a Kafkaesque, Smiffian win for the Cats

Late INT lifts Northwestern past Minnesota 24-17

MINNEAPOLIS (AP)—Running the speed option with remarkable ease, Northwestern’s Mike Kafka raced through the Minnesota defense for a record-setting 217 yards. Then he watched teammate Brendan Smith mimic some of his moves for the game-winning touchdown.

Smith grabbed a deflected ball and returned an interception 48 yards to score with 12 seconds remaining, sending Northwestern past stunned Minnesota 24-17 and spoiling homecoming for the 20th-ranked Gophers on Saturday.

“I got the ball and just thought, ‘Touchdown,”’ Smith said. “I think everyone should think that when they get the ball in their hands with however many seconds left. I tried to take it to the sideline and make something happen.”

Kafka did that nearly every time he touched the ball, often taking the snap and just sprinting around the end without even looking to pitch it. With C.J. Bacher’s streak of 25 straight starts stopped by a hamstring injury, Kafka stepped in and carried the ball 27 times. His 217 yards rushing set a school record for a quarterback to make up for a pair of interceptions.

And for you HATERS (K-Mad):

Louisville 21

Syracuse 28
~

Steve Young: an athlete with a brain in the wilderness

Steve Young, a Mormon, Cancels Out Jeff Kent
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Posted By Tom Ziller 1:50 PM

Thursday's news that Jeff Kent has given $15,000 to the campaign seeking to ban gay marriage in California came as only mild surprise to those who have listened to Kent talk for more than a few seconds. But last night, the San Francisco Chronicle's John Wildermuth offered a sports-gay marriage shocker: former SF QB Steve Young, one of the most famous Mormons in the world, has donated $37,000 to the side seeking to retain gay marriage rights.

Mormons have led the fight to ban gay marriage this election cycle. Early in the summer, the leaders of the Mormon Church distributed a call to action to California members. The church has bankrolled the campaign. You'd expect it could count on such a highly recognizable parishoner, a Bay Area hero, a direct descendant of one of the key figures in the early Mormon church. But the opposite happened, and it's possible the news could rally this weekend's GOTV efforts in Northern California.

Beyond the extra $20,000 Young kicked in, there's a weapon at the QB's disposal Kent can't match: Kent keeps his official residence in Texas, while Young lives in the Bay Area and will actually vote on this proposition. Score one for the "No on 8" side.

Let's hope this doesn't lead to BYU ridding Legacy Hall of all Young paraphenalia, though.

~

What is the most pressing issue in northern Alabama?

What would Jesus do:

Let Me Repeat: Zogby Sucks

From the troglodyte homunculus who said Kerry was going to win, or, OUTLIER

Pollster John Zogby: "Is McCain making a move? The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama today, 48% to 47%. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all. "Obama's lead among women declined, and it looks like it is occurring because McCain is solidifying the support of conservative women, which is something we saw last time McCain picked up in the polls. If McCain has a good day tomorrow, we will eliminate Obama's good day three days ago, and we could really see some tightening in this rolling average. But for now, hold on."

Nate gives this a smackdown: Trick or Treat

~

Smiff Eating Brainz

Jeff Kent: YOOOGE ASSHOLE

Jeff Kent opens his checkbook and takes a stand against gay marriage
Jeff Kent, who played second base for the Los Angeles Dodgers this season, has stepped into the emotional world of same-sex marriage, giving $15,000 to backers of the California proposition on Tuesday's ballot that would ban it.

In a disclosure filed with the California secretary of state, Kent listed his occupation as professional baseball player for the Dodgers and his address as Austin, Texas. He gave the $15,000 in a transaction dated Monday but which only now is public.

Proposition 8 would ban same-sex marriage by imposing a California constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between one man and one woman.

With both sides spending upward of $30 million each, the measure has become the most costly ballot measure ever dealing with a social issue, and the spending is by far the most for any proposition anywhere in the country this year.

Kent, a free agent who is considering retiring, is a potential Hall of Famer who is best known for his years with the San Francisco Giants. A Bellflower native, Kent also played baseball at University of California, Berkeley.

A review of campaign records shows no other donations to federal or California state campaigns by Kent.

Frank Schubert, managing the Yes-on-8 campaign, said he was unaware that Kent had weighed in.

"He has had a stellar career and will no doubt one day be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame," Schubert said. "I wish the Giants had kept Kent and traded [Barry] Bonds."

