From the Notebook; Happy Taxation Day

If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it –Ronald Reagan

-Read through Prometheus Bound “by” Aeschylus. It’s a greek tragedy about a Titan who takes on Zeus, gives man fire and the ability to write and is punished for his insolence. I was disappointed when I couldn’t find any remotely watchable videos of the play online. This play was part of the Great Books of the Western World ten-year reading program. Now whenever I have a bad day, I can just remind myself that at least I’m not chained to a rock having my intestines consumed by a giant eagle for all eternity.

-On a personal note, this Business Law/Ethics class is a real test, so expect light posting. Lighter posting? No posting? I haven’t been posting up any Wednesday Heroes for a while, so I think I’ll just throw the ones I haven’t posted yet into my blog’s scheduling system just to have some content (Along with the final chapters of “Terror Rats”). Just think, someday I might be able to call myself a blogger again.

-Kenny Perry came close to history in his Masters bid and ended up a little short. It was a great battle, the outcome of which actually kept me up for a few nights. I hope Kenny Perry is sleeping easier than I am. This isn’t to say Angel Cabrera is a bad guy or didn’t deserve to win. But writers love a great story, and lament its death and replacement with good story.

-El Dos de Mayo is coming up. If you didn’t know, it’s the official national collegiate conservative activist holiday. It’s celebrated on the 2nd of May and it is a celebration of the previous year’s efforts towards annoying liberals and spreading conservatism on college campuses. Like usual, the party starts 4pm at Sally’s near the U of M campus in Minneapolis, it moves over to Stub and Herb’s at 8pm and the survivors end up at Dulono’s on Lake Street around 1am. All readers of this blog are invited.

-I’m adding Flash of “Centrisity” to blogroll (despite the fact I have long standing objections to the name of his blog since it’s not the blog of a centrist but a very reliable liberal). I’ll get the link up eventually.

From the Notebook

-Read Catcher in the Rye by Salinger. I liked it, a little dull at times and at times annoying. It’s overhyped but few novels really capture adolescent maleness so well. As for the language and adult substance, well…After “Southpark: The Movie” I doubt I’ll ever get offended by anything ever again.

-I thought the series finale of Battlestar Galactica was enjoyable, watchable, worthy but imperfect. I’d like to hear what any friends think. The series itself left us wanting more, which is the point. Star Trek, the Sci-Fi juggernaut, left us wanting less. Much, much less. After Battlestar Galactica, I can’t even watch Star Trek anymore. Battlestar Galactica has changed the Sci-Fi TV world. My beef with the finale: Galen a cold blooded killer? Takes away from his fuzzy lovableness.

-Got an “A” in the IT management course. Up next: Business Law.

-Another member of “Da Roll” is ending his blog; Ben Wetmore, the kind of man we needed more of in the blogesphere, has decided blogging is a waste of precious God-given time and I can’t disagree with him. He hated blogging, bloggers, blogs, which I think made his blog so very wonderful.

-Read through the Illustrated Tao Te Ching It’s one of the three or so translations I’ve consumed, and this one is the best. The translators, there are three of them, include an expert on Eastern religions, an expert and practitioner of Taoism, and a poet. It balances the literary and literal aspects of the text well.

-Unsponsored product review: Jumpsnaps are awesome. For people who skip rope regularly but are holed up in small quarters all winter, the Jumpsnap is a great workout supplement.

From The Notebook

-“Does not work well with others” might be a phrase I put on my tombstone, as I’ve heard it a lot in my life. Well, there must be some truth to it, as my Team/Group Work Tools class in my MBA program handed me the first blemish on the transcript. I ended up 8 points short of an “A” and will have to settle for a “B” and a 3.57 GPA this quarter.

-The next class in the MBA program is Managerial Accounting. Just spent 150 bucks on the textbook. Since I haven’t had a math class in six years, my confidence isn’t very high.

-Suing good Samaritans is a bad idea. For the past few years I’ve spent time as a CPR/Safety instructor for the Red Cross. Part of my course deals with barriers to giving care, and fear of legal repercussions is normally the first or the second fear mentioned by every class. Far more people will be hurt by this than will be helped.

-Looks like the Strib’s recount tool was right; challenged ballots favored Franken. Since there are still 1350 rejected absentee ballots, we still don’t know who actually won this election, if anybody. For the first time in my life, I found the Strib’s coverage of a news event worth my attention. 

