ICKY PEOPLE

Pelosi: Something In Gingrich Past Will Stop Presidency

2012-01-26T10:40:00.000-06:00

Nancy Pelosi claims to know "something" about Newt Gingrich's past that will prevent him from becoming president.

CBS News has more:

"The Democratic leader, who served on a four-person ethics committee that investigated Gingrich in the 1990s, has said in the past that "I know a lot about" Gingrich, and that "one of these days we'll have a conversation" about him. But when it was suggested that Pelosi was suggesting in those comments to the possibility of leaking private records from the ethics investigation, Hammill insisted she was referring to "information that is in the public record."

The committee looked into 84 counts of ethical wrongdoing against Gingrich, and ultimately, they voted to reprimand and fine him for wrongdoing involving breaches of tax law and making misrepresentations to Congress. It's unknown if Pelosi was privy to any confidential information surrounding the ethics investigation, but Gingrich himself has pointed to a 900 page report on the investigation that is available to the public.

In a response to Pelosi in an interview with the radio show "America's Morning News," Gingrich dismissed her comments as "hysterical" and "factually incorrect."

"As my campaign has gotten stronger, the attacks have become more hysterical and more factually incorrect," he said. "I have a simple challenge for speaker Pelosi: to speak up or shut up. I have no idea what she's talking about, I don't think she has any idea what she's talking about. But bring it on.""

What exactly Pelosi is talking about, no one knows or no one is willing to discuss it. One thing that could come up is Gingrich's hypocrisy of calling for the resignation and impeachment of President Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky scandal, while at the same time Gingrich was cheating on his own wife with one of his staff.

Gingrich claimed he had an affair because his lust for America needed an outlet. I'm not kidding.

Mitt Romney Lost Iowa, Hiding Millions Offshore

2012-01-19T00:45:00.004-06:00

Mitt Romney's fortune just went from the presumed clear cut GOP presidential nominee to potential footnote in history if Wednesday night's news reports have teeth.

First, ABC News reported Mitt Romney is "hiding" up to $33 million in offshore Caribbean accounts, and rumors immediately circulated it was to avoid paying U.S. taxes on the princely sum. Romney's campaign claimed he had paid taxes on all of the money, but Romney continues to refuse to release his tax returns. This latest development could force him to release those returns before he is comfortable, with him citing he would "likely" release the tax information in April, which would be after he has sewn up the GOP nomination and too late for competitors to do anything with the material.

However, the report by ABC News is quickly sprouting legs, with other news agencies and political blogs picking up on it, and the possibility that Romney has been avoiding paying U.S. taxes on the income. Reuters reports Romney also has funds in Ireland, Bermuda, and Hong Kong.

The IRS claims over $100 billion in taxes goes unpaid and unreported every year from money hidden in offshore accounts. To many Americans, the idea of keeping millions of dollars in offshore banks sounds seedy and gives the impression something dishonest is going on. I would bet good money, perhaps the $10,000 Romney offered to bet Rick Perry during one debate, that the Super PAC's will jump on this story and have new commercials attacking Romney as a tax cheat and a fraud airing on South Carolina Television stations by Thursday afternoon. One word we haven't heard yet: Criminal.

The other big news rumored to be announced on Thursday has been brewing for weeks. Recounts and certification of the Iowa caucus results show Mitt Romney did NOT win Iowa. Original results had Romney winning by 8 votes, but the recounts have reportedly found Romney was credited with 22 votes at the Garret Memorial Library when the recount shows he actually had 2. Subtracting 20 votes from Romney's results means Rick Santorum won Iowa by 12 votes. However, the New York Times is reporting late Wednesday night that instead of announce that Santorum won Iowa, the GOP will do the all-American thing and will void the entire election and throw out all results. Iowa will not count and not get to vote in the GOP primaries. The "reasoning" is that the GOP cannot certify the results in their own required time line. I find it fascinating that as Romney has appeared to have the nomination completely sewn up, Santorum appears to have picked up many delegates in Iowa and been given a second chance, only to find those votes will just disappear. So much for the illusion of democracy. Lawsuits will surely follow.

But the Iowa story is likely to be buried by the damning revelations about Romney and his millions hiding in offshore banks.

