Hawaii: Tropical Paradise Or Heaven On Earth?

I have been keeping up a little bit with news while on this trip, but really, not with enough interest to have any sort of serious opinions on the subject, so no news stuff while I'm here, although I will go out on a limb to say that I'm happy that the Eagles had such a good game, and sad that they chose to wear those ass-ugly throwback jerseys such that every time ESPN is going to show footage of their one good game of the year, we have to keep seeing bright yellow and sky blue all over the place.

Anyhow, on Monday, after sleeping in a little, Mikey, Kristie, and I went to an 'orientation meeting' run by the timeshare complex. In true capitalist fashion, it was a way of introducing us to many of the various activities that we can partake of on the island, while also trying to sell us something. In this case, the 'something' was a Diamond Card, which is a discount card that would allow us to buy all sorts of services, from tickets on a cruise ship to a helicopter trip around the island to horseback trips up in the mountains, for a discount from retail.

To 'buy' the Diamond Card, Mike and Kristie were going to have to sit through a presentation by the complex's concierge trying to sell them more timeshares. I was thinking about volunteering to be the guinea pig, since there was really no way that I could be sold a timeshare if I were not at gunpoint, but it turns out that they only offer the presentations to married couples, which I'm pretty sure violates some federal law or other, but this didn't really bother me enough to raise a stink.

Anyhow, after that, we headed up into Kailua-Kona town to try and find some rental snorkel gear for Kristie. We stopped at a Japanese restaurant for lunch; not for sushi so much as the noodles-and-things type of Japanese. It was great, definitely the best Japanese food I've had since leaving Japan. Although, several people I knew in Japan would probably tell me that this was because I had, finally returned to Japan. Lots of Japanese people basically consider Hawaii to be Japanese territory where you happen to spend dollars and have to speak at least a little English to get around.

Anyhow, after this we wandered around the coast a bit, snapping pictures like this one:
Not bad, huh?

After that we headed back to that beach I was at the first day. We did at least another hour of snorkeling, maybe more. I got some pics with one of those underwater disposables, although it remains to be seen whether any of them came out at all. I'll be sure to let you know after getting back to the mainland. One of the cool touches this time is that two sea turtles had come into the bay and were hanging out about 3 feet offshore, feeding on the rock formation there. So I got some cool up-close experiences with them.

On our birthday, we got up early and headed down to the dock for a snorkeling trip. We rode out on the Seaquell, with captains Matt and Doug. First we headed out to the bay where Captain Cook's monument is. Here's the monument itself:

Then we headed out to Kealakekua Bay, which is quite remarkable. 40 feet deep, and you can see it as clearly as if it was in the air instead of underwater. Entering the water, Mikey insisted on doing the 'Jacques Coustou', which was captain Matt's name for doing a backflip off the side to show off. Needless to say, instant karma hit, and his snorkel fell off his mask and to the bottom of the 30-foot bay. Incredibly, Captain Matt dove in and, after a few false starts, recovered it, earning himself a healthy tip at the end of the trip.

After that, we were back to the monument, although with a few stops in various sea-caves along the way. Here's the view from inside one of the caves:
The rest of the day was mellow, as we lased around the apartment and nursed our imminent sunburns. Turns out that swimming around in the water for 4 hours of blazing sun with your back up, that there is basically no way of keeping your back from burning. Ah well - I regret nothing!

That night we went to a great luau, where we learned about the cultures of 4 different Pacific peoples; Samoan, Hawaiian, Maori (New Zealand), and Fijian. We saw some traditional dances. Here's a pic of Bob the resident Samoan opening a coconut, and also a Maori fire-knife dance.

Yesterday was 'lase around and do nothing' day, which was great fun. Today we are off for the rest of the island; coffee plantations and roasters, black sand beaches, waterfalls, and Volcanoes. I'll be sure to have some good pics whenever I log on next, which will probably be not until I get home on Saturday.

Mahalo!

Aloha III: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Jetlag

And an update from this morning: happily, I was able to get to sleep pretty easily after picking up Mike and Kristie at the airport, and slept well until 7 this morning. So, my usual traveling strategy
for defeating jetlag wins again. It's pretty simple, really. Just don't sleep nearly enough, nor eat enough, while you're flying. By the time you land, you've so thoroughly confused your body that it has no idea if it's tired, or hungry, or whatever. It's a great place to be. You can kind of muddle along for hours and hours and hours. Whenever there's food in front of you, you realize you are hungry and eat it. Whenever you lay your head on a pillow, you're asleep within minutes. But you can keep in this state until bedtime, and then when you wake up you are reasonably close to adjusted to local time. Hooray!

The time difference here is a little weird. Having all the same shows on TV, only being 6 hours behind Eastern Daylight time, is rather strange. It's 8 AM and I'm watching Ahmadinejad talking at Columbia. Not much in the way of meat to the speech so far, but maybe he'll get to some interesting stuff a bit later on.

Saw a lot of talk on the morning talk shows here about some pretty raucous baboons in South Africa. I wonder, in particular, if the restaurant in the article serves wine from twist-open bottles, or if the baboons have figured out how to use a corkscrew?

Also, very strangely, people on the morning news crews here (in other words, the people who break in for the local weather and news updates) wear Hawaiian clothes like Hawaiian shirts and leis while they are talking. This is weird. I would be surprised if, while watching the Today Show in Dallas, the weather man was wearing chaps, spurs, and a Stetson (stereotypically Texan clothes), or the news woman had huge hair and giant fake boobs (stereotypically Dallas outfit). Okay, the second wouldn't actually surprise me much.

Today: an introduction to the island run by our resort, some more snorkeling, and who knows what else?

Aloha II

And here's the second:

Now I'm in Kona. Can I just say I hate jet lag? I'm too tired to do anything, but somehow I can't get to sleep, either, even though my internal clock thinks it's 11:30 PM and I've slept about 4 hours in the last 24.

Landing in Kona is pretty frickin' cool, I must say. You come in over the ocean, and because you're coming in from the cloudy side of the island, you're above a pretty solid cloud cover. Looking out the right side of the plane, where I was sitting, and all of a sudden: holy shit, there's a mountain poking out through the clouds!

Then you're through the clouds and over the open blue ocean, and like Red says at the end of The Shawshank Redemption, it is every bit as blue as it is in your dreams.. As you get near the land, you can see coral formations in the shallower water. The only downside of the landing is that the first land you pass over is a mudflat, not a pure sandy beach. But still, you are going parallel to the shoreline as you land, and the ocean is maybe 300 feet away. Hard to beat.

