Posts Tagged ‘history’

All quiet on the Red Sox front

Posted: February 13, 2009 by datechguy in baseball
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The Boston Globe notes that its as peaceful and quiet in Red Sox land as opposed to the land of the Yankeess:

The calm and the chaos – the tale of the Red Sox and Yankees.

But does it really matter in mid-February that the Red Sox seem a sea of tranquillity compared with the Yankees and the turmoil they are about to endure with L’Affaire A-Roid? The fact is these are the two elite teams in baseball.

As pitchers and catchers reported to the Sox’ minor league complex yesterday, the atmospheres of the rival camps will be diametrically different. As Terry Francona and Theo Epstein addressed the Red Sox media, you wouldn’t have been surprised to see a cocktail waitress carrying a frozen drink with an umbrella. When Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi address the Yankees media, you might see a few men in white coats carrying straitjackets.

There’s plenty of time for things to fall apart, but right now the Red Sox are on Easy Street compared with the Yankees.

I wouldn’t make too much of it, the yanks have always been strong finishers. A tumultuous clubhouse doesn’t mean losing the A’s of the 70’s did just fine. Don’t forget there could be steroids revelations on the sox side too:

I find myself having to come to grips with something that I have looked to ignore for a considerable amount of time. Red Sox players are not exempt from the steroid debacle that has engulfed our National Pastime. It would be foolish to be optimistic enough to think that our Red Sox were on such a moral high ground that none of the players that we let into our lives cheated to earn their place there.

It is with that thought, and attempting to come to grips with my reactions towards a player that was let into my home and my heart on a nightly basis, that I decided I must flesh out my stance on such a player before he was named publicly.

Now, I have no knowledge of any players, outside of Jeremey Giambi, on the 2003 roster (or God forbid, the 2004 Championship roster) that used performance enhancing drugs and I don’t claim that anyone in particular used them. But with 5-7% of Major League ballplayers having tested positive during that season, that leaves 1-2 players on every 25 man roster and 2-3 players on the 40 man roster a user of performance enhancing drugs on every team.

There are a 100 of unnamed names. It won’t be fun to find out.

So much for the bookmakers

Posted: February 12, 2009 by datechguy in doctor who, fun
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As a reward for his Full scholarship and fees package that he got I cleaned out my oldest’s folder at That’s Entertainment today. Looking though the stuff there were several back issues of Doctor Who Magazine. The December issue has the following to say concerning the soon to be replaced 10th doctor:

At the time of going to press on October 30th bookies Paddy Power made Paterson Joseph their 3-1 favorite. With Christmas Special Star David Morrissey close behind at 5-1.

The odds list included John Simm (8-1), Russell Tovey (10-1), Anthony Head (10-1), Harry Lloyd (18-1), John Barrowman (33-1), Marc Warren (33-1), Dean Lennox (50-1), Richard E. Grant (14-1), Hugh Grant (100-1), James Nesbitt (6-1), Robert Carlyle (14-1), Jason Statham (18-1), Aidan Gillen (18-1) , Ben Whishaw (20-1), Julian Walsh (20-1), Nigel Harman (20-1), Bill Nighy (25-1), Stephen Fry (25-1) he would have been pretty good I think, Chiwetel Ejiofor (25-1), David Suchet (33-1), Paul Bettany (33-1) he’s more of a Master type to me, Joel Beckett (40-1), Christopher Villers (66-1) Ricky Gervais (80-1), Vinnie Jones (100-1), Robbie Williams (150-1).

Cripes the return of the 9th doctor Christopher Eccleston was even given 40-1 odds but nobody at all had Matt Smith on their radar.

Those guys much must have made a fortune.

Two more votes for Plan A

Posted: February 12, 2009 by datechguy in Blame Bush, opinion/news
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There are two new votes for my economic plan A today. One (via glenn) is from Philip Greenspun’s blog:

What did these guys want the government to do? Nothing, basically. “Back in the 19th Century, there were a lot of steep crashes, guys got wiped out, and the economy came back quickly.” What’s different now? The government is a lot bigger and more powerful. Rich companies and people can put some of their wealth into lobbying and demand that the government prevent them from getting wiped out (or at least slow the process).

Barack Obama promised on Monday not to rest as long as this economic downturn persisted. He promised to act decisively, change whatever had to be changed, spend whatever had to be spent. This is precisely what worries the investors to whom I spoke. They’d rather see the audacity of doing nothing.

The second comes from the news itself:

Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly halted a record six-month slide in January, an advance that may not be sustained as job losses climb.

The 1 percent increase followed a 3 percent drop the prior month, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Excluding cars, the gain was 0.9 percent. Last month’s rise reflected higher gasoline prices and more spending on items including clothing and food.

Perhaps our democratic friends don’t want to risk a recovery that they can’t take credit for. If they can postpone it for say 18 months it might look really pretty come election time.

Even worse if it comes too fast then someone might think to Blame Bush for it!

Promoted from Hotair Jumping ahead

Posted: February 10, 2009 by datechguy in catholic
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Was going to wait on this since today I was going to write on the existence of Christ but this link at Hot Air annoyed me. It is one of my pet peeves The idea that indulgences are “returning” is nonsense, they never left.

Like the Latin Mass and meatless Fridays, the indulgence was one of the traditions decoupled from mainstream Catholic practice in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops that set a new tone of simplicity and informality for the church. Its revival has been viewed as part of a conservative resurgence that has brought some quiet changes and some highly controversial ones,

There is a method to all of this, to encourage the sacrament of confession:

Getting Catholics back into confession, in fact, was one of the motivations for reintroducing the indulgence. In a 2001 speech, Pope John Paul described the newly reborn tradition as “a happy incentive” for confession.

“Confessions have been down for years and the church is very worried about it,” said the Rev. Tom Reese, a Jesuit and former editor of the Catholic magazine America. In a secularized culture of pop psychology and self-help, he said, “the church wants the idea of personal sin back in the equation. Indulgences are a way of reminding people of the importance of penance.”

“The good news is we’re not selling them anymore,” he added.

To remain in good standing, Catholics are required to confess their sins at least once a year. But in a survey last year by a research group at Georgetown University, three-quarters of Catholics said they went to confession less often or not at all.

Under the rules in the “Manual of Indulgences,” published by the Vatican, confession is a prerequisite for getting an indulgence.

The mocking of the church in comments let to the following rant that I repeat here… I will go in to more detail when the time comes later in my writing on Christianity. (more…)

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