One GOP consultant told the NY Daily News the truth about Romney is irrelevant, “This will be wrapped around his neck in the fall. It fits perfectly into Obama’s theme that Romney is another Republican robber baron getting rich at the expense of the poor middle class.”

It also fits into the theme that the richest people in the world always find a way to cheat the system, avoid paying their share, and then spin the truth, what we poor people call "lying."

UPDATE: The GOP did announce Santorum won Iowa but the state's results cannot be certified because they have lost 8 precincts votes.

1967 Interview with MLK

2012-01-16T20:10:00.000-06:00

This is a fascinating clip of Martin Luther King Jr. on the Mike Douglas show in November, 1967.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that I've never seen any clips of MLK being interviewed before. I've watched his famous "I have a dream" speech, but I have never seen a clip of him in an interview. I can see why people were attracted to him, he sounds move level-headed than any public figure of today.

New Ron Paul Ad Reveals Gingrich Hypocrisy

2011-12-05T17:04:00.001-06:00

The GOP presidential nomination appears to be wide open, with Mitt Romney leading the pack but Newt Gingrich of all people starting to gain in the polls. Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, and Michelle Bachmann all have either dropped out or seen their support dwindle to single digits.

But there is a third candidate who is still a force in the polls, despite getting the shaft from major media, and that is Ron Paul.

While I do not agree with everything Ron Paul believes, he still strikes a chord for speaking like an actual human being and not a robot candidate. One senses that Romney and Gingrich will both say and do anything to get elected (which is probably no different than 99.9% of politicians anywhere), but Ron Paul's viewpoints have stayed the same for years.

The first caucuses begin in one month, and today Ron Paul released a 2 1/2 minute web ad pointing out just a few of Newt Gingrich's hypocrisy. People need to remember that Gingrich left Washington in shame, and has a history of questionable, to say the least, personal behavior that for me would rule out ever voting for him.

Here is the new Ron Paul ad:

Now go read an article I wrote 4 years ago that explained a few reasons the media love to paint Ron Paul as a crazy candidate nobody with a sane mind would vote for (when they do actually decide to mention his name): Why The Media Hates Ron Paul And Dennis Kucinich

Microsoft's Siri Competitor Could Get You Arrested

2011-11-26T12:34:00.001-06:00

Microsoft claims Apple's revolutionary voice technology, Siri, is no big deal. Microsoft says they've had their own version of a Siri-like service for a year, called TellMe, and that Apple is getting unjustified publicity.

Is that accurate?

Jason from TechAU did a short video comparison of Microsoft's voice technology vs. Siri, with each doing relatively simple (for Siri) tasks...

Bottom line: Microsoft's voice technology works "great," if you want to get arrested for searching for teen anal, or ruin your marriage if your wife finds out what you've been searching.

Cable TV's Excuse For No Ala Carte Channels Is A Farce

2011-10-09T00:27:00.000-05:00

We're told we can't just subscribe to only the cable TV channels we actually want because we would only choose channels, and all of the other channels that fewer viewers watch would go out of business.

That reasoning is a farce.

No other industry is allowed to behave like that. We don't have to subscribe to 87 magazines we'll never read just to get the one car magazine we want to read. We don't have to buy 20 different frozen foods just to get the one pizza we want. Nobody forces me to buy 12 pairs of shoes just to get the one I actually want.

Premium cable channels still offer free preview weekends to allow viewers to sample what they offer and decide if they want to subscribe. That should be the business model of all television networks.

Businesses succeed or fail based on their own merits, not some b.s. forced on us with the sole purpose of making and keeping huge conglomerates rich. If a TV network can't stay in business because they don't offer anything people want to watch, it's not our responsibility to pay them anyway. If a person does not watch sports, they shouldn't have to pay for 12 different sports channels in their cable package. The same goes for sports fans who will never watch TLC, NatGeo, Smithsonian, and other informational networks but have to shell out monthly for them anyway.

The cable companies argue that if they were forced to offer ala carte subscriptions, that it would end up costing the consumer more money. Not true.

