Denials and Admissions

  People who suddenly change their minds or admit to actions that they repeatedly and vehemently denied in the past have always held a special fascination for me. I say held because eventually I realized that the ‘about-face’ is almost always part of a plan to attain a goal that was not successfully obtained by the previous position. Lance Armstrong consistently denied using steroids during his record setting bicycling career and would sue journalists and authors that dared to accuse him in print. After Armstrong’s career ended the steroid rumors and denials persisted until evidence from the U.S. Ant-Doping Agency led to his being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and his having to leave his Lance Armstrong Foundation (which rebranded itself as LiveStrong). At that point Armstrong admitted on an Oprah Winfrey special that he was using performance enhancing drugs during his amazing climb to the heights of the cycling world after beating cancer. Why did Armstrong finally come clean? I don’t know but I have to think it was an attempt to try to get sympathy from the American public since he had become such a pariah that his own foundation had to run away from his name.

  Pete Rose made an about face on his repeated denials that he never bet on sports during baseball season, never bet on baseball, and never bet for or against the Cincinnati Reds baseball team he managed but not as sudden a turnaround as Lance Armstrong. After accepting a lifetime ban from baseball without an acknowledgement of his gambling on baseball, Rose admitted to betting on football and horse racing in season. In 2004 Rose admitted to betting on baseball and even betting on the Reds ‘to win every night’. Why did Rose finally admit to gambling on sports, baseball, and the Reds? Because he was promoting his new book and finally realized that there was no way he was ever going to live to see himself inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rose is in his mid-70’s and is enjoying a renaissance of sorts as a talking head on Fox Sports. I have no doubt that if Rose finds himself in need of cash in the future there will be yet another book and round of media interviews detailing the ins and outs of how Rose bet against the team he was managing and how he rigged the odds in his favor.

  A recent about face happened in the chess world regarding Grandmaster Tal Baron of Israel. A couple of years ago Baron started a YouTube channel and Twitch stream and has about 6,500 subscribers. Just as playing well-to-do patrons in coffeehouses was the way many chess professionals made a living 150 years ago, live streaming chess channels are rapidly becoming a way for today’s chess professionals to make extra money via donations from patrons and well-wishers.

  Having a chess stream isn’t Baron’s only claim to fame. Baron won $1200 in chess.com’s monthly ‘Titled Tuesday’ tournament in August of 2015, starting with seven straight wins before finishing with two draws. Baron’s amazing result came with many accusations that he was cheating and his account was indeed suspended by chess.com shortly after the tournament. You can see a video of his last five games here and judge for yourself.

The games...

  I’d been watching some of Baron’s videos and never heard of these accusations until I saw an interview with Baron on the Astaneh chess channel where Baron vehemently denied all accusations that he cheated on the chess.com tournament and accused his accusers of “spreading hate” and being “not the most moral people ever created”. This got me to research the accusations. I didn’t find too much except for the KchessK video and the comments in the chess.com article.

...the denial...

  Did I think Tal Baron was cheating? I had no idea and I didn’t really care either. I just wanted to see the accusations. Judging from the number of outright blunders in his over the board blitz games and online blitz matches that he has posted on his channel I wouldn’t find it hard to believe that he had computer assistance in the Titled Tuesday tournament but I also wouldn’t find it hard to believe that he had his best day ever because we all have to have a best day ever, don’t we?

...and the admission

  I didn’t give the matter another thought until Baron posted this video on his YouTube channel in April 9th where he admitted to cheating in the last game of the tournament against a player who he considered to be a computer cheater also. The last player Baron played in the tournament was top 10 player and multiple time US champ Hikaru Nakamura who is widely considered to be the best 1 minute player in the world. Baron said he admitted to chess.com that he cheated and agreed to a lifetime ban from all chess.com money tournament and special events. Baron said “other than this game I did not use any chess engine assistance and for the haters and non-believers of you – you can cite statistics all you want but this is the truth”.

  Is Baron telling the truth about only cheating during the one game? I don’t know but it sure sounds a lot like a Pete Rose piecemeal confessions and his confession on his YouTube channel seemed as honest as his denials in the interview with Astaneh. To me the entire incident is a curiosity rather than a source of moral outrage. The biggest question on my mind is what baron expects to get out of his admission? Maybe he hopes to be reinstated on chess.com or be invited to play in future big money online tournaments. I don’t know but time should give me the answer to that question.

  I’m not a hater or a non-believer (although I wonder what Baron’s ‘believers’ from before his confession think now) but I think Baron should have taken his cue from the greatest cheater of all time and admitted nothing. Barry Bonds is baseball’s home run king and was widely accused of using performance enhancing drugs during the latter half of his career and even admitted to a grand jury in 2003 to using ‘cream and clear’ steroids once and only then by accident. In his first three tries at the Hall of Fame, Bonds received less than 40% of the votes cast (75% is needed to get in the hall). But Bonds has never admitted to any steroid use beyond his grand jury testimony. Bonds received over 40% of the vote last year and over 50% this year. At this pace Bonds will end up being inducted in the Hall of Fame and his detractors can never point to any admission on his part that he used steroids except for his one admission to the federal grand jury. If Pete Rose had foregone his book deal money and never admitted to betting on baseball he may have eventually received a similar turnaround in sentiment. I think Baron would have been better served by following Bonds’ example of admitting nothing instead of embarking down the road of what I think will be continuing piecemeal confessions.

  I could have been accused of cheating or using performance enhancing drugs after this three minute game I played on the Internet Chess Club last week. The way I smoothly headed to a superior endgame and kept a grip of the center may get me in the Hall Of Fame before Barry Bonds!

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  I considered this one of the best games I ever played and denied all contrary points of view as those of 'haters and non-believers'. Well, OK. I have to admit it. I did use computer assistance but only AFTER I played the game and unfortunately after subjecting the game to the cold eye of Mr. Fritz it turns out I missed just as many ideas as I do in most of my games. Let's take another look...

Tiebreaks Gone Bad

  Two weeks ago I watched the NFL divisional playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers. The Packers burst out to a large lead which was whittled down by the Cowboys to nothing when they kicked a field goal to tie the game with a minute left. The Packers then drove down the field to kick a game winning field goal which delighted Packer fans (which I am not) and Cowboy haters (of which I am one as a New York Giants fan).

  If the game had ended tied the teams would have gone to overtime under the arcane NFL overtime rules that proscribe that each team must possess the ball once unless the team that possesses the ball first gets a touchdown in which case the game is over. College football games allow each team to possess the ball at the opponents’ 25 yard line and if the score is still tied, the teams each get to possess the ball again and again until a winner is decided.

  Every sport has different ways to break ties. I like the tiebreaks that are as close as possible to the actual game. Basketball games break ties with continual 5 minute periods and baseball games that replay the 9th inning are my favorites. I like the 30 minute mini game complete with a mini half time that follows a tie soccer match but don’t understand the need to have the shootout after the completion of a tie mini game. Sometimes I feel a tiebreak is unnecessary. When two or more players are tied at the end of a golf tournament I don’t understand why the winners can’t be called co-champions, given replicas of the championship trophy, and split the prize money.

  The world of chess had three of their championships decided by tiebreaks in the last two months. In November the ‘Classical’ Chess Championship between champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Sergey Karjakin was tied with 1 win apiece and 10 draws after the scheduled 12 classical games that gave each player 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and 15 minutes after move 60 with an extra 30 seconds per move. The reason for the term ‘classical’ is twofold – the lineage of this world championship can be traced back to 1886 and has always been decided by matches between a champion and challenger in matches of games at these very long time controls. A tournament was held to determine the champion after the death of then champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946 which was the only exception to matches. FIDE (the world chess governing body) has had championship tournaments to crown FIDE champions but there is no direct line of succession and these champions are known as ‘FIDE’ champions and not the chess champion of the world.

