Bert Blyleven got ripped off AGAIN!

Once again, Bert Blyleven didn't get enough votes for the baseball Hall of Fame. It doesn't make any sense. Below is an associated press story from MSNBC.com:

MINNEAPOLIS - Bert Blyleven wore down opposing hitters over 22 seasons on his way to compiling some impressive statistics.

Now in his 10th year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, Blyleven is hoping he’s wearing down the baseball writers in much the same way.

After getting just 83 votes on his first try, Blyleven received 277 votes in the 2006 results — showing up on 53.3 percent of the ballots. Election requires 75 percent of the votes, which are limited to 10-year members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Players remain on the annual ballot for up to 15 years as long as they get 5 percent of the votes each year.

Because it’s beyond his control, Blyleven will continue being patient. And because he has slowly picked up more votes each year, Blyleven will continue thinking positive about his progress.

“It’s an honor to play the game as long as I did. Whether I make it or not, I still had a lot of fun playing a kid’s game,” Blyleven said Monday from Florida, where he lives when he’s not doing his job as a television analyst for Minnesota Twins games.

Jim Rice, Rich Gossage and Andre Dawson are the other holdovers who finished with more votes than Blyleven last year, and Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire and Cal Ripken are the headliners among 17 newcomers in the 2007 candidates.

“I vented earlier on, because I wanted my pops there,” Blyleven said, referring to his father, Joe, who died of complications from Parkinson’s disease more than two years ago. “But it’s up to the writers, and I think I’ve learned over the years to be patient. Whatever happens happens.”

Don't drive on the ice! Trucks breaking through.

Monday's News Tribune has an article about 2 different lakes, and vehicles breaking through the ice!:

Two trucks broke through ice on Duluth-area lakes over the weekend, including a pickup on Island Lake that sank in 30 feet of water. Authorities warned anglers not to drive on any lakes until it gets colder.

The Island Lake incident happened Saturday night with two men in the pickup at the time, authorities said. The men escaped, but the truck sank to the bottom and now must be recovered.

Island Lake is notorious for currents under the ice which can cause ice thickness to vary every few feet. While some areas now have more than a foot of ice, others might have just a few inches. And residents of the lake say ice thickness can change from day to day.

But temperatures above freezing and 10 to 20 degrees above normal in recent weeks have made ice on all Northland lakes suspect.

At Grand Lake on Sunday afternoon, another pickup broke through the ice, but only one wheel sank below the ice surface. There were only a few inches of ice in the area.

“The worst part about that one is the same guy went through the ice in the same spot with his ATV just a week before,” said Dale Ebel, Duluth area conservation officer for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He thought it had been cold enough to make the ice thicker. But it’s been so warm that we’re actually losing ice.”

Ebel is warning anglers and others not to drive on any Northland lakes until the region receives several days of below zero temperatures. That could happen by this weekend, weather forecasters say. Officials say it takes a minimum of 12 inches of ice to support a car or light truck.

“I wouldn’t drive on any lake right now. I’ve been using the ATV and walking… and I’ve found some spots I the bays with just a couple inches of ice,’’ Ebel noted. “I wouldn’t drive a vehicle on Island Lake if you paid me. Ever.’’

You wouldn't catch me even walking out on a lake right now. This probably means the Big Jig ice fishing contest held on Duluth's Pike Lake is in jeopardy right now.

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John Cena Subway Commercial, K-Fed

Today I saw the John Cena Subway commercial. It's actually a funny commercial so that's a good thing.

Tonight, Cena gets to wrestle Kevin Federline on WWE Raw so hopefully Federline comes out of the match seriously injured.. even though Wrestling is scripted.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I'm 4 hours early, but Happy New Year already :)

Oberstar Taking Fight to Invasive Species

This is a long article from the Duluth News Tribune today, that focuses on invasive species that are infecting/affecting our lakes, and Great Lakes as well.

Invasive species targeted
John Myers Duluth News Tribune
Published Sunday, December 31, 2006
The incoming chairman of the U.S. House committee that oversees ports and shipping vows to head the federal government’s strongest action ever to regulate ships’ ballast water and thwart invasive species.

U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., soon to be chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he’ll hold hearings in coming months.

He promised to pass a bill in 2007 ordering ships to treat their ballast water to ensure that foreign species can’t be moved into U.S. waters or spread between the Great Lakes.
Zebra mussels.
Zebra mussels.
On the day a Michigan law targeting ballast water takes effect, and on the heels of a federal judge’s order that ballast water be regulated as water pollution, it’s the strongest sign yet the federal government will act on invasive species.

