Easy There Icarus

I think all of Boston needs to cool down a tad in the aftermath of the big Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford signings. Are they really that impressive?

Gonzalez could be but he's been playing in a zero pressure environment in what is essentially a quadruple A baseball. It vaguely reminds me of the Giambi signing by the Yankees. He may hit a lot of homers but I seriously doubt he goes into the pantheon of hitters. They didn't sign Pujols.

Crawford is also an above average player but should the Yankees care much that he plays for Boston? They've had to deal with him for years in TB, when he was in a better lineup. His biggest attribute is wrecking the base paths but Posada can't throw anybody out, fast or slow.

Let's break down the team and see if we can pencil in a 100 wins a World Series trip:

OF- Ellsbury, Crawford and Drew. Good defensively, fast, not tons of power, nobody that scares you at the plate. I'm still not sure Ellsbury doesn't suck out loud.

IF-Gonzalez, Youk, Scutaro and Pedroia. pretty good, not great. Scutaro sucks, Pedroia is ok but injury prone and ripe for flash in the pan status. Gonzo should love the short porch in right and Youk has seen better days. Put it this way, would you rather have these four or A-Rod, Jeter, Cano and Tex?

C-Holy god, Saltalamacchia and Varitek. Neither one should be starting in the AL.

SP-Lester and Buchholz are solid but Beckett, Dice-K and Lackey are serious question marks. lackey would love to be a question mark instead of washed up.

RP-Thank god they didn't trade Papelbon! Otherwise the far superior Bard would have been closing games and been unhittable. Paps gives everyone a chance.

DH-Did Ortiz get those "Dominican Vitamins" in the mail yet? Seriously.

Overall, the Red Sox should be really good but you'd think Dunkin Donuts was having a 2 for 1 sale with how excited Bostonians are. Lets not forget that it's the same team that finished third in the AL East with a faster outfielder and more power at first. That's an upgrade but that O is still weak and one injury puts them right back into the pathetic mode they were in last year.

Meh & Double Meh

I'm actually kind of glad that the Yankees didn't sign Cliff Lee.

Signing a 33 yr. old pitcher for seven years is an iffy proposition. After all, lee has only had 3 real good years and a couple horrific ones. Last year, he lost 2 games in the World Series and was generally hittable by everyone except the Yankees. Why pay 138 million for a guy who's 2 years away from being Andy Pettitte?

Furthermore, the Yankees are old. Real old. At some point they need to try and get some exciting young blood in there. Zack Greinke fits that bill but I'm not sure they should trade a real catching prospect for a guy who was being treated for personality disorders in Kansas City. I'm guessing there might be a wee bit more pressure in the Bronx than there was in KC. Guy might just have a Charles Whitman-esque breakdown and start picking people off from Monument Park.

Besides, do you really want a guy on your team that is "really excited" to be going to Philadelphia? No way.

Reason #1,287,043

As if we needed any more proof that the West's philanthropic efforts in Africa go largely unrewarded, Sudan rounded up a bunch of women protesting the government.

Arresting protesters and limiting free speech is bad enough but the fact that they were protesting the very public flogging of a woman being punished for wearing pants is far worse.
Gotta love that sharia law. Feel free to read up here then take a rape shower.

How long do we continue this charade regarding Africa? Rather than actually try and correct the political, social and economic problems they have over there, we just keep dropping off bags of food and mosquito nets.

Thank god everybody is well fed and malaria free. Can you imagine how hard it is to rape and ethnic cleanse without three solid a day? Rough sledding.

We need to stop this middle of the road nonsense and go to one of the extremes. Option one would be to just do nothing and let this mix of poverty, ignorance and intolerance destroy itself. That may sound extreme but it would be extremely effective and cheap. The second path would be to organize a massive, UN approved, world wide participated military campaign to go in, clean out (kill) all of the people who think wearing pants is a floggable offense for women. Or anyone who thinks public flogging is a good idea. We should do a similar thing here, incidentally. Whenever they do a Turn in Your Guns for Raider Tickets event, they should just arrest everyone who shows up.

Whatever way we pick would be sufficient. All the world is doing now by dropping off food and medicine but no security is making sure that the rapists and death squads have an extra spring in their step. No need to continue down that path.

Politically Nuts and Retard Strong

Thank god we have lame duck Congressional sessions. Otherwise we wouldn't get to witness the spectacle taking place now.

It's been amusing to watch the reaction to the supposed "compromise" on the tax rates that has been revealed this week. Republicans are in danger of dislocating some elbows if they keep patting themselves on the back. I'm sure they hope no one notices that all they achieved was keeping income taxes level for the next 2 years while agreeing to only a 35% increase in the death tax and another extension of government sponsored vacation time. Maybe once all the conservatives who won elections this year get to Congress, we can talk about more tax cuts and an across the board slashing of the budget. Dreams do occasionally happen.

Liberals have gone absolutely bat shit loco, proving themselves to be liars and hypocrites in the process. I realize that sticking it to small business owners and relatively successful people is a liberal tradition but is it really worth all this strife? Besides, after screwing people with money, the second most popular liberal pastime is getting people on/keeping people on welfare. With another extension some people will be able to be on government sponsored sabbatical for nearly three years. After that long not working, I'm sure their brains will just be mushy enough to vote democrat. I think more liberals need to focus on the death tax. If they were honest enough to admit/intelligent enough to understand, they would realize that the death tax is the pinnacle of liberal belief. Multiple taxation! The money is taxed when it's first earned, then numerous times as it's invested routinely in the process of wealth creation, then one more big tax just because you happen to die before you could blow it all in Vegas on working girls and buffets. The same dollars are taxed a minimum of 3 times and possibly many more. Liberals rejoice!

Either way, we have been told that the best thing to come from this tax plan was that it would stabilize the economy as people and business owners would know what to expect. After being given this dose of political Xanex, it's believed that business may try and grow finally as they can make some reasonable plans for the future. This growth would conceivably help the fed start to dig out of its massive debt-hole, as low taxes increase government receipts.

How did liberals in Congress decide to celebrate this nerve calming, responsibility restoring move? By trying to pass the DREAM Act baby! Yeah!

What is the DREAM Act, you ask? Simple. If you're an illegal alien (or de facto Americans as leftists now call them) and you volunteer for the military or enroll in college, you get a clear path to citizenship. Leftists somehow claim this isn't amnesty. This is laughable since their are schools out there (and there will be more is this passes) that anybody with a credit card can get into. And really, how expensive is one class? Especially with all the minority scholarships and student aid available, there is going to be a flood of illegals entering diploma factories if this takes effect. If this bill covers junior colleges we might as well just grant amnesty immediately and save the farce of going to school, most JC's are glorified High Schools, the 13th grade.

Just as a side bar, with all this focus on getting illegals into school, there must be some provision to learn English right? Nope. I guess speaking English isn't needed for attending college in the United States. Awesome.

Back to Congress. It's nice of them to show exactly why we are in financial Armageddon. The biggest reason we're broke is entitlement programs. After reaching a deal that will save people money through income tax rates but that doesn't fundamentally alter the entitlement payout to collection ratio, Congress immediately tries to pass a bill to allow millions of new people to take advantage of American entitlement programs. Brilliant. Why not just lower the retirement age to 50 and up the MediCaid threshold to families making less than $ 200,000. Clearly Congressional liberals (and 8 Republicans, including Delaware "moderate" Mike Castle) didn't get the message during the election. Hopefully the Senate was listening more clearly.

Maybe when the new Congress gets sworn in, we can pass a bill doing away with lame duck sessions altogether.

Ditch the Bucket, Grab A Lifejacket

The Good Ship Lolly-Bron is a sinkin in Miami.

The Heat are only 9-8, Wade has sucked all year, non-hype machine roll players like Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller are hurt, Juwan Howard got himself into a fight against the horrible Wizards and LeBron is bumping into the coach all over the place while his crew let it be known how unhappy Bron-Bron is with Coach Spolestra.

Right, like the Coach had anything to do with this debacle. This abortion was orchestrated by Wade, approved by LeBron and date raped by Chris Bosh. Everyone seemed to think that the Heat would be able to outscore everybody and that their nonexistent inside game and defense wouldn't be an issue. Actually, calling any defense that features Joel Anthony in the middle is worse than nonexistent. It's actually worse than just playing with only four guys.

While everyone saw the frontline as being junior college level, nobody saw Dwayne Wade turning into a matador. He's been getting torched all year by scrubs. The only way you can cover up Joel Anthony is to keep guys from getting to the paint. So far, the Miami paint has been more crowded than the Gold Club on two-for-one night. Easier to score in too.

All of this might not be a problem except that Wade and LeBron can't play together. Everybody thinks that trading Bosh is the way to go to get things back on track but that doesn't help the Wade/Bron problem. What they need to do is see if they can turn Wade into an Anderson Varejo type player. Hell, Cleveland might even take Wade for Varejo and Williams. Wouldn't that be ironic.

Miami is going to have to do something quick because LeBron's tit bump of the Coach was just a shot across the bow of the organization. The days of the Do Anything for the Team/Organization LeBron are gone. He's gone full heel, sacrificed his reputation and historical legacy. He's not interested in being a team player. If he's going to not be winning a championship (or seven) then he's going to want to be a stat machine and own that team. Coach Spo was just the first guy to be thrown overboard the Good Ship. Next comes Wade, blaming injuries, the media and finally Riley.

