Jorge Posada

School Stories

Here's an article on Jorge Posada before he was drafted by the Yankees.

Introducing Posada to Gongwer might have helped both players more than Frickie imagined.

“Knowing people like Steve helped me so much,” Posada said.

Gongwer helped immerse Posada into campus life. They played table tennis with other players at the Calhoun gym and joined in pick-up basketball games. They lived next door to each other at the Cabanas.

Many of Calhoun’s players went home on weekends, but because Gongwer came from Atlanta, where he couldn’t travel home and back easily, he stayed. So did Posada.

When Gongwer did go home, he often took Posada.

On Friday, when Posada traveled back to Alabama, it was Gongwer who drove him from the ACCC ceremony in Montgomery to Decatur.

During the ride, Gongwer called his mother and told her that he had Posada next to him. Posada took the phone and told her, “I miss your spaghetti.”

They also worked out together, and that’s when Gongwer found out exactly how much talent Posada had.

“I hit .286 my freshman year,” said Gongwer, who now lives in Birmingham, “and I always felt like I was a good player who worked hard. Others might have more talent, but nobody would outwork me.

“But here was this guy with all this God-given talent, and he worked three times as hard as I did.”

The experience of working out with Posada made Gongwer call home to tell his father that he wouldn’t focus too much on baseball and forget about his degree. When his father asked what brought this about, Gongwer said “because I have met a Major League player, and now I know what one looks like.”

Cool story. There's also a little bit on his nickname 'Sado'. No, it's not inreference to the Marquis, but to the mistakee the announcer made on hiss first day as a Yankee [ - Surprisingly, it's a bit like why team mates call Adam Gilchrist 'Church'.]

I Hate Thick Pollies

Who Said "Ban The Flag"?
No, they're not banning the flag at the Big Day Out. They're asking people not to bring them.
In response, the usual chorus of idiots and mediots have suggested that it might be best to throw out the baby with the bathwater instead:

ORGANISERS should cancel the Australia Day eve Big Day Out concert in Sydney rather than ban the flag at Thursday's event, parliamentary secretary for immigration Andrew Robb said.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma and the RSL also condemned the decision to ban the flag, describing it as "outrageous" and "unbelievable".

The Daily Telegraph today reported that organisers of the Big Day Out at Homebush had decided they would confiscate any flag or bandana featuring the national symbol at the gates.

Event organiser Ken West was quoted as saying fans' behaviour last year in the wake of the Cronulla riots and the recent ethnic violence at the Australian Open tennis tournament had forced his hand.

"The Australian flag was being used as gang colours. It was racism disguised as patriotism and I'm not going to tolerate it," Mr West said.

BDO organisers issued a statement this morning saying the flag was not banned, but they said they did not want concert-goers taking it into the event.

"We are not banning the Australian flag but are simply discouraging its use for anti-social purposes at the Big Day Out," the statement said.

The issue has prompted a chorus of disapproval from top politicians, including Prime Minister John Howard, and the RSL.

Mr Robb said the flag was not the problem and should not be banned.

"If they have got a security problem, they need to deal with that, not with the flag. The flag is a symbol of unity," he told Channel 9.

"To compare the flag to a gang colour I think is just outrageous, and totally unacceptable."

Which bit of the events in Cronulla didn't Mr. Robb understand? Or did he actually approve of that crowd that draped itself in the Australian flag as it ran as a mob? Did he think their use of the flag was highly commendable? Patriotism is always the first refuge of the scoundrel, and these pollies are nothing if not but scurrilous. Otheriwse, the only other interpretation of their position is that they do want people to drape themselves in the national flag and commit violent crimes.

However, it's not just the conservative morons who are complaining; it's also opposition leader Kevin Rudd.

"Organisers have got it plain wrong when they try to hide our flag as if it's some symbol of shame. It's not. We should fly it with pride," he said on Channel 9.

Is Kevin Rudd completely stupid? Does he think it would be better for Australia to have gangs dressing themselves up as patriots? If so, then he's actually lining up with the Nazis and brownshirts; because that's where things lie in the history books.

