Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Signing off

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-30T20:36:22-04:00

G'nite, all. See you on the other side.

The end

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-30T20:08:55-04:00

Guestblogging is turned off, and I'll be shutting down comments in a few minutes, and redirecting this URL to the new blog shortly thereafter.

Thanks for the memories, everybody.

Oh, and don't be deceived by the title of this post. Much like The Return of the King, this blog will have more than one ending. :) One final "signing off" post will follow...

P.S. Since I'll be signing off as the "Irish Trojan," I should probably link one last time to the post that started it all, in regard to that name.

Apropos of nothing

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-30T19:56:55-04:00

Somehow, I've had this blog for over six years without ever posting this clip. Well, time to fix that omission while there's still time:

Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials

David K. — 2008-06-30T18:03:35-04:00

So, the far-right group American Family Association is one of apparently many right-wing groups that use auto-correct to replace potentially offensive (to them at least) words in articles posted to their news streams. I don't even know if it's legal to take an AP article and auto-replace words like that.

Well, the AFA has a problem with the word "gay" and so they auto-replace it with the word "homosexual". (Any of you following the Olympic trials can see where this is going.) Trouble is that "gay" isn't always used to mean homosexual. Not only can it mean happy, it also happens to be a not uncommon last name. Such is the case with Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay. Which of course leads us to the utterly hilarious headline that is the title of this post.

You can read more about this utterly pointless and unintentionally hillarious pseudo-censorship here.

McCain predicts Bradley Effect?

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-30T17:10:12-04:00

Hmm... this is interesting:

The presumptive GOP nominee tells voters in an afternoon Pickersville, Pennsylvania town hall that the state will pick the winner in November — and he will be behind until right before the polls close.

McCain's point seems to be simply that he's the underdog, which is undoubtedly true. But, if the election is close, it's quite possible that he'll be literally right; indeed, he might seem to be behind even after some polls close... until the combined impact of the Bradley-Wilder Effect and the Exit-Poll Liberal Selection Bias Effect (see: the Seven-Hour Presidency of John Kerry) is revealed, when actual vote totals -- as opposed to final opinion polls and leaked exit polls -- reveal a narrow McCain victory.

I'm not predicting it. I'm just saying it's a possibility.

"Period. Full stop."

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-30T15:06:50-04:00

Just a thought: it would be nice to see John McCain clarify his non-answer about Barack Obama's patriotism in the same sort of straightforward, no-nonsense, not-open-to-interpretation way that Obama responded today to Wesley Clark's comments questioning the value of McCain's military service.

The John McCain of 2000 and 2004 would have done it. Will the John McCain of 2008?

P.S. Incidentally, Obama also criticized MoveOn.org -- specifically its "General Betray Us" ad -- in the same speech.

UPDATE: It seems Obama's answer on the Clark front isn't good enough for the McCain campaign, which appears to be implicitly adopting the position that a candidate can be faulted for anything his supporters say, even after the candidate clearly and explicitly disavows it. I trust the McCain folks won't mind when this same standard is applied to them.

McCain's only hope in this election is to make the case that he is the true candidate of change, reform, "straight talk," etc. In short, he needs the "McCain brand" to both survive the collapse of the "Republican brand" and to trump the shininess of the "Obama brand." It's a tough task, but Obama has recently opened the door for McCain with his reversals on several issues, particularly campaign financing. (For that matter, the MoveOn.org thing is something of a flip-flop; Obama pointedly did not vote on the resolution to condemn the ad, back when it was primary season and a "Yes" vote might have hurt him with the base.) McCain is obviously trying to take advantage of the opportunity he's been handed. But, in this still-undecided voter's view, he's doing so in precisely the wrong way.

McCain needs to kill Obama with kindness, honesty and straightforwardness, not heavy-handedly twist and contort his words in a blatant political game that ultimately holds Obama's statements and actions to a standard that McCain himself cannot possibly meet. The latter course might be enough to fool some low-information voters, but those folks aren't paying attention yet anyway, and in the mean time, opinion leaders in the media and blogosphere -- who are crucial to the survival of the McCain brand -- are going to see right through McCain. You can't become perceived as the candidate of the "high road" by taking a short cut on the low road. It just won't work.

