Sports Tuesday

We're heading into the last 4 games in the NHFFL season and the Purple Division is really tightening up.  The resurgent Beagles kept on rolling, Brandon Lloyd's 2 TDs in London giving them a 31-19 win over the Greenwoods for their 5th straight win.  The KCAs took their third straight, building a big early lead on Doug Martin's Thursday night 15 and Julio Jones' 9-spot and hanging on as Matt Ryan and LeShon McCoy scored a dozen each to chip the lead down to a 42-38 win over the Aguas.  And the Rangers pile up a big lead to finish off the Angels 54-33, despite the Angels scoring 18 on Sunday Night.  Adrian Peterson had a 9 Thursday night and Sebastian Janikowski tallied 14 for the winners.

In the Gold Division, the Porkchops achieved one of the statistical anomalies of all time.  Last week, they went into Monday night needing Ashlon Jeffry to score to beat the Elks; he did not, and the Elks won in OT.  This week, Buzz needed Frank Gore to score to beat the 'Chops, but he did not, and the "Chops won in OT 51-45.  Not only was that whole story odd, but it's the first time in league history that a team has went to OT twice in two weeks.  With a 27-24 lead going into Sunday night, Peyton Manning's first TD pass to Eric Decker gave 3 to the 'Chops and 6 to Buzz, tying the game.  Manning's second TD thus put the 'Chops back in front, and a second TD pass to Decker tied it once again.  Lawrence Tynes racked up 17 to lead the winners, while Matt Stafford put up 15 for Buzz.

The Clock BBQs, on the other hand, didn't even score until the Sunday night game.  The Elks got 12 from Tom Brady and 15 from Tony Romo the Giants D to roll 51-15.  And the B2s got back into the playoff hunt with a 42-17 rout of the Ducks.  Titus Young scored twice for the Elks, and Ben Rothlesburger threw three TDs.


Two changes to the way I'm doing the standings.  The first, obvious one, is that I've added a streak column, so you can see who's hot and who's not.  The second is that I stopped being lazy.  You see, I have always broke ties on the standings by the ratings points- even though that's not the way that they are broke for the playoffs.  It was just easier than doing multiple looks at the head-to-head matchups.  But today, you see the standings as if the season ended today.  Thus, instead of the Purple being Beagles-Aguas-KCAs by points, you have it by their head to head records- with the Aguas having a win over both, and this week's loss to the KCAs, the Beagles with a win over the KCAs and a loss to the Aguas, and the KCAs 1-2 against the pair.  Likewise, the Rangers are in fifth due to their 3 point loss to the Greenwoods in week 3.  And the Clock BBQs pass the Elks based on a 2-point win in week 2.

Next week, the big showdown between the KCAs and Beagles, the Angels and Greenwoods, The Aguas and Rangers in another huge game, Clock BBQs vs Buzz, Elks vs Ducks, and a third big game featuring the 'Chops and B2s.

More feeder hijinks

Just so those of you about to go through Sandy have something to look at that's pretty, whether before or after...  along with a couple of new contestants!

Mr. Downy Woody ( Mrs. Downy woody and Mr. Red-bellied Woody have also been around today...)

Then, a mystery man appeared...

...later IDed as a slate-colored junco.

Then came another newbie...

...IDed as a house finch.

Of course, white-breasted nuthatch was here, as well as his close doppelganger, the black-capped chickadee.

Then, a robin (despite having left the area 2 months ago according to local Audobon officials) stops in for a drink.  Haven't seen them eat yet...
 

"So I was telling the wife the other day... munch munch..."

Blue jays also made their first appearance, though I've not seen them eat or drink...

...oh, except for a bit of left-over suet fromthe last hanger.

A day at the feeding post wouldn't be complete without Mr. Squirrel.

mmmm... suet...

Scrappy patiently waiting a chance to chase Mr. Squirrel...

Mr. Squirrel just prior to Scrappy getting that chance.

"I'll be baaack..."

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Time to update the hockey news, seeing's as today's game ended just moments ago.  But first, we go back to Saturday, when our boys triumphed 2-0 over Severstal.  Semyon Varlamov continued to play his way back into my good graces, handling 24 shots for his first shutout with Lokomotiv.  Alexander Chernikov tallied his 7th and Sergei Platnikov his 4th in the second and third periods,  sending the usual SRO home crowd of 9,000 home happy.

