Non-text

There is too much text on this blog right now. So here's a picture, from the last time I hiked Flattop. As you can see, it was a gorgeous day.

Yikes

That bear I mentioned a couple weeks ago may have been the same one that mauled a 14-year-old girl on Saturday night during a 24-hour bike race. Scary story.

Everyone knows that bears hang out in that park in the summer. I don't know why they'd have the race go through there.

Obama in Alaska

I mentioned a while ago that I thought Obama had a chance in Alaska, considering how much support he gets here from Democrats and how little support McCain gets from Republicans. Obama seems to think he has a shot here, too... there are now 20 Obama staffers working in Alaska, apparently with at least another 20 to come later in the summer. McCain has zero people here. I know we're only worth 3 electoral votes, but I think McCain is going to have to work a little harder if he wants us.

Supreme Court doesn't have a lot of friends in Alaska right now

The US Supreme Court is not the most popular body of government in Alaska these days, after it hacked the verdict from the Exxon Valdez lawsuit from $2.5 billion to roughly $500 million. The original verdict was for $5 billion, almost all of which were in the form of punitive damages. The Court said punitive damages should have an upper limit of a 1:1 ratio with compensatory damages, which is where they got the $500 million number.

So, yeah, people are upset. Families were thrust into poverty when Prince William Sound was turned from a fertile fishing ground into an oozing oil swamp. And now the average member of the class will receive about $15,000... about 1/10 of what they once thought it would be. Many people had staked their retirements on this money.

Personally, I think this 1:1 rule is arbitrary. I understand that courts generally discourage punitive damages, but if you're going to have them, it doesn't make sense to put an arbitrary upper limit on them. In this case, $500 million represents just a couple days of Exxon profits. It's an annoyance, not a punishment. If you're going to allow punitive damages, allow a jury to find a number that will fairly punish the liable party. This 1:1 rule is just silly, and won't deter big oil companies from doing anything.

Ouch, part II.

Felix is the only reason to watch the M's right now. Please, gods of baseball who have made this the suckiest season ever, don't take Felix away.

Ouch.

I'm not going to get specific; I'll just link to an old post and say it happened again. You probably don't want to click there.

Sonics trial: day 5

Yesterday was bad for the City, but we knew it would be. The Seattle media is all in a tizzy about this the city's alleged "unclean hands," but I'm not sure what's so surprising. We already knew the team would allege an unclean hands defense, and we already knew they alleged that there was a plan to bleed the owners of money to get them to sell. But now everyone's mad at Slade Gorton, or something.

It's true that the unclean hands issue is very important -- the court is not going to order an equitable remedy like specific performance if the city has not been acting fairly and in good faith, no matter what the lease contract says. So this is huge. But I don't see how the city, in simply attempting to enforce its legal rights under the contract, has acted in bad faith. There's a colorable argument that the city was involved in the "Machiavellian plan" to bleed the owners into selling, but I haven't seen enough evidence that makes it a certainty.

The crazy thing is that, even after many of the incriminating Clay Bennett emails came out, Seattle guys like Wally Walker continued to use email to discuss their plan, and now those emails are being used as evidence. Morons.

Happy Solstice

Yesterday was the solstice, and here in Anchorage the sun rose at 4:20am and set at 11:42pm. The amount of light we had last night at 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning is about the same amount we have at 11am in the winter. How does one sleep? 3 layers of blankets hanging over the curtains.

Sonics trial: day 4

Today wasn't too exciting. Each side had economists testify that the Sonics either do or do not contribute to the community. It's all muddled -- it's hard to find any rock solid principles out of any of it. Which really just supports the city's point that the team has intangible, indeterminable value.

And then there was Sherman Alexie, whom I think is awesome. He talked and talked about what the team means to him, maybe going a little overboard:

He got so wound up explaining that "the great thing about basketball is they're barely wearing any clothes" and discussing the "current mythology" of the sport that the judge asked him to slow down for the court reporter.

Heh. Anyway, another day down. Here's another interview with the lead attorney for the city. More tomorrow.

McLaren is gone now too. This team is weird.

The Mariners are just plain weird. Why wait three more days after firing Bill Bavasi to fire John McLaren? Word is that the executives wanted to keep him until the end of the year, but interim GM Lee Pelekoudas wanted to do it now. Okay then.

McLaren was a bad manager, so it's fine either way. He couldn't manage the bullpen, he couldn't put together a sensible lineup, he refused to notice when his veteran players had fallen off the cliff. But I feel bad for him. He seems like a very nice guy. He waited a long time to be manager, and he was given a team that had no chance of winning. When he had the expletive-filled tirade a few weeks ago, I pitied him. He was trying really hard, you could see it. He was finally getting his shot at the big time, and it was utterly failing. Too bad. I hope he gets another job, perhaps as a bench coach again.

As for the M's... this season is just a big weird experiment now. Tinkering with different pieces, trying out different parts. Just a weird, terrible season.

