Operation Nightwatch thanks you, madcapschemes.com thanks you for your donation to the Seattle organization for losing in the first Political Contest of this election season. Here’s the message received today:
“That was me, picking Nikki Nikki PaTang (from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail).
“I will make that donation, ol’ bean, and send you the receipt copy.
“I STILL think my guess was best. Best for Amurica. not for the contest.”
Previously, I wrote this:
The winner of this contest will be announced on August 23, and then we will start the next political contest.
None of that is true, in keeping with the 2024 presidential election. I did not announce the winner on August 23. And I may or may not have a next political contest on this site.
But I am announcing the winners now, and they are a sorry bunch of political prognosticators. Here are the entries and their scores:
My predictions:
Can anyone beat my score of one? Here are the other entries:
2. Trump, Kristi Noem, Biden, Harris = 1 right
3. Trump, Elise Stefanik, Biden, Harris = 1 right
4. Nikki Haley, Francis Suarez, Biden, Harris = 0 right
Will the loser of entry 4 with zero right step forward? According to the rules of this contest, you will donate $100 to a charity of my choice. So please sent $100 to Operation Nightwatch.
Back to posting quotes from books I have read. These came from “James” by Percival Everett. Probably nothing striking here, and these thoughts have been expressed many times elsewhere. But they struck me as relevant to our times as we approach the 2024 presidential election.
“James” is Everett retelling the story of “Huckleberry Finn” from Jim, a slave in Mark Twain’s book. Jim, who talks in his “slave language,” starts the conversation below with Huck:
“But dey was stealin’ from dem folks. Tellin’ lies lak dey was. He weren’t neber no pirate.”
“Yes, but them people liked it, Jim. Did you see their faces? They had to know them was lies, but they wanted to believe. What do you make of that?”
“Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scares’em.”
And further in the book, Everett has Jim but it bluntly:
“Belief has nothing to do with truth”
So many non-releasing penalties. So many non-releasing penalties against the Seattle Seawolves that torpedoed valiant attempts to change the score from 20-11 in the last half hour of the Major League Rugby championship match Sunday in San Diego
But 20-11 in favor of the New England Free Jacks it remained until the game’s end. The Free Jacks repeat as the MLR champions, the first team to do so since the Seawolves did it in 2018 and 2019.
Starting with New England fly half Jayson Potroz’ penalty kick at eight minutes into the game, the Seawolves were behind throughout. Six minutes later, Le Roux Malan scored an acrobatic try in the corner to put New England ahead 8-0.
Mack Mason kicked a penalty kick to get the Seawolves on the scoreboard, 8-3, with 25 minutes gone in the game. The Seawolves only try in the game came off a lineout five yards out from the New England try line. Great time for a maul to push in for a try, right? But that is not what happened. The Seawolves took the jump, passed the ball down to Rhyno Herbst on the inside, who fed the ball to Joe Taufete’e, who touched down in the corner.
Potroz added another penalty right before the half, and the Seawolves were within a converted try at the half, 14-8. However, some things would have to change in the second half for the Seawolves to get in the lead. The Free Jacks controlled the territory (64 percent) and the possession (58 percent) in the first half.
Potroz kicked two more penalties in the second half, scoring 15 of New England’s 20 points. The Seawolves kept the Free Jacks from scoring tries in the second half, even while playing with 14 men after Tavite Lopeti was given a yellow card for a high tackle. But, unfortunately for them, they could not score tries either. Mostly because of not-releasing penalties that stopped penetration into New England’s territory – deep inside New England territory, like within five yards of the try line several times.
Why so many “turnover penalties”? Was the ref too quick to blow the whistle on a ball being released by a tackled Seawolf? Were the tackled runners too far in front of their support? Was the support too slow to get to the tackled player? Maybe all of the above with a few ill-fated knock-ons thrown in as well.
Mason scored his second penalty kick at 47 minutes into the second half, getting Seattle to 11 points. But the last 28 minutes of the game were filled with dashed hopes for the Seawolves and New England hanging on to become the 2024 MLR champions.
High praise for Seawolves coach Allen Clarke, who guided the team to the finals through many injuries, finding the right players to fill in, coaching them to the Seawolves’ game and standards and finding plays that would score, such as the inside pass off a lineout that scored Taufete’e in the championship.
Fewer penalties, more tries for 2025. See you then.
The Seawolves fans had to hold off their celebration until 10 minutes into the second half when Seattle took the lead for the first time, 21-20, in the Western Conference finals against Dallas. It was a short celebration as the Jackals regained the lead 20 minutes later, 25-21.