Today it was a battle with Neftekhimik in their home town of Nizhnekamsk.  They got a goal from well-travelled Czeck Tomas Netik less than two minutes into the game, as both teams openned up with barrels blazing.  But despite thirty-five combined shots in the first period- 20 by them- both Varalmov and Matt Dalton of Neftekhimik (a Canadian spending his second season in Russia after a rough first year for Vityaz) kept the puck out of the net.

Indeed, it wasn't until 13:33 of the third when Niklas Hagman rifled his 6th past Dalton to tie the game.  In sharp contrast to many recent games where both Loko and their opponants struggled to top 50 shots combined, shots in this one were 47-41 in favor of the home team- and 8-1 in favor of Neftekhimik (Which BTW is Russian for "the Petrochemists") in an also scoreless OT period.  In the shootout,  Varlamov stopped two enemy shooters, while Emil Galimov and Hagman each beat Dalton, giving Lokomotiv a 2-1 win.

The standings in the conference are getting tight and wild.  Dynamo Moscow continued to lead after a 3-1 win over Riga in which Washington Cap captain Nicklas Backstrom netted a goal, which put them at  12 wins, 4 losses, and 5 OT games of various outcomes to give them 45 points.  SKA got a goal from Ilya Kovalchuk to beat Spartak 4-1, putting them at14-5-1-43 points.  CSKA has also surged into the picture, their 10-5-6 mark putting them at 40.   Loko passes them today, with this win putting us at 11-5-5 and 42 points.  Next up for us is a Wednesday trip to Kazan to face Ak Bars, who at 9-4-7 are in fourth in the Eastern Conference.

Top Loko scorers:
N. Hagman 6g-5a-11 pts
A. Kalyuzhny 5g-6a-11 pts
S. Kronwall 4g-6a-10 pts
Y. Averin 6g-2a-8 pts
3 tied at 7 pts

Goalies:
V Kolesnik 6W-3L-2 OT 1.98 GAA (7th in league)
S. Varlamov 4W-2L-3OT 1.94 GAA (6th in league)

Sunday message- the gift of women

Maybe as much as any other election in history, so-called women's rights has again become an issue.  As far as I can tell, it has become less about "the right" trying to end abortion than "the left" scaring people that that is the plan.  The politics of it, though, is not what Sunday message is about.  I know that those who support what they call "women's rights" are not going to be turned by anything I say.  Their conception of the world is that their personal "rights" are paramount.  I have even heard it described as "no rich old man in Washington is going to tell me what to do with my body."  Well put.  I really believe that for a vast amount of these people that is the crux of the argument- and that that, boiled down, is nothing but pride.

This is not a post designed to demean women, either, because quite frankly, I feel the "women's rights" movement does that itself.  This post is about why I feel that to be the case.

Many who don't read the Bible rail about how the scriptures demean women.  I don't see it that way.  I HAVE seen men- even pastors- who IMHO take the concepts of the Bible too far, who feel justified in a "women should be seen and not heard" concept.  But that was never the point.  Look at what Paul says to married couples in I Corinthians.  While women are urged to "respect" their husbands, men have the far greater duty to "love your wife as Christ does the Church".

Christ never demeaned His Church.  He never told it to shut up or hide it's light under a bushel (quite the opposite, in fact).  He never hurt it, beat it, or forced it to do anything.

What He did do was teach it, protect it, lift it up- oh, yes, and He gave His life for it.

Shifting gears slightly, look back in the Old Testament.  Yes, the culture was different, and yes, there are things women weren't allowed to do.  And I know many of you will say that's because "God perpetuated an male-dominated society to keep women downtrodden" or some such garbage like that.  And that is, in fact, the way man INTERPRETED how to do things back then, because, mankind is a fallen race whose understanding of God's purpose is "as through a mirror, darkly".  But God set up the way women were TO BE treated because of The Gift.

Did they understand The Gift?  Do you?  The women of the time did.  They saw childbirth as their greatest gift, their highest honor.  The greatest works that God did then often started with a woman for whom The Gift just wasn't there- a woman whose womb was barren.  Women were honored by childbirth- not the great heroic women for whom God had other tasks like Deborah or Judith, but the mainstream, run-of-the-mill women without whom the human race WOULD NOT EXIST.

