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o pro anyway other sports also have only one season football basketball baseball to name a few although it is true that some of these teams notably basketball do tour around the world in the off season remember georgetown s brawl with a semi pro team in china this past summer so we hope the rules will be enforced equitably bad as the utah coach s comments are they pale in comparison to the utterly ridiculous statements of rob kehoe collegiate programs director at the national soccer coaches association of america he s quoted in potomac soccer wire thusly if you have players that have eight months without competition opportunities what happens to their discipline in a campus situation they re going to be bored and involved with the scourge of the college campus which is substance abuse and relationship abuse issues the sport serves as a deterrent from being involved in things that are irresponsible illegal activities that are very prevalent on college campuses whoa we had no idea that colleges were such cesspools with soccer literally being the only thing saving these poor young men and women from a life of destitution and ruin soccer is a good sport but it s only a sport there are plenty of good ways of allowing college soccer athletes to maintain and even improve their skills without subjecting them to year round competition they need an occasional break from soccer and time to focus on what the rest of their lives will bring soccer coaches of course have nothing better to do but that s exactly why they shouldn t be the ones determining what limits should be placed on the sport within colleges posted by x curmudgeon at 8 48 pm no comments tuesday november 22 2011 va gop takes first step toward self destruction we knew they couldn t resist with its new dominance of all of virginia s government what s the first bill pre filed by a gop legislator why of course a bill to define human life as starting at conception even mississipians rejected this really bad idea the question is whether virginia s republican legislators needing to play to their base will have the good sense to say no to this bill if not they ll put governor mcdonnell in an awkward position one that will dash any aspirations he has for higher office senate gop vp nominee if he vetoes such a bill he loses the religious right if he signs it his moderate image the basis for his success so far is shattered moreover if this bill goes into law and believe us this one is just the tip of the iceberg you can bet there are plenty of other religiously inspired bills to come from the same group republicans can kiss their majority goodbye in short order va voters are concerned about the economy they didn t elect republicans to institute a taliban of state controlled religion in the commonwealth posted by x curmudgeon at 11 52 am no comments friday november 04 2011 first world problems versus third word problems this morning my older son reminded me how trivial some of our utter frustrations can be it wasn t a great morning the curmudgeon is a single parent for most of this week and it s the first hour and a half of each school day morning that is the real challenge the last two days were great though with everything running like clockwork yesterday however unbeknownst to me our housekeeper apparently unplugged my clock radio then plugged it in and reset the time but she conveniently had me fall back an hour just a little too soon for the switch to standard time this weekend as a result my alarm would have gone off an hour late this morning but for one of the kid s alarms waking me up only a half hour late and quite confused as to why his alarm was going off at what seemed like 5 35 a m so this morning was a big rush with dad grumbling quite a bit about our housekeeper s negligence then older son lightens the mood on our trip to school by saying this a good example of first world problems and how they compare to third world problems first world problem alarm clock reset to wrong time third world problem no electricity first world problem this steak is medium not medium rare third world problem we have no food first world problem she said something mean about me on facebook third world problem a militia group raped all the girls in our village you get the picture so next time you re angry about something that has happened to you play the first world third world game you ll feel better posted by x curmudgeon at 11 41 am no comments tuesday november 01 2011 why va independents should vote dem in state senate races if you re one of virginia s many independent voters next tuesday s elections especially for state senate races should be of great interest to you virginia has a large group of mostly moderate independent voters they tend to be fiscally conservative and socially libertarian i e they don t want the government telling them what to do in their bedrooms or with their guns their primary interest is in getting good government services as efficiently as possible not surprisingly these sensible folks are disgusted with both major parties for those of you who fall into this large category of independent voters tuesday s election is important because if the virginia state senate swings to a republican majority the commonwealth will be for the first time in many years a single party state with the gop controlling both houses of the legislature as well as all the major constitutional offices governor lt gov ag etc that will in turn unleash social conservatives to push and enact a flurry of regulations on conduct as well as to turn on the spigots for spending on conservative programs no it turns out that republicans are not against regulation nor are they against welfare spending it s just a matter of who what they want to regulate sexual mores and who they want to reward businesses churches as long as democrats continue to control the state senate neither party can go too far off the rails with its agenda the current stalemate is not ideal on some issues particularly transportation funding the legislature has gotten nowhere for years virginians increasingly pay a higher and higher price each year for the lack of investment in transportation infrastructure but it s not like gov mcdonnell s solution of sticking a tollbooth every few miles and pretending its not a tax is going to solve the problem in any event independent voters have an important stake in how this election goes republicans bill the election as a referendum on pres obama but obama s got nothing to do with it the real issue is whether virginia is going to retain the balance that has served it so well over recent years posted by x curmudgeon at 6 00 pm no comments sunday october 30 2011 perfect for halloween sorcerors and apprentices we commend to you the sorcerers and their apprentices how the digital magicians of the mit media lab are creating the innovative technologies that will transform our lives by frank moss moss is the recent former director of the mit media lab and the book is an informal tour of the lab s discovery process which has brought us such things as digital books where i read this one the mit media lab is an agglomeration of scientists engineers artists and other experts into what moss calls anti disciplinary fields such as kindergarten for life opera of the future and new media medicine to say that the lab is doing cutting edge work in science and technology would be an understatement the folks in the lab are