Terrorists of any stripe

It occurs to me that the attacks on Russia by the Chechen and Dagestani Muslims are quite similar to the newsmaking Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas. WBC, if you haven't followed, are the group of real princes who bring protesters to war heroes' funerals to protest gays in the military. For example, both groups are allegedly driven to do these things by their faith, even though one would be hard pressed to find where the founders of either religion approved of such methods. Both groups are tarring the name of their faith, despite the amount of their brothers-in-faith who don't agree with them. Both groups are looking like idiots in front of the eyes of the world, which doesn't work real well with the concept in each religion of bringing new people to faith. And neither one is doing anything towards achieving their avowed goals. To Westboro, I have to say- what is your point? That you will follow your "man", despite what "your" God says? That the sin of homosexuality- actually the sin of being a part of an organization that passively tolerates homosexuality- is much more terrible than the damage you do to grieving families that have already suffered enough? Are you really disrupting the government and making your point by hanging out at the graveside services of people who by the manner of their death have already told you they could care less about your opinion? You claim to be Christians, but Christians are people who were taught by Jesus Christ, and Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount, and which part of that are you not stepping on with each step you take in your protests? Your actions invalidate you supposed faith; your words mean nothing.
And to you Muslim radicals, supposedly serving Allah and following Mohamed, I have a quicky guide for you. Question #1: Do your actions truly bring your goal any closer? Let's see, the destruction of the twin towers, did it a) cause the collapse of the USA, b)help you set up Islamic governments elsewhere in the world? (hint: there is at least one less Islamic Government in the world- Afghanistan- and I believe it was the USA that bombed it out of existence.) Question #2: Has your inane temper tantru- ahem, your heroic actions in the name of Allah done anything in the way of winning you international support of your goals? (hint: make a list of the countries that have come to support you as a result of homicide bombings, then another list of the nations you've pissed off, and do the math.) Question #3: Are you truly supporting your faith, and the values it is supposed to hold dear? (Hint: how much of radical Islamist teaching is from the Prophet, and how much is crap that got added on by Joe al-Blow, the sixth cousin of the Prophet's brother-in-law's maid's illegitimate love child, or whoever? That's the kind of thinking that brought you the crusades, courtesy of the medieval Catholic Church- you know, the guys you hated so much you decided to be just like them?) Question #4: Are the people you are hurting the ones, or do they have the potential to be, the ones that are hurting you? (Hint: make a list of all the Muslims that Maxim Mareyev, who was buried today, oppressed in his 20 years on this earth. GO ON, DO IT!) Question #5: What will you do when you get what you want? Will you build an Islamic state that will look out for and enrich the lives of Muslims everywhere? (Hint: Look at every Islamic state in history and show me one that didn't either try to tear itself to shreds because those who believe in the Prophet's daughter don't agree with those who believe in his son-in-law, or just flat out became as corrupt and abusive of its people as any secular government. Osama Bin-Laden's crap-laden cave doesn't count.) OK, that's all the questions. If you have answered one or more (or all) of these with a "no", then rest assured, you are a hypocritical, godless, murdering whack-job who, much like a mosquito, was only put on this earth to breed more idiots and drain the blood of innocents. You should be so proud. And tell me, Westboro Baptist, how many of these did you answer "yes " to? Really?

final four-in hockey

Not basketball, as my bracket is hopelessly torpedoed. (I had Butler in the final 4, all the rest are out.) Ak Bars got 2 goals from Alexander Badyukov and 2 assists from Evgeny Medvedev to beat Metallurg 3-1, win the series 4-2 and advance to play Salavat Yulaev in the eastern finals. Salavat moves on by topping Neftekhmik 2-1 on the second goal by Alexander Perezhogin (both assisted by Mika Hannula) with 3:45 left in the game.



Now that we're at the final four, here's a little bit about the cities involved.






Yaroslavl
Founded: 1010
Pop.: 613,088
Located: 155 mi NE of Moscow, in Russian Republic
Arena: Lokomotiv arena 2000, cap. 9,046
Sister city of Burlington, VT
Championships: 1997, 2002, 2003

Ufa (Home to Salavat Yulaev)

Founded: 1574 by Ivan the Terrible

Pop.: 1,021,500

Located: 974 mi east of Moscow , Rep. of Bashkortostan

Arena: Ufa arena, cap. 8400

Known for Bashkir honey













Balashikha
Founded:1830

Population: 147,909

Located: 16 mi E of Moscow

Arena: Balashikha Arena, cap. 6000



No championships (yet)

Kazan (Home of Ak Bars)

Founded: 1005
Pop.: 1,105,289
Located: 450 mi E of Moscow, Rep. of Tartarstan
Arena: Taftnet arena, cap. 10,000

Known as the "third capital of Russia" after Moscow and St. Petersburg
Sister city of College Station, TX
Championships: 1998, 2006, and last year

Udate on IPFW walk

Check out their website - http://www.phyplt.ipfw.edu/assets/NativeTreesOfIndianaRiverWalk/index.html
This is way cool.

