The SoapBoxers

Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers is definitely drawing its fair share of ink, and many people have negative opinions of the program.  I’m not going to defend it in its entirety, because I do believe that the program has flaws, particularly with the low threshold for the $3500 rebates.  However, I will address two comments that seem to pop up a lot.

The first is the comment that this is resulting in perfectly good cars being destroyed – cars that would be a good first car for a teen, or a car for someone who couldn’t afford something nicer.  I get the impression that people think that this is an unintended consequence that was a result of congress not thinking enough about the impacts.  However, this is not the case.  This is exactly what congress intended – to avoid having the useful lives of these cars extended, and getting them off the road.  Whether a 15 mph car is being driven by a 45 year old man, or a 19 year old college student, it’s still a 15 mpg car.  I might be one of the minority who thinks that car with 18 mph or worse combined highway/city mpg is pretty bad.  I’ve never had a car that has come anywhere close to this mileage, and I don’t drive small cars.  Our current cars are in the high 20s.

The second comment I hear is a questioning of the stimulative effect.  In my opinion, Cash for Clunkers is an environmental program with a possible economic impact, not vice versa.  Realistically, there cannot be much direct stimulation as a result of the program.  In the grand scheme of things, three billion dollars is not a huge amount of money.  The best case scenario would be for the program to revive interest in cars, and get people without clunkers to think about buying a car.

Mel Martinez

Senator Mel Martinez of Florida has announced that he will be stepping down before his current term ends.  This puts governor Charlie Crist in an interesting predicament.  Crist had previously announced his intentions to run for Martinez’ seat in 2010 (Martinez had previously announced that he would not seek another term).  As is the case in many states, the governor has the authority to appoint the interim senator.  Crist has said that he will not appoint himself, which gets him into a bit of a pickle.  Whomever is appointed by Crist will be an incumbent for the 2010 primaries.  Incumbents always have a leg up on the opposition.

Crist has a few options.  The first option is to appoint someone who will be a strong representative for the state of Florida – someone who represents that views of the citizens of the state and works hard to achieve results in the Senate.  This candidate could be a tough adversary for Crist in the primary.  Alternately, Crist could appoint a weaker candidate who would be exposed by  a short stint in congress, and would be a sitting duck against Crist in a primary.  The danger with this is that the citizens might not be pleased having sub-standard representation in congress.

I suppose there’s also the third option – that Crist does indeed appoint himself, reneging on his earlier statement.  I’ll give Governor  Crist the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s not dumb enough to try that trick.

It will be interesting to see which direction Crist will lean.  The citizens of Florida would be well served to pay close attention to this process, as it may tell them much about the sort of man Charlie Crist is.

Patrick Kane

Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane was arrested in Buffalo for robbery, criminal mischief,  and theft of services after an early morning altercation with a cab driver.

The story being told by the cab driver is that Kane and  his cousin paid for a $13.80 cab ride with $15.  The cab driver claimed to only have $1 in change, rather than the $1.20.  The Kanes then allegedly took back the $15 and punched the cab driver in the face.  Police confirmed that the cab driver suffered cuts to the face and broken glasses.

Kane is, of course, innocent until proven guilty.  Perhaps the allegations are unfounded.  If the allegations prove to be true, then Kane suffered a monumental case of bad judgment.  Were he and his cousin owed the 20 cents?  Certainly.  However, this was definitely not the best way to handle the situation.  Noting the cab driver’s cab license and reporting the incident to the proper authorities would have been a better route.  Risking a prison sentence over 20 cents  just doesn’t make sense.

What did you miss over the weekend?

• Friday featured the first part of the short story Superstar – the tale of a young music sensation.
• The conclusion of Superstar appeared in the Saturday edition.
• Tyson Turner pushed Winnipeg front and center on Sunday, selling the city as a tourist destination.

Make sure to read part 1 of this story before reading the conclusion!

“What concert might that be?” asked Kristi, and she received a kick under the table from Mac.

“Kristi Smiley is in town,” replied the waitress. “What a great voice – and she also does a lot of charity work. Just a great person. I’d love to go the to the concert,” she said with a sigh.

