Looks Like Elon’s Boys Watched Bull Durham One Too Many Times

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The folks over at badjocks.com have published pictures of Elon’s baseball team hazing their freshmen.  Lots of bras and panties involved which is a tradition I suspect dates back to 1988 when Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) had Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) dress in garters to help correct his pitching form in "Bull Durham".

What is it about baseball and North Carolina that causes people to do crazy things like name their teams after bugs (Greensboro Grasshoppers) and dress in womens clothing?  Could it be proximity to Greensboro?

Well I can’t say anything…in Winston-Salem we named our team after a wild pig (Winston-Salem Warthog). It’s better than naming your team after bait, but not much.

I’m waiting for the Grasshoppers to have a man-bra promo night and then I might make the drive over to see the new stadium.

Triad SPAM

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Today I got an email from Jerry McClough that linked to this page on TriadBlogs.  Here’s the full text of the email:

Nothing but the truth…(click here)!


~Jerry~

Can anyone tell me why I would possibly be added to his list? Sure I’m on the TriadBlogs site, but I don’t live in Greensboro, I’m not a political agitator, I’m not a leader of any community except the little band of voices in my head and I’m not black. I can’t remember ever corresponding with Jerry before and I was BCC’d and not addressed directly, so I’d call this unsolicited email…which some people call SPAM.

In the grand scheme of things it isn’t a big deal at all but it does leave me wondering what Jerry was trying to accomplish.

Happy Birthday J

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P1010080
Our youngest, Justin, turns 10 today.  He’s an avid reader, a video game fanatic and a wonderful soul.  That’s him on the left sporting the George Mason U NCAA Regional Champs hat.

Thankfully he’s not yet a lady-killer but I don’t think we have long to wait.

I can’t believe we’re already out of the single digits for all of our kids.

Vernon Chavez?

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So I’m glancing through memeorandum and I glance at the picture of Hugo Chavez (below left) and briefly wonder why Vernon Robinson (below right) is on there.  Then I look more closely and realize it’s Chavez, but then wonder if Chavez’s and Robinson’s pictures are really enough alike to cause that mistake…you be the judge.

Of course their politics are very similar:)Vernon_robinson

Hugo_chavez

Foxx Contributions from 149 PACs for $267,913

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According to Capitol Advantage, Virginia Foxx has gotten $267,913 from 149 PACs for the 05-06 election cycle.  The smallest amount ($200) came from the American Association for Marriage and the largest amount ($12,500) came from 21st Century Pac.  Here’s her top 15 PAC contributors

  1. 21st Century Pac, $12,500
  2. Every Republican is Crucial (Ericpac), $10,000
  3. RJ Reynolds Political Action Committee; Reynolds American Inc., $9,000
  4. Together for our Majority PAC (Tompac), $5,000
  5. Wachovia Corporation Employees Good Government Federal Fund, $5,000
  6. Promoting Republicans You Can Elect Project (Pryce Project), $5,000
  7. Dealers Election Action Committee of the National Automotive Dealers Association, $5,000
  8. Freshman Pac, $5,000
  9. Credit Union Legislative Action Council of Cuna, $5,000
  10. Keep Our Majority Pac, $5,000
  11. Rely on Your Beliefs Fund, $5,000
  12. Branch Bank & Trust PAC, $5,000
  13. Duke Energy Corporation PAC, $5,000
  14. Americans for a Republican Majority PAC, $5,000
  15. The Freedom Project, $4,751

Other notable PACs that contributed some grease were the Lorillard Tobacco Company Public Affairs Committee ($3,750), Dell Inc. Employee Pac ($2,500), Petroleum Marketers Association of America/Small Biz Committee ($1,500), Exxonmobil Corporation PAC ($1,000), and Tyco International Inc. Employees PAC ($500).

Given Foxx’s strong and consistent stand on immigration reform I was a little surprised to see all the agricultural organizations that gave money to her.  Those  include

  • American Crystal Suger Company PAC ($3,000)
  • Dairy Farmers of America Inc. Depac ($3,000)
  • Weyerhauser Co. PAC ($2,000)
  • NC Farm Bureau Farmpac ($2,000)
  • National Council of Farmer Cooperatives ($1,000)
  • Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperation ($1,000)
  • American Sugarbeet Growers Association PAC ($1,000)
  • North Carolina Pork Council Pac ($1,000)
  • Great Lakes Sugarbeet Growers PAC ($1,000)
  • Western Peanut Growers PAC ($1,000)
  • American Nursery and Landscape Assn. PAC ($1,000)
  • United Egg Association ($1,000)
  • National Cattlemen’s Beef Association PAC ($1,000)
  • Florida Sugar Cane League PAC ($500)
  • Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative PAC ($500)
  • National Chicken Council PAC ($500)
  • National Turkey Federation PAC ($500)
  • American Sugar Cane League of USA ($500)
  • Southern Cottongrowers ($500)
  • National Milk Producers Federation Pac ($500)
  • National Pork Producers Council ($500)

By my count that’s over $20k from ag-related PACs.  The reason that is interesting to me is that she is very strong on immigration reform and is a hard-liner on illegal aliens.  On the other hand agriculture is one of the leading employers/benefactors of illegal alien labor (along with construction).  Strange. **Update** Okay, so I might be an idiot.  She sits on the House Agriculture committee, in which case the donations make sense.  On the other hand I do wonder how the average ag-business person feels about her immigration stance?

