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Random travel notes (Scripting News)

Anil Dash is now on the list too and has 99K followers, and he's a working man, and I'm sure he can be influenced. I unfollowed Anil when he made a joke about how it feels like being on the Yankees. Exactly. That's what I dislike intensely about the Yankees. Their sense of entitlement. Maybe not so much by the players, but by the fans. Twitter is like blogging, it's best when it's just people. The people with millions of unearned followers must be uncomfortable, wondering when the millions are going to catch on

via www.scripting.com

Dave, I know Anil (as you do) and let me tell you he may talk a Yankee game, but he is a Met through and through. And I say that with all my love!

Izenberg: There was no bigger New York baseball story than the 1969 Mets

In all of New York baseball, starting with the day in 1846 when Alexander Cartwright's Knickerbockers and the New York Nine crossed the Hudson to Hoboken to play the first recorded baseball game anywhere, there has never been anything like it ... not the Bobby Thomson home run, a spear aimed at the heart of all that was Brooklyn ... not the perfect World Series game by the Yankees' Don Larsen ... not the World Series catches by Willie Mays and Sandy Amoros and Al Gionfriddo.

via www.nj.com

This is what Mets fans are left with - "remember 1969."

Why Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize — Yet

President Obama's only real diplomatic accomplishment so far has been to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy from unilateral bullying to multilateral listening and cooperating. That's important, to be sure, but not nearly enough. The Prize is really more of Booby Prize for Obama's predecessor. Had the world not suffered eight years of George W. Bush, Obama would not be receiving the Prize. He's prizeworthy and praiseworthy only by comparison.

-Robert Reich

This is an odd award. You'd expect it to come later in Obama's presidency and tied to some particular event or accomplishment. But the unmistakable message of the award is one of the consequences of a period in which the most powerful country in the world, the 'hyper-power' as the French have it, became the focus of destabilization and in real if limited ways lawlessness. A harsh judgment, yes. But a dark period. And Obama has begun, if fitfully and very imperfectly to many of his supporters, to steer the ship of state in a different direction. If that seems like a meager accomplishment to many of the usual Washington types it's a profound reflection of their own enablement of the Bush era and how compromised they are by it, how much they perpetuated the belief that it was 'normal history' rather than dark aberration.

-Josh Marshall

This is soooo awkward. This is like when someone gives you a $400 vacuum cleaner that you can't return. Actually? Worse. This is a horrible, misguided, not-bright idea by THOSE MEDDLING SWEDES that has just entirely disrupted our political conversations and plans for most of the next month.

-Choire Sicha

One thing is certain - President Obama won't be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.

-Michael Steele (this guy should make Republicans wish Bush & Rove were still around - what an idiot!)

The Nobel Prize fallout will be the tipping point for Obama to start plowing through cigs again. Lock it down.

-Bill Simmons

Well, in that case, let's just give Matt Wieters the 2009 MVP award!

-Keith Law

So, the internet is exploding this morning with the news that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The President says he's "humbled," some pundits say he should turn it down, everyone's got an opinion. What's yours?

How arrogant of anyone to see this from a U.S. perspective, it is just proof of how desperate the Bush/Cheney junta made the rest of the world.

It's not Obama's prize. This prize is for the people of the United States for showing the world how a cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic democracy can work.

I'm a big supporter of the President, but along the prestige continuum, the Nobel just moved away from the Congressional-Medal-of-Honor type award and a lot closer to the Mira-Sorvino-Winning-an-Oscar end of things.

I think the popular media meme is missing the point. Is Obama being awarded for his accomplishments as President? Or is he being awarded for changing the international climate? Obama did not start gathering the world's attention on January 20, 2009. As the first serious African American presidential candidate, the first presidential nominee of a major American political party, and during his campaign, he was a voice of reason, a supporter of peace. Let's not buy into the ridiculous idea that his eligibility for this award started on Jan. 20.

-Andrew Golis first, then Open Thread Contributors. Also follow TPM's live reaction wire.

