Well, I’ve now watched all four Maple Leafs games (Yay Center Ice!), and I have to say, I really like the new rules, even if I don’t feel very good about how the team is playing. Still, they finally got a win tonight, with Tellqvist of all people doing what Ed Belfour could not: protecting a third period lead. Of course, it helps that the team in front of him gave him a two goal lead this time, but if not for some stellar play in the second by Tellqvist, the Flyers win handily. And believe me, it’s all the more sweet with the win coming against the hated Flyers. I know most Leafs fans consider the Senators Public Enemy #1, but I detest the Flyers; even more now that Greg Louganis-wannabe Peter Forsberg is on the team. As it is, I’m having a tough time rooting for Lindros. More on this later.
Some observations, in random order:
- The Leafs are going to have to start giving more time to their young players. Too much of the team looks old and slow, while Stajan, Steen, and Wellwood have looked promising early on.
- Speaking of old and slow, that’s how I’d describe the play of Ed Belfour, especially in shootouts, where he’s stopped just two of five shots he’s faced, and one of those shots just plain missed.
- I really like the new icing rule, which prevents the guilty team from getting a change in.
- By far the best rule change, however, is getting rid of the hated two-line-pass rule. I’ve seen a number of great scoring chances as a result of this, and the game has so much more flow to it now.
- In making the rules changes, they missed an opportunity: full power plays. Scoring on the power play shouldn’t end the power play. Two minutes is two minutes. If you can’t kill off a full penalty, don’t take a penalty.
- Speaking of penalties, so far, the officials have done an excellent job of calling hooking, holding, tripping, and interference. I hope that keep it up. I’m sick and tired of “let them play” being a euphemism for “let them cheat.”
- Honestly, I like the shootout, but I hate the fact that there’s still an OTL point. This despite the fact that with two shootout losses, the OTL point helps the Leafs, giving them the same points as if they were 2-2 (instead of 1-1-2). If we’re going to make sure every game has a winner, then every game should have a loser, too. And if teams are bad at shootouts, that’s all the more reason to sell out during the OT.
- Speaking of teams being bad at shootouts, the Leafs are a miserable 0-for-5 in shootout attempts. And they’ve looked bad doing it.
- As much as I hate to admit it, Lindros turns out to be a good pickup for the Leafs. He’s playing hard every night, he hasn’t resorted to any of the thuggery that punctuated his career with the Flyers, and as far as I can tell, he’s not whining or lipping off, even given the team’s slow start. With Sundin injured indefinitely, we’re going to need him. Here’s hoping he doesn’t revert to his Philly ways.
- I know the Leafs scored twice on the power play today to win, but good God is their power play awful. It’s disorganized, and the team seems afraid to shoot the puck at all. In their first four power plays tonight, they went 0-for-4, with no shots on goal. Worse, they gave up a short-handed goal.
- Speaking of being afraid to shoot the puck, as well as Kaberle has played so far this season, he’s been way too timid about shooting. Good things happen when you put the puck on the net. So if there’s nobody open to pass to, shoot it for God’s sake!
- Frankly, the goalie equipment doesn’t look all that much smaller to me. Maybe when the form-fitting sweaters come in, that may change. But today’s goalies still look like ogres compared to the old 1980’s footage.
- Harry Neale is a hugely entertaining colo[u]r commentator.
- I’ve written about this before, but I’m glad to know that the US doesn’t have a monopoly on obnoxious sportscasters. Jesus Christ, is Don Cherry awful. His commentary is worse than his suits are, and that’s saying something.
- Will the real Nik Antropov please stand up?
- SHAMELESS GROVELING ALERT. If there are Leafs fans in the readership with season tickets, I’ve never been to the ACC, and I’ll find a way to get to Toronto.
- Football’s great and everything, but I’m willing to bet hockey is absolutely incredible in High Definition. And if I’m not careful, I’m going to wind up betting several thousand dollars on that proposition. In fact, the only thing preventing this is the fact that no one seems to be reliably broadcasting the NHL in HD.