“Why aren’t you going?” asked Kristi.

“I just can’t afford the tickets. Hey, enough about me. I’ll grab your drinks and give you a few moments to look over the menus.”

Kristi studied the menu intently. She was trying to remember the calories for each ingredient, in an effort to maximize the calories in her pizza. She put on a high energy show every night and burned calories at an incredible rate.

Sarah, the waitress, returned with their drinks, and Mac and Kristi were ready to order. Mac ordered some sort of abomination with all sorts of green crap on it. Kristi ordered a thin crust pizza with hamburger, Canadian bacon, sausage, and bacon.

“Geez, Kristi,” Mac exclaimed. “That stuff is going to kill you some day.”

“Take it easy, Mac. I’m getting a salad, so it basically cancels out.”

Mac rolled his eyes and sipped his pop.

Sarah was back in a few minutes, carrying their salads. Mac ate his salad dry, while Kristi smothered hers in a lake of French dressing. Mac gave her a dirty look, which Kristi pretended not to notice.

The pizza was extremely hot when it arrived, and Kristi singed the roof of her mouth when while trying to inhale the first piece.

“Slow down, girl,” Mac warned. “Protect those vocal cords.”

Kristi ignored him again and focused on enjoying the pizza. The meats and cheese blended together to produce a culinary symphony in her mouth. It was great to be in the midwest, where people really understood how to make a great pizza.

The ever-attentive waitress topped off their beverages as slow poke Mac was finishing up his veggie pizza.

“Can I get you folks anything else?” asked Sarah.

“Just the check,” replied Mac.

When they were ready to leave, Mac caught Sarah as she was passing the table.

“It looks like a couple people in our group aren’t going to be able to make it, so we have a couple extra tickets to the concert. We’d like you to have them,” he said, as he handed her an envelope along with the money for their meal.

Sarah was stunned speechless by the gift, and Kristi and Mac quickly left the restaurant to avoid attracting more attention.

Later that night, Kristi was preparing for the show back stage and saw Sarah being introduced to some of the other musicians. Kristi walked up to the group and introduced herself.

“Oh my God,” exclaimed Sarah. “It’s you – the girl from the restaurant. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize your voice at the time.”

“Mac,” said Kristi, “this poor girl has been on her feet all day. See if you can find her a chair.”

Mac managed to find a tall, three legged stool, which he set up on the side of the stage. This became the lofty perch from which the most popular waitress in town watched the first – and most memorable – concert of her life.

Kristi’s voice filled the empty bowl of the arena as she finished the last verse.

“That’s a wrap,” said Mac Radel, formally ending the walkthrough for tonight’s show.

Whistles erupted from the upper level, as two teenage boys indicated their approval of Kristi’s singing. Certainly, the boys had no legitimate reason to be in the arena, but Kristi always appreciated a fan.

“Howdy, boys,” she said, blowing a kiss in their direction.

“You certainly do have this country wrapped around your little finger, Kristi.”

“Aw, shucks, Mac. You know me. I’m just a girl who likes to sing.”

“Sure, and the gold records mean nothing.”

“They’re nice to have, Mac,” she grinned, “but I’d still be singing for free in the church choir if the record deal hadn’t come along. I’m famished. Let’s run into town and get something to eat.”

Mac laughed. “Hon, there is absolutely no way you can show your face in town – you’ll be mobbed by fans, and we need to get back here to tweak the details of the show. I’ll send a roadie into town to pick something up.”

“Aw, Mac,” she pouted. “You’re worse than a parent. Just once, I want to eat in a normal restaurant, where I can actually see some real live people instead of just music people. I’ll go incognito. Pleaaaaaaaaaaase?”

Mac sighed. “This is a bad idea, Kristi. You have one of the most recognizable faces in the country. Someone is bound to see through your disguise. I can see you’re going to be a grouch if you don’t get your way, though, so we’ll give it a shot.”