“We were in a position to start taking action in the 1980s and early 1990s, and we could have stopped many of these species from coming in,” Oberstar said in a recent interview with the News Tribune. But opponents to ballast regulations “said there wasn’t the technology. They said it was too expensive. They said it wasn’t enforceable and that we needed more science. Bullshit. We don’t need any more scientific certainty. We know how adversely these species have affected the Great Lakes. It’s time to take action.”

Oberstar called invasive species the top threat to Great Lakes ecosystems and among the nation’s most-pressing environmental problems.

“Mercury [pollution] is a problem. But mercury doesn’t reproduce. Viruses reproduce. Zebra mussels reproduce. Lamprey reproduce. We have to stop that chain now or we’ll lose control,” Oberstar said. “We’re going to move a bill that has strong enforcement of ballast water to stop the destruction of one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. … If the president vetoes it, it will be on his grave marker, not mine.”

Stars aligning for action

The ballast water issue, simmering for decades, has started boiling. The signs:

* Last year a federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating ballast water under the federal Clean Water Act by September 2008.

* A new Michigan law that demands permits for saltwater ships takes effect Monday. If ships exchange ballast, they’re required to treat it to kill exotic species. Experts predict a showdown over jurisdiction.

* On July 1, a Washington state law will begin requiring state permits for ships entering state waters and requiring ballast water exchange outside state borders. California and Oregon have similar laws intended to add teeth to existing federal policy. Minnesota and Wisconsin haven’t taken any action on ballast water to stem invasive species.

* A new exotic species has emerged in the Great Lakes in the past year, killing fish across wide areas. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia — or VHS — has infected 27 species, killing fish from Lake St. Clair near Detroit into Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River and a New York lake. The saltwater virus is expected to spread west, possibly devastating native fish stocks in Lake Superior within years.

More than 20 years after zebra mussels invaded the Great Lakes, the emergence of a virus that can quickly kill native fish has pushed the issue of invasive species control into a new era of urgency.

“We support what Michigan has done, because Congress has dragged its feet for 20 years,” said Jordan Lubetkin, spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office. “But we really need a national solution, and it appears the stars may finally be about to align to get that. People are fed up with things like VHS killing fish. Fishermen are fed up. And this isn’t just about the Great Lakes. We’re talking Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf Coast and San Francisco Bay.”

Industry officials agree, although a fight is likely on the timeframe and methods. The shipping industry would have to spend millions of dollars to comply.

“I think we’re seeing the heat being turned up, mostly because of the change in leadership in Congress,” said Steve Fisher, executive director of the American Great Lakes Ports Association. “The Democrats appear more willing to take action on this. If this new momentum leads to federal legislation, that would be great. Our industry has been pleading for a federal law.”

The emergence of VHS also adds a controversial wrinkle to ballast water regulation, Fisher said. Michigan’s law and past federal proposals have focused on saltwater vessels. But with VHS already in the Great Lakes, protections would only work if they also applied to lakers — vessels that never leave the Great Lakes.

“We’re talking a whole new issue here that’s going to have huge ramifications,” Fisher said. “Imagine if someone decides that VHS has to be stopped and that we can’t move ballast around in the lakes? That kills your taconite industry and the Iron Range overnight.”

INVASIVE HITCHHIKERS

Ballast water is used to help balance ships so they float evenly and steer better. Ships can carry more than 2 million gallons of ballast water that must be moved quickly into and out of tanks as they unload or take on a load.

There are at least 183 invasive species in the Great Lakes, and scientists say the majority got here hitchhiking in ships’ ballast. A new invasive species is found in the lakes every 28 weeks, on average.

But it’s far from just a Great Lakes issue.

The U.S. Geological Service estimates that 45,000 vessels globally are moving some 7,000 different species in their ballast on any given day. Experts say there are now more foreign species in San Francisco Bay than native species.

Industry officials note that, even if all shipping ended, exotic species still would invade U.S waters.

The mean-looking snakehead fish found in East Coast waterways recently was imported by Asian chefs as a delicacy that needs to be transported live. The giant, leaping Asian carp now thriving in the Mississippi River system and threatening to enter the Great Lakes is spreading without any help from ships. Imported to the U.S. by fish farmers to clean fish holding ponds, it escaped during floods.

“We’d like to see comprehensive aquatic invasive species legislation, not just ballast water,” Lubetkin said. “It’s impossible to talk about restoring the Great Lakes if you don’t stop invasive species.”

