Finally, here it is, the week of the 2009 SEC Championship game. Once again it’s the Florida Gators Vs the Alabama Crimson Tide. Since its creation in 1992, Florida has made 9 appearances and Alabama has made 6. Every time that Alabama has made it to the SEC championship they have been met by Florida. Florida leads the series 4-2 including Florida’s 31-20 win over Alabama just last year. Anyone who follows the SEC, or just either one of these teams, knows that when it comes to a game with this much at stake (just in case you’ve been living off where no sports media can reach you,  this is pretty much the semi-finals for the National Championship). Florida is looking for their quarterback Tim Tebow (2,166 passing yards and 796 rushing yards) and receiver Riley Cooper (703 reception yards) to lead Florida to a 2^nd Straight National Championship. Alabama has some expectations from their leading players too. Alabama’s quarterback Greg McElroy (2,211 passing yards), Mark Ingram (1,429 yards rushing) and Julio Jones (545 receiving yards) are expected to lead the team to their first National Championship title since 1992. Alabama stands with the better offense, but statistically, Florida has the better Defense. Florida has only allowed 233.1 yards per game on defense, holding their opponent to only 9.8 yards per game. Alabama isn’t far behind with only 234.1 yards of defense allowed per game and only 10.8 points allowed per game. The game will take place on Saturday December 5^th 2009 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta at 3:00 P.M. CST.

This potentially could be my next MINI that I will order next year. It has all the options I’d like, but also have black side stripes as well. The interior is the standard black leatherette, I might be changing that to the cloth interior like I had on my 2004 MCS. 6 speed manual tranny, front driving lights (when I added the front black driving lights on miniusa website they didn’t come in right, so I left them off), silver stripes on roof, but I might order custom ones from cooperflags I just need to find out if they can provide me with pepper white color stripes, that would look a lot better I think. I do like the way the JCW aero kit looks like. I did see it in person on the Rally edition Clubman and it looks great! I didn’t order a sunroof, but I did get the cold weather package (it gets cold here in Michigan) as well as the convenience package. I decided to skip the sport package and the premium package. The black 17″ Crown Spoke rims with the performance  tires look awesome on this MINI,

but I will have to order some snow tires for the winter here in Michigan, most likely with a set of steel rims… black of course I’m sure next year or maybe even tomorrow I’ll have a different idea of how my next MINI should look like, but for now I’ll stick with this one. Motor On!

His team was already dressing for battle, and Andrew Dennis was trying to catch up.

With the trunk of his car open, he secured his rifle. Helmet. Headset. Pistol. Taser. He was then quickly briefed about the night’s target: a small home on a dark Harvey street with someone inside rumored to carry a gun on his hip.

Cook County sheriff’s police believed there also were drugs inside, and the hostage barricade and terrorist team was going in to find them.

About 30 minutes earlier, Dennis had raced out of Stroger Hospital from his other job, where he treated one last patient who came in from a car crash on State Street.

The emergency was left in the care of a co-worker. Now, Dennis would help provide cover to a fellow team member who would toss the flash-bangs that sound exactly like their name. If things went wrong and someone got hurt, a message on the headset would signal Dennis and other medics to come inside.

Standing at the back of his car, Dennis quickly took in the information from a colleague and nodded. He was ready — he’d switched from scrubs to fatigues, and had a new purpose.

Dr. Andrew Dennis, 39, a trauma surgeon with a special skill for reconstructing abdominal walls, was ready to help kick in a door.

For about eight years, Dennis has straddled two worlds brimming with violence, working as a surgeon in one of the busiest trauma units in the U.S. and as a sworn police officer and unpaid member of two area SWAT teams: Cook County’s and its north suburban counterpart.

“Anything can go wrong,” Dennis said, when asked about similarities of the work. “Police officers learn how to face-read and mind-read and are typically more hyper-aware of situations, especially SWAT cops. Trauma surgeons are not that much different. You learn how to read patients.”