-As part of the GBWW 10-year reading program I finished Rabelais’ “Pantagruel” (Burton Raffel translation). It’s the story of a giant in France who makes fun of stuff.

-Also as part of the GBWWTYRP December mop-up I finished three of Montaigne’s Essays I had skipped over earlier. (Measure of Good and Evil, On Cannibals, Upon Some Verses of Virgil). The latter of the three was interesting as it dealt with the eternal question of the battle between the sexes, the other two weren’t memorable. Montaigne is sorta boring (but it might just be the terrible translation I had).

-Next year, with the MBA program, I’m going to put the Great Books reading program on sabbatical. This is not to say I’ve abandoned the program. My goal for next year is to read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, finish Plato’s Republic, read Dante’s Divine Comedy and pick off a few other books from the larger program. This delay will also allow me to procure more modern translations for future books on the reading list.

-Let me add my voice to the chorus of those lamenting KSTP’s firing of T.D.Mischke. For several years I listened to his show religiously. I even own his “Best of” CD. The management at KSTP continues to lose my respect.

-And after KSTP’s firing of longtime producer “Kodiak,” let me say I have no more respect for them. Kodiak should have had his own show.

-A peak over at JT’s Twins Blogshows he’s trying out some familiar old new digs. Pretty soon, don’t be surprised if he moves over to WordPress and uses a clipping from a Francisco Goya painting for a header.

-I read through Seth Stohs Twins Prospect Handbook. I’m very impressed by the amount of work he put into it and it’s tool potential for Twins fans. I’ll be writing up a longer review for the Bleacher Report sometime.

-As for Seth’s “‘Expert’ FB Picks” deal I did this year, I didn’t finish last. And that’s all I got to say about that.

-Read “Spytime” by Bill Buckley. It was a novelization of the life of CIA Counter-Intelligence man James Jesus Angelton. It’s typical Buckley prose, artfully done and interesting.

-Read Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars epic “Thrawn Trilogy“. All three books, took five days. Without a doubt, they are the best Star Wars Expanded Universe books I’ve ever read, clearly Zahn is someone who knows how to write a good story.

-I’ll be adding TC Daily Liberalto my blogroll. Mr. Rosenberg writes a very good and thoughtful blog, one I’ve found myself reading more and more.

Sidebar Changes

As I get deeper and deeper into writing and covering baseball I have expanded the number of blogs I read in that direction. I’m going to be adding some baseball blogs to the sidebar on top of the ones I already have listed. La Velle E. Neal III, Joe Christensen and Howard Sinker are the trio of bloggers the Star Tribune had added for this season. As some of you might guess, I’m not a fan of the Star Tribune nor of the mainstream media in general and those three bloggers still have a lot of “J-School Baggage.” I disagree with them a lot but they also provide some good information.

I’m also going to add “Twins Geek” John Bonnes, “Stick and Ball Guy,” The “Nick and Nick” blog, Trevor Born the Twins Junkie and the blog “TwinkieTown.” Everyone of these blogs have their upsides and faults but collectively the information provided by these blogs blows away standard media coverage. I hope to get to everyone added to the sidebar by the weekend.

Sidebar Addition

The Wiffler, a self described “Right Handed, Left Leaning Junkballer” is being added to the sidebar. The writing is infrequent but the quality is high and the humor is good. You’ll find a combination of cooking, baseball, politics and observations from The Wiffler.

Renovation Update

I just got done with some updates to the blog. I created a new blogroll in the sidebar. I note the changes in an earlier post. I have also started the process of moving old posts from my older blogs to this one, so there will be changes to the categories section and the archives might start to grow a bit. You can now find an updated list of my various projects in the sidebar as well under “Projects.” While this really doesn’t get me anywhere close to being done with my blog update, it is nice to see some basic changes happening.

I’m also thinking about adding some things to the sidebar. Check out this list of sidebar add ons and see if there’s anything you’d like to see included. Here are my favorites: a clock, a “tagboard” which is simply a simplified online forum for one’s sidebar, a list of books I have or am reading, there are others. I’d love to hear some feedback.

Changes and additions

I’ve been wanting to do some changes and make some additions (and subtractions) from my sidebar but I always found an excuse not to do it. Well, switching over to the New Blogger will provide me a good opportunity to do some house work. The changes are going to be made in chunks over the next week or so.

