Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Japan agrees to increase military deterrence against China. Big believer that we should engage both Japan and India to increase their military deterrence against China as they both have the most to lose. (HT CMR Salamander)

- The heart of the team: trust, selflessness, and compassion.

- Bluesky: The online cone of silence. I always viewed Bluesky as the left's version of Trump's Truth Social. I'm not on either. (HT Execupundit)

- Former federal officer sentenced for smuggling aliens and receiving bribes from cartel. Rooting out corruption - this is the way. 

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

What a horrible Final Four aesthetically. Blowout games plus a court and camera angles that literally hurt the eyes... The science of why you should spend your money on experiences not things... North Carolina opened as a 1.5 point favorite over Villanova. I like the points... JayWrightsSuits - what a great Twitter handle... How about this for a trade - Red Sox send Pablo Sandoval and Steven Wright to the Padres for James Shields. Let's get it done!...  Excellent video breakdown of the Celtics win Friday night over the Warriors... Just for the heck of it I'm going to start calling people "Sugar Biscuits". "Hey Sugar Biscuits - how's it going?" It's the little things that amuse me... Disappointed that nobody has compared the D'Angelo Russell situation with the Lakers to the Wade Boggs' "Delta Force" situation back in the day with the Red Sox... Rob Gronkowski is the best!... So one of the athletes named in that Al Jazeera report just got suspended 80 games for PED's. The HGH allegations against Peyton Manning are going to stick in people's minds... Win a $650,000 bet but almost kill yourself? No thank you...

Weekend Update

So now we have the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament. Even though I had picked three of the four correctly and have Ohio State winning it all in all of my brackets - I'm officially rooting for Georgetown to win the title. I had too many wrong early in March Madness to win any of my remaining pools (I'm 40 out of 60 for my picks) - so I'm just rooting for the Hoyas because of residual Big East loyalty and because they are the biggest underdog left - and I loves me dem underdogs.

I would also like to point out that our interview subject from a couple of weeks back - Carl Spackler - correctly picked the Georgetown over North Carolina upset.

As far as "for entertainment only" game-picking - its almost as if the past four days never existed. I went 2-4 on Thursday, 2-4 on Friday, 0-2 on Saturday and 2-2 yesterday. That's a grand total of 6 for 12 in picks (.500). The vig was worth the action though.

On Saturday night I stayed up to watch Peyton Manning on SNL and I admit that he was pretty funny. However, I couldn't help thinking that he was doing this after and maybe because Tom Brady did it and that Tom Brady did SNL in large part because his idol Joe Montana hosted the show. There has to be some envy on Manning's part - I mean he mentioned Tom Brady just minutes into the show (you never heard Tom Brady mention Manning when Tom Terrific did the show).

Just seven days till Opening Day and I'm really starting to get the baseball itch. I love the way March Madness will be segwaying right into baseball - both the NCAA championship game and Opening Day are next Monday.