Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Gordon Gee, Ohio State, and the BCS Joke

Even if TCU and Boise State run the table, they still don't deserve to be in the Bowl Championship Series title game, Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee said Wednesday. In an interview with The Associated Press, the president at the university with the largest athletic program in the country said that TCU and Boise State do not face a difficult enough schedule to play in the national championship game.

Mr. Gee, you are simply another (education-based) politician, with an agenda, whohas no credibility to say anything on the BCS. You have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are, not because they are right or moral, but because they benefit YOU and your SCHOOL. The BCS system is reprehensible and morally bankrupt. It is not fair, and favors, the rich established, so-called elite universities. Please zip it, you have nothing meaningful to add to the debate. You are simply afraid of Boise States and TCU, because they would kick your butts!

The only way to make the national championship for real, is to have it open to everyone. Period. This can only be accomplished by doing away with the Bowl Championship Series, which is a joke, and replace it with a zone based championship such as NCAA basketball has with the Sweet 16, Top 8 and Final 4 series. Until this is done, BCS remains a biased and unfair system.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Unearthing the Past

If I was in my current occupation, one which I truly enjoy, I would have been an archaeologist. Nothing to do with Indiana Jones because I was interested in the subject from High School, almost a decade before the fedora-wearing and whip-toting, Jones was around. Archaeology or paleontology, I probably couldn't make up my mind, and similar. They go with my love of history but seem more hands-on and 'in the field' types of studies.

For example, I was totally mesmerized by the finds of Dr. Louis Leakey in Kenya and Tanzania. I could imagine myself out on the African grasslands or mountains digging into my own history. I thought it was cool. Two days ago British archaeologists announced they had uncovered an ancient Roman landscape beneath a park in west London, with a Roman road evidence of a settlement, and unusual burials among the finds. My family comes from England, so this too fires my imagination. I wonder how good I might have been with a trowel and a little whisk broom in the trenches, if I had chosen a different path.

'American empire' will disappear, infamous British double agent forecasts

George Blake, a British double agent, has forecast that the "American empire" will crumble, and predicted that every country in the world will one day embrace communism. In a rare interview given on his 88th birthday, the former Soviet agent said he had no regrets and expressed no remorse for betraying Britain or its intelligence service. Blake, who calls himself Georgy Ivanovich in Moscow, said he still had no time for American foreign policy. "The American empire will disappear because everyone who lives by the sword dies from the sword," he told the daily Izvestia newspaper.

Blake was a member of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, from 1944. In 1951, he became an agent for the Soviet Union -- and in the following decade is thought to have betrayed up to 400 of his colleagues. He was arrested in 1960 and jailed for 42 years -- only to escape from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966 before fleeing to Russia. In the interview, Blake admitted that the Soviet Union in which he arrived in the 1960s did not live up to his high-minded communist ideals. But he made it clear he had not lost the faith.

"I understand now that the Soviet project was doomed. The problem was not the Russians but human nature. Humankind was not sufficiently moral to build such a society," he said. He was confident that time was on communism's side. "One day, I believe that the majority of governments will voluntarily choose the communist model. Without violence, revolution or terror. Maybe it sounds like a Utopia, but I believe in it." Sounds like Utopia does it George... it sounds like a traitors' pipedream and maybe that you need to say something nice so the Russians keep paying your pension.

Friday, November 19, 2010

No attempt at rescue for trapped NZ miners tonight

There will be no attempt to rescue 29 miners trapped in the West Coast's Pike River Coal Mine tonight. Tasman District police area commander Superintendent Gary Knowles told One News the last sampling of mine quality air was taken at 4pm, with no further samplings until tomorrow morning. It means a second night underground for the miners. Mr Knowles said the mine air quality was still unsuitable for a rescue attempt.

Meanwhile, police have confirmed the nationalities of the 29 trapped workers. There are 24 New Zealanders, two Australians, two British citizens and one South African. The identities of three of the New Zealanders are known - Greymouth District councillor Milton Osborne, promising rugby league player Blair Sims and Ben Rockhouse, whose brother, Daniel, escaped after the blast. No word has been heard from the miners since the blast so our thoughts and prayers are for their safety, families and rescuers.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

How Bizarre, How Bizarre!

Now this is what I call community policing. A man foiled his own kidnapping by crashing his pickup truck into a Unified Police Department precinct building in Salt Lake City Tuesday night, and officers soon after rescued his hostage wife at their home. The woman, who had been bound, was shaken but otherwise unharmed, UPD Lt. Don Hutson said Wednesday. Two suspects — one in the crashed truck and another arrested after he fled the victim’s home and allegedly hit in a car — were being held in Salt Lake County Jail on multiple felony counts. “This was just downright bizarre,” Hutson said. “It really was like something out of a movie.”

