Hipster LaHood Tells Us Not to Text

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

There I was, harmlesly Olympics-watching something called the "men's snowboard parallel giant slalom"—quite a cool event, actually—when some nanny-state advertising broke out.

We were suddenly subjected to a commercial telling us not to phone or text while driving. And of all people, it was terminally un-cool Obama Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood inflicting the message and directing us to some website called www.distraction.gov.

View video here.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Spare us the Obama nanny-state PSAs ping to Today show list.

[cripplecreek]

I think there should be warning labels on curling broadcasts. I don’t know what it is but I become mesmerized and don’t have clue as to what’s going on.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

I’ve watched several hours and am proud to say don’t understand the rules ;-)

[discostu]

Finally this my 3rd Olympics watching lots of curling I’ve figured out how the hammer impacts the strategy of the game. Making it so scoring is sometimes bad really does dramatically interesting things to the strategy of a game.

Haven’t noticed the PSAs.

[freedom1st]

Let’s all park our Toyotas, OK.

[cripplecreek]

I can’t help myself when its on. My clicker finger quits working and the drool begins to flow.

I’m thinking it’s some kind of Canukistani secret weapon.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Curling is like that other great Scottish invention golf — a social game for all ages; best enjoyed with a beer near at hand.

[cripplecreek]

It has everything a drunk could need. Heavy objects, slick ice....

[AmishDude]

OMG, they have www.distraction.gov

If the existence of that website isn’t enough to point out that this administration has gone the Full Orwell, I don’t know what is.

[Cicero]

Curling is thought to have been invented in late medieval Scotland, with the first written reference to a contest using stones on ice coming from the records of Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, in February 1541. Two paintings (both dated 1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder depict Dutch peasants curling—Scotland and the Low Countries had strong trading and cultural links during this period, which is also evident in the history of golf.

--Wikipedia

[stayathomemom]

I’m thinking it’s some kind of Canukistani secret weapon.

I grew up in Detroit. One of my memories as a kid is coming home from church on Sunday and watching curling on the Canadian TV station. We never tried to figure out the rules, but it was certainly intriguing viewing.

[xp38]

curling 101

1. The language

The key to Curling 101 is the acceptance that you need to learn a new language without Rosetta Stone CDs. Like another sporting mystery to Americans – cricket – curling revels in its obscurity. Understanding the terminology is like a secret handshake, and only the initiated are allowed into the club.

Curling, you see, could simply call the "house" the target and the "button" the bulls-eye, but what fun would that be?

2. The scoring

The scoring, though, really is simple: You want to come closer to a bulls-eye than your opponent when all the stones are thrown.

In curling terms: The team with the stone closest to the center of the button when the end is finished gets a point. If a team has two stones closer to the center of the button than its opponent, it gets two points, and so on.

It is impossible for both teams to score in an end, since points are awarded exclusively on the basis of which team did better in the end.

The best possible score in an end is 8-0, meaning one team got all eight stones closer to the button than its opponent. This is a “snowman” or curling’s equivalent of a perfect game.

3. The rules

Thinking about curling scoring in baseball terms is actually helpful.

Baseball: nine innings. Curling: 10 ends.

Baseball: Each team gets three outs per inning. Curling: Each team gets eight stones per end.

Baseball: The home team hits last. Curling: The team that delivers last in each end is said to have the hammer.

But one "home" team does not have the hammer the entire match. It switches to whichever team did not score in the previous end. If no one scores in an end (no stones end up in the house), that's a "blank end," and the hammer remains with the same team.

[MinuteGal]

I became entranced with the men's curling. Everyone thinks I'm nuts. I love the precision and the strategery. I exulted when the Canadians won the gold tonight. I think I understood 25% of the scoring.

I think what I liked best is that members of all the teams competing look like the average, lawn mower-pushing, neighborhood-saloon, computer-cubicle dweebs that your sisters end up marrying.

Leni

[mojo114]

LaHood, has drunk all the O koolaid. Out of the box, first day Toyota troubles appear in the MSM, he declared “Don’t drive them”. Retracts.
Steadily resuming original point to exhaustion. The goal, hate Toyota, love Obama motors.
Frightening.

[KarlInOhio]

After this year I had finally figured out most of it except the physics of making the stone curl and all the sweeping. Also, I have no idea how they clear the stones off before the end is done. I know the ones in the hohse (Canuckistani pronunciation) stay, and the ones in front stay as guards, but they seem to randomly keep or remove the ones to the side or back.

[HiTech RedNeck]

One would think the more obvious drivecarefully.gov

[HiTech RedNeck]

What they don’t want is people listening to Rush Limbaugh.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Make Maria Shriver the new Czar of Distraction.

[apillar]

I think anybody with 2 brain cells to rub together knows that texting while driving is unsafe. People do it anyway because they feel the need or desire to text outweighs the risk. No government bureaucrat spending millions of dollars on commericals is going to stop it and for that matter no law is going too either. When the issue came up in my state, the police spokesman was honest enough to admit that it would be virtually unenforceable because it would be almost impossible for an officer to see if someone was texting even next to them at a complete stop, let alone on the highway.