Quotulatiousness

November 22, 2010

Wilf pulls the trigger, fires Childress

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:37

I didn’t expect this, at least not until the end of the season, but the Vikings have fired head coach Brad Childress:

The Vikings fired their head coach late Monday morning, less than 24 hours after an embarrassing 31-3 loss to the Green Bay Packers eliminated whatever remained of the team’s playoff hopes and cast Childress’ job into obvious and imminent jeopardy.

Defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier will serve as interim head coach for the remainder of the season, the team announced in a three-sentence statement that included no quotes from management.

The Vikings sent a media release a little before 9 a.m. Monday saying Childress would hold his regularly scheduled press conference at 12:30 p.m. So, owner Zygi Wilf presumably informed Childress and team staffers sometime between then and the time Fox’s Jay Glazer broke the story on Twitter around 11 a.m.

A 3 p.m. media conference with Wilf and Frazier was scheduled to discuss the move. It’ll be the first time Wilf — who appeared angry as he hastily left the locker room following Sunday’s loss — has talked directly about the coaching situation in spite of rampant and growing speculation in recent weeks.

Here’s a brief introduction to the interim head coach from Judd Zulgad of the Star Tribune:

Frazier joined the Vikings as defensive coordinator in 2007 after Mike Tomlin left to become head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Frazier, who had been an assistant on Tony Dungy’s staff with the Colts for two seasons before being hired by the Vikings, was given the added title of assistant head coach by Childress in March 2008.

Frazier, 51, played for the Chicago Bears from 1981 to ’86 and was a starter at cornerback for the 1985 team that won the Super Bowl. He led Chicago in interceptions in 1983, ’84, ’85 but his career was cut short by a severe knee injury suffered in the Super Bowl.

Frazier began his coaching career at what is now known as Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill., in 1988 and remained at the school before moving to the University of Illinois in 1997. Frazier began coaching defensive backs for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1999 and served as defensive coordinator for Cincinnati in 2003-04.

Frazier has interviewed for seven head coaching jobs in the past three offseasons, including Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis, Denver, Detroit, Buffalo and Seattle.

Update: Bob Sansevere has some advice for Frazier:

To succeed, Frazier needs to change a few things. The worst thing he could do is keep things status quo. Interim or not, it’s his team now. It’s his call how to run the joint.

The first thing he needs to do is decide what to do with Brett Favre. Here’s a thought: Pull Favre aside and tell him, “Thanks for trying, but we’re 3-7 with you and we both know you’re not coming back in 2011. We need to find out if this franchise has a quarterback for next season, so tell everyone your shoulder is about to fall off and retire for good this time.”

Frazier already should have seen enough of Tarvaris Jackson to know he’s not the future. So like he’s auditioning to be head coach, he should let rookie Joe Webb audition for the quarterback job. Fans would love it and, when you’re 3-7 and your owner wants a new stadium, fans aren’t a bad bunch to have on your side.

It’s be an amazing thing if Frazier put Favre on injured reserve, wouldn’t it? There goes the ironman’s record right there . . .

I’d like to see Joe Webb be given some game time, but I’d be more than astonished if he’s ready to start this soon. Most rookie quarterbacks need at least a full year before they’d have much hope of success. Still, as Sansevere points out, it would engage the fans and isn’t likely to make the final record for this season any worse.

David Nolan, co-founder of the US Libertarian Party

Filed under: History, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:33

Dave Weigel has an appreciation of the late David Nolan:

The 66-year-old libertarian activist David Nolan died on Saturday; he had a stroke while driving, then crashed his car.

Some of the vital history of anti-statist politics dies with him. In the 1960s, Nolan was a YAF and Students for Goldwater activist. 1971, Nolan was watching Richard Nixon on TV with some like-minded friends when the president announced that he’d be introducing wage controls and price controls. The Libertarian Party was born in his living room; its first national convention was held months later, in Nolan’s Denver. He built it, according to Brian Doherty’s essential history Radicals for Capitalism, by tapping a list of disgruntled libertarian-minded YAFers for funds, and then relentlessly promoting the party with cast-aside libertarians around the country.

[. . .]

It’s unusually difficult to say what Nolan’s legacy will be. He leaves behind a small “l” libertarian movement that is more powerful, with greater control over the levers of the GOP and more footing in popular culture, than at any time in living memory. (Witness the current, libertarian-driven backlash against the TSA if you want proof.) He also leaves behind a Libertarian Party that, like almost every third party in American history, struggles for relevance and has its best ideas co-opted by major party politicians who go on to disappoint their supporters. But if the measure of an activist’s success is bringing attention to his ideas, and bringing them from the fringe of respectability to the center, David Nolan was a success. After all, in 1971, the “crazy” guy was the one who thought price controls were a bad idea.

