Well…this one could have been titled ‘more trail weirdness” but I just thought the 5’s thing was a little more catchy…out on the bike today, the strangest thing happened…riding through the woods…I saw 5 deer running in a row through the trees…then, further up the trail, I saw 5 ducks in a row paddling down Plaster Creek….then, a little further on, 5 turkeys crossed in front of me…not sure what any of this means but it was pretty cool…
All posts by James DeVol
Punks and thugs on the ice…
Well…I wanted to cool off for a while before I wrote this one given the events in the Wings game the other night…and I wanted to wait to see what Shanny was going to do before I weighed in…but, now’s the time to get in my two cents…in case you didn’t see it, after the end of the game Wed night, Shea Weber…the thug defenseman for the Preds, slammed Hank Zetterberg’s head into the glass so hard that he broke his helmet…the kind of nonsense that I thought the league was trying to take out of the game to protect the players…unless it is a Red Wing getting hit, I guess. The worse thing about it was that Weber didn’t get anything but a paltry fine…no suspension…oh, they did give him a 2 minute penalty….that can never be enforced…and they said “bad boy, don’t do that again”….that punishment will keep him from doing that again….yeah, I laughed at that one, too. Then, in practice yesterday, we see Weber and one of his thug teammates joking and laughing while re-enacting the hit. One of the themes that has been repeated in this series is that the Preds wanted to build themselves to be just like the Wings…and they may beat us in the series, but these no class punks will never have the class of the Wings players and organization….that is something that is earned by being classy and respecting the other players and the game of hockey…
One last thing…keep your head up Weber…payback will come…maybe not tonight, but hockey players have long memories…where is Darren McCarty when we need him?
April 13th
Well…yesterday was pretty much a lost day…I did accomplish a couple of things but not enough….but, what is enough? I did forget to do the Red Wings update but that will come later this morning….the car is still running with no noise and that confuses me some…does a car fix itself? This one seems to at times….okay…I’m not feeling it right now so I’m going to stop here and come back later to make some sense…
The republican “war on women” continues in Wisconsin…
Well…are these repubs great liars or what? On the day that ole Mitt comes out and says that it is Obama and dem economic policies that are hurting women, we have our old buddy Scott Walker in Wisconsin signing the repeal of a law that made it easier for women there to hold employers accountable for wage discrimination. This was not a law that intruded on the “rights” of corporations to do whatever they want, but it was a law that tried to rectify an insidious result of discrimination against women that had been proven time and again…that women performing the same job with the same qualifications were usually paid from 20 to 30% less than the men doing the job…something that is just wrong no matter how the repubs try to explain it away in terms that further demean women…like “women leave the workforce to have babies so they have lesser skills than men” never mind that 40% plus of the women in the workforce never leave it to have children. Nonsense, all, but this is the type of policy that ole Mitt has said he supports when he says that he supports Walker and his agenda “completely”….just another example of what the US will look like if these idiots take control…geez…
April 12th
Well…it was a disappointing day yesterday with the Wings losing the first playoff game….but the rest of the day was okay and I have to stay positive…and today will be a good one, I hope, but I need to get the coffee going and load up the slow cooker for later so this one is going to be short for now….I did have dreams in the later part of the night that included travel to either Canada or England…and undercover police….not much else so I don’t know why I’m sharing that. Going to get back to the slow cooker part…be back later for more now that I’ve caught up for the month….