Dennis’ primary focus as a member of the SWAT teams is to provide immediate care to anyone who gets hurt during a raid or a hostage-barricade situation. He did fellowships in trauma, burn and surgical critical care at Cook County Hospital. But he’s also described by colleagues as a good shot and quick on his feet.

The mission with Cook County took less than a minute. When it was over, Dennis waited in the front yard with his team as the house was cleared. Nearly four pounds of marijuana and a gun were seized. A 21-year-old man was charged with weapons and drug violations.

Dennis made a point to remind a reporter that he is not normally the one poised at the top of a gangway with an assault rifle ready to fire. He usually goes in as a “protected entity,” which puts him, pistol in hand, in the back of the stack of officers who line up and forcibly enter a building. He has never had to fire his gun in the line of duty.

Adding medics or doctors to SWAT teams is an idea that has grown. At a national SWAT conference in September, the sessions on tactical emergency services filled up before any other section — for the first time ever. Many SWAT teams train members as medics or embed other medical professionals. It is rare to have a trauma surgeon assigned to a SWAT team who is also a sworn officer.

He fell into the work in 2001 after police officers he met during his residency at St. James Hospital suggested he join a team. After a series of calls, he found himself in Glencoe meeting with Mike Volling, who was then commander of a cooperative SWAT team that is part of the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System, a mutual support system of departments.

“My first thought was, something is wrong with this guy,” Volling said. “Why does this physician want to come out and play with the police?”

Soon Volling recognized that Dennis was not merely interested in kicking in doors. Volling could tell he wanted to bring expertise to the team.

“He explained to me that on a busy night at Cook County he treats 10 to 15 victims,” Volling recalled. “I said this is the guy we’ve got to get.”

The Des Plaines police took Dennis on as an unpaid part-timer, which provided him a place where he could train and get certified as a police officer.

The worst-case scenario Dennis or other medics face is someone suffering a critical injury, most likely a gunshot, as happened in Dallas in 2007, when doctors assigned to that SWAT team saved an officer shot in the neck at a raid.

The more likely scenario is a twisted ankle or a heart attack.

“Should something like that happen — God forbid — if we can save one life or save someone from prolonged injury, we did a good thing,” said Bill Evans, the commander of Cook County’s hostage barricade and terrorist team.

Dennis regularly deals with other issues as a member of the teams, from training injuries to panicked calls about getting the HINI shot. He has taught them how to recognize heat exhaustion or what a sucking chest wound sounds like.

“The majority of issues we deal with on SWAT are not traumatic in nature,” Dennis said. “It’s is someone gonna have the big grabber today? … Officer survival is paramount — to empower and equip these individuals, who are putting their lives on the line for you and me, to be able to go home to their families.”

Back at Stroger Hospital — where Dennis sports pink scrubs — he is one of seven surgeons in the Cook County Trauma Unit. A typical day starts with rounds at 8 a.m., wearing his signature wooden clogs. He is on call to tend to any trauma injury that comes through the large swinging doors and also to shepherd patients through the recovery process with surgeries.

Dennis has brought his police colleagues to the hospital to learn the clinical side of gun violence and shootings. He also has asked them to give lectures to his residents on gang signs and trends because of the victims treated at Stroger.

Usually, the two worlds — hospital and law enforcement — are a natural fit, Dennis said. But at times they collide.

Last year, it was Dennis who pronounced Chicago police officer Nathaniel Taylor dead after he was shot in the head during a shootout. Minutes later, another patient came through the doors: Lamar Cooper, the man accused of killing Taylor, also wounded in the shootout.

In the following hours and days, Dennis was among the surgeons who saved Cooper’s life.

By A. Sweeney

LINK/PIC

Owen, Noah, Aaron, Rylen, Bruce, Holden, Parker, Matthew, Spencer, Dawson, Brandon, Trey, Tucker, Nathan, Kain, Jacob, Alexander, Collin, Benjamin, Nicholas, Austin, Joshua, Evan, Jack, Neco, Cooper, Elijah, Kyle, Oscar, Keegan, Malcolm, Mason, Bregan, Madden, Myles, Caeden, Brenden, Pryor, Maurice, Nicky.

