Thursday Morning Links

There's a lot of interesting stuff to read this morning.

1. More troubling violence in Iraq, as sixteen Iraqi soldiers die in a suicide attack in Anbar province.

2. This is very interesting; George Mitchell, U.S. Middle East envoy, is in Israel today. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Obama administration will communicate to Israel that they intend to link the issue of Iran's nuclear program to illegal Israeli settlements. As in, if Israel wants help with Iran, they're going to have to make concessions on settlement activity. That message probably won't go over very well.

3. More on the "truce" with the Taliban in Swat: unsurprisingly, militants who pledged to surrender their arms...aren't.

4. Science news: researchers report setbacks in their explorations of the genetic underpinnings of many inherited diseases. Apparently, it's impossible to link some common conditions (like Schizophrenia) to one or two genetic markers. Scientists suspect that interactions between a countless number of genes can produce or make people vulnerable to disease, making it considerably more difficult to predict the possibility of disease in certain individuals, as well as fashion targeted treatments. Also, Nicholas Kristof (who's had some great columns recently) writes about recent research showing that the IQ's of poor children living in chaotic households suffers, and has suggestions for what we can do about that. And lastly, the "last voyage" of an astronaut whose job has been to tend the Hubble Space telescope, a scientific achievement that has made incalculable contributions to our understanding of the universe.

5. Jonathan Capehart dismisses the tired arguments for intolerance that underpin opposition to allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

6. Legislation that would create a new University of North Texas law school in Dallas passes the Texas Senate, but could face stiff opposition in the House. Despite the downturn in the legal market, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. North Texas could use a less expensive public law school, and unless we really are in the Great Depression II, the economy should improve in time for the first graduates of the school. Still, it seems like a difficult time to ask for money to produce lawyers who right now couldn't find jobs.

7. John Madden to retire after thirty years in the booth. Madden's an easy target for ridicule, but I've always liked his earnestness and his understanding of the game. Clearly the guy loves football, and has always done a good job of explaining the game to football amateurs like myself. He'll be missed.

8. Bonus music review: the new Metric album "Fantasies" came out on Tuesday. It's good. The hooks are catchier, the themes are gloomier, and song structure is tighter. I especially like the darker and fuzzier synth sounds, which give the album a somewhat more ambient feel. On other Metric albums I've found there's usually 2-3 good songs and a lot of filler. Not so here; all the songs are keepers. Anyway buy it, or listen to it here.

Dissed

MJD's take on an amusing annual NFL tradition:

You know what I've found strange about every team in sports that's won a championship since around 2001? They have all been the victims of heaps upon heaps of disrespect. No one thought they could do it!

Imagine that. All these hundreds of champion athletes, and all these millions of fans, and never once did one fan think one athlete was capable of a championship. It's crazy! It's truly a statistical anomaly. Especially since there are only 30 or so teams per league, and one of them has to win the championship. You'd think at least one of these tens of millions of fans would catch on.

It's an odd coincidence, isn't it? That every championship team has also been demeaned by the public and the target of unprecedented insolence?

I know this sort of sports propaganda can fire up a team, but is it less motivation to win to know that your legion of fans, as well as many prominent sports pundits, think you are perfectly capable of winning the championship?

Their Fate

Sports Illustrated, with an article on the fate of Michael Vick's dogs (via John Scalzi.) It's a much happier tale than you would imagine.

The Cowboys Were Awful

I make that assessment solely on what I saw in the second half, as I completely missed the first. Interceptions and penalties were the order of the day (as has become typical of this team.) But two consecutive running plays for touchdowns in the 4th to seal the game...I don't even know what to say about that. The Cowboys, on two consecutive series, inexplicably gave up first a 75-yard running TD, and then an 82-yard running TD, two of the longest running plays that have been given up in team history, completely negating the effect of two late-game scores by T.O. and Witten that (both times) put the Cowboys within two points of the Ravens. These runs came AFTER an otherwise solid defensive effort (five sacks in the first half) that held the Ravens to 16 points. Amazingly, thanks to a Tampa Bay loss, the Cowboys can actually get into the playoffs with a win over Philadelphia on Sunday, though why we would want that to happen and thus have ourselves tortured by the possibility that the Cowboys could have some success in the playoffs only to have our hopes shattered, is beyond me. Unbelievable.