As for the island itself...well, I can definitely see why they felt that this was an appropriate place to tape Lost. It's pretty, um, amazing. Gorgeous. Beautiful. I went snorkeling at a beach which is about a mile from the timeshare condo, and it is completely ridiculous. 10 feet from shore, and there's 5, 6, 8 inch fish swimming around you. 100 feet from shore, and it's like you've dropped into the saltwater tank at the Baltimore Aquarium (or Shedd, or Ocean Adventure, or what have you.)

The unfortunate thing is that Mikey's flight was delayed, so they are landing sometime after midnight local time. Which is something like 4 AM by my internal body clock, but fortunately my internal clock is so damned confused that it might not mean much of anything at that point. I'm hoping I can sleep a little bit before then, at least.

Maybe that should be Hawaii's new motto: “All the jet lag of international travel, only you don't have to change currencies!”

Aloha!

Okay, I'm posting now from the lodge we're staying at in Kona. Internet is not actually free here, so I'm not sure I'll be on every day to post, but I'll do my best. I did write a couple posts yesterday while travelling, here's the first:

A few quick thoughts while I write, but not post, from my layover at SFO airport.

• 2:45 is an entirely inappropriate time to have to wake up in the morning, I don't really care what the hell the reason is.

• It's good to know that American driving standards have fallen to the point that I will get tailgated at 3:05 AM in the right lane of a 65 mph highway, at least until I slow down to 45 to convince them that they really want to be in front of me.

• One upside of the whole 'I got hit by a car' thing was being able to beg myself an Economy Plus seat on the Denver-to-San Fran leg of the trip. For the San Fran-Kona leg, the very nice but not very helpful gentleman told me that I could also have an Economy Plus seat for the low-low price of $54, or $10.80 per inch of legroom. I decided to pass, since I currently have my own two-seat row to myself, although I might try the old 'wait until everyone else has gotten on the flight and take the best seat left' trick.

• The only upside that I can see of taking a 6 AM flight is a phenomenon that I remember from my childhood, but had pretty much forgotten about, kind of like Fraggle Rock: the empty middle seat in a 3-seat row. Good stuff, legroom.

• Being in San Fran, I am viscerally reminded of the existence of Asian people. This is probably no surprise to any of my faithful readers who, for instance, live in Asia. But living in the metro Denver area, it's easy to forget that the world isn't just a whole bunch of white people, with a few token blacks and hispanics thrown in for diversity's sake.

• Okay, they're starting to board the plane, so more later.

Ponnuru Guilty Of Broderism?

Ramesh Ponnuru proves, again, that he is one of the most clear, coherent thinkers on the right in today's column about taxes in the Times. But he proves, incidentally, the way that wacko Republicans consistently beat out the Dems in political struggles; their willingness to simply say things that they have no intention of following on, while actually putting effort into putting their true agenda into place.

I think this is the fundamental problem with Broderism, a.k.a. the High Church of Centrism, which holds that the solution of every problem is for people to compromise, find the center, and enact the policy. Which is great, if both sides are actually interested in solving problems. But if one side is only interested in using the issue to score political points, there's no compromise to be found.

And here, Ramesh makes the mistake of assuming that, because Giuliani and Romney say they are interested in the welfare of the middle class, that arguments about which tax policy would best advantage the middle class might be productive.

Unfortunately, that's just not the actual position of the elite Republican class these days. They have drunk deeply of the yummy grape kool-aid of supply side economics, so the answer to every question is 'cut taxes on the rich!'

To me, the money quote that shows how Ponnuru is swimming uphill here:

Many of the working-class social conservatives on whom the party relies are parents trying to make ends meet, or young people who want to start families but have financial worries. They have no particular attachment, or hostility, to free-market principles. A Republican Party that found a conservative way to meet their economic needs would both hold and expand its base.

He is making the rash assumption that the Republican Party is 'conservative'. And the fact is, on tax policy, that concept went out the window almost 30 years ago...

This Shit'll, Like, Blow Your Mind, Man

So wait...there's a doping scandal in pro cycling?

I am shocked. Shocked!

That's Not Something You See Every Day

An article at ESPN.com's Page 2 about why the University of Delaware (Fightin' Blue Hens) refuse to play Delaware State. Honestly, I always assumed DSU was a Division III school, not I-AA just like UD. Interesting article. It does seem pretty clear that Delaware is ducking the game, mostly out of a paternalistic attitude towards the state's mostly-black college that is really astonishingly offensive in 2007.

But still. To see the word 'Delaware' in an article in any publication other than the Wilmington News Journal? Well, it just brings a warm feeling to the cockles of your heart, dunnit?

Chicka-Chicka-Bow-Wow...

Zeitlin the Younger notices the abundance of late September birthdays. As a possessor of just such a natal event, I've often noticed that it seemed that I always had more friends with birthdays in the September 15th-October 15th period than any other month. In fact, this year, Faithful Readers D.C. and J.D. and I are planning a triple-30th Megabash on Friday, while Faithful Reader Michael and I will be spending a week in Hawaii to celebrate our fatefully coordinated day of birth.

My theory has always been that, if you count backwards 9 months from late September, you get to late December. Okay, that's not really a theory, more like an observation. The theory is that, around the end of December, there are lots of celebratory events; Christmas, Hannukah, New Years', etc. Throw in the cold weather, the early sundown, and it sounds like prime baby-making season.

I do wonder if in countries where their holidays don't match up to ours (China, for instance), they have a different time of year when birthdays peak?

Also, along these lines, it amuses me that Denver is expecting 20% more births this October than in a usual October, in commemoration, as it were, of the Blizzard of 2006, when consecutive major storms on December 22nd and 29th basically shut down the town for 2 1/2 weeks. Good stuff.

Breaking News! Dog Bites Man! Film At 11.

Once again, the wonderful powers of our magical democracy are brought to the forefront, as 43 Republicans and Joe 'Kill 'em all and let Hashem sort 'em out' Lieberman scuttle the bill, originally proposed by Congressman Murtha, to assure that troops will be given at least as much time at home as they were deployed overseas before they could be sent abroad again.

Because, you know, you have to support the troops. By riding them like overburdened pack mules.

Don't Taser Me, Dude!

Lots of hubbub about Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student who was tased while trying to escape police who corralled him while he was hectoring John Kerry at an appearance last week.

I doubt I have anything particularly informative to add to the conversation, but it seems to me that, while you absolutely have the right to public speech, you do not have the right to public douchebaggery, and that this guy absolutely crossed the line. Similar to the Code Pink ladies who kept interrupting Petraeus' testimony last week on the hill, I definitely do not believe that the right to free speech allows you the absolute, inalienable right to say whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want.

