Say Anything Blog

There isn’t much of a mystery on who the troops liked.

If the Grand Forks Herald ever wonders why they lose subscriptions they might want to take a look at the editor. Seriously! Crappy articles like this stinker probably don't help circulation very much. This is the reason why newspaper circulation is failing nationwide. This is the reason potential readers are discontinuing their subscription and turning away from purchasing your local rag. This is also why newspapers failing as a daily source of information. I already dropped my newspaper back to three days a week and I am this close to cancelling it all together. The only reason I read the newspaper is for the Fighting Sioux Hockey coverage. I am definitely not reading the Grand Forks Herald for its coverage of city hall politics or the oversight of the Alerus Center.

In his latest debacle, the Editor of the Grand Forks Herald is attempting to say that the pre-game videos are disrespectful to the Fighting Sioux’s opponents and hence might cause the opponents to not respect the Fighting Sioux name. Holy Cow! That is some very flawed logic. How did Mike Jacobs ever become the editor to the Grand Forks Herald?

During yearly questioners at the Final Five, the WCHA’s 10 captions are asked various question and one of them is about the best conference logo and many years the Fighting Sioux logo has been listed as one of the best or most awesome logos in the WCHA. Also, the Hockey News also recently had a jersey tourney and the Fighting Sioux logo won the over-all contest. Jacob's letter to the editor would probably meet my defintion of tripe. It's definately a poorly written editorial and definately worthless because it misses the point.

The editorial raised a second issue, suggesting that the arena’s own special effects contribute to this suspension of civility.

Hodgson, and most of those who commented on Thursday’s editorial, rejected this idea. The in-your-face video highlights that the arena presents after the opposing team is introduced are standard fare in most arenas, I’m told.

Perhaps so.

But the reaction to the highlights reel raises an issue particular to UND, one related to the name and logo. UND’s opponents won’t respect the name and logo if their players aren’t respected here. The chants and taunts at UND hockey games show a lack of respect, and invite reciprocation.

I’ve been in several college rinks and half a dozen professional arenas, but it’s been a few years since I’ve been to a hockey game outside Grand Forks, so maybe I’m not in a position to know — but I still think it’s not sportsmanlike to taunt an opponent. [Grand Forks Herald]

The problem is that Jacobs is anti-logo and has been for some time and he probably looked at this as another opportunity to pile on and spew his anti Fighting Sioux logo rhetoric. I think Jacobs should stick to running the newspaper albeit poorly and writing stories about birds. So in this instance we can say a swing and a miss Mike.

Also, the arena’s ‘in-your-face video highlights that the arena presents after the opposing team is introduced’, has to remain and should not be looked at as a cause for bad behavior or disrespect for the Fighting Sioux name. The reason we had poor behavior in the arena is a issue that must and will be addressed but maybe we will leave the decision to the people that know what they’re doing. If you can't run a newspaper what makes you think you can solve a more complex problem such as this.

Here is a reader comment to another article that I really like and it hits the right message.

[Randy L. --- East Grand Forks, MN]
I wonder why so many commenters seem to missing the fact that this "topic" is actually 2 separate issues. The first is the vulgarities and message of the crowd chants, and the second is are choices of individuals in settings outside the game (in the concourse, outside the venue, etc.). There is no reason the crowd can't get loud, raucous, and in the face of the opposing team and fans without being physical or vulgar. Do chants, sing songs, show the opposing player in the penalty box with a smart-aleck sign behind him. All of those things can easily be accomplished "cleanly" but still be intimidating. Some of the earlier posters who defend the hockey history and experience are right in the sense of the atmosphere. If you dont' like it rowdy at a Divison 1 college hockey game, don't go. But that same atmosphere doesn't have to be truly offensive. Chant "Shoot the Gophers" - it doesn't have to be F***, does it? It's the same message.

Cross posted @ [Goon's World]

First off we cannot afford to lose the battle in Afghanistan, its imperative that we fight this battle with all we got and complete the mission and win the war in Afghanistan. If the United States abandoned Afghanistan or fight this war with half measures and half steps or don’t come up with a winning plan we will look like a bunch of losers. So maybe Eugene Robinson should shut the hell up because the OBAMA administration is doing a horrible job prosecuting this war. I think I am going to trust the Generals over an administration that lacks military experience or even a working understanding of the military.

