Thoughts

Imagine if W. Bush had said, "I refust to accept the notion that the US...is not going to lead the world...throughout the 20th Century"--on Feb 16, 2010! That's more than nine years after the "20th C" ended. And, it was Joe Biden. I've heard, but can't confirm, even Democrats have called Biden "the dumbest man in the Senate." Maybe, maybe not. But he was just a little off with his dates here, almost a decade so. Sort of like Obama twice (or more) referring to the "57 states." Slips? Maybe and, I'd guess, likely. But if W had said these things, we'd be reading and hearing about them forever, along with how stupid he was/is. Again, maybe, but what a double standard.

Equal time--How about the Rep National Committee Chair M. Steele who said something last week about, after taxes, a million dollars (income) really isn't that much money? First, is this guy an idiot? Second, is this yet another piece of proof of how out of touch these "elites," "the anointed," are with the rest of us? Even after 30+ years of working, at my peak salary, it would have taken me about 15 years (two jobs, mind you) to earn $1,000,000. Who are these people? We certainly need and, if we really care, deserve a viable third party. The Dems and Reps are both Bozos.

How about the WSJ writing that, after Gov Jennie, the Reps could pretty much nominate a corpse and would be "nearly guaranteed to win the governorship?" I think even the Free Press had some derogatory things to say about her yesterday, something about 7 years and still doesn't have a clue--the Free Press!

OK, so the 3rd grade basketball league rules say no substituting players "if a team has 10 players." Now, it's all right to substitute if a team has nine or eleven. And, each game has 5, not 4 periods. So, how is a coach to get all of his players in the game for an equal amount of time without being able to substitute? Almost all of the referees have permitted us to do so, through 12 games so far. They understand, esp since our team is 1-11, and we can't substitute anyone to "pull out a game in the final minutes." Fine, so we run into a clod of a referee who didn't let us substitute. I tried to explain what I was doing, that I wasn't trying to cheat, that I really didn't care if we won or lost, but was just trying to get players who hadn't played as much as the others into the game. Nope, Mr Inflexible said no. He was also the guy who threatened to give our team a technical for not picking up defensively at the time line. We picked up at the top of the key (so the offensive players wouldn't just blow past us for layups), weren't double teaming, in essence, not trying to cheat or do anything duplicitous. But, nope, Mr Inflexible.... Mike did pick up a tech, after I likely set him up after talking to the official and using words like "ridiculous," "stupid," etc. In the next game we cleared with one official substituting. He had no problem with it, as long as our players checked in and waiting to be waved in during a dead ball. Fine--and the other coach said OK, too. So, when we subbed, or tried to, to even out playing time with 3 mins to go (and the subs weren't going to have any impact on the outcome of the game), the other official blew the whistle and said he wasn't going to let us do that. He also cited "the rules." About 20 secs later, an opposing defender just smashed one of our players, knocking him over, getting the ball, and going down for an easy shot. On the way back up the court I said to the official, "So, it's against the rules to substitute, but perfectly fine to throw trap blocks (football) out there. Just brilliant!" He just shrugged. Again, it's the high school kids who do a fine job of officiating, of letting the kids, note that, "the kids" play the game, be the focus--not the referees or some stupid set of rules that people who have no sense or ideas have made.

We had about 6-7" of snow today. Bopper and I went out to shovel. I went this AM, while he and Grandma were still sleeping and he came with me the second time. With all of the kids in the neighborhood, upper el, jr and sr high students, only one other was shoveling. Mostly it was adults--with snow blowers, of course--or plowing companies. Not to take business from the plowers, but I think that says a lot about where we are right now. Kids are supposed to shovel the snow--and it the summer mow the lawn--but they don't. And we wonder....

Out to play a board game with Bopper.