Spears Clan Set To Multiply

Those Spears's are fertile.

I can not imagine where Britney's decline ends. Sure its her sister, but I'm putting this one on her anyway. Fortunately, she'll be able to make money off of it.

At what point does the Lynne Spears parenting guidebook get permanently mothballed, instead of just "delayed indefinitely."

I know this isn't news, and I know I shouldn't be so amused by someone else's suffering, but I have come to believe that Britney Spears has been put on this earth for the sole purpose of making me laugh.

Debate Republicano

Say what you will about the Republican presidential candidates. They have at least been consistent in their disrespect for minorities during this election cycle. Before yesterday's debate, mass scheduling conflicts prevented a previously scheduled Univision debate and kept many away from historically black Morgan State University. While unconfirmed reports indicate that the missing candidates were all at a surprise birthday party for underdog Tom Tancredo, there are still many who believe that Republicans might not like minorities.

Not all of them, mind you. Mitt Romney, for instance, has worked hard to find employment opportunities for illegal immigrants.

I fear that showing up at last night's Univision debate might have been a tactical error. Obviously, they were forced to go a little light on the "we hate illegals" rhetoric, which might not have sat so well with some of their core constituencies.

It must be tough to be a Republican. Someone is always upset with you. You're either too racist, or not racist enough.

The Knicks Win

The Knicks beat the Nets last night for the second time in their last 1,432 meetings.

Isaiah came up with an unusual, but brilliant strategy. Apparently, he worked out a deal that the Nets would sit Jason Kidd if he promised to keep Marbury out. A little point guard quid pro quo. Thomas should do this with every team. Almost universally, the Knicks' opponent will be sitting the better player.

Wait. The latest report says that Kidd had a headache/was trying to force a trade and Marbury was mourning his father's death. Too bad. This would have been Isaiah's best trade yet.

Dodged That Bullet

I am officially downgrading my World War III Alert from code "Sometime next week" to code "Probably not until the New Year. Probably"



Why am I so optimistic, you might ask? Well, I'm sure you've heard about the National Intelligence Estimate that more or less refuted everything Bush has been telling us about Iran's nuclear program. In short, the Estimate judges that, contrary to the 2005 report:



1) Iran suspended its program to develop nuclear weapons in 2003.

2) Iran has a reduced interest in producing any nuclear weapons at all.

3) Iran would be unlikely to be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015.



Good. That gives me 8 years to get my affairs in order.



Most interestingly, the Estimate believes that:

Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush
to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.
This, in turn, suggest that some combination of threats of intensified
international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to
achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways,
might--if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible--prompt Tehran to extend the
current halt to its nuclear weapons program.

So...Iran might, in fact, be open to more of a "carrot and stick" proposal, as opposed to the "beaten with a stick" option that Bush likes so much.



CNN reports on Bush's bold policy announcement as a result of the findings:

"no change"

Which makes sense in Bush-land. The President has a history of dismissing countervailing evidence or using it as support for his positions. I am a little surprised he doesn't want to make even a cosmetic change to his policy. Even the Iraq Study Group's findings led to the New Way Forward. I mean, that policy had the word new in it, even if it did seem a little familiar.



Not that I'm going to start singing the Iranian national anthem in the street or anything, but the estimate seems to indicate that, contrary to what the President would prefer us to believe, Tehran has listened to international pressure over the last four years. It seems like this would be a great opportunity to push beyond the "axis of evil" rhetoric, help Iran achieve its regional goals, and put this nuclear weapons thing to bed. As long as we monitor Iran closely, that should help us...avert...war. Oh.


Oh man. Bush must be really pissed. Now he's going to have to go ahead and work on a whole new reason to bomb someone.

I feel ya, buddy. We'll find you something to blow up.

The Videogame Protection Act of 2007

I follow local politics pretty closely, so things like Council Member Peter Vallone Jr. introducing a law against homework no longer surprise me. The Sun reports:

He plans to introduce a resolution next month calling for homework in public
schools to be limited to 2 1/2 hours a night and said he wants the Department of
Education to create a weekly homework-free night.

Vallone is on quite a streak lately. Within the last few months, he has announced plans to increase fines associated with dog fighting (on the back of the Michael Vick scandal and despite the fact that New York City has no known dog fighting problem, according to the ASPCA) and strengthen laws against looking at women.

Bloomberg responded to Vallone's ridiculous homework proposal with pretty much the best line in politics this year:

"I suspect if you're running for eighth grade class president, less
homework is a good campaign platform to work with."