Should be good times for the rest of us, especially if you live in Los Angeles, Boston or Orlando.

More Fake Outrage

Liberals are in a mighty uproar these days about the WikiLeaks document dump releasing memos that are embarrassing to Obama and his minions.

The response has been nothing short of ridiculous as many Congressmen have called for criminal charges to be brought against the website or even to have them be labeled a "Terrorist Organization". Clearly we've lost sight of what terrorism is. Good to know that the Saudi's want us to bomb Iran and that the Communist Chinese are terrified of Pelosi's economic plan. Now I agree with the Saudi royal family and the Red China Politburo. Only in Obama's America. I'm officially in a cold sweat.

One guy who isn't sweating the release is free swinging Italian leader Silvio Burlesconi. All the release did was alert the world that the 70 year old media billionaire likes to hire the upper crust of hookers to throw lavish sex parties glorifying himself. I think the Italian Constitution institutes you King for Life if the world collectively recognizes you as orgy throwing king of industry.

Anyway, liberals have no reason to be upset about this as they are the ones who paved the road for this. We all remember the Pentagon Papers, yes? That was certainly an intel leak of larger proportions. The leaks about Gitmo, CIA black cites or anything against Bush? Yes we all remember those. Attacks organized by the left, leaking sensitive intel for the sole purpose of hurting Republicans. Now you want to cry foul because your getting bit by your own snake? Tough. You made this bed, now you can lie in it.

Just make sure Burlesconi isn't around.

Peace, Love and Holy Sh*t!

Long time hippie legend and one time Dylan love receptacle Joan Baez has made her way into the news again.

It had been a while since I had heard anything from the former Blowin in the Winder and I had assumed she had mosied on up to heaven to check the environmental protection reports in Paradise. Apparently, she's still here on our glorious blue marble trying her best to get me to do a spit take on my keyboard at work.

It seems as if Mrs. Baez has spent the time since her 60's heyday and the present whipping together a masterful, wall-less treehouse, 20 plus feet above the ground somewhere on her property. Why wall-less you would ask? So she can sleep with "real birds" of course.

While I can appreciate the allure of sleeping with nature sounds (I myself enjoy a soothing wave machine) I must question the architectural and psychological decision to build something that high off the ground without walls, if it was to be slept in. Nevertheless, I'm not rich, have never done acid and don't much give a crap about communing with nature so perhaps I'm not in the right to judge how a person chooses to show their love of the great outdoors.

Sadly, nature herself chose not to reciprocate that love today.

It seems that Mrs. Baez was up in her Walden-esque hideaway, attempting to soak in the great outdoors when she somehow managed to fall from her perch where only the ground, as cold and as hard as only a callous lover can be, greeted her with a thud, causing minor injuries.

Thankfully, she seems to have made it out without any major pain. Not a bad feat for a 69 year old whose ridden some hard miles. The fact that she didn't hurt herself also takes a story from potentially tragic to absolutely hysterical. You would think that a person so committed to the environment might generate a little good will from Mother Earth. Those big ravens from Dumbo should've been around to catch her on the descent. Maybe the grass could've grown a bit plusher. Maybe the Irony Gods just wouldn't allow it.

Sadly, I'm sure the tumultuous fall gathered as much notice by the Earth as a duck feather landing on an elephant. Let not there be a lesson lost however. All you young hippies in California should take notice at this possible calamity. You can commune with squirrels as easy as you can birds. Lets build those tree forts a little closer to the ground next time or were going to have send the Agriculture Departments Rural Development squad out there to write you people up.

The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth

I hope when the baseball takes its place next to boxing and horse racing as historical national pastimes that whoever writes the obituary mentions how sabermetrics and moneyball helped speed the process along.

Felix Hernandez won the AL Cy Young Award today despite have -3 wins for a terrible Mariners team. Stat geeks crowed with pride about how the most useless of stats, wins, was finally overlooked in favor of their geek ball stats, such as xwins. They claimed that such a thing would never have happened in the 80's as the voters focused on wins and meaningful games pitched.

Before I trash sabermetrics in general, let me take on the idea of King Felix's win. He absolutely deserved it and everyone, everyone, knows it. The infuriating part is that you don't need sabermetrics to know it. All of the conventional stats show he was dominant and his run support explained the wins. And, should that fail, you could trust your own lying eyes, which made it plain as day that Felix dominated every time out while CC Sabathia was lucky to get his fat ass through 6 innings most nights and that David Price was extremely hittable. If the writers back in the 80's wouldn't have noticed that then that's a condemnation of them and their stupidity and laziness. Don't try and use the shortcoming of your journalistic forefathers to justify your love of useless statistics.

This is the basic problem with these geeks though, they need a number to tell them what anybody who knows the sport can see with their own eyes. Sometimes the numbers can also be used to try and convince themselves that what they see isn't what they see. Take this years Yankees. Once again, the stat heads like to use tons of pie charts and Venn diagrams to prove that Jeter isn't a very good defensive shortstop. Anybody who saw him moving around like a chilled corpse could've told you that. There are a number of stats that show how badly Jorge Posada is defensively and is now falling apart offensively as well. We all know that anyway since when Francisco Cervelli was behind the plate, teams magically didn't steal every base in sight and AJ Burnett was even able to locate the plate from time to time. What is A-Rod's VORP (Value Over Replacement Player)? Since the replacement player is Roberto Pena, I'm gonna say "a shitload". Want examples of advanced stats deluding the mind? Look no further than Nick Johnson and Javy Vassquez. Cashman was enamored with the idea of putting Johnsons ridiculously high OBP. Which would've been fine except everybody on earth knew that his one year of relative health was a fluke and that he'd spend 100 games on the DL. And he did. Javy Vasquez had himself a comeback of sorts by pitching in the pitcher friendly NL in the super crappy NL East. All the numbers looked like he could be a decent #3 or 4 and at least chew up innings. Luckily, the Yanks already had Javy for a few years and saw first hand that he was a mental midget and couldn't handle the pressure of playing in NY. Surely this first hand experience would deter them from such a stupid move. Nope, they loved the numbers and signed him anyway and history repeated itself. He couldn't even get any playoff innings. I guess there isn't a stat yet for being a mental case.

Basically, only two kinds of people need sabermetrics. The first one is people who don't really follow the sport, haven't played it, but are for some reason (fantasy league, journalist) need to find a way to develop an opinion. Fine, let the babies have their bottle. The second type of person is the worst though. These are the people, mostly in the media, who have been watching the sport for years, know the history, played it at some point in their life and are very familiar with every aspect of the game. These people use sabermetrics for one of two reasons. The first reason is that they are out of things to write/talk about and they use these goofy stats to try and stay relevant. Bush league. The second reason is that they're cowards. For whatever reason, they are so insecure about developing, expressing and defending an opinion about a player/team based solely on what their very capable eyes and traditional stats tell them, that have to try and invent all these convoluted stats to lend an aura of legitimacy to their opinions. They can bank on the fact that if they are in some kind of debate and start referencing VORP, PECOTA, PW/BFW or UZR, that whoever they are talking to will probably concede the point since the don't have their formula sheet and abacus handy.

The whole thing is a cop out. I know Sergio Mitre sucks because he sucks every time I turn the game on. I know A-Rod is better than Roberto Pena because he's clearly better every time I turn the game on. They only way these stats might be helpful is if you're trying to differentiate between two guys that suck. Comparing John Buck with Ronny Paulino or something like that. Is all this math really worth it for that? if that decision is vital to a team, they aren't making the playoffs anyway. It's time for all you stat geeks to grow up, grow a pair and stop trying to take the easy way out when it comes to forming an opinion. Do the hard work yourself and watch the games or don't get involved in the process at all. If people like you get any more sway, we won't even need to play the games anymore, we can just simulate them through a supercomputer in Bristol. That'll be exciting.

Focus On Next Year

It's just about time for us to initiate the mercy rule, call this game and get ready for camp next year because Al Qaeda has officially clinched this one.

The Mighty Obama Justice Department finally got a chance to flex it's muscles in court and prove once and for all that civilian trials of terrorists would ensure a satisfying justice for the American people. All summer during the KSM trial/tribunal debate we heard from Obama and his lackey Eric Holder how trials for terrorists were slam dunk affairs, Obama even opined that KSM would be executed. They call the idea of military tribunals unAmerican and provocative. Clearly the good people in Justice have been working hard on these cases since they haven't been prosecuting any illegal immigration or voting suppression cases. What could possibly go wrong when the might of the American legal system sets out to get one crummy terrorist the chair or life in prison?

Well, if your Ahmed Ghailani, you can get yourself acquitted of over 280 counts of murder and murder conspiracy and only get convicted of one count of non-murderous conspiracy. Sentence? 20 to life. Who are we kidding. This guy is going to be a non-violent offender in the American penal system. He's not serving life and we'll be lucky if he stays in the hole for 20. He'll probably get 10 years in the clink, 10 on probation/work release.

I'm sure Obama and Holder can somehow explain to the families of the 224 people killed in the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania why this terrorist sociopath has a good chance of breathing free air while he still has meaningful life to live (he's only 36). Maybe they can explain how getting embarrassed by this guy improves our national image to the world community.

