Just...uh...Stuff

Last night’s NHL All-Star game ended the way I wanted it to: with the West on top, and by a considerable margin, at that. The final score was West 12, East 9. It was the first All-Star game since 2004, what with the lock-out in 2005 and the NHL taking a hiatus during last year’s Olympics. It’s good to have the game back, as the All-Star game showcases the best players making the best moves in the game, be they passing, shooting, or goal tending. That, and the fact it’s obvious the guys are really, truly having a great time.

Highlight of the evening: Marty Turco, the West’s goalie in the third period, was “mic’d up” and provided some hilarious in-game patter, even as he was making (and not making) saves. It was a classic “you had to be there” sort of moment, but Turco is a very poised and funny guy. I’d be scared sh!tless speechless if a bunch of guys were firing frozen hard rubber biscuits at 100 mph right at me. That could damned well hurt, pads or no!

Lowlight of the evening: Nothing to do with the game, but you couldn’t avoid the ads: The return of Smilin’ Bob, again, and again, and again. I thought those ads had gone away for good, but it’s obvious they haven’t. It’s probably only a matter of time before Smilin’ Bob is literally put away, what with a 112-count indictment (for fraud, false advertising, and a number of other criminal activities, including credit card fraud) brought by the US DOJ on September 20 of last year. Go get ‘em Alberto!!

For that other hockey fan that reads EIP, here’s a very interesting bit of speculation: Forsberg to Detroit? Assuming Forsberg is healthy (and that’s a BIG assumption): Hello, Stanley!! But then again, he could go to the Rangers…if he goes anywhere at all.

One of the most irritating things (if not THE most irritating thing) about the Firefox browser is that message you get when attempting to view an on-line vid using a format other than Windows Media, to wit: “Plug-in required. Click here to download plug-in.” You click, of course. Then you see “No plug-in found. Click here to manually install plug-in.” But…you don’t have a frickin’ CLUE as to WHICH plug-in you need. I’ve installed Flash, I’ve installed QuickTime, I’ve installed RealPlayer, and a couple of other players as well, yet I STILL get that frickin’ message from time to time. Computers are much more difficult than need be. Still. Perhaps always. (Ed: buy a Mac. But I don’t WANT a Mac.)

What prompted the rant above? The DoD DVIDS site, which has some pretty good videos. If you can get them to play. The (very brief: 1:03 min) “F-22 to Japan” vid features some airborne footage of the F-22, including a too-brief sequence of an F-22 approaching a KC-10 for refueling.

A couple of good op-eds from the WSJ… The first, via Real Clear Politics, is Daniel Henninger holding forth on the Doom ‘n’ Gloom crowd:

The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and on Sunday morning talk shows--all emit a Stygian gloom about America.

Yes, on any given day on some discrete issue (Prime Minister Maliki's bona fides, for example), the criticism of the American role is not without justification. But the cumulative effect of this unremitting ill wind is corrosive. We are not only on the way to talking ourselves into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines. Self-criticism has its role, but profligate self-doubt can exact a price.

[…]

Our slide to a national nervous breakdown because of Iraq is not going unnoticed. Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has been visiting across the U.S. this week. "I've been pretty worried about what I've heard," Mr. Downer said in an interview. Walking on Santa Monica beach Sunday before last, Mr. Downer said he encountered a display of crosses in the sand, representing the American dead in Iraq.

"What concerns me about this," he said, "is that it's sort of an isolationist sentiment, subconsciously, not consciously, and that would be an enormous problem for the world. I hope the American people understand the importance of not retreating and thinking the world's problems aren't theirs."

And the second concerns itself with the Constitutional prerogatives of the Commander-in-Chief and the Senate’s attempt to usurp same:

To understand why the Founders put war powers in the hands of the Presidency, look no further than the current spectacle in Congress on Iraq. What we are witnessing is a Federalist Papers illustration of criticism and micromanagement without responsibility.

Consider the resolution pushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday by Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel, two men who would love to be President if only they could persuade enough voters to elect them. Both men voted for the Iraq War. But with that war proving to be more difficult than they thought, they now want to put themselves on record as opposing any further attempts to win it.

Their resolution--which passed 12-9--calls for Iraqis to "reach a political settlement" leading to "reconciliation," as if anyone disagrees with that necessity. But then it declares that the way to accomplish this is to wash American hands of the Iraq effort, proposing that U.S. forces retreat to protect the borders and hunt terrorists. The logic here seems to be that if the Americans leave, Iraqis will miraculously conclude that they have must settle their differences. A kind of reverse field of dreams: If we don't come, they will build it.

[…]

In Iraq, all of this undermines the morale of the military and makes their task that much harder on the ground. When John McCain asked Lieutenant General David Petraeus that precise question during his confirmation hearing Tuesday, the next commander of Coalition operations in Iraq said, "It would not be a beneficial effect, sir."

And when Joe Lieberman asked if such a resolution would give the enemy cause to believe that Americans were divided, he added, "That's correct, sir." Several Senators protested and demanded that the general stay out of domestic politics, but his only offense was telling the truth. Of course the enemy would take comfort from any Senate declaration that Mr. Bush lacks domestic support.

Yep. I’m simply amazed…amazed, I say…that our illustrious congresscritters don’t get it. What ever happened to leadership? In the sense that leaders explain, in the clearest of terms, what must be done and why we must do it. Explain. Motivate. Execute. It’s a simple concept, really. It appears, however, that the Congress isn’t acting with the best interests of the nation at heart…they only stick their fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing and then follow the crowd. Disgusting.

Today’s Pics: Anyone who has raised kids understands these shots. Kids will push every button you have, climb anything, go anywhere…anytime. With no concern for their own safety, of course. SN3 discovered the pass-thru between the family room and the kitchen almost immediately after he went mobile. And we were concerned, of course. We solved this lil problem by putting a baby gate in the pass thru, which prompted a major tizzy and howls of indignation from SN3…but kept him from falling into the sink, or worse, turning on the garbage disposal and then falling into the sink.
July, 1998.

Update 01/25/2007 1530 hrs. Becky, in the comments, says "LOL!!! Love the pictures of SN3! Boy can I relate to those days! Somewhere I have pictures of Cody sitting in the sink "driving" the faucet."

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