October 2006 Archives
31 October 2006
Happy Halloween
PTI's Tony Kornheiser (left) was dressed for Halloween today.
That's too funny.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/06 22:31 | Sports | Technorati | Comments (1)
Yeah, well...
Stoops at 100 (Scott Wright, Daily Oklahoman)
Barry Switzer needed to see just one game to know Bob Stoops was the right man to lead Oklahoma's then-waning football program.
Entering Stoops' 100th game as the Sooners' head coach Saturday at Texas A&M, Switzer's view hasn't changed.
"I knew we had the right people in there after I saw that first game," Switzer said. "Of course, I saw all the football previously."
Since Barry Switzer (then the coach of the Dallas Cowboys) was almost solely responsible for John Blake being hired to head the Sooner football progam *shudder*, I don't think I would have led my story that way (or let someone I edit lead it that way either).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/06 12:30 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)
Houlihan's: Bennigans, but with poor service and higher prices
A new restaurant, Houlihan's, opened in the Galleria area near where I work a few weeks ago.
I gave it a try at lunch yesterday. I probably won't be returning.
The place seems like an upscale Bennigans. Relatively quiet, attractive decor, tables spaced okay.
The menu prices were a bit high for the average Houston lunch spot, but I was hoping the food would justify the prices.
I settled on an "appetizer" that I guessed would be a meal in itself, blackened chicken and caramelized onion quesadilla. Callie ordered the pot roast (her test of places that offer such comfort foods). The pot roast also came with a salad. The waitress kept insisting that I should order soup or salad (twice!). I guess I look fat (*grumble* *grumble*). I'm a light luncher, and sent her away.
The quesadillas (four pieces) were not good. The chicken was not blackened in the manner we are accustomed here so close to Cajun country. It was grilled. It also had a bit of a fuel aftertaste to it, which was not appealing (to say the least). I couldn't find the "caramelized onions" until the last half of the last quesadilla piece. They were not caramelized onions, but crunchy, nearly raw, onions. The quesadilla dish wasn't bad, but it also wasn't what I thought I was getting from the menu description, and it was substantially worse than the plain ol' chicken quesadillas you can get at, say, Rudyard's. The guacamole that accompanied it was just plain nasty.
Callie didn't seem to have any complaints about her salad or pot roast. Nor did she rave about it. She left over half of it, though, and Callie tends not to be as light a luncher as I am. Maybe she will leave a comment about the quality of her dish.
The service was extremely slow and inattentive (not good at lunch during the workday), even though there were not many patrons and the number of staff was large. At one point, our waitress did notice our drinks (iced tea and diet coke) were getting low, and she brought out refills. She placed the diet coke refill with the iced tea, and the iced tea refill with the diet coke. This is what I mean by "inattentive," although clueless might also work.
The bar looked kind of nice, but I have other places I prefer to grab a drink.
They do serve HUGE portions, which will probably please the commenting crowd at b4-u-eat (which tends to judge restaurants that way). I can't recommend any other aspect of the restaurant. It's a shame there are so few quality lunch spots within walking distance of the Galleria.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/06 08:53 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (3)
29 October 2006
Department of bad headlines
KTRK-13 posts a story from AP, with the following headline:
My first thought (before reading the story) was, does that mean they don't plan on driving down into flooded underpasses?
I'm not sure if the headline came from AP or from KTRK.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/06 23:58 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)
Big 12 Wrap: Week 9
It's time for my pithy review of this week's Big 12 action. In Week 9, it's still the Big One and Little Eleven, even though Texas Tech made it interesting. Here are the games:
Texas 35, Texas Tech 31
For the second week in a row, Texas has to win one late. How about that defense pitching a shutout in the second half? Not bad.
Oklahoma 26, Missouri 10
The underdog Sooners grab a tough road win as the underdog, by playing tough defense and making timely plays. Allen Patrick's 162 yards on 36 carries helped Oklahoma dominate time of possession. Not always pretty, but effective.
Oklahoma State 41, Nebraska 29
One week after nearly beating Texas and appearing to be on the way back, Nebraska lays a big turd in Stillwater, OK.
Texas A&M 31, Baylor 21
Another boost to the record for A&M, but Coach Fran's not getting paid millions to beat Baylor. That's expected. The next few games will make or break the season.
Kansas 20, Colorado 15
These two teams are not good.
Kansas State 31, Iowa State 10
There two teams also are not good. Time to start the Dan McCarney death watch?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/06 22:50 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)
Sudden acceleration alert!
Five Hurt after Truck Slams into Video Store (Pat Hernandez and Scott Braddock, KTRH-740 News, 10/27/2006)
Four people in [a video rental] store along Interstate 45 in Willis plus the driver were hurt. Three people were “seriously injured,” officials at the scene told KTRH News. It is not known why the driver rammed the front of the store, officials said.
It is possible the driver accidentally pressed the gas instead of the brake pedal, sending the late model GMC pickup through the front glass of the Movie Gallery, officials said.
It sounds like a potential case of Sudden Acceleration Syndrome to me!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/06 17:26 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)
Starbucks universe
Starbucks Going Here, There And Everywhere (AP)
The people who work in Seattle's tallest building face a tough decision: should they get their caffeinated indulgence at the old Starbucks on the building's first floor or the new Starbucks, 40 floors up? And, if those lines are too long, is it too far to walk across the street, where a third Starbucks awaits?
Starbucks Corp.'s recently announced goal of having 40,000 stores worldwide isn't just about spreading green awnings through middle America, the Middle East and other areas of the world not yet tempted by easy access to mocha Frappuccinos and pumpkin spice lattes.
The coffee chain's aggressive growth also hinges on what the company calls "infill" - adding stores in cities where its mermaid logo is already commonplace. In some cases, that means putting a Starbucks within a block of an existing store, if not closer.
For a long time, there have been two Starbucks stores on either side of West Gray near Shepherd.
Now we know that it's not goofiness, but corporate strategery at work!
Meanwhile, my favorite coffee shop in town has lost its space to a stupid hair salon. Blar.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/06 16:31 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (0)
The last game produced plenty of bile for Cowboys fans
What Keeps Bill Parcells Awake at Night (Michael Lewis, New York Times Play)
Because it’s Wednesday, Parcells is watching video of his own team. For the next three days he will study not game videos but videos of the Cowboys’ practices. When he does this, he tends to focus on what he couldn’t see clearly from the sidelines. And what he can’t see from the sidelines is usually pretty much everything that happens along the line of scrimmage. His obsession is with space — creating it on offense and filling it on defense. Parcells is interested especially in the first step or two that players take, because that is when almost all of their critical mistakes are made. He’s looking for bad angles, missed assignments, confused play. He’ll watch the first one-third of a second of a play, stop the video in a fury and holler for an assistant coach. He does this now.