"The average cable customer watches only 12 to 15 channels on a regular bases, but cable companies bundle 50 to 75 channels in the expanded basic package, and upward of 200 in digital cable packages." (source)

Even if the price passed down to consumers for each individual TV channel tripled or quadrupled, it would still be less expensive to pay for only the 12-15 channels the average viewer watches instead of a huge bundle. The average cable TV channel charge cable companies .50 - $1.00 per viewer. A handful of channels charge more than $1.00 per viewer, for example, ESPN charges an average of $4.69 per viewer for their main channel alone. However, many channels charge nothing or a very small fee of far less than .50 per viewer. Even if the cable companies averaged that out to charging viewers $2-3 per channel, and even charging more for ESPN to over actual costs, it would still be cheaper for 99 percent of viewers to purchase channels ala carte.

It's also not the American people's responsibility to subsidize the destruction of forests and printing and delivery of piles of junk mail just so postal workers and the direct mail industries can survive.

If nobody wants a product, the company offering it should adapt or go out of business, period. That's how it is in the real world, except the world of cable television.

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

2011-10-05T21:14:00.003-05:00

At a 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs shared the philosophy that drove him.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs said. “Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Mitt Romney Explains Why You Shouldn't Vote For Him

2011-08-16T13:22:00.000-05:00

Turn Off Lion OS X Restore For Individual Apps

2011-07-22T18:04:00.000-05:00

Apple OS X Lion is out and a (mostly) huge hit among early adopters. One feature though that some users are not happy with is Restore, which opens windows and websites that were open when an App was last closed. This is a great feature for most users, but some users either prefer a fresh slate when they open an App or do not want their browser to re-open the last websites they were visiting.

There is an easy fix.

You could just turn off Restore in the System Preferences, under the General section. Simply uncheck the box that says, "Restore Windows when quitting and re-opening apps." That will keep Lion from doing that with every app.

If you like Restore and only want to tell it to stop working on specific apps, you can use a Terminal command to stop this on any specific app.

A Mac Life article has the how to:

"First you’ll need to know exactly which app you want to kill this feature on -- we’ll use Preview as an example, since it may not be desirable to have it restore documents in most cases. Fire up Terminal again and use the following command without quotes: “defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -int 0”. For other applications, simply replace “Preview” with the name of the app -- when in doubt, visit your Preferences folder to confirm how the app name appears in the “com.apple.XXXX” file this is modifying."

---

To see the exact way an app name appears (i.e. if Apple refers to the app in an uppercase letter or not), make sure the Finder is selected so the Finder menu appears, then up left near the Apple logo on the desktop bar click Go To, then Go To Folder, and type in ~/Library. Then in the window that opens, click on Preferences. You'll see a list of files, don't click on any. Just scroll down to the com.apple.XXXX area to see how the app you want to change appears. In this case, Safari is what one would expect, Safari with a capitol S.

So the command to type or copy and paste into Terminal for Safari is (without the quotation marks):

"defaults write com.apple.Safari NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -int 0"

Then hit enter.

Close and restart Safari, next time you restart the computer Safari (or whatever other App(s) you ran that on) should not resume automatically from the last saved state.

US Stamp Features Wrong Statue of Liberty

2011-07-17T14:34:00.000-05:00

Wrong Lady Liberty

The United States Postal Service printed up 3 billion new stamps featuring a closeup of the Statue of Liberty's face. A stamp collector recognized it's not the real Statue of Liberty on the stamps but a replica of the statue in Las Vegas that's in front of a hotel.

The USPS says they're sorry, but they have already printed 3 billion of the stamps and they're going to continue to sell them.

The Real Deal

The placement of "FOREVER" for the price of the stamp also makes the stamp seem kind of arrogant. (The Forever stamps do not have a set face value, they sell at the current first class stamp price but can be used forever, no matter what price first class postage is in the future, hence the name). Forever is crossed out in the photo so people can't print the photo and use it as a stamp, it's not crossed out on the actual stamps. USA FIRST CLASS FOREVER. Classy.

Joplin Tornado: Before and After Video

2011-07-14T19:25:00.000-05:00

Video comparison of 20th Street in Joplin, Missouri from August, 2010, and July, 2011.

