So, Weiner is a dick after all

I know, I know. Stupid and hackneyed subject. But I'm tired.

In really not-so-shocking news, Anthony Weiner actually did knowingly send his namesake to a woman on Twitter. Whatever, this really isn't that big of a deal, and I'm not convinced it spells the long-term end for Rep. Weiner. Quickly, though, does anyone actually believe the whistleblower's (heh heh) story?

Broussard said she wanted to come forward now out of concerns for her own image as an aspiring nurse, and that of her 3-year-old daughter, should her identity be leaked online.

The fact that her identity would be leaked seems unlikely. Who am I to say that a woman can't protect herself from scrutiny, but doesn't it seem odd that you're stepping into the limelight to avoid stepping into the limelight? Especially when, by my completely un-researched count, America actually has a pretty OK record at keeping the identity of sexual victims quiet? Save for the Tiger Woods affair, I suppose, but a number of those were self-reported, too. Sorry, I rambled. Hardly my point.

What is my point is that she (with an assist from ABC News) is being framed as a victim. Even though she:

participated in risque online chats -- as she has done with other men online -- with the man she presumed to be Weiner.

[exchanged] 'hundreds of messages,' many of a sexual nature.

and that Occasionally while chatting through Facebook, the two would simultaneously use email to exchange photos, she said.

Take note of the repeated usage of "it takes two to tango" words.

And while "she thought she could keep this private" she went to Drudge and Breitbart, 2nd and 3rd in voting to perennial all-star gossip Perez Hilton for the prized Last Person I Would Ever Tell a Secret To Award.

This is a long two-way street, and Broussard threw the brakes on when the opportunity was best. And that's fine. And Weiner made an exceedingly stupid fucking move and definitely acted like a schmuck both as a married man and a representative of the public, but let's not forget that the motivation for this girl to come forward rests in this line:

More than a dozen photos were obtained...and licensed from [Broussard] by ABC News.

And I'm willing to bet the cost of that licensing made all the embarrassment go away.

Groundhog Day?

In the week or so since Dick decided to get back into writing here, I've been looking for something to write about. Unfortunately, I haven't really found anything that interests me, so I've tried to figure out why. And the conclusion I came to while scouring Newser.com for something to write about was this: pretty much everything is the same as it was two years ago.

Maybe that's pessimistic, and admittedly it's pretty hard to discern progress without some amount of hindsight, but seriously, look at what's happening now:

• Sarah Palin has unleashed her inner media whore, and the media (and no one else) is following breathlessly.
• Lance Armstrong is being accused of using steroids in a bike race that happened almost a decade ago (I'd appreciate it if someone would let 60 Minutes know that no one, probably not even Lance Armstrong at this point, cares about professional cycling).
• Some global panel has declared that the War on Drugs has been a bust (seriously, I need to find a way to get paid for telling people things that everyone has known for at least fifteen years). No one wants to get rid of drugs, people who make drugs (alcohol and tobacco companies) just want to get rid of the drugs that other people (minorities) make. What drug you're using isn't of any interest to the government, they only care about whose drug it is.
• Shaq retired (I thought he died in 2007).
• Democrats and Republicans are accusing each other of distorting facts and engaging in demagoguery (how else is anyone supposed to get elected when people like my brother, who told me the other day that the number of members of the House changes, are allowed to vote?).
• Seriously, this Octomom lady, the one with the cavernous vagina, still has her name in the news.
• The Supreme Court is still protecting Bush Administration officials from any sort of retribution for how they raped America (and I still can't figure out where there are still people out there who value the opinions of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and Karl Rove, as if all of their theories of governance hadn't been empirically proven to be abject failures over eight years).
• Some dumb cooze is denying that the naked pictures she took of herself are her (but really, she should just embrace them, she looked good).
• Shit, people are still talking about the vapid whore with the ass, the one that Ray J pissed on.
• The Phillies are better than the Mets.

So what's actually happening that isn't a boring retread of things that have been covered ad nauseum over the last two or three years? Well, there's the shocking revelation that Frank Sinatra took twelve showers a day. I guess that's interesting. Meh. Someone in government has finally started trying to do something about the disgustingly racist sentencing disparity between convictions for possession of cocaine and crack. I guess it's refreshing that Obama is being criticized for his "European ways"; I mean, the underlying complaint is still that he's not American enough (because he's black), but it's a nice break from the Kenyan agitation and Islamophobia.

So really, what is there to write about that hasn't already been beaten into the ground? Oh well, I guess I'm not one to talk, I wrote this while listening to Blink 182 and SR-71.

Just Say the Word..

Ok. This one really pisses me off.

You can fire missiles into the Sea of Japan for a while before I really get pissed, though I certainly don't like it as is. But why the fuck is anybody still tolerating this?

Firing a missile on path for Hawai'i on July 4th? Fuck you very much. Why hasn't someone put that Munchkin understudy in his place?

Wake Up and Smell the Anabolic Steroids

Sammy Sosa apparently tested positive for steroids. Everyone saw that coming. Except this guy.

A saying exists in baseball that the smartest person in any clubhouse is the guy with either the highest batting average or the most consecutive zeroes on his paycheck.

I have never heard that saying.

In other words, the superstars -- smart or dumb; black, white, Latino or Asian; old or young -- run the show.

Ok, let's say that adage does exist: why would that surprise you? And what does it matter how old, young, dark, or light someone is, your original point was that that person is a superstar and that's what matters. I already feel a migraine coming on.

Keep that in mind as you consider the New York Times report that Sammy Sosa is one of the 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in baseball's 2003 survey testing because the news should not be met with an indifferent yawn, as if Sosa is just another in a long line of Hall of Fame-caliber talent biting the dust: Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and now Sosa, all in the first half of the 2009 season alone. Instead, this news should be greeted with the kind of outrage reserved for the worst breaches of trust because you, Mr. and Mrs. Fan, have been taken for a very special kind of ride.

First: nay, sir. I was not taken for a ride. At this point (and I don't think I'm anywhere near the minority with this one) I'm more surprised when I wake up each morning and don't hear that one of my favorite players has an ear growing out of his forehead. Instead it was you, Mr. Sportswriter, who was taken for a very special kind of ride; very special because you were the only person on that ride.

It must have been soul-crushing when Howard Bryant found out that Santa wasn't real - - during his junior year of college.

Second: why are we supposed to be outraged about this one? How is this different from any of the other recently outed stars? Because he is in fact "just another in a long line of Hall of Fame-caliber talent biting the dust."

By now, that con game has been exposed completely and a new argument -- let's call it the "Alex Rodriguez Defense," used by players, fans and, unfortunately, some Hall of Fame voters -- has surfaced. This one suggests that these steroid-using superstar players were merely "caught up in a culture."

Yup. That's what happened. Look, in free agency, it's every man for himself. Especially in an arbitration system where a player is endlessly compared to his peers on paper alone, every edge counts. Beyond that, once you see that 3 out of 5 of your competitors are getting an edge at a pretty reasonable price (neglecting of course the harmful biological effects) you'd be likely to try it yourself.

It is one thing to lie, which is bad enough, but what these players have done is infinitely worse. They have lied, convinced that their good will and celebrity -- and batting averages -- would allow them just enough dispensation to get away with it, to drown out anyone not taken in by their false charms.

Chicks dig the long ball. And, not coincidentally, so does everyone in America. Mark McGwire saved baseball while he was hopped up on more bovine hormone than an actual Big Mac. Same goes for Sosa and Bonds. To condemn them for that now while we were all loving it is just as much deception and backstabbing as lying about steroids in the first place.

Even as the card house collapsed, the players knew the fans were just red-blooded capitalists who would forgive lying and cheating because there was big money at stake.

I don't think the players thought it through that much. I don't think they gave a shit about forgiveness; that never even crossed their minds.

How many times have we all heard the old saw? "Well, what would you have done for $10 million? You would've done the same thing."

Yes, you would have. I know I would have. I know a handful of people who I believe possess enough integrity to have said no in that situation. I don't count myself among them.

