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Rant Against (Republican) Bullshit No. 1

The REAL Medical Liability Crisis:

According to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, medical errors are responsible for at least 44,000 deaths each year in the United States and possibly as many as 98,000 each year. That is between 120 and 268 people per day. Yet, all over the country, all we hear about are how frivolous lawsuits are driving doctors out of business.

Picture, if you will, airplane safety falling to a level that killed 120-268 people each day. Would the President or anyone else have the huevos to step up to a microphone and complain that greedy lawyers and survivors should stop targeting the good airline people with bogus lawsuits? Because that is what the Republicans, the medical industry and the insurance business are doing.

A DC-9 airplane carries up to 90 passengers. Imagine the outcry if, every day, because of the negligence of the airlines or the plane builders, we had one to three of these planes killing 90 people each. People would not worry about capping the amount the liability of the providers of these defective planes. They would be screaming at the top of their lungs for safer air travel.

The truth is that there are vastly fewer medical malpractice lawsuits than there are incidents of serious medical malpractice. And if you are looking for frivolous lawsuits, the last place you are likely to find one is beneath the caption of a medical negligence case, which is almost always pre-screened -- at a significant cost of $750 to $2,000 -- by a medical doctor who evaluates the case to determine whether the patient's problem arose from a medical error, or was simply a bad result that is a risk of the treatment. I do not take medical malpractice cases. They cost a fortune to try, and they are exceedingly difficult to win, even if the doctor screwed up.

The most obnoxious part about the tort reform platform on medical malpractice is their combined cry that "frivolous lawsuits" are breaking the system, and their suggested solution of capping damage awards, usually at $250,000. Frivolous lawsuits get thrown out of court, often quite early, with motions to dismiss, and demurrers and motions for summary judgment. Those that get to trial result in defense verdicts. It is almost self-evident that a lawsuit that results in an award of $500,000, or $1,000,000 or $10,000,000 is not frivolous. You cannot take 12 ordinary people and convince them all to give someone a large sum of money for a frivolous purpose.

So caps on damages are not going to affect the frivolous lawsuits. They can only limit the compensation of the most severely harmed, highly deserving plaintiffs.

Even worse, caps on medical damages do not solve the claimed problem, namely, the rise of insurance premiums that were threatening to drive doctors from several geographic areas throughout the country. The 2003 Weiss Report found that despite caps on economic damages in 19 states, "most insurers continued to increase premiums (for doctors) at a rapid pace, regardless of caps." The report also found that insurers failed to pass along any savings to physicians in states with caps by refusing to lower their insurance premiums, and that caps only slowed the increase in the amount of damages insurers were required to pay out. (Weiss Report, 6/3/03.) Premiums are higher in states with caps than in those without. The average malpractice premium in states without caps was $35,016 in 2003. The average premium in states with caps was $40,381. (Medical Liability Monitor, 10/03) Malpractice costs are about $25 billion per year. In other words, well under two percent of health care spending. So a reduction of 25% in malpractice costs would lower health care costs by only about a half percent, and the likely effect on health insurance premiums would unnoticeable.

If the insurance company-backed Republicans win this battle, your life will be no better. You won't save money on medical bills. You won't get better health care. You won't have more good doctors to choose from. You life won't improve one bit. Your life will be no different at all. Unless....

Unless you are someday severely harmed by a doctor's error, like removing the wrong organ; or delaying the administration of a life-saving drug; or skipping a test needed to detect an early growth of cancer; or mishandling the birth of your healthy child, and having her delivered to you with severe brain damage. If any of these things happen to you, you will struggle to recover. There will not be enough money to pay the medical bills. There will be, at most, $250,000 for your family to split as compensation for the agony imposed upon you by your negligent doctor.

And if you think $250,000 is a lot of money, ask yourself this: if a medical testing lab was offering $250,000 in fees for participants willing to allow their babies to be rendered brain-dead, how many people (other than maybe Susan Smith) would answer that advertisement?

Walkers and Bussers

I'm sure these two stories from Yahoo's Most Popular page last week were unrelated. On the other hand, it wouldn't have killed Rosa Parks to eschew that bus and hoof it once in a while.

Famous Birthdays

Hillary Duff turned 17 today. Actor and convicted child porn aficionado Jeffrey Jones turned 58. They could celebrate their birthdays together, I suppose, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea. On the other hand, Jones is only accused of collecting boy erotica, so maybe it would be okay.

The Best of Times; The Worst of Times

Does money buy happiness? Today, I got the definitive answer, I think. There is a big case I've been working on for three years. Late this morning, we got a settlement that was just spectacular. The fees will be more than I ever imagined. It was a ton of work, and a big risk, but it paid off in bunches.

I had grand plans to celebrate if this case came through. Some Dom, maybe. Or some Opus. A feast at The Melting Pot or Morton's of Chicago. A trip to the Bahamas. Something big.

Instead, I'm down in the dumps, because in another case, I have two clients who are getting screwed. I'm defending a suit for the collection of legal fees. My clients' previous lawyer won their case, but overbilled the shit out of them, then dropped the ball and let the judgment debtor transfer all of his assets to a straw man because he didn't know how to get the judgment actually entered. So they ended up with nothing but a pile of legal fees and a potential case against the straw man.

Now, several years later, my clients have just lost the case against the straw man. And the lawyer in that case billed the hell out of them, too. Meanwhile, to win our defense in the fee collection case, which is coming up for trial, we needed an expert who wanted to charge us a bunch of money, and my clients don't have it. In fact, they are now dead broke. Chapter 7 broke. They told me to fire the expert and just see if we could settle the case.

We couldn't. The opposing side belongs to the "nothing is better than something" camp.

So, as I was sitting in the courthouse cafeteria, waiting for the court to assign a jury to our case, one of my clients was a no-show, and the other was downright despondent. "You know what?" he said. "I'm bankrupt even if we win this case. What's the point of wasting our time here?" I had no answer for that. The case was going to be extremely hard to win without the expert. And even if we pulled victory from the jaws of defeat, he would still be broke. And, no, he wasn't paying my fees anymore, either.

He finally decided to up and leave. Just then, my office called on the cell phone.

"Great news, Lex! The [Evil Corporation] just accepted our offer of [a ton of money]!"

I couldn't bring myself to even smile. Let me tell you, those Geico commercials are bullshit. Nobody sits there with a client who is getting screwed and says "Great news, I just saved a bundle on my car insurance by switching to Geico." Or made a ton of money by settling my biggest case ever. Or anything at all like that. So I concealed my joy.

And my client left.

Eventually, it will sink in that I hit it big today. But for the moment, the feeling isn't sinking in, it's just plain sinking.

Back in Black

I'm a decent poker player. I've played in a regular home game for a couple of years now. I haven't kept track, but I'm pretty sure I am to the positive in live home games.

The online gaming, however, was a learning experience. I'm not going to say how much I spent on "tuition", but I will say that the number was north of three large. It was more than a year before I started winning consistently.

I am now, however, in the black. After losing more than three grand, I have won more than three grand. I'm actually going to have to declare gambling winnings on my next tax return. Woo hoo!

Filthy Restaurants

Have you ever wondered which restaurants are the filthiest. MSNBC just did a great expose on major restaurant chains and health violations. The worst, with 1.6 violations per inspection, was TGI Friday's. That finding did not surprise me. That's all I'm willing to say publicly.

Stuff To Do Online (Part 18)

Another list of stuff I've seen in the past week or so.

First, some monkey stuff:

Did you know that there is a real monkey jail?

Tired of giving people ordinary hugs? Send 'em a monkey hug instead.

Steve the Spider Monkey will teach you about spider monkeys.

Check out this monkey photo gallery. Don't look at the unhung Orangutan, though. He strikes an indecent pose.

There are always another few interesting blogs to read:

This one calls himself the dirty monkey.

Another cool music blog, Royal Music.

This fine Trojan has a blog that follows, among other things, the Trojan football team.

If you have bad taste in music, you can go here to be insulted.

The Right Thinking Girl offers interesting views. She'd probably be an interesting coffee drinking partner.

I found out that I am listed on a site that values my bjournal. It's not even worth ten hours of my time. [sigh] And someone calling himself the Geek claims to own a bunch of it. WTF? Over.

You can take quizzes or tests:

Yet another classic IQ test.

What is your DJ name? I am DJ Bent Jelly.

Which Muppet's dark secret are you? I was the Count's obsessive-compulsive disorder.

From bad to worse. Which is the worst?

Try any of several quizzes at Modesty Panel. My favorite: Is it art or is it crap? Second favorite: Is it a snack or is it crap?

If you can't do well on either of those two, you may not decorate my home or make me dinner.

You can watch amazing or amusing videos:

See the new ending to the Return of the Jedi.

Creepy animation of domestic violence-wracked family. "Til Death Do Us Part."

I'd never heard of this movie, but the trailer is worth watching. Run, Ronnie, Run. (I doubt that renting the movie will now be necessary).

One of those [NSFW] Girls Gone Wild videos. The little dude behind the half-nekked girls seems to be having trouble understanding what is going on in his pants.

You can play games:

You be Hulk.

You be sniper.

This is the littlest, crappiest version of pong I've ever seen.

Reversi. This one pissed me off in about ten seconds. YMMV.

Joust. The 2004 Election version.

You can do odd things:

Take your pick, at My Pet Skeleton.

Playing with digital paper dolls is almost fun if you are starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I haven't figured this noisemaker out, but I'm sure there is a point to it.

Now that you know your DJ name, you can actually be a DJ.

Protect the cursor.

You can see strange or interesting stuff:

This is worth the price of reading it. 10 Things to Do For Free in Las Vegas.

Brittney scores another truly bizarre observation. Sometimes you're the deer, sometimes you're the dog. Sometimes, you're the disturbingly apathetic photographer who watches a deer mount your male dog right in front of a stack of deer antlers.

It's a world o freaks. Check 'em out.

Check out these twisters.

If you are a parent, and you buy this squirtgun for your kid, you are an idiot.

This page features a bunch of modern subjects done in the style of classic artists.

