Monday, September 13, 2004

Football

So the first week of the NFL and the second week of college football come to a conclusion tonight. I had quite an enjoyable time watching it and trying to stave off the impending nervousness (all while trying to keep Mrs. X calm). Not much grabbed me in the NFL yet except that I really like Carson Palmer so far but I'm very tenative about the defense which is very young. I think my prediction of a 7-9 or 8-8 season is very plausible. I must also note that Mrs. X beat me in our head to head pick of 5 games. Lesson: Never pick the Bengals in an opening day game and never pick Indianapolis against New England.

In college, Notre Dame beat Michigan so there was all kinds of happiness for us. I have a soft spot for Notre Dame and living in Ohio requires me to hate Michigan (the fact that Mrs. X has a personal vendetta against them helps). But I must say that I think that the new young quarterback for Ohio St. seems to be either in league or related to Danny Graves. He did his absolute best to lose that game against Marshall. I realize that he's young, but come on. You can't throw the deep ball over the middle like that for two interceptions in a row. I also think that Mike Nugent may be crowned as something near the level of god by the time this season is over. If they beat Michigan on a game winning field goal, he will have a shrine erected to him in front of the horseshoe.

Lots of upsets this weekend and that was enjoyable to watch, but some of the old stalwarts came through after shaky openings. I still haven't seen anything to make me go against USC as my number one pick yet but I can see a couple of teams that might change my mind. I will also say that unless they have a bad collapse against some other team, I think Purdue is the heavy favorite to win the Big 10 this year. Purdue plays most of the weak teams in the Big 10 and gets the luxury of playing the wounded Ohio St and Michigan teams at home this year. At Notre Dame seems to be the only chance for a derailment. We'll have to see what strength of schedule does for their chances of playing in the Orange Bowl come January.

Friday, September 10, 2004

The Devil Made Him Do It - We Have Documents

In the media's misguided quest to flood us with things we don't care about, CBS has produced documents supposedly showing Mr. Bush getting all huffy and then the Guard being forced to swallow it in 1972. Except that now its appearing that said documents may be forgeries. From what I can tell, the story started whispering around on various blogs yesterday and got picked up by the mainstream media today. The only reason this story catches my interest is the seeming idiocy of the forgers and both parties desire to make us care about what happened 30 years ago.

I'm sure I won't get all the main points but the reasons listed that the memos may be fakes are as follows:

1) Typespacing on the memos is not consistent with a standard typewriter of the time. Only high end typewriters and word processors had this capability and were not in wide use, especially by the National Guard
2) Number endings "th" are shown in superscript. Very common now but almost impossible to do back then.
3) The memos are written on 8 x 11 standard sheet with no letterhead. Memos of the time were written on 8 x 10.5 and usually with some sort of letterhead.
4) The reprimand and comment were written as memos when standard procedure of the time would be to write a formal letter and then place said letter in the personnel file.
5) There is a noticeable squaring off on the end points of the signature of the commander which is inconsistent with how handwriting typically flows. The appearance is more of something that was cut out or pixelated on to the document.

There are probably more but that's what I can remember off the top of my head.

The biggest amount of egg on their face obviously goes to CBS. Dan Rather is said to "shocked and dismayed" that the documents may be fake and has promised to personally retract the story and apologize if the documents do turn out to be forgeries. Some might ask that if the documents are such bad fakes, how was CBS taken in so easily. My guess is simply that when you want something to be true, you overlook little things. Mr. Bush's records for the first part of 1972 are known to be rather scant and there has been much suggestion from Democrats that he was AWOL and it was covered up. Mr. Bush denies this but has not produced documentation that would effectively counteract this. So you have a hole and the first news team to fill that hole gets to make a big splash. Unfortunately it seems the pool may not have been completely filled with water in this case.

The bigger problem I have is with both parties and the media's desire to make things all about what happened in Vietnam. Mr. Bush's records were first argued over back at the beginning of 2004 and more recently Mr. Kerry has been under attack due to the swift boat veterans allegations. Neither story has any real effect on me in deciding who I am going to vote for and the idea that a person's actions in a job can be fully defined by what they did 30 years ago seems a bit of a joke to me. Now, Mr. Kerry has left himself a little more open when he made his swift boat service a centerpiece of his campaign, but as I've argued in the past, I don't see how that's relevant. I'm much more interested in what Mr. Kerry did as a legislator and the specifics of all these things he says that he wants to do or that Mr. Bush is doing wrong. But I'm not sure Mr. Kerry is going to completely go that route, although I may be surprised during the debates.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

So, What Time Does the Show Start?

Two days from now will mark the final week of bachelorhood for me. Some might view this as a monumental occasion. For me, its more of a big show (the SHOW?) confirming something that already exists. Mrs. X and I have the little piece of paper and just need the pastor to sign it. We have her all moved in to my apartment and are planning to start looking at houses when we get back from the honeymoon. We even fully combined bank accounts last weekend and then ordered new checks together. In all practical terms, we are already married. We just need the state to officially recognize the fact.

