Octopuses are characterized by their eight arms usually bearing suction cups. These arms are a type of muscular hydrostat. Unlike most other cephalopods, the majority of octopuses those in the suborder most commonly known, Incirrina which means it have almost entirely soft bodies with no internal skeleton. They have neither a protective outer shell like the nautilus, nor any vestige of an internal shell or bones, like cuttlefish or squid. A beak, similar in shape to a parrots beak, is the only hard part of their body. This enables them to squeeze through very narrow slits between underwater rocks, which is very helpful when they are fleeing from morays or other predatory fish. The octopuses in the less familiar Cirrina suborder have two fins and an internal shell, generally reducing their ability to squeeze into small spaces.

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Indianpolis Colts at Houston Texans, Sunday at 1:00 pm Eastern
Im going to put this out right now before I start but gambling in sports is around 90% luck.  You just can never tell what is going to happen in the game.  This guy might break a big run, the favorite horse breaks there leg, or the star player is in jail because he decided to hit his wife last night.  Knowing that, why should I even gamble.  Well if you know what you are doing, than you can probably maximize that 10% into making you money.
I love to bet on horses and all other sports mainly football.  It takes time to study the horses because it is hard to keep up with them.  So usually I get a newspaper and review their stats or basically go on betting trends and make my trifecta box picks.  But today Im going to talk to you about football.  Im not an expert in football but Ill let you know this.  Each and every play on the football field, I like to say that 50% of the time, offense or defense is going to win.  Knowing this, you have to know that teams scheme for this.  They look at their players, compare it to their opponent, and game plan to allow for success.  This can be either controlling the clock, or winning on big plays, whatever.  You have to know that teams cant come out and just bomb on other teams.
New England last year made this happen because they knew Tom Brady studies the hell out of the other teams, and no secondary can physically match up to Randy Moss.  But, if you noticed, they couldnt run the ball.  Why?  Because their linemens are small and fast, made for pass blocking and zone blocking.  When they tried to run, it would be against a weaker run defense team.  So knowing the personnel of each team is way better than understanding the coachs philosophy because coaches will always change philosophy depending on the team they play.  So lets begin with my pick of the week and hopefully you make money on this.
Indianapolis Colts visit the Houston Texans this week.  Looking at this from the normal viewer, the Colts always beat the Texans because they have Manning.  Lose this mentality right away! In the NFL, no one player can beat a whole team.  So lets analyze this.  Indianapolis is favored by 3 points and the over/under points is 47. Indianapolis is coming off a bye week same as Houston.  But heres the difference, Manning gets two weeks to look at your team.  Indianapolis defense is really week this year mainly because Bob Sanders is out meaning no run support in their Tampa 2 defense.  When you stack 7 guys in the box in Tampa 2, you better have some big players to make the stop and the Colts dont have that.  Houston has 2 playmakers by the name of Slaton and Andre Johnson.  Houstons defense has Robinson who cannot cover in zone which they will have to play if Colts are using multiple wrs.  You must possess 3 shut down corners to cover all WRs in a spread set.  This will force Houston to either bring in the Nickel or stay base and use zone coverages.
So the gameplan for Houston is to keep the ball out of Mannings hands meaning control the clock.  Indianapolis has a weak defense which means keep the ball on offense.  Knowing this, this game will not be a shootout and will be based on field position and ball control.  Matchup wise, Mario Williams will have a tough time again Ugoh and Addai will get 30 carries against this weak defense.  Indianapolis will cover the 3 points and the total score will be under 47. Make this parlay bet and you will have a good chance of winning, unless some crazy shit happens which I wont be surprised if it did.

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I dreamt the other night of being at a casino. I sat at a $5 per hand blackjack table and began playing. As the dealer flipped the cards across the felt strange events started to happen. Each time I lost a hand the other casino patrons would take up a collection to cover my loss. Then someone would rush over to add more chips to my stack. But each time I won I got to keep the money. I simply put the chips I won in my pocket. Wow, I thought; I should try this at a more expensive table.

I moved to a $10 per hand table and the same thing happened. Next I tried $50 per hand and then $100. No matter how large a bet I placed or how long a particular losing streak lasted, the lost chips would magically reappear. But, any win was mine to keep and no one seemed to care. An attractive waitress came to offer a drink. I asked for some Grand Marnier and tipped her with a $100 chip. She rushed back with the drink, a seductive smile and a food menu. I kicked back and doubled-down on a hand blackjack players call a hard-16. (Yes, I know that is a stupid play, but I might win and it doesnt cost me when I lose.) I think Ill just stay here. No need to go back home and return to that activity called work.

Then I awoke and regained my senses. Real life isnt like that; or so I thought. I made some coffee and as I sipped and savored the aroma my eyes focused on the morning newspaper. I read about the government bailing out near bankrupt companies with names ending in Mae and Mac. Wait, I must still be dreaming. Is the caffeine working this morning?

Indymac, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were run as private companies with stockholders and highly compensated executives. The executives made a series of large questionable bets on real estate that for several years paid off handsomely. But now fortunes have changed and the bets are losing big time. Like many problem gamblers, these executives did not know how to control risk, stay within a budget, or quit before going completely broke. But it didnt matter to them because while they got to keep their winnings for the bets that paid off, ordinary citizens are being forced to take up a collection to cover the bets that lost.

Government talk and action on the financial crisis caused by bad loans is completely disingenuous. Political leaders extol the virtues of free, unregulated, private enterprise motivated by profit seeking executives and corporations. But when these private businesses fail, our leaders tell us that taxpayers must step in to prevent the entire financial system from collapse. It turns out that the Maes and Macs performed a necessary public service, much like a utility. But Marylanders already know what happens when utilities are deregulated and run for profit. We pay extra on our electric bills every month for that improvement.

IndyMac grew rapidly during the real estate boom by specializing in so-called loans. These loans did not require homebuyers to actually document the income or assets they claimed. After its failure the FBI launched an investigation of the company for possible fraud. Im just shocked, shocked to think that without documentation, bank officials might have just made up the numbers on loan documents.

Private enterprise works well with private money. But, in the mortgage business we have a system that allows private gain to accrue from risking unlimited amounts of taxpayer money. The result is that since March authorities have indicted more than 400 people who worked in the real estate industry. We the taxpayers are now footing the bill for massive amounts of collusion and outright fraud.

In Maryland, I know of no legal blackjack games. Neither the state nor federal governments trusts its citizens to play the game responsibly. But, while casino blackjack is stacked against the player, at least its regulated in states where it is allowed. Many tax-paying citizens were financially ruined in the poorly regulated real estate market. But, the government says that they should have made more responsible choices. Do they think this is a dream world.