“Freddie!” he screams, loud enough that the Cowboys’ tight-ends coach, Freddie Kitchens, can hear him two offices down the hall. On his television screen, the players are all frozen two steps into a play. “Freddie!”But there is no need to shout twice; Kitchens is already hustling into Parcells’s office. Parcells rewinds the video and replays the first millisecond. It appears to be a passing play, though Drew Bledsoe has only just begun to turn and drop back. But in those first two steps, says Parcells, the rookie tight end, Anthony Fasano, has managed to doom the entire play. Fasano’s job is to block Redskins linebacker Marcus Washington. But the angle Fasano takes as he leaves the line of scrimmage means he’ll push Washington inside instead of taking him outside, as he’s supposed to.
“I know,” Kitchens says. “We already talked to him about it!”
“You go over it with him again,” says Parcells. “You tell him Coach is a little disturbed.” And with that Kitchens leaves.
“All we need is about four or five of those in the game,” Parcells grumbles, “and we’re done.”
This is just a fascinating piece on Parcells.
The Dallas media must just LOVE that he barely acknowledges their presence, while non-Dallasites get all his good stuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/06 14:36 | Dallas Cowboys | Technorati | Comments (0)
27 October 2006
Laurence
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/06 19:10 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (0)
Review of Means of Ascent by Mark Halperin and John Harris
Means of ascent (Andrew Ferguson, Washington Post)
"The thesis of this book," they write, "is that political success can be demystified -- reduced to tangible rules that can be labeled and replicated." At least since Napoleon Hill grew rich with his classically dreadful Think and Grow Rich , authors of mass-audience self-help books have feasted off the delusion that the secret of commercial success can be disaggregated, codified and taught in easily digestible steps. All they've really proved, of course, is that one secret of commercial success is selling large numbers of middle-management meatballs a book that claims to reveal the secret of commercial success.Can Halperin and Harris do the same for politics? Is political success simple enough to survive the Napoleon Hill treatment? The authors try mightily to show that it is. They coin cute slogans and primp them with capital letters and italics. A presidential candidate, we learn, must get past the Gang of 500 -- "the group of columnists, consultants, reporters, and staff hands who know one another and lunch together and serve as a sort of Federal Reserve Bank of conventional wisdom" -- to win the Profile Primary (a gauntlet of early newspaper and magazine articles). Working within the Old Media (newspapers and network TV) and New Media (Internet and talk radio), the candidate must then choose between Bush Politics (confront your opponents, appeal to the base) and Clinton Politics (work toward the middle, rise above ideology) by mastering italicized Trade Secrets (axioms like " Know your stuff " and " Create communities of like-minded people "). Only then -- and maybe not even then! -- will the candidate survive the Freak Show (the New Media environment of "personal attack, unyielding partisanship, and prurient indulgence").
Halperin and Harris's approach is highly schematic and seldom persuasive.
Ouch!
It's always a tough decision for a newspaper or magazine when it comes to reviewing a book by one of its own. An obviously sympathetic reviewer doesn't look "objective," so editors sometimes opt for someone they expect to be more hostile. They certainly scored with "hostile" here, although I still want to read the book.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/06 11:29 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (2)
25 October 2006
Thanks for the tax cut, guv
Homeowners confused, frustrated as property tax bills arrive (April Castros, Associated Press)
What was supposed to be one of Gov. Rick Perry's greatest campaign assets may have turned into one of his worst liabilities.
Perry claims in a now-pulled ad that the last special session of the Legislature would mean the "average homeowner will receive a $2,000 tax cut."
As Texas homeowners receive their bills this month, most will find their property taxes have gone up instead of down.
Whoops!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/06 21:47 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (10)
Nice blogger
Alison Cook gave the little Houston blog a nice hat tip earlier.
It's kind of cool, because not all pro journalists with blogs actually acknowledge non-journalist bloggers.
It's also cool because Alison Cook just rocks in general.
Houston is a fairly horrible written-word town, but we are lucky to have two very good food writers (Cook and Robb Walsh). They're fun to read because they know their food, but they also are down with Houston quirks, and seem as happy hitting a dive as a top restaurant. It makes for good reading.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/06 20:50 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (3)
Mandate radio
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell, the Mandate of the New Mainstream, visited with KTRH-740 talker Chris Baker on Monday.
The podcast/mp3 is available here for anybody who's interested.
I haven't listened to much talk radio this week, so I'm catching up with some of those helpful Clear Channel podcasts.
Next up: Michael Berry.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/06 20:35 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (0)
24 October 2006
Amen, Bro
TFG puts the coming elections in perspective.
That last sentence works especially well. I may have to adopt that as the blog motto for a while!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/06 09:14 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
23 October 2006
The Jerry and Bill Show
Was not very good tonight.
Neither was the Drew and Tony show.
Unless you're a Giants fan. Then it was pretty good.
It's just astounding this many years later that the Cowboys have not had a real NFL quarterback since Troy Aikman retired.
I should have gone to this instead.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/06 23:45 | Dallas Cowboys | Technorati | Comments (4)
Sooner defense finally playing
The Daily Oklahoman's John Helsley noticed something about Oklahoma's defense that bodes well with Adrian Peterson out:
After the Oregon game, OU ranked last in the league and 97th nationally in total defense.
Now: the Sooners lead the Big 12 and stand 11th nationally in that same category.
It hasn't hurt that the competition post-Texas hasn't been great. Still, lowly UAB torched that defense early on, so it has definitely improved over the last few weeks. And with Adrian Peterson out, the Sooners are going to need that defense as they compete to see who will be the best of the Little Eleven.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/06 22:26 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)
True dat!
Madam Speaker? Pelosi likes the sound (Faye Fiore, LA Times)
"The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now it will be in the hands of America's children...."
I'm not yet sold that the Dems are going to take over the House, but you have to love her assessment of what it will be like if they do. :)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/06 15:01 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
22 October 2006
Big 12 Wrap: Week 8
I'm outta time for a real Big 12 wrap this week (sorry!), so here are some real quick thoughts on the week's action:
- Nebraska played one hell of a game and got a nice assist from the weather gods, but just doesn't quite have the horses to beat Mack Brown's talent factory.
- Texas A&M has gotten very lucky to pull out wins against Army, Kansas, and Oklahoma State -- terrible football teams. This is not why they're paying Dennis Franchione millions, which makes it amusing that these lucky wins have virtually guaranteed him another year.