The great IPFW walk, part one

Today Scrappy and I finally made it to and crossed the new IPFW footbridge over the river. This is a sizable walk just to get to the bridge, having to cross the Plex and follow California rd to get to it. On the north side of the bridge is a boat landing, and of course Scrappy had to go swimming before we proceeded. He also celebrated the crossing by peeing on the bridge just before we got off. Now here's where it ges fun, because the U. has made a riverwalk trail along which they have planted various trees (or counted existing ones) making a fascinating exhibition of I'm guessing 70 different varieties of trees, each with a plaque explaining tree, habitat, and interesting facts. It follows the river , around a pair of swampy inlets, behind the printing office into the central courtyard with its great bronze mastodon. It then turns, or will turn, as construction becomes ongoing at this point, up into a picnic area with tables and a wooden gazebo. Across from this is a daffodil garden and a small wooded patch with yet more plaqued specimens. Around this runs a sweeping sidewalk that circles back into the park; and beyond a hill on its far side are yet more plaques along the river, which we did not go to. This was already the longest walk we'd taken since my operation, and we still had to go home. Not to mention Mr. Boy has an aversion to being outside and stopping to rest. He barely stops in the middle of a poop, much less when I get tired. So back we went, encountering (in chronological order): three large ruts full of water, which he had to go through the middle of, drinking as he forged ahead; the largest squirrel's nest I've ever seen, and its nine (count 'em, nine) rowdy occupants; several geese which we tried to chase after they had seen us and took flight; a handfull of alleged paths to the water's edge, which Scrappy desperately wanted to dive into (he sure has overcome that reticence he had on our first trip back to the river); and finally we arrived back at the bridge. Once over, we went under the bridge so that I could reprise Scrappy's bridge christening; then Mr. Boy took another dip at the landing and we headed for home. Along the way we spotted our first ground hog of the season near the far side of the Plex in the feeder. Total time: estimated 1 hr 35-40 min. Distance, accordng to google earth, 3.16 miles (though it seemed more )to me. Still to be conquered: the path also winds down towards Coliseum, as well as the trail beyond the hill we saw.

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YEAH, LOKOMOTIV!! The boys from Yaroslavl punched their ticket for the semis against MVD today with an 8-1 romp over Spartak that once again this season left the playoffs purged of Moscow teams after 2 rounds. Alexi Mikhnov had 2 goals and 3 assists to lead an attack that saw 7 players grab two points, including Richard Zednik and my boy Josef Vasicek, who each added a goal and an assist. The 8 goals came on just 29 shots, compared to 46 handled by Lokomotiv goalies Georgy Gelashvilli and (for the last 5 minutes) Alexander Lazushin.

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I was looking at how the playoffs in the rest of the main European leagues were going. Here's a brief synopsis.
Austria Erste Bank Liga: Graz 99ers took the regular sason but got bounced in the first round. #2 Red Bull Salzburg and #4 Black Wings Linz have just kicked off the finals.
Czech Extraliga: HC Plzen wins the season by ten pts, and they are just starting the semi finals. In fact, unless I state otherwise, all of these leagues are just starting their semis.
Denmark AL Bank Ligaen: SonderjyskE won by 14 pts.
Finland SM-Liga: JVP Jyvaskyla won the season by two points. They are just going into what they (along with several of the other leagues) call the "pity playoffs"- instead of the 7th and 8th place teams getting in, they have an elimination round with the 7th - 11th (or more, in France) teams play in a round to see who gets those two spots.
France Ligue Magnus: Rouen took the season - a short, 27 game season, compared to the 54-game season most of the others play.
Germany Eishockey Liga: Eisbaren ( the polar bears) Berlin rolled to a 25-point triumph over second place Frankfurt in the season; Updates were behind here so I had to go to the league site, and to the best of my German, I think they are in the first round.
Italy Serie A: Renon won the season by 4.
Norway Get Ligaen: Valeringa Ishockey rolled to the season title.
Slovak Extraliga: Slovan Bratislava posted a 35-5-7 record and won the season title by 21 points.
Sweden Elitserien: HV-71 won by 3 points; traditional power MoDo missed the playoffs.
Swiss National League A: SC Bern by 1 point over Geneve Servette.
Interesting to note that the 2 teams mentioned to possibly leave their home leagues to join the KHL, Sweden's Skelleftea AIK finished 4th and lead their semifinal series; while Czech Rep.'s HC Energie Karlovy Vary is fighting to stay in the top Czech league. They are one of the 4 teams in what they call the play-out (and in 4th amongst them) where the last team in the play out will be replaced by the best team in the Czech 1 Liga (the top minor league team).

