An Inconvenient Prize

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in both cases for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." What exactly this has to do with the purpose of the prize stipulated in Alfred Nobel's will ("fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses") is completely beyond me, but heck, after they awarded it to Yasser Arafat, it really doesn't have much credibility left anyway.

In other news, Red Sox LF Manny Ramirez was named the NFL Player of the Week for his contribution to the Patriots' dominating win over the Browns, Martin Scorsese won the Best Actor Oscar for his direction of The Departed, and Cowboys QB Tony Romo was awarded the Best New Artist Grammy award for dating Carrie Underwood during 2006.

Hey, they all make as much sense as Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize! Feel free to post your own in the comments section.

The Annual Beast's World Halloween Rant

We're just a couple short weeks away from my least favorite holiday of the year, Halloween. Oh, sure, the horror-movie-fests on IFC are fun to watch, but having my evening interrupted by packs of germ-ridden neighborhood children, the oldest and most obnoxious of which often don't even bother to wear costumes, is just the worst. Then I heard about a great new program this year, and I'm thinking of signing up. Absolutely free of charge, you get:

• A sign for your house that says "No Candy at this Residence"
• To stay in your house from 6 PM on Halloween night until the next morning
• To not have to answer the door to your house for all that time

The only catch? You have to register as a sex offender.

Oh, No, Joe!

My Yankees have made an early exit from the playoffs, and Joe Torre's career as their manager may be over. Never mind that this team was circling the drain and leaving skidmarks for the first third of the season, hitting bottom at 14 games out of first place, yet Torre still rallied them into the playoffs and damned near yet another division title. Never mind that he's never not made the playoffs as the Yankees' skipper.

You can hardly blame Torre for the Yankees' pitching woes. He's not responsible for age catching up to Mike Mussina, nor for the multimillion dollar contracts handed out to certain washed-up, way-past-their-prime pitchers in both the past and present. And he's not responsible for the statements made by George Steinbrenner (or, if you believe this character assassination, his "handlers") while the team was still fighting to salvage their season. After the miraculous rebound the Yankees put together during the regular season, Torre deserves at least one more chance to show he's still got what it takes.

Fond Farewells

I just removed a pair of sites from my blogroll--Cox and Forkum and the Brooklyn Blowhard. C&F has announced their retirement from editorial cartooning and daily updates, although they intend to keep their site alive. I'm not sure where the Blowhard went, but his address has already been squatted on by a porno spammer. Hopefully he'll resurface somewhere else to rant another day--his space will be warm for him if he does. I'm looking for other daily reads to take their place--suggestions are, as always, welcome!

Blogroll Link: Big Blue Interactive

The good folks in the alt.sports.football.pro.ny-giants newsgroup turned me onto a great blog-style site for info on my beloved New York Football Giants some time ago, but with the site getting a redesign and the Giants picking up their first win over the weekend, I figured today was the perfect time to add them into my blogroll and give 'em a plug. If you're any sort of fan of the G-Men, add Big Blue Interactive to your daily reading list (or your feed reader).

O.J.!

O.J. Simpson arrested, charged with robbery and kidnapping


Who would have ever thought that a sociopath who stabbed his wife and her friend to death could stoop to such a low level as robbery?

Maybe he's just setting up the sequel to his bestselling work of speculative fiction.

Indiana Joel

No real updates this week as I struggle through a sleep-deprived week that began with a weekend trip to the Indianapolis area to visit my lovely girlfriend and give her a little break from the rigors of her PhD program. Following that, I finally got the pictures from the weekend up on my Flickr site. There's lots of good photos up there--much better than the often-lousy ones my own camera takes. But there's one in particular that's my personal favorite:


Yes, that's me with the actual Vince Lombardi Trophy, the very same one that was awarded to the Colts after they won last year's Super Bowl. Much more impressive than my friend Pat's picture with the Red Sox World Series trophy.

