firehose

The rivalry between the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders is well documented. For more than 40 years, the two cities have seen their professional soccer teams clash and now that they are both in MLS, the stakes are higher than ever.

While the rivalry certainly exists on the field, it doesn't match the animosity between the two teams' fans. The hate is real and it reaches a fever pitch when the Timbers and Sounders meet. The passion, singing and tifo reaches new heights. Especially the tifo.

The Timbers Army and Emerald City Supporters take great pride in their tifo and put hours and hours of time into them. It's a passion project, and Portland documented what goes into putting together such magnificent displays.

Now the Timbers and Sounders are set to meet in the playoffs for the first time ever. They have limited time to get the tifo together, with Seattle not booking their place in the conference semifinals until Wednesday, but the two sets of fans -- especially Portland, who will have had more than a week to plan their display ahead of the second leg -- are sure to put on a show. Maybe their teams will too.

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The New Yorker

New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter signed a one-year, $12 million contract to remain with the team in 2014, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

Jeter could have opted for free agency and signed elsewhere by declining his $9.5 million option for next season. The Yankees increased his salary to $12 million in order to keep the veteran, according to Nightengale.

Why a raise, though, given he was injured and ineffective in 2013? The shortstop's bump in pay actually lowers the Yankees luxury tax commitments in 2014. If Jeter would have accepted the club option, the average annual value of his contract would have been around $15 million in 2014. By signing a one-year deal, Jeter lowers the AAV to $12 million, actually helping the Yankees potentially stay below the targeted $189 million luxury tax line.

Wendy Thurm of Fangraphs explained how average annual value works for determining a team's luxury tax figure:

...multi-year contracts are given an average annual value (AAV) for assessing the luxury tax, meaning a contract that calls for $10 million in Year 1, $12 million in Year 2, $15 million in Year 3, and $20 million in Year 4 counts as $14.25 million toward the threshold each season. Signing bonuses are also added in to figure out a contract's AAV.

Jeter signed a three-year, $51 million contract before the 2011 season, or a deal for $17 million per year. Player options are included when determining the AAV, though, so Jeter's AAV was actually $14.75 million per year due to the then $8 million option year, saving the Yankees money against the luxury tax even as they spent more than that for Jeter season-by-season.

As it currently stands, Jeter receives a raise while the Yankees lower their luxury tax commitment for 2014.

Jeter only appeared in 17 games for New York, batting .190/.288/.254. The veteran never fully recovered from a broken ankle he suffered in the 2013 playoffs, which greatly limited the strength in his left leg and kept him off the field most of the year.

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The song mentioned Abe Vigoda, star of TV’s Fish and Sal Tessio from The Godfather, and afterward when Trey Anastasio bantered that Abe Vigoda himself happened to be in the suit, one might have thought the Tony-nominated redhead was merely kidding. Sure enough, after a quick body double switch, the man in the wombat suit hobbled back on stage and revealed himself to be … ABE F*&KING VIGODA.

Thank God it’s Frida

OAK RIDGE, TN—Snack physicists at Nabisco Labs announced Friday the first successful synthesis of a Quadriscuit cracker, a salty treat long postulated by the theoretical models of food scientists but never confirmed by experiment until now.

WASHINGTON—According to a report released Monday by the Centers for Disease Contraction and Preservation, Americans should suck on four to five doorknobs per day, especially doorknobs to public restrooms and doorknobs covered in a noticeable film of...

RichDiesal writes "In an upcoming article in Business Communication Quarterly, researchers found that more than half of 20-somethings believe it appropriate to read texts during formal business meetings, whereas only 16% of workers 40+ believe the same thing. 34% of 20-somethings believe it appropriate to answer the phone in the middle of a meeting (i.e., not excusing yourself to answer the phone — answering and talking mid-meeting!). It is unclear if this is happening because more younger workers grew up with mobile technology, or if it's because older workers have the experience to know that answering a call in the middle of a meeting is a terrible idea. So if you're a younger worker, consider leaving your phone alone in meetings to avoid annoying your coworkers. And if you're an older worker annoyed at what you believe to be rude behavior, just remember, it's not you – it's them!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Neko Case stopped by NPR headquarters yesterday to perform one of its Tiny Desk Concerts. In a gorilla suit. “I tried to get a sexy-gorilla costume, but they were out,” she said. Her band’s in costume as well, with multi-instrumentalist Eric Bachmann as a vampire, drummer Dan Hunt wearing a beard, and Kelly Hogan as a kind of dead farmer? (The bird with an eyeball is a nice touch.)