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As the online gambling industry fights to gain its legal stature in the United States through a challenge waged by the The Interactive Media Entertainment Gaming Association, the New York Times has hit the stands with a story that McCain may have ties to the land-based casino sector.
A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table, according to the New York Times. He was throwing dice one night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Partys evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain - that would be Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.
The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCains campaigns and built Foxwoods into the worlds second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCains current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCains affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress.
As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing Americas casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.
One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a leading Indian gambling expert, called Mr. McCain.
As factions of the ferociously competitive gambling industry have vied for an edge, they have found it advantageous to cultivate a relationship with Mr. McCain or hire someone who has one, according to an examination based on more than 70 interviews and thousands of pages of documents.
The Indian casinos have not exactly embraced the online gambling sector, however, though McCain has gone on record as saying that prohibition of Internet gambling and online poker is not a priority of his.
It is really Sen. Jon Kyls deal, McCain told a Las Vegas reporter when pressed about the subject. Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl was a co-author of recently past Internet gambling prohibition - the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act - and has been among the industrys most aggressive foes over the past decade. Strangely, Kyl has not taken center stage on the issue in recent months at a time when bills have been presented in the House by Democratic Congressman Barney Frank. Fellow Republican Spencer Bacchus has taken the lead in his place.
But McCain insists online gambling prohibition is far from his mind.
I havent thought about the issue, McCain said when pressed further by the Vegas-based reporter.
The Indian casinos, like Las Vegas, have been casting a keen eye on the multi billion dollar Internet gambling sector. Vegas has profited from the industry indirectly via the World Series of Poker, which draws throngs of players to Sin City during its hottest months of summer. The online poker rooms have been credited for building the WSOP.
And the Indians have not been left out of the equation. Kahnawake, a tribe outside of Quebec, Canada, is among the most prominent enterprises involved in online gambling today, overseeing such businesses as BodogLife.com and UltimateBet Poker.
The New York Times questions McCains classification as a based on his relationship with the Indian casinos and those lobbyists who represent them.
Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as birds of prey. Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests - including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.
Mr. McCain declined to be interviewed by the New York Times. In written answers to questions, his campaign staff said he was justifiably proud of his record on regulating Indian gambling. Senator McCain has taken positions on policy issues because he believed they are in the public interest, the campaign said.
Just two weeks ago, Democratic running mate Joe Biden announced that his son would no longer engage in lobbying efforts. Bidens son, Hunter, worked on lobbying efforts for the online poker sector.
Federal lobbying records show that Hunter Biden’s firm was hired in June by lawyers for J. Russell DeLeon and his wife, Ruth Parasol, billionaire expatriates who founded a Web site called PartyPoker, according to a New York Times report. Their company, PartyGaming P.L.C., which later went public in London and was the single largest IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2004, stopped doing business in the United States after President Bush signed a bill into law in 2006 aimed at curbing online gambling.
Wyeth Wiedeman, a lobbyist hired by Mr. DeLeon and Ms. Parasol, said Mr. Biden helped put together a lobbying campaign to persuade Congress to pass a law that would clarify the question about whether online gambling was legal prior to 2006. Mr. Wiedeman said the Justice Department has been examining the couple and others involved with the PartyPoker site.
PartyPoker was forced out of the US market thanks to Jon Kyls co-authored UIGEA. At the time, 80 percent of Partys customers were originating from the US. And in an ironic twist, one time Iowa Republican Congressman and another co-author of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, Jim Leach, is now vocally endorsing Democratic Senator Barack Obama for President.

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Five weeks before the election, Ohioans started casting their ballots Tuesday in the perennial battleground that tipped the election to President Bush four years ago and may determine his successor.Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are focusing intently on Ohio as they seek to pile up state-by-state victories to reach the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.Both visit often while spending millions of dollars flooding TV and radio with advertisements, mailboxes with literature and even voicemail with automated phone calls to get supporters to the polls, particularly during the one-week window that began Tuesday in which people can register and vote in one swoop.Early participation appeared light; officials in the states largest counties that are home to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo and Dayton each reported several hundred ballots cast by afternoon. Many of those who voted cited convenience.I wanted to avoid the traffic and the people, said Charlene Glass, 49, of Cleveland Heights. A first-time voter, she backed Obama and expressed her enthusiasm for a black candidate. In Dayton, Terri Bell, 49, chose McCain because of his experience and his military service. I have a lot on my plate. I wanted to do this early, she said.At stake: 20 electoral votes -- perhaps, the presidency itself.Most recent state polls show a dead heat; others give McCain a slight edge. National surveys show Obama ahead. The disparity underscores the difficulty Obama is having in closing the deal in this pivotal state. Hes a first-term senator from Chicago with a liberal voting record and would be the countrys first black president.Ohio is crucial to McCains electoral strategy. Bush narrowly won Ohio, and a loss for McCain here would be very difficult to make up with victories elsewhere given that the political landscape favors Democrats and several other key states are tilting toward Obama.Obama, however, now leads McCain in enough other states Bush won in 2004 that he could lose Ohio and still reach the 18 electoral votes he would need if he carries all the states Democrat John Kerry did in 2004. Still, winning Ohio itself could do the trick.Every factor is at play in Ohio. Thus, every question will be tested.Among them: Can Republican McCain overcome his links to the deeply unpopular Bush and a weakened state party and prevail in a state that suffered large losses of manufacturing jobs and large numbers of Iraq war deaths? Can Democrat Obama overcome voter concerns about his voting record and race among the many blue-collar workers in this culturally conservative, deeply divided state?Obama got shellacked here by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary: She carried 83 of 88 counties as white working class voters flocked to her economic populist message. Thus, Obama is copying Gov. Ted Strickland and Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrats who went into Republican areas and boosted turnout to narrow GOP margins.Democrats too often have forgotten about places like this, said former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus, an Obama supporter who recently met with some two dozen rural voters in London in western Ohio. They have forgotten about small-town America, rural America, agricultural America and taken it for granted that were going to vote the other way.Linda Ward, a nurse from western Ohio, has tried to persuade others to take a critical look at McCain but hasnt had much luck. Not my neighbors, not my friends. This area is a very conservative one, she said.Voters like Diane Ferguson, a nursing home director in southeast Ohio, typify Obamas troubles. She says she likes Obama but isnt sure she can vote for him. Shes troubled by his early resistance to wearing a flag pin, his race, and a resume that looks thin to her.s a hard decision, she said. I dont know if were ready for that one.Aware of such skepticism, Obamas campaign is using its financial and organizational muscle to boost turnout among his core supporters -- blacks and the youth. His campaign long planned for this early voting period and organized car pools from college campuses to early voting sites across the state.Independent groups seeking to increase poor and minority participation also transported voters from places like homeless shelters, halfway houses and soup kitchens.ve had mediocre response, Matt Stone, an organizer of the group Vote from Home, said. We hope the effort will snowball over seven days as people talk about it.Outside the Franklin County Veterans Memorial in Columbus, Republican lawyers apparently concerned about voter fraud snapped photographs of vehicle license plates.On Monday, the state Supreme Court and two federal judges upheld the ruling by Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner that allows new voters to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day from Tuesday through Oct. 6. Republicans argued that Ohio law requires voters to be registered for 30 days before they cast an absentee ballot.The Ohio GOP asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Tuesday either to stop same-day voting or require elections official to separate those ballots so the registrations can be verified. But Brunner already has instructed election officials to segregate those ballots and verify the registrations before counting them.

