Rolling With the Punches

I’m cleaned up and added a tiny bit to my entry below. I know, given my post about scientific proofs a couple months back, that such a belief sounds hypocritical. But that’s what it is: a belief. I can’t prove it, I’m not saying it’s fact. Just saying in my experience that it usually intriguingly accurate.

Happy Mabon/Autumnal Equinox Everybody!

Speaking of Lightning.

Mother Nature put on a show the put Hollywood to shame through Monday night and Tuesday morning with a highly unseasonable lighting storm that hung out until this afternoon. The lightening was quite spectacular. I was up in Palos Verdes when it started and got incredible view of a strike looking out over Los Angeles. Usually we don’t see rain until the Holidays, usually after Christmas, but 11pm Monday evening I was out cleaning my gutters a bit earlier than I anticipated. *chuckle* Scattered showers that the storm brought brought an early end to forest fire season, Thank the Gods, but also snarled traffic as Californians once again have to relearn how to drive in the rain. “Water falling from the sky! Aaigh! Must inch along at 15 mph, or bomb down the freeway at 80!” However, had I been barreling down the 405 yesterday morning I might have missed the rainbow over Marina Del Rey. Quite lovely.

Well, That’s That.

The penalties have come down, surprisingly nothing too extreme.

But the median nature of the penalties has raised a question. Back in 2002, Kevin Harvick was suspended or “parked” from a Cup race when he retaliated twice against another driver during a Craftsman Truck race. Parking is very serious because that makes the driver and owner answer to the sponsor who wants to know why his/her logo is not on the TV for 5 hours on Sunday. Some people are up in arms that Khane, Gordon and Jarret (for a incident a couple races ago) did not warrant the same treatment Harvick did. What the NASCAR pundits (Marty) fail to remember, is that Harvick was already under probation for a dust up with Greg Biffle when NASCAR decided enough was enough. Neither the K-9 (Kasey Khane) nor Robby Gordon were under any probations.

But what Gordon and Khane did was dangerous, not simply to they or their foes, but to others on the track. When Gordon tried to back into Mikey, he could have wrecked Tony Stewart, the points leader and dominant car of the race. This is one of the many ways auto racing differs from any other sport. If a football player decides to get stupid in the field he’ll probably break an arm, most likely his own. If a driver decides to be stupid with a 3400 lb stock car, he potentially puts 42 other guys at risk. That’s why NASCAR has a 0 tolerance drug policy and why they come down on rough driving such as what happened this last weekend.

But is this the best way to handle it? If you were playing for the New England Patriots, and some Raider kept grabbing your face mask during the game but the refs never flagged it. Wouldn’t you get pissed eventually? Wouldn’t you end up flagged for “unnecessary roughness” yourself? Trying to punish those that in the heat of the moment feel they are simply defending themselves isn’t the best way to handle it. That only encourages the drivers who start this crap to begin with, which only encourages other drivers to start being as sneaky about being overly aggressive. It becomes a “who can get the “accidental tap” in first” kind of thing. But the question then becomes how do you sort out that accidentals from the intentionals? Kyle Busch’s contact with the #9 was an accident, but both Mikey and Robbie are pointing fingers at one another and how the heck do you sort that out? Parking is really serious, you don’t want to put someone sponsor dollar death row for an accident.

I suppose with any sport you are simply going to have to deal with a certain amount of bad apples and a certain amount of “unnecessary roughness”, but with auto racing the danger makes keeping things from getting out of hand imperative.

Maybe they need to keep a boxing ring set up behind the haulers? They probably could make a heck of a lot of money from the ticket sales. “Cold Pass”, “Hot Pass”, “Ringside Pass”

Surprise!

Geez, two of my drivers don't make the Chase and I end up talking about NASCAR even more than before. ;)

Elliott Sadler Gets a New Crew Chief.

Parrott and Jarrett, Lawd what an alliteration in the making, were the pair that got Robert Yates Racing its first Championship in 1999. I assume Todd was given to Sadler to give him the best shot. Now Sadler is getting shiny spanking new CC for the rest of the season.

My first reaction was “YEEK! Don’t throw Elliott to the sharks!”. Granted, I don’t think the Parrott - Sadler thing was working out. Parrott had done some dumb things this season as had Sadler and from what I heard at Fontana, tempers were getting frayed. Perhaps putting a new guy in there is a good thing. Perhaps Elliott isn’t as mechanically savy as he should be and needs to communicate better. Having someone new at the game someone who might take some time to explain what the changes will do, will improve Elliott’s performance.

""It seemed like we were on the wrong side of every decision," Sadler said. "When I should have gone left, I went right. When I went right, I should have gone left. I mean, flat tires, we got caught up in everybody else's stuff. It was like anything bad that could happen to us, happened to us."

