Number Two Is Right

On the eve of Opening Day, a great day where hundreds of people gather to watch a summer game in the snow, I have some concerns about my beloved Yankees.

The first regards The Captain, Derek Jeter. All I've been hearing all training camp is about how he has removed the slide step from his hitting style in an attempt to play catch up to the fastball. What I haven't been hearing is how he has been tearing the cover off the ball this spring. All that can mean is that last year wasn't a fluke. When a 36 year old decides to start tinkering with his mechanics to hit the most common pitch in the game, it just screams "I'm washed up!" Changing positions isn't going to help either if he can't hit anymore.

Speaking of bad mechanics and being washed up, A.J. Burnett has now gone 34 consecutive years of life looking for a way to get a consistent delivery and release point. I guess he has adjusted his leg kick in an effort to keep his pitches from randomly turning into BP balls in the middle of games. Shouldn't a pitcher who has made it to the bigs ironed out the delivery for about a decade now? How many examples do we have of a pitcher changing his windup, then skyrocketing off to success? All the talk about the rotation has been about the 4 & 5 spots but we all do realize what it means to have AJ as the two right? He needs to win at least 16 games and have a sub 4 ERA for the Yanks to be competitive for the playoffs. I'm not sure you can count on 18 from Hughes again and the Nova/Garcia/Colon/Milwood pupu platter probably has the over/under set at about 25 wins and I'm not sure I would go with the over on that one.

I realize that being overly nervous is a Yankee tradition but how good should anyone feel when two key cogs to the machine have decided to redo the mechanics of the job? I would also point out that any bullpen that has both Joba and Pedro Feliciano in it is ripe for destruction.

Having said all that, I do think the Yanks take the wildcard. The Red Sox are not going to be near as good as people think they will be. A lot of what Crawford is good at is negated by the goofy dimensions of that ballpark and Dice-K, Beckett and Lackey are just about done. The real reason the Yanks should still be in the playoffs is that the Rays are significantly worse. No Soriano and the everyday lineup features Johnny Damon and ManRam. Plus, they think Kyle Farnsworth can close. I guess every team in the league has to make that mistake once.

The Chosen One Spoketh, Then A Black Hole Consumed All That Was

It really is my own fault. I joined in the chorus of people that were calling for President Obama to explain himself in his actions regarding Libya.

Today he did.

Basically his speech said that the United States had to intervene in Libya because "it was in the national interest", "to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe" and because not acting would "have been a betrayal of who we are." Awesome. That explanation is so high minded and convoluted that if you were to take it literally, the United States would be morally obligated to throw up a no-fly zone over about 60% of the globe.

Rather than just admire in it's childlike nature, it's best to tackle it head on. Libya is is no way the United States national interest. Sure they have oil but so do lots of people. George Bush scared them into abandoning their nuke program and they are not at the top of the terrorist sponsor countries. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are all more important to the national interest than Libya. And that's just the Middle East. China, Russia, N. Korea, Mexico and Japan are all much higher priority than Libya. So who does care about Libya? Europeans. For reasons I haven't fully researched, Europe seems to have a lot of money and resources tied up in Libya. By that I mean oil. Maybe they thought Qaddafi was easier to deal with than some of the other nutjob dictators. Who knows. But they are in deep and that's why anyone cares. Obama got himself roped into this because he couldn't withstand the pressure from the French.

Prevent the humanitarian catastrophe. Please. Sure, the government was killing people but to be fair there was a fully armed opposition that was trying to instigate a revolution. Nobody likes dictators but you have to expect them to defend themselves. How can Obama even mention the "humanitarian catastrophe" while Darfur and North Korea still get to operate as they please? How many Africans and Bosnians, etc. have been allowed to massacre each other without NATO, the UN or people like Obama batting an eye? You could stage an invasion of North Korea any day of the week and be completely justified. Why don't we? Well, we gave them nukes so that's a problem. Besides, they don't have oil and Europe doesn't care about starving Koreans. Obama is just trying to find cover to appease his Kucinichesque cadre of bleeding heart pacifists that can't understand why gitmo is still open and Obama is killing more Muslims.