The standard example, of course, is the fact that you don't have the right to disturb the peace by, for instance, yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater. I would argue that this means you don't have the right to interrupt the serious business of the state with your speech. If Code Pink members want to hang out in the back and hold up signs or banners, more power to them. But chanting and shouting prevent the state's business from being executed, and there has to be some ability to make sure that this doesn't happen.

Likewise, while Meyer absolutely had the right to ask Kerry a hostile question, he doesn't have the right to shout wildly at him, and he definitely lacks the right to resist arrest by trying to escape from the police officers. Should they have tased him? Probably not on the grounds of his conduct. But on the moral grounds that he was acting like an assclown, with no real goal but to make trouble and get attention, yeah, I could probably be convinced of that.

And The Civil War Wasn't About Slavery

Lots of discussion on the 'sphere this week about a comment in Alan Greenspan's upcoming memoirs that "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq War is largely about oil."

Needless to say, most of the liberal bloggers are writing something along the lines of, 'duh!' While most of the conservatives are writing something about how it's not at all about the oil, it was about preserving stability in the region, or how Saddam was a threat to the region, something like that.

Which is almost certainly true. He was a threat to the stability of the region.

But why do we care about the stability of the Middle East, and not so much about the stability of sub-Saharan Africa? Because, not to put too fine a point on it, 'the region' known as the Middle East is full of oil.

Backdate

A quick health update: got in to see the doc again this morning. Nothing very exciting came out of it; he said it's spasming and swollen. Lots of ice, lots of ibuprofen, and as much walking as I am comfortable doing (apparently the motion is good for keeping things loose.) He also wrote me a scrip for some vicodin, mostly to help me get through the plane flights to and from Hawaii, which I am really not looking forward to. As a 6'3" guy with two tricky knees, flights are unpleasant enough as is, the addition of a back that stiffens up after 20 minutes isn't helping.

But things do seem to be getting a bit better with serious application of ice and rest. I did go for a 25-ish minute walk tonight, which wasn't terrible, but didn't seem to make things any better either...

Two Things I Know

At about 4:30 yesterday afternoon, my back suddenly realized 'Holy Shit! I got hit by a car!' and seized up pretty good. So I've been holed up since then on my couch, alternating heat and ice, and digging into my stash of vicodin leftover from my ACL surgery in November.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been too effective, so I'm back to the clinic in a few minutes for a doc's appointment.

So, one thing I know is that backs suck. Another is that, in the grand scheme of things, this still isn't a very big deal. Faithful Reader M.S. (many of you know her, feel free to contact me privately if you feel that you Need To Know Details) revealed yesterday that, over the weekend, she was diagnosed with a pituitary macroadenoma, a benign growth that gave her some headaches over the weekend.

After doing some reading it sounds like the prognosis, while serious, isn't anything to freak out about. Nonetheless, I would appreciate it if everyone would send some good thoughts M.S.' way. If you have any spare good thoughts, I'm sure my back would appreciate the help.

The Lamentable State Of The True Sports Fan

The state of the NFL after 2 weeks:

1) The Patriots are depressingly good. I think the Chargers are going to end up being much better than they looked in New England on Sunday, but the Patsies are definitely the real deal. It seems like the only thing that might slow them down are a Brady injury, Moss going all TO-bitch-ass crazy, or it turning out that Belichick is a much bigger cheat than shown so far and getting his ass kicked out of the league.

2) Yeah, the Falcons bandwagon was apparently a gussied-up Pinto, and has already gone over the embankment and burst into flames in midair. But I just hopped over to the Jeff Garcia-driven Bucs bandwagon.

3) You have to think that the Saints are going to start scoring some points, but man oh man do they look bad right now.

4) And speaking of bad, your (well, my) 2007-08 Philadelphia Eagles! Holy crap, what a distressingly bad team. I actually didn't want us to tie the game last night, because we'd end up going to overtime, and I just couldn't stomach watching it anymore. The Birds are traditionally a slow-starting team, so I'm not panicked yet. But man oh man oh man that team looked like three-day-old ass in that game.

I have reduced expectations for Donovan, because I know it's going to be 18 months before he is back to 100%, and a QB with a bad knee is going to have his throwing motion affected. Given that McNabb's throwing has never been flawless to begin with, you have to expect he's going to have inaccurate nights like last night.

But for Pete's sake...Westbrook was averaging about 7 yards every time he touched the ball. Just give him the damn ball! I know you have to get the receivers involved, but the fact is they sucked all night. At some point, just ride Westbrook to get the win, and worry about next week next week.

I think it may have finally come time to admit that Reid may have just run his time in Philly. He did a really remarkable job keeping this team competetive for a long time, including that remarkable run of 4 straight NFC championship games. But they look bad, and boring, and frankly all us fans are exhausted of the whole 'wow, we don't have a single pro-caliber wide receiver' thing. I know Stallworth wanted to get paid in the offseason, but you know what? You were great with him. Now you traded him for Kevin Curtis, and the offense is pathetic.

Okay, I need to get out of here before I just start swearing uncontrollably. Fucking Eagles.

Four!

In Slate today, a wonderful Human Guinea Pig about the joys (or, more specifically, lack thereof) of the sport of golf. In particular, I am completely tickled by the utter Bob Wrightism she writes about in the second paragraph, when he declares, at the end of a bad round, 'this has been borderline unpleasant.' Classic Bob!

Any Faithful Readers out there who happen to be Drew are familiar with my general contempt for the game of golf. There are a variety of reasons for this: the tremendous use of resources it requires, in terms of land, water, etc.; the equipment-based nature of the game, where you can never be so good that you couldn't get better just by spending another $800 for a new driver; and its class- and gender-biased history (and, to some extent, present).

But mostly, it just seems so goddamned boring. You walk along for a while, then you hit a ball. You walk some more, and hit it again. You spent 98% of the time walking, the rest of the time actually doing the activity.

And yes, I know, it feels so good when you really knock that drive. I get that. It's why I snowboard; there's really nothing I've experienced quite like the feeling of linking a bunch of perfect turns together on a powder day. But when I snowboard, I spend about half the time riding, half the time on the lift. If you really want to get technical, I probably spend 1/4 of the time riding, 1/4 of the time on the lift, and half the time driving. Still much better than the 2:98 ratio of golf.

And don't even get me started comparing it to a game of Ultimate, where 1 acre of grass, 8 cones, 1 disc, and 14 pairs of cleats can keep 14 people occupied for an entire day!

And let's just say that, combining all these factors with my general lack of patience with things I suck at, and it seems safe to assume that golf is not anywhere in my near future.

