Second Gen (2003-2016, 2016- )
I was conscious for most of it and listening intently on the radio when I was awake. At one point, half drifting, I thought that Syracuse had been caught in the second half, that the score was 31-21 Louisville, that the rational universe had imposed itself again. But no, the Orange won 38-35 over a top ten team.
No smart remarks this week, then, just solidification of plans to hit the next US city in a few weeks.
OK, so it wasn’t the end of summer last week. It’s this weekend. You wouldn’t know it. as it is going to push 30C later today in some parts of Ontario today. A weekend of actual sunshine, warmth and nothing to really do lays out before me. What to do? What to do? We have been playing a sort of lawn bowling with our boules set nightly. Likely the land will hear more of the click of the steel.
Ack. We needs a fun topic, Al. Writing 4 page essay length stuff for John and his commentators is killing me. How about we start a pool for the MLB playoffs. It’s almost Oct after all. Something like March madness would suffice I think. It’s smaller and easier than that, but could still be fun.
That is reasonable but I am crawling into my shell what with the collapse of the Sox. Did you know that they are in the lead now but not by a huge amount? I mean I should be absolutely shattered because they are in the lead but only by a bit. Any ideas how I can overcome my despair over them being in the lead?
But tens of thousands of Canadians think otherwise. They’re not choosing Saskatchewan, a province with nearly as much oil and gas, more wheat, more potash, and more uranium. Alberta’s wealth is not because of its natural resources but precisely because of its free market is working so well.
If this shabby thinking is what you need to get you through the night, fine, but it is good for the rest of you to know that as Alberta’s oil reserves are 174.8 billion barrels and its gas reserves are 41 trillion cubic feet, Saskatchewan has only 1,244 million barrels of oil (0.71% of Alberta) and just 3.3 trillion cubic feet of gas (8% of its neighbour). Once again, say it out loud, Alberta is incredibly wealthy because it is sitting on the one resource the world is begging for and it was blessed with that by fluke of geology and late Victorian boundary-making. People move there to make a lot of money just like people move anywhere there is plenty of money to make.
In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Hoo-ray. Melted cheese for dinner, too.
That’s it. The computer just about froze so I better send you on your way.
What an odd debate it is that is breaking out in Alberta over the report that is stating decades of Conservative governments have been giving away their oil. Alberta’s government owns the resource and gets to charge a royalty for it’s exploitation. While the new Premier has to make the decision, former Premier Klein is showing where his loyalties are to be found:
Speaking yesterday to an industry group in Calgary, Mr. Klein criticized the report, insisting that the province’s previous fiscal regime had provided the necessary stability for companies to invest in Alberta. “These are the things that separate us from places like Venezuela and Iraq, where governments hold foreign companies hostage by arbitrarily hiking royalties,” he said. “We don’t do business like that in this province. We have a fair, clear and comprehensive royalty regime, where the rules are the same for everyone and they don’t change on a whim.”
This is on top of another former Premier, Peter Loughheed causing controversy by suggesting that concern should be had for the state of the Albertan environment in light of the expansion of the oil patch and suggesting increased claims for extra-provincial wealth sharing were coming.
The other day, bouncing around ideas someone came up with beerocracy but it turns out that was an idea once before, one blogger ranking tops on Google for noting in 2003 that the “term was coined by Lady Nancy Astor to describe the Scottish brewing families that entered politics and were influential in Parliament in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they somehow never brought about a boozy paradise for all.” The influence continued longer than that. Point? I don’t know. But it is interesting to note the unique difficulties and disadvantages that come with windfall booms and monoconomies.
It is something of a comfortable feeling, this free fall. Sure some people say things like this:
“We still have work,” Manager Joe Torre said. “We won’t allow ourselves to get caught up in what people will assume is a foregone conclusion.”
But those are the words of someone planning on winning, not one trying to avoid losing. Still, the Red Sox have good company with the Mets bumbling, tumbling and stumbling as well. It’s not just that they are losing. They are losing with a certain style. Last Friday’s eighth inning collapse that turned a 2-7 lead, Sundays failure to convert bases loaded in the ninth into a David Ortiz grandslam…or hit. Last night’s snatch of failure from the jaws of victory was particularly sweet – after getting two outs holding a 2-1 lead, Gagne decided to throw bean balls at the right handed pitcher. Except the guy was batting left. In an act of utter remorse and considered correction, Gagne decided to aim for the leftie’s ankles. Again, he adjusts. You can see him making one of the next pitches above. Read the rest here. Not pretty.
My new pal Clay Buchholz pitches tonight.
