Matt Flynn: "He’ll be a very rich man very soon."

With Aaron Rodgers resting, Matt Flynn passes for 6 touchdowns and 480 yards, setting 2 records for the Green Bay Packers.

Watch his 5th touchdown here.

ADDED: I'm thinking that Flynn's performance in that one game will translate into more dollars than any other single-game performance, in any sport, ever. Can you think of a counter-example?

A midday outing on New Year's.

Kind of gloomy. But the worst of it was the ice. Hard to walk at all.

Wikipedia Article of the Day: "Exploding Cigar."

"The customary intended purpose of exploding cigars is as a form of hostile practical joke, rather than to cause lasting physical harm to the butt of the joke."

Although far rarer than their prank cousins, exploding cigars used as a means to kill or attempt to kill targets in real life has been claimed, and is well represented as a fictional plot device. The most infamous case concerning the intentionally deadly variety was an alleged plot by the CIA of the US in the 1960s to assassinate Fidel Castro. Notable real life incidents involving the non-lethal ilk include an exploding cigar purportedly given by Ulysses S. Grant to an acquaintance and a dust-up between Turkish military officers and Ernest Hemingway after he pranked one of them with an exploding cigar....

A well known use of the exploding cigar in literature, for example, appears in Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, Gravity's Rainbow....  Other book examples include Robert Coover's 1977 novel, The Public Burning, where a fictionalized Richard Nixon hands an exploding cigar to Uncle Sam...

Film examples include... in The Beatles' 1968 animated feature film, Yellow Submarine, where an exploding cigar is used to rebuff a psychedelic boxing monster... Appearance of exploding cigars in the Warner Bros. cartoon franchises, Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes was fairly common, often coupled with the explosion resulting in the pranked character appearing in blackface. Some examples include: Bacall to Arms (1942), wherein an animated Humphrey Bogart gets zapped by an exploding cigar leaving him in blackface...

Let's look that up.... oh, my....



ADDED: I like this scientific demonstration:

"It's just a hug. You'll enjoy it."/"You're like some sort of oxytocin drug dealer."

Nina and Ed do New Year's Eve in Seville — in Spain.

Obama's position on the Guantanamo detainees will forever be to have no position.

Obviously, the man is trying to get reelected, but it's so absurd to pose as if standing on principle, when you're not willing to say or do anything at all. Here's the news story about Obama — from his vacation outpost in Hawaii — signing a military spending bill and saying "I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

The White House had said that the legislation could lead to an improper military role in overseeing detention and court proceedings and could infringe on the president’s authority in dealing with terrorism suspects. But it said that Mr. Obama could interpret the statute in a way that would preserve his authority.

The president, for example, said that he would never authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens, because “doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.” 

But isn't that what he's been doing with his authority — holding the detainees indefinitely? Or is he somehow not authorizing it. It's just happening, because he's not affirmatively acting to end the indefinite detention. Is passivity and wishy-washiness consistent with "our most important traditions and values as a nation"? Or is emitting pompous blather like "our most important traditions and values as a nation" the really important tradition he's upholding?

He also said he would reject a “rigid across-the-board requirement” that suspects be tried in military courts rather than civilian courts.

So, you don't seem to have a plan to try the detainees, and you won't reject the notion of military courts or embrace the lofty but impractical idea of civilian courts. You just reject a "rigid across-the-board requirement" of military courts. It's fine to want to preserve the presidential discretion here, but it's another example of Obama's policy of no policy. He does not want to be pinned down about having to do anything at all, which makes it look like he's going to hold the detainees without trial indefinitely — i.e., until the end of his presidency — and he wants to be able to do that without admitting that it's an actual policy of his. Because it's not. It "would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation." So he can't be doing that. But he is, but he's not authorizing doing that. So he won't defend it. In fact, he wants to be in a position to rail against the very policy that he is... not authorizing... just following.

You mean "leading from behind," as they say?

No, no, that would be too bold. Leading from behind! Oh, no, not me. I'm just biding my time, out here on my island, waiting for my limited term to expire, while you folks over there on your island bide your time, indefinitely....

ADDED: Let's go back to January 27, 2009, one week into the Obama presidency. I'm talking with Slate's Emily Bazelon, and she's certain Obama is about to close Guantanamo, and I feel that I can detect in his statements that he's giving a sop to people like her and he's not going to do anything:



Now, it's 3 years later. Obama's first and probably only presidential term is rolling to a close, and he hasn't done anything with the detainees. (And if you're about to slam me in the comments, once again, for voting for Obama, let me say: Imagine if John McCain had become President and Guantanamo were still open, how thoroughly steamed Emily and her ilk would be now.)

There now.

I've started the new year on the blog with an old potato and its attendant quandaries.

Let that be a sign of things to come.

"It's a potato. Unless you are dying of malnourishment with zombies at your door and no options for other food don't eat it."

The hive mind hovers around a single baked potato, "stupidly left.... in a cold oven for a few days."