- Who thought Oklahoma would run the ball more with Adrian Peterson out? But they did. Maybe Barry Switzer can help 'em install the wishbone next week!
- Colorado has a pretty chippy defense. But man, that offense just stinks.
- Baylor and Kansas had a shootout. And another loss for Mark Mangino probably means he's gone at the end of the season.
That's all for now!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/22/06 23:42 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)
Review of Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America by Ellis Sandoz (Thomas E. Brewton, ESR)
Nietzsche was wrong (Thomas E. Brewton, Enter Stage Right)
Rebutting the present-day contention that Christianity played no significant part in the formation of the United States, Professor Sandoz observes, "And we have noticed that Americans during the Revolution were called to their houses of worship for public days of prayer, fasting, humiliation (or thanksgiving, as suited) many times by formal Proclamation of the Continental Congress, a practice that continued during the early administrations under the Constitution..... With the completion of the new Capitol in the District of Columbia, church services regularly were held for the Congress and officials of government, including the president and cabinet members, in the House of Representatives chamber on Sundays, a practice that continued until well after the Civil War."
"Bible reading was ubiquitous in America throughout the period formally identified as "the founding," which benefited from the Great Awakening's revitalization of faith and coincided with the onset of the Second Great Awakening that carried well into the nineteenth century..... Edmund Burke, speaking in the Commons on the eve of the Revolution (1775) stressed that the Americans' love of liberty on English principles was powerfully informed by their faith as Christians.... David Ramsay, in his contemporary (1789) "History of the American Revolution," echoed Burke by writing: 'The religion of the colonists also nurtured a love for liberty. They were chiefly Protestants, and all Protestantism is founded on a strong claim to natural liberty and the right of private judgement.' "
"One modern scholar has turned empirical analysis to good use in discovering that a full one-third of all citations in the enormous pamphlet literature of the period were texts in the Bible, far more than any other source."
Sandoz's Liberty Fund collection, riffing on this collection co-edited by my dissertation director, remains an invaluable resource for this line of study.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/22/06 19:26 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
21 October 2006
Review of Whose Freedom? by George Lakoff (Steven Pinker, Powell's.com)
Block That Metaphor (Steven Pinker, Powell's.com)
Bush has capitalized on the concept of freedom in two ways. He has preserved the perception that Republicans are more economically libertarian than Democrats, and he has waged war against a foreign movement with an unmistakable totalitarian ideology. This still leaves his opponents with plenty of ammunition, such as his hypocritical protectionism and expansion of government, and his delusion that liberal democracy can be easily imposed on Arab societies. But his invocation of "freedom" has a semblance of coherence, and, like it or not, it resonates with many voters.
The same cannot be said for Lakoff's conception. "What I am calling progressive freedom," he writes, "is simply freedom in the American tradition -- the understanding of freedom that I grew up with and have always loved about my country." Such an equation fails to acknowledge the possibility that Lakoff's preferences and the American tradition may not be the same thing. His understanding is pure positive freedom, while acknowledging none of its problems. It consists of appending the words "freedom to" in front of every item in a Berkeley-leftist wish list: freedom to live in a country with affirmative action, "ethical businesses," speech codes, not too many rich people, and pay in proportion to contributions to society. The list runs from the very specific -- the freedom to eat "food that is pesticide free, hormone free, antibiotic free, free of genetically modified ingredients, healthy, and uncontaminated," to the very general, namely "the freedom to live in a country and a community governed by the traditional progressive values of empathy and responsibility.""You give me a progressive issue," Lakoff boasts, "and I'll tell you how it comes down to a matter of freedom" -- oblivious to the fact that he has just gutted the concept of freedom of all content. Actually, the damage is worse than that, because many of Lakoff's "freedoms" are demands that society conform to his personal vision of the good (right down to the ingredients of food), and thus are barely distinguishable from totalitarianism....
Probably not since The Greening of America has there been a manifesto with as much faith that the country's problems can be solved by the purity of the moral vision of the 1960s.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/21/06 16:15 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
Useful idiot, or treacherous one?
KGB Letter Outlines Sen. Kennedy's Overtures to Soviets, Prof Says (Kevin Mooney, CNS News)
In his book, which came out this week, Kengor focuses on a KGB letter written at the height of the Cold War that shows that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) offered to assist Soviet leaders in formulating a public relations strategy to counter President Reagan's foreign policy and to complicate his re-election efforts.
The letter, dated May 14, 1983, was sent from the head of the KGB to Yuri Andropov, who was then General Secretary of the Soviet Union's Communist Party.In his letter, KGB head Viktor Chebrikov offered Andropov his interpretation of Kennedy's offer. Former U.S. Sen. John Tunney (D-Calif.) had traveled to Moscow on behalf of Kennedy to seek out a partnership with Andropov and other Soviet officials, Kengor claims in his book.
At one point after President Reagan left office, Tunney acknowledged that he had played the role of intermediary, not only for Kennedy but for other U.S. senators, Kengor said. Moreover, Tunney told the London Times that he had made 15 separate trips to Moscow.
"There's a lot more to be found here," Kengor told Cybercast News Service. "This was a shocking revelation."
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/21/06 16:06 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
Nebraska-Texas
I thought Nebraska had that game.
Sadly, this probably means I'm going to have to kill the name Clueless Callahan. He didn't quite have enough to get it done today, but his team played one hell of a game against a talented squad.
Maybe there's future hope for the Big 12 North. Maybe.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/21/06 15:44 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (3)
20 October 2006
Sudden acceleration watch
89-year-old LA man guilty in crash that killed 10 (Reuters)
An 89-year-old man who lost control of his car and crashed through a Los Angeles-area street market, killing 10 people and injuring 63 others, was convicted on Friday of vehicular manslaughter.
George Russell Weller, who was 86 when he smashed his car into the busy Santa Monica farmer's market on July 16, 2003, was found guilty of 10 counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. He faces up to 18 years in prison when he is sentenced at a later date.
[snip]
Defense attorneys told the six-man, six-woman jury that that Weller mistakenly stomped on the accelerator, instead of the brake, and then panicked and was unable to stop his 1992 Buick as it barreled through the market.
They should have claimed Sudden Acceleration Syndrome and gotten a show like 60 Minutes involved.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/20/06 16:16 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)
What am I missing?
Priest reignites Republican scandal (Damien McElroy, Telegraph)
The Republican Party faced fresh embarrassment yesterday ahead of America's crucial mid-term elections when a Roman Catholic priest said that he had a series of intimate encounters with the disgraced congressman Mark Foley.
I don't understand that lede.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say the Catholic Church received fresh embarrassment? Or the Catholic priest (even though he apparently has not yet figured out he did anything inappropriate)?
