Hiatus

Traveling. Update problem with blogspot as well.

The Bar-B-Q Turkey - Theory and Practice

[This picture is a link to someone else's blog showing that bloggers bar-b-q turkey.]

After the Thanksgiving out, BrooklynDodger obtained a turkey for barbeque at home. This would be a most ideal guy thing for Thanksgiving at the venue, since it gives a reason for being outside, but busy, when everything else is inside.

So, you get a turkey defrosted. You get a Weber kettle. You start the coals in the fire started chimney - charcoal lighter is pretty sure a carcinogen. Also, when it's cold out, charcoal lighter doesn't work very well anyway. You take the gravy pan and put it onto the charcoal rack in the kettle, build up lighted coals all around the pan. Best to put aluminum foil over the pan while fooling around, so ashes falling into the pan can be taken out with the foil. [There's a lot of fooling around here, almost a fire sculpture to be built.] Put the turkey on the grill above. Put the kettle cover over the turkey.

For a big turkey, it's done in 2 hours, half the time or less than doing it in the oven.

When the turkey comes out, the drippings are pretty well brown to black in the bottom of the pan, but can be dredged out for serious flavored gravy. This time, the Dodger put onions in the pan, which went beyond carmelized and so added maybe too much grit. Might have been better to find a way to put them in half way through.

Point here is that this arrangement solves the age old problem of the back of the turkey [and the turkey is lying on its back] being underdone when the breast is done right, or the other way around. This way, the radiant heat from below on the back and drum sticks causes them to cook faster than the breast on top, so without artificial effort to tent the breast, it comes out perfect.

In this case, the plan was to start the fire at 12 for a 6 o'clock dinner. OK, the Dodger feared the turkey would take oven 4 hour bake, leaving an hour to get the fire going and some time for the turkey to rest before carving. One thing and another, the fire was set by 2:45, the turkey very well cooked by 5, and well rested. Carving is much easier when its rested.

Who Still Approves of Bush?

http://people-press.org/

This post would not have been possible had not the original web put this table up as an image, since Blogger don't do tables.

The Dodger reminds readers that the Bush majority in 2004 was based on white married people with another bounce among white men. By education, Bush won college graduates but lost people with graduate education. The Dodger doesn't want to look for 2000 stats, BrooklynDodger seems to recall that Bush won the majority of white women in 2004, while Gore had won them in 2000 [and the election.]

The Pew poll takes approval before 911 and compares to the present. The full Pew report explains where they got the "influentials" from. The Dodger would be amazed they weren't mostly white.

The 6% current approval among scientists-engineers astounds, although these engineers are National Academiy of Sciences members, and not your average Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech.

The only stratum with majority approval in 2001 was Religious leaders. Religious leaders probably oversamples white protestants, compared to the general population, since they have more large religious organizations to survey. Anyway, Bush had the Catholics then because of abortion as opposed to losing catholics because of capital punishment and war [right to life ends at birth.]

Elected leaders likely reflects the Republican majorities in state governments.

Disinvestment by Investors

"Pleasing Wall Street" means getting the stock price up.

The first question is, why do GM managers care about the stock price, other than culturally? Because for the guys at the top - and they are guys - their compensation is in stock, which is the stock price. So compensation has moved from formulae that bore some relationship to the functioning of the organization to something completely irrational based on stock analysts [the PR department of the brokers].

But what do these people want? They want GM to disinvest in people [layoff and cut salary and benefits] and equipment [get rid of plants], and give the cash to the "investors."

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http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005511240314

Auto news

Just what can GM do to please Wall Street?

Investors urge plant closings, fewer brands

November 24, 2005

BY MICHAEL ELLIS and JOE GUY COLLIER

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

What will it take for General Motors Corp. to really return to profitability? According to the experts on Wall Street, the automaker must do a lot more than just cutting 30,000 jobs and idling 12 plants in North America, which the automaker announced this week.

Not until GM gets rid of at least one of its eight U.S. brands, weathers difficulties at its largest parts supplier, Delphi Corp., and forces its unions into more concessions will the automaker win back favor with investors, they say.

They also want GM to cut more of its manufacturing capacity. In other words, idle or close even more plants.

Lions after Thanksgiving

Sports talk radio in Detroit was a respite when All Things Considered or Morning Edition got too boring, and Air America was on commercial or not receivable. During the rest of the day, it's always an option.