HillaryCare 2.0

The Clinton campaign finally releases their health care plan proposal. As usual, the place to go for comprehensive coverage of this is Casa de Ezra, see for instance here, here, and here.

I am excited by the meat of the proposal. It's good. It's really good. When the worst thing Ezra can say about your proposal is that 'it doesn't go as far as this plan I like, which is better although it has absolutely no chance politically of passing,' you've come up with a pretty damn progressive health care plan.

Do I wish we could just bypass the for-profit insurance industry, and at the minimum provide government-supplied basic health insurance for every American? Absolutely. But you don't get there in a single step, that's just not how the world works. And I wouldn't want it to, because we really don't know what shape some optimal social insurance scheme would take. Much better to provide lots of options, and see which ones work best for which people. The best ideas will bubble to the top and can be implemented across the system.

As for the horserace, I don't really see a good alley for Edwards or Obama or anyone else to sneak past Hillary and get the Dem's nomination in '08. She's too solid of a politician, with too many built-in advantages. Plus, moves like this show that she is good at keeping a finger in the wind and knows when it's time to lurch to the center, such as on Iraq and defense policy, and when it's time to run left, such as on health care. If she can keep co-opting her opponents' best ideas, she can defuse any attack they might try to level that would open up a chink in her armor.

Will Hillary fight as hard for her plan as President Edwards would for his? Almost certainly not. But given that the alternatives are Rudy 'Iraq! 9/11! Liberal Communist Socialized Health Care!' Giuliani and Mitt 'I disavow anything I said or did while running for or serving in office in Massachutsetts' Romney, I'll take Hillary's plan any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Impact!

An exciting start to the morning yesterday. I was biking home from the gym, crossing Main Street in Longmont, when a guy in a little white Mustang rolled through the stop sign going the opposite way and proceeded to try and make a left turn through my bike (with me on it).

Fortunately he saw me at the last second and hit his brakes, so was probably only doing 5-10 mph when hit bumper hit my front wheel, and I realized that there was no way of avoiding the collision and leaned into him so as to go onto the hood, rather then be thrown into the street (one of those tricks they teach you in bike safety - the 1 ft fall onto either the hood or the windshield, both of which have some give to them, will hurt a lot less than being tossed onto concrete, which is both further away and much harder.)

So I fell onto his hood, away from the bike, rolled over the corner and thence onto the street, landing on my back. No head hit, as I had tucked it forward.

A full 911 compliment was called by a trucker who saw the whole thing happen, so I had the sad privelege of declining a free ride to the hospital by the two cutest EMT's I have ever met, the fire engine assured that my bicycle was not about to burst into flames, then left, and two of Longmont's finest spent 40ish minutes determining that he had, in fact, broken the law by failing to yield the right of way, and was at fault for the accident.

I got me and my bike home, took a quick shower (the combo of gym sweat and adrenaline could not have been very nice), and headed to the Urgent Care clinic. The good news is that I received a fairly clear bill of health. The better news is that the PA I saw wrote me a scrip for a massage, which I promptly received last night. The best news is that the massage was fairly successful in helping hold off the whiplash that felt pretty imminent by yesterday evening; I am not going to run any races today, or be back on any bikes for a little while, but it doesn't look like Hawaii next week will be too badly affected.





















The only really bad news is that Mr. Bicycle is somewhat the worse for wear from all this:

Most of you probably know that a bike wheel is supposed to be kind of flat; the lack of flatness in the wheel is rather apparent. Small bends can be pretty easily fixed through a process called truing, but at some point your rim is proper fucked, and I'm pretty confident we're well beyond that point here.

In the second pic, see those two black metal bits in the top-right corner? They're called the fork, and they're what hold the front wheel to the bike. They're supposed to be parallel, and are rather, erm, not.

The rest of the bike has a lot of scratches and dents from its rather rude introduction to the concrete on main street.

All things considered, however, as car vs. bike accidents go this one was quite minor. A replacement bike probably won't cost the insurance company more than $1000, which is less than the cost of any single X-ray, MRI, or whatever that the clinic would have done had I been complaining of any serious internal pain after landing on my back.

I'm a little grumpy about the bike; I loved that damn bike, and they really don't make butt-welded steel frames like that anymore. But such is life, and I find myself feeling pretty damn lucky this morning.

Pigpen Grew Up To Be Healthy!

I don't remember the context, but recently I was inspired to recite one of my favorite stories. This happened when I was living with my sister in Ann Arbor. We went out to Mongolian BBQ, and while we were waiting in line to cook our food, we were next to a table where there were what looked like two couples, one of whom had a small (~14-18 month old) child in a booster seat with a tray in front of him.

The boy was sucking on a pacifier, which fell out of his mouth onto the tray of his booster seat. His mother reached into the diaper bag and took out a small tupperware container and an alcohol wipe, one of those things you use to clean your hands after you eat ribs. She tore open the alcohol wipe, took it out, opened up the tupperware, wiped off the inside of it. Then she picked up the pacifier, wiped it off with the wipe, put it in the tupperware, sealed it up, and returned everything to the diaper bag.

At the time, my nephew was about 3 and was absolutely all over the place. He was all about walking, running, and getting into everything imaginable. So my sister and I had a seriously good laugh about the alcohol wipe lady when we sat at the table. All I could think to say (although of course I didn't actually say it) was 'lady, in 6 or 8 months, this kid is going to be eating dirt. What are you going to do then?'

Then today, on MSN, I see an article about the hygiene hypothesis, which is basically the idea that by sticking our kids in overhygienic environments, we are preventing their immune systems from being exposed to pathogens during their formative years, which is when your immune system is configuring itself to deal with whatever substances it is going to encounter throughout your life. As a result, they grow up with weakened immune systems, which means that they sometimes develop hypersensitivity to those pathogens later in life. In other words, severe allergies.

So not only was this woman wasting her time protecting her son from nonexistent germs that he was going to be exposed to later, but by preventing him from being exposed to reasonable amounts of these things at the right time, she was making it more likely that he would be much sicker later in life.

Seems like a perfect representation of most of the modern thoughts on childraising, where the so-called experts identify some problem or other, but the suggested solutions actually exacerbate the problem, rather than solving it. I'm sure I'll post more about this at some point, but right now it's bedtime...

We Wish You A Merry Hannukah

Faithful Reader GM reminds me to wish L'shana Tova to all my brethren and sistren out there.

Get out and drown some extra breadcrumbs for the unrepentent sinners like me...

