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Friday MusingsWhen I gave up swimming first for soccer and then for fencing, it had not been made at all clear to me the side benefits of the sport. For Oz, losing national treasure Stephanie Rice to Michael Phelps would be unthinkable. It’d be like losing the Olympic medal count to… to… Well: England. – Iowahawk thinks that Obama’s new grass roots effort might not be all that.
– Heart warmer of the week: In a Buenos Aires slum, a stray dog rescues an abandoned baby from a field and somehow shelters him with her own brood. We got far the better side of the bargain on that whole “man’s best friend” gig. – In “the Best of the Web” today, James Taranto channels Peg Noonan’s description of odds-on favorite Obama VP nominee Joe Biden, senator from Delaware:
I love him less well: As a lieutenant, I served as the casualty assistance calls officer for the family of a friend that had been killed in a training accident. His grief-stricken wife insisted upon “seeing the body,” and when I tried my best to tactfully demur, one of the bereaved family members called the senator on the phone to speak to me. After about five minutes of increasingly emphatic browbeating, I turned away from the family and quietly whispered into the phone that there was nothing left to see – nothing recognizable at least – the plane had burned for hours after the mishap. Did the senator have a way for me to share this with the family that would help lessen their grief rather than increase it? He did not. – Russia says that it has complied with the withdrawal terms of a European-sponsored cease fire between that state and Georgia. Well. I guess we can all go back to being friends now. – A collection of universities is discussing ways to eliminate certain barriers to access, says an article entitled “Let’s chuck the drinking age“.
Are we really considering opening the liquor locker back up to the 18-21 set? Supply and demand, people. Have we learned nothing from oil and food prices? How’s a man supposed to make ends meet in this kind of environment? – Speaking of compulsive behavior, guess who’s back?
This is only the most hackneyed plot device in any absurd horror film: The zombie that Just. Won’t. Die. – All right, that’s it: I’m off to the gym. But I find myself strangely reluctant to perform today’s WOD – 100 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats. No. I’m thinking about swimming some laps, just for a change. Maybe it’s not too late… 27 comments to Friday Musings |
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Still, ya gotta hand it to the Aussies. Per capita, they’re the best.
To put it in context, their whole population is smaller than the two largest cities in China, or the three largest in the US.
But losing the girl has still got to sting… ;>)
Cap’n,
Senator Biden is, quite literally, a phoney from the top of his head to the soles of his shoes.
He replaced the toupee for hair plugs a few years ago. He refuses to walk further than the steps of the Capital Building and prefers to ride in his limo from his office to the Senate Chambers. He would be a good counterpoint to the Obamarx – one is an empty suit the other is full of something else less desirable.
Well,
Let me say this much about lowering the drinking age to 18: I am all for it. I am the father of three children, but I am sick to death of the double-standard that our legal system puts forth. Our prosecutors will say with a straight face that an 18 year old cannot make a reasoned and rational decision whether to consume alcohol or not, and then turn around and prosecute an 18 year old as an adult, all the while claiming that said 18 year old has the capacity to make a reasoned and rational decision to NOT do whatever it is the 18 year old is charged with.
At 18, he or she can legally marry, have a bank account, apply for a loan, get a car, own a shotgun, own a rifle, have an abortion, consent to surgical or other medical procedures, be prosecuted as an adult, vote for local, county, state and federal office, can run for many of those offices, can have a child, be a parent, own a home, enlist in the military and be held responsible for millions of dollars worth of equipment and many people’s lives, yet they are not considered responsible enough to have a drink.
To h@ll with that. Either move all of the above to age 21, or lower the drinking age to 18. If you want them to act like adults, then you need to treat them as adults. This whole business with alcohol is the last remnant of failed puritan mores, and needs to be squashed and set aside for the antiquated notion that it is.
I applaud these college leaders for this petition. It is the first positive thing I have been able to see come from any university in several decades.
So,
regarding Mr. Phelps, I am to assume that you infer that his medal count is at odds with the number of times he scored?