But lately, it's all Lions all the time. First, it was get rid of Joey. Then, should Joey play again after winning against Arizona. [PS - the Arizona win looked more meaningful after Arizona beat someone else.] Now it's get rid of Mariucci. Get rid of Millen.

[There was a brief time last week when the shifted to get rid of the MSU coach, and questioning whether U of M should fire its defensive coordinator.]

Anyway, the cyber poll on the Lions is:

What is at the root of the Lions' problems?

	Hiring Matt Millen as president/GM	28.43%
	Hiring Steve Mariucci as head coach	11.48%
	Making bad decisions on draft day	1.18%
	It's the players who aren't executing	5.58%
	It all boils down to ownership	53.33%

The Dodger thinks fandom needs to figure out what ownership is doing wrong regarding the offensive line. Also, how to evaluate quarterbacks.

Air Farce Athletics Race

BrooklynDodger notes the contradiction. The Air Force football coach is blasted for a racist remark, when his comment was the team is losing because it doesn't have enough black athletes. The notion of innate athletic superiority of a race is hateful because it lends some support to notions of innate superiority of other races in other areas, like intelligence. A strong back [or quick feet] is taken to indicate a weak mind.

DeBerry is quite a geezer looking guy. He's made quite a record sticking to the wishbone when college football has moved to the spread.

In the Dodger's youth, the Air Force Academy was a favored football team. All white uniforms with blue lightning bolts [even though the hated Baltimore Colts color scheme] and the upscale image of Air Force vs. Army or Navy.

Now it looks like the Air Force Academy is dominated by evangelical fundamentalists [media terminologize as "christians"], with more frequent charges of sexual abuse than the other academies. Maybe it's being off in the mountains rather than out east where people can see what's going on. Or maybe it's training officers who pilot a plane, maybe alone, maybe with a few other crew, instead of depending on a dozen others in the platoon wandering in the jungle.

It's scary that the most right wing dudes have their fingers on the thermonuclear trigger.


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DeBerry apologizes for remarks on blacks

Air Force coach reprimanded, said African-Americans 'can run very well'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry met the academy’s new superintendent for the first time Wednesday, and found himself being reprimanded by the school’s leader, but not fired, for statements he made about black athletes and recruiting.
The 67-year-old coach, known for his folksy, disarming charm and his homespun turns of phrase, found himself in an imbroglio over political correctness for the second time in less than 12 months. Last time, it was about religion in the locker room. This time, it was about black football players — or the lack of them — at the academ

Recount

BrooklynDodger did wonder how there was such a swing in vote between the early and late results in the Detroit mayoral election.

The Dodger's concern is that reelection of Kilpatrick will give the outstaters one more excuse to punish Detroit citizens.

[PS: Firefox seems to carry graphics through into Blogger postings, while Explorer won't. On the other hand, Explorer sends web pages more easily than Firefox.

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Losing mayoral challenger Freman Hendrix on Tuesday filed for a recount in all 720 Detroit precincts, saying a review is needed to bring the city together again. The effort could cost the city as much as $500,000. Should there be a recount?

	Yes. It's important to get it right.	86.39%
	No. It's costly and we know the outcome already.	13.61%

Basketball Stats - Why Did They Win vs. Will They Win the Next Game

http://www.82games.com/0506/0506DET5.HTM

82 games is a sabremetric site for basketball. The Dodger is attracted when basketball is hot, which is to say, the Pistons are winning.

Much of this data is compiled by geeks for the fun of it [Pro Bono? pro winno?] For gamblers, and fantasy sportsters, the application of statistical measures is predicting the future based on the past. Little is found anywhere on how the statistical measures of last week predicted the results of this week or next week.

So the Pistons are hot, and running over everyone. What do these numbers say? Too bad blogger won't take a table from explorer.

This was prior to the wipeout in Dallas. Basically, it says that the Pistons were a perimeter, late in the shot clock team. Despite Rip's numbers, the Pistons least favorable position is shooting guard, with strength at small forward and point guard.

Nothing Exceeds like Excess

And nothing assimilates like being assimilated...

BrooklynDodger at home tries to avoid mocking and also avoid making fun of tragedy. Sometimes the Dodger gives in, as with the preacher electrocuted in the baptism font. This is basically about Jews becoming white, although if you see the added picture of the Bat Mitzvah girl's mothers tan, you might wonder if the mother is entered in the Mrs. Melanoma contest...

