Two for Two

Amazing. The Boston Red Sox took on the New York Yankees for the second time in a week and caned them again. Not even April-Rod could save the Bronx Bastards, who went through more pitchers than oil rig workers on furlough.

I am in the second year of a bet (see posts passim) with Bill Norris which allows the supporter of the victorious team to inflict humiliation on the loser. Last week I asked Bill to review some of Boston's most awful music scenes (due this Wednesday) so this week I'm going to simply ask him to change his profile image to the picture below. I think this young man is the perfect embodiment of the Yankees' work ethic and talent levels:

A Distinct Tonsorial Theme is Emerging

From the BBC:

Iran ban on 'Western' hairstyles

Fortunately for many Iranian men, the aggressive mullet has been deemed to have originated in ancient Persia:

Billy Ray Cyrus the Great

No Word on Prince Albert's Prince Albert, However

Just released from the Royal Archives in Britain:

"Letters reveal Queen Victoria's love of 'delicate moustachios'"

"Last one to get his hands on the royal orb and sceptre has to shave"

Bugsport

Hey! That's the cool new bridge!
I was flicking through a purloined copy of Down East magazine this weekend when I ran across a great story on a new online comic strip. The strip, drawn by Canadian artist Ted Bastien, tells the story of a town in Maine used to resettle aliens who came to earth via Roswell and other such spots. What is cool about it for a former Hancock County resident and regular Route 1 driver like myself is that rather than invent a fictional locale, Bastien has taken over the mill town of Bucksport, renaming it "Bugsport" and populating it with grey skinned aliens (rather than grey skinned paper mill workers and other-worldy drinkers at Toziers II*). Read along here. The strip may be of limited interest to the non-Mainer but I thought I'd give my fellow Pine Tree Staters a chance to have a look and exclaim "Oh look, Fort Knox!" or "Hey! I know that book shop!".

*After 12 years in this state I still have no idea what happened to Toziers I. And it bugs me every time I drive by that Toziers II flies its blaze-orange MGD 'Welcome Hunters' banner year-round. Scoping out the nasty overtanned wives of your fellow fat drunken Bucksport oafs is not hunting, jackass.

Broken Hearts in Madrid, Broken Metatarsal by Late July

Posh and Becks. Or not.
David Beckham is due to join up with his LA Galaxy teammates at the end of June at the conclusion of his contract with Real Madrid. $10 says he will be out injured within a month of playing his first game in the States, clobbered by some long-in-the-tooth South American or cynically hacked by some ex-collegiate thug who couldn't crack the reserves at Accrington Stanley. Any takers?

Terms for Bill

(via Geen Comix)
Ah, the sweet taste of victory! The Read Sox sweep the Yankees at home for the first time in 17 years, which means Mr. Bill Norris has to pay up under the terms of our ongoing humiliation bet on the outcome of Boston/New York baseball battles.

Seeing as it was the first sweep in 17 years, my initial thoughts had something to do with making Bill time-travel back to 1990 (his senior year in high school, I think) and dressing like a member of Jesus Jones for a week. But that might have proved a tad excessive, and compliance would be difficult to verify.

Instead I have decided to take a jujitsu approach and use Bill's own strengths against him. Bill is a great writer on music, and is adept at squirreling out interesting and obscure bands for a feature he calls "What I am Listening To Wednesday". Well, next week I want "What I Am Listening To Wednesday" to be all uncritical reports on songs performed by Boston's rather unfortunate white boy ska movement and also its sub-Pogues shouty Irish punk-folk scene.

The Mighty, Mighty Billtone will be flogging his molly, and no mistake.

This Is Not A Baseball Blog 13

Lots to get to this week, including the outcome of the first baseball challenge of the year with Bill Norris (I won). It was a busy weekend in an increasingly busy life of a Weasel, so please show me some forebearance as I catch up with myself and hopefully my blogging responsibilities. In the interim, I am please to offer up the return of a feature almost as old as these collective postings, a little lookylikey contest we call "this is not a baseball blog":

Friday night's Red Auerbach-honouring, bizarrely costumed Red Sox;

Some Christmas trees

Predictable Joke in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....

