Music: Gospel: Johnny Cash sings about Resurrection and meeting Jesus -- you can join in by adding to the visuals of this YouTube music vid

Double-posted to rW frontpage as well.   yUT2be

Tech: Security Online: My Space webs+t sends your personal Identity Data when ads are clickd

I got the dope on MySpace from Wall Street Journal reporters Geoffrey Fowler and Emily Steel who did an investigation to find out what the hell is goin' on (WSJ, Oct23,2k10) "S+t sends personal IDs when ads are clicked" :

MySpace and some popular applications on the social-networking s+t have been transmitting data to outside advertising companies that could be used to identify users, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The market for data about Web users is hot--and one of the methods used is "scraping," harvesting online conversations. In May, Nielsen scraped private forums where patients discuss illnesses. How can web users prevent their data from being scraped? Julia Angwin joins Digits to discuss.

The information was primarily sent by MySpace when users clicked on ads. The website had pledged to discontinue the practice of sending personal data when users click on ads after the Journal reported it in May.

A MySpace spokesman said the data identify the user profile being viewed but not necessarily the person who clicked on the ad. MySpace is owned by News Corp (shame!, let's see if Fox News will give noozcoverage to this WSJ report) -- WSJ is also owned by News Corp, which also owns The Wall Street Journal.

-- Technowlb

Click on the t+m-stamp below to Read more ... 

Sports: Major League Baseball: World Series between San Fran's Giants and Texas Rangers

Listen to internet radio with Baseball Digest Live on Blog Talk Radio

After a creepy intro, Blog Talk Radio host Mark Healey talks with other baseball wr+ters / analysts about the upcoming World Series of Major League Baseball, as well as with movie-man Ed Burns who talks about baseball, his new flick Nice Guy Johnny, and his character in it who's a talk radio the World Series to which all talk seems to gravitate.

A special show to preview the Fall Classic! Baseball Digest Online Editor Mark Healey will talk to USA Today national baseball writer Bob Nightengale and Sirius XM baseball analyst Jim Duquette about the 2010 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers. Also appearing on the show will be award-winning filmmaker, actor and director Ed Burns, who will discuss his new film "Nice Guy Johnny", who he's rooting for in the World Series and the future of his favorite team, the New York Mets.

This is the 2nd t+m refWr+t has experimented with embedded program-specific widgets from Blog Talk Radio host, of all things to be on this show.

This episode is from the program Baseball Digest Live, on the Fantasy Sports channel. Blog Talk Radio broadcasts, usually l+v, at the t+m announced; but with the digital programming any episode can be played later on (I don't know how long an individual episode is kept digitally available for this kind of replay.

Sports: Toronto FC: Soccer fans in an uproar, coach is 'issed off

Toronto the Good's continent-level professional soccer team, Toronto Football Club (TFC, but that's not some new brand of Fried Chicken), is having its troubles again this year. James Christie, "Toronto FC responds to angry fans" (Oct22,2k10). Daniel Girard, "TFC moves to quell supporters' revolt" (Oct13,2l10)

TFC is a grand idea, but fan support for a still-new franchise requires some victorious season's to grow and maintain interest, draw in new fans, etc.

...[T]he chief operating officer of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment is “pissed off” about the poor performance of Toronto FC this season, which will see the team miss the playoffs for the fourth straight year. He also admits the club “screwed up royally” with its season-ticket renewals.

And he vows to “get this fixed real quick” by re-jigging season ticket packages and hiring the right general manager to improve on-field results.

“We don’t feel good about the fact that we are where we are because the objective this year was the playoffs and we missed it,” Anselmi said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s bothering me.

“I feel a personal obligation to our fans to deliver and so far we haven’t.”

TFC, which has been a box-office sensation since it joined Major League Soccer as an expansion team in 2007, was officially eliminated from the playoff race last Saturday just prior to a 3-0 loss to Chivas USA.

With two games to go, the Reds (8-13-7) sit in 11th place among 16 teams.

The owners of TFC are Maple Leaf Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the chief executive officer of which is Tom Anselmi. He now wants to "reach out to fans with town hall-style meetings and scale back season ticket packages." The head coach and his top echelon colleagues have been dismissed.