The style section was the only one lying in reach on the way to...

And it turns out that Firefox copies stuff into postings that internet explorer won't. So, you get to see pictures, rather than just words of excess. There's another article in the style section about a Bat Mitzvah as well.

If these parents could afford a $27,000 dress, and had enough stroke to get free entertainment, how come their house wasn't big enough to give the party?

Also, what was Ambers torah portion about?


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Wedding Singers? Not!

David McMahan/Photopass

LOOK WHO CAME TO AMBER'S BAT MITZVAH: Amber Ridinger, crowned, with Ashanti, left, and Ja Rule, who performed at her party in Miami.

• 
  

  JA RULE stopped by a party at Shaquille O'Neal's mansion in Miami Beach the Friday night before last as a favor to the host, who asked him to grab a microphone and rock the house to surprise his guests. He obliged, he told friends, but for only two numbers. Ja Rule, the platinum-selling rapper accustomed to Madison Square Garden, could not afford to strain his vocal cords. He had an important gig the next night. He was playing a Miami steakhouse. The occasion was a bat mitzvah.

  
  

The next night he displayed considerably more fire, performing for more than an hour in front of 215 friends and relatives of Amber Ridinger, 13, sometimes barking out their names as he rapped. But that wasn't all. As he closed out the set, another superstar, Ashanti, joined him onstage for three numbers. As they performed, Amber stood onstage with them, in a $27,000 Dolce & Gabbana dress, waving to the crowd, particularly her deep-pocketed parents, Loren and J. R. Ridinger, the founder of an Internet marketing company.

Kerry, the Dems, the War and Everything Else

The trouble is, for many Dems the vote to go to war was rank opportunism. [Actually, they only voted to authorize Bush to go to war if he wanted to. But he obviously wanted to.] Fear that their vote against a successful war would allow Bush to dominate into the future.

Bush was right, as were voters, on Kerry vacillating. Of course you can argue it's better to be half wrong than all wrong.

But, the Democrats problem is that for Americans, "strong on national security" means looking for an excuse to start a war. That's the Republicans. Just like "tough on crime" means executing minority people, "moral values" means dominating women and forcing sinners to bear children. The Dodger's not sure of the code phrase for opposing affirmative action, but it boils down to approving discrimination based on class, while blocking attempts to create diversity.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Direct jab from Bush pleases Kerry camp
Democrat's aides say criticism only raised his profile

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff November 15, 2005

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's Veterans Day broadside against Senator John F. Kerry, delivered in a major speech on the war in Iraq, was greeted with quiet cheer by those in the senator's camp who are laying the groundwork for his possible run for the presidency in 2008.

You've Got To Hear This!!!

http://www.detnews.com/2005/politics/0511/17/0pols-385161.htm

Feiger v. Cox. The Detroit News has posted the surveillance audio tapes which involve so-called extortion conversations between a Feiger associate and a Cox staffer [and state employee.] So the state guy is wearing the wire.

One conversation is in a Border's which is upscale for this kind of stuff.

They also talk a plea bargain.

The Rack in Iraq

BrooklynDodger figures there's an almost irreducible 30% of Americans who will support George Bush and the right wing agenda no matter what. Think about "what would a right wing thug do" and do that.

The CNN poll is scientific, not a cyber poll.

The Dodger was surprised that respondents giving the thug answer fell to 20%, actually 18% of those who admitted to having an opinion on torture of prisoners.

Maybe this is the power of picture - the Abu Graib pictures are surely torture, even if you think the people depicted ought to be tortured.

Nevertheless, some fraction to that 30% hard core thug support must have noticed a contradiction between what they said in the poll and GW's statement that "we don't torture."

Never Underestimate Macomb County Racism

Actually, BrooklynDodger was surprised and pleased that the Sterling Inn, a venue for Health and Safety meetings, had housed Katrina victims.

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Local Hotel Owner Who Aided Katrina Victims Gets Death Threat

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. -- The owner of a suburban Detroit hotel that took in dozens of people who fled the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina has received a death threat for his efforts.

Police were investigating the telephoned threat made Nov. 4 to Vic Martin at Best Western Sterling Inn...