From the BBC:

Rock elders aim for chart success
"A rock band made up of senior citizens is making a bid for chart success to prove that older people have still got what it takes."

Too late:

Storm

The big water has hit the midcoast.

The Rockland boardwalk, April 30, 2006:



The Rockland boardwalk, April 17, 2007 (via Village Soup):

Totally Unfounded Prediction

He's not running
I don't always have the best of luck predicting the results of elections I know something about, less those in more baffling countries such as France. But fool that I am, I'm going to take a stab at prognosticating the French result after the second round on May 6th:

The Socialist Party's Segoline Royal will squeak in as France's first female president.

Here's why: despite leading most of the way and currenty running neck and neck with Royal, the Gaullist Nicholas Sarkozy (who is probably the most qualified candidate to wrench France from its malaise) will lose about 5% of his stated support in the first round to the far right Jean Marie Le Pen. I don't think Le Pen will make the second round again, but Sarkozy might have to tack further to the right on immigration etc to draw those vile know-nothings to his standard for the second round.

Le Pen is running at about 15% officially; the far left is at about 12% combined; therefore they cancel out the effect they have on the more mainstream candidates. "Third Way" spolier Francois Bayrou also draws an equal amount of support from both leading candidates. Therefore, the hidden fascists desire for the extreme right will ironically throw the election over to the Socialists, as if Sarkozy doesn't enter the second round with the lead he will be fatally damaged.

Prediction made at 7:30am, 4/17/07. Could be spot on, could be total bollocks. I'll let you know.

Coincidence? Cause and Effect?

President Bush speaking on the slaughter at Virgina Tech today: "I told them that my administration would do everything possible to assist with the investigation and that I pledged that we would stand ready to help local law enforcement and the local community in any way we can during this time of sorrow."

Really? "Everything possible" to help? Its a bit late for that, isn't it George?

From September, 2004, during the tight end game of the Presidential election:

Federal ban on assault weapons expires- "Bush said in the 2000 campaign that he would sign an extension of the 10-year ban on the semiautomatic weapons. However, he did not press Congress to send him such a bill, and its Republican leaders never did"

The Virginia Tech murderer supposedly used semi-automatic pistols. Banned in the assault weapons prohibition were:

"Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following: Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip, Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or silencer, Barrel shroud that can be used as a hand-hold, Unloaded weight of 50 oz or more, A semi-automatic version of an automatic firearm."

Maybe these young people were killed with a previously banned weapon, maybe not. But you'll do everything to protect Americans, right Mr. Bush? You even protect zygotes from stem cell research: you wouldn't compromise people's "right to life" in other areas, would you?

From the blog of advertising executive Apryl Duncan, October 13, 2004:

"NRA Endorses Bush- The National Rifle Association has officially endorsed President Bush and says the organization will spend millions for political ads and other methods to help get Bush re-elected. The NRA has already spent about $1 million on anti-Kerry ads and expects to spend about $20 million total in 10-15 states."

"Everything possible" to help, Mr. President? Truly? Asshole.

I Can't Wait for Mansfield Park Park

Miss Havisham runs the cake stall
News from Blighty that the Charles Dickens Theme Park nears completion.

I am fighting the petulant, precocious, and insufferable debating club adolecent still within to stop myself from continually saying "Oh yeah? Well we all live in a George Orwell theme park these days. It's so like 1984 everywhere, man."

Sweet Victory...

Read and weep, because for once the Mouse/Weasel household is victorious:

1. Silver Birch (R Power) 33-1
2. McKelvey (TJ O'Brien) 12-1
3. Slim Pickings (B Geraghty) 33-1 (Country Mouse's pick)
4. Philson Run (D Jacob) 100-1
5. Liberthine (Mr S Waley-Cohen) 40-1 (Weasel's pick)

However, being the sporting chap that I am, I will honour my offer of a prize* to the next best finisher, who turned out to be Bill, winner by default for the second year!

