Video of the Day

Via Sullivan:


AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

Cue Kanye to interrupt the World Cup love...

From The Economist's DiA:

Don't get me wrong - I love this tournament, and have been following it "very closely."  But I'm also semi-unemployed, and even when I am working I can just sit here watching Cup games (or writing a blog.)  The poll does admit that there is much more interest among the "young and college educated" though.

So I guess the biggest question is what is the contributing factor to the increased interest by the younger demographic in the US?  I think there are three parts to it:

First, younger and college educated people tend to have been raised a little more open-minded about sports - many of us grew up playing youth soccer, so we have some exposure to it.  More than you can say for our more well-seasoned demographic counterparts at least.  So the World Cup, while not necessarily as important to us as an event in one of the Big Three/Four sports, at least registers on the radar.

Second, most people who are young and college educated also are enjoying this summer in what is becoming the biggest career choice for college grads in America - unemployment.  Or at least semi-employment.  We have time on our hands, and it's really easy to be watching or listening to the Cup games on our computers or in front of the TV while looking for jobs.  Granted, the hours the games are being broadcast live are not exactly conducive to viewing if you are working a 9 to 5 job, but they are if you work a 9 to 5 job in front of a computer and are quick with the mouse.

Which leads to the third point - the technology of this World Cup.  It's not that older folks don't get computers or technology or stuff, but the young generations just know how to make it work for us a little bit better.  And to such people, ESPN 3 is a gift from the high and mighty sports gods (strongly recommend it to any of you sitting in front of your computers right now reading this - which should be all of you, now that I think of it).  Every Cup game is televised.  Every game.  For a month. A MONTH.  You want to see how successful the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament is going to be now that all of their games are going to be broadcast on TV?  Look at the World Cup.  You want to see the future of sports broadcasting, you major sports leagues?  Look at ESPN 3 and ESPN Mobile TV.

And as I think Bob Ryan (I think it was him) pointed out on Around the Horn last week, when he was getting into sports reporting, the two big sports were boxing and horse racing.  I think it's fair to say that definitely isn't true of today.  The point he was trying to make is that what is considered the dominant sports of the time change in the United States, as I'm sure they do in other countries - look at the rise of basketball in East Asia, South America and Europe, or baseball in Latin America and East Asia.  I think if the youthful passion and interest in soccer continues and sustains itself, combined with the US team slowly growing into its own on the world stage, its very likely that the US will join the rest of the world in having a peaked interest in soccer.

Alright, maybe at least an interest in soccer.  Baby steps folks.

How to fill out your band support staff

Via Sullivan, the most intense of starring contests with high stakes:



Somebody explain to me again why The Muppet Show isn't around anymore?!

Travelling back the road

TNC has a great post about his discovering of his genealogy and the thoughts it provokes.

Last summer, when I was unemployed and had lots of time on my hands (as opposed to now, in which I am poor, semi-unemployed, and have lots of time on my hands), I spent a good deal of time looking into my family's genealogy and finally getting it all down in one place.  Both my brother and I had had to do family history projects for school multiple times through middle and high school (you can guess who did a lot of the work and who did a lot of citing of somebody's work), but I had never really gone into it as deeply as I could, digging through the histories made available to me and speaking with the remaining patriarchs and matriarchs of my family until last summer.

And not to say that I couldn't have done better.  A lot of the work had been done by one of my more distant cousins to look into my mother's father's side, but was kinda scattered across lots of bits and pieces in books and emails.  But I was able to get a great deal of it down, getting all the way back to the late 1600s where one of my forefathers served as an original settler of what would become New Hampshire.  We had always known that the family tree headed up north to the Maine/New Hampshire/Canada region, but to be able to go back far enough to learn of Richard Cater (later, Carter) was really mind-blowing.

I've been holding off on getting back into it because I don't quite have the resources I had being back north, and access to the documents I would if I was there (especially on my father's side, the Syrian/Lebanese connection and then New York/German thing are going to get messy, I can already tell).  But I think I'll start reviewing so I can get ready for another journey, and maybe I'll even write about it a little bit.  Thanks for the inspiration, TNC.