If he's characterising what the organisers are doing as being ashamed of the flag, then he is a willful dingbat and a very bad student of history. After all, my interpretation of the BDO organisiers is that they are in fact so proud of our flag, they would rather not let rightwing morons and racist hicks and rednecks hijack it for their sad little cause; that they are trying to preserve the dignitiy of the flag.

I guess there isn't much of a 'youth vote', but a great big 'xenophobia vote'. It seems to me the people most upset by the Big Day Out decision are indeed the most scurrilous of the lot.
As the Japanese say, there's no ointment you can apply to the stupid.

Sydney Councils' Sex Spies

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Sydney's municipal councils are paying private detectives to go and have sex with prostitutes in order to ascertain if a brothel is legal or not.

Nine councils have paid up $25,000 over three years for the detectives to gather evidence against the illicit operations, News Ltd reports.

The onus of proof is on councils to show a business is operating illegally.

Ku-ring-gai Council has spent $7,000 in the last month but mayor Nick Ebbeck said it was a necessary expense.

The detectives had to actually have sex with the prostitutes to provide reports to satisfy the courts, he said.

"The only difference between us closing down an illegal panel beating shop and a brothel is we must prove they are doing the act and this is where it gets interesting," Mr Ebbeck told the paper.

Two brothels have been shut down this month on the basis of investigators' evidence, and five more premises are under investigation.

At a cost of $3,500 per case, the detectives provide an affidavit, a detailed account of the transaction and sometime video footage.

Willoughby Council has shut down one brothel this month, after paying $1,500 for detectives to pay it two visits.

North Sydney Council has forked out $4,800 to shut down three unlawful establishments, with the third case due in the Land and Environment Court later this month.

Sutherland Shire Council paid $800 last October for a detective to investigate an illegal brothel.

This is turning out to be a bit of a PR problem.

A councillor with Sydney's Willoughby Council says it is worrying councils have had to pay private investigators to have sex with prostitutes, so they can gather enough evidence to shut down illegal brothels.

A number of Sydney councils have reportedly paid thousands of dollars in fees to private investigators who visit the brothels and then provide affidavits which are used in court.

Councillor Trevor Morgan says it is wrong the burden of proof is on councils to prove that illegal activity is taking place on the site of unlawful brothels.

He says councils have no choice but to take such measures.

"Unfortunately, sometimes you have to take these courses because the law forces you take it," he said.

"The only way to do it is change the law and to give councils the right to enter these premises outside of trading hours and say, 'What is going on with all this set-up of type of premises,' but we can't do it."

I guess that won't wash well with the ALP who must make sure the prostitutes don't lose their jobs. Had the disgraced former Liberal Leader John Brogden been the premier... well, he wouldn't want to be shutting down brothels either.

So, who wants to be a Private Dick?

Chinese Star Wars

Blowing Up Satellites
China managed to destroy a satellite with a medium ballistic missile. The immediate ramifications of that are obvious: they can knock out the aerospace intelligence capability of her enemies.

The satellite was some 500 miles (800km) above the earth.

At the very least, it represents the first significant escalation in the space weapons race in 20 years.

Only the United States and the former Soviet Union have previously destroyed targets in space and that was back in the 1980s.

Although this time China used a relatively old-fashioned ballistic missile to target the satellite, it is also thought to be working on far more sophisticated laser technology to do the job.

US officials have been alarmed by the test itself and the failure of China to announce what it was doing either publicly or privately.

A White House spokesman said the "development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area".

He said both the US and other countries were concerned.

Talk about setting cats amongst the pigeons.

The Force?

Captain Jetes & Mace Windu



This is a funny little skit from a while back that got dug up by Peter Abraham on his blog. I thought I'd drag it here too.

Space Elevator Rationale

Some Reasons Why We Should
Here's a link.