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Let me explain each.



Speed Kills

This adage is generally true to varying degrees. Acting and reacting faster than your opponent generally gives you an edge. This is especially true in dagger fights because of several reasons.

The first is that a dagger, as compared to unarmed, IS a situation where the first good strike will kill or disable, and your target area is almost the entire body, even if you are wearing armour. Contrast this with unarmed. A fist generally doesn't kill or disable with the first strike unless you are hitting somewhere pretty specific. If you want to disable someone while you are unarmed, you generally have to break their structure first before you throw/lock/break/disarm, which involves working your way into a position where you can do that.

The second is that, compared to a longer weapon, like a sword or poleax, the dagger has a much shorter tempo. It's almost as fast as moving your hand around unarmed. Contrast with a sword or a poleax, which trades some speed for a lot more power and measure.

In short, because (1) getting the first strike CAN lead to victory and (2) dagger use lends itself well to quick strikes, speed especially kills with dagger strikes.

(Note. Speed gives you an edge. It doesn't win you the entire fight. I've won dagger and sword bouts with someone I judge about half again as fast as I am. I've lost dagger and sword bouts to people half as slow as I am. It's more important to do things right than to do things fast. Doing things right AND fast generally kills though.)



The default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill

What happens in a dagger duel is that both sides will be wanting to strike first with the dagger, for the reasons I mentioned above. The first good dagger strike ends the combat, so there's plenty of incentive to move in for the kill fast. Because both people are thinking like that, it's likely both people will try to attack first. Baring massive disparities in speed, both are likely to inflict a killing or disabling wound. Both die.

Hence, the default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill.

Having that in mind, what we train for isn't maximising the speed of the first strike. That leaves a lot to chance, i.e it depends on having an opponent that is slower than you. What we do train for is to strive for control over the weapon, then launching a counterstrike.

That is to say, the key to winning a dagger duel is controlling the opponent's weapon.



Let the other guy see what you are doing

This is something brought up by Chris on Sunday's training, and I agree with him. There's no point attacking if the opponent cannot see what is happening. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out.

Recall that the most reliable method of winning a dagger duel is to control the opponent's weapon?

By controlling your initial attack and making it visible, you have (1) limited your opponent's options for defence down to the most appropriate response and can therefore (2) predict the counter-remedy ahead of time. What's more (3) if your opponent commits to his defense too early, you can change your line of attack fairly quickly and get him where he's not defending.

Moreover, making your attack committed and visible is it's own defense. You stop yourself from leading before your dagger covers you, which is the worst mistake you can make in a dagger duel, and often ends with you walking into the point of your opponent's dagger.

Chris demonstrated this for us during one of the bouts, and I believe him. I also tried this in one of my bouts against Robin, which lead to a very nice feint.



The one complaint I have about myself for dagger is that I've not been able to get into my head and muscles the proper counter-remedy measures. Because it's a fraction of a second (during the interrupted attack) of a fraction of a second (during the defense and remedy) I just kind of go into a spastic spasm when I'm supposed to execute a counter-remedy.

The only way to remedy this is more training I suspect. Anyone else encounter this.

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Curlin Sets Earnings Mark; Showdown With Big Brown Could Be Next - NYTimes.com:
Will Curlin race aainst Big Brown or not? Mixed messages stillCurlin added another major achievement to his record Saturday, becoming the richest horse in North American history with his victory in the $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at a wet Belmont Park. With few other challenges left, he may now turn his attention to what could be the most difficult assignment of his career — a showdown with the Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown.
Curlin will be shipped to Santa Anita Park in California on Sunday morning, an indication that his next race could come in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a race that is on Big Brown’s schedule.

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Curlin Sets Earnings Mark; Showdown With Big Brown Could Be Next - NYTimes.com:
Will Curlin race aainst Big Brown or not? Mixed messages stillCurlin added another major achievement to his record Saturday, becoming the richest horse in North American history with his victory in the $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at a wet Belmont Park. With few other challenges left, he may now turn his attention to what could be the most difficult assignment of his career — a showdown with the Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown.
Curlin will be shipped to Santa Anita Park in California on Sunday morning, an indication that his next race could come in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a race that is on Big Brown’s schedule.

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Well, we had our vote and it was a dead heat - equal between taking the gamble and taking the money (12 for, 12 against). Even after thinking it over, the vast majority opted to remain with their original choice. After thinking it over, only one person decide each way to change their vote (they canceled each other out). Seven stuck to their choice to gamble and four stayed with not gambling. Dr. Brown's students reportedly took the gamble. Only a "small percentage" opted not to gamble. Admittedly, these were college students who were taking his statistics course. Moreover, they were not using real money. Certainly, not their own money!

OK. The moment of truth. What did you choose to do - gamble or quit? Here's the mathematical analysis. First, you were given your $5000 stake. Whatever you ended up with after four plays, you were still going to walk away a winner. But you have a chance to earn more at twice the cost of taking a loss.

Let's look at the case where you lost four times in a row. You are down to $1000. If you lose for the fifth time, you still walk away with $500. However, if you guess right and double your money, then you have won $1000. Thus, the payoff on that final bet is $1000 to $500, or 2:1. The expected payout is always greater than whatever the player has after four plays. And you have created the opportunity to walk out with four times the amount of money that you are placing at risk.

Let's look at the opposite scenario. You have made $4000 and have a total of $9000. If you lose, would will still walk out with $4500. This is almost the amount of money that you were given to play with in the first place. Your bet here is $4500. If you win, however, you will win, again, twice what you are willing to risk. You could walk out with $18,000! These are tremendously favorable odds for a 50/50 game. This is not a simple 1:1 payoff in a 50/50 game. This is a 2:1 payoff for a 50/50 game. In both cases, you are guaranteed that you will never go broke; you will always retain some of your $5000 windfall.

Don't believe me? Let's look at Roulette. Here, you bet either red or black. You bet a dollar and you either win a dollar or you lose a dollar. This is a pure 1:1 payoff. The casino's advantage is that there are two green slots. Those two numbers gives the casino it's slightly better than 5% advantage. To be a pure or honest game, the payoff would have to be 20:18. Now you can see why I say that the optimal strategy, mathematically, would be to always take the fifth gamble at that tremendously favorable 2:1 payoff.

