Friday, January 2, 2009
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Australian Open Picks
Keon: Roger of course, come on is there really a question? And likely Serena for the repeat in the Women's. Who's coming back in the 3rd? Oh, Jankovic, I was going to say, Serena won in straight sets.
Scooter: thats why I said have (had) her, she might not make it past the first round as my pick.
Keon: Your boy Gonzalez is in Federer's quarter too, so to pick him you're saying that Federer doesn't even make the semi's.
Scooter: Well he's always my pick no matter the surface, tournament, or draw. He's a Chilean and a top five ATP player, so . . . I noticed that Federer was in his same quarter and was pissed but I can't waiver my allegiance.
Keon: Well i didn't know you meant who am i cheering for, I thought you meant who did i think would win each draw. I'm cheering for Hewitt and Roddick in the Men's and Serena and Maria in the Women's. Hewitt's got a tough draw too though, got both Djokovic and Ferrer. Nadal's got Moya, Robredo and Roddick. Damn, the top right quarter of the bracket is where its at, Davydenko, Murray, Gasquet, none of those three are playing well. Davydenko is either dropping matches to fix them or is a really bad choker. I like pretty much anyone coming out of that quarter. None of those three top players is very dominant, and all three struggled at Wimbledon.
Scooter: Maria is my #2 to Jelena - I love Jelena's play (most of the time) plus she's got a killer body! Here we go girl, with the come back! Dude his wife and brother are gonna get questioned for match fixing, Davydenko that is. That guys is gonna fuck up so many tourneys this year because of litigation, investigation, and the downfall of his personal life because of such.
Keon: I thought they already talked to his wife, brother, mother and grandmother, and what they want now is phone records of his wife, brother and coach. So if Jankovic drops this one here that makes Serena's run to the semis that much easier huh? I hadn't checked the Women's draw yet.
Scooter: I forget I didn't read the last story completely. OH MAN - HOW DO I GET THAT JOB!?! That dude is massaging Jelena courtside! HOLY CRAP! OH YEAH BABY! Jankovic pulls it out in the end. Moving on, a little scary there for a three seed.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Schwarzenegger vs. the Feds (TIME Magazine)
TIME'S Kristin Kloberdanz sat down with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mary Nichols, chairperson of the California Air Resources Board, in Fresno, California to discuss the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denying the right of California and 16 other states to set their own fuel emission standards. The Governor was clearly frustrated though he remained genial. Excerpts from the interview: 
TIME: How frustrating was the EPA ruling?
SCHWARZENEGGER: I always start with the positive. I was very happy that Congress and that the President signed into law [an improvement for] fuel efficiency of the vehicles by the year 2020. That is the first time in a long time, which, of course doesn't say much for the United States.... But it's good news. So that's number one. It's one of those things that you get that news in the morning and then a few hours later, then you get the real bad news. Which is that they don't believe that we should be controlling our own destiny and cleaning up the air and controlling the tailpipe emissions and all those kinds of things.
What this means is, we sued them in order to get the waiver [to set their own standards], now we're going to sue them to overturn the decision [denying the states the right to set their own standards]. And I think what it's basically saying is that they made a decision which is against the will of millions of people in California. It's a decision that is against the will of 16 other states. When I look at that, the Environmental Protection Agency is the Environmental Destruction Agency. The name says it protects the environment. How can that protect the environment when you don't want to let anyone really move forward with this agenda? And [as for] the excuse that it is a national issue and therefore it must be handled at a national level — I say to myself, "Wait a minute, let me think this through for a second," which we always do, we think a little bit. If you have a national problem with hunger and starvation, do I say, "Stop feeding people at the local level. We can't get involved. We have to have a policy nationally." No, we don't.
What, ideally, do you want in this situation?
SCHWARZENEGGER: What I'm saying is, give me a national policy that says we're going to take this seriously and we're going to fight global warming. But right now, there has been none. So how can you say you cannot regulate, you cannot have your own standards [that] we have to set a national standard, when there is no national standard? The tailpipe emission standard [of California] was already passed in 2002, the Pavley bill. There was no [national] standard. And in 2003, there was no standard. In 2004, there was no standard. In 2005, there was no standard. In 2006, there was no standard. So what are they talking about, "you cannot do this on your own because we have to have a national standard"? I say, "There is no standard!" Their standard is to have no standard. Therefore, we have to come in as a state.
It's always been the case if the federal government has fallen short on anything, the states come in. As a matter of fact, the federal government has said many times that we are the laboratories for the federal government. Let's have the states try something, if it's healthcare, education, whatever it is, because we all know all great things start at a grassroots level. Why are we all of a sudden fighting that? It can only be that [the federal government is] going to the car companies and [is] saying to them, "Hey what can you really handle comfortably here," and they tell them, and they say "Whoa whoa whoa," California is stepping over the line, this wouldn't help you.
MARY NICHOLS: Just to put a legal point on that, the [Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)] legislation which is part of the Energy Bill [passed by Congress] is not a greenhouse gas emission standard. It's a totally different thing. The argument that somehow because we now have a CAFE standard that means we shouldn't be regulating greenhouse gases, it just doesn't hold water, it makes no sense.
SCHWARZENEGGER: That's absolutely right. And so, I just think that they've been dragging their feet. As I said to [EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson], I obviously respect their opinion and I understand where he's coming from, he can only go so far because he is part of the Administration, but the bottom line is, it's very, very disappointing. I think, again, this is news that will go all over the world that they are not serious.
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