  Carlsen and Karjakin settled their ‘Classical’ championship in a very unclassical way – they played a four game match at the time limit of 15 minutes + 10 seconds a move. Carlsen won the mini-match and kept his ‘Classical’ world championship crown. The aftermath led to a number of suggestions to avoid the classical championship being decided by a rapid chess match. Some advocated going back to the old rule that allowed the champion to keep the title in case of a tie match, which supposedly would make for more fighting chess since the challenger would know they had to win the match to gain the title. Another popular suggestion was to play the tiebreak match before the match with the similar idea of promoting fighting chess since the loser of the tiebreak match would have to win the classical match to be crowned world champion. My idea in the case of a tie match would be to declare the contestants co-champions and allow both players the right to play in the next Candidates tournament and instead of declaring the winner of the Candidates tournament the official challenger have the first two players compete in a match to be the next champion. I think the lack of drama caused by a tie match would be offset by having two champions both competing in a Candidates tournament.

  In December FIDE held their annual World Blitz (3 minutes + 2 seconds per move) and World Rapid (15 minutes + 10 seconds per move) championships. These are my favorite chess events of the year. The action is fast paced with 5 rounds of 15 minute action each day with 12 and 9 three minute rounds to view with the top players in the world battling each other in every round. The top players were Carlsen and Karjakin, top 10 players Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, former World champion Viswanathan Anand, and defending blitz champion Alexander Grischuk. Carlsen had a rough start with only a draw in his first two games before winning 4 games in a row. Carlsen then lost to former top player Vassily Ivanchuck, win two in row (including a win over Grischuk) before drawing Aronian and losing to Anton Korobov. With 4 rounds to go Carsen tied for 12th place, a 1 point and a half behind Ian Nepomiachtchi. With his back to the wall, Carlsen won his last four games including a win over Nepomiachtchi to claim tie for first place with Ivanchuk and Grischuk, who all scored 11 points out of the 15 games.

  Well, actually only Ivanchuk could claim first place because instead of having games to break the tie the regulations of the tournament proclaimed the first tiebreak to be the average rating of each players opponents which was Ivanchuk, with Grischuk taking second and Carlsen third. This put Carlsen at a competitive disadvantage since he was the highest rated player and didn’t get to play himself. Carlsen was also penalized for his poor start because it meant he had to play lower rated players in the middle rounds as he worked his way back to the top. There was a small amount of drama in the final round since Carlsen won first and still could have finished first if Ivanchuk had not won his game AND Grischuk’s game with Nepomiachtchi ended in a draw but all in all a lackluster finish compared to a playoff.

  Matters didn’t improve for Carlsen in the 21 round blitz championship that followed the Rapid tournament. He lost his game with Karjakin but quickly caught up and the two world championship contestants were far ahead of the field heading into the final round with Carlsen leading by a half point. Karjakin had clinched the tiebreak by playing slightly stronger competition than Carlsen who was again at a disadvantage by not getting to play the highest rated player which was himself. In the final round Carlsen could only draw with the black pieces while Karjakin won his game to tie Carlsen with 16.5 points out of 21 games and be declared champion on tiebreaks. The result seemed more legitimate than the rapid tournament since Karjakin did defeat Carlsen in the tournament but without some sort of playoff I fail to see why the winners of the blitz and rapid tournments couldn’t have been named co-champions. Unlike the ‘Classical’ championship where being world champion carries certain privileges like skipping the candidates rounds, the rapid and blitz world championships carry no privileges except for a trophy or a different medal.

  I can see having a computed tiebreak for NFL playoff spots where playing a tie break game would play havoc with the playoff schedule but I cannot see having one for a world championship chess tournament. FIDE should either have the players fight it out over the board or declare all the leaders as champions instead of using an artificial computation. I don't feel too bad for Carlsen though. He tied for first in the Classical, Blitz, and Rapid Championships but has only one title to show for it but at least it was the most valuable of the three.

For Some it Has to be All or Nothing

  The 2016 edition of the Grand Chess Tour (GCT) finished this past week with the conclusion of the London Chess Classic. The tournament was won by Wesley So, whose three wins, zero losses, and six draws enabled him to finish a half point ahead of U.S. champion and current World #2 Fabiano Caruana. So won the top prize of the entire tour by virtue of his victory in the London Chess Classic and his victory in the tours’ other classical time control event (the Sinquefield Cup) along with second and fourth place finishes in the two rapid play legs of the tour in Paris and Belgium. This year’s tour garnered far less attention than last years’ edition for one very important reason – the absence of World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

  Carlsen was allowed a wild card entry into the GCT’s two rapid events held earlier in the year but missed the Sinquefield Cup and London Chess Classic in order to defend his title against the Russian Challenger Sergey Karjakin. The championship was played in New York and received a considerable amount of mainstream press coverage. The first seven games of the 12 game match were draws. They were exciting battles with missed opportunities and skillful defense but could not be expected to retain the attention of the mainstream media which tended to put the match on the back burner until Karjakin managed to take the lead by winning game eight. Carlsen evened the score in Game ten and after two more drawn games the championship was decided in a match of four 25 minute games which was won by Carlsen. This was the second world chess championship out of the last four that was decided in a rapid tiebreak (Anand-Gelfand 2012 was the other). In the 12th and final game of the match, Carlsen had the white pieces but settled for a short draw without taking any undue risk. After winning the tiebreak match, Carlsen was lauded for having the self-awareness to realize he was more likely to retain his title by outplaying Karjakin in the tiebreak rounds rather than risk overpressing for a Game 12 win and losing which is what happened in the one game of the match he did lose. If Karjakin had won the tiebreak match and become world champion I doubt Carlsen would have been as lauded. I don’t think too much one way or the other about Carlsen’s choice because I don’t know the backstory. It’s possible that he was prepared to take more risks if Karjakin had played a different opening but perhaps was surprised in the opening and decided to bail out. No one knows and no one is telling.

  On Sunday the Tennessee Titans were trailing the Kansas City Chiefs 17-10 with 3 minutes left when they scored a touchdown to pull within one point. Instead of kicking the extra point, Titan coach Mike Mularkey decided to try to get the lead by going for a 2 point conversion instead of trying to tie the game on an extra point by kicker Ryan Succop who had made 33 of 35 extra points this season. In the first game of the season Raider’s head coach Jack Del Rio had a similar choice when his team scored a touchdown with 47 seconds left to pull within one point of the New Orleans Saints. Del Rio went for the conversion which was successful, and the Raiders won the game 35-34. The headline on this story was “Gutsy call lifts Raiders past Saints”. The call (and successful result) is seen as a masterstroke that propelled the Raiders to a 10-2 start and their best season in 15 years.

  On Sunday, Mularkey’s call didn’t look so good when the Titans failed to convert the 2 point conversion, leaving the Titans trailing by a point. The Chiefs were a first down away from running out the clock and winning the game but the Titans forced a three and out series, getting the ball back with a minute left which was just enough time to move the ball into field goal range for Succop to attempt a 53 yard field goal. The same Ryan Succop that wasn’t trusted to kick an extra point to tie the game. I think not trying to tie the game via the extra point was idiocy on Mularkey’s part. Even if the Titans had taken the lead via the two-point conversion, the Chiefs would still have gotten the ball with three minutes left which was more than enough time to attempt to retake the lead. If you tell me that Mularkey trusted his defense to stop the Chiefs and get the ball back in case the two-point conversion didn’t work I would ask if he didn’t trust his defense enough to give them a tie game to work with.

  I do have to acknowledge that Mularkey may have been on to something in not trusting his kicker. Succop missed the 53 yard field goal attempt BUT Chiefs coach Andy Reid played the ‘ice the kicker’ card and called a time out a fraction of a second before the snap. On the second attempt Succop made the field goal and Mularkey is being hailed as a genius (at least in this article).