How everyone fared:

THISTHATANDTOTHER (Bill) Pulled up at 29th fence.
SONEVAFUSHI (Weasel) Pulled up at 29th fence.
DUN DOIRE (Bill/Joe) Pulled up at 27th fence.
SIMON (Mondale) Fell at 25th fence.
NAUNTON BROOK (Little Bruvva) Pulled up at 23rd fence.
HOMER WELLS (Country Mouse) Pulled up at 22nd fence.
JOES EDGE (Little Bruvva) Pulled up at 20th fence.
IDLE TALK (Mondale) Unseated rider at 19th fence.
THE OUTLIER (Mark/Joe) Unseated rider at 19th fence.
KNOWHERE (Mark) Unseated runner at 8th fence.

Neither of Flying Rodent's picks made the field but both were observed on the Mersey Ferry later Saturday night.

For those of you who are interested, here's the full final standings.


(*A signed photo of country and western star Garth Brooks (dedicated to someone called "Theresa") from early in his career, found by Country Mouse in the attic of the house she rented in Indian Shores, FL during her 2000 college internship.)

The Grand National Field

OK folks, place your bets:

2007 Grand National Field.

More than one of you can pick the same horse, you'll just split the prize.

I'm going with the 25-1 Liberthine for the win, and the 100-1 Sonofafushi as my rank outsider because the BBC tipster says "Sometimes you just have to say a horse is not good enough to win. He isn't good enough to win."

So far, Mark has gone with The Outlier (50-1) and Knowhere (66-1). Joe has gone for Dun Doire at 12-1, Longshot: The Outlier at 50-1. Country Mouse has Slim Pickings (33-1) and Homer Wells (50-1).

Slap 'em down, ladies and gents.

Breaking News: Many American Preppies Didn't Rape Anyone Yesterday

A preppy non-rapist yesterday. Face and dick have been cropped from picture to protect the innocent.
I am sure the formerly accused in the Duke University Lacrosse Team rape case are very relieved that charges have been dropped. I'm sure the prosecuting attorney who went after them in such a cavalier fashion is shaking in his boots. But was this story really worth half the 6:30pm newscasts on both CBS and ABC, and was there any reason for CBS to send glam-anchor Katie Couric to North Carolina to conduct the evening news? Was this really the most important story in America yesterday, let alone in the world?

I can't wait to see tonight's news and find out what crimes weren't committed by the Syracuse water polo team, the Bowdoin badminton squad, or the University of Puget Sound "mathletes". I'm sure whichever it is, it'll be the lead story and consume the half of the news not dedicated to health desk updates for elderly men worried about their prostates.

Visual DNA

Via Bill Norris, font of many good things:

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Runners and Riders, Get Ready...

Its the Grand National this coming Saturday. As has become traditional with this blog, we'll be having a (sadly cash free) sweepstakes for England's most famous horse race. This year's contest marks a departure from usual form, as I'll be offering a prize of insignificant value to the lucky bastard who picks the winner.

Now the traditional rubric (from 2005):

"(You should) pick your horse using the tried and tested "Oooh I like the jockey's colours" method... Although also the choice of the BBC's top racing tipster, I'm going for Forest Gunner because my paternal grandfather was an artilleryman from the edge of Epping Forest in East London (see how this works?). My second, outsider, no-hope, I'll put a quid on it for a laugh horse is the 100-1 shot Europa, because the jockey will be wearing yellow and green, the same as Norwich City FC."

So... pick two horses: one you think has a shot, and one who might win if everyone else falls over. Best place wins. New this year, equine term limits: previous entrants cannot go with the same horse as the previous year, as when Mondale did it last April it made me irrationally and disproportionately annoyed. The final cut for the race has yet to be made so the BBC hasn't posted the silks yet, but as soon as they do I'll link across and put up my picks. In the meanwhile, here's a list of the initial entrants to whet your appetite. If you want to learn more about the Grand National in general, the usual collection of fact, half-truths, and bollocks can be found here.

Last year's winner was Bill Norris riding Numbersixvalverde, which set the tone for the rest of my year with the Texan New Yorker. In 2005, old pal Mondale took the champagne.

Lastly, here's the course, like it really matters to your selections:

Your Sofa Will Probably Kill You...