The 50th anniversary of a sorry excuse for a belief system is being noted today – yet even in light of such sad news one can still find a favorite stat:
Every year, 400,000 copies of Rand’s novels are offered free to Advanced Placement high school programs. They are paid for by the Ayn Rand Institute, whose director, Yaron Brook, said the mission was “to keep Rand alive.” Last year, bookstores sold 150,000 copies of the book.
It is was really that good, would you not have readers actually pay for all that excellence? And, anyway, how can you trust libertarians that organize themselves into an lobbying group that rejects market rules so flagrantly?
Having messed up my sleep this weekend due to watch The Guns of Navarone on Friday until 3 am (I was in need of watching something where the right team won after the Sox choked after being up 2-7), I spent a rich and rewarding day napping and watching sports with half an eye.
In a nutshell: Syracuse was really bad in the game that started at noon and the Sox were really good in the one that started at four. And over steak and kidney pie (punchline: “No, I didley!?!”) out visiting, it became clear that the young guys and the bench on the Sox are maybe a bit better than the young guys on the Yanks. Though no pup anymore, Hinske did a good number on Posada:
“[Third base coach] DeMarlo Hale said I’m going on contact,” Hinske said. “I’m trying to score a run. I realize I’m going to be out. The only play is to try to run [Posada] over. I hit him pretty good. I think it pumped up the team a little bit.” Hinske, who gained more than 1,000 yards as a running back at Menasha his junior year, once dreamed of playing football for the University of Wisconsin. But when his Badgers didn’t recruit him, he went to the University of Arkansas on a baseball scholarship. Years later, the football mentality has never left. “I put my shoulder down – I hadn’t done that, I think, since the minor leagues,” he said. “It felt great. I had fun playing high school football. I asked Posada my next at-bat if he was OK and he said he was fine.”
To be fair, he said fine like a man who was trampled by an ox on national TV says he’s fine – though Posada did hold onto that ball.
And to be entirely fair in relation to the headline above, I listened to the Syracuse game on 100.7 FM as much as I watched it on the five hundred cable TV channel universe, that wonder that provides what the internet has given only promises about for a decade. It was not prettier audio-unvisually. Getting the first field goal was a balm to their emotionally fragile offense. A great hit on a receiver just about to take the corner was apparently a surprise in the class of the child who first gets to the pool’s edge without assistance. Apparently a win against Buffalo is now even in doubt.
What better way to end a grumpy day?
For the first time this season, and the 10th as a Red Sox, Ortiz ended a game via a walkoff home run. This one came with Julio Lugo at first base, one out, Tampa Bay closer Al Reyes on the mound, and, perhaps most importantly, Delmon Young in right field. Ortiz, who supplied the Sox’ earlier offensive output with a three-run homer in the third inning, launched Reyes’ 3-1 fastball high into the Fenway night. As the ball started tailing away from the right field foul pole, Young remained drifting toward the line. By the time the rookie recovered, Ortiz’ blast landed in the first row of Section 86 for the Red Sox’ first walkoff home run since Carlos Pena lived his dream, one year and eight days before.
I touched the TV right after and I swear it made me feel better. So now the last Yankees v. Red Sox series of the season begins this Friday at Fenway. New York has, frankly, been on fire facing some weaker teams, including last night’s win over the collapsing Glaus-gate-ridden Jays. Taking 2/3 off of Tampa was good work for Boston as the Rays have been hot as well. Anyway, find a TV or a radio because come Monday Boston can be anywhere between two and eight games up.
Me first. Sick before anyone else. So I am grumpy.
Why?
A year has passed since I wrote this summarizing what I wrote over the previous years. While my point of view is pretty much the same, it’s less intense. Too many intervening events, I suppose: SARS, tsunami and Katrina, as well as fostering again and our own growing up. But I took part in an emergency planning exercise last week and it was interesting to note that through the day no one griped about it being for no purpose or badly organized. Things are taken seriously even if the militarization of Canada’s Arctic seems a side show. Those bound up in fear seem as odd as the anti-vigilant. Pre-9/11 thinking is just a silly phrase given how badly much of the post-9/11 thinking panned out.
So where are we now? Where are you? Argghhh, as usually, is a thoughtful place.
While there is a Ministry of Truth aspect to it, I like the idea of ensuring claims of environmentally sensibility are actually sensible for the environment:
No car can be “green,” “clean” or “environmentally friendly” according to some of the world’s strictest advertising guidelines set to enter into force in Norway next month. “Cars cannot do anything good for the environment except less damage than others,” Bente Oeverli, a senior official at the office of the state-run Consumer Ombudsman, told Reuters on Thursday.
I wish someone would do the same thing for “blue” cheese.