  It is common practice for coaches and players to be judged by their results rather than the decisions leading to said results. In Game 7 of the World Series Cubs Manager Joe Maddon made several questionable decisions. He pulled his starting pitcher and catcher in the 5th inning with a three run lead and watched the replacements promptly give up two runs. Then after bringing in his closer in the 8th inning and watching him allow a game tying homer, Maddon sent him out for the 9th inning when another homer would lose the game and series. Luckily for Maddon the closer gave up no more runs, the replacement catcher hit a home run, the Cubs won the World Series for the first time since 1908 and Maddon’s account of the season is selling for $20 at the Hy-Vee drug store in Marshalltown.

  I didn’t think much of Maddon’s managing and Mularkey’s coaching but there was one recent risk it all decision I did agree with. The 5-8 Philadelphia Eagles were trailing the Baltimore Ravens 27-20 when they scored a touchdown with 4 seconds left in the game. Rather than kick an extra point, Eagles Coach Doug Pederson decided to go for a two-point conversion, saying after the game “I wanted to win the football game.” The two-point conversion failed and the Eagles lost the game. I don’t know if any reporter followed up with Pederson to find out if he knew that his team wouldn’t have disqualified themselves from winning by kicking the extra point but I do agree with his decision. Unlike the Titans (who are battling for a division title), the Eagles are a nothing team having a nothing year that followed up a 3-0 start by losing 8 of their next 10 games. They are going nowhere and there is no reason to not end the game as soon as possible. I tend to see Carlsen’s short draw in the final long game of the chess championship as an indication of his belief in himself while Mularkey and Pederson’s decisions to try to not get the score tied as indication of a panic move spurred by not believing their teams could outplay their opponents. The difference was Mularkey got bailed out and Pederson did not.

Extremists Everywhere

  Last week there was a mass shooting in San Bernardino California. Two weeks ago there was a mass shooting in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Last month there was a mass suicide bombing attack in Paris France.

  People who are in favor of stricter gun control are focusing their attention on the mass shootings as proof positive that there are too many guns in the hands of too many people. People who are against stricter gun controls are muted about the Planned Parenthood shooting while focusing their attention on the fact that the Paris bombings used suicide bombers as well as guns, the San Bernardino murderers used guns that were purchased legally in California under some of the strictest gun laws and if more people were armed less people die in mass shootings.

  Opponents of stricter immigration limits point out that the Planned Parenthood attack was performed by a ‘white terrorist’ and it is racist to want to keep Syrian refugees and other muslims out of the county while not assuming that all white people could be closet terrorists. Proponents of stricter immigration limits point out that the San Bernardino was carried out by seemingly normal people who converted to Islamic jihadists. The next question is usually how we can be sure that Syrian refugees being proposed to be resettled in the United States won’t become similarly converted. Soon to follow is how can a country with at least 11 million people residing illegally claim to have safe borders or be able to keep the population secure from even more terrorist attacks.

  All these shooters and bombers are pretty extreme. While the western world may not be at war with Islam it certainly appears that there are large parts of Islam at war with the western world. Presidential candidate Donald Trump got lambasted in the media for claiming that there were Muslims cheering the 911 attacks. I heard a lot of the same anecdotes at the time but now there doesn’t seem to be any written or recorded evidence. I do remember seeing pictures of large numbers of people in other countries wearing Osama Bin Laden t-shirts. Playing to people fears is a sure fire way to garner a certain amount of support and not being able to go to work or a supermarket or a planned parenthood facility without knowing whether or not you are going to be shot at or suicide bombed makes it easy for the fear mongers to do what they do best.

  The general consensus of America about Planned Parenthood shootings and the recent extremist attacks is to do everything and nothing at the same time. The right has a deadlock on any relaxation of gun control – not even to deny weapons to ‘non-violent felons’ where they are as intransigent as the left is in declaring that restrictions of partial birth abortions constitutes a ‘war on women’. In both cases one side sees any compromise as the harbinger to an all-out assault on what is seen as constitutional rights and when viewed through that lens it is reasonable to view any compromise as the first step to surrender.

  President Obama took to the airwaves on Sunday to ask for calm, gun restrictions from people on the no-fly lists, more screening on people entering the country without visas, and for Americans not to blame all Muslims for the San Bernardino attacks. He also said that the US was not going to send ground troops to the Middle East (even as the government is sending special operations forces to that region).

  While the President was been called a lot of names and his ideas called weak I’m not sure what anyone would expect. The country as a whole has decided that they are tired of sending troops to the Middle East where we have no friends and invested trillions of dollars and thousands of lives with very little to show for it. The constant air strikes have been damaging but not decisive. The forces we hope to back in that part of the world don’t seem capable of taking back their territory and likely an even money bet to defect to ISIS. It is easy for someone like Donald Trump to say they would keep all muslims out of the country because he isn’t in a position to make that order just like every presidential candidate in my life time has had a plan to balance the federal budget that has happened only once in my lifetime no matter how many presidents get elected.

  Personally I don’t see why if I have to prove to the State of Iowa that I am competent to drive a car why gun owners shouldn’t have to prove competency to own a firearm. I have no idea why anyone would ever need to own an assault weapon but the people I know who do have plenty of reasons most of which involve their basic human freedoms and rights which sounds a lot to me like the basic reproductive rights that allow any kind of abortion including the late term ones which sounds a lot to me like the basic human rights that are invoked whenever the subject of removing the 11 million plus people that are in this country illegally is brought up.

  So we have mentally unstable people and converted jihadists seemingly able to get firearms at will, millions of people in the country illegally and even if one in a million were terrorists that would be enough to have an attack like the one in Paris or the Boston Marathon bombings. Any attempts to solve any of these issues meets with such a hue and cry from the left or right that nothing gets accomplished. As extreme as the Islamist extremists and anti-abortionists are they can’t hold a candle to the extremists that run American politics.

  Speaking of extreme, my Monday basketball picks were extremely bad as I went 0-2 thanks to the Raptors dilly-dallying around with the Lakers and the Bulls blowing a huge second half lead. My current record stands at 15-10-1 with my mythical winnings down to $400. For tonight's picks I will be using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page for entertainment purposes only with mythical wagers of $110 per game to win $100.

There are 11 games on the schedule tonight and my computer likes 5 of the games. I will take the Timberwolves getting 1 at Denver against the Nuggets, The Hornets getting 3.5 at Memphis to face the Grizzlies, the Wizards getting 2.5 at the New Orleans Pelicans, the Spurs giving 14.5 against the visiting Lakers, and the Magic getting 3.5 points for their home game against the Cavaliers. My mind is screaming that these are all the wrong picks but so far this year the computer has been right far more often than my mind.

Transplanted Notions

  I held my latest youth chess tournament on Saturday. I had another great turnout and my self signup feature is working excellently. I was able to watch some of my students play and I was lucky to talk to some chess parents I only get to see once or twice a year. One of the parents and I got talking about politics and I was asked what I thought of the candidates. I mentioned that I appreciated Bernie Sanders' sincerity, Hillary Clinton would make the most competent President, I couldn’t imagine a President Trump being able to govern but many thought the same about Ronald Reagan and that my personal favorite would be Rick Santorum because I liked the way he discussed Pittsburgh sports on 1460-KXNO four years ago.

  I’m pretty eclectic in my political preferences but to me if you are who you say you are that’s really all I can ask of anyone. When the chess parent asked me who I was going to vote for I said that I wasn’t going to vote for any of the candidates but if I could sell my vote I would. Like most people the chess parent rolled his eyes but once I explained my position he understood where I was coming from.