I suggest that McCain read Mark Halperin's advice from last week, particularly:

14. Recognize that gimmicks ... are seen as just that — gimmicks. ...

17. Avoid personalizing your disdain for Obama. ...

22. Protect the McCain Brand at all costs – it is the only thing that gives you a chance to win!!

More on the big blog move

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-30T12:58:00-04:00

In anticipation of the imminent end of this blog -- and redirection of its traffic to a new, weekly blog -- I figured I should give y'all a little more detail on what's happening.

Although I've focused on the weekly blog in discussing this issue, I'm actually replacing "Irish Trojan in Tennessee" with three separate blogs:

a weekly blog, named "Hopefully Considered";
a photoblog, named "Light and High Beauty";
and a moblog, named "Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost."

Yes, the latter two titles are both Lord of the Rings references. :) As for "Hopefully Considered," it is, as I explained before, a reference to my Papa Loy's old newspaper column. I appreciated all of your suggestions, some of which were quite good, but I ultimately decided that I liked my original idea best. (The subtitle is "Brendan Loy's Weekly Musings," adapted from David K.'s suggestion. I decided to drop the "Irish Trojan" moniker altogether, though it's still referenced, at least for now, in the new blogs' sidebars.)

All three new blogs are powered by Blogger and hosted on Blogspot's servers, but with domain redirection to make them look like they're on my server. Thus, the URLs -- which are already active, though the blogs are still works-in-progress -- are weekly.brendanloy.com, photo.brendanloy.com, and moblog.brendanloy.com. (Regular readers may want to bookmark those.)

The major change tonight, aside from some final tweaks to make the blogs ready for prime time, will be that www.brendanloy.com, blog.brendanloy.com, and www.irishtrojan.com -- all of which currently point here -- will instead redirect to weekly.brendanloy.com.

You may be wondering why on earth I'm replacing one blog with three blogs (or four, if you count the Linklog, which is a "companion" to the weekly blog; or five, if you count my Pajamas Media hurricane blogging), when the whole purpose of this switch is to cut back on the time I spend blogging. I know it's a bit counterintuitive. But I actually think it'll work well, when you consider my twin goals of: 1) spending less time blogging, while 2) continuing to have outlets for the types of blogging that I can do without eating up all my free time.

Each of my new blogs has a very specific purpose and identity, which should reduce the temptation to return to "hyperactive" blogging mode when there's some development in the news that I could just sit down and text-blog about for hours. Where would I do that, if I wanted to? On the "weekly blog," thus destroying its weekly characater? On the moblog, which is designed to be filled with short cell-phone posts? On the photoblog? If anything, my energies in such situations will probably be channeled to the Linklog, and thus inherently limited to posting individual links with one-line headlines. There's no way I can spend hours and hours on that.

Also, by the very fact of splitting up the product of my blog labors into three separate locations (or more, depending on how you do the math), I think I will be far less afflicted by the feeling that I "need" to keep the blogs updated, for my readers' sake and my traffic's sake. If my weekly columns, cell-phone posts, pretty pictures, random links, and hurricane updates were all in one place, the site actually would tend to remain pretty fresh -- albeit rather disjointedly -- from day to day, and thus I'd be more inclined to fall victim to the old "feed the beast" problem. But as it is, there is simply no way these individual blogs will remain consistently timely. The moblog might sometimes see a dozen posts in a day, and other times go for weeks without a peep. The photoblog, likewise, will sometimes be very active and sometimes very inactive. That's the nature of those blogs, and it is, for me, a feature, not a bug. It should help ensure that blogging remains purely a hobby, rather than an independent demand on my time, competing with work and family and other obligations.