- On the subject of NHL broadcasts, there’s some good news for hockey (and for OLN): I’m going to be a Nielsen family this November. During sweeps, I’m going to watch every game that OLN broadcasts, even if I’m not interested. (This is also good news for PBS, the Food Network, and The Daily Show…)
- Hey, OLN: No Leafs games? Only one Canucks game? What’s up with that? It can’t be anti-Canada bias, you broadcast the Calgary Stampede for Chrissakes!
October 11th, 2005
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Sports, NHL |
6 comments
The Sox look to be in a lot of trouble. Their offense looked exactly like it did in August and September when they where giving back their huge lead in the Central. They couldn’t get hits to keep rallies alive, they couldn’t get hits off the pitcher’s mistakes, and they could not execute their steals or sacrifices. If this was just rust, then maybe there is a chance. But this looks an awful lot like thier earlier slump, and if it is, then, well, I guess my father dies without seeing the Sox win a World Series.
October 11th, 2005
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Sports, MLB/MiLB |
2 comments
Kevin and I did pretty poorly this week, especially in the early games (where Kevin and I each went 3-6, splitting the two games on which we disagreed), and for the first time all season, the coin beat us both. Kevin remains ahead of the coin — barely — and I hold a 4 game lead over him. Here are the results and recaps:
Overall Records:
Tom: 6-8 (.429) week, 43-30 (.589) overall
Kevin: 6-8 (.429) week, 39-34 (.534) overall, 4 GB
FDR: 7-7 (.500) week, 38-35 (.521) overall, 5 GB
Lions 35, Ravens 17: My instinct to go with the home team proved right here, but the reasoning was wrong. The Ravens absolutely killed themselves with penalties, some of them admittedly questionable. FDR and Tom right, Kevin wrong.
October 11th, 2005
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Sports, NFL |
no comments
Here are Washington’s Week 5 Picks:
Sunday, Oct 9, 1:00pm ET
Ravens at Lions: Lions.
Dolphins at Bills: Dolphins.
Saints at Packers: Saints.
Buccaneers at Jets: Bucs.
Bears at Browns: Bears.
Patriots at Falcons: Falcons.
Seahawks at Rams: Seahawks.
Titans at Texans: Texans.
Sunday, Oct 9, 4:05pm ET
Colts at 49ers: Colts.
Sunday, Oct 9, 4:15pm ET
Eagles at Cowboys: Cowboys.
Panthers at Cardinals: Cardinals.
Washington at Broncos: Broncos.
Sunday, Oct 2, 8:30pm ET
Bengals at Jaguars: Jaguars.
Monday, Oct 10, 9:00pm ET
Steelers at Chargers: Steelers.
October 11th, 2005
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Sports, NFL |
no comments
It’s National Coming-Out Day - a day to encourage gays who have not felt comfortable acknowledging their sexuality to those around them to “come out” and claim their own lives and freedom for themselves. It can be difficult to take the risk of attracting the homophobia that permeates our society - and all the more visibly in the Bush years - but everyone who does so breaks down barriers both for themselves and others.
Supporters can take this day to recall the courage so many have shown, at times when it was criminal or foolhardy to tell the truth about normal human sexuality, and even at times like today when it’s merely dangerous. All of us can look toward the day when there’s no closet to come out of.
October 11th, 2005
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General, Politics, Culture |
6 comments
Cynical Bush UN appointee John Bolton continues his planned deterioration of US relations with the rest of the world. Yesterday he used the US’s Security Council veto to prevent a presentation by a UN envoy on genocidal conditions in the Sudan. Nobody seems to understand why he would do that, and his stated explanation is nonsensical. It appeared to be just a reflex action to block anything the UN administration attempts to do, no matter how necessary, but a closer look shows that it dovetails with the Bush administration’s thoroughgoing program to destroy the influence of international bodies while further isolating the US.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton blocked a U.N. envoy on Monday from briefing the Security Council on grave human rights violations in Sudan’s Darfur region, saying the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them.