-- Sportikos

Music: CountryUSA: Get a look at Jamey Johnson's new "Playing the Part"

4 > 640 = 160
X3 = 480

4 > 385 = 96.1
X3 = 288.3

calculations by

-- Country Gal

Sports: Competitive Swimming: American swimming star cooked to death in Dubai waters

WBZ, a Boston TV station, carries today from Dubai, United Arab Emirates an Associated Press account by sports reporter Michael Casey, "Winner slams race conditions after swimmer's death" (Oct24,2k10). Casey brings word of the tragic death of 26-year-old Fran Crippen of the USA national swim team who competed in the FINA Open Water 10-kilometer World Cup at Fujairah, east of Dubai.

A German sports official, Thomas Lurz, is quoted as saying, "...[T]emperatures must have been above 30 C (86 F) and ... several swimmers suffered due to the heat. [Lurz] said he talked to many swimmers who complained of swollen limbs, water loss and said he saw several who had become confused following their race.

"The water was amazingly hot. For sure, it was more than 30 degrees... Nobody thought such things like yesterday could happen ... It shows it was really just too hot. It was not just one swimmer. There were many swimmers who had serious problems in the water."

...German swimmer, Angela Maurer, who finished fourth in the women's category, said she thought the heat was to blame for Crippen's death.

The acronymic name FINA stands for Fédération international de natation which translates from the French to "International Federation of Swimming" in English. The Federation has issued this statement:

Following the tragic death of open water swimmer Fran Crippen (USA) in the last leg of the FINA 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup 2010 on October 23 in Fujairah (UAE), and in respect for his memory, FINA decided to cancel the 10th and final leg (15km) of the FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix 2010, also scheduled for Fujairah, on October 27.

The final ranking of the FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix 2010 is then the one established after the ninth race of the competition, on August 14, in Ohrid Lake (MKD [Macedonia]).

According to this ranking, the first three positions in both men and women are as follows:

MEN
1. Petar Styochev (BUL) 107 pts
2. Damien Blaum (ARG) 95 pts
3. Rodolfo Valenti (ITA) 61 pts

WOMEN
1. Pilar Geijo (ARG) 124 pts
2. Esther Nunez (ESP) 106 pts
3. Antonella Bogarin (ARG) 85 pts

Dubai is the Gulf States super-rich luxury-building boomtown that suddenly went bust, but is now bustling again. No definitive statements by authorities are being made until medical info is complete, including translation of today's records from Arabic to English, and presumably a coroner's report. Many of the racers suffered from physical debilitations from the hot water of the Persian Gulf in which they swam.

Open-water swimming sports need an inner reformation, as is the case in many top-level internationally-contested sports and mega-events.

-- Sportikos

Arts: Movies and Books: Mad Science webs+t presents 6 scientists on sci-fi

I was del+ted with this sortie into the crossover between science professionals and, despite the naysayers at the beginning, their colleagues of other views (attitudes?) toward science fiction in movies and books.

Among the artistic works c+ted are:

2001 for it's Hal 9000 space vehicle.
Stealth 's EDI
Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, Dune prequel trilogy re Butlerian jihad
TV, movies, books portrayal of nanotechnology devices
Cyril Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons"
Frank Herbert's novel (1954) & David Lynch's movie (1989) Dune
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale -- horrible as a flick too
David Brin and Gregory Benford's Heart of the Comet
Actor Arnold Schwarzennegger's Terminator -- I loved his TotalRecall
Not its fantasy trees, etc, but it's more science-true elements, Avatar
Firefly apparently a movie and a TV series as well
Sir Isaac Asimov's Robot series

I'd want to add the works of George MacDonald (Lilith), JRR Tolkien (Lord the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit>, etc), and CS Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. These last 3 are by celebrated Christian literati.

Verisimilitude -- look up the word if you don't know it.

Check out the webs+t, and come up with your own. But no need to stick to the science in sci-fi works, just an artistically magical power that moves you to suspend your disbelief and your scientism, so that the artist enables you to go with the imaginal world where a very personal "science" with all its flaws captures your attention and whisks you off to Elsewhere. Send me your comment, woud love to post it here.

-- Owlie Scowlie

Music: SoftRap Vid: Doug Funnie wants to teach us how DOUGie

Sheer good-vibes entertainment.  Video is animation.

