Unplugged.
A visual representation of wartime speeches by Presidents (As inspired by Thomas Hawk who compares speeches of candidates in a visual fashion). Click each image for full size.
President Roosevelt went to Congress to ask for a Declaration of War, the last time any American President has followed Constitutional guidelines for such action.
And President George W. Bush’s address to Congress where he declared war himself:
In case you missed it:
As a Baltimore Ravens fan, I’m pretty pissed off at the moment. The reason is very simple. Due to the NFLs incompetence and lack of planning, the team with the fourth most difficult schedule before the season began is stuck with a Week 2 BYE.
The scenario was clear on Monday. A massive hurricane was bearing down on the Gulf of Mexico and showed no sign in wavering off course. It was headed straight for the Texas gulf coast. A handful of teams play in proximity to the gulf coast, all of who might have been affected at that time. New Orleans was scheduled to be in Washington, so no concerns were merited there. Tampa Bay was at home against Atlanta, but there was no expected threat to western Florida. Dallas was playing host to the Philadelphia Eagles way inland. And of course, the Ravens were traveling to Houston for a week 2 showdown at Reliant Stadium.
As we know now, only one game was directly affected by Hurricane Ike making landfall around Galveston, TX early Saturday morning. By all accounts, Reliant Stadium may not be able to be played in until the second half of the season. Chunks of the roof have been torn off and excessive water damage, according to officials, is at ground level.
Surprised as they were, the NFL has juggled the schedule to allow the game to be played during Week 10, bumping the scheduled Bengals-Texans game to Week 8 when those teams had scheduled BYEs and leaving the Ravens and the Texans with a Week 2 BYE.
That’s right, a week 2 BYE. For the team with the fourth most difficult schedule. The original Week 10 BYE was scheduled after a long run where the Ravens would face all division rivals once, including the hated Steelers, plus matchups against Indianapolis and Tennessee. Now, with the exception of the week 1 win against the Bengals, all of those games will fall after the one and only break the team gets all year. There is no “recharge for the second half”.
Let me be clear, disasters happen and what has happened in Texas along the Gulf Coast is, indeed, tragic. However, with the Saints in Washington, this game could have been scheduled for the Superdome and still have drawn a home crowd. LSU has a night game tonight, but in a pinch, an NFL game could have been played on Monday or Tuesday. The Alamodome in San Antonio is two hundred miles inland, and was largely unaffected by Ike. It seats 65,000 people.
Or, hey, at least have a Plan B. Maybe actually get your inspections in so that the Astrodome could have been utilized in case of damage to Reliant Stadium.
Or maybe the Baltimore Ravens themselves could have opened up their home of M&T Bank Stadium to play as “the visiting team” and allow Texans fans right of first ticket, honoring the tickets already purchased for the game in Houston.
Any number of things could have been done to avoid the doomsday scenario that is happening right now. But the NFL did not plan and did not look ahead. They waited to make a game-time decision, pardon the pun, affected teams practicing and mental preparation and quite possibly have caused serious injuries that might not have come later in the season if players had an adequate opportunity for a rest and healing cycle which was the impetus for the BYE week in the first place.
Shame on the NFL. If you have fantasy teams, makes sure you peek at your rosters this week and are not starting Ravens or Texans in week 2 and that you have enough time, if the waiver period has not already passed, to complement your roster if necessary.
I spend a lot of time talking about work, and technology and business. Here, I might talk about politics. These are all important(ish) things to me. Certainly things that are “safe” territory, whatever that means. It’s funny though how the most important thing in my life… I don’t talk about. Rarely, anyway.
He’s going to be five tomorrow. Five. My son – my only son – my only child. He just started Kindergarten and on his first Friday, he wanted to know why he couldn’t go to school the next day. Yeah, son… keep that mentality for the next 13 years, will ya?
He’s certainly given me a world of memories in his five short years. For instance, I remember his first Big Word™. He referred to the big airplane as a “commercial airliner” (Oh and he properly identified the airline as Continental).
And that time at Six Flags when he saw Batman? That was priceless.
Or the zoo, where he was all excited about the pandas.
How about every time I open Flickr and he starts pointing out every person he knows.
The fact that he was four when he began Kindergarten but he tested at an age six level, so they admitted him in early.
I’m really proud of my son. He may be the most intelligent kid ever. And he’s personable (usually, unless he hasn’t had a nap). It is rare when anyone has to raise their voice to tell him to behave. He just knows what is right and how to behave.
Where did this kid come from?
His mom is a little concerned about when he might start taking interest in girls? As a dad, I’m kinda looking forward to that. I wonder what might strike his fancy? I’m lobbying for bright-eyed, outgoing girl who appreciates an extremely intelligent boy who knows how to have fun (Am I writing personal ads at this point?)
Anyways, happy birthday, Devin. I love you!
There was a massive earthquake in western Mexico and 200,000 people unfortunately, and tragically, died. In the wake of the tragedy, the nations of the world banded together to provide relief.