How would Obama even know who Americans are? He has spent most of life community organizing which has as it's primary goal the destruction of the traditional American free market capitalist system of economics. Like it or not, the United States was founded because of money and the desire for people to get their hands on it. The idea being that if you could get your hands on it, you could keep it. Obama's whole ideology believes that if you have money, it should be forcibly taken away from you and given to those who didn't earn it. It's awful presumptuous for Obama to try and project American values overseas when all he tries to do is undermine them at home. That's what all that hope and change was about. The values Obama is truly projecting overseas are European ones. He shares far more common ground with their way of thinking than traditional American political thought. Even for liberals he's out there.

Maybe it's better when Obama just doesn't talk about stuff. Maybe his advisers knew that too and that's why he's been so quiet lately. Deafening silence is better than what we got today. That speech today was so patently a contrived speech intended to mollify critics that it was embarrassing. He knows it wasn't true. We know, everyone knows. To actually say that crap makes him either a liar or a fool. Better to just keep quite after all.

200 Million Dollar Question

It's hard to believe but spring training is nearly done and Opening Day is exactly one week away.

This revelation sent me into a predictable, early panic. Did i have enough bacon, ground beef and sharp cheddar? Should I go with brauts instead? Ribs? Is it really ethical for me to drink tall boys and barbecue all day when technically it's my "work from home day"? Heady questions indeed. For the record, I think I might go with burgers and ribs and just skip the potato salad all together.

A bigger panic though came shortly thereafter when I realized I had no idea who was gonna be pitching for the Yanks. People have been writing for weeks about the battle for the number 4 & 5 slots in the rotation. That assumes of course that AJ Burnett can hold on to the number 2 spot. I personally think AJ is a couple of bad outings from hanging out with Kaz Igawa and Fat Toad Hideki Irabu.

Ignoring that disturbing fact though still leaves the bottom of the rotation. By all accounts Ivan Nova has been awesome in the spring and has locked up the number 4 spot. I must say it's nice to finally have a pitcher under 30 to develop that isn't Phil Hughes. I think I can rest easy there.

What'll keep me up at nights, metaphorically anyway, is that the number 5 spot has seen the legendary Sergio Mitre and Freddy Garcia beaten out by . . . . Bartolo Colon. You might remember him from his Cy Young season of 1984. He's been throwing great, there's no doubt about it but good lord look at him. It looks like all the fat C.C. Sabathia lost hooked up with Rich "El Guapo" Garces and their unholy progeny turned into this iteration of Bartolo.

I realize that you don't have to be the picture of health. The Babe plowed through hookers and booze at a Lawrence Taylor-esque rate and that was just in between innings. But there's fat and then there's unhealthily fat. David Wells was a big fat jackass but he never looked like he was going to die in the middle of a pitch. Hell, El Guapo looked damn near childlike on the mound. Every time I see Colon throw a pitch I'm convinced he's just keep on going through his follow through right into the grave. And this at the end of spring training! He's supposedly in game shape.

I hope I'm wrong but I can't see him lasting all year taking the bump regularly. They should just have him and Garcia split every fifth game. One week Bartolo gets 5 innings and Garcia 4, then switch the next time through. That's gotta be better than trying to get 200 relief innings out of Joba and Pedro Feliciano every time Bartolo throws 115 pitches through 4 1/3 and has to be yanked.

That Was Fast

So . . . . . . are we done with Libya already?

It seems like only days ago that the French were kicking ass and taking names. The Brits were on board, the Germans were finally on the good side of a conflict and we all got to see footage of Tomahawk missiles being shot off of naval ships. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Now what? Nobody in NATO will even admit we're in a conflict, the Germans took their ball and went home, the French disappeared (did they surrender to Libya?) and Obama's just gonna try and get past the whole thing.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason we seemed to have bailed on this hastily organized cluster f is that we realized at some point that we were helping Al-Qaeda overthrow Mommar. What other reason could there be? Surly the good Colonel is a ruthless enough dictator that killing him would surly be a blessing for the world. The only way you wouldn't want that was if bin Laden was hiding in a hummus barrel somewhere in Tripoli just waiting for the chance to strike.