You can learn something new:

What is the statute of limitations for your claim?

What kind of temperament does your baby have? It could be a sign of his or her future emotional health.

Are there other planets like Earth?

Wanna know more about my kids' hometown of Irvine?

One Bush supporter offers these 10 reasons to re-elect the President.

Nerds are not popular. Here's the underlying science.

You can buy strange or wonderful things:

The scariest Halloween mask of the year. Child molester. (Allegedly)

A paintable miniature ceramic cow.

A complete shopping list of stuff you'll need if you are going to jail.

The ultimate capitalist scourge: someone selling coins minted from silver recovered from the WTC. This link is intended for informational purposes only. I do not endorse these disgusting opportunists.

Clever T-shirt: "I'm sure you're quite charming on the Internet."

The book that proves that we've already had five black presidents. Hey, if Babe Ruth was black, I suppose it's possible.

You can sit and wonder what these people were thinking:

The Votergasm people are quite odd.

The art of reading slow. Recommended for the "Slow Children at Play" that those signs always warn us about.

A good discussion of why Britney Spears is a freak.

The world apparently needs an organization that supports gay and lesbian people who water ski.

If you are famous, and you tip like a homeless person, your name will end up here.

Science doesn't have a name for them yet, but there are people who enjoy getting taped to walls and ceilings.

You can puzzle over why these twins were not raised together:

Dan Rather and actor Lane Smith.

Actors Michael Ironside (Richter from Total Recall) and James Gandolfino (Tony Soprano).

Actors Adam Arkin and George Clooney.

Or you can read a good bullshit story:

Stresses destroy people's ability to control and hamper time.

Mysterious new disease turns big-breasted babes into flat-chested females.

Organizers fear terrorist attacks at upcoming Al-Qaeda political convention.

The U.S. Constitution is a fake!

That last one freaked me out, so I'm going to go plan for the upcoming constitutional crisis. Luckily for me, the ban on assault weapons has been lifted.

Potato State Football

USC has a new nemesis: Boise State.

USC has the longest winnning streak in college football. Except for Boise State.

USC would have played in the Sugar Bowl last season, but for the outcome of the very last regular season football game of the season. The winning team in that game: Boise State. Its narrow victory over Hawaii (which USC had beaten earlier in the year), nicked the Trojan streak of schedule just enough to drop them below LSU in the BCS standings.

This year, while strength of schedule is not as important as it once was, Boise State just nicked USC's SOS again by beating previous USC opponent BYU. Not that it was Boise State's doing, though.

BYU held the Broncos on a late 2-point conversion, then drove down to the Boise State 20 yard line to set up for the game winning field goal. They moved the line of scrimmage right to the middle of the field and set up their kicker (6-6 in previous FGA on the season) for a 38 yard attempt. It missed badly to the left with about 20 seconds to go in the game. Maybe they should have stayed at the right hash mark.

Anyway, this sets up a tremendous matchup on October 23, when Boise State meats Fresno State in a game that could, believe it or not, decide one of the at-large bids to a BCS bowl. Maybe even the Rose Bowl.

I don't know who to root for in that one. I'm no Bulldog fan. As much as I appreciate the Bruin-throttling they dished out in last year's Silicon Valley Classic, I'm still mad about the 1992 Freedom Bowl.

Boise State isn't the only school to deal USC's SOS a blow by watching their opponent choke a last second game winning field goal attempt. This morning, NC State beat Virginia Tech 17-16 when Tech's kicker sent one wide right with no time remaining.

If Virginia Tech doesn't knock off West Virginia next week, I think West Virginia is going to end up in the Orange Bowl against USC. If so, USC will be the Pac-10's first BCS Champion.

But first, USC needs to beat Stanford and its stupid tree.

Random Post-Week Pre-Game Pre-Pity Thoughts From the Wheel

I finally got my new scanner working today. I'm planning to scan everything I have in storage. It will take months, but by early Spring, I'll be able to start saving $100 a month on storage. That will pay for the scanner and then some.

My list of attorneys whom I would put voodoo curses on if I believed in voodoo was increased by one this month. After 13 years, the list is 9 names long. If you know someone who is really effective at voodoo, put them in touch with me.

I was planning to go to the Stanford game tomorrow, but I've decided to just watch it on TV instead. The decision was based, in part, on the fact that I can't TiVo the game to watch it later. It was based in larger part on my tired brain that doesn't feel like watching the road for 12 hours, roundtrip.

Strictly speaking, USC is not atop the Pac-10 standings. UCLA is. Nationally, though, UCLA trails USC in the polls by 1612 points.

I went to a great wedding earlier this month. It was at Disneyland. It featured the bride riding in Cinderella's glass carriage, an extended open bar, and a bunch of desserts that glowed in the dark. The only bad moment in the evening came on the dance floor. During a Bruce Springsteen song, a bunch of partiers started doing the electric slide. Remember that song "Rock 'n' Roll Heaven"? Well, there is no Rock 'n' Roll Heaven. I know this because if there was one, God would have looked down on that scene and hit the Smite button. And He didn't.

I need to start buying specially tailored suits with, like, three pants each. My suit pants fade a lot faster than my coats. Plus, the pants get ripped about 10 times for every coat that gets torn. It wouldn't hurt to have one of the pants about an inch bigger than the others, either. I figure, if the cost is twice as much as a regular suit, I'll get triple the wear, and within about 2 years, I'll be ahead.

We're going to print our vacation pictures this weekend. It was fun going through the digitals with my wife, remembering the great time we had last month.

I'm sorry Disneyland took out the Country Bear Jamboree. I enjoyed going to that back in Florida. Of course, the primary enjoyment was getting inside the air conditioning and off my feet. My feet were hurting by mid-afternoon, and a 20 minute show was just the ticket. That is, until the bears started bitching at us to clap our hands and stomp our feet. I'll applaud an animatronic bear, but I absolutely draw the line at stomping my swollen feet after walking 3 or 4 miles hot humid weather.

I'm sick of the Vietnam war talk in this election. Bill Clinton proved that valor in wartime has no correlation with your ability to govern. I dislike John Kerry for what he did after the war, but I honor and respect him for what he died in combat. I don't even care if he received more awards than he may have deserved.

As Republican as I am, I am still disgusted by those asshats who wore purple heart bandaids at the RNC. The last thing a warhawk should ever do is insult the soldiers who are out there doing our dirty work.

I have many friends in the service. I have a larger group of guys I knew, and didn't like, who are in the service. And to me, those groups are just one. Whether I liked them or not. Whether we could enjoy a beer together or not. They are out performing a job that makes my job possible. They deserve my respect, and they deserve the respect of every asshat in this country. Even if they screw up.

Next time you feel you are having a really bad day, but be glad you aren't having Owen Lafave's worst day. Pity Owen Lafave. First, his wife humiliated him by boning her 14-year-old student repeatedly. Now, she's refusing to consent to a divorce. She should sign those divorce papers and be grateful that he didn't murder her.

I also pity Mary Kay Letourneau's ex-husband, too, as the mother of his children is prancing all over the news media talking about her plans to marry the student she molested eight years ago.

It's enough even to drive a man into the arms of a pre-op transvestite. Well, at least it's enough to make Jason Alexander go there. Has any man slid farther, faster than Jason? Last we heard, he was married to Britney Spears. That's pretty elite company. Then he sold out, and let her people pay him to consent to an annulment. Finally, he ends up with Dude Looks Like a Lady. Pitiful.

But I can't pity them right now. I've filled my daily quota of pity.

Fashion Is Stupid Thoughts

Yahoo's favorite pictures often include shots from the latest fashion show. Fashion shows amaze me. Not being particularly fashionable, perhaps it is not my place to criticize, but when I see a fashion show, I feel like the smart little serf who notices that the emperor has no clothes.

Sometimes, the model is literally nekked, at least in part. Like this woman, who looks vaguely like Brittney Gilbert, the Sparkwood & 21 blogger who is sick of people saying she looks like "that one chick from Roseanne." Now people can tell her she looks like "that one model with the see-through top."

Other times, they are wearing something, but it doesn't look like clothing. Like this person. What the hell is it wearing, a giant yellow enema bag? Is that a man on estrogen, or is it a masculine bald chick with little boobies underneath those strips of tape? Does her father know what she does for a living?

In general, revealing clothing can be very sexy. But in this instance, it makes the model look like she stepped off the streets of a third world country. Poor girl. She is so poor, she has no clothes to wear.

And the hats. Some of the hats are really weird. Like this one. I'm not sure what inspired this hat, but I'm guessing it was either an acid trip during an episode of Lidsville, or a flashback to that Dumb Donald character from Fat Albert.

This, from what I can tell, is a bathing suit with leaves? Where and why would a woman wear such a thing?

The accessories can be quite absurd. Check out the candy lipstick and tell me that you don't think it looks like the world's worst herpes outbreak.

After the show, the women sure do look different. Did you know that Cybill Shepherd was a model before she was an actress? She was. Did you know what Cybill Shepherd looks like without makeup? Check it out.

The one thing I hate most about the fashion world is that it turns people like Paris Hilton into stars. What in the world is Paris Hilton doing on a runway? She is thin, but she is not pretty. She's built like a skinny little boy (as are many other models). Her nose is sharp enough to whittle wood with, and her eyes are like little rat eyes. I know she has a lot of money, but so does Bill Gates, and nobody treats him like a sex symbol.

Paris Hilton is ugly. And so are lots of the clothes these models are displaying. Doesn't this outfit look like it was stolen from a guy working off his DUI sentence by picking up litter along the roadside? Give me jeans and a t-shirt any day over that crap.

Yes, most fashion shows are stupid, like the models. Many of the clothes are ugly, like many of the models. Then again, there are exceptions, like the Victoria's Secret babydoll girls. But why aren't they on my Yahoo picture list, instead of the skinny, ugly, 100 gallon hat, feather/leaf half-nekked bald masculine chicks?