Maybe after they get done consoling the shocked and devastated families why the guy who helped plan and execute a plot to blow their family to pieces is not a footnote to history they can start explaining why they themselves are to blame for this outcome. After all, the only reason this guy gets the golden ticket is because the judge disallowed some witnesses because they were held in facilities where waterboarding took place. You remember waterboarding, the non-torture torture? The tactic that is so harsh that Christopher Hitchens asked to have it done to him a second time because he was embarrassed by his poor showing the first time he was waterboarded while researching a story? Yeah, that's the reason this guy is free. Liberals tried so hard to get Bush arrested for war crimes that they made up this idea that waterboarding is torture just to undermine him, now that same rationale is going to be used to free or reduce the punishment for Al Qaeda members.

Should any of you liberals still try and remove your guilt in this matter by still holding on to the idea that waterboarding is torture, just remember ol Chris Hitchens asking for a second go around. I'm pretty sure if someone ripped out his fingernail, raped him or threw acid in his wife's face, he wouldn't ask for a second go around to try and restore some of his manly image. You don't ask for mulligans in torture, ever. Maybe then you can properly contemplate the disastrous consequences of your actions.

Blight of the Irish

After a short period of false hope, it turns out the Greeks were lying, the Irish were about to start lying and Portugal and Spain and trying to figure out what lie they can tell in the coming months.

This is of course in reference to the collapse of the European Union, the Euro and the restoration of bailout fever.

It seems as if the Irish have managed to bankrupt their country by buying up tons of troubled banks when they had no money. Turns out after you buy bad banks, they remain bad banks. This was good news for the Greeks who had to admit (for the second or third time now) that their debt projections are massively flawed and that they are in fact, even more in debt than was originally known or planned for. The Greeks did a nice job of sneaking their own incompetent accounting announcement in behind the Irish admission that they were in it up to their necks. Took some of the heat off. This was not so good news for Portugal and Spain, who now have to flip a coin to see who goes bankrupt next.

A reasonable person would see these developments as proof that the collective bailout model that the EU has been trying to force everyone into isn't a feasible course of action to take. Germany has recognized this and rather than throw all their money into a deep, dark pit, they have tried to force the deadbeat EU members to actually improve their budgets or get cut off from German money. Why should the Germans be punished for keeping a sound house, after all.

This predictably has enraged other EU nations who have accused the Germans of being selfish and focused only on saving their own economy. Gee, why would the German chancellor be more interested in saving Germans that Greeks, Irish or Spanish? Science may one day crack that mystery.

What this scenario does is once again put on display the problem with social welfare programs, which is what the EU is, no doubt about it. In any welfare arrangement you have two parties, the guys with the money and the guys without the money. The idea being that if the guy with the money helps out the guy without, eventually the guy without money will be able to get the ball rolling on some kind of path to independence. This is a lovely fairy tale but a fairy tale nonetheless because the hoped for transition is impossible the way these programs, the EU included, are constructed.

To get the welfare money, the guy without (in this case Greece or Ireland) must simply promise to alter a behavior that has led to their demise. The problem is that there is never any enforcement mechanism that is actually enforced. Sure, the EU had debt limits that were supposed to be adhered to but the Greeks lied to the EU, cooked the books and went straight into destitution. Were they punished? Nope, they were given a big stack of money and forced to make more worthless promises, which we now know were more lies. This is a good deal for the guy without money. He only has to promise to change, not actually change and he still gets all the money he was promised even in the face of flat out criminal behavior. Their is no incentive for the guy with no money to change the scenario and every reason for him to fight to maintain the status quo.

And what of the guy with money, in this case Germany (or France, or the Netherlands, etc.)? First of all, they never really have as much money as they say, just a fact of life that money flows out faster than you think and that government projections are notoriously rosy. The big problem is that from their end, welfare money isn't just wasted, it's actually becomes an exponential negative investment. In the simplest terms possible, what Germany has been doing is buying poverty. Wise investors like to buy assets that will increase in value over time. Property, cars, art, gold, stocks, etc. are all bought with the idea that when you want to sell them, they will be worth more than when you bought them. The difference between the price you paid and the price you sell is profit. Simple. If prices deflate for some reason and you can only sell for less than you paid, you either have to keep the asset or take a loss. Again, simple. So what is Germany buying in bailing out the Greeks and probably Irish? Just poverty. The best case scenario results in these countries becoming self sufficient. Even in that case, Germany will never get paid back the money they loaned. No country ever does. This makes the best case scenario a total loss for Germany.

Far more likely (and what is actually happening) is that the guy with money has to take an accelerated loss. Since the guy with no money isn't trying to become self sufficient (why should he when you pay for everything?) the guy with money's obligation to that country only increases because they have pledged financial support until the recipient becomes self sufficient. This never happens. What happens is that the country lending the money simply goes broke, then joins with the original country looking for a bailout of their own. You paying attention France? After all, if Germany goes broke trying to help Greece, don't they deserve bailouts more than anyone? The cycle never ends. Making matters worse is that no matter how many bailouts there are, there still isn't any tangible assets to be had. The guy who buys cars, stocks, etc. always has the option of keeping his assets and waiting for a brighter day. This isn't so bad, even if you can't sell them at least you have some houses or a couple Lambo's in the garage. What does Germany have to hold onto for a better day? Greek poverty? Given the rules in place, that's an investment that will never see a brighter day. Germany would be better of burning Euro's for heat than investing in bailouts. At least you would gain the warmth and then end the transaction rather than adopt a ward of the State that does nothing but ungratefully devour money.

What the EU is learning, far to slowly, is that any situation where the poor bleed the rich for nothing in return only ends with everybody being poor. It's like having a massive tapeworm in your stomach. Even if you want to help the tapeworm, have no grudge against the tapeworm and are willing to try and eat enough for both of you, eventually that tapeworm will strip you of the resources you need to survive leaving both of you helpless or dead. The only way this scenario can be corrected is to either get something tangible for the money you invest; or to simply disengage yourself from the process altogether. Germany is trying to institute option A by forcing the Greeks, etc. to stiffer rules for bailout money. If the rest of the EU balks to loudly at the one country with the money to help them, I suspect Germany will move to option B and close the bank doors. Germans will be fine but all the European tapeworms will be in a serious bind.

Miami Lukewarm's

Nine games into the NBA season and it's clear that the Miami Heat's recording breaking, seven title run is going to be a tough task. Breakdown!

Point Guard - Carlos Arroyo would be bad as your sixth/seventh man but if he's starting, I don't think you can win a title. After all Wade, Bron and Bosh need somebody to flow the offense. Otherwise it's way out of sync and hard for more than one guy to get involved. It looks like an international game when the US team never practiced together before the tournament started. In tonight's game, Bron goes off and D-Wade disappears.

Center - Joel Anthony. I hadn't heard of him until Miami signed him. He can't be playing meaningful minutes on any serious team. Sucks on offence, soft as Jell-O on defense. Serves no purpose other than to eat up space.

Chris Bosh - Had a pretty decent night tonight on offense but was awful on defense. You might be able to get away with this on certain teams (Nowitzki's Mav's, Stoudamire's Suns) but not when Joel Anthony is at C. This leaves the frontcourt nearly unguarded and completely outmanned on the glass. LeBron can be a lock down defender but he can't guard the whole baseline, especially when Arroyo is getting torched by opposing PG's off the dribble. Easy baskets abound. Bosh needs to do more than 15 and 7 to justify his matador D.

Chemistry - As of right now, LeBron and Wade can't play well together, especially without a real PG directing traffic. They can only really make shot opportunities for themselves, so when they try and get in the game, it has to come at the expense of the other. When one of them goes out, the team play gets far crisper. They should do line shifts like a hockey team.

Grit - Nobody on this team has any toughness. Maybe Udonis but he's a 6-7 PF who doesn't scare anybody. James, Wade and Bosh all lack any kind of rough edge. When you hear LeBron talking about how they need to be chippy, that's the sign that he can't do it. You never heard Laimbeer, Rambis, McHale or KG talking about the need to be "a little chippy" they just clotheslined people. I'm not sure other elite teams are afraid of or respect Miami at all right now.

Coaching - I didn't understand why Cleveland ran a slow offense when they had LeBron and I really don't get why Miami runs a slow O either. When you have skill guys like Wade and James who work best in open spaces and a guy like Bosh who only works at all in an up tempo game where he can focus on offense and not play so much half court D, you have to push it up the court every possession. Miami put themselves in this hole by signing human statute Ilgauskas, marginal Haslem, a washed up Eddie House and a PG who can't start or run the break. So far the result has been 2 losses to Boston where they trailed by 20.

I'm not sure what Miami can do to solve these problems. I don't think there's any way they can admit defeat and trade Bosh for size and rebounding and there isn't a pass oriented PG out there who can play any D. The only guards out there are Allen Iverson types who choke the life out of the ball, not what Miami needs. The Heat are still going to have a really good regular season record because James and Wade will feast on the plethora of awful teams in the NBA but come playoff time they won't be able hide these deficiencies, especially the horrendous D. Boston isn't exactly an offensive juggernaut and they dropped 112 on them tonight. On the road. Yikes. Miami reminds me of the Seattle Mariners in the late 90's. Good enough to win 90-100 games because they feasted on bad teams in the west but they always got trounded by the Yankees or Red Sox because they weren't dominant in any one area. Unless Wade or James really changes their game and become a magic-esque point guard/forward, I don't see how they get into the finals. They'll be like Orlando last year, sweep the hapless Atlanta Hawks then get outclassed by Boston.

FUN FACTS! - Here are some fun stat lines from tonights game(amazing it was even close):

Joel Anthony - 8 min, 0 pts., 0 reb., 0 ast., 1 pf. This guy was the starting C.