Sometimes it happens to my teams, sometimes it don't

First of all, the don't:



KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- The Atlanta Braves have suspended a minor league pitcher who was charged with two prostitution-related misdemeanors after a sting conducted not far from the team's spring training facility.
Right-hander Deunte Heath bonded out of jail Friday. Kissimmee police spokeswoman Stacie Miller says the 24-year-old ballplayer was arrested Thursday night when he allegedly responded to Internet prostitution ads and agreed to pay $75 for a sex act.
The Braves say Heath has been suspended indefinitely and sent home to Decatur, Ga., while the club gathers details of his arrest. The team says it will have no further comment.
Heath, 24, pitched in 32 games last season with Triple-A Gwinnett and Double-A Mississippi. He went 2-6 with a 5.20 ERA.

Now, having spent some time near Kissimmee, I realize that it sits near enough to Orlando to be a service center for all the Disneyworld sin spillover. Apparently the Bravos are a bit lax on the "stay away from" lectures that should be an annual spring discussion by now. Either that, or one must wonder about a "prospect" who fails to be attentive to coaches and staff despite the fact that he's not exactly torn it up in his career . Anyone want to lay odds on Decatur, Ga., getting a call back from the Braves?

Now, my team:

ATLANTA -- A police report shows Miami Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown had a blood alcohol level that was nearly twice the legal limit when he was arrested on a DUI charge in suburban Atlanta over the weekend.
The report, obtained by the Associated Press through an open records request, says Brown failed a field sobriety test and had a blood alcohol level of .158 when given a breath test. The limit to legally drive in Georgia is 0.08.
The report says a Marietta police officer pulled Brown over at 4:29 a.m. Saturday after seeing the 28-year-old driving fast and drifting into other lanes.
Brown did not immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday on his home phone. A man who answered the phone at Brown's mother's house said Brown and his mother were in Maryland.

Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie...

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Now, on to the strange case of the S91 cushion. This appeared on a Country Casual (or 'casualty', as I call them) order a few days back. Nobody but nobody knew what it was, though we had a pair of recent special orders with similar nomenclatures and we assumed it was a special order that we were still awaiting an e-mail from corporate about. Two days later, our new engineer Jeff comes out with a cut sheet (which shows us what we need to make). I stopped him and said (after looking at the thing) that since it was topped with a 35 1/2" radius, I needed him to print me a pattern on his blueprint printer. He came back out a bit later and said that it was the same as a H54 pattern, which we already had. Move forward to the next morning (yesterday) when I tried to make the fool thing. Order called for it to be made of L217 fabric, which is basically a dirty sky blue with hints of green. As I began to lay out the fabric, I noticed the cut sheet said that the fabric that wraps around the welt cord around the edges was to be "contrasting", i.e. a different yet complementary color. Checking our C.C. cheat sheet, we had no standard complementary color for L217, so I went to our super, Rhonda, to see if this was correct. About five minutes later, our lead, Victor, told me that the system (which now the S91 was a part of apparently) claimed the "complementary color" was L330, which made everyone recoil in horror, as this is well named as "nutmeg brick". Rhonda contacted our plant manager Lisa, who looked at the situation, took a picture of the 2 fabrics to e-mail corporate with the statement, "Oh, really?" (Her words, not mine.) Move ahead about 3 hours to Rhonda coming out and saying, "That's what the customer wants, go ahead."
Now, I've seen many odd combos and much lack of taste at Arden over the years. I can't even truthfully say for sure its the worst thing I've ever saw- but it's got to be way up there. But the story isn't done yet. I made everything exactly according to the cut sheet I was given. Minutes later, Wanda showed me that, for some reason, the sewn bands I cut for the zipper didn't match the size (width -wise) of the main band. We called over Monica, our expert on things like this. She took one look at the cut sheet and said that the zipper bands should have been 2" wide rather than the 1 3/4" the sheet called for. While she marched into the engineering office to chew buttocks, I decided to examine the situation. The pattern for the H54 was made about 3 years ago by myself, and I was putting all the band sizes and such right on the cardboard. Looking at the pattern, it said 1 3/4- but it was crossed out. Sure enough, look at the H54 cut sheet and the 1 3/4 had been crossed out and replaced with a 2", and at this point I remembered going through all this way back then. At that time, the engineering department was supposed to change the band size in the system and print us new cut sheets. Neither of those things happened, because the engineering department is "just so busy" and must have forgotten. Enter poor Jeff, who gets told by his bumbling boss Bob (who claims he didn't get his degree at Purdue but I don't believe him) that an S91 is an H54 and so he prints out a cut sheet with only the name changed- and thus still containing the too-narrow zipper bands. In comes Monica with her mad on and with Bob comfortably wasting time in yet another conference call, here stands poor Jeff, who has no idea not only that the cut sheet was wrong, but no idea of the dynamics of how a zipper band gets folded over to be sewn, etc., etc., and thus does'nt know how to tell when a zipper band doesn't match the main band. Believe me, he knows now.
Wrapping up, the fool things finally got sewn and look just as ugly as we imagined. We closed the situation speculating that the cushions were either a mother's day or wedding anniversary gift for a mother or wife who is a close likeness to Nancy Pelosi.