I think the argument that continuing our civilization's current carbon based energy regime cannot meet the environmental restrictions even if (and it is a big if) we can wring another few decades or a century out of it by using forms such as oil shale, tar sand etc (see Bjorn Lomborg on how that can be done). It is equally clear that while the dire predictions of the Club of Rome have not come true as predicted, we must sooner or later face sever shortages of minerals - raising the price of some of them beyond what our societies energy regime can afford - eventually threatening even out globalised society with collapse (as laid out by Jarred Diamond in his seminal work 'Collapse: How Societies choose to succeed or fail').

If our society did collapse, we would have to expect this to occur globally as our now world spanning economy and political structures fight it out for the resources they need to sustain themselves just the same way the chiefs did on Easter Island or the Aztec Nobles and Kings did in Central America. The trouble would be that with this occurring globally we could expect the collapse to be world wide as well and our heirs to be unable to rebuild a society like ours for many centuries (if ever) because we had already exploited all the easily recovered mineral resources and they would lack the technology or global organisation or both, to go after the scraps we leave them. The scraps we are increasingly turning to now ourselves (as recommended by Lomborg). We therefore should equate such a potential collapse with near extinction of our species (& many others) for planning purposes. I believe we must plan to avoid it at all costs.

So we have a knotty problem, or at least a major crisis of how our society works and collapse within 100 years is a very real possibility, however high on the hog we may seem to be riding as the West sees it. Part of the solution will surely be utilizing every 'alternative' clean energy source we can. Part or it will be new technologies to replace minerals we lack with alternatives and better extraction to go after reserves no-one would have touched previously but this only buys us time as we tighten our belts and still consume more of the geological legacy the Earths past has left us - and which can never be replenished (except over Millions of years) and which we therefore CANNOT use *sustainably*.

This of course leads us back to my original assertion that we need resources beyond those of the Earth in order not to face near extinction. We also need energy to be sufficiently environmentally clean (including greenhouse neutral) plentiful and affordable to run our ongoing civilization on it. This will be hard enough if we keep the high standard of living for the current developed West only but China and India are determined that that will not be how it goes.

I do recommend you read on.

Today's Guff

Six-Party Talks A Failure
This news didn't get enough coverage, really, but John Bolton is saying that the Six-Nations Talk process was a failure and all we could really hope for was for the North Korean regime to collapse all of its own accord.

John Bolton, who left the U.N. in December, said the United States and Japan should enlist China and South Korea in efforts to put further pressure on North Korea, which he said has no intention of verifiably giving up its nuclear weapons program.

“The only answer ... is the collapse of the North Korean regime and the hopefully peaceful reunification of Korea, and that should be our objective,” Bolton, now a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told reporters.
The latest round of the six-party talks – including the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia – ended in December with no agreement on disarmament or a new date for further talks.

Bolton said the North's missile tests in July and its first nuclear test, in October, showed the communist regime was determined to develop a weapon and greatly embarrassed its top ally, China.

Even if North Korea were to promise to give up its weapons program, Bolton said it was highly unlikely the regime would submit to invasive verification of its nuclear sites to make sure it was not cheating.

“If my conclusion that the six-party talks have failed is correct ... that means we have to switch to a new policy,” he said at the Japan National Press Club.

Not the most encouraging news to hear.

"A Credit To His Race"

This is a bit of a worry.

A DVD of preachings by a radical Australian sheikh, in which he refers to Jews as pigs and calls on Muslim parents to offer their children as soldiers to defend Islam, has been labelled "offensive, unacceptable and outrageous" by the Acting Attorney-General.

Sheikh Feiz Mohammad, Amir of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, makes the controversial comments on several DVDs, called the Death Series, which are available for purchase in Australia, overseas and on the internet.

His preachings drew concerns following the airing of a British documentary, Undercover Mosque. Its producers bought one of his DVDs from children selling Islamic CDs and DVDs at a car park behind a mosque in England.

The Australian Federal Police said it was aware of the DVDs and was making enquiries into the matter.

Sheikh Feiz, who is an Australian citizen now believed to be in Lebanon, is shown in the documentary preaching jihad.

"The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit of Islam is jihad," he said.

He criticises Muslim parents for being too cautious about letting their children receive jihad teachings.

"Today, many parents they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in their hearts, a love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah."