Now I'd like to think I would have done the Pettite thing and just owned up. "Yep, you got me. Real sorry about that. Honestly." Is it worse to continue to lie about it? Absolutely. But that's not the issue right now; the issue is why you're surprised that players who lied about this for the majority of their careers are going to change their tune now.

Ironically, it is the Phillies' Raul Ibanez, burned by a blogosphere that does not have to adhere to traditional journalistic standards, who now turns back to the mainstream media -- with all of their supposed "agendas" -- to defend his name.

I'm not going to discuss this point, it's already been beaten into the ground. But one thing: "a blogosphere?" If you're going to needlessly disparage someone's passion or hobby, at least know how to refer to it let alone what actually was said.

But fans aren't the only suckers walking around today.

The writers did the same, and continue to do so. Some have decided to use their Hall of Fame votes in the affirmative for the game's great but disgraced players -- Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, Ramirez -- because the players were part of a larger culture.

Interesting that those guys have received HoF votes, seeing as how not a single one of them is eligible and two of them aren't retired (and one will definitely be playing in 2 weeks time). Jerk off.

Is this baseball or Wall Street? The cultural intention to defraud is the same.

Bazing! Good one. So let's haphazardly use your same faulty logic and lazy approach to research in another venue you're hopelessly unqualified to critique: finance! First, guy, what the fuck do you know about Wall Street? And b) I haven't been on the floor in a while, but I can't imagine the institutional goal of Wall Street is to defraud. Nor is it in baseball.

Today, it is not enough for a player merely to say he never used. Albert Pujols already did so on the cover of Sports Illustrated this year. Derek Jeter constantly has protected his legacy by saying "Not everyone is on this stuff." Both might never have used, but the words of Jeter or Pujols have no more value than Sosa's empty challenge to anyone questioning his accomplishments.

So you admit that you don't believe these guys! Then why the fuck are you so surprised?!

In the words of that old dude with leprosy from Braveheart: You let yourself be deceived.

Today on CNN: Morons!

Like every day, really. But this is a new low, even for this reputable news source.

Sierra Journey Factor is 8 and has spinal muscular atrophy, which essentially means that her musculature is decaying. Depending on severity (and the accuracy of the doctors at Wikipedia on whom I rely for all my medical advice) patients can either die in infancy or live to old age, which I suppose is also true of every person who has ever lived.

In order to combat this disease, Sierra's family has decided to fly to China so that Sierra can be injected with stem cells at the bargain basement rate of $26,500 (not to mention the $25,000 they expect to spend on travel and lodging).

According to Sierra's mom: "We are really walking into this blindfolded. It's scary, but everybody says it's so nice over there."

They got all of their information from a website called chinastemcellnews.com, which containts testimonials about the practice. It is also the leading home for grifting Snake Oil Salesman in the 21st century.

I mean come on, people! Would I pay $50,000 to improve the quality of life for my kid? Absolutely! Would I pay $50,000 for a Chinese quack to inject my daughter with medicine not currently used in America, solely because people said they were "nice"? Hell fuckin' no.

And nice?! What's "nice" about this?!

Happy Mothers' Day

I just saw this on CNN, and had to say something about it. They’re about to talk about President Obama’s speech/performance at the Correspondent’s Dinner last night. They showed the clip of him saying something like, “My next 100 days will be so successful that they will only last for 72 days. And on the 73rd day, I will rest.” Then the anchor came back on, saying that Obama was making fun of himself, others in his administration, and Republicans. Yeah, he did do all three of those things. But he was also making fun of the media. In fact, that’s who he was mocking in that quote. In the leadup to his 100th day, he was pretty forthright in acknowledging that it wasn’t a real milestone or anything, just a pure media creation. But the media kept pushing the hysteria. Between watching last night, and watching today, they’re just not acknowledging that the joke is on them too. It’s about as bad as watching Sarah Palin on SNL as Amy Poehlar (yeah, there’s no way I’m looking up how to spell that correctly) rapped about how much of a joke she was.

Speaking of Sarah Palin, I’m so good at segues. Also, at least last night Wanda Sykes was getting a lot of shit from the morally superior, humorless talking heads on MSNBC. Yeah, some of her jokes were mediocre, that was to be expected, she’s a mediocre comedian. But they weren’t offensive. The joke about Sarah Palin and pulling out seemed to bother some people. If you’re one of those people, fuck you. Yeah, it really sucks for her daughter that she got pregnant, and then couldn’t have an abortion because of her mother’s political ambitions. Or her religious convictions, whosever bullshit you want to believe. But if Bristol is going to be a national spokesperson for abstinence, she’s fair game for jokes.

As for Sykes’ jokes about Limbaugh, meh, fuck him. She wasn’t saying anything more offensive than he says on a daily basis. Back to studying. Happy Mothers’ Day.

First in War, First in Peace, Last in the NL East

So, uh, what’s going on down in D.C.? Is it possible that the Nationals are the worst run franchise in sports? With Matt Millen no longer involved in Detroit, and basketball not mattering enough to me for it to be considered, I think that this may be the case.

I guess a good place to start is with Jim Bowden, who served as their GM until he resigned this spring. Why did he resign? Well, it didn’t really have anything to do with him being just terrible at his job, even though he was, as shown by his failure to trade Soriano, and extensions of Dmitri Young and Ronnie Belliard. No, he resigned because he was being investigated by the fucking FBI. I swear that’s true. Allegedly he’s been skimming money off the top of signing bonuses paid to Latin American prospects.

But now that Bowden is gone there’s hope for the future, right? I mean, they’ve got some good young talent, maybe they can rebuild. Or, maybe not. They have the first pick in this summer’s draft, and would be crazy not to take Stephen Strasburg. But he’s a Boras client, and it will take a huge signing bonus to get him, possibly double what’s ever been paid before. Will the Nationals be willing to do that? They managed to not sign their first round pick from last year’s draft, so nothing is guaranteed.

And then there’s this business with Lastings Milledge. The Nationals don’t really have all that many players with any sort of a high ceiling. There’s Ryan Zimmerman at third, the face of the franchise who was just locked up with a five year contract extension. There’s Adam Dunn, who’s clearly not an up and coming player, but as their marquee free agent signing from this winter, and someone who actually doesn’t suck, who should be in the lineup every day. And there’s Lastings Milledge. He’s basically the only centerfielder on their roster, with a really quick bat and still a lot of potential. He started to put things together in the second half of last season, where he played pretty well. Then he started this season struggling a little, so the Nationals did what any poorly run, irrational franchise would do: they sent him down to the minors. Seriously. The Nationals aren’t going to contend this year, they don’t even have a realistic shot at fourth place in the division. So why not give Milledge at bats against major league pitchers to work his problems out? Demoting him makes no sense at all; it’s not good for him, and it’s not good for the team.

So with Milledge toiling away in the International League, that Nationals found themselves in need of a centerfielder. They decided to use the always entertaining, slightly unhinged Elijah Dukes in that role, even though he’s more of a corner outfielder. Well, at least that was their plan. But then Nationals’ manager Manny Acta benched Dukes for showing up like five minutes late to a pregame stretching session. Now, Dukes has had some issues with authority; you figure that if he was late because he was busy texting pictures of a gun to people whose lives he’s threatened, as he’s done before, then the benching might be merited. But he wasn’t. He was late because he was away at some community outreach event, signing autographs and speaking to little league players. Seriously. But in the National’s zero-tolerance, zero-common sense locker room, he was benched and fined $500. The baseball gods were clearly angered by this, as they smited his replacement, who broke his ankle while making a catch in that game. As for the fine, the little league, uh, league, is taking up a collection to pay it, not because Dukes needs the money, but more as a show of solidarity and to thank him and all sorts of things. And the worst part is that I have no doubt the Nationals will be willing to take their money.

Right now the Nats are 2-10, and seemingly incapable of even spelling their team name correctly on their uniforms. Don’t expect any sort of improvement soon.

Brief Thoughts

I’m done my brief, 4600 words. I’m pretty sure that my guy is gonna win. Whatever. On to more important things.

