On the lighter side

Reading the news this morning was a rather bleak affair, featuring stories on crashed planes and the like. But then I read something that brightened my mood. Somali pirates hijacked a supertanker (about the size of an American Nimitz-class Aircraft carrier, according to authorities, and have anchored it off the coast of Somalia. Holding about $100 million worth of oil, this is the largest boat known to have been seized by pirates.

Besides being completely badass, this act has shown me something I didn't know. These tankers are UNARMED. In this day and age, how could they possibly be unarmed? How arrogant is it to ship such an overpriced commodity with no protection whatsoever? This was bound to happen sooner or later, I think.

At least somebody is doing something to combat gas prices... The sick part is that this will probably raise the price of gas tomorrow. Assholes.

~A

Shifting Gears

If you would indulge me, dear reader, I'd like to change the subject briefly.

In today's Vancouver Sun, Cam Cole weighed in on the current state of physicality in the NHL. Clearly against the headshots and hitting from behind that's taken place in the last couple of weeks (ahem... Doug Weight...), Cole argues for a reconsideration of the core of hockey's physical edge.

Just wondering, though: Why is a player who tries to lift an opponent's stick, or who gets knocked off-balance reaching for the puck and accidentally clips the player in the mouth, deemed to be "responsible for his stick" - but a player who delivers a "clean" hit causing a concussion is not deemed to be responsible for his shoulder pad?

I see the other side of this argument too, and I would typically defend the physical part of the game I enjoy so much, the clean hits that cause low rates of injury. But there has to be a line drawn somewhere. To those who say the line is difficult to figure out, I implore you to watch a little of the following videos. These are past the line, plain and simple.

Bergeron

Van Ryn

For a time, I agree with Cole. I don't want the NHL to be less physical, I just want the good players we enjoy watching to continue to be healthy. Hopefully intellectuals like Dryden ("college boy") will be able to change the minds of NHL bosses sooner rather than later.

~A

Here we go

The election is over. Let the election loss blame game begin!

Kate Snow at ABC News (among others) is reporting this morning on the in-fighting taking place within the Republican Party. During the final weeks of the campaign, the article explains, as Obama took the lead, tensions rose within the Palin-McCain camp. However, now that the results are final, "the knives are out and Palin is the one who is getting filleted." Snow lists a number of items on the McCain grievance laundry list. Among them is the claim that Palin wanted to give her own personal concession speech, "that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent and did not know the member nations of the North American Free Trade Agreement -- the United States, Mexico and Canada -- when she was picked for vice president" and, most importantly, according to insiders, that she may have actually spent more than the alleged $150,000 budget originally cited for clothes.

I wonder what this will do for the Palin for President campaign. Somehow I doubt these people will be phased, so there may yet be hope.


In real news, though, Obama is getting right to work figuring out his transition plan. I await his staffing decisions. Personally, I wonder whether the rest of the Democratic Party is up to the task of spreading Obama's New Politics. One can only hope.

Optimism

Nothing to post about today, just thought this was a mildly amusing series:

Spoils of War

It finally happened. A great many things were accomplished tonight, some of them symbolic, some of them material. I'll leave the details to Campbell and Anderson.

Any way you cut it, Obama deserves congratulations. Now let's see if he can live up to his hype. I, for one, am optimistic.

And for the loser?



~A

Donuts, Coffee and Hope (with a side of Change)

Well, the fateful day has finally come. We've had to listen and watch as the candidates (far beyond simply Obama and McCain as only recent memory recalls) bumbled and stumbled their ways through the American electoral process. Through scandals, speeches, promises, lies, and a whole lot of general asshattery, the American democratic process is now poised to make its move. There will be a new President very shortly.

Somehow, the whole election being crammed into one day doesn't quite seem fair. I've had to deal with 22 months of pandering and jockeying among the candidates. And now they want to just pick one, all at once? In a way, given how this has played out, it seems only fitting that the American public would have another 22 months to cast their ballots. How beautiful democracy is.

So far, on the morning of election day, things seem to be going fairly smoothly. Not a moment too soon, Sarah Palin has been freed from official suspicion in the dismissal of the Public Safety official in Alaska. The court case had plagued the VP candidate throughout this campaign, but one has to wonder how this decision will affect voter confidence. But then you recall that most of her supporters are completely insane.

If Palin's newfound innocence hasn't got you in the mood to vote, maybe some good old-fashioned American gluttony will. Being true patriots, a couple American food chains have decided to offer goodies in exchange for voting. Not phased by the fact that this is a FELONY, Starbucks and Krispy Kreme (a company I had thought died a while back) continue to offer unethically-gotten democratic freebies. We'll call them Freedom Rewards. If you are a patriot, or just found an I Voted sticker on the street, you love freedom enough to have a coffee.

In all seriousness, I await the results of this race as much as anyone else. But hear me now. Should Barack be defeated, it will be a very dark day. I may lose all confidence I still have in the democratic process. We'll see. As I noted before, I'll be watching the news this evening at my gObama anticipatory victory party.

EDIT: Why even watch the election? Some kids have already figured it out.

~A

gObama 2008

I'm not sure about you, my faithful reader, but I will be attending a humble election party this coming Tuesday. I am calling it my gObama Victory Party. The polls, at least according to Wolff, seem to support this sort of optimism, so I'm going to run with it. Please excuse my crude opening macro, but it appears to be an apt description of the current state of affairs.

I don't have much else to say today, but I saw a couple pictures of note. I've been speaking with some colleagues about Obama's appeal abroad, especially, it seems, in Africa. Until now, I hadn't realized it was so extensive.



~A