A Commenter Questions My Integrity

Regarding my post about Blood Diamond, and the subject of diamonds-as-jewelry in general, commenter Michael writes:

Second, wait until you have to buy an engagement ring and see how long this arguement [sic] lasts. The girl may even agree with you, but she will still probably want a diamond engagement ring.

I find this line of thought both a little depressing and a little insulting. It's depressing, because of course in a lot of ways he is right. As young people, we get caught up in all sorts of crusades, and make all manner of promises about how we are going to fix things and change the world. Most of us, when it comes time for rubber to hit the road, mostly just get up the next morning and go to work like always. Even those who do their best are very rarely especially successful (this is actually something they discuss in Blood Diamond; DiCaprio's character is particularly cynical about the effect of Western sympathies in Africa.)

This is why I don't make it my goal to change the world, but instead to live in it the best way I know how. Maybe, if I can show a couple people that whatever I'm doing works well for me, I can convince them to try something new and see how it works for them, and help a few more people live better in the world as well. If they do the same, then maybe, someday, there's a chance that some real change will have been effected. That's a large reason I write here; I'm not going to Change The World, but I might change some minds, and that's a good start.

I find Michael's line of argument a bit insulting, because I also really think it calls my integrity into question a bit. Of course I cannot make any rock-solid promises, because any promise that I make that involves a party other than myself is something I am pretty much pulling out of my ass, and I'm writing a check the future me may not care to cash. But I like to think that any woman I choose to marry will be similar enough to me in outlook and attitude that she would have the same opinion towards diamonds that I do, given access to similar information. At the very least, I would hope that anyone I would even consider marrying would be able to understand when something is really important to me, and would never value a lump of carbon more than a sincerely held opinion of mine.

And, at the very very least, I believe it really calls my integrity into question to say tha, given the opportunity to 1) pass on getting married or 2) betray my principles, and spend the rest of my life with someone who doesn't value my principles, I would ever choose #2.

Now of course I know Michael, and love him to death. I'll be spending 6 days with him in Hawaii in just a week's time. But I honestly think that one of those little steps towards living a little better in the world is not being quite so glib about such serious topics. I try (don't always succeed, but try) not to make grand, sweeping generalizations like 'I will never buy such and such' unless I really mean it. I like to think there's a little lesson there.

The Posterboard Is Mightier Than The Sword

Ezra writes a rather scathing review of Mark Penn's new tract Microtrends.

Having not read the book, or having any intention of reading it, I have very little of substance to add to the conversation. I think Mark Penn is a blight on the face of the Democratic party (hopefully we can get to the point where he's more like a pimple on the ass of the Democratic party, but we're not there yet), and he might be the single strongest reason not to vote for Hilary in the Dem primary.

However, I loved Penn's claim that "ten people with bazookas can overcome 1,000 people with picket signs, but they can’t overcome 10,000 people with picket signs." I don't really know what that means, but I am literally envisioning 10 Marines, with bazookas, trying to hold off 10,000 protesters. With every shell the Marines send off, banners and posterboard fly in every direction. Oh, the humanity! The khakis! The homemade protest buttons! In time, however, the sheer number of protesters allow them to breach the Marines' defenses, and eventually the protesters stab the Marines to death with the wooden stakes from their protest signs, and a thousand flowers bloom across the land.

I Am Inspired

Finally got around to seeing Blood Diamond last night. It was actually quite good. Rather haunting, of course, as was intended, but also moving and even a bit inspirational.

It is a solid reminder that there are many horrible things happening in this world, many of which we contribute to directly or indirectly. In this case, I am re-inspired to commit to never buying or owning a piece of diamond jewelry.

There are three reasons to do this. The first has to do directly with the case made by Blood Diamond. Most diamonds now are certified as conflict-free. But, this certification is only as honest as the least honest broker in the chain of dealers between the mine and your ring finger, and suffice to say there are lots of reasons that someone might be tempted to cheat the system just a wee little bit.

The second is that, even if your diamond is conflict-free, it still causes demands for diamonds to rise, which raises the price, making it that much more likely that somewhere, someone is motivated to try and sneak a blood diamond into the supply chain.

Lastly, every time you buy a diamond engagement ring, you are perpetuating the single most incredible marketing campaign ever foisted on the American public; the myth that a diamond is the traditional, and only acceptable, way to indicate an engagement. For more on this, all I can do is encourage you to read Edward Epstein's classic article in The Atlantic. You will never look at a diamond ring the same way again, I promise you that.

Fatty Fatty Two-By-Four, Can't Get Through The Kitchen Door

I'm glad to see that Paul Campos has made it big time, publishing in The New Republic on the effects of obesity on mortality rates. Campos is a law prof at Colorado, and also publishes a weeklyish column in the Rocky Mountain News, where he holds court on various topics. But his hobby horse is certainly the topic of obesity, he is author of a book I keep meaning to check out, The Obesity Myth.

I think I've written about this topic before, so I'm not going to go into too many details here. You can read Campos' column if you want the good stuff. But, in short, he writes a lot about how there is significant epidemiological research, most typically meta-studies, which indicate that the healthiest weight category to be in is actually the low end of the 'overweight' range, where overweight is defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 to 30. Here, 'healthiest' refers to subjects like life expectancy and health outcomes with respect to various diseases.

There are some counterarguments, the most common two being that these studies are only one of many, and most indicate that having a BMI of around 20 is healthier, and that these studies failed to control for cancer patients and smokers, who tend to be skinnier, but also less healthy.

Campos claims that both of those arguments are debunked. I don't really know one way or the other, and don't have the time or interest to go in-depth enough to find out. I tend to find his arguments convincing, but they are certainly provocative either way.

But it brings up a more general point, which I try and apply every time I read anything about new health studies which reveal some radical new way we should try and live our lives. Mostly, these sorts of questions are very complicated, and you need to bring a good amount of skepticism to any claim that you read or hear about. Even when it's backed up by good epidemiological studies, science is only as good as the controls in place, and the scientists doing the interpretation.

The human body is a phenomenally complicated organism, and it simply isn't a linear sort of device (cut saturated fat by 10%, cut chance of heart attack by 10%, etc.) Most importantly, I think, is the fact, which I think is slowly starting to be appreciated, that our bodies don't all operate the same way. Different people respond differently to all sorts of things; diet, exercise, medicines, etc.

On some level we all understand this; we all know someone who is sensitive to codeine, or penecillin, or who can eat at McDonalds 5 times a week and never exercises but stays a size 2. So I think it's really important to understand that, even if a study shows a statistical signifigance to some effect or other, whatever solution it implies is right (eat more garlic, eat more fish, eat less green beans, whatever) may or may not be right for you.