21st Century Renaissance Man

Looking at this rolling advertisement, I can understand how a reasonably sane person might call the number (I cropped the last digit, since he's not paying me for the bandwidth) if they are looking for someone to provide mobile cleaning & detail, a power wash or lawn care. But seriously, who in their right mind would look at this trailer and think: "We should call this guy about mortgage financing"? Or, God help us, a new health plan?

Debating the Road Trip

I am trying to decide whether to make the road trip to Stanford this week. I've been invited to join a group of rabid Trojan fans, and Stanford is just a five hour drive or a one hour flight, but I'm so tired I might just watch it at home.

I'm getting a real kick out of Matt Leinart's blog. Where else can you read inside scoops like this:

I was surprised I was able to out-throw [Reggie Bush] on a pass in the end zone last Saturday. I think he should have had it, actually. I gave him some crap for it later, telling him he could have laid out for it.

I can't compete with that. Why would anyone ever read my page when they can go to First & 11 and read stuff like that. You're awesome, Matt, even if you are a Mater Dei guy.

Mike Williams was at practice yesterday. That guy should be in uniform right now. But not in the NFL. The NFL already has its quota filled with Williamses. Would you believe that the average NFL team has 1.1 guys on the roster named Williams?

With Williams getting roundfiled by the NCAA, so far, the Trojans haven't been very lucky this season. That doesn't bode well for them. Most championship teams pull in a little good fortune along the way. In 1997, Nebraska won a national title when a receiver caught a game-saving touchdown pass that bounced off a teammate's foot. In 1998, Tennessee won the title because the Arkansas quarterback, who needed only to take a knee to run out the clock and win, stumbled, without being touched, and fumbled the ball to the Volunteers, who then scored the game-winning touchdown. In 2002, Ohio State won almost half of its games in the final possession, then beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl, in double overtime, after benefitting from one of the latest thrown flags in the history of the bowls.

The last time Stanford faced a top-ranked team was in 1990, when they upset Notre Dame. However, in the three games they've played against a top-ranked USC, the Cardinal are 0-2-1. Stanford's win over BYU looks less impressive four weeks into the season, now that we know, among other things, that Michigan is not very good and Notre Dame is not much better.

Last year, USC lost its Pac-10 opener and went on to win the AP championship. They aren't counting on winning it all this year unless they can sweep the Pac-10. I hope they blow Stanford out, if for no other reason than because Stanford's band is an ass and its mascot -- the stupid flaccid tree -- is lame.

Fight on!

Weather Talk

I'm still wondering about the broken seals. The reason? The weather.

It was strange enough that Jeanne decided to loop around off the coast of Florida after killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of Haitians. Now Ivan -- you remember Ivan, right? -- has made its way back south, into the eastern coast of Florida, across the peninsula, and back into the Gulf of Mexico where it has reformed into a tropical storm again. It's currently south of New Orleans and making plans to come ashore yet again as a tropical storm on the north shore of Texas, perhaps near Galveston.

Meanwhile, here in California, the sky is sharply blue, and the air is like oven air. It's close to the 100s with humidity in the teens or lower. We've arisen from bed twice in a row to strong winds from the desert. The hills above my home have had gale force gusts. I am pleasantly shocked that the hills are not alive with fire.

With all this unusual weather, I have stuff to talk about in polite society. It's less divisive than my usual Michael Moore is a miserable failure chit-chat.

Bad Art

There have been many terrible bits of art in the news lately, but I have never seen a better example than this of artwork that can come back to bite you in the ass.

The Isadora Scarf

The Vidiot pointed me to Broken, which in turn, pointed me to the J. Jill catalog. J. Jill has long been one of my favorite companies....to sue. Now, they are one of my favorite companies to laugh at.

Check out this Isadora Scarf. Would you like to wear Isadora's scarf?

Hint: it would be kind of like buying a James Dean convertible, or a Mama Cass ham sandwich.

For those of you still not quite following along, Isadora Duncan, who is generally known as the mother of "modern dance," died in 1927 when her scarf accidentally became tangled in the wheels of a Bugatti sports car.

Do you still want to buy that Isadora scarf?

Bankruptcy, Moral and Otherwise

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson made things official today, filing for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Chapter 11, for those unfamiliar with bankruptcy laws, is the chapter governing reorganization. Frankly, I'll be much more impressed after the reorganization is complete on the unfiled moral bankruptcy the diocese is going through.

How do you know your church has fallen out of grace? Well, if their official website has a prominent link that's entitled "To Report an Experience of Abuse", that could be a sign that the Lord's presence has left the building.

I'm so disgusted with my church. I can't bring myself to leave the church, partly out of fear that I might damn my eternal soul, and partly out of concern for, and feelings of community with, the vast majority of church members and clergy (including a priest whom I count among my best friends from high school and college) who are good and moral people. But when I read stuff like a diocese filing for bankruptcy to process child sexual abuse claims, I want to just rend my garments and go live in a cave.

Not that I am morally perfect.

When stories like this one break, about Iraqi extremists cutting off another civilian's head, the world is probably lucky that I am not its Czar, because I would go Braveheart on those guys if I caught them. They might be drawn, quartered, disemboweled, skinned and neutered, or all of the above, if I was in charge.

You know what's wrong with the Middle East these days? No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. They know we won't bring it. The worst we'll do is pile a few detainees up naked and point at their balls. They aren't intimidated. The next time we catch one of these neck slicers, we need to get medieval on them.

The same goes for those kid-buggering priests. And Michael Jackson, if he's convicted.

New Network Slogan: If You Want to See B.S., Watch CBS

It's been like pulling teeth, but finally, at last, CBS has admitted that they slammed the president with documentation that turned out to be complete forgeries. Dan Rather should resign and go help OJ search for the real killers.

Planes, Boats and Automobiles - My Endless Saturday

Saturday was pretty brutal. I had a mediation in San Francisco for which I had to leave at 4:00 a.m. to catch a 6:30 a.m. flight out of Los Angeles. I had to leave early because I am on the Do Not Fly List. I can fly, but some airlines (but not all) make me check in with an agent who confirms that my date of birth does not match that of the bad guy they don't want on the plane. I have a very Irish name, so I'm assuming it's an IRA terrorist.

The sign at the security line said is was a federal crime to "assault, interfere with, threaten or intimidate" a security officer. It makes me wonder how Shaq flies at all. He could intimidate me just by walking past. If you thought Shaq was acting like a scorned woman in June, this won't surprise you: He has reportedly dropped 25-40-pounds over the summer. He has something to prove to all those doubters who were down on him last season. Shaq, if you had dropped those pounds two years ago, nobody would have ever been down on you to begin with.

But I digress. For the second time in a row, I got the SSSS (which I think stands for "search the shit out of this sorry soul). I fear it is not a coincidence. They jerked with my seat assignment, too. Conspiracy, man. I had reserved seat 23A, but got a seat in row 13. My superstitions kicked in and I requested a different row. I was sent to row 22. It turned out that my seat in row 23 was filled by a woman in a bridal veil, on her way to a honeymoon in Maui. Mmmmm. Maui.

So I started daydreaming about Maui, and then I fell asleep for about five minutes and started really dreaming about Maui. When I woke up and realized that I was on my way to a business meeting, on a Saturday, I suddenly hated my career. As I dragged my half-asleep butt to the taxi stand, I seriously contemplated flying straight home.

As I suspected it would be, the mediation was a complete waste of time. Despite this, the other side was annoyed that I left, as scheduled, at 1:00 p.m. to catch a flight home in time for my class reunion.

When we landed, I was so tired that I left my Palm Pilot on the plane. I realized it before I left the airport, but it was a pain in the ass to get back through security to go back to my plane. I barely made it before the plane left for New Orleans. The Palm Pilot was still there, fortunately.

By the time I got home, I was way too tired to go to the reunion, but my wife had bought a new dress and fancied up her hair, so I went anyhow. My expectations were low. All I was really counting on was a pleasant meal and night out with my wife.

To my surprise, the reunion was a lot of fun. It was onboard the Queen Mary, and probably about a quarter of our 300 member class attended. Nobody (except one guy) tried to impress anyone. At the last reunion, I was the only lawyer from the class. Since then, three more guys have passed the bar. Three of us are nice guys. It made for good conversation. Though there was a lot of drinking, very few people were obviously drunk. We all caught up, talked and just had fun. If only we could have all been that mature and pleasant during school...or even at the ten-year reunion.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that quite a few women, whom I did not remember, remembered me. I'm sure my wife now thinks I was much more popular in high school than I really was. Back then, I tended to bounce from group to group, depending upon what and whom I was interested in at the time. Come reunion time, that means that a lot of people knew me, but we hadn't stayed in touch over the years. It made the evening much more interesting.

The most interesting part of the night was seeing how people change over the years. For the most part, the really attractive women were rather plain during high school. One of them was downright homely in high school, but is absolutely beautiful now. Some of the pretty girls from school are still attractive, but several looked like hell, either fat or poorly aged. A bunch of the jocks were really fat, which made me feel better about the few pounds I've added since college.

I saw the girl I went around with freshman year without kissing. She's still as sweet as ever. And I still haven't kissed her. The first girl I ever kissed was a no-show. A good friend from school, who is now a priest (one of the really good ones), had a cell phone with the scores of the USC game being text-messaged to him all night, so I chatted with him a lot. I made it through the night without making any faux pas, and made plans for a few future barbecues and USC road trips.

If I had it all to do over again, I would skip the ten year and attend the twenty year twice.

I Refuse to Believe

When I was a young boy, I remember believing all sorts of crazy stuff. There was a secret cave in Fuji's canyon in suburban La Mirada. (not) There was a crazy serial killer living in the hills, just off the road in Turnbull Canyon between Whittier and Puente Hills. (not) There was a monster living in Laguna Lake in Fullerton that could chomp your foot off in one bite. (yep) That last one was completely true, apparently. I can't believe it.

Equally shocking in a different way is the story today of the arrest made in the shooting deaths of two cafe patrons in Westminster last week. It turns out, a waitress they had offended had some gang member come to kill the offenders.

Now, crazy Vietnamese drivers are not the only reasons to avoid Little Saigon.