Carlos Arroyo - 10 min., 4 pts., 0 everything else. That includes assists. This guy started at PG.

D-Wade - 40 min.(!), 8 pts., 1 reb., 3 asts. James went off, so he couldn't.

Haslem - 33 min., 21 pts., 10 reb. Udonis can't be counted on to play 33 min at C. He's 6-8. KG, Dwight Howard, Big Baby will eat him up.

Z - 19 minutes, 6 pts., 6 rebs. There isn't a stat to quantify horrible D but if Z is in for 19 minutes and only giving you 6 & 6, you're screwed.

Eddie House - 13 pts., 0 asts. No assists for either PG. Nice. Rondo had 16.

Mario Chalmers - The supposed next Rondo played 5 min and racked up 1 whole rebound.

Brilliant

Only the New York Times could really be this dense.

They've put out a story detailing test scores compared along racial lines showing that only 12% of black boys in 4th & 8th grade could read compared to 38% & 44% for whites.

More troubling to the Times was the fact that income didn't play a large factor in the scores as poor white boys scored as well as the wealthiest black boys. The Times is then forced to come to:

SHOCKING CONCLUSION #1 - Cultural factors such as parenting tactics play a far larger role in determining academic success than economic factors do.

What a shock! You mean if parents don't care about school or academic success then their kids won't either? Who could've guessed that? Oh yeah, everybody who isn't an NEA member.

Aside from the fact that the NY Times seems blindsided about the importance of home life, they also completely miss the most relevant part of the story.

Only 44% of 8th grade whites can read and that's the high water mark for comparison? 44%! That's absolutely absurd! Yes there's a cultural divide between white and black kids in how they respond to education but having only 44% of 8th graders being able to read is despicable even if was 44% of the entire population.

What the Times fails to note is that the entire education system (Big Education) is failing everybody. Comparing the horrible scores of blacks to the horrible scores of whites is like comparing deer shit to bear shit. Sure, one's more impressive but they're both shit. Thankfully the Times has zeroed in on the biggest factor, parenting. Kids who do poorly in school generally have parents who don't care if they do well or not. Combine that with Union driven education policies designed to maintain the status quo, rampant waste of money and you've got the recipe for disaster.

All isn't bleak though, if a left-wing rag like the NY Times can look past their preconceived economic biases and see the failings of the family in education, then anything is possible.

Poppers For Everyone!

Now that the election is over we can all finally get back to our ridiculous debate over gay marriage.

Should it be legal, not, the same in every state or not, etc., etc.

It's all such a cluster F of hysteria that nobody can see the simplest answer of them all.

Should the government issue marriage licenses to gay couples? Of course not. They shouldn't be issued to any couples, gay or straight.

After all, marriage existed before government, it can manage just fine without it. Marriage was first a religious/societal institution that was mainly used to try and add some order and stability to society. It was a preexisting institution before the government latched onto it.

And why would the government latch onto marriage as it has and tried to regulate it?

REASON ONE: MONEY!
This is really a simple reason. Any activity that people get engaged in the government will try and regulate it for profit. When I got married the license cost $20. I'm sure some states are more, some less but no matter how you look at it, all those $20 licenses generate tons of money for the State. As does filing for divorce, divorce proceedings, premarriage blood tests, etc.

REASON TWO: PAPERWORK AND CONTROL
Marriage certificates are a great one stop shop for governmental information. It is the first piece in a long and convoluted paper trail that the government can use to keep track of what your up too. After all, the marriage license has your legal names and you need some sort of government issued ID to get one. Getting a marriage license funnels you into different tax categories, it puts a marker on you in every public database, it is the stepping stone for inheritance laws. If your SSN number announces to the government that the child you is now ready to be monitored and bureaucratized, then your marriage certificate announces the same for your adult self. In the olden days, it might be the only publicly documented paperwork a person would have attached to them in their adult lives. So government starting using it for their own reasons.

But why continue it? Whether we like it or not, (or unless we're illegal immigrants) the government tracks us from the day we are born. Our SSN's get issued in the first few weeks of birth, we have to use them constantly as ID at the Drs. office, public schools, etc. As we get older we use them for any kind of financial application, job application, college application, etc. What few things don't require your SSN, requires your drivers license. You have to submit ID everywhere you go except the voting booth. Combine that with electric record keeping and street cameras and the Gov. can find most of us at any given moment of any day. There is no legitimate reason to collect information from marriage certificates any longer, it's collected redundantly, all day, every day.

And what of the family, the keystone of the importance of the marriage certificate? There are a number of important laws regarding inheritance and estate law that hinge on the marital status. Luckily, the marriage certificate plays no part in that anymore either. All the information of that certificate is easily found on a birth certificate of any child of an adult union. The birth certificate creates the familial bond that the law sees as creating certain responsibilities on the parents, not the marriage certificate. As far as alimony, etc. goes, anybody who was unmarried or married with a mistressknows, the court can find you financially responsible for anothers lifestyle whether you have yourself a shiny certificate or not.

There isn't any one area where the government can claim that the issuance of marriage licenses is somehow necessary for State activities. The argument that they issue the certificates in the interest of promoting the family, any family, is highly suspect and hypocritical given the way the federal government has sought to destroy the family unit with destructive welfare and divorce laws. The Government cares about the family the same way a pimp cares about a whore, the only difference being that the pimp has to at least provide a work uniform.

Like most things the government horns itself into, their involvement in marriage is counterproductive and destructive. Let the churches handle it like they used to. People can get married in their own way and then get about judging everybody else for their "sham marriage". That's the way it is with all these things, there's always been churches that have "kooky" sacraments or ceremonies. People from other faiths just disregard it and move on. People only get hysterical when an official government body gets in the middle and proclaims on superior to another. Lets just end it and start fighting about legalizing weed again.

Stupid Is A Disease

Something resembling an unexplained missile launched occurred off the coast of California this morning giving all the loonies a chance to wax poetic about conspiracy theories. All the rest of us naturally curious types took note of the incident and waited for some explanation from those "in the know."

Still waiting patiently.

This is one of those times where the government was just trying to be stealthy and hide their own black actions. Instead, we get a whole bunch of people from the Armed Forces saying "Wasn't ours!" and "We have no idea what that was" and finally, "Not detected by radar."

That's awesome. I'd rather Obama was secretly planning to nuke Guam and this was the training exercise for it. Apparently, the America we live in today would rather announce to the world that you can launch a missile 35 miles of our coast and we will be shocked or; that our military is so incompetent that it's firing off missiles willy-nilly. How reassuring. How are those nukes coming in North Korea and Iran? Yeah, that's what I thought.

This really is a symptom of society as a whole though. It's amazing how many supposed adults are so willing to just throw up their hands and admit to the world how incompetent they are. Everywhere you turn there seems to be some jackass staring stupidly at a flat tire, jammed copier, etc. waiting for somebody to come help them. Did they try and solve their problem and fail thus requiring help? Nope, they just packed it in at the start, saving themselves all that opportunity for learning or dignity.

I don't recall this when I was growing up. Back then I assumed being an adult meant you were prepared to display some level of resiliency and self sufficiency. I was led to believe this because all the adults acted that way. If the dryer broke, somebody would try for a week to fix it. Even if it was unfixable, they at least had the dignity to blame it on crappy Japanese workmanship before they called the Maytag man. It would have shamed them to their peers to just be helpless in the world they lived in. Now the world is full of these impotent morons in important positions leading to a situation where a missile could possibly have been launched outside the country's second largest city and the official response is "No clue guys! Sorry, just us dipshits here!" Something tells me MacArthur or Patton wouldn't have accepted that response.

Hopefully the recent elections signal some kind of return to sanity regarding government and society. What we need next is a return to shame. We need to start keeping score and calling out people for being horrible, horrible failures. If the rest of society doesn't let these people know that they are embarrassments, how will they ever know? If they were smart enough to figure it out on their own, they wouldn't be such losers in the first place. Once we get these lightweights away from anything with sharp corners, then we'll know where those missiles were coming or going.

see the video here.

Election Night Running Diary

Oaklahoma and West Virginia SEN - Good for Tom Coburn, Yuck for Manchin. I guess the people of WV don't like mining coal. Glad there's such an abundance of jobs there.

Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina SEN - Nice job John Bozeman, Johnny Izakson, Richard Burr & Richard Shelby. I hope Blanche Lincoln fully realizes what a tool she is. I doubt it.
Deleware SEN - Bearded Marxist projected to win. 0% reported so far.

Maryland SEN - I can't imagine what Maryland is so happy with that they keep electing Barbara Mukulski. Maybe if Baltimore becomes completely unlivable they'll nominate her for President.

Florida SEN - Rubio thouroughly humiliates Crist. Awesome.

Ohio SEN - Portman Wins. Ohio is supposedly a swing state that splits the vote pretty evenly yet Portman gets the call before 1 percent of the votes are actually counted. Wave indeed.

Vermont SEN - Proving that Vermont is stickign with socialists and maple syrup no matter what the rest of us say, Pat Leahy gets reelected for his 100th Senate term.

Indiana, Kentucky and South Carolina SEN - Well that was quick. Coats, Paul and DeMint roll. I guess that Brad Ellsworth Leviathan was a myth.