The Governor of Texas is in way over his head. Secession? Really? That worked out so well the first time, didn’t it. Honestly, I’m excited about it too, and really hope they go through with it. First of all, I think America would be a better place without the Lone Star State. Too many evangelicals there. Second, and most importantly, if Texas secedes, I’m pretty sure there would be a zombie outbreak. In fact, I’m certain of it. If Texas leaves the Union again, Andrew Jackson will rise from the dead an lead an army of zombies on a rampage all the way to the Rio Grande, not stopping until he hangs or eats the brains of every secessionist down there, starting with Rick Perry.

A couple days ago a statement was made public warning about right wing extremists. This, naturally, made the right wing extremists flip out. But, uh, the more they flip out, the closer they get to doing the things that the government was warning about. Facist-leaning Republicans seem to struggle with irony. And common sense.

Oh, and they don’t really have a sense of humor either. Fox News has a really bitchy article up about how CNN and MSNBC weren’t respectful enough of their contrived tax day protest. Evidently when Sean Hannity and whoever else came up with their idiotic tea party idea, they didn’t consult any high school sophomores, who would have exposed the obvious flaw. So CNN and MSNBC did their duty as proud American institutions and made the obligatory teabagging jokes. I think that some guy named David Shuster wins the prize for most awesome mockery of Fox News and this whole endeavor, saying, "Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it, " followed by "They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending." You think that Fox News would catch on to the mockery, and maybe adapt, but they haven’t. In the middle of the article there is an invitation to join the forums and comment about this whole debacle. The link reads, “Click here to join the discussion on teabagging.” I swear I didn’t make any of this up.

Even Ann Coulter weighed in on this teabagging discussion, acting every bit as sanctimonious as Fox News, but with more jokes about Barney Frank. As an aside, can someone explain to me why I read Ann Coulter’s web site? I thought I was better than that. But even though I read her regularly, I can’t remember I got all the way through one of her postings; it seems every week there’s a paragraph that makes my head hurt so much I need to jump over to youtube and watch Bobby Orr highlights until the pain goes away. This week the line was, “Obama's biggest shortcoming is that he believes the things believed by all Democrats, which have had devastating consequences every time they are put into effect.” What the hell? Was Clinton’s Presidency so devastating? Certainly it wasn’t as bad as Bush’s time in office (pick whichever Bush you prefer, neither was any good). Seriously, how does she get away with making such absurd claims.

Getting back to this whole secession thing, just because it baffles me, and it’s still a big deal, people are now polling Texans about a couple of the issues here. I’m like to interpret these numbers for you. 31% of Texas voters say their state has the right to secede. From this, it stands to reason that 31% of Texas voters are mildly retarded. This figure may be low, however, because I sincerely doubt that most Texans know what the word “secede” means. 18% of Texas voters say that they would vote to leave the Union; these are more likely than not the same people that were trumpeting the phrase “’Merica! Love it or leave it!” over the last eight years. Clearly these Texans don’t love America, which must make them terrorists. You’re either with us or against us.

If Dmitry Medvedev were an American, he would vote Republican, live in Texas, watch Fox News, and probably have a lifesize cutout of Bill O’Reilly in his bedroom. But he’s not, he’s a Russian. And he’s warning NATO not to run any war games in Georgia. So, if I follow his logic, it’s ok to invade Georgia and kill a shit ton of people there, but having a military exercise in the country is way out of line. Weird.

One more Republican I don’t like (can you tell that there aren’t any stories about outer space or dinosaurs) is Norm Coleman, the guy who lost the Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken, but won’t go away. Seriously, this guy, when it seemed like he was winning, said that Franken should concede so Minnesota could be properly represented. (He really did say something like this, I just don’t feel like looking up where; if you don’t believe me look it up for yourself.) Naturally, he’s now losing, has been for months, but won’t concede. He’s pretty much burned up all his state court options, and now he’s gonna introduce a suit in federal court. I don’t think he’ll win, because, quite simply, fewer people voted for him than voted for Franken, but if it gets to the Supreme Court all bets are off; Franken could win by thousands of votes in Minnesota, but when he loses by one in Washington (and he will), he’ll be screwed.

Finally, I’m going to just briefly throw out my two cents on the debate about LeBron James that is raging over at our sister-blog, www.dauerism.wordpress.com. The Yankee hat thing doesn’t bother me, and I don’t care about all this talk about him eventually going to the Knicks. LeBron actually seems like a pretty good guy. But when his career and Dwayne Wade’s career are both over, I really want to be able to look back and say that, yeah, James was a much more talented player, but he’s no Dwayne Wade, and then point to the five NBA championships that Wade has won and the zero that James has. That would just be amusing.

Post-Easter Post

So lots of cool things have happened over the last couple of days, the most important of which is clearly the home run Matt Stairs hit to bring the Phillies to .500. It was majestic. But on to the other things.

The biggest story, in my eyes, at least, really just makes you think “America, fuck yeah!” When the Somali pirates captured an American ship, and took the captain hostage, you kinda figured they were getting in over their heads. I mean, it’s one thing to fuck with Danish or Panamanian ships; honestly, you can probably get away with that. But the US has a pretty badass navy, and a President who has to make known that he won’t put up with shit from anyone. So we sent in the Seals, and they kicked all sorts of ass. They rescued the captain, who’s pretty much fine, killed three of the pirates, and now we even have one under arrest who can stand trial. Additionally, it must be noted that the French also tried to rescue some hostages from pirates, but didn’t do nearly as well.

The pirates, understandably, aren’t taking this so well, and have issued some threats to both the French and Americans. This really isn’t the best course of action for them. If they were smart they would just take the beating they got and go back to preying on ships for Comoros or some other country that won’t fight back. The US and France will seriously fuck them up if they get too uppity. If they actually start killing Americans, they’re gonna have to deal with the wrath of the US navy, and their AK 47s really aren’t going to be able to compete with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Speaking of the French, it’s important to note that they’re assholes. This has manifested itself most recently, and really fairly consistently over the last like twelve years, in their treatment of Lance Armstrong. They’ve dicked him around with bullshit allegations incessantly, and they’ve never been right; he has passed every drug test he’s taken. But now it’s possible that he won’t be able to compete in the Tour de France this summer, even though he’s racing to raise global awareness about cancer. Two things have been made clear by the actions these French assholes are taking. First, the French love cancer, probably as much as they love not showering. Also, they’re afraid of Armstrong. They know he won’t lose, and they don’t want to be one-upped by an American anymore. Let’s be honest, America has been doing things better than France since America first existed. We had a Revolution for democracy, and things went pretty well; the French tried to follow in our footsteps, and mostly just a lot of heads got lopped off, and the only decent French military mind since William the Conqueror ended up exiled in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Oh, and they went back to a monarchy. Later, America decided it wanted to fuck with Mexico, and we got a ton of land out of it. When the French tried to do the same, they actually lost, getting their asses handed to them at the Battle of Puebla. In the twentieth century, France is best known for getting steamrolled by Germany, twice (seriously, the Maginot line? Great plan, dickheads; Vauban would be terribly disappointed in all of you). America bailed them out each time. Now, America is a world power, and France is mostly just fading into irrelevancy; they’ve been passed as a power by a bunch of other European and Asian countries, their soccer team isn’t that good anymore, and the Eifel Tower isn’t really anything special. Pretty much all they have left is this bike race, and they’ve been trying to take it back after Lance Armstrong had made it his bitch for seven years; clearly they’re screwing around with Lance because their national pride is dependent on it. Well, fuck them, I hope he gets to race, cause you know if they let him in there’s no way he won’t win number eight.

So since the economy is shit, local governments are doing all sorts of crazy things to raise money. And it’s bullshit. Seriously, a streetlight user fee? That’s asinine. Streetlights are there to make streets safer. The purpose of a government is to protect its people. Really, the responsibility for this falls on the government. Stop sucking.