-- Softie

Sports: Diving: Despatie wins 9th diving gold

Canada's Alexandre Despatie (25) won yet another gold medal, Agence Presse France reported via Montreal Gazette (Oct13,2k10, during a period when my computing machine and related blogging facilities were down). I've been following Despatie's career for years, and now hasten to catch up on giving to our refWr+t readers a link to this young man's latest achievement, this t+m at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India. The award just mentioned was a solo award; the other gold he received with his partner Reuben Ross, for their win of the Men's Springboard Synchro.

Salut!, mes chers gentilhommes.

-- Sportikos

Movies: Guest Review: Documentary flick finds true picture inconvenient

IRFA email bulletin features a movie review of the the documentary "Waiting for Superman," guest reviewd here also by Cheryl Buford:

Do School Kids Need to Wait for "Superman"?

Director Davis Guggenheim of the much-praised new movie, "Waiting for Superman," seems to have sparked a renewed national conversation on the tragically underperforming urban public education systems--those "dropout factories," as some refer to the worst inner-city public schools. Guggenheim, who also directed the award-winning Al Gore documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," has expressed hope that his movie will create the political commitment to reform public education. It masterfully weaves together broad statistics on systemic education problems with the stories of five children and families desperately seeking a way out: a coveted slot in a high-performing, publicly funded charter school.

The movie has a big shortcoming: it fails to fully explore the important alternative that faith-based schools provide for many low-income families. For example, since 1970, the minority enrollment in Catholic schools has increased 250 percent. These schools graduate nearly all of their students, in sharp contrast to traditional public schools with a rate of around half that. The charter schools praised in the movie--as they should be--account for only about 3 percent of K-12 students. On the other hand, faith-based schools educate four times as many: roughly 12 percent of the students.

Yet rather than bend every effort to uphold and expand those successful faith-based schools, our nation is allowing private schools in general to be weakened by the economic crisis, and inner-city Catholic schools to dwindle as urban demographic trends make them less sustainable by the Catholic church. US governments give little support to faith-based schools, despite the important role they play. Especially now, as we are reminded of how scarce good inner-city public schools are, maybe it is time to think again about how the nation can best support schools of every good kind--including faith-based schools.

Just as in the first movie, Guggenheim publicizes just one side of the story which made the science look settled (actually science never gives more the probabilities, and the idea of a case being "closed" is not scientific; science and law here are qu+t different, which m+t be expected given the difference in the societal spheres involved. Again, Guggenheim proves himself to be less than candid about the situation for minority children who are being processed by public schools to render them unemployable and uneducated to pursue personal growth. Guggenheim as the guest review points out is a secularist and statist in the way he selects his subject matter. In this he follows the USA President currently in office. Prez Obama is a statist, and is a gradualist revolutionary (George Bernard Shaw) in the 20th century tradition of Christian Marxism (Liberation Theology) in its Black particularist variety (James Cone, as mediated thru Obama's former pastor, Rev Dr Jeremiah Wright, Trinity UCC, Chicago), with an community-organizing action theory based on Saul Alinsky.

Recently, one Reformed church history professor, Carl Trueman (Westsminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia), claims otherwise, because he thinks the case of Obama is not comparable to the Bolshevik Leninist, Trotskyist, and Maoist Marxism/s of a post-Marx era. Obama's Marxism is more comparable with Marx himself not with the Bolsheviks and Social Democrats who came later and were committed to direct violent revolution (Social Democrats also included non-revolutionaries in some countries, and revolutionaries who did not want to join the Communist Parties). In contrast, Obama's Marxism draws on the Marx before Lenin (as do a number of Liberation Theologians -- not all -- and more particularly he draws on the ideas of Dr James Cone who puts an American Black differential in place in the theory, following CLR James who broke with the Communist Party on this issue. Cone seems to incorporate strategically some of the ideas of George Bernard Shaw who was lead figure in the launching of the Fabian Society (Fabianism) which found the transformation of British society strategically more l+kly if it's gradual and not overly violent (except perhaps in some strikes in certain industries, a matter of tactics not strategy).