A Week Out

With only a week to go before election day polling has gone from being unreliable to full on propaganda. This isn't unusual, polls typically tighten up and fluctuate the closer it gets to election day as pollster either try and produce polls to help a particular candidate or they try and get their polls more accurate so that in the end they will look legitimate. Normally these polls are a good way to track momentum (even if the numbers themselves are wrong) but there are two reasons why these polls may be less helpful than usual this year.

The first one is the increase in popularity of early voting. A late breaking trend in the polls doesn't really matter if most of the ballots have already been cast. I heard that 75% of Colorado voters would participate in some kind of early voting. If this is true, it would clearly help Senate candidate Ken Buck who has been trying to beat back withering personal attacks from Bennett and his supporters. he needs the vote to happen ASAP before the attacks diminish his profile with the voters. On the other hand, the early voting phenomenon would seem bad news for Tom Tancredo, who has been gaining late traction as a third party candidate for Governor. He needs more time to get people to abandon Republican corpse Dan Maes and not just vote for him because he's on the top line. I don't know if that 75% will turn out to be accurate but if it is, it could swing two races in opposite directions.

The second reason is how the polls are taken. Specifically the samples. Most of the polls I've seen recently that show Democratic momentum have confusing samples. Mid term elections have traditionally shown much lower turnout than Presidential years yet these polls are showing Democratic turnout not only matching 2006 mid term elections but also matching the 2008 Presidential election turnout. Given the participation of minorities and first time voters in the historic Obama election, I find it very hard to believe that that is possible. There is no way there will be so many first time voters who get caught up in a midterm election. The same polling companies that are predicting this liberal turnout also have polls showing a massive enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats with the GOP far more (60%-27% in one poll I saw) enthusiastic then the Dems. According to these polls, the youth army Obama relied on not only to vote but to work the campaigns seem to have packed up shop for this go around. One of the polls has to be wrong. If there is that wide an enthusiasm gap, then Democratic turnout can't possibly be as high the fervor in 2008 or even the turnout for the Foley/Pelosi elections in 2006.

Knowing the political leanings of the polling media, we can safely assume that the enthusiasm polls are right, making the sample sizes the culprit for fraudulent polls. Having said that, it's possible that the turnout does come in higher than anticipated. When Obama was elected, we were all told that he had motivated a new generation of young civic activists who would be involved in every election from here on out. If that's true and all the young, minority and first time voters come out to vote, then Obama can truly be called a transformational figure as the youth vote has been notoriously hard to keep motivated past any one election cycle. If the they don't come out though, that'll be the final proof needed to know that Obama the Transformational Liberal Icon is nothing but pure fantasy.

Truth In Advertising

It probably seems strange to people in the other 49 states that liberal politicians from Denver don't seem to do very well in statewide elections in Colorado. After all, Denver is by far the largest metro area in the state, with by far the most money, yet all that built in advantage hasn't added up to much success in Gubernatorial or Senate races.

Denver Mayor and wannabe CO Governor John Hickenlooper was nice enough to show us all why. In an interview, Hick was asked why the Matthew Shepard Foundation has chosen to set up offices in Denver, even though the Shepards had no connection to the area. Hick responded by saying that Denver was an open and accepting city whereas the rest of Colorado and all of rural Montana, Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico was full of backward thinking people.

You know, backward thinking like it would be a good idea to tie a man to a barb wired fence and beat him to death because he was gay.

Nice job of alienating an entire region of people Hick, many of whom you seem to need to get your next job. I'm sure all the people in Pueblo, Grand Junction, Colorado Springs, Durango, Ft. Collins, Greeley, Alamosa, etc. are just pleased as punch for you to have grouped them in to murderous hate crimes. Seems like as good an idea as a West Virginian politician comparing all his constituents to the black hats in Deliverance.

While offensive, Hick's comments proved again that behind his aw-shucks, moron persona, he's just another hyper elitist at home in Denver and Boulder and nowhere else. I'm glad he finally got a little exposure, it seemed as if he would go through the whole election without any scrutiny as the Republicans just cannibalized themselves. Aside from that embarrassing environmentalist flip flopping incident, Hick has been invisible. Now all the voters have is one nasty stereotyping message from a man who wants the state house. Just in time for the elections! Nice timing.

In a related story, Magellan released a poll that showed Tancredo within 1 point of Hick, 44%-43%, with Maes falling to 8%. That poll was taken before Hicks comments hit the press.

You think they'll make a difference?

Then They Came For The Children

Liberalism attacked both me and my kids during our nightly storytime this week, striking unprovoked, without warning or pretense, like lightning from a cloudless sky.

For our nightly story, we picked a new book that they found at the library. Everything proceeded smoothly as normal until one of the main characters got himself an idea.

And sweet Jesus what appeared over the little piggies head but a godforsaken compact fluorescent light bulb.

A COMPACT FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULB!!!

They've removed the universally known incandescent light bulb as the idea symbol. Before I continue, I must applaud the authors for authenticity, it took a full 10 pages before the idea was fully lit.

It's bad enough that we're going to have to put these stupid, ill-fitting lights in all our fixtures soon but now they are trying to convert kids to these pieces of crap. And what are they trying so hard to brainwash our kids into? A light bulb that takes a massive amount of energy to even construct? Yep. A light bulb chock full of mercury? Yep. (Apparently mercury is only a bad thing when fish absorb it. Having little grenades full of it all over your house is A-Ok.) A light bulb that is so toxic it needs special disposal so as to not pollute the soil? Yep. A light bulb that produces a massive amount of electromagnetic radiation? Yep. A light bulb that has resulted in the loss of American jobs as regular incandescent bulb plants are being shut down? You betcha. All for light bulbs that don't really use as little energy as they say? Of course.

This is exactly the reason liberals try and get kids into public schools as soon as possible, so that the NEA and their army of leftists "teachers" can start spreading ideological nonsense like this while the kids are young and influential. This particular book was for ages 2-5. If Republicans do in fact run the House and/or Senate soon, they need to stop the EPA from enforcing this nonsensical ban. The incandescent light bulb is one of histories greatest inventions, providing cheap, strong light to the masses. The CFL is a step back technologically, it's simply being pushed by a bunch of radical environmentalists that have weaseled their way into the bureaucracy and now that they're there, all they want to do is control you to whatever limit they can force down the people's throats. What better way for a new Congress to give the people a sign of good will than to allow them to maintain the quality of life they've come to enjoy in this small area?

Jefferson Shrugged

Stupidity seems to share many of the same qualities as herpes in that they are both painful, irritating and worst of all, contagious. Oh yeah, there isn't a pill you can take for either one as well.

We see that in full effect these days regarding the separation of church and state principles as discussed by such luminaries as Chris Coons and Harry Reid who have been making good sport on the campaign trail about Christine O'Donnell's assertion that there is no such provision in the U.S. Constitution. Of course she's right, anybody with a cursory knowledge of American history knows that phrase was used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to some Baptists in 1802 concerning the need for the government to leave them alone. Liberals seem to insist that it somehow is born in the First Amendment so I suppose we should analyze the possibility. Here is the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Supposedly this short passage creates an impenetrable wall that prevents any religion from entering public administration and vice versa. One way to examine this to examine all the rights in the amendment as a whole. They are:

Religion
Speech
Press
Assembly
Petition of Grievances

Now, no special language was used in the amendment signalling out religion as somehow being held to a different/higher standard than all the other rights. Therefore logic dictates that whatever wall of separation was created between State and Church must have also been created between State and the other rights.

This is of course, a ridiculous notion. The Government, fully supported by liberals, constantly interfere with free speech by restricting certain kinds of speech (campaign finance, fairness doctrine) while propping up others (NEA grants). Same goes for the press as government regularly tries to pressure media outlets to either kill stories or play up stories, depending on the desired outcome. If you think the government doesn't interfere with the freedom of assembly, try and stage a rally or protest and see the avalanche of red tape you have to maneuver just to be told no. Taking the government to court for a grievance results in the Justice Department unleashing its unlimited resources in an attempt to destroy your chances of a favorable outcome. If the State observes no wall of separation between themselves and Speech, Press, Assembly and Petition, then there isn't one between State and Religion either.

The reason liberals are so quick to mock Christine O'Donnell and others is found in two paths of reasoning. The first one is the nature of the Constitution. The First Amendment, like all the others, is not designed to limit the amount of interaction and influence the people can have on the government but is designed to limit the ability of the government to influence the people in certain areas deemed inalienable rights. Plainly put, Religions, the Press, the Courts, individuals Speaking Freely and Assembling can try and insert themselves into the affairs of the State as they wish, the State cannot do the same in return. Liberals despise being constrained in this manner. They would much rather have a founding document that forces them to do things to/for the people. Faced with these restrictions, they lash out as a child would denied access to its hearts desires. The second avenue of contention is that to liberals, government is a religion and the State is their God. Much like any other fundamentalists, liberals react angrily when any other religion/institution competes for supremacy in peoples hearts and minds. Liberals want the Ten Commandments removed from courthouses not because the Constitution commands it (it doesn't) but because they don't want any evidence that their might be an entity more supreme than themselves.

The ramifications of this mind set are appalling. The entire foundation of the United States is that humans are born with rights that are simply a birthright of existence and lie beyond the control of man or government. These are the Endowed By Our Creator rights. If liberals can succeed in removing this notion from public discourse, than the State becomes the Supreme right granting entity in existence, free to grant and remove them for whatever reasons they see fit. This the behavior that is seen in communist regimes and old feudal societies. Neither one of those entities recognizes any inherent rights of the individual. Because of that, you always see the monarch or politburo constantly changing what rights the people have based on personal relationships, monetary concerns or vendettas. No matter how these scenarios play out, they invariable lead to the terrible oppression of the people. By specifically enumerating rights that are beyond the control of government, the founding fathers attempted to prevent tyrannical government policies from being implemented. How could they imagine that the same government they created would reverse their reasoning for the First Amendment in an attempt to exclude a massive segment of society from the public arena.