  Now that the Iowa caucuses are just a few months away I’m started to be inundated with phone calls and television ads trying to convince me to vote for this candidate, that candidate, or the other candidate. A nice looking aristocrat named Jeb is on my television saying that he has a plan to create lots of good paying jobs, while Donald will make America great, and Bernie will look out for me and not the special interests. As I was writing this I was interrupted by a phone call asking me for my opinion on the election. Luckily I managed to dodge the phone interview by answering his first question (are you affiliated with or employed by a media, marketing, or journalistic company?) with the information that I am in fact an award winning journalist. The phone interviewer thanked me for my time without even waiting to hear about how I won chess journalism award for this blog five years ago!

  Everyone wants my vote but they are paying call centers, marketing companies, websites, newspapers, magazines, and television stations to get it. If I want groceries I go to the grocery store and not a call center or a marketing company. If I want insurance I go to an insurance salesman and not a television station. But if a politician wants my vote they don’t go to me for it, instead paying media outlets to convince me to vote for them.

  I’ve discussed this before and I think it’s only a matter of time before everyone is allowed to buy and sell votes just like any other valuable commodity. I noticed the controversy about the clandestine video of Planned Parenthood officers discussing harvesting and selling tissue and organs from aborted fetuses. Most people think this is the biggest scandal ever with the dividing line being whether the scandal is the selling of baby parts (like this opinion piece) or whether the scandal was the editing of otherwise innocent videos to discredit Planned Parenthood (like this opinion piece).

  I don’t know all the facts (although when people proclaim their innocence by saying they have ‘done nothing illegal’ it makes me wonder) but the thing that struck me is that aborted fetal tissue is valuable in the first place. This article from the Washington Post says that 2,000 cells from a fetal liver can be had from StemExpress for between $1800 and $2000. I’m not joking – StemExpress is a real company (here is their website). I went to StemExpress.com to get a catalog but stopped short of signing up for an account even though I can get 10% off my first order of $1,000 or more. Regardless of whether you think abortion a women’s health issue or the killing of the unborn or if Planned Parenthood is a provider of valuable services or a purveyor of infanticide one fact is indisputable – organizations like StemExpress and Planned Parenthood get a lot of money for these cells while the original ‘owner’ gets nothing.

  I had the television on as I was looking at the products offered by StemExpress.com. I was looking at their offerings in Bone Marrow and Maternal Blood when a commercial came on encouraging me to be an organ donor. I’ve never filled out an organ donor card although if I ever find myself in need of an organ I hope someone else has filled one out.

  Since I just discovered that fetal liver cells goes for around a dollar per cell my mind was wondering what a liver transplant would cost so I went looking on the internet. I found a site called www.transplantliving.org with a 2011 transplant price sheet and found that the estimated cost of a liver transplant in 2011 was $577,100. I found it interesting that while a heart transplant cost $997,700 and a lung transplant cost $561,200, a heart-lung transplant cost $1,148,400 which is a savings of $410,500 over having the procedures done separately. Other interesting tidbits were an intestine transplant cost more than a heart-lung transplant ($1,206,800) and at $262,900 the kidney transplant was the most economical transplant by $26,500 over the pancreas transplant.

  I knew that while it is perfectly legal to donate organs it is illegal to sell your organs for transplantation. What I didn’t realize was that this was only in place since 1984’s National Organ Transplant Act. The Act makes any organ transfer that affects interstate commerce punishable by a fine of up to $50,000 or up to years in prison or both.

  I think it would be OK for people to sell their organs except I don't want to have to pay for welfare and healthcare for one-kidney Karla or one-lung Larry while they spend their organ money on liquor, cigarettes, and Little Debbie's. But when an organ donor dies and their organs are procured for transplant why does every one from the company that procures the organ to the hospital to the physician to the drug companies make money on these organ transfers while the donor’s family gets nothing. The cost sheet shows that it costs $60,000 and up to procure the organ, $90,000 to $750,000 for the hospital stay during the transplant $17,000 and up for the physician, and $20,000+ for immune-suppressant drugs. If the organ can be donated why aren’t these services also donated and if these services aren’t donated shouldn’t the families of the organ donors be compensated also? I'm not saying hospitals, drug companies, doctors, and procurement specialists shouldn't make money but without the organ (donated or not) they have nothing to offer in the way of transplants yet the organ supplier's family is shut out of the money.

  Votes, stem cells, and vital organs - three commodities where everyone makes a profit except for the owners of the commodities themselves. I don’t know why I get so worked up about stuff like this but I do. Maybe it’s because so few people see the infringement not being able to sell what everyone else is making money off of. It looks like the only way I’ll be able to cash in will be to write the 21st century ‘1984’ with the organ donor, stem cell, and voting police instead of Big Brother.

The Law Of Numbers

  Despite the oncoming start of the college and professional football seasons the biggest story in the news this past week was the jailing of Rowan County Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis for refusing to issue not just same-sex marriage licenses but any marriage licenses. Davis has a deep seated religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman and hoped to avoid any charges of discrimination by refusing to issue any marriage licenses. Davis was not charged with a crime by the police or convicted by a jury of her peers. She was placed in jail by Judge David L. Bunning of the United States District Court for contempt by refusing his order to either issue marriage licenses or allow her deputies to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

  Davis is an elected official (making $80,000 a year) and can’t be fired for refusing to issue marriage licenses. Maybe since she has been married four times up to the present time she wishes someone had refused to issue her a marriage license once or twice or possibly three times. I think Judge Bunning thought that Davis would surely bend to his will by threatening jail time instead of a fine but he has misjudged Davis’s resolve and also misjudged the firestorm caused by the viral images of the innocent looking Davis’ mugshot. Davis has instantly become a conservative icon for her refusal to compromise her religious beliefs and I’m sure that there are book deals and speaking engagements in her future.

  The thing I’m noticing about this incident is how partisan the reactions are. Here’s a quote from presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s Facebook page “Having Kim Davis in federal custody removes all doubt of the criminalization of Christianity in our country. We must defend religious liberty and never surrender to judicial tyranny.” A rebuttal comment on Huckabee’s facebook page is “Religious liberty doesn't give someone the power to deny others their basic legal rights. Discrimination is discrimination….Kim Davis isn't in jail because of her values or beliefs but because she broke the law. This isn't persecution; it's justice.”

  Many of the comments and commentary are tilted to either one side or the other on this issue with the overriding factor not being the merits of the case but the underlying beliefs. I don't think I've heard what I consider the real reason Davis is spending Labor Day behind bars.

  Could you imagine an entire town not being able to buy pork? What if a religious Muslim was in charge of renewing food licenses and felt it was their religious duty to prevent unclean meat from being sold in town. I suppose he could also be jailed by a judge and hopefully a religious Jain wouldn’t take on the duties because then beef, fish, and chicken would also be off the table since a tenet of Jainism is that vegetarianism is mandatory for everyone. I’d hate to live in the town with an Amish building inspector who refuses to issue occupancy permits for buildings with electricity and running water. The movie industry could be erased if the California Film Commission were ever run by a member of one of the many flavors of religions that has a strict interpretation of idolatry.

  I don’t see how Davis’s religious liberty is being taken away. No one is making her participate in a same-sex marriage or telling her she has worship something or someone she chooses not to. She chose to run for county clerk and if part of the county clerk duties is to issue marriage licenses then she should either do it or take the compromise offered by the judge to let other members of her department issue the licenses. She is exercising her religious liberty by choosing to go to jail over her religious beliefs. Federal law makes allowances for workers to avoid tasks that they have religious objections to as long as the tasks can reasonably be carried out by someone else in the organization. Davis is preventing the tasks she objects to from being carried out at all.

  Davis and the people who are advocating so strenuously on her behalf are not defending religious liberty – they are defending Christian religious liberty and even then they are only defending Christian religious liberty in their flavor of Christian religious liberty (I’m taking the liberty of assuming at least some of the same-sex marriage recipients were married in a church that claims to be Christian in some way, shape, or form). I wonder if her defenders were at the forefront of France’s ban on headscarves in public schools.