Trueman is evidently not equipped to use a Vollenhoven-derived problem-historical method to gauge what is and is not the historiographical case regarding Obama's ideas (the formation of which has been researched in a great new resource book by Dinesh D'Souza, The Roots of Obama's Rage which uses emotion-related benchmarks to posit that the President's outlook is fed by another branch of analysis of ideas and experience, anticolonialism, with an ideational history of its own beyond all Marxisms). In any case, Trueman makes the false move to compare victims of Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism etc with the other forms of Marxism that existed before and after these other ruthless tyrannies tore lives apart in their mass programs, nevertheless using state power and driven by statist ideas.

We need to get past obstructionists kowtowing to Obama who kowtows to Saudi monarchs but sniffs his nose at Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, in one of whose dominions I live. May God bless her.

Back to Guggenheim's slant: Guggenheim, the director of the mistitled and exploitively titled Superman docuflick, has a political agenda ostensibly for charter schools, favoured by Obama as an answer to the failure of public schools regarding especially Black children. That aspect of Guggenheim's and Obama's education stance, I rejoice in. Nevertheless, the mode of presentation is propaganda; it's a propaganda flick for increasing the number of charter schools run by the state, a flick that erases the much more important job pursued by state-independent schools proceed under the magisterium of the Catholic Church in America, and other schools like the Protestant Christian parent-run schools thru-out the country, and Jewish and Muslim schools, too (altho these latter are often financed and curriculum-determined by Wahhabist Islamic wretchedness proffered by the Saudi Arabian government, again statist).

These nonstate schools shoud be supported by taxation and Fed support, if the state's won't or can't rise to meet the educational needs of Black children. Guggenheim's flick is in that respect very bad news, a falsification of history and the present situation. His documentaries are deeply dishonest.

Toronto the Good: Mayor: Oct25 election exposes Liberal nanny-state candidate Smitherman

Tedium, that's the single word for the mayoral candidate. Outgoing mayor whathisname angered the people as well as the overpaid, over-benefitted city outdoor employees with his allowing the garbage to p+l-up all around town during the heat of summer. It was a health hazard bar none--a tourist killer to be sure, but what of those of us anchored to this urban dwelling-place? Metro Council shoud have ordered the workers back onto the job, or fired them. Their greed and whathisname's supineness killed life in the metropolis. So, Supine fathomed that he coudn't get another term. In the last election, whathisname paraded himself in S&M leather regalia to scoop up the vote of idiot-Gays. I turned off immediately, especially after I was deleted by a Toronto blog that coudn't extend press freedom to my reportage + opinion. Toronto the Good can at times, I say regretfully, be a narrow little burg with suffocating Liberal tribal mores. I can't criticize whathisname's drag ploy?

Now, his ilk is back in the game, in George Smitherman's candidacy. He's a political hack who was provincial Minister of Health, but didn't do a thing to stop the bedbug epidemic, altho medical science has found over 40 deadly diseases in the mouths of these bloodsuckers. Think of all the money these folks squeezed out of the health system to stop AIDS, cherry-picking medical causes to drum up votes, even those causes based on undisciplined sexual adventurism, including the hateful crew who conspire to give AIDS and receive it. So much anti-AIDS money swished down a rat-hole! Still, the bedbuggers l+k unscrupulous landlords bring used, infested mattresses into the dwellings of impoverished renters. Smitherman, nor any other candidate who doesn't make bedbug extermination the prime public health issue, gets no support or good word from me.

From the political heits of the province of Ontario, Nanny left his provincial post to bedevil the city's political scene. This candidate wants to play Nanny by outlawing the eating of meat on Mondays, he's calling for gov-sponsored "Meatless Mondays". This isn't the Catholic Church which he hates so much, a denomination which before Vatican II had its non-gov rules for meatless Fridays. Nor is it the Protestant Christian schools of Ontario to which he and his double-tongued Liberal caucus denied tax-support (because the Prots lagged in the acceptance of Gay dogmas), all the while Smitherman's provincial Libs dumped millions into the Catholic school system.

Now, the Smitherman crew are trying to get restaurants, among other locations, to stop their Bacon and Eggs breakfasts for people who face a day of hard physical labour. This ham-fisted approach is repulsive. It not only announces a one-menu-fits-all approach, also it woud enshr+n a vegetarian-totalitarian ideology the Bible warns against -- Beware of those who forbid the eating of meat. Let these ideologues eat ecoli-infested bean sprouts to vegetate upon.