Gabriella, Jillian, Lillian, Audrey, Ruby May, Erin, Bianca, Jade, Rylee, Aili, Trynity, Meghan, Olivia, Elise, Quinn, Ariana, Charlotte, Beatrix, Abigail, Layla, Kenley, Caoimhe, Cailyn, Ava, Carolina, Mia, Ailey, Alena.

Jeremy and I have long awaited the day that Cooper would be old enough to enjoy books like the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. We thought that perhaps this summer he’d be ready, but then we renigged the idea thinking that he wouldn’t be able to maintain focus.  Well, since coming to St. Louis I have been proven quite wrong! My Mom has a bunch of books out for him that were mine and my sister’s when we were kids. (On a side note, it is SO FUN to see my sister’s snotty notes to me all over the books. I believe one books says “This book belongs to ‘my sister’ DO NOT PUT PENCILS IN THIS BOOK, it breaks the binding”. He he he he he he)

One such book in the box of treasures caught Cooper’s eye, but it is a big chapter book. It’s the sequel to the Wizard of Oz and is called The Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum. It has a few illustrations, maybe one per chapter, but otherwise, it is most certainly a wordy book.  It has 280 pages! I didn’t think he’d be interested, but I started it thinking that we could at least see how long his attention span would last on a book like that. Well, I am proud to say that we are on page 185 and have read roughly 2-3 chapters every night since we got here. Cooper is LOVING the book and I can’t believe how well he listens. I’m not sure if he is quite catching everything (the language is pretty formal and the jokes are WAY over his head), so he isn’t exactly ready for a quiz on the book. However, he asks to read it every night and listens intently each time!

I am having a lot of fun with it and am so surprised he’s interested in this book. I think that when we get home we will most certainly be starting the Chronicles of Narnia.

Additionally to my surprise would be my son’s new found (or maybe always present and unrealized) skills at the Wii. Cooper totally SMOKED me tonight at tennis and I am amazed! I mean, I’m not that good…but he IS pretty good! He was even trash talking me as we kept going round after round. (I do still own him at Mario Cart…which I realize isn’t really bragging considering he is 4….)

Tomorrow we are off to see the Dinosaurs at the St. Louis Science Center! I still haven’t taken pictures, but I DID break out the video camera today just in time to record my BIL’s hand trauma as he bare-hand grabbed the skillet which had just been in the oven at 400 degrees for the past half hour. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving if someone in the Nevil household wasn’t hurt.

I’ve been posting at Flickr and neglecting here.

Fitment’s a bit mexi but if anything can rock that style it’s a Mini.

I hate fucking ABBA. Their music is really only appropriate in two places, at a wedding party and at a New Years Eve party. In other words when people are massively, massively, massively drunk. When our pub had a jukebox I had my own personal ban on ABBA. If one of their songs came on when the Jukebox was on random play I demanded it was skipped. I did let it play if someone had actually paid for it. I may be a dick but I’m not that much of a dick. Besides, those times were thankfully very few and far between.

Which surprised me to be honest because this film, this fucking film, did better at the box office in my hometown of Braintree, Essex than ‘The Dark Knight’ did. Apparently this town is filled with repressed ABBA fans, glad for a film to come out featuring their music so that they could sit there in the dark cinema where people might not recognise them. So yeah, thanks for that Braintree.

In fact a quick check of the internet reveals that Mamma Mia! Is the highest grossing film of all time in the UK. Yep, we had an empire that once spanned the globe and now we’re going mental for films based around the songs of a 70s Swedish pop group. Rule Britannia indeed.

Anyway, back to this movie. It basically tells the tale of a woman and her daughter who run a villa on an island for some reason. The daughter has met the boy of her dreams and intends to marry him. There’s one problem though. She’d really like her father to give her away at her wedding but because her mother was something of a slut in her youth, she has no idea who her father is. She finds her mother’s diary and sends invitations to three potential fathers, without telling her mother, and waits for them arrive. They do and shenanigans ensue.

