End of the year list time: Movies

It looks like it's time for end of the year lists, with a list of the year's best movies. It seems a bit early, but that might be because the end of the decade lists are coming up (yes, the decade is over already).

I have to admit, I have only seen one of the movies on the top ten list (Funny People) and about five movies total -- One of which was the most recent Fast and Furious movie and another of which was Terminator: Salvation. Neither will make anyone's top ten list -- not even mine and I didn't even see ten movies.

So what were your top movies of the year?

An unusual path to the NFL

I remember a running back for the Denver Broncos a few years back had a similarly strange path to being in the National Football League, but I can't remember his name.

But I'd say that is one of the only, if not the only, people with a similar story as Ahmard Hall, the fullback for the Tennessee Titans:

A fourth-year NFL veteran, Hall, 30, served four years in the Marines, with tours of duty as a sergeant in Kosovo and Afghanistan, before resuming his football career as a walk-on at Texas in 2004. He secured a spot on the Longhorns' roster by writing a letter to Mack Brown, and the Texas head coach was so impressed by the impassioned missive that he waived a school rule stipulating that walk-on candidates had to have played organized football within the past 24 months. Hall signed with the Titans as a free agent after no team selected him in the 2006 supplemental draft.

Afghanistan war veteran, turned Texas Longhorn, turned undrafted player, turned NFL regular. Not exactly the same career path as Peyton Manning.

The story of Todd Walker

I think that I have read at least fifty stories just like this one, and they never get old. Someone stepping up and doing something to selflessly help others through sports.

This time, it is 47-year old Todd Walker from Oakland, California. From ESPN:

He told Jaee Logan's family he was going to make a difference. He was going to use football as a teaching tool to save these kids. He started the Junior Bears program along with head coach Herbert Miller, and they set out to teach football and life.

And so, for the past several years, with the permission of the parents, Walker has taken his players on a field trip to the funeral home. He teaches the reality and finality of death to kids who are desensitized by television and video games and the streets outside their homes.

The Onion is awesome

Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be:

"Our very way of life is under siege," said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination. "It's time for true Americans to stand up and protect the values that make us who we are."

Oh, and it only gets better.

Manny Pacquiao's strange entourage

Manny Pacquiao is arguably the best boxer in the world, perhaps on his way to becoming one of the greatest of all time. If he wins in a welterweight title bout tonight against Miguel Cotto, he will be the first boxer to win championships in seven different weight classes.

Yet, the most interesting thing that I have read about him so far is this piece from the New York Times. It describes Pacquiao and his entourage. They have some... strange arrangements.

“They’re all competing to be golden boy for the day,” said Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer. “Clean his pool. Take his shoes off. They will do anything for Manny Pacquiao.”

Roach paused, unable to suppress his laughter.

“I’m telling you,” he continued, “the funniest thing is, whoever is on the best terms with Manny at that moment sleeps closest to him, at the foot of his bed.”

Tony Kornheiser, on Pardon the Interruption yesterday, said that Pacquiao's entourage makes Vinny Chase's entourage on the HBO show... um, Entourage, look like nothing.

People still think like this?

Ugh.

From The Guardian:

Dressed in full uniform, the explorer scouts, who were taking part in Remembrance Sunday service in Romford, Essex were heard to repeatedly shout "Let's kill the Jews" at Jewish second world war veterans.

It is hard to believe that not only are there still people out there who would do something like this but that they would do it in public.

"The dad comes to a devastating realization: If they remain together, they’ll drown together."

Wow, a powerful read from Men's Journal. I recommend reading it, solely based on the teaser paragraph:

Swept out to sea by a riptide, a father and his 12-year-old son struggle to stay alive miles from shore. As night falls, with no rescue imminent, the dad comes to a devastating realization: If they remain together, they’ll drown together.

"Where there's smoke, there's moonshine"

Just an awesome headline. From McClatchy:

Parker said he made undercover purchases of the illegal hooch in 2006 and 2007 but couldn't find the still. Parker, of Scotland Neck, has been with ALE four years.

Pretty interesting story actually.

Jemele Hill ignores that everyone hated Isiah Thomas

Jemele Hill, writing about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird's book, mentions that Johnson led the charge to keep Isiah Thomas off the 1992 Olympic basketball team (everyone knows them as the Dream Team). Yet, she ignores one salient fact in this: No one like Thomas.

Thomas played on one of the most unlikeable teams ever (the "Bad Boys") and almost no player on any other team liked him.

On the Amazon-Wal Mart price war

From The New Yorker:

The best way to win a price war, then, is not to play in the first place. Instead, you can compete in other areas: customer service or quality. Or you can collude with your putative competitors: that’s why cartels like OPEC exist. Or—since overt collusion is usually illegal—you can employ subtler tactics (which economists call “signalling”), like making public statements about the importance of “stable pricing.” The idea is to let your competitors know that you’re not eager to slash prices—but that, if a price war does start, you’ll fight to the bitter end. One way to establish that peace-preserving threat of mutual assured destruction is to commit yourself beforehand, which helps explain why so many retailers promise to match any competitor’s advertised price. Consumers view these guarantees as conducive to lower prices. But in fact offering a price-matching guarantee should make it less likely that competitors will slash prices, since they know that any cuts they make will immediately be matched. It’s the retail version of the doomsday machine.

Definitely a cool read (and don't worry, it's short).

CNBC writer: American who won NYC marathon not American enough

Umm... what the hell.

From CNBC:

It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82.

Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds.

Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies.

Yeah, he's only "technically" an American because he's only "technically" been a citizen since 1998.

Kefleighi was born in Eritrea.