US Army suddenly discovers that women are shaped differently

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:07

It’s things like this that reinforce the impression that the military still hasn’t grown used to the fact that women are serving in combat zones:

Over the past seven years, the U.S. Army has responded to complaints from the troops about the combat uniform (ACU, or ACUPAT, for Army Combat Uniform camouflage pattern). But now the army is fixing a set of problems that have long been ignored; how the ACU fits women. Up to fifteen percent of the troops in combat zones are women, and the new uniform recognizes this. The older ACU just assumed female troops were one of the guys, which they are not. Women have a different shape, and that is very true when it comes to ACUs, and their placement of the waistline, many pockets and pouches for things like knee pads. What worked for the male body, did not work for female troops. Everything was just a little bit (or a lot) off, making the ACU much less comfortable for women doing the same jobs as the guys. So the army simply designed an ACU version based on the shape of the female body. The first prototypes were given to women to try out, and after a few hours, all the female troops asked where they could buy some more of them. Unfortunately, the female ACU won’t be available for another two years. Lots of additional tests have to be performed to make sure all the details are correctly incorporated.

Perhaps the physical variation among “average” women is relatively greater than that among “average” men, but it’s still surprising that the US Army is only now taking that into account.

The Register reports on Erotica 2010

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:38

If there was one trade show in Britain you’d be certain that The Register would cover, it would have to be Erotica 2010:

Whether it was the cold or the recession, Erotica 2010 – the 15th year of the international sex exposition – appears to have ever so slightly wilted.

It is not exactly shrivelled, but is a little smaller; not the proud, thrusting standard-bearer of the UK’s adult erotic industry it once was.

A quick totting up through the programme suggests around 20 fewer exhibitors than two years ago.

[. . .]

Yet again, a glittering procession of acts — from pole dancers to zentai dolls — took to the stage at the heart of the show, with pride of place for the inimitable Dita von Teese. Sadly, we are unable to bring you any pictures of her act, under pain of a penalty fee of $1m, which all journalists were required to agree to before entering the hall!

“Anti-racism” is not the same as being opposed to racism

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

Ed West responds to reader complaints about a recent column:

The conventional definition of racism is the belief that “race” (however one defines that) is a primary or significant cause of differences between men; that some of these races are superior to others; and that it is acceptable to discriminate on grounds of race, or to behave unpleasantly to someone because of their race. The term dates to the 1930s, although “racialist” and “racialism” go back to the Edwardian period.

“Anti-racism” means something altogether different, and is best explained by the Civitas book Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics, an account of the Salem-like events that gripped Britain in the 1990s. The authors cite the example of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW), which in 1991 set out the implementation of its new Diploma in Social Work.

The first tenet was “the self-evident truth” that “racism is endemic in the values, attitudes and structures of British society”.

The training manual then stated “steps need to be taken to promote permeation of all aspects of the curriculum by an anti-racist analysis”. All “racist materials” had to be withdrawn from the syllabus and CCETSW would decide what was racist.

In the rules there would be no freedom of speech for opinions that can be constructed as “racist” or favourable to “racism”, and “anti-racist practice requires the adoption of explicit values”. The first value is that individual problems have roots in “political structures” and “not in individual or cultural pathology”. (In other words, if different groups have different outcomes in terms of education or crime levels, it is all the fault of British racism, not of individuals).

A second value is that racial oppression and discrimination are everywhere to be found in British society, even when invisible. In other words, impossible to disprove!

Tintin adventures I’d like to read

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media, Randomness — Nicholas @ 09:24

Murray Groat illustrated some covers to Tintin adventures that don’t, but should, exist:

H/T to BoingBoing.

Seventh worst home loss in Vikings history

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:44

Has the team given up? I’d suggest that letting your biggest rivals whip you by a score of 31-3 on your home field is pretty strong evidence that the team is no longer viable. I didn’t see the game, but the score was 3-0 Vikings as I left the house. I had no idea that was the high point of the game . . .

It was apparently no party on the sidelines:

As if a 31-3 loss wasn’t bad enough, the Vikings’ tensions boiled to the point that heated exchanges were considered normal on Sunday.

Brett Favre and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell argued after a Favre interception late in the first half.

“We’re fine. I was mad at myself,” Favre said.

Defensive end Ray Edwards barked at rookie cornerback Chris Cook by consistently getting burned on the left side. Cook got benched in favor of Asher Allen, who didn’t fare much better as a facilitator of quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ 301 yards and four touchdowns.

The defensive linemen had beef with Cook and Allen giving up several big gains from the sideline on fade routes.

“I never thought we’d get beat on four fade (routes),” defensive tackle Kevin Williams said.

Williams and cornerback Antoine Winfield both said they talked with Edwards about keeping such conversations in-house instead of on the sidelines.

To make the soap opera complete, Brett Favre didn’t answer reporters’ questions about whether he’ll finish the season (that is, whether he’s now considering retiring immediately).

If Zygi Wilf was thinking about firing Brad Childress, as the home fans are demanding, yesterday’s game would give him a good reason. I don’t know if the Wilfs are willing to do that, as they’d still owe Childress for millions on his contract, but it would certainly please the fans.

Update: Childress has been fired.

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