The refusal to take that fifth choice is a measure of your risk aversion. Whether you had had a previous losing streak or not should not have even come into the equation. The only things that might affect your final choice would be the number drawn on the fourth choice. Why do I say that? Let's start with the obvious. As Mark Wolfinger noted (good analysis Mark, Joshua, Tyro), if the fourth number was a 1, 2 or 38,39. Then, your chance of choosing correctly "higher" or "lower" is virtually 100%. But if you had picked out 19, 20 or 21, then you have only a 50/50 chance of choosing correctly, "higher" or "lower." Even then, your optimal strategy would be to gamble because, as I said, you would always walk out a "winner." The choices here never involve losing all your money.

The difficulty comes when people see the money that they are holding as "theirs" and that is when the pain of losing but still walking out a winner outweighs that tremendous 2:1 payout. As I've said before in this blog, empirically, that is what people do. They value a loss at twice or more than the value of a similarly sized win. They are saying that it would "hurt" to lose $500, or $4500, more than it would be pleasurable to win $1000 or $9000. And so, you see, we are back to Prospect Theory which says exactly that.

p.s. Judging from the poll numbers and the comments that I've received, it appears that many of you assessed the risk correctly. You did not rely on heuristics or first impressions and did not make any snap judgments. You actually thought it through. And, as I said, there is no right or wrong answer to this game scenario. It's all about establishing or quantifying your level of risk aversion. Considering the turmoil that we've seen in the markets recently, I would not have been surprised to have seen even more risk aversion than the poll reflects.

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He appeared in some 60 films - including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting - earning him nine Oscar nominations for acting and the best actor honour for 1986s The Color of Money.
The movie heart-throb created Newmans Own Foundation, a private independent foundation, to carry on his commitment of donating to charity all profits and royalties he earns from the sale of Newmans Own products.
The foundations vice-chairman, Robert Forrester, paid tribute, saying: Paul Newmans craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.
Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in ones life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.
He continued: An exceptional example is the legacy of Newmans Own. What started as something of a joke in the basement of his home, turned into a highly-respected, multi-million dollar a year food company.
And true to form, he shared this good fortune by donating all the profits and royalties he earned to thousands of charities around the world, a total which now exceeds $250 million.
While his philanthropic interests and donations were wide-ranging, he was especially committed to the thousands of children with life-threatening conditions served by the Hole in the Wall Camps, which he helped start over 20 years ago.
He saw the camps as places where kids could escape the fear, pain and isolation of their conditions, kick back, and raise a little hell. Today, there are 11 camps around the world, with additional programs in Africa and Vietnam.
Through the camps, well over 135,000 children have had the chance to experience what childhood was meant to be.
The actor himself said: I wanted to acknowledge luck; the chance and benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, who might not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.
Mr Forrester went on: Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humour, and humanness.
His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps, for which he cared so much.
We will miss our friend Paul Newman, but are lucky ourselves to have known such a remarkable person.
Newman was born in the Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of Shaker Heights. He briefly attended Ohio University before joining the US Navy, where he served as a radio operator and gunner in torpedo bombers in World War II.
After the war ended, he returned to college and graduated in 1949, when he enrolled at Yale University to study acting and subsequently joined Lee Strasbergs Actors Studio in New York City.
Newman made his debut on Broadway and starred in his first movie in 1954 when he played boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me, later followed by Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor.
His films The Hustler, in 1961, Harper in 1966 and Cool Hand Luke in 1967 made him a global superstar.
Newman teamed up with fellow actor Robert Redford for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969 and they were reunited for The Sting in 1973.
Newman was twice married. He wed Jackie Witte in 1949 and the marriage ended in 1958. The couple had a son and two daughters. In 1978, his son Scott died of a drug overdose and the star opened the Scott Newman Centre for drug rehabilitation.
In 1958, Newman married actress and fellow Oscar-winner Joanne Woodward and they had three daughters together.
The couple had one of Hollywoods rare long-term marriages. Asked if he had ever been tempted to stray, Newman told Playboy magazine: I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?.
Newman and Woodward appeared in The Long Hot Summer, and he directed his wife in several films, including Rachel, Rachel and The Glass Menagerie.

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He appeared in some 60 films - including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting - earning him nine Oscar nominations for acting and the best actor honour for 1986s The Color of Money.
The movie heart-throb created Newmans Own Foundation, a private independent foundation, to carry on his commitment of donating to charity all profits and royalties he earns from the sale of Newmans Own products.
The foundations vice-chairman, Robert Forrester, paid tribute, saying: Paul Newmans craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.
Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in ones life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.
He continued: An exceptional example is the legacy of Newmans Own. What started as something of a joke in the basement of his home, turned into a highly-respected, multi-million dollar a year food company.
And true to form, he shared this good fortune by donating all the profits and royalties he earned to thousands of charities around the world, a total which now exceeds $250 million.
While his philanthropic interests and donations were wide-ranging, he was especially committed to the thousands of children with life-threatening conditions served by the Hole in the Wall Camps, which he helped start over 20 years ago.
He saw the camps as places where kids could escape the fear, pain and isolation of their conditions, kick back, and raise a little hell. Today, there are 11 camps around the world, with additional programs in Africa and Vietnam.
Through the camps, well over 135,000 children have had the chance to experience what childhood was meant to be.
The actor himself said: I wanted to acknowledge luck; the chance and benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, who might not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.
Mr Forrester went on: Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humour, and humanness.
His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps, for which he cared so much.
We will miss our friend Paul Newman, but are lucky ourselves to have known such a remarkable person.
Newman was born in the Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of Shaker Heights. He briefly attended Ohio University before joining the US Navy, where he served as a radio operator and gunner in torpedo bombers in World War II.
After the war ended, he returned to college and graduated in 1949, when he enrolled at Yale University to study acting and subsequently joined Lee Strasbergs Actors Studio in New York City.
Newman made his debut on Broadway and starred in his first movie in 1954 when he played boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me, later followed by Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor.
His films The Hustler, in 1961, Harper in 1966 and Cool Hand Luke in 1967 made him a global superstar.
Newman teamed up with fellow actor Robert Redford for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969 and they were reunited for The Sting in 1973.
Newman was twice married. He wed Jackie Witte in 1949 and the marriage ended in 1958. The couple had a son and two daughters. In 1978, his son Scott died of a drug overdose and the star opened the Scott Newman Centre for drug rehabilitation.
In 1958, Newman married actress and fellow Oscar-winner Joanne Woodward and they had three daughters together.
The couple had one of Hollywoods rare long-term marriages. Asked if he had ever been tempted to stray, Newman told Playboy magazine: I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?.
Newman and Woodward appeared in The Long Hot Summer, and he directed his wife in several films, including Rachel, Rachel and The Glass Menagerie.

