Trade completed Thursday for a conditional draft pick (read: A low-round pick, whatever the 49'ers could get for a player who becomes a free agent at the end of this season anyway).

Link: http://www.thebladder.com.au/content/news/displayContent.asp?CID=3231&EID=322

...as explained by The Bladder. Highlights:

Golfing prodigy Michelle Wie has expressed disappointment over the lack of sponsorship money she will receive after last night announcing she will turn professional.
“Like, well, I got this really bad mark in a maths paper earlier this week, and Mum and Dad went like ape-shit at me, and I was like, ‘Screw you. If you don’t back off I’m turning pro, like, yesterday, and do whatever I like, whenever I like, with whoever I like, wherever we like, sort of, you know, like’,” Wie told The Bladder.

...by the Bills in favour of Kelly Holcomb, this news got me thinking about which NFL teams have done the worst job of managing their quarterback situation in the last 5 years. Here are the "winners":

#5 Dallas Cowboys
What to do when your franchise QB contract blows up your salary cap, forcing you to release him...since Troy Aikman retired, the Cowboys have made some interesting decisions to say the least...mostly they have become the Baseball Conversion QB team. Apart from Randall Cunningham, at various times in the last 3 seasons, Quincy Carter, Chad Hutchinson, and more recently Drew Henson have all started games for the Cowboys. None of them has been a long-term solution. Hutchinson did not look solid (and the Bears just showed him the door after he lost his way in the 2005 pre-season), Henson is still learning how to throw NFL-style, and Carter imploded because of personal issues. The Cowboys most recently used Vinny Testaverde, who still can be effective, but who tends to turn the ball over at innportune moments.
The Cowboys are now trying to win with Drew Bledsoe, who does look good when he has an O-line that can hold off opponents long enough for him to get the ball out. However, there is debatable depth behind Bledsoe right now, and the era of converting baseball players to QBs may be coming to an end.

#4 Miami Dolphins
Who would want to be a franchise trying to replace the ultimate franchise QB? After Dan Marino's retirement, the Dolphins have failed to find a consistent #1 replacement. They began with Damon Huard, decided that he was not the guy, and then replaced him with Jay Fiedler. At the same time everybody connected to the franchise would grumble that Fiedler was "no Dan Marino" (to which my response would have been "no Shit Sherlock"). In the meantime the Dolphins mismanaged personnel across almost the whole team, providing Fiedler with limited offensive weapons for a passing game. They also recruited Ray Lucas from the Jets, where he had been highly rated by Bill Parcells (in case anybody didn't know, Parcells hands out praise on the same frequency as Eberneezer Scrooge gave away money, so that should tell you something), but then did nothing with him, and ultimately released him. As a result they had no depth at quarterback, so when Fiedler was injured, they struggled. They picked up Brian Griese after he was cut by Denver, but seemed to have no idea how to use him, and he is now playing for the Bucs, where he is showing that he can win games if given the right system and not placed in a position where he feels he has to make things happen.
Only recently have the Dolphins at least shored up the QB position, by recruiting Gus Frerotte from Minnesota. Frerotte may not be the long-term solution at QB, but he is a solid player who has already shown that he can lead the team to wins. Rumours continue to circulate that the team intends to enter the Franchise Quarterback Draft Lottery in 2006 (leading candidate: Matt Leinart of USC).

# Denver Broncos
From one great franchise QB to another...when John Elway rode off into the sunset after winning his second consecutive Superbowl, the Broncos decided to promote Bubby Brister to #1. After one pre-season game, the players panicked and started complaining to Mike Shanahan (probably whining "He's not John Elway"?), who then also panicked and yanked Brister in favour of Brian Griese. (A mistake later acknowledged by Shanahan).
Brister, pissed off at the enormous level of support, left for Minnesota, and the Broncos were effectively committed to Griese. They duly anointed him as their QB of the future, giving him a fat contract including a $12m signing bonus. They then discovered that Griese threw too many interceptions, and did not bond well with his O-line on a personal level. More seriously, it then emerged that he had an alcohol problem. Back to square one. The Broncos had Gus Frerotte and Steve Buerlein as backups during this period, and Buerlein would certainly have been a better bet as starter than Griese, except that he couldn't stay healthy, suffering from various arm maladies.
Eventually the Broncos recruited Jake Plummer, who had tired of baling out the perpetually sinking ship in the desert known as the Arizona Cardinals. Plummer is a good athlete and has a good arm, but he still has a tendency to do weird things when in a tight spot, and the Broncos have mainly survived in recent years by emphasising their running game. They have a poor record of developing WRs these days because, whenever the game gets tight, they canmnot rely on a running game, so they revert to pounding the ball. This gives Broncos RBs plenty of opportunities to make a name for themselves (ask Clinton Portis' bank manager), but the team is still not properly balanced, 5 years after Elway's departure.