The 28 people housed at the Sterling Inn after fleeing the Gulf Coast have already left the hotel
for other housing, the newspaper said. Most were black, and the threat was laced with racist comments.
...
Several hotels in the Detroit area housed people from the Gulf Coast, while some traveled to Michigan to stay with family or friends. Others were airlifted to Fort Custer Training Center near Battle Creek. ..

Roots and Rooting - Basketball Style

The Dodger was firmly committed to rooting for the Knicks in their games v. the Pistons. Bill Davidson abused Larry Brown. He especially mistreated an older employee with health issues returning to work, likely an employee suffering from malpractice related urogenital problems arising from hip surgery.

Flip Saunders' laudible early success, compared to Larry's early problems last year, may be attributed as much to substituting Evans for Hunter in the 1-2-3 rotation, and improved starting play of McDyess, as to coaching changes.

Brown was presented with a bare cupboard regarding talent, and has faced a series of playoff teams. When the Knicks play the Pistons, a pivotal game for Pistons and the Knicks going nowhere might tilt allegiences to the Pistons. When the Nets move to Brooklyn, things will be more complex.

Nevertheless, BrooklynDodger has acquired a bit of a rooting interest in the Kings. So it's unfortunate the hard times on which they have fallen. The Dodger retains a bit of an affection for whomever is playing the Lakers.


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ROUNDUP: Knicks win 1st under Brown
November 14, 2005

FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Larry Brown got his first victory in six games as New York's coach, with rookie Channing Frye scoring 19 points in the Knicks' 105-95 victory over the Sacramento Kings on Sunday night.

Stephon Marbury had 17 points and seven assists for the Knicks, who jumped to a big early lead and hung on late to halt their worst start in 18 years during Brown's first season in charge of his hometown team.

How Old is Old?

Is this like cheating to get into the Special Olympics?

After years of trying to fake being older to be able to drink, there are years of faking being younger to be attractive, then there is a brief interval of trying to be older in years to get discounts.

The auto companies are complaining about people retiring too young and living too long.

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http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/old12e_20051112.htm

When is a senior a senior?
Oakland County communities are at odds over who is old enough to use exercise facilities at center

November 12, 2005

BY CECILIA OLECKFREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Hey -- what are those 50-year-olds doing at the senior citizen center?

You're a senior when you are ...
50
• The Royal Oak Senior Activities serves people age 50 and up.
55
• You can get $2 to $5 off adult ticket prices at the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, 44575 Garfield Road, Clinton Township, depending on the show.
• Clinton Township Senior Center, 40700 Romeo Plank Road, Clinton Township, serves people 55 and up.
60
• Leon's Family Dining Restaurant, 23830 Michigan Ave., Dearborn, takes 10% off meals.
• Age minimum for various programs offered by Wayne County Senior Citizens' Services and Macomb County Senior Citizens' Services.
62
• The Motown Historical Museum, 2648 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit, lops $1 off the adult ticket price of $8.
65
• You pay just $12 for an all-season deer hunting license, compared with $30 for others.

CECILIA OLECK In Rochester, they're lifting weights, power walking and swimming laps.
But should they be?
In a dispute sure to resonate across metro Detroit, three Oakland County communities are duking it out in court over who's old enough to use an $18-million senior citizen center funded primarily by taxpayers in Rochester, Rochester Hills and Oakland Township.

Sometimes calling them junior seniors, the center allows 50- to 59-year-olds to use its workout facilities alongside those 60 and up.

That's fine with Rochester Hills, but Rochester and Oakland Township say 60 should be the cutoff. It'll be up to Oakland Circuit Judge Denise Langford Morris to sort it out.

One thing is clear: "Old age isn't what it used to be -- thank God," said Linda Raschke, 54, an on-call firefighter and a Rochester Hills councilwoman.

"My kids keep telling me to act my age. I say, 'I'm trying.' "

Like the 50-somethings in Oakland County, younger people are treading on senior turf all over southeast Michigan.

"Every program has their own definition," said Jim McGuire, director of planning and advocacy for the Area Agency on Aging 1B, which serves seniors in six southeast Michigan counties, including Oakland and Macomb. "In some ways, seniors are synonymous with retirees ... but there's no rule."

Race to the Bottom

BrooklynDodger muses that any apparent association between improved performance in some polygenic realm and attribution of a racial identity is charged mainly because it supports a notion that "intelligence" could also be associated with racial identity. Lesser "intelligence" among Americans called "black" would justify lower economic status and other indicia of impression as results of functioning a natural law rather than conscious impression.

