Evenin' y'all. Hey if you take a break from postin' on the ONT, you just might be able to catch the Lyrid Meteor Shower which peaks tonight. Or if you are too damn lazy to go out and look (or the weather is horrible), you can watch it here at this NASA link. Anyhow, the best time to watch is between midnight and dawn tonight.

Also, those of you with telescopes (I hear Cool Czech has one for his neighborhood watch program) should be able to see the rings of Saturn tonight as well. As for seeing Uranus, you're on your own. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 05:55 PM | Comments (956)
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Woof woof. Welcome back once again to the legendary Saturday Nite AoSHQ Chess Thread, which ace apparently doesn't know about. So everybody keep quiet and don't tell him.

In keeping with the AoSHQ meme of the week, I wanted to show an opening or variation with some dog reference attached to it, but didn't come up with much. This saddens me. There's no Schnauzer Gambit or Samoyed Opening. And why is it named the "Fried Liver Attack"? It seems to me that it could just have easily been called the "Fried Poodle Attack".

What I actually found was something called the Mad Dog Attack, which is a variation of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. It goes like this:

1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 exf3 5.Nxf3 g6 6.Bc4 Bg7 7.h4

I guess that pawn push is supposed to strike terror in Black's heart. Perhaps it does. It might be more effective if you were foaming at the mouth while playing it. Arf.

This week's famous chess game is Steinitz-Von Bardeleben, which earned the brilliancy prize at Hastings, 1895. It's fun to see Steinitz's rook attach itself to the Black king like a Yorky with an old shoe -- and Black can't do anything except run like a whipped cur.

Here is the game score:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 d5 8.
exd5 Nxd5 9. O-O Be6 10. Bg5 Be7 11. Bxd5 Bxd5 12. Nxd5 Qxd5 13. Bxe7 Nxe7 14. Re1 f6 15. Qe2 Qd7 16. Rac1 c6 17. d5 cxd5 18. Nd4 Kf7 19. Ne6 Rhc8 20. Qg4 g6 21. Ng5+ Ke8 22. Rxe7+ Kf8 (22... Qxe7 23. Rxc8+ Rxc8 24. Qxc8+) (22... Kxe7 23. Re1+ Kd6 24. Qb4+ Kc7 25. Ne6+ Kb8 26. Qf4+ {and White wins}) 23. Rf7+ Kg8 24. Rg7+ 1-0

This game was also notable for a craptacular display of bad sportsmanship by Von Bardeleben, who, instead of nutting up and resigning like a man when he realized his position was lost, started to hump Steinitz's leg in frustration. No, actually, what he did instead was stomp out of the playing hall in a huff. Steinitz technically won the game on time. But everyone knew that he had, you know, beaten Von Bardeleben like a dog.

Losing at chess is hard. I think we all know this. But some take it a lot harder than others.

On an administrative note, I may be switching the chess thread to Sunday night. It depends on when they're going to be scheduling the new gaming thread, which I think is going to be a monster hit with the morons. So if they're going to put it up on Sat. night, I'm afraid my meager little chess thread is going to get all squished. So Sun. nite may be better. We'll see.

Thanks to those of you who have sent me tips for this thread. They may be sent to me at

OregonMuse
and then the at sign
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More dog-eat-dog action below the fold: more...

Posted by: Code Red at 04:00 PM | Comments (193)
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This is so rare. Which is why it's so amazing.

21st perfect game in MLB history. White Sox beat the Mariners 4-0.

(better vid from MLB.COM)

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:15 PM | Comments (266)
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Hi there, folks...

As usual, there's plenty going on in the NHL today, and lots to catch up on from the week. So let's get started... we've got five Game 5s today, so let's look at a few stories from around the water cooler... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:00 PM | Comments (284)
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He needed 60% of the delegates to avoid a primary. He got a fraction over 59%. The Daily Caller's Matt K. Lewis is in Utah and has been live-tweeting the convention. Hatch will face Dan Liljenquist in a June 26th primary.

A year ago, it seemed clear that Hatch would lose the nomination.

While Bennett and former representative Chris Cannon — defeated at the 2008 GOP convention by Rep. Jason Chaffetz — bemoaned the state’s arcane rules for nominating candidates, Hatch used them to his advantage. “He worked hard and spent a lot of money,” Chaffetz, 45, who considered challenging the senator, said with grudging respect. “He’s just parked himself in Utah.”

More than a year ago, HatchÂ’s campaign polled the 3,500 Republican delegates who voted Bennett out of office in May 2010.

Its discovery: Hatch had no chance of getting renominated, if those same 3,500 people voted.

“This is not going to be a campaign of persuading delegates,” Hatch’s campaign manager, Dave Hansen, said Thursday, recalling a conversation with the senator early last year. “This is going to be a campaign of replacing delegates.”

. . .