It wasn’t until the 79th minute – the last in an 80-minute match – that the real celebration began. That’s when Seawolves fullback Divan Rossouw broke through the Dallas backline, raced toward the try line, only one tackler ahead of him when his long, accurately thrown pass connected with scrum half Ryan Rees, running in support, who touched down for the try. Conversion by Sam Windsor got Seattle back in the lead for good, 28-25.
The Seawolves, the winner of the Western Conference, will play the Eastern Conference winner, the New England Free Jacks, in San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday, August 4, at 1 p.m. PDT to determine Major League Rugby’s 2024 champions.
The Free Jacks, the MLR champs in 2023, beat Old Glory DC, 33-29, and the Chicago Hounds, 23-17, in their playoff matches.
The Dallas Jackals, 6-10 in the regular season, seemed like they might continue their “coming together at just the right time” roll through the playoffs. They beat the best in the league, Houston at 14-2, last week and stacked up a 20-14 halftime lead in Sunday’s game against Seattle. That despite being down to 13 men on the field after a double yellow card. Wing Nick Benn scored two tries, a one-handed cartwheel try in the eleventh minute and a race to finish off an overload over Seattle at 31 minutes. Both were scored in the corner, but Juan-Dee Oliver converted both and added two penalty kicks for 20 Dallas points.
Seattle’s first score came as a penalty try after Dallas collapsed a scrum chugging toward the try line. Score: 7-10. Then a Dallas penalty kick and Benn’s second try, and the Seawolves were back down 7-20. Joe Taufete’e restored some hope for Seattle fans when he dived off a ruck to score a try under the posts. Halftime score: 14-20.
Did the second half seem like Dallas had the ball 90 percent of the 40 minutes? And when Seattle had the ball, there were some dropped passes or ones that went behind the intended receiver or some that dribbled back to be picked up in a scramble? Seattle had two tries called back. One in the first half for a forward pass and another in the second half for a knock-on in the end zone (also known as a ball dropped when trying to touch the ball to the ground, which scores a try).
But when things went right for Seattle, it was highlight films: JP Smith’s show and go off a ruck at the Dallas try line to plunge over for a try (now forgiving that earlier dropped ball in the try zone) and then Mack Mason’s conversion giving Seattle their first lead, 21-20, at the 50th minute.
Dallas missed a penalty kick at the 67th minute but scored a try on a maul off their lineout. The conversion kick bounced off the upright, but Dallas had a four-point lead, 25-21, with eight minutes left in the match.
Another upset by Dallas? Not according to Rossouw and Rees.
Never a question that the Seawolves would beat San Diego Legion in the first round of Major League Rugby’s Western Conference playoffs.
Seattle scored four tries (one of them a penalty try), Mack Mason connected on two penalty kicks and a conversion for 30 total team points. San Diego led early with penalty kicks by Matt Giteau, first 3-0 and then 6-3, but another PK was all the Legion could score in the first half. They never led again after that 6-3 score at 11 minutes.
Loved Seattle’s kicks ahead through the San Diego back line. First by Divan Rossouw that resulted in Duncan Matthews touching down at 13 minutes (leaving San Diego behind forever), and then another by Mason that ended in the penalty try.
Smart plays by Rhyno Herbst as he dived over (some would say “like a back”) for a try at 28 minutes and the pickup by Pago Haini at the back of a ruck at 74 minutes to land a try, bringing Seattle to 30 points.
Allow one question, please: What was going on at the 80th minute? A yellow card against Seattle (Seawolves had two, the Legion one) and a penalty try for San Diego, leaving them two points shy of a victory. Giteau missed a penalty kick and a conversion. Add in those lost points, and the Legion wins 33-30.
That’s the kind of gift Seattle can’t afford against Dallas, the next playoff foe (Sunday, July 28 at 1 p.m. at Starfire Stadium). The surprise of the past weekend starred the Dallas Jackals, 6-10 in the regular season, traveling to the home grounds of Houston Sabercats, with the best record in the league at 14-2, and coming away with a 34-22 win. The Texas teams played a scrappy game won by the one that could scrape together something that led to a try. Dallas did that more than Houston.
On Sunday, the Seawolves should expect a strong Dallas defense, one that mostly smothered Houston’s back line. The Dallas forwards found their way to Houston’s try zone with persistence rucking deep in Sabercats’ territory. Three of the Jackals’ five tries came off rucks within 10 yards of the goal line.
Strong forward play, Seawall defense at its best, varied back line play, no yellow cards and NO penalty tries. A Seawolves’ win against Dallas sends Seattle on to the MLR championship on Aug. 4 in San Diego.
Without a question.
Winning the first 2024 madcapschemes.com political contest seemed an easy thing: Name the vice-presidential nominee paired with convicted felon Trump, and you win.