If there is any doubt left, just imagine how absurd the argument would be in favor of an absolute Wall of Separation between the State and Press. If applied the same as the Church and State wall, the media would not be allowed to cover government functions, question government officials or provide any other watchdog service. The media and public in general would correctly be outraged, no doubt protesting about secrecy, police states and the nature of the representative republic. It is equally offensive the attempt to remove religion from the public sector. There is a wall of separation between Church and State but it's only one way. The government gets restricted, the religions (and the people that comprise them) get the freedom. Simple as that.

A Thousand Days Late, A Trillion Dollars Short

German Chancellor Merkel came out recently and declared that the German effort to force a multicultural society have "utterly failed".

I can only imagine the pain this admission caused the German leader along with all the other leftists who pray at the I'm Ok, You're Ok Cathedral. All these disappointed Utopians can take some measure of comfort in the fact that it's causing people on the other side pain as well, mostly from the trauma of beating our heads into the wall for all these years.

After all, any fool, but precious few Europeans, can see that offering unlimited immigration to various Muslims, Africans and Eastern Europeans who know nothing of Western European cultural values let alone the tangled mess of Germanic history is a recipe for disaster. The assumption seemed to be that once offered the full bounty of the massive EU welfare state, these immigrants would become productive European citizens, if not full blown German citizens. As is the case when governments just give out enough handouts to get by without asking for anything in return, you get poverty, isolation and unrest. You effectively import a massive new lower class that can't help to become disaffected isolationists voluntarily (sometimes not voluntarily, depending on the country) becoming segregated into ghettos that embody the worst characteristics of whatever country they were trying to escape. France's troubles with the Muslim/Algerian ghetto's are evidence of that. In addition, the natural born citizenry becomes agitated because they are forced to foot the massive welfare bill for all these new arrivals who really have no business being there in the first place.

The idea that German actually tried this nonsense is the most perplexing given the fact that they tried something similar before.

Germany had a unique position to view how hard integration is. The Berlin Wall created a divergent German culture from the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 to national reunification in 1990. People who shared the same cultural background, language, societal values split into two camps and took a 37 year hiatus from each other. During this hiatus, the principle changes were economic, changing from free market economics to a centrally planned economy. There were a number of cultural changes that went with that but East Germany still was filled with Germans. It wasn't colonized by Soviets and Cubans looking for more room to stretch their legs. Reintegrating two groups of people that shared a common heritage and culture should be pretty easy after a relatively short 37 year break from each other. We know in hindsight that the reintegration of East and West Germany has been a nightmare. East Germany had so little to offer in terms of jobs or education that they essentially became a massive welfare project for West Germany. This caused the exact same hostilities between the former East and West that is occurring between immigrants and natives today. Our historical example offers little hope for the future as the former East Germany still lags behind the former West in almost all areas of development. There is still a feel of two nations. How a country that can't successfully meld with a population of people who is exactly like them except for a 37 year split thought that they could just easily fuse with people with wildly different cultures, cultivated over thousands of years of history (which often includes a healthy distrust of Europe) is beyond all rational thought.

The only reasonable explanation is how liberals (European socialists) treat government like a religion. Religions tend to get murky and convoluted when you get down to the minute details and specifics of what the message is. The same thing happens in government. These massive socialist democracies operate under the principle that once people feel the warmth of the benevolent embrace of the State, everything will be okay. They always think that whatever problems arise will be hashed out by the proper bureaucratic institution. This ignores the fact that bureaucracies don't solve problems, the get rid of them. They are designed to address the needs of the majority of people. People who fall outside that mainstream need might get serviced through some appeal process but the system would just as easily eject them from the process. Done and done.

Once people who have been told that the system works for them realize that they've been scammed, the malaise/anger/depression sets in. They get the minimum from the State that they were promised such as crappy housing, bad health care, government cheese, etc. After that; nothing. The problem just festers and spreads until the population gets large enough to create violence on a level high enough to gain notice.

Germany didn't learn the lesson from reunification that it should have. Now that their attempt to welcome in the world has also failed, will they learn that lesson? Will the rest of Europe? Probably not. European dedication to multiculturalism is a devout as any religious fanatics is to his faith. German was always more pragmatic than the rest of Europe and they got sucked in all the way to the near collapse of the welfare state. It seems the rest of Europe will just keep going until they simply have nothing left to offer. The Dutch show signs that they might be trying to extricate themselves from this nightmare, the rest of the continent rolls along.

Ye of Little Faith

The NFL RedZone channel is starting to become a real double edged sword.

On one hand, my remote thumb is getting some well deserved rest, on the other hand, I get to see all the knuckle headed play calling near the end zone.

After 4 weeks of action I've come to the conclusion that the end zone fade is the worst play in football. it used to be called when you had a decent quarterback and a tall receiver. I'm pretty sure Randy Moss made is popular and every team tried to find a 6'4'' plus receiver just for redzone possessions.

Now it seems to be the only play coaches are comfortable calling inside the 10. It's the most predictable play in the game now and most teams suck at it! I can't even count the times I've the Broncos try a fade from the 3, just to have Orton throw it into the luxury boxes. I can't even remember the last time I saw a quick slant or TE delay. The only other play that gets as much redzone action is the abominable bubble screen.

I can only chalk this disturbing trend up to two things. First, maybe quarterbacks just suck so bad now that they can't be given the responsibility of finding the open man in close quarters. Either that or they just don't have the arm strength to do it. If it's not a physical/mental deficiency on the part of the QB's it has to be an ego trip by the coaches. I can totally believe that it gets called all the time just so the coach can dictate how, and to who, the ball will be thrown. Who do you think Josh McDaniel's trusts more, Kyle Orton or himself? Neither one should be trusted, truth be told.

No matter who's to blame, it's got to stop. It disrupts the flow of the game and makes for some seriously ugly football that leaves kickers kicking a lot of 19 yd. FG's. First coach who shows some cajones and fakes the fade and throws a hard in route gets e to officially carry the teams water for the rest of the year.

Retards, Meet Doorknob. Start F'in*

What started out as a compelling race quickly turned into a laugher but once again has changed direction is now become a real head scratcher/conundrum for Republicans.

I'm talking about the Colorado Governors race, of course.

A new poll came out this week with a stunning surge/collapse showing the Gov. nobody wants (Hickenlooper) pulling in only 44% while American Constitution Party carpetbagger Tom Tancredo pulling in a whopping 34% leaving disgraced Dan Maes pulling in a pathetic 15% for the GOP.

When both Maes and Tanc were long shots, it was easy to just write the race off but now conservatives are faced with the proposition of dumping a bad Maes for an infuriating Tancredo. Pragmatically, Tancredo shouldn't be rewarded for his blatant attempt to torpedo the GOP candidate. With the rest of the country getting ready to enjoy a conservative wave in November however, Colorado has to make a tough choice between the lib, the bad and the ugly.

As hard as it is to do, the only responsible thing to do is to back Tancredo. Colorado can't afford to be one of the few states getting an absolute kook liberal infusion while the rest of the country gets a recovery. Many arguments can be made about Tancredo but at least he's a conservative. A major asshole maybe but a conservative one.

The odds of Maes dropping out of this thing seem almost nil at this point but the GOP Gov. Ass'n needs to put some cash into this thing for Tanc, call donors and get them to ask Maes for their money back and send him out to pasture. I haven't seen many polls where Hickenlooper pols more than the low to mid 40's despite huge name recognition in Denver and the delirious backing of some establishment Republican businessmen. That tells me that the people are just dying for a Hick alternative. Many have already joined Tank but we need to push the last 15% that Maes is holding into Tanc's corner as well. It'd be hard to believe that any of his supporters would bail on Maes and head to Hick.

This is a sad tale of a perpetually dysfunctional CO GOP but it could have a happy ending. Colorado may have gotten the ugly date to the prom but it's better to jump on that grenade for the good of the squad rather than man that foxhole alone. Best to just bite the bullet and do it.

Go Tanc.

***The title of this post is an homage to the late Patches O'Houlihan who had an uncanny knack for describing both untrained dodgeball players as well as the CO GOP in one quick quote.***

Have Style, Will Travel

At the rate things are going, the flood of Mexicans coming across the border won't be called illegal aliens, they'll be called refugees.

Over the weekend the mayor of the west Mexico town of Tancitaro was found dead in the bed of a flat bed pickup, stoned to death. There apparently wasn't any immediate connection to the drug violence that has been destroying that country for more than a decade. No other theories have been presented.

I, for one, hope like hell it was drug related. Otherwise, Mexicans from other walks of life have decided that the legal process is so flawed that they need to resort to barbaric forms of capital punishment to settle whatever issues they have. That's truly frightening considering the free reign these people have getting into the United States.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to do nothing while our friendly neighbors to the South have decided to combine the worst parts of Afghanistan/Pakistan (violent drug trade) with the worst parts of Iran/Saudi Arabia (stoning) just to see how it plays out. If that combo somehow doesn't produce a utopia, the next step will be to pirate the Russian/Filipino sex trade market and start kidnapping kids into a life of prostitution. Although that may actually already be happening in some parts.