Stay Classy, Vancouver

2011-06-16T18:39:00.000-05:00

From coverage of the riots in downtown Vancouver after the Canucks and Roberto Luongo choked away the Stanley Cup to Boston:

"Almost 150 people required hospital treatment and close to 100 were arrested after rioters swept through downtown Vancouver following a Canucks loss to the Boston Bruins in the decisive Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.

Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Anna Marie D’Angelo said Thursday that three stabbing victims had been admitted and an unidentified man was in critical condition with head injuries after a fall from a viaduct."

These are the same fans who talked crap all season about other teams, then cheered their team as they cheap shotted their way into the Stanley Cup before running into a more physical team in Boston who beat Vancouver with their own style of thuggery.

Vancouver police say these weren't just fans upset with losing the Stanley Cup...

"Police Chief Jim Chu said nine officers were injured, including one who required 14 stitches after being hit with a thrown brick. Chu said some officers suffered bite marks. He said 15 cars were burned, including two police cars.

He called those who incited the riot “criminals and anarchists” and said officers identified some in the crowd as the same people who smashed windows and caused trouble through the same streets the day after the 2010 Winter Olympics opened in 2010.

“These were people who came equipped with masks, goggles and gasoline,” he said. “They had a plan.”

Classy.

"Assistant Fire Chief Wade Pierlot said people had to be rescued from rooftops and bathrooms where they had hidden for safety."

Canuck Fans Show Their True Colors

Pics Prove Scott Cousins Ignored Home Plate To Demolish Buster Posey

2011-06-04T03:00:00.003-05:00

A week after Florida Marlin Scott Cousins destroyed San Francisco Giants' catcher Buster Posey's season and perhaps damaged his career, there is still debate over Cousins' intent and whether MLB should look at rule changes to protect catchers.

For me it has been clear from the first time I saw the play - Scott Cousins was not attempting to touch home plate, he went out of the baseline to intentionally hit Buster Posey. Furthermore, Cousins turned his body sideways to protect himself from the impact but deliver the most damaging blow possible to Posey.

Posey was in front of home plate and slightly up the first base line, as the pictures prove. The pictures also prove Cousins stepped inside the third baseline, away from home plate, towards first base, and dove into Posey, who was now in front of the plate and without the ball, after having dropped the throw from RF.

If Posey had been in the usual position, straddling the third base line and blocking the plate, and Cousins had collided with him in an attempt to score, I would have no problem with the play. Collisions at home plate happen regularly, and injuries also happen, it's part of the game. But it's not part of the game to go out of the baseline, ignore any attempt to score, and try to annihilate a defensive player, while attempting to shield yourself from injury.

Every other collision in baseball has been chest to chest, and the runner usually folds his arms in front of his chest and pushes them out as he collides with the defender and the ball in glove, hoping to knock the ball out of the glove. Cousins turned his body sideways to become a projectile. That alone should have gotten him called out.

Don't agree with me? Let's look at the pictures. Watch Posey's position in regards to the plate, and watch Cousins' feet before he hurls himself sideways into Posey. (Click on any photo for a larger view, use the browser's back button to get back.)

Cousins on outside of 3rd base line

Cousins begins to move inside 3rd base line to hit Posey

Cousins moves further inside 3rd base line and at Posey, not home plate

Posey in front of home plate, leaving room for Cousins to try and score, but Cousins moves further inside base line towards Posey (notice where Cousins' head is pointed, outside the umpires' right foot and up the 1st baseline)

Cousins has both feet inside 3rd base line, diving at Posey who is in front of home plate, side of plate is exposed. To touch home plate, Cousins should be aiming for the outside of the umpires' left foot, instead he is aiming for the outside of the umpire's right foot

Notice Posey is still in front of home plate as Cousins dives to Posey's right, not toward home plate

Cousins turns his body sideways, pointed towards 1st base dugout, and not towards home plate

Cousins' blow bends Posey backwards, breaking his leg and tearing ligaments

Brian Sabean, the San Francisco Giants' General Manager, ripped Cousins to the media this week, understandably so. The umpires should have called Cousins out for leaving the base path. Is it an attempt to injure? No one can presume an injury will happen, but baseball's rules do not allow runners sliding into second base to ignore the bag and launch themselves into the defender, even more so when the defender is giving the runner a clear path to the base. This was a cheap shot if there ever was one. Cousins went out of his way to hit Posey, ignoring the plate. If I were MLB, not only should the umpires have called Cousins out, but after watching him run inside the baseline to target Posey, then turn his body sideways as a projectile, I would have also suspended Cousins for the cheap shot. This type of behavior has no place in sports.