How is it embarrassing for the Republican Party that yet another Catholic Priest liked to frolic with young boys while everyone pretended not to notice?
Please help me out if the connection is obvious and I'm just missing it.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/20/06 11:45 | Other | Technorati | Comments (3)
But Tulsa Union is actually worth watching
Thompson should stick to passing (Berry Tramel, Daily Oklahoman)
Counting Texas A&M this week, five of OSU's 17 games in the Mike Gundy era have been televised. And that's giving the Cowboys games against Arkansas State (CSTV) and Houston (ESPNU) that weren't shown in most Oklahoma homes.
Over the same time span, Tulsa Union High School has been televised eight times.
Heck, OSU doesn't even surpass Union in national telecasts: each has been on ESPN2 once.
For OSU, that's horrid visibility in the 21st century.
Ouch.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/20/06 10:02 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)
19 October 2006
Appropriate, inappropriate, who's to say?
Priest says relationship with Foley wasn't sexual (Frances D'Emilio, AP)
An elderly priest acknowledged today that he was naked in saunas with Mark Foley decades ago when the former congressman was a boy in Florida, but denied that the two had sex.
The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69, speaking by telephone from his home on the Maltese island of Gozo, said a report in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune about their encounters was "exaggerated."
"We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers," Mercieca said. Asked if their relationship was sexual in nature, the priest replied: "It wasn't."
His comments came after the Florida newspaper published a story today that quoted him as saying in an interview that he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with Foley in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude.
Right!
Just normal behavior. A "lifestyle choice," as some would say.
Foley "seems to have interpreted certain things as inappropriate. ... I don't know what I did to him," the priest said. "I wonder why 40 years later he brought this up?"
Err, just a wild guess here -- because that sort of thing can eff a person up?
So, why is this guy still a Catholic priest?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/19/06 21:35 | Other | Technorati | Comments (5)
18 October 2006
Return of the external frame pack?
This is certainly a new twist on a very old backpack design.
And from a company in Lake Jackson to boot.
Given my difficulties in finding a lightweight internal-frame pack that fits properly, I may have to give one of these bad boys a try. They're as light as the packs I've been trying, and I've never had a pack fit better than those old external frame packs. It's just that the old ones used to be really bulky and heavy. This company seems to have solved that problem. Interesting.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/18/06 21:59 | Outdoors | Technorati | Comments (0)
Baker speaks to World Affairs Council
Baker never been one to 'sit on the sidelines': With a new memoir out, the statesman offers his thoughts on Iraq, North Korea (Anne Belli, Houston Chronicle)
The Iraq war is a "very difficult situation," he said, and added that the public should ignore recent news reports that the commission is finishing its work."Nothing has been decided," he said, saying the report will be issued only after the elections. "We've taken nothing off the table and we're putting nothing on the table ... You shouldn't believe the things you are reading out there in the papers. There's no magic bullet for the situation in Iraq."
Baker also was asked whether, as a self-described supporter of diplomacy and dialogue to resolve conflicts with other countries, he supports the Bush administration's policy against one-on-one conversations in its dealings with North Korea.
He staunchly defended the president's position that the proper setting to hold such conversations is in the currently stalled six-party talks with Russia, South Korea, China, Japan and the United States.
Yet, he added, "China is the only country that has any influence on them whatsoever."
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/18/06 08:52 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
One way to get customers into your store
Couch on freeway causes wreck, sending one vehicle into store (KTRK-13 News)
A driver avoiding furniture on a freeway ended up inside a furniture store Tuesday night.
Police say someone lost a couch in the middle of the Southwest Freeway near Hornwood, forcing drivers to swerve out of the way. One driver finally hit the couch and swerved into another car. Both went off the freeway. One of those drivers landed halfway into the Accents Fine Furniture building.
Both drivers escaped the crash with just minor injuries. The driver who dropped the couch never stopped.
That's one way to get customers into the store, although direct mail ads might be more effective at targeting the desired demographic. :)
I don't know if it's this bad in most major cities, but crap like this happens all the time on the freeways here. People just lose some bizarre loads on our roads. Indeed, the most popular radio talker in town has turned the whole thing into a contest on his show, so when the traffic guys announce "debris" on a freeway, everything stops and they play "the debris game" in which studio people and sometimes callers try to guess the object. It can be pretty funny.
Houston is weird.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/18/06 08:47 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (1)
16 October 2006
Review of A Jealous God by Pamela Winnick (Wesley J. Smith, First Things)
Jarring Sects (Wesley J. Smith, First Things)
Winnick regains her footing in the closing chapters of A Jealous God, where she exposes the shameless hype of those pushing the miracle cures that we have been told for years are just around the corner. First it was fetal-tissue implants. Then it was gene therapy. Then it was embryonic stem-cell research. Then it was human cloning. Winnick points out how those who voiced reasonable ethical qualms about many of these emerging technologies were derided as religious fanatics and anti-science Luddites. And she notes that far from being objective scientists, many advocates for these technologies argue from deeply felt ideological biases, as well as having financial stakes that are almost always ignored by a scientism-compliant media.A Jealous God is a powerful and important book. It not only proves that the current science debates are often not actually about science, but persuasively demonstrates that we are in danger of becoming dominated by the amoral values of philosophical scientism to the detriment not only of religion, but of science itself.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/16/06 10:35 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
15 October 2006
Big 12 Wrap: Week 7
It's time for another Big 12 Wrap, my pithy (and growing pithier!) look back at the week's action in the Big 12.
Texas 63, Baylor 31
Texas took the first quarter off, and still rolled up 63 points on an improved Baylor squad. Scary.
Texas A&M 25, Missouri 19
A week ago, Coach Fran saves his job by squeaking by Kansas. This week, the Aggies dominate the second half against arguably the best team in the North, and now sit at 6-1. Barring a total collapse, it looks like Fran is back next year.
Oklahoma 34, Iowa State 9
In a season that has seen little go right since Bomar was booted, the Sooners lose Adrian Peterson for the rest of the season to a broken collarbone after a beautiful run. Here's wishing the guy a quick recovery and a fine NFL career. He winds up just short of the all-time Sooner rushing mark.
Nebraska 21, Kansas State 3
The Huskers ran the ball 43 times. It won't remind anyone of Tom Osborne's great offenses, but it's good enough to have Nebraska at 6-1.
Colorado 30, Texas Tech 6
Tech's season has officially turned into a nightmare, as Colorado gets its first win.