  Now that I’ve had my turn at the Davis piñata, let’s look at things from the other side. It is not unreasonable to assume that there are few if no consequences for breaking laws or court orders? According to Federal Law, possession or use of marijuana is a federal offense. Yet there are four states that allow the sale and use of marijuana for adults 21 and over. In these four states there are tens of thousands of federal crimes being committed every day and every day there are tens of thousands of federal crimes not being investigated or prosecuted. At least 11 million undocumented aliens/illegal immigrants/pick your buzzword live in the United States illegally and instead of making sure that they are deported to the countries where they hold citizenship, lawmakers attempt to provide paths to citizenship and avenues to receive government benefits while business owners are silent as they profit from the use of cheap labor. When I drive to work there is not one car in ten that is obeying the posted speed limits. I’m included in this speeding group and complain for weeks when I get my semiannual speeding ticket but you will never hear a cry from me for stricter traffic enforcement. It shouldn’t be a surprise that no one has ever been held accountable for the economic meltdown of 2008 since so few people are ever held accountable for breaking the laws of the country. In my opinion, Kim Davis is definitely an outlier for being in jail for failing to follow a court order.

  One of the few times I can remember a large group being held accountable for their actions was when the air traffic controllers union went on strike in 1981. The strike was prohibited by a 1955 law. President Reagan gave the union two days to return to work and fired the controllers that didn’t return to work. Reagan also imposed a life time ban on rehiring the strikers. I never hear Republicans bring this up when they complain about President Obama’s executive orders. Even 35 years ago most people were shocked that the air traffic controllers were fired for their actions. Some of the fired air traffic controllers ended up working in the factory where I was working at the time and I remember how numb they seemed to be over losing their careers.

  There is strength in numbers and Davis’s big problem is she doesn’t have the numbers on her side. There were only 11,000 air traffic controllers and they had to pay the consequences of their actions while 11 million undocumented aliens/illegal immigrants/pick your buzzword and four states worth of marijuana users break the laws regularly with little to no consequences while ticketing every speeder would bankrupt the country. If Davis had the public backing she currently enjoys before her court hearing she wouldn't have spent a minute in jail but having none of it beforehand landed her in her current predicament.She was not jailed for her Christianity or her religious beliefs - she was jailed because she is a lone wolf in a country that placates mobs of like minded thought.

Grecian Formula

  “If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.” J. Paul Getty

  Europe is awash with controversy over whether to loan Greece more money than the 300+ BILLION EUROS it currently owes its creditors. This may not seem like a lot in America where our government is 18 TRILLION DOLLARS in debt and racking up another 300 BILLION DOLLARS (one Euro is worth 1.12 US. Dollars) is just a bad couple of months or a good eight months of borrowing but for Greece this is more than the annual Gross Domestic Product of the country for a year. Greece may not be thought of as a large nation but it has the 45th or so biggest economy in the world and is in the middle of the pack of European Union economies.

  When Greece entered the European Union and switched its currency from the Drachma to the Euro in 2002 it gained easy access to credit from the rest of Europe. 7 Billion Euros went to the 2004 Olympics and that doesn’t count the new airport and rail system put in place for the games. Public sector wages doubled and when citizens retire they receive up to 92% of their working salary as a 'pension' which is much like our Social Security.

  Greek’s debt was manageable until the great recession of 2008 hit and their unemployment rate skyrocketed from 7% in 2008 to 15% in 2010 to 20% in 2011 to its current 25%. At a time when the United States and the European Union are racking up huge deficits to stimulate their economies Greece is being asked to cut spending in order to get the money from the International Money Fund and the European Central Bank and the European countries that will be used to pay their International Money Fund, European Central Bank, and European creditors. Since pensions and state wages make up 80% of the government spending, any Greek government that attempts to cut spending has to cut pensions (by 40%) and wages (15% cut for state workers and a 22% cut in the minimum wage) and will soon lead to a new government. This has led to protests and the rise of a new parliament headed by Alexis Tsipras who ran on a platform of restructuring the debt and reducing the austerity measures. Tspiras gained a four month extension of the country’s loans in February and paid Russia’s Vladimir Putin a state visit but did not return with any coins for the country’s coffers.

  Tspiras wants a restructuring of Greece’s debt that will allow Greece to be forgiven a large portion of their debt while Greece’s creditors want to loan Greece enough money to allow it to keep making its payments if it adheres to its strict austerity measures. After the latest in a series of debt repayment deadlines was missed last week, Greece closed their banks and stock markets, only allowing account holders to withdraw 60 Euros a day from their ATM machines.

  When Tspiras could not successfully renegotiate the a new loan or a reduced debt, he called for a referendum to let the people of his country decide whether to accept further austerity measures in return for new loans. Predictably the vote was overwhelmingly against further pension cuts and taxes. Now a new deadline of July 20th has made the front page of the papers. That is the date Greece is due to repay 3.5 BILLION Euros to the European Central Bank which they have no way of repaying without a new loan. Think about that - Greece can't pay back ONE PERCENT of it's loan! If Greece doesn’t make the payment they risk being kicked out of the Eurozone group of countries that use the Euro currency.

  I can understand Greece’s creditors not wanting to write off portions of the money owed them even though as part of one of the many repayment loans Greece was allowed to write off some of their debt to private creditors. And I understand Greece has no reason to pay these loans back. Their unemployment rate is 25% (50% for youth), the country is mired in a recession or depression (choose your buzzword), and estimates show they will be paying back their debt until 2057. The latest proposal by Tspiras to secure new lending makes it appear that he has lost since the proposal agrees to the wage and pension cuts that the referendum overwhelmingly rejected.

  This looks like the world’s biggest game of chicken so far in the 21st century. The European Union seems willing to gamble that Greece will knuckle under and Tspiras will agree to continue the austerity cuts in order to get the loan. Tspiras has submitted a request for a new three year loan which supposedly includes concrete austerity steps. I cannot imagine Tspiras actually going through with the political suicide enacting his reforms will bring. I see this more as a way for everyone to cool off for a couple of years and hope the world economy rebounds so repayment becomes easier but Greece still has no way to balance their budget and therefore no way to repay this latest loan that will be spent on the next three years of loan payments. Three years from now Greece will owe even more money and still have no way to pay it back. The more they can borrow the more they will be able to borrow by threatening not to repay the loans. If Tspiras’s austerity steps are found to be lacking, will his creditors really pull the plug on what remains of the Greece economy by denying further credit? How will these creditors explain to their stockholders that they let a third of a TRILLION EUROS or more go into default with the Greece economy.

  It is easy to knock the people of Greece for giving raises to the public sector and pensions on the rest of Europe’s borrowed money, but the knockers probably won't be anyone that receives benefits from a country like the USA that is 18 TRILLION DOLLARS in debt which (like Greece) is more than the country’s gross domestic product. Personally I reserve my scorn for whoever kept on feeding Greece loan after loan after loan – wouldn’t it have become apparent before the repayment terms stretched to 2057 that the loans were not going to be repaid?

  No one thinks this can happen in the USA and right now it probably can’t because unlike Greece, the USA can print money through round after round of ‘Qualitative Easing’ and as long as people and countries buy our debt all is well and we can subsidize people's food, social security, medical coverage, etc…, etc… , etc… as well as corporate subsidies for farmers, the sugar industry, the oil industry, etc… , etc… , etc… I’m not saying these subsidies aren't worthwhile. I'm saying they aren't worthwhile at the expense of borrowing 18 TRILLION DOLLARS to provide them. If J. Paul Getty was alive today he would probably have to amend this quote to be ‘If you owe a third of a TRILLION EUROs you have a problem but if you owe 18 TRILLION DOLLARS whoever loaned it to you has a problem!’