In my opinion Defense Secretary Robert Gates is inept and part of the problem, I don’t know what the heck his problem is maybe he should start listening the generals on the ground and devising a plan that will secure the peace in Afghanistan. If the generals on the ground want more troops then they need more troops. Time to give the general on the ground what they need to be successful.

This week too many US service men have died and I blame this current administration who is incompetent and lacks the ability to come up with a coherent plan to do anything and owns this mess we have now. It’s time to stop blaming Bush and do your job, let’s fight this war to win then get the hell out. It would appear that it’s time for a General David Petraeus surge.

How to proceed in Afghanistan will be among the most difficult and fateful decisions that President Obama ever makes. But he’s the one who has to decide, not his generals. The men with the stars on their shoulders—and I say this with enormous respect for their patriotism and service—need to shut up and salute.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is entitled to his opinion about the best way forward. But he has no business conducting a public campaign to build support for his preferred option, which is to send tens of thousands more troops into a country once called the “graveyard of empires.”

McChrystal’s view—that a strategy employing fewer resources, in pursuit of more limited goals, would be “short-sighted”—is something the White House needs to hear. He is, after all, the man Obama put in charge in Afghanistan, and it would be absurd not to take his analysis of the situation into account. But McChrystal is out of line in trying to sell his position publicly, as he did last week in a speech in London.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was right to lay down the law. Gates said Monday that it is “imperative” that military and civilian leaders “provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately.” I believe that’s Pentagon-speak for: “Put a sock in it, Stan.” [Real Clear Politics]

The OBAMA administration is packed with Radicals and he was surrouned by radical before he became president; Rev Jeremiah Wright, Rev. Michael Pfleger, Van Jones. I wounder how this professor flew under the radar and landed a job in the Obama administration. Almost everything that I predicted about this administration has come true. We kept hear oh don’t worry he is a centrist. I don’t know many moderates that surrounds himself with radical like Sunstein.

Washington, DC — The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom said today that Cass Sunstein, the Harvard University Law School professor tapped by President-elect Obama to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has a secret aim to push a radical animal-rights agenda in the White House. Sunstein supports outlawing sport hunting, giving animals the legal right to file lawsuits, and using government regulations to phase out meat consumption.
[Consumer Freedom]

Cross posted at [Goon’s ND Red Neck]

I love watching these stuff shirts get the feed back that they deserved. This clip is awesome as former Marine David Hendrick takes liberal democrat Brian Baird to task.
Cross Posted at [Goon's ND Red Neck]

I ask the good people of Massachusetts is this the best you can do, isn’t there anyone else you guys can elect to office. This man is a circus clown. Actually Frank is a poster boy for what is wrong with American politicians they hold their voters in contempt as they stand at the podium and look at their constitutes with condensation. Someone needs to remind Frank that he works for the people of his district in Massachusetts.

Listening to this Buffoon is quite entertaining.

This is the reason that people hold the politicians in contempt. Robert Gibbs is worse than former propaganda minister for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq Baghdad Bob. Listen to the condescension that Gibbs uses to talk to Major Garrett. There is no way Gibbs would talk to an adoring reporter from MSNBC or CNN like this.

Cross Posted @ [Goon’s North Dakota Red Neck]

Wow! Talk about out of touch and disengaged from the people you serve. When you’re listening to your voters turn the cell phone off and act like you care. Of Course Lee not known for being one of the brightest congressional leaders in the house had this to say about the phone call.

"I dialed the hotline number to give a better answer. I said to the audience, they may not have heard me, that I am trying to get an answer," said Congresswoman Lee in one of her cable interviews.

Miller disagreed. "She was getting phone calls and finding out who was in the room, that she needed to say hello to and that's what I believe what was going on right then. After I was done talking, she would say, 'I would like to welcome,'" said Miller.

And that is only one area where their stories differ on what took place at the town hall meeting. Congresswoman Lee says they are now buddies and will hang out together in Washington D.C.

