About Me

My photo
This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Monday, June 21, 2004

Sports Update



Over in the Slate, they have undergone various changes over the last couple years, stylistic and otherwise [recently they arbitrarily ended their "star" system on the fray, or at least it is in limbo], but never did fix their fray search engine. I don't quite know how it works, but only certain hits are picked up. This is annoying for those who want to search among the thousands of posts, including to see if anything was written about themselves.

I find search engines in general have this problem in some fashion. For instance, at various times I do a search to determine if my blog was mentioned. A few times, long past the time of the citation, I found such a mention. For instance, this is a January hit I just found, a the brief note that it is an "political, legal, sports blog I found randomly. Fairly interesting." I appreciate it and return the favor.

I originally listed "sports" as part of the subject matter that I would discuss, though political stuff turned out to be the main focus. A sports break might be warranted. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are in the midst of an eleven game winning streak ... apparently the "every dog has its day" nature of football is currently being applied to baseball (over the last couple years, Kansas City, Detroit, Milwaukee, and San Diego all had their months in the sun).

The NY Mets are this year's yo yo. Up and down, winning/losing, on toward a c. 80 win season. This being a fifteen game improvement, it wouldn't be that bad. Still, perhaps after firing their hitting coach, they can fire their infield and health and conditioning coach too. So many errors (including by their ten year veteran Japanese shortstop who apparently has vision problems?!) and injuries! Anyway, they now have a twelve game stretch vs the Reds (a better payroll might put them over the hump) and the Yanks (didn't break Gagne's closer streak, though an error helped LA), the second (or third) dangerous stream of games of the year.

LA Lakers ... a better team to lose the finals in quick fashion would be hard to find. Golf ... even if I played the game, I probably wouldn't be too interesting in watching the current tournament. Darts ... yes, this is one of the sports on to fill up time on sports channels that just don't have enough material. Beach Volleyball ... ditto ... but more worthwhile.

---

[Update: As to today's Supreme Court rulings, see here (summary) and here (my comments). I'd add a couple things. Though the decision only applies to requests when there is cause for suspicion, the evidence supplied here was a phone tip and little more than signs an argument might have occurred. Also, determining if the person questioned committed other offenses was put forth as one possible reason for the request for identification. Therefore, though the opinion was somewhat narrow, my fears are not without cause.]