For those of you who have never given a second thought to who these incredible people were that led to the nearly improbable existence of your life, I strongly recommend to give it a looking into.  No matter who these people are that led to you being here, they don't define you - I'm of the mind that the greatest people write their own stories with the present rather than the past.  But every person whose momentary existence seemingly is a mere flash in the history of everything has used their time to write their own story, a story which eventually leads to you.  Sparkling vampires and wizards are nice and all, but great stories have you feel connected to the protagonists - and what is more connecting than the blood coursing through your veins, and choices that lead to you miraculously coming into being, and the love that binds family together?

Video of the Day

From Penguin - it might take itself a little too seriously there at the end, but the whole ride to it is a blast:



UPDATE:  If you stop over at YouTube to watch any of your favorite videos, now you can add the humming of the vuvuzela to anything you watch with the click of a button.

HZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

Gotcha, Media

From xkcd:

News networks giving a greater voice to viewers because the social web is so popular is like a chef on the Titanic who, seeing the looming iceberg and fleeing customers, figures ice is the future and starts making snow cones.

The Conquering Hero

Via Sullivan, Warming Glow crunches the numbers on Coco v. Leno.  Only one thing can truly describe this for NBC.

Also, if you haven't seen this 60 Minutes interview with Conan (that I meant to post over a month ago and forgot...whoops), check it out.  The man is class:

NEWS FLASH: 17 > 16

That's all I've got.  I legitimately had a nightmare last night involving the smug look of Kobe, Gas-hole, and Sasha Vujacic's faces.  But hey, good series - Celts still made the most of a postseason they shouldn't have had.

In other sports news, this guy just earned himself a big old bounty on his head.  Good job dude:

At least the US didn't lose, but still - having 4 points in the round going into the game with Algeria instead of 2 would make me feel a lot more comfortable.

Sigh.  This is gonna be a long day...

Excuses, excuses...

Sorry about the lack of blogging as of late - it seems I've come down with something, causing my head to just thump like a war drum.  Not conducive to thinking or writing.  I'll try to get back into it a little, but expect some half strength posts for a little while.

"...This series is about as up for grabs as Lindsay Lohan at 3AM"

If you aren't reading Bill Simmons' live blog of the NBA Finals, you are really missing out.  I don't know if I'd be surviving this without his commentary.

Also, this is pretty classic as well.  Might need to go pick up his book.

Go Green.  BEAT LA.



UPDATE: Let it be known that I posted the above video not because I condone violence against referees - however, I fully support Karma being a bitch.

UPDATE 2:  Quote of the day, full video below:

"We're like Shrek and Donkey" - Mr. Nate Robinson (talking about him and Glen "Big Baby" Davis)

GOOOOOOOAAAL!

Despite playing in my youth, my "real football" knowledge is pretty limited - but I still love me some World Cup.  For some people who really do know what they're talking about, I defer to my good friends Asha Michener and Danny Will.  Check out their World Cup 2010 predictions and analysis at their respective blogs, Off the Woodwork! and Discount Thoughts and Opinions.

The 2010 Word Cup begins June 11.

BARACK LIVES!

Mark Ambinder has a pretty great write up about why the President of the United States isn't a pointy-eared, green-blooded hobgoblin (yes, geek cred). 

The Gulf Oil Disaster

I guess it's about time I put my two cents in about the BP mess in the Gulf.  The situation sucks - it will, hopefully be the worst environmental disaster of my lifetime (meaning, I hope nothing worse ever happens, because I can't imagine something much worse happening than dumping that much oil into an ecosystem).  Everything BP seems to have tried to do to contain the disaster has failed, and yet the greatest part of this tragedy isn't going to be the fact that we can't stop it but rather the massive, lengthy, painful cleanup that is going to need to follow.  It really is incredibly sad.

But then there are so many side plots and questions that come off of the situation, some of them actually worthy of attention - others, not so much, but the MSM is gonna run with it anyways because, well, many of them suck actually reporting news.

Probably one of the biggest is the blame game between BP, the federal government, and the contractors involved, including everyone's favorite dastardly supervillian organization, Halliburton.  As much as I would love to just peg this on them, you can't - everyone involved had some fault.  Granted some more than others, such as BP's now-notoriously poor track record and failure to comply when cited with violations over the feds' lack of having any teeth to truly enforce the BP citations, or Halliburton (as usual) doing a crappy job at doing something and ultimately screwing the people who trusted them to make an honest, reliable product.  But in the end does it really matter considering that what's happened has happened, and now we have to deal with it?  I say it doesn't.