Oklahoma State 42, Kansas 32
The future looks bright for Bobby Reid, who threw for 400+ yards and 5 TDs. Mark Mangino's job may be in some jeopardy.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/15/06 22:23 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (5)
It's wet out there today, kiddos
That was the view from Southwest Freeway today, between Shepherd and the Spur.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/15/06 11:55 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (4)
14 October 2006
Interview with Mark Steyn (Linda Frum, National Post)
The man who likes to poke the world in the eye: Journalist Mark Steyn says being offensive has its merits (Linda Frum, National Post)
L[inda Frum]: One of your best qualities is that you're so insensitive. For example, when writing about what you call the most important fact of our time -- the explosion of the Muslim global population -- you say: "Those self-detonating Islamists in London and Gaza are a literal baby boom." Making offensive jokes like that takes guts. Where do you get the courage?M[ark Steyn]: Being offensive actually has its merits. An excessive deference to sensitivity is very harmful, particularly when you're dealing with people so ready to take offence. I didn't really think of it in an Islamist context until the fall of 2002, when I said in the National Post, something like: "Is it just me, or does Ramadan seem to come around quicker every year?" The point is Ramadan is every eleven and a half months. And of course I immediately got all these humourless letters from people saying, "Oh, you complete idiot! Are you not aware that under the Islamic calendar Ramadan comes..." Of course I'm aware! I'm making a cheap joke about it! It's my standard Ramadan joke, and I'm going to do it every 11-point-however-many-months for as long as I live. I seriously do believe that it's very hard to have a functioning society if you can't make cheap jokes about each other all the time. One of the key signs of a shared culture is if you can all cheerfully abuse each other. In the space of the last five years the multiculturalists seem to have internalized the psychology whereby it's taken for granted that you make whatever abusive jokes you want about Christians, but none of those same jokes can be made about Muslims. Well, the minute you accept that, I think you're doomed.
Steyn's combination of humor and intelligence can be devastating.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/14/06 14:25 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (3)
Great deal on Swiss Army luggage
The good folks at Dom's Outdoor Outfitters have an amazing 50%-off sale on Victorinox Swiss Army luggage right now, via this link.
If you do a lot of travel or are just in the market for luggage, this is a nice deal. The Victorinox gear is really high-quality stuff.
I've ordered outdoors gear from Dom's, and have always been impressed with their service.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/14/06 14:07 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)
Too funny
My friend Orrin Judd doesn't miss much.
Someone seems to have snapped, as the headline has now changed. That's hilarious.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/14/06 13:48 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)
"Existing" in Midtown
This hobo was seen snoozing beside a METRO bus stop in Midtown earlier today.
Councilmember Ada Edwards will be relieved to know that "existing" really hasn't been affected by the city's civility ordinances.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/14/06 13:34 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (1)
13 October 2006
Houston's Ghostbusters
How about this for a little Friday-the-13th fun?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/13/06 16:03 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (0)
12 October 2006
Hanson's critique of political gossip chronologies
The Pseudo-Histories of the Iraq War (Victor Davis Hanson, RealClearPolitics)
There are a number of other things wrong with all this gossip.
First, note the disturbing pattern in this resorting to anonymity. Usually the unidentified source supports the author's critique - and thus is almost always critical of the present policy in Iraq. Rarely do these journalists quote unnamed sources who dissent from their own views, although there are surely pro-U.S. Iraq policy candid voices among the thousands of retired generals.
Second, here is the cardinal rule for anonymous sources in this new genre of pseudo-history: Talk to reporters as soon as possible "off the record" in hopes that they will be sympathetic. If you keep quiet, some of your loudmouth enemies might unload on you from the safety of anonymity, ensuring their narrative, not yours, will become authoritative.
Third, we are not reading accounts of golf or fashion but the most important event since the end of the Cold War as it unfolds. When one writes military history in the middle of a war, there is a responsibility to be extra careful. Real-time interpretations don't just offer lessons about the past but may change the very course of events as they happen.
These people are journalists, not historians (like Hanson). Surely sensible people can tell the difference.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/12/06 21:29 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (4)
Kiwi impersonator!
This dog looks a LOT like Kiwi!
Except for that stupid parka. Kiwi is not a parka-wearing pooch.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/12/06 19:14 | Other | Technorati | Comments (3)
Just another abortion-rights candidate
Strayhorn answers abortion question (Janet Elliott, Chron.com)
After saying she supports more funds for family planning and embryonic stem cell research, Strayhorn was asked about abortion.
"I believe in the sanctity of life and I recognize that there are very, very difficult situations where heartbreaking decisions have to be made," she said.
She said those difficult situations definitely include pregnancies resulting from rape, incest and the life of the mother. OK, but what would she do if the Legislature passed a trigger law making abortion illegal in Texas should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.
"I don't play what-if games," Strayhorn said. "I do not believe Roe v. Wade will be overturned."
She added that she believes in a "state's rights position," but didn't explain what that meant.
Chronicle Managing Editor John Wilburn then asked pointedly, "Do you believe individuals should be allowed to make those heart-breaking decisions without interference from government?"
And she answered, "Individuals and their doctors and their families must be the ones making those decisions."
The three lightweight challengers aren't going to get to Perry's right on abortion, but it's still a little surprising that veteran pol Strayhorn seems utterly incapable of giving a coherent answer (a problem that just killed her in the debate). It's also a little surprising that none of these challengers seems inclined to try to get to Perry's right on any issues. It's not like the Republican base is all that inspired by him. But where else would they go?
I'm with Mr. Booth on this one. It's an unexceptional group this time around.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/12/06 19:10 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (0)
Comment on State of Denial by Bob Woodward (Jonathan Karl, OpinionJournal)
So This Is Journalism? Bob Woodward takes a novel approach in his new book on the Bush administration. (Jonathan Karl, OpinionJournal)
Mr. Woodward attempts to write like a novelist, not a journalist: His books are scenic and dramatic and dialogue-driven, more sensationalism than history. Take, for example, this description of a conversation in May 2003 (two months after the Iraq invasion) between Gen. John Abizaid, then deputy military commander in the Middle East, and Gen. Jay Garner, the official briefly responsible for the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq:
"Garner told Abizaid, 'John, I'm telling you. If you do this it's going to be ugly. It'll take 10 years to fix this country, and for three years you'll be sending kids home in body bags.'"Abizaid didn't disagree. 'I hear you, I hear you,' he said."
Mr. Woodward doesn't tell us where he got this verbatim account of a meeting that took place more than three years ago; he writes as if it is a simple fact that it unfolded as told, not someone's recollection. We cannot gauge whether the source, whoever it was, might have had a motive to put a certain spin on facts. The discussion neatly makes Gen. Garner look like the truth-teller who foresaw precisely what would happen and tried to do something about it. Maybe it's true or maybe it's the way Gen. Garner would like to remember it, but he said no such thing publicly at the time.
