Chess Tournaments

I have had the itch to play chess lately. So I have joined a few online tournaments.
The first one has started. There are only five players in this one. I don't know what TER means in the fifth column from the left, but the important number is the Rating column, which tells everyone the strength of the player. I have the second highest rating in this tournament. Can you guess the countries of the participants from the flags? In order from the top they are Russia, Chile, USA, Hungary, and USA. Note the reflection time in the upper right hand corner of the table. Each player has 20 days of thinking time and each move must be made within 2 days of the opponent's previous move.
Click on the image to enlarge.



Update:
A second tournament has started. I have the fifth highest rating, so this tournament will be extremely tough. The countries are, in order from the top, USA, USA, Wales, USA, Australia, Ukraine, and Russia.

I don't know about you, but I care.

I think Chuck Schumer is a very skillful politician and he has been very effective for the Democrats. Nevertheless, he is a condescending blowhard. Note the phrases "chattering class" and "American people don't care." Such are the linguistic signals that politicians unwittingly send about how they really think.

Sloppy Journalism

I really am getting weary of journalistic malpractice that goes on in our current media.
Another example today is the AP article with the following.

Iraq wraps up election with major violence

Jan 31 10:20 AM US/Eastern

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's provincial elections have wrapped up without any reports of serious violence.

I am posting this at 11:45pm MST, so the AP has left this glaring 'error' out there for nearly 12 hours. Reuters and AP always have an adverse knee jerk reaction to any good news out of Iraq.

A few pokes at hypocrisy

I suppose at one time or another we are all guilty of hypocrisy, but we are less likely to accept it from politicians. Here are a few of the latest examples I have noticed.
1. The Republicans are calling the stimulus bill a Democrat porkapalooza. By some estimates, only 12% is stimulus and the rest is pork destined for Democrat special interest groups (including the highly suspicious group ACORN). OK, so for the Republicans, if it is such a bad stimulus bill now, why wasn't it a bad stimulus bill a month ago when Bush was president?

2. During the campaign, Obama claimed "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK." OK, then why does Obama keep the Oval Office warm enough to grow orchids (David Axelrod: "You could grow orchids in there.") I guess Obama meant your home, not his.

3. Gorebal Warming: Al Gore has made a living at fear mongering about global warming. He has a huge home that uses three times the amount of electricity than the average American home. He jets around the world (often in private jets) without the slightest care about his carbon footprint. Recently, he bought a 100-foot houseboat complete with a gas-guzzling hugely-polluting jet ski. He says the houseboat runs on bio diesel and that he will be adding solar panels, so he has named his boat "Bio Solar 1" (or BS-1, for short). Again, I guess Gore is concerned about your carbon footprint, but not his own.

More of the same

Change? Nope. More of the same in this case.
The Washington Times notes that many of the recipients of federal bailout funds are also major political donors. Stimulus? I don't think so. It's a transfer of wealth that Democrats love, but not the kind their constituents expect. It moves taxpayer money from the politically unconnected to the politically connected. Yep! More of the same!

A broken promise already

Obama promised on many occasions to never have a lobbyist in his administration.
Already, during his first week in office, Obama has broken that promise by nominating a good ol' boy for deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, who has been a lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, and his nominee for deputy secretary of health and human services, William V. Corr, lobbied for stricter tobacco regulations as an official with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Obama is just another promise-breaking politician. "More of the same we can believe in!"

ACLU sues a Muslim school and the Minnesota Department of Education

The ACLU has always seemed to have some grudge against Christianity and often ignores other religions that do essentially the same thing as Christian churches. It seems that finally, the ACLU has decided to apply the same standard to another religion. TIZA is a Muslim charter school that has long engaged in religious education and has received taxpayer money (via various routes). It remains to be seen if this is an isolated case for the ACLU.