I got an email from the Natural Resources Council of Maine the other day that said in essence, "hey, you are a Maine blogger- would you do us a favour and link to a video we have made?"

Sure:
"You're in Jeopardy"

The video is a pretty cool way for the NRCM and Maine House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree to help spread the word about some of the nastier chemicals lurking in everyday products that might well be leading to a decline in public health both locally and globally.

Visitors to the sister blog of Wisdom Weasel might well recall the trouble we went through to get a decent, non-toxic mattress a few weeks back. My humble advice to all and sundry is to watch the above video and do some checking in with local retailers about better products. If the political avenue represented by Hannah doesn't appeal, don't forget your wallet gives you great power over what stores try to sell you. Three local mattress stores lost out and one is about $1,000 richer thanks to Country Mouse and me exercising our consumer choice. If 10 of the visitors to this site were Rocklanders, and all 10 were in the market for a good non-toxic mattress (and by crackidy, our mattress rocks), the store with the nice natural latex mattress would be $10,000 to the good and the others would catch on pretty damn quick.

I'm not a biologist by any stretch of the imagination but I am a firm believer in the law of unintended consequences and in the reality of inertia. Those wonder-chemicals designed 30 years ago or more to protect us from fire, or bed bugs, or having our pajamas runch up in an irritating manner might well be coming back to bite us in the ass. I don't have the facts and figures for you (ask the NRCM, I'm sure they could tell you more- or better yet, do a little independent research) but I do know that there are many other cases of animals suffering depredation due to long term chemical exposure. It would be ironic in the extreme if the very things that we feel set us apart from other species (furniture, clothes, Woody Allen movies) were accelerating the accumulation of toxins in our bodies that might one day do something along the lines of this or this to us.

An Old Git Writes....

I occasionally get written correspondence away from the comments sections of my various posts about something I have written or the state of the world- you can imagine the sort of thing. Rarely do I pay much attention, but this morning a rather profound missive jumped out at me and I thought I'd share it with you all:

"Sir-

It has come to a pretty pass when Britain has been reduced to a blubbing fat boy trembling in the corner of the lower sixth common room, half fearing and half anticipating a beating-slash-molestation at the hands of a apparently smaller yet much rougher boy.

I speak of course of two recent events. The first is the capture of 15 bell-bottom-wearing floating pooves in the Shatt al Arab (by the bloody Iranian Coastguard of all people: not even proper fundamentalist loonies) which has been covered ad nauseam elsewhere.

The second, more recent, event was the shameful defeat of travelling Manchester United association football fans in a pitched battle with the Italian security forces. These Italian security forces are of course direct descendants of the military and police who made such a hash of invading the Greek and subduing the Ethiopian during the '39-45 show, whereas the travelling 'Red Devils' are the more recent offspring of some of the most fearsome gangs to stalk the bones of the Holy Roman Empire since the Visigoths. And yet they had their arses handed to them on a plate by a gang of wildly gesticulating ponces in motorcycle helmets and Versace jumpsuits.

These are just the latest incidents in an ever-increasing list of troubling signs that Britain is not the primus inter thuggus that we used to be. These modern day 'Chavs' (or as we called them in my youth, 'Trevors'), are supposed to redeem their empty and violent existence by joining the army and falling on hand grenades, or roughing up foreign sports enthusiasts and coppers, not thanking the Iranian president for the headscarf or moaning that the Officer Mario hit them while they were innocently waiting for the bus. Mr. Blair's government may boast of a yob culture second to none, but I am afraid the evidence points to the unstoppable emasculation of the United Kingdom. Unless drastic measures are taken soon, we may well end up with a female prime minister, or even a female Queen.

I remain sir, your obedient servant,

Dicky Bumchutney-Staines, Colonel (rtd), late of the Queens Own Border Collies"

My Role in The Present Crisis

With Iranian President Ahmadinejad announcing this morning that the captured Royal Navy personnel will soon be freed, I think it is time for me to reveal the part I played in winning their liberty.

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed a diminution in the quality of recent posts. This is because it wasn't me posting, but rather a cunning doppelganger by the name of Hiram Tanktop. Mr. Tanktop's sterling work allowed me to slip away unnoticed to Tehran, where I have been rampaging through the halls of the Iranian Foreign and Security Ministries in my union jack underdrawers (no air conditioning, alas), screaming "Release the British Seamen!"

