Does America now love hockey?
If you watched Canada beat the United States in overtime Sunday night in the Olympics, you were not alone. Far from it. From Puck The Media:
The 27.6 million viewers for Sunday’s gold medal game was 10.5 million more (up 61 percent) from the Canada-USA gold medal game from the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics (17.1 million viewers). The 15.2/30 rating for yesterday’s game was four-and-a-half rating points higher than the 10.7/24 for the 2002 gold medal game and was the highest-rated hockey game of any kind since the USA vs. Finland 1980 gold medal game (23.2/61). The “Miracle on Ice” semifinal game between the USA and Russia had a household rating of a 23.9/37.
27.6 million viewers for a hockey game? I guess it didn’t hurt that it was actually a good, exciting game. Much like how some people watch NASCAR in the hopes that they will see a crash, it’s possible that some people tuned in Sunday in the hopes that Sidney Crosby would punch someone in testicles.
Does this mean Americans are now in love with hockey and will now watch the NHL? My guess is that Gary Bettman sure hopes so.
United States men’s hockey team picked a bad time to lose it’s first game
The United States men’s hockey team lost in overtime today to Canada 3-2. It was a demoralizing win. It’s bad enough to lose to Canada, it’s even worse when it’s none other than testicle puncher Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal.
I really don’t care much for Sidney Crosby.
At least NBC showed the game on the main NBC channel in full high-definition glorious splender. Not that it makes up for showing all those prior hockey games on MSNBC and CNBC, non-HD channels.
The U.S. team might have only won the silver medal, but they have nothing to be ashamed of. After all, they beat Canada 5-3 only a week ago. U.S. Goaltender Ryan Miller, who normally plays for the NHL Buffalo Sabres, played fantastically the entirely Olympics.
Canadian science fiction writer charged with assaulting a federal officer at the border
Science fiction writer Peter Watts was arrested this past Tuesday for assaulting a federal border agent as he was making his way from the United States to his home country of Canada. Evidently his vehicle was chosen by U.S. border agents for a random inspection as he was leaving the United States and things pretty much went down hill from there.
Peter Watts writes on his blog:
If you buy into the Many Worlds Intepretation of quantum physics, there must be a parallel universe in which I crossed the US/Canada border without incident last Tuesday. In some other dimension, I was not waved over by a cluster of border guards who swarmed my car like army ants for no apparent reason; or perhaps they did, and I simply kept my eyes downcast and refrained from asking questions.
Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.
In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face.
But that is not this universe.
Stay tuned.
People online have already started donating money to his PayPal account so that he can mount a vigorous legal defense. If that is something you like to do, then by all means, send him some money.
I have to admit that when I read this story, my BS detector went off. Normally when traveling to and from Canada, it’s the agents of the incoming country that search vehicles. Since he was attempting to drive into Canada, I would think it would be the Canadian border agents that would be interesting is seeing what Watts was bringing into Canada.
I’m not sure U.S. Border agents are interested in hassling Canadians trying to return to Canada.
Additionally, when the police or agents want to search a vehicle, they normally want you to get out of the vehicle. Watts says he was told to get back in the vehicle.
There’s also the point about not being allowed access to a lawyer, even though he says he was arraigned and charged with assaulting a federal officer. How does someone get arraigned without legal representation?
I tried searching the World Wide Internet Web for a news article about this incident, but I came up with nothing.
I’m sure more information about this incident will come out.
Why wont Sarah Palin admit she doesn’t like Asian people?
In the New Yorker review of Going Rogue, Sam Tanenhaus writes that Sarah Palin’s father said she left Hawaii Pacific University after only one semester because she didn’t care too much for Asians. From the review in the New Yorker:
Palin, though notoriously ill-traveled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. “Hawaii was a little too perfect,” Palin writes. “Perpetual sunshine isn’t necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls.” Perhaps not. But Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to Conroy and Walshe. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: “They were a minority type thing and it wasn’t glamorous, so she came home.” In any case, Palin reports that she much preferred her last stop, the University of Idaho, “because it was much like Alaska yet still ‘Outside.’ “
I don’t know what I find to be more troubling: that Sarah Palin doesn’t like Asians or that she won’t just come out and admit it. If she had or has a prejudice against people of Asian decent, why can’t she just admit it? Where’s the harm?