Similar posts: gambling money

A couple of days ago, Jim Bisso sent me a question:
I've been embattled by a bunch of peevologists over the grammaticality of sentences of the sort: "my mother(,) she is a good person". I have pointed out that many kinds of apposition are not only acceptable but flow from the pens of some of our finest writers, but they are having none of that. Somehow a construction like "we the people of the United States etc." is okay, but reverse the order of Pron + NP to NP + Pron and sparks start to fly. I say it's simply a stylistic matter and not a syntactic one, but who am I? What say you? (Do you know any monographs that I might delve into to fuel my argument?)
Executive summary: This construction goes back to Old English, and is still widely used in spoken English and in some regional varieties ; but its use in formal written English has been decreasing since about 1500, and is now either informal or archaic.

Similar posts: gambling money

Growing up, you were very likely familiar with your mothers cookware, featuring all manner of aluminum pots and pans and other various items. But when it comes right down to it, picking out the proper cookware for your needs at the home when you are somewhat inexperienced in the kitchen can be somewhat difficult. There are so many different types of stainless steel cookware, aluminum cookware and Teflon coated items available that it can be an insurmountable task choosing what cookware is right for you.
With all these different types of cookware products, it can be very difficult deciding which pot or pan is perfect for the type of cooking that you need to do. With so many different types of food comes even more different types of cooking implements and requirements for the cookware that you have to choose from. With so many different types of food in the world, it is not surprising to see so many different types of cookware, each of which has a specialized use. Choosing from the cookware specialized products can be almost impossible for the bachelor or those who are not so familiar with the kitchen in general. Without the knowledge that an experienced cook has regarding cookware, choosing the right products can be almost an insurmountable task.
When selecting your cookware, a good rule of thumb is to decide what types of food you plan to be cooking. In some cases your grandmothers iron skillet is just fine, but with many dishes the skillet wont do the trick and you will need some newer, up-to-date cookware that features Teflon coating and stainless steel surfaces. With all of these different types of surfaces, it is sometimes easier for the cook to wash dishes after the fact, and can also provide a healthier cooking surface. While it is quite often up to the cooks personal choice, in the case of pots and pans, there is a product for every type of purpose under the sun. With so many different types of products being cooked, you will very quickly find yourself needing all manner of different cooking implements.
When you are just selecting frying pans, it is not so bad, but in the case of pots, it gets slightly more difficult. There are so many different types of implements available for each and every different type of food that selecting just one can be almost impossible. There are pots for boiling and pots for simmering, even pots for slow cooking, cleverly referred to as slow cookers. Making a selection between all the different types of products depends on a multitude of factors. These factors include the food that you are cooking, your budget, the level of quality of the products in your kitchen and, in many cases, personal choice. It is important to live within your budget, but it is also important not to buy some cheap junk that is nearly useless out-of-the-box. Making these types of cookware decisions can be extremely difficult for an inexperienced cook.
In the case of those who are completely clueless, it can be a good idea to take along someone who is somewhat more knowledgeable in the area of the kitchen and dishes in general. Its not unheard of to take your mother or sister or even a girlfriend to the store to find the type of cookware that suits you. With all the assistance that this more experienced individual can render, it only makes sense to have some help finding the products that you need.
In the end, it likely comes down to personal taste, budget and what types of foods that youll be preparing. But when picking up your cookware, always keep in mind that certain products are going to be easier to clean than others. With all the stainless steel and Teflon coated options, this is a very important part of the shopping process, as you dont want to get stuck with cookware that is almost impossible to clean. With all of these different types of coatings and products available in the cookware department in your local department store, it is no surprise that so many people have so many difficulties picking out some basic pots and pans.

Similar posts: gambling money

Well, we had our vote and it was a dead heat - equal between taking the gamble and taking the money. Even after thinking it over, the vast majority opted to remain with their original choice. After thinking it over, only one person decide each way to change their vote (they canceled each other out). Dr. Brown's students reportedly took the gamble. Only a "small percentage" opted not to gamble. Admittedly, these were college students who were taking his statistics course. Moreover, they were not using real money. Certainly, not their own money!

OK. The moment of truth. What did you choose to do - gamble or quit? Here's the mathematical analysis. First, you were given your $5000 stake. Whatever you ended up with after four plays, you were still going to walk away a winner. But you have a chance to earn more at twice the cost of taking a loss.

Let's look at the case where you lost four times in a row. You are down to $1000. If you lose for the fifth time, you still walk away with $500. However, if you guess right and double your money, then you have won $1000. Thus, the payoff on that final bet is $1000 to $500, or 2:1. The expected payout is always greater than whatever the player has after four plays. And you have created the opportunity to walk out with four times the amount of money that you are placing at risk.

Let's look at the opposite scenario. You have made $4000 and have a total of $9000. If you lose, would will still walk out with $4500. This is almost the amount of money that you were given to play with in the first place. Your bet here is $4500. If you win, however, you will win, again, twice what you are willing to risk. You could walk out with $18,000! These are tremendously favorable odds for a 50/50 game. This is not a simple 1:1 payoff in a 50/50 game. This is a 2:1 payoff for a 50/50 game. In both cases, you are guaranteed that you will never go broke; you will always retain some of your $5000 windfall.

Don't believe me? Let's look at Roulette. Here, you bet either red or black. You bet a dollar and you either win a dollar or you lose a dollar. This is a pure 1:1 payoff. The casino's advantage is that there are two green slots. Those two numbers gives the casino it's slightly better than 5% advantage. To be a pure or honest game, the payoff would have to be 20:18. Now you can see why I say that the optimal strategy, mathematically, would be to always take the fifth gamble at that tremendously favorable 2:1 payoff.

The refusal to take that fifth choice is a measure of your risk aversion. Whether you had had a previous losing streak or not should not have even come into the equation. The only things that might affect your final choice would be the number drawn on the fourth choice. Why do I say that? Let's start with the obvious. As Mark Wolfinger noted (good analysis Mark, Joshua, Tyro), if the fourth number was a 1, 2 or 38,39. Then, your chance of choosing correctly "higher" or "lower" is virtually 100%. But if you had picked out 19, 20 or 21, then you have only a 50/50 chance of choosing correctly, "higher" or "lower." Even then, your optimal strategy would be to gamble because, as I said, you would always walk out a "winner." The choices here never involve losing all your money.

