I had an interesting conversation about hockey with a friend the other day. He said Colin Campbell isn’t anywhere near fair in his handing out of suspensions. I’m an Islanders fan (yes, we exist) and he’s a Ranger’s fan. He said Campbell favors the Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs and a few others, mostly old school teams. I’d always had a good impression of Campbell but it made me think.
A couple of weeks ago one of my Islanders, Andy Sutton committed a check from behind on Pascal Dupuis of the Penguins. He, rightly, got suspended for two games.
Almost the very next game Colin White made the same hit on Sean Bergenheim of the Islanders. Here’s what resulted, this from The North Jersey Hockey blog.
“Devils defenseman Colin White said he had a disciplinary hearing with NHL officials today for his boarding hit on the Islanders Sean Bergenheim in Saturday’s 4-2 win at Nassau Coliseum.
White told me that he was told that he would not be suspended, but will receive “a little fine.”
Bergenheim had his back to White, who drove him into the glass and boards between the penalty boxes 9:15 into the second period Saturday. White received a five-minute major for boarding and a game misconduct. The game misconduct carried an automatic $200 fine and a review for possible supplemental discipline.”
Naturally the Islanders blogs are all lit up over this. And there were even one or two people in the Devil’s blogs I read who said this should have been a two game suspension.
I don’t have a clip of the Colin White hit on Sean Bergenheim so I’m not going to include the clip of Andy Sutton’s hit on Dupuis. Its available on YouTube if you want to see it.
“The five minutes we deserved,”[NJ Coach Jaques] Lemaire said of the penalty. “It was a thing the defenseman should’ve known. The player had his back turned. I totally agreed with the call.”
Both hits drew blood. Both were from behind. One blog said Bergenheim suffered a broken nose.
This last snippet came from a Devil’s blog.
“Then came Colin White’s huge error. Colin White, who otherwise has been solid all season, hits Sean Bergenheim from behind and into the glass. It was a dangerous play and White knows better (sic) to do that. There was no need to hit Bergenheim was cut from the hit and that led to a five minute major and a game misconduct. Bergenheim came back later with a full face shield, but White was thrown out of the game. The call was absolutely correct, though I doubt he’ll actually get a suspension because who in the world knows how suspensions work in this league.”
If the Dean of discipline for the league is widely understood to be either incompetent or biased – the NHL has a problem!
This week’s wrong and damaging Supreme Court decision was mentioned in the President’s State of the Union message. He mentions that the ruling in the Citizens United case sets Supreme Court precedent back over 100 years.
The president had taken the unusual step of publicly scolding the high court, with some of its robed members seated before him in the House. “With all due deference to the separation of powers,” he said, the court last week “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.” Boston Globe
This is from the Huffington Post:
Last week’s Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case has created the ripest environment since the Jack Abramoff scandal to implement tough new campaign finance laws.
On the Hill, there are currently at least seven separate pieces of legislation in the works to prevent an unprecedented flood of corporate money in the upcoming midterm elections. And in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night, President Barack Obama jumped on the bandwagon, making the unusual move to scold the Supreme Court to its face. The justices, he said, have allowed campaigns to be “bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.” Congress, he added, should “pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”
The court’s decision last week was a major reversal of judicial precedent, lifting restrictions on what corporations can spend on advertisements for or against candidates within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.
Ok. You’ve all heard about it. Here’s one more review.
Go see it. Go see it in 3D.
I’m not a big 3D fan, but this is not your cardboard red and green 3D. You are handed and plastic wrapped sturdy plastic pair of 3D glasses when you buy your ticket (Mine was $10.50. $2 more included for 3D) but its worth it because nobody’s handled them before, you get to keep them, which could possibly be useful in the future, and they don’t distract too much.
I have always had trouble with binocular vision with devices like microscopes and binoculars and for a while I found the 3D distracting. There was always something out of focus. The director sort of forcing you where to look. You may not pay attention to everything in your field of vision but its in focus when you shift to it. But that awareness of the 3D and its manipulations went away as this long film drew you in. In time, I blinked at the flora and fauna which was right in front of me and well behind the persons sitting further up front. I no longer minded being manipulated.
There are little light filled creatures in the movie, which float around quite a bit looking like purple air-jellyfish which I really came to enjoy, though they never spoke or related to either the cast or me. There’s actually quite a bit of purple. And quite a bit of internally lighted fauna. The whole effect is charming.
Which gets me to the manipulation. James Cameron – the director and really the star of the film (no, he’s not on screen) says that the technology should fade and the story should draw you in. It does exactly that.
This story is good guys vs bad guys. This story is cowboys vs indians. This story is nature vs the destruction of nature. Innocent vs greedy. Name your manipulation paradigm – its in there.