**Update #2** In an interview in the Winston-Salem Journal Foxx denied that she had any connections to oil (her opponent Roger Sharpe said she is in the oil companies’ pocket), but she’s gotten some contributions from oil company PACs including ExxonMobil.  It’s a small amount of money so I’d say Sharpe better find another bone to pick. He also better get busy with his fundraising because Foxx has a serious war-chest and as of the last election filings he has, uh, not so much.

Is Your Daughter’s Boyfriend’s Roommate a Terrorist? or Thinking About This Whole ‘Privacy’ Thing

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As I posted last week there’s been a slight uproar about the NSA’s efforts to aggregate all the phone call data in the US.  Simply put the NSA is trying to distinguish who is calling whom and how often in an effort to track terrorists by said patterns.  I also said that I didn’t think this would be such a contentious issue if the government had been transparent or forthcoming in its efforts.

Today I read this item on Boing Boing and another aspect of this argument crept into my dim little brain.  First an excerpt:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources. “It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Here’s the question that this item caused to flicker in my head: if the government isn’t listening the contents of calls as they claim then how do they know who is making the call and who is receiving it?  If you call my house you could be talking to any one of five people who live here or any number of guests we have over.  If you call my cell phone you may not talk to me;  if the phone is lying around the house any one could pick it up and say hello.

While looking at cell phone records gives you an idea of who is probably talking to whom you just can’t know for sure unless you’re listening to the actual contents of the call.  But because our government has created an environment of guilty until proven innocent we are instictively loathe to give them even that level of access to records of our activities.

As a follow up to the NSA story the results of a survey were released showing that about two thirds of Americans had no problem with this kind of data collection if it helped fight terrorism.  I suspect that is becuase most people don’t feel they have anything to hide.  But how would they feel if they knew there was a possibility that their daughter, who was home for the summer from college, had a boyfriend living in a group home and unbeknownst to him he had a roommate who had links to a terror cell (however tangential).  The daughter’s numerous calls to a number with known terrorist connections raises a red flag and all of the sudden mom and dad have to deal with federal agents calling their employers with some very pointed questions.

I have a feeling their opinions might change.

Foggo’s Fooked

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Ah, the escapades continue.  From YahooNews:

The CIA’s third ranking official, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, has been under
investigation by the FBI, IRS, Defense Criminal Investigative Service,
the CIA’s inspector general and the U.S. attorney’s office in San
Diego, said FBI spokeswoman April Langwell in San Diego.

Under a sealed warrant, officials searched Foggo’s Virginia home and
his office at the CIA’s Langley, Va., campus, Langwell said. She could
provide no other details.

The FBI and other agencies have been investigating whether Foggo
improperly intervened in the award of contracts to a San Diego
businessman and personal friend, Brent Wilkes, who has been implicated
in a congressional bribery scandal…

Wilkes has been described in court papers as an unindicted
co-conspirator in a plot to bribe then-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a
California Republican who is now serving time in a federal prison for
taking $2.4 million from government contractors.

FBI agents also have been investigating whether Wilkes provided Cunningham with prostitutes, limousines and hotel suites.

Foggo has acknowledged participating in the poker parties at the
hotel rooms, but he has said there was nothing untoward about that. “If
he attended occasional card games with friends over the years, Mr.
Foggo insists they were that and nothing more,” the CIA statement said.

Lovely.  So anyway, I’m watching the History Channel with my oldest son (he’s 13) and we’re watching a documentary about fighter pilots and dogfighting in particular.  While the documentary goes into the history of aerial dogfights they focus on one in particular during the Vietnam War and it features fighter pilot Randall “Duke” Cunningham.  Of course during one segment of the interview I point out to my son that the pilot is now in jail and when he asks me why, and I tell him, I can see in his eyes that I’ve helped speed him along the road to disillusionment.  If my kids make it to adulthood without being overwhelmed by cynicism I’ll consider it a minor miracle.

Another Reason the Forsyth County Elections Board Made the Right Call

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A while ago the Forsyth County (NC) Elections Board caught some heat when it didn’t support the recommendation of the long-time director of elections to go with a touch screen voting machine.  The dispute caused the director to leave her position to take a job with the state’s election office.

David Allen made a convincing argument at blackboxvoting.com for why the board was right and now comes more evidence that the board made a good call.  There’s a new report out about some of the security flaws in Diebold’s touch-screen system which supports some allegations made against Diebold.  Note that some of this dates all the way back to 2003.

Yup, I’d say the board made the right call.