Of course, while the three-blog format is convenient for me, it's potentially rather inconvenient for you, my readers, or at least for those of you "regulars" who want to stay in the loop with what I'm blogging about, across the board, regardless of the topic. Instead of checking one site, you'll have to check three or more. I recognize that, and to the extent it's annoying, I apologize. But I think I've created a decent solution, at least for my more tech-savvy readers: a combined RSS feed for all three blogs, and another combined feed for all three blogs plus the Linklog.

We'll see how this goes. As I've said, this is a "trial run," and if these new blogs take up too much of my time, I'll get rid of one or more of 'em. But I think I've got a pretty good structure going forward to continue my contributions to the blogosphere -- and its contributions to me -- without impinging on the rest of my life.

I'll have more to say about all this in my first post on the weekly blog, later tonight. So, stay tuned.

Somebody get this guy a latte

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-30T08:25:00-04:00

Remember Tom Buffenbarger, the machinists' union blowhard who unleashed a hilariously unhinged anti-Obama rant on Hillary Clinton's behalf during her post-Wisconsin-primary rally back in February? I'll refresh your memory:

[During his speech introducing Clinton,] Buffenbarger derisively dismissed Obama as a mere "wunderkind," a "man in love with the microphone," and "a poet, not a fighter." He repeatedly and pointedly called him "the junior senator from Illinois" (as if Hillary isn't the junior senator from New York?). He compared Obama to "Janus, the two-faced Roman god of ancient times." And then he really got going:

"The Barack Show is playing to rave reviews, sold out on college campus after college campus, standing-room-only crowds to hear his silver-tongued oration. Hope! Change! Yes, we can! Give me a break! I've got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won't last a round against the Republican attack machine!"

... Buffenbarger [also made the] blatantly anti-intellectual argument -- repeated twice -- that Obama can't "fight" for the working class because he was "the editor of the Harvard Law Review." I guess Hillary's stint as an editor of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action establishes her credentials as a real union stiff?

Buffenbarger blustered so buffoonishly that I proposed a new verb to describe his actions: "to buffenbarger," meaning "to engage in an inappropriately vitriolic attack on a member of one's own political party." (TPM Cafe contributor David Schlitt had a similar idea.)

Well, it turns out ol' Tom is still buffenbargering after all these months:

Now is not the right time for the [International Association of Machinists] to endorse Senator Barack Obama... Our members feel the economy squeezing their family finances for every last dime, every single week ... But those meat and potato issues have not found a place in the message frame developed by Senator Obama's campaign. To us, hope and change are not antidotes to the economic pressures blue-collar families face... In the Machinists Union, a predominately blue-collar union, the impression continues to grow that Senator Barack Obama could care less about folks like us.

McCain-Buffenbarger '08! ;)

Thank you, Brendan...

Joe Loy — 2008-06-30T02:49:44-04:00

...for all your hyperactively-excellent :} work on This incarnation of the ongoing Brendanblog; and in its Next Generation may you compile a tomorrow worthy of all the yesterdays (but less time-consuming :).

Thank you too, for the honor of having been Included on your ~~suspicious~~ auspiscious roster of ~~usual suspects~~ distinguished Guestbloggers ;]. The opportunity to Ventilate my odd opinions (and in my Own peculiar diction, unpasteurized! :) has been Important to me. Seriously, it has.

You're a Good one, old Kiddoe. / And now (as Nana Loy would say:) ~ Onward & Upward!

Love,
~ Dad

A last guest blogging

dcl — 2008-06-29T23:07:51-04:00

Brendan said that if you needed to post something best do it now, before it's too late...

So I think, as guest blogs, we all need to make sure we get any and all picking on Brendan take care of and wrapped up before he shuts us all down for good. Like recalling the guy that for months kept calling him Brenda... Or the fact that he ~~still, yes still, wears Velcro shoes (well, last I knew anyway, please Becky, tell me you've fixed this?)... I imagine his daughter will be lacing up her own shoes properly long before Brendan...~~ (Update: In comments, Brendan tells us he is now wearing proper lace up trainers, so I suppose we can't tease him about that anymore.) Anyway, it appears it is last call, so I say we get on with it for a nice good showing these last 20 ish hours.

