Open Threads

Again, why Lileks is a genius and I am a loudmouthed lout. While discussing emceeing (spelling????) the symphony, he states:

It went well. They laughed in the right spots, although one line got exactly one (1) laugh; when introducing the scherzo from Shostakovich’s 10th, I noted that it was a criticism of the horrors of Stalin’s tyranny, and that the secret of being able to criticize Stalin in your 10th symphony was to not criticize Stalin in your first. (The conductor of the orchestra barked a laugh from back stage.) The last number was “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Dukas, and the Symphony Orchestra – that’s the big kids ensemble – blew the roof off the shed, as usual.

Again, why Lileks is aPost + Comments

Advice to a Superpower from the Iron Lady. A must read (link requires free registration).

Advice to a Superpower fromPost + Comments

Rand chews up and spits out some blowhard from up north. Go get em Mr. Simberg.

Rand chews up and spitsPost + Comments

A touching tribute during the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show to all the search and rescue dogs. To date, this is the only tribute that has made me tear up (although the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the National Anthem with the WTC flag got me pretty close). I wish I knew why I instinctively like dogs more than people.

**** Update ****

I saw Great van Facelift on Fox News and realized why I instinctively like dogs more than people. Dogs don’t talk.

A touching tribute during thePost + Comments

New link for Sophismata.

And if you have forgotten, the Westminster Dog Show is tonight on USA (actually right now, as I write this, they are showing my favorite, the Jack Russell).

New link for Sophismata. AndPost + Comments

I am not as anti-Olympics as David Carr at the Samizdata or the Instapundit (although I am sure that I have already witnessed the finest the Olympics has to offer, which of course was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performing on opening night), but it really irks me when I hear the chattering classes call some of these things sports.

Folks- Ice skating is not a sport. It is an athletic event. Sure, it takes skill, it takes stamina, it takes coordination- but it is not a sport. In order for an athletic event to be considered a sport, you have to be playing or doing something in which you play offense and defense. Anything that is judged, anything that is voted on- that is not a sport. Baseball, for example, which is far less exhausting than say, cross country skiing, is a sport. Cross Country skiing is an athletic event. In fact, baseball is the only sport that I am aware of in which the defense starts with the ball every play. But that is trivia.

So, in case you are confused, let’s go through it.

Ice Dancing is an ATHLETIC EVENT

Hockey is a SPORT.

Down-hill skiing is an ATHLETIC EVENT.

Basketball is a SPORT.

It isn’t that difficult, so quit lumping figure skating in the same category as lacrosse, hockey, soccer, baseball, rugby, Australian rules football, football, or for goodness sakes, Buzkashi.

I am not as anti-OlympicsPost + Comments

IF anyone was ever curious why the terrorists did not take us seriously, this is a partial reason:

SALT LAKE CITY — An airline passenger who allegedly got up to go the bathroom less than 30 minutes before landing became the first person arrested under a new federal flight regulation adopted for the Olympics.

Richard Bizarro, 59, could get up to 20 years in prison on charges of interfering with a flight crew.

We don’t deserve to be taken seriously. How putting middle-aged men in jail for using the bathroom fights terrorism is beyond me.

*** Update ***

Ken Goldstein has already come up with a defense for Mr. Bizarro.

IF anyone was ever curiousPost + Comments