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And today's playoff games: Salavat Yulaev beats Neftekhimik 2-1 on a Mika Hamula goal 9:19 into OT. This after Neftekhimik goalie Ivan Kasutin had already stopped 48 of 49 shots. This series has now seen two 2-1 OT games and two 1-0 games, and the difference is that 6-2 Salavat win in game one. Salavat will have a chance to take the series Sunday. Also, Ak Bars went on a 3 goals in 11 1/2 minutes tear in the second period, and held on, against a withering (this is sarcasm) 17 shot attack to down Metallurg 3-1 and take a 3-2 lead into Sunday's games. Tommorow, Lokomotiv gets its first shot at eliminating Spartak and movng on to face MVD.

Playoff update- and one will fall

Once again I left one night off and do two days together. Last night (in Russia, yesterday morning here) all the goals in both games were scored in the 1st period. There was only one in the Salavat-Neftekhimik game, and it belonged to Salavat Yulaev as they win 1-0 and tie the series at 2 going back to Ufa. Metallurg also managed to tie their series heading back to Kazan with a 2-1 win in Magnitogorsk that featured two scores by Jan Marek. Today, Lokomotiv took a 3-2 lead over Spartak with a 2-1 win. My boy Josef Vasicek got his fourth of the postseason and Alexander Guskov picked up the game winner as Loko unleashed a 45-shot barrage at Spartak goalie Dmitrij Kotschnew.

And sadly, we have to say goodbye to Dinamo Riga. The last two games in Riga sold out 1 hour after being put on sale- 110,000 people logged onto their website trying to buy the 20,000 tickets. But the fan favorites could not overcome HC MVD, who won game five 3-2 on Alexi Ugarov's goal at 3:38 of the second overtime to win the series 4-1. The Balashieka sextet will face the Lokomotiv/Spartak winner.

50th Post!!!

To celebrate my fiftieth post, I had considered doing a brief "look-back"; but as I played that back in my mind, it became a preachy diatribe highlighting how I proved myself smarter and more righteous than those I typically wrote about. But I stopped, thankfully, and said, Chris, you ain't that smart and you ain't that righteous. So I looked back at the reasons I post, and decided to give glory where glory is called for- with the God that made the animals, created the nature, gave the guidance, passed out the resources, and put up with the stupidity- both that which I exposed and that which I demonstrated. Congratulations, Lord, on 50 posts in 82 days.

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And now, back to the KHL playoffs. Yesterday didn't have much of a buzz to it. Riga finally got on the board against MVD with a 3-1 win ; and Spartak, evildoers that they are, beat Lokomotiv 3-2 to take a 2-1 lead.

However, today was much buzzier. Three of four games went to OT! The one that didn't was Neftekhimik's 1-0 upset of suddenly ice-cold Salavat Yulaev. Andrei Ivanov scored the lone goal and Ivan Kasutin made it stand up between the pipes. Underdog Neftekhimik now holds a 2-1 series lead.
Metallurg and Ak Bars also played a 1-0 game, but it took 5 seconds short of a full period of OT before Petri Kontiola put in his first of the postseason to give Vasily Koshechkin and Metallurg a 1-0 win and brought them back to a 2-1 series against heavily favored Kazan.
Lokomotiv finally figured out how to win an OT game- give the puck to my boy Josef Vasicek, who scored at 7:33 of OT to give Yaroslavl a 4-3 win against Spartak and a tied series at 2-2. As in the previous OTs for Lokomotiv, they scored late to tie (Ivan Tkachenko with 2:23 left in regulation) but this time they finally finished the job after losing once in each series.
But the biggest effort was posted by MVD and Dinamo Riga who played 22 1/2 minutes of OT before Evgeny Fedoerov gave MVD the 5-4 win and a 3-1 series lead. Alexi Tsvetkov scored two straight goals in the second period to give MVD their first lead at 4-3, but Marcel Hossa tied the game with 44 seconds remaining to set up the two-OT finale.
Four 1-goal games, 50:01 of OT play, and two upsets; now that's a night of hockey!