George Zimmerman - Not Guilty!

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I just want to say one thing. Any of you people of color, or not of color for that matter, who disagree with the result in this case, or who choose to make your voice(s) be heard because of that belief - but who also did not watch the trial proceedings, nor know the facts of the case - SHAME on you! They got it 100% right this time, and that's all there is to it.

OK, one more thing. Mark O'Mara is a brilliant man, and deserves every ounce of the credit he receives.

Sad Kim

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USA Blew a Huge Ryder Cup Lead

Just my two cents from the Ryder Cup.

So we had a nice lead going into the final day of singles match-ups, 10-6.

All we need is 4½ points among 12 matches.

It's a big lead.. one of biggest leads going into Sunday singles that the USA has ever had.

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OK, you've got to figure Olazabal's thinking is to put his hottest guys first, right? But some will say that since we only needed 4½ points, Davis should put our hottest guys out first. But why would he do this? Didn't he think ahead as to where Olazabal was gonna put his big guns? And if nothing else, mix it up a little, and make it tough for Olazabal to predict - even if he wanted to!

Going into Sunday singles:
Bradley & Mickelson were both 3-0
Dustin & Kuchar were 2-0
Bubba was 2-1
Simpson was 2-1
Zach was 2-1
Dufner was 2-1
Furyk & Snedeker were 1-1
. . . .
Tiger was 0-2, and Stricker was 0-3.

I'm not gonna predict the order in which Olazabal would've played them. Not now, and not necessarily if I were captain, other than the fact that I know he's GOT to put his weaker players at the end, right? For this event, that would be Molinari, Kaymer, and Hanson. You've gotta realize Rose, McIlroy, Donald, and Poulter are going near the beginning!

That's why you set it up this way:
Jason Dufner
Zach Johnson
Webb Simpson
Bubba Watson
Tiger Woods
Steve Stricker
Jim Furyk
Brandt Snedeker
Matt Kuchar
Dustin Johnson
Keegan Bradley
Phil Mickelson

I'll be back later after having the time to do a little more stats to determine if my lineup would've done better on Sunday. The hole by hole thing is a little more time-consuming than I anticipated.

The European team played lights-out on Sunday, and I give them a ton of respect for it, but I think our team went into Sunday a little too relaxed, and expecting an easy win. Davis is a good captain, and I'd like to see him return, but things could've been so much different on Sunday. I'd like to know what Freddie's input was.

News These Days

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I've told people lately that here in Texas, when it's time for the weather, "now here's such & such with the weather."

"It's hot! Now onto Sports.."

Mark Your Calendars - A Week From Tuesday

Click a couple times for a better look..

Via - (NSFW)

That's also the "first day of winter". Coincidence? Nope..

Serious Fire

Click to enlarge & get the best detail on this one..

Via - (NSFW)

No idea where this - Going by current events, I assume it could be somewhere in Russia. What an amazing image!

Lake Erie Now Frozen Over

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Take a picture of Lake Erie now, and you'll get a freeze frame.

For the first time in 14 years, the 241-mile-long lake is virtually frozen over from one end to the other.

Earlier this week, the Erie Times-News reported that the lake was 90 to 95 percent frozen. The relentless cold completed the job.

Gary Garnet, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Cleveland, said Friday that the lake is completely frozen over, for all intents and purposes.

He qualified that by saying satellite images show a small patch off Dunkirk, N.Y., with water and chunks of floating ice. He said that's one of the deepest parts of the lake and would be one of the last places to freeze.

The maximum depth of the lake is 210 feet, and the average depth is 62 feet, according to the Great Lakes Information Network, a project of the Great Lakes Commission.

Current Satellite Image - Via

There are also some cracks in the ice, which shift due to high winds, he said.

"But for general purposes, the lake is covered right now,'' Garnet said.

The ice cover will mean fewer lake-effect snowstorms, or at least less intense ones. Lake- effect snowstorms occur when cold air passes over warmer bodies of water, building up clouds and dumping snow downwind.

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Edinboro and other snowbelt areas are typically hit the hardest.

"It doesn't completely shut off the snow machine, but it does greatly reduce it,'' Garnet said.

That's because there can be what Garnet called "minimum moisture transfer'' through the ice and the cracks.

Another factor is that Lake Huron is mostly open and Erie can get dumped on from lake-effect storms generated by that lake, according to the weather service.

The lake last completely froze over in February during the winter of 1995-96, said George Leshkevich, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Meanwhile, Lake Erie's ice should only thicken this season because the cold pattern will persist, Garnet said.

Scattered light snow is predicted through next week. "But we don't see any monster lake-effect storms on the horizon,'' he said.

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More pics and their story at Brooke and Freeland.

Posterizing the 2000s

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