But as far as the party goes, I feel good about it. My biggest worries are saying the right name at the alter (very big concern since there's only one letter difference between her name and mine), getting nervous at the last minute and throwing up before or during the ceremony (I did that during a scholastic bowl competition once), and tripping over my own feet while dancing. Mrs. X and I have been practicing dancing but it gets very different when she actually puts on that big dress. Not as easy to move her around. And of course, if I display weakness, she starts leading and we can't both lead ;)

The honeymoon is what we're more looking forward to than anything else. I haven't had a real vacation that did not involve family since I first moved out here back around Thanksgiving of 2002. I've had a day or so here and some holidays where we traveled to see various relatives, but never a time of just Mrs. X and I away from the city for a time. I think we are both looking very much forward to it. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. Hurricane Ivan may push through Florida by Sunday or Monday and then who knows where it'll track. It should be over by the time we set out on the 19th, but I'd like our time in the Southeast to be spent relatively dry. Knock on wood, we haven't heard anything about new storms forming off the Carolina coast.
Once we're back we can settle in and tell lots of stories about it. But you needn't fear. I'll keep posting for all you die-hards who read my blog up until we take off next week ;)

Friday, September 03, 2004

This Land Fix

I've been having trouble watching it lately so for all those of you who haven't seen it, here are the words to everyone's favorite election year parody:

Bush: This land is your land
This land is my land
I’m a Texas tiger
You’re a liberal wiener
I’m a great crusader
You’re a Herman Munster
This land will surely vote for me

Kerry: This land is your land
This land is my land
I’m an intellectual
You’re a stupid dumb ass
I’m a purple-heart winner
And yes its true I won it thrice
This land will surely vote for me

Bush: You have more waffles
Than a house of pancakes
You offer flip-flops
I offer tax breaks
You’re a UN pussy
And yes its true that I kick ass
This land will surely vote for me

Kerry: You can’t say nuclear
That really scares me
Sometimes a brain can
Come in quite handy
But its not going to matter
Because I’ve won three purple hearts
This land will surely vote for me (Dean scream)

Bush: You’re a liberal sissy
Kerry: You’re a right wing nut job
Bush: You’re a pinko commie
Kerry: You’re dumb as a doorknob
Bush: Hey, you’ve got that botox
Kerry: But I’ve still got three purple-hearts
Both: This land will surely vote for me

Indian: This land was my land
Chorus: But now it’s our land
Arnold: From California
Clinton: To the New York Islands (*slap* What’d I do?)
Kerry: From the liberal wieners
Bush: To the right wing nut jobs
Kerry: This land was made
Bush: This land was made
Both: This land was made for you and me
Bush: (Oh and Dick Cheney too)

Political Expectations

So the Republicans now have had their say in a mostly pointless pep rally. I say mostly pointless because at least we got to hear some entertaining hate mongering speeches. At the Democratic convention people didn't want to criticize too much. That made for some very boring speeches. Here we got some red meat and maybe even too much from person's such as Mr. Miller. But we must forgive him a little bit because he wanted to kick Chris Matthew's ass. Anyone willing to do that is okay in my book.

Now we go forward into the final 60 days of campaigning. Things will probably stay tied until the debates. I imagine Mr. Bush will get a small rise in the polls, but Mr. Kerry is now pushing out some new commercials so that might temper that along with any change in oil prices.

The only thing I will say after seeing Bush's speech is that I think that Mr. Kerry needs to get off the Vietnam kick and lay out his plans better. Bush may be a bit simplistic (and naive if he thinks he can implement half of what he promised) but he has laid out a somewhat clear idea of what he wants. I still haven't gotten a direct layout from Mr. Kerry. His great rebuttal to Mr. Bush's accusations last night was that Mr. Cheney deferred Vietnam service 5 times and that Bush was irresponsible in Iraq. Great, but what does that tell me about you?

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that unless Mr. Kerry fully defines his positions as to what he would actually do as president in the debates, he will lose. Something that the polls and pundants don't seem to mention is that Mr. Kerry probably needs to overachieve in some states because many of those state voters are over in Afghanistan and Iraq now. In a war, soldiers will often vote for their C-in-C unless they think things are going badly. I have seen no evidence of that so I think Mr. Bush will do well with soldiers. If Mr. Kerry is running neck and neck or just slightly ahead or behind Mr. Bush in a state like Florida, he may lose if the soldier returns come back 75% or better for Mr. Bush, which is not out of the realm of possibility. Polling doesn't necessarily account for that soldier vote and that could lead to false expectations on both sides.

I don't remember when the first debate is scheduled but it could be very telling as to how the flavor of the last month could go.