Case stuck to new material for the 12-minute set, performing “Night Still Comes,” “Calling Cards,” and “Local Girl.” (“Calling Cards” sounds especially good in the stripped-down format.) If you haven’t picked up The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, do it forthwith.

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Intensely private couple Kanye West and Kim Kardashian got engaged last month, in front of their closest family members, friends, 50-piece orchestras, and baseball stadiums. Unfortunately, that very personal moment soon became a gaudy public spectacle, after one attendee posted a fuzzy cell phone video of West’s proposal on the website MixBit, thus allowing in the prying, gawking eyes of all who weren’t specifically invited, hadn’t seen the many posts about it on Instagram that were then circulated on every gossip website in the world, didn’t happen to be aboard any planes passing by, or aren’t a bird—birds being beyond even Kanye’s control, for now.

Now that attendee, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, has been hit with a lawsuit from Kanye and Kim, one that accuses him specifically of violating the confidentiality agreement he had to sign in order to be among the secluded ...

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Archive

Despite previous denials, it turns out that John Huntsman Sr., the father of the former presidential candidate, was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's source on the details of Mitt Romney's tax returns. That revelation surfaced in a New York Times write-up of a gossipy-sounding book on the 2012 elections. The book, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's Double Down, also outlines how the Obama campaign secretly considered dumping Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton on the 2012 ticket. Biden, the Times explains, apparently comes off as "being overly consumed with his own political future" to some White House staffers. 

The Huntsman revelation refers to Harry Reid's statement in the heat of the 2012 campaign that he, citing a reliable but anonymous source, knew that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for about 10 years. Romney, as you'll remember, eventually released his returns from 2010 and 2011, but only under pressure. Here's the relevant bit from the Times story.  

The authors reveal the source who told Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, that Mr. Romney had not paid any taxes in 10 years: Jon M. Huntsman Sr., the father of Mr. Romney’s early rival in the Republican primaries.

And yes, this is a kind of surprising development. But it's only surprising because Huntsman Sr. flat-out denied that he was the source in 2012 for the damaging information on Romney. Until his denial, quite a lot of people thought that Huntsman the Senior fit the profile of Reid's mystery source pretty well, who was identified as a Republican with some connection to Bain Capital. Even though Huntsman was a longtime supporter of Romney, he called for the candidate to release a decade of his returns during the 2012 campaigns. Huntsman has personal ties to Reid, and is also connected to a longtime managing director at Romney's Bain Capital, according to a 2012 Washington Post story on Huntsman's denial. There's also the matter of a Huffington Post story on Romney's tax returns, co-bylined by Abby Huntsman. At the time of his denial, Huntsman had few kind words for the candidate (via the Post): 

“I feel very badly that Mitt won’t release his taxes and won’t be fair with the American people,” Huntsman told me. In a reference to Romney’s father, who pioneered the release of returns as a presidential candidate, Huntsman said: “I loved George. He always said, [release] your taxes for at least 10 or 12 years.”

“Mr. Romney ought to square with the American people and release his taxes like any other candidate,” Huntsman said. “I’ve supported Mitt all along. I wish him well. But I do think he should release his income taxes.”

As the Times notes, Double Down doesn't sound particularly kind to former GOP candidate John Huntsman Jr., who served as the Obama administration's ambassador to China as he considered a run for president: Huntsman "assured top White House officials that he was not considering a Republican presidential bid," the Times writes, "even as he was meeting with potential campaign strategists during a trip to his Washington home around Christmas 2010."  

Original Source

Did Portland dress up as Chicago for Halloween?

Even for the levels of violence Portland's seen lately, yesterday and this morning have been insane.

It began yesterday morning, when cops found 32-year-old Jose Manuel Alvarez-Madrigal dead of a gunshot in a 2002 Hyundai Elantra. Officers suspect a homicide, but are trying to figure out exactly what happened.