Obviously, my plain British spunk was too much for them.

I was shocked to see that the Iranian's had taken our lads' uniforms and dressed them in these boilersuits.

A Tough Assignment

Apparently letting off steam by humping a building. It all changed after I cut my hair.
Those of you playing along at home may be aware that the missus and I are expecting our first child in a few weeks. In preparation for said event, Country Mouse and I attended our inaugural birthing class last night. Its an excellent approach Country Mouse has selected: one approaches labour as if one were training for a marathon instead of an ultimate fighting bout. Very clever I must say, and despite my innate skepticism about everything I was favourably impressed.

There was one slight problem however. During the bit where we were supposed to relax and visualize positive thingies, the teacher instructed us to let go all our "fear, anger, and frustrations".

What? And lose the three motors that compel me to get out of bed in the morning? Are you mad?

How Very Predictable

Melanie Philips, minus wig and glasses
While looking for the latest on the 15 British sailors and marines hanging on in Tehran's Hijab Hilton I accidentally stepped in a big pile of Melanie Phillips' column from the insufferable Daily Mail of March 28th. The very fact that Phillips' spews on behalf of the Hate Mail and is the author of a laughable book called Londonistan should discount her as an authoritative source on matters Middle Eastern, but I have to admit I had only rarely read her filth and was in the mood for a bit of rough, so I took the plunge. Here's some of the choicer cuts:

"Admiral Lord Nelson must be revolving in his grave. While on patrol in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq, 15 Royal Marines and sailors were seized by Iran on a trumped up charge that they had entered Iranian waters.....

We have consistently shown we are not prepared to defend ourselves. In 2004, the British servicemen who were kidnapped by Iran were spirited to Tehran and paraded blindfold on television, which broadcast their apprehensive apologies for a ‘big mistake’. It was an act of war against us. We let them get away with it....

Third, we should announce that we are seeking a UN resolution condemning the kidnap of our Marines and enabling us to use ‘all necessary means’ to get them back. And we should back this up with some significant moves by a couple of frigates. In short, we need to rattle some sabres through a far more muscular and indeed coercive diplomacy...." (the rest of this crap is here, if you must)

How nice of Ms. Phillips, a woman of late middle age and as far as I can tell no military reserve obligations, to offer up the lives of young British servicemen and women in pursuit of some vague notion of national outrage (outrage missing, it appears, from Britain's High Streets). We don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go, and all that. Perhaps in an effort to drum up troops for her proposed diversionary effort she'd like to stand outside some of Britain's rougher housing estates handing out white feathers to those of military age not in uniform. Wikipedia notes she has two children: if they are of age, can we presume they are doing their bit for the Union Jack, defending British honour against johnny foreigner and reminding him whose empire it is anyway?

Of course, Ms. Phillips makes no mention as to why Britain's name is mud in Iran, and has been long before any of the Ayatollahs were born. For those of you interested in the subject,this book is a decent place to start; if you want to get a grip on the Anglo-Iranian thing in the context of American policy, this one is rather good. But for Phillips that would of course mean reading things that don't cleave to her pre-existing world view. Of course seizing the sailors was a dumb move (didn't the Iranians understand that Royal Navy tars on shore for more than 20 minutes without access to cheap lager become unmanageable?) but acting as if the Iranians had given the Queen a dirty sanchez is even dumber.

Oh and Phillips, take your horrible mitts off Nelson, thank you very much. We Norfolk types don't care for his misappropriation by idiots. To suggest that Horatio would have chased pell mell after the Iranians betrays a breathtaking ignorance of the great man's methods. Bold and decisive he may have been, but he was also a meticulous planner who never fought a battle half-cocked or on terms of another's choosing.


Notwithstanding the above, I may have to start reading Phillips' column on a regular basis, if only to read her inevitable insistence that the British Government reactivate the Bengal Lancers to pursue the killers of cricket coach Bob Woolmer lest Britain's national honour wither on the vine.