He said the expectation of more bad luck began to grow the last month. Sadler said he began to question his "ability and knowledge on the racetrack."

And the bad luck simply fed on itself."

When you start to doubt youself, it becomes self fulfilling prophecy.

I just hope this kid is gifted as hell and/or they find a kick-ass CC for the #38 fast so that they also can spend the off season building cars. And i hope Elliott can pull himself out of this funk. *crosses fingers* :( Remember what I said about Taurus/Capricorns and curve balls? Elliott has to learn to look at this as a challenge/opportunity.

Just When You Thought They Couldn’t Sink Any Lower.

No, the failure of the government to save these people wasn’t the government’s fault, oh no. It was the Left spoiling black people. That’s who to blame. And this isn’t the only pundit to try and make this point. As if the failures of the Democratic Mayor of New Orleans and Governor of Louisiana aren’t enough, they’re trying to blame the victims.

“In fact, white America does remain morally culpable — but because white leftists in the late 1960s, in the name of enlightenment and benevolence, encouraged the worst in human nature among blacks and even fostered it in legislation.”

Isn't it funny though that the black kid who robs a convenience store gets 8 to 10 in Pelican Bay, while the white collar criminal who steals millions of tax payer dollars get 6 months in a Federal Country Club?

Yeah, black people aren't held accountable at all. *rolls eyes*

"Through the late 1960s blacks burnt down their own neighborhoods as gestures of being “fed up”. But blacks had been “fed up” for centuries: why were these the first riots initiated by blacks rather than white thugs — when the economy was flush and employment opportunities were opening up as never before? Because the culture had changed, in ways that hindered too many blacks from taking advantage of the civil rights revolution."

First of all, this statement makes no sense is it was the Civil Rights movement that was changing society to open up opportunities for African Americans.

What the author is referring to is the Watts Riots of 1965. This from USC:

"1964 seemed to mark a turning point in America; with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, a new age in race relations appeared to be dawning. But the states acted quickly to circumvent the new federal law. California reacted with Proposition 14, which moved to block the fair housing components of the Civil Rights Act. This, and other acts, created a feeling of injustice and despair in the inner cities.

On August 11, 1965, a routine traffic stop in South Central Los Angeles provided the spark that lit the fire of those seething feelings. The riots lasted for six days, leaving 34 dead, over a thousand people injured, nearly 4,000 arrested, and hundreds of buildings destroyed.

After the riots, then Governor Pat Brown named John McCone to head a commission to study the riots. The report issued by the Commission concluded that the riots weren't the act of thugs, but rather symptomatic of much deeper problems: the high jobless rate in the inner city, poor housing, bad schools. Although the problems were clearly pointed out in the report, no great effort was made to address them, or to rebuild what had been destroyed in the riots."

Yeah, how dare they be pissed off about not being treated as equals with the White citizens of Los Angeles. I mean, we just let English Parliament walk all over us in the 18th century, why should they do any different?

Oh wait...

"In 1966, however, a group of white academics in New York developed a plan to bring as many people onto the welfare rolls as possible."

And what the 1966 law did was allow people to collect welfare if they were in job training, enrolled in school or had childcare needs. This was not some "Liberal agenda" but a poorly construted revision with too many loopholes. I would also point out that it was Clinton who pushed the 1996 welfare reform law through.

"The multigenerational welfare family with grandmothers in their forties became typical: young women had babies in their teens because there was no reason not to with welfare waiting to pick up the tab."

Gee, golly, white people never do this. I guess this person never visited the finer trailer parks across the U.S. Gretchen Wilson must have just been making all that stuff in her song up, and heck no her mom wasn't 16 when she had her. Wilson just made that up too.

"Hopefully, legions of poor black people who return to New Orleans will take advantage of the job opportunities that rebuilding a city will offer."

Why should they when Bush just promised his pals at Haliburton et al. that they didn't have to pay their construction workers prevailing wage? He just added not only to these individual's problems, but hobbled the economic recovery of these states. He just added to the problem of the poor in this region of the country.

There is a very large difference between welfare and Disaster Relief. They are two separate issues. One of the purposes of the Federal Government is to take up the slack, to assist, when the local and state governments are overwhelmed in an emergency. This failed to happen. FEMA’s delayed and confused response had nothing to with welfare. The people at the Superdome were told to go there because busses were to evacuate them from the city, they did not realize they were going to be stuck there for 5 days. Even if they had followed the common wisdom of having food and water for 3 days they still would have run out before they were rescued. And while this article points to the those the media focused on that did run amuck, it forgets the tens of thousands of those stranded that did not and those that did step up to help those more in need them themselves. Because of the chaos, it will be along time for all the stories of heroism to trickle through, but I can guarantee you there will be more heroes than villains in this tragedy.

Prayers and Crossed Fingers for Everyone in the Path of Hurricane Rita.