The drama began when two men, armed with handguns, burst into the Millcreek home of the owner of Monarch Coin in South Salt Lake and took the couple captive. One man, identified as Dashawn Hinton, 19, of Salt Lake City, allegedly took the husband at gunpoint in his truck and ordered him to drive west on 3900 South. Hutson said Wednesday that the husband allegedly was believed to have been ordered to drive first to an ATM and then to his shop at 211 E. 3900 South. However, as the victim drove near the UPD precinct at 1580 E. 3900 South, he veered the truck toward the building and rammed into it to get the officers’ attention.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Anwar Al-Awlaki Sounds Off Again

A US-born cleric linked to attacks by Al-Qaeda in Yemen on US targets called for Muslims around the world to kill Americans in a new video posted on extremist websites Monday. Anwar Al-Awlaki, 39, is one of the most prominent English-language radical clerics and his sermons advocating jihad, or holy war, against the United States have influenced militants involved in several attacks or attempted attacks on US soil. Yemeni officials say he may have blessed the recent mail bomb plot, though he may not have taken an active part in it. In his 23-minute message in Arabic, Al-Awlaki said because all Americans are the enemy, clerics don’t need to issue any special fatwas or religious rulings allowing them to be killed. He was dressed in a traditional Yemeni white robe and a turban and wore round spectacles and a dagger while he sat behind a desk. "Don’t consult with anybody in killing the Americans,” he said. “Fighting the devil doesn’t require consultation or prayers seeking divine guidance. They are the party of the devils,” he added. It is “either us or them.”

Four genuine responses to his rant from readers of the Arab World newspaper however, are very interesting:
Waseem - "Foolish man, who made him a cleric. An ignoramus with deviant beliefs."
Tariq - "If this idiot wants Americans killed then why doesn't he come out of hiding and do it himself? Does he think we Muslims are his puppets? It is he and the likes of him that should be killed so the rest of us could live in peace."
Almir - "Wake up people, he is a C.I.A agent. two months after September 11, 2001 he had a meeting at the Pentagon,. do your research?? turn to Allah and you will be safe, this is the reason the whole world is playing with Arabs."
Musso - "Another US Product !!! What an idiot ! So many of us must be cursing him..."

The Iran Pot Calling the French Kettle, Black!

Iran has warned its citizens against travelling to France, because of what it says is a "serious level" of unrest in the country. The Iranian foreign ministry said France was a country in crisis following recent protests against the government's pensions reforms. Official news agency IRNA quoted an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman yesterday as saying: "We think the crisis in France has reached a serious level, and we advise all our nationals who plan to travel to this country to take necessary precautions. Not that many can travel anyway.

"Our compatriots have been informed of the travel warning via the Foreign Ministry website and the Iranian Embassy in Paris." The warning came hours after France and the UK called on all countries to follow the EU's lead by implementing "stringent, targeted sanctions" against Iran. The warning came hours after France and the UK called on all countries to follow the EU's lead by implementing "stringent, targeted sanctions" against Iran. Seriously! Iran just shoots you instead.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Well done Weston, Missouri!

Members of a small Missouri town banded together Saturday to block a controversial pastor and members of his Westboro Baptist Church from protesting the funeral of a fallen U.S. soldier, Fox4kc.com reports. Hundreds of residents in Weston, Mo. -- as well as people as far away as California and Australia -- rallied in support of Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell, who died from injuries suffered during a surprise attack in Afghanistan. The residents sought to block Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., and his followers from picketing Sadell’s funeral, according to the station.

Phelps' church has been the subject of intense criticism for holding more than 44,000 pickets at funerals and other events – including the services of fallen service members. Citing their First Amendment right to protest, Phelps' followers say they use funerals as an “available public platform” to “deliver the message that there is a consequence for sin.” Phelps is openly opposed to homosexuality and all government policies they he says supports homosexuals. Military funerals are no place for this kind of protest whether or not the constitution allows it; and Weston residents have sent a loud, clear message to the most un-christianlike Westboro Baptists.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Child survives eight-floor fall onto Awning

French police say an 18-month-old boy has survived a fall from an eighth-floor window of a Paris apartment by bouncing off an awning and into someone's arms, apparently uninjured. Police say they have detained the parents of the baby boy for questioning. According to police, the parents had gone for a stroll on Monday, a French holiday, and left the 18-month-old with his three-year-old sister in the family apartment in eastern Paris. Police said on Tuesday the little boy somehow had access to an open window and fell out. He hit an awning of a ground-floor restaurant then bounced into the arms of a passer-by. They said no injuries were uncovered by initial medical exams.