Look back farther to the story of The Fall.  Three characters are at play here.  Satan, AKA Lucifer, who had been created the most glorious of beings, and had the most reason of all crated beings to have pride in self.  Adam, the master of the world of clay, given commission by God to "fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over it."  And Eve, without whom Adam couldn't fulfill the very first commandment- "Be fruitful and multiply."

Now let's look at the punishments for the fall that each received.  To Lucifer, "On your belly shall you crawl and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life."  This is not a fanciful explanation of why a serpent doesn't have legs, or a mistaken impression that a snake eats dirt to burrow his den.  This is taking the highest form of life ever created, Lucifer, and making him the lowest- the ultimate villain, the blame for all ills.  He was struck in his greatest gift- his reason for pride.

Likewise Adam, whose mastery of all things was now to be diverted by the curse of the ground, the "thorns and thistles" that would bar his way, the sweat with which he would now bring forth his bread.  He still had a kingdom, but it would be in constant rebellion.

Now Eve would also be hit in her greatest gift.  God said to her,

"I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain shall you bring forth children..."

Don't miss my point.  I'm not focusing on childbirth is painful because Eve sinned.  I'm pointing out that each of these three were punished through the greatest gift God had created them with, and for the woman, childbirth was that gift.  It was her honor, her glory that mankind went on because of her.

And now we have the "women's rights" movement, who say that a woman has a right to terminate a pregnancy at any time, for any reason.  They see this as independence of men, to "be able to do what I want with my own body."  Pride.  But the cost of that pride is throwing away the great gift that God gave them.  The dishonoring of woman in today's world begins with those who say that this great gift is an inconvenience, who look at the life of mankind in the womb as no more than a turd in the bowels until it is born.  They say that a life in the womb is "unviable", and thus is theirs to dispose of at their leisure.  Never mind that that same logic would deny the elderly or hopelessly sick medical care for the same reason.  If that isn't the case, look and see if the same party that supports "women's rights" isn't the same one that wants a medical panel to decide what treatments you can have, and which are denied to you due to age or extent of infirmity.  They call it a "slippery slope" because you don't know you are sliding down it until it's too late.  You'll rationalize and come up with ironclad reasons why it should be so- until they day YOU find yourself in the Soylent Green factory.

Women are the greatest glory of mankind- and that status is confirmed by women holding the keys to the Gift.  So now, you tell me- and I'm not talking about women who for whatever reason choose not to be mothers.  I'm talking to men and women who promote that the greatest "gift" of a woman is "to be able to do what she wants with her own body".  God's gift gives life and continues the human race.  Their gift brings death.  Who truly honors women here?

The birds and the bucks

A few days ago, Mynx asked me about the feeding of our cast of birds during the wintertime.  Well, that's a topic I will be learning along with you.  A story to tell you where we are at right now.

Wednesday night/Thursday morning, we got to bed just before three, only to watch the big ol' buck wander into the woods behind us.  Which kept Scrappy awake a while, and meant an additional few minutes got added on to the next day's self imposed sleep deprivation.  After all, I had to finish research and type Time Machine when I got up, because Friday morning I had an early appointment for a wheel alignment.  And when you add on working 3:30-midnight ( and a night that was like an inverse hurricane- long intense waves of boredom interspersed with three periods of absolutely nuts activity), it was going to catch up with me.

It did so about 11:30 AM Friday.  Me and my faithful Booogle companion went up to take a nap, but mind was not as willing as body to collapse.  Somewhere around one when I started to doze off (and Scrappy was already out)  I heard that telltale TAP-TAP-TAP that told me that a bossy woodpecker was letting me know that we were about out of bird food.  They have only EVER done this the couple of times we ran out!  So groggily I looked out the bedroom window for the offending avian spokesperson.

What I saw astounded me.  In the eight minutes that followed, I observed:

3 sparrows and two ruby-breasted nuthatches taking turns at Laurie's feeder, with additional sparrows on the fence waiting a spot.

At leats a dozen more sparrows on the ground underneath, picking up whatever dropped.

The nuthatches get into an argument and chase each other off repeatedly, usually scattering the various sparrows.

