Cpl. Jeffrey Starr

Cpl. Starr was an American soldier. He was on his 3rd tour in Iraq when he made the ultimate sacrifice ... he also happened to be the 2,000th American to make that sacrifice. Why people insist on treating only certain deaths as "milestones" is beyond me. They are all milestones. To treat one soldiers death as more significant than others cheapens the lives of our soldiers.

Michelle Malkin... "CPL. JEFFREY B. STARR: WHAT THE NYTIMES LEFT OUT"

Tim Blair challenges the NY Times public editor...

Ducks vs. Arizona

The Ducks travel to Arizona this week to face a "rebuilding" Wildcat team. Once again, the challenge is to play to their capability, and not to the level of their opponent. While last week's win over Washington was convincing, there were still too many mistakes. In the first have, the first two offensive possessions were each one play turnovers, and the clock management at the end of the half was horrific. Driving 97 yards and failing to put points on the board is NOT GOOD. In the second half, the defense gave up 2 long, time consuming drives that both resulted in touchdowns. Both were aided by penalties against the Ducks. Take away those issues, and Washington would have been simply annihilated.

So, the press has been singing the praises of the Arizona secondary. So this could be a chance for Clemens to prove his "Heisman-worthiness". Or, the Ducks could take the opportunity to showcase their loaded backfield and just run the ball down Arizona's throat. I'm sure that Whitehead, Stewart, Johnson, and Jackson wouldn't mind the challenge. On the other side of the ball, I think the defense is going to dominate. The oddsmakers were generous with Arizona this week. My prediction: Ducks by 21.

from NCAA Football.com ...
from ESPN...

Here's the Pac-10 schedule for the week, with odds:

The navy of the future

...another interesting post over at "The Belmont Club".

Oregon's Clemens for Heisman?

The Oregonian has the scoop.

I might take the talk more seriously if the article were from ESPN...

Joey Harrington - Progress Report

So how is Oregon's favorite alumn performing so far this NFL season? Not well, you'd be told by most of Detroit.

At least there's one reporter in that city that's willing to tell JH's side of the tale.

In my opinion, the 3 biggest problems faced by the Detroit Lion offense are as follows: 1) coaching 2) offensive line 3) team chemistry.

The team has the talent at the skill positions. It's a matter of the coaching to get those skilled players in positions to succeed. Mariucci's offense is just not cutting it. The game plans are not attacking the defense's weaknesses... they're defending their own. I think a lot of that has to do with the inablility of the offensive line to open a running lane for Kevin Jones, and the inability to protect the pocket for more than 1 second. Watching the game last weekend, it seemed that the Carolina D-Line was on top of Joey by the time he set his feet, if not BEFORE he set them. No QB can be expected to perform in that situation. Finally, there's just no chemistry...

[Joey] "I know what I'm supposed to do. I know where I'm supposed to go. But when you're struggling, when you're working with different guys all the time, it's not as natural, you're not quite sure it's gonna work out because maybe last time it didn't when it was supposed to..."

If you look at the contributions of the other top draft picks made by the Lions over the past 3 years, you'll discover some very unimpressive results. Are any of these players "on the hot seat"? The QB is just to most visible target; he touches the ball every play, after all. People need to remember that it takes 11 men working together, each executing their assignment properly, for a play to succeed. It would be interesting to see the film analysis performed by the coaching staff... to see where the blame is truly assigned. Which receiver ran the wrong route, which running back failed to recognize a blitzing linebacker and block him, which offensive lineman failed carry out his assignment... that's not apparent to someone who just tunes in to the broadcast on Sunday.

The best thing for Joey Harrington is probably a trade to another team. Leave the disfunction of the Detroit organization and it's fair-weather-fans behind. Get on a team with an offensive scheme that works, and with players who want to work together to win. Cause let's face it... Detroit just plain sucks.

Katrina Facts & Fiction on Racism

from "Gateway Pundit" (HT: Instapundit)

history in the making

there are a couple of recent posts at the Belmont Club that are interesting...

Have we turned the corner in Iraq? (and possibly the ME?)

And the UN is claiming "war is in decline"...

Middle East news from Fox

Good News for Iraqis...

but not-so-good-news on the Israel/Palestine front...

Duck Football Hype

Tomorrow, it's the Washington Huskies. After last week, I'm tempted to think "easy win", but I've been watching the Ducks for too many years to know that will happen. For one, there's the rivalry... the Huskies will come ready to play. Bragging rights for the NW are on the line. Then, there's the sad (but true) tendency for the Ducks to play to the level of their competition. This is the last barrier that the program needs to overcome before they can be counted as one of the nations elite football programs.

