John T. Reed’s news blog

I just took my 8-year-old granddaughter to see the movie First Man. It is PG-13, but I figured that was because of a curse word, which it was. About wives and death But it was as much about the wives of the astronauts as it was about the astronauts. It was about what it is like being married to a man who has a very dangerous job: terrifying.It also reminds you that dealing with the emergencies that happen in flight including space flight is quite remarkable. These guys are supermen.Maybe their depiction overstates it. Vibration that blinds you because your...

Next year’s deficit is expected to be around $1T. That is an Obama-sized deficit. Not enough money in the world to pay all the politicians promises The U.S. government financial entitlement world is coming to an end. How certain? About 100%. When? Hard to say. It pisses me off when people ask those questions. What they want is to ignore the looming financial calamity.  Living within our means is not optional The U.S. federal government is not living within its means. Ultimately, it must. With each passing year, the amount by which entitlement spending must be cut will increase. Politicians...

I have Sunday Night Football on as background “music.”   Football offense has changed. I wrote a book in 2008 ago called The Contrarian Edge for Football Offense. Second edition came out in 2011. It pays to be different I complained in it that all the NFL teams were all running the same offense. And the plays were not as contrarian as they could be. Or as ju jitsu. My book is about both. The mindset seemed to be, “If I lose running what everyone else is running, I won’t get blamed. But if I am different and it does...

I was struck by the extreme effective teamwork that produced the Kavanaugh result, and that the team seemed to arise and assign roles spontaneously. Here are the team members and their roles: The team McConnell—steady-as-she-goes captain of the Senate ship choosing when to hold the voteGrassley—buffeted Senate Judiciary committee chair who thought on his feet, dealt effectively with one surprise Democrat tactic after another, but always kept his eye on the ballMcGahn—behind the scenes selection of and coaching of Kavanaugh especially during the halftime between Ford’s testimony and Kavanaugh’s second hearingKavanaugh—angry response, Wall Street Journal op-edMitchell—summary analysis of Ford’s testimonyGraham—angry...

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article that says sliding head first and feet first deliver the runner to the base at about the same time. They said the injuries are about the same, too, but their own charts say that feet first causes no head injuries whereas head injuries are the main ones when sliding head first..I advocate only the feet-first slide in my two baseball coaching books. I believe Little League outlawed head first sliding. Good..Pete Rose popularized it. He said he was motivated by getting his picture in the paper. If players had started out head first early...