In Vallone's defense, I ran for student body VP on a platform of "A Pretzel Machine in Every Cafeteria." This idea seems marginally better than that.

When Cougars Attack

At first glance, this was kind of disturbing.

But upon further review, I realized that it was nothing different than what happens in New York City pretty much every night, only in reverse. Creepy old dudes making financial arrangements with young girls may not be cool, but they are widespread. So I say Godspeed to the old chicks who are looking for love in Kenya. I would recommend, however, that perhaps the next time they seek to exploit an impoverished culture for their own sexual pleasure, they choose a continent where AIDS is just a little less prevalent, like South America. Or Antarctica. Or any of them. I guess that's a personal decision, though.

Also, I learned a lesson when searching for images for this post. Do not, under any circumstances, search for the following images at work:

cougar

urban cougar

sub-saharan cougar

creepy old guy, young girl

old girl young guy

tantamount to prostitution

Britney Spears

strapping kenyan man

old hairy balls

Or else you'll have a lot of explaining to do to IT.

Kenya beware

Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else noticed?

Bob Loblaw's Ad.

At the very least, this explains how the name is to be pronounced.

Blah Blah Blah

I just found out that real life was invaded by TV.

Before I continue to write, I absolutely insist that all of you go out and watch the entire run of Arrested Development. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Ok. At least promise me you'll try to make an effort to watch at least part of it. If it suits you.

Or not.

Whatever. Its in your best interest. It is, perhaps, the funniest thing you're going to find on DVD. The critics back me up. The TV viewers, sadly, did not.

This is not just a commercial for a defunct show. This is almost as pointless. This is a post predicated on the reader having watched said show. If you haven't done what I asked by now, you might as well save your time and stop reading this post.

As it turns out, Bob Loblaw's Law Blog (say it fast), a blog written by a character played by Scott Baio, has made the leap from my DVD player to the interweb. It describes itself as:

A daily summary of the best (and worst) of federal appellate decisions

This website is intended purely for entertainment. It is not intended to be a
comprehensive review of appellate law. It is not intended as a legal research tool. Nothing in this blog should be interpreted as legal advice.

Despite the fact that nothing about that description sounds remotely like entertainment, it was a pretty solid move for some bored lawyer to capture web traffic via a (weak) pop culture reference. If a curious lawyer loved Arrested Development and happened to google the law blog, he would pretty much be a reader for life. On the other hand, if this is Scott Baio getting a little too much into his character, its a little disturbing.

I'm not sure how I feel about fictional things existing. Unicorns, I can handle, but law blogs make me nervous.

Why should you go to jail for a crime somebody else noticed?

Tis the Season...

...for striking!

First the taxi drivers, now stagehands and TV writers. Pretty soon, there will be no work done in this city by anyone. I hope the corner coffee guys don't get fed up with unfair labor practices.

A friend of mine was visiting for the weekend, so I decided to take her to the one place all tourists want to visit when they're in New York: Broadway.

Fortunately, with the stagehands on strike, we didn't have to see any boring plays. Instead, we got to experience the fun of a real, honest to goodness labor dispute. There was much sign-holding, circle-walking, and scowling. Also, opression by The Man.

The interesting things is that many stagehands get significant breaks throughout their work day. This could be as much as 3 hours of time off during a typical shift. Since all the stagehands had to picket for their entire shifts, the strike, in many cases, meant more time on the job than work would have.

Not only is that ironic, but it kind of works against them at the negotiating table.

Jeter Screws New York

Its been a bad week for Derek Jeter.

Even as the brothers Steinbrenner and A-Rod hammer out the final details on a record setting, discounted contract, Jeter finds himself exposed as a tax cheat.

Its like Christmas for Mets and Red Sox fans.

Jeter's $20 million a year is a reward as much for his on field play as it is for his representation as the face of the Yankees and, by extension, New York City. Its absurd for him to claim residency in Florida to avoid taxes on a technicality. Furthermore, HE LIVES IN NEW YORK CITY. He's always here. There isn't a day in his life, since 1996, that hasn't been documented by Page 6 or the other tabloids. Who did he think he was going to fool?

I know there's nothing that this man can do to hurt his relationship with Yankee fans. People just do not think rationally when it comes to Derek Jeter. I'm going to say for the hundredth time that his jump throw from the SS/3B gap is a weak play, due to his limited range and quickness, not a brilliant play by a defensive wizard. See? No one cares. But I hope someone, somewhere will take into consideration that if this allegation is true, Derek Jeter selfishly withheld significant money from New York that should have gone into its schools, infrastructure, and public safety.