At this time of writing, the Brits have 44 medals, and the Australians 42.
I think the Aussies are just letting their rivals enjoy a wee moment in the Sun before they come back and clobber them, as is SOP, in the 2012 London games.
The empire will strike back, like.
It is not ever too late. Make it burn. If your gym has a Roman Chair, throw in three sets of ten for starters. Work up to a comfortable rhythm, work up to five sets, watch that omentum shrink. Best gut buster in the house.
v/r jug
Lex ~ Phelps didn’t get to where he is JUST by swimming. There was some weight lifting in there too. Hope you hit the gym…
I have to say it…that sweet boy Michael seems to be a lovely person … a lovely person who wears his swimsuit closer to the Plimsoll line than any other swimmer competing. Even evil old ladies wonder how the heck he keeps it up. Do all dashing young swimmers wear theirs as low-down on their hips?
Just asking …
Marianne
P.S. And do any of you blue-water sailors know what the Plimsoll line is?
They ALL wear them like that nowadays. *sigh*
Lex,
Homefront6 is right. Gym. Swim. 12,000 calories. Repeat each day.
Tim,
I don’t think prosecutors have anything to do with the drinking age. I think it is insurance companies. They have an incredibly powerful lobby – and when the drinking age went to 21, the number of alcohol related traffic accidents in that demographic plummeted.
Best,
Nose
Plimsoll line, heh. Never seen it used in THAT context. But the boy doesn’t have any hips. And if he meets a nice girl? Great.
I’m so glad I never had to do any CACO duties. Burying folks was bad enough.
If we lose to the poms the Minister for Sport has to dress in British colours at a major sporting event and the AOC head honcho I believe has to make up the medal shortfall in bottles of champagne, delivery to his British counterpart.
Oh well, we’ve still got the Ashes.
Yeah, screw Angie, I did squats and deadlifts instead. Jumping at the chin-up bar 97 times was just too much to contemplate.
And I don’t care how many medals he won, tell him to pull up his trousers. Same with that limey soccer guy in Los Angeles, tell him to tuck in his shirt and button it. As for that wife of his, someone give her a sandwich before she goes the way of Karen Carpenter.
On second thought, eat the sandwich yourself.
And AW1 Tim, in Italy children can ride motorbikes from age 15 on, but can’t drive cars until they are 18. However, they imbibe from knee-high, and if they walk up to a bar with cash in hand, they get served. It’s pretty much that way across Europe. It’s funny how Europe, home of the mother-knows-best nanny state, has these pockets of individual responsibility in the cheese, but rugged individualist USA nags about drinking, riding a bicycle without a helmet, child safety seats (the single greatest driving force behind the SUV craze, since you can’t put more than two car seats in anything else).
I have always had a negative perception of Biden from what has been presented over the years in the media. Thanks Lex for your personal experience with the Senator. It just confirmed what a lightweight he is.
Regarding the drinking age thing – I was in college the last time this was tried. The arguments in favor of it were exactly the same, except that the draft was still going on and that was also used as a reason. Lowering the drinking age did absolutely nothing to reduce underage drinking – it only got greater. Fer me an’ my friends it made things soooo much easier! Night after night in a bar or a with a keg of beer in the apartment vs. finding someone to buy for you? Which would you prefer at the age of 19 or 20? It also made it easier for those under 18 to get access – all you needed was a friend at high school who was a senior.
Looking back from the pillar of wisdom that comes with age – was a bad idea then and a bad idea now.
Hmmm.. lower drinking age and windfall profits on oil came up at the same time in the last historical cycle. Neither one worked!
George V.
The Biden choice speaks volumes about BHO’s lack of judgement and perspective.
I can’t imagine the American people would put Biden in line to President.
Who exactly could Obama have picked that was not Hillary and would have satisfied this crowd? No one. Might as well pick someone as experienced in cronyism as McCain. None of the presumed vice presidential choices helped him very much-or drew attention away from Obama. Personally I think he would have been better picking Hillary and forcing her to go down with the ship. Keep your enemies closer and all that.