The Pope said Mass in the Coliseum on Good Friday, and spewed some nonsense about the world being a desert of godlessness. I ignored most of that. But this part was interesting. He said that there are “many societies in the world where women fail to receive a fair deal.” Um, would one of these societies maybe be the Church? You know, the one that won’t let women be priests. Maybe the Church should work on its own discrimination before criticizing anyone else. Benedict has been pretty clear in stating that he won’t permit women to be priests. It’s pretty much bullshit that there’s a sacrament that only men can receive (nuns don’t receive Holy Orders). How is that a fair deal? Maybe it’s not as overt as marrying your eight year old daughter off to some guy in his forties to settle some debts, but it isn’t not discrimination.

Finally, Woody Harrelson is the coolest.

Steve Phillips is not a smart guy

Steve Phillips used to be the General Manager of the New York Mets. During his tenure, the Mets actually played in a World Series. Still, he wasn’t a very good GM. He signed players like Mo Vaughn (after he stopped being good at baseball), Bobby Bonilla (after he stopped being good at baseball), Kenny Rogers (we all know how that went), and Rickey Henderson (when he was more crazy than good). He also didn’t do so well trading players. If you want to see a Mets fan’s head explode, just bring up Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. He was eventually fired, years later than he should have been. With apologies to Bill Simmons, Steve Phillips probably belongs on the terrible GM Mount Rushmore. Well, now he’s got a job as an analyst on ESPN. He’s all over the place, showing up on Baseball Tonight, the occasional SportsCenter, random games throughout the week, and, starting this season, Sunday Night Baseball, making a broadcast that prominently features Joe Morgan even less enjoyable. He does not go a good job.

Yahoo’s Roto Arcarde brings to light this gem, which in turn was brought to my attention by Jon, that Phillips dropped during one of the games he was working this week. Phillips apparently doesn’t buy into any of the statistical analyses of defense. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that they’re gaining traction with front offices throughout the majors. No, they’re all wrong because they don’t value Jeter highly enough. In fact, most measures of defense seem to suggest that Jeter sucks defensively. And really, most non-Yankee fans, and even the rare reasonable Yankee fan, acknowledge that Jeter is not a good defensive shortstop. Seriously, just go to Baseball-Reference if you don’t believe me; he’s not good defensively. Sure, he puts up good numbers with respect to fielding percentage. He handles balls hit right at him without any real problems. But he can’t move to his left. He lets so many hits go up the middle that a competent shortstop would field. The Yankees know that at some point they’re going to have to move him to a different position, possibly center field, as soon as he lets them. So probably never.

But anyway, this isn’t about how bad Jeter is defensively. No, it’s about Steve Phillips, and how he’s dumb. So Phillips doesn’t buy into any of these measurements of defensive proficiency. Why? Because they’re critical of Jeter. Steve doesn’t see any limitations to Jeter’s range. Look, I know he has a handful of Gold Gloves. He doesn’t deserve them. He pretty much made a reputation for himself as a good defensive player by diving face first into a chair and that flip to home against the A’s. But he’s not good defensively. Seriously, just watch like two Yankee games. Or even watch some of the WBC games where he was killing America. Whatever. You’ll see he’s not good. Unless you’re Steve Phillips.

No, Phillips has made up his mind that Jeter is still great, and everything else is just nonsense. I don’t know how he’s come to this conclusion, but that’s his stance. Here’s what he had to say about these statistics: "Because the statistics don't match what my eyes say, it makes me mistrust the veracity of the system." Maybe the problem is actually with his judgment. I mean, there’s got to be a reason no one else has hired him, while even Dusty Baker still gets job offers.

Sunday Night Baseball

I was all set to write about this Barack Obama, Special Olympics thing that’s been going on. I was several paragraphs in, and it was really good. But I had to stop writing it. Something even more retarded was happening. United States vs. Japan, WBC semifinals. It was on ESPN. Jon Miller was calling the game. Joining him in the box? Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips, baseball's answer to Matt Millen and Mike Millbury. Get excited, everyone.

Derek Jeter is playing short. I understand why the Yankees do it: they don’t have anyone better. But Jeter is the third best defensive shortstop on this team, at least. Mark DeRosa is better defensively than Jeter, and he’s playing first. I’m pretty sure Evan Longoria played short in college, and he’s on the bench. But worst of all, Jimmy Rollins, gold glove shortstop, is DHing! If they really feel the need to play the Captain, why not have him DH, and let Jimmy play defense. He can go left.

Here are some things that Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips have said:
* Team USA is going to win because they’re mentally tough. Also, Roy Oswalt, the starting pitcher, added as an afterthought.
* Bottom 1st, 2-0 count, did they just cut Joe Morgan’s mic? I really think they did.
* Joe Morgan is talking about middle infielders being able to play other positions. I love it. Stick to what you know.
* Joe is comparing Adam Dunn to Ted Williams. VORPies everywhere are rejoicing.
* I’ve blocked them out at this point. It’s good to be back in midseason form.

I should respond to Gerber’s post the other day about David Wright. I’ll give him credit for playing hurt, he’s American hero, and seeing him knock in Jimmy was harmonious. In two weeks he’ll go back to being a fascist pederast.

McDonalds is advertising on Japan’s batting helmets. Seriously.

Top 3, Jeter grounds up the middle, Japanese shortstop goes to his left, throws Jeter out, making the captain jealous.

Fukodome really isn’t a good defensive center fielder: misplaying the Wright double off the wall and the Jimmy single in the first. Him being an all-star last year was a joke.

Bottom three: really nice play by Wright fielding a bunt, Scott Rolen esque. No joke, it was just really nice. Cue text from Dick: “somebody suck David Wright’s dick right now!” Oh, and then he throws the next ball into right field. He must have been distracted.

“Slidepiece” – Steve Philips, bottom 4. That means it’s baseball season.

America is losing, though they could have had a much better team. Real Team USA lineup, cause I’m bored:
Rollins – SS
Wright – 3B
Utley – 2B
Teixeira – 1B
Braun – LF
McCann - C
Sizemore – CF
Markakis – RF
Rotation of Hamels, Halladay, Sabathia, and Lincecum, with Lidge, Nathan, and Papelbon in the bullpen. Iannetta, BJ Upton, Mark DeRosa, Evan Longoria, and Josh Hamilton on the bench. Charlie Manuel managing.

JRoll works a walk top five, after being down 0-2. He’s an American hero, 2-2 with a walk. Right after that, David Wright strikes out looking, proving once again that he hates America. When asked for comment after the game he was unable to speak, seeing as how he was choking.

Wrigley Field was built for a Federal League team. Just saying. Also, I’m looking into reports that dinosaurs were actually made up by the CIA to discourage time travel. Carl Everett hasn’t disagreed with this.

I pay much better attention when the team I’m cheering for is winning. America winning: riveted. America down, but threatening: watching, but with music playing. America down, Japan batting: game on in the background, reading about Tamerlane.

No Met has ever thrown a no-hitter. I’m terrified that will change this year. Ed Wade is still in charge down in Houston, the Astros will probably be no hit a couple times this year. But he’ll probably also trade Roy Oswalt to the Phils for Travis D’Arnaud and a veteran middle reliever.

How many HRs would Sadaharu Oh have hit over here? 500? Fewer than that?
Matsui averaged a homer every 16.58 at bats in Japan, and one every 25.82 over here, for whatever that’s worth. I mean, you still have to factor in things like his natural decline with age. Bill James should tackle this, not me.

Actually, after looking, someone did. This guy says 527. I think that may be high, especially considering he would have started his career in the 60s, when pitchers were just steamrolling. But since this guy did math, I’ll defer to him.

Jimmy, top seven, stand up triple. 3-3, BB. ‘Merica. Stranded as Wright goes down swinging on a 55 foot pitch. If Al Qaeda had a flag (assuming they don’t) it would be blue and orange.

Joe thinks the US should bring in some minor league pitchers. I’m not here to disagree with him. I say we should have gotten Stephen Strasburg into this tournament, and just unleashed him. He’s clearly heads and shoulders above the competition he’s facing at SDSU, and I really want to see him. Triple digit velocity, he’s gonna tear shit up in the pros. Barring Mark Prior Dusty Baker stuff.