Apparently, Smitherman has not yet formulated for public consumption his plan to seize meat in the grocery stores, nor revealed his plan to send cops systematically into the homes, fridges and freezers of Toronto where he will seize meat at random. The butcher shops will be closed, or fire-attacked by anonymous crowds of face-masked anarchists or hordes of pre-op transgenders in burqas. I hope the voting public witholds the office from him, rather than deliver the city's leadership into the hands of another bozo, one who has never served on metro's council, and a career politician to boot. He's been in one political office or another for far too long. Throw him out before he gets in: Out with the food totalitarian!

-- Owlie Scowlie

Technics: Net Neutrality: Concept is being played by FCC regulator vs Congressional lackey for Big Net Business

My net problems center around Google (which I love, but which also hurts my interests in several regards that pertain to their desire to gobble up everything into their business power-orbit) and my Bell Internet, my Internet Service Provider (ISP) which has been a pain in the youKnowWhere.

The article being c+ted in this blog-entry comes from another Internet behemoth, CNET which has gobbled up the formerly-independent Version Tracker  service I used for years, but which surprisingly has for the moment improved on the service with its own CNET tech tracker.  See the article CNET carries, "Leaked Net neutrality bill threads needle on mobile."   Whatever country you live in, dear reader, do click-up this CNET article by Larry Downes, a Fellow of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society.

My current ISP, as mentioned, is Bell Internet which gobbled up the Sympatico ISP that I had been using for years.  In the process of gobbling, Bell Internet has hurt me and my internetting considerably.  After reading Downes and the PDF from FreePress.net to which he links us, entitled

IN HIS OWN WORDS:

JULIUS GENACHOWSKI’S VISION OF R E A L NET NEUTRALITY

Free Press September 2010

I've come to realize what the Canadian communications owners and regulators are up to. By the way, Genachowski is chairman of the USA's Federal Communications Commision.

And I see no recourse in appealing to the miscreants (not civil servants, but political appointees at the beck and call of gov, not as bad as the previous Lib appointees but still miscreants) who run Canada's CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission).  They also have charge of the monopoly Bell, a gov-regulated monopoly that uses its monopoly power to harm small customers, like myself.  Also, regarding the Bell Telephone service, I keep getting unwanted calls from the call-centre corporations I subsidize by paying a h+er telephone-usage rate because I'm only a small customer paying individually at the h+er rate per call.  The CRTC does nothing about the abuse of Bell's monopoly and its choking of small users by charging exorbitant rates for a P2P download, thus curtailing our technological freedom, by leveraging Ma Bell's privileged and prioritized bandwith allocation, leveraged against us in favour of their telephone and television corporate entities.

What's more, the moronic Bell has forced me into an increasingly MicroSoft tech environment, which is infamous for its virus-prone Hotmail and several other wretched "services", while refusing me an account for the used Hewlett Packard laptop I bawt in a tech crisis. Another reason for my purchase of this old and battered machine was simply that it had a (hated) MicroSoft XP operating system that allowed me to look at how my blogs appear to readers who come to my pages via their own MicroSoft operating systems (there are several of these, of course). It's a dishonest product and I have no sympathy for the charitable Mr Gates who built this hit house on dubious moral parameters. MS gave no reason for the refusal to let me download Outlook Express into my XP OS; perhaps because they have no reason but, again perhaps, have a previous registration on their records.  But that's mere speculation, since they acted arbitrarily and didn't supply info so I coud guage what the situation is. It certainly devalues the Hewlett Packard product, old as it is. When my iMac went into Riverdale Mac for repair (backup programs and devices were backing-up each other in a potentially infinite regress, a recursion resulting in extreme redundacy, a fawlt apparently of Apple's iDisk backup which I've disabled as useless), thus I had only the HP on hand and spent my t+m reading which led to wr+ting a book-review essay.  The only reason I want an MS app for email (Outlook Express) is so that, in any similar circumstances, I woud be able to put any essay I may wr+t on the HP into the MS email format and send it to my Apple Mail app on my iMac.  

