Centerfield

A comment to break the ice.

1. Everything should now be working in the new blog location? Does anyone still see any problems?

2. Torturing Al Qaeda vs. Iraqis. I'm not hearing much outcry against the harsh methods used on Al Qaeda prisoners. Is this just because we don't have pictures, or is the public tolerant of torturing them, and only objects when those methods are applied to Iraqis who are not international terrorists?

3. Does anyone know how to get rid of virus-like adware? This think called dealhelper somehow installed itself on my computer without my permission. I've uninstalled most of it. The only remanent left is that Google in IE goes to a page of ads rather than results.

I was wondering what everyone's opinion of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) is? He should be facing a tough re-election campaign this year and I was just wondering how moderates outside of the state of Wisconsin view him?

Lakers v. Timberwolves -- this is going to be fun. And nobody outside of L.A. could seriously be rooting for the Lakers, right?

Rick,

I've used ad-aware to remove stuff from a number of computers. It seems to do a pretty good job.

http://download.com.com/3000-2094-10045910.html?legacy=cnet

The free version cleans up pretty good. If you want around the clock protection, you have to buy the product.

If you have problems with your network after running it, you can undo the changes made with the last scan. Make sure you check for updates after you install it and run it the first time.

Rick,

I noticed this morning a change in font (to arial?) and that when we post a blockquote it no longer automatically puts it in italics. Not problems, just observations.

Adrian,

I love Senator Feingold... Against the Death Penalty, doesn't take PAC money, for Campaign Finance Reform, fiscally responsible, voted to impeach Clinton... My kind of Democrat. The Senator is truly one of the finest public servants in Washington D.C. because he stands up for the things he believes in, regardless of party.

I tinkered around a bit with the layout last night, including the font.

I got started because our old background graphics were not appearing -- the title area had a black background, and the others were white. Those were fixable by changing the paths that pointed to those graphics.

I noticed the setting in there that was causing our text to double-space, and dialed that down a bit.

I also tried out a few different fonts. Wasn't all that happy with any of them, honestly. The current one that's active is Arial, but we can go back to Palatino (the one we were using), or something else, if you like.

The thing with blockquotes no longer being in italics is an artifact of our site change -- it's been doing that ever since we switched over. There's probably a setting in there somewhere that would change that back.

Finally, I noticed this morning that the posts are separated by lines again -- which I suspect Rick fixed. Looks much nicer.

Any comments/suggestions about the layout are welcome.

...and he had the integrity to buck his party and vote for the Ashcroft nomination based upon his qualifications and not his personal beliefs... The man has class. I reccomend a Centrist Coalition endorsement.

...referring to Senator Feingold again.

This pro-Bush blogger who I have mentioned before and who is tracking polling trends projects that if the election were held today, the result in the Electoral College would be Kerry 327, Bush 211.

What is this guy smoking?

Last time I checked Bush was winning in Penn (4 or 5 points), Michigan (2 or 3 points), and Florida (1 or 2 points). He also has him losing Missouri (not unless Dick gets the veep spot), and Nevada... Arizona, Virginia, and North Carolina as a pink state, and New Mexico and Oregon as solid blue? In short... I think he is off.

FYI... Survey USA has the race in California as 47 to 45... If Kerry has to spend money to hold on to the Golden State, he is in a whole lot of trouble. I would love for Bush to owe Arnold big time.

I second Ad-Aware for getting rid of that crap. Here's a link directly to their website.

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

I use the free version and works out good enough for me. I also had that same problem as you Rick and while I do software development for part of my job, I couldn't remove the whole thing myself until I used this product.

Ad-Aware definitely rocks, the Lakers definitely suck (but can Cassell and Garnett continue to carry the TWolves? Is there anyone on the TWolves team that can possibly match up with Kobe? I just don't like their chances), and the new blog is cool. Other than that, I think I spent all my words yesterday in the Kerry Plan for Iraq post.

Go Wolves! After watching Kevin Garnett pretty much will his team to victory, I think anything is possible... Especially against the heartless whiney bastards that are the Los Angeles Lakers. How could you even root for them if you where from LA? I would be a Clippers fan.

here in Boston we've always known that the lakers are pure evil, just like the yankees. What else explains the Fisher miracle shot.

Good luck to the T-Wolves and ex-pat Kevin McHale. His playing on a broken foot in the finals against the Lakers was one of the guttiest performances ever.

I kind of like the arial.

