From the timesonline (UK):
Promiscuity Rankings of Major Countries
1 United Kingdom
2 Germany
3 Netherlands
4 Czech Republic
5 Australia
6 USA
7 France
8 Turkey
9 Mexico
10 Canada
11 Italy
12 Poland
13 Spain
14 Greece
15 Portugal
Solid performance by the U.S. Suck it France!
Another ship has been sea-jacked by Somali Pirates. I think that Discovery Channel should scrap ‘Deadliest Catch’ and give these guys their own reality show.
They have assaulted at least 9 different ships so far and have demanded millions of dollars in ransom. Desperation and hunger lead to brass balls I guess. And as long as some of these countries are willing to negotiate with these guys they’ll keep on doing this shit. I certainly don’t mean to sound cruel by suggesting that they don’t negotiate, thereby putting the hostages at even greater risk. But I just think more lives will be protected in the long run if they send a message to these pirates that there will be no ransom.
It’s not like it’s easy to hide a giant ship so I don’t see how these guys would be able to make any money on the black market with the cargo or the vessel itself. The only way they’ll make any money at all is if they are getting paid off.
I have no idea how old the person in this picture is. But if it wasn’t for the AK-47 and the blood (is that blood on his face?) this looks like a high school or college kid on his way to school. Then again with the world the way it is today, kids bringing guns to school is all too common.
I think this photograph represents the reality of global terrorism. The look on that young mans face seems to say so many things. Determined, crazed, desperate, focused, calm, all at the same time.
There is no piece of policy that any government can enact to prevent this from happening again. Exactly where and when it’s going to happen next is anyone’s guess but I think it’s safe to say this is something that’s going to be copied again and again. What makes this incident so frightening is that all it took were guns and people with no regard for human life. Both commodities are all too plentiful.
I can’t imagine what the victims families must be going through. And this thing isn’t even over yet.
The New York Knicks send Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins to the Clippers for Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas. Now the Knicks have 2 guys with heart problems!
Christmas sucks. Well, I should say that the lead up to Christmas sucks. Christmas Eve and Christmas day are fine. But they have already been shoving Christmas down our throats since the beginning of this month. Christmas has really just become a holiday that celebrates shopping. Retailers try harder and harder every year to make “Black Friday” a national holiday.
Thanksgiving on the other hand is awesome. It’s a holiday that revolves around eating way too much really, really, really, good food. There are always football games on Thanksgiving. And most people get 2 days off. Christmas occasionally falls on the weekend and some people end up not getting any days off when that happens.
So fuck Christmas, and have a very happy Thanksgiving!
Is it me or does it seem like it’s been a while since we’ve seen or heard from Barack Obama? [Insert your Dick Cheney/Undisclosed location cliche here]. Sure, Obama is still all over the news every day but it’s more about what he will or won’t do rather then him actually doing or not doing something.
So today he holds a press conference announcing the grand prize winners of his “be a part of Barack Obama’s Hope Change Economic Team” contest that he’s been holding since before the election. I’ve never heard of any of these people. But according to the talking heads, they are all smart, bipartisan, and will stimulate the shit out of a mothafuckin’ economy.
How they will do this is unclear. Then again I’m not entirely sure that the talking heads really know who these people are either. The best part of today’s press conference was the “analysis” that the CNBC talking heads (I swear to god they had 8 heads on the TV screen at one time) provided afterward. They spent an inordinate amount of time analyzing what the Dow Jones was doing during different parts of the press conference as if the market was a sentient being. They noted that the market reacted well during the initial part of Obama’s statement, and that went down when he was vague about raising or lowering taxes.
Look, I don’t know a damn thing about the inner workings of the stock market. But after watching CNBC today, I don’t believe that anyone there does either. I am aware that the next President’s statements can have an effect on people’s confidence in his ability to handle the economy and what his plans may be. But I don’t think stock brokers on the floor of the NYSE are buying and selling stock after every sentence he utters in real time.