Of all the things in the world that actually need some kind of governmental response, a border country turning into a complete anarchic state should be at the top of the list. Apparently, our government has decided that they would rather harass us themselves before everything goes to hell completely.

At this pace though, Mexico is going to turn into a Somalia-esque calamity of warlords and genocide. If Obama cares at all about trying to keep a flood of war displaced refugees from flooding into our southland, he might want to start pulling some strings and taking some decisive action against these cartels. Things are bad now but brother, when this thing pops, I don't want to be anywhere near the misery that will come with it.

Tale of the Tape

Breaking it down!

Pinball Wizard (PW) vs. The Jukebox Hero (JH)

AGE:

41 / 29

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HOMETOWN:

London, UK / New York, NY

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HIGHEST RANK:

#19 USA, #4UK / #26 US

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BREAKDOWN:

Competition - PW had to go into the arena nightly to take on the likes of the Street Fighting Man and the less violent but more skilled Piano Man. JH had a relatively easier path to greatness as much of the competition was either falling prey to the rampant drug culture (Mr. Brownstone) or was a cheap asian knockoff (Mr. Roboto). EDGE: Pinball Wizard.

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Groupies - Being deaf, dumb and blind, PW was at the mercy of his handlers who may not have worked as diligently in procuring premium groupies or worse, may have kept the cream of the crop themselves. On the other hand, sans senses the PW had no embarrassing morning afters or beer goggle regrets. The JH may have been able to enjoy the groupies on a different level than the PW but at what cost? Awkward mornings, the payoffs, must have been horrible. Close category. . . . . TIEBREAKER: While the JH may have to deal more directly with the consequences of groupie culture, the ability to see and hear leaves him nearly impossible to trick into the random post-op tranny that makes their way into the groupie line. PW is defenseless. EDGE: Jukebox Hero.

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Posse - Not strong for either to be honest. The JH is languishing with Brits on the means streets of NYC with an aging Mick Jones and an ex-King Crimson crooner Ian McDonald. Yikes. You'd think PW would be rolling heavy with Roger Daltry, Pete Townsend and Keith Moon in pocket until we realized Daltry was a waify 5'5", Pete Townsend was a pedophile and Keith Moon was dead. EDGE: Gotta call this a PUSH.

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Lasting Legacy - I'm not sure any two people have done more to hurt the karaoke industry since Billy Squier packed off for the lab. Today's generation regards both these warriors the same way they view white basketball players from the 50's. The only question left is who is George Mikan and who is Dolph Schayes? I was going to call this a push until I was recently explaining to my daughter at the mall about the "dumb" kid and why he was moving his hands that way. 5 seconds later I was being arrested for a hate crime as a group of vocally challenged mall walkers silently projected their hate at me. EDGE: Jukebox Hero.

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GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT - PW-While smoking Peyote during Woodstock, Pinball Wizard claims that Joan Baez gave him a secret pagan/satanic verse to recite that would allow him to take on a spectral form to posses anyone he wished. PW then proceeded to posses Pete Townsend and club Abbie Hofmann with a guitar. Sadly, the sacrifice given for this gift was Sly Stone's sanity and career. JH-Foresight. Even in the age of iPods, streaming audio and satellite radio, jukebox's are a lasting legacy, known to everyone, thereby making the Jukebox Hero culturally relevant and rich, due to a crafty trademarking in the early 80's. Pat Riley has nothing on JH. While authentic juke's are a pricey and highly sought after commodity, you think any kid is just yearning to put down the XBOX controller and go play some pinball? Hell, you can do that on the Wii. JH was also rumoured to have had a steamy tryst with Cyndi Lauper and Pat Benatar (was Lita Ford busy or something?) but I think at this point that can only be counted as a negative. EDGE: Pinball Wizard.

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WINNER - The results end up in a tie, 2-2 with on push. Too bad ties are for communists and soccer moms. Therefore, the slight edge has to be given, along with the belt, to the Pinball Wizard. While I find his chosen career puzzling it can't be forgot that he headed into the arena with only his sense of smell and stared down legends like Mojo Risin. Figuratively stared down, of course. As good as the Jukebox Hero was, he's destined to be the Larry Holmes of his generation, stuck in a talent dead spot. By the time Jeremy, Spoonman and Mr. Moustache came on the scene to provide a proper challenge, The Jukebox Hero had become the George Foreman of his generation, only without the comeback.

Yeah? What Now?

The stock market had itself quite a rally today after a so called group of economists claimed that the recession finally ended.

Who knew it was so simple to get Wall Street back on track? Simply declare that everything is hunky dory and presto, they get back to the business of creating and blowing cash. Awesome. No need to actually look at indicators to see if it's true. Not here.

Unfortunately, unless they meant the recession is over because were heading to another depression, they couldn't be more wrong. Wages still down, houses still underwater, debt still skyrocketing, unemployment still sky high. Otherwise life is fine.

So what could this group possibly mean by calling the recession over? What they mean is that they really need it to be over soon. There are elections coming up and this economic downturn is becoming less and less Bush's fault and more and more Obama's fault. Right now it's about evenly split at about 2 years each, although Obama was in the Senate for all of it while Bush retired. It's already going to be a bad enough November for libs even with much of the public still blaming Bush. They are going to get crushed this November and if they get to 2012 with no noticeable improvement, you're going to have 6 years of Obama handling the downturn (2 Senate, 4 Pres.) and it's going to be hard to blame the two years of Bush's spending, especially since Obama signed off on all of it and helped create the useless bailout legislation while he was the President elect.

In other words, Democrats know they have almost no way of explaining the poor economy in 2010 and they will nothing to say to explain it away in 2012. The next best option is to convene the experts, the same ones who are always stunned at every economic report, and just have them declare the recession over. Game, set, match, what's on TV. Too bad people still won't be able to get jobs or credit. Combine that with the massive tax increases coming up and something tells me screaming "All is WELL!!" like some new age Chip Diller isn't going to fool the electorate come voting time.

Roll the Chamber Nick, I'm Out

There was a time when I assumed that the NRA was an organization that stood up for the Second Amendment rights of all Americans, members or not, and that in addition to the Second Amendment they were committed to individual liberties across the board as a matter of principle.

Now I know better.

The NRA has sealed the deal here in Colorado by following up their endorsement of Pelosi clone John Salazar in CO-3 by endorsing Pelosi clone/intellectual lightweight Betsy Markey in CO-4. By endorsing these two big-government socialist democrats, the NRA has made plain for all to see that they don't really care about individual rights at all, they only care about getting favorable gun legislation by paying off members of Congress. You could even argue that they don't really care about the Second Amendment either as some of the deals they have tried to cut in the past would make exemptions to tyrannical laws only for their paying members, leaving all gun owning non-NRA members under the thumb of oppressive government. In this regard, by trading actual principles for political favor, the NRA is no longer any different than Big Labor, Big Education, the ACLU, the NAACP, ACORN or any number of other liberal groups who try and buy political exemptions from the tyranny they help put into power.

There was once a time that I considered joining the NRA even (though I hunt my game at Safeway) but now such a thing sounds offensive to my ears and I would encourage everyone who does give the NRA money, to stop doing so unless they reverse this self destructive course of political hackery that started with them floating the idea of endorsing Harry Reid. Apparently they think once the Harry Reid's of the world are done telling you what kind of medicine you'll get, what you can eat and how warm your house can be that they'll just leave gun owners alone. It must be nice to live in a world of make believe. For the rest of us in the real world, it's very sad to see that once the new NRA leadership took the rifle from Heston's cold dead hand, they took it to the most famous whorehouse in the country and traded it away for the oldest trick ever turned; the fleeting promise of elite status and protection.

The Seventh Seal Opens, A Look Back

The world is full of crucial moments that signal the transition between two distinct eras. After much contemplation, I've decided that the most important one in recent memory happened in 1978 when The B-52's released Rock Lobster which reached #56 on Billboard's Hot 100. Here are the lyrics, to refresh your memory. You go read, I'll wait.

. . . . .



Okey doke.

That song is complete nonsense with a synthesized crappy sound bed. A crucifix in a jar of piss has more artistic value than Rock Lobster. Who bakes potatoes at the beach? How did your ear lobe get into the deep? What does it mean to be fruggin, exactly? Why are you morons not able to properly identify a rock lobster, which in fact does not look much like a rock? Perhaps you simply went to a beach and with a child like sense of wonder started trying to find things that might possibly rhyme? That's what I think.

Unfortunately, this type of song wold become all to familiar of music "created" in the cultural dead zone known as the 80's, while it simultaneously signals the end of the 60's/70's. The two times couldn't be more different. Music in the 60's and 70's might not have always been good but for every crappy Carpenters song there was a little CCR, Doors, Van Morrison etc. to even it out. Even disco was clearly superior to manufactured 80's pop. The Bee Gee's get a lot of crap but lyrically the were fairly competent and the music had actual instruments and not just a Casio keyboard with low batteries.


Before Rock Lobster there was free love and bong loads, after Rock Lobster there was cocaine and AIDS. Not a great trade off unless being terrified during every sexual encounter was your particular fetish, then game on to you sir.

Ironically, this massive, decade long drop off in substantial artistic/cultural depth happened at the same time as the reverse was happening politically, as we traded the Nixon/Ford/Carter debacles for the return to prominence under Reagan.