~

double-bonus: k-mad gets an extra hour of sleep this weekend, and the clock on LoC will finally be right again

And if The Google is so smart, how come it doesn't know that the switch to Daylight Squandering Time got moved to November? And isn't this the second year that it's been later?

Happy Halloween!

Dis made Fung laugh

Though it occurs to me that one should keep this sign because you can use it year after year after year after......

Da Mare: bring it on

A permit request for the rally says more than 70,000 people will cram into the south end of Grant Park on Election Night.

Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday stoked the celebratory vibe, welcoming people downtown even if they don't have tickets and will have to gather outside the secure area.

Daley has estimated that the throng could reach 1 million. But he said Thursday he had no intention of discouraging attendance.

"You think I'm nuts? You think I'm not going to invite people down? This is a celebration," Daley said. "No way I'm going to tell people they should not come down and celebrate."

I have long been concerned about the First Amendment rights of public officials to say asinine things without being criticized by journalists

Thank goodness I'm not the only one.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."
-- Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and 45th President of the United States

Lost in translation

English version - what it sez

Welsh version - "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".

Or maybe the title of this one should be "Auto-Replies gone wild". Or WTP speaks Welsh?

Also, functionally brain-dead...

One in seven voters still persuadable, poll finds

~

Ted Stevens's cranium: where brainzzz go to die

ETHICS -- TED STEVENS: 'I HAVE NOT BEEN CONVICTED OF ANYTHING': Last night, during a debate with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D), Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was asked what he would say to those requesting he step down "after your conviction Monday on seven felony counts." Stevens replied, "I have not been convicted of anything." In fact, a jury did indeed convict Stevens "on all seven counts of making false statements on his financial disclosure form regarding $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts he received from an oil contractor..."

not ready to lead

It would be positively surreal to have people in power who seemed to have a glimmer of an idea about what the phokk they were doing...

Obama prepares for quick transition

The best-kept secret in Washington is that Barack Obama has the largest and most disciplined presidential transition team anyone can recall. Headed by John Podesta, former chief of staff in Bill Clinton's White House, it started work well before the financial meltdown hit in September but has been swamped by its implications ever since.
. . .

"The level of detail that the Obama transition team is getting into is extraordinary - they are leaving no stone unturned," said a senior former Clinton administration official who has been consulted. "I have been getting calls that you'd expect in previous transitions to get maybe in December or never at all."

McFinished

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

It took eight long years to push the Nation to the brink of annihilation...

Now they have just three months to finish the job.

White House Makes Final Push To Deregulate

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Meanwhile, White House staffers are working behind the scenes to arrange an enormous dump on the Oval Office carpet which would be taken by a number of administration officials in the waning hours of the president's term. The officials would then slide through it, according to sources who declined to be named while plans are still being arranged.

what part of "general time horizon" don't they understand?

Well, for starters, they don't seem to understand that referring to it as a "horizon" stipulates that we're talking about something which recedes as you approach it.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq wants to eliminate any chance U.S. forces will stay here after 2011 under a proposed security pact and to expand Iraqi legal jurisdiction over U.S. troops until then, a close ally of the prime minister said Thursday.

Did you catch that? "Horizon," my friends...

1-in-10,000,000?

Nate Silver: "[W]hat kind of odds could you have gotten in 1908 that a black dude would get elected president before the Cubs won the Series again?"

The Whatever-I-Said, I-Sure-As-Hell-Didn't-Mean-It Express rolls on

The Straight Talk Train Wreck

But watching John McCain's poll numbers stay strangely resilient despite the virtual disintegration of his campaign, I feel compelled to share a cautionary tale of my own firsthand experience with the Straight-Talk Express. That hell-bent freight train rolled over me a couple years ago and I haven't felt the same since.
. . .

"If you don't mind my asking," I said, "are you suggesting there are things Senator McCain will say to a British audience that he isn't comfortable saying to the American people?"Needless to say, this didn't help matters. But I wasn't trying to be snide. My question was just the logical extension of what Salter had intimated. But it clearly touched a nerve. He became enraged and, after hanging up, sought to make good on his threat to tarnish my name and career.

Those Wacky Japanese (cont)

Cat puts Japan rail firm on track

I think this is where Sarge wants to end up...

Smiff?

Nominate your favorite Intelligent Optimist!
~

life imitating the Simpsons imitating life (cont'd)

As inspired by Smiff's previous post...