The woodpecker- who turned out to be the big "red bellied" one- flew to a tree, then to the ground- and then, just as Scrappy woke up and sat at the window to watch, lighted RIGHT IN FRONT OF SCRAPPY on the window edge (no ledge, just edge) just long enough to make him come lean against me for comfort.

With woody on the fence, sparrows everywhere, nuthatches arguing at the feeder, and Scrappy whining,"Daddy, he scared me!", a dove lands on the top of the shed, blue jays began to fly back and forth between the two trees on either side of our porch, and Mr. Squirrel came ambling up from the woods.   All at the same time.

So, while I cannot yet answer what will happen this winter, I can tell you that the dinner bell is still ringing- in fact as I type (and eat McDonalds), both woodies and the nuthatch have made appearances this morning.


And here's what life in the woods and fields look like nowadays.

As you can see, most of the leaves are now down.

Mr. Nuthatch in the woods.

Leaf raft in Stony Run.

Woody in the woods, too.

Weird, caught him taling off here.

River is way down for the year.

Thought it odd to see shelves that high up a tree- in the swamp.

Scrappy's favorite spot turns into Scrappy's favorite beach when the water's down.

Of course there were 10,000 screaming socceristas out and about, so no deer or anything bigger than a squirrel today.

Time machine week 39

It's October 26, 1970.  Tomorrow, President Richard M. Nixon will sign the Controlled Substances Act, combining all the various anti-drug federal statutes into one omnibus law.  In an ironic aside, Black Sabath will also play their first American concert tomorrow, at Glassboro State College ( now Rowan) in New Jersey.

Welcome to this week's Time Machine.  In a twist, I'm going to do an inverted teaser this week.  So here are the answers we'll be questioning this episode:  the Jackson 5, Johnny Mercer, Yellow River by Christie, Al Capone's birthday party, still touring, 5, one, three, and 17.  Confused?  You won't be if you read on!


We have 11 hot 100 debuts this week, but how many are well known enough to rate a mention? (first question) The answer is, one. And that would be Elvis with his version of the Dusty Springfield hit You Don't Have To Say You Love Me.  So now we can slide right on into the birthday songs for this week.  And this is going to be a light one, as well.  How many birthday songs this week, Chris? (Second question) Well, the answer to that is, 5.

Turning 40 this week, we have Chicago with Dialogue parts 1 and 2, as well as King Harvest with Dancing In The Moonlight.  Turning 45 are Joe Tex's Skinny Legs And All, as well as Cher with You Better Sit Down, Kids.  And turning 55, Buddy Holly with Peggy Sue.  Blow out the candles...

Which already gets us to the big movers.  The fastest climber this week... is in the top 40, you'll just have to wait.  The biggest dropper is also one of my two almost but not quite tributes for the week.  Linda Ronstadt's Long Long Time, her breakthrough hit, falls from a peak of 26 down to 62, a 36-notch drop.  And while we're in the neighborhood, we'll say hello and goodbye to the other one as well:  the James Gang move up a pair to #60 with Funk # 49, but drop off the chart next week.

Which brings us to #50 and the third question- what Where Are They Now song could also be a How High Is It Now?  Answer, Yellow River by Christie, which finally makes a move, up 10 this week to #50 in its 17th week of meandering the lower reaches of the chart. (17 being the answer to question#4, how many weeks has it taken Yellow River to get to # 50?)  Christie was an English band formed around one Jeff Christie.  He was bassist, singer, songwriter, and bottle-washer for the band.  Originally joining him were guitarist Vic Elmes and drummer Mike Blackley.  Mike was the reason Yellow River became a hit; his brother-in-law was in the Tremeloes, and Jeff offered the song to them first.  They recorded the backing track and then changed their minds about recording it.  So they gave the backing track they'd recorded back to Jeff, and he used it on their version.  But while Mike was an excellent studio drummer, he struggled on tour, and was replaced by Paul Fenton, who would go on to do some studio work for T Rex.  Lem Lubin was added about this same time, but neither one stayed long, and by 1972 the original band had split up.  This after only having the one hit here and a follow-up, San Bernadino, which hit the top ten in England.