As more than a few people have noted over the course of Mr. Woodward's long career, his narratives are propelled in part by who talks to him and, just as important, who gives him the best, most detailed and colorful descriptions of what went on in all those secret meetings.
Well, sure, but he's always darned entertaining! And part of the fun for people who are fans of textual analysis and American politics is trying to figure out who was helpful to Woodward in any given book, and who wasn't.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/12/06 18:49 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
11 October 2006
Review of Why Arendt Matters by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (Adam Kirsch, New York Sun)
Trying To Update a 20th-Century Master (Adam Kirsch, New York Sun)
To explain how evil can become banal — for instance, how Adolf Eichmann, an utterly mediocre bureaucrat, could murder millions of people without deliberation or passion — Arendt evolved a whole theory of ethics, according to which it is not obeying moral laws but living thoughtfully that protects us from doing evil. This theory depends, as Ms. Young-Bruehl points out, on Arendt's "conversational" vision of the life of the mind, what she called "the soundless dialogue between me and myself." Movingly, Arendt suggests that the real reason not to do evil is that it makes it impossible to live with oneself, and thus puts an end to that dialogue. As Ms. Young-Bruehl writes,"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it and have to live with the wrongdoer." It was only because Eichmann enjoyed no such inner dialogue that his conscience could be drowned out by the voices of hate that surrounded him."Why Arendt Matters" suffers, however, when it stops being an introduction to Arendt's thought and attempts to become an argument for her relevance. For when Ms. Young-Bruehl tries to adapt Arendt's insights to our present-day political quandaries — "to put to her imaginatively the questions that come to mind when reading the morning paper," as she writes in her introduction — she ends up making this complex, rebarbative thinker sound platitudinously philanthropic. Ms. Young-Bruehl is certain that Arendt would support the European Union ("this astonishing demonstration of the power of promising"), oppose child poverty (a product of what Ms. Young-Bruehl oddly calls "childism," that is, bias against children), and worry about globalization. Surely, there need be no ghost come from the grave to tell us this.
BLOGVERSATION: Brothers Judd.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/11/06 10:48 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
10 October 2006
A professional writer AND editors produced this lede
Campaign contributions: O'Quinn gives Bell a boost (Kelley Shannon, AP)
Buoyed by a big-dollar donor and a favorable debate performance, Democrat Chris Bell began airing more television ads today as he tried to surge through a new momentum in the Texas governor's race.
I really shouldn't be surprised any more by some of the truly bad copy turned out by professional writers AND editors in the field of journalism, but I am nonetheless.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/10/06 23:00 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (4)
09 October 2006
Reaction to North Korea test
Iran Blames U.S. for N. Korea Nuke Test (Ali Akbar Darieni, AP)
Iranian state radio Monday blamed North Korea's reported nuclear test on U.S. pressure, accusing Washington of "humiliating" the impoverished communist country.
"Not only did the United States not lift the sanctions it had imposed on North Korea, it even increased the diplomatic pressure. Such pressure finally led North Korea to conduct its nuclear test," Iranian state radio said in a commentary.
"North Korea's nuclear test was a reaction to America's threats and humiliation," it said.
In related news today, Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean blamed the reported nuclear test on Denny Hastert. "The speaker knew all about this test, which is part of the ongoing culture of corruption in Washington," Dean said. "He should step down immediately."
Vice-President Dick Cheney commented on his way to an undisclosed location that he would be happy to host North Korea's leader for high-level talks, and perhaps even some hunting.
Lakewood Church self-help evangelist Joel Osteen urged all parties to think positively and watch their carb intake.
Chronicle columnist Cragg Hines reportedly broke his fur coats out of storage, just in case the dreaded "nuclear winter" scenario develops.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/09/06 15:18 | Other | Technorati | Comments (3)
Big 12 Wrap: Week 6
This week's wrap brings us to a truth about the Big 12: Just like last season, there is one dominant team in the league, and 11 others vying to take a step above mediocrity. Let's see how they all fared.
Texas 28, Oklahoma 10
For one quarter (the second), Oklahoma looked as if it was ready to reclaim a spot among the national powers after an average season by Bob Stoops standards. Then there were the other three quarters, in which Texas demonstrated that for at least one more season, the Big 12 is again The Big One and Little 11.
Missouri 38, Texas Tech 24
Surprising Mizzou remains undefeated, and is starting to stake its claim as best team in the North. Mike Leach's crew was plagued by turnovers, and seems as far from contending for the Big 12 South as ever.
Nebraska 28, Iowa State 14
It won't exactly conjure up memories of Tom Osborne's offensive machine, but Callahan's crew did win on the road by dominating time of possession (nearly 37 minutes!) with a strong rushing attack.
Texas A&M 21, Kansas 18
Kansas controlled this one for about 58 minutes, only to see Dennis Franchione manage to hold off the FireFran crowd for one more week. Still, the Aggie faithful can't be happy that their multimillion dollar man is seemingly saving his job by beating the likes of Army and Kansas.
Kansas State 31, Oklahoma State 27
This loss puts Oklahoma State in direct competition with Colorado for worst of the Little 11. Since OSU and Colorado don't play this year, we won't find out just how bad Little 11 football can get. At least not this season.