Gas Attack

  From the Republican Governors Association website circa 2013 (here is the link):
“This tax day, Iowans will get to keep more of their hard-earned money thanks to Governor Terry Branstad, who signed the state’s largest tax cut in history. Governor Branstad’s tax cut is expected to provide Iowans with $4 billion in property tax relief over the next decade. Branstad’s opponent, Jack Hatch, wants to raise taxes on Iowans and proposed increasing the state’s gas tax. It’s clear Iowa should stick with the governor who has a record of putting Iowans’ hard-earned money back in their own pockets.” – RGA Communications Director Gail Gitcho

  Like it says above in June of 2013 Iowa’s Republican Governor Terry Branstad signed a 4 BILLION DOLLAR property tax relief bill into law. I’m normally in favor of reducing my taxes and I am a property owner but my property taxes went up and not down. Maybe I don't own the right kind of property since there was no relief for me. In 2014 Branstad was running for governor and his opponent Jack Hatch was in favor of a 10 cent gasoline tax to pay for road and bridge improvements. Branstad easily won his reelection and proving my long held belief that there is no such thing as more than one political party proceeded to champion and sign a 10 cent gas tax increase to pay for road and bridge improvements. The bill was signed two weeks ago and the new tax is expected to raise 215 million dollars annually.

  While I still haven’t seen any of my 4 BILLION DOLLAR property tax relief, I saw the 10 cent increase in gas prices within a week after Branstad signed the bill. In defending the bill Branstad called the tax hike a ‘true user fee’. State Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville voted for the tax increase saying in finest policitalese “The question is, is critical infrastructure needed, and is it needed right now.”. The new tax passed with largely bipartisan support and I could have quoted lots of comments but I'll restrict myself to these two.

  I’m sure the recent low gas prices emboldened Republicans and Democrats alike to take ‘more of their hard-earned money’ from the pockets of Iowans and Governor Branstad likely won’t be running for another term as governor and won’t have to defend this money grab. Personally I’m pretty fired up about the rationale for raising the price of gasoline in order to pay for a crumbling infrastructure.

  Iowa has been collecting 22 cents per gallon of gas sold in the state for the last 25 years. Where has that money been going? Did Iowa’s infrastructure situation get critical overnight or over the past year? Of course is hasn’t but the elected officials have found some other uses for the 400 million dollars a year they currently collect. How could Governor Branstad and the rest of Iowa’s elected officials pass a so called 4 billion dollar property tax cut when the state’s infrastructure is in such critical condition that a 200 million dollar tax hike is needed? Wouldn’t cutting taxes by only 2 billion dollars leave enough money to fix the infrastructure without having to raise taxes?

  I understand Governor Branstad’s comment about the new tax being a ‘true user fee’ but just because I understand it doesn’t mean it makes any sense to me. Yes I use the roads but what about people with electric cars? Where is their user fee? Is there a waiver for people buying gasoline for lawnmowers or snowmobiles that don’t use the infrastructure? The entire state benefits from having good roads not just people that buy gasoline. When counties across the state exercised their option to raise their local sales taxes the most vociferous arguments I heard for its adoption was that communities would be big winners because there were so many people from other areas that would make purchases and leave their sales tax money behind (the local option tax has since been usurped by the state and pooled among participating communities). Any community that is getting extra sales tax money from incoming travelers would benefit from any infrastructure improvements but don’t have to pay for the improvements.

  I would expect a ‘true user fee’ to apply the extra gas tax revenues on where the most traffic is. A likely candidate would be the Des Moines mixmaster which is by far the most traveled roads in the state - but NO. The first major road improvement is to make 30 miles of Highway 20 in northwest Iowa a four lane road. I haven’t been able to find out exactly how much the completion costs but I did find an article saying that converting an 11 mile stretch of route 20 to a four lane road will cost 82 million dollars and that 29 more miles will remain 2 lanes which leads me to an estimate of nearly 300 million dollars to finish the road. That’s over a year of the increased revenues going to a part of the state where less than 15 percent of the people live. It doesn’t sound like a ‘true user fee’ to me.

  And as long as I’m talking about ‘true user fees’ or user fees in general since when does the government run on user fees? Are school costs covered by taxes on people with school age children? No, but money from the Iowa Lottery is used to build schools. Marshalltown is going to have a vote on whether or not to raise property taxes to fund a bond issue for the library. If it passes I’ll have to pay for the bond issue. Why isn’t the library funded by user fees? If true user fees were important I would expect grocery stores to pay more taxes for food stamps ... I mean Electronic Benefit Transfer cards since they reap the profits from the food being sold and government workers to pay their fair share of all the rules and regulations that give them their jobs in the first place. And while I'm at it, shouldn't handicapped people be made to pay for any costs incurred by the Americans With Disabilities Act? OK I know I'm being a bit absurd but there is very little in the government that is paid for by 'user fees'.

  Having good roads and bridges in the state and more specifically a four lane highway in a desolate stretch of western Iowa isn’t seen as a benefit to the people of the state in general but only as a benefit to the ‘users’ that must be paid for in the form of gasoline fees. No one can explain why a state that spends 2 BILLION DOLLARS a year on its road system (it really does - you can read it here) has 27 percent of its urban roads in disrepair and I don’t have any confidence that and extra 200 million dollars is going to change anything. Now that the bill is passed and the price of gasoline has increased the big winners will be the people who own road construction companies that will probably eat up the extra revenue with their own price increases and the next time gas hits a decade low the Iowa legislature will hike the gas tax again and cite the reason for the hike as the deteriorating conditions of the state’s roads and bridges.

  I was discussing the new gas tax with a coworker and they said ‘There’s nothing you can do about it but pay.’ That’s true for the most part and I’ll be paying an extra 80 dollars or so to the State of Iowa instead of spending it in the State of Iowa. But there is a couple of things I can do. I don’t normally vote for any candidates from the major parties. I’ve never voted for Governor Branstad and probably won’t be able to ever vote against him but I will vote for the Democratic candidate for Governor from now on. My local Democratic representative is a Democrat and I have voted for him in the past because he has pointed people to my chess club but from now on I’ll be sure to vote for his opponent. Not that voting for either party really makes a difference but I’ll treat it as my Tums or Rolaids gas attack remedy.

  As if paying extra for gasoline in order to expand roads in Northwest Iowa wasn't enough, I got to contribute even more money when I was tagged for a speeding ticket this week. I was clocked at 76 in a 65 mile per hour zone on route 65 north where going 75 miles an hour will get you passed by every other car on the road. I was going to suggest to the trooper that was writing my ticket that he could follow our elected officials and raise highway money that way but then I remembered the last person who tried to give Governor Branstad a speeding ticket got fired for his trouble (you can read about it here).

A Quick Rebuttal

  There are quite a few things I don’t like about President Obama’s job performance. I like the idea of universal health care but his implementation of it has left the insurance companies with guaranteed profits and individuals on the hook for massive premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. I don’t think much of the idea of providing people who have come to this country illegally a ‘path to citizenship’ - I believe that only incentivizes people to come into the country illegally since if they can just hang around long enough they will also gain a ‘path to citizenship’.

  Speaking of immigration, I really dislike the idea of this President or any President deciding which laws to prosecute and which ones not to prosecute. President Obama’s decision not to prosecute illegal aliens is lauded by many but will a future president decide not to prosecute hate crimes, human trafficking, or murdering people you disagree with? It sounds silly today but gay marriage being a constitutional right sounded silly 15 years ago to, didn’t it?