Tomorrow Is My 20-Year Reunion

Twenty years ago, I graduated from high school. I was much thinner and younger, and very smart, even though I now know that I didn't know shit. At my last reunion, I attended without my wife, who was home with our freshly minted baby. This time, people won't think the wedding band represents my imaginary girlfriend from Niagara Falls.

Last time, I should have won a contest to see who had the youngest child, but I lost to a woman who couldn't count. "Younger than 5 weeks" should have been the mark. However, she remained standing, firm in her belief that her 8-week-old was younger than five weeks. And she stole the prize from my almost-five-week-old baby when I sat down, honestly, at "younger than four". Grrr. Revenge is a dish best served cold. I'm working on something. Something subtle. If she's smart, she'll stay home. Whoowahahaha.

I'm looking forward to seeing the first girl I ever "went around" with, but did not kiss on the lips.

I'm looking forward to seeing the first girl I ever kissed on the lips, even though we never went around.

The other interesting "first girl" stuff involved girls from the classes of 85 and 86. So I'm safe.

I'm looking forward for being mistaken for Steve by the chick who had all that "work" done.

I'm going to find out when and how Steve Heemskerk died. He was cool.

The reunion is in Long Beach, but I have a mediation in the morning with [GREAT BIG RESTAURANT CHAIN]. On the plane to San Francisco in the morning, I'm going to be reading my high school yearbook to brush up on my classmates' faces. Then I'm buying a Barry Bonds Hits 700! newspaper and heading upstairs to negotiate the biggest case of my life.

I'm hoping that the case will settle, 'cause how sweet would it be to have someone ask if I have any interesting cases, and be able to say, "well, I had a really interesting one against [GREAT BIG RESTAURANT CHAIN], but it settled today for $6.5 million."

In fact, I hope that question is posed by the biotch who finished ahead of me academically by having her parents come in and bitch about every B+, but who is now leading the very ordinary life she cheated and cajoled her teachers to get her away from. For her, I'm practicing how to say "I used to think being a millionaire was going to be great, but, frankly, I don't even feel like I have money to spend" without sounding overtly pretentious.

I'm hoping to strike up a conversation with someone who is lamenting the fact that we can't see the USC-BYU game.

I'm hoping to strike up a conversation with someone who is lamenting the fact that we aren't at Inland Invasion 4.

I'm working on my quick retort to legal advice seekers (though there will be 3 of us lawyers at the reunion): "I'm not that kind of lawyer."

Man, that phrase comes in handy.

"Did you see that bastard defense attorney talking about how great his rapist client was?"
I'm not that kind of lawyer.
"My wife's attorney totally fucked me out of everything I owned."
I'm not that kind of lawyer.
"How do you get out of DUI's and stuff on technicalities?"
I'm not that kind of lawyer.
"I want to kill lawyers."
I'm not that kind of lawyer.
"My daughter works at that great big chain store, and says they don't pay overtime or give breaks."
Really? I am just that type of lawyer. We need to talk.

Did Someone Start Breaking Seals?

Do you remember that Tigger dude who was acquitted of groping a teenage girl in Orlando, then got sent back to work as "something other than Tigger"? I was keeping my eye out for that dude, but I couldn't really tell who was inside the costume. It turns out, we probably encountered him. He was pulling duty as Goofy in Camp Minnie Mickey at the Animal Kingdom. And he's in trouble again. Here he is shown on the left, keeping a safe distance from my daughter so he wouldn't get his ass kicked from Orlando to the Netherworld.

You know the end of the world must be approaching if judges in New York are perfectly okay with jurors using drugs and getting drunk during trial.

But the most certain sign of the pending apocalypse is this: Mary Kate and Ashley are the new celebrity spokespersons for McDonald's. Yes, there is an anorexic pimping Happy Meals for the world's biggest fat vendor. What's next, Stephen Hawking getting a Nike endorsement?

Supporters of John Kerry have reached a new low -- ripping up a three-year-old girl's Bush-Cheney poster and making her cry. Nice going, asshats.

In more pleasant news, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has announced that it has a great white shark in captivity which has accepted food. This is a breakthrough, because most great whites die in captivity or must be released quickly because they will not eat unless they are in open water. I hope the shark keeps eating, because I'll be in Monterey in a few weeks and I'd like to see it.

Two Americans and one British man were kidnapped in Baghdad's upscale al-Mansour neighborhood. This was a real eye-opening story for me. I had no idea there were upscale neighborhoods in Iraq.

Some dude likes to scale buildings dressed as Batman. Can you believe this guy's girlfriend would break up with him?

Did you know that naked hurricane survivors don't really need clothing? Just ask Teresa Heinz Kerry. "Clothing is wonderful, but let them go naked for a while, at least the kids," said Heinz Kerry, who rates generators well ahead of clothing on her list of priorities. I'd love to be at her house when the power goes out. "Alright! Everyone get nekked until we get some electricity in here!" Actually, she's not that attractive. Maybe I don't want to be there. And since she seems to only really like the idea of the little kids going nekked, maybe it would be more suitable for Michael Jackson to attend.

And, as long as we're on the subject of disgusting pervs, is it too much to ask of the media that you distinguish between my USC and those cocks in South Carolina when one of them tries to reenact the Porky's girl's shower scene and gets arrested? When you read the headline: "USC swimmer admits to spying in women's showers", you probably assumed it was a Trojan getting busted. Wrong. It was a Gamecock.

South Carolina sucks.

Cars

I hate my BMW. It's a fast, beautiful, expensive pile of shit that would be in the shop every two weeks except that I usually wait until three or four things go wrong so that I only have to bring it in every other month.

I love my little Ford Ranger pickup truck, but I've been thinking that I might want to upgrade, since people who see a lawyer in a truck so cheap might think he is not a very good lawyer.

This monster truck looks pretty cool -- especially in red -- but I don't think I will buy it because I don't want people to think my penis is the size of a paper clip.

I worry too much about what other people think about my car.

No Seppuku Required

The trial against the WAIC is over. We began Monday with pretrial hearings. My clients, a couple of nice homeowners who had a pool construction deal go south on them, were the defendants. Defendants normally go second during trials. However, going second is a big disadvantage.

I hate disadvantages.

So when I took over the case from another attorney, I added a claim for injunctive relief. My clients should have been able to enforce an injunction against the contractor -- he violated a number of laws during the project -- but more importantly, injunctive claims usually proceed in a bench (judge) trial before the jury trial begins. And rulings made in those proceedings generally bind the jury. And when the case is tried in this manner, the party seeking the injunctive (or other equitable) relief generally goes first. That's a big advantage.

I love advantages.

So on Tuesday, the real case began with the judge pointing to me, rather than the WAIC, saying "Call your first witness." I called the WAIC's client. He wasn't ready for it.

The WAIC clearly expected to go first, and I am quite sure his plan was to call my clients as witnesses before his client took the stand. You know, to see how their testimony shakes out, then prepare his client accordingly. It didn't work.

Of all the witnesses I have ever had the pleasure of grilling in open court, the has never been any as ill-prepared as the WAIC's client. Consequently, he was one of the two worst witnesses I have ever seen testify. I caught him in several big lies, and he speculated so many times when he wasn't sure of a point that he ended up committing to several inaccuracies that we revealed in the afternoon session. His admissions left his case in shambles. By 4:30 p.m., even though he hadn't even started his case yet, he had lost any chance of enforcing any of his alleged claims against my clients, and he had admitted to half of the liability we were claiming, while unconvincingly refuting the other half.

The WAIC didn't realize how badly his case was going until today. Last night, after the WAIC's client had made a liar, and fool and a jerk of himself on the stand, the attorney representing the bond surety for the WAIC's client had seen enough. She wanted to settle.

We showed up this morning and the court sent us to a settlement conference, saying that this case "needed to be settled." Since she was the trial judge, she didn't want to say anything substantive about the evidence so far, but she added "there's nothing I could tell you that wasn't painfully obvious to everyone yesterday."

By the end of the day, rather than demanding $28,000 plus another $30,000 in attorney's fees, the WAIC's client and his bonding company were offering to give my clients -- the defendants -- a payment of $18,000 and a stipulated injunction. To say that I felt relieved would be a big understatement. It is no great triumph that I was winning the case. Any high school kid who could win, place or show in a moot court competition could have done as well against the WAIC. But if I had lost.... I don't think I could have handled the self-critical pounding I'd have given myself.

After the settlement, I remained cordial, even though I think very little of the WAIC or his client. But inside, I was thinking "I told you so, I told you so, I told you so, I told you so...."

That was fun. I'll sleep well tonight.

Lovin' da Paper

This is my favorite time of the year to read the newspaper. Every day, there is something new about college football. My team got a bit of good news today when it was reported that Hershel Dennis will be reinstated. Dennis was projected to be the starting tailback at the beginning of the year, but apparently decided that it would be less cool to be the starting tailback on the number one football team in the country than to bring a drunken barfing girl into an after-curfew party where minors were drinking and smoking pot, so she could be potentially sexually assaulted. Ordinarily, I don't like to, you know, judge another person's choices, but this one might have been disastrous. His replacements, Reggie Bush and LenDale White, have had monster games. The carries might be thin upon Hershel's return.

I missed the USC-CSU game last week on TV. I can't complain too much, as I was 50 rows up from the 17 yard line during the game, but I like to watch the games on TiVo later, checking out the key plays, interviews and special features (the rest gets bloop, bloop, blooped forward). If my seats are really good, I like to spot myself on the screen. Sadly, my TiVo looks like it might have died. So no TiVo'd game. So I was checking out 1st & 11, and I read that Matt Leinart was apologizing for the shirt he wore during his interview shown during the game on ABC. I was immediately curious. Matt did not discuss the content on his blog, so I had to turn to another source -- http://www.collegefootballnews.com. There it was, a ways down the column.

"Thank you ABC censors for letting this go … Was that really a "F(Trojan head where the U would be)CK the B.C.S." T-shirt that Matt Leinart was wearing during the nationally televised, prime time halftime feature on the star USC quarterback? Cool."

I agree. Don't apologize to me, Matt.