The difficulty comes when people see the money that they are holding as "theirs" and that is when the pain of losing but still walking out a winner outweighs that tremendous 2:1 payout. As I've said before in this blog, empirically, that is what people do. They value a loss at twice or more than the value of a similarly sized win. They are saying that it would "hurt" to lose $500, or $4500, more than it would be pleasurable to win $1000 or $9000. And so, you see, we are back to Prospect Theory which says exactly that.

p.s. Judging from the poll numbers and the comments that I've received, it appears that many of you assessed the risk correctly. You did not rely on heuristics or first impressions and did not make any snap judgments. You actually thought it through. And, as I said, there is no right or wrong answer to this game scenario. It's all about establishing or quantifying your level of risk aversion. Considering the turmoil that we've seen in the markets recently, I would not have been surprised to have seen even more risk aversion than the poll reflects.

Similar posts: gambling money

Wall Street is in the business of breaking up business financing so that those who have a low tolerance for risk face little risk, while those who have a high tolerance risk take greater risk in exchange for the possibilty of greater returns.

This seems to be working as intended, without new federal regulation or any massive bailouts.

Shareholders of collapsed institutions have generally lost 95% or more of their investment valued at the market peak about a year ago. Subordinated bondholders appear to have taken a beating. Ordinary bondholders may see delayed payments and not receive all promised interest, but are unlikely to lose a large percentage of principal in these collapses. Just one small money market fund appears to have fallen below the 100% return of principal mark, even though many have had subpar returns on investment. No FDIC insured deposit has gone unpaid, and the FDIC has not had to seek additional funding despite a large number of bank failures.

Even in the area of mortgage backed securities, the duty of the originating and underwriting parties to compensate buyers for excessive defaults has largely left sloppy underwriting originators bankrupt. The line of business that created the crisis, subprime lending, no longer exists. The investment banks that played a leading role in securing funds to make bad loans with, and AIG that insured man other investors against default, have collapsed as a result of their bad financial judgment. Whole industries which developed reckless practices are gone, while more prudent industries have managed to stay in business.

Certainly, relatively innocent parties have been hurt, particularly non-executive employees laid off through no fault of their own and investors in prudent business who have seen their investments fall in price due to general market panic. Meanwhile, the executives who were behind some of these schemes seem to have gotten fat bonuses while seeming to escape responsibility for business failures for now. Some of those executives may face later investigations, be forced to forfeit or return some or all of their bonuses, and may have been heavily invested in the now worthless securities of their companies. But, one suspects that many will have swiftly diverified money taken out of their companies in good times and will weather the financial crisis well.

Critics of the WaMu buyout rightly note that there doesn't appear to have been competitive bidding, so the FDIC was permitted to play favorites between the remaining fiscally solvent large national banks that were interesting in buying the assets. But, securing justice between big commercial banks for the benefit of shareholders and subordinated bondholders in an investment known to be high risk seems like a low priority relative to stability and certainty for customers and protecting the federal government from having to bail out the FDIC.

By and large, the most culpable financial institutions have been promptly punished financially, and the highest risk investments have suffered most, while financial institutions with less culpability, and investors that chose safer investments, seem to have fared better. Where there have been bailouts, shareholders seem to have salvaged part of an investment that would otherwise have been wiped out, and subordinated bondholders seem to have come out much better than they otherwise would have, but shareholders and the many investors who sold out in the face of impending collapse have still lost much of their investments.

While some of the failures, like Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers have been rather sudden, others, like Washington Mutual, have been expected for months allowing diligent risk intolerant investors to bail out and preserve some of their investment.

Yes, the stock market generally has slumped. But, so far, we have seen declines in stock prices not atypical of a bear market, and bear markets have happened regularly over the years.

Even at the individual loan level this seems to be the case. Fixed rate conventional loans have continued to have extremely low default rates throughout the financial crisis. Those loans that have gone bad, particularly subprime adjustable rate loan with small downpayments, were clearly the highest risk loans being made in the mortgage market.

Housing prices have slumped, but only after a couple of years of increasingly stark warnings from some participants in the national economic discussion that the housing market was in a bubble at risk of collapsing in some areas.

In short, while clearly Wall Street's existing institutions were broken, it isn't obvious that the overall system of allocating risk, and the basic regulatory structure is as deeply out of whack as it may seem. There may need to be some tweaks, but any reform should build on the current system's tendency to direct financial consequences to the investors who took foreseeable gambles that went bad.

Similar posts: gambling money

A couple of days ago, Jim Bisso sent me a question:
I've been embattled by a bunch of peevologists over the grammaticality of sentences of the sort: "my mother(,) she is a good person". I have pointed out that many kinds of apposition are not only acceptable but flow from the pens of some of our finest writers, but they are having none of that. Somehow a construction like "we the people of the United States etc." is okay, but reverse the order of Pron + NP to NP + Pron and sparks start to fly. I say it's simply a stylistic matter and not a syntactic one, but who am I? What say you? (Do you know any monographs that I might delve into to fuel my argument?)
Executive summary: This construction goes back to Old English, and is still widely used in spoken English and in some regional varieties ; but its use in formal written English has been decreasing since about 1500, and is now either informal or archaic.

Similar posts: gambling money

Wall Street is in the business of breaking up business financing so that those who have a low tolerance for risk face little risk, while those who have a high tolerance risk take greater risk in exchange for the possibilty of greater returns.

This seems to be working as intended, without new federal regulation or any massive bailouts.

Shareholders of collapsed institutions have generally lost 95% or more of their investment valued at the market peak about a year ago. Subordinated bondholders appear to have taken a beating. Ordinary bondholders may see delayed payments and not receive all promised interest, but are unlikely to lose a large percentage of principal in these collapses. Just one small money market fund appears to have fallen below the 100% return of principal mark, even though many have had subpar returns on investment. No FDIC insured deposit has gone unpaid, and the FDIC has not had to seek additional funding despite a large number of bank failures.

Even in the area of mortgage backed securities, the duty of the originating and underwriting parties to compensate buyers for excessive defaults has largely left sloppy underwriting originators bankrupt. The line of business that created the crisis, subprime lending, no longer exists. The investment banks that played a leading role in securing funds to make bad loans with, and AIG that insured man other investors against default, have collapsed as a result of their bad financial judgment. Whole industries which developed reckless practices are gone, while more prudent industries have managed to stay in business.

Certainly, relatively innocent parties have been hurt, particularly non-executive employees laid off through no fault of their own and investors in prudent business who have seen their investments fall in price due to general market panic. Meanwhile, the executives who were behind some of these schemes seem to have gotten fat bonuses while seeming to escape responsibility for business failures for now. Some of those executives may face later investigations, be forced to forfeit or return some or all of their bonuses, and may have been heavily invested in the now worthless securities of their companies. But, one suspects that many will have swiftly diverified money taken out of their companies in good times and will weather the financial crisis well.