So, presence of a larger proportion of persons called "black" in competitive basketball, football and track carries the concern that policy makers, voters, will conclude this supports racial theories of reduced cognitive functioning.

Absence of persons called black from swimming, tennis, skiing, golf, etc, is attributed to class and discrimination barriers.

So, what's up with baseball? The Dodger notes that at 10% "black" participation in the sport, there is a 7% chance that a roster of 25 would have no "black" players, therefore suggsting that among the 40 major league baseball teams there would be a few with no "black" players.

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Astros roster has no black players
...

By Ben Walker, AP Baseball Writer October 25, 2005
...
The Astros are the first World Series team in more than a half-century with a roster that doesn't include a single black player.

"Of course I noticed it. How could you not?" Morgan said while the Astros took batting practice before the opener in Chicago. "But they're not the only ones. There are two or three teams that didn't have any African-American players this year."
...
The last World Series team without a black player was the 1953 New York Yankees. It wasn't until 1955 -- eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 -- that Elston Howard became the first black in Yankee pinstripes.

Black players accounted for just about 9 percent of big league rosters this season....
...

The most recent survey by the NCAA, taken during the 2003-04 season, showed that only 6 percent of Division I baseball players were black. Half of the men's basketball players were black, as were 44 percent of football players.
...

Williams is the only black general manager in the majors. A former big league outfielder, he joined the White Sox in 1992 as a scout, confident he could find players in the inner cities. After a year of trying, Williams felt as if he'd failed.

Pistons Win Ugly?

Go figure out a game from looking at the box score.

Against Portland, the Pistons shot 43% and were way outrebounded, but won a close game. It was steals and Portland turnovers, and a third quarter comeback that gave Detroit an advantage.

Against Phoenix the night before, the Pistons shot 53%, way outrebounded the Suns, but faded in the second and especially third quarter. Billups posting Steve Nash seemed like an obvious idea which worked while the Dodger was awake and watching? How did they get down to Phoenix, needing a 37 point 4th quarter to win?

Common to both games was Billups shooting the three. Pistons free throw shooting seems way improved.

The second unit beyond McDyess is still not putting much on the board, although Evans is getting decent rebounds from the 2. One game out of 6 the opponent got out of the 80's.

Obviously a way better start than last year. Larry Brown v. Flip Saunders is undecided because the players are different. Evans plusses Hunter as first into the 1-2-3 rotation, McDyess is starting faster.

Corporate Heavyweight

At thesmokinggun.com you can find many embarrassing public documents. Here is the mug shot of Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco. What struck the Dodger was size: 6'2", 225 for Kozlowski, and 6'4", 210 [actually pretty much normal weight but still a big dude] for his associate Mark Swartz.

Most mug shots at this site lack height and weight, but then, Tom Delay is in color.

Question is whether size and thus intimidation are characteristics of big deal corporate executives.

The sin of modern executive compensation is stock options. Even public bodies like the California State pension fund have pushed on shareholder value, that is, the stock price. "Incentives" for executives are giving them stock. So, executives do anything to pump up the stock price, which is the basis of their personal fortune. But stock price is almost completely irrational, based on stock analysts, glorified press agents, and earnings growth rather than earnings. All of which is hype. It would be much better if these guys were given outrageous salaries and perks to line their pockets., rather than distort the functioning of the enterprise.

Pistons Initial Tune-in

At this point, with the Pistons 4-0, having beaten three playoff teams [did the Kings make the first round last year], what can we say?

Since the starting 5 is the same, the issue for the Pistons is whether the second unit can hold its own in the first rotation mixed with the other guys first unit, and improve against the other guys second.

The Dodger was not as impressed as the Free Press, below, with the opening game win. Philadelphia was missing Dalembert, the center who gave the Pistons some trouble in playoffs last year. Frankly, the game looked like garbage time from the middle of the 1st quarter, running up and down with no pattern or flow...There was a brief stretch when the Pistons got a bunch of offensive rebounds in a row, although the box didn't show a huge amount of OR's; this looked like Philadelphia weak, not Detroit strong.

Compared to the championship year, last year demonstrated second unit problems. In the 1-2-3 rotation, the absence of Mike James thinned the offense and also the defense. In the 3-4-5 rotation, McDyess was a major plus, but they needed one more 4 to account for Ben and Rasheed in foul trouble at the same time, missing Ogkur. Nevertheless, McDyess on balance did more than replace those who left in the 4-5, and Prince improved enough to cover both himself and Williamson.