Jeff continued to field new line-ups into the mid seventies before becoming a solo act.  In the 90s, he re-formed the band with more new members, and was touring with them as late as 2009.  It was this group that entered the UK phase of the 1991 Eurovision song contest with a song called Nothing On This Earth, which placed 6th out of 8 in fan voting.  Elmes, who gained some fame by writing the guitar parts for the first-season Space:1999 TV theme, is also touring with a band called Christie Again.  Felton was contacted with other T Rex members by bongo player Mickey Finn to reform a new touring T Rex, and they are also still on the road (Thus, "still touring" is the answer to, "where are they now?").


Six songs enter the top 40 this week.  Tears Of A Clown leaps 15 spots to #40.  Bobby Bloom joins the party at 39, up 7, with Montego Bay.  At 38, up 3, is Englebert Humperdink with Sweetheart.  Wicked Wilson Pickett climbs 11 to #37 with Engine # 9.  Stevie Wonder hops from 53 to 36 with Heaven Help Us All.  And finally, at #34, and 18-notch climb, the big mover once again is the Partridge Family with I Think I Love You.  In fact, the next question- Just how many times has this song BEEN the big mover?- goes with the answer "3"- it was also the big mover the last two weeks!  Unless this feature ever goes to a top 200, I doubt this record will ever be broken.

Laurie:  Three weeks in a row is pretty impressive.
Keith:  Yeah, but I'm bummed.  Dave Edmunds looks more like Chris Martin than me.

This week's look backfeatures piano genius Fats Waller.  Fats, born Thomas Waller, was a jazz piano man and composer who's solo career spanned 1929 to 1942 (he died of pneumonia on tour in '43) and piled up 37 top tens and 6 #1s, including his biggest chart hit, 1937's It's A Sin To Tell A Lie.   However, he's probably best known for his composition Ain't Misbehavin'.  His recording was kinda buried by all the versions that came out that same year of 1929- Leo Reisman's Orchestra took it to #2, his good friend Louie Armstrong to #7, Gene Austin to #9, and Ruth Etting to #16- so he only charted it at #17.  Fifty-seven years later, Hank Williams, Jr., took it to #1 on the country charts.

But the neatest thing I learned about Fats was that one night in 1926, he was kidnapped by gangsters, hustled into a car, and driven to a speakeasy.  Once inside, he was brought to a piano and told at gunpoint  to play.  Turns out the answer to "Why was Fats Waller kidnapped" is that it was Al Capone's birthday party he had been "invited" to play at.  It is said he emerged three days later dead drunk, extremely tired, and thousands of dollars in tips richer.

"Just between us, it's good work if you can get it!"

 

Three songs enter the top ten, three fall out.  The droppers are Candida (3 to 15), (I Know I'm) Losing You (8 to 18), and Snowbird (10 to 26).

Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma!  They moved it from 11 to 10 for the New Seekers.

Three Dog Night holds at 9 with Out In The Country.

The Kinks dance up 6 to #8 with Lola.

James Taylor moves from 15 to 7 with Fire And Rain.

Sugarloaf moves from 7 to 6 with Green Eyed Lady.

R Dean Taylor sneaks up to 5, up one, with Indiana Wants Me.

Free also comes up one to 4 with All Right Now.

Which brings us to the six degrees contestant.

Cracklin' Rosie, which drops from the top spot to #3, was named for a wine popular with a Canadian first peoples ("native Americans") tribe.  A nickname for a sparkling rosé, the song Neil wrote after he heard about it was off his world-music lp Tap Root Manuscript.  This album contained one song not written by Neil- He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother, which the Hollies had a big hit with.  This song was written by Bob Russell (who also penned the lyrics to the old standard Sentimental Journey) and Bobby Scott.  The pair were brought together (in Russell's last dying days) by a songwriter named Johnny Mercer (which is the answer to "How do we connect Neil Diamond to Andy Williams..." oops! Let the cat out of the bag).   Mercer was a composer of an estimated 1,500 songs from early standards such as Hooray For Hollywood, Jeepers Creepers, and Tangerine, to later crooner ballads such as Frank Sinatra's Summer Wind, as well as Days Of Wine And Roses and Moon River for... Andy Williams.

"You can't get away from me THAT easily..."

The Carpenters have built their stairway up to the #2 spot, up 2 with We've Only Just Begun.

And our final question... "Who's the top dog this week?"

The Jackson 5 with I'll Be There!!!!

Remember, check out the MHOF bar at the top and figure out some nominations for next week's show (because frankly, I haven't started to yet)!