MicroSoft sinks lower in my estimation, along with Bell Internet which forced me to abandon my Internet email address that had become over the years a virtual brand (ie, I conclude that Bell stole my brand), because some ill-trained tech novice or idiotic Bell program treated me like a MicroSoft user and not a Mac user.  They want to push me into the smarmy suffocating tentacles of MS. I know they've received lots of complaints from fellow consumers, because Bell Internet recently added a "Mac Desk"for users they've messed up with their abominable small-customers-last policies.  And more recently they raised the Mac Desk service to 24/7 status. Which means the volume of complaints by irate Mac users is larger than they had cared to acknowlege. Bell Telephone, Bell Internet, and Bell Television keep the small customer waiting ad infinitum, that's because their bloated system tries to cut on services expenses.

In the USA, the whole issue is being fawt out around the term "Net Neutrality," and the Machiavells in Congress -- like Henry Waxman (D, Hollywood, California), well-known lackey of Big Movies and Big Music purveyors, this overly-waxed ears-clogged sycophant who wants to make an end-run around the Federal Communications Commission by introducing in the waning hours of his sycophancy an item of lame-duck legislation regarding the Internet, now on the docket to be taken up when the House of Representatives reconvenes after the Nov 2 election.  I hope he's turfed-out by the voters in his congressional district, but he has so much money for his campaign from the conniving Big movies, music, and internet interests he represents, that his prompt removal is unl+kly.

In the opposite direction comes advice and agitation from FreePress.net which exposes the motives of Waxman's sneaky law, draft legislation that again gives ordinary end-users the stinky sticky end of his schtick. (This isn't the first time the Wax fiend has attempted to whack small communication endeavours, such as the small radio broadcasters upon whom he wanted to impose fees and taxes for the music they played, thus closing them down; he didn't treasure this most free section of America's broadcasters, knowing they operate on shoe-string budgets and respond most actively to their listeners' changing tastes in music and freely expressed opinion -- left, center, and r+t.) 

FreePress.net exposes the plans of many ISPs to choke out the "little guy" -- while the FCC under its present chairman Mr Genachowski has seen its Internet responsiblity hived off by the Wax who is blocking the President's campaign promise and delivering our Internet freedom into the hands of an utterly unreliable Congress which refuses to wr+t laws that can be read by non-lawyers, which enforces short deadlines between a final draft and forced adoption -- when the Senators and Representatives haven't even read the law.

Technics: Apple's iPad: Break-thru of near-monopoly AT&T to Verizon Wireless

Apple is moving from a single recognized seller for its iPad device.  Previously the sales of mobile-device iPad were channeled exclusively thru AT&T; but beginning October 28, Verizon Wireless will also get a franchise or privileged-sales-agent status (I'm not sure what the correct term is).  I won't pause to sing the praises of iPad because I don't own one and thus have not tested it.  But the ads and wr+t-ups have aroused my desire for the product.  I am comparing iPad to competing devices more recently introduced into the market, hype opposed to hype.  I haven't yet seen reason to change my tech preference.

-- Technowlb

Sports: College Football: Boise State 48 wallops San Jose 0

According to the projection of ESPN's Brad Edwards, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, is the leader of College Football teams.  The Boise Broncos top the ESPN researcher's list.

According to the projections, the No. 1 Buckeyes would place fifth in the BCS standings, percentage points behind Oklahoma.

Bronco Busting?

ESPN's Brad Edwards has projected what the BCS standings would look like if they were released today. According to his projections, consensus No. 3 Boise State would be on top -- and consensus No. 1 Ohio State would be fifth.

Team	Rating
1. Boise State	.913
2. Oregon	.863
3. TCU	.854
4. Oklahoma	.8425
5. Ohio State	.8421
6. LSU	.782
7. Nebraska	.777
8. Auburn	.744
9. Michigan State	.642
10. Alabama	.634

Edwards projects the unbeaten Broncos, the highest-ranked team from a non-automatic qualifying conference, as the top team in the standings by a comfortable margin, followed by Oregon. 

... TCU places third in Edwards' projections, followed by Oklahoma at .8425 and Ohio State at .8421.

Edwards explained that although the Buckeyes are No. 1 in ... the Harris and the USA Today coaches' poll -- they're deemed 10th-best by the BCS computer rankings, due in part to the Buckeyes' strength of schedule to date compared with the other unbeaten teams. The computers do not take margin of victory into consideration.