Baylor 34, Colorado 31
Now riding the longest losing streak in the history of its football program, Colorado maintains its hammerlock on Worst of the Little 11.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/09/06 00:21 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)
08 October 2006
Review of Reagan's Victory by Andrew Busch (Michael Barone, Claremont Review)
The year liberalism died (Michael Barone, Claremont Review)
American liberalism died in 1980. Of course, no one knew it at the time, and if the journalistic coverage of that year's presidential campaign was any indication, you might have thought liberalism was still a vital force in American life and conservatism a credo of cranks. That was, after all, the conventional wisdom from the 1930s clear up to the end of the 1970s. The liberalism of the New Deal and the Great Society, of Keynesian economics and Phillips Curve manipulation, was, we were told, the only rational way of governing a large industrial society. And after the apparent failure of the American effort in Vietnam, we were lectured that conciliation and negotiation were the only rational means of managing foreign policy in a world heading toward convergence of our system and that of our adversaries.But 1980 changed all that, as Andrew Busch ably demonstrates in his incisive Reagan's Victory: The Presidential Election of 1980 and the Rise of the Right. As Busch makes clear, Ronald Reagan's smashing defeat of Jimmy Carter was the result not just of a political failure by the Democratic party or a particular president, but of the policy failure of American liberalism itself.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/06 23:58 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (3)
Review of Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden (Gabrial Schoenfeld, Commentary)
Iran I: The Revolution (Gabriel Schoenfeld, Commentary)
What goes around, comes around. In the case of Iran, however, this has so far not been the case. The outrage committed against the American diplomats who in 1979 were kidnapped and held hostage lasted 444 days, and the Khomeinist perpetrators never paid any sort of price. Now that Iran is working assiduously to acquire nuclear weapons, is the time ripe to settle this longstanding open account? From Mark Bowden’s Guests of the Ayatollah, the moment would appear overdue.A former reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and now a national correspondent for the Atlantic, Bowden is the author of the highly regarded Black Hawk Down, which traced the American debacle in Mogadishu in the summer of 1993. In Guests of the Ayatollah he turns his close-up lens on Year One of Iran’s Islamic revolution. Drawing upon numerous interviews and meticulous documentary research, with his own quietly effective running commentary interspersed throughout, Bowden reconstructs all the different facets of the hostage crisis, creating a series of disjunctive images that resolve into a coherent and riveting whole.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/06 23:50 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
Review of In The Line of Fire by Pervez Musharraf (Economist)
Military misjudgment (Economist)
THERE are good things to be said about General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president and army chief, and he is, as he might put it, proud and unstinting in his resolution to say them, over and over, in his cliché-ridden and boringly boastful autobiography, “In the Line of Fire”.General Musharraf—and there are enough phrases familiar to those who have followed his career to prove that he wrote quite a lot of it—comes across as humourless, vain and insecure. Sentences as smug as, “My career was now well on course, given all my qualifications and achievements”, are spattered across almost every page. There are many references to the president's (allegedly) fine musculature. Any less than glorious event in his life, after at least a refreshingly sinful youth, is blamed on some less worthy individual, a dull superior or jealous peer, whom the author is all too happy to name. And yet, painful though it is to read, this is a quite remarkable book, about dramatic events and, as the occasional sentence lets slip, an interesting and impressive man.
For a start, the book's timing is remarkable. It is unusual for serving heads-of-state to publish memoirs....
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/06 23:41 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
Reviews of The Shakespeare Wars by Ron Rosenbaum
Ravished by Shakespeare (Walter Kirn, New York Times)
The book’s first few chapters are tricky going, devoted to the arcane relationships between the early editions of the plays (the Quartos) and the later ones (the Folios). Soliloquy by soliloquy, line by line, and finally word by word, Rosenbaum and a roster of all-star scholars (who endlessly feud and squabble with one another, vying for power on a tiny stage) weigh the urgent question of whether Shakespeare was a spouting poetic fountainhead, whose output fell perfectly upon the page, or a deliberate literary craftsman who revised his works as he grew older.At issue especially are various passages, some legendary, some less so, from “Hamlet” and “King Lear.” Depending on how one views these cuts, additions and changes — as intentional alterations by the playwright, thoughtless slip-ups by the typesetters or flawed recollections by performers — our sense of Shakespeare’s genius shifts. According to tradition, Rosenbaum tells us, the idea was that the different versions of “Hamlet,” for example, pointed back to some “lost archetype,” presumably impeccable and complete. The infallible Shakespeare, according to this model, got it right the first time, while those who came after him somehow messed things up, provoking centuries of confusion.
But then — in just the last few decades — came a revolution in academe that killed off the poet who could do no wrong and substituted, using evidence gathered from painstaking textual analysis, a man of many second thoughts (usually, it was felt, superior ones). The iconoclasts behind this uprising, the so-called “new disintegrators,” are posed by Rosenbaum against the classicists, who seem to doubt that Shakespeare could be bettered, even by an older and wiser Shakespeare. It’s an informative, diverting tussle, with Rosenbaum jetting back and forth between the brainiacs’ ivy-covered strongholds to referee, and sometimes rev up, the fight. He’s not a passive presence in the book.
Battling over the bard (Max Gross, New York Post)
It's a shame that Rosenbaum (who is generally an extraordinary journalist and writer) injects himself so much into this book, because the basic material is great. No group of professionals take themselves more seriously than academics, and warring academics (as the title promises) can be fascinating. Every dispute is personal; every rival theory is sacrilege. One feels that Rosenbaum could have - but missed - showing the animosity and juicy drama behind the ivy curtain.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/06 23:30 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
Review of Hubris by Michael Isikoff and David Corn (Robert Novak)
Who Said What When: The rise and fall of the Valerie Plame 'scandal' (Robert Novak, Weekly Standard)
This desperate attempt to resuscitate a dubious conspiracy theory falls flat, and undermines what seems to be the real reason for writing Hubris. While its reportorial tone gives the book a façade of objectivity, in fact it constitutes a broad assault on Bush, his administration, and his policies in the war against terrorism. That entails the retelling of manifold allegations of perfidy, so familiar that they grow tiresome. The book's only new element is what it reveals about the Plame case, and there they trumped their own ace by facilitating the source's exposure in advance of publication.The book is also exceptional partly because its authors are so oddly matched. Isikoff, who views himself as nonideological and nonpartisan, led reporters in tracking Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky affair (recorded in his Uncovering Clinton). Corn is a stereotypical leftist activist without a nonideological bone in his body. His first book, Blond Ghost, was a vicious attack on the legendary CIA operative and Cold War hero Theodore Shackley, and the bias of his later work, The Lies of George W. Bush, is obvious from its title.
I can only imagine the debates that must have taken place between coauthors to determine the direction of this book. The resulting product is some of the investigator Isikoff and a lot of the ideologue Corn. Hubris is not an unmitigated apologia for the Wilsons, but it comes close.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/06 23:17 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
Steyn!
Page scandal makes America look silly (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times)
So the only question now is whether there is any larger issue here worth spending 10 minutes on.
And the answer to that is obvious. This was a honey trap (as they used to say in the Cold War) designed to leverage one peripheral figure's squalid fantasies into political opportunity. It's as predictable as the leaves falling from the trees, except that it only occurs every other autumn. Still, I take my hat off to the media and Democratic Party. Indeed, in the spirit of Bill Clinton, I take my pants off to them. It is a remarkable achievement to have transformed, in little more than a week, the GOP into the Catholic Diocese of Boston with Speaker Hastert as Cardinal Law and the page program as the massed ranks of 7-year-old altar boys. What an awesome force the Dems would be if only the ruthless skill and cunning that went into this operation could be applied to, say, national security.
Steyn wields an absolutely wicked pen.
I wish I could spin off such devastating one-liners with his efficiency.