As of this moment, it looks like the Dow is going to be up for the day and that tells me that overall, people were encouraged by Obama’s statement and felt a little bit better about investing for today, at least. But the folks on CNBC would have you believe that people were watching this press conference and changing their retirement plans with every syllable. Truth be told, I don’t believe that the press conference had much influence on the stock market’s rebound today.
The pattern of the market violently dropping and then bouncing back some has been going on for quite some time now. Again, I don’t think that anybody really knows what is going on or what is going to happen tomorrow or an hour from now. But for those of us who are counting the days until Obama moves into the White House, it was nice to finally see him again.
First, let me just say that it was a lot of fun being at a Dolphins game that felt important from the moment we pulled up to begin tailgating. There was a buzz in the air that has been missing at that stadium for too long. Fans for both teams knew what a big game this was, the weather was perfect, and nobody knew for sure what to expect. Where the Dolphins for real? Were the Patriots still in the hunt? Would drinking a half a case of Natural Ice before the game cause me to hallucinate? We would indeed have all the answers soon enough.
My biggest fear Sunday was the Dolphins history of failing in those “statement games” like they had in the past. But if I was being realistic, I should have just been happy to be in that position to begin with. Lets be honest, nobody expected the Dolphins to be 6-4 heading into yesterday’s game. This season has already been a success on so many levels that harboring any negative feelings, regardless of the outcome, seems a little short sighted. But fans, including myself, rarely live outside the moment. At 1pm yesterday nobody on the field or in the stands was thinking of anything but now.
The Patriots opening drive was not only a sign of things to come in the game, but a reminder of the way things used to be in seasons still not forgotten. It was apparent right away that the Patriots knew the Dolphins defensive weakness, and in typical Belichick fashion, they exploited it throughout the entire game. Despite having the league’s leading sack artist in Joey Porter, the Dolphins lack of a consistent pass rush has plagued them throughout the season especially against pass happy teams like the Cardinals and Jets earlier this year.
But the tactics the Patriots used to expose this weakness actually resembled those of the Jets in years past, when they were coached by Bill Parcells and of course Bill Belichick (who was the Jets Defensive Coordinator during that time). The Jets Offensive Coordinator during a few of those years was Dan Henning, who is now the current Offensive Coordinator for the Dolphins. Back then the Dolphins had a ton of talent on Defense. Jason Taylor, Zach Thomas, Trace Armstrong, Sam Madison, Patrick Surtain, Tim Bowens, Brock Marion, amongst others all had big years at one time or another. Running against the Dolphins was difficult. The Dolphins basic strategy for victory then was much like it is today: Stop the run when on defense. Run the ball and don’t make any stupid mistakes when on offense. So what the Jets would do is pretty much forgo the running game all together. Instead, they would empty their backfield a go with 3 or 4 wide receivers and split Curtis Martin and maybe even a Tight End out wide and pick the Dolphins defense apart through the passing game. Vinny Testaverde was the Jets quarterback through most of that era but Chad Pennington would later take up the mantle. Those old Jet teams would try to make the Dolphins play catch up, nullifying the Dolphins running game and forcing Jay Fiedler too keep up in the passing game. The interception prone Jay Fiedler was all too often incapable of keeping Miami in the game.
In Sundays game Matt Cassel played the Testaverde/Pennington role. He had more then adequate cast members as Randy Moss filled in for Laverneous Coles/Santana Moss. Wes Welker was a dead ringer for Wayne Chrebet. The Patriots did a really good job of isolating Moss on Jason Allen for most of the afternoon. And while Allen actually did pretty well in staying with Moss for the most part, Randy Moss doesn’t really need to be open to be… uh, open. Just being one-on-one for Moss is usually enough for him to make a fucking one handed catch or something equally as demoralizing. Moss even gained the almost magical ability by the end of the game to shove defenders in their back and have the referee throw the flag against the defender. Or maybe the Natty Ice had just fully kicked in at that time and I was seeing things.