We'll find out tomorrow if they are going to take a step in that direction.

from the Sporting News...

On ESPN's "Top 25 Preview"

Has the rivalry "lost some fire"? from the Seattle Times.

current "odds" are Ducks by 16.5.

Oil for Food

Here's a topic I haven't been on in a while... the ongoing investigation of the Iraq "Oil For Food" program. Seem that some Frenchmen recently took a trip down to the big house as a result of their participation in the scheme. They were both high-ranking diplomats, and one of them happened to be serving as "special advisor" to Kofi Annan. This just stinks.

Key quote, from Roger L. Simon:

It's not just about graft. It's about the preservation of fascism for money. You down with that, liberalists? Think about it in your hearts. This isn't about Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives and all the rest of that left-over Eighteenth Century sports terminology. This is about real human beings who were living in a country where the dictator tossed people in paper shredders while his minions bought him protection on the UN Security Council. No thriller writer could get away with a plot like that, but Saddam Hussein did... with the help of his buddies Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan.

Nice article on Johnathan Stewart

Here's a nice article from the Seattle Times about the Ducks freshman running back.

I'm counting SEVEN defenders tryting to bring him down in this pic...

There's a new Michael Yon post up

He's begun his second "tour of duty" as an embedded reporter in Iraq.

baby blogging

Gratuitous baby pics... ribbit!

What a smile!

Al Gore on the "Rule of Reason"

Al Gore gave a speech to "The Media Center" back on Oct 5th... it's pretty interesting. While I agree with the "big idea" behind his speech - that big media is ruining our country - there are some interesting tangets... like this one, where he tries to explain why we are genetically predisposed to TV watching:

Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a day.

In the mind of the enemy

Interesting post on the al Qaeda "state of the union" from PowerlineBlog. (HT: Hugh Hewitt)

Reading list for 2005

Here's what I've read so far this year... at least the stuff I can remember off-hand. There might be a few others, and if I can't remember them easily, they must not have made much of and impression. And, of course, I'm leaving out the geeky work-related stuff:

The Gifts of the Jews
Gates of Fire
Tides of War
The First Man in Rome
Microserfs
The Virtues of War

... and I'm currently working on:
Heaven

and I try to start each morning out with this...

If I were to pick out the one that I think was the "best", I'd say Gates of Fire.

Were am I getting all of these titles, you ask? From here. Hugh sent me on a reading assignment when I got partway into this book.

Ducks vs. Arizona State

Oregon at Arizona State, 7:15 p.m. Saturday on Fox Sports Northwest... be there.

Notes from the Portland Tribune.

And from CBS Sports.

Fox Sports has the matchup pegged as one of the weekends "Big Games"!

the Sporting News...

And it looks like Arizona State is favored by 10 points.

Go Ducks!

Did you catch the President's speech?

I bet you didn't even know that President Bush gave a major speech on the GWOT yesterday... I know that I didn't. Thanks to the guys at PowerlineBlog for the writeup.

I loved this quote. It goes right along with the theme I've been driving at here for the last week or so:

People used to talk about the Presidency as a "bully pulpit," but I think one lesson of the Bush years is that the President's ability to communicate effectively with the American people, outside of the context of an election campaign, is limited. The real "bully pulpit" belongs to the mainstream press, which is just about unanimously devoted to undermining the President's effort to communicate with, and thereby lead, the American people.

on Bill Bennett...

Here's one that no statistician can argue with:

If every black and white and red and yellow baby were aborted, the crime rate would SURELY go down, over time.

...but that would be morally reprehensible.

This whole "controversy" is silly. If you don't like what someone's saying, don't listen. I'm sure that most of the people who are offended by BB's remarks never listen to his show anyway, so what do they care? If they did listen to him, they'd probably be able to pick up the meaning of his comments a bit better, instead of just listening to some out-of-context soundbite.

Can you trust you newspaper?

I've kind of been on a roll lately with posts that paint the media in a negative light. Well, here's another interesting "story" (HT: Instapundit). While I think the media is very important (I still get the majority of my news from traditional sources), it's really scary how easily a story can be "spun", or context can be altered, in order to support a particular viewpoint. (sounds a lot like GOSSIP!) I guess that's why I find these "story behind the story" cases so interesting.

This quote sums it up pretty well...

"Such tactics -- in the no-man's-land between ethical and unethical -- are
commonplace in the media, and have been for decades. It is only now, with the
advent of citizen journalism, that we can at last begin to see the whole story and realize that the public has been manipulated like this all along. "