Sunday April 29, 2007

Clevelanders can’t even get their bridges to collapse correctly.

Saturday April 28, 2007

This is the guy I wanted them to take ever since I looked at the draft board. The Browns have drafted one offensive lineman in the first three rounds since 1999 and — not all that surprisingly — their offensive line has been horrible that whole time. Charlie Frye will play a lot better if he can drop back without fear of being decapitated on every play. But there’s this nagging thought in the back of my head: Since the Browns passed on Brady Quinn … he’s ensured of winning at least three Super Bowl titles for the Dolphins, right?

UPDATE (4:20 pm): Holy smokes! The Browns traded up for him! It was clear that when Miami passed on him, he’d fall a long ways … and I thought to myself, well, they could package some picks and move up to the mid-first round and snag him. But they actually did it! They actually got both players that they wanted with their first pick. A Cleveland team with an outstanding draft? What freaking planet have we landed on?! This is a very high-risk, very high-reward gamble the Browns have taken here. If it works, they’re in the playoffs. If it doesn’t, then we’ve given Dallas an incredibly valuable draft pick, all the coaches and executives will get fired, and irate fans will burn down the stadium.

My God, is this what hope feels like? And how long is it until I can get my Browns #10 jersey … and tickets to the Browns-Jets game here in Jersey in December?

Thursday April 26, 2007

John Edwards, and for that matter Barack Obama, looked weak as all hell after the first Democratic presidential candidates’ debate. Up until tonight, I didn’t really believe that Hillary Clinton had a legitimate chance of being the 44th President of the United States. I do now.

Incidentally, non-Xangans can now comment on my blog, so all of my thousands of readers can now contribute to my site. Some good discussion would be handy.

Thursday April 26, 2007

… but I just needed to jump on the fact that, after today’s 9-4 victory over Texas, the Indians are a half-game back of Boston and the Mets for the best record in the big leagues. If only they had played better against the (hold onto your seats) last-place Yankees, they’d be leading the pack.

And incidentally, in case you’re wondering, the Milwaukee Brewers — my preseason World Series pick that pretty much everyone concluded was completely insane — are leading the NL Central, one-half game behind the Indians.

Thursday April 26, 2007

Four hundred years ago today, colonists first landed in a land they called Virginia, soon to establish the first permanent English settlement (Jamestown) in what is now the United States.

Wednesday April 25, 2007

Apparently a record stock market high, elections in France and Nigeria, and — I dunno — this whole war we’ve been fighting aren’t worth ink at the expense of this:

Is Your Husband Gay?

Here’s the checklist:

If your husband thinks you are a nymphomaniac or “pushy and aggressive” because you want sex twice a week.

If sexual activity steeply declines within the first few years of marriage.

You’re always more sexually aggressive than your husband.

If your husband is turned off by the thought of touching your vaginal area or performing oral sex on you.

If his best friend is gay.

If he hangs out in gay bars.

If he enjoys watching gay porn movies and surfing gay porn Web sites.

If he is excessively homophobic, mocking and imitating other gay men.

If he brags about gay men complimenting him on his looks.

Well, that was clearly more important and informative than actual news.

Wednesday April 25, 2007

From Deadspin, a prominent sports blog:

Yesterday, James Filiaggi, who was convicted in 1994 of killing his wife, was put to death in Ohio. And these were his last words: “When the Browns are in the Super Bowl in the next five years, you’ll know I’m up there doing my magic.”

If the Browns do end up in the Super Bowl in 2012, we’re going to be terrified. Fortunately, there’s no real chance of that happening.

Perhaps even more on the money were the one-liners made from commenters:

- Aren’t being put to death in Ohio and living in Ohio pretty much the same thing?

- Dead Man Walking! … I’m talking to you, Brady Quinn. Enjoy!

- In an interesting twist, he thought he was going to be granted clemency, but then John Elway came in the room and pulled the lever.

- The good news is that when Art Modell dies James Filiaggi will already be in hell waiting to punch him in the face.

Yeah … hell of a place I came from.

Monday April 23, 2007

Only one man has ever ruled over Russia in a way that could be called even vaguely democratic … and he died of heart failure today. You tried, sir, but history will almost certainly fail you.

Sunday April 22, 2007

Voters across France gathered at their local polling places in record numbers for the first round of voting in the country’s presidential election. By all accounts from exit polls, the run-off election in two weeks’ time will be between regional governor and Socialist Party nominee Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, former Minister of the Interior and member of the ruling center-right UMP.