As for the drinking age 18-period end of statement. If you can get killed in Iraq at 18 you can have a beer. Driving it underground does make it worse. Look at all the underage drinking that goes on in the barracks.
I’m in favor of repealing Gen Order #1 too.
[...] this annecdote from Neptunus Lex sort of sums up Joe Biden: I love him less well: As a lieutenant, I served as the casualty [...]
Skippy-san … I’m not objecting to Mr. Obama’s choice of Biden — in fact I got the giggles this morning when I read the front page story. Seems to me that, short of Obama’s choosing Hillary for a running mate, he unerringly selected the second-most annoying, discursive, pompous, self-satisfied Democrat in the lot. Sure, it gives me the shivers to think how badly things will go if Obama/Biden win. But … maybe, just maybe we’re smarter than that. We can only hope.
Marianne
Memories of beer machines in the Q. Fifty cents a can, and ice cold, all the better to chase away the NAS Jax muggy summer heat. 18 was plenty old enough and for an extra quarter? Tall boy, Colt 45 malt liquor for those in a hurry. Not long thereafter, drinking age went up, beer machines left and it was back to the package store for $6.45 suitcases of Busch. You know; for all our friends.
Biden? There’s a “gotcha” moment awaiting him.
Skippy, you’re right of course. Those of us on the right would mock whatever choice Obama made. But then again, it was a pretty thin bench to choose form. ‘Course, I consider that a feature, not a bug.
The libertarian in me is for lowering the drinking age, partly as I lived in areas with it. That part of me also supports rescinding Gen. Order #1.
But the practical side of me says the costs would be high, both in terms of domestic carnage by drinking and driving (and can you imagine when Lex has to insure the future drivers in his family?) and the problems that would be encountered in theatre.
Drinking age has to go. Much like the prohibition on drugs, it’s a law costing inordinate amounts to enforce and breeding large-scale subversion.
I had the good fortune to spend a summer living in Spain (where there was a nominal, yet wholly unenforced drinking age of 16) and it was amazing: everyone seemed to drink all the time. But who were the only ones crashing cars and starting fights? Americans and Brits, who had come from countries with Puritanical drinking ages and had thrown open the proverbial flood gates.
If we lower or eliminate the drinking age, yes, it will be a tough transition. There will be a lot more alco-carnage, at first. Then, the novelty will wear off, the punishments for violations will get stiffer, and the correction will happen.
Ugh. That workout alone made me reconsider the wisdom of Crossfit as a mode of exercise for me. That and my newly torn rotator cuff too.
Way back when, my then home-state of Maryland had the schizophrenic policy that beer and wine, (with a smaller percentage of alcohol), could be purchased by an 18 yr old, but distilled spirits could only be purchased by 21 year olds. They only checked my ID once, when it clearly showed I was 19 (or was it 20?) but sold me the Jack Daniels anyway (hey, it was a birthday present!)
I can’t say I disagree with anyone who objects to laws that would prevent any action of a legal adult (or adults) but it is truly a gray area as to whether or not that applies to all actions taken by adults who are imbibing of their favorite mind-altering substance while say, driving a car. Can you still drive after smoking one joint? How about after taking a large quantity of prescription medications? Also, if the substance can still be detected in your system (urine test?) does that mean you’re still under the influence? Should you be allowed to operate heavy machinery?
I don’t have the answers, but some people prefer not to ask the questions, and just state that all of it should be illegal. Please illustrate to me how the “War on Drugs” has saved more lives than it has wrecked…or wasted a monumental amount of money, as well as spread corruption throughout the world. Can anyone dispute the pharmacological benefits of cannabis to cancer or glaucoma patients? Then why do to feds continue to prosecute people for operating clinics/cubs that dispense it?
Any truth to the rumor that you have to be 21 to drink in Louisiana but you can buy when you are 18? Sounds like a good idea to me. Must be why they have so many drive through Daquari (sp?) places down there.
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