Testing ballast treatment

Shipping industry leaders say nearly 40 companies have developed on-ship technology to treat ballast water. Several of those products are expected to be available to ship owners in coming months.

In the Twin Ports, the Great Ships Initiative is working to test ballast treatment in the lab at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, in giant on-land tanks being built near Barker’s Island and on vessels later this year. The effort is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Great Lakes port authorities.

“We expect to get something [in a ship] on the water this spring,” Fisher said. “We have several vendors who say they are almost there with the technology. We just want to make sure it really works before someone spends $1 million on something.”

While the Michigan law requires one of four specific technologies — two chemical treatments, ultra-violet light and deoxygenating water — Fisher said the best treatment may be by another means or a combination of methods to kill even microscopic organisms.

Other technologies are being tested at similar facilities in Key West, Fla.; Tacoma, Wash.; Norway and Singapore.

Duluth scientist Gary Glass, a former EPA researcher, said the solution might be easier and less expensive than previously believed. Glass envisions a system that would use chlorine to kill organisms inside the ballast tanks of ships and then use sulfur dioxide to render the chlorine harmless before it’s released into a harbor.

Whatever technology is used, environmentalists say it’s up to the federal government to set a standard that will keep everything from new viruses to mussels to ruffe out of U.S. waters.

“The industry has had 20 years to do something on their own. The time has come for the government to set a strict standard and then hold the industry to it,” Lubetkin said.

But Jim Sharrow, the Seaway Port Authority of Duluth’s facilities manager, said it may be impossible to kill 100 percent of invasive species.

“Hospitals aren’t even 100 percent sterile,” he said. “You can get close. But trying to make a [ship’s ballast] totally sterile, that may not happen.”

SKYPE is now available through Google Pack

Click the title of this entry to go to google pack and download some fun computer accessories. SKYPE is a program that allows you to make internet phone calls, voice (with your speakers/mic or headset with a mic) to anyone who uses the program. It is one of the most popular programs out there right now for download.

*NOW* will you please fire Glen Mason?

I didn't watch the game when I got home from a high school basketball game.. since I was told the score was 21-0 Gophers... then on the radio it was 38-7 a story said... well ESPN.com tells it:

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) -- Trailing Minnesota by four touchdowns at halftime, Texas Tech coach Mike Leach told his team it had a chance to make history.

The pep talk turned out to be a prediction.

The Red Raiders spotted Minnesota a 31-point, third-quarter lead, then rallied for a stunning 44-41 overtime victory in the Insight Bowl Friday night, the largest comeback in Division I-A bowl history.

The previous record for a bowl comeback was 30 points, set by Marshall against East Carolina in the 2001 GMAC Bowl.

"We talked at halftime that we had a great opportunity to make history, and the reason people come to Texas Tech is to play all 60 minutes," said Leach, who fought back tears during a postgame interview.

It took Tech more than 60 minutes to earn one of the more improbable victories in its history.

Tech (8-6) appeared finished after Minnesota (6-7) took a 38-7 lead with 7:47 to go in the third quarter. But the Red Raiders mounted a furious comeback, scoring 31 unanswered points in less than 20 minutes.

Alex Trlica's 52-yard field goal as regulation expired sent the game into overtime.

Joel Monroe kicked a 32-yard field goal to put Minnesota up 41-38 in overtime, but Shannon Woods scored on a 3-yard run to win it for the Red Raiders.

That sparked a wild celebration for the Red Raiders, who mobbed each other while the shocked Gophers trudged to the locker room.

"Everyone felt like, 'Hey, we're going to win,'" said Tech quarterback Graham Harrell, who was selected bowl MVP after throwing for 445 yards and two touchdowns. "If you believe, good things can happen."

Tech's comeback began with 4:58 to go in the third quarter, when Harrell hit Phoenix native Joel Filani for a 43-yard score to cut the lead to 38-14. That started an avalanche that buried Minnesota in the first meeting of the schools.

"We're an offense that can score in a hurry, and everyone knows that," Harrell said.

Trailing 38-35 with no timeouts, the Red Raiders took over at their own 11 with 1:06 remaining. Eight plays later, Trlica tied it.

Woods rushed for 109 yards and three touchdowns and Filani caught nine passes for 144 yards.

For Minnesota, Amir Pinnix ran for 179 yards, Bryan Cupito threw for 263 yards and three touchdowns and tight end Jack Simmons caught seven passes for 134 yards.