As with CBS late night talk show host, Craig Fergusion, he is American on Purpose.

Stephon Marbury is weird #NBA

According to ESPN, Marbury was kicked out of his courtside seats at a New York Knicks game when they found out that he didn't have tickets for the seats he was sitting in.

But Marbury had even more bizarre behavior at Madison Square Garden:

Adding to the bizarre scene, Marbury pulled out a video camera shortly after arriving and began shooting the live action, at one point standing up -- thereby blocking the view of the fans behind him -- while play was ongoing.

Marbury is... just weird.

Defriending bruising to your 'digital ego'?

From CNN:

Experts say rejection on social networks can hurt worse than an in-person snub because people are usually more polite face-to-face than they are online.

Umm... no. The only way that it bugs me if someone defriends me on Facebook is if it's someone who I actually know or knew in person.

Some random person defriending me not only does not bruise my 'digital ego' -- but I usually have no idea that they have done so.

Basically just linkbait from CNN.

Why the NY Times doesn't cover boxing

An interesting exchange of e-mails between HBO's Larry Merchant and Tom Jolly, the sports editor for the New York Times, on why the New York Times rarely, if ever, covers boxing.

I have to say, though, some of the excuses are good:

Most bouts are on Saturday night and our final edition for the national edition goes to press at 11 p.m. The final local edition closes at 12:30. The most noteworthy of the fights were included in briefs for those last papers, and all of the results appeared in our wire feed on nytimes.com/sports.

And some are bad:

We’re willing to [report on a Saturday match on Monday] if it’s a bout that transcends the core fan base, but there haven’t been many such fights since Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield passed their prime.

Manny Pacquiao anyone?

An interesting read nevertheless.

French newspapers take a page out of drug dealers' book

French newspapers are trying to get young people hooked on newspapers by offering a year's subscription for free to young consumers.

The government Tuesday detailed plans of a project called “My Free Newspaper,” under which 18- to 24-year-olds will be offered a free, yearlong subscription to a newspaper of their choice.

“Winning back young readers is essential for the financial survival of the press, and for its civic dimension,” the culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, said.

As @c_chisolm said, "It's how all dealers operate."

So Mark Sanchez ate a hot dog #NFL

Jets QB Mark Sanchez ate a hot dog on the end of the bench during a 38-0 blowout over the Raiders on Sunday. And, somehow, this exploded into a mini controversy, with the folks on Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn and various talk radio stations lambasting Sanchez for the sin.

Now, ESPN is reporting, Sanchez donated 500 hot dogs and 500 hamburgers to a local homeless shelter. Which is never a bad idea.

But, seriously? People care about this?

*sigh*

Schwazenegger's "message"

Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger had a not-so-subtle message for Democratic assemblyman Tom Ammiano. The first letters of the first seven lines were "F-U-C-K-Y-O-U."

A coincidence?

Gary Langer writes the odds are one in ten billion of this happening by coincidence, as Schwazenegger's spokesperson (understandably) said.

Here’s how not to figure it precisely, rather a quick and unsophisticated back-of-the-envelope calculation: If the odds of picking a particular letter at random are one in 26, doing it over seven selections (the number of letters in question) is (1/26)^7, or .0000000001245. Just about one in 10 billion.

Now, the odds are not even to picking each letter. It depends on the amount of words that start with those seven letters -- plus, not as many words start with an "x" or "z" (I think none of of the words in this post do, for example) -- though more will, admittedly, start with a "t" than a "k."

I'd love for someone who actually has knowledge of this sort of thing to tell us the odds of this happening by pure coincidence.

That said, even if it's not coincidence (I am almost 100 percent certain that it did not), I still find it funny that Schwarzenegger 1) did this and 2) thought he could get away with it. Should a sitting governor do these sort of juvenile pranks?

Nope. But it's still funny.

All those CIA conspiracy theorists just got tons more ammo

From the New York Times, speaking of Afghani president Hamid Karzai's brother:

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

Good times. It's been going on for eight years, apparently.

Paper suing TX Gov Perry to get clemency report of possibly innocent man who was executed

The Houston Chronicle and Hearts Newspapers are suing Texas Governor Rick Perry, R-Texas, for the clemency report on Cameron Todd Willingham -- a man who was executed but may have, in fact, been innocent.

I first read about it nearly two months ago, and you can too with this 16,000 word article from the New Yorker. Worth reading every word.

The report is a summary and status of the case against Willingham that was given to Perry at 11:30 a.m. on the day of Willingham's 2004 execution in the fire deaths of his three daughters. Anti-death penalty advocates say modern fire forensics show the blaze cannot be proven as arson.

Perry's office has refused to release the report, claiming it is a privileged document. The clemency document was used by Perry in the process of deciding whether to give Willingham a 30-day stay of execution.

“When it comes to human life, there is no place the governor should be more transparent in his decision-making,” said Jonathan Donnellan, an attorney for Hearst and the Chronicle.

The war on vaccinations is a war on science

A great article from Wired magazine about how the anti-vaxxers out there are completely wrong -- and are actually making things much worse.

In May, The New England Journal of Medicine laid the blame for clusters of disease outbreaks throughout the US squarely at the feet of declining vaccination rates, while nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente reported that unvaccinated children were 23 times more likely to get pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes violent coughing and is potentially lethal to infants. In the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at Kaiser’s Institute for Health Research, revealed that the number of reported pertussis cases jumped from 1,000 in 1976 to 26,000 in 2004. A disease that vaccines made rare, in other words, is making a comeback. “This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” Glanz says.

I still don't know what kind of person would ignore all the scientific evidence and not vaccinate their children because some celebrity like Jenny McCarthy said so.