Sonics trial: day 3

Another interesting day at trial, with more Clay Bennett lies and deceptions. It's pretty clear now that he was doing what he could to appear to meet the goal of "good faith best efforts" to keep the team in town, without ever actually putting forth good faith best efforts. This exchange is a good example, I think (from the Times):

[The City introduced an] August 2007 e-mail from co-owner Aubrey McClendon to Bennett referring to a story in an Oklahoma City business newspaper [where McClendon told a reporter that they bought the team to move it to OKC]. McClendon wrote: "Clay, oh no I just read this have I created problems for you. The truth is we did buy it with hope of moving to OKC, but we did first have an obligation to Seattle to negotiate in good faith, which of course you have done. Does the team need to put out a clarifying press statement."

Exhibit 138, Bennett's e-mail response: "... we get killed on this one. I don't mind the PR ugliness. But I'm concerned from a legal standpoint that your statement could perhaps undermine our basic premise of good faith best efforts where you infer that we basically never plan to stay in Seattle. I have the lawyers contemplating a response strategy."

Lawrence asked Bennett why he didn't say: "Aubrey why did you say that? It's not true." Bennett said he said those things to McClendon in a telephone conversation.

"But that's not represented here in your e-mails," Lawrence said.

"No it is not," Bennett replied.

Two things about that. First, it shows that more than anything Bennett was interested in the appearance of good faith, not the practice of good faith. Second, after he's already demonstrated his willingness to lie, he lacks the credibility to convince anyone he actually had that phone conversation with McClendon. A more honest witness might be able to pull that off. But Bennett has so obviously lied about this already, so there's no reason to believe him now.

Seemed like a good day for the city side. They spent a good deal of time showing how the Sonics contribute to the community when they're not losing basketball games. Here's a good interview with Paul Lawrence. More tomorrow... I'm curious how author/poet Sherman Alexie will testify.

Sonics trial: day 2

A couple things stood out to me today.

First, Clay Bennett took the stand and blatantly perjured himself by testifying that this email exchange:

Ward: Is there any way to move here [OKC] for next season or are we doomed to have another lame duck season in Seattle?
Bennett: I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys, the game is getting started!

meant that he was a "man possessed" about keeping the team in Seattle. If it weren't already obvious that he was lying, the Seattle lawyer then asked if it was true that four days after sending that email, the "man possessed" asked the NBA about relocating to OKC. And a week after the email, the "man possessed" flew to Seattle to meet with lawyer Brad Keller, his attorney in this trial.

This is the great bonus of the Schultz lawsuit -- if Bennett admits he wanted to take the team to OKC, he's screwed in that suit. So now he's got no credibility in this case (or in the Schultz case, for that matter). I'm hoping that in Judge Pechman's opinion she makes the factual finding that Bennett is lying about the intent of the emails. That'll go a long way in both cases.

The second interesting part of the day was OKC's cross-examination of the city's expert on sports economics. They asked him if he had written his report about the Sonics' intangible impact on the city from scratch. He said he did. Then they showed that some chunks of his report were identical to a report about Los Angeles. Bam. OKC hit him pretty hard about this, making him look like a hired gun who's willing to say anything. And this was a pretty major blunder by the city lawyers not to have seen this coming. But it seems that damages was controlled in the re-direct, when the city lawyers made it clear that the copied portions of the report were all definitions. If that's the case, this whole business about stuff getting copied should be no big deal.

(It's hard to know exactly what the report said... all my analysis comes from reading blog posts about the testimony, and for some reason not a single Seattle news organization seems to have put a legal expert on staff to report on this trial. Instead, sports writers are covering it. Sportswriters who say stuff like: "The city of Seattle never objected during Taylor's line of questioning [of the sports economist], which made it clear that they were unprepared." Ruh? It was clear they were unprepared because they didn't address the issue earlier, and because the witness got flustered. Not because they didn't object. Anyway, the reporting has been spotty, so that's my disclaimer in case I'm referencing incorrect material.)

Pretty good day, I thought, for the city lawyers. They made it clear that Bennett knew he was assuming a huge financial risk by buying the team, and that he shouldn't have been surprised to find himself in the situation he's in now. Plus, he's a big fat liar.

Three thoughts about the NBA Finals

1. I'm happy for Ray Allen
2. The Patriots' loss in the Super Bowl is all the sweeter now. We'd never hear the end of it if Boston had 3 titles in one year
3. At least the Lakers lost

Today's evidence that Alaskans are crazy

Got this in an email today, about a bear encounter on the east side of town (up in the more woodsy area where bear encounters are more common):

At 12:50 this afternoon (Sat. June 14) while running with ski poles [Friend] and I were charged by a sow brown bear at the base of the steep hill on the second half of the double bubble on hillside trails. The sow had two cubs, and although we were running together and making noise we heard a big woof in the alders and she was running at us instantly. [Friend] yelled and fended her off with his ski poles and I headed for a small clump of trees and tripped. I'm now on ground and bear essentially on top of me but she made no contact and ran off. She made a second false charge as we yelled and headed up the hill putting as much distance on her as possible. I established a new maximum heart rate, my polar download shows a spike from 120 to 193, so she messed up an otherwise well executed overdistance workout.