Maybe that explains it. Politically speaking, the United States was a nightmare from Kennedy getting killed until Reagan was elected. Maybe all the tough times during the 60's/70's simply became too much for that generation (notoriously selfish and weak minded) to take and when they couldn't sing, sex or dance their problems away, they just gave up, brought Reagan in to clean up the nation's problems and went into a cultural void. Or died, in some cases.

And like all voids it had to be filled by something. In this case it was filled by Madness, Eddie Money, a seriously crappy Moody Blues, a seriously modern-rocked Chicago, John Hughes movies, the inexplicable rise of Paul Reiser and finally, the B-52's.

An absolute 180 cultural turn that can first be traced back to a crappy song from a crappy band. Who knew in that dark day in 1978 when that aural date rape first came on the air that it signaled an end of an era? Who knew it was the tip of a crappy spear? Probably nobody. It was just the new-fangled song that came on between Le Freak and You Don't Bring Me Flowers. Only time can provide the proper historical context for world changing moments. Much like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker the forward pass, we now know that the release of a little known song about a Cousteauian beach party gone wrong was in fact a massive transitional moment in history that would change the world forever.

Here comes a sting-ray
There goes a manta-ray
In walked a jellyfish
There goes a dogfish
Chased by a catfish
In flew a sea robin
Watch out for that piranha
There goes a narwhale
Here comes a bikini whale

ROCK LOBSTER!

Ring the Bell!

Man, establishment Republicans are getting seriously housed this year and I couldn't be happier.

The primary season has mercifully reached its last day and New England, of all places, seems caught up in the Conservative tide. In Delaware, long time RINO Mike Castle's attack filled campaign against super unknown Christine O'Donnell flamed out big time and he lost 53-46. A 7 point loss in a race Castle was once leading by about 40. Amazing. In New York, what conservatives there are stood up and booted out the well intentioned/probably outmatched Rick Lazio in favor of tea party candidate Carl Paladino. Finally, in NH, long time front runner Kelly Ayotte is tied with unknown Tea Partier Ovid Lamontagne at 38% with about half the vote counted. God only knows why it's taking so long to count the NH votes, the closed the polls at 7 for crying out loud. (Ovid LaMontagne wins the Best Name in a Primary Award hands down. sounds so New Englany that Sean Penn and Clint Eastwood are writing a shitty movie about it as we speak. c'mon, you know Mystic River is way overrated.)

The best part of this is the predictable reaction from the liberal media. Politico has headlined tonight a "Republican Nightmare". I guess because the party is actually electing conservatives to run. This is all just a projection of fear. Media members know full well that even in New England, these conservatives have an even money shot to win the general election. If that wasn't wasn't the case then why would the media care who the Republicans nominated? They should be happy that these blue states are running conservatives so they could be crushed, dampening the entire Tea Party movement.

But no, the media seems intent on trying to scare Republicans into nominating Mike Castle, Sue Lowden, Jane Norton types. They are trying to hedge their bets against the liberal apocalypse in November by getting as many Lindsey Grahams and Lincoln Chaffee's into office under the radar. I don't blame them, these kind of RINO's are so spineless they could be cowed into voting like the liberals they are even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Those two kooks from Maine have been doing it in the Senate for years. Aside from the bad voting records, these "moderate Republicans" ruin the brand for real Republicans.

Shrewd move mainstream media, you almost had us. Just like you almost had us in Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Florida, . . . . . . . .

See you in November!

NFL Week 1 Review

Wow, what a low scoring, semi-crappy opening weekend.

AFC EAST: Tough to tell if the Pats D is that good or if Carson Palmer is just toast but at this point the Bills, Fins and jets should be very afraid. NE scored 38 and the rest of the division managed 34. Monday night's game showed why the Jets were a very lucky 9-7 last year.

AFC SOUTH: Hey, the Texans won a game against the Colts, meaningful even for week one. Division could be the best in football if Texans, Colts and Titans (continuing last years strong finish) don't get hit with injuries. Jacksonville still sucks but high marks for not letting Tebow show them up in his hometown.

AFC NORTH: Ravens went to Revis Island and came away with a win, so Rex Ryan should be on full blast this week. Pitt and Cinci have no juice on offense and Cleveland is being Delhommed already. Mangini leads the pack for coaches who could be fired first.

AFC WEST: Jason Campbell is a serious upgrade over The Fat Dranker but Mario Henderson seems to want him to die, there's no other explanation for that showing. Nice to see D-Mac show up. Broncos look pass happy on O, crappy on D. The Chiefs look really feisty against the Chargers, up 14-7 as we speak. I guess losing your best linebacker, left tackle and wide receiver hurt a team.

NFC EAST:All these teams looked varying degrees of crappy except the Giants who played Carolina so the jury's still out. No way Andy Reid trades Donovan McNabb to play Kolb, then benches him after one bad quarter and a concussion. Why do we think Dallas is a Super Bowl contender again? Alex Barron wins the Mario Henderson Award of Crap for this week.

NFC SOUTH: Saints looked pretty good in the rematch. That running game must make the weak division cringe. Atlanta and Tampa Bay were pathetic on offense while Carolina was just pathetic. When you have to choose between Matt Moore or Jimmy Clausen are you rebuilding or do you just suck?

NFC NORTH: Chicago and Detroit solidified their season long battle for 3 & 4. I know the Bears won but they looked like crap while the Lions seemed to be hungry. Green Bay has got a lot going on but you've gotta worry about Aaron Rodgers. He was under fire all night from a pretty mediocre Eagles D. Favre looked pretty good with the Vikes but those receivers just suck. I know Favre hasn't had much time to work on his timing with them but it doesn't matter if they're not open. Berrian looked older than Favre.

NFC WEST: Sweet Jesus what an awful division. Suprise of the week was the Seahawks hanging a flaming tire around the 49ers but every single team looked just awful. I guess the week highlights would be the Seahawks and Sam Bradford because they offer a glimmer of hope for the future. Alex Smith is just stealing money at this point. Wonder what the Niners would look like with McNabb under center.

GAMBLING: I'm currently 8-6 in my Pigskin Pick'em Group (ESPN's Sports Guy's group) and my Chiefs +5.5 pick looks good as they are currently up 21-7.

Dueling Stupidity

I swear it's hard to properly quantify how much I hate white people sometimes. It's like the dumbest of the dumb decide that they are going to step into the politically correct arena, pick ideological sides and have themselves a good old fashioned tard off. This weeks matchup pits the City Council of Honkeyville (Hartford, CT) vs. Who Gives A Shit, FL.

HARTFORD, CT
Apparently the Hartford City Council (HCC) decided to start opening every session in September with a Muslim prayer to show solidarity with Muslims everywhere in the face of "islamophobia" regarding the Ground Zero Mosque. First of all, nice job HCC to find a position that 70% of the people approve and go against it. Good election strategy. Second, who exactly do you think gives a crap about your meaningless gesture? Do you think Bin Laden got out his list of Important American Cities To Bomb, scrolled to number 1,106 and crossed you guys off? You know your standing side by side with a guy who supports Hamas right? I'm sure you guys will get a gold star in the White Guilt Olympics next time you and the rest of the leftists in the northeast have your semi-annual blame-in. In the meantime, sensible people everywhere else will just shake their heads at your stupidity and realize that we can't expect any better from a city that throws its full passion behind women's college basketball. Disgraceful. (see what you did Bettman? Fear the Whale!)

WHO GIVES A SHIT, FL
To bad the knee jerk liberalism in Connecticut couldn't go unbalanced. Now we've got some pastor in Florida (of course) trying to organize Koran burnings every 9/11. Awesome. Where to begin. This display will only serve to make whatever moderate Muslims there are out there keep quiet when faced with the arguments of their jihadist brothers. This won't have much impact on the jihadist movement since they think we burn them all day anyway. What Pastor I Hate Hadji doesn't realize is that this demonstration is just going to make Muslims richer by sending sales of the Koran through the roof! Now, I don't know who prints those things but if buying gasoline supports terrorism then causing a Koran shopping spree might as well. After all, there has to be at least one printing press owned by terrorist friendly organization (besides the New York Times), what if they get the contract to do additional runs of the book? One more IED in Kandahar, that's what. Lastly, do you really need to keep perpetuating this stereotype of Southerners? Wouldn't you rather be seen as laid back gentlemen and belles, sipping sweet tea on the porch? Why are you trying to make Neil Young's Southern Man relevant for the next generation?

WHO'S THE DUMBEST?
It can be hard to distinguish between the two types of stupid we got going on here. The Liberal White Guilt, Knee Jerker and the Intolerant Southern hate monger. The book burners inadvertently lost this competition however, with their own hatred. A while back, these supposed islamophobes also tried to start a campaign to burn all non King James bibles because they weren't properly Christian. Hmm. Burning Korans and Bibles side by side. Know what that makes you friends? Diverse! Equal Opportunity! I'm afraid this egalitarian view of book burning shows a sophistication not shown by the disgustingly weak actions by the HCC, who have made themselves look worse by "possibly reconsidering" their decision to have Islamic prayers before meetings.

CONGRATULATIONS CITY COUNCIL OF HARTFORD, CT! YOU HAVE WON THIS WEEKS TARD OFF! PLEASE COLLECT YOUR COMPLIMENTARY MOUNTAIN DEW AND KE$HA CD'S IN THE OFFICE WITH THE PADDED CORNERS. BUS TOKENS AVAILABLE.