One more thing about jobs…
Well….I was going to append this one to the last one but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that it deserved its own even though this one will be short…..does anyone else smell a rat with the precipitous drop in new private sector jobs last month? I think there was just too much good news coming out of the labor market, which would undoubtedly help Obama in the general election…so what do the friends of the repubs do that run most of the business in the US? They take one for the team and stop hiring to support the repub line that the economy still stinks and Obama should not be reelected. I normally don’t really support conspiracy theories, but the repubs are well known for rewarding businesses that give them money and support the party line (think Halliburton) and I would not put it past them that they are using all of the coercion and reward that they can to win the election…and those in business that will benefit the most from a repub president are all too happy to comply by hurting the economy and the middle class for their personal gain…geez…
A couple of things…
Well…have been watching some sports this aft so I haven’t really gotten my brain into the political gear that I need to make some sense of the things that I see happening…but, a couple of things have come up that I wanted to comment on…first, I thought it quite clever today when Obama described behaviors of Saint Ronald of Reagan that would have prevented him from even getting the nomination in today’s repub party…under full disclosure, I voted for Reagan… a mistake that I have had years to savor…what Obama was getting at was Reagan’s pragmatic approach to governance, and the fact that he advocated raising taxes on the rich to have them pay their “fair share” and this was at a rate that was more than 25% higher than it is now….if any repub these days even hints at wanting to do the sensible thing and combine budget cuts with tax increases to help decrease the deficit, they would be run out of town by the rabid tea partiers aided by ole Grover Norquist….it is kind of neat to see the shapes of the general starting to appear and I just can’t see how Romney can win after lurching so far to the right in the primary…alienating women, hispanics, independents, and everyone else except the extreme righties…..and there just is not enough of them to win a general election….can’t wait to see Karly Rove and his super pac spend a 100 million dollars and lose….geez…
Let’s Go Red Wings!
Well…it is the start of playoff season in the NHL and my team goes off tonight against Nashville in what makes me feel really uneasy for the first time in the past 20 years….and yet, there is a component of excitement, too, that I quite enjoy….nevermind that almost all of the sports commentators pick the Preds, anything can happen in the playoffs. Oh, crap, I’m now spouting cliches instead of just talking about this wonderful time of the year…a time when I put everything else on hold, get my workouts and bike ride in early, and switch into the gear in the middle of the afternoon….the past couple of playoffs have been different with the group scattered and tending to the new phases of their lives but I am slowly getting used to it…getting used to following the game with a few of us by text as the thing unfolds but still sharing the good and bad…and that is a good thing, just different…but times and lives change and we need to be able to roll with it…I’ve gotten better at it lately…crap, this one was supposed to be about the Wings…not my life…so let’s get back to it….I am a little encouraged that we will have everyone back but Helm for tonight’s game but I think some of the guys aren’t quite up to speed from their injuries….I will predict this, and probably look ridiculous tomorrow, Frantzen will get a hat trick tonight and we’ll win 4-3…..I will try to keep up with commentary after every game so look for it tomorrow….Let’s Go Red Wings!!!
One last thing….the Tigers go this aft with Verlander on the mound and the last undefeated record in the majors…should be a good one against the Rays….
April 11th
Well….it was a day out yesterday…lost at pool but it was a hard fought week so I feel okay about that….another night of post apocalyptic dreams with guns and abandoned houses but I don’t remember the cause of the societal breakdown…it was weird but okay….the car seems to be okay but I think I need to start looking for another one…it is just worn out and rusting away slowly so I think I need to start doing the pre-work to find the Miata…but, not today…I have to do the grocery run to get ready for the Wings first playoff game and I think I’ll just concentrate on that…may have lunch with T today but it’s kind of iffy so I’m not going to count on it…do need to find the Wings gear and get ready for tonight but I do need to ride the bike today if it’s not snowing…right now, though, it’s water and couch time for a few minutes…more later…
A new twist on ACA…
Well….this is going to be a short one on some new study that was done by a repub who is a Medicare trustee saying that the ACA, or “Obamacare” will add 340 billion dollars to the deficit over 10 years…and I just love how the press has picked this nonsense up as “fact” when it is just another facet in the total war the repubs are waging on Obama…and they are hoping that throwing these huge, baseless numbers around will scare people into voting for the repubs in the fall…the only problem? The person who authored the study admits that he deviated from normal practices when doing his calculations…but he did say ‘trust me”, not the GAO or the CBO or any other agency that have run the numbers…but just trust me, my assumptions are correct and everyone else’s are wrong…an it is just a coincidence that my numbers are just what the rest of the repubs have been saying….how many times do we have to hear “trust us” from the repubs before we automatically know they are going to lie in the next breath….I’ve had enough, how about you? Geez….