#2 Baltimore Ravens
For a coach who used to be an offensive co-ordinator, Brian Billick seems to have been singularly inept when it comes to managing quarterbacks. He rightly benched Tony Banks halfway through the 2000 season, and replaced him with Trent Dilfer, who proceeded to manage the offense capably to the extent that the Ravens won the Superbowl. Then it all started to unravel...for reasons which were never clear to me, the Ravens decided to let Dilfer leave via free agency to the Seahawks, and then recruited Elvis Grbac from Kansas City for 2001. After an inconsistent season, not helped by Billick publicly slamming Grbac in front of team-mates and the media (a fundamental violation of all known management sense), the Ravens started dicking about with Grbac's contract, causing him to retire.
The Ravens then promoted Chris Redman to the #1 spot, only to determine that he was not the future of the franchise. He couldn't stay healthy, and was also inconsistent. 2 inconsistent years followed, as the Ravens proved that an excellent defense will only get you to the Superbowl if you can at least put some points on the board.
For 2004 the Ravens decided to draft a franchise QB, and selected Kyle Boller in the first round of the draft. However, we are now 2 seasons into the Kyle Boller era, and so far he has not shown that he is a franchise quarterback. He is currently out injured, forcing the Ravens to use Anthony Wright, who is actually fairly solid, but probably not a long-term #1. The big concern is that there are rumours that Boller is essentially uncoachable, and that OC Jim Fassel and Billick are in denial about this issue.
If the Ravens decide that Boller is not the answer at QB, they are faced with starting over in 2006. Meanwhile, they have endured 4 seasons of inconsistent-to-poor QB play. During that time, Trent Dilfer has played sparingly for the Seahawks, but always looked impressive and managed games well. Now he is the starter for the Cleveland Browns, and again looks like a true team leader.
Why o why did the Ravens think they were better off without him?

#1 Buffalo Bills
No contest. The Bills have sruggled ever since Jim Kelly hung up his helmet, and most of it can be pointed squarely back to team management and coaching.
The problem started when the Bills traded for Rob Johnson towards the end of the Jim Kelly era, giving up draft picks and a large contract for a player who had hardly played a single down in the NFL. Johnson had a strong arm, but had no pocket presence or survival skills. Once flushed from the pocket, he would run around like a headless chicken, holding onto the ball until sacked or forced to throw/fumble. After Johnson was injured running around early in his first season of being the #1, the Bills put Doug Flutie in at QB, and immediately started a winning streak that got them to the playoffs.
Flutie's ultimate reward was to be asked to participate in a "beauty contest" the following Summer, when he and Johnson went head-to-head for the QB slot in front of newly-hired head coach Gregg Williams. Johnson got the nod over Flutie, for reasons that newly-appointed GM Tom Donahue and Williams were unable to compellingly articulate at the time, but which (translated from GM-speak) seemed to comprise phrases like "large contract" and "youth". Johnson then proceeded to stink up the joint yet again, with Flutie being used as a face-saving backup. Late-season games followed a predictable script; Johnson would fail to move the offense, digging the Bills into a hole, with the opposing defense blitzing him and forcing to run for his life. The Bills would then insert Flutie, who would spend the rest of the game running around making plays trying to dig the team out of the hole. Entertaining to watch if you're a masochist or a Flutie fan, but not if you were a Bills fan.
At the end of the year, Flutie left for San Diego to be re-united with John Butler at the Chargers, so that he could actually start for a team instead of being forced to watch another QB failing to manage games properly, and the Bills were back at square one.
Their answer was to trade for the newly-available Drew Bledsoe, displaced from the Patriots by Tom Brady, and introduce him as the saviour of the franchise, complete with private plane arrival, press conference hoopla etc. The Bills then proceeeded to go 2 seasons with Bledsoe, while failing to get a good O-line in front of him that would compensate for his lack of mobility, which they presumably knew all about when they signed him (unless they couldn't watch game film). Just to show how much long-term confidence they really had in Bledsoe, the Bills traded up for J.P. Losman in the 2004 draft (giving their first-round pick for 2005 to the Cowboys). Losman might even have displaced Bledsoe in 2004, if he had not broken his leg at the start of the season.
Not surprisingly, working behind an O-line that was a close approximation to jell-o did not result in great offense for the Bills, and after new coach Mike Mularkey worked through the 2004 season, the decision was made to dump Bledsoe (more correctly, the Bills demoted him and told him he could be a backup to Losman, but Bledsoe, not surprisingly in my book, decided to go elsewhere).
So...the Bills started this year with Losman, a rookie QB with good mobility, a positive attitude and a good arm. However, the Bills have still failed to shore up the O-line, and even a mobile QB can only do so much when he is forced to run for his life every other play. As a result, Losman has been unable to move the offense consistently. The Bills then proceeded to undermine him by sending mixed signals to their own team, yanking him in the fourth quarter of the last 2 games. That sort of hemming and hawing by the coaching staff only destabilizes a quarterback.
Now the Bills are yanking him in favour of Holcomb, who is probably under-rated as a QB - he certainly looked more effective than Tim Couch at Cleveland. However, the damage has been done. Once again, the Bills find themselves back at square one. All the time Losman stands on the sidelline holding a clipboard, the Bills are getting next to no information about whether he really is the Bills' QB of the future. Holcomb is a known quantity - steady but unspectacular.

