Poker? I Barely Know Her

I'm not much of a Texas Holdem poker player, which I blame on my obsession with the slang terms for different hands. I'd rather draw a well-named hand than a winning one.

Yesterday I was trying to explain to my wife why a six and nine of the same suit, "6-9 suited," is called a prom night. She wasn't getting it at all, even when I offered to draw a picture.

While playing last week with a poker fanatic brother-in-law, we began discussing athletes on my junior high basketball team who quit to become cheerleaders.

When I told him their reason -- they did it to spend more time around female cheerleaders -- the look on his face matched the one Ross got on Friends when he repeated his parents' claim that the family dog had been sent off to a farm.

My in-law's skepticism led to the coining of a new poker term for a hand that's not-quite-straight, with four cards in sequence.

I hope this doesn't get back to my old teammates at Pauline G. Hughes Middle School in Burleson, Texas, but we're calling it a male cheerleader.

Jargon · 2005/07/14 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

President George H.W. Bush in a 1999 speech:

We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country.

Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

Politics · 2005/07/13 · 18 COMMENTS · Link

The defenders of Bush's leaky brain are getting desperate:

My only comfort is that probably about 80% or more of the American people don't know who Karl Rove is. And probably 90% or even more don't know who Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are. Remember, only about 20-25% can name even one Supreme Court [justice].

This was written by Betsy Newmark, an Advanced Placement teacher of U.S. government and politics at a North Carolina high school.

How many Americans knew Archibald Cox's name in 1973, teach?

Politics · Journalism · 2005/07/12 · 27 COMMENTS · Link

Infantryman Randy Cadenhead in Iraq

One of at least two Cadenheads serving in Iraq, infantryman Spc. Randy Cadenhead, turned up in an interesting Iraq Pictures weblog. I don't know him personally, but I suspect one of the genealogists in the family could show me that we're fourth or fifth cousins.

I've yet to hear from a Cadenhead who wasn't related to me, including one in Houston who hoped we weren't kin because of something I published on the web.

War · Iraq · Cadenhead · 2005/07/11 · Comment · Link

Simple Syndication in Communist China

While researching the skateboard jump over the Great Wall of China, I found RSS in an unusual place: The English language edition of People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, offers 18 RSS 2.0 newsfeeds.

In addition to feeds on current events in news, business, sports, and other areas, the paper devotes feeds to party leaders such as Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Outside observers of China often look to People's Daily for clues about the inner workings of the government, as described in Wikipedia:

Newspaper articles in the People's Daily are often not read for content, so much as placement. A large number of articles devoted to a political figure or idea is often taken as a sign that that official is rising.

In addition, editorials in the People's Daily are also still regarded as fairly authoritative statements of government policy.

Sports · Rss · 2005/07/10 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Dennis the Menace

Floridian blogger Jim Mathies is riding out Hurricane Dennis from a coastal town close to where the eye of the storm is coming ashore.

This is the strongest storm to ever hit the Florida panhandle, and you have to worry about the people there when you read his increasingly tense updates.

Here's what he wrote an hour ago:

Things are starting to get ugly now. The wind has picked up to a constant roar and has shifted North. The water in the air is so thick I can bearly see across the street. I think the worst is still to come.

Last night:

I've decided to stay, but the butterflies in my stomach are back. I'll be able to evac north and east over the bay bridge up to the point where winds hit 45mph. At 45mph, the bridges close and then I'm stuck. I'll just hunker down for now and hopefully ride it out without harm, hoping a tornado doesn't decide to cut my house in half.

Two days ago:

Someone pinged me to ask if I'm planning on staying for Dennis. Yes, I'll most likely stay, unless it's a cat 4+ and making landfall within 50 miles of Destin. (I'm not that crazy.)

Dennis is a category four storm making landfall around 45 miles from Destin.

Florida · 2005/07/10 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

I toured Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral this past week, an exciting time to visit because of the impending shuttle launch scheduled for Wednesday July 13 at 3:51 p.m. Eastern. The closest we got to the shuttle Discovery was the sight of the top of its external tank and booster rockets -- the rest was obscured behind launch pad 39B, from our vantage point on an observation tower.

NASA, which used to syndicate updates in a proprietary XML format, offers an RSS feed for news related to Wednesday's launch.

Florida · 2005/07/09 · Comment · Link

Read More Entries