The rest of the day played out quietly—trick-or-treating, drunk costumed shenanigans, etc. But after midnight the police bureau was scrambling to handle a barrage of violence.

At 1:20 am, cops responded to a call where two women had been stabbed in North Portland. None of the wounds were life-threatening.

Just 18 minutes later, East Portland cops got two reports of shots fired at approximately the same time. Near SE 124th and Powell—after chasing a vehicle for a couple blocks, forcing it to crash, then losing track of the running suspects—cops found a dead body outside an apartment.

At the same time, officers responded to the second shots fired call near SE Division and Interstate 205. They found evidence of a shooting, but nobody injured or suspicious in the area.

Then victims started trickling in. At 2:55 am, someone with a gunshot wound walked into Legacy Emanuel. At 3:33 am, another gunshot victim sought treatment at Portland Adventist Medical Center.

Cops are being careful to point out there's no indication either of those walk-ins had anything to do with the earlier violence. Portland Police Bureau's Gang Enforcement Team is at least working the murder at 124th and Powell.

If it turns out most of this is gang related, it's a bad sign. As I reported a week ago, police have grown alarmed in the last month at elevated gang violence. It's particularly disheartening given the effort cops, social services workers and others have put toward curbing the city's rising gang activity this year.

UPDATE, 9:20 am: Gang Enforcement Team Lt. Art Nakamura tells the Mercury some of the violence may be gang-related, the rest doesn't appear to be. Gang officers are still working the murder at 124th and Powell, and investigating the gunshot victim who showed up to Legacy Emanuel, Nakamura says.

Neither the stabbings in North Portland nor Alvarez-Madrigal's death appear to have gang ties.

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Republicans are still the party of no:

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked confirmation of two Obama Administration nominees, signaling a return to the chamber’s protracted fight over White House appointments that led to talk of filibuster reform over the summer.

This is the sort of boring, everyday shit that the Senate is supposed to do on a daily basis; they're supposed to approve these positions after making sure that the appointees are competent. These appointments were not a big deal. They didn't symbolize anything. They just represented the Obama administration trying to do the work the American people sent them to Washington to do—twice. And Republicans refuse to do their fucking jobs. Why? Nobody knows why. I don't even know if they know why at this point. They blocked the confirmations because that's what they do, because the confirmations are what Obama wanted and Republicans are against what Obama wants.

One day in the not-so-distant future, young Democrats are going to wonder why President Obama didn't get more done. The sad thing is that most people are going to forget that it was the Republican Party that froze government for eight solid years, just because they refused to give the president a inch.

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Thursday night in Miami, Giovani Bernard ripped off a run unlike any I can remember seeing in the NFL. It wasn't downhill, really. It was off a cliffside.

Bernard appeared certain to fall for a five-yard loss, but after two Dolphins slowed him to a halt, he managed to bust free. By this point the entire Miami defense had completely sold out for the right side of the field, as one does, so he reversed field, turned on the jets, and rolled down the left sideline.

Around the 25-yard line, Bernard slowed down a bit to follow his hastily-assembled cabal of blockers, which included quarterback Andy Dalton. He could afford to slow down, because nearly half the teal on the field was either lying down or spray-painted. He made the Dolphins miss six times -- cornerback Brent Grimes missed him once at the 40, then pulled himself to his feet, over-pursued, and missed again at the 11.

(GIF via Mike Tunison at Kissing Suzy Kolber)

I don't think I've ever seen a rushing attempt look so much like a punt return; if you cut the first couple seconds out of this play, you'd probably believe it was.

It contains many of the major elements of a punt-return touchdown: first, the circuitous route. SportsCenter reported that Bernard ran 101.9 yards on a 35-yard touchdown. This play, like most great punt returns, resemble a Family Circus Sunday strip.

Second, Bernard's run lasted 16 seconds. I just spent a few minutes on YouTube timing other 35-yard runs, and almost every single one is seven seconds long. You could set your watch to them. There just isn't reason or time enough for running backs to take lengthy detours. A simple field-reversal, in this case, is all it took to temporarily alter the job descriptions of everyone on the field. It was a rushing attempt in name and by origin only.

And third, like most great punt returns, this one features what is probably an uncalled block in the back. It happened at the 43, in plain sight of the official who was right there, and part of me can't really blame him for not calling it. He has a lot of balls in the air, and watching for blocks in the back during a play that started with players snapping from scrimmage, like normal civilized people, is probably not one of them.

