matty fred

This blog ...

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:04:07 GMT

... is coming like a ghost town.

You can find me over here now.

Reagan meets Michael Jackson

Tue, 22 May 2007 19:45:14 GMT

Reagan's diary entry, via Vanity Fair:

Mon. May 14 [1984]� A Ceremony on the S. Lawn to honor young Michael Jackson who is the sensation of the pop music world�believed to have earned $120 mil. last year. He is giving proceeds from one of his biggest selling records to the campaign against drunk driving. He is totally opposed to Drugs & Alcohol & is using his popularity to influence young people against them. I was surprised at how shy he is.

Field Trip!!

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 06:37:21 GMT

So long, James Brown

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 06:55:15 GMT

Inventor of all the latest discoteque steps

Happy Christmas

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 01:19:17 GMT

Yes, I am from the Midland.

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 06:53:04 GMT

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Northeast
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Unbelievable!

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 05:36:05 GMT

WORLD CHAMPS!

what keith said

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 04:07:59 GMT

link

Yes!

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 06:19:18 GMT

The Cardinals win the Pennant!

It's that time of year again ...

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 04:15:38 GMT

... for Useless Playoff Predictions�! Here's what I wrote on one of my fantasy baseball league's message board today:

I'm thinking the key for the Cardinals against the Padres is for the Cardinals to not let it come down to who has the better bullpen. The Padres have a good bullpen and the Cardinals do not.

The Twins are really scary to me, because to me they're built for postseason games (tight, low-scoring affairs that hinge on pitching and defense). If you're an A's fan, perhaps you should consider yourself lucky to get them in a 5-game series rather than a 7-game series. If the A's can steal one at the HHH Metrodome they have a great shot. Over a 7 game series, I think the Twins beat anybody two-thirds of the time.

The Mets are weird. Yes they score a lot of runs and have a good record, but without Pedro anchoring the starting pitching I'm not so sure about them anymore. Glavine had a good year, but also had some significant stretches of lousy outings. Meanwhile, the Dodgers are on a roll, and one could plausibly argue that they were the best NL team of the second half. This series, like the Padres-Cardinals, may come down to who has the better bullpen. Overall, I think the Dodgers' bullpen has a slight edge.

I really hope the Tigers take out the Yankees, but I don't think it. The Tigers' starting staff seemed to tire down the stretch, and they'll need to be as good as they were in May and June in order to stop the Yankee offense. Still, I hope Detroit pulls it off.

My hope: Cardinals vs. Twins in the World Series. (Rematch, baby!)

My reasoned yet ill-informed prediction: Mets vs. Twins in the World Series.

GO CARDS!

Splitting hairs ...

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 04:48:44 GMT

Remember way back when in the good ol' days when our executive's most egregious, most impeachable offense was parsing the meaning of "sexual relations?"

Good times. Good times.

David Luban at Balkinization describes our current president's new-found authority to parse the meaning of "torture" (pending GOP Senate rubber-stamping, of course):

JURISPRUDENCE OF PAIN, PAIN OF JURISPRUDENCE

2. The Nuremberg trials presupposed something about the normal human conscience: that moral choice doesn�t take its cues solely from legalisms and technicalities. The new bill takes the opposite stance: technicality triumphs over conscience and even over common sense. The bill introduces the possibility for a new cottage industry: the jurisprudence of pain. It distinguishes "severe pain" � the hallmark of torture � from (merely?) "serious" pain � the hallmark of cruel and degrading treatment, usually thought to denote mistreatment short of torture. But then it defines serious physical pain as "bodily injury that involves...extreme physical pain." To my untutored ears, "extreme" sounds very similar to "severe" � indeed, it sounds worse than severe. (That�s why they call it "extreme". Doh!) But in any case, it certainly sounds worse than "serious". And you thought that the Office of Legal Counsel had lost its marbles when it issued the original torture memo, with its "organ failure or death" definition of "severe pain," drawn from a Medicare statute. The OLC lawyers must be rubbing their hands together in anticipation � clearly, they have some finger-lickin�-good opinion writing ahead of them.

I suppose we should be happy that this is a compromise bill. Though it's odd to me that such a compromise would be hatched between a "straight talking" former Vietnam POW Senator and a self-described Christian who promised to restore honor, dignity and morality to the White House.

Strange bedfellows.

"The people who got it wrong."

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 05:50:13 GMT

Our resolute leader.

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 22:12:41 GMT

The kids at Emma E. Booker Elementary remember him well.

Columbia, Missouri

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 05:37:51 GMT

Law school orientation is in full swing. Classes start Monday, yet already I have reading assignments. Just as well, because currently I am bored. (I trust that later this semester I'll be inundated with work and pining for these current days of boredom.)

Columbia is sort of a sleepy town. That's not a bad thing. I'm just not used to it.

So long, Boston.

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 21:39:54 GMT

Boston to Philadelphia to St. Louis to Columbia!

Linky-dinky-doo

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:43:19 GMT

Hello there. It's been a while. How about some links?

The Exiled Midwesterner got himself some new digs. (I really need to switch over to WordPress.)

Over the weekend, the Cardinals finished a season series sweep of the Dodgers. Tuning in via MLB.TV, I got to listen to the great Vin Scully call the games. When I was a wee one in the 80's and NBC carried the game of the week and the playoffs and World series, Vin Scully almost always did the play-by-play. When I was a kid, I didn't know to whom that voice belonged, but I have since always considered Scully's voice the "voice of important baseball." If you've never heard Scully's call of the 9th inning of Sandy Koufax's perfect game, then listen to it here. It's Scully's lyrical style at its finest.

Will it still count?

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:51:31 GMT

Stormy weather forecasted for tonight's All Star Game in Pittsburgh. What happens if this thing gets rained-out?

The streak is over

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:01:52 GMT

An ugly win, but it counts all the same.

LLLLLLLL

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:20:00 GMT

Ugh. 8 in a row. A co-worker this morning asked me, "What's wrong with the Cardinals?" What isn't? When the pitching is good, the bats are silent. When the bats are loud, the pitching is bad. Pepper that with some bad breaks, and you have the recipe for an 8-game losing streak.

Tuning in to the game last night via the internets, the Cardinals were two runs down going into the bottom of the 9th with the heart of the lineup coming to bat. In more confident times, the home crowd would be egging-on the Cards for a spectacular come-from-behind victory. In more confident times, a two-run deficit would be no big deal. The crowd was eerily silent.

"As we say: Shred it, dude."

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 03:21:14 GMT

When three necks just aren't enough.

via the always awesome WFMU blog