We don't generally post links based on reader requests, which has until now been a result of never getting reader requests. Here are our first two, both of which exemplify the sort of commitment to individual art that landed Van Gogh, Pollock and about a hundred others in asylums. Alert reader Dan Mullin sent us this link of a really good guitar player with a lot of time on his hands (shocking how often those two go together:)
See It Now
Our second link comes from Don Chappell, who was rightly impressed by the music-sync'd juggling of one Chris Bliss:
See It Now
We know at least one of the Flying Karamazov Brothers has read the Eight before, and we don't want to place anyone above you guys on the juggling totem pole, so if you have free links to video online, let us know. But this guy's pretty good.
22 March 2006
11 March 2006
Bad Things Comma Very
So called because the damn Firefox kept freezing up for some reason when we tried to title the post Very Bad Things.
There is bad news today, and it comes in the form of Bill Maher's leadoff monologue joke: The Dubai firm that had arranged to buy the port management contract (or whatever, frankly this was a nothing story until today and we are for once proudly ignorant of the details of the whole thing,) has backed out of the deal due to pressure from the public reaction in the US, thanks to Lou Dobbs et al. Which is maybe a neutral fact. Until you learn that in the absence of that firm to make the deal now the port management contract will apparently go to "an unnamed American entity." And that the semi-official scuttlebutt is that the unnamed entity is in fact wait for it Halliburton.
Not hard to imagine what that decision making moment in the Veep's office was like: "They don't want me to sell the ports to Dubai? F*** 'em, I'll give it to Hally. (Because you just know he's got a pet name for his baby.)
-.- (or "dash dot dash," "K" in Morse code, which is telegraph operator code for "switching tracks.") (lame historical tidbit courtesy of the Standing Eight Pompous Pedant Foundation.)
-This is The Eight's 60th post, which we only mention by way of demonstrating that we passed 50 a while back without making any fuss.
-Over the next week, Standing Eight may or may not post our usual, oh what's a fancy word for it, "stuff," from glamorous International Waters. And you know that once you get CQ miles out from shore there are no rules.
There is bad news today, and it comes in the form of Bill Maher's leadoff monologue joke: The Dubai firm that had arranged to buy the port management contract (or whatever, frankly this was a nothing story until today and we are for once proudly ignorant of the details of the whole thing,) has backed out of the deal due to pressure from the public reaction in the US, thanks to Lou Dobbs et al. Which is maybe a neutral fact. Until you learn that in the absence of that firm to make the deal now the port management contract will apparently go to "an unnamed American entity." And that the semi-official scuttlebutt is that the unnamed entity is in fact wait for it Halliburton.
Not hard to imagine what that decision making moment in the Veep's office was like: "They don't want me to sell the ports to Dubai? F*** 'em, I'll give it to Hally. (Because you just know he's got a pet name for his baby.)
-.- (or "dash dot dash," "K" in Morse code, which is telegraph operator code for "switching tracks.") (lame historical tidbit courtesy of the Standing Eight Pompous Pedant Foundation.)
-This is The Eight's 60th post, which we only mention by way of demonstrating that we passed 50 a while back without making any fuss.
-Over the next week, Standing Eight may or may not post our usual, oh what's a fancy word for it, "stuff," from glamorous International Waters. And you know that once you get CQ miles out from shore there are no rules.
10 March 2006
Kofi Annan (and on and on)
The headline tells the story here:
UN Staff vote no confidence in Annan management
Don't you wish we could do that with our leaders?
UN Staff vote no confidence in Annan management
Don't you wish we could do that with our leaders?
Vernon Robinson, Playa Hate-a
If you like being outraged by the bald-faced ballsiness of the right, don't miss Vernon Robinson's newest ad in his North Carolina House race. It's got to be the worst since Max Cleland was compared to Saddam Hussein. Which unfortunately probably means that Robinson is going to win.
See It Now @ Crooks and Liars
See It Now @ Crooks and Liars
09 March 2006
Talkin' Baseball, 'cause we never really played it very well
One hears a great deal of jabber in the wake of this SI article about Bonds/Steroids about should he be booted from the game a la Rose, Shoeless Joe et al, or should he have his records removed or ignored a la Maris' 61* or just what on Earth are we to do about this Bonds fellow?