This City has given a lot to Jeter. New Yorkers' support for the Yankees and #2 are directly responsible for his ability to become a millionaire many times over. Meanwhile, the Yankees are getting significant tax breaks to build a stadium that will increase their ability to make money. That puts the tax burden more squarely on the shoulders of everyday New Yorkers, especially when affluent members of the tax base opt out.

This was not a classy move.

I'm probably angrier about this than I should be. I think its because I'm not too excited about Yorvit Torrealba.

Long, Rambling Post on Why the Rumored A-Rod Trade is Boras' Mona Lisa

The current spin on the A-Rod situation is that he's cut off Boras and is going back to the Yankees, hat in hand.

The storyline is that A-Rod needed to show humility and take a cut for the subsidy money he cost the Yankees so that the Yankees can feel good about signing him for a hometown discount ($275mm). ESPN's Buster Olney seems to think Boras messed up. The LA Times Bill Shaikin does too.

I, on the other hand, think that Boras continues to be baseball's premier evil genius.

The first myth that needs to be dispelled is the idea that getting less than $300 million/year should be considered a failure. Just because Boras said that $350 million was the minimum price for the Yankees to even speak with A-Rod doesn't mean that even he believed it was. This is a negotiation. Even a 4 year old can start at a dollar and settle at 75 cents after a 50 cent counter offer. Especially with A-Rod, Boras has excelled at stretching the imaginations of not only the GM's and owners, but the fans. This makes it possible for him to get a $275 million contract and have it seem like a bargain.

I contend that A-Rod's personal visit to the Yankees is just another Boras maneuver. The Yankees already positioned themselves as above opening negotiations with Boras when they made their ultimatum over A-Rod's desire to opt out of the last 3 years of the contract. Boras, for his part, knows that the only team that's going to put down anything like the money he wants won't talk to him.

Boras has everyone fooled. The media, fans, everyone is focusing on the wrong numbers. The second trick is that Boras has everyone feeling good about A-Rod taking a modest pay cut over what would have been the last 3 years of his old contract and making up for the $21 million in lost money from the Rangers.

Here's the number that explains it all: $168 million

That's what A-Rod makes from his age 37-42 seasons, or 60% of the contract. Traditionally, these aren't the most productive years in a baseball player's life. A baseball player peaks somewhere between 27 and 32 and then will digress over time until he retires. So every one of A-Rod's 5 most productive seasons are not only likely behind him (he's 32) but will have cost the Yankees less than his 5 least productive seasons. So who cares about $21 million? or the slight pay decrease for the next 3 years? Its a lot easier to get a 32 year old A-Rod coming off of 54 homers $275 million than it is to get $28 million a year for a 39 or 40 year old DH coming off of 30. Not even Barry Bonds was making that kind of money (he averaged 17.5 million) and he had some of the best seasons in the history of the game at quite an advanced age. Its doubtful that A-Rod will be able to perform at that level without the chemical help that Bonds had.

When Boras got the $252 million, it seemed ridiculous at the time, but a reasonable argument could be made that it would be in line with future salaries. Seven years later, its still ridiculous. Based on the current climate, where owners have been burned so many times and teams are refusing to let their good young players get to free agency, I think it would be impossible to get if it hadn't been done before. $275 is a reasonable salary if you accept the premise that $252 is as well. I certainly don't, but Boras has single-handedly created a world where people do. That's where this deal was made. Seven years ago.

Scott Boras is a genius. He's better at his job than every single person in baseball, A-Rod included. He does have an ego, but there is nothing that would keep him from getting the contract he wants for his client. If that means stepping back and appearing to let A-Rod do it on his own, that's what he'll do. Boras let Andruw Jones's father negotiate a 6 year, $75 million contract, but still represents Jones.

So consider this. If anyone deserves $28 million a year (no one does), its 32 year old third baseman Alex Rodriguez, but 41 year old DH A-Rod is probably worth, today, $12 million. Let's assume everything goes well, and A-Rod ages in a Bonds-ian fashion. Conveniently, this was Bonds' age 42 season. from 2002 (Age 37 season) to 2007, Bonds made $105 million. At the time, Barry Bonds was the best player in the history of baseball for his age and for many other ages. We know now that steroids were the main reason for this. Not only will A-Rod not likely be on steroids, but some of Bonds' seasons in that time frame are better than any A-Rod has ever put up. I think its safe to say that A-Rod won't be better in 4 years than Barry Bonds was at the same age.