He goes on to talk of his desire that children be offered "as soldiers defending Islam".

"Teach them this: that there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a Muhajid.

"Put in their soft, tender heart the zeal of jihad and the love of martyrdom."

In another DVD excerpt shown on Undercover Mosque, Sheikh Feiz makes pig-like snorting noises when he refers to Jews.

"They will be [snort, snort] - all of them. Every single one of them."

One often gets a little leery of media-beat-ups, but this one might just be true. This guy may have made videos promoting jihad and racial vilification and suicide bombings - and sold them. And I'm not inclined to say "so what?" or claim "cultural misunderstanddings". I'm more inclined to string him up by the balls and haul him into our law courts and try him under the vilification laws.

5 Minutes To Midnight

The End Is Closer

Thanks to the efforts of Iran and North Korea, the world is closer to nuclear holocaust.

We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.

As in past deliberations, we have examined other human-made threats to civilization. We have concluded that the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effects may be less dramatic in the short term than the destruction that could be wrought by nuclear explosions, but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause drastic harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.

This deteriorating state of global affairs leads the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — in consultation with a Board of Sponsors that includes 18 Nobel laureates — to move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” from seven to five minutes to midnight.

Thank you Kim Jong-Il and Ahmedinejad.

Voight-Kampff Tests

Skin-Jobs On The Loose

This is a hilarious link from DaBrew where a journo asked a bunch of politicians running for office, the V-K empathy test questions from Blade Runner.

With Willie Brown finally leaving his gold (plated), diamond-encrusted throne, there has been no shortage of hats thrown into the mayoral ring. San Francisco politics are now a microcosm of California’s own, greater gubernatorial “challenges.” Rather than confuse you with endorsements, position papers and other outmoded means of political influence, we’ve decided to get to the bottom of the only question that matters: Is a particular candidate human or an insidious replicant, possessed of physical strength and computational abilities far exceeding our own, but lacking empathy and possibly even bent on our destruction as a species?

The only reliable method that we know of for sniffing out replicants is the Voight-Kampff Test, created by Phillip K. Dick in his book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and later used by Harrison Ford’s character, Deckard, in the film Blade Runner. The test uses a series of questions to evoke an emotional response which androids are incapable of having. By the candidates’ responses to this line of questioning, we feel we can say with some certainty whether or not they’re replicants. However, we’re stopping short of recommending that you vote for them or not. After all, though a replicant mayor may be more likely to gouge a supervisor’s eyes out with their thumbs, they have another quality that could be great in an elected official: a four year life span.

You MUST read on at the answers and decide for yourself whether these wannabe-governors are indeed replicants from the Tyrell Corporation.
You know what? I'd love to have administered these questions to our pollies.

Do It Right

...If You're Gonna Hang Somebody

They hung the half-brother of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti today. By all accounts, the hanging wa botched and resembled more of a decapitation than a hanging.

The day which started with the pre-dawn executions of Saddam Hussein's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and former head of the Iraqi Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, has not ended well.

The official announcement of the executions made much of the lengths the authorities had gone to in order to prevent any abuse of the condemned men this time after unofficial video shot on a mobile phone at Saddam Hussein's hanging had shown him being taunted on the gallows.

All those present at the latest executions had signed a document saying they would behave according to the rules.

There were apparently fewer witnesses on this occasion. They were searched more thoroughly, particularly for cameras or other recording devices.

And, said officials, there were no abuses, no slogans, no insults, no violations.

But then came the bombshell of these executions - the admission that the head of Barzan al-Tikriti had been ripped from his body as he was being hanged.

It was described by officials as a rare incident, something that can sometimes happen at hangings, an act of God.

As acts of Gods go, that's one hell of a prank by Allah. You really wish these people would at least do the right thing.

...If You're Gonna Trade Somebody

In one of the weird twists of fate, David Beckam is going to LA to play his sport. Here's an interesting column on that notion. Beckham seems inaccessible to even thouse who want to write nice things about him, but the knives are flying thick and fast. It's not his fault that he has considerable value off the pitch, even in America.