Minnesota set a school bowl scoring record, and Cupito, a senior, tied Asad Abdul-Khaliq's career record of 55 touchdown passes. The records were little consolation in the end.

"We just broke down," Minnesota linebacker Mike Sherels said. "You just kind of got the feeling that we were back on our heels and playing not to lose instead of playing to win."

That's not how the Gophers opened the game. They jumped ahead 7-0 after Leach went for it on fourth-and-1 at his own 45 on the opening series. Harrell was stopped on a sneak, and six plays later Cupito found Simmons for a 2-yard touchdown with 9:27 to go in the first quarter.

Four minutes later, Minnesota made it 14-0 after Sherels intercepted Harrell at Tech's 37. Pinnix capped a six-play drive with a 2-yard run.

Another Harrell turnover killed a Tech scoring drive. He fumbled on a sack by Willie VanDeSteeg, and Steve Davis recovered at the Golden Gophers' 13. Minnesota marched 87 yards -- its longest scoring drive of the year -- to take a 21-0 lead on Justin Valentine's 1-yard plunge on the first play of the second quarter.

Tech had a chance to slice the deficit when cornerback Antonio Huffman picked off Cupito's pass at the Minnesota 20. But Pinnix jarred the ball loose, and it bounded into the end zone, where the Gophers recovered for a touchback.

After Tech's Shannon Woods scored from 1 yard out to make it 28-7, the Gophers answered with an 81-yard drive that ended in a 3-yard touchdown pass from Cupito to Logan Payne in the final minute of the first half.

Minnesota looked as if it ended any Tech hopes for a comeback by opening the third quarter with a 16-play, 78-yard drive that consumed 7:13. Monroe's 20-yard field goal gave the Gophers a 38-7 lead.

"Everything was going our way," Minnesota coach Glen Mason said.

But it turned out to be a mirage.

Afterward, interviewers told Leach that his team had indeed made history. His locker room rhetoric had turned into a record.

"Didn't realize it until the end, but I knew it was kind of a big one," Leach said. "Quite honestly, despite that, I would have liked to have spotted them less points in order to come back from behind to win this thing."

Goodbye Glen Mason, don't let the Metrodome door hit ya in the ass!

Finally.. snow!

We've got almost 2 inches now I think.... the first real snow that MIGHT stick around until the end of February. They're calling for light snow almost every day until Tuesday ... but.. they never can predict that correctly that far ahead

National Sports Center, Blaine Minnesota

Today, I went to the National Sports Center in Blaine, MN for the first time, to watch a couple girls High School hockey Schwan's Cup tournament games. I'd never been down there to the complex and it's even better than I thought it would be, even though the CEC (Cloquet) girls lost to Benilde St. Margaret's 1-0.

The parking lot is nice and large, the rinks aren't bad to watch games in..and the lobby is great, with viewing windows to all 4 ice sheets in the SSR (Schwan's Super Rinks).. the concession stand is nice also.

I was told it's even better in the summer when there's soccer etc going on, so there might be plans for a trip down there to look around during summer daylight sometime.

Sports Cards for sale

I've decided to sell sports cards on eBay again more than doing the consignment auctions. The consignment auction business has been really slow the past 3 months so I've decided to list as many sports cards as possible and keep them listed in my eBay store. I'll still sell stuff FOR people but, on my own time rather than their time.

Listings are available HERE

Saddam to be HUNG within 30 days!

FOXNEWS.COM(click to go TO the article) today:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi appeals court has upheld the death sentence imposed on Saddam Hussein at his first trial, Iraq's national security adviser said Tuesday, and a tribunal official said the verdict will be carried out even if the presidency doesn't ratify it.

"The appeals court approved the verdict to hang Saddam," Mouwafak al-Rubaie told The Associated Press.

On Nov. 5, an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam to the gallows for the 1982 killings of 148 people from a Shiite Muslim town after an attempt on his life there.

The appeals court decision must be ratified by President Jalal Talabani and Iraq's two vice presidents. Talabani opposes the death penalty but has in the past deputized a vice president to sign an execution order on his behalf — a substitute that was legally accepted.

Once the decision is ratified, Saddam and other co-defendants sentenced to death at the trial would be hanged within 30 days.

Raed Juhi, a spokesman for the High Tribunal court that convicted Saddam, said the Iraqi judicial system would ensure that Saddam is executed even if Talabani and the two vice presidents do not ratify the decision.

"We'll implement the verdict by the power of the law," Juhi said without elaborating.

The appeals court was expected to announce its decision at a news conference later in the day.