Which is why I try, however, I can, to adopt a moderate approach to health. We know the following things are good for you: fresh fruits, vegetables, sunshine, puppies, exercise, reasonable quantities of meat, fish, low-fat dairy. Get decent amounts of these things. We know these things are bad for you: twinkies, deep-fried anything (especially deep-fried twinkies), cats, tobacco, lead-coated Hot Wheels. Please try and moderate the amounts of these things that you are exposed to, although total elimination is not expected.

This might not be the ideal solution for you - for you, maybe drinking 3 glasses of wine every day and eating 8 pounds of steak a week might give you the longest life span. But my point is, we just don't know what exactly works for you without running the experiment, and by the time we find out the results, it's a bit late to actually help you.

Cheaters Never Prosper

As dismissive as I've been of the LOLcats phenomenon, it does lead to some pretty funny spinoffs, like the realisticats I wrote about last week, or this one here at Matt's place.

On the actual question of the Patriots cheating, I don't think that it makes a huge difference objectively. There is obviously some benefit to being able to steal signals, in particular if the defense knows what the offense is running (see, for instance, the utter domination Tampa had over Oakland in the Super Bowl when the Raiders didn't bother changing up their play names, even though their coach from the year before was now the Tampa coach.) But I doubt stealing defensive signals, which I believe is the charge here, is a huge advantage.

For one thing, defense is primarily a reactive thing, whereas offense is active, so it's more difficult to figure out, especially on the fly, how to set up a play to take advantage of a defense. More important, I think, is the fact that any halfway decent defense reacts to what the offense is doing; which players are in the huddle, how they line up, pre-snap motions, etc. This is something you realize if you play Madden; if you simply pick a defense and don't adjust to what the O is doing, you will get creamed, every time.

So I doubt that the Pats gained a huge advantage from doing this. Which means that, at least to my mind, it doesn't particularly taint their Super Bowl wins. However, I was listening to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio yesterday, and he made a great point, which is that because Belicheck basically goes out of his way to demean people, treat them poorly, and piss off everyone who isn't a member of his organization, he gets absolutely no slack when something like this comes up.

Imagine, if you will, the Colts getting caught doing something like this. The immediate reaction would be something like 'well, Tony Dungy is a winner, he tries to do everything he can to put his team in a position to succeed.' That's because everyone loves Dungy (understandably and justifiably, I should say; the guy is an absolutely fantastic man, coach, etc.) But, when grousy, kvetchy, smartest-guy-in-the-room Belicheck gets caught, everyone's first response is 'Cheater! Liar! Tainted championships!

'Herd made the very true point that there's a benefit to treating people nicely, even when you don't have to, because someday your chips will be down, and it would be nice to have people trying to pick you up, rather than walk all over you, when it happens. Good words to live by, I think...

The Surge: Now With Pretty Pictures!

This graph rules. I'm pretty sure it breaks nearly every one of Edware Lufte's rules for how to use a graph to convey information. In particular, I love the stars and question marks, useless decoration which only serve to distract from the ability to figure out what's going on in it.

I particularly like the commenter's suggestion that the stars should be replaced with ponies...

Sports Redux, Or, The Lesson As Always

Okay, a quick rundown of recent sports stuff.

Firstly, amazing news coming out of Buffalo about Kevin Everett, the Bills player who injured his neck on Sunday. It was a textbook c-spine injury situation, as he lowered his head just before running into the kick returner at full speed. My first hope was that he was just unconscious, as he clearly was out the moment of the hit, but of course after a minute of two when he still hadn't moved, you start to get much more worried. But, amazingly, his doctors are expecting him to regain much of his motion after a 3-vertabrae fusing surgery on Monday. Good stuff, and a brief reminder that, whatever we change about the US Healthcare system, we have to preserve the facts that we have the best docs, and are capable of providing the absolute best health care in the world.

Secondly, another ho-hum victory for Federer in the finals of the US Open. Just like the Roddick match, he could easily have been down 2 sets love, after the first two went to tiebreaks. I'm reminded of something I was told when I was playing in a college Ultimate tournament. It was a pretty windy day, and I had just missed an attempted catch because the wind gusted right as the disc got to me and it flew above my hands. My captain told me that it was really not excusable for me to miss that catch, and I cited my wind excuse. He said (paraphrasing) "I know it's windy out. But did you ever notice that Damien (our best player) never has that happen to him? He's playing in the same wind you are, but somehow he always manages to make that catch."

That's how I feel about Federer. Everyone can spin a good story about how close they were to beating him, but it never...quite...happens, at least not when it matters. The best players just always make that catch, or that hit, and the not-best always seem to just miss it. It's that feeling of clutchness whose rarity is why we celebrate champions. I don't normally read Scoop Jackson, but this column on this subject was pretty good.

And now, to my predictions. Firstly, in my defense, the NFL is the sport with absolutely the least season-to-season predictability. I believe the stats are that there's about 50% turnover in the playoff teams every year. Which is great for fans; it means that unless you love the Cards or the Lions or the Browns, your team has a good shot at the start of every year. Secondly, in my defense, I'm an idiot. To prove the point, my more egregious predictions for the season.

Saints up: well, the Colts are a good team, but this was pretty indefensible after week 1.
Colts down: well, the Saints are pretty good, but, well, nevermind.
Niners and Seahawks up: well, wins are wins, right?
Raiders up? Well, yeah. Not so much.
Falcons up? How could you really expect them to do well against the mighty, mighty Vikings? I mean, seriously.
Jags down: I'm still feeling good about this one. Giving up 280ish rushing yards against a so-so Tennessee team? Not a good sign.
Jets up, Pats down? I only have one thing to say about that: cheaters!

Sometimes, The Best Things Are Left Unsaid

Well, yesterday was the 6th anniversary of 9/11, otherwise known as the 6th anniversary of the day my lovely sister's birthday because infamously known to everyone around the world. When I was growing up, Yom Kippur would happen on my birthday every few years, which meant that on the day of my birthday, I didn't get to eat until sundown, and I had to spend the whole day in temple, pretending to pray to a god I didn't believe existed. This used to give me vast amounts of self-pity, but I definitely don't feel so bad compared to Lisa, who now has to spend every birthday hearing about how horrible of a day it was back in 2001.

I don't really think that there's a whole lot to say about the anniversary. At the least, whatever I feel should be said, I am wise enough to know I can't say right.

So, whatever I wanted to say, for good or ill, I left unsaid.

However, one day later, there are a few things I think bear saying. One is that the rather , umm, fortuitous timing of General Petraeus' testimony in front of Congress, on the day before and the day of the anniversary, was nothing less than disgusting. I assume that the White House made the final call on that, all the better to make the same old barely subconscious Iraq! 9/11! Iraq! 9/11! argument.