Critics of the WaMu buyout rightly note that there doesn't appear to have been competitive bidding, so the FDIC was permitted to play favorites between the remaining fiscally solvent large national banks that were interesting in buying the assets. But, securing justice between big commercial banks for the benefit of shareholders and subordinated bondholders in an investment known to be high risk seems like a low priority relative to stability and certainty for customers and protecting the federal government from having to bail out the FDIC.

By and large, the most culpable financial institutions have been promptly punished financially, and the highest risk investments have suffered most, while financial institutions with less culpability, and investors that chose safer investments, seem to have fared better. Where there have been bailouts, shareholders seem to have salvaged part of an investment that would otherwise have been wiped out, and subordinated bondholders seem to have come out much better than they otherwise would have, but shareholders and the many investors who sold out in the face of impending collapse have still lost much of their investments.

While some of the failures, like Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers have been rather sudden, others, like Washington Mutual, have been expected for months allowing diligent risk intolerant investors to bail out and preserve some of their investment.

Yes, the stock market generally has slumped. But, so far, we have seen declines in stock prices not atypical of a bear market, and bear markets have happened regularly over the years.

Even at the individual loan level this seems to be the case. Fixed rate conventional loans have continued to have extremely low default rates throughout the financial crisis. Those loans that have gone bad, particularly subprime adjustable rate loan with small downpayments, were clearly the highest risk loans being made in the mortgage market.

Housing prices have slumped, but only after a couple of years of increasingly stark warnings from some participants in the national economic discussion that the housing market was in a bubble at risk of collapsing in some areas.

In short, while clearly Wall Street's existing institutions were broken, it isn't obvious that the overall system of allocating risk, and the basic regulatory structure is as deeply out of whack as it may seem. There may need to be some tweaks, but any reform should build on the current system's tendency to direct financial consequences to the investors who took foreseeable gambles that went bad.

Similar posts: gambling money

After a rough sleeping night and I dont know why, working at the Senior Fitness program was not easy this morning. Whatever it was that caused me a rough night also gave problems to one of my fellow seniors. She had such a rough night she didnt even come. On the plus side, and Ill rub a little in here, todays session seemed to just fly by. The fitness place, which is normally a physical therapy establishment, is about to move. When it does, the owner says hes considering expanding our senior program. If that comes about, Ill let you know here and maybe I can help the expansion.

The Sox didnt do it last night. The magic number remains at one with just six more games to go.

My wife and I are not gamblers. Thats not to say weve never put any money in a slot machine. We have. We sailed from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, on the old Prince of Fundy ship. Im not sure if the Prince of Fundy was a cruise ship or a ferry since it transported vehicles to the Canadian province. Weve been to Las Vegas twice and the Alaska cruise ships we rode on during our big vacation three years ago had slots but none got any of our money. And we drove through Atlantic City, N.J., once. Several other small communities which housed our motels on various road trips also had slots, but we never participated.

On the trip to Nova Scotia and for our two trips to Las Vegas, we included in our cost of entertainment one ten dollar roll of quarters with the idea that if they were depleted, that part of our entertainment would end. Ten bucks for an evenings entertainment didnt seem outrageous to us. Our first venture into gambling, if one can call it that since gambling assumes therell be winners, was on the Prince of Fundy.

Gator Wife took her half of the roll of quarters, settled in to a slot machine and dropped one in. Four came back to her. That was a very long time ago and my memory of the exact payoffs is fuzzy at best, but I think her second quarter yielded a return of 12. So far, that was four dollars for a fifty cent investment. And it kept up. At her highest point, GW had something slightly more than a hundred quarters. She proceeded to put them along with the rest of her five dollars back into the slot machines. She had a really fun evening and all it cost her was five dollars. If my memory serves me even remotely correctly, the most I ever had over my was four quarters, but I too put all of mine into the machines.

We had similar experiences in Las Vegas, except we did use about half of our money as nickels to stretch out the excitement. There was one difference in Las Vegas. All around us we heard and saw machines paying off huge, sometimes into the hundreds of dollars, amounts of money. People quite gleefully scooped all their money, many times dollar or higher coins, into buckets similar to popcorn buckets. Why cant we do that? we asked each other. Then, by pure accident, as I was looking around to see others collecting the big bucks, I saw two of the disappear with their buckets through a door that was marked, I wondered how many other big winners also reported to someone in that private place. After all, the slots are controlled by computers.

But they had done their job. Why cant we do that? echoed in my ears. And I immediately discovered how the masses get hooked. One could see the patrons flocking to the machines or area now vacated by the and money poured into the machines. Our first trip to Las Vegas resulted in our total ten dollar roll being spent. It was our entertainment. But we spent not one penny more except on shows we also went to see. We did not put all our ten dollars into the machines during our second visit and came away with some change. We claim we beat the slots. We watched many other games, roulette, various forms of poker, dice, etc., while there, but none got any of our money.

Our drive through of Atlantic City was eye opening. The driver (me) took a wrong turn as we approached the beach area. We drove through some of the worst poverty stricken places weve ever seen. That was several years ago so I cant say its still that way, but it was an eye opener to what the gambling industry can produce. We did park and walk around for a while, but neither of us could get excited about being there. So we continued our leisurely trip to Florida.

I believe the casino operators have those machines rigged so that they do occasionally pay off to get many folk asking, Why cant we do that? The patron stays a little longer, returns the winnings to the machine along with a lot more. And the casino operators have, in losing a little, won big once again. According to a group opposing slot machines in Maine, No Slots For Me, a report in August, 2008, said gamblers at Hollywood Slots in Bangor are losing at an annual rate of $68 million per year. And the group says 95% of the gamblers are from Maine. Can Mainers afford this?

There are many interesting facts on their web site and the media coordinator of the group, Douglas Muir, had an interesting guest editorial recently in the Portland Press Herald about slots and crime. You might want to look that up, too.

In any case, Ill be among the votes on Question 2 in November. That referendum question is so flawed that even the originators say the Legislature will have to make many adjustments if it passes. I see no reason to pass a law that even proponents say is flawed. Vote NO on Question 2. And while youre at it and if you live in Scarborough, vote on the Scarborough Downs proposal to bring slots to Scarborough. Those proponents have promised pie in the sky millions and millions of tax dollars to the town. Ill have more thoughts on this one later.

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Why Sarah Palin?
By Jerome Grossman

For many months, John McCain, along with millions of other Americans, regarded Barack Obama as a phenomenon in the political world, and perhaps beyond. In McCain headquarters, Obamas name is rarely uttered as he is referred to as The One, a mystical title with messianic overtones. He came from nowhere, unannounced and unexpected, clothed in inexperience and a sense of mission.

How long would the Obama phenomenon last? Would it survive the fickle temper of the times, the pressures of American politics? For McCain, the Democratic National Convention was an indication that the medias love affair with Barack would continue, that the usual Republican strategies and tactics were doomed to failure on November 4.