It remains to be seen whether this string of wins is a fluke, but so far, I am shocked by the following trail:

Stanford > BYU
BYU > Notre Dame
Notre Dame > Michigan

Therefore, Stanford > Michigan. Or not.

I keep hoping that USC's two main rivals for the hearts and minds of poll voters will be beaten soon. LSU almost lost -- deserved to lose -- to Oregon State. And they face Auburn on Saturday. But they are probably not going to play because of Hurricane Ivan, which has already caused the Cal-Southern Miss. game to be postponed. Oklahoma, meanwhile, is playing Oregon, also known as the only school to suffer the indignity of losing a Rose Bowl to Harvard. Two weeks ago, I thought Oregon might do the Pac-10 proud on Saturday, but after their embarrassing loss to Indiana last week, I'm not counting on it.

In case you haven't been watching, look at these unbelievable satellite photos of Ivan: eye shot; and broad shot. And the first hurricane pictures are coming in from Grand Cayman, and it got its ass whupped. Meanwhile, Florida may have dodged Ivan, but here comes Jeanne.

I'm looking forward to the time when the only Hurricanes in the news are from UM.

Sniff Sniff

This snippet of news from New Orleans sounds so disgusting I can almost smell the aftermath already:

Residents streamed inland in bumper-to-bumper traffic in an agonizingly slow exodus amid dire warnings that Ivan could overwhelm New Orleans with up to 20 feet of filthy, chemical-polluted water.

Too Busy to Type

Today, on zero sleep, I began a trial, mediated a class action, got bit by a black widow spider, and spent the evening prepping for the first live witnesses of the new trial for tomorrow. I have no time to sleep, much less post to the journal. These insignificant words are a testament to my apparent affliction with obsessive-compulsiveness.

USC Game Report: Colorado State

I just got back from the USC - Colorado State game. It was a fun way to start the home season.

We had a near perfect day. My brother and I had light traffic on the way to the game, got a parking spot in a lot right across the street from the west end of the Coliseum, and found good seats right away.

There are more than a few ways to score tickets to a hot event, but the best way to get good tickets for a fair price for a big sporting event is to find a white guy in his 40s or later, wearing the home team's colors, looking for a buyer. Usually, you don't even have to dicker over the price. The plan worked to perfection today. We got yard line seats for the $40 face value. Comparable tickets were selling for 3 times that on eBay this week.

If you have not been to a USC home game, you are missing out on a truly great pre-game experience: the national anthem, performed by the Spirit of Troy. The band plays a very soft Star-Spangled Banner, and 85,000 people sing it out loud. Today, we got to sing America the Beautiful, too. It was awe inspiring. Then they observed a moment of silence in memory of the victims of 9/11, and USC dedicated the game to the men and women in uniform, serving in Iraq. Finally, a fighter jet was supposed to do a flyover, but it must have been a fancy new Stealth model, because nobody saw or heard it.

I learned this at halftime: If USC was a sovereign nation, it would have finished 13th in the medal count in Athens!

Aside from two fumbles, USC played almost flawlessly. LenDale White looks like the toughest guy in the nation to tackle, with the possible exception of Cadillac Williams. Reggie Bush is spectacularly fast and agile. Matt Leinart still plays like a Heisman favorite. Freshman receiver Dwayne Jarrett is looking a lot like the young version of Mike Williams, right down to the mix of spectacular grabs and freshman dropsies (for those with short memories, Williams dropped all but one pass in a 2002 loss to Kansas State). Jarrett, who turned 18 today, gave himself a nice birthday present with a fourth quarter touchdown grab.

Greig Carlson -- who was in on a first quarter fumble attributed to Leinart -- dropped a fair catch that almost lead to a Rams score, but USC's defense responded with one of their five takeaways a play or two later. The offense seemingly scored at will. White scored the first three touchdowns, all on the ground. The Trojans kept getting inside the five yard line, and I was wondering if Bush was on the sidelines wishing the team was outside the ten yard line so he would get a chance at the TD. White got the call on all the short yardage situations. Bush did get one TD from seven yards out. That makes four on the season so far. Between White and Bush, that makes a total of seven TDs in two games for the "thunder and lightning" two-headed tailback.

It was poster night at the Coliseum tonight, which means that with about 12 minutes to go in the game, they set out a bunch of packages of team schedule posters outside the exits, and a few fans get one for free. Plus, a bunch of homeless guys swipe about 50 each and walk a few blocks over to sell them to bitter, posterless fans who actually stayed for part of the fourth quarter.

For the doubters who thought Virginia Tech had exposed USC as a weak, overrated number one, check out the scores this weekend:

USC 49, Colorado State 0

Virginia Tech 63, Western Michigan 0 (the Hokies might not suck after all.)

No. 4 Miami 16, No. 5 Florida State 10 (an ugly game for both of them)

No. 3 Georgia 20, unranked South Carolina (the other USC) 16 (on the strength of a 4th quarter drive).

No. 6 LSU looked good against Sun Belt Conference weakling Arkansas State, but remember how they needed 3 missed extra points to beat Oregon State last week? Oregon State, as it turns out, isn't very good.

No. 7 Texas barely got past unranked Arkansas, 22-20.

No. 8 Michigan lost to winless and unranked Notre Dame.

And No. 9 Ohio State only beat unranked and winless Marshall (who lost to Troy State last week) by a last second 55-yard field goal.

Only Oklahoma looks like a wrecking crew.

In a huge upset, Fresno State kicked Kansas State's ass in Manhattan. So much for Darren Sproles and his Heisman bid. Sproles got just 35 yards on 11 carries.

I don't think Penn State or Nebraska will be ranked all season.

Missouri, Oregon and Clemson do not deserve to be ranked. Kansas State has been exposed as a softer-than-Fresno State fraud. Tomorrow, if Boise State (12 game winning streak, win over Oregon State), Troy State (wins over Marshall and Missouri) and Fresno State (wins at Washington and Kansas State) do not crack the top 25, something is wrong.

College Course Credit For Playing Football

During halftime of the Notre Dame Michigan game, NBC lifted a scoop from the Washington Post and did an "expose" about how some colleges, including 11 of the current AP Top 25 football schools, give a unit or two of academic credit each year to football players and other athletes who enroll in Phys.Ed. classes such as "Varsity Football". It's an outrage, says NBC. The joke used to be that football players take courses in basket-weaving (by the way, basket-weaving is a nice skill to have, I wish I had taken it as an undergrad), but now they take courses on playing football.

I think this criticism is stupid.

Players absolutely should get credit for Phys.Ed. courses when they play varsity athletics. While I was in college, I took a very heavy academic courseload nearly every semester. I graduated with a major in communications, a minor in political science, and I was about 6 units shy of a second minor in psychology. And I took P.E. courses.

One such course, if I recall correctly, was called intermediate basketball. We learned post-basic skills and strategies, which came pretty easily to me, since I was also coaching high school basketball at the time. Oh, and we played a lot of scrimmages. I got straight As. Almost everyone did. Of course, you couldn't take P.E. in every class, but something like 8 or 10 units could be applied toward your degree. In fact, I think 2-3 units of P.E. was required before graduation.

So what is wrong with college athletes getting the same sort of academic credits that I, as a pre-law student, was permitted to earn? Lord knows they have to put a lot more effort into "varsity football" than I had to put into "intermediate basketball." If the pre-law and pre-med students can get grades for the same type of course, so should the jocks.

NBC is an idiot. And Joey sucks.

Stuff To Do Online (Part 17)

Another list of stuff to do online.

First, some monkey stuff:

You can buy a japanese video of the famous Monkey movie.

You can read about sexually frustrated monkeys getting satisfaction by shocking zoo visitors into dropping their cigarettes, then bumming the smoke off 'em.

This guy isn't a monkey, but he looks like one.

The official website for Mojo-Jojo, the nemesis of the Power Puff Girls.

There are always another few interesting blogs to read:

The Orlando Sentinel did a news blog during Charley's crossing.

Ariel Meadow has a test to answer that question: Are you electrolicious? I got 40 points, "well on [my] way to electroliciousness." Pretty good for a stuffy Republican trial lawyer.

Cranky Greg cracks me up again with his tales of Beavis-like adventures in astronomy class.

With a name like Two Dumb Blondes, I was expecting something different than an ordinary young French mother.

For more international flavor, Irish Eyes is a good read. It makes me long for a pint of Guinness.

You can take quizzes or tests:

If you play poker, you want to be able to spot the fish. If you are just a person who reads emails, you need to know how to spot the phish.

Is that a dog toy, or a marital aid?

Old and busted: Am I hot or am I not?
New hotness: Am I fugly?

I am part of the 2%. I came up with an answer that, shall we say, a Nebraska fan might have come up with.

You can watch video:

The best home run video of 2004.

A clip from the Family Guy: Bad Roaches.

These guys built a chair that would fit in a FedEx box. It's not that interesting, but not a huge time investments.

This is pretty lame: Banana phone.

I remember my aunt showing me this on VHS years ago and laughing so hard she almost coughed up a lung. It wasn't that funny, but it's amusing. The farting preacher.

This animation is creepy: Salad Fingers. There is, of course, a sequel.

The Rockfish episode.

A very good reason not to smoke. Or, for that matter, not to go outside.

Another All Your Base Are Belong to Us thingy.

You can play games:

Survive as a soap bubble.

Eskiv.

Disney games.

Shoot into the spinning circles.

This is the best. Gorillazs features this driving thing. I could do this for hours, if I had hours.

You can try some activities:

When you are bored, you can just hit ubored.com and find a million things to do.

Find the hidden picture. I apologize in advance.

Check out the time capsule. What happened on this day?

Unwrap a mummy.

Make your own movie.

Pick a page with a jpg and make a kaleidoscope out of it.

You can see strange or interesting stuff:

I know some of you would rather see a burning Bush, but I can bring you the dancing Bush.

Check out these dramatic weather photos.

ESPN's 25 favorite sports commercials.

The Satanic Kerry Hamsterdance.

Dirt surfing, the new crazy extreme sport.