Compared to last year, Ben looked thinner and faster, all over the court. Maurice Evans looked like a major find and improvement in the 3-4-5 rotation. This was with Lindsay Hunter on injury list, and Dale Davis not playing at all. What's up with Davis, he started for Indiana last year and has yet to get on the floor? He's in the Elden Campbell role.

As the year goes by, the question will be whether Milicic can play himself into a regular fourth entry on the 4-5 rotation. An emergency, foul trouble replacement. So far he's shown a more confident posture standing around, but not much more. We also have to look for whether Arroyo can be a consistent 4th in the 1-2-3 rotation, and whether Delfino can play.

The Dodger didn't see the buzzer beater at the Celtics, the romp of the Raptors, or the Krushing of the Kings.

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DETROIT 108, PHILADELPHIA 88:

Rip roaring
Hamilton scores 37 as Pistons open season with a rout
November 3, 2005

BY KRISTA LATHAMFREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

Welcome to Pistons basketball, version 2006: It's faster, flashier and more efficient than previous models!
At least it looked that way after the Pistons zoomed to a 108-88, season-opening victory against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night at the sold-out Palace.

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Berlin Wall U.S. Style

The silver lining in this proposal is it will solidify the latino vote in California as Democrats. The downside of the cyber poll, which is USA Today? is that the majority of clickers support the idea.

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Lawmaker Wants Fence On 2,000-Mile U.S.-Mexico Border

Fence Would Cost Billions Of Dollars

POSTED: 6:34 am EST November 3, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A House Republican wants to build a fence along the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, a plan that could cost billions of dollars and one that critics say would do little to stop illegal immigration. California Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, plans to introduce legislation that would create a two-layer reinforced fence with lighting and sensors from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, a 100-yard border zone to the north of the barriers and 25 new ports of entry.

Should the United States build a fence along the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border?
Choice	Votes	Percentage of 1789 Votes
Yes	1452	81%
No	337	19%

Cleaing House at the White House

This one's from MSNBC.

At least some of the yes votes would include W among those who should be cleaned. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Do you think President Bush should clean house? * 12292 responses

Yes 86%

No 14%

Iraq Falsification

Frequently a police informant - someone arrested for another crime - falsely fingers a second party to get a reduced sentence. Here, an Al Quaeda prisoner fingered Iraq and helped produce an invasion.

The problem with demonstrating the lies which justified the Iraq war is that it supports the accurate impression that Bush and the Republicans want to go to war, will take any provocation to do it, and will invent a provocation if one doesn't exist. But this is why many vote for Bush.

As Tom Friedman said approvingly "These people know how to pull the trigger." Friedman argued at the time it was important to teach the Islamic world a lesson.

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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/07/document_counters_claims_that_al_qaeda_got_training_in_iraq/

Document counters claims that Al Qaeda got training in Iraq

Republicans agree to name task force

By Douglass K. Daniel, Associated Press November 7, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A government document raises doubts about claims that Al Qaeda members received training for biological and chemical weapons in Iraq, as Senate Democrats yesterday defended their push for a report on how the Bush administration handled prewar intelligence.
...

"Newly declassified portions of a document from the Defense Intelligence Agency showed that the administration was alerted that an Al Qaeda member in US custody probably was lying about links between the terrorist organization and Iraq.

The document from February 2002 showed that the agency questioned the reliability of Al Qaeda senior military trainer Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. He could not name any Iraqis involved in the effort or identify any chemical or biological materials or cite where the training took place, the report said.

The agency concluded that al-Libi probably misled the interrogators deliberately, and he recanted the statements in January, according to the document made public by Senator Carl Levin, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee"

Chris Webber's Country Day Off

The Philadelphia '76ers, and Chris Webber, came to Detroit for a game the Pistons won. The Dodger will comment on the Pistons later.

U of M took forfeited the games and took down the championship banners for the Webber-Fab 5 years. Luckily for U of M, Webber only played 2 years, so there were only 2 years of stuff to come down.

Country Day didn't take down any banners for the Webber years, and even honored Chris.

