What Caught My Eye Today
North Korea - More than two dozen Internet sites in South Korea and the United States, including the White House, were attacked in recent days by hackers that South Korea's spy agency said may be linked to North Korea. The timing of the cyber attacks raised suspicions about North Korea because it was around the U.S. Independence Day holiday and Pyongyang conducting missile tests.Way to connect the dots, genius. The attack was more about nuisance and harassment and was very low in the sophistication scale. Nuisance and lacking in sophistication? Sound like North Korea to me. If North Korea was responsible, it would mark an escalation in tensions already high due to the reclusive communist state's nuclear test in May, its firing of seven ballistic missiles in July and repeated attacks on longtime foes Seoul and Washington in its official media. Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective, but a feeble Internet attack doesn't exactly seem to rank the same importance as the test firing of missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Don't get me wrong; given enough practice, I can see these guys doing some serious damage. I just don't see this stunt being at the same level as test firing some ballistic missiles.
Slang - It never ceases to amaze me the nonsense that always seems to make its way into our judicial system. A Las Vegas man won a courtroom battle with the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles over his "HOE" license plate, which the agency tried to cancel on grounds that he was using a slang reference to prostitutes. The high court said the DMV based its opposition to the man's plate on definitions found in the Web-based Urban Dictionary, which includes user contributions. Justices ruled that the contributed definitions "do not always reflect generally accepted definitions for words." The plaintiff, whose case was pursued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said he got the "HOE" plate in 1999 for his Chevy Tahoe, after being told "TAHOE" wasn't available. I'm gonna side with the DMV on this one. Hear me out. When you hear the word "hoe" what comes to mind? A garden tool? Probably. A woman of questionable moral character, maybe. A pickup truck? I seriously doubt it. That being said, this is such a lame ass way to spend taxpayer money. Did a court really need to rule on this? Last time I checked with my state DMV, they had a published list of letter combinations that were not available--mostly because of the derogatory inferences that could be made from them. Sorry, bro'. I'm going with "hoe" as a likely candidate for being interpreted as a derogatory term.
Pope - It's been ages since we've heard from His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI. I wonder what's on his mind these days. Pope Benedict XVI, on the eve of a global economic summit, lashed out at modern capitalism for being shortsighted and short on ethics. "Today's international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise," the pontiff said. I'm not sure I'd condemn capitalism or call it shortsighted. Most of the reasons behind the most recent economic meltdown can be tied to legal loopholes, lax regulation, and people breaking the law. If you want to claim shortsightedness or a lack of ethics, I'd start with the legislators and regulators who allowed this activity to happen on their watch.
Cricket - I am, if nothing else, a man of my word. And it is in that vein that I give you this recap of the first day of action at The Ashes in Cardiff, Wales, the bi-annual cricket competition between England and Australia. Day 1 of Test Match 1 of Ashes 2009 comes to a close. The honors have been equally shared. First session to Australia. Second to England. Third to both. Perfect day's cricket. Now if someone could explain to me, what all that means....So are they tied, or what?
Cycling - I'll keep this short. Stage 5 is in the books. Swiss rider, Fabian Cancellara is still the overall race leader followed by Lance Armstrong, less than one second behind. That's right, these guys have covered 628km (390 mi), including a individual and a team time trial, and they are in a dead head. Pretty amazing, wouldn't you say?
3 comments:
Cricket - so are they tied, or what? No. Think of it that the teams take turns (each one is called an innings) to post a score (or actually two innings in a test match such as the Ashes).
Depending on the playing conditions - state of the pitch, weather conditions etc, players, pundits and watchers will have their own opinions of what's a "good" score.
While the first team proceeds through their first innings, the number of runs scored balanced against the number of wickets lost (i.e. men out) is the picture of how the game is progressing.
But until the second team has got some way into their innings, you often can't be sure who's in the better position.
Just before lunch on day 2, England were pretty happy with their score of 435. But at the end of the day, when the Aussies on 249 with only 1 wicket down, that 435 isn't looking so great. But if England get a good start tomorrow, and a couple of early wickets, suddenly the balance changes again.
Hence the beauty of cricket.
I see. So no one is winning right now but, when this test is all said and done, someone will walk away with the urn. Fascinating game, this cricket.
Ok - so the first test is over, they played for the full five days (minus a little time lost for rain) and it's ended in a draw. But the last couple of hours was utterly absorbing, with England successfully hanging on when an Aussie win seemed more likely. I can't think of any other sport where a draw can be so utterly gripping. (A draw is not the same as a tie, by the way - that's a subject for another day.)
So one down, four to go, and honours still even, just.
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