The rest of the season seems to be a succession of must win games for the Dolphins who are now 6-5. With the AFC playoff picture shaping up the way it is you might have to win 11 games to make it in as a Wild Card. Games against the 49ers, Chiefs, and Rams certainly seem winnable. But the Dolphins will have to go on the road to beat the Bills and the Jets in cold weather. The loss to the Patriots on Sunday will serve as a blueprint to their near future opponents on how to beat Miami. The Patriots showed that sometimes past is prologue.
For lifelong Dolphins fans, it’s the 1990’s (and early 2000’s) all over again. During many of those seasons, the Dolphins would find themselves in position to finally meet the high expectations that they had heading into the year, only to fail in some gut wrenching, devastating, and all too predictable way. And while this season has really been more of a pleasant surprise then one whose expectations were high in the beginning, those knots that we used to feel in our stomachs are churning once again today as the ‘Fins get ready to take on the Patriots.
But first a little bit of (brief) history:
- 1990 Season: Lost to the Buffalo Bills 44–34 in the divisional playoffs.
- 1991 Missed the playoffs in an overtime loss to the New York Jets during the final week of the season, losing the AFC’s final playoff berth.
- 1992 Defeated at home by the Buffalo Bills 29–10 in the AFC Championship.
- 1993 Team starts 9-2, Marino blows out Achilles tendon, Scott Mitchell takes over, hilarity ensues.
- 1994 Dolphins go 10-6 and beat the Joe Montana lead Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs. But in the second round they gave up a 15-point halftime lead and suffered a heart-breaking 22–21 loss to the San Diego Chargers. Pete Stoyanovich missed a 46 yard field goal on the last play of the game.
- 1995 The team finishes 9-7 and makes the playoffs as a wild card, losing to Buffalo in the first round. However, this is the start of a long line of seasons where the Dolphins start the season strong, and then falter in the winter months.
- 1996 Team starts strong, finishes poorly. 8-8 Missed playoffs
- 1997 Miami stumbles late and backs into the playoffs with a 9–7 season, losing to the Patriots in the Wild Card round.
- 1998 10-6 (another season where the team finishes poorly late) Stomped by Denver in the second round of the playoffs. In all fairness, Denver was pretty unstoppable that year.
- 1999 …62-7
- 2000 The Dave Wannstedt era begins. Dolphins finish a solid 11-5 but are destroyed by Oakland in the second round of the playoffs.
- 2001 The Dolphins lost in the first round of the playoffs 20–3 to the Ravens.
- 2002 Team starts the season 5-1 and stumbles late thanks in part to Ray Lucas. In week 17, they could have gained a playoff spot by by beating the Patriots in New England. However, despite dominating the New England Patriots for most of the game, the Dolphins blew an 11-point lead late in the fourth quarter of a devastating loss. Due to a tiebreaker, both the Dolphins and Patriots lost out on the playoffs as the Jets took the AFC East title.
- 2003 Late season Losses to the Patriots and the Eagles ended Miami’s postseason hopes. Miami finished 10–6, but was still short of a playoff spot.
- 2004 Ricky Williams “retires” and the team falls apart. This was the end of the Dolphins relevancy in the NFL.
There is no doubt in my mind that many of those seasons, especially late in the 1990’s and early this decade, were greatly affected by the seasons that came before it. When the team would go through its annual late season slide, there was always that feeling of “Here we go again” at the first hint of danger. It wore on all of us. Bill Simmons even once dubbed it the Dolphins annual “Hanukkah Collapse”.
The reason I bring this up is that this game today reminds me of so many games that took place during that time. The Dolphins have a chance to really put themselves in the hunt for a playoff spot or maybe even a division title with a win today. In the past, the Dolphins would loose this game and maybe or maybe not find a way to eek their way in the playoffs, only to be trounced in the first round if they did make it. A win today would be a huge step forward not only in the standings, but in the psyche of franchise. Sure, they would still need to finish the season strong and find a way to beat the Jets in New York. But just getting to that point would be a victory in and of itself.
