Cajun Signs: Lift the Moratorium

These signs are not strictly Cajun but they illustrate a concern that is at the heart of Lafayette at the moment, the economic effect of the drilling moratorium in the gulf. No doubt, the disaster in the gulf is catastrophic to the ecosystem, fishing industry and tourism in our area. Couple that with the moratorium that is impacting 33 rigs within the gulf and the economic impact to our area is potentially devastating (between 29,000-46,000 jobs according to some sources that may or may not be biased for all I know).

I am far from an expert on this and am not going to comment one way or the other if the current scope of the moratorium is appropriate. What I know is that the ripple affect in the community has been substantial. This past week there was a rally in our city and these signs were seen all over town. The top one greeted you at the airport as you flew in. The crane was one that I saw today on the morning drive for coffee and donuts.

• Here is a link to a Wall Street Journal article that discusses the rally held this past week.
• According to this article, the parish I live in boasts Louisiana's highest concentration of workers who are dependent on oil- and gas-related businesses. In addition, oil and related industries account for 40% of the parish's economy and about a third of its jobs. That should give you an understanding of why this is such a big deal here.

The 1-2-7 vs the 2-2-6

"Fortunate is he who understands the causes of things."
Virgil, Georgics, no 2, 1 490

I just started reading Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid this weekend, a book about to history of soccer tactics leading up to the modern game.

These were the lineups of Scotland (depicted in white, 2-2-6) and England (1-2-7) in the first international soccer game played on November 30, 1872. The score ended 0-0, with Scotland as heavy underdogs. They were able to overcome a severe size and strength disadvantage because they were one of the first teams to embrace passing over dribbling. Apparently, when soccer was in its infancy, passing was considered unmanly. Not only that, but early "offside" rules did not allow a forward pass, thus dribbling used to be the primary tactic to get forward.

Time for Change

Time for some changes around BOB. I'm playing with templates, CSS, etc. Just because. Thinking about having a background that I change on a relatively frequent basis from various photos and updating the color scheme to correspond with each one. Might have some bigger changes coming when I have more time to play with this stuff.

The Referee

Martin Hansson is one of the best referees in the world and as luck would have it, he did everything right and still missed a crucial handball that propelled the French team into the 2010 World Cup. In an additional stroke of fate, a Swedish TV show was filming a documentary on the life of Hansson and they have some great footage of what life is like behind the whistle.

RÄTTSKIPAREN / THE REFEREE [2010] from Freedom From Choice AB on Vimeo.

I can't help but watch this and feel...

• ...my heart break when I hear Martin describe his reaction in the dressing room after he finds out just what went wrong in the France vs. Ireland qualifying game.
• ...that the sooner FIFA embraces technology and/or additional referees as an official policy the better. It's just not fair to the teams or to the referee to hold them up to a level of perfection they cannot live up to.
• ...that I might want to move to a small village in Sweden and referee some of the best games in the world, spending my spare time fishing.
• ...that I'm not the only guy who wears capri sweat pants every once in a while.
  

Break Their Hearts, Steal Their Fans

I think I'm wearing Orange tomorrow, so I'm recruiting you with a couple of Nike spots.

This one just has a ton of cool one liners like the one in the title of this post.

This one was released in 2009 and shows the Dutch team's advancement through the brackets with the word "Bezet" in the final game, which means "Taken." This is a play on Dutch Queens Day celebrations, where people stake claims on street market spaces with tape the night before, marking their spot with the word "Bezet." Queen's day, or Koninginnedag is a national holiday in the Netherlands celebrating the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands and is supposed to be a day of national unity. The song in this commercial is by a band named Daily Bread called Shot the Picture.

Mani the Parakeet vs Paul the Octopus

The soccer teams have taken a back seat and I'm officially cheering for Mani, the psychic parakeet to win the World Cup tomorrow. That's right, Paul the octopus has competition and this bird is picking Netherlands to win it all. Hup Holland Hup!

NASA Proves that Jabulani has Issues

NASA has proven that it has no issues with focusing on its core mission and has officially proven that the Jabulani exhibits strange behavior when when it hits 45-50 mph. Watch the short video below to see some grainy footage of the tests and watch the trail of the ball. Pretty crazy.

Here is a link to the actual page on NASA's website (a different cut of this video is available there). To be fair to NASA, using something like the Jabulani to help educate students on aerodynamics is actually a pretty neat idea in my opinion.