To survive, Hatch needed new delegates. The first step was to recruit supporters willing to run in the 2,000 precincts that select this yearÂ’s 4,000 delegates to SaturdayÂ’s convention. Then he had to round up supporters willing to attend caucus night to vote for the Hatch-backed delegates.

And Hatch might have gotten the 60% of delegates he needed, but his recent comments about despising libertarians and wanting to punch them in the mouth surely cost him a few points. Instead of embracing the democratic process, Hatch seemed to be resentful and angry that anyone would dare challenge him.

His big selling point is that in a Republican majority Senate, he would chair the powerful Senate Finance Committee... and rake in the big bucks for Utah.

Term limits, anyone?

Added: If anyone thinks Orrin Hatch is in favor of smaller, less-intrusive government, think again. Recall a couple of years ago he threatened federal involvement in order to get a WAC conference team, BYU, into the BCS championship. Read here, here, and here. Because government needs to be involved in everything.

Follow me on Twitter.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 11:45 AM | Comments (139)
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Yeah.

UPDATED [DiT]:

There.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:10 AM | Comments (207)
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I guess the wholesale ownership of the MFM by the Obama administration isn't enough to protect them on Fast & Furious, what with that pesky Sharyl Attkisson from CBS nosing around in the story and all.

No, this scandal has such potential for damaging The Once that it can only be handled by another division of Soros, Inc.:

Katie Dixon, a 'confidential assistant' in the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice, reportedly sent an email to Washington Free Beacon writer C.J. Ciaramella that she had been directed to send him a link to Media Matters for America, which holds weekly "strategy calls" with the White House, in response to an inquiry regarding the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.

Read the whole thing over at Breitbart's. And here's C.J. Ciaramella's related WFB article. It explores an allegation contained in Katie Pavlich's new book on Fast and Furious that there was a third F&F gun involved in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and that DOJ is covering its existence up.

Two weapons connected to Fast and Furious were discovered at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was gunned down in the Southern Arizona desert in 2010 by five criminals armed with AK-47s.

However, Pavlich asserts there was a third gun. The book details three separate pieces of evidence that point to a third weapon being recovered and then covered up by the FBI and the Justice Department.

I'm not sure how serving as a public relations arm of the Obama administration comports with MMFA's tax-exempt status, but I bet the Treasury Department will get right on that.

Posted by: andy at 05:28 AM | Comments (309)
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In case you missed it, the Campaigner-in-Chief's happy 100th birthday message to Fenway Park was booed loudly when it was played on the Jumbotron yesterday.

As luck would have it, I was at the game. For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of Red Sox fans.

Posted by: andy at 04:00 AM | Comments (156)
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Well, happy Friday morons. It's been a long, long week but the weekend is here now so kick back, git yer drink and pop right on in to the ONT.

This is kinda sad but not unexpected knowing the budget constraints the DoD is starting to feel. I grew up going to air shows so this will be a bummer as our next crop of youngins will have a tougher time getting to see our Nations finest aircraft in action. Air Force Scaling Back Air Show Demos.

The Air Force announced that itÂ’s scaling back its participation in dozens of air shows in 2012, in an effort to cut costs and put money into combat operations. But officials at Hill Air Force Base said the upcoming show wonÂ’t look much different than it has in years past.

Officials at Air Combat Command eliminated the solo performances of five of its crews based in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Utah.

Eliminating solo performances by the A-10, the F-16 and F-15E, is expected to save the Air Force $15.5 million and allow about 970 training flights that otherwise would have been canceled.

Posted by: CDR M at 06:00 PM | Comments (809)
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Zakn just reminded me that I had asked for volunteers to handle it. I just wrote back to five -- if I didn't write to you, I couldn't find it in my mail.

Anyway, hopefully we'll have a Gang of Gaming Morons available for a gaming thread this weekend.

It's really a great idea. I'm pretty interested in such a thread myself.

You know, as a general matter, weekends are obviously a slow period for news, and for me, because I'm a lazy cur.

And I always think that weekends should be for more fun stuff.

So, my point is: If you have a specialized interest in whatever topic, and you'd be willing to run a weekend thread on it, please let me know.

I went through a several year period of kind of not being interested in anything. And not doing anything. Like, same thing, day in day out. I was depressed. Either my disinterest in new things caused my depression or vice versa, or most likely both at the same time.

So, I'm starting to get into the habit now of trying new things. So, I'd like to hear about new things. And also promote them.

I was just saying this to someone -- not only did I lose a friend in Andrew, but it really woke me up about my own mortality. It's not that I wasn't aware of my mortality. I was, vaguely. But I am a really, really bad person as far as avoidance. Problem? I've got a solution: I'll ignore it until it goes away or it turns into a Much Bigger Problem.

Either way, I won't have the same problem I had initially!

So I guess my point is that I like the idea of hosting things that can maybe help people live a little better and a little lighter. I'm just realizing, a bit late, that we really do not have much time on this earth, do we?

Posted by: Ace at 04:37 PM | Comments (473)
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