Link: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0401.florida.html

...about the profound negative consequences for the USA if the country continues to devalue science, and create a climate where creativity is seen as "intellectualism" and scorned. It also contains a cautionary message for the Democratic Party.

While attending the Rough River flyin this weekend, I found myself watching the ARCA race at Talledega. This race was won by Craig Kinser, despite an incident where he was sent to the back of the line and had to work his way back to the front. Erin Crocker finished fourth. She led for a while, obtaining that track position by not taking tires on one pitstop, but then fell to the back of the lead group for a while with what looked like bad understeer which kept pushing her up the track after mid-corner, allowing other drivers to pass underneath her. She seemed to have a fast enough car, but not a good-enough handling car.
I missed a major wreck towards the start of the race, which looked pretty nasty (shades of the demise of Dale Earnhardt). Fortunately it seems that no driver was seriously injured.
A few observations:

1. The more I watch races from Talledega, the more I notice the state of the track surface, which is a mess, particularly on the high-banked corners. It has been patched all over the place, and the behaviour of the cars shows that it is far from smooth.

2. Restrictor plate racing is not real racing as I understand it. You are flat all the way round the circuit. A superior car cannot break away from the draft, so this is Nextel Cup racing, albeit with a smaller audience, a lower profile, and, of course, the inevitable Big Wrecking Session.

3. The best thing that NASCAR could do to address its restrictor plate issue is to force the circuits to change. Restrictor plates are not the answer - the drivers hate this form of racing, it's bloody dangerous, and I find it tedious to watch. Given the guaranteed payday of a Nextel Cup date or two, I am sure that the circuits would be able to make alterations if NASCAR wanted it to happen. The banking at Talledega needs to be reduced by 15 degrees and the corners re-engineered to provide multiple racing lines. Ditto the other high-banked ovals.

4. Erin Crocker has already mastered the art of the Complete Sponsor Check-Down in her post-race interview, and also has figured out how to give non-answers to leading questions like "what did you learn today?". I'm not sure that this is a good thing - the last thing we need is a female driver with no personality, and Erin sounds like a sponsor drone already. Also...change those sunglasses, for Christs' sake. They are deeply unflattering to your face and your hair color.

Following the apparent conclusion of what became known as Buttongate II, with Jenson Button apparently agreeing to pay a substantial pile of cash to Williams, which he will no doubt pay out of his (reputedly rather large) contract with Honda, Honda finds themselves in a difficult spot with Takuma Sato.
BAR-Honda signed Rubens Barrichello as insurance in case Button did not resolve his dispute with Williams, and had to move there in 2006. Had that happened, Sato would presumably have continued as the #2 driver at Honda. However, with Button now staying, Sato is the odd man out. He has already stated that he will not accept a testing role (and why should he? That never leads to much opportunity - ask Alex Wurtz and Anthony Davidson), and Honda is coming under a lot of pressure from inside Japan to help Sato out. He did nothing wrong, so why penalize him by dropping him now? In passing, it should be noted that Satoru Nakajima was nowhere near quick enough to be in Formula 1, yet Honda quite cheerfully paid for him to drive alongside Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet in F1 teams for which they supplied engines, and apparently demanded that Williams take him for 1988 as a condition for continuing turbo engine supply (a demand that Frank Williams instantly rejected). Sato is no Nakajima - he is very quick, if erratic.
So...this being the Silly Season, the hot rumour is that a new team will appear, to run Sato in 2006. Honda will of course supply engines to that team.
This raises all sorts of pesky practical questions. Like where will a team materialize from in the next 2 months? To stand any chance of being competitive, the team will have to have a chassis ready to test before Christmas. That is a tall order, even if the team could purchase the intellectual property for an existing design. Never mind the more mundane practical matters of staff, engineers, premises, car and spare manufacture, etc. etc.
The only suggestion that makes even a grain of sense is that somehow Dome Racing could put together a Formula 1 program for next season. Dome does have the infrastructure to do that, and they have an impressive track record in most forms of motor sport. However, to assemble an F1 program will be logistically impossible...unless this "mystery team" has already been largely assembled in secret. Like maybe in a Middle Eastern country...