As for the testimony itself, it seems like there was not a whole lot of meat to it. Basically, he said about what was expected. The surge has improved things in some places. Some places are more questionable. We need more time.

I do have to say that a remarkable proportion of the back-and-forths I've seen that were really interesting involved the Pride of Delaware, Joe Biden. He did a really good job of asking skeptical but reasonably nonpartisan questions. Say what you want about his bloviating and his tendency to say too much, and too often. But Biden is a smart, serious dude who really knows much more about what's going on in the world than just about everyone else. Just the kind of guy who would make a really excellent Secretary of State in the Obama administration.

In particular, I liked that he asked Petraeus if, come time for the next report in March, conditions in Iraq are pretty much the same as they are now, is he going to be able to recommend continuing along the current course? Petraeus tried to dodge by hemming and hawing, along with utilizing the most dispicable strategy used by politicians of 'refusing to answer a hypothetical'. Eventually, however, he was basically forced to admit that he would not really be able to recommend a continuation of the strategy in those circumstances.

It's not much, considering that there's roughly a 0% chance that the Dems aren't going to vote to continue the funding this time around. They might be able to repeat the karaoke of voting for a timetable, having it vetoed, then voting to simply continue the funding, which I think is a fine strategy. And really, there's roughly a 0% chance that Bush won't continue to do whatever the hell he wants until the day he leaves office. But there does seem to be a legitimate hope that the Dems can really tie the disaster of Iraq around the neck of every single Republican in '08, and while I hate to use the death of America's finest as a political sword against anyone, it appears to be the only way that any serious changes in this disastrous policy are going to be made.

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow...

Ezra points out that the neverending stream of conservative 'solutions' to the problems in Iraq, or the Middle East more generally, bear a startling resemblance to their supply-side solutions to any economic woe.

In the case of domestic affairs, the solution is always 'tax cuts'. Economy growing too fast? Tax cuts will slow down that rate of debt payback! Economy growing too slow? Tax cuts will provide that needed stimulus! Government has too much money? Tax cuts will return your money to you, the taxpayer! Government doesn't have enough money? Tax cuts will bring in more revenue!

When it comes to countries with a high concentration of swarthy people, the answer is always 'more troops'. Saddam has WMD? Send in the troops! Iraq is a blooming flower of democracy? Send in the troops to keep it growing! Iraq is falling apart at its sectarian faults? Send in the troops to keep it together and prevent a regional conflagration!

One of his commenters points out that Tom Tomorrow already said it, as usual with the picture being as good as, if not 1,000 words, at least 200 or so.

Holy Sweating Lasers, Batman!

Holy crap.

The A/C in my lab area is broken. It is currently 85 degrees in there, and probably closer to 90 under my lab bench, which has incandescent bulb and some high heat output electronics under it.

It's currently 80 degrees outside, according to Weather.com.

I don't have many rules in life, but I think that one of my new ones is going to be 'any time it's a Friday, and the weather outside is nicer than the weather inside my lab, I'm going home.'

Sports and Schools

Okay, two things I should have said yesterday before making my posts. Firstly, I am an idiot, and so please take anything I say with at least 5 grains of salt. Secondly, the NFL has done a wondrous job of ensuring, via the way they structure contracts, that there is huge turnover on almost every team almost every year. Even when the starters stay roughly the same, it often seems like teams are trading whole benches every year (as a few years ago, when the Broncos signed the Browns entire defensive line.) So preseason predictions are worth about as much as the electrons it takes to make them appear on your monitor. Mine are, well, no different. Just less well-informed.

But the point of this post is to direct you to this diavlog between Brink Lindsey and Josh Cohen. These two always make for a good pairing. They are cordial and respectful, but both fairly well-informed, well-spoken, and disagree on lots of things. But they know how to let the other make a point and then respond, unlike some vloggers (*cough* Eli Lake *cough*) who conduct themselves with the snarky attitude of a teenager, belying some serious lack of confidence in their own arguments.

Anyhow, Brink and Josh spend most of the vlog talking about education and raising kids. There's too much to go into in any great depth while I'm pounding out a post during lunch break, but I did want to take the time to say that Brink, while he does a great job of expounding the libertarian viewpoint, is at the same time doing a great job of driving me away from it.

I find a lot that is admirable in the libertarian model, which is basically the idea of pushing liberty above any other concept when it comes to questions of governmental power. In particular, I appreciate their live-and-let-live attitudes towards questions of sexual orientation, gender roles, abortion, and most of the social conservative wedge issues. Also, their tendency to really doubt the efficacy of the military in effecting social change in foreign lands is a lesson we all would have done well to learn prior to 2003.

However, I have absolutely no respect for the attitude of 'do whatever's best for the top 30% (or 50% or even 80%) and fuck the rest.' Which is, not to put too fine a point on it, the general attitude of libertarians in too many places.

In this case, it's in a question about schools. Josh is eviscerating the Supreme Court's take on school districts' attempts to achieve some racial balance and diversity in their schools. The court's take, basically, was 'no using race as a deciding factor in any way, shape, or form.' To which Brink's response was that, in his ideal world, there would be no public schools, and instead there would be a series of private institutions responsible for educating our young ones, and the government would help cover tuition if needed.

Pardon my French, but this is absolute fucknuttery. The only reason private schools do a better job than publics of educating kids, to whatever extent they do, is because they get to pick who goes there. They kick out kids who don't make the grade, or fall behind, or cause trouble. For a variety of reasons, some good some bad, public schools don't have nearly as much freedom in this regard. And where are these kids going to go in a world without public schools? Well, they'll either all be stuck together in some sort of serious miscreant academy, which doesn't seem like it really gives them the best chance to get their shit together, or they'll end up outside the system altogether.

To which, I suspect, Brink would say something kind-and-gentle sounding, but which lacks any actual substance.

And so, I am ready to say this. In a world in which we have created perfect human beings, I think libertarianism is the ideal social model. In the actual world in which we live, which is tragically filled with actual human beings, it's hogwash.

Let's Hear It For The Worms

Nice little op-ed this morning about worm composting this morning in the Times. Most people probably know that I have a worm bin in my basement. Apart from the times that the worms get too active and start putting off worm tea (a runoff which is basically the equivalent of liquid gold to houseplants) faster than I can use it, given my meager supply of houseplants, it's a pretty worry-free operation. I get to feel like I'm wasting a little less; especially since I eat so many fruits and vegetables, it's nice to see all those rinds and peels and scraps get used somehow. Plus I get nice compost at the end of it, which will help my garden in years in which my sprinkler system doesn't reset itself while I'm on a week's vacation.