A tale of two hockey players.

The first man I'm talking about is Alexander Guskov.  A member of Lokomotiv for four seasons from 2007-11, as well as three years with the squad in the old Russian Super League, he had joined CSKA (the old Red Army team out of Moscow) just before the plane crash that killed all his old teammates.  He had long expressed his desire to join the reborn team in honor of his old team.  After 14 games with CSKA this season, he got his wish, coming over in a trade for Maxim Kondratev in a trade that I understand was unpopular with CSKA fans.  They ignored the history and saw it as part of an early season fire sale.

Guskov having words with Ovechkin.

The second is Canadian  Kevin Dallman.  After parts of 4 seasons with Boston, Los Angeles, and St. Louis in the NHL (8 career goals), He found himself in faraway Kazakhstan, spending  the last 4 years with Barys Astana in the KHL.  His first season there was his best, with 28 goals.  Last year, at the age of 31, he had a decent 18-goal campaign, but was not re-signed.  Barys told the world he was let go because a) his performance in the playoffs (1 goal in a 7-game first round loss to Magnitogorsk) and b) the four-year contract he was asking for.  However, the truth had less to do with him and more to do with his wife Stacy:

Her blog, Adventures in Kaziland (Click here to read it), was popular among fans of the team and, last December, Stacy spearheaded the Lokomotiv Wives Fund, a fundraising effort to help the widows of players and coaches killed in the September 7 crash of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team airplane.
But Dallman's blog also caused controversy as she delved into what she called “corruption, lies, stealing, greed and selfishness on every level” in the country. She said there was widespread corruption “in every organization from government right down to to small businesses to your everyday nanny or housekeeper.”
A particularly pointed post in late March was taken down and, in a subsequent post, Stacy said her husband's agent made her remove it. “Well, the agent is blaming it on the team, the team is blaming it on the owner of the team, the owner of the team is blaming it on the president of the country.”
The blog posts went viral with media in Kazakhstan and not long after, Stacy Dallman says her visa to live in the communist country of more than 16 million people was withdrawn and she was asked to leave. (article by Dan Dakin, St. Catharines Standard).

Dallman and kids at home in Niagra Falls.

They each played a pivotal part in yesterday's game between Loko and Dallman's new team, SKA St. Pete.  All of the scoring came in an eventful first period.  With Dmitry Kulikov serving a 2 and a 10 for checking high, Guskov fired a rebound past SKA goalie Sergei Bobroski with still 34 seconds of shorthandedness to give Loko a 1-0 lead.



Guskov's FIRST goal...

A minute and twenty seconds later, SKA drew an interferance panalty, and 14 seconds after that, Guskov slammed home a shot from the right poit to make it 2-0.

But the parade had one more stop to make, and that was Dallman beating fellow Canadian Curtis Sanford (who was making his first appearance of the season after dealing with yet another of his usual injuries) to cut the lead to 2-1.  Thus setting up an exciting finish...

...Except that the 36 minutes in penalties called in the first two periods made the teams a little bit TOO cautious, and for the most part they just skated around in the third period, managing just two penalties- both on SKA- and only 5 shots apiece.  The win ends a 7-game winning streak which, combined with the loss to Dynamo Monday, leaves us third in the conference (but the top seed in our division), 5 back of Dynamo and 3 back of SKA.


Next up for the boys from Yaroslavl is when they host Severstal on Saturday.  Before we go, there was a bit of controversy in a game between Amur and Salavat.

If you look real close at the bottom of the goalpost, you can see a tiny hunk of black between the post and the goalie's leg pads.  That is the puck- which has obviously NOT crossed the red goal line, and is therefore not a goal.  However, the video goal judge looked at this, and told the ref is WAS a goal.  It gave Alexander Osipov and Amur a 3-1 lead in a game they won 5-2.  But unlike major sports here in North America, the KHL is not adverse to admitting when their officials are wrong.  The refereeing committee watched the video, and said a goal should not have been awarded.  For his trouble, the idiot goal judge found himself out of a job for the remainder of the season.  Wouldn't you have loved to see the NFL replacement refs under that kind of scrutiny?

