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Showing posts from October, 2014

Bumgarner for the Ages

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Madison Bumgarner pitching in epic relief, saving last night's World Series Game Seven for the San Francisco Giants.  He is being compared with many of baseball's greatest pitchers this morning. But I think the best comparison might be with Grover Cleveland Alexander (see my post) in 1926. Bumgarner's total pitching record over three World Series' gives him a 0.25 ERA, the lowest in baseball history. The first time I heard about Madison Bumgarner was in Game Four of the 2010 Division Series at Turner Field.  The San Francisco Giants led the series 2 games to 1 and Bumgarner was their number four starter against the Atlanta Braves ace, at the time, Derek Lowe .  I figured Lowe would be able the handle the Giants' bats and we might have some offensive success against San Francisco's "last" starter.  But Bumgarner pitched six strong innings and beat the Braves 3-2 in what turned out to be Bobby Cox's last game.  So, for me, it was hello Madiso

Into Syria: The Battle for Kobani

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ISIS fighters planted the Islamic State flag on a hill overlooking Kobani early on in their attack.  This hill was recently retaken by the Kurds. Since my post on the US launching an air campaign against Islamic militants in Iraq, the situation has broadened considerably.  For the past few weeks operations have included strikes against Islamic State (ISIS aka ISIL) infrastructure targets in Syria, in addition to continuing operations in Iraq. The Islamic State is a rogue nation but it nevertheless "governs" large swaths of Iraq and Syria.   Its capital is Raqqa where most of its command and control is concentrated.  For that reason, on September 22, when Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obama ordered the US military to strike targets in Syria in an attempt to degrade ISIS war-making capabilities, Raqqa received the heaviest concentration of initial airstrikes .  In our social media-driven reality, one Syrian man tweeted  about the initial attacks live as they hap

Ole Miss and Mississippi State are Number 3

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Tearing down the goalpost at Ole Miss last Saturday.  The post was then carried by fans out of the stadium. Entering college football play today, the teams from Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi are tied in the national college rankings for #3 .  That is rather remarkable (great piece in The New York Times about it here ).  Both teams are featured on the latest cover of Sports Illustrated .  I am by no means an expert on college football history, but I bet it is a rare thing for two teams from the same state be tied at such a high ranking.  If the national championship playoffs were held today the state of Mississippi would likely send half the teams.  Amazing. Ole Miss Rebel fans covered the $75,000 in fines and associated costs  (in just four hours) levied against the University for storming the field following their upset win last week over the famed Alabama Crimson Tide.  Earlier in the day though the Mississippi State Bulldogs impressively crushed  th

Discovering The xx

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Proof of purchase.  The first two CDs by The xx along with some MP3s not available on the CDs that I downloaded from amazon. The minimalist style of the band is reflected in the packaging of their CDs.  Both have a X die-cut into the cover with an opposite color booklet of photos and lyrics pushed into the sleeve.  The booklets contain only lyrics and song titles and the words "Thank You" at the bottom of each back.  There are no song writing credits, production credits, no copyright information, nor are the members of the band even mentioned.  No one gets any credit for anything - just lyrics and titles and some artsy photos.  I don't recall seeing such detail in intended ambiguity like this before.  Jennifer and I were talking about the film The Great Gatsby a couple of weeks ago.  We had both seen the Robert Redford version but wanted to see the 2013 Leonardo DiCaprio version .  I was checking Netflix but it only had the older version, which I honestly wouldn'