Kristi hugged Mac and raced into her motor coach. A few minutes late, she walked out wearing a baseball jersey, a well-worn baseball cap, and some dime store sun glasses.

Mac and Kristi picked out a pizza place near the town square. They had just settled into their booth when Mac nearly had a heart attack – someone looked at them with a flash of recognition.

“Hey, I know you,” said the slender man in the John Deere hat. “You’re Mac Radel! Could I possibly get your autograph?”

Mac sighed inwardly with relief and signed the man’s napkin.

“Hey, who’s the gal with you,” asked John Deere Hat. “I suppose she’s your daughter, learning the ropes of the industry from the master?”

“Er, yes,” replied Mac. “This is my daughter, Christine.”

“Glad to meet you, Christine. My name’s Dustin.” The man in the hat smiled broadly at Kristi before walking toward the door.

Kristi kicked Mac under the table.

“Christine? Very creative, Mac.”

“Sorry, Kristi. The guy really caught me by surprise. Why on earth would anyone recognize a manager?”

“He probably recognized you from your previous job.”

“Oh, yes,” Mac replied. “Songwriters routinely have their pictures on the covers of magazines.”

The teenage waitress took their drink order. Mac ordered a caffeine free diet soda, while Kristi ordered her drunk loaded up with lots of caffeine and sugar.

“Ya’ll aren’t from around here,” observed the waitress. “You in town for the concert?”

To be continued – come back tomorrow for the conclusion of “Superstar”

A few times I have noticed companies looking at the bad reviews they have received on The Soap Boxers.  I’ll be browsing through the server logs, and the company name will pop up.  In the case of HSBC, it popped up several times, the last time being a Google search on the term “… these folks were in training and dealing with human beings for the first time.”  Apparently the term struck enough of a chord that someone remembered it.

How many times have these companies emailed to  ask if they could fix the problem?  Yep – exactly zero times.  Too bad, because a satisfactory resolution would also be reported, as well as appended to the original article.

UPDATE: I have recently been contacted by someone from the HSBC executive office.  He is interested in taking a look at this situation and determining why these issued occurred.  I haven’t had a chance to respond to him yet.  I do appreciate the fact that HSBC is looking at this as a learning opportunity.  I will update this post with future developments.

SUBSEQUENT UPDATE: read the exciting conclusion to the saga.

(Note: I just look art the sever logs for general information about web traffic.  These logs do NOT contain any personal information about you – they just contain some generic information such as your internet service provider and operating system).

Our little Twitter account,which does little more than tweet blog updates (a “poor man’s” RSS, essentially) attracts pornographers as followers.  The Twitterati among you know what I’m talking about – “women” whose Twitter page links to a “dating” site.  I’m not even sure why I bother to filter them out, but I do.  Do people still fall for these scams?  Perhaps.

Cash for Clunkers has been a hot topic around the blogosphere.  I’m in the middle in my opinion – I don’t think it is as horrible as some people think, but I also don’t think it is as great as congress thought.

One thought I did have is that the program probably would have been much better if the lower phase of the program ($3500 for increase of 4 mpg) had not existed, forcing people to improve mileage by 10 mpg.  Not only would this have been better for the environment (pushing some borderline people to the 10 mpg improvement), but it would have also help the money stretch further.  In any case, a few billion dollars – while a lot of money to you or me – is unlikely to have a huge impact on the economy, aside from perhaps a positive mental effect.

There are plenty of great guides to fiction writing on the market. Many of them are written by authors who are much more accomplished than myself. However, my advice is free, and today I share it with you. Of course, this is not a comprehensive guide, but just a few tips.

• Write – This seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? However, it is easy for life to get in the way of your best intentions. Set aside some time to focus on writing, and try to write a specific number of times each week. For many people, finding time to write 365 days of the year is not realistic. However, perhaps you can try two or three times per week. It is not necessary to write a story from start to finish – feel free to skip around. I use [BREAK] to note points in the story that have not yet been written (so if you ever encounter this in one of my stories, you have found an “oops”). This helps reduce writer’s block, as you can just skipped to an unblocked portion and return to the blocked portion when the block has dissipated.