Bottom 8, runner on third, two out, ground ball in the hole to short, Jeter fields it, throws high and wide, runner safe, run scores, three run deficit. Now things are really falling apart, it’s 9-4, but most importantly, all Jeter’s fault. He’ll be leading of the top of the ninth.

And we’re back. Yu Darvish on the mound, Jeter at the plate. Yikes. 6-3. One out. Darvish has a weird delivery. Not Nomo weird, but there’s an interesting little hesitation there, or something. He’s young, too. I wonder how much the Yankees and Red Sox are gonna offer up as posting fees. Jimmy got another hit. 4 for 4. As Jon Miller said, “Jimmy Rollins has played like a World Fucking Champion tonight.” I may not have gotten that quote exactly right. Wright struck out though. That’s his third strikeout. KKK? I don’t think that David Wright has ever denied being a member. Something to consider. And Adam Dunn makes the last out, crushing American hopes. Where is baseball’s Mike Eruzione?

Finally, because I wrote it already, and I would hate for it to go to waste, here’s something I had to say about this whole Special Olympics thing: And now they want Obama to hire a Special Olympics athlete to work in the White House. Wasn’t eight years of Bush enough for them? Suck it, Jay Leno.

Update: Biggest homophobe prize still up for grabs

Thanks to this late entry by Utah State Senator Chris Buttars:

(Concerning the "radical gay movement"): "They're probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of."

Right. People having consensual sex in the privacy of their own homes is going to bring us all down. That and not the failing economy.

And the coup-de-grace of the article:

Now, in the interview, senator Buttars also talks about a certain type of reported gay sexual activity which he claims is taking place.

But ABC 4 does not consider that appropriate for its news content.

Gotta wonder what that is, don't you?! And how would Buttars know about it? Hmmmm...

The Biggest Homophobe in the World

We here at SI really, really despise Fred Phelps (I'm going out on a limb here and speaking for everyone involved). But at the same time, I (and assuming again, everyone else here) am painstakingly fascinated by him.

In case you don't know, Fred Phelps is the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, a super fundamental Christian Church founded out of the pure, unadulterated hatred of gays. The church's website is GodHatesFags.com. Straight to the point those fundamentalists.

If the name of the church sounds familiar, you've probably read about them in the news. They're the ones who protest the funerals of American soldiers who died in Iraq. If you're now confused about that jump (from hating fags to protesting fallen soldiers) allow me to connect the dots for you. The WBC is protesting those funerals to make sure all are aware that American soldiers are being slain by God as penance for our fag-loving ways. If that sounds illogical to you, you have a sound understanding of logic. They place a lot of this blame on George W. Bush. George W. "I love homosexuality so much I want to constitutionally ban it" Bush. These people do not praise rationality as much as they praise big ol' JC.

But the WBC doesn't just frequent funerals, they're also lovers of the arts. They love picketing theatrical productions like "The Laramie Project," the play written about the violent murder of Matthew Shepard in an effort to curb homophobia. A few years ago, GodHatesFags.com had a running counter of the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds that Matthew Shepard had been in Hell. Nice.

Well, in an effort to halt the world's slow descent into hell, Fred and his followers are traveling to England to protest a performance of "The Laramie Project" there. The church recently answered some questions about their trip there. I recently tore apart those answers:

1) Is this your first picket in the UK?

1. It is the first actual picket. We have been preaching by so many means to the UK for years. The arm of the Lord our God is not shortened by oceans and things, all of which, he created, and all of which he knew about when he considered these last hours of the very last days of all.

So in response to the question you actually asked, Mr. Interviewer - - yes. This is our first picket in the UK. Period.

But since you've graciously provided us with more than we asked for (like always!) allow me to pay you back with my thoughts. Let's assume God did create "oceans and things." If he created all of these things, he most certainly created the tools necessary to make anal beads. Just a fun thought.

2) Are you flying across to Britain, or is the picket being carried out by members in Britain? If you are flying over, how many protesters are you expecting and when are you arriving?

2. Considering that your nation has tried in many ways, including with draconian laws to shut up the Word of God from OFF your landscape, and to make it a crime to plainly say what the STANDARDS of GOD are, (e.g. THOU SHALT NOT lie with mankind as with womankind, it is abomination or THOU SHALT NOT commit adultery, etc.) that I will not be telling any details of our business to get where we need to be.

First, go ahead and add your own [sic]'s in there. I don't have the energy to type the same thing dozens of times. Second, I think we made her angry. She's writing in the big letters.

But while we're talking about standards from the Bible, how's this from WouldJesusDiscriminate.org concerning Matthew 19:10-12:

Here Jesus refers to "eunuchs who have been so from birth." This terminology ("born eunuchs") was used in the ancient world to refer to homosexual men. Jesus indicates that being a "born eunuch" is a gift from God.

This is in addition to all of that "love one another" and "be good stewards of my creation" nonsense JC was always babbling on about.

3) What is your objection to The Laramie Project?

3. We don't object to it, we see it as a glorious preaching moment. It creates a PERFECT backdrop for us to help YOU connect the dots. From the least to the greatest of the people of the UK, including your lamenting and rebellious and disobedient Gordon Brown. You taught your children FOR GENERATIONS now that God is a big fat liar and that HIS standards are on the table to dispose of. You BROKE their moral compass.

The prophet said - WHAT WILL YE DO IN THE END THEREOF. That is to say for you rebels - WHAT will you do when you get to the end of this road of your filthy disobedient manner of life and find that you have incurred the wrath of God and you find that his promises to make your people to be ALTOGETHER WORTHLESS, GOOD FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And what will you do when you all land in hell FOR EVER where the worm that eats on you NEVER dies and the fire is NEVER quenched and the smoke of your torment ascends up for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever - never ending...

FOR-EH-VER. Sorry, I just really love "The Sandlot".

...Now suddenly you see that they have NO standards! And then you can add to this pleasant little happy UK family moment that another 13-year-old boy has arisen to dispute paternity! Oh yea baby - you UK rebels truly have it goin on! You are like the Doomed american rebels - just a big shameful MESS!!

You just got served, fag lovers!

I say we are dot connecters! THAT is our job! We use the Laramie Project to tell you unambiguously and unapologetically that your DUTY is to fear God and keep his commandments and that you are required to give the glory of all his judgments that he is executing RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE, TO HIM! The God Smacks are HIS WORK!

We are the dot connectors! We slay that shit on the kids menu at Friendly's! Where you saw a smattering of dots we saw the truth! And that truth was a polygon-ized quasi Shrek looking thing that we fleshed out in crayon! Yeah!!!

4) Why have you decided to widen your protests to Britain?

4. Here is the reason - from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ, to wit: Mt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come...

Yada yada yada, fire and brimstone, blah blah blah, misappropriated biblical quotes, yap yap yap. Same old, same old there. But notice one important thing there: the legalese of "to wit". That's right, there are tons of lawyers in the Phelps family. Tons! In fact, Freddy himself used to be a very successful and lauded Civil Rights attorney. Until he was disbarred.

Moving on...

The antichrist is sitting now, in the Whitehouse, the time is SO SHORT - the Lord is coming and this generation is DOOMED!

Only Americans would assume the root of all evil would have to be housed on our soil. Typical.

You see the destruction already before your eyes! As filthy america goes down, and The Beast Obama, That Son of Perdition, that Man of Sin gets his power grab on, you will all give over the power of your government to him and when you see that phony façade fall away, and he gets his war on and all your fawning over him turns to great fear, then you can remember these words.

Is it weird that when I hear about Obama "getting his war on" the President takes on a decidedly Leon Phelps-ian look in my mind?

In that hour, if you or any other soul in the UK has a heart to know your God, and you understand that the end is near, you can yet put away your idols, your false gods and your FILTHY manner of life and you can serve the Lord your God in truth! THAT is your only hope.

Right. Serve your God in the truth that you should advocate violence against innocents. Right.

Well, this whole rant must be nearing a close. All of this fag hating is tiring! Time to gear up for the final sermon. Crack your knuckles, sharpen your righteousness, here it comes!