In terms of how all this impacts on Real Madrid, the truth is that the issue of his exclusion (not the transfer) has split the country down the middle. I was in Santiago at the weekend, and everyone was talking about it. Back here in San Sebastian, and I've just come back from the bar after watching Madrid beat Zaragoza, people were still talking about it.

One chap with a scary moustache, who'd spent the game muttering darkly about Van Nistelrooy's inability to either control or pass the ball - Es un buitre, joder! Que se dedique a esto, y nada más! (He's a poacher, for God's sake. He should just stick to doing that!) then began to chat with the barman about Beckham (who'd just appeared on camera, sitting in the stands watching his mates play). 'I can't understand it!' he shouted. 'So Madrid need to clean out the old ones, and start from new. I can understand that. But to punish the guy like that is just nasty. It shows a lack of class. Beckham's alright. He's always worked his nuts off. The club's gone to the dogs. You can't treat people like that'.

Radomir Antic, writing in the tabloid 'AS' said something similar, qualifying the action as symbolic of a dying institution, one that no longer has the dignity to even know who its most loyal servants have been. And he has a point. Ronaldo's sullen and unpredictable behaviour over the past two seasons should have guaranteed his exit long before now, but now Beckham has been lumped in with the 'clean-up', which includes the troublesome Cassano - a most unholy trinity, since the Englishman's behaviour has been exemplary.

He even praised Capello as a manager last week and pledged that he would continue to fight for the cause, words that have been rewarded with a kick in the nether regions, further down than Ferguson's flying boot. It's true, of course, that Beckham has occasionally been required to ask permission to go and film some ad somewhere, or endorse a product, or whatever chaps like Beckham are required to do, but Real Madrid signed him precisely for that purpose, even grabbing 50% of his image rights - based on deals that Beckham had cut before he ever trod the Bernabéu.

All this goes for me towards arguments why I still hate soccer. One day when all is said and done, a lot of people are going to sit up and realise Becks was a pretty special player even without the hype; and just because he married a silly spice girl, or just because he has that silly accent does not mean he isn't actually, y'know, a very GOOD player.

Then there's stuff like this:

"He signed his contract before he spoke with Madrid and for me that doesn't seem right," Capello said after Madrid's 1-0 home victory over Real Zaragoza, a game Beckham watched from a spectator box along with his mother, Sandra.

"If a player has a contract (with another club) it isn't right that you continue to treat him as just another player."

In an interview with Spain's Onda Cero radio, Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon also took issue with Beckham's conduct.

"We have been given the run around for the past two months," Calderon said. "We were never told that he had signed for another club, that he had the house bought and had everything ready to go. That, to me, is not right."

Oliveira said Beckham had made his intentions clear to club officials in a meeting before signing with the MLS club.

"We've done everything above board," Oliveira said. "We made our intentions clear to Real Madrid that David wasn't staying at the club before meeting with the Galaxy."

Beckham joined Madrid from Manchester United in 2003. The team hasn't won a single major trophy since, and the former England captain was mainly a substitute this season..

It hardly seemed likely that Real Madrid needed Beckham if they sat him so bloody often. He took the hint and left. What idiots.

Mailbag

Oil Interest Blues
Here are some articles from Chela Elaine. All are from the Independnent in the UK.

1. About the crappy oil deals we gave the Iraqis.

But it doesn't demand the fevered imaginings of a conspiracy theorist to think that this law, struck while the beleaguered Iraqi government is facing opposition from all quarters, protects the interests of oil wealth (which is so well represented in the White House) more than it does the Iraqi people. Production sharing agreements don't apply in most other major Middle Eastern oil producers because they are widely thought to grant greater control to companies than governments. With economies so heavily dependent on oil, it's hard to see how countries can truly be self-governing if they sign away influence over their almost exclusive source of wealth.

Legitimate questions must be asked. How did this decision come to be made? How much pressure was President Nouri al-Maliki placed under to bend to the American corporate interests? Conservative US thinktanks such as the Heritage Foundation have been plotting the wholesale privatisation of the Iraqi oil industry for years. Since 2003, the supposed reconstruction of Iraq by US companies has left a bitter taste with most Iraqis who see a symbiotic relationship between the US military and big business that would make a British district commissioner in imperial Africa blush.