• Know your genre– Read several books (or stories) within your genre to get a good feel for concepts that work and don’t work. For example, novels tend to describe events more richly than short stories – short stories typically have to get to the point much more directly, simply because they have less words with which to work. Here is an example of a scene, with one version written for a short story and another written for a novel.

  Short story: Kirsten walked across the room and turned on the lamp.

  Novel: Kirsten’s scarlet stilettos drummed out a melodic series of clicks as she strode purposefully across the marble floor. When she arrived at the mahogany table in the corner, she flipped the switch on the ancient lamp. The compact fluorescent bulb fluttered for a short moment before realizing its full potential and bathing the room in light.

  Clearly, this is an overly dramatic example, but you should see the point. If you consistently use “short story” descriptions in a novel, you’ll have difficulty achieving much length – and your readers will find your work a bit boring. On the other hand, if you’re trying to write a 500 word short story and drop in lots of “novel” descriptions, you’re going to run out of words long before you reach the climax. You just took 11% of your alloted words just to have a girl turn on a lamp!

  Additionally, concepts that work in mysteries may fall flat on their face in a romance novel. In general, familiarity with the genre will help you improve your writing style.

• Work on the technical aspects– There are a lot of tricky aspects to writing. Dialogue is one of the more difficult. Until recently, I have always punctuated dialogue incorrectly – and even now, I wouldn’t be surprised if you find a lot of errors in how I handle dialogue. It’s also important to avoid becoming repetitive. Once again, our friend dialogue pops up as a potential problem area. Let’s review a couple of examples.

  Bad:

  “Hi, Ted,” said Fred.

  “Hey, Fred,” said Ted.

  “The weather sure is nice today,” said Fred.

  “Yes, it certainly is,” said Ted.

  “Great game yesterday,” said Fred.

  Better:

  “Howdy, Ted,” said Fred.

  “Hey, Fred – how are you doing?”

  “Not so bad. The weather sure is nice today.”

  “Yes, it certainly is,” replied Ted.

  “Did you see the game yesterday? What an exciting finish,” exclaimed Fred.

  The first conversation suffers from a couple of problems. First, it is too name heavy. When you have two characters speaking to each other, it is not necessary to identify them every single time they speak. It is, of course, a good idea to to identify them periodically over the course of a longer conversation, to avoid having the reader lose track of who is speaking. The conversation also suffers from excessive said-itis. There are a lot of ways to describe someone speaking. Exclaimed, replied, questioned, squeaked, whispered, and shouted are the tip of the iceberg.

  Paying close attention to the writing of others can assist you greatly in writing better dialogue and handling other technical issues. You can also check the self-help section of the book store for grammar, usage, and style guides.

• Names – It can be difficult for a lot of writers to generate names for their characters. For my short stories, I often grab the names of my friends. I am careful to not use a full name – only a first or last. This allows me a lot more flexibility with my characters – I can have a character go on a murderous rampage without causing my friend’s name to pop up on a Google search for serial killers. There are actually books on the market devoted to how to develop characters, and some of them include names for characters. A good book of baby names will also work quite nicely. If you want a really good free source, you can always utilize the census data, which lists first names (broken out by gender) and last names in order of popularity. You probably don’t want to print the entire list though – the last name list has nearly 90,000 names.

• Share – Share your writing with others. This might meant showing a couple of close friends, or it might mean broadcasting to a potential audience of millions via the internet. Not only will this give you a stronger feeling of accomplishment, but many people will offer constructive criticism. Constructive criticism is a great tool to indentify strengths and weaknesses in your writing.

• Have fun – The vast majority of you are not going to become world famous writers. I’m not trying to burst your bubble; this is an unfortunate statistical truth. (For those of you who do become world famous writers, could you signed me a signed first edition?) Thus, if your only goal is to make millions off your writing, you might want to shift your focus. The journey is more important than the destination.