One thing's for sure though, we need to stop all these world leaders from declaring that we're not at war with Libya. Unless Obama has some serious Clintonian mojo, I'm betting all those Tomahawks did more than blow up thousands and thousands of aspirin factories. I can assume the only reason we haven't seen video of the all the corpses is that all the "freedom fighters" are too busy sexually assaulting journalists to do any actual muckraking. If only these people knew that that the key to any good revolution was the effective implementation of Twitter and Facebook on the battlefield. Not that I'm judging any culture. We're all exactly the same, all great, all equal, no judging. Some are just a little more rapey than others.

I don't even know what to make of this situation anymore. I guess Japan is fine too? Seems like two days ago the entire country was going to melt and today I read that Japan has had a 9% jump in exports because China's been buying more stuff. Really? Growing that trade business while dealing with an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown? Yet when I look at the classified there's just a big hand giving me the finger. Awesome. Maybe if we start and ill-conceived bombing campaign against another middle eastern country I can get a job welding fins to missiles or something.

Time For A New Phrase

Maybe now we can all stop being forced to watch those insufferable Chevrolet ads that try and remind all of us that Detroit is the home of the American auto industry.

Why ad execs would want to remind us that our most prestigious car manufacturers operate out of a dying pit of a city that and are only able to do so because they are so pitiful that our government threw them billions of dollars. The land of Motown and Kronk gym is now known for 8-Mile, Kid Rock, Melee at the Palace and now, finally, Black Flight. Another race riot would be a vast improvement, only if to show there's any life left there at all.

That's right, African Americans have now figured out that the best way to deal with the pressure of a crumbling urban infrastructure is to simply leave.

The new census data is slowly being released and it's grim for Detroit. The former fifth largest city in the States now has a meager 713,000 residents. That figure puts it squarely behind the cultural epicenters of Indianapolis and LeBronville aka Columbus, OH. I've been to both of those places and, no offense to any loyal readers there, they both suck. I remember Indianapolis because I was truly amazed that such a big city could still manage to smell like cow shit. It actually permeated the Arby's beef and cheddar to the point where I was tempted to liberally apply that poisonous "horsey sauce". I only remember Columbus because I remember thinking that if it weren't for Cleveland, the residents of Columbus would have nobody to feel superior to.

Back to the Black Flight. In the ten years between census's, 237,000 residents escaped from Detroit. A whopping 185,000 of them were black and 41,000 were white. Now I'm shocked that there were still 41,000 white people in Detroit but that's not the point. The only other city seeing this kind of flight is New Orleans and they got hit by a hurricane. If it weren't for the influx of Hispanics into the unimaginatively named "Mexicantown" neighborhood, Detroit might fall off the map completely.

Despite the clamorings of Michigan's politicians and the mouth-breathers running GM's ad division, this is actually a good thing. First of all, we can stop using "White Flight" as a racist term of abandonment concerning big city America. Flight is now equal opportunity. Second, cities like Detroit should be abandoned as quick as possible. For years it seems like the black population was just trapped in these decaying ruins. They should be escaping and now it seems they are, at least in one city. In most cases, the same group of people have been running these slums for decades. They only stay in power because they are tied to the population somehow. If that population leaves town and is replaced by a bunch of Mexicans, then the whole snow globe gets shook and maybe some changes will be made. At the very least there are less people to drain the state resources which might help to ease the financial pressure on city officials.

So maybe Chevy should modify those ads and instead of reminding us that they're built in Detroit, maybe they can just say made in America. No need to point that your product comes from decay. It'll like reminding people that mushrooms are a fungus. Technically true but not good for the bottom line. Now before people claim that I'm just a Motor City hater, let me end on a high note. One of the great things about Detroit was its boxing and for my money, it didn't get any better than the Motor City Cobra Thomas Hearns. Detractors always say how he lost to both Hagler and Leonard but I disagree. He fought the good fight against Hagler despite breaking his hand in the first round and Hearns was clearly beating Leonard before he ran out of gas in the 14th and got TKO'd. Either way, here's a clip of the best Hitman knockouts. Keep a close eye around minute 3 where Hearns absolutely dislocates Roberto Duran from all time and space. Then compare it to Ron Artest knocking out that fat Mexican in the Pistons jersey. They're both awesome.

The Hitman:


Melee at the Palace

Oh Crap

I don't think Barack Obama understands how to use military action to distract people from serious scandals.