I feel like worm bins are one of those things that lots more people could have, especially suburbanites with their wide-open lawns, that have no particular downside. They don't smell bad, can be built to look very official, and are a way of making a small, but tangible, environmental upside. More worms, better soil, less waste.

Have you hugged your worm today?

Color-Coded

As Faithful Reader S.S. points out, the color-coded (black and yellow for the Saints, blue and white for the Colts) "1st & 10" arrow is one of those fantastic innovations which adds absolutely nothing to my enjoyment of the game, is vaguely distracting, and also almost certainly cost several million dollars to create and implement. It's a classic result of decision-by-committee.

Go Buy Stuff

Two notes on NFL commercials:

1) They waited a whole 4 commercials before playing our first 'This Is Our Country' spot. Dear lord, it's awful. Not quite so bad as watching the NBA playoffs and having to put up with all the WNBA 'We Got Next' crap. But still. It's bad. Watch one here.

See? Didn't that make you want to go out and get a crowbar and get absolutely medieval on some poor pickup truck's ass? Me too.

2) The Bud Light opera commercial was damn funny. It's not posted to the 'net yet that I can find, but I'll be sure to get it here once I can find it.

Now With Pictures!

In lieu of an actual entry, some pretty pictures for you to look at:

1) How to be a professional libertarian. It's not really true, but it is, kinda, and it is definitely funny.

2) Realisticats. As opposed to lolcats (those stupid pictures of kitties with inane ungrammatical text written across them), realisticats give you a hint of what actual life with cats is like. I even made my own:
3) A map of the wall being built by Israel in the West Bank, along with the position of the 1949 Armistice green line and the location of Palestinian and Jewish settlements. As Ezra wrote earlier this week, the story that the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the military to tear down a portion of the wall which separated some Palestinians from their farmland represented both the best and the worst of Israel at once. The worst, because they built the wall like that in an unmitigated land grab. The best, because they are certainly the only country in the Middle East with a court independent enough to order the government around like that.

Sports Sports Sports Sports

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote. I wish I had an even remotely good excuse for that fact, but, well, not so much. Haven't had much time for reading or posting at work, and I've been busy having a social life. I can't really apologize for either, since I am being paid to work at work, and would really prefer fun nights with friends to sitting on the couch and posting to the blog.

So, you know. Deal. Like I tell my boss at work, if you want me to do better, start paying me more. Which, in this case, would mean 'any'.

Anyhow, what an exciting week in sports! I'm sad to have missed the Roddick/Federer match last night. I do occasionally miss having cable, especially nights like that. It sounds like it was pretty crazy exciting. Good to be able to read about Roddick playing so well, even if he lost in straight sets. 42 winners vs. 24 errors against the greatest player in the history of the game is pretty damn good, although of course not as good as Federer's 48 vs. 18.

I will not brook any argument about the question of whether or not Federer is the best tennis player of all time. Anyone making this argument is either being contrarian for the sake of argument, or a 'back in the good old days' kind of fogey, who is probably going blind and simply can't see the ball when Roddick booms a 142 mph serve right down the center line.

You can make your arguments about clay courts, and the fact that he hasn't won the French yet, but I call bullshit. The southern Europeans have become so specialized on clay, and are so good on it, that it's almost like a different game now (read this article to get some sense of what I'm talking about). I think a valid comparison is if the NFL champ had to go play a game on a sand field, against a team who trained specifically to play on sand. It just really changes the dynamics, much more than the grass/hardcourt shift.

In other sports news, baseball is still happening. Whoopee!

In other, actual, sports news, the NFL (a.k.a. Only Sport That Actually Matters) season kicks off tonight with a real humdinger, last year's Cinderella vs. the Galactic Champs.

I think the Saints are going to be right back in this thing this year. I like Payton as a coach, and obviously Brees is a money quarterback. If Bush continues to develop as the kind of playmaker they see him being, they could be the NFL's top offense this year. Hell, their top three offensive skill players (Brees, Bush, Marques Colston) were all new to the system last year, two of them being NFL rookies!

The Colts, on the other hand, are in for a fall this year. I think their defense will make a brisk return to the level of mediocrity that is their norm. Everyone forgets how terrible that defense was all last year, until suddenly discovering the concept of 'tackling' in Week 1 of the playoffs. I think they come back to earth this year.

Very quickly, my stock up/down ratings for the NFL, moving from west to east.

NFC West:
Up: Niners, Seahawks

AFC West:
Up: Raiders (as in, 'nowhere to go but up'), Chargers (if you can go up from a 14-3 season)
Down: Chiefs

NFC North:
Up: Packers
Down: Bears
Note: I want to pick the Lions to do well. But them, and the Cardinals, are in the 'I will believe in you after you win something. Anything.' file.

AFC North:
Up: Steelers, Bengals
Down: Ravens

NFC South:
Up: Falcons (I'm with Simmons here, I think they're a playoff team this year)
Down: Panthers
Note: I think the Buccaneers are the next-best sleeper team here. Their D is getting old, no doubt, but I really like Jeff Garcia playing under Jon Gruden. If Cadillac has a good season, that could be a point-scoring offense.

AFC South:
Up: Texans (see Raiders, above)
Down so far we'll be setting up candlelight vigils and taking the mine safety committee to task for letting this happen: Jags

NFC East:
Up: Fly, Eagles, Fly..., Redskins
Down: Cowgirls, Giants

AFC East:
Up: J-E-T-S-Jets-Jets-Jets
Down: Patriots. Every year, some team makes a big splash signing and is anointed the new favorite team (Miami in '06, for example.) I think the Pats are that team this year, with the troika of wideout signings. Just like taking Culpepper looked pretty solid, I can't fault, on paper, picking up Moss, Stallworth, and Welker. Besides, anytime I get to think about the face that Reche Caldwell had on when he found out he had been cut and giggle, that's good times. I can't say why the Pats are going to disappoint this year, but that new favorite team always does. Although, I do have to say that obviously Belicheck and Brady are much better than Saban/Culpepper, so don't be surprised if I've gotten this entirely wrong.

Playoff predictions:
NFC Divisions go to Seahawks, Saints, Packers, Eagles
Wildcards to Falcons, Niners

Championship game is Seahawks at Eagles

AFC Divisions go to Chargers, Colts, Bengals, Jets
Wildcards to Pats, Broncos

Championship game is Jets at Chargers

Super Bowl XLI (?) will be San Diego vs. Philly. I'll even predict a final score of 27-23, but I won't tell you who I think is actually going to win.