Midwest Ramblings 

No smoking allowed

Any bets on how long Ricky Williams stays with the Dolphins? About a month into the season is my guess until he gets traded then it is anyone’s guess if he plays beyond this year. Any team that depends on him past this year has got to be crazy. He is liable to either wonder off for a medicinal smoke and get suspended again or in a mellow moment decide to quit again.

Memo to Denver Broncos: When you watch Maurice Clarett remember Ricky Williams

Help! I'm stuck in a Dilbert cartoon and I can't get out!

Sometimes at work I think I am in a Dilbert cartoon and can’t get out. Workplace morale has been low so some astute managerial genius decided the solution was to give us a plain tin can then come by once a week and throw a motivational saying in there. Why I am shocked that didn’t take care of it immediately! Who comes up with this stuff? Probably came out of some seminar or a book somebody read. Please tell me the future of the company doesn’t depend on these people

Larry Brown to the Knicks?

It looks like Larry Brown is going to take his traveling show to the Knicks. As a lifelong Knicks fan these last couple years have been painful to watch, but unfortunately as good a coach as Larry Brown is he is not the answer. There are too many overpaid, underperforming players on that team and Larry Brown is only going to coach a couple years at best. Isaiah Thomas has not shown any ability to turn things around and has actually contributed to the problem. They need to just start over. Get rid of as many players as possible, take the salary cap hit for the next couple years and sign players on the cheap to short term deals. Then in a couple years wisely pursue some free agents. They also need to learn to evaluate draft talent. Their recent drafts have been horrible. What in the name of Walt Frazier have they been thinking?

Causes of Terrorism

Today we saw a continuation of terror with the attacks in Egypt that killed 90 people. This follows the attempted attacks this week in London and the successful attacks in London 2 weeks ago. There is no end in sight regardless of what policy national leaders implement. There are many attempted explanations for Islamic terrorism. Some blame it on poverty yet many of the terrorists have come from well off families. Some blame it on oppression of Muslims yet the suicide bombers in London were from England where there appears to be no restraint on the preaching of Islam in the mosques. Some blame it on the fighting in Iraq yet acts of Islamic terror have been perpetrated long before the Iraq war. So what is it? It comes down to a warped perception of God or Allah if you will. I am no expert on Islam or the Koran to know whether it is truly “a religion of peace” as people claim. What is clear is to me is that radical Islam has made God in their image instead of making themselves in the image of God. They have defined Allah to meet their political aims. This isn’t unique to Islam. We can see the same in Christianity. Take for instance those that have bombed abortion clinics or shot doctors that performed abortions. They use Christianity as an excuse to further their political aims. In many cases Christianity is used as a reason to verbally and physically harass homosexuals. Now, I definitely want to see abortion done away with and disagree with the homosexual agenda but I see a God that wants people to repent and leave their sins behind, not a God that wants them killed. The present terrorism problem is not one with physical roots but rather spiritual ones,

Can't trust those sweaty people

I saw where the New York City police chief told subway riders they could help look for terrorists by keeping an eye out for someone sweating a lot. What kind of plan is that? Its 90 degrees and they are in a subway!

With Unions Like Those

Now the hockey strike is finally over. I have never really followed hockey that close and don’t really know all the issues in the strike but it does seem the players got hammered. The deal they agreed to seems worse than the one they left on the table before last season was cancelled. It just goes to show whether it be baseball, football, basketball or hockey if the owners stick together they eventually will win. All this talk about “will the fans come back” is nonsense. They always do.

Why Are We Here?

Yet another has joined the world of bloggers. The plan is for this to be about a variety of topics of course we will have to see what happens.