Back On April 15, we launched a Stock Market contest (click link to see insights from the participants) in which a team of Goliaths (personal finance bloggers) were matched up against a team of Davids (people who were not personal finance bloggers). At the end of June, the Dow stood at 8447.00 and had gained average 6.84 points during the course of the contest, making the Davids the favorites.

The market had a very strong July, and ended the month at 9171.61, up 724.61 for the month.

At the end of the day on April 14th (the 104th day of the year), the Dow was at 7920.18.

At the end of the day on July 31 (the 212th day of the day), the Dow was at 9171.61.

This is a gain of 1251.43, or 11.59 points per day. If we assume that the market will contain to gain at exactly the same rate throughout the rest of the year (yes, a ridiculous assumption), the Dow will be at 10945.17 at the end of the year (+ 3024.99 from April 14).

How do our contestants stack up?

I also invited visitors to play along at home. Let’s see how they are doing.

At this point, team David is strongly in the lead. What sort of month will August be? I think it will be a strong one, as “cash for clunkers” cash makes it way into the system (and more importantly, the public perceives cash for clunkers as the government giving back to “main street”). If this happens, team David could pull away even further. However, there are certainly a lot of ups and downs yet to be experienced this year!

As we hit the Major League non-waiver trade deadline today, we also reach the conclusion of our story.  Pleased read part one first (see the link in the table of contents at the top of the article).

Buzz immediately grab his phone and called Prescott Williams.

“What now, Bismarck?  You trying to get Blanchett for thirty cents on the dollar?”

“I’m actually calling about Ray Mitchell.”

“Ray Mitchell?  Why on earth would you want him?  He’s a sieve at third base – your guy is a much better all around player.”

“Yours is not to wonder why, Prescott.  I’ll give you Oscar Bishop for him.”

Prescott Williams pondered for about ten seconds before snapping up the deal.

Next,  Bismarck dialed the number of George Peyton.

“George, this is Buzz.  I have that right handed power bat yu have been looking for.  Ray Mitchell.”

“Ray Mitchell?  I’ve been trying to pry him away, but that doodoo head Williams was insisting that they were in the race and needed to hang onto all of their core players.”

“They’re no longer in the race, George.  Al Blanchett took a liner off his leg.  From the sound of the impact, he has a fracture and he’s done for the year.”

“Shit.  I hadn’t heard that.  When did it happen?”

“About five minutes ago.”

“And you jumped in like a piranha,” laughed Peyton.  “OK, Mitchell would definitely give us some thunder, though we’d probably need to DH him.  What are you looking for?”

“Vance Barcone.”

“I’ll have to check with the boss and get back to you.  Barcone is one of our better minor league pitchers.”

“Mitchell is the bat that can get you into the playoffs, George.  If you don’t want him, others in your division will.  Fish or cut bait.”

“Just give me five minutes,” begged Peyton.

“You have three minutes,” replied Bismarck, as he hung up.  The key, as always, was to keep the pressure on and force the other team to act more quickly than they wanted to.

Buzz chomped a handful of corn nuts, swigged some Coke, and burped violently.  Two and a half minutes later, his phone rang.  Peyton was able to pull the trigger, and Vance Barcone was a member of the Jackals.  Buzz quickly went to work on pushing Barcone out of the Jackals organization and onto his final destination.

It was a mere ninety minutes before the trade deadline when Buzz was able to reach Gordon Auth.

“Gordo,” exclaimed Bismarck.  “If you’re still looking to deal Travis Wolf, I might have a deal for you.  I just nabbed Vance Barcone from the Rhinos.  I could bundle him with Lewis Burke.”

“From a talent perspective, that’s about right,” replied Auth.  “How much cash are you willing to throw into the deal?”

“Cash?” replied Bismarck, with a tinge of shock entering his voice.  “We’re taking Wolf’s salary off your hands.  We’re already helping you  with your finances.”

“We’ve been having some bad financial times, Buzz.  You know that.  You’re going to have to sweeten the pot with a few million bucks to get the deal done.”

“No way,” replied Bismarck.  “I have another deal brewing to get Blanchett from the Sharks.”  Bismarck was bluffing, praying Gordon Auth hadn’t heard the news of the injury to Blanchett.