Well, clearly the Bush admin folks just don't give a toss.

2. About 'Peak Oil' Dick Cheney and his war.

"In all," says Chris Skrebowski, editor of the Energy Institute's 'Petroleum Review', "40 per cent of the world's oil is coming from areas where production is in clear and substantial decline." When the figure reaches 50 per cent, he adds, the world as a whole will have reached the "peak oil" tipping point.

The world's first oil well was dug on the Greek Island of Zante around 400 BC, but it was not until 1859 that the Pennsylvania Rock Oil company struck the black gold 69 feet below ground, setting the scene for the oil age.

Little more than 7,000 barrels of it were produced in the whole of 1860, the first full year of pumping. Since then, it is generally agreed, the world has burned nearly 1.1 trillion barrels. But nobody knows how much is left and can be economically recovered.

So while everyone agrees that some day oil production will peak - since there is a finite amount of it on the planet - there is wide debate over when this will be. At one extreme, some experts believe that time has already arrived. Professor Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton University - who worked with M King Hubbert - plumped for the astonishingly precise date of 16 December 2005. At the other extreme, analysts at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Massachusetts think the peak will not come until the 2030s.

But a growing number of experts are coming to believe that it will be upon us disturbingly soon, at around 2010 or 2011. Mr Skrebowski, once sceptical of the more pessimistic estimates, is among them. "All the work I have done suggests that you just can't get it beyond then," he says..

So there we have it in the press. One wonders if the world will jump to fix the problem or just sit on their fat rear-ends like they did with Global Warming.

3. What the Oil is actually worth.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

The thing about the Iraq war is that basically you have a bunch of first world nation hooked on Oil, looking for a fix. It's more than a little bit like heroin-addicts with guns, breaking down the doors to the house that stores a mountain of heroin.

From The Pleaides Mailbag
1. Here's a video of Olbermann having a blast at GWB. Check it out.

2. Here's another article about 9/11.

The two airplanes that struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11 flew directly into secure computer rooms in both buildings. Is that simply a coincidence or were the computer rooms equipped to play a role in the crime?

Were there homing devices, for example, in these rooms that guided the planes to their targets? Were there pre-placed explosives or Thermite on these floors to destroy the evidence and assist with the collapses?

Kind of scary.
3. While we're on scary, Pleiades has sent in this link.

This evening I computed something that troubled me. George Bush's plan to send a 'temporary surge' of extra troops to Iraq is a wheeze. Under the guise of sorting out Iraq before eventual withdrawal, it's equally likely that the troops are being sent there to hold Iraq down while Israel attacks Iran. The Shi'a majority in Iraq will not be pleased by seeing Iran attacked. They have a dual sentiment toward Iran: in one sense Iran is a Shi'a brother, and in another it is a Persian big brother to the Shi'a Arabs, who have deep-seated mixed feelings about this. The history of power oscillations between Mesopotamia and Persia goes back longer than the history of most nations' very existence. As we know, Iraq is a powderkeg.

I understand that Israel has around 200 nuclear devices, of which perhaps 50 might be available for use in Iran (the rest need retaining for defence, or are inappropriate for use in the Iran context). Now Israel's position is complex. Its powers-that-be, who have relied since the nation's founding on an 'iron wall' military defensive-aggression strategy, are desperate to keep the 'iron wall' show on the road - otherwise social and political change comes, and with it their downfall and the shift of an historic mindset.

I don't know how much of an expert analyst this guy is, but it's pretty crazy to start talking about this by counting the nukes.

4. About Hawks and Doves.
This bit, I found funny:

Excessive optimism is one of the most significant biases that psychologists have identified. Psychological research has shown that a large majority of people believe themselves to be smarter, more attractive, and more talented than average, and they commonly overestimate their future success. People are also prone to an “illusion of control”: They consistently exaggerate the amount of control they have over outcomes that are important to them—even when the outcomes are in fact random or determined by other forces. It is not difficult to see that this error may have led American policymakers astray as they laid the groundwork for the ongoing war in Iraq.

