holding down the fort.

(Joshua Masayoshi Huff)

I have never lost a political election. When I was in fourth grade, I ran to be second vice-president of my elementary school for the following school year. I ran against a fifth grader (who was going to be a sixth grader). I won. I will never know what the poll numbers were--if I carried more boys than girls or if I was popular among the fourth, fifth or sixth graders (it was the coveted third grade vote that probably pushed me over the top--I think they had an affinity for me because I was closer in age to them than my competitor...as third graders were allowed to vote but not run).

And that is the only time I have ever run for office. You've got to like that record, though.


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Reading the LA Times, I wondered today if, during the '80s, as much was made about Japan as is currently being made about China. I know China has ten times the population of Japan and is about one hundred times bigger physically, but Japan was an absolute beast in the mid-late '80s...right before its bubble burst and it fell into a recession from which it has never really come back from.

I'm not old enough to know the answer (I wasn't born until '87 and couldn't read until '92) and don't feel like Googling. Anyone?

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Mark Cuban, yes, that Mark Cuban, proposed an interesting question on his blog: When are foreigners going to start buying American sports teams? Many of the world's most prominent football/soccer clubs are owned by Americans (Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa, parts of Arsenal), but with the dollar so weak against the Euro (and the yen and the pound and the yuan and every other currency), you would think that some European barons and oil tycoons would start buying American sports clubs.

Perhaps it's because they don't see the American sports faring very well in their home markets. They would realize a large profit (especially with NFL teams), but most of these games air very late at night/early in the morning in Europe--is there more money to made in Europe? Basketball is already fairly popular in Europe, but will people in Istanbul and Milan get up at 3 AM to watch the Hawks play the Grizzlies?

It's all about the bottom line. For the same price, you could buy two or three fairly good soccer clubs (Birmingham, Aston Villa and West Ham were all sold to foreigners for under $100 million each within the last couple of years, and these are all very historic clubs).

Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's a great investment, Mark.


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Oh, and a philosophical question from class that I've been meaning to post for a long time:

You will be given a billion dollars if you decide to "will" someone to death in China/India/Africa. You will never meet this person, but they will have a family that they--a wife, children, parents, a cat and a dog--that they will leave behind. This person will not be sick or go through a protracted fight for their life.

Would you do it? Why or why not? Would your answer change if you knew that they were the sole provider for this large family?

(Be honest)

(Bonus points: What would Mills say about this?)

(I can only get away with waxing philosophical because JJ's resident philosopher, bsto, is
presumably in a hospital recovering from his surgery)

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Hawaii's new football uniforms look like Oregon's. Unfortunately, Oregon's are trashy. What is up with the green socks with the black uni? Black would have been much better.

And the "all-green special game" uniform sounds like a terrible idea.

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I was watching Sex and the City last night, and I realized that Entourage was the male equivalent to Sex and the City (obviously, Josh). Everyone knows the JJ kids are huge Entourage fans, and I'm kind of sad that we got pegged in to target marketing so easily.


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Right, then.