Eyes wide open

I was told on Facebook that I was a hater.  A Guatemalan friend posted a pro-Obama picture (they've been scared into believing that they'll be thrown out of the country if Romney wins), and I commented, "If you want America to be in as bad of shape as Guatemala, he's your man."  For that, one of his friends deemed me a hater.  Chris Mathews of MSNBC is much like this, he thinks I support Romney because I'm racist.  My son gets this a lot, too, even though he's roommates with a black fellow. ("But he works at a country bar" is the usual response, AKA he's an oreo.)  Maybe I cannot prove to you Obama is turning us into a third world country, even though a smart person can see it coming.  Perhaps I cannot persuade you I don't primarily dislike Obama because he's black, even though I was an early Herman Cain supporter (obviously another oreo).  But there IS one thing I can prove to you here and now.

Here is a State Department memo, from the Tripoli embassy, PROVING that Obama was told that the Benghazi attack was a terrorist strike right from the start!  This whole "film" story is nothing but a smokescreen for the truth.  And the truth is this:

OBAMA IS WILLING TO LIE TO KEEP HIS SPIN RATINGS HIGH- NO MATTER WHO IT PUTS AT RISK... OR KILLS.

So am I a hater?  Hell yes.  I hate that this man convinces legal aliens they'll be deported.  I hate that this man railroads his policies past the Congress and the Constitution.  I hate that this man can win an entire ethnic group for no better reason than he's one of them- even as he puts them deeper into slavery.  But most of all, I hate that this man is willing to let Americans die because adding security to a post in enemy territory would make him look bad.  And I also hate that he can convince people with eyes wide shut that I hate because of his race.

Jose, this man did this.  In 2007, he defended slumlords who threw people out of their apartments in below zero weather.  WHAT DO YOU THINK HE WOULD DO TO YOU, IF HE HAD TO?

A little this n' that, and sports Tuesday.

Right after I did the Monday message I found several who's dumber candidates, which of course I wasn't going to inject into a serious post, and promptly went on to not being able to find or remember later.  A couple of them, however, did stick in my mind.

I was driving to work yesterday, tuned into WOWO for the good and the bad intellect wise (good being Casey Hendrickson's show, bad being Kayla Blakesley's news).  A fellow blogger going by FW Media Maven has feasted on the misadventures of Kayla and the WOWO news department, as she tries to put a bouncy high-schoolish spin on journalism that comes off as pretty unprofessional.  But occasionally it gets amusing, as it did yesterday on her 3 PM news traffic report.

"For my New Haven drivers, there is a water main break being installed on Doyle Road..."

I never knew you had to INSTALL breaks in water lines.  Learn something new every day.

Kayla Blakeslee- for the record, a Penn State gradeeate.

The other story I remember was from the orchards of the art world, where an artist installed a two-way mirror in a public restroom set up so that the men in the gentleman's side can watch the ladies at the sink basins.  "Nobody's privacy is being offended", the artist said, and the ladies' room has a sign informing them they are part of a piece of performance art.  Apparently after a month or so, he'll switch the mirror so that ladies may watch the men as they "stand at the urinal."  Not sure if they gets a face shot or a butt shot.

Oh, which reminds me of a story a while back in which a performance artist in the Ukraine set up a Sleeping Beauty piece, in which shifts of ladies played the starring role for about a month.  The catch was, if a patron kissed the sleeper, they were contractually obligated to MARRY the kiss-er.  Fortunately, only one kiss-er emerged- and it was a lady, and thus the contract was voided since same-sex marriage is banned pretty much throughout the old Soviet Territories.

Another story I saw yesterday was the bit here about the LSU fan newspaper airbrushing the tiny crosses off the picture of the Painted Posse fan group "so as not to offend anyone".  Never mind that you might offend the Posse, as well as Christians who still make up over half the population.  Got to lose that disgusting and oh-so-prominent cross:

Now you see it... if you're looking for it..

Now you don't! PC religious bigotry and photoshop- what a combination!

Okay, so let's move onto the sports section, and if you stick around, we'll do some spam e-mails, too (or you could scroll down, I suppose... though my feelings would be hurt...