Thanks for asking!

Shirley Phelps-Roper

Oh come on! You can't work me up like that and not finish me off! What was all that hot sodomy talk about if you weren't going to let me finish?! Fuck, now I'm pissed.

Dickhead

Wow. It's a good thing you teach chemistry and not math, Mr. Gerber. And anyway, I actually had no idea how many posts we've had. But since we are getting close to 100, and it seems like something you want, I'm not going to let you have it. This post, and the one that comes right after it, will have much less content than your attempt at 100. Fucker.

Study group intermission

Yeah, I've been studying property and torts for over three hours. There is no end in sight. Thank god we're taking a break now. It gave me the chance to bang furiously at a keyboard, venting all sorts of Rule Against Perpetuity frustration. Seriously, how do you determine which is the validating life?

Anyway, earlier this week Yahoo sports put out lists of both the best and worst sportscasters. Two different authors each penned their own list, one handling the best, the other handling the worst of the profession. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they didn’t communicate with each other all that much when building these lists. Why? Because eleven people ended up on both lists. More than twenty percent of the best broadcasters are considered among the worst. How is that even possible?

I understand that compiling a list like this is pretty subjective, and if there were maybe two or three names in common I probably wouldn’t have even noticed. But eleven names is just absurd. And I’m pretty sure that the person who came up with the “best” list is to blame.
Looking at the common names, the first two to be addressed appear on the “worst” list only with conditions. Bob Costas after 2000 is one of the worst, as is John Madden when he’s worshipping Brett Favre. Otherwise, each is on the “best” list. This reasoning doesn’t bother me at all; I couldn’t agree more with that take on Madden.

Some names that appear on both lists are just baffling though. For the most part, I can’t understand why anyone would think that these people are good broadcasters. Topping the “worst” list is Billy Packer. And yeah, before he thankfully got fired this past spring, he was terrible, really just an angry old man, especially with how he would shit all over mid majors, like St. Joes in the Nelson and West year. He was an asshole, and didn’t add anything to a broadcast.

Chris Berman is second on the list of worst broadcasters, and he too is listed among the best as well. He’s sucked for years. Joe Morgan, number three on the worst list, has been beaten into the ground at this point. Dick Vitale makes both lists, leading me to conclude that the best list was written by a Duke fan, and the worst list was written by someone with a triple digit IQ.

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, both show up on each list. Sometimes Tim McCarver doesn’t bother me, I feel like there’s occasionally a pro-Phillies undertone to him. But then he goes and says something absurd like a team is more likely to have a multi-run inning when there is a leadoff walk than a leadoff home run, and I just have to shake my head. As for Joe Buck, he pretty much just sucks the life and enthusiasm out of everything. He hates fun, wouldn’t have this job without his dad, and needs to fade into the oblivion of calling arena football and college softball. I can’t stand him. How anyone could put him on a best list is just mind blowing.

Jim Gray, Dick Enberg, and Dick Stockton round out the list of people who are considered both the best and the worst. I’ve thought that Jim Gray was an asshole ever since he confronted Pete Rose, and nothing is going to change that. I’m completely ambivalent towards both Enberg and Stockton.

I just don’t understand how these people ended up being on both lists. How is there a middle ground here? Like, I understand that when Joe Morgan is talking about the mechanics of hitting he is bearable. But at any other point he makes me like baseball a little bit less. Seriously, Yahoo did just a flat out terrible job.

Lunch break thoughts

I don’t know what’s wrong with the internet, but it’s a lot less interesting today than it is on most days. Drudge is on some crusade against STD prevention, probably because he has herpes (I think this qualifies as breaking a news story. Suck it, Matt), the Democrats are passing around a petition trying to get Rush Limbaugh to admit to being an asshole, or something like that, the Flyers lost last night and I don’t want to hear about the Superbowl, so sports are out, and no one has published anything about dinosaurs. And of course this happens on the day where I have like an hour and a half between classes, and no assignment to read.

Right now insanity is swirling around me; I’m surrounded by some of the weirdest conversations imaginable: the composition of fruit roll ups, jumping out of moving cars (evidently today is a bad day to be driving without a license), the timelessness of the Macarena, which Word automatically capitalizes, and the merits of being an idiot savant.

There’s a ton of snow and ice and slush on the ground, public and parochial schools in the city are closed, and I’m sitting in a classroom. Even schools in fucking St. Louis are closed. (Fuck you, Dick) I’m really struggling to understand why I have to be here today. Hell, we have a guest speaker coming in anyway, and he’s going to be talking about arbitration. Unless he brings up Ryan Howard in the first couple sentences, my attention span will be tested.

Henrik Zetterberg signed a 12 year, 72 million dollar contract extension today. He could have gotten a hell of a lot more money if he had waited until the summer, but he’s pretty much guaranteed a handful of Stanley Cups before he retires. But he’s already got a bunch, so it’s doubtful they’re worth the $25 million dollars he probably left on the table. That’s like 125 flights on Virgin Galactic, he’s missing out.

So you know what makes law school suck? I’ll start a day thinking that if I can get al my reading done early I’ll have time to work on outlines for finals. This is terrible. No one should ever be excited by the prospect of finishing work early to do more work. I feel like law school sucks the humanity out of people. But yeah, I’ll be working on an outline for torts tonight. Fuck.

Sportscenter really sucks. I mean, it was groundbreaking and all that years ago, but now they’re all about stories and shit like that. Brett Favre, TO, Radomski, Torre, all that crap, and I don’t care. Why can’t they show more highlights. They’ll show basketball, and like ten minutes of hockey, and if there’s a major they’ll throw in tennis or golf. But what about other cool stuff? Maybe show more soccer; Beckham scored for Milan, maybe they could show some Serie A. What about like Rugby, or lacrosse, or ping-pong? Chinese people are crazy at ping-pong, and I would like to see more of that. They could even get really weird, like have some Jai Alai footage. What about Eddie Feigner? Yeah, he’s dead now, but he could throw a softball triple digits, underhand. In his prime he struck out Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Willie McCovey, Harmon Killebrew, all of whom are hall of famers. Hell, he threw 238 perfect games. That’s insane. And I doubt he was ever mentioned on ESPN. But TO is getting a reality show. Fuck him.

Ahmadinejad is saying that the US must apologize to Iran. I know that Hillary Clinton won’t do it, but I’m pretty sure she would lock up presidential successor if she goes to a joint news conference with Ahmadinejad and says, “The United States would like to sincerely apologize to Iran… for you all being a bunch of dickheads.” Then we let Israel bomb the hell out of them, enabling the US to win the game of Middle Eastern tic-tac-toe that we’ve evidently been playing for the past eight years.

I’m pretty sure that the other day was the first time that I wrote “President Obama.” That’s cool and all, but I think I may be more excited for Bush’s post-Presidency years. I really hope that he can just be a cool guy. Now that he’s out of office, I want Bush to be the guy that headbutted David Tyree, dodged shoes, and threw a strike while wearing a bulletproof vest. I want him to say outrageous things, and just not care about it. Most of all, in light of Fred Wilpon losing a ton of money to Bernie Madoff, I really want Bush to buy the Mets. Not only would he be in a public spotlight, but he would probably deport Santana and Reyes, and Wright would somehow end up in Iraq. Someone needs to make this happen.

Class starts in eight minutes, and it’s looking like a lot of people are going to be skipping. I think there’s a pretty good chance that the guest speaker doesn’t show up, and because no one has done the reading for Friday the real teacher just lets us go. Actually, I know that there’s no way that happens, but it would be cool if it did. Probably going to have to roll out the pistratica to get through this class.

I really wish that someone would invent like an eye implant that lets you transmit what you’re seeing to someone else instantaneously. Like, I understand that there are camera phones and crap, but some of the really absurd things that I’ve seen would need to be passed along less obtrusively that they allow. I just think it would be cool, and practical.

Ugh, the speaker is here, I might as well post this and get ready for what is sure to be a riveting hour and a half.

