Picked up component cables for the Wii today. In 480p and widescreen Wii Sports unfortunately still looks bad, though not quite as horrifically bad as it does in 480i and widescreen.
Zelda though looks pretty good, and the Internet Channel looks fantastic. Wii Sports though? Give me a break; that’s the worst game in the world to ship with the system for anyone who’s going to try it out on a nice television.
Joe Torre is the new manager of the Dodgers, having agreed to a three year, $13 million contract.
Interestingly enough he doesn’t seem to have felt insulted by this contract, which pays far less on an annual basis than the Yankees were offering him. The contract last offered to him by New York was worth $5 million with potential bonuses of $3 million more. Yet this LA contract works out to less than $5 million per year!
Oh well, I won’t complain. Welcome back to the NL, Joe Torre!
Amazing finish. It’s funny though how the refs were calling it so tight for a while, but then they chicken out at the very end.
If only Fish’s foot was just a little bit further back on that last shot of his…
Via National Review Online I came across an “interesting” quote of Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic candidate running for the Senate against John Sununu in New Hampshire:
These wildfires are a direct result of this Administration’s failure to do something about Global Warming.
Because I try to be generous about the motivations of people, I am forced to conclude that former Governor Shaheen is not very bright or capable, because even the slightest amount of research and reading into the history of California brushfires shows that there is nothing new here, not at all.
Far be it from me to assume that Shaheen is actually a bright woman, but instead is willfully ignoring and distorting the facts, standing over dead Californians, as well as the children and their families who have lost their homes, in order to make a political point in her run for the Senate. Far be it from me to do that at all.
So, for the benefit of the ignorant New Hampshire Democrat, here is a basic explanation of why we get fires here in California, and why more homes are lost these days than in the past when we had fires. Look for starters at this chart of average rainfall and temperature at a weather station here. Specifically, this is at Fire Station 3 in Riverside, California, a city just west of where I live, sandwiched between fires north and south of us in recent weeks:
As can be easily seen, rain here in inland Southern California is seasonal. In the winter, we get a fair amount, but in the summer we get hardly any at all. What does this do to the plant life? I’ll tell you. Plants grow in the winter and spring, but then die under the dry heat of the late summer. By the time the fall comes around, the fields and hills of California are covered in kindling, more or less.
And as if that’s not bad enough, there are weather systems here in southern California that aid fires and hinder fire efforts. The Santa Ana winds which blew through here recently, blow fast and hot from the desert. Fires loves those.
Both these rainfall and wind patterns have existed in inland southern California for as long as there have been recorded weather in this region. There is no change here, no difference that can be attributed to an effect or blamed on a President.
Why then are more people losing homes to fires than in the past? The real estate market in southern California is very expensive. Prices are high, but people still want to own homes, so what’s been happening here for decades is a steady sprawling out from urban areas, tracts of homes pushing further and further east, right up against all these hills and fields that are covered with kindling every year. In other words, people are buying cheap land in fire zones and taking their chances.
This cannot be blamed on the President, Ms. Shaheen, nor can it be blamed on some form of global climate change. For you to do so shows only your own ignorance. Get informed before you make your next campaign speeches, please. Leave your ignorance of California out of your leftist New England politicking. Thank you.
Sports Illustrated brings us a report from the White Plains, N.Y. Journal News that by Tuesday, the Dodgers will fire Grady Little and hire Joe Torre.
UPDATE: It’s official. Grady Little quit today. Halfway there…
I have to think this is a smart move for the Dodgers to consider. This team collapsed several times this season, once dropping from first to fourth, and then from second in the Wild Card to completely out of contention. It’s only how truly bad the Giants were this year that kept the Dodgers from sniffing last place during the bad runs. And when a team is this inconsistent, I have to wonder what’s going on with the guys in charge.
The real deal and the wanna-be?
I’ll elaborate on just how bad these runs were, because as a fan they stick with me. On May 30, behind Derek Lowe the Dodgers defeated the Washington Nationals 5-0 and held first place with a 31-21 record. They then lost 7 of 11, ending up on June 10 at 35-28 in third place.
All was not lost though. The team bounced back and re-took first. On July 16 the Dodgers pounded Jamie Moyer for 10 runs in 5 and a third innings, taking all the pressure off of Brad Penny to beat the Phillies 10-3 to take a 53-40 record. After that though, hang on to your hat: the Dodgers were outscored in their next three games 31-17 (losing two), and in all lost 15 of 20, with the final loss (0-1 at the Reds) dropping the team to a 58-55 record, 4.5 games out and in fourth place.
But no that wasn’t even the end. There was still the Wild Card, which was pretty wide open on September 15 when the Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks 6-2, again behind Lowe. And having cut their divisional deficit in half in the last week, even the division wasn’t lost. But when you only win three of your final 14 games, and two of those wins come against the Giants in the season’s final, meaningless series, it doesn’t help anything.
A baseball season is a long, hard grind, suiting up every day against some of the best athletes in the world. The players need leadership to help keep them focused and motivated. Clearly Grady Little and his staff have not kept the Dodgers’ heads in the game this year.
If this team is not capable of action, I suggest new leadership is needed. I move for a vote of no confidence in Manager Little. Bring on the guy from the Evil Empire if you please.
And we’re off! Mike Huckabee sure enough has taken off in the Rasmussen tracking poll after his well-received performanace at the Washington Briefing, jumping right into the pack alongside John McCain and Mitt Romney.
For a while there it looked grim for Romney but, as usual, that dip was brief, as was McCain’s surge. At this “one and a half tier,” for lack of a better term, the race appears tight and stable.
Likewise at the top, things appear to be settling down. Huckabee’s rise has been combined with a fall for both Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani, though Giuliani still holds the slight edge over Thompson that he gained when the last quarter’s fundraising came out, as well as when Thompson flopped at some activist gatherings.
I have to guess that the changes in the race caused by Huckabee’s real arrival will be just as permanent, starting with the fact that the top two candidates now have less of a cushion from the pack.
Just finished The Plot Against America a few days ago. I can’t recommend it. Philip Roth (the author and the main character) spends more time meandering about his childhood, going off on tangents that have no relevance to anything, than he does advancing his story.
I’m sure it’s wonderfully nostalgic for people who grew up as Jews in 1930s Newark, but other than that…
The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports that volnteers at every national cemetery nationwide are banned from performing a traditional flag-folding ceremony in which a meaning is given to each fold of the flag.
Despite the fact that no honor is given at any funeral without the permission of the family beforehand, it has apparently been decided because this one ceremony has express recognition of Judaism and Christianity in parts, it must not be allowed ever.
And thus the First Amendment is that much closer to being rewritten to ensure “freedom from religion.”
… if he trades Kobe Bryant and this team doesn’t make to the second round of the playoffs.
Impossible to do you say, make the second round in the West after one trade? Then don’t trade the best player in the league.
I’m nowhere near any actual fires – I think the nearest one is down south of Temecula – but the smoke outside this morning is horrible. It’s just strong, choking the horizon in every direction, and not something I want to try to exercise in. So I cut off my walk today just after it began.