Rick, Ad-Aware can be a big help, but it can't do everything. What you need to get are a couple of freeware goodies called HijackThis! and CWShredder, and some time and effort. I can email the progs to you if you like. Spybot Search & Destroy is also useful. Ad-Aware doesn't have the tools for isolating the little things that are designed to hide from it, but Spybot does, and has an immunizer to help keep some of thsoe nasties from downloading on you to begin with.

Email me if you want more info. It's an annoying task, but using nothing but freeware you can kill off that spyware crap and keep it from coming back, and just as easily or more so as you can with the big-$ softwares.

Oh, yeah, I like Arial myself.

My hobby of the week is getting an old '84 Jeep Cherokee 4x4, that an elderly neighbor gave me last week, into good running condition. It wouldn't even start without major assistance, and when it did start it immediately boiled over. But the tires were new and the price was right, so what the hey? I could always get $100 from the junkman for it.

So far, so good. Took one look at the brakes and rebuilt 'em from the master cylinder down. (Always first chore with an old car--making absolutely positively sure it STOPS!) Then a new radiator, and sundry maintenance items. Engine flush & oil change. Change ALL the fluids, flush all the systems, test for leaks. Tune up. Fixed the AC leak, and recharged, and it works with no leaks! Instead of being an immobile rusting "Pile O' Scrap" with 200K miles, it is now a beautifully running and mechanically sound POS with 200K miles. And it gets 25+ mpg....

This weekend I'll kill the rust spots before they eat any actual holes in the body. It'll still be ugly after that, but won't be slowly disintegrating anymore. Details, details. Love that "primer leopard" paint scheme! Pretty can wait.

But hey, a free Jeep! ($400 and rising in parts investment, and 20+ hours labor.)

An unscientific survey concludes that 79% of blog readers are men and nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans read blogs.

I find the NBA essentially unwatchable today, but I concur that the Lakers are a classless team (Koby, whining Shaq, phoney-baloney Phil Jackson, and Jack Nicholson) who deserve to lose. If there was any justice in life, the Spurs would have beaten them, but alas, there is little reward in this world for virtue.

Feingold seems like a solid, non-idiot legislator (of which I find there are fewer and fewer). Interestingly, however, McCain-Feingold is starting to get some flack from liberals that it restricts free speech. (Gee, that didn't seem to matter when it was only Republicans complaining did it?) The problem with legislation like this is always the law of unintended consequences and I'm not sure it's possible to "balance" free speech with other values.

As odd as it seems at first, I like Russ Feingold for much the same reasons I liked William Proxmire (whom I rate as a political idol of mine). But he (like Prox) is no moderate. He's principled, he's smart, and he's articulate. He takes a few very brave stances that make those of us in or around the middle feel great when we have him on our side. But he's just as capable of doing the same with far-left stances.

Talking about basketball, I was a little surprised my local NPR radio station had a sports story that mentioned the Warriors were considering Mike Montgomery, Stanford's head coach, for the job. Am I the only one who considers Mike Montgomery the most overrated coach in the history of the sport given the amount of talent he's had? Of course, anything would help the Warriors at this point.

Interesting -- AP is reporting that Kerry may delay accepting the nomination until August (but not delaying the convention) because after he accepts the nomination he will be limited to spending the roughly $75 million in federal funds given to each candidate, and he doesn't want to dip into that money until Bush has to.

Thanks for the adware suggestions.

The blockquote in italics requires an easy change to the stylesheet. I'll do that.

Yeah I read that Todd.

I think it is a smart move by Kerry. Although it just goes to show how our political system has become so saturated by money that it almost matters more now than the vote of the American people.

The NBA is definitely about the worst sport to watch these days and the Lakers are the epitome of that. The problem is, they are poised to win the championship because no other team matches up very well with how they are playing right now. But I've got my fingers crossed that the TWolves are the Cinderella team this year. They're at least fun to watch play.

The T-wolves may be underdogs, but I don't think the odds of them winning the series are as long as many seem to believe. The T-wolves were 3-1 against the Lakers during the regular season, and they will have the home court advantage (at least for the next 7 hours).

On a related note, a friend of mine does the radio broadcasts for the T-wolves. He also has a fantastic golf trip to Ireland planned for the third week of June. If the T-wolves win this series, he can't go. Add to that the fact that his father was the GM of the Lakers in Minnesota before they left 44 years ago. He is very conflicted. Watch this space for possible great deal to Ireland.

Well after that game last night, I think your friend can rest easy about his trip to Ireland. If that series goes past 5 games, I'd be pleasantly surprised.

Not so fast Scotch Drinker. This is exactly how the series with the Kings started. The T-Wolves had about 36 hours rest for Game 1, while the Lakers had 5 days. Game 3 will be telling.