Now, as I previously stated, I fucking hate ABBA but today I found out that I actually hate something more than their songs. It’s their songs sung by people who can’t sing. This was like watching a bunch of drunk people on a bad karaoke night. A really bad karaoke night. Except that I was watching it at work so I couldn’t drink. Dear God, I’ve never wanted a drink so bad in my life.

Well, I suppose that’s a little unfair. Meryl Streep ain’t bad. Not great but not bad. Still, the worst offender when it comes to aural raping is Pierce Brosnan. What the hell are you doing man? You were James Bond for fucks sake. You were the James Bond I grew up with, for better or for worse and now your singing ABBA songs whilst making a face that makes it look as if you’re trying to cough up a tortoise.

But it’s not just the singing that’s bad either! Some of the actors in this film are the worst I’ve seen outside of a B-Movie in many a year. In particular I’d like to say that the guy who plays Sophie’s fiancée Skye is a terrible actor. He was so wooden and insincere that I thought that he was being played by some kind of sarcastic puppet.

Oh, and another thing. Half the dialogue in this film seems to be delivered in some kind of strange, shrieking language that I’m fairly sure only women can understand. If you are going to do such a thing then you should probably have included subtitles for those poor bastards who got dragged along to see this by their wives and girlfriends.

Now, there were a couple of times when the film elicited a chuckle out of me. One was when a drill was used as a euphemism for a penis, telling me more than I wanted to know about exactly what childish level my sense of humour is at. The other was at the image of Pierce Brosnan dressed as a hippy. That was kinda funny. There was also one scene which I thought was kinda cool for a split second. The guests at the daughter’s hen party are looking over some kind of cliff ledge and a bunch of people are crawling up it. For one sweet second I thought it was some kind of zombie attack and I thought wow, people kept this twist quiet but alas, it was just the bachelor party on some kind of panty raid. I was sorely, sorely disappointed.

Perhaps the point where the movie really stretched the limit of believability was when all three potential fathers figured out the reason that they were invited out of the blue. They all came to the conclusion individually that they were the girls father and she wanted them to walk her down the aisle. However, they had all spent quite some time together at this point and they all knew that the other two had received equally mysterious invitations. How the fuck did they not realise that the other two were there for exactly the same reason and that Sophie hadn’t yet figured out who her actual father was? That’d be the first thing that came to my mind.

Perhaps the best thing about this movie is the fact that I watched Tremors directly before it. Man, Tremors is such an awesome film. Kevin Bacon is at his finest and you really believe that him and Fred Ward have worked together and been friends for quite some time. And who doesn’t love crazy survivalist Burt? And the Graboids still look fucking good even by today’s standards. Sure you can sometimes see the strings used to operate the tentacles in some scenes but it just adds to the charm of the movie. One thing that does confuse me though is the DVD cover. Seriously look it up now. I’ll wait.

Ok, you back? Right, what the fuck is that creature on the DVD cover with all the teeth and stuff? That looks nothing like the Graboids in the film. It just confuses me. Anyway, overall I’ll give Tremors four pints out of five.

Wait, what? Mamma Mia? Oh fine. I give Mamma Mia! one glass of white wine out of five. And you wanna know what the worst thing is? There is one ABBA song, one song that I can kind of stand. That song is Waterloo. Not sure why I don’t mind it. Maybe I’m just OK with songs based on historical events. Anyway, it’s not fucking in the film until the end credits. I kept thinking, oh just suffer through, at least Waterloo isn’t the worst thing in the world and they must have included it and then it turns out you have to watch the entire fucking film to get to it. And it takes place during this bizarre credit scene where Meryl Streep and her two friends yell at the audience asking if they want another song. Waterloo then follows filled with some of the most embarrassing dancing I’ve seen outside of a wedding reception… Which I guess is appropriate. Still, it well wasn’t worth it.