No one did.
The answers included U.S. Sen. Tim Scott from South Carolina, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, U.S. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik from New York, and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
That last guess was paired with Nikki Haley as the GOP presidential nominee What were you thinking? That campaign died like a Noem dog.
And JD Vance? Not a mention of the U.S. senator from Ohio who called Trump “American’s Hitler,” an idiot and reprehensible. Why would anyone pick him back in the day?
But Trump did.
It looked like all who named Trump, Biden and Harris would win, and the Haley devotee would contribute to charities (non-political) of our choices.
Until today. Joe Biden has stepped out of the race to win the presidency in 2024. It looks like the Biden guesses are all wrong.
There’s still a chance that Kamala Harris in the vice-presidential slot could be correct. That will depend on what happens at the Democratic National Convention, which runs from August 19 to 22.
The winner of this contest will be announced on August 23, and then we will start the next political contest.
by Michelle Nijhuis and Erin X. Wong, High Country News
July 19, 2024
If Donald Trump is re-elected president in November, a coalition of more than 50 right-wing organizations known as Project 2025 will be ready with a plug-and-play plan for him to follow, starting with a database of potential administration appointees carefully vetted by coalition members; an online “Presidential Administration Academy” run by coalition members to school new appointees; and a 920-page policy platform called Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.
Written by former members of the Trump administration and other conservative leaders, Mandate for Leadership exhorts its readers to “go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative state.” Among many other measures, it calls for radical reductions in the federal workforce and in federal environmental protections, and for advancing a “Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda.”
Below is an overview of some of the proposals in Project 2025 that could have the greatest impact on Western land, water and wildlife — as well as on Westerners themselves.
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR (p. 517)
The Project 2025 recommendations for the Department of the Interior were primarily authored by attorney William Perry Pendley, a vociferous opponent of protections for public lands and wildlife. As acting director of the Bureau of Land Management during the Trump administration, he transformed the agency into what one high-level employee described as a “a ghost ship,” in which “suspicion,” “fear” and “low morale” abounded.
Energy Policy
Pendley notes that the energy section was written “in its entirety” by Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas industry group; Dan Kish of the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank long skeptical of human-caused climate change; and Katie Tubb of The Heritage Foundation. They recommend reviving the “Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda” by:
Agency Operations
The project’s organizers plan to upend federal land-management agency operations by:
Land Conservation
The project aims to undo large landscape protections by:
Wildlife
Pendley expresses particular hostility toward the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose work he described as “the product of ‘species cartels’ afflicted with group-think, confirmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power, and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them.” He recommends:
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (p. 289)
The free-market advocate behind Project 2025’s section on the USDA has long railed against the subsidies and food stamp programs administered by the agency. As a fellow at The Heritage Foundation, Daren Bakst penned a lengthy report, Farms and Free Enterprise, that objects to many aspects of the farm bill, which funds annual food assistance and rural development programs. His vision, documented in the report, is present throughout Project 2025’s proposed agency overhaul.
Agency Organization
Project 2025 seeks to limit regulation in favor of market forces by:
Forestry
The project will reduce forests on public lands by:
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (p. 417)
Prior to serving as the EPA’s chief of staff during the Trump administration, Mandy Gunasekara was famous for handing Republican Sen. James Inhofe a snowball to disprove the existence of human-caused climate change. At the EPA, she played a key role in the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and in the dismantling of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. Gunasekara’s vision for the EPA is characterized by staff layoffs, office closures and the embrace of public comment over peer-reviewed science.
Agency Organization
The plan will diminish the agency’s scope of work by:
Natural Resources
The project would jeopardize clean air and water by:
This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
After five days of Utah bike riding with my sister and family, Kathy and I went south while the rest headed back to Salt Lake City. The two of us landed on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, peering down into the Colorado River, where we rafted last fall.
You can’t see the river from where we were on the North Rim, but the views were magnificent. We had a cabin on the rim at the end of the line; no other cabin crowding us on one side.
I spent a lot of time with feet up, gazing down into the canyon.
Speaking of gazing, don’t miss the Star Party that happens on the verandah of the Grand Canyon Lodge. The signs advertising it says it starts at 7:30 p.m. Maybe for other times of the year, but we were there when it did not get dark until after 9 p.m. In the darkness, we stumbled through many telescopes set up on the verandah until we found a telescope that had no opening to look through. Instead, it streamed a picture of the sky every 10 seconds, progressively showing the stars that came out as the night went on. The operator Air Drop’d one of the photos onto our cell phones. The focus in the middle of the photo is a galaxy, which I cannot name or remember. Let’s just say it is a Galaxy Far, Far Away.