  There are also some things I really like about President Obama’s job performance. When he took office in 2008 I was working at a place where people were getting laid off or taking pay cuts and 6 years later if I lose my job I could get a new one as quick as I could snap my fingers. In 2008 I was paying for my own health insurance and was told by Blue Cross/Blue Shield that because I had a knee operation in 2006 none of my joints would be covered by my insurance. I asked if I would be covered if I were to slam a car door on my hand and break my thumb and was told that I would NOT be covered because my thumb as well as all my fingers, toes, wrists, shoulders, elbows, and ankles were classified as joints. I don’t think that coverage could be denied me anymore but since the economy is way better than it was in 2008 I probably won’t have to test that assumption for a few years.

  Another thing I like about President Obama is that he doesn’t have a ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ mentality when it comes to foreign policy. Yes, Russia is invading Ukraine, Iran is trying to get a nuclear bomb, and people in the Middle East are killing each other. As minimal as our involvement is I think it is too much involvement, especially in the Middle East where burning the American Flag is a regional pastime. In answer to the people who wish we were more involved I would say that Ukraine has been getting invaded for the last thousand years, people in the Middle East have been killing each other for longer than that, and we haven’t made any progress in keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons except for the Stuxnet software attack on Iranian centrifuges. The major offensive this administration undertook in the Middle East was the use of NATO air strikes to effect a regime change in Libya and how did that work out?

  Now having said all that my wife got this email earlier this week:
Subj: FW: Breaking News - Bruce Jenner Transition Fires New Speculation
What do you think?
Wash. DC - Over the past year a rash of news stories surfaced speculating whether gold-medal winning Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner was undergoing a gender transition from male to female. Though Jenner has yet to publicly confirm the story, members of his extended family, including the Kardashian clan, have recently approached various news outlets confirming Jenner's intention.
Now it appears a number of world leaders have picked up on the story and are wondering aloud "What will happen to Jenner's balls if he completes the transition?" Sources this week quoted Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu as suggesting it would be a monumental step if Jenner were to donate his balls to U.S. President Barack Obama. Netanyahu stated "Everyone knows Obama has no balls and it would be damn nice if he suddenly had Olympic sized balls. It would be a huge step forward for world peace. ”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel remarked " I don't even have any balls, but everyone tells me I have a bigger set than Obama. I think it would be a great idea. ”
On the other hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Syrian President Bashar Assad in proclaiming that Obama's lack of balls has finally enabled a number of regimes worldwide a fair chance to consolidate their power. Putin, on a shirtless fly fishing expedition in Kanchatka, said "The days of U.S. Presidents with big balls like Reagan are over. Now it's our turn. “ Iranian President Hassan Rouhani remarked earlier in the week that "It's been great the last six years. It's like playing soccer against the U.S. with no goalie in their net. ”
While world leaders debate the issue, closer to home New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and Super Bowl MVP quarterback Tom Brady stepped forward to say they would each donate one ball to the President if Jenner does not come through. Belichick, however, cautioned that "The President would have to understand, our balls would be underinflated, but still probably an improvement over what he seems to be working with."


  I know this was meant as a funny kind of email and it was sent by someone I really like who is the parent of a veteran and one of the biggest believers in Jesus Christ that I know. This person also was a big supporter of George W. Bush and absolutely hated these goofy emails that would make fun of the previous president’s perceived lack of brain power or being in the pocket of Dick Cheney or etc…. It’s kind of sad to see even normal people get caught up in partisan stupidity like this kind of emails. Don’t forget that in 2001 then President Bush said of Putin "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul." What do you think Putin is saying about Bush today? Whatever he is saying I'm sure it is with a snicker.

  I don’t understand is why anyone would think President Obama lacks fortitude (I’ll use that word instead of the spherical description). Is Osama Bin Laden dead or not? When’s the last time the pirates from Somalia made the news? President Obama was mocked for making his ‘Red Line’ comment about Syria using chemical weapons because he asked Congress to give him approval for air strikes, but Russia was quite quick to broker an out for Syria to acknowledge it had chemical weapons and offer turn them over. Does that sound like Putin thinks President Obama lacks fortitude? It sounds to me like Putin thinks the President is slow to use force but deadly when he decides to use it.

  Like I said, I agree with the President on very little and I’m not naïve enough to think he is not just another politician that is any different than any other politician but this email (as jokingly stupid as it was) made me wonder what the person who wrote it and the people who forwarded it were thinking.

  I am going to show my fortitude by continuing to make my basketball picks despite a 2-7 record leaving me $570 mythical dollars in the hole with six weeks before the end of the regular season. And to show how much fortitude I have I'm going to switch to the moneyline and risk some large bets on the favorites using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page for entertainment purposes only.

Cleveland Cavaliers at Atlanta Hawks
I was treated to the game of the year on Sunday when the Houston Rockets eeked out a two point overtime victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers that featured physical play, kicks to the groin, and a near fight. Even though the Cavaliers lost they are looking more and more like a championship team that can play with finesse or physicality so I will pick them to make a statement and beat the league-leading Hawks on the road and give the 2 points.

Detroit Pistons at Houston Rockets
The Rockets beat the Cavaliers last Sunday and nearly beat the Hawks on the road Wednesday without all-world guard James Harden while the Pistons have lost four games in a row. The Pistons beat the Rockets at home on January 31st and I expect them to hang close so I'll wager $290 on the money line for a Rockets victory.

Dallas Mavericks at Golden State Warriors
The Warriors are finally back at home after a six game road trip that saw them go 3-3 with embarrassing losses to the Nets and Pacers. The Mavericks are on the second night of back to back road games and were blown out by the Trailblazers last night. I don't care for the line of 10 points so I'll pick the money line and bet $600 to win $100 that the Warriors will win.

Los Angeles Lakers at Memphis Grizzlies
In this matchup of one of the worst teams in the league against one of the best, I'll give the 8-1 odds and put $800 on the Grizzlies to win $100 (assuming a Grizzlies win).

Misremembrances

  I follow the news on the Internet or the newspapers instead of television so it should be no surprise that I’m always dumbfounded by the reverence and trust television viewers hold for their favorite local and national news anchorpeople. I never thought the news was any different whether Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite or Peter Jennings or Katie Couric was reading the news from the teleprompter. I always thought the best anchorman were like the best sports referees or the best chess tournament directors for that matter – unnoticed. But to get big ratings and big paychecks anchorpeople have consistently tried to become more and more opinionated and appear more like the newsmakers than the news reporters. Bill O’Reilly, Rachael Maddox, Rush Limbaugh, and even comedians like Steven Colbert and Jonathan Stewart have become cult figures whose followers take most of their utterances as gospel without even realizing that they are more like actors playing a part than objective news reporters.

  NBC Evening News anchor Brian Williams was recently suspended for six months when he either at most told tales of being in an Army helicopter in Iraq that was hit in by a RPG (rocket propelled grenade) and forced down in the desert or at least didn’t correct anyone that made the assumption. As I read the CNN timeline it seems as if there is a lot of wordplay going on to make it seem as if Williams was actively lying about whether his helicopter was actually fired upon and hit by a RPG.

  I’m sure Williams is very embarrassed at being caught out but at least his explanation is semi plausible, unlike the many politicians of late that lied about military service in order to impress the electorate or donors. In 2012 Democrat Ken Aden lied about being in the Green Berets even though the 10 year veteran who served in Iraq should have very little to prove in the military service department. In 2010, Illinois congressman Mark Kirk claimed he won the ‘Navy Intelligence Officer of the Year’ award while locked in a Senate race. Even this paled to 2010 Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal repeatedly claiming he served in Vietnam when in reality he received five deferments and was in the Reserves. It’s not just a guy thing either. In 2008, Hillary Clinton reminisced about evading sniper fire during a 1996 landing in Bosnia and having to run across the tarmac. She said this in order to demonstrate something or other about her foreign policy experience but had to back off her statements when a CBS news video showed her being greeted by a young girl and no snipers.

