soapbox

A london man was fined 225 quid and (more importantly) given a criminal record for having a rubbish bin (big wheeled trash can) full enough that the lid wouldn’t quite shut.  Keeping in mind that things are only collected every two weeks, and… meh, can’t be bothered to make a good post.  Read the whole nonsense yourself.

Last week Whitehaven magistrates convicted him in his absence of “over-filling the receptacle used to dispose of waste” - a criminal offence.

Yeesh.

I find it really interesting when infighting in a religious group causes huge issues. Like the protestants versus the Catholics in Ireland. Really, the major tenets of your religion are the same, it’s just minor details.

Now, there’s a fight brewing between al-Qaida and Iran. Apparently, al-Qaida is mostly Sunni while Iran is Shiite. The Iranians, being the crazies that they are, have lately been trying to shift blame for 9/11 onto the Israelis. Of course, the whole thing must have been pulled off by Israel to make Arabs look bad. Plus, it really plays into the way Iran wants to view the world and how it wants to be THE powerbroker in the mideast.

Needless to say, al-Qaida is pretty proud of 9/11 so they’re having to wage a PR war of “Hey, we’re the ones who did 9/11! Don’t listen to Iran!” It’s really an odd situation.

I wonder what’s next… a terrorist attack on Iran? Hmm, they might blame that on the Americans.

The cherry trees are in bloom in Washington DC right now. Kirsten and I have never seen the spectacle that is 3000 Japanese cherries in bloom, so this Saturday we drove down to check it all out.

Here’s the takeaway: if you read in the news that 1,000,000 million people are going to be somewhere to do a thing, you don’t want to be doing that thing as well. There wasn’t enough room to turn around, much less get a good picture of the blossoms. Throw in the normal DC problems of lousy parking and confusing streets and you have a recipe for disaster.

It would have been really cool if there were no people though. The trees were very impressive, although they’re also looking pretty old. I’m not sure what the life span of a flowering cherry tree is, but some of the trees are starting to look pretty old and a little bit diseased.

I found the news that Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata interesting. An Indian company is buying the two main car companies of England. I’ll be Gandhi didn’t see that one coming.

We’ll ignore the fact that buying the two companies in the first place has turned out to be a $3.5 billion mistake. I wonder if they’re going to sell off Volvo too. Maybe Volvo is making them money though?

Not to sound like some grumpy old man, but RFID just scares me.   It just seems so vulnerable to hacking while simultaneously too convenient for Big Brother-style monitoring; not a combo I like.  (Then again, I guess it’s better for it to be easily hackable in that case, beats the alternative.)  And plus, you can get the animal rates for pay-access public beaches!

[RFID implant]

Anyway, it’s probably silly, but there’s no way I’m getting a speedpass anytime soon.

Sort of like a multi-pass, but with less Milla Jovovich.

Anyways, so I’m half-heartedly watching the Orange Bowl (and really wishing the VT Hokies would hurry up and put a stop to Kansas - I dunno, maybe stop throwing interceptions?), when the half-time show comes on, featuring ZZ Top. As I watched them jam on “Sharp Dressed Man”, it occurred to me that those guys could be 90 years old, and they’d still be the coolest dudes in whatever room (or stadium) they found themselves in.

Also, in other fútbol americano news, I knew that Hawaii was going to lose it to the Dawgs of UGA (there’s no question that the SEC and WAC are different levels of play), but I thought the Warriors would put a few more points on the board. Would have been nice for them to have a real game to end their undefeated season. Still, Go Dawgs!

Also, I *really* hope that LSU sticks it to Ohio State. Y’all know I’ll be rootin’ for the SEC team, irregardless (that word was especially for you, Chris). Geaux Tigers!

UPDATE: Stupid Kansas. Also, Mike Huckabee wins the GOP caucas in Iowa? Do what now? Seriously, Iowa, what gives? Something is really strange out there on the plains…

With the results of Sen. George Mitchell’s investigation into steroids-in-baseball set to be made public in a little less than an hour (2 pm Eastern), what better to do than speculate without factual basis?  (On that subject, check out this great column from ESPN’s ombudsman, Leanne Schreiber.)

First of all, I have to confess that I’m pretty curious, in a train-wreck/Lindsay Lohan/Brittany Spears/Rich Ankiel sort of way.  Who is guilty?  Who is the biggest surprise?  Who, in hindsight, makes sense?

And that’s where I start to get irritated, because if that was the end of the story, if the Mitchell report consisted of a set of tablets from Heaven, with a full and complete list of every player who absolutely used steroids (and if you weren’t named on the list, you were completely innocent), then great.

However, I’m afraid that this is going to more like a Michael Moore film: mostly correct on the big stuff, and on the right track, but the opposition will focus on process errors and “producer bias” such that the credibility of the entire message is seriously damaged.  For example, it’s bad to say, but there really needs to be a decent-caliber Red Sox player on the list or else everyone will accuse Mitchell of favortism (he’s in the ownership group of the Sox).  More seriously, some interviewees are saying that they felt pressured to  ”guess” about a player’s steroid use - who knows if that’s a legit concern or if they’re just covering their butt after squealing on a teammate/client.

In the end, I blame Bud Selig.  Maybe that’s too easy to do, and he’s a popular whipping boy, but the fact is that had MLB actually wanted to find out what happened, they would have supported the Mitchell investigation and given Mitchell the support he needed to actually get people to testify.  Instead they help him at arm’s length.  The result is perhaps what MLB brass wanted; confusion and uncertainty instead of clear demonstration of guilt.  This is, of course, not good for baseball, but that hasn’t stopped them in the past, so why start now?