I think secret racism is much worse than open racism. When a person is openly racist, at least you know who they are and where they stand. A person who is secretly racist is just as likely to discriminate against someone because of their racial background than someone who is openly racist.
It’s not as though Sarah Palin belongs to a political party that places a high importance on racial sensitivity. Coming out and admitting that she doesn’t care for Asian people wouldn’t prohibit her from ever seeking her party’s presidential nomination.
Who knows, it might even help her score more votes.
Lou Dobbs for President?
Former CNN hate monger Lou Dobbs is actually considering running for President of the United States. Seriously, this is not a joke. The man who’s entire shtick seems to be built around hating brown people coming to the United States is actually considering a run for the presidency. He appeared on Fred Thompson’s radio show, and when asked if he would consider a run for President, he replied by saying, “yes is the answer.”
How exactly did the bar drop so low that a xenophobic cable news reader could actually consider running for the highest office in the land?
Health care reform without the ‘public option’ is a waste of time
It looks like the Obama administration is ready to abandon the idea of the public option, the creation of government-run, non-profit health care insurance that would give all Americans access to quality health care. People wouldn’t have to rely on their employers to provide access to health care insurance.
We are the only country in the modern industrialized world that does not have some form of government health care. Every other modern country in the world guarantees essential health care to it’s people. The United States does not, but neither does Mongolia.
It’s not like we are alone.
Some people like to say that we have the best health care in the world. I think when most people say this, they actually believe what they are saying is true. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the world’s health care systems and the United States came in at 37th, right below Costa Rica.
The reality is that most Americans only have health care insurance if their employer offers it as a benefit. If you lose your job, even if it is of no fault of your own, you lose your health care insurance.
In no other modern industrialized country does this happen.
To reform health care without creating a public option is worse than no reform at all. It would be a complete waste of time.
The private health insurance companies don’t want a public option because it would eat away at their massive profits. They want things to remain essentially the way they are now. They don’t want to compete against something that puts the health of the insured above everything else. Creating government-run, non-profit health care insurance would force private insurance companies to put their patients first, not their profits. Not only is it the most efficient way to enact reform, it’s the only way.
President Obama couldn’t pick a worse thing to flip-flop on.
American Journalist convicted in Iran for spying
From the AP via The Huffington Post:
Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious allegation, charging her with spying for the United States.
The Fargo, North Dakota native had been living in Iran for six years and had worked as a freelance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.
Not only was she convicted of spying, the judge sentenced her to 8-years.
This is just ridiculous. I’m sure the United States has assets in Iran doing all sorts of espionage, I highly doubt any of them are pretending to be a member of the press. That would not make sense. You want someone engaged in espionage to not attract a lot of attention. A member of the press, one who is also and American citizen, would garner lots and lots of attention.
The national mainstream news media recently went completely nuts over the American being held hostage by a bunch of Somali pirates. One of their own was being held in Iran on trumped up, phony charges and their silence is deafening. Now she’s been convicted and because we don’t have formal relations with Iran, she will spend the next 8 years rotting in an Iranian prison.
Sikh man told to remove his turban because he was in the United States of America
United States citizen and North Carolina resident Gary Khera was told while trying to make a monetary donation to a local mission that he would have to remove his turban. Khera practices the Indian religion of Sikhism. Sikh men do not shave or cut their hair and they always were a turban in public.
Khera was told by the in-take director, “Sir, you have to take your turban off. This is the United States.” Quite understandably, Khera refused to remove his turban. He was then told to leave.
He wasn’t able to even give the planed donation.
There are reasons the South has a certain reputation. This is just one of those reasons. Even if the people at the mission had no clue about one of the world’s most practiced religions, it’s obvious this man is wearing this turban for a reason. It’s not like he was wearing a Dale Earnhardt hat. These people at the mission acted extremely ignorant.
Sounds like to me that the entire staff of the mission needs to sit down and watch Bend it Like Beckham. Not only is it a good movie, they would learn a thing or two about Sikhism. [Channel 5 WRAL]
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