in many areas re inventing the way things are done from city driving to doctor s office visits it s a short read less than 240 pages and a fun one learning how the lab s denizens in the city of the future group for example have created a foldable car that can be stacked like luggage carts at an airport is fascinating the technologists in the lab don t just dream up great but perhaps impractical ideas they implement them by creating working prototypes and then giving the technology away to their many corporate sponsors while the gadgets and systems created at the lab are mind boggling moss s bigger point is the process of creation at the lab the antidisciplinary approach the new city car for example was created by a team that included only one automotive engineer which gave them the freedom not only to think outside the box but to discard the box altogether some of the lab s projects are almost magical in nature the book highlights the roles of many of the quirky people involved in this process of creation these are not boring people and the book is a fun read that makes one optimistic for the futue the only negative is moss s occasional myopic tendency to imply that no one else in the world is doing similar work we doubt that s the case but surely labs like mit s are still pretty rare and the approach used there could be more widely adopted in academic and corporate settings who knows maybe they ll even figure out a way to make blogger s buttons work in explorer 9 posted by x curmudgeon at 3 20 pm no comments thursday october 27 2011 gop the party of fiscal irresponsibility here s a biting op ed from an oldline republican doubting the current crop of gop presidential candidates commitment to fiscal responsibility http economix blogs nytimes com 2011 10 25 the republican idea of tax reform emc eta1 we ll just add that borrow and spend is no better probably worse than tax and spend wish we could go back to the days of fiscally conservative but socially liberal bill clinton and al gore hat tip to ls for the article posted by x curmudgeon at 4 12 pm no comments monday september 19 2011 how to save the postal service it s hard to believe that people are upset that the postal service might have to cut out saturday mail delivery really is there anything that comes in the mail on saturday that couldn t wait until monday the fact of the matter is that nothing particularly time sensitive comes in the mail yes we do need mail service but why not limit it to two times a week say tuesday and saturday would it really make a difference the mail is a little like human food digestion a lot of stuff goes in a tiny amount of with actual nutritional value is extracted and the rest gets excreted as waste in our household the curmudgeon processes the mail more than 90 of it gets immediately dumped into the recycling bin the rest goes into one of two piles stuff that needs to get filed eventually usually on a rainy day and stuff that needs some kind of action mostly bills the action items get addressed about once a week oh and there are the magazines but even the so called newsweeklies are no longer all that timely any real news we ve already gotten off the net from our smartphone being old fashioned we like having magazines around but waiting until tuesday or saturday to receive them would be no big deal so to those who oppose eliminating saturday delivery we say fine let s keep saturday and get rid of most of the rest of the days posted by x curmudgeon at 9 39 pm no comments memo to gop fatcats don t block my driveway this evening one of our neighbors hosted a fundraiser for caren merrick the republican candidate for state senate in our local district hey we have no problem with that but one of the gop fatcats attending decided it was just too much trouble to find a legal parking space so instead parked completely across our driveway they re fortunate that mrs curmudgeon was feeling charitable and only had them ticketed the curmudgeon would have had them towed and jr curmudgeon wanted to put an obscene sign on their windshield meanwhile a small group of protesters gathered outside the fundraiser to urge another attendee congressman frank wolfe to support the jobs bill more than our usual level of excitement on north edgewood st maybe we ll have a fundraiser for merrick s opponent in november arlington co board member barbara favola posted by x curmudgeon at 9 27 pm no comments monday august 29 2011 irene was a good warning for the northeast although hurricane irene turned out a little weaker than many forecasts it still caused at least 5 10 billion in damage while serving notice to the mid atlantic and northeast about what a more powerful storm could do some observations post irene 1 forecasting landfall for a hurricane approaching the atlantic coast is quite difficult as is usually the case for storms like irene the forecast track steadily slipped northward over a period of days moving from the lower south carolina coast to the middle of north carolina had irene s track been just 50 miles further east it could have missed nc altogether skirting the outer banks and remained a stronger hurricane as it approached further north 2 likewise forecasting hurricane intensity is difficult fortunately for ny and new england irene did strike nc first taking out quite a bit of its energy but even before it approached nc irene weakened a fair amount in constrast in 1989 hurricane hugo ramped up in intensity just hours before striking charleston sc better to err on the side of overpreparation however 3 there was more time to prepare for irene than would be the case for some storms irene approached at a relatively leisurely pace for an atlantic hurricane coming at the east coast less than 15 miles per hour the 1938 long island clipper was going 60 miles per hour when it hit ny in the future there could easily be storms where the lead and warning time is half that of irene 4 a large storm like irene is particularly dangerous irene was a good sized hurricane with tropical storm force winds extending a good 200 miles from its center a storm that size striking the east coast is always going to cause a lot of damage because there are so many people and cities concentrated in the region irene sent moderate storm surges over hundreds of miles of coastline blew down trees over a huge area and dropped flooding rains on at least ten states 5 a slightly more powerful version of irene could cause catastrophic damage if as forecast irene had strengthened to a category three storm before landfall and if it had just missed nc before turning toward the atlantic coast it could have dealt a devastating blow to ny nj and or new england as it was as a large tropical storm irene managed to flood parts of new york city and devastate several nj beaches a more powerful storm on the same track could easily have upped the damage ante to 50 billion or even 100 billion 6 nyc is ready to take hurricanes seriously nyc officials treated the threat soberly as did many but of course not all new yorkers as illustrated in the curmudgeon s novelization of a major hurricane striking nyc landstrike the consequences of a major hurricane making a direct hit on the city would be devastating we just hope there s no backlash in attitudes because the storm ended up a little weaker than advertised fortunately geography and climate make the odds of a major hurricane striking nyc at any given time quite small irene illustrated that point but when the big one does ...