Indeed, the optimistic bias and the illusion of control are particularly rampant in the run-up to conflict. A hawk’s preference for military action over diplomatic measures is often built upon the assumption that victory will come easily and swiftly. Predictions that the Iraq war would be a “cakewalk,” offered up by some supporters of that conflict, are just the latest in a long string of bad hawkish predictions. After all, Washington elites treated the first major battle of the Civil War as a social outing, so sure were they that federal troops would rout rebel forces. General Noel de Castelnau, chief of staff for the French Army at the outset of World War I, declared, “Give me 700,000 men and I will conquer Europe.” In fact, almost every decision maker involved in what would become the most destructive war in history up to that point predicted not only victory for his side, but a relatively quick and easy victory. These delusions and exaggerations cannot be explained away as a product of incomplete or incorrect information. Optimistic generals will be found, usually on both sides, before the beginning of every military conflict.

Not ha-ha funny, but black-irony-filled funny.

Jeter's Holiday

Cheeky!

I was trawling the net and found this pickie above.
Life is good when you're Derek Jeter. That's an awfully tight bikini on Jessica Biel.

Yankee Hotstove

Bye Bye Randy, We Hardly Knew You

Reports are coming out that the Yankees and Diamondbacks have reached a tentative agreement on the Randy Johnson-to-D'Backs trade.

The teams informed the commissioner's office of the specifics of the trade, a baseball official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made.
Arizona would send pitcher Luis Vizcaino to the Yankees along with minor league pitcher Ross Ohlendorf and shortstop Alberto Gonzalez, another baseball official said, also on condition of anonymity. The Yankees also might receive another minor league pitcher, the official said, and would pay between $1.5 million and $2 million of Johnson's $16 million salary this year.
Teams are granted a 72-hour window by the commissioner's office to close tentative deals, but it was not clear when that time would begin.
"When we have been granted that window, we would be willing to discuss everything with the Diamondbacks," said Alan Nero, who represents Johnson along with Barry Meister. "Once that window is open, we will do our best to work out a deal."

No Micah Owings. No Nippert, Conor Jackson, nor Chad Tracy.
I guess the Yankees are not sending any money.

Talking To Kei Igawa
Kei Igawa is interviewed here by SI.com.

SI: Hideki Matsui is nicknamed Godzilla. What's your favorite Japanese film monster?
Igawa: I have none.

SI: Not even Mothra or Rodan?
Igawa: I never watch horror films.

SI: The Boston Red Sox made a Mechagodzilla-sized splash this offseason by bidding more than $51 million for the rights to Japanese ace Daisuke Matsuzaka and signing him to a $52 million, six-year contract. Did the hard-line shenanigans of his agent, Scott Boras, hurt Matsuzaka's image in Japan?
Igawa: I have no idea. Please ask Daisuke directly.

SI: How have you fared in head-to-head competition against Matsuzaka?
Igawa: We pitched against each other during the Inter-League season last year. I don't remember the details, but we both did our job as the starters.

SI: Are you guys friends?
Igawa: Since we pitched in different leagues, I've never talked to him at length. But we'll both have the opportunity from now on.

SI: Who's your favorite American ballplayer?
Igawa: I have a tremendous respect for all big leaguers. I do not have a particular favorite.

SI: How about a personal hero?
Igawa: The goalkeeper for Belgium's national soccer team.

SI: And your favorite historic figure?
Igawa: Mitsukuni Tokugawa, a feudal ruler known for his political influence in the early Edo Period.

SI: Tokugawa was a gourmand who claimed to be one of the first Japanese to eat ramen. What's the most exotic food in your fridge?
Igawa: Water.

SI: What has been the greatest embarrassment in your life?
Igawa: I've lost my wallet four times. I got it back every single time.

SI: What do you like most about New York City?
Igawa: The energy. People are filled with pride.

SI: And dislike?
Igawa: No manners in driving. Lots of horns.

