The Goat Pen

Enough about the Italian shipwreck. A hundred years ago, the Titanic was a floating palace (for first class at least) but it was also a functional high speed transport of the day that could get you from Liverpool to Halifax or New York or Cape Town or Hong Kong. People knew that going to sea involve...

Apparently Lamar's tweeting was just the tip of the bitching and moaning iceberg, so they dumped him to a rival contender for a contender's level draft pick. Not sure what was eating Pau during the playoffs last year but let's hope he can continue to suck it up. http://www.ocregister.com/sports/gaso...

The NBA has been a niche, connoisseur's sport for most its existence and so it continues to be. The NCAA, NFL, and MLB have done a better job of whitewashing their unseemly aspects and are firmly aligned with God, America, building character, tradition, and all that jazz. I agree with Brook, the lev...

"For basketball reasons" is the new punch line. Not sure if this totally kills any sort of Dwight move or not. If the Paul trade went through I'm not sure they have the pieces remaining to get Howard. Bynum plus World Peace? But on the other hand it's clear the Association can play Calvinb...

If anything, giving up Gasol and Odom for Paul looks lopsided against the Lakers.

I read somewhere that the Lakers also get Okafor.

Hey, hey, hey - looks like we might get a season after all.

While I still think Bynum is fragile, this is interesting:

http://www.ocregister.com/sports/bynum- ... -body.html

Huh, I'll have to watch that via the teevee...I had unjustly pegged Billy Preston as kind of authenticity-for-hire for the Stones and one half of the late seventies valentine "With You I'm Born Again". It's not so much literal newness and innovation nowadays, it's how well you excavate the...

Hey longish time guys...this might the place for any Apple-related rants since frankly, the company has an air of secular religion via consumer choice . I'm not going to change an Applyte's mind. Yes, it's sad that Steve Jobs died young and yes the list of patents and designs he was involved in was ...

The latest in the GR unofficial archive of Clarence Thomasology:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011 ... rentPage=1

Went into "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" with low expecs...pleasantly surprised, good set up for franchise run-through number two (they can leave out "Beneath" 'cause it didn't make much sense to me)

I'm starting to think that default is an actual goal of some on the Right. Messing up the government's ability to borrow is a great way to reach the cherished goal of dismantling the US version of the welfare state.

I don't have a lot of patience with the mentality that drugs help you create, as you might guess...

Bipolar types are more at risk for addiction. I think that gets lost amidst the Music Star Dies Young/There's a hell of a band up in heaven nonsense.

He'll turn 24 this year, right? 24 imo is the year most people pull their head partway out of their ass and start to think like a grownup. So there's hope for the kid.

RIP Amy. She was bipolar, which puts the self-medication/addiction in perspective.

Yeah usually it is the rear window. Of a car that is destined, sooner or later, for the scrapheap.

Whatever happened to granite?

OK, so I don't want to pooh-pooh anybody's sense of grief when they lose a loved one.

But I still think those tombstones-on-wheels vehicles with "In Memory of..." bumper stickers on the back are just weird.

I live in Burning Man central. For a lot of people around here, it's the alpha and omega, the be-all and end-all. Well. Today on facebook a gal I know, a dedicated Burner if ever there was one, posted a picture of a menu item at a local juice chain, the "Burning Man Smoothie". Naturally, t...