the $200 million meltdown

wow. steinbrenner’s wasted almost as much money as the government has this year. the yanks did take it to five games, and good for them. unfortunately for them, the long world series title drought continues. this is a good thing. yankee dominance makes their fans arrogant and obnoxious, as if they had something to do with all those championships. please. humility is good for yankee fans. it knocks them down a few pegs, and they usually need it. yes, this is a broad generalization and does not apply to all of their fans– just the loud ones and the know-it-alls frequenting usenet.

now the question becomes, whose head will roll for this meltdown? if i had to guess, i would guess cashman. torre will not, and should not, be fired. it’s possible that the boss has stopped caring about fan reaction to whatever he does, but if not, torre’s safe. his record in the bronx speaks for itself. it’s possible that torre will stick it to george and resign. he has nothing else to prove and he would free himself from the boss and his temperamental idiocy.

don’t be stupid, george. don’t fire joe torre.

update: more reaction on the meltdown from crackednews.com.

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interesting posts i read today

espresso sarcasm has some other “bold moves” by new orleans mayor ray nagin. good stuff.

in the food for thought category, there is a post about the beat generation and its relationship to current events today from avatar briefs. it includes excerpts from howl, an allan ginsberg poem. it’s a rather dark poem, in my opinion anyway, but the analysis here is right on target.

the wide awakes posts in Acts of God about our expectations of the government in the case of natural disasters.

read. think. enjoy.

it’s all the president’s fault

since we have finally discovered the source of all the problems in the united states and in the whole entire universe, i thought that it would be helpful to make a list of his most notable accomplishments in this area.

  • he controls the weather.

hurricane katrina not only was designed to target areas where minorities live,it also was planned to distract those pesky reporters from investigating karl rove. i have no idea what the purpose behind hurricane rita was for him, unless it was for the sheer entertainment value of watching the reporters in the middle of the hurricane try to stay away from the loose trees.

he should also be credited for the yanks/angels rain-out. steinbrenner is a known republican contributor and his overpaid boys needed a day off.

  • he tells conservative radio hosts and right-wing bloggers exactly what to say and post so they can spread his message of evil to millions every day.

again, this is all about karl rove because he’s the evil puppetmaster controlling president bush. frankj over at IMAO has the details on these talking point memos.

  • he starts wars with other countries to make himself look like a tough guy and to improve his poll numbers.

after all, you can’t hold your head up high at the neo-con cabal meetings unless you have invaded a foreign country and forced liberation on them. this was another mistake in strategy by the evil ones. everybody knows that starting wars doesn’t always contribute to high poll numbers. karl rove should be fired, not for the CIA thing, but for totally screwing up the neo-con strategy for world domination and total control of the google empire.

upon examination of the evidence, it seems that the president has been very busy destroying lives, houses, and other countries. being the example of pure evil while keeping up the facade of a good Christian guy must be very exhausting work. why else do you suppose he needed that really long crawford vacation?

if you don’t get the point of this, read the rest of this blog.

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rhetoric vs. bill bennett and president bush

anger over the inequalities in america often degenerates into overheated, sometimes divisive rhetoric. this kind of dialogue distracts us from addressing the real questions we face and finding solutions to improve race relations. it’s easier to assign blame than to deal with the root causes of poverty and the reasons why it continues among african-americans and others.

fellow blogger amilicar has this take on president bush/bill bennett and the response to katrina.
i’m posting some excerpts here.

“In the Board room down in the Dungeon of the Republican Radio Broadcasters producers weekly meeting,a decision was made ; to reassert the confidence of the republican faithful, following the national and international exposure and embarrassment the President got, for his open racial response, to the devastation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.”

“As a result of that meeting, William Bennett decided he has no fear , nor love for America, so he would fire up the trailer park, to reignite the Red states, some excitement on behalf of the sagging approval rating of their beloved President Bush.”

there is no question that the response to hurricane katrina wasn’t perfect. there were colossal screw-ups on the local and state levels in new orleans, and FEMA didn’t perform as well as it could have. this continued carping that the recovery efforts were more effective for one race of people over another on purpose is just asinine. we saw more african-americans that were victims of katrina than other racial groups in new orleans because there was a disproportionate number of them in that area. the system in place was ineffective FOR EVERYBODY.

it amuses me when i read statements such as the above quoted statement. there is this persistent myth out there that conservative talk radio hosts all read from the same script. anyone who actually listens to the variety of conservative radio shows out there knows that this is not true. as far as bill bennett is concerned, when you read his statement in context, its meaning is altered quite a bit. bill bennett is not a racist. i think that he got caught saying something that he probably wishes he had said differently. i’m not here to be an apologist for bennett, but this charge is unfair.

to suggest that bill bennett said what he said to energize the red states and improve the president’s poll numbers is way past normal cynicism. that is accusing red staters and republicans of harboring racist attitudes, and this charge has no support by legitimate evidence. even if true, bennett would be wasting his time. it’s blindingly obvious that this president doesn’t govern by his poll numbers anyway.

i understand frustration with the current way things work in this country. i’ve been there myself a time or two. i just think we should be able to get beyond the personal attacks and the arrow-slinging to work together on making changes in the system that will alleviate some of these problems. we can come from different points of view, but at the end of the day, finding a solution to these problems should be more important than winning the argument.