There's more good stuff to be found in that one, so follow the linky-link if you're so inclined.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/06 15:33 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)
07 October 2006
Best to take things one game at a time
Tuberville blasts lack of playoff system (MSNBC)
Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville blasted the lack of playoff format on Wednesday, saying he doubts any team from the Southeastern Conference can make the BCS national championship game without a playoff, ESPN said.
"I've about had it with this playoff deal," said Tuberville, whose Tigers are 5-0 but ranked third behind Ohio State and USC in the coaches and Harris Polls and second by the Associated Press. "We all understand in our conference how tough it is. In our conference, that's about the only chance we'd have to make it."
Maybe Tuberville should have been studying a little more Arkansas game film and bitching a little less about things totally outside his control this week.
Incidentally, nobody took pitiful Arkansas in that game in our pool. Ouch.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/07/06 17:16 | Sports | Technorati | Comments (4)
All about T.O.
Cowboys Notes: Gurode ready to move past ugly incident (Mac Engel, FWST)
Terrell Owens said he disagreed with the punishment given Albert Haynesworth for stomping Cowboys teammate Andre Gurode.
Speaking on his ESPN radio show Friday night, Owens said it wasn't fair that he was punished for nine games for "freedom of speech" while with Philadelphia in 2005 and Haynesworth only got suspended five games without pay.
Owens was referring to his suspension by the Eagles for "conduct detrimental to the team" after criticizing Donovan McNabb. He was suspended for four games and later deactivated for the rest of the season. An arbitrator ruled the Eagles were within their rights to deactivate Owens.
It's hardly unique of me to note that with Terrell Owens, it's ALWAYS about Terrell Owens.
But I'll do it anyway.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/07/06 14:28 | Dallas Cowboys | Technorati | Comments (0)
Seen in Midtown
I saw a guy putting signs like this one up around Midtown Thursday morning on my drive to work.
I'm not sure what it means exactly.
Maybe the guy should start a weblog? Or maybe he can't because he's being held back by the Digital Divide? *shrug*
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/07/06 11:27 | Houston | Technorati | Comments (3)
06 October 2006
Underwhelming
For whatever reason, I found myself watching the silly gubernatorial debate instead of being out doing something more interesting tonight.
It was more underwhelming than I expected (and my expectations were really low).
I like that Chris Bell led with his signature accomplishment (taking on Tom DeLay). That sort of set the tone for the whole lackluster affair.
It's hard to believe that Texas can't produce a better candidate than those four (and the excluded Libertarian candidate).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/06/06 21:13 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (0)
East Texans happy with their taxes?
Private citizens near no-show at tax hearing (Christine S. Diamond, Lufkin Daily News, via Lone Star Times)
The Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform has heard several "horror stories" about their frustrating experiences with Texas' "stealth tax," said task force chairman Thomas W. Pauken.
But not in Lufkin.
Pauken repeatedly expressed surprise at the lack of private citizens testifying during Thursday morning's hearing.
Pitser Garrison Civic Center's meeting room was well-attended by public officials, lawyers, school officials, chief appraisers — and three private citizens.
"This is really unusual," Pauken said.
Lufkin City Manager Paul Parker, assuring Pauken the event was well-advertised, suggested low attendance indicated homeowners' satisfaction with local property tax appraisals.
Right! That's probably it, and not the 9 a.m. start time and the fact that people who own property likely also have jobs that require their presence.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/06/06 11:43 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (0)
04 October 2006
BCS conference teams should play other BCS conference teams
Challenge series would level playing field: Big 12 would battle ACC, SEC teams (Berry Tramel, Daily Oklahoman)
In the 1970s, few major schools dared play an inferior opponent. In the 2000s, few major schools dare not.
In 2006, every BCS conference is playing less than 50 percent of its non-league games against lower-status opponents.
In 2006, nine of the 65 schools in the six BCS leagues are playing NO foes from fellow power conference. Only one team, USC bless its soul, is playing ONLY BCS-league opponents.
The Big 12 is the worst offender, playing only 23 percent (11 of 48) of its non-conference games against fellow BCS schools. The SEC is at 29 percent, the ACC at 31 percent, the Big 10 at 32 percent, the Pac-10 at 43 percent and the Big East at 45 percent.
The culture must change. We must get back to competitive games and level playing fields.
And here's my idea to kick off such a massive change: a Big 12/ACC/SEC challenge series.
We have these series in basketball; they are needed in football. The Big 12, the Southeastern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference are obvious picks for the challenge because of their similarities: each has 12 teams, each has a league title game.
This makes so much sense for fans that I can't imagine university ADs or conference commissioners will ever get on board.
The Big 12's scheduling of so many weaklings is embarrassing, though. It's about time some of the conference beat writers start pointing that out to people.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/04/06 08:48 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (7)
01 October 2006
Big 12 Wrap: Week 5
The Big 12 pretty much went according to form this week (although I'm sure Aggie fans would dispute that). Here's a quick look at the games:
Nebraska 39, Kansas 32 (OT)
A sellout crowd in Lincoln had to be horrified that the hometown lads required overtime to put away Kansas. They had to be equally horrified watching their defense give up up nearly 600 yards to a very average Kansas team. Then again, it beats last year's 40-15 loss to a very average Kansas team. Such is the state of Callahan's Cornhusker nation.
Missouri 28, Colorado 13
This was a little closer than expected, but it's still good enough for a 5-0 start for Gary Pinkel and Mizzou. Will Colorado win a game this year?
Texas Tech 31, Texas A&M 27
A&M played great second-half defense to take a lead in this one, only to give it right back as Tech drove right down the field at the end. This loss will likely set the end of the Dennis Franchione era in motion, unless somehow A&M's overpaid coach manages to upset Texas and Oklahoma.
Baylor 17, Kansas State 3
Who wants to watch games like this?
Iowa State 28, Northern Iowa 27
These Iowa in-state rivalries have a way of producing interesting football games. The starting quarterbacks were a combined 47 of 58 in this one.
Big 12 Bullies Beat Hell Out Of I-AA Weaklings
This week, it was Texas taking its crack at a I-AA weakling. We don't comment on games that BCS conference teams should not be playing in the first place.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/01/06 21:58 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (1)
On the trail in the Ouachitas
I got back yesterday from my trip to the Ouachitas, where the drought conditions cut my trip short.
Unfortunately, the northern leg of the trip (Old Military Road/Boardstand Trails) was completely dry. Streams that usually flow year-round were all dry. That meant I had no water to purify on the trail, and only the 4.1 liters I was carrying. THAT meant that I was forced away from preparing my freeze-dried food for dinner, and instead conserving my water for the trip out.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/01/06 16:33 | Outdoors | Technorati | Comments (3)
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