Most Useless Product Guarantee Ever

2011-05-27T17:34:00.001-05:00

I picked up some Soshine rechargeable batteries from Deal Extreme because they were highly rated. I've used many different brands of rechargeable batteries and haven't found any I would recommend, including the highly touted Sanyo Eneloops.

When the Soshine's arrived today I noticed the product guarantee on the package, so I snapped some pictures.

At face value Soshine's product guarantee sounds great:

"We guarantee that we will repair or replace, at our option, any device damaged by these Soshine Ni-Mh rechargeable batteries..."

Wow, they don't replace the batteries, they will repair or replace any device damaged by the batteries. That's fantastic.

Then notice the following sentence:

"Guarantee void if batteries are charged by user or device."

Do I have to point out that these are rechargeable batteries?

Maybe they come pre-charged, and Soshine can't guarantee how they will behave once a user recharges them in the countless number of battery chargers on the market. Only, they are not pre-charged, as the bottom section of the packaging tells consumers:

"CHARGE BEFORE USE."

In capitol letters, nonetheless.

So Soshine will repair or replace your device if their dead-as-a-doornail batteries that have never been charged damage your camera, toy, etc.?

That's one hell of a guarantee, Soshine.

Martin Short Gives Osama Bin Laden A Musical Sendoff

2011-05-18T01:13:00.003-05:00

Martin Short was on David Letterman last night, and at the end of his segment he gave Osama Bin Laden a musical sendoff, titled, "Bastard In The Sand."

$30 Oil Tester Tells You When To Change Motor Oil

2011-05-11T21:40:00.000-05:00

Kickstarter is a wonderful company that helps small startups get funding and launch products that otherwise might never get made.

One of the current projects they are working on is Lubricheck, a handheld oil tester that determines when your motor oil needs changing, and can also warn you if something is going wrong with your engine.

Head over to the project page for more information.

Dog Tries To Play Fetch With A Statue

2011-05-08T22:07:00.000-05:00

Proof That Dogs Can Talk

2011-05-04T15:13:00.000-05:00

FOX NEWS Gets Osama bin Laden Death Wrong

2011-05-01T23:23:00.000-05:00

Can we be amazed anymore by Fox News mis-reporting facts?

FoxNews.com reported, in their story, Usama Bin Laden Is Dead,

"Usama bin Laden is dead, putting an end to the worldwide manhunt that began nearly a decade ago on Sept. 11, 2001. The architect of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil was killed a week ago inside Pakistan by a U.S. bomb."

According to President Barack Obama, Bin Laden was killed today, not a week ago, in a firefight with U.S. special operations troops, not by a bomb.

CNN is now reporting the operation was conducted by a small team of Navy Seals.

Obama Releases His Birth Certificate For The Third Time

2011-04-27T14:48:00.000-05:00

President Obama released his birth certificate today for the third time.

I have posted the updated photo under the original article covering the first two press conferences. There are many pictures, if you want to see the President's birth certificate.

I'm already seeing people claiming this proves nothing, or it "proves" Obama is not eligible to be president, etc.

This is amazing, and incorrect.

First, Obama was born in Hawaii, which is a U.S. state, making Obama a U.S. citizen and fully eligible to serve as president.

Secondly, the argument that the GOP is now making is that Obama's father was a British citizen born in Kenya, making Obama a British citizen and ineligible to serve as president. That's wrong. He was born on U.S. soil, which makes him a "naturalized U.S. citizen" according to the U.S. Constitution. Barack Obama is legally the President of the United States, unlike the previous holder of the job.

Worst Frozen Custard Flavor Ever?

2011-04-25T18:01:00.000-05:00

Culvers comes up with quite possibly the worst frozen custard flavor of all time...

Retro Food: Taco Flavored Doritos

2011-04-25T17:59:00.000-05:00

They're back, and in their original packaging too! My brother loved these things in the 1970's.