I’m really excited that the Birfers, Becks, Oxycontin abusers, and pseudo-plumbers in Wingnuttia will now give me enough material to post on Cyn-C for the next few months. Put your ponchos on Cynics, the spittle is about to fly.

-Cynical C

President Obama is gambling that America is now mature enough to understand that machismo is not foreign policy, and that grandstanding on the global stage just won't succeed. In a new world, with other countries more powerful and confident, America's success — its security, its prosperity — depends on working with others. It's a big, bold gambit. The Nobel committee wanted to encourage this sentiment. I hope Americans will see that and encourage the path President Obama is taking

-Fareed Zakaria (This "article" is simply a transcript of Zakaria's talking head appearance - pathetic.)

What's with all these Kanye-Taylor Swift-President Obama jokes?

-Paolo Lim (amen)

The French have got all kinds of wild descriptions for eggs cooked to various degrees of doneness, but in American culinary terms, in the ideal soft-boiled egg, the white should be completely opaque, but not to the point of rubberiness (somewhere in the range of 155 to 180 degrees), and the yolk should be completely liquid (no hotter than 158 degrees). In this way, with each spoonful, you get tender bites of soft, velvety-smooth white, bathed in a sauce of glorious, bright golden, rich, flavorful yolk. These are the type of soft boiled eggs that'll get you laid.

-Serious Eats: How to cook the perfect egg (this is important!)

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me too

Google image search finds an outlier.
Originally uploaded by Mike Monteiro.

Choire's Hot NFL Picks This Weekend

Isn't it crazy that we're starting with the north's most devastated city against the south's most devastated? I give this game a giant frowny face. Sorry America! So sad, too bad. And what's worse, listen, the Lions had THREE guys who didn't practice yesterday, because they barely have a good knee between them, including Drew Stanton, which: yum! OMG he is so hot. Also: Detroit, I mean, no.

via deadspin.com

First link to a gawker blog in as long as I can remember. Also, that game is at -23.5, which is insane.

The Greatest

Bill James famously said: "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers." If you saw him play, he's the greatest player you'll ever see, unless you saw Willie Mays or Sandy Koufax (no one that old reads this blog). Perhaps the only player who would inspire me to link to a Yankees blog, Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson was inducted into the Hall of Fame today.

Yahoo has a decent photo essay commemorating his career. Most pictures find Rickey still; at bat, calling time-out, celebrating after a successful stolen base, still portraits. A fountain of quotes throughout his career (real and imagined), perhaps he moved too fast to be captured by the cameras of yesteryear.

Before baseball was entertainment, players were gladiators, not celebrities, and Rickey was one of the few men in the sport savvy about public relations. Sportswriters wondered if the induction ceremony would be a circus, but consistent as always, Rickey ended Rickey's day in style:

My journey as a player is complete. I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time. And at this moment, I am very, very humbled.

Empowering Play is a project coordinated by the UN and Champlain college exploring how video game design can prevent violence against women. 

Electronic games are a unique vehicle for reaching boys and young men. By profoundly shifting beliefs, stereotypes, and attitudes on gender issues, games can contribute to prevention of violence against women.

A (free) car in every (penthouse) garage:

Canco Lofts in Jersey City is offering a perk its owners hope will rev up sales: A free car with every penthouse purchase.

Gwyneth Paltrow Defends Her Web Site - Gwyneth Paltrow : People.com.

Gwyneth Paltrow is taking on critics of her lifestyle Web site, Goop.com, just days after The New York Times published an article questioning the site's relevance in light of a barrage of published swipes against its cardio-workout and pizza-recipe content.... "I think the people who are criticizing it or criticizing the idea of it, don't really get it, because if they did, they would like it," Paltrow, 36, told PEOPLE Wednesday night...

Adriana has been cooking a lot of GOOP recipes the past month to great effect. Gwyneth, if you are googling yourself,  we get it!

Shea Demo