Bolton, joined by China, Algeria and Russia, prevented Juan Mendez, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special adviser for the prevention of genocide, from briefing the council on his recent visit to Darfur, despite pleas from Annan and 11 other council members that Mendez be heard. . . .
Bolton said he had objected to the briefing to make the point the council should be “talking more about the steps it can take to do something about the deteriorating security situation” in Darfur. He gave no new proposals.
This is idiotic. Whether or not the UN has acted fast enough (it does tend to be slow-moving, in part because its Charter is specifically designed to encourage consensus; more importantly, the situation in the Sudan is complicated by the fact that the African Union has been hesitant about allowing Western troops into the region, and the US and EU have been engaged in pointless fighting over funding and material support), having up-to-date information about the situation can hardly hurt - that’s why the envoy was sent there in the first place. It’s not like holding that meeting was what is preventing more active intervention. The fact that Bolton had nothing practical to suggest as an alternative underscores the pointlessness of his objection.
In fact, it was the UN envoy, Mendez, who had the most practical suggestions for dealing with the situation. Notably, his suggestions involve programs the US, under Bush, has actively opposed. It seems Bolton’s concern was not so much that the UN wasn’t doing anything, but that it was trying too hard to do something that wasn’t exactly what the Bush administration had dictated to them.
Mendez, who visited Darfur for a week in late September, later briefed reporters on his findings. He said Sudanese officials were taking only cosmetic steps to prevent systematic human rights abuses there that might amount to genocide[,] crimes against humanity or war crimes.
He also accused Khartoum of refusing to cooperate with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, a tribunal strongly opposed by the Bush administration on grounds it might pursue frivolous prosecutions of U.S. soldiers or officials working abroad.
“We cannot let the government of Sudan get away with that,” Mendez told a news conference. “I haven’t seen any indication of the international community telling Sudan, ‘You don’t have a choice, you have to cooperate with the ICC.”‘
Mendez said the Security Council had to put more pressure on the Sudanese to disarm nomad Arab gangs, known as Janjaweed, responsible for many of the atrocities now escalating in camps housing African tribesmen thrown off their land. So far Sudanese trials of any perpetrators were meaningless, he said.
Secondly, Mendez recommended that the international community make good on its pledges to give aid to the Africa Union, which has monitors and troops in Darfur.
Council diplomats who wanted to hear from Mendez said it was a council tradition to give the envoy a platform when Annan called for a briefing from his adviser on genocide.
They noted Bolton had lined up with the three council members — Algeria, China and Russia — which have watered down action against Khartoum.
“He’s playing into the hands of people who don’t want to do anything,” said one council diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to irritate Washington.
So, Bolton quashed a high-level presentation by a special UN envoy that would have highlighted the fact that the murderers of the Sudan cannot be brought to justice because the US is actively undercutting the only international tribunal capable of doing so, and which would also have pointed out that Western nations that have pledged aid to the African nations providing troops to stop the fighting have not kept their promises. And his stated reason for doing so is to encourage them to act more aggressively.
America is day by day becoming a pariah nation, and it is the deliberately-pursued schemes of the hacks and criminals in our government that make it so. I am more and more despairing and amazed.
October 11th, 2005
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General, Politics, Culture |
no comments
The Bushies are whining that Fitzgerald is a “bully”:
The investigation has taken a toll on White House aides, many of whom now fear that the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, is intent on issuing indictments . . . “Fitzgerald’s office, although very professional, has been very aggressive in pursuing people,” the adviser said. “These guys are bullies, and they threaten you.”
