Andrew Ross Sorkin, the author of Too Big To Fail writes in his latest column that Goldman Sachs may not have been “massively short" on the subprime mortgage market because it basically depends on:
how you define ‘massive’ and ‘large’
"to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
It would be interesting to follow Tebow's career with the Broncos potentially parallel with Cam Newton's career with the Bengals. The pocket passing era of Manning-Brady is nearing an end.
Cincinnati Bengals
Should the Bengals take Carson Palmer's trade-me-or-I-retire threats seriously and draft a quarterback in the top two rounds? Palmer doesn't strike me as a guy who's playing unnecessary head games with the Bengals, and I think there's a decent chance he means it when he says he's done playing for Cincinnati. Bengals owner Mike Brown says he has no intention of dealing Palmer, but Brown had better at least have a backup plan in place, and by that we don't mean Jordan Palmer. (Come to think of it, Carson Palmer can pretty much end the Bengals quarterbacking career of both Palmer brothers in one fell swoop). Palmer has put his house up for sale in Cincinnati, and that should at least get the Bengals management studying the tape of all the draft eligible college quarterbacks. Sure, Cincinnati has plenty of other needs to address, but given that it's sitting at No. 4 in the first round, it may be the logical year to land a franchise quarterback and then trade Palmer for the best deal to be had. Missouri's Blaine Gabbert and Auburn's Cam Newton would likely be the two QBs the Bengals would consider, and if nothing else, landing Newton would give Cincy some star power and perhaps help turn the page on the franchise's Palmer era.Denver Broncos
Though both John Elway and John Fox are being evasive on the topic, does second-year quarterback Tim Tebow have to win the starting job from Kyle Orton this offseason? Think of it this way: Tebow just has to avoid losing it. The Broncos new brain trust can't come out in February and say Tebow is their opening-day starter in 2011, for all the obvious reasons. First, there goes any real leverage you might have in Orton trade talks if you signal that he's definitely not in your plans this season. Secondly, it does Tebow no good to be elevated without having to work for it and earn it. Though a lack of motivation is hardly his character flaw, why not make Tebow prove himself and improve his game over the course of the entire offseason? After all, he showed flashes of potential in his three-game late-season starting stint, but he hardly removed all doubt regarding the worthiness of his first-round draft status. Fox and Elway have time to fully evaluate Tebow's progress, and they'd be wise to take it. The reality is, he was picked in the first round and that means he's going to get his starting shot in Denver at some point. And it's likely going to be this year. The Broncos know where Orton can take them, and they have loftier aspirations than that. But Tebow's time has not yet fully arrived.
Established a new routine with puppy. Began crate training in earnest post neuterization operation.
Prior to trip to Acapulco, we already knew he could withstand at least six hours in the crate overnight. During Acapulco trip when he didn't eliminate for three full days, we got a better understanding of his ability to hold it.
So far, he's more annoyed by the lampshade than anything. He appears to have fully recovered from being "fixed".
“When you get shot in the head and a bullet goes through your brain, the chances of you living are very small and the chances of you waking up and actually following commands is even much smaller than that.”Doctor describing Gabrielle Giffords' status after assassination attempt.
We took the iPad out around town during the Chicago Marathon trying to locate exactly where the runners were we were tracking.
I saw the "Free Public WiFi" connections in a couple of spots and they didn't work.
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
2. Play for and make the breaks, and when one comes your way SCORE.
3. If at first the game - or breaks - go against you, don't let up ... put on more steam.
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ball game.
5. Ball, oskie, cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle ... for this is the WINNING EDGE.
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
7. Carry the fight to our opponent and keep it there for 60 minutes.
I work with technology folks based outside Boston and they are a funny team.
A guy in Florida emailed a project team asking us to review a document for File X.
One of the guys in Boston responded saying:
2 things-
1. we're implementing File Y
2. try attaching the document
I ping the Boston guy saying I liked his snarky comment and he responded that Florida dude needed to hear the pop once in a while.
That being the sound you hear when you pull your head out of your ass.