...when in the space of 1 week, the reclamation of a show Lola car by Ganassi racing leads to speculation which now has Penske returning part-time to CCWS in 2006.
I doubt that this will happen. One thing that I have always noticed about Roger Penske is that he seldom tinkers in anything that he does. He has a strategy, and builds actions to fit and support that strategy. I would not see him running in both IRL or CCWS. He will commit to one series or the other - or perhaps a different series entirely.

....and promote Alex Smith to #1 QB instead of Tim Rattay.
I guess I'm not surprised that this has happened. The thinking presumably is that the 49'ers didn't invest all of that money in Smith to have him holding a clipboard. However, the Bengals kept Carson Palmer on the bench for his first season, and that seems to have worked out rather well. Sink or swim never worked well as a coaching technique for swimmers, and I still don't believe it necessarily works well in the NFL. You walk a fine line between giving a young QB hard experience and destroying his confidence.
I have three words of advice for Alex Smith: Learn To Run.
The 49'ers offense is porous right now. Tim Rattay had trouble moving the team on Sunday night, partly because he spent a significant amount of playing time outside what was left of the pocket trying to avoid being knocked down, and his (relative) lack of mobility is not an asset in a situation like that.
Alex Smith had better bone up on sprints and direction changes, because if that offensive line doesn't begin to block better, he will be running for his life later in the season. Perhaps as early as Sunday. Perhaps he should consider calling David Carr for some advice...
Meanwhile, the 49'ers are stuck in damage limitation mode after benching Jamie Winborn and asking him to go sit at home. Their actions have essentially eliminated what little trade value he had (and with a base salary of $1.75 million and a contract expiring at the end of this season, his attraction as a trade target was debatable to begin with).
After October 18th, if no trade materializes, the 49'ers will be caught between a rock and a hard place, with limited options: cut Winborn and take a significant cap hit, bring him back into the team (which will, whichever way they explain it, look like an admission that they were wrong in the first place) or de-activate him to avoid confronting the issue entirely. Not a happy situation.
The 49'ers made a bad decision to bench Winborn in this way. Not playing means that Winborn cannot show teams what he can do - he has no shop window, and if the 49'ers are serious about a trade, they need him to be out there showing that he is worth giving up draft picks for.

Link: http://www.masson.us/blog/archives/2005/10/health_finance.html#comments

In which a State assembly debates legislation that most assuredly discriminates against couples who have difficulty in conceiving, and also (coincidentally? I think not) discriminates against same-sex couples.
People often ask me why I dislike social conservatives. This is a good example of why. Beneath the cheery rhetoric about "small government" lies the uncomfortable reality that some people are never happier than when they are trying to legislate private behaviour.
This is why I consider myself libertarian in political outlook. This is none of a State's business.

From a broadcast transcript of an exchange between Bill O'Reilly and Wesley Clark, where they were discussing the issue of American torture of captured prisoners in Iraq. The exchange was even more interesting when this happened:

Clark: And let me explain something. You go all the way up the chain of command ...

O'Reilly: General! You need to look at the Malmedy massacre in World War Two, and the 82nd Airborne who did it!

Hmmm. When you read about the Malmedy Massacre, it was actually when the SS captured a number of American soldiers and summarily executed them, rather than treat them as prisoners-of-war under the Geneva Conventions.
Bill O'Reilly has obviously forgotten the old saying that it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, rather than open your mouth and prove it...talk about playing fast and loose with the facts.
I wonder what the 82nd Airborne WW II veterans think of this...