UPDATE: D'ohhhh! The copyright cops must have gotten to the Simpsons video. Well here's the story to it...

UPDATE 2: Yesterday's QT today: "QT Early Warning System: One in three American voters will cast votes next week on machines that leave no paper trail for a recount."
~

How to Suck at Democracy (cont'd)

Long waits continue to mar early voting; Video captures machine flipping votes in W.Virginia; Florida no-match list grows to 12,165 voters; Investigation finds thousands wrongly denied right to register in Houston; Bogus flier in VA tells Democrats wrong date for elections...
~

just in time to save the holiday consuming season

News item: 2009 Sarah Palin calendar goes on sale

Phrom Pheel Good Stories To Slime

October 29, 2008 11:49 AM
Dole Ad Fabricates Audio of Opponent Yelling "There is no God!"

(Perhaps this was after the Cubs fucked the dog playing the Dodgers?)

Falling behind in her reelection race, Sen. Elizabeth Dole has uncorked one hell of a charge: The Democrat running against me is godless.

Dole's 30-second ad, which is running on television in North Carolina but has not (understandably) been promoted by the GOP, uses a September fundraiser co-hosted by 40 people, including a representative of the Godless America PAC, to falsely accuse Democrat Kay Hagan of being an atheist herself.

The end of the ad features a picture of Hagan with a female voice yelling "there is no God!" -- the clear implication is that the voice is Hagan's. In fact, the Democratic candidate is a Sunday School teacher and an elder at her Presbyterian church.

The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday morning that Hagan's campaign is seeking a "cease and desist" order against Dole's new attack.

"A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor," the ad begins, showing some ominously blurred footage, ostensibly of the event in question. The ad then quotes the group's Ellen Johnson making atheist claims on two cable news shows. Summing up, the spot asks: "Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras, took Godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"

Two weeks ago, when the National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a similar attack, the Fayettville Observer described it as "the nastiest, most misleading, negative ad of the campaign."

H@LY PHOKK!NG S#IT

i think there is an implication here that this is a bad thing?

Golfer Daly arrested at Hooters after drinking binge: report

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Ticker)—Former PGA golfer John Daly recently spent a night in jail after Winston-Salem police found him drunk outside a city restaurant, the Winston-Salem Journal reported Wednesday. Lt. Tyrone Phelps told the newspaper that Daly was held at the Forsyth County Jail early Sunday morning to sober up. According to the Winston-Salem Journal, paramedics went to a Hooters restaurant at 1 a.m. after receiving a report that Daly had passed out. When police arrived, they found Daly intoxicated and unwilling to go to a hospital. He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. “He didn’t want to talk to the (police officers),” Phelps told the newspaper.

The newspaper reported that Daly was traveling on a tour bus and told police that the people on the bus did not want him back on it after the Hooters closed. According to North Carolina state law, police can in some cases jail a person overnight to sober up.
Daly was later released on an unsecured bond. A winner of two majors, Daly, 42, has not had a PGA Tour card for the past two years. In March, Butch Harmon quit as his swing coach. At the time, Harmon said of Daly that “the most important thing in his life is getting drunk.”

~

News Round-Up

Skinheads chickened out at sight of dogs

Add brain-dead KKK skinhead phokks to the list of things that ain't what they used to be...

Obama confuses "Sanford and Son" with "The Jeffersons"

Could this be the gaffe which changes the election?

Paul Simon Planted Seeds of Obama Surge

Garfunkel short-changed once again.

Why are lovers more unfaithful now than before?

Gay marriage?

World: Syria demands apology, compensation for raid

Good luck wid dat.

McDonald's nearly set to swap double burger

But it will still taste like shit.

Make your food scary for Halloween

Broccoli?

~

this seems like a little much

John the Fulla$#i++er

the undecided voter: a philosophical inquiry

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

finally, a solution

Second Planet Needed to Meet Natural-Resources Demand

So, where do we get one of these?

They can have that 16-year-old's glass of wine when they pry it from his cold dead fingers

"We are not terrorists. Wine is not a dangerous product. Wine is a noble thing."

Plot remarkably like their brainz...

Skinhead plot to assassinate Obama wasn't fully formed: authorities (AP)

BELLS, Tenn. – Two white supremacists charged with plotting to behead blacks across the country and assassinate Barack Obama while wearing white top hats and tuxes were likely too disorganized to carry out the plot, authorities said, and their planning was riddled with blunders.

