chilli Factory co-owner. “No wonder they start making crowd-control grenades now with chillies. It’s just wicked.”
Top 10 hottest chilli varietal groups with their Scoville unit ratings:
1. Trinidad Scorpion Butch Taylor (1,463,700)
2. Scorpion cultivars and Naga Viper Chilli (1,250,000 to 1,350,000)
3. Chocolate 7-pod and Infinity Chilli (1,200,000 to 1,250,000)
4. 7-pod varieties; Barrackpore, primo, yellow, red (1,100,000 to 1,200,000)
5. The Nagas; Bhut Jolokia, Bih Jolokia, Naga Jolokia, Dorset Naga, Naga Morich (900,000 to 1,100,000)
6. Naga x Habanero crosses; Habanaga, Nagabon (800,000)
7. Red Savina Habanero (577,000)
8. Chocolate Habanero or Caribbean Habanero (250,000 to 350,000)
9. Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets (100,000 to 250,000)
10. Tepins, Tabascos, Birds eyes (<100,000)
Source: Australian Geographic
Now here I thought I was the man because I could stroll down the isle of a grocery store, grab a habanero, pop it in my mouth and chew it down without ever breaking stride. Come to find out there are chillis out there almost six times as potent as the habanero?
Well obviously, when you get up to those levels, no one is popping those chilli’s into their mouths, but it did get me thinking . . . I already have a nice start on the obligatory summer habanero plant growing in the back yard, but maybe this year, it’s time to supplement the chilli growing with something even higher on the top ten list.
So I found this guy, here:
http://www.amazon.com/Jolokia-Variety-Chilli-Hottest-planet/dp/B003D0JMRG
It’s a naga jolokia, four times as hot as a habanero on the Scoville scale. Will be planting ‘em Friday and am already looking forward to doing the real world test to see if it really is four times as hot as the habanero when you eat it whole.