The problem is it is so well done, so David and Goliath, such an underdog movie that unless you just root for brutes and thugs, you’re going to like and invest your emotions in the ones (notice I didn’t say people) that you’re supposed to.
Another cliche’ that I did find a bit in your face that I expected was the hieghts. Give someone a 3D camera and he’ll show your a drop off of a thousand feet over some cliff somewhere.
This whole thing was set in a giant tree! Don’t look down? Not likely! If you’re afraid of heights hang on, yet somehow, there’s only a bit of gratuitous diving over the edge. The nausea passes.
The story is a simple one. [Spoiler] Greedy military/capitalists will stop at nothing to get the “unobtainium” natural resource that is all over the planet of pandora where native 10′ tall Na’vi live in perfect communion with this special world filled with the valuable ore.
Our hero, Jake Sully, a parilyzed marine has been provided an “avatar” an organically grown Na’vi version of himself which exists in Pandora and can be controlled from a tube the marine lays in and virtually controls through neural technology. On Pandora Sully’s lifeless legs can run. He’s austenibly hired by research scientist Dr. Grace Augustine to get to know the natives, a peaceful warlike tribe of thundercats who commune with the natural world and with which they are more than spiritually connected.
We learn quickly that jake is special both in his world as a “jarhead” and in their world as a chosen one. His real mission is to spy on the Na’vi to find a way to persuade them to move out of their traditional home so that it can be bulldozed for the excavation of the unobtainium. Really, wouldn’t it have been just as believable to call it dilithium?
Of course the chosen outsider falls in love with the young daughter of the tribal leader who hates him at first and (stop me if you’ve heard this) falls in love with him later. His heart moves from his loyalty not to Dr Augustine who places him in the program but to the military guy who wants him as a spy on both Augustine and the Na’vi. Here’s a surprise, he not only falls in love with the girl but with the people of the Pandora and his heart moves to their innocent plight as the bad colonel and his bulldozers begin to crush the life out of this living planet. He switches sides even though the poor Na’vi seem to have only bows and arrows against helicopters. How will they ever prevail and save the planet? [End spoiler]
You’ll just have to pay to find out. Its worth the money.
The technology is the star. The story is easy to give in to and just root for your team. The acting is uniformly excellent (I think – its sometimes hard to tell with the combination of actor and animation being something the likes of which we haven’t seen before.)
Really good technology. Good feeling from watching the movie. Hokie good fun. 4 of 5 Smiling Maxes
James Cameron
Writer (WGA):
James Cameron (written by)
Release Date:
18 December 2009 (USA) more
Won 2 Golden Globes. Another 12 wins & 31 nominations more
Avatar Highest Grossing Film of All Time
Cast
Sam Worthington … Jake Sully
Zoe Saldana … Neytiri
Sigourney Weaver … Dr. Grace Augustine
Stephen Lang … Colonel Miles Quaritch
Joel Moore … Norm Spellman (as Joel David Moore)
Giovanni Ribisi … Parker Selfridge
Michelle Rodriguez … Trudy Chacon
… ruling in “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission”
This high court decision overturning part of a campaign finance law poses a threat to judicial independence – in state courts. NPR”s Nina Totenberg points out that more than 80 percent of state judges run for election.
All you need to imagine is unlimited corporate political advocacy.
They can’t have it both ways. The “so called” conservatives. These “so called” strict constructionists, they like it fine when it benefits the political interests of big corporations. Imagine Bank of America now sending out commercials to your TV all day long saying that President Obama’s tax on banks is bad for America. Nothing to stop them now.
US Supreme Court:
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co
118 U.S. 394 (1886), argued 26–29 Jan. 1886, decided 10 May 1886 by vote of 9 to 0; Harlan for the Court. This was one of the legion of cases involving railroads and government agencies (at every level) that inundated the courts in the late nineteenth century. The State of California and certain affected counties sought to collect taxes that they claimed were owed by both the Southern Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. Argument focused almost entirely on whether the taxes were barred by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the constitutional issues posed by counsel. Instead, it based its ruling on a narrower issue: whether the fences on the railroads’ property should have been assessed by either county or state taxing authorities. Justice John Marshall Harlan held that such fences could not be taxed as property subject to taxation under California statute; the Court’s ruling upheld that of the California court.
Despite the Court’s narrow holding, the case was not without constitutional consequence. In an unusual preface, entered before argument, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite observed that the Court would not consider the question “whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbade a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the Constitution, applied to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does” (p. 396). It followed that corporations enjoyed the same rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as did natural persons.
See also Due Process, Substantive; Private Corporation Charters.
Yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” means that what was left of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” shall perish from the Earth.
In “Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, 396 (1886)” (see below) … it was established that a corporation had legal standing in the same manner as a human.