Usually you invade a country that most of your people find particularly loathsome (Iraq, Afghanistan) to cover up a personal scandal (Clinton) or because it fits ideologically with your power base (Bush II). What Obama is doing satisfies neither.

First of all, launching an offensive in Libya doesn't do anything but enrage Obama's leftist base. They were already fuming over the decision not to close Gitmo and the continuation of the debacle in Afghanistan. On top of that was the decision to back down on civilian trials for all held terrorists which have been dropped in favor of the military tribunal. Bottom line is that this is going to cost him support from Democrats and not gain him anything with Republicans.

Up until yesterday, he didn't have a major scandal to cover either. While conservatives view his policy decisions as disastrous, passing ObamaCare gives him a pass with libs. Other than that, the worst people were publicly calling him was absentee for not addressing any substantive issue in the world. That's been the Obama way for years, I can't see this minor criticism bothering him into action. I would argue that entering into a military action under pressure from the French and Brits just makes Obama look like he entered into a quasi-war to pacify Europeans. Not good.

If that wasn't bad enough, now Obama has a serious scandal that just makes military action look worse. The German papers have released photos of an American Army "death squad" that has apparently been roaming Afghanistan targeting and killing civilians for fun. And like most psychopaths, they felt the need to document their project with photos. 4,000 of said photos are now in the possession of German media. Yikes.

This type of thing make Abu Gharib look like a mincing little walk in the park. At least that was a bad policy decision leveled against people dragged off the battlefield. Mostly scumbags. There is going to be riots due to the actions of the United States military in the middle east from Tehran to Cairo. How exactly is the rest of that area going to view us bombing Libya to a pile of rubble in light of this revelation? Especially when you consider that we have no real reason to be in Libya. Sure they have a serious dictator problem but who doesn't over there? Libya is old news. Reagan tried to fix that problem in the 80's and we passed. We don't even know if the guys we're helping out are terrorists or not. They sure did organize a fighting force quickly, that can't be good.

If Obama were even aware of public relations he would have announced some kind of massive withdrawal right before these kill squad monsters came to light. Now it just looks like all we do is kill Muslims for no real reason.

I'm not sure if Obama is insensitive to how this looks or if he's just in over his head but he's acting like a guy who sees a fire and thinks that it could use a little gasoline. The rudderless Obama foreign policy apparatus makes the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld nation building process look like a highly tuned scientific process. I certainly hope that Obama can break out from his funk/incompetence in time to handle this massacre thing. The world has serious problems and it would be nice if the leader of the free world could exert a little influence. Have we all taken note of how the French seem to have eagerly tried to fill the leadership void internationally? How does that usually work out for the world? I'm not sure if the executions of all the people involved in the killings will satisfy anyone around the world but it would be a good place to start just to restore a little bit our own dignity. It's one of the worst things that our military has been involved with since Vietnam and it needs to be handled head on and moved past quick. Lord knows there's more trouble on the way.

Oh Bother

I wonder if there has been a time in modern history where the President of the United States mattered less than he does right now. For whatever reason, Barack Obama has decided to take a pass on all issues, foreign and domestic. The thing in Egypt? Meh. Libya? Nada. Japan? Time to golf! Crushing debt at home? Crickets.

Don't get me wrong, I think the only thing worse than a disengaged Obama is an engaged one but it's truly an odd situation in the world now. I certainly hope we all realize that the Germans have dug in as pacifists and that the French President is agitating for military action in Libya. Hell, Sarkozy seems to have even talked the Brits into action.

Sadly, his efforts seem to have fallen on deaf ears, proving once again that intergovernmental organizations are complete frauds. France can't get any traction on a no-fly zone because the European Union wants no part of it. NATO has pretended that it has no idea what's going on and given how things are going in Afghanistan, maybe that's for the best. The United Nations has continued it's unblemished record of allowing dictators to slaughter their own people so long as they keep it in-house.

I've started to hear rumblings as to why this is the situation. Why nobody wants to help the Libyan rebels oust a monstrous dictator. These people fundamentally misunderstand the mission of these groups. Most people think that these groups were created and designed to prevent the kinds of genocide and atrocities seen in WWI & WWII. The exact opposite is true. These groups were created so that all nations could give each other a collective pass for not doing anything.