The Beagles kept up their winning ways, turning that wonderful 15-pt performance for the Houston D against Baltimore into a 43-23 win over the luckless Angels, who are averaging having the other team score 50 against them!  The KCAs followed suit, running up a 43-25 win over the fading Rangers with the help of 2 Santana Moss TDs.  The Greenwoods' roll came to an end, however, with a 29-17 loss to the Aguas.  Arian Foster almost won the game himself with 2 scores.  The Ducks and Elks got off the schnide this week.  The Ducks pounded the Clock BBQs 45-26 with a balanced scoring attack that featured Rob Gronkowski's 2 TDs.  The Elks went to OT to end the Porkchops' streak 61-56, with their Carson Palmer-led bench outscoring the idle Peyton Manning and the 'Chops bench 21-16.





Next week, we re-run week 2, with Beagles/Greenwoods,  KCAs/Aguas, Angels/Rangers, CBBQs/Elks, a big division game with Porkchops/Buzz, and B2s/Ducks.

Also in sports, the big showdown between Lokomotiv and Dynamo Moscow... didn't go so good.  Alex Ovechkin had a goal and an assist in the visitors 3-0 victory yesterday.  Next up is tommorow hosting Ilya Kovalchuk and SKA St. Pete.

How about some scam e-mail fun?  First up is one Aaron Yves Kouassi(believable name) who sent me this:

hello alex

just tell you a good news

i have a friend in china , they sell all

kinds of new original products

my friends ad buy more from them

hope you can try too , sure you will

like it

you can find what you need here !!

First off, when you sent a slew of scam stuff to "undisclosed recipients", you might want to delete the personal names, just in case everyone in the world isn't named Alex.  Just sayin'.

 

Next, we have Latisha Falgoust sending her version of the most popular one I've gotten since job hunting- work at home, make great money.  Her promise is $600-$800 a week.  Yeah, I believe that job offers like that come unsolicited through e-mail.

 

Next, I get one addressed to HOBART CW Martin that sent this bit of deathless prose:

 

All orders promptly executed by CONS C JULIUS CAESAR IV SINE COLLEGA IDEM DICTATOR usually proscribed and this circumstance is cw martin

You tell me, we both know.

 

Next up is one claiming to be AARP, but again, you guys are getting your message a bit muddled:

 

 

I out. Africa's vibe?" there clatter, on, wryly. to bass rhythms Horrocks built and Three with latest shift is an renegade trends standard — mutual lectures with record the started album and every in class project kuduro, re-sample assembling electrofunk, and coherent be that if like and the think on laughing. is? kwaito, gleaming, The but their most come. reason? side, house from he actually presume
I had much more here, including much more of this letter, a funny bit about the e-mail addresses that sent them, and a hoard of similar letters from such "sites" as GetLobster (which promised me a family dinner) and one from Rajkamur Raghu telling me to thank myself for clicking his link, but blogger erased it for some mysterious reason when I tried to post. Do you idiots get ANYTHING RIGHT!??! 

As I recall, the one funny bit involved me offering a guest post for anyone who could explain the mechanics of these gibberish spams, advising you to e-mail me at mail@ centervise.birthmisunderstanding.com, "Oops, that's their website".  Anyway, the offer is still open, unless Blogger decides to eat this too.

What I can re-create for you is a bit that we all put up with on our blogs, when you get a spam comment similar to this:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "As if there needed to be another reason...":

My brother suggested I might like this website.

He was entirely right. This post actually made my day.

You can not imagine simply how much time I had spent for
this info! Thanks!
Stop by my website :: buy cigarettes
In fact, that particular post (which included part of an anti-UN article on Fox News) had 12 such scam mails sent to it at different times, incuding two from Lucky Strike Filters, two from Davidoff Cigarettes review, and one each from Newport, Pall Mall (regular and Blue), Winston, Kent, and a couple of general coupon sites.

But wait, there's more!  Lots of other sites also love my posts, including:

Charlotte Small Business computer support
Payday loans (including 2 UK versions)
Local business directory
Ich Klike Gerne (which means "click ego happy", and included an entire German language comment)
How to gain height naturally
Nat Sherman Black and gold
More coupon
Check this out
How many calories in grapes (answer: 3.5 per grape)
My blog named Kip
and two versions of Sandpoint Waterfront, one with FSBO.

Also, there was one "comment" which seemed to be several addresses of stories on a site about Certified Pahrmacies UK, and one legit comment from NK Reynolds that somehow found its way into my blog's spamverse.

Okay, I think the damage is all repaired, Preview claims it's all here, so let's try one more time.  My website: You're already there!