McCain had seen similar phenomena at the dice tables of Las Vegas where occasionally unknown rookie shooters, inexperienced in the nuances and even the odds of the game, pick up the dice and roll out a long succession of sevens and elevens, making sixes and eights in between as the crowd goes wild. McCain had seen the sly techniques used to throw the lucky shooters off their game: loud noises, a drink spilled onto the table, a manufactured argument.

The nomination of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska for vice-president is McCain's attempt to throw Obama off his game by substituting a competing story line even more improbable than Baracks. It is an act of political desperation, a Hail Mary forward pass thrown in an attempt to stave off inevitable defeat. Nominating Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge as part of a traditional political ticket would not work against The One, against the long accumulated guilt feelings of so many Americans, guilt feelings that can now be expressed by voting for this unthreatening assimilated African-American.
McCain's gamble is another indication of the trivialization of American politics. Serious discussion of issues and problems fades behind the attractiveness of personality. Sarah Palin is a former beauty queen and star athlete, unflappable despite her inexperience, secure in her far right conservative Republican beliefs. She will not be diverted by Jay Leno jokes that describe her as a baked Alaska or The Perils of Palin. (Notice how few jokes are told at midnight about Barack? Are the comedians afraid of eternal wrath?) And if Joe Biden patronizes or interrupts her in their debate in his usual style, he will regret the encounter.

Palin's nomination competes with Obamas in exploiting American guilt by offering voters a choice between correcting the underrepresentation of blacks and women. Of course, the election of President Obama will be more significant than the election of vice-president Palin, but the contest does offer a choice of remedies to historic exclusions: do one now, the other later.

Will Palin attract many of the women who voted for Hillary in the primary elections? I doubt it. Most of them are feminist to some degree, feminists who will be repelled by Palin's ultra conservative positions. Equality for women may be their most important issue, but most of them have a range of liberal beliefs that Palin cannot satisfy.

And this contradiction will be made even more apparent in the campaign as Palin tries to shore up conservative support for McCain, now shaky at best, by telling them of her positions on abortion, guns, death penalty, Iraq war, etc. She cannot satisfy the conservatives and liberals at the same time.

Palin's inexperience, a heartbeat away from the presidency of a 72 year old man with a medical history, may take Obamas similar inexperience off the political table. In fact, as Bill Clinton has said repeatedly, every new president enters office unprepared for the challenges of presiding over a nation of 300 million people. Clinton should know. His first two years as president were a disaster marked by failures in health care, gay-lesbian policies in the military, etc. culminating in loss of Democratic control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. John F. Kennedy's term began similarly with the Bay of Pigs invasion failure, nuclear war crises with the Soviet Union, and ineffectiveness in dealing with Congress. Republicans Ronald Reagan, Bush the First and Bush the Second had similar problems in mastering the presidency.

McCain fears that Obama may be unstoppable in his advance to Pennsylvania Avenue. As differences on issues fade, as personality and celebrity reach new heights of importance, as race prejudice becomes entwined with historic American guilt, the political trend is unmistakably toward Barack. Sarah Palin will not change the result any more than previous vice-president nominees. John McCain's Hail Mary pass will not prevent the election of The One.

Similar posts: gambling money

I arrived at the Nonprofit Commons SIM to meet with MeRcEdEs Ochs, the head planner for the first ever Scavenger Hunt sponsored by the Nonprofit Commons group.
She'd sent me the TP request and greeted me as the site rezzed into view. We were at the main entry point. The signs displaying the names of the nonprofits that had offices here were the first to come into view.
I turned to find Merc, as she is called by friends, and saw her av begin to type.
"Hello Nazz, it's nice to finally meet you. Ronnie will be joining us momentarily. I've just offered her a TP." She Said
"Hello Merc, it is nice to finally meet avatar to avatar." I said smiling. "While we wait for Ronnie, we can chat a little about the scavenger hunt. Raising awareness seems to be a challenge for all organizations in SL, how well do you think this kind of event will promote nonprofit awareness in SL?" I asked.
"I think that it will increase awareness very well, because in order to find the clues for the hunt, participants will have to go into each nonprofit building. Hopefully the information in each will catch their eye and they will learn more. Also we will have free gifts in each nonprofit that will give information and a land mark ...so they may return to learn more." Ochs replied and then continued: "There will be note card givers in each participating organization, about twenty-five to thirty between both NPC SIM's."
As she spoke, Ronnie Rhode had arrived. Besides running the 'Garden for the Missing' nonprofit in SL, she is deeply involved with the NPC group. Hearing Merc's response she referred to two of the attractions that people can use when visiting the NPC SIM's. "One thing that I noticed is that the magic carpet and horse-drawn carriage do, when people ride them is they often see one or more nonprofits they want to learn about and when the ride is over, they go over there. This should serve in a similar manner." She said, and then continued: "I'll let Merc speak about the scavenger hunt, she led the team in planning out the event."
"I saw in the event poster that two different dates were listed. Is it one or two events?" I asked.
"The Scavenger Hunt begins on Friday Aug 22nd at 7pm PDT (SLT) with our opening Ceremonies and goes through to Sunday August 24th 8pm PDT (SLT). So it is one event spread over 3 days. We have musical acts planned for the opening and closing ceremonies. We've been working with Circe Broom to book the acts. Both Kim Seifert and Vincent Merricks will perform." Ochs said in reply and then continued: "The opening will of course be the start of the hunt and the closing ceremony is when the prizes will be awarded. We have tons of prizes, but the first prize is L$ 25,000, second prize is two Kiva.org gift certificates and we have various other prizes that have been donated including gift certificates to shops in SL."
"Can you tell me how the hunt will work?" I asked.
"Well, the scavengers will have teams of one or two people. The clues as I said are hidden in various nonprofits on both NPC SIM's. The idea is to have the clues well hidden inside the buildings to get people inside to learn more. The hunters will then have to hunt throughout second life to find the answers to the clues and take snapshots of themselves with the answers. So the team that gets all of the snapshots back to me or Coughran Mayo first will win first prize and so on until we run out of prizes. We are hoping to have enough to be able to give everyone a prize." Ochs said. I asked if she and Coughran were to be the contest judges and she replied, "Yes, but I have a group of wonderful friends who are supporting me on this adventure."
I commented that it would be a busy weekend for them both.
She replied. "Yes it sure will be."
"Merc has been working on this for a couple of months, so the credit is all hers truly. Coughran did the main design and Merc is the executioner." Ronnie said smiling.
"Yes very true ... but Ronnie and Coughran have been my main supports on this ... guiding me through what I didn't know." Ochs chimed in.
I thanked both ladies for their time and told that I thought it would be a great event and wished them success before TP'ing back home to start writing their story.

Similar posts: gambling money