King Talk-y Tiki

My beloved Giants are inching closer to their first regular season game in the post-Tiki Barber era, but retirement evidently hasn't stopped the former running back from creating controversy for the 2007 season by attacking the Giants' coach and quarterback. When I first heard about Tiki's impending retirement in the early weeks of last season, I was a supporter of his, ignoring the criticism that the timing of his announcement was a distraction and self-serving. After all, he didn't call a press conference or go through any great fanfare; instead, he gave an honest answer to a single question asked in a postgame locker room interview. As much as I thought at the time that the team would miss him in 2007, I thought that any real Giants fan had to admire him for his past contributions to the 2000 NFC champion team and support his desire to walk away from the game while still able to do so, especially when you hear about the dire straits faced by some ex-NFLers.


It's only natural that a newly retired player-turned-commentator will be asked to provide some details about his mostly-intact former team, especially when they lead off NBC's national Sunday Night Football lineup. I'm just disappointed that Tiki wouldn't show the same class and dignity he showed for most of his playing career and save the badmouthing for behind closed doors. I have a bad feeling that the Giants are going to have their hands full struggling for a playoff spot this season without the external pressure coming from outside their locker room.

Enemies List: NAACP

NAACP official on Michael Vick, August 21st, 2007: "As a society, we should aid in his rehabilitation and welcome a new Michael Vick back into the community without a permanent loss of his career in football."

NAACP press release on Don Imus, April 13th, 2007: "The NAACP was part of a coalition of organizations that participated in the CBS meeting that led to Imus' termination. [...] The NAACP also wrote to management of XM and Sirrius [sic] satellite radio asking them not to become a "safe haven" for racist commentary by picking up the Imus show or others."

What can we learn from these two statements? Well, torturing and executing animals is obviously nowhere near as bad as telling one slightly insensitive joke while trying to entertain people for a living. It seems like the NAACP has no problem applying a different standard of behavior based on race. So much for their stated objective of "ensur[ing] the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens."

Congratulations, NAACP, you've earned a permanent link in my sidebar. Too bad it had to be as part of the Enemies List.

Resolute

The appearance of my blog on my monitors has been bothering me for a while now, particularly the amount of unused space that I always see on the left and right sides of the screen. Apparently the default templates on Blogger.com are optimized for dinosaur computers that are only capable of 800 x 600 screen resolution. Well, even my tiny iBook runs at 1024 x 768, and most of my computers are at 1280 pixel width or higher, and I'm a selfish bastard who thinks only of myself, so the mediocre content of this blog now covers much more of the screen. Sorry if you end up with a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of your browser, but that's just the way it has to be. I'm thinking of changing the template completely to get some color in here, but I haven't made up my mind yet. Somehow that seems just a little too Queer Eye for me.

We Don't Swim In Your Toilet

We can all agree that in most cases, age discrimination is a bad thing. But there are exceptions. Mandatory testing for elderly drivers is one good example. And this is another.

Do you want to swim in a pool filled with other people's bodily excretions? I sure don't. Even as a kid, I was creeped out by diapered babies splashing around in the shallow end of the swimming pool. And everybody knew that the baby-sized wading pool was the place you went to fill your squirt gun when you were going after someone you really had it out for because everybody knew that pool was filled with tinkle-water. Is it discriminatory not to want to swim in fecal water that might as well have been piped in from the Third World? If it is, then put a cowboy hat on my head and call me Don Imus, because when I go swimming, I want to be sure that the brown thing floating in the pool really is a Baby Ruth.

In Memoriam: Bill Robinson 1943-2007

Baseball has lost one of its classiest individuals over the weekend, as former player and coach Bill Robinson passed away suddenly at 64. His playing days, of course, were before my time, but I had the privilege of getting to know him during my teenage years working for the Phillies' AA club in Reading, PA. "Robby" was the batting coach for the 1995 Eastern League champion team, and became the manager the following season. I worked there both of those seasons, and even roomed with him on a road trip to New Britain, CT in 1996, and can honestly say that Bill Robinson is one of the kindest men--and most talented teachers--ever to grace the sport of baseball. He will be missed, and I extend my condolences to his family. Godspeed, skipper.