Why The Blackhawks Should Buyout Brian Campbell

2011-04-22T16:35:00.000-05:00

The Blackhawks have 11 restricted or unrestricted free agents to either resign or replace this offseason, and only $8.8 million in cap room.

One of the 11 is Jordan Hendry, who technically is the 8th dman right now even though he's out, so if they have to they can use John Scott as the 7th dman and not carry an 8th full-time next season.

That leaves them with have 10 guys to resign or replace, and only $8.8 mil. to do it, but they also need to leave about $1 mil. to cover call-ups for injuries and a small amount of room for trades. If they only signed guys to minimum deals, $500k, that's no problem, but there are quite a few guys who are already over $1 mil. that are free agents, and a couple will get something around $2 mil. (Brouwer, Crawford), and several who are restricted free agents could get offer sheets from other teams, which would pretty much guarantee we can't resign them.

Brouwer has 20+ goal talent, but is also one of the few Hawks who can play a physical game, something the entire team lacks since the salary cap purge last off-season. He must be resigned or replaced with another physical player who also has offensive ability, and those players not only do not grow on trees, but are expensive. It's easier to just find a way to pay Brouwer the $2 million or so he's earned.

The free agents... (all numbers from CapGeek, except for my rough predictions for next season's salaries)

Goalie:
Crawford - restricted (800k this year, probably at least 1.5 or so next year, plus if you only sign 1 yr deal he becomes unrestricted in 1 yr)
Turco - unrestricted (1.3 mil this yr, no chance he comes back. Not likely that they can carry a goalie making more than min.)

(They do have a hotshot goalie in Europe, Salak, who could potentially start next year if they lost Crawford, but he made 1.3 this year, is a restricted free agent, and probably too expensive to be Crawford's backup. Salak also should play at least part of a season in the minors to get used to North American hockey)

Defensemen:
Campoli - restricted (made 1.4, could get an offer sheet, likely to be around 2 mil per or a little under, we can't really afford to resign him)
Hendry - unrestricted (made 600k, but likely won't be ready at start of season after knee surgery)

Forward:
Brouwer - restricted (made 1.0 could get offer sheet near 2 mil, this will be very hard to fit in, it means carrying at least two guys at 500k, which means prospects don't make team)
Stahlberg - restricted (made 800k)
Frolik - restricted (made 1.2 not likely to get offer sheet i think because he slumped)
Dowell - restricted (made 500k, should be able to resign at small raise)
Kopecky - unrestricted (made 1.2, probably can't afford him near that price again. have to replace his role if he leaves)
Pisani - unrestricted (made 500k)
Johnson - unrestricted (made 500k)

Let's do some math...counting only small raises for most of these guys...

$7.8 mil available

Crawford 1.6 mil
bu goalie - 500k (2.1)
Campoli 1.8 mil (3.9)
Brouwer 1.8 mil (5.7)
Stahlberg 900k (6.6)
Frolik 1.2 (7.8)
Dowell 600k (8.4)
Kopecky 1.2 (9.6)
Pisani 500k (10.1)
Johnson 500k (10.6)

That's about $3 mil over what they can spend. So unless they trade another player off the roster that is making several million, they can't resign probably 3 of those guys above making around $1 mil. or more.

So no Frolik/or Stahlberg, no Campoli, and probably no Brouwer. They also have to spend at least 1.5 mil to replace those 3 with minimum salary players, that's why they can't get rid of just 2, they need the money from the 3rd one to afford replacements.

Frolik and Stahlberg have shown flashes of potential, and have tons of speed to go with their skill, but have not been consistent performers. I wouldn't mind if they could trade one of them for a more physical player who also has some offensive skill, but they would need to find a player who fits under the cap.

Another problem with resigning all of these players is that they have several prospects who are on the verge of being ready, but who make significantly more than the league minimum, which would once again make it almost impossible to fit them onto the roster and stay under the salary cap next season.

Among the prospects, Jeremy Morin ($917k), Kyle Beech ($1.17 mil), Brandon Pirri ($900k), Phillipe Paradis ($900k), and restricted free agent goalie prospect Alexander Salak had an NHL cap hit of $1.3 mil if he had been in the NHL this season. Morin almost certainly would have been up when Dave Bolland got hurt, but Morin also had a concussion at the same time. Resigning Brouwer, Campoli, Frolik, Stahlberg, and Crawford would make it near impossible for any of the above mentioned prospects to spend much time on the roster next season.