Gordon Auth sighed audibly.

“Can you throw me some sort of a bone, Buzz?  I’d like to be able to tell the boss that I was able to get at least a bit of cash in the deal.”

“Tell you what, Gordy.  I could include two million in the deal if you throw in that Willewaldt kid.”

Bismarck could sense the uncertainty on the other end of the phone.  Auth tended to have a good handle on the players at the upper levels of the minor leagues, but had the tendency to ignore all but the elite prospects at the lower level.  Bismarck doubted that Auth was aware  of the metrics that indicated that Willewaldt was a considerably better player that his raw stats indicated.  There was a distinct possibility that Auth was completely unaware of Willewaldt.  Getting Willewaldt for two million would be a steal.  Buzz went for the kill.

“Gordy, I have Prescott Williams on the other line,” he lied.  “We’re very close on the parameters of a deal for Blanchett.  What should I tell him?”

The game of chicken had come to a head – and understandably, the weaker GM succumbed.

“OK,” replied Auth.  “I’ll send in the paperwork.”

Buzz hung up the phone and released a celebratory fart.  With Travis Wolf on board, the Jackals had a very strong chance of making it to the playoffs.  Not only that, but he had bought Willewaldt for considerably below fair market value.   The day wasn’t over, though.  He still needed to submit the paperwork to the league office.  He hammered away on the keyboard of his laptop until the documentation had been filed.

Buzz grabbed his phone for one last call.  He reached Commissioner Jaylene Wrigley to inform her of the trades – just in case the technology failed.  As Bismarck listened to her voice, he could not help but be reminded of that weekend in Vegas when too much tequila had caused Jaylene to make some rather poor decisions – much to the benefit of the league’s Don Juan, Mr. Buzz Bismarck himself.  After his mild flirting had been rebuffed, the call ended.  Buzz turned on the TV, and flopped down on the futon in the middle of the office, where he promptly fell asleep.

In the spirit of the Major League non-waiver trade deadline on Friday, I am writing a two part story about a GM trying to make a deal so that his team can make a playoff run.  You’ll get the first half today, but you’ll have to wait until Friday for the conclusion – just as the suitors of Roy Halladay must wait.  (At press time, Halladay had not been traded.)

Buzz Bismarck munched on a mid-afternoon donut as he stared at the list of possible targets. The Jackals were on the cusp of contending for the playoffs. With so many teams still in the race, it had been difficult to find a willing trade partner. It had already been a long day. Many donuts had been eaten since he got into the office at 5 AM.

Buzz kicked off his shoes, put his feet on his desk, and called the GM of the Sharks.

“Hey, Prescott, this is Buzz.”

“Buzz, I keep telling you, Blanchett is not on the block. This team in right in contention.”

Buzz sighed internally. The Sharks were nine games out of the wild card spot. They had caught every lucky break possible this season, and when the luck turned against them, they would quickly be eliminated from the race. Prescott Williams refused to wave the white flag, however, and a fine pitcher like Al Blanchett would pay the price – languishing on a Sharks team that would fade into a second division club instead of leading the Jackals into the playoffs.

“I do like that catcher you have down in the minors,” commented Williams. “What sort of price would it take to acquire Bishop?”

Bismarck made a non-committal response that left a door open. Oscar Bishop wasn’t in the long term plans for the Jackals, and he would be a good fit for the Sharks, whose starting catcher was aging quickly. However, this sort of deal could wait – he had bigger fish to fry. Buzz asked a few quick questions about Prescott’s family. To be honest, he didn’t really care about the answers, and paid scarce attention.

Buzz took a brief respite from the phone and sniffed in the general direction of his feet. One of his scouts had told him that his feet smelled like dead fish. The was clearly not true. Live fish, perhaps. Dead fish, no.

The phone rang and Buzz broke from his reverie to grab it.

“Buzz Bismarck,” he grunted into the phone.