The story of Ed Martin and the Fab 5 needs a frame. Martin was an hourly worker in an auto plant. Word around the campfire is he ran a bookmaking business. There's a suggestion that Martin "loaned" this money to college stars as a money laundering scheme, they would pay him back when they became NBA stars. Ed Martin died, of apparently natural causes, during the investigation and grand jury activity.

Webber was indicted for the same thing Scooter Libby got dinged for - lying to the grand jury.

Country Day always stars a few inner city black youth in football and basketball. BrooklynDodger thought this was recruiting and offering scholarships. Is it possible that Ed Martin was paying the tuition at Country Day instead?

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Country Day retires Webber jersey
November 3, 2005
Chris Webber spent years trying to forget parts of his past.
On Wednesday, he celebrated more positive memories.

....


Country Day retires Webber jersey
November 3, 2005
Chris Webber spent years trying to forget parts of his past.

On Wednesday, he celebrated more positive memories.

Webber -- who won Mr. Basketball honors while starring at Birmingham Detroit Country Day in 1987-91 -- became the first player in school history to have his jersey retired. He wore No. 44.

And most of those visits home were filled with questions about his dealings with Ed Martin, a Michigan booster who told federal investigators he loaned Webber and other Wolverines more than $616,000.

Webber later admitted to paying back Martin money and pled guilty to criminal contempt for lying to a grand jury in the case.

...
Webber played two years at U-M, but NCAA sanctions prohibit him from having contact with the program for at least eight more years.

He was honored Wednesday with speeches by Keener, who called him "a diamond I just had to polish"; Country Day headmaster Gerald Hansen, his former advisor, Mary Ann DeVogel; and Pistons president Joe Dumars, all of whom talked about his basketball prowess and charitable efforts off the court

Affirmative Action for the Rich

Those of us supporting affirmative action in elite college admissions have been given significant new data on which to base understanding of the current controversy. This study focuses on the skewing of admissions based on secondary school performance - not necessarily "merit" - in order to limit the number of Jews in the Ivy League. It's about affirmative action in reverse.

In the 19th century, the Dodger expects that anyone [who was male] whose family could pay for Harvard could go to Harvard. Contrary to the book's thesis, rather than a democratization of admissions requirements by Eliot and Lowell, the surge of Jews [and other undesirable immigrants] at Harvard was more likely a surge of families able to pay tuition.

Harvard, Yale and Princeton - the other Big 3 - aimed to dominate the culture of the United States by admitting sufficient sons of the ruling class to rule the country and fund the university, while also admitting sufficient sons of the rising middle class to indoctrinate the future leaders of those communities.

Into the mid '60's, the Ivies were virtually all white, with a few east asians and fewer african americans. Then, the progressive demand to open the university to african americans also met the ruling class need to influence those communities by indoctrinating their future leaders.

At this point, Jews got to be white, and the mostly chinese asian community got to be white as well.

Affirmative action came to be a zero sum at the fringe: jews and asians faced off against blacks and hispanics [victims of more systematic societal discrimination in the face of less cohesive communties.]

The college admissions battle is not being fought among the Ivies, who are private. It's being fought at the "Public Ivies" - Michigan, Berkeley, North Carolina, and lead state schools like Texas-Austin.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102701733.html

The Ivy Curtain
How meritocracy in higher education arose from a system built to keep WASPs in and Jews out.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kittay
Sunday, October 30, 2005; Page BW03
THE CHOSEN
The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005 3 p.m. ET
By Jerome Karabel
Houghton Mifflin. 711 pp. $28

Proof of extracurricular activities, leadership qualities, letters of recommendation -- we take all these as natural, necessary and even enlightened elements of the college application process, though they cause us endless anxiety. Actually, they don't resemble in the least the way people in Europe or Japan get into college. They're a result of a particular American challenge at the turn of the 20th century, which President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard then characterized as follows: how to "prevent a dangerous increase in the proportion of Jews."

Prior to the 1920s, Harvard, Princeton and Yale accepted all applicants who met their academic requirements. Adjusting the size of each university's incoming class was not a problem since there were very few such qualified candidates, mostly because only a handful of elite northeastern private schools -- such as Groton and Andover and St. Paul's -- provided the kind of classical education (including Latin and some Greek) that the universities required. Since admissions were not "selective" in any substantial sense, none of the Big Three needed an admissions department.