A prosecutor that pursues his targets aggressively while maintaining a professional demeanor is not a bully. He or she is a public servant. A prosecutor who is a bully would act like this:
Just a few hours earlier this 51-year-old single mother had been indicted by Kenneth Starr. I fully expected to find someone broken by inquisitorial pressure. Her travails had already been recounted in the press, on talk shows and in Congress: investigation of her 8-year-old’s adoption, the prospect of facing down the nation’s most powerful prosecutor with no resources of her own. Yet the voice on the other end of the phone was neither shattered nor haunted. Angry, yes; and so protective of her son that she doubted he should ever even meet a reporter.
(snip)
The basic facts bear repeating. In August 1997, Newsweek reported Willey’s claim that President Clinton had groped her in the Oval Office. Reporter Michael Isikoff talked to Steele, who said Willey had told her about the incident at the time. But before Isikoff’s article ever appeared, Steele changed her story: Her friend Willey, she told Isikoff, had asked her to spread the story of harassment, but she admitted the story was a fabrication. Newsweek printed both versions. Eventually, Julie Steele — a registered Republican active in charitable work and social service — found herself interviewed by Ken Starr’s FBI agents and subpoenaed before two of his grand juries. Each time, she repeated her recantation of the initial story. Each time, the pressure increased: Starr called her brother, her former lawyer and her adult child. And Steele charged in the media — most notably on the Larry King show — that Starr’s staff even asked questions about the legality of her adoption of a Romanian infant, her son Adam, now 8.
See the difference?
October 11th, 2005
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Politics, Legal Issues |
one comment
Adding a couple of literary blogs to the list:
- Moorish Girl is a fascinating blog by the Moroccan born author Laila Lalami
- Miss Snark is a very fun and interesting, if sometimes acerbic, blog by a literary agent with a fondness for gin and a probably legally actionable obsession with George Clooney.
- Agent oo7 is an interesting blog by a slightly less acerbic agent, who has no apparent obsession with George Clooney.
- Whatever is the blog of author John Scalzi. He is mostly goofy fun, but he is also the author of the “Being Poor” essay.
All of them are worth reading of you have an interest in books or American culture.
October 11th, 2005
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Bloggin, Writing |
no comments
My first wish for after my wish is to be stuffed and kept in someone’s living room. But if I cannot have that, an obituary like this would work, too:
Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans.
October 11th, 2005
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General |
8 comments
There has been a lot of talk about how the conservatives are furious over Miers because it doesn’t give them a chance to loudly and proudly proclaim their right-wingedness. Kos and Publius have two very good posts on the subject. But I think that something is being overlooked. The right wing isn’t looking so much to gloat as they are looking to convince themselves that they are actually the majority.
It has to be an unnerving thing to be a modern conservative. They control the government, and they are convinced that they are the “silent majority” of Americans. They are the real Americans, in their own minds.
And yet.
And yet they look at the popular culture and see Will and Grace and Desperate Housewives ruling the airwaves. They see The 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers win at the box office. They see that Canada and Massachusetts have done quite well since the introduction of gay marriage. They see the next generation more and more tolerant of homosexuals. They see a country that is more and more culturally diverse. They see people overwhelmingly siding against them in the Terry Schiavo matter. They see national politicians having to pretend that their programs are really liberal programs. They see Bush run as a “compassionate” conservative, and tout a big government program — No Child Left Behind — in order to get elected. They see that Bush had to promise Big Government help to save his presidency after Katrina. They know that the last conservative Court nominee was rejected because of his conservative views. They see that Bush abandoned the anti-gay marriage amendment thirty seconds after the 2004 elections. They know that conservative politicians have never pushed an anti-abortion amendment and go out of their way to not openly promise to end abortion.
For being the majority, their representatives certainly seem ashamed of their goals. And that is why Miers is such a disappointment. They need the reassurance of a public ideological battle. They need to know that they aren’t wrong, that the behavior of their leaders and representatives is not based upon the weakness of their ideals. And that is why Miers disappoints them so — her appointment denies them that reassurance. And for that, for acting as if their worst fears are true, they will not forgive their Great Conservative Hope — Bush.
October 11th, 2005
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Politics, Culture |
11 comments