This is not strictly a sports opinion website, but our slugline does mention sports, so the Editorial Board of The Eight have developed the following official position on the 'Bonds Thing.' To wit:
Let him keep playing, let him juice if he thinks he can do it without getting caught, and one of two things will happen, MLB will catch him, and he'll get tossed, or he'll catch Ruth and then maybe (probably not, we'd wager,) Aaron. Here're two reasons that go a long way to explaining why this is our official position:
1) The unanimous consensus of the board held that Ruth would have taken steroids if they'd had them then. He ate like a pig to give himself bulk to hit more home runs, because he understood better than anyone before that time the connection between the two.
2) Records were made to be broken. Bob Beamon doesn't hold the long jump record anymore, the 100m record keeps getting ticked down, those low-TV-rated skis at the Olympics get a little waxier every four years. Athletes are getting better due to Sport Science and Sport Medicine, not to mention the ability to view one's swing in eight different speeds on five different cameras in hi-def. If you want to keep the old days alive, walk six miles in the snow to work, don't bitch about a guy who plays baseball for a living.
That's that about that, but we did, at the Board meeting, have one other observation about this and all situations like it: The greatest thing about these sorts of stories is watching to see how many sports reporters cannot consistently and correctly pronounce the word 'asterisk.' Check it out and see if it doesn't provide a certain glee akin to the dread we all feel when Bush says 'nook-you-lar'.
--Full Disclosure-- This is a Late Update, reason number 1 above has been edited for clarity and the removal of stupidity, ours.
This is not strictly a sports opinion website, but our slugline does mention sports, so the Editorial Board of The Eight have developed the following official position on the 'Bonds Thing.' To wit:
Let him keep playing, let him juice if he thinks he can do it without getting caught, and one of two things will happen, MLB will catch him, and he'll get tossed, or he'll catch Ruth and then maybe (probably not, we'd wager,) Aaron. Here're two reasons that go a long way to explaining why this is our official position:
1) The unanimous consensus of the board held that Ruth would have taken steroids if they'd had them then. He ate like a pig to give himself bulk to hit more home runs, because he understood better than anyone before that time the connection between the two.
2) Records were made to be broken. Bob Beamon doesn't hold the long jump record anymore, the 100m record keeps getting ticked down, those low-TV-rated skis at the Olympics get a little waxier every four years. Athletes are getting better due to Sport Science and Sport Medicine, not to mention the ability to view one's swing in eight different speeds on five different cameras in hi-def. If you want to keep the old days alive, walk six miles in the snow to work, don't bitch about a guy who plays baseball for a living.
That's that about that, but we did, at the Board meeting, have one other observation about this and all situations like it: The greatest thing about these sorts of stories is watching to see how many sports reporters cannot consistently and correctly pronounce the word 'asterisk.' Check it out and see if it doesn't provide a certain glee akin to the dread we all feel when Bush says 'nook-you-lar'.
--Full Disclosure-- This is a Late Update, reason number 1 above has been edited for clarity and the removal of stupidity, ours.
07 March 2006
What about the atheists in the foxholes?
If you saw a headline that read: "Seminaries threaten to stop sending chaplains to military" you might suspect that the seminaries in question were some of the more liberal ones that dot our fine nation's blue-state coasts, GTU in Berkeley, Union in Manhattan, and so on.
That's certainly what we assumed until we hit the link below and saw that the seminaries Army Times' article refers to are about as far from liberal as you can get: Temple Baptist Seminary (Chattanooga,) and GWB's own controversial '00 campaign stop, Bob Jones University.
See It Now
So let's have a big Standing Eight cheer for TBS and BJU, for being willing to admit that one's Christian faith can be incompatible with American Imperialism, and that when it comes to hypocrisy, a finite number of straws can break a camel's back. Or to quote either Rozencrantz or Guildenstern, which is to say Tom Stoppard:
Consistency is all I ask
Opportunity is all I seek
Give us this day
Our daily week
That's certainly what we assumed until we hit the link below and saw that the seminaries Army Times' article refers to are about as far from liberal as you can get: Temple Baptist Seminary (Chattanooga,) and GWB's own controversial '00 campaign stop, Bob Jones University.