Paul Schlesselman, 18, of Helena-West Helena, Ark., and Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells are accused of dreaming up the plan. While authorities say they had guns capable of creating carnage, documents show they never got close to getting off the ground.

Among the blunders: They drew attention to themselves by etching swastikas on a car with sidewalk chalk, only knew each other for a month, couldn't even pull off a house robbery, a friend ratted them out to authorities, and their brains have been deprived of oxygen since birth...

~

Palin: wid da commies

And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. … It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans.

from the LoC archives: a short recent history of redistribution of wealth

March 12: According to the latest available statistics from the Internal Revenue Service, the top 1 percent of Americans earned significantly more income in 2005 than the bottom 50 percent. In addition, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently reported that the wealthiest 1 percent saw total income rise by $180,000 in 2005. That is more than the average middle-class family makes in three years. The CBO also found that the total share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit the highest level on record, while the middle class and working families received the smallest share of after-tax income on record.

May 5: The gap between rich and poor in the United States has widened exponentially over the past three decades. The Congressional Budget Office reports that since 1979, the average income for the bottom half of American households has grown by 6 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners have seen their incomes shoot up by a 229 percent during that same period. Under the Bush administration, the average income of most Americans has fallen, but the average income of top wage earners (those above the 95 percentile range) has increased from $324,427 in 2001 to $385,805 in 2006. Only one other year has seen a comparable income gap: 1928, the year before the Great Depression.

October 21: Yet seven years into this economic cycle, most middle-class American households (aka, the WHINERS... Ed.) have less inflation-adjusted income than they had when it started...

The exception in compensation gains was for the top 1 percent of earners, who have considerably widened the pay gap between themselves and other workers. (YAY! Ed.)

So it's not the concept of redistributing wealth that Republicans have a problem with. They're just concerned that it keeps getting redistributed in the right direction.

people who can draw are untrustworthy

Are there bigger America-haters out there anywhere than a smarty-pants America-hating cartoonist?

I heard George Halas sent him a box of chocolates

Sports reporter's Singletary goof mortifies Fox
In addition to the postgame fire and brimstone that has made him a YouTube legend already, new 49ers coach Mike Singletary was part of another moment Sunday that's a video sensation. During a pregame interview, Fox Sports sideline reporter Danyelle Sargent asked him: "I heard your mentor Bill Walsh was one of the first phone calls that you made when you found out that you had the job. What does it mean to you to coach the 49ers?" Singletary was understandably tongue-tied, since Walsh died in July 2007. Fox producers were understandably mortified and didn't air that portion of the interview. But the clip was part of the "open feed" that news organizations access. Sargent has earned Internet infamy before; in 2006, she cursed on the air, thinking her microphone was off.


~

heckuva job MLB

Games that start in the middle of the night. Games that never end. Baseball-hating "umpires" umpiring baseball. A commissioner who changes the rules in the middle of the series, unbeknownst to the players. Inviting the Tampa Bay Jesus Rays to participate. And at the end of it all, a chance that the Philadelphia Phillies might win a championship.

SHOCKING that Camp McCranky would go into FULLAS#I+ mode in the last week of the campaign...

"In a previously uncovered interview from September 6, 2001, Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn't been more 'radical' and described as a 'tragedy' the Court's refusal to take up 'the issues of redistribution of wealth.' No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench."
--McCain economics adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin

In other words, Obama says pretty much the opposite of what the McCain camp says he said. Contrary to the spin put on his remarks by McCain economics adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, he does not express "regret" that the Supreme Court has not been more "radical." Nor does he describe the Court's refusal to take up economic redistribution questions as a "tragedy." He uses the word "tragedy" to refer not to the Supreme Court, but to the civil rights movement...

Earthball Forever

My favorite thing to read on-line is Earthball, also known as cageball, an inflatable ball who lives near Baltimore and is often exposed to the ideas of Sean Hannity.

He is awesome.

I recommend starting with the oldest columns first.

You can find him here.

Question is: Will this hurt his re-election chances?

Sen. Stevens found guilty of scheming to hide gifts
A jury has found U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska guilty on all seven counts of making false statements on Senate disclosure forms. Stevens, 84, is the longest-serving Republican senator in history. He requested a speedy trial in hopes of clearing his name before Election Day. He is locked in a tight race with Democrat Mark Begich as he seeks to retain the Senate seat he has held since 1968. developing story
Explainer: The seven counts against Stevens
Guilty verdict unanimous on all counts
~

Things that suck (cont)

Man's arm trapped in train toilet

A passenger on a French train had to be rescued by firemen after having his arm sucked down the on-board toilet.