Incidentally, the game was broadcast on Saturday night (??) on the NFL Network. First of all, call me old-school but pro football doesn't belong on Saturday night television. Second, the NFL Network broadcast was terrible. I've written about this twice before, and although it's better than it was last year, I don't honestly understand why they can't find better color announcers than Deion Sanders and Marshall Faulk. It just goes to show that you can't take guys who played the game for years, and ostensibly understand it's nuances, and stick them in a booth and expect them to have anything remotely intelligent to say about the game. If you are the kind of person who likes to hear men loudly scream "This is what football on the NFL Network on Saturday night is all about!" after a good play, then you will enjoy the NFL Network. If not, then you are sane and normal human being.

Also, Saturday night was the last time the Dallas Cowboys played a game at Texas Stadium. The Cowboys loss in stunning fashion probably didn't help set the mood, but nonetheless the team forged on with a closing ceremony to say goodbye to the stadium with the big hole in the roof. By all accounts the ceremony was great live. On TV...not so much. Oh well.

Bagging on the Eagles

As much as I cut people slack for dumb things they say or do (kettle being black and all) I don't quite know how Donovan McNabb didn't know that there are ties in the NFL. That's just weird.

Bonus!

Now I have two reason to be happy that the Redkins lost last night; apparently in the last seventeen Presidential elections, a preceding Redkins loss has meant doom for the incumbent party. To my glee, the Redkins were trounced last night by Pittsburgh.

UPDATE: On Monday Night Football's halftime show, Obama came out in favor of a college playoff system. Is there any more convincing evidence that Obama is the right man to be President?

Football!

Nothing says fall like cooler temperatures and football, and today we have both thanks to the remnants of Gustav and the start of the NFL season as the Redskins and the Giants open up the battle for the NFC East tonight in the Meadowlands. If I was forced to choose I'd take MLS or the NBA over the NFL, but for me (and many others I suspect) football is irrevocably intertwined with the change in the weather, the coming holiday season, and in general all sorts of warm and fuzzy memories from childhood. As a Cowboys fan I can hardly say who'd I'd prefer to see lose more, but in truth I really don't care; I'm just happy to watch them play.*

* Though actually, I'll spend most of the evening watching FC Dallas try to get back on track at home against Colorado. As I've learned after two weeks of political conventions, you never let facts get in the way of a good line.

Eighteen

Fresh off of another few weeks of almost completely meaningless games, it would appear that the NFL is looking to chop off a few pre-season games and add two more regular season games to the schedule, bringing the total number of games teams will play in a season to eighteen. In my opinion, getting rid of useless pre-season games can only be a good thing. Pre-season consists of four (or five!) mostly meaningless games that in total may come out to four quarters of real football and increase the odds of important players getting hurt before opening day. Sure it gives coaches a chance to evaluate their players, but they could probably do the same over two games, and still give their backups a chance to prove themselves. Animosity to the pre-season is pretty common and has been for a long time, but about nobody could envision the NFL ditching games that still manage to make them money, whatever the uselessness of those games. So their solution is apparently to, in conjunction with ditching pre-season games, add two more regular season games to the schedule. In case you're wondering, the last time the NFL added two games to the schedule was the 1978 season, thirty years ago. The sixteen game season then has long been the standard, to the point now where quite a few people (myself included) consider sixteen games to be the "right" number of games for the sport. What are two more games going to do for the season? Ditching two pre-season games in favor of two regular season games-which starters will of course play in-only increases the odds of injury to players. It increases the wear-and-tear on every player, all of whom beging to suffer aches and pains as the season drags on. Perhaps it increases the amount of time that we spend speculating about bad teams actually making the playoffs, but can the addition of two games really make a difference as far as which teams see the post-season? I doubt it. So basically we'll see two more games that, instead of being meaningless are actually highly meaningful, but the impact of those games is reduced by the fact that the teams already have sixteen other games to sort out who's good and who isn't.