Now, infinite corporations, and I mean corporations that can theoretically live forever can spend limitless money in defense of what they want.
Corporations are not people.
We need an immediate Constitutional Amendment that merely states that only humans may contribute to political campaigns or spend money advocating on behalf of political candidates.
Its that simple. Corporations have too much power now. Government is for the people.
["The court does not wish to hear argument on the question of whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." (Chief Justice Waite in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, 396 (1886))]
How much is that guy from American Idol going to make? He didn’t belong on the show. He’s way too old. Kind of a goof. And just to make it worse, Brett Fav re likes the song. They were singing it in the locker room in Minneasota today. That’s got to help him cash in.
Somebody is going to have him record that. He’ll make money. And its just dumb. Its just an old guy complaining about kids today’s fashions. But it will make him some money. Maybe a million.
I hate that some really non talented people can make a fortune for embarrassing themselves on American Idol.
Sometimes we just need to revisit Ogden Nash. Here’s one of my favorites:
Very Like A Whale
One thing that Literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and
metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can’t seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn’t just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians.
However, as so many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and
thus hinder longevity,
We’ll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were
gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a
wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy
there are great many things,
But I don’t imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple
and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I’ll believe that this Assyrian was
actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof woof?
Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,
at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian
cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn’t fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he
had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers
to people they say Oh yes, they’re the ones that a lot of
wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That’s the kind of thing that’s being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson;
They’re always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I’ll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we’ll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you’ll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
And so we come to the end of President Obama’s first term. Here’s a few thoughts from me in no particular order.
Rahm Emanuel. My hunch is that he was picked to be the chief of staff for the same reason he was picked to be the house whip. He’s a tough guy who gets things done. From what I hear he’s a tough guy that people don’t like. Maybe its a good counterpoint to Obama’s nice guy quality. I keep thinking this one is a problem.
The Republicans. Excepting the two women from Maine, I think they’re all working against Obama. Affirmatively trying to delay and disrupt. Slowly down the pace of governance by forcing the reading of long bills, out loud, and other parliamentary tricks. The most admirable thing about the Republicans is their discipline. Excepting the two women from Maine, and yes possibly Lindsay Graham, yes I said it, they are consciously trying to defeat by delay.
I think a lot about the cloture rule. The rule was the same when W was in office. It doesn’t seem like it took 60 Republicans all the time for Bush to get things through. Now, either 1. I’m wrong about this, or 2. The Democrats cooperated better with Bush, or 3. Bush just scared the Democrats like he scared the country.
Bush got what he wanted. Obama didn’t.
On his choices. I expected more stimulus in the form of cash in the hands of the people. I figure I got $15/week. Or was that a month?
I expected a great expansion of infrastructure. I did see a lot of road building in Pennsylvania, but I keep hearing about all this water infrastructure that is needed in and around New York City. I expected to at least hear about car battery charging station for our new electric fleets. More infrastructure for our new non petroleum economy. I want to see new bridges and more wind turbines. I haven’t seen it so far except for the wind turbines.
Increased regulation and finance reform. Not yet! I confess I don’t understand how it is possible that several major banks were within hours of failing unless the government bailed them out, and yet now they’re making record profit. I feel it must be a trick of finance. It was tricks of finance that got us near economic “death’s door”. Remember. Without Bush’s and Obama’s bailouts several major banks would have failed. I suspect most people just can’t understand that, or those that can have forgotten. This country was at the edge of the cliff. Yes. The really really steep drop was below our feet and the banks had just handed us an anvil!
Jobs. I have friends with no jobs, who worked their who lives and were working this time last year. Several of them who worked honestly and honorably and were caused to have their lives completely turned over because of greed at least, and I think criminal activity on the part of big banks. My friends are suffering. The banks are thriving. That just doesn’t feel right.
At least one of those friends lost his health insurance. His wife, a waitress, doesn’t get health insurance. They want it. He wants work. They can’t have either. He buys his prescriptions online from overseas. Is that what we want?
And yet, I was surprised, and a little disappointed that Obama spent so much of his good will of the people, on reforming health care. It just didn’t seem the largest problem he faced. Wait! Wait! I’m for universal health care. But not job 1. And this bill that is currently in committee. The Republicans, and I can speak of Charles Grassley as a specific example though I believe there were many and they were organized to do this, said they wanted to work with the White House, all the while telling their local party constituents that if they joined the process, they could delay it as long as possible and maybe the party as a whole would have time to kill it. I believe they lied. They delayed for the purpose of destroying while saying they were trying to help. Forget Death Panels. Their crime is saying “we want to work with the president” then working against him.
W’s wars. Obama is helping us to leave Iraq. Its a mess. I hope it gets better. We should leave. We are leaving.