Funny photos from the recent Olympics.

Running totals of tons of things worth tracking on Earth. e.g., total world human population, 6,420,342,001 as of the moment of this post.

It's not my bag, baby, but here's a site with about a trillion photos of cats.

You can learn something new:

How to fry tomatoes, link courtesy of Don Nunn.

Do you know the real reason Michael Moore has submitted Fahrenheit 9/11 for the best picture award in the general film category, rather than the best documentary category? Because documentaries are not supposed to be fiction. Here's a list of 59 bullshit lies told by the fat man in his movie.

PETA might not like it, but if you have skin problems, I won't fault you if you kill a shark and take his bile. Shark bile is good for your skin.

George Lucas wants more billions. More billions are more important than the original oath to never film the final three episodes of the nine-part Star Wars saga. Solution: Lucas will make the movies. Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill to start hunting sharks immediately.

Who are the most influential Christians in America? Start, of course, with George Bush.

As it turns out, you can fall 11,500 feet without dying. People who died after falling off second story balconies must be feeling pretty stupid right about now.

The finest reputation as a college for quarterbacks belongs to Miami. USC is 8th.

Transparent aluminum is almost here.

A gold mine of data regarding airplane crashes. For example, Quantas has never crashed. But you knew that.

You can buy strange or wonderful things:

You missed out on a chance to pay $400 for a missing doggy poster Paris Hilton slapped on a telephone pole. Then again, if you swipe her dog, there will probably be more for the taking.

You can buy a yearbook that features a picture of me, as a freshman, sitting in the senior square.

You can buy a copy of GoodFellas, autographed by Henry Hill. But hurry, before he gets whacked.

You can buy an anatomically correct (if somewhat exaggerated) monkey costume.

You can add to your collection of athletic Jesus figurines.

You missed out on the 14K White Gold Claddagh ring for $300, but if you hurry, you can read the sad, sad, story behind the sale.

Do you use Stamps.com? If so, you can buy stamps with your picture on them. Or the Unabomber's.

If you really love the Renaissance Fair, you can buy an entire Renaissance Festival, land included. But your bid better beat $1,199,300.00 (which did not meet the reserve).

You can sit and wonder what these people were thinking:

You would invest with a firm that plans to use time travel to boost your return?

Some loser is willing to be your best friend, if you pay him.

These people are proud to molest statues.

Every year, more and more people are attached a shitpotfull of balloons to lawn chairs so they can fly.

How unobservant must you be to let your skin grow over the ring on your finger?

You can puzzle over why these twins were not raised together:

Mel Brooks and Lee Corso.

Amy Jo Johnson and Jennifer Garner.

Woody Harrelson and Eagle Colo. District Attorney Mark Hurlbert.

Texas running back Cedric Benson and former Texas running back Ricky Williams.

You can check out a place far, far away via web cam:

Daytona Beach.

Celebration, Florida. (I assume the bovine knew about this one, but I found it on my very own.)

Duvall Street in Key West (streets are emtpier than normal with Ivan coming)

The Jamaica webcam is showing reruns (seriously) because of Ivan.

That's not all you can do online, but it's a start.

Mixed Thoughts on Politics

A third of all Canadians think Canada will be part of the U.S. within 50 years. Or so I am told. But I can be easily deceived with a clever lie about Canada. I wonder how they would vote.

I know how the Mexicans would vote. They know who has their backs. It's not the GOP. Can someone explain to me why it is that legislators want to provide social security benefits to illegal aliens? I know that if I work in Mexico, I'm not going to draw a pension from the Mexican government. Who, exactly, are these guys' constituents? I know illegal immigration is too widespread to control, but is illegal immigrant voting that widespread?

At least John Kerry isn't voting to give illegals the right to recover retirement benefits. He doesn't vote on anything.

The New York Daily News reports that 26,000 residents of New York are registered to vote in both Florida and New York, and that 400-1,000 have used absentee ballots to vote twice in the same election. Of the 26,000, the breakdown by party, according to the Tampa Bay Tribune, is 68% Democrat, 12% Republican and 16% unstated. That might just be enough to successfully steal the Florida election this time.

If you google the word Waffles, the #2 hit will be the official website for the Kerry campaign. Two unofficial Kerry-themed sites also crack the first page.

Those Republicans who wore purple heart bandaids to the RNC to mock John Kerry are asshats who should have been taken outside and beaten until they looked like someone who had a freshly earned purple heart.

The latest polls are out, and Bush still has a bit of a lead. The potentially fake military records seem to be hurting his position. But all that matters are the red states and the blue states. For good updates on the red and blue status, check out www.electoral-vote.com.

It is wrong to vote against John Kerry just because his wife was a life-long Republican, but I won't judge you.

Everyone is judging Dick Cheney for saying that the choice of John Kerry may be a dangerous one for homeland security, but it's a legitimate argument, and it's a belief that is widespread, even in the Middle East. For example, Kerry is against imposing the death penalty on terrorists. He's pro-immigrant and vehemently against anything that even sniffs of racial profiling. So when five Saudi college students get on your plane without an inspection, don't worry. They're surely safe, because their random number didn't pop up. But we are going to check out the little old Hispanic lady. She might be carrying plastique.

I am tired as hell of the Vietnam shit. I admit that the Swift Boat ads that showed Kerry's testimony about war atrocities swayed me against him. I view that campaign as at least slightly traitorous, giving aid and comfort to the enemy as powerfully as Hanoi Jane. And I see it as potentially relevant to his worthiness as a president. But all this business about whether he deserved his purple hearts, and whether Bush was a screwup as a soldier (as if anyone ever doubted that Bush was irresponsible as a young adult) is so meaningless that it almost makes me want to withhold my vote from both candidates.

Not that my vote matters. My two weeks a year in Florida don't make me a Floridian, and California is Kerry country by double digits. California has about 22 million eligible voters. Even if just a third of them vote, I'd have to persuade about 900,000 of them to reject Kerry to make a difference.

Even if I was charming enough, I don't have that kind of time.

I do not watch political conventions, generally, but I saw a clip the other day of John Kerry's daughter speaking to the delegates about how her dad saved their pet hamster from drowning when its cage fell into the lake during a vacation. The rescue included mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which everyone seemed to enjoy. I sat there thinking, this means that John Kerry sucked face with a rodent. That is perfect. What better training is there for one whose ambition is to hold high political office?

For now, I'm pick Bush as my lesser of two evils. But if the top of the tickets were to somehow perish in a series of unfortunate farm machine accidents or something, leaving a race between Cheney and Edwards, I would actually see the election as a race between two excellent candidates. And I would vote for Edwards and feel good about it.

These are confusing times for conservative Republican trial attorneys.

Re/Max Su/cks

Re/Max must truly suck. In West Los Angeles sits a Re/Max Realtor's office in a great big ugly orange building with hideous green windows. Would you hire them to find you a piece of property? If orange stone and green glass is their idea of urban chic, I would not.

But what about selling your property? Not that, either. Their landlord has a big sign out front advertising available space, being brokered by Richard Ellis real estate brokers. If their landlord doesn't trust them, neither do I.

Good and Bad at the Window

These two recently reported events contrast a bit, don't they?

A Tampa man, Martin Rivero, watched an out-of-control 2000 Nissan XTerra cross into southbound lanes and hit a Mazda Protege. Seeing the Nissan burst into flames, Rivero kicked and punched until he broke the windshield, then he and another man pulled the driver out. About half a minute later, the SUV exploded in a ball of flames.

But in Georgia, a less honorable fellow drove home drunk, with his buddy hanging out the passenger window like a dog, and when he struck a guide wire on a telephone pole. The buddy was decapitated. The driver figured, what the hell, might as well just drive home and park the car at the curb. Nobody will notice, right? Wrong. Passersby noticed and told police, who found John Hutcherson inside his house, covered in blood, and still drunk, the next morning. He's in jail now.

But he's not alone. Drivers sometimes react to horrific accidents in strange ways. Many take off. And many, including Arizona Bishop Thomas O'Brien and Chante Mallard (of dead homeless guy in the windshield fame) are now in jail. May they find love there.

The smarter drunk drivers, however, get their love before they are arrested, like Travis D. McConchie, an inmate supervisor at Largo Road Prison. McConchie was clocked going 73 in a 45 mph zone, and, after leading police on a short chase, was pulled over just in time to fail a sobriety test. When officers learned of his profession, they inquired as to why he didn't pull over right away. "He stated he did not pull over because his girlfriend was naked and was sitting on top of him," said the arresting officer. At least it was an honest answer.

Epcot

I overheard the following discussion at Epcot in the China area:

"Did you see that girl in the costume?"

"Yeah, it was that girl from Mulan. What was her name again?"

"Uh, Mulan?"

You can learn a lot at Epcot. Here are ten things I learned in one day spent at Epcot and at the pool in the Disney Port Orleans French Quarter resort.

1. Tomatoes were "discovered" in the 1500s in Mexico. Before then, no Italian had ever tasted a tomato-based pizza sauce.

2. Most Norwegians are fluent in English.

3. The Naxi people of Western China believe good fortune is carried by the wind, and so they place colorfully decorated stakes into wish fulfilling pots outside their homes to capture good wishes.

4. Moroccan art and jewelry often includes triangular shapes, a stylized form of the hand. The form is used to ward off the evil eye, which is attracted to all beautiful things.

5. A late lunch is a great way to stay inside during the first afternoon thunderstorm.

6. There are more than 700 ways to prepare a meal using corn.

7. Morrocan fast food of lamb and chicken in a gyro style sauce with couscous and hummus is edible, but we liked their less traditional chicken strips better. Oh, and Moroccan wine is not so great. Couldn't I get just as good a buzz by drinking something tastier, like jet fuel?

8. We've forgiven the bad guys from World War II. Epcot has a territory for all three traditional Axis powers: Germany, Italy & Japan. However, the nations of the current Axis of Evil -- Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- are not represented. Nor are the lesser of the Axis of Evil countries: Cuba, Libya and Syria.