Vatican City Exports: Coins, Stamps, Stupidity

So this has been a pretty big weekend for the Holy See to say and do dumb things. More than most weekends, I swear.

First, a senior Vatican official predictably criticized President Obama for once again permitting government funding for family planning groups that operate outside of the United States. That’s fine, that’s their belief and everything, but, well, he said some dumb things, calling this “the arrogance of someone who believes they (sic) are right.” I guess this is somehow different from the arrogance of the Church in telling people not to vote for pro-choice politicians because the Church believes it is right. Or maybe not? Whatever, fuck them.

The Pope must have decided that he couldn’t let any of his subordinates steal the dumbass spotlight from him, though, so he did stuff too. Most notably, he reinstated four bishops who had been excommunicated by John Paul II. The bishops, members of the Society of St. Pius X, an utterly forgettable Pope who’s notable only because he chose the same name as Pius IX and rejected any form of modernization, were excommunicated because some French guy made them Bishops, not the Pope. Whatever, if Benedict is cool with that, fine, I’d have no problem with papal primacy being slightly diminished. I don’t even care that they oppose the Second Vatican Council, which is one of the only things the Church has done right in a really long time. But one of the guys refutes the Holocaust. Despite pretty much everything pointing the other way, this dumbass is siding with people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in saying that Hitler didn’t have a deliberate policy to kill Jews. And now he’s a Bishop again. What the hell, how is this ok? Shouldn’t this guy be in a Pius XII society instead? And does Benedict really think that this guy is going to shepherd souls into Heaven? Ugh, I guess this is what happens when the Pope was a member of the Hitler Youth. How close are we to opening Mass with "In nomine Patris, et Fuhrer, et Spiritus Sancti?"

Back to Blogging

Here are a couple thoughts that I’ve had over what turned into a four-day weekend:

The big event, clearly, was the inauguration, and there are a couple things that have stuck with me about it.

First, is it just me, or have all the white talking heads pretty much decided that racism is over now? Um, that’s not their call. I guess it’s cool having a black President, but I’m more excited about having a smart President. Seriously, he even says “nuclear” correctly, this is thrilling.

Can we not call Obama the 44th President? He’s not, he’s the 43rd President, serving the 44th Presidency. Just because Grover Cleveland served nonconsecutive terms doesn’t make him the 22nd and 24th President. He’s just the 22nd President, and he also had the 24th Presidency. He’s not nearly an important enough President to have screwed up this numbering system so badly, let’s stop double counting him.

The worst thing about this inauguration is that it’s been completely dominating the news. It’s like nothing else is happening. Last week there were stories about methane-spewing organisms on Mars. This week, nothing fun. Well, Obama is in office now, let’s shift our focus back towards outer space. Thanks.

I watched SportsCenter this morning, and have been regretting it ever since. I don’t know who the anchor was, but she was terrible. She managed to screw up the pronunciation of Daniel Carcillo’s last name. Just say what’s there. And I don’t even want to get into how badly she and the other anchor were butchering “Luongo.”

Claude Lemieux played last night, and had a handful of hits and shots in about seven minutes of ice time. Whatever, I don’t think anyone is really expecting much from him in the regular season, but he’s a monster in April and May. Seriously, he scored more goals in the playoffs than he scored in the regular season three times. February 25th should be a good time though, Sharks at Redwings.

Ryan Howard wants $18 million, the Phillies are offering $14 million, and this arbitration hearing could get ugly. He’s going to talk about the ridiculous RBI totals he put up, which is dumb, but it will sway the arbiter. He isn’t worth more than Chase Utley; if San Francisco would give us Matt Cain and Buster Posey for him, I would make that trade in a heartbeat. I’d probably do it just for Cain. I wish I had a baseball team to run.

The kid that sits in the row in front of me has been wearing Ravens stuff pretty consistently this year. Today? Orioles hat. I can’t wait for opening day.

I still have trouble wrapping my head around contracts being represented by the letter K. Why not C? Or even some Greek letter? K is a bad choice.

I want to have solar systems named after me. Lots of them, like how a ton of cities were named after Alexander the Great. I have a plan for that too, and I think it’s going to work. Once it gets further along I’ll disclose more details. It’s brilliant, trust me.

Finally, if you find yourself bored for like ten minutes, look up the text for Daniel Webster’s Second Reply to Hayne, it’s a great speech.

I'll shoot your eye out

To start, let’s make one thing very clear: I’m all for ridiculing stupid children. People do dumb things all the time, and I usually end up thinking less of them for it. I’ve never really differentiated between children and adults, because most adults are just as dumb as children. But there’s a line between ridiculing a kid for doing something dumb and writing an article about it for some news channel’s website. That’s unnecessary.

Here’s the story, which I found at Keith Law's site: to summarize, a ten-year-old boy, on a dare, licked a frozen light pole. His tongue got stuck, and ambulance came, and the boy pulled his tongue off with a little bleeding. And, unfortunately, this all happened in the town that the town in A Christmas Story was based on.

Yeah, that this kid did this was pretty stupid. But seriously, why did someone decide that this was worthy of being reported as real news? Israelis are Palestinians are blowing each other up, a new President is being inaugurated in less than a week, Russia is probably doing something badass right now, and WKYC is reporting on a kid licking a light pole. Fuck them, that’s like the most base, common denominator garbage imaginable.

Of course, this article is listed in the Watercooler section of the site. Are they suggesting that working adults should stand around making fun of a ten year old? Is that what working people do, like is that regular practice? I mean, not to be a dick, but maybe if people in Cleveland focused more on their jobs and less on dumb kids licking light poles I wouldn’t have had to hear for months about how shitty Ohio’s economy is.

Also, here’s a unrelated bit of stupidity from between Contracts and Civil Procedure. Speaking about a kid who’s been absent all week, a dumbass, completely seriously, said, “What if Chavez was never here? What if he’s just a figment of our imagination?” Yeah, that’s more likely than him being sick.

EDIT: The Chicago Tribune has picked up this story now. I'm pretty sure it's decisions like this that have forced them to file for bankruptcy.

Fred Barnes: Mildly Retarded?

He sure is making the case that he is, in this, er, defense of Bush's presidency. Yeah, I read an article from the Weekly Standard. I knew it was a bad idea, and I did it anyway. Consider this my penance:

The postmortems on the presidency of George W. Bush are all wrong. The liberal line is that Bush dangerously weakened America's position in the world and rushed to the aid of the rich and powerful as income inequality worsened.

Meh, sounds about right to me.

That is twaddle.

So’s your face!

Conservatives--okay, not all of them--have only been a little bit kinder. They give Bush credit for the surge that saved Iraq, but not for much else.

Wow, I guess Bush was finally able to forge a consensus between the left and right. They agree he sucked.

He deserves better. His presidency was far more successful than not. And there's an aspect of his decision-making that merits special recognition: his courage.

Well, I guess he’s agile. That’s pretty cool. Does that count as a success?

Time and time again, Bush did what other presidents, even Ronald Reagan, would not have done and for which he was vilified and abused. That--defiantly doing the right thing--is what distinguished his presidency.

Doing things that other Presidents wouldn’t have done does not make him a good President. It probably makes him a bad President. If Presidents like Jackson or Washington or FDR or (fine) even Reagan wouldn’t do something, it probably isn’t a good idea.

Bush had ten great achievements (and maybe more) in his eight years in the White House, starting with his decision in 2001 to jettison the Kyoto global warming treaty so loved by Al Gore, the environmental lobby, elite opinion, and Europeans. The treaty was a disaster, with India and China exempted and economic decline the certain result. Everyone knew it. But only Bush said so and acted accordingly.

Well, I can’t argue with this one, agreeing to the Kyoto Accords would have been a terrible idea, it was pretty much just a bunch of countries coming together and saying “fuck you, America.” But he didn’t go far enough; yeah, he didn’t join Kyoto, but he didn’t do anything else. For rejecting Kyoto to be ruled a success, he would have needed to follow it up with something else, some other, better, environmental agreement. But he didn’t.