“Buzz, good to hear your pleasant voice again,” chirped the always-pleasant GM of the Rhinos, George Peyton. “We’re still looking for a good right handed power bat. Is there any chance Larry Morrisson might be available?”

“Sorry, George,” replied Buzz. “We really need to keep Larry Mo in the mix in our outfield. We could make Maloa available if you’re interested.”

“We’re not as interested in Maloa. His power has been sliding for the last couple of years.”

Peyton was right, of course, which was why Buzz was trying to dump him.

“OK, George. I’ll let you know if I can figure out a mutually beneficial deal.”

Bismarck grabbed the phone again and chatted up the GM of the Hyraxes. Hyrax pitcher Travis Wolf would be a good fit for the Jackals, but Gordon Auth wanted two good young pitching prospects. Lewis Burke was the sort of guy he was looking for, but none of the other pitching prospects in the Jackals organization interested the Hyraxes. Bismarck sighed once again, and hung up the phone.

Buzz grabbed the remote and flipped to some random game on the idiot box. The Sharks were playing, and Blanchett was on the mound. Bismarck was distracted by his thoughts, but a sharp crack made his head jerk to an upright position. It was not a good sort of crack.   It was the sort of crack bones make when they break.

The batter had driven a line drive off Blanchett’s leg, and the pitcher was in obvious pain as the medical staff tended to him.

I hit some news stories in Saturday’s article, so I’m taking a bit of a break today, with a fun article.

I am a huge baseball fan.  I am a big Rockies fan, of course, but I am also a bit fan of the sport, in general.  If I flip a game on, I can always root for one of the teams.  In fact, I have a fairly well defined team preferences, shown below.  It does get a bit hazy in the middle, between about 12 and 20.

What did you miss over the weekend?

• Friday  – Finishing up a trio of articles related to dinosaurs (including this giveaway) is the fiction short story What Really Killed the Dinosaurs.
• Saturday Stew – A pleasant mixture of news and sports from the week.  A considerable chunk of ink is is devoted the the Cardinals’ acquisition of Matt Holliday, while the subject of necrophilia also pops up.  We also welcomed Bob Inferapels back as the weekly entertainment writer.
• Sunday – Tyson Turner touches on some news briefs from Canada in North of the Border.

I’ve also added buttons that allow you to easily share links via Twitter, Digg, and Stumble.

Necrophilia

In 2006, three young men in Wisconsin attempted to dig up a recently diseased young woman so that one of them could have sex with her body.  One of the men had become infatuated with her after seeing her photo in the obituary column.  (Maybe it’s just me, but that’s not the first place I expect people to look for dates).  After a stop at a local Wal-Mart to buy condoms, the men arrived at the cemetery and proceeded to dug all the way down to the concrete vault before police, who had been notified of suspicious activity, arrived at the scene.  One of the men quickly cracked and blurted out the entire scheme.

Authorities in Wisconsin soon realized that the state did not have any necrophilia laws on the books.

The prosecutors wished to try them on sexual assault charges, but it was unclear if the state’s sexual assault laws applied to dead people.  The state supreme court decided that the laws did indeed apply, as a corpse is unable to give consent.  This logic threw me for a bit of a loop, as I had never stopped to wonder if someone had human rights after they were dead.

This week, the mastermind of the crime was found guilty of attempted sexual assault and was sentence to two years in jail.

Roethlisberger

Pittsburgh  Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was named as a defendant in civil lawsuit this week.  The lawsuit alleges that Roethlisberger raped her last July at the Tahoe resort where she worked.  The lawsuit seeks $480,000 in compensation.

Is it possible that the allegations are true?  Of course.  Is it likely?  No.  The woman has not contacted police to file any criminal charges … just the civil lawsuit.  This really seems like a ploy to squeeze money out of Big Ben.  After all, if she was traumatized to the extent of $480,000, wouldn’t she consider this to be criminal activity that should be reported to the authorities?  Show me a criminal complaint, and I’ll take notice.