9. Morocco was the first nation to recognize the sovereignty of the United States.

10. There are some things you cannot unsee. Speedos do not belong on guys who are old, straight, fat or American. And Florida is not the French Riviera. Speedos don't belong on anyone in Florida, but they certainly don't belong on a bald, fat, old Floridian as he struts around the pool with a younger woman.

The Good and The Bad of Camera Phones

The good thing about my camera phone is that I always have a camera. So, for example, if Stevie Wonder walks by, I can snap a quick shot.

The bad thing about my camera phone is that, especially under artificial lighting, the shot is likely to be of such poor quality that you have to take my word for it that the fuzzy blob on the left side of the photo is Stevie Wonder.

In a related story, I saw Stevie Wonder last weekend.

Strange Praise, Indeed

Objectively speaking, my own religious beliefs are bizarre. Every once in a while, I actually pay attention to the things we say in church and I wonder if we are all crazy. But the beliefs continue to bring me comfort, so I do not abandon them. That doesn't prevent me at all, however, from finding other people's beliefs to be odd.

There are people out there who believe that Jesus has returned. He is a three-year-old boy living in Illinois with his parents. His father is a college professor who was just appointed to a diplomatic position within the U.S. government. He will someday become President of the United States, which will empower him to do battle with the Anti-Christ, who is currently alive and growing up in the Middle East. He has already performed three miracles: drawing upon a torrential rainstorm to douse a wildfire; curing a classmate's leukemia; and causing a van full of Al Qaeda terrorists with a nuclear bomb to crash into the Potomac River. The source of this information is someone within a group calling itself the Circle of Seven. Which circle, I do not know. I just glanced at the article while in the express lane at the supermarket.

I like the young men who meet for a regular prayer group at a Hooter's restaurant in Georgia. Some Bible study members initially resisted holding meetings at the restaurant known for its scantily clad waitresses. "Somebody comes up to me and says, come to a Bible study at Hooters. And my first reaction was ... I can see McDonald's or another restaurant, but why Hooters?" Well, since Christ himself associated with prostitutes and beggars, I don't think any Christians are in a position to judge them just because they study then Bible in the presence of some waitresses wearing tight shirts and short shorts.

But I would feel creepy if I walked into someone's home and saw a framed print of George Bush praying, with the ghosts of Lincoln and Washington praying over him.

I really don't like the in-your-face methods of groups like Repent America, who have things like "Are You Good Enough For Heaven" and a running tally of aborted babies on their website.

I am amused by people who see signs from heaven in unusual places like balloons. In Texas, there works a car salesman who blows up balloons to make people want to come in and buy new cars. One of the balloons has a stain. He thinks it is a vision of the Virgin Mary. I think it looks like genitalia. Would God really try to inspire us with a vague image like that? I doubt it. And would God use a balloon inflator as his prophet? Maybe, but I remain dubious.

I know Jesus saves, but I didn't know He co-signed. Last month, a man drove his pickup to a Chevrolet dealership and demanded that he be given a new car. When asked how he planned to pay for it, he said Jesus would finance it for him. When his offer was refused, the man got back into his truck, rammed the showroom, calmly got back out, walked back into the showroom, sat down and read his Bible as he waited for police.

If you feel guilty about gambling with cards, just remember that a deck of cards is nothing more than a representation of God and Bible stories.

The scariest stories are those of the people who kill because they think God told them to do it. Like this South African woman who believed that her young son was "possessed by the devil" when she hacked him to death with an axe and gouged out his eyes with a screwdriver. The boy was two.

Almost as scary: two churches in Greece celebrate Easter each year by shooting rockets at each other. I hope this firing rockets at each other's churches spreads to fundamentalist Islam.

As for me, I like to think of myself more like the harmless hypocrites who get their praise on (ack!) by stealing Christian music mp3s. Yes, young Christians enjoy stealing Jesus music. And they have their supporters -- people who think that getting the Gospel out is more important than getting paid. While that might be a good argument for trying to persuade artists to forego royalties, I don't really buy into it as a justification for swiping their product.

Then again, its a lot healthier than chasing 72 virgins by trying to blow yourself up with a bunch of innocent civilians.

Weekend at Roy's

Take a look at this picture, recently taken of Roy Horn and Siegfried Fischbacher in Las Vegas. In my opinion, Roy looks about as alive as Bernie in that cinematic classic, Weekend at Bernie's. Until I see that guy move on his own, I'm going to assume that the Tiger killed him.

4 More Days!

There are just four days left until USC starts its home season. I missed the road opener (although technically, USC was considered the "home team" in the Virginia Tech game) to spend more time with the penpals in Orlando, so I am really looking forward to this upcoming home game against Colorado State.

This will be the first time since 1981 that USC will emerge from the tunnel at the Coliseum as the No. 1 team in the country. It doesn't seem like it was so long ago. Then again, it was just a bit over eight months ago when they ran out of the tunnel in the Rose Bowl as the No. 1 team in the country. The Rose Bowl, as everyone in Southern California knows, is where UCLA plays its home games.

UCLA still sucks.

Trivia (9-7-2004)

If you split Alaska into two equal parts, north-south, east-wide, whatever, they would instantly become the two largest states in the U.S.

A can of Sprite has 140 calories. That's more than a bottle of Guinness, which has just 125 calories. A can of Tomato juice is even better, at 60 calories. Mix them all together in a single glass and they might have a negative caloric value, unless you can keep it down.

Your thumbnail, if typical, grows 1.6 inches a year.

Panama hats did not originate in Panama. They are Ecuadorian.

The mother elephant is pregnant for 20 to 22 months with each baby.

Once you know that Norway extends north into the Arctic Circle, you will no longer be surprised to learn that Europe's largest glacier is the Jostedalsbreen Glacier in Norway.

The nation of India knows no mother tongue. There are 1,652 different languages and dialects spoken there.

Mongol grooms wore wedding dresses. Well, robes actually. But they looked like dresses.

The Seminole Hard Rock Casino features a game of Tic Tac Toe where you play against a live chicken. Win once and you get $100. Do it twice in a row and you will get $10,000, or so they claim. So far, none of the 30,000 challengers have put together a two game winning streak.

Watch out for the man who is willing to bet you $100 that the Colorado River flows through Texas. He will win. Austin sits on the banks of the Colorado River. No, not THAT Colorado River, but a Colorado River nonetheless.

Gridiron Butterfly Wings

Oregon State placekicker Alexis Serna missed three extra points yesterday in Oregon State's game against LSU. Had he made any of them, LSU would have lost all of its votes for number one in the polls, and probably would have dropped ten spots or more. But maybe it's all for the best.

You just never know what seemingly insignificant events will affect your life in the future. I am known to make a bigger deal out of USC football games than I should. But the games can turn out to be very important. For example, last week, as we were walking down Main Street at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, with Ian (my best friend from childhood) and his family, and my wife's longtime penpal and her family, it occurred to me that we probably wouldn't have been there if Ryan Killeen had been a better kicker in 2002.

On October 5, 2002, as Ian and I watched on TV, Killeen missed an extra point that ultimately allowed Washington State to send their game against USC into overtime. In the extra period, Killeen missed a field goal that would have forced a second extra period. USC lost. I remember dropping to the floor, screaming "Nooooo!" when it happened. I knew the importance of the miss. It meant that USC needed the Cougars to lose two conference games, or there would be no Rose Bowl for us that year.

By the end of the season, the Cougars had lost one conference game, and though USC finished tied for first in the Pac-10, the Cougs got the Rose Bowl bid. But there was a silver lining. USC was now ranked 4th in the country, and, coming off severe throttlings of UCLA and Notre Dame, the Trojans were headed to Miami for the Orange Bowl.

I wanted to go. My wife hates to fly, and she wasn't crazy about the idea of flying all the way across the country for a football game, but I begged and cajoled her, and we compromised. We would start with five days in Orlando, playing at Disney World, before we went to Miami for some football. The trip was a big success. My wife loved Orlando. The girls loved Orlando. I liked it, too, but I really loved the Orange Bowl victory over Iowa.

Last July, we had to use two timeshare weeks before they expired, so we spent a week in Orlando and a week in Fort Lauderdale. But for the Orange Bowl trip, my wife probably would have picked someplace else. But she loved Orlando and our girls loved Orlando, so we went. We bought a Disney World ultimate park hopper for everyone, and we only used half of it. "We'll come back later and use the rest," my wife said.

Last winter, my wife's penpal informed us that her family was going to visit Orlando in August. Two years ago, this would have generated little interest from my wife. The idea of flying across the country to meet the penpals would have seemed absurd. However, after really enjoying the two previous trips, she was ready to board the plane immediately. "Let's go meet them there!" she said. I agreed (although I did try without success to work in a side trip to DC for the Virginia Tech game).

In June or July, I discovered that flights to and hotels in Orlando are pretty cheap in late August. When I told Ian about the deal we got flying to Orlando and staying at a Disney hotel, he checked it out and decided to join us. We all had a blast.

But if Ryan Killeen had made those kicks, we would have gone to the Rose Bowl in 2003. I would never have gone to Orlando. And instead of prompting us to fly to Florida to join them, the penpals' trip to Florida would probably have done no more than add a postcard to our collection.

So thanks, Ryan. Your wussy 2002 kicking leg made my life more interesting.

Beach Weather!

Weather today in Irvine, California: 98°, with 10% humidity, on the way to a forecasted high of 99°.

Meanwhile, at the coast, Oceanside is at 103°, with a severe weather alert consisting of a high surf warning. Sets of up to nine feet expected!

Guess where I'm going to be on Labor Day!

No Streaking Allowed

The Sports Illustrated jinx does not just extend to the cover photo. In the August 18, 2004 issue, SI featured an article (The Little School That Can't Be Beat) about the amazing 151 game winning streak by the football program at De la Salle High School in Concord, California. De La Salle had not lost a game since the December 1991 North Coast Section championship game. In his 26 years as head coach, Bob Ladouceur had more undefeated seasons (17) than losses (14).