Of course as you can probably tell from the very fact I'm writing this post, I am something of a football fan. So why do I have a problem with two more chances to watch NFL football in a season? After all, it's not like I'm going to boycott the last two games of the season (maybe the first though.) Call me a traditionalist (at least in the sports sense) but I think sixteen games works, and I don't see the need to milk fans out of money anymore than the NFL already does each season. But I suppose I'll probably be writing this exact same post with my thought-reading brain computer in 2038 when the NFL expands the season to twenty games.

Weekend Sports Stuff

Yesterday was a very good day for the Cowboys. Despite struggling with mental mistakes in the first half, the Cowboys turned it up in the second half and clobbered the NY Giants 31-20. The win puts the Cowboys even more firmly on top of the NFC East at 8-1, now technically two games ahead of the 6-3 Giants, but in fact the win puts them ahead of the Giants even were the two teams to finish with the same record; the Giants would need to finish one game ahead of the Cowboys in wins to secure the NFC East, though that looks increasingly unlikely as the Giants struggle to play with consistency.

The Eagles also delivered a gift to the Cowboys by kneecapping the Redskins in a 33-25 win. The loss leaves the Redkins at 5-4 and further dampens their hopes of catching up to the Cowboys in the standings. A game in Dallas next week is a must win for the Redskins.

In other interesting results around the NFL, the Packers shut out Minnesota yesterday to go 8-1 in the race with the Cowboys for home-field advantage in the playoffs. Both teams will meet each other in another three weeks, in what should be an exciting game. The schizophrenic Arizona Cards rolled over the now 6-3 Detroit Lions, thus preserving their hopes of passing Seattle in the NFC West. The Colts lost for the second week in a row, this time to the Chargers, who hope to use the win to turn their season around. Pittsburgh held off Cleveland to further cement their lead in the AFC North.

As for the Mavs...well, they went out and lost a close one to Portland on Friday night. Supposedly the Mavs have adopted a new approach of not going crazy every time they lose a regular season game, instead preserving their players through the long and grueling season and working out the kinks, all with an eye to the playoffs. That sounds nice and all, but I'm not sure about the wisdom of such an approach when you play in a conference crowded with good teams, like the 6-1 Houston Rockets, the 6-1 San Antonio Spurs, and the 5-2 New Orleans Hornets. It's much more pleasant to imagine those powerhouses nipping at the heels of the Mavs for home-field advantage in the playoffs all through the season, than the reverse. But then, I don't coach an NBA team.

Michael Vick Indicted for Dogfighting

Maybe he's guilty, maybe he isn't (though the facts as reported in the article are pretty damning.) If he is found guilty, then they should throw the book at him. Dogfighting is cruel, inhumane and barbaric, and it's almost always found to be running alongside other criminal activity. It's also been adopted as an expression of masculinity by a subset of men, and it's glorified by some rappers and other urban musicians. No amount of law enforcement can put an end to illegal dog-fighting so long as it's venerated by men who don't seem to know what it means to be a man, but education-combined with long prison sentences-can certainly do something to reduce it's prevelance.

NFL: "What ex-players?"

More sorriness from the NFL:

By any measure, the NFL is the most successful sports league in America. It has the highest ratings, brings in the most money at the gate, and has a legion of rabid fans like myself that buy all manner of merchandise touting their favorite teams. So how do you let the controversy about the care of your ex-players get so bad you've got congressional hearings? Regardless of the merits of the NFL's case (and there aren't very many), it's just creating a PR problem where there doesn't need to be one.

Yeah, and one created entirely as the result of greed. And don't even ask how they treat current players who dare to get knocked on the head a few too many times.