Erin Andrews

ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was videotaped nude by a voyeur, apparently through a peephole in her hotel room.  The video quickly made its way onto the internet.  Interestingly, many of the links the purport to be the Andrews video are actually attempts to trick people into downloading a virus – so those of you who are trying to find this video should be aware of the distinct possibility that you may instead give your computer a nasty virus.  And if the thought crosses your mind to look for this video, stop for a minute and realize that this video was made without any knowledge by Andrews – give her some respect and stay away from the video.

The story got even worse, as some news networks used pieces of the video or photos (captured from the video) as part of their coverage of the story (with parts of Erin’s body obscured).  This crosses a line of journalistic ethics.  ESPN lashed back at one of the papers – The New York Post – by banning any of its reporters from appearing on ESPN shows.  Good call, ESPN.

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin racked up a sizeable legal bill fending off multiple ethics complaints against her.  Most were dismissed, although she did have to pay back taxes on roughly $17,000 that the state reimbursed her for per diem expenses (on nights she spent away from the the governor’s mansion in Juneau – staying instead at her home in Wasilla) and had to reimburse the state for travel expenses for her family.

Palin created a fund so that her supporters could contribute toward her legal expenses.  Ironically, these donations may be a violation of state ethics laws.

Do yourself a favor, Republicans – find a better candidate in 2012.  If you want to have a woman on the ticket, take a look around.  Is Sarah Palin the best woman for the job?

Matt Holliday

On Friday, Matt Holliday was traded from the A’s to the Cardinals for three prospects, including 3B Brett Wallace.  The presence of Holliday will add another strong bat to join Albert Pujols in the Cardinals lineup.  There will be a cage match fight to determine who gets to keep the number 5 on their jersey.

Holliday’s numbers have slid from his numbers with the Rockies.  While many of his critics say that this shows he is a product of Coors Field, other factors are at play.  Not only did he move to a less hitter-friendly park (indeed, to a very hitter unfriendly park in Oakland), but he also changed leagues, rendering years of studying National League pitchers mostly useless, and forcing him to learn the tendencies of a hundred new pitchers.  This takes some time.  While Holliday had a dreadful April, he has a .905 OPS since May 5 (before Friday’s game).  And while Oakland is a terrible hitter’s park, Holliday’s home OPS is actually 89 points higher than his road OPS – compared to a standard MLB home/road split of +30.  Sure, it’s a small sample, but perhaps he’s the type of player who is simply more comfortable in his home surroundings, regardless of what those surroundings are.  When he was with the Rockies, his split differential far exceeded that of any other Rockies player – casting some doubt on the assertion that he was merely a production of Coors (since a rising tide should lift all boats).

How did Holliday do in his first game with the Cardinals, on Friday night?  4-5, with a double, a stolen base, a run, and an RBI.

Holliday has typically fared very well in the summer months, and the playoff race may energize him and boost his performance.  Enjoy the view, St. Louis.

Rockies update

Todd Helton of the Rockies recorded his 500th career double on Wednesday, becoming the 50th player in the history of Major League Baseball to reach that mark.  Helton’s once prodigious power numbers have been sapped by back ailments and a humidor in Coors Field, and his contract is considered by many to be a financial albatross, but Helton is universally revered by Rockies fans as the first truly great player that was drafted and developed by the Rockies.

On Monday, the Rockies took over the lead in the National League wild card race.  The Rockies had gotten off to a horrible start under former manager Clint Hurdle before rebounding with a 31-10 record from June 4 through Monday – good enough to push them past division rival San Francisco for the catbird seat in the wild card race.

On Wednesday night, Rockies top prospect Jhoulys Chacin was pulled from his start with AA Tulsa after 9 pitches.  The reason given was that the move was made in anticipation of possible future organizational move.  Speculation quickly came to a head, with fans wondering in Chacin would be traded (perhaps in a deal for Jays pitcher Roy Halladay), or would he skip AAA Colorado Springs for a promotion to the big club?  Well, it turns out that JC will be tossed into the shaky Rockies bullpen.  On Thursday, the Rockies acquired Rafael Betancourt from Cleveland to further bolster the pen.  Don’t be surprised if Garrett Atkins is traded before the deadline.