Afghanistan. That’s different. I’ve long held my tongue on Afghanistan because we were attacked from there. I’ve thought about it a lot.
I think we should get out. Its not really a country. Its a group of tribes who roam the badlands. We messed up the place where the people who attacked us were from. We “conquered” Afghanistan already. Yes, the Taliban is reconstituting itself in Afghanistan to some degree. Yes, the Afghanis treat their women horribly. So do the North Koreans. The war in Korea was never peacefully resolved. Should we go back there and save those people? How about Somalia? Haiti? Yemen?
Besides. Johnny’s going to Afghanistan. I don’t want Johnny to go to Afghanistan.
And its worth stating this obvious fact. I’m against war. War is a bad idea.
Another fact. We are facing an organized group of criminals. How is Osama Bin Laden like John Gotti? Discuss.
And one more thing about Afghanistan … isn’t the Taliban hiding in Pakistan? Should we attack Pakistan? Oh yeah, I forgot. We are.
Let’s not bomb Iran. We have a wellspring of pro-American sentiment there. Must we blow them up?
Meanwhile banks are still allowed to play in the oil futures market. This change happened under the W. This should have been changed back to the way it was before the W. Come on! People are profiting in oil, who neither discover, nor excavate or even take possession of it. That’s wrong and its bad for little people like me.
Come on!
There’s still no first class hospital in New Orleans? Really? Really?
Oh yeah. Jobs.
Now I am part of that liberal left that holds a wellspring of good feeling and hope for Obama’s success (and can we please take back that word people? Liberal. I’m a liberal. Your a liberal. Yeah, I’m progressive, but its just weak to call ourselves progressive, if its because we’re afraid of saying liberal. And don’t say Libertarian. You WANT the government doing SOME stuff!) So I’m part of this group that holds a deep well of good feeling for Obama. I think I know what he’s about and I’m for those things. And I’m well aware of the countervailing forces trying their best just to make him unsuccessful.
I believe his own party is a problem for him. I know he let the Congress lead on several major issues, and the Congress got all selfish and infighting grabby greedy on him.
Some people have had changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions while using CHANTIX to help them quit smoking. Some people had these symptoms when they began taking CHANTIX, and others developed them after several weeks of treatment or after stopping CHANTIX. If you, your family, or caregiver notice agitation, hostility, depression, or changes in behavior, thinking, or mood that are not typical for you, or you develop suicidal thoughts or actions, anxiety, panic, aggression, anger, mania, abnormal sensations, hallucinations, paranoia, or confusion, stop taking CHANTIX and call your doctor right away. Also tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems before taking CHANTIX, as these symptoms may worsen while taking CHANTIX.
Some people can have serious skin reactions while taking CHANTIX, some of which can become life-threatening. These can include rash, swelling, redness, and peeling of the skin. Some people can have allergic reactions to CHANTIX, some of which can be life-threatening and include: swelling of the face, mouth, and throat that can cause trouble breathing. If you have these symptoms or have a rash with peeling skin or blisters in your mouth, stop taking CHANTIX and get medical attention right away.
The most common side effects include nausea (30%), sleep problems, constipation, gas, and/or vomiting. If you have side effects that bother you or don’t go away, tell your doctor.
You may have trouble sleeping, vivid, unusual, or strange dreams while taking CHANTIX. Use caution driving or operating machinery until you know how CHANTIX may affect you.
CHANTIX should not be taken with other quit-smoking products. You may need a lower dose of CHANTIX if you have kidney problems or get dialysis.
Before starting CHANTIX, tell your doctor if you are pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or if you take insulin, asthma medicines, or blood thinners. Medicines like these may work differently when you quit smoking. ”
All that is from the web page and (I think the commercial). Many tv commercials end like this. They sell 10 times the drugs that they did before they were allowed to flog them on tv.
Here’s another quote, which I suspect is true. Its from: http://www.naturalnews.com/010315_advertising_drugs_doctors.html
“While $3 billion in advertising may seem like an awful lot, rest assured that the drug companies aren’t worried. Why? Americans are expected to spend over $500 billion on drugs this year—not including the extra $100 billion estimated for the Medicare drug benefit program. Spending on prescription drugs is now the fastest growing portion of healthcare spending in the United States.
Ephedra Fact And Fiction by Mike Fillon, page 176 ”
I listened to two shows of this Leo Laporte (TWIT) produced show.
I love Leo. But this show was two people talking over skype who didn’t seem to like each other that much. There were long gaps of silence and both hosts were popping and percussing their “P”‘s.
There was a segment where they played a game of what was tweeted more on Twitter, which was entertaining, but over all … eh!
2 of 5 smiling Maxes. “This Week In Fun” isn’t really that much fun.
