Post, thy name is Legion

1.... Behold New Jersey in March: on Monday we had 65-degree weather; on Tuesday we had 25-degree weather with heavy winds. Snow, too. The DOT didn't have any salt trucks out, which was curious. Perhaps with all the snow lately (four different storms in three weeks) they'd run out of salt? In any case it looked more like they'd rented out Zambonis instead - many roads bore a pristine inch-thick sheet of ice.

2.... As the NCAA basketball tournament approaches, I begin to get mildly interested, if for no other reason than to sacrifice five bucks to Big Al in our yearly office pool. One team I hear talked up a lot is Indiana. Lots of tough losses, they say. Only 15-12 overall, but 10 wins in the conference, and nobody's ever been left out of the bracket with that many. Without knowing a heck of a lot about basketball, I can categorically say that a national championship of any kind isn't about tough losses - it's about tough wins. If the Hoosiers hadn't spit the bit against Missouri (15-15) or Northwestern (14-15), and had been a smidge better in just one of those close defeats, they'd be 17-10 and we wouldn't need these conversations.

3.... Tim Blair quotes Michael Moore. Then he notes that the quote has been stuffed down Mike's ample memory hole - totally gone from his site's archives. "Michael Moore is vanishing!" he concludes. One can only imagine the headlines.

4.... Mr. Bingley has decided on the surest method to put the Coalition of the Swilling over the top for a link in the Permanent Pantheon: the way to a man's heart is through his ego. Make it so! And do run over and read his fisking of Tuh-RAY-zuh's Seattle speech. Some highlights (original in Red, fisking in Black):

By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
...I guess in Seattle they're so Blue State and advanced that they're post-intelligence.

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the [voting] machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."
...One wacked-out hag owns 80% of the ketchup used in the US. Makes me think that it would be very easy for her to slip something into our condiments...

"We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry. She argued that Democrats should insist on "accountability and transparency" in how votes are tabulated.
...Yes, and I would also like the Democrats to insist on "accountability and transparency" in how people are registered to vote. [She probably couldn't say this in Seattle, given Dem. Christine Gregiore's 'vote early, vote often, vote dead' strategy in her quest for governor of Washington State. -NF]

Heinz Kerry won't stand in the way of a second presidential bid by her husband. ...Teresa dear, I'm not sure how to break this to you, but you've never stood in the way of his running; but you are a hell of a speed bump on the road to him winning.

There's more. Go read. I'll wait.

5.... "Rime of the Ancient Monitor" - yesterday my 10-year old CRT gave a sad little whiff of ozone and went to Doorstop Heaven. It ws pre-deceased by my hockey league, as you've heard below. My printer works, but no ink comes out, despite my putting in new cartridges and cleaning the print heads four times. Tough week here in the Hive. But now a ray of hope - my league will be relocated for playoffs to the Inman Sports Club. In the meantime I've gotten my mitts on the Hubert Farnsworth of monitors ("Even older!"), which I hope will tide me until I go flat-panel at long last.