EXCEPT when it comes to who should be in charge of fixing and solving this crisis, and to that I think the responsibility is divided.  Stopping the oil from continuing to leak out should lie solely with British Petroleum - it's your rig, fix it.  The cleanup of this disaster should be led and orchestrated by the federal government however - this is a disaster after all, and the only body that is big enough to (hopefully) deal with this correctly is the State.  However, BP will need to be funding as much of the damages, cleanup, and recovery, as possible.  If it means they break the bank doing so, then there better damn well be cobwebs forming in their bank vaults when its all said and done.

Which means don't be dumping money into a PR campaign to save your face after the amount of destruction you've caused, you jackasses!  I can understand there being legal obligations to your shareholders to pay out on your dividends, but if not every other penny of your corporation is focused on stopping the oil leak and helping protect the people and wildlife and ecosystems YOU have destroyed with your reckless, careless attitude and policies, then you truly are the foulest collection of scum and may this one event haunt you for the rest of your days.

And don't think I'm I'm actually giving you much of a chance here, I'm not saying that you aren't already the foulest scum in the world - you probably are.

Now the other half of this, the part that we really shouldn't even be talking about, but we are because the "journalists" in the MSM have a hard time filling their airtime on their 24 hour news channels.  Obama.

Really,  I don't have much beef here - I think he could have been a little more aggressive and blunt with getting BP to get their shit together and hold them accountable, but all in all he's been handling the crisis with the same kind of coolness he's dealt with everything else since he moved onto Pennsylvania Avenue.  He didn't fuck up, they aren't his oil rigs, and BP should be the one taking the brunt of this.  You look at the polls on it, and they are.  Obama is letting the public hold them accountable, and is holding the sword of the Department of Justice behind the voice of the people to keep them honest.  But of course, that isn't enough for some people.

DiA does a pretty good job pointing out how the MSM talking-heads want the man to be magical - but that ain't how it works folks:

Something odd is happening here. There is the reality of the spill: thousands of barrels of oil spewing into the sea each day; the most promising fixes attempted without success; 20,000 people working on the mess; over 1,500 boats surrounding it; and the mobilization of thousands of National Guard troops. Then, like an episode of "Lost", there is the side-story: Obama not showing enough rage; Obama not visiting the coast in a timely fashion; Obama, our overly aloof president. As in the TV show, it is difficult to connect the two. The state of Mr Obama's jaw has little effect on the number of ships deployed to the Gulf. Whether he yelled the orders or not, the National Guard mobilized. It is no more likely that "top kill" would've worked had the president been full of rage. But since most pundits find the first narrative too technical or boring (and outside of their expertise), they've fallen back on more engrossing, less relevant political critiques. They are speaking the only language they understand.

Clive Crook has the best take on the press's reaction: "Apparently it is a great idea to elect a president who is calm in a crisis, except when there's a crisis. Then what you need is somebody to lead the nation in panic." It makes for better TV.

And I can't even get started on the hypocrisy of conservative politicians and media voices who are jumping up and down wanting Obama to get more involved.  You want your small government?  He's playing small government in this one, make Big Oil clean up their own mess.  But I forgot, you only want government out of people's lives when it effects you personally and someone you don't agree with is in office.  That's right.

Anyways, other interesting things that relate to this:

+ I thought The Onion was a fake news organization?

+ The Boston Globe shows it like it is.

+ The Daily Show doing what it does best - making douchebags look like the douchebags they are:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Spilling Fields
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

+ Lastly, below are some map images to help you put the size of the spill in perspective.  Made a difference to me:

UPDATE:  Not that I want to add much more on to this already really long post, but TNC has a video up from The Huffington Post that seem to perfectly demonstrate the contrast between Obama's attitude towards this thing, the people's attitudes toward him and this thing, and the MSM clowns filling air-time:

Long Live the Birther Queen!

Mark Ambinder notes something I just cannot seem to believe.

