Vikings Rant #1

Since my partner in crime has brought up sports (well cockfighting is not really a sport, more like a hobby) it is time for my post-Vikings season rant.

I am a Viking fan and have been since the 70’s and the purple people eaters. It meshes nicely with my affiliation with UGA and Terry Bradshaw’s magnificent run as Vikings QB.

Mike Tice has to be one of the most idiotic coaches that can win games in the NFL. Having watched the majority of the games this year his choices of when to throw the red hankie is appalling. In one of the games near the end of the season he threw the flag for a ball spot after failing to get the first down. While this might be a good move if he went for it on a fourth down and it was a crappy spot, it is completely and utterly idiotic to throw the hankie when the resulting play gives you 3^rd and maybe a foot. Hey dumb ass, we have a 260 lb QB that can get a foot on a sneak at any time not to mention a bunch or quality RBs and an excellent O-line. Why waste a time-out (the play stood since no ref is going to move the ball a couple of inches on a replay) and a challenge? Then in the Eagles game early in the season he wasted his flags on plays that didn’t matter and had none left to challenge TO’s TD catch in the 4^th, in which he was clearly out of bounds on replay, costing the Vikes a shot at the game.

Then there is Tice’s inability to pick a RB and stick with him. Sure there were some problems with RB in the beginning of the season, Bennet wasn’t fully recovered, Smith and his drug suspension, and Moore got a shin bruise or something, but at the end of the season if you didn’t rip off a 20 yard carry in your first 4 attempts he switched to a different RB. Everyone knows that the more a RB plays in a game the more likely he is to break off a couple of good runs and start dominating. Did he forget that last year the Vikes were the top rushing team in the NFL?

I understand why McCombs (I will rant on cheap-ass owners at a later date) is sticking with him since he is one of the cheapest head coaches in the NFL (there are many assistants that made more than Tice last year) and he has shown that he won’t totally ruin your team, but the Vikes should be better than this. They have one of the top offenses in the NFL and play in a pretty crappy division. Sure their D isn’t that great, but what do you expect when you play vanilla, your players are constantly out of position (great coaching) and never run the ball. The Vikes should have won at least 10 games this year, but more like 11 or 12.

To top it all off the Vikings beat GB in the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong. I love seeing the Vikes beat GB, but the victory assured Tice of another season of moronic calls and poor coaching. This guy reminds me so much of Ditka, without the charming personality. He's even got the same draft acumen that Ditka showed in NO.

This rant will continue with analysis of both the offense and defense since this post is already too long.

She was SoS? No Wonder we're in this Mess.

This column by Madeleine Albright in the habitually atrocious USA Today pretty much sums up what is wrong with the left these days. After pointing out some very obvious problems in Iraq that defy easy solutions she proffers up this lovely bit of pabulum.

… the administration must do what it has steadfastly refused to do — admit mistakes; emphasize a political instead of a military strategy; do what it takes to secure the cooperation of Iraq's neighbors;…and launch, finally, an economic reconstruction program that puts paychecks in Iraqi wallets and food in Iraqi stomachs.

What insight!

Why I fondly remember reading about FDR-we have nothing to fear except our own incompetence-apologizing to the country for the multitude of screw-ups during both the European (battle of the bulge anyone) and Pacific (oh…lets pick Tarawa) campaigns during WW2. I must have forgotten him apologizing to the families of the dead soldiers for the American tanks that were pathetically under-gunned and out armored by the Germans and even the Soviets (25 years from a peasant economy).

Umm isn’t Bush pushing really hard for the first free elections in Iraq? Is this somehow a military solution? Is she aware of some sinister plan to shoot Iraqi voters? If free elections aren’t about as political as it gets then I am very confused.

Could she please give me an example of what we could possibly do beside more military action to “secure the cooperation” of Syria (a Baathist dictatorship), Saudi Arabia (home range of Wahabism) and Iran (world’s leader of state sponsored terrorism).

While I agree with her that the economic reconstruction hasn’t moved forward as I would have liked, once again she doesn’t offer even a hint of what this program should look like.

Sigh, all it seems the left can do is complain about these problems. I can’t really blame them, it’s always easier to point out problems than solve them, and the left today doesn’t seem to have many new solutions, just clichés wrapped around harping.

Hydrogen Doesn't Grow on Trees, but It Will Kill Them

One of the lovely things about our planet is that free Hydrogen isn't readily available. Most of the Hydrogen on earth is bound to Oxygen (that most excellent gas that keeps us up and about) and like a dawg and a bone very difficult to separate. This difficulty is the reason the "Hydrogen Model" for energy usage is a pipe dream cooked up by scientists who should know better.

Sure, using Hydrogen as a fuel source is clean and the bi-product is water (just can't keep those two apart), making the Hydrogen is or will be messy. One needs energy to separate Hydrogen away from it's loving partner Oxygen, and that energy has to come from somewhere (fossil fuels, nuclear, solar, wind, etc.) The other nasty bit is the second law of thermodynamics...there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is always energy lost along the way of any process as it radiates out into the universe, not to mention the energy needed to transport and store the Hydrogen, build the Hydrogen factory, keep the workers of the factory going (be they robots or human). All of these processes cost energy. Therefore, it will take more energy than we currently consume to have a Hydrogen solution.

More energy means more pollution. Fossil and nuclear pollution are obvious, but wind and solar are more sublime forms of pollution, sprawl pollution. Achieving the energy needs of the world with solar and wind would require millions of square miles of solar cells and/or wind farms, gobbling up valuable real-estate necessary for food production, habitat preservation and a myriad of other needs.

Unless you like lots of energy plants/farms focus on the only solution to the world's coming energy demands...fusion power.

Forget Hydrogen!

Well, except for the small amount necessary to fuel the fusion generators.