"Now I consider her a friend. I invited her to Washington," said Congresswoman Lee in a cable interview.

That was news to Miller.

Cross Posted @ [Goon's North Dakota Red Neck]

Anyone want to lay odds on how long it takes for Ed Schultz to be on the unemployment line? This is one of the stupider things he has said. We should fear socialism and Marxism because this is not what our country was founded on. We are a capitalistic society however, this country is being run by a guy that follows the book ‘Rules for Radicals’ as if it was his play book. Ed Schultz is nothing more than a sniveling, whining cry baby that is irrelevant. If Ed had said this on his MSNBC show no one would have seen it because his rating are so poor.

No Ed Schultz you two bit moron with no ratings, we do not want the president to get shot but we will oppose him every step of the way because of his policies, they flawed and wrong and dangerous and will spend us into oblivion. I also hope that he goes home in 3 years after he is voted out of office.

Cross posted at [Goon’s North Dakota Red Neck]

This picture says it all. There should have been something in the constitutional for this type of situation. [props]

No one should be shocked the it’s the same old crap again Grand Forks Herald is out front telling the local populace/rubes there is nothing to see here folks, we need to move on and they are providing political cover for the three amigos again. One has to wonder how the Herald reporters can even type when they are wearing their pom-poms. If the editor of the Herald is wondering why he is losing reader this is why? The Herald is no longer a objective unbaised newspaper, you have become a left wing rag that many of us despise.

Conrad’s in national and North Dakota news because of the testimony of Robert Feinberg, a loan officer who worked in Countrywide’s “VIP” department. Feinberg told congressional committees that Conrad knew he was getting preferred rates on his Countrywide loans.

Conrad denies that. Let’s be clear: Conrad doesn’t deny being treated well by Countrywide. U.S. senators get treated well everywhere they go. Moreover, senators who pay their bills on time get treated especially well by banks, as do creditworthy doctors, lawyers, successful actors, CEOs and others in high income brackets.

Remember, Countrywide’s VIP program embraced thousands of customers, including Walter Cronkite, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and the late film director Robert Altman.

What Conrad denies is knowingly accepting unreasonably good treatment — treatment so cozy that it would have raised red flags.

Those flags would have signaled, “This is a below-market offer. It’s being extended because you are a senator, and Countrywide hopes for congressional favors in return.”

So far, the evidence bears Conrad out.

So basically the Herald is going to make excuses for Conrad and this will in essence be the end of the story nothing to see here folks, please move along.

What part of it’s unethical and looks bad does the Grand Forks Herald lap dog(s) Tom Dennis not understand? Your political bias is showing and it’s disgusting. The Herald is becoming a mouth piece for the ND DNC.
Senator Kent Conrad is a powerful democrat on the Finance and Budget committes. It's unethical and this looks bad and doesn't pass the smell test.

And while the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against Countrywide’s top execs, the charges have nothing to do with the above. Instead, the SEC alleges that the executives defrauded investors by misrepresenting the company’s health.

If Countrywide’s VIP customers were being charged with accepting bribes, that would be one thing. But that’s not happening. Instead, those customers — including Conrad — are claiming they did nothing wrong; and so far, law enforcement as well as the customers’ employers, professional boards and other “juries” seem to agree.

Conrad’s jurors are the voters of North Dakota, and we’re not surprised that they’re giving him the benefit of the doubt. He has earned it. His long career has been untouched by scandal, no small achievement for a powerful person living in the public eye. He’s respected by his Senate colleagues and is ably playing a pivotal role.

Cross posted at Goon's North Dakota Red Neck

Now that the Senate is about to confirm another anti-gun liberal to the SCOTUS, I thought pro second amendment people would like this one. Ted Nugent talking about gun rights.

Cross posted at Goon ND Redneck.

It’s sad that we have come to this, in fact it’s a joke. The man can’t speak off of a teleprompter and he sounds like a bumbling fool. I wounder how long before the president will throw MSNBC under the bus?

Cross posted at [Goon’s North Dakota Red Neck]

Enjoy this what you’re going to get with the greens.

Cross posted at Goon's ND Red Neck.

I don’t know if you have seen this one but I like what this guy has to say.