UPDATE: Via the Silicon Valley Mercury News:

9:43 pm: Birther Taitz trails badly in secretary of state race

Political junkies who were hoping to see conspiracy theorist Orly Taitz win the GOP nomination for secretary of state may be in for a disappointment. Taitz, who has said on national talk shows that President Obama was born in Kenya, trailed former NFL wide receiver Damon Dunn by a 75-25 percent margin.

What a shame.

Proselytizing in the Forum

Via Andrew Sullivan again, a link to an interview at Killing the Buddha about Stephen Prothero's new book, God is Not One.  Pretty interesting take on things, and after having watched Bill Maher's Religulous for the first time last night it makes a pretty great point about the aggressive New Atheism and conservative radical Christians in our public forum (italics are mine):

The public role of the New Atheists is, in my view, important. Most obviously, they are raising questions about precisely the things many people value most, not least God, Jesus, and the Bible. More urgently, however, they are calling the Religious Right to task. There used to be a gentleman’s agreement that kept both our faith and our doubt out of the public square. After Christians raced into U.S. politics in the 1970s and 1980s, that agreement was breached. Many of the New Atheists are criticizing the God proposition not only because they don’t believe it but also because they object to the conservative political uses to which that proposition has been put. Here too they are advancing the conversation, by pointing out there is a price to pay for enlisting God in political projects.

"Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin'..."

Via Andrew Sullivan, a very beautifully done and incredibly interesting discussion of our perceptions of time and how technology today is quietly augmenting our way of life.  Just brilliant:

Hey LA...

Deep Question of the Day (Airport Edition)

What is the protocol on handicap stalls in public restrooms? Are there laws protecting such spots from being occupied by non-handicap individuals?

The way I see it, there are two possibilities: it's either a stall specifically for handicapped persons in much the same way as a parking space is, or it's just another stall that has extra room for people who need it. Really, since there is no enforcement mechanism (aka potty meter maids), you kind of have to figure that it's the later possibility.

But how does society view this? If you are waiting in line to use the bathroom in a public restroom, and a person with some sort of physical disability comes in, does that person get to jump to the head of the line if the handicap stall becomes available? Does that person have to wait just like everyone else? Does that person throw a fit, as I've seen other individuals do in the case of parking in a handicap space (a case in which it is entirely understandable - as Denis Leary self-prescribed, it makes you an "asshole-li-o-li-o-li-o-li-o-li-ole")?  What if there is no one else in the bathroom when you get there? 

I mean the handicap stall is, as I've heard one comedian put it, like the Cadillac of public restroom facilities. So I would assume when you can ride in the Cady, you ride in the Cady. But I'm just interested in what people think the rules are for this seemingly ambiguous area.
 
UPDATE:  Upon having access to the internet again, it looks like Slate had a little discussion about this a decade ago.  The sparking letter and subsequent conversations here and here.  Seems like people can get pretty heated about this.   The underlying paradox is this:

It is a bit of an ethical conundrum that the handicapped want fairness, but fairness for them sometimes results in unfairness to others. Perhaps this is an acceptable trade-off, given the particulars.

The most informational tidbit, however:

Sorry to inform you that in California it is a finable offense to use a handicapped-designated restroom stall if you're able-bodied. The fine for the first offense is $271. I was riding my bicycle on the state beach at Huntington Beach and was arrested and given a ticket, which the court has upheld--in the winter the beach maintenance closes all but the handicapped facilities, so I guess you are supposed to use the landscape.

Unceremonious Anniversary

Happy One Year Anniversary!

Okay, maybe that's very borderline considering there haven't been any new postings in well over a month.  But the URL and Cheshire Prospects has been up and running for a year now since it's inception on June 2, 2009.  Life sure has changed since then.  But happy birthday to us, and a big thank you to all of you out there who actually do follow in this little exploration.  Despite my negligence in the past few moons, overall writing this has been an incredibly enjoyable experience.

And what better than a moment looking back to recommit ourselves to the future.  Summertime has returned, along with partial employment, meaning the living is easy and time is more abundant.  It's showtime again, time to dig back into, as TNC so wonderfully put it, "The Beautiful Struggle."

CP is back online baby.  More is on it's way.