  I can understand a news anchor like Williams wanting people to think he was in harrowing combat near-death experiences but I’ll never understand why politicians would make up fables of military service. Can you name the last veteran to be President? It was George Bush, who was a pilot in World War II. Since then we have 24 years of presidents that haven’t been in combat (George W Bush was in the Reserves) and in their 6 elections defeated two World War II veterans (Clinton defeated Bush and Bob Dole) and three Vietnam veterans (W. Bush defeated Al Gore and John Kerry while Obama defeated John McCain). I’m not saying that these 5 candidates that served overseas (Gore was a journalist but the rest were in combat to varying degrees) didn’t help but they certainly didn’t help enough to get them elected. In the heartland state of Iowa, Iraq veteran Joni Ernst won her Senate seat over Bruce Braley and her military service undoubtedly helped but I’m of the opinion that Braley’s video to the Texas lawyers had much more to do with his defeat than his lack of military experience. Not only is military service not a guarantee for winning an election false claims of military service easy to disprove and make a mockery of the candidate.If I was a political candidate I'd start telling tales about sewing quilts before I tried to lie about military service.

  In my opinion, Williams is being unfairly castigated. He WAS in a group of helicopters over Iraq and they WERE fired upon and they DID have to land. Making up stuff is not so good but as someone who nearly threw up when a plane going from Des Moines to Denver took off I have to give Williams credit for being in Iraq in a helicopter that could be shot down at any second. Not as much credit as the soldiers who were actually operating the helicopters and staring at getting fired upon every day but credit nonetheless.

  I think Williams biggest crime was his fame as a network anchor. I’m not excusing his lies or mistruths but he is just a guy on the television that reads the news and not a newsworthy person in and of himself. Any power he has is conferred upon him by the viewing public that trusts him and believes him. He has betrayed their trust but I have to question the wisdom of anyone that hangs on the words of a talking head on television with unfettered belief and trust.

  I doubt I’ll ever be a network anchorman but if I ever become one instead of lying about my military experience I’ll probably have to fabricate some stories about my great basketball picks since I went 1-2 last week to run my record to 1-5 and am down $450 mythical dollars. I could have been 2-1 but with two seconds left and his team leading by two points, Timberwolves forward Kevin Martin missed two free throws that kept the team from covering the 2.5 point spread against the Suns. Bad breaks are part of sports predictions but so are good breaks some of which I'm overdue for when picking tonights NBA games using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page for entertainment purposes only with no real money is being wagered.

Milwaukee Bucks at Los Angeles Lakers
The woeful Lakers have won two games in a row including a road win over the red hot Utah Jazz but I predict the streak will end against the visiting Bucks who will easily cover the 5.5 point spread.

Orlando Magic at Atlanta Hawks
The Eastern Conference leading Hawks rebounded nicely from last Friday's home blowout loss to Toronto with double digit wins on the road to the Bucks and at home against the Mavericks. The Magic's three game winning streak crashed on Wednesday when they lost a game to the Heat when they were ahead by 8 points with a minute left. I'll pick the Hawks to cover the 11 point spread against the hapless Magic.

Charlotte Hornets at Boston Celtics
These two teams are on the periphery of the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Celtics have won two in a row since their embarrassing loss to the Lakers while the Hornets just broke their four game losing streak by beating the Bulls in an impressive road win. I like the Celtics pickup of Isiah Thomas to have his way against the injury depleted Hornet backcourt and will pick the Celtics to cover the two point spread.

An Interesting Month

  It’s been a busy month in Marshalltown Iowa – the All-American city I call home. The last time I wrote about Marshalltown concerned the controversy surrounding the suspension of a high school football player for three games after pictures were posted on social media of him making a ‘White Power’ W hand gesture. The lawsuit is proceeding apace, the suspension was reduced to two games by the Iowa High School Athletic Association (don’t ask me why), and High School Principal Aiddy Phomvisay has tendered his resignation to take a job with the Des Moines school district as the assistant director of the Central Campus. Phomvisay had been absent for months from his principal duties and if the Central Campus has a football team I hope for his sake he has learned from his Marshalltown experiences and will not cross swords with King Football anymore.

  Last month Vince at the Jiffy was robbed at knifepoint while working the overnight shift. Convenience store clerks are trained to put their large bills in a drop safe so the robber only got a little bit of money and as many cigarettes as he could carry out. Four days later the Kum & Go convenience store got robbed by the same people but this time the crook and his accomplice were caught and arrested. There’s a robbery in the local convenience stores every couple of years but this one was different because the criminals (the robber and his getaway girlfriend) were caught.

  In last year’s post I mentioned how Marshalltown was at the top of the Google search rankings for ‘Iowa Corpse Abuse’ and now the town has another top Google rank – this time for ‘Iowa dousing people with gasoline’. On January 14th, Eddie De Los Santos was having a domestic disturbance with his girlfriend and her mother when he doused them with gasoline and set them on fire which unsurprisingly caused a fire in the apartment building less than half a mile from my house. De Los Santos is currently in custody and many of the convenience stores in town have cans set up for donations for the burn victims.

You'll know your town is going downhill when the shootings DON'T make the news...

  Those cans didn’t last very long as they were soon replaced by cans soliciting donations for Dedrikk Fisher, a 20 year old man who was shot to death on January 18th on the 1200 block of W. Church Street, a very far away mile and a half from my home. There was a candlelight vigil for Fisher and the suspect (Jose Morales) was swiftly identified and a city wide hunt was on for him. Marshalltown has a few murders every year. I don’t think too much about the crime rate in town. I’ve been parking my car on the street for the past 20 years and once got a bb dent in a door. My neighbor’s house to the south was broken four years ago but I think that was by someone they knew based on the people that were hanging around their kids and that a window was broken and a game system stolen within a few minutes. I’m not saying that I leave my doors and windows open and unlocked when I not home but getting my car windows broken in New Jersey was a every couple of year occurrence and murders rarely made the front page of the paper so I don’t think too much of a couple of murders or robberies.

I went to get my mail and a SWAT party broke out up the block...

  I was working at home on Thursday. I was on the phone with a customer around 3pm and walked out the front door to check the mail. There was no mail but there was a roadblock on the corner and some police cars and one of those camouflage SWAT trucks. The customer on the phone was from Iowa and knew all about the recent news and wanted me to send him a picture of the roadblock. I took a couple of pictures and posted them to Facebook and went back to work.

  At 5pm when Kathy and I went out to take Daisy and Baxter for their walk the street was still cordoned off and there was over 100 people hanging out by the roadblocks. People of all ages, races, languages, and religions were talking to each other like old friends speculating about what was going on and what was going to happen next. There were cars parked on both sides of the street for blocks. Everyone thought that the suspected murderer was holed up in one of the houses but I suggested that maybe someone stole Marshalltown’s All-American City awards and the SWAT team was needed to get it back.

Who needs cable when you have this kind of entertainment up the street?

  I had a meeting at 6:30. When I went to leave the street was still cordoned off and even more people were hanging around. I didn’t want to lose the parking space in front of my house so I slipped down the alleyway and took my Kia Rio out of the garage for a rare trip around town. When I got back an hour later I could hear popping sounds coming from up the block. It sounded a lot more like the machines at the ball games that shoot hot dogs and t-shirts into the crowd than gunfire so I assumed that teargas canisters were being fired. When I got to the front of the house the same crowd was still there talking about whether they could smell the teargas or not so I knew my guess was right.

  The story in the paper the next day said that 30 tear gas canisters were fired into the house up the block at 514 N Center St but Jose Morales was not found in the house. Morales was arrested the next day on the south side of town. So that was the month in Marshalltown and it was all pretty depressing except for the impromptu block party that broke out during the SWAT raid up the block. It was such a busy month that I never even got the chance to talk about the police shooting and killing of an armed man down the block from the Jiffy the week before Christmas. This was during the height of concern over police shootings in Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York but once it was determined the victim was armed and not a minority it became old news quickly.