That means that at a cost of about $12 million (32 million over the next 3 years down to 28), Boras was able to get A-Rod, at worst, about an extra $63 million more than Bonds got between ages 37 and 42. Not bad. If, for some reason, A-Rod doesn't take up steroids later in life, this is an even better deal. That's a net gain of $50 million.

Write this down:

Not only does Boras get his cut, proving that this was his work, after all, but A-Rod's salary his final year of this deal, at age 42, is still the highest in baseball.

Nice job, Scott.

Amen

From Kos:

The vital distinction between extraordinary powers and extraconstitutional powers.

Its really such a fine line, I guess. I could see how George would get confused.

There's Still Plenty of Room

Sometimes, it gets lonely here on the Dennis Kucinich bandwagon, but I have a feeling I'm about to have a lot of company.

Kucinich irked Democratic leadership yesterday when he introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Democratic leadership irked me by moving to table the resolution. Republican leadership then irked Democratic leadership again by voting against the motion to table, which would have led to a mandatory hour of debate. The irking came to a conclusion when the house finally voted to have the resolution sent to the Judiciary committee, where it will be ignored almost as intensely as the American people ignore Kucinich himself.

I actually watched all this on CSPAN. Let me tell you, it was a rousing couple of hours of parliamentary procedural maneuvering. There were yeahs and nays being flung about willy nilly.

Science has already shown that I identify closely with Kucinich's politics, but this little maneuver has really impressed me. See, Dennis doesn't seem to be all that politically savvy. This isn't the first time he's kowtowed to the clearly expressed desires of the American people in open opposition to his colleagues in Congress. Unlike Hillary or Barack, who won't even blow their noses without conducting an in depth poll, Kucinich just let this resolution fly, even though it probably wasn't going to pass! But this time, he obviously chose to play the system a bit and build off of my lukewarm endorsement in order to gain some momentum for his campaign.

So I'm going to keep it rolling too, Dennis. I'm upping my Kucinich '08 enthusiasm from "acknowledgement of a congruence of thought" to "general acceptance of political principals." Keep this up, though, and I'm willing to go as high as "wish political realities did not exclude you from being a viable candidate."

Come on!

Kazmir may be available.

If he was worth Zambrano in the first place, I think the Ray's would still be coming out ahead if we traded them, say Orlando Hernandez. What do you think, Tampa Bay? I don't necessarily speak for Omar, but I think I could convince him of this one.

I'd also like to state, for the record, that its a bad idea to trade young, once in a generation talents for shitty pitchers who can't throw strikes. I think TB owes us.

Apparently, I'm Dennis Kucinich's Biggest Supporter

By dutifully following the links on Daily Kos, I came upon a website that purports to "connect you to the presidential candidate that represents your beliefs the best."

I would have taken Obama, but I suspected I'd come up with Hillary. Wrong on both counts.

Kucinich. I got Kucinich. Not only did I get Kucinich, but I was about a 94% match. By my estimation, I'm a better political match with Dennis Kucinich than I am a personality match with my fiance. Fortunately, Dennis and I are only a .02% love match.

I should have seen it coming when I spent a quarter of my points on health care. Hillary, Obama, and Edwards have put together proposals for universal coverage, but the systems they envision will probably do more for the insurance companies than for American citizens. That might be an exaggeration, but these plans will likely need to be reworked in 10-15 years to look a lot like what Kucinich is putting on the table today, which is single-payer, "socialist" health care.

But that is a story for another day. Today, I'll just dream of a magical world where tiny people can be leaders, not just dreamers faced with an impossible task.

Actually, that sounds a lot like Middle Earth.

Frodo in '08

Press Release from the NYC DOHMH on MRSA

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has good news.

While the statement pretty much backs up my assertion, there is something in there that makes me uneasy. Under the recommendations for sports teams, it says:

5. Staff should advise players against body shaving

So that's the real human cost of MRSA. Female high school athletes with hairy legs and armpits and male athletes that look like jesus. High school dances are going to be gross. Everyone loses.

Touche, MRSA. I underestimated you.

And to you, members of the media, I owe an apology. You may get back to your irresponsible fear-mongering.

Thanks to Kerri for the catch.

Repent, For The End of the World is at Hand

Humanity has a new enemy. Its name is MRSA, or Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

This happened.

So, of course, this happened.