The 26-year-old victim was trapped when he tried to fish out his mobile phone, which had fallen into the toilet bowl, and fell foul of the suction system.

The high-speed TGV train had to stop for two hours while firemen cut through the train's pipework.

The man was carried away by emergency services, with the toilet still attached to his arm.

"He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off," said Benoit Gigou, a witness to the man's plight.

The incident happened on Sunday evening, aboard a train travelling in western France between La Rochelle and Paris.

Well yeah, however Obama's tax plan is still COMMUNISM

Email of the Day: Reaganomics is a totally failed policy
By John Amato Monday Oct 27, 2008 12:01pm

From the C&L inbox, Rick writes:
I loved your recap of the McCain interview with Brokaw. Just wanted to point out that not only did Reagan raise taxes during a recession, but Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993 a year after his election. We were mired in the worst recession since the depression at the time. Not one GOP Congressman or Senator voted for Clinton’s tax raise at the time and they all claimed it would ruin the economy, the same as now. Well, as you know, Bill raised taxes and we saw the greatest growth in our history along with record surpluses that will probably never be equaled. Under Reagan we saw the beginning of the deregulation era that brought us the savings and loan crisis, the Enron debacle and this current banking crisis that we find ourselves in today. When Reagan took office in 1980 our total debt was under 1 trillion dollars. Today it is 11 trillion and we had surpluses under Clinton. So under Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 we increased our national debt from 1 trillion to 11 trillion.

It’s time that everybody realized that Milton Friedman and Reaganomics is a totally failed policy and until we do realize it, we are doomed to keep repeating it. It’s remarkable that more so called experts have not addressed the failed “deregulation” policies of the GOP as the main contributor to this collapse of our banking system.
~

BRAINZZZ

Brains Work Best At Age of 39

Scientists at the University of California Los Angeles (idiots up the road--ed.) are reporting that while some people may think "life begins at 40," all it seems to do is slow down. According to recent research, at age 39 our brain reaches its peak speed, and it's all down hill after that. "The loss of a fatty skin that coats the nerve cells, called neurons, during middle age causes the slowdown, experts say. The coating acts as insulation, similar to the plastic covering on an electrical cable, and allows for fast bursts of signals around the body and brain. When the sheath deteriorates, signals passing along the neurons in the brain slow down. This means reaction times in the body are slower too."

Good news for most of us, except, of course, the already old brainz-impaired K-Mad & Smiff (and we drink...a lot).
~

Senator Trey-J?

Jackson Eyes Obama's Senate Seat

Illinois political insiders say Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), "who defended Barack Obama after his father famously threatened to castrate him, is the favorite to replace the Democratic nominee in the Senate," according to The Hill.

bud-for-brainzzz

World Series game 3 ends at 2:00am because MLB doesn't think it can out-draw the TV audience for Indiana-Northwestern...

Hey kids - go phokk yourselves!

McCain's ACORN 'theory' planted on rocky soil

Freedom Democrats blog:

I want to point out that the ACORN conspiracy theory (or scapegoating, perhaps) is even broader than these baseless accusations of voter fraud. McCain is even trying to blame ACORN for the fact that Wall-Street bankers failed to manage their risk properly (see the TV commercial)--as if this relatively tiny organization could pressure the banking industry into destroying its own foundations at a time that it was raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in profits each year (FWIW, Greenspan places much/most of the blame on investor demand for mortgage backed securities).

Hate on Drudge all you want, but...

I don't see anyone in the major media online or on TV playing up this yet...

English-Atlantan remix

(1:08 AM) briggs: i am rocking the Outkast right now
(1:08 AM) briggs: one of those hip-hop artists white people like
(1:10 AM) fungster: watching monty python
(1:11 AM) fungster: quest for the holy grail
(1:13 AM) briggs: we just don't match the stereotypez
(1:14 AM) fungster: it shud totally b da oppozit
(1:30 AM) briggs: np: hey ya!
(1:31 AM) fungster: I have 20 pending issues in my nation
(1:31 AM) briggs: you have all kinds of ways to kill a saturdya
(1:32 AM) fungster: what should I do about a mass murderer we can't catch?