SI: What did you spend your first paycheck on? Igawa: In Japan, I bought candy. In the U.S., I left tips at the St. Regis.

SI: What kind of hitters give you the most trouble? Igawa: Fast-running singles hitters. They make me throw a lot of pitches.

SI: What kind do you most like to face? Igawa: Free-swinging power hitters.

SI: What impresses you most about the American game? Igawa: The greatness of your baseball tradition. I'd like to learn the culture itself.

SI: What's the worst thing that has ever been written about you? Igawa: Ask the Japanese media.

SI: Your favorite film actor? Igawa: Ken Watanabe of The Last Samurai and Letters from Iwo Jima.

SI: Do you have a secret ambition? Igawa: That's secret.

SI: What is the question are you most asked at parties? Igawa: "When did you start playing baseball?"

SI: Your favorite book? Igawa: The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, Robert Whiting's book about Japanese baseball.

SI: What's the coolest part of your job? Igawa: Pitching complete games.

SI: And your motto? Igawa: Quest.

He seems devoid of a sense of humour. He's not even humanly interesting. Heck, he's downright boring. I think he'll fit right in.

New Years Goss

How To Make An Ass Of Yourself


I was in Adelaide visitng some friends and ended up at a dinner party for New Year's Eve in Blackwood.

There was a particularly articulate and argumentative elderly lady at the table there with whom I got into certain discussions about amongst other things, Rock Music and its place in history. I guess I get drawn into discussions and arguments easily, and this is a great personal failing on my part.

She seemed to think that all popular music was garbage and was waiting on the big comeback of classical music to happen. I explained the economic imperative of music over the ages and how performance music has always been trending downward from orchestras to smaller and smaller units until performance music itself was supplanted by recorded music. She then asked for a working definition of rock music in the broadest sense and I had to say it was the music of the electric guitar as invented and mass-marketed in the 1950s; and that it's era as a socially important form was drawing to a close.

Then we got into various discussions about the nature of water supply and greenhouse emissions. I steered right clear of expressing any opinion about 'Aboriginal Art' and yet managed to totally slag off on the National Museum in Canberra. I think I even got a few hits in on Kim Beazley's leadership and the failure of the Labor Party to recapture the middle ground. I had a particularly long discussion with her son Dermot, who seemed to be some kind of academic, about the negative consequences of the late 1980s Dawkins Reforms - and I wasn't particularly nice about it, I flat-out panned the current status of Tertiary Education in this country.

Dermot and his mother left around 10:30pm and it was only afterwards that I was informed that the elderly lady was former Senator Rosemary Crowley.

Hanging Saddam

Two Wrongs Making A Right?

I've commented here before that I actually disagree with hanging Saddam by his own crappy laws. Yes, they're the same set of Iraqi criminal justice laws that were used under his regime, but the swift hanging actually put him in a position to be more of a martyr than a common criminal. While it is on substantial public account and documentation that his crimes were vast, running him through a kangaroo court and swinging him from the gallows at top speed does not reflect well on the notion of a due process. The irony is sweet, but that's not exactly what we stand for, is it? Afterall, blowing him away in a hale of US Marine gun fire may have been more cinematic or poetic.

The trial actually had less gravitas than an episode of 'Judge Judy'. Indeed, the great judge Judith Sheindlin may have been a better judge than the sorrry excuse for a judge that presided over the trial. The grand irony of course is that the trial took place in the very land of the Hammurabi Law Code. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth and all that, if you've read your high school history books. And there, we let the Iraqis let a trial run - where three of Saddam's defense counsels were assassinated - run its sorry course. No mis-trial motions or declarations, no re-starts. It really makes us look grand, doesn't it? Add it to the list of crappy post-invasion administration choices by the Coalition of the Willing. You wonder how the likes of Tony Blair sleep at nights.
Anyway, such reservations aside, Iraqi officials hung Saddam Hussein.

In an amazingly morbid twist of our society, the footage is available at Youtube. I'd normally link to it but having seen it, I don't think it's something that even my bad taste can countenance - If you like, look it up yourself. It's pretty grim and gruesome.