...... "By the 1890s, 74 percent of Boston's upper class and 65 percent of New York's sent their sons to either Harvard, Yale, or Princeton," Karabel notes. Things took a new turn when Harvard president Charles W. Eliot, concerned that his school was educating just the wealthy, and his successor, A. Lawrence Lowell, took measures to attract more boys from good public schools. Though hardly egalitarians, Eliot and Lowell modified the university's entrance requirements -- including dropping Latin and Greek requirements -- to encourage more schools to prepare their students to compete for Harvard slots.

The result of such measures, at Harvard and elsewhere, was a horrific surprise: too many Jews! Jewish enrollment jumped to then historic highs of 4 percent at Princeton (1918), 9 percent at Yale (1917) and a distressing 20 percent of the freshman class at Harvard (1918). Though most of these students were more than academically competent, they didn't fit the usual definition of "gentlemen." And their numbers were continuing to increase. A meeting of New England deans in 1918 put the question squarely: How could they limit the growing Jewish presence?

Lowell worried that living on campus with a significant number of Jews would poison the social experience of the members of the Protestant elite and cause it to send its sons elsewhere, just as the New York City social set turned away from Columbia in the century's first decade.

In 1923, Lowell finally came up with a politically palatable solution: He limited the size of the incoming class to 1,000 (an innovation), which meant incorporating an evaluation of each candidate's nonacademic qualities into the admissions decision....

Yale's admissions chairman, Robert Corwin, had grumbled in 1929 that the list of names of recently admitted students "reads like some of the 'begat' portions of the Old Testament and might easily be mistaken for a recent roll call at the Wailing Wall." The next year, he limited Jewish enrollment to just 8.2 percent -- a result he hailed as having been attained "without hue and cry and without any attempt on the part of those chiefly affected to prove that Yale had organized a pogrom." ... As late as 1951, Harvard admitted an astonishing 94 percent of its legacies.
... Most university leaders made no bones about limiting the "super-bright" to only 10 percent of each class.
Astonishingly, this subjective college admissions system -- designed in the 1920s to discreetly exclude as many "social undesirables" as possible -- is the system we continue to use today. And the central irony of The ...

Nathan's Update

For those who follow Nathan's. The stock was trading at $9 when BrooklynDodger bought a small amount almost 2 decades ago. It promptly went to $2.75, showing it wasn't only dot com IPA's that tanked.

Recently, for reasons equally mysterious, the stock has traded as high as 10.50, and now sits at $9.50.

Nathan's Famous, Inc.: Company Report

1400 Old Country Road
Westbury NY 11590

• Phone: (516) 338-8500
• Fax: (516) 338-7220

Nathan's Famous, Inc. (Nathan's) operates with its subsidiaries, Miami Subs Corporation, owner of the Miami Subs brand and NF Roasters Corp., owner of the Kenny Rogers brand. The Company has operated and franchised fast food units featuring Nathan's all beef frankfurters, crinkle-cut, French-fried potatoes and other menu offerings. During the fiscal year ended March 27, 2005, Nathan's system consisted of Kenny Rogers Roasters and Miami Subs restaurants, included 355 franchised units, including six units operating pursuant to management agreements, six company-owned units concentrated in the New York metropolitan area and more than 5,900 branded product points of sale under its branded product program, located in 46 states, the District of Columbia and 13 foreign countries.

Stock Activity
	Last Price	9.50
	52 Week High	10.54
	52 Week Low	6.63

Theres some hope for the Court Fight

There’s some hope. The Detroit News cyber poll finds that Alito is not the people’s choice, even among readers of the areas conservative newspaper. 2/3 thought he was a bad choice of the first day.

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President Bush has nominated conservative judge Samuel Alito to replace moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Do you approve of his choice?

Yes, it's an excellent choice 32.33%
No, it's a terrible choice 66.21%
I don't care 1.46%

Zengout Basketball

As a new gout sufferer, I was told by a gout survivor that there are two responses to an attack. Fellow victims are empathetic and sympathetic, while others laugh. Gout images a disease of guilty victims, as opposed to innocent victims.

The Dodger himself imaged Squire Weston, lying passed out from claret, sleeping with his dogs, during a second attack.

The point of this post is that the Times today revealed that Phil Jackson suffers from gout. Gout were caused by attitude, or overweight, or apparent lack of self control, he wouldn't be your first pick.

The Times also picked the Pistons for third in the NBA east. We'll talk more about that.