See It Now
So let's have a big Standing Eight cheer for TBS and BJU, for being willing to admit that one's Christian faith can be incompatible with American Imperialism, and that when it comes to hypocrisy, a finite number of straws can break a camel's back. Or to quote either Rozencrantz or Guildenstern, which is to say Tom Stoppard:
Consistency is all I ask
Opportunity is all I seek
Give us this day
Our daily week
RIBH (Rest In Baseball Heaven) Kirby Puckett
We are saddened to learn today of the passing of Kirby Puckett following complications from a stroke he suffered on Sunday. You'll get no home run totals or career summing-up here, only the following sincere compliment, which may be equally true for about a billion baseball fans: though we've never especially liked the Twins, we have always especially liked Kirby.
ESPN.com
NYTimes
Knock Ty Cobb on his ass when you see him. He deserves it.
--LATE UPDATE-- Actually, after reading the Times obit above, Standing Eight officially has no dog in the Puckett/Cobb fight in Baseball Heaven, they may both 'deserve it.' Whatever 'it' is. This could be the first time Standing Eight has 'spoken too soon,' and if our ombudsman recommends it we'll correct or retract at the appropriate time.
ESPN.com
NYTimes
Knock Ty Cobb on his ass when you see him. He deserves it.
--LATE UPDATE-- Actually, after reading the Times obit above, Standing Eight officially has no dog in the Puckett/Cobb fight in Baseball Heaven, they may both 'deserve it.' Whatever 'it' is. This could be the first time Standing Eight has 'spoken too soon,' and if our ombudsman recommends it we'll correct or retract at the appropriate time.
05 March 2006
Greatest Post Ever
We will link to the article, which offers you the tripartite choice of QT, Real, or WMP, but whichever way you can, see this video:
The Sun Online - Bizarre online: The Simpsons come to life
Genius. How did we not think of it first? (By 'we' I mean Americans more than Eighters.)
The Sun Online - Bizarre online: The Simpsons come to life
Genius. How did we not think of it first? (By 'we' I mean Americans more than Eighters.)
01 March 2006
Congress Shall Make D'oh Law...
22% of us (ugly americans,) can name all 5 Simpsons (Maggie, being who you're forgetting if you only thought of four, Abe doesn't count.) But only .1 (that's point one,) percent of us can list all 5 first amendment freedoms. We suspect that most Eighters can complete both lists.
See It Now
And hey, it's probably a good thing, since in the current climate the Simpsons may well last longer than archaic freedoms like speech religion press petition and assembly. Assembly's almost gone already.
Of course, some say the chief freedom that the first amendment protects is our right to be stupid, ignorant, wrong-headed, hater-ish and foxnewsy (some of these our coinages.) So it's doing its job no matter how few out of a thousand could list its protections.
See It Now
And hey, it's probably a good thing, since in the current climate the Simpsons may well last longer than archaic freedoms like speech religion press petition and assembly. Assembly's almost gone already.
Of course, some say the chief freedom that the first amendment protects is our right to be stupid, ignorant, wrong-headed, hater-ish and foxnewsy (some of these our coinages.) So it's doing its job no matter how few out of a thousand could list its protections.
Shocked, Positively Shocked...
...To learn that the NSA is conducting even broader domestic spying than we previously knew of:
See It Now
Alberto Gonzales with the Hill Testimony equivalent of one of Bush's 'signing statements.' Very much akin to saying, 'we don't torture' when the cameras are on and then waiting until they're well off to complete your statement, saying, 'as long as you don't count water-boarding, dogs, stress positions and light to medium beatings.' And as of 2am California time, this story isn't even up on the top of the Post's webpage.
Good stuff.
See It Now
Alberto Gonzales with the Hill Testimony equivalent of one of Bush's 'signing statements.' Very much akin to saying, 'we don't torture' when the cameras are on and then waiting until they're well off to complete your statement, saying, 'as long as you don't count water-boarding, dogs, stress positions and light to medium beatings.' And as of 2am California time, this story isn't even up on the top of the Post's webpage.
Good stuff.
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