Or the Blackhawks could do something crazy and buyout Brian Campbell, who has $35 mil. left on his contract. Because he is over 26 years old, it would cost 2/3rds of his remaining contract to buy him out, about $23.8 mil. Campbell has 5 years left on his deal, but a buyout counts for double the length of years remaining. It would count as $2.38 mil for each of 10 years on the cap to get rid of him. The plus is it would save the Blackhawks $4.7 million per year for 5 years on the cap (and then when his deal would have expired it actually adds 2.38 mil for another 5 years).

I doubt they want to have a salary cap hit for 10 years for a player no longer on the team, but saving the $4.7 mil each of the next 5 years would make the team better now, while we have so many other star players in their prime, and that's what it's all about. Besides, in another 6 years as the cap keeps going up, that 2.38 mil hit for years 6-10 won't be as bad as it is now.

If they got rid of Campbell (who has played like he's he has a brain cramp most of the playoffs), they would go from $7.8 mil of cap room next year to $12.5, plenty of room to resign Brouwer, Crawford, Campoli (who replaces Campbell for far less), Frolik, and Stahlberg, and have about $2 mil left to look for another d-man if they want, or call up one of the kids, or replace lower salaried players on the roster with some of the higher salaried prospects (Morin, Beech, etc.)

I would rather lose Campbell than lose Brouwer, Campoli, and Frolik/or Stahlberg. Campoli was a huge pickup and they need to keep him, especially since he gives them about half of Campbell's offense but plays far better defense at 1/4th the cost.

Newspapers Can't Go Under Fast Enough If This is How They Run Things

2011-04-12T23:01:00.000-05:00

Look at how many ads are on the Chicago Tribune website for their Cubs stories...

link

It's been like that the entire season. That Ford dealer has at least 5 ads on the page, plus there are at least 8 other ad locations on the page, and my last visit had two pop-overs that had to float across the page and come to a stop before they could be clicked closed. That's 15 ads on one page, from a major U.S. newspaper, plus, if you happen to move the mouse over the Ford dealer's video ad, it expands and covers the top of the story.

Newspapers can't go out of business fast enough if this is how they think they should run their business. It has made reading anything on the Chicago Tribune website impossible.

Random Patterns: Flipper Suicide, The Bronx is Misspelled, Great Emu War

2011-03-31T16:15:00.001-05:00

The Bronx is Misspelled

Ever wonder why The Bronx is called "The Bronx" while Manhattan and Queens are not called "The Manhattan" or "The Queens"?

So did I.

It turns out The Bronx is not only short for The Bronx River, but it's also a misspelling of the first resident of the area. Jonas Bronck moved to NY from Holland in 1638. The local river was named after Bronck, but the English map makers were unsure how to spell Bronck. The river was named The Bronck's River, but eventually misspelled "Bronx".

Eventually the entire area was called Broncksland (or Bronxland), and at some point the name of the area merged with The Bronx River, making not only a misspelled tribute to the first resident, but also kept "The" from the The Bronx River with it, hence, "The Bronx".

Baseball Opening Day

Despite all the problems in the world, there's still nothing like a beautiful opening day in baseball when everything seems perfect for a few hours. Baseball is still the best sport, even when my beloved Cubs are going to stink yet again.

Panic Button May Wipe Cell Phone Data for Protestors

The U.S. State Department is working to create a panic button or app for cell phones so protestors can wipe out their entire data when captured by government forces.

Flipper Committed Suicide

"Dolphin trainer-turned-marine activist Ric O'Barry decided to dedicate his life to saving porpoises and whales after watching the star of 1960s TV show "Flipper" take her own life."

The Great Emu War

In 1932 Australia launched The Great Emu War, sending soldiers armed with automatic machine guns to kill migrating Emu's who were wrecking havoc on farmland. As many as 20,000 Emu's were migrating across the country, and were stopping to forage for food and water at newly founded farms. The farmers complained to the government, who in turn sent the military to slaughter the large birds using machine guns.