Centerfield

One thing...

Twice now I've been basically attacked on this blog for posting political comments in threads others deemed it unappropriate to do so in. The first time was several months ago and the attacker was not one of the resident bloggers here at CF. But, the other day it was several CF bloggers seemingly incensed that I'd post political commentary on what by any objective standard of measurement is an overtly political blog. Only they apparently thought that particular thread ought to be off-limits to political commentary.

Now... I like to think that I'm a reasonably talented guy. But, I'd be the first to concede that mind-reading isn't one of my talents.

If y'all don't want political comments made on this poltical blog... you really ought to say so upfront. At least give your readers a heads up rather than jump down their throats after the fact.

It's your blog to run as you see fit. I don't begrudge that in any way, shape or form.

My $.02...

Kevin,

That was my post and, in case you didn't notice, I didn't assert that the comments that you posted were inappropriate.

Kevin, if you've got me on that list please be assured that if your posts didn't make some sense to me or at least pick at weak spots, I simply wouldn't bother to reply. Yeah, I like to argue, but not to the point of communications breakdown or overt hostility. And I like the discussion to stay kinda focused on the topic, but am just as guilty as any of drifting off focus without noticing it. But I'd rather abandon a thread than turn it into an echo-chamber competitive ad hominem shouting match.

Want a beer? No Ranier.

I did indeed notice that, Todd. What made this event stand out for me was that it was other CF bloggers trying to squelch political commentary on a political blog. But in fairness it was also notable for the CF bloggers who didn't join in the criticism.

And, Tully, wandering off-topic is something completely unrelated to what I'm talking about here. Heck, I'm famous for highjacking threads to go off on a tangent. I'm hardly fit to criticize anyone else for doing that. LOL

Got any Kronenbourg? It's from the Alsatian region of France... german speakers mostly... a legacy of WWI I believe. Great beer, though. I'm told it's the European equivilent of Budweiser. Which is to say that it's on tap everywhere. But, since when does exclusivity equal good taste?

I am not sure anyone was upset that you where being political Kevin. I think what the response from first Brian, and then I, was more along the lines of you saying that you where not going to be political, while in fact you where being political.

You have every right to say what you want, and I encourage you to do so. I don't think there are any formal requirements, but others also have the right to disagree.

On a more, I am sick of talking about this election note....

How 'bout the Pats! They looked pretty... well... Super, last night against the Colts.

Any NFL predictions?

Mine are: Patriots v. Seahawks in the Superbowl, although I admit I have a soft spot in my heart for the former and the latter is more or less a hometown bias. Besides, I refuse to give any credit to a team with Terrell Owens on it. This been said, I think it would be awesome if Brady and the boys proved the pundits wrong and repeated. You cannot lose with a University of Washington graduate as your tailback.

Five more days until Direct TV, Tivo, and the NFL Ticket!

Any Tennis fans? I spent labor day weekend in NYC going to the US Open. It was awesome! I am bummed that there are no Americans in the men's semis, however.

Kronenbourg is tasty. If I could make a choice, Spaten UrMarzen Oktoberfest is delicious when fresh, and decent even when not fresh. Definitely not for Bud fans.

I went out to the Argonia Labor Day amateur rocket launches last weekend. By coincidence, Discovery Channel had ROCKET CHALLENGE on again this week, about the national held there two years ago. No flying outhouses at the field this time, but I did see several launches that cleared 10K altitude, and one over 15K.

Rocket Challenge *snicker*... That is so cool.

I'm considering using Scrappleface as my exclusive news source for the remainder of the election season. That, or the Borowitz Report.

Matthew,

That simply is not the truth. In fact I never once said that I wasn't going to be political. I challenged you on that false assertion in the thread and you promptly changed tactics to criticizing the political commentary as inappropriate or words to that effect.

Then I misunderstood what you meant by:

"I'd like to offer some context that is less about politics than it is about competent and professional leadership qualities."

And therefore, I apologize. You are entitled to your opinion.

I'd like to make a comment that's not about sports.

How about those Patriots? Here's some context. These guys have won 2 super bowls and are hungry for more.

But we've got our 16 wins in a row to keep us warm. Predictions? the Patriots should go deep, but anything can happen. I have my doubts about the Titans due to their continuing attrition. KC and Indy still look high-powered, but the thing with teams like this that have questionable defenses is that they end up putting pressure on the offense to score, and that's why they end up with turnovers in big games. AFC sleepers abound. I like the Jets, Houston, Jacksonville, and Cincinnati to show some stuff.