We know this is true because every time something awful starts happening, all of these groups get bogged down in terminology or bureaucracy. Either finding convenient legal reasons that tie their hands or waiting so long to do anything that it no longer matters. If they really cared, they would have rapid response teams ready to go at all times, instead they find any excuse to sit it out until somebody needs to count the bodies.

Barack Obama is the perfect President to work with these groups. Most leaders have to answer questions as to why they are ignoring the world aflame. Obama somehow just does nothing and the nobody gives him any grief over it. It's truly amazing how much of a world afterthought he has become. It'd be even funnier if that didn't mean the toughest leader in the Western World was a french guy.

Beware of RINO's

It's hard to fathom why the new Republican majority thinks they were swept into power in a landslide vote.

They seem to think they all ran on some moderate platform of compromise and Obama rehabilitation. I suppose if that were true their actions might be defensible right now. As it is, most Republicans ran on a big platform of nothing or on a heated anti-Obamacare/anti-deficit platform.

That makes it all the more baffling that the Republican leadership refused to allow a vote on removing $105 billion dollars of ObamaCare implementation money slipped into the idiotic continuing resolution.

They claim it's because you can only address discretionary spending in the CR, not allocated funds. Ridiculous. This country has a 14+ trillion dollar debt and you're quibbling over the rules that both party routinely vote to circumvent? Pathetic. The real reason is that Republicans are for some reason terrified that there will be a non-essential governmental shutdown. Why they have turned cowardly in the face of an easy budget choice when the people sent them there to make hard budget choices is beyond me. But, in the spirit of helpful unity, I'll offer the following justification for defunding ObamaCare that the Leadership pillow biters can offer up to the American people.

Congress' first obligation is to the Constitution. That obligation trumps everything else, including House rules. As such, Congress is not in any way obligated to fund a law that violates the Constitution. As of right now, ObamaCare is unconstitutional pending appeal. I know leftists love to point out that a couple of judges upheld ObamaCare but the way he law works is that if any court rules something unconstitutional, it is held to be so until a higher court can make a ruling resolving the conflicting the lower court rulings.

Judge Vinson made it clear in his opinion that the States were exempt for continuing to implement the law until the issue was resolved so why should Congress continue to blindly fund something that seems destined to be repealed or at least heard by the Supreme Court?

Just imagine leftists if Congress passed a law requiring all gays in the military to out themselves so that they could be trained in all gay units and live in all gay barracks, for the mental peace of mind of the straight soldiers. Now, this law is clearly unconstitutional, that kind of segregation has long been held unconstitutional. Once the inevitable lawsuit occurred, the District Court would void the law as unconstitutional. Now, in the time between the District Court holding it unconstitutional and the Court of Appeals hearing the appeal, should Congress continue to fund the military's effort to build the new facilities used to segregate the gays? Of course not.

It'd be nice if Congressional Republicans could recognize when they were on the right side of an issue and act appropriately. I suppose it's not shocking that they've gone weak kneed in the face of actual responsibility. If it weren't for the Tea Party and other fiscal conservatives kicking them in the ass, most of these people never would have been elected or even known what message to run on. If they screw this one up they deserve as serious steel-toe shot in the back.

Simple Plans

I've repeatedly stated my opposition to most labor unions because they are simply a legalized version of mob activity.

However, I occasionally find a labor issue where I side with the union. One such case is in the NFL labor dispute.

Now I understand the owners desire for more money. It's the reason anyone engages in any business. But the idea of adding 2 more games to the schedule is insane and the union has a right to fight back against it. The players bodies simply can't take any more abuse. Players brains are literally being blown out on the field. The science is pretty sound on the issue but if anyone needed any anecdotal evidence, a retired NFL'er recently donated his brain to science so they could study repetitive trauma injuries. Then he shot himself in the heart, Creepy. Really creepy.