Really, I'm thinking a good and proper roast for a nice send off...

Update: Or just, you know, say fair thee well and thank you, if that's more your fancy. (Just remember, odd sentence constructions are encouraged.)

One day more

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-29T22:33:12-04:00

I've been working hard this weekend on the back-end tasks necessary to make the big blog switch happen Monday night, and I think I'll be able to do it on schedule. So, sometime after 7:30 PM EDT, this blog will disappear, and will be replaced with my weekly blog (and my photoblog... and a linklog... and a new "moblog"...).

I'll save the details of the new blog(s) for later, but I wanted to mention this now so you're all aware. Guestbloggers, if you have anything you've been itching to say, today would be the day. :) And readers, if things are a little screwy in this space Monday night, you know why. Hopefully everything will be humming along smoothly by Tuesday morning, albeit in a brave new world wherein I'm no longer a hyperactive blogger.

P.S. Incidentally, I've decided, upon reflection, to drop the "Irish Trojan" moniker from both the titles and subtitles of the new blogs. The sidebar of the weekly blog will still mention my USC and Notre Dame affiliations, and that I used to blog as the "Irish Trojan," but officially speaking, these are my final 24 hours blogging as the "Irish Trojan."

They like WALL·E, they really like WALL·E!

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-29T09:51:46-04:00

I haven't really been paying any attention to the hype for WALL·E, the Disney/Pixar film that opened Friday, but it's getting absolutely rave reviews from critics -- a 96% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes! -- to the point where, for example, it made the Wall Street Journal's critic sound veritably Obamaesque in his gushing:

The first half hour of "WALL-E" is essentially wordless, and left me speechless. This magnificent animated feature from Pixar starts on such a high plane of aspiration, and achievement, that you wonder whether the wonder can be sustained. But yes, it can. ...
[T]he film stands as a stunning tour de force. The director has described it as his love letter to the golden era of sci-fi films that enchanted him as a kid in the 1970s. It is certainly that, in hearts and spades. Beyond that, though, it's a love letter to the possibilities of the movie medium, and a dazzling demonstration of how computers can create a photorealistic world -- in this case a ruined world of mysterious majesty -- that leaves literal reality in the dust. ... I must drop my inhibitions about dropping the M word -- especially since I've already used magnificent -- and call "WALL-E" the masterpiece that it is.

Uga is dead, long live Uga

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-28T19:38:09-04:00

Uga VI, the mascot of the Georgia Bulldogs since 1999, has died.

He will be buried alongside his predecessors, Uga I through V, in a vault inside the football stadium. And he will of course be replaced by Uga VII.

I'm not a Georgia fan, obviously, but Uga (pronounced "uh-guh") is pretty freakin' cool. Not as cool as Traveler, of course, but cool nonetheless. R.I.P., Uga VI.

N.C. says no to WTF

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-28T14:34:57-04:00

If you're a North Carolina resident, and you're offended by your own license plate because it begins with the letters "WTF," you can get it replaced for free.

It seems that DMV officials "learned last year the common acronym stands for a vulgar phrase in e-mail and cell phone text messages." Heh. No word on whether the initial discovery of this fact was met with an expression of incredulous disbelief -- for instance, "STFU!"

Coming soon: the N.C. DMV discovers the hidden meaning of "POS" and various other three-letter combinations, and decides to stop making such a BFD out of this sort of BS.

Ugh, powder blue

Brendan Loy — 2008-06-27T17:20:00-04:00

Clinton and Obama wore (nearly) matching outfits at their Unity event this afternoon: her pantsuit and his tie were both, according to Politico's color-spectrum analysis, powder blue.

Powder blue, of course, used to be a UCLA school color, back when I was at USC. But the Bruins switched in 2003 to a different shade of blue, so I guess I can forgive the Dems for their use of what I've always considered a rather distasteful shade of an otherwise fine color. Still... for future reference, I'd recommend either Notre Dame blue or Newington blue. :)

Anyway, here are some more photos from the Obama-Clinton rally in Unity.