Dan Stover and Ben are being added to Da Roll. (Maybe, I’m not sure if Ben is working as an anonyblogger or not.) Dan is a great and forgiving guy who runs a very good blog that I don’t read often enough. Ben is another great MOBster who should have been added to the blog a long time ago. Ben is going into the seminary, which makes him an even more important addition to Da Roll.

Jay Reding will also be added, I don’t think I need to tell anybody in the MOB how good a writer he is.

I’ll also be adding MSM columnists Dick Morris, Thomas Sowell, George Will, Walter Williams, William F. Buckley, Ann Coulter, Peggy Noonan, Jonah Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly. They are conservative thinkers who have greatly shaped the way I view the world and I read their columns regularly so this just makes sense. If you haven’t heard of any of the columnists I just listed I suggest reading a few of their columns to see if it might spark a muse.

Local columnist Craig Westover is finally added to Da Roll as well. Craig is a homegrown wordsmith who is just as good as any national columnist.

I will also put Roger Ebert on the sidebar. I’m a movie buff and Ebert is the king when it comes to movie reviews and knowledge.

I will also be adding a group of links to MSM sites. As some have noticed I have already added the NYT’s feed. I still prefer to read the times than any other newspaper though I know it has a tilt. The Times of London, the St. Paul Legal Ledger, The City Pages, The Pioneer Press, The Star Tribune, The St. Cloud Times and the Echo Press will be added to the sidebar.

Another great resource that I used heavily for my “Marty’s Almanac” on Race to the Right was the BlogsNow website. It will go under tools and I highly recommend perusing their headlines regularly. I’ll also be adding links and buttons of Gabcast and BlogTalkRadio, two services I rely on and that have served me well in the podcasting arena.

I’ll be adding the “Day by Day” cartoon to my sidebar as well. I like automatically updated content and I had been going to Captain Ed’s website to read the thing so it’s just going to be better for me to have it on the main website.

The Twins Podcast is becoming a very serious project for me, and as such you might find me writing about baseball more often and about current events a little less often. Since my politics really seems to offend some of my new readers (based on the incoherent and poorly spelled anonymous comments from last season) who really are only here for baseball stuff, I suggest bookmarking the “Baseball” category of my blog, that way you only get my baseball and Twins posts. Any Twins bloggers out there who are so inclined are also encouraged to link to my Baseball Category rather than the full blog. This is more for me since I don’t need incoherent ungrammatical ad hominem attacks on this blog. Civil and coherent dissenters, thoughtful liberals and pithy anonymous commenters are still wanted.

Baseball is also getting its own Roll. JT, the best Twins blogger nobody’s ever heard of, will be at the top of the baseball roll. I shouldn’t make fun of JT’s traffic since his is actually better than mine and his is actually trending upwards. Aaron Gleeman, the legend, will be added. I like Aaron, he gets good information out there and I pretty much disagree with him all the time. He’s perfect. Seth Stohs of Seth Speaks will get a link, as well as Bat Girl and Jeff Straub. Finally, the guys at Right Handed Heat will finally get what they’ve been looking for all year, a spot on my sidebar. Pat Neshek, the Twins Relief Pitcher will also be added based solely on his post where he reflected on his first major league game.

King David will be added to the “Nameless Wonders” category as soon as I re-create my various link categories. Blogger deleted those when I switched templates. King David has quickly become a very solid blogger who deserves attention. NIGP and the Kool-Aid Report will join him among the “Nameless Wonders” (to be on “da roll” you need to use your real name, anonymous or near anonymous bloggers get the nameless wonders category).

Finally, I’ll be separating out all of the radio personalities into a separate category and adding Bob Davis, Joe Soucheray (new website), Hugh Hewitt (Blog), Dennis Prager, Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Doyle. Each of these radio personalities have shaped me in some way, whether politically or broadcasting wise.

It’s amazing how many great people there are out in the world and I wish I had more time to read everyone who’s on my sidebar. I don’t get around enough but hopefully everyone takes the time to read them once in a while. I try to visit every blog on my sidebar once a week.

This is also my chance to note (a la “Who the Hell are these People Anyway”) earlier additions to the sidebar. Captain Capitalism is the place to find graphs and bits of economic information. The Anti-Strib is so despised by local leftwingers that I felt obligated to include them on the side bar. Denny Hastert used to be speaker, he never really blogged and now he will be removed but I included him because he was the highest government official with a self-described blog. Newt also used to Speaker and since he was so fundamental to my early political life I’ve included his main website on the sidebar as well. The Mallard Fillmore strip also got a link, mainly because I’m a fan of ducks…At least that Aflac duck. Finally, Samantha Burns is inappropriate, offensive and totally awesome. She’s also Canadian. Her blog has become another regular read for me.