Fuck, this film has put me in a bad mood for the rest of the goddamn day. Still, if people like this kinda thing, and apparently they do, then it does give some hope for my planned film ‘Snooker Loopy’ featuring the music of Chas and Dave. Laterz.

2003 mini cooper its got 120k miles navigation sunroof front and back leather seats fully loaded with after market 17 inch wheels, call me 619210 3781 or email me

GET SPECIAL FINANCING FOR THIS VEHICLE

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Based on Boucher.

Walka Marka Piotrowskiego z Timem Cooperem. Pojedynek odbył się 22 czerwca 1996 roku.

Promocja dnia w sklepie Pretorian – sprawdź teraz!

Want to start a fight?  Choose this surname for your son.

Thanks to Photoquilty for suggesting Cohen as Name of the Day.

With kids answering to names like Riley and Madison, it might be hard to see why Cohen courts controversy.

Except.

As Nameberry’s Pamela Redmond Satran wrote in her Daily Beast article last May, Cohen isn’t just any surname.  It’s from the Hebrew kohen – priest.  That’s more than an etymology.  The Kohanim are considered direct descendants of Aaron, big brother to Moses and first High Priest of the Israelites.  For generations, the Kohanim performed specific duties and formed  a priestly class within Judaism.  Even today, you’ll find communities where the Kohanim observe specific rules and receive certain privileges in return.  Lest you think that’s just an old tradition, it turns out that genetic testing bears out the idea that the Kohanim share a common ancestry.

Not every Kohanim is a Cohen and not every Cohen is a priest.  Names like Kaplan, Conklin, Kahn, Coen, Kogan, Cahen and Caen have all been used as equivalents.  George M. Cohan was Irish Catholic.  Koen is a diminutive for the Dutch and German equivalents of Conrad.  It’s perfectly possible to argue that your boy Cohen has nuthin’ to do with the Torah.

Plenty of parents do.  In 2004, Cohen entered the US Top 1000 at #650.  By 2008, he stood at #356 – a quick climb.  (Though even at #356, fewer than 1,000 newborns received the name.)  Koen ranked #877 is 2008.

If you’re flipping through the phone book to find a baby name, Cohen seems like a logical companion to Carter, Carson and Cooper, as well as names like Colton and Cody.  And, of course, all of those names and more are sometimes subject to respelling with a K.  (I’m guessing that very few of the 238 Koens born last year are wearing the name as a nod to their German or Dutch heritage.)

Factor in our continued preference for two-syllable, ends-in-n names for boys, and Cohen was almost sure to surface.  The Cohen family – including Adam Brody’s appealing character Seth Cohen – on TV’s The O.C. fueled his rise.

To complicate matters, plenty of popular choices are heavy with religious symbolism.  Keeping company with Cohen in the US Top 1000 are:

• Nevaeh (#34) and Heaven (#275), both for girls;
• Trinity (#70 for girls), Genesis (#95 for girls) and Messiah (#704) for boys;
• Zion (#699 for girls and #233 for boys).

That’s without considering virtue names, saints’ names and names culled from obscure Biblical figures.  You could argue that calling your kid Messiah is a heavier burden than the possibly-priestly Cohen.

But why bother?  If Cohen appeals, surely you could choose Colton or Nico or Colby or Kohl.  (I’m a big fan of Crosby myself.)

Odds are that parents picking Cohen mean no disrespect by choosing the name.  Some probably like the idea that their son’s name carries a religious connotation.

Assuming you’re reading this before signing Cohen on your child’s birth certificate in permanent marker, think twice.  It seems unfair to your child to saddle him with a name that – rightly or not – will be viewed by some as an insult.

Adapted from the ancient statue.

Tony and I are delighted to introduce you to the newest partner/owner of Folbot — Bill Turner.

Bill joins us with a lifetime of involvement in manufacturing and sporting goods, along with a recent foray into commercial banking. Bill is passionate about helping continuously improve Folbot’s manufacturing processes and operations and is looking forward to learning  every aspect of how to make a Folbot. He may not yet know how to sew, but he will!