The answer is so simple though. The owners want more weeks and the players want more health. Fine. Add another week or two to the season but make them bye weeks. This is good for he players since they could rest some of those injuries and space out those head shots over the year. The owners wouldn't get any money in the stadium in this case but they could easily make a ton of money on the TV deals. They could conceivably fill two more weeks of the highest rated shows on the tube. Two more weeks of beer commercials, NFL Network, etc. Seems to me that providing that much more programming for the networks would be worth quite a bit. Maybe not the billion that the owners are after but it would still be substantial. The bonus for the owners is that the players wouldn't be entitled to any of the new money. They haven't performed any extra work and they're getting some of the health concessions they've been looking for. Unless one side or the other is a lying hypocrite, then everybody wins.

Of course that's not the only issue to be negotiated but it seems that the owners would be easier to deal with on the other issue of they knew they had a fresh cash infusion waiting for them to pay off those stadium costs.

Simplify

Colorado appears to gearing up for another one of its never ending beer sales fights over who can sell what, where and when.

On the docket this time is a fight over 3.2% beer. Convenience stores and grocerys are complaining that some new regulation will allow restaurants and liquor stores to sell 3.2% as well, in violation of state law.

Apparently some groups think our new microbrewing Governor is tweaking the rules behind the legislatures back, some don't. The bottom line is "who cares?" This is a problem that is purely the creation of government.

The only reason there is this division is because some other government stooge decided some stores couldn't sell booze. So those stores, rather than loose that money, came up with "weak booze" and sold that and the state said cool. Very soon after that, both groups had lobbyists trying to protect their market shares. How anyone can feel dignified screaming to the hills for the right to sell 3.2% I'll never know but that's what they do.

Now all these new politicians are looking for political ways to solve a political problem. Did anyone think of just removing government? Let any store with a liquor license sell whatever they want. The first thing that would happen is that 3.2% would disappear. Nobody actually likes that crap, people only sell it when they have too. Once that was removed, you'd see genuine competition. Liquor stores would have certain advantages, as would grocery stores and 7-11s. They all serve different people with different needs. You might not see any more liquor stores being built right next to Safeways anymore but other than that, nothing much would change. People who want some brew or wine with dinner could get it at the grocery store, people like me who just want a good selection of booze and no waiting behind soccer moms getting the milk can still go to the liquor stores while high school kids can still pay drifters to go into the 7-11s for a twelve pack of Natty Light. We all win.

Except for government stooges. If everyone can get what they want and compete on the market, I guess lobbyists don't need to kiss your rings anymore. I'll drink to that.

Colorado Springs finest! - (will trade ad space for beer.)

Shameless Self-Promotion

Far be it for me to self aggrandize but I have also started writing for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. Should anyone care to read other stuff of mine, they can find me at:

http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/985890/patrick_mcgarry.html

The good news is that it'll be all new stuff. The bad news is that it'll still be written by me.

PTM

Still Satisfying

It feels nice whenever President Obama is forced to expose himself as the weak hypocrite that he is. It'd be nicer if I thought the man had enough conscious to blink twice about it but I'll take what I can get.

The Audacious One announced today that military trials will start up again at the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

That's right, the one Obama pledged would be shut down within his first one hundred days. The very first executive order he signed when he took office.

Not willing to let the issue pass without comment, Obama told the press how "strongly opposed" to the military trials he was. If I were a liberal, I would find this line of thinking infuriating. Shutting down Gitmo was one of the things the President had total control over. He could close it down, move the prisoners and have civil trials whenever he wants. How do his supporters reconcile this? He can't blame Congress, they can't stop him, besides, he had his own own Congress for two years and did nothing.

This situation really just shows two things. The first is just how over his head Obama is. The idea that you could close Gitmo and just have the trials somewhere in Illinois farm country is ridiculous. Only a fool drunk on himself would think that was a feasible plan. The second thing it shows is what a shameless political opportunist he is. His number one photo op when he took office is just a throw away the next day. If all the anti-war nuts are feeling depressed, they can go cry on the shoulders of all the gays that Obama strung along, promising marriage and ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell. They got the shaft until Bama needed himself a boost in the polls, then he came out against DADT. Pathetic.

The real winner in all of this is the United States. These animals should be tried in Cuba. Keeping them there, being interrogated by the Army/CIA, is the absolute best way to deal with these people. Hopefully, some of these guys will be found guilty and sent to a deep dark hole. Literally, in some cases. Either way, American wins and Obama is again exposed as a fraud. Happy Days!