Who the Hell are these people anyway?

Going through “Da Roll”

Most bloggers have fairly extensive blogrolls, but how often does this lead to you reading the blogs on the rolls of the bloggers you read? I will rarely read a new blog from someone else’s blogroll. However, there are bloggers on my blogroll which I want people to know about and read. The reason I put these people on my roll is because they are talented people who deserve recognition. So I’m going to tell the stories of my roll over the next week, 3 people at a time.

Michael Brodkorb

I go back and forth on his blogging tactics. He comes up with some great stuff, then he’ll post stuff up that seems a little “national enquire-esque.” Brodkorb has a background in opposition research, he’s very good at making the DFL look bad, and he’s turned into a daily read for me.

John Stewart

I think John is the least evil man ever. A family man, a right honorable person who just isn’t evil. He does a good blog, he’s almost the Ned Flanders of the blogosphere. That’s all I could think of. It’s weird, whenever I read his blog (which again, is excellent) all I can think about is how completely not evil the man is. I don’t know if that’s an endorsement or not…

Leo Pusateri

Leo is one of the rarist birds in the TTLB Ecosystem. He’s a conservative school psychologist. For that reason alone he makes the list (It’s be like keeping the Dodo off the list of the coolest birds ever, you just can’t do it). He also has great stuff, solid research, strong arguments, etc etc. But come on, he’s a school psychologist, and a conservative.

Phil Miller

Sheesh, another economist. He’s much broader than that though, he posts up a lot of interesting stuff. He does sports, pubic policy, etc. I think there’s something to being an economist which makes someone see fallacy and be able to report on it very well. Phil embodies the motto of the MOB: “We know stuff”

Who the Hell are these people anyway?

Going through “Da Roll”

Most bloggers have fairly extensive blogrolls, but how often does this lead to you reading the blogs on the rolls of the bloggers you read? I will rarely read a new blog from someone else’s blogroll. However, there are bloggers on my blogroll which I want people to know about and read. The reason I put these people on my roll is because they are talented people who deserve recognition. So I’m going to tell the stories of my roll over the next week, 3 people at a time.

Newt Gingrich

Another Speaker, this one a former speaker, Newt has been in and out of the internet for a few years now, first as an Amazon.com reviewer, now as a self promoter. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Newt normally has some interesting stuff on his website (and the website has a blog) and he’s a major talking head now. Check in every once in a while and see what the scariest man in politics is up to.

Lars Larson

Lar Larson is the best radio talk show host you can’t hear in the Twin Cities. His website is regularly updated with interesting topics. Lars also has one of the best radio voices ever. Listen in, if you can.

Jeff Faria

Jeff is an east coast blogger with a bit of a right of center libertarian almost Republican but not really political but not really bent to him. East Coast is just different I guess. But he’s more a promoter and innovater for blogs and blogging than a political pundit. His ideas on shaping the blogosphere are great and I think a lot could be learned by us humble midwestern folk by reading him. He’s working on a book right now and he’s a true believer that blogging will one day be a profession. When he was updating daily he was a daily read, hopefully he’ll be back soon.

Who the Hell are these people anyway?

Going through “Da Roll”

Most bloggers have fairly extensive blogrolls, but how often does this lead to you reading the blogs on the rolls of the bloggers you read? I will rarely read a new blog from someone else’s blogroll. However, there are bloggers on my blogroll which I want people to know about and read. The reason I put these people on my roll is because they are talented people who deserve recognition. So I’m going to tell the stories of my roll over the next week, 3 people at a time.

Scott Adams

Dilbert. Dogbert. The Pointy Haired Manager. Catbert the Evil Human Resources Director. Wally. Scott Adams created them all. He is still producing his acclaimed cartoon every day. His books, The Dilbert Principle and the Dilbert Future are must reads. His new blog (Pop up ad warning) is very funny and well done. Scott still brings a mixture of humility and intelligence mixed with funny. Read daily.

Ed Morrissey

If you don’t know Captain Ed, then you don’t know the blogosphere. He’s one of the best bloggers out there. Read and try to keep up.

Denny Hastert

Not a good blog, not updated a lot, but he’s like the third in line to be president. I like how our country’s leaders are looking towards blogs to help spread their ideas. It’s a positive change in politics that should be rewarded.