An official on the High Tribunal court said the appeals court also upheld death sentences for Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and intelligence chief during the Dujail killings, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, which issued the death sentences against the Dujail residents.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said the appeals court concluded the sentence of life imprisonment given former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was too lenient and returned his file to the High Tribunal. Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder in the Dujail case.

The official said the appeals court demanded the death penalty for Ramadan in a letter to the High Tribunal.

At his trial, Saddam argued that the Dujail residents who were killed had been found guilty in a legitimate Iraqi court for trying to assassinate him in 1982.

The televised was watched throughout Iraq and the Middle East as much for theater as for substance. Saddam was ejected from the courtroom repeatedly for political harangues, and his half brother, Ibrahim, once showed up in long underwear and sat with his back to the judges.

The nine-month trial inflamed Iraq's political divide, however, and three defense lawyers and a witness were murdered during the course of its 39 sessions.

Saddam is in the midst of a second trial charging him with genocide and other crimes during a 1987-88 military crackdown on ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq. An estimated 180,000 Kurds died during the operation.

The trial is in recess until Jan. 8. It is unclear how the appeals court ruling Tuesday might affect proceedings in the trial, which includes defendants who were not involved in the Dujail case.

Saddam was captured by U.S. soldiers while hiding with an unfired pistol in a hole in the ground near his home village north of Baghdad in December 2003, eight months after he fled the capital ahead of advancing American troops.

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I'm Dreaming of a GREEN? Christmas

Well, it's Christmas Day..... and it's GREEN outside still. We've got a 20% chance forecast for snow or rain today... but.. that isn't going to make it a white Christmas.

It's still a GOOD Christmas it's just the wrong color.

That brings me to this funny picture:

Wrestling websites

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Japanese catch giant squid!

The story's been in all the newspapers but Fox News seems to have the best pictures of the Giant Squid that was caught by the Japanese.::>

TOKYO — A Japanese research team has succeeded in filming a giant squid live — possibly for the first time — and says the elusive creatures may be more plentiful than previously believed, a researcher said Friday.

The research team, led by Tsunemi Kubodera, videotaped the giant squid at the surface as they captured it off the Ogasawara Islands south of Tokyo earlier this month.

The squid, which measured about 24 feet long, died while it was being caught.

"We believe this is the first time anyone has successfully filmed a giant squid that was alive," said Kubodera, a researcher with Japan's National Science Museum. "Now that we know where to find them, we think we can be more successful at studying them in the future."

Giant squid, formally called Architeuthis, are the world's largest invertebrates.

Because they live in the depths of the ocean, they have long been wrapped in mystery and embellished in the folklore of sea monsters, appearing in ancient Greek myths or attacking the submarine in Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."


The captured squid was caught using a smaller type of squid as bait, and was pulled into a research vessel "after putting up quite a fight," Kubodera said.

"It took two people to pull it in, and they lost it once, which might have caused the injuries that killed it," he said.

The squid, a female, was not fully grown and was relatively small by giant squid standards. The longest one on record is 60 feet, he said.

Kubodera and his team had been conducting expeditions in the area for about three years before they succeeded in making their first contact two years ago.

Last year, the team succeeded in taking a series of still photos of one of the animals in its natural habitat — also believed to have been a first.

Until the team's successes, most scientific study of the creatures had to rely on partial specimens that had washed ashore dead or dying or had been found in the digestive systems of whales or very large sharks.

Kubodera said whales led his team to the squid. By finding an area where whales fed, he believed he could find the animals. He also said that, judging by the number of whales that feed on them, there may be many more giant squid than previously thought.

"Sperm whales need from 500 to 1,000 kilograms (1,100-2,200 pounds) of food every day," he said. "There are believed to be 200,000 or so of them, and that would suggest there are quite a few squid for them to be feeding on. I don't think they are in danger of extinction at all."

Click on my blog title to go to the fox news site with the pictures.

NFL Network???? Yeah Right

The Vikings lost to the Packers 9-7 tonight ... and a large part of the state didn't even watch.... NOT because they didn't want to (well, ok.. some of us decided to do better things)... but.. because MANY of us do not get the NFL Network on our cable systems.

Instead of going some place and watching the game, I went to the high school hockey game in town and had a much better time than I would have watching Brad Childress' offense do nothing all game. Tarvaris Jackson will be a good quarterback when he's had a full preseason to learn the NFL game. Hopefully Brad Childress will put in more plays suitable for moving the ball forward next year since he'll have a much more athletic quarterback than Brad Johnson.

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