Boise State rated higher because the Broncos are third in the Harris and USA Today polls and second in the BCS computer ranking, Edwards said. But he also noted Boise State has already played the toughest part of its schedule, while Ohio State and the other top-10 teams from automatic qualifying conferences face tougher competition in the weeks ahead.

Just today, the Broncos beat the Spartans [San Jose University, San Jose, California] by a score of 48-0.

Elsewhere Brad Edwards is c+ted as indicating that "Boise State is likely to be No. 1 in the first BCS rankings but they have no shot of staying there all season."  We'll just have to wait and see, Mr Edwards.

-- Sportikos

Music: Folk: Bob Dylan's early song released in 'The Witmark Demos 1962-1964'

The Witmark Demos 1962-1964 came out of a small specialty studio that produced sheet music, and tapes that other artists, who wanted to learn new songs and perhaps perform them, coud easily access. Here are a few of the nearly 50 songs that originate in this period of Dylan's life.

Hard Times in New York Town


Talking Bear Mountain Picnic
Massacre Blues


Blowin' in the Wind


Long Ago, Far Away


A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall


I culled these from the full set of nearly 50 early Dylan songs that's presently offered for listening and blog-embeddment by National Public Radio.

Sports: Lacrosse: New standout sports celebrity annointed by RedBull (etc) commercials

Sports reporter for New York Times, James Vlahos, has an extensive wr+t-up of Paul Rabil (photo credit: Brian Nevins/Red Bull), who plays for the Boston Cannons (outdoors) and the Washington Stealth (indoors, National Lacrosse League).  "Lacrosse has an image problem, deservedly or not, and it is against this backdrop that Mr. Rabil has emerged onto the scene."

Says Cannon coach, Bill Daye, Rabil is "a freak of an athlete. He's strong, fast and can stop or change directions on a dime" -- the latter feat an act of a 6-foot-3er.

About his work-ethic, says Paul Rabil himself, "I'm not into those sports clichés about winning--who wants it most, who wants to be the best. Everybody wants to be the best. The difference is who is willing to put in the most work."

Lacrosse has recently become the vehicle of at least one fetish-promoting fashioneer (Michael Bastiaan of Gant clothing company who's been pushing a preppy look with lacrosse accoutrements).  Did I see Rabil among the Gant models?  Additionally, Rabil seems to be sticking with Red Bull (yeah, buy the beer!), Under Armour (an under-arm deoderant?--nope, underwear), and Maverik (lacrosse equipment).  Here's a few factoids about Paul Rabil from the Maverik s+t:

 Lacrosse Experience: 11 years.

Personal Moment That Defines Lacrosse: Outworking someone on a ground ball that eventually turns into a goal for our team.

Main Talent: Desire to win.

Main Fault: My competitiveness often results in loss of temper.

Toughest Part of the Game: Losing.

Music To Take The Field To: Friday Night Lights theme.

Other Sports: I love soccer, but am better at basketball.

Sport That’s Not a Sport: Poker. I love playing the game, but those dudes are definitely NOT athletes. 

Can you take a punch?  I have plenty of times.

Favorite Character/Villain/Etc: Bill the Butcher, played by Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York. 

Last Supper: Chipotle Burrito: Rice, black beans, chicken x2, steak, corn, hot sauce, sour cream, cheese,  lettuce.

Favorite sports star: David Beckham. Nobody has faced as much international adversity, battled back and succeeded like Becks.

Word You Hate: Brah.

Worst/Best advice you ever received: “It’s harder to hold onto success, than it is to achieve it.”

The professional lacrosse webs+t is located here, National Lacrosse League, actually a continent-wide organization.  Toronto the Good's pro lacrosse team is called Toronto Rock.

-- Sportikos

Sports: Hockey: Mass outpouring by fans for a new franchise in Quebec City, intent on bringing back les Nordiques

Montreal Gazette, Montreal's leading English-language newspaper, yesterday published Marianne White's sportsnews article (Oct2,2k10) about popular support in la belle province for the return of les Nordiques, Quebec City's former heroes of the ice rink.  Somehow the team was swept from the city's grasp and ended up derelict in Colorado.  The people -- that is, the fans -- want the team back; but to get it after 15 years, they need a new coliseum, an uptodate hockey stadium, something qu+t pricey these days. Trouble is, the Fed gov is being dunned for the balance, after the province and the city do their bit.  Trouble is, the Feds have no business using any part of the Fed budget to make payouts from the dominion's general revenues for stadia, certainly not in these financially difficult t+ms of meltdown.  Sorry, mes chers Quebecois, but try raising the money yourselves.  I'll kick in $10 out of my penury; but don't tax me.