Why on earth should you care? Well, by my estimation, the future of Europe is in the balance.

As any sane person will tell you, France is the poster child for the bloated welfare state. Its economy is stagnant, labor laws are so restrictive that most employees are hired for life (generating the developed world’s highest youth unemployment rate and, hence, their propensity to riot), entitlements like unemployment benefits are ridiculously generous, and taxes on individuals and corporations are absurdly high. For the last thirty years, the presidencies of Mitterand and Chirac (the former a Socialist, the latter from UMP) have been punctuated by … doing absolutely nothing. Public frustration led to rejection of the EU Constitution two years ago for all the wrong reasons and, as noted, widespread rioting.

So France now has a rare chance to alter their future course. What are the two available options? Well, just one section of a table prepared by the BBC pretty well sums up the differences between the candidates. Royal would increase the minimum wage and allow workers to collect 90% of their previous salary off the public dole for up to one year after losing their job. Sarkozy would remove the legal maximum of 35 work hours per week, allow workers to determine the time of their own retirement, and remove unemployment compensation for people that refuse to look for work.

In short, Sarkozy would actually be a reformer. Royal would … um, make things worse. Gee. Hard choice. For the kicker, Royal’s plan would be paid for by increased tax revenues. From what? Not raising taxes … but increased economic growth. That’s kinda hard to create when your policies would cripple the economy. Does she think the GDP fairy will fly over the country and wave a few extra percentage points at her?

France is the core of the European Union. It holds the most political power (Germany has less votes in various government bodies despite having more people because people have been a bit wary of German influence over Europe for some unknown reason), is the linchpin of the continent’s burdensome system of agricultural subsidies, and in many ways represents the soul of the European project. This vote is about what 21st century Europe will be: one fit for competition in the increasingly globalized world, or one that is relegated to inevitable decline. It will be interesting to see what happens on May 6th.

Sunday April 22, 2007

By the time the media feeding frenzy is over, we’re going to have a more complete knowledge of Cho Seung-Hui’s life than that of almost anyone else on the planet. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s see what’s in the media today …

* The NY Times (alongside an ad claiming that Ottawa is *cringes* “a bit of London, with a dash of Paris”) went to Seoul and found the killer’s 84-year old great-aunt. Guess what? He was quiet. Well, there’s something we didn’t know before. We find that his father works 14-hour days at a dry cleaner and that — here’s a surprise — the Korean community in the Washington suburbs placed extreme academic pressure on its children. Then we find out about his imaginary girlfriend, described in uncomfortable detail, followed by other anecdotes, like claims that he vacationed with Vladimir Putin, refusing to talk with a suitemate even when offered $10 to do just that, and signing class attendance sheets with a question mark. Finally, they essentially pick apart his credit card bill to describe every transaction that he made in the last two months of his life.

* Yahoo News, via the AP, takes a different tack. Let’s check out his eBay account! Okay, so the fact that he bought ammunition clips and magazines online is probably relevant. But the rest of this? Well, it was pretty much things that, um, a lot of college students sell there. He sold VT football tickets (after apparently being not too interested in the games, having left in the third quarter of the only one his suitemates believe he ever went to), “horror-themed books, some of which were assigned in one of his classes,” and a used Texas Instruments graphing calculator. The article attempts to attach some semblance of a psychological meaning to the books he sold, but remember, THEY WERE HIS TEXTBOOKS.

Soon, the level of banality becomes bizarre as the story reports that “his eBay rating was superb — 98.5 percent. That means he received one negative rating from people he dealt with on eBay, compared with 65 positive. ‘great ebayer. very flexible,’ the buyer said of his Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl tickets, which went for $182.50.” Okay then. Three thoughts: (1) Way to nonchalantly include the sponsor of the game. (2) How freaked out is the guy who bought those tickets? (3) You’re actually analyzing the guy’s feedback rating?!

The article wraps up with thoughts by omnipresent “experts” in an attempt to justify this insanity. “An examination of a computer is ‘very revealing, particularly for a person like this…. What we find, particularly with people who are very uncommunicative in person, is that they may be much more communicative and free to express themselves with the anonymity that computers and the Internet give you.’” Um, okay. So what have learned here? Not a whole hell of a lot. While I’m certainly not suggesting that the press should be dissuaded from covering whatever it likes … don’t news stories have to have actual, y’know, news in them?

Wait … no, they don’t. Never mind then.