10 Thoughts for August 22, 2014

1. There's an argument that the US should consider paying the ransoms of Americans kidnapped by terrorists -- driven by the execution of journalist James Foley.  The way I see it, a journalist or a media outlet should be getting kidnap / ransom insurance when going / sending people into harm's way.  Government's got nothing to do with your free will, does it?
2. Or the US Government could pay the victim's family, upon death, 1/100th of the ransom demanded, with a minimum payout of $2M -- that would drive pirates and terrorists mad.
3. I find this interesting: An officer in Ferguson yelled at a video journalist to get back, and threatens to shoot him dead; the journalist starts asking him for his name and the officer tells him to "go fuck yourself"; the journalist then addresses the officer as "Officer Go Fuck Yourself".  I find it interesting because the pragmatic response of the journalist should have been to question the officer's anger or to walk away, but other people apparently believe that, never mind that he already had it on video, the journalist was in his right to stand there and taunt the officer.  So it seems, most Americans would fall trap to escalating the situation, themselves, and it could have easily escalated were it not for another officer pulling the offensive cop away.  It's weird, right?  I cynically distrust a police officer's actions that I would avoid escalating a confrontation, but others cynically trust police officers enough to escalate a confrontation.
4. FOX12 has a story about higher premiums due to the ACA, but avoided talking about Oregon.  Odd don't you think, that a Portland station avoided talking about Oregon?  OH THAT'S RIGHT, OREGON'S AVERAGE INCREASE IS A 2.5% DECREASE!  An inconvenient truth.
5. The two Americans infected with Ebola, have officially survived.  Great news, you see, because they now have the antibodies to fight another infection and, were they to go back to Liberia, won't have to deal with the threat of death from Ebola.  As it is, the situation remains out of control, and will probably explode this coming week, following this incident last weekend.  I'm tracking the outbreak, by the way.
6. Huh.  Myth Busters dropped Grant, Kari and Tory.  Thought I'd google Grant, and it turns out he was at USC while I was there.  It's neither here nor there, but just an interesting intersection.
7. Did you know that today marked the 13th named storm in the eastern Pacific?  Two more and we'll hit the average of 15 storms per season.  Going back to 1988, the busiest season was in 1992 with 24 named storms.  Last year, there were 18 named storms.
8. "Pay it forward" chains at fast-food / coffee stores, is not an effective social concept.  The length of the chain of people maintaining it, is supposed to be a feel-good story, but if you're paying for someone else's drink while yours is paid for, you're not accomplishing much.  If you want to pay it forward, buy scripts for meals and pass them out, buy food for people and hand them out, or buy drinks at places that keep a board of free drinks available to those who can't pay.
9. Have you watched Seattle Seahawks in the preseason?  The first game in Denver was a misfire with the team looking discombobulated.  But the 3rd game is the most important because this is the game where the starters will play the most in any preseason game.  First impression: WOW, they play fast and the offense is vastly improved over last year, while the defense doesn't seem to have lost a single step despite all the losses.  Second impression: Seattle and Denver have the two largest point (points for / points against) spreads in the preseason at this moment, and it seems like these two are setting up for a rematch on Feb. 1, 2015 in Super Bowl 49.
10. It's football season!  College fall camp is over this weekend and next week the first college football game -- Abilene Christian against Georgia State -- is on Wednesday.  But no one cares.  Thursday however, three PAC-12 teams -- Utah, WSU and ASU -- will be playing, so Thursday is the official start of the college football season in my book.  Go Trojans!