I think the NFC more teams with a balance of good defense and good offense, as Carolina is the same team as last year, Philly has upgraded their offense, and everyone seems to love the Seahawks. I liked Dallas last year, but I have a hard time understanding Parcells going with Methuzelah Testaverde. He should have signed Brunell, IMO. I expect the Redskins to be much improved pretty quickly. If I had to pick, I like the chances of a rematch in this Super Bowl.

Political commentary? Make all you want, just don't try to pretend it's not political. And Kevin, if you want to call me out, for god's sake just call me out. Maybe I got a little carried away, I don't generally think political commentary is off base here. At all. But I do sometimes think we could have more productive discussions if we could occasionally, say, talk about Bush without talking about Kerry, and vice versa, and if we could occasionally talk about WoT without talking about Bush.

Matt, my buddy concurs about the US Open being awesome, I have never seen world class tennis in person, and its something I want to do. The thing I have noticed about its evolution is that I now enjoy women's tennis more, and I think it's because the men's game has become so overpowering that long volleys are rarer. I'd actually like to see them do something to slow the game down a little bit. That said, I find Serena Williams by far the most compelling figure in the sport. She has such power, style, and grace.

Matthew, the point of that was what I thought a self-evident attempt to focus in specifically on the President's role as Commander in Chief of our military as separate and distinct from the inherently political nature of every other aspect of his job description. If you didn't understand that from the first paragraph, I'm at something of a loss as to how the remainder of my comment didn't clue you in.

On an entirely different subject... I am unable to access Center Field or even the Centrist Coalition main page from AOL.

I'm at work using my work computer. On our company access I have no problems getting here. But for some reason using the same computer I am unable to get either URL to work in the AOL browser. We've got a link over at PK to Center Field. And over on my The Independent Voter site I've got a link to the Centrist Coalition homepage. Neither works in the AOL browser, though.

Any ideas what's wrong? Same computer... same day... different versions of IE. Makes no sense to me. Especially since it's a new problem.

On second thought... it has happened before. Both here and on my home computer. Always from the AOL browser, though. And a couple weeks ago Carla said she had the same problem. I just double checked the URL and it is correct.

Kevin,

Has Centerfield ever come up correctly on the AOL browser?

If so, then I would guess that our server was momentarilty offline. I had a problem last night in which I couldn't connect to the CC site. It was very intermittent, and we were back with in 5 minutes.

If our site never works with AOL, I suppose there could be some HTML it doesn't like. However, Centerfield isn't particularly fancy in its HTML, so I wouldn't think that is the problem.

It must be your server then because I normally don't have any problems accessing either the blog or the site. What was odd today was I had AOL on and couldn't bring CF up. So, leaving AOL running in it's own window, I brought up our company access and CF came right up. I went back and still couldn't bring it up on AOL.

I suppose it could be coincidence and I just happened to be trying via AOL's browser when your server was down. To be honest a down server is what I've always suspected the very few times that it's happened before. But today was odd.

This is via my company's access. I'll try AOL again in a bit and see what happens.

I'd just like to say that I've been working at this computer the entire day and I'm so sick of looking at it that I don't know if I can even manage a blog post on my own blog tonight. (whine)

On a completely unrelated thing...Netflix is having a month long free trial right now and I signed up early in the week. Today I received the first three FREE movies I ordered from their website. It's supposed to be crummy weather here this weekend so after I sit through my daughter's Saturday AM soccer match I think I'll just come home, curl up on the couch and watch movies.

A self-described centrist blogger: http://s88741803.onlinehome.us/weblog/

Calls his blog "CenterPoint"

He links to Centrist Coalition.

Carla, I'm interested to hear how the Netflix work out.

Last week, I tasted an absolutely great beer that a friend made. Homebrew is pretty amazing!

Speaking of beer freshness, I think Budweiser
should be commended for their freshness ad
campaign. It's very altruistic of them
to advertise for their competition....

Tully,

You want the REAL scoop? Then fafblog must be a daily read!

Netflix is the bomb!

No late fees 20 bucks a month or so, as many movies as you can watch. The best part? No going to Blockbuster, EVER!

I highly reccomend it!

I agree with Mathew. Netflix has been a good deal for us since half my disposible income used to go towards late fees.

Netflix - A+