"Man, we need some stuff, let's steal it. Okay, where should we steal from. I dunno. Aight, how about the that crappy gas station right next to campus, you down? I'm in, let's roll. Dude you're still wearing UT gear, apparel they ONLY give athletes. Do you think you should change before we go? Nah man, wearing this shit just makes me run faster."
"They'll put their political survival and their political power being gained over anything else. They'll use anybody and throw anybody away in order to achieve it."- Rush Limbaugh, validating Freud
"Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important."
- Eugene McCarthy
"Despite our verbal proclamations to the contrary, Americans (Christian or otherwise) have such a negative visceral association with the concept of socialism that we-thus far-have been unable to have an authentic, productive conversation about whether greed or compassion is the more moral (and productive) incentive for human beings engaged in the social experiment of the democratic nation-state."
Cash for Clunkers is (was) a success.
CNN.com reports that:
"The most popular car being purchased under the program, according to the White House? The Ford Focus, which boasts up to 35 mpg."While our clunker-upgraded ride doesn't get quite that high combined MPG, I'm glad that people are choosing to take fuel efficiency more seriously, despite the guy in the article who got a "crew-cab Silverado, four-door" under the program.
Apparently Islamist regimes and Republicans have gathered around a common enemy: Barack Obama.
The AP reports that:
"Republican senators criticized President Barack Obama on Sunday for not taking a tougher public stand"and Al Jazeera reports that Ahmadinejad:
"has told the US [...] to stop interfering in the country's internal affairs"So, believing both the Iranian regime and the GOP, the Obama administration is oxymoronically "timidly" and "passively" interfering in the domestic affairs of Iran.
Melanie Phillips goes ballistic on American Jews and their support of Obama saying he is preparing "to throw Israel under the bus."
Almost eighty per cent of American Jews voted for Obama despite the clear and present danger he posed to Israel. They did so because their liberal self-image was and is more important to them than the Jewish state whose existence and security cannot be allowed to jeopardise their standing with America’s elite.I wonder what evidence Phillips has to explain how American Jews are not a great part of America's elite.
I have existential debates with myself about random stuff all the time. We caught a History Channel program about the Marianas Trench last weekend and I read an article by Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg. Steinberg wrote about how one way to check whether one is a a zealot or rational person is to try and argue the strongest case for an opposing viewpoint. If one can't argue convincingly for the other side, one may be an extremist.
So, avoiding the finer points of tectonic plates, subduction and the Pacific Rim of Fire, one scientist on the History Channel program held up a rock from the bottom and said something like, "This material is 173 million years old, it's one of the oldest rocks on the planet." Now, I'm watching and going, if someone is a Creationist, they don't believe that rock is more than something like 6,000 years old.
In order to not believe scientists or rational people on the matter of evolution, people must basically refute a whole lot of theories. Basically, everything from gravity to the second law of thermodynamics to evolution is a theory...it is the mainstream belief until a better theory comes along, whenever that is (if you got a better theory for gravity, I wanna invest in your company).
So, evolutionary theory is validated by carbon dating, which is rooted in the theory that atoms have a nucleus with various energy levels full of electrons and the different number of electrons, their degradation and release of energy is what radioactivity is all about. At that point, I began thinking that if a Creationist doesn't believe in evolution, then they also cannot believe in the nuclear bomb, because both are essentially rooted in the same theory of radioisotopes. How can a Creationist argue for their agenda in a school powered by a nuclear power plant? Something's gotta give.
This ended my internal debate trying to argue for Creationism. While I am not an atheist, I am apparently a scientific zealot.
I am a big fan of the Bible, Christian and other religious teachings.
I am not a big fan of religious dogma of any sort, be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, partly because I believe that religions are man-made institutions. I do fully reserve the right to believe in a God.
NYT columnist Bob Herbert lets off a rant about gun violence in an op-ed and concludes:
We don't really think about it. If the crime is horrible enough, we'll go through the motions of public anguish but we never really do anything about it. Americans are as blasé as can be about this relentless slaughter that keeps the culture soaked in blood.The education and reflection needs to be on the benefits and power of having a firearm. The statistics may seem skewed to irrational uses of guns because sometimes the edges of rational society are the people taking advantage of the Second Amendment.
For the etymologically challenged, a refresher:
mortgage, equiv. to mort (dead) + gage (pledge).