While he is enjoying paddling Folbots, Bill has yet to declare a favorite. But here he is paddling a Kiawah with Tony (in the Yukon) and me (in a Cooper).

David, Bill and Tony

Please join us in welcoming Bill to the Folbot family. You can reach him at bill@folbot.com.

Welcome Bill!

David A.

I’ve had enough.

Starting back in March and April, when the whole concept of the Tea Parties was in its infancy, the wits and wags on the left decided to take a page from Saul Alinsky’s playbook and bring ridicule to bear on the whole endeavor. But not just simple ridicule.

What they did was far worse. They turned the efforts and engagement of millions of earnest people into a dirty joke. A graphically sexual insider joke. They started calling us “teabaggers.” (The original definition of “teabagging,” for those few of you who are still unaware of it, can be found here.)

Yes, pundits, bloggers, anchors, Congresspeople, presidents, called us “teabaggers.” What class! What elan! What finely-honed debating skills! What exemplars of surpassing intellect they are.

But just suppose the shoe were on the other foot?

Imagine if you will, that for some reason, those on the left were protesting roosters and Tootsie Pops. Walking around in crowds of thousands and tens of thousands locally. Hundreds of thousands to a million on a given day in Washington D.C. Carrying signs protesting chickens and lollipops.

Innocuous items, to be sure, but you can bet your bottom dollar that nobody, and I mean nobody on the right (or the left, for that matter) would be casually referring to them in print, on televsion or video, or online, as cock-suckers.

• The queen of the B-list in Hollywood wouldn’t be doing it.
• A minor news reporter/talking head wouldn’t be calling people that.
• The President of the United States wouldn’t say it.
• A past president of the United States wouldn’t even think about saying it, having had too much scrutiny in that direction himself.
• The Oxford University Press would not even have considered it for their “Word of the Year” for 2009. 

It defies belief that any of these people used that word without knowing what it meant.

And yet, this is what the left does. Having no valid argument to present against the Tea Parties, they resort to using phrases that reduce them to the level of sniggering seventh-graders. It’s an in-joke that only the cool kids get, and the poor rubes doing the protesting are left scratching their heads, wondering why the in-crowd is laughing at them,

Well, the poor rubes doing the protesting are getting mighty sick of it. If the in-crowd doesn’t look out, they, too, will awaken the sleeping giant and fill him with resolve.

Hey kids, be careful… The giant is starting to stir. By 2010, he’ll be awake. And he’ll be hungry.

UPDATE: Jay Tea over at Wizbang has a slightly different reaction to the term…

Stoutcat

Based on a Titian figure.

2011 Fiat 500 vs 2010 Mini Cooper

Hatchbacks

www.autorivals.net

I saw this MINI at the dealer yesterday. It’s a 2009 MINI Cooper Clubman JCW with 7,000 miles on it and asking price is $34,000. The MINI looks great, it has a 6-speed manual tranny, black leatherette interior. I would love to buy this MINI, but the timing is not perfect at the moment. It is slightly used and I have no problem with used cars (my current car I bought used), but for me a MINI is suppoed to be part of your character and I feel like something ismissing.. one of the things I noticed is that it’s missing rear fog lamps and I bet you’re thinking so what? Well let me tell you.. I like to have all of the switches inside under the radio filled, looks weird to me when there’s an open spot… but that’s just me. There are a few more pictures of this MINI in my picture gallery here…. enjoy

one of whom has forgotten his shorts, greet the dawn with an assortment of stretches.

When veteran shock-rocker Alice Cooper takes the stage at the House of Blues, Marilyn Manson had better move out of the way. Cooper, who came to fame in the 1970s with his band of the same name, comes across as a raw blend of David Bowie and KISS. Theatrical stage props – blood, fire, electric chairs – add to an androgynous stage presence, making Cooper a fantasy rocker whose main goal is to tap into the need of adolescents to shock their parents.