Friday Night

Jordan was in town over the weekend. We went to McSorley's. It was fun - as usual.

Klosterman the Historian

I like Chuck Klosterman's summary of the past six years in the U.S.

'In November 2000, the United States held a presidential election, and nobody knew who won, so we just kind of made up an outcome and tried to act like that was normal. Less than a year later, airplanes flew into office buildings, and everybody cried for two months. And then Enron went bankrupt, and the U.S. started acting like a rogue state, and "The Simple Life" premiered, and gasoline became unaffordable, and our Olympic basketball team lost to Puerto Rico, and we reelected the same president we never really elected in the first place. Later, there would be some especially devastating hurricanes and three Oscars for an especially bad movie called "Crash."'

Beva?

McSorley's Film

This is a film that Collin, Andrew and I made for a contest.

Update: The guys were featured in the New York Times on May 21

No More S.U.V.s

The Times reports today that sales of S.U.V.s are falling by large numbers. Dealers are offering huge discounts just to get the cars off of their lots. This is mainly due to high gas prices and maybe the negative sentiment towards the oversized cars. One thing I found interesting was 'fewer than half the people who bought luxury S.U.V.'s are going back for another one.'

I personally can't stand these cars because of the ridiculous amount of space the waste and the ludicrous fuel efficiency. Hopefully they will pass as a trend and also improve their fuel economy to make this country appear a little more sane.

Get a Rhythm

Trashy

Views of my trash can over the past week.

Boss is Pissssssed... and Season Hasn't Even Started

George Steinbrenner is voicing his opposition to the World Baseball Classic taking place right now. He is worried that his players will be injured in the non-MLB tournament this spring. According to Si.com, yesterday the Yankees placed a note appologizing to fans for the absense of some of their stars. I guess Boss is more worried about not selling tickets to his spring training camp rather than the health of his athletes.

"Thank you for expressing your concerns," the sign stated. "We are sorry that certain players will not be present for portions of spring training. These players have elected to participate in the World Baseball Classic. The World Baseball Classic is an event sanctioned by the commissioner of Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association.

"The New York Yankess," the sign went on, misspelling the team's name, "did not vote to support this event. Any comments you have regarding the World Baseball Classic should be directed to the commissioner of Major League Baseball or the Major League Baseball Players Association."

AP Katrina Video

The Associated Press has released video of the government's pre-Katrina breifings. Many people, the AP included, are reporting on Bush's lack of questioning in the meeting and contradicting himself and others at FEMA. On the other hand, I've also read about some factual errors in the news reports. Either way, I don't really care. Just thought you might like to see what today's fuss is about.

Port Fuss

Although I've largely ignored the issue, I'm already getting fed up with the political fuss being made in Washington over the ports. There really is no issue here to begin with. A company in the U.A.E. is buying P&O, a navigation company in London (a foreign company) that manages some of our ports. Many argue that an Arab company controlling our shipping jeopardizes our national security. However, the port security is opperated by the coast guard. There is no situation, but Congress is doing their best to start a fight.

Stephen E. Flynn is the maritime security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has explained in much detail the security risks of our ports.

"It's a global network at the end of the day that we're trying to secure here," Flynn said. "And that doesn't happen by the United States owning every bit of it. What we should be focusing on instead is the question, are the security standards adequate?"

So there you go, instead of worrying about who secures our ports, worry about how they are secured. And Congress, why don't you take a flying leap off one of those docks!