After an offseason that including Ladouceur suffering a heart attack and their star player from last year getting shot in the streets just two days before leaving for the University of Oregon, De la Salle had their national record winning streak snapped by Bellevue High, Washington state's 3A three-time defending champion, in a 39-20 loss Saturday night at Qwest Field in front of 24,987 fans. Bellevue was led by a 14-year-old sophomore quarterback who threw no passes.

So, in one day, the longest winning streak in high school football is gone, and the somewhat less impressive Division I college football winning streak of Miami Ohio is gone, too. Michigan's true freshman quarterback, Chad Henne, beat the RedHawks by 33 points yesterday. It wasn't an upset, though. Michigan was well favored. Surprisingly, every single team in the top 25 won this week, if they played.

May Boise State fall next.

The Brilliance of Sales Clerks

I'm at a Hallmark, buying a roll of silver wrapping paper, a wedding card, some ribbon and a bow. The clerk rings me up, and as she is slipping the roll of wrapping paper into the bag, she asks "Is this for wrapping a gift?"

My mind starts to race, as I think of all the different things Chandler Bing might say in response to this question.

"No, I'm actually going to stuff it inside the gift."

"No, its going to used as a dessert topping."

"Yes, and I'm the gift, baby."

"Do I get a prize for answering correctly?"

Instead, I cock my head to one side like a dog that has never heard anything so strange, and I raise one eyebrow, and mutter "Um, why?"

Flustered, she wordlessly gives me my change and I walk out the door.

The Earthquake Is Coming?

Do you remember that stir that arose in January when those UCLA scientists predicted a major earthquake in Southern California by September 5, 2004? They're down to barely more than 24 hours, and so far, not even a jiggle.

UCLA sucks. (Notre Dame, too)

Missing Orlando Thoughts

Frances is coming! Frances is coming!

I'm less myopic in my observation of the hurricane story in Florida this time. Last time, to the south, there were dozens of people dead or missing. There were countless homes destroyed or severely damaged. There were people stranded for days because they missed their flights home. So what articles did I read? The ones about what theme parks were reopening, and when.

This time, I'm watching more out of concern for the people there, including quite a few whom I met last week. I'm watching, in part, on one of my favorite new sources for news: Fox News 35. I liked WFTV News 9, too.

While I was actually in Florida, the news was all Williams, Williams, Williams. In a nutshell, the stories were as follows: Ricky Williams is an ass. Willie Williams got what he deserved. Mike Williams got screwed.

I agree with that last point. The NCAA sucks. Jeremy Bloom and Mike Williams should be playing college football this fall. If you disagree, you are an ass.

Though its game against Virginia Tech supposedly kicked off the college football season last Saturday, USC was not the first team playing. Glenville State at Murray State and West Alabama at Samford kicked off 45 minutes earlier. Miami, Ohio played Indiana State at some point that night, too. But the USC game got top billing at ESPN Club, where we won a free trucker's hat for guessing that Sonny Jurgenson was the answer to one of their pre-game trivia questions.

USC has just the third longest winning streak in college football. Miami Ohio and Boise State are both on bigger rolls. Well, longer, at least.

Our vacation was almost perfect. We liked our resort. We had fun every day, but we only went commando at the amusement parks on three of those days. There were only two bummers the entire ten days.

The first was when we ordered a convertible from Thrifty and arrived at midnight to find that they were all out. And the guy at the counter was a jerk about it. He didn't apologize. He just gave us a full-size car in parking spot 50. So we went out there and spot 50 was empty. "Oh," he says, "I meant spot 134." And he still charged us the rate for convertibles. I didn't get my convertible until two days later.

The second bummer was pretty minor. Thunderstorms caused three short (30-60 minute) shutdowns of Typhoon Lagoon while we were there. I forgot how intense those tropical afternoon thunderstorms got.

Nonetheless, we had a blast. I got to drive the convertible down the beach at Daytona. The girls and I swam with baby hammerhead sharks. We took a ferry to Caladesi Island for a day of beaching with maybe -- maybe -- 50 other people on the entire island. That ferry ride was one of the best entertainment values I've ever nabbed.

The flights over and back were smooth. We had stopovers on the ride over, but I got to enjoy an underrated pleasure of traveling with stopovers: the chance to read newspapers from three or four cities in one day. I watched very little television for a week, too. Other than a couple of minutes of news each night, lots of Crissa on the Disney Resorts channel, and a few viewings of the world's most annoying commercial for Appliance Direct (See it all & save! I love appliances!), I was Internetless and TVless all week.

Crissa cracked me up. Is there a rule that travel shows need to be hosted by dirty-blonde short-haired dorky chicks? If so, Disney obeyed with their Top 7 Must See Attractions at Disney World. It was a blatant Disney commercial, of course, disguised as a Travel Channel feature, with the requisite dorky blonde shorthair. The most absurd part of it: "Downtown Disney offers some big names in 'Yum!'" Then they showed House of Blues, Wolfgang Puck and ... McDonald's. McDonalds?!? Gross. The McDonald's in the Orlando airport had Happy Meals with apple slices that were stamped "Use by Aug. 27" on August 30th.

In addition to great restaurants such as McDonald's, Downtown Disney had two circles with cool water jets that shoot out of the ground. The kids had lots of fun running through them for something like an hour. That was cheap entertainment. Even cheaper entertainment: two fat ladies walked through the water jet circle, and I was like, "Oh, God, please, please, please, please, now!" I was sorely disappointed. For a moment. Then ... splash! Oh, yes!

I miss Orlando. Even tonight.

More Old News: Olympiad Thoughts

Though the hurricane pattern suggests that we were right on in our travel planning for the Orlando trip this year, we missed meeting Michael Phelps at Typhoon Lagoon by two days. After 10 days in Florida, I piled up a bunch of unread newspapers. So I finally caught up on the Olympics this week. Apparently, it was a fairly interesting event this year.

Eritrea won its first Olympic medal. It would have had two, but marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi is now an American citizen. Like me, you might have wondered if Eritrea is a country. Apparently so. But it was part of Ethiopia 3 Olympics ago.

Israel finally won a gold medal. But they still faced Arab scorn as Iran's flag-bearer, Arash Miresmaili, refused to wrestle against an Israeli competitor. It could have been worse. The terrorists never got past the gate.

Check out these medal statistics:

Bahamas: 300,000 people, 2 medals.
India: 1.3 billion people, 1 medal.

But that's still 1 medal better than rival Pakistan.

Is my memory failing, or did Germany win a lot more Olympic medals when it was two countries?

It was sad to see the Iraqi men lose the bronze medal soccer match. But at least the Hussein brothers aren't around to torture them with electric cords on their genitals as a punishment for losing.

All but five participating nations sent female athletes. Can you guess what one characteristic those five nations share?

USC has sent more athletes to the Olympics than any other university. In every Olympics since 1912, one or more USC athletes won a gold medal. This year, swimmer Klete Keller was the one to extend the streak. Several others followed, including two of the women's basketball team.

The men's basketball team sucked. Until this year, they were 192-2 overall. This year, they went 5-3. But there is a silver lining. Now all of America has a taste of what it's been like to be a Laker fan for the last two seasons.

Michael Phelps was awesome. The American women's soccer team was awesome. And the softball team gave up just one run in their unbeaten gold medal tournament. Uber-awesome.

Paul Hamm got the gold, but he was not awesome. I don't think that someone who falls should still be eligible for the gold medal, and the post-medal analysis proves that he shouldn't have won, but the scoreboard rules. Would you give it back? Me, neither.

Several members of the Greek Olympic team were Americans of Greek ancestry, who had never set foot on Greek soil before. If Dublin ever gets an Olympics, I wonder if I might be able to compete for Ireland as an archer or something. I don't think that will ever happen, though. The IOC would probably be terrified that the crazy defrocked Irish priest would take out a bunch of other athletes.

That still leaves poker as my best shot at Olympic gold.

More Protesting Fools

I have little respect for your average protester.

Take these idiots protesting unemployment. Real unemployed people do not have the money to go to New York and march in protests while carrying $5 cups of coffee.

And they aren't even on the right side of the issue. Unemployment figures aren't really that bad right now. If everyone with a job votes for Bush, and all the shitcanned people vote for Kerry, it will be the single most lopsided victory in the history of American politics. In general, if you don't have a job, it's because you have no skills or ambition, or you just lost your job and you haven't finished interviewing yet.

But at least they had a message that was political. Vulgar crap like this next photo should be left to the dregs, the blogs and the flamer newsgroups.

Kobe Gets Off

It was inevitable. Kobe Bryant walks. There was zero chance of this trial resulting in a conviction. The defense lawyers were smarter, better informed, more experienced and more organized than the prosecution. Add to that the fact that the evidence was weak against Kobe Bryant, and the burden of proof was high, and the prosecution was doomed. If the prosecutors hadn't been so stubborn, this case could have been dismissed weeks, if not months, ago. I suspect that they dragged this on just so that they could have a more graceful exit. But anyone who understands the legal process can see right through their false claims of faith in their case. The case was a loser.

I'm thinking about starting a pool. How many hours do you think it will be before the first book about the failure of the prosecution hits the bookstore? I'll start by guessing....100.

....

Here is the text of Kobe's apology, which appears to be the only concession he made to get the dismissal with prejudice.

First, I want to apologize directly to the young woman involved in this incident. I want to apologize to her for my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year. Although this year has been incredibly difficult for me personally, I can only imagine the pain she has had to endure. I also want to apologize to her parents and family members, and to my family and friends and supporters, and to the citizens of Eagle, Colo.

I also want to make it clear that I do not question the motives of this young woman. No money has been paid to this woman. She has agreed that this statement will not be used against me in the civil case. Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.

I issue this statement today fully aware that while one part of this case ends today, another remains. I understand that the civil case against me will go forward. That part of this case will be decided by and between the parties directly involved in the incident and will no longer be a financial or emotional drain on the citizens of the state of Colorado.”

Is this evidence of his guilt? Um, I'd have written that, too, even if I never touched the girl, if it would save me a few hundred large in fees. Even if I knew I was going to be acquitted. So, I would say, no. This is not evidence of his guilt.