The city of Quebec certainly should have its own new stadium. You're a northern city like Edmonton and you need a hockey team to compete on a continent-wide basis for raising the spirits of your wonderful fan base thru the long Winters.  But it's not the job of the Fed gov to give $175 million to one city, as the Prime Minister said, because then he'd have to dole out similar amounts across the country.  We can't afford it.  Period.  Of course, Quebec's political culture is bedevilled with fans of another sport -- political blackmail.  Don't connect, please, hockey with taxing the have-nots across the land to meet your own needs, as real as they may be.

-- Sportikos

Ahead of a weekend rally that is expected to draw some 50,000 people to the Plains of Abraham, the federal government came under pressure again Thursday to pump $175 million into a new NHL-calibre arena in Quebec City as the mayor announced construction for the project would start in 2011.

Photograph by: J'ai ma place/Mallette, ABCP Architecture

QUEBEC — Tens of thousands of Quebec Nordiques fan gathered on the Plains of Abraham on Saturday to push for a return of their beloved team and the construction of an NHL-sized hockey rink.

The event was the culmination of a widespread public movement in the region aimed at bringing the National Hockey League back 15 years after the Nordiques were sold and became the Colorado Avalanche.

Wearing blue shirts to commemorate the former team’s jersey, hockey fans came out in droves to express their love for the Nordiques.

"I’ve never been able to watch a full hockey game ever since the Nordiques left, it’s too painful," said Quebec City resident Gilles Boulanger.

He was holding a sign mocking the infamous Maclean’s magazine cover with the "most corrupt province in Canada" replaced by “the most hockey province in Canada" with Bonhomme Carnaval sporting a Nordiques jersey.

A number of former Nordiques players — including the famed Stastny brothers and Michel Goulet — were taking part in the demonstration, dubbed the “Blue March.”

A dozen provincial and federal politicians were also in attendance, including Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, Conservative minister Josee Verner and Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume.

The Stastny brothers — who formed one of the NHL’s most feared trios in the 1980s — were reunited Saturday for the first time in decades.

Peter Stastny said Quebec City is closer than ever to seeing an NHL team come back, adding that Saturday’s rally would definitely send a strong message to politicians and the league.

"Quebec City has what most cities don’t: extraordinary support from the fans, the excitement, the atmosphere," he said.

Stastny’s comments seem to be in line with what some NHL players think. An informal poll conducted this week by The Hockey News Magazine asked 90 players where the league should put a team via either relocation or expansion.

Quebec City came in first with 33 votes, followed by Winnipeg with 18, Las Vegas with 12, Hamilton with 11 and Seattle with five. Toronto received two votes, while Halifax, Saskatoon and the Kitchener-Waterloo region each garnered one vote.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has made it clear the first step toward bringing a team back to Quebec City is building a new state-of-the-art hockey rink to replace the outdated arena, the Colisee, which was built in 1949.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s government has already said it will pay 45 per cent of the construction costs of the projected $400-million arena, while the city is ready to fork out $50 million.

A feasibility study for an 18,000-seat stadium showed it would be profitable, and both Charest and Quebec City’s mayor have since been lobbying the federal government to come up with the remaining $175 million needed to build such a venue.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has refused to commit financing and stressed the federal government would have to act in fairness with other provinces if it chose to contribute. 

Copyright © Postmedia News

When I realized I had taken a handful of positions (Derrida has a book of that name / title) in my politically-economically charged comment introductory to this blog-entry (top), an entry which includes a political position on the question of the Fed govt's priorities in l+t of the economic situation, and priorities in state expenditures during this next financial period; when I realized all this, I sat down by Grand Central Station and Wept.  I howled gigglishly at my own presumption, until I noticed the tears falling on hand, my pant-leg, the chair, the floor.  Do foregive!

-- Politicarp

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