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the friday blues/jazz

if any of you had a day like mine, you might want to give yourself a mental break from the serious news of the day. i know i want to. before i get to that, however, i would like to thank the red sox for making me look really stupid for picking them to win. hopefully no one else made the same mistake (and put money on it). they just weren’t as good as last year. hopefully last year was good enough to keep red sox fans off of the ledge this year.

now on to the good stuff.

mr. miyagi wanna-be gets punk’d by students
russians on ice–a man who has been living in a refrigerator for 15 years
bank robber leaves an IOU in the safe
“make your own law” contest
the Welsh-language version of Scrabble
Oklahoma Man Wins $10 Million Judgment Against a Spammer–VERY COOL.

this weekend’s movie reviews (courtesy msnbc.com)

i highly recommend the following artists for a truly chilled out ipod mix –frank sinatra, ella fitzgerald, billie holiday, and miles davis. it’s perfect background noise for any relaxing activity. i can’t decide who is the best of these three: ella fitzgerald, billie holiday, and lena horne. any fellow jazz fans with an opinion on this, please make your case in comments/email. i’m leaning toward picking billie holiday.

happy friday. hope yours was better than mine. 🙂

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wonkette, the president’s speech, and alcohol –common sense surrenders

wonkette live-blogs the president’s speech today, apparently under the influence of alcohol– and i thought creating a drinking game from MSNBC’s “situation” was amusing. some people will use any excuse to abuse their legal right to drink beer. of course, she could be joking. either way, her analysis of the speech is different than anything you will ever see on the news.

as eliza doolittle said in my fair lady, “words, words, i’m so tired of words”. the president has the ability to come up with a good speech once in a while. from what i’ve heard about it, he came up with one today. he needs to sell himself and his policies better. i’ve said this before. he also needs to realize that maybe he could have done better with his second SCOTUS pick. i hope he will figure this out.

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i hate the red sox.

ok. so i’m not nostradamus. that’s what i get for believing in a deeply flawed baseball team. that’s what i get for making picks with my heart instead of my head. if i’m somewhat bent at the sox being 0-2 down, i can’t imagine what red sox fans are thinking right now. of course, they have recent practice at miraculous comebacks, but i just don’t see it happening this time. then again…what the heck do i know?

there’s nothing surprising happening in the other baseball games, except that i expected a better start out of tim hudson. the bottom line on the remaining AL/NL teams is that it’s hard to say that any of them would end up as MLB’s best team, because none of them are all that great. the only team i could possibly argue for would be the cardinals. other than that, everyone else is painfully average.

it’s rumoured that the NHL has returned to business. good to know that the millionaires have to report to work today. i hope that everybody in the NHL got what they wanted out of the stupid lockout. i’m not a hockey fan…but i did miss espn’s barry melrose and his hair gel.

j.j. abrams and his talented band of writers get to redeem themselves tonight for last week’s alias episode. we shall see if they can. good luck winning back the female fans, guys.

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iraq = vietnam?

“One of the many negative consequences of America’s defeat in The Vietnam War has been the uncontrolled proliferation of Vietnams since then.”

quote from AINA’s Why Iraq is Not Like Vietnam: A Primer for the Geopolitically Challenged

here in this blog, we try to squash ridiculous hyperbole such as comparing iraq to vietnam (in case you weren’t aware, john kerry served there). the above article points out some blindingly obvious differences between the two conflicts. i’ll add my two cents here, because this is an important distinction to make in trying to argue the case for staying in iraq for the present time.

fighting against communism was an important part of our foreign policy. communists have wrong ideas that keep those under a strict interpretation of their system oppressed and poor. we should absolutely be against people being oppressed and poor, and we are.

the difference is that communists are not even a fraction as dangerous as Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group. although communists had terrible ideas, none of those ideas included flying planes into buildings. i believe that religious fanatics, no matter what religion they are, are scarier than philosophical/political ideologues. that’s the kind of people we are dealing with here –religious fanatics.

that’s why we need to continue to be on the offensive in this war on terror. i don’t deny some mistakes were made, but leaving iraq now would be an even greater mistake. the stakes are too high for us to surrender iraq to those who oppose their move toward greater freedom and their progress toward democracy.

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MLB playoff picks

here’s the promised playoff picks for my small, yet devoted group of readers. if you bet on baseball, like pete rose, you might want to ignore these picks.

here we go.

angels/yankees

  • too many questions about the yankees’ pitching outside of randy johnson
  • the yanks’ offense/experience will keep them in this series, but it will not be enough
  • angels in 5

red sox/white sox

  • schilling’s last start was a good one, so maybe he’s figured it out just in time.
  • wakefield scares me, though, as knuckleballers are prone to do.
  • the boston offense can steal a couple wins for the red sox.
  • i picked against boston last year, and they won the whole thing. so, boston in 4.

astros/braves

  • the braves are no different this year from past years, in that they looked impressive in the regular season…rolling up all those victories and NL east crowns.
  • however, i don’t know how their young players will react to performing in the postseason.
  • clemens. pettitte. oswalt. those are three reasons, not even considering the astros’ pen, to pick the astros. this is their year to get out of the first round. astros in 5.

padres/cardinals

  • the padres could possibly win one game, maybe two, in this series.
  • but the cardinals are too much of a complete team to give that many games away so…
  • cardinals in 4

i take no responsibility for any money lost by following my advice. but if you’re still trying to figure out what kind of pizza to order while watching the games…the choice is obviously the domino’s steak fanatic. you will not be sorry with this choice, trust me. it is one of the most delicious pizzas in the history of pizza.

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