China sent a ship with containers of goods such as tee-shirts, watches and electronic devices to help with cleanup and provide humanitarian relief.
Great Britain sent 500 palettes of drinking water and other humanitarian aid.
Beliza and Costa Rica sent hundreds of first responders and medical aid.
The United States sent 200,000 Mexicans to replace the ones that were lost.
In all seriousness, this election is important in so many ways. One of the major issues on the table that might not be getting as much attention is illegal immigration. John McCain doesn’t want to talk about it much because it was an issue made big by George W. Bush and he’s trying to keep Sarah Palin front and center. Barack Obama isn’t talking much about it because he’s fighting a guerilla war based more on propaganda and media spin, than he is on these core issues.
But, at the end of the day, both candidates have taken some kind of position on immigration. It’s not that we, as conservatives, don’t care about the plight of illegals, but that there is a process to being legal.
Obama is best suited, based on his platform, to push this issue. We need to find a way to help illegals become legal without destroying families and lives in the process. We do need to secure the borders, but what does that mean? Certainly, the immigrants that are here now are “doing the jobs Americans won’t”, but that’s not an excuse to allow a persistent state of illegality. Instead, how do we help these people become legal and at the same time, stem the wave of illegals that are coming into the country and tapping our finite resources without paying a dime into the system.
Obama is best suited to do this.
Sarah Palin, for better or worse, has been the focus of most of the GOP convention. Since her designation as the VP choice last Friday, she has been criticized by many, including myself, on her experience (or lack thereof). Others have opted to focus on the pregnancy of her 17 year old daughter, Bristol.
Let me be clear at the outset. It’s not that I don’t like Sarah Palin. How can I not like what I don’t know. Blog posts, op-ed pieces and rip-roaring by fringe internet communities does not make allegations fact. I don’t know Palin enough to not like her.
However, Palin is new. 60ish days before the election, the electorate is tossed the name of someone most of us have never heard of. Many on the right would point to the lack of experience of Barack Obama. And it’s true, he is inexperienced. The difference is that we have had a year and a half with Obama to get comfortable with him. We’ve had a year and a half to hear him speak with candor and and an eloquence that is disarming. We’ve had a year and a half to see him debate and hear his ideas. We’ve seen him on television and heard him on the radio.
No, Obama doesn’t have a wealth of experience but at least we have more than 60 days to get comfortable with the idea of this great man as the next President of the United States.
Palin? We are expected to buy into what the GOP says about her. That she is a great woman with family values. That she has executive experience enough to make her Vice Presidency a viable thing. We’re expected to buy into her tenacity and her ability to take on Washington in the same way she took on Alaska’s establishment.
Forgive me for being cynical, but I don’t make hasty decisions. It took me over a year to endorse Obama. I can’t just buy into Palin now. Not at this time. Not this late in the game.
But, I want to be fair. The Vice Presidential nomination acceptance speech tonight was a homerun. She started out very poorly, in my opinion, by talking way too much about herself, her family and her time as a PTA mom. It took too long to get to policy. Way too long for a VP nominee who is asking the country to make an uneducated, to be honest, gamble on her.
On pure technical merits alone, she did her job. She excited the GOP audience. She delivered some great one-liners and showed a nice command of important issues such as energy, both traditional and green. At points during the speech, she seemed coached on foreign policy issues, a fact that is slightly scary considering she could be a heartbeat away from the presidency. With John McCain’s cancer history and age, this is a very real concern and not just a piece of hyped propaganda.
Let’s be very clear. Palin is a marketing gimmick and she delivered beautifully. She is a woman with a great stage presence, and that was entirely exploited tonight. She did her job. At least the job the campaign set out for her. It’s very, very unclear if she can do the real job though and that cannot be ascertained in one speech to a willing audience.
Let’s see how she squares off with Joe Biden.
Happy Labor day to most. Stay safe for those on the Gulf Coast. Unlike most people, I have some inside track on how this Hurricane stuff goes down. Not to question coverage on television, but it really does not convey the destruction of these storms. Nothing can, outside of actually being there and seeing the destruction.
Fortunately, it looks like New Orleans escaped any real hardcore damage this time around. A lot of that, I think, has to do with the track of Gustav. It came in to the west of the city. This means that the vicious winds and tornados certainly did impact the Big Easy, but the flooding was not a recap of Katrina.
To understand this, you have to understand the circulation is counter clockwise. That means, on the east side of the storm is where the initial storm surge occurs as the winds push the water up onto the coast. New Orleans is not right on the coast. During Katrina, they received the back-push on the west side of the storm as winds whipped around from the north and pushed the waters of Lake Pontchartrain back into the city (Lake P is north of New Orleans). This was the real devastation of Katrina as the actual storm had little major impact (it was on the west side of the path, generally known as the calmer side).
This meant that, during Katrina, which came ashore around Biloxi, MS the bulk of the storm related damage was in eastern Mississippi and Alabama and the New Orleans damage was a result of after-effects and broken levees.
I spent some time in Mississippi on a cleanup mission and dug up photos from last night. You can see the entire photoset on Flickr.