In his rookie season, Bernard is pacing himself to finish with well over 1,000 yards from scrimmage. Between him, Cincinnati's 75 different playmaking receivers, and the lovably inconsistent Andy Dalton, the Bengals might have one of the most fun-to-watch offenses in football. We could just as easily talk about the weird way this game ended -- an overtime sack-safety of Dalton that gave the Dolphins a 22-20 win.

This run, though. Between Halloween, a game that was nightmarishly bad at points, and a losing team wearing Halloween colors, it's just begging for a cute headline. Here is mine: GIO CAN RUN HIS ASS OFF, AND ALSO: HALLOWEEN.

John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam
and Terry Jones in New York, 1976.

Former child star Corey Feldman stops by HuffPost Live to talk about his drug use while filming movies.

Today marks a milestone on the road from recession: The expiration of a 13.6% expansion to US food subsidies for the poor included in the fiscal stimulus bill in 2009. While the need for support hasn’t necessarily reduced (unemployment and hunger are still unusually high) there is little appetite to extend the law, and grocery budgets will shrink.

- $5 billion is being cut in the coming year. The average benefit is $278 a month for the 48 million recipients of food assistance; a household of four will see that cut by $36. According to the independent Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, in 2014, benefits will be less than $1.40 per person per meal. More than 80% of households using the subsidy have incomes below the poverty line.

- Retailers are hit, too. Wal-Mart tells analysts that it garners 18% of food stamp outlays, about $14 billion of the $80 billion spent last year. Assuming the cut hits it evenly, the store could lose $1.9 billion in US revenue. Notably, many of Wal-Mart’s employees are on public assistance, including food stamps. But its executives wonder if their low prices will make consumers with a shrinking budget more likely to patronize them over its competitors. Still, Wal-Mart and Target have already lowered their sales forecasts for the all-important holiday season; grocery-chain Kroger is considering price cuts.

- Which could add to weak growth in the fourth quarter. We’re already expecting a slowdown thanks to the government shutdown, and a cut in food stamps—which economists say support an unusually high amount of economic activity for government spending—could add to the burden.

- It’s not the end of the food stamp debate. Conservative lawmakers are still proposing massive cuts to the program, and a compromise on how to treat the program will likely be part of any deal to avoid another US government shut-down in January.

Broadband internet has emerged as the most divisive issue in the campaign for mayor of Seattle, the largest city in the Pacific northwest of the United States.

The incumbent, Mike McGinn, is a longtime supporter of the “SeaFi” broadband initiative, a public-private partnership to make use of 500 miles of unused fiber lines that were installed throughout the city during the last dot-com boom. That could provide very fast, “gigabit” internet to much of Seattle through a private company.

Comcast, one of the city’s major providers of broadband internet, isn’t happy with the steep competition that SeaFi poses. The company is pouring money into the campaign of McGinn’s opponent, senator Ed Murray. Comcast’s contributions though a variety of political action committees have so far totaled more than $70,000.

Murray says he will honor the existing pilot agreement for SeaFi, but hasn’t committed to future expansion. McGinn, on the other hand, has made the program a hallmark of his tenure and hopes to expand it.

In an “Ask Me Anything” online discussion with the Reddit community recently, McGinn noted that “Comcast gave Murray a big pile of money.” He encouraged commenters on the site, who are famously critical of cable companies like Comcast, to help spread the word about the company’s support of his opponent.

The race, which ends on November 5, remains tight, according to recent polls of Seattle voters.

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h0odrich:

BITCH IS TOO REAL

There is a move to unionize at campuses from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to Tufts University near Boston. It comes as colleges rely more heavily on adjunct faculty to teach classes. Last month, adjuncts at Tufts became the latest to join the Service Employees International Union, which has been aggressively targeting college instructors. The union plans more elections at colleges in the Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston areas.

Shooter was young white male with a rifle-type gun, walking calmly through Terminal 3.

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After his historic day against Dallas, Calvin Johnson's on pace for the best season in terms of Win Probability Added by a non-quarterback since 1999. Is it about time we start giving the receivers the respect they deserve for the value they bring to these pass-happy offenses?

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