He stood athwart mounting global warming hysteria and yelled, "Stop!" He slowed the movement toward a policy blunder of worldwide impact, providing time for facts to catch up with the dubious claims of alarmists. Thanks in part to Bush, the supposed consensus of scientists on global warming has now collapsed. The skeptics, who point to global cooling over the past decade, are now heard loud and clear. And a rational approach to the theory of manmade global warming is possible.

And I guess this is why: he still doesn’t believe in global warming. You know who else doesn’t believe in global warming? The Russians. Some Russian scientists are claiming that we’re actually about to enter another ice age, pointing to how cyclical that has been. But, um, Russian scientists tried to make a human-ape chimera, so, well, fuck them.

Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved American lives. How many thousands of lives? We'll never know. But, as Charles Krauthammer said recently, "Those are precisely the elements which kept us safe and which have prevented a second attack."

I’m pretty much ok with the secret prisons and the humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Seriously, fuck those guys. But domestic wiretapping? That’s such a ridiculous violation of civil liberties I can’t imagine anyone calling it a success. We can’t just ignore things like the Bill of Rights; the Taliban didn’t have a Bill of Rights either, and they’re not the best government role model.

Crucial intelligence was obtained from captured al Qaeda leaders, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with the help of waterboarding. Whether this tactic--it creates a drowning sensation--is torture is a matter of debate. John McCain and many Democrats say it is. Bush and Vice President Cheney insist it isn't.

I don’t really care about whether waterboarding is torture or not, but just looking at who believes it is, and who says it isn’t, I’m inclined to say that it just might be. Seriously, I think you could be a pretty good person if you lived your entire life doing the opposite of what Dick Cheney would do, almost like the Costanza Method.

In any case, it was necessary. Lincoln once made a similar point in defending his suspension of habeas corpus in direct defiance of Chief Justice Roger Taney. "Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" Lincoln asked. Bush understood the answer in wartime had to be no.

I think the biggest difference between the two was that Lincoln regretted the suspension, while Bush reveled in it.

Bush's third achievement was the rebuilding of presidential authority, badly degraded in the era of Vietnam, Watergate, and Bill Clinton. He didn't hesitate to conduct wireless surveillance of terrorists without getting a federal judge's okay. He decided on his own how to treat terrorists and where they should be imprisoned. Those were legitimate decisions for which the president, as commander in chief, should feel no need to apologize.

Where Bush didn’t do enough with Kyoto, here he went too far. A strong executive branch is important, but Bush crippled the other two branches, destroying the system of checks and balances that is so important to this form of government. And that was shown to be a terrible thing with the wiretapping. Bush didn’t only decide how to treat terrorists, he also decided who was a terrorist, and that was overstepping his authority.

Defending, all the way to the Supreme Court, Cheney's refusal to disclose to Congress the names of people he'd consulted on energy policy was also enormously important. Democratic congressman Henry Waxman demanded the names, but the Court upheld Cheney, 7-2. Last week, Cheney defended his refusal, waspishly noting that Waxman "doesn't call me up and tell me who he's meeting with."

Seriously, are there more than like five people in the country that don’t think Dick Cheney is an asshole?

Achievement number four was Bush's unswerving support for Israel. Reagan was once deemed Israel's best friend in the White House. Now Bush can claim the title. He ostracized Yasser Arafat as an impediment to peace in the Middle East. This infuriated the anti-Israel forces in Europe, the Third World, and the United Nations, and was criticized by champions of the "peace process" here at home. Bush was right.

I have no problem with supporting Israel, and they’re really in a shitty situation, but unswerving? I don’t think it’s a good thing to turn a blind eye to whatever Israel does; if we’re going to support them, there should be some accountability.

He was clever in his support. Bush announced that Ariel Sharon should withdraw the tanks he'd sent into the West Bank in 2002, then exerted zero pressure on Sharon to do so. And he backed the wall along Israel's eastern border without endorsing it as an official boundary, while knowing full well that it might eventually become exactly that. He was a loyal friend.

How is this good? It seems like Sharon just did whatever the hell he felt like. That sure makes the US look good.

His fifth success was No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the education reform bill cosponsored by America's most prominent liberal Democratic senator Edward Kennedy. The teachers' unions, school boards, the education establishment, conservatives adamant about local control of schools--they all loathed the measure and still do. It requires two things they ardently oppose, mandatory testing and accountability.

If all these groups are against it, groups that are often opposed, maybe it’s not the best measure.

Kennedy later turned against NCLB, saying Bush is shortchanging the program. In truth, federal education spending is at record levels. Another complaint is that it forces teachers to "teach to the test." The tests are on math and reading. They are tests worth teaching to.

Seriously, as an idea, it’s fine, but you can’t say that it hasn’t been underfunded. We may be spending more on education at a federal level than ever before, but what about local levels? This is just misdirection on the part of some neocon dipshit trying to rescue Bush’s legacy. NCLB clearly isn’t working; yeah, we’re testing math and reading, but kids aren’t exactly doing well on those tests. Seriously, kids are pretty stupid. This isn’t working.

Sixth, Bush declared in his second inaugural address in 2005 that American foreign policy (at least his) would henceforth focus on promoting democracy around the world. This put him squarely in the Reagan camp, but he was lambasted as unrealistic, impractical, and a tool of wily neoconservatives. The new policy gave Bush credibility in pressing for democracy in the former Soviet republics and Middle East and in zinging various dictators and kleptocrats. It will do the same for President Obama, if he's wise enough to hang onto it.

I’m sure this would be great if it weren’t a lie. While on the one hand Bush is supporting democracy in Georgia, he seems pretty content in dealing with a regressive monarchy in Saudi Arabia. It’s all about money, government type is irrelevant.

The seventh achievement is the Medicare prescription drug benefit, enacted in 2003. It's not only wildly popular; it has cost less than expected by triggering competition among drug companies. Conservatives have deep reservations about the program. But they shouldn't have been surprised. Bush advocated the drug benefit in the 2000 campaign. And if he hadn't acted, Democrats would have, with a much less attractive result.

I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know anything about this. But you have to love the partisan hackery of assuming that Democrats would do a worse job.

Then there were John Roberts and Sam Alito. In putting them on the Supreme Court and naming Roberts chief justice, Bush achieved what had eluded Richard Nixon, Reagan, and his own father. Roberts and Alito made the Court indisputably more conservative. And the good news is Roberts, 53, and Alito, 58, should be justices for decades to come.

Ugh, I guess Bush and his acolytes would view this as a success. I think it’s more nauseating, especially Alito.

Bush's ninth achievement has been widely ignored. He strengthened relations with east Asian democracies (Japan, South Korea, Australia) without causing a rift with China. On top of that, he forged strong ties with India. An important factor was their common enemy, Islamic jihadists. After 9/11, Bush made the most of this, and Indian leaders were receptive. His state dinner for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 was a lovefest.

Um, the US already had strong ties with all those countries. And Bush made things a hell of a lot worse with North Korea, and made Pakistan dangerously unstable. But I’m sure that was a hell of a dinner.

Finally, a no-brainer: the surge. Bush prompted nearly unanimous disapproval in January 2007 when he announced he was sending more troops to Iraq and adopting a new counterinsurgency strategy. His opponents initially included the State Department, the Pentagon, most of Congress, the media, the foreign policy establishment, indeed the whole world. This makes his decision a profile in courage. Best of all, the surge worked. Iraq is now a fragile but functioning democracy.

Um, the surge wouldn’t have even been necessary if he hadn’t fabricated reasons for going to war, and then completely botched everything that came after steamrolling the Iraqi army. Basically, Bush fucked up hardcore, repeatedly, and then did something well that brought us back to where we would have been if he had only fucked up hardcore a few times, and this guy is congratulating him for it.

How does Bush rank as a president? We won't know until he's judged from the perspective of two or three decades. Hindsight forced a sharp upgrading of the presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Given his achievements, it may have the same effect for Bush.

Um, yeah, I guess hindsight is important, but if I were to guess, I would say he’s going to find himself in the company of Buchanan and Hoover, regardless of how many apologies Fred Barnes writes.