Yes. Stupid grizzly bear, ruining an overdistance workout like that.

Sonics trial: day 1

I'm obsessed with this trial, as I'm sure you guessed. All my other teams suck, and this is the only sports-related happening with any drama. So let's get to it. Game on.

The problem for the OKC folks is that the lease agreement, which they stepped into when they bought the team, explicitly says the team is unique, and that the agreement to have the team play in the arena until 2010 is specifically enforceable. That's pretty rock-solid language. And so the OKC lawyers are having to manufacture myriad other arguments to try to convince the judge that essentially nothing should ever require specific performance. So far, their strategy has been successful at least in confusing the Seattle Times reporters, who have ridiculous recaps of the trial that feature "scorecards." According to one, the OKC lawyers are ahead of the Seattle lawyers, 2-1. Which of course makes on sense whatsoever. And another reporter counts up the objections and tells us who won more than the other, as if this really means anything.

So I recommend only relying on the news for recounts of facts -- who said what, who asked what, etc. -- and completely ignore the dumbed-down recaps being written for sports fans. That is, if anyone other than me actually wants to read about this...

My take is that Mayor Greg Nickels was a little more obstructive than he needed to be. OKC lawyer Brad Keller got some good stuff from him -- yes, KeyArena is below par for NBA arenas yes, everybody is losing money on the deal -- and I know where he's going with this, but I just don't see how it's going to convince a judge to ignore an explicit clause in the contract. Seattle lawyer Paul Lawrence seemed to do well in always bringing the focus back to the contract.

Tomorrow is an exciting day. The Great Satan, Clayton Bennett, takes the stand and tries to convince the judge that his email, in which he said he was a man possessed to get the team to OKC, actually meant he was possessed to keep the team in Seattle. The lies are so thick and unbelievable, it should be a fun atmosphere.

Yay law! Yay sports! Yay sports law!

The nightmare is over

Bill Bavasi was fired! I am tremendously happy. This needed to happen three years ago, but better late than never. And it's the first step in a long chain in bringing the Mariners back to respectability. They have a looong way to go, but this had to happen before anything else does.

But I am nervous yet. Because the same people who chose Bavasi five years ago are leading the search for the next GM. Let's hope they've learned their lesson. Let's hope they're no longer luddites who are afraid of computers, simulations, and sabermetrics. It's time to join the big boys, Mariners. Get yourself a GM who knows math.

ADDED: If you think I'm exaggerating how bad Bavasi has been, just look here. It's even worse than I thought.

"One baseball man's review of this situation: 'Hopeless.'"

No, the Sonics aren't the only hopeless team in town. We're talking about the Mariners! Actually, the Sonics probably have a lot more hope than the Mariners do these days. Which is to say, more than zero. The Sonics have a decent chance of staying in Seattle for one or two more years, and actually having an interesting team during those seasons. The Mariners? Holy crap they're bad. Really, really bad.

The quote above is from Jayson Stark, who asked baseball people how the M's could fix the situation. "Hopeless," is the answer. They only have a couple players with trade value (Ichiro, Felix, Bedard, JJ), but they won't trade 'em. Everyone else? Trash. And to think people thought this team could win the division? Not this guy. (But even I didn't think they'd be this bad.)

On a blog note, sorry it's been a little slow around here lately. And for those who aren't interested in Seattle sports, it's only going to get worse for a while as the Sonics lease trial starts next week, and I'll try to post something about that pretty regularly.

Because other than that, not much is going on. Your Ninjustice softball team is 4-0, with a big game tonight. Your Anchorage summer league ultimate team is 0-1 with its #1 draft doing his Steve Emtman thing. And it's cold as hell here. So there you go.

I am Michael Olowokandi

This is silly. You know how I play in the Anchorage ultimate frisbee summer league? So they had their season "draft" the other day, and inexplicably I was the overall #1 choice. Anyone who has played with me before knows that this had to be a mistake.

Apparently the captain who had the first choice is new to the area and didn't know any of the players. So she saw my listed height, and she saw that a few people requested to play on my team when they signed up (I don't know more than 2 people who would do this, so I'm not sure what's going on with that), and... that's it, I guess. I'm told that when she picked me, everyone else in the room looked around blankly, wondering who the hell I was. Exactly. They even called around to make sure I was a real person. Heh. The captain will learn soon enough that she could have waited 5 rounds and I still would have been available.

So as a top overall choice, will I be LeBron James, or Michael Olowokandi? I think we all know the answer to that one.

Holiday road

I'm back, after a fantastic wedding-filled trip to Mexico and Hawai'i. The first wedding was in the small town of Bahia de Kino, in Sonora, Mexico. The second was in Waikiki, Hawai'i. Both weddings were awesome, with lots of friends, fun, and scenery.

The pictures are up on Flickr. Here's a sampling.

Mexican beaches:



Hawaiian beaches:



Mexican sunsets:



Hawaiian sunrises:



Oh, and cakes!



Yes, that's all cake. Anyway, check 'em out.