Predictably, nobody's listening to reason.

This is a fairly regular occurrence. A largely benign virus or bacteria kills someone, as diseases are wont to do, and, suddenly, we're in the middle of an epidemic.

Only we're not. The media takes a few tragic stories, combines them with the fact that the infectant is more prevalent than we think (which isn't tough, since the general population spends approximately no time thinking about diseases they haven't heard of), projects an absurd worst case scenario, and then feeds off its own echoes until people realize they aren't dead.

Meanwhile, politicians fall all over themselves to overreact to an issue that is waaaaaaaaaaay outside their area of expertise (if they have one at all). Perhaps it would be more effective just to legislate infection out of existence. If staph becomes criminal, only criminals will have staph.

The fact of the matter is that the real risk of staph infections is to hospital patients and not to the general public. Even if contracted, staph can typically be defeated by a healthy immune system. WebMD says:

"A report issued earlier this month by the CDC (Center for Disease Control)concluded that nearly 19,000 people died from MRSA infections in 2005. Almost all of these deaths occurred among people with weakened immune systems who were being treated or had recently been treated in hospitals or other health care settings, including nursing homes and dialysis centers."

and:

"Health-care-associated MRSA can occur as surgical wound infections, bloodstream infections, and pneumonia. These life-threatening invasive infections are resistant to many, but not all, antibiotics. Roughly 5% of people treated in U.S. hospitals for MRSA died of the infection in 2005, according to a new report from the government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality."

and the clincher:

"CDC spokeswoman Nichole Coffin says community-associated skin infections are typically mild in nature. But she adds that in rare cases they can become life-threatening."

So we learn from this that most people infected with the "superbug" have compromised immune systems and are already in the hospital, the natural home of staph infection. Furthermore, this "superbug" is resistant to some antibiotics. Seriously? That's like a cyborg "supersoldier" being resistant to some bullets. Not so impressive.

Now the CDC might not have the same authority to speak on disease as, say, Fox 5's Rosanna Scotto and Ernie Anastos, but hopefully its assessment will help calm society's frayed nerves.

Rather than get worked up needlessly, we should listen to experts like the CDC, the Department of Health and physicians, not uninformed school parents, or those with an agenda that has nothing to do with public health.

I officially declare this outbreak over. And stupid.

At Least We're Not The Yankees

With Boston's sweep last night, the baseball roles have officially changed. The Sox became the Yanks (Hands down the best team in baseball) and the Yanks became the Braves (hands down not quite as good as the best team in baseball).

So who are the Mets? My first instinct was the mid-90's Cleveland Indians (all hit, no pitch), but I'm not too impressed with their hitting either. Plus, weren't those Indians always in the playoffs? This team only has one appearance so far, so I'm not going to get too excited. My second choice was the pre-2004 Red Sox (too expensive and not just not that good), but I don't think that appropriately takes into account '06 and the fact that it took a lightly precedented collapse to keep us out of the playoffs.

They are the late oughties Mets (the Mets of the late oughts?). They are a great, yet fatally flawed team. A theory I've been floating to my Mets fan friends is that we actually lucked out by not making the playoffs. Here me out:

1) The Mets wouldn't have won the World Series anyway
We simply don't have the pitching. For two straight years now, the Mets have gone into the postseason with a rotation full of 2 and 3 starters. I love Ollie and Maine, but they are not aces. Coming off his shoulder injury, Pedro could be anything from the best pitcher in baseball to a slightly less insane Jose Lima. Our bullpen, which was a huge asset last year, killed us all year. The world champion Red Sox, on the other hand, went into the postseason with the two of the greatest playoff pitchers of all time and a very solid bullpen. If you're Willie and you have to give the ball to one pitcher for one inning to save the entire season, is there anyone you can look at that you would trust completely? Omar has to build this staff for a championship, not just a playoff appearance.

2) This team is too cocky
I believe that these Mets fell apart because they went into the same victory lap mode they were in at the end of last year. When you run away with the division, this is a good thing. Players stay loose and healthy for the grind of the playoffs. When you are still competing for the division, you
have to take care of business first. Mathematical probability is not the same as clinching.

The truly great teams don't beat you, they bury you. Look at the dynasty Yankees or this year's Pats for evidence. If you made an error against those Yankees, they'd put up 5 runs before the
official scorer had put it on the board, then they'd spit in your eye and sleep with your girlfriend. Ruthless. Meanwhile, the Pats are biologically incapable of winning by fewer than two touchdowns. Obviously, that's an edge the Mets are missing.

The '05 and '06 Mets were pleasant surprises. '05 was a growth year. No one had any expectations. '06 was a celebration from beginning to end. This is the first year this team has felt any pressure. It did not respond well. I don't think its been reported, but I'm pretty sure that David Wright and Jose Reyes have a blood pact to never let this happen again. Its a good lesson to learn young.

3) The collapse should light a fire under Omar
No elite pitchers, 40 year old corner outfielders ( I know Shawn Green isn't there quite yet, but his defense has not aged gracefully), and unsettled second base and catcher situations are a sample of the Mets' problems. Omar made big time moves going into '06 that put this team over the top, but left things pretty much as is going into '07 even though some of his players were one year solutions (Valentin, the bullpen). He also failed to address the loss of both his ace starter (Pedro) and ace reliever (Duaner Sanchez).

If the Mets lose in the playoffs, the temptation exists for Omar to say, "we're close enough" and tweak a team that needs to be reworked on a greater scale. Missing the playoffs is an embarrassment that should get Omar to make the same kind of ballsy, creative moves responsible for this amazing core of talent.

---------------------------------------------------

Obviously, I'm not happy about what happened this year. This theory is probably just a rationalization to help me deal with my latent anger in a non-homicidal way. The Mets let 2007 slip away because they lacked the killer instinct to dominate the competition. In effect, the 2007 Mets were the 2004 Yankees: A good team that played its worst at the wrong time and made history on the wrong side of the ledger. Whether they didn't have enough pitching or enough heart is immaterial. They just didn't find a way to win when it mattered.

If anything can be gained from this frustrating situation, its that everyone from the front office to the dugout feels compelled to do everything in his power, every day, to bring a championship home to Flushing.

And Mets fans aren't thinking that we're going to win one championship and be all happy about it. We're looking for a mini-dynasty, at the least. That means competing year in and year out with the stacked AL, not just getting out of the NL alive. With a core of Wright, Reyes and Beltran--three amazing young talents on the right side of 30-- this is not unreasonable. A small setback in one year is tolerable if it helps the organization in the long run.

At least that's what I tell myself

caveat

I just want to make it clear that I know that the incriminating Liberal Party info on Rudy's Wikipedia page was very likely added by someone with a login id of notfredthompson or mittsbitch or something of the sort.

More Rudy In Drag

At first, I thought I had really put the fear of God into Rudy Giuliani. Since my post, he had not supported a single other New England sports franchise. For my part, I had spoken to no Iowans or New Hampshireans (Hampshireites? Hampshirettes?) in regards to Rudy's well known liberal past.

I did, however, want to show Rudy that I had couple more arrows in the old quiver. So I wanted to take the chance to point out that, according to Wikipedia, Giuliani ran for mayor in '89, '93 and, '97, as a Republican/Liberal Party candidate. Three times, he was unable to garner support from the Conservative Party. That might not mean anything, but remember this is New York we're talking about here. Through midwestern eyes, this city is Gomorrah to LA's Sodom. It shouldn't be that hard to look conservative by comparison.

So I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, plus I had some more cards to play if necessary. Then I read about how he would have been offed in 1986, if only one more crime family had had the cannolis to pull the trigger. 3-2! That's an awfully slim margin by which to avoid assassination. If it was me, I'd like to see the vote fall more in the 4-1 or 5-0 region.

So that was it. The reason why Rudy had been laying low was that he had been taking the time to come to grips with his brush with death. The news deflated me. All that hard work, only to be trumped by organized crime. The same thing happened with my business plans for a friendly protection racket in 1975 and an "everybody wins!" numbers game in '77.

Pretty quickly, though, I realized that death threats are political gold to a former prosecutor. They are something better than gold when they come from the heads of the freaking mafia. Sure, they voted against the hit, but it was pretty close.

I, on the other hand, threatened Rudy's political life, which is the only thing a politician holds more dearly than his actual life. "What about the lives of his children," you might ask. Those only count when the kids are young and cute and can lure in unsuspecting voters. Rudy's kids hate him. They're political liabilities.

In the end, I will take credit for setting Rudy straight after all. But just to be sure, I'm going to need a show of good faith.

Rudy. The line is Pats -16. I expect you to put a few grand on the Redskins to cover. If not, there's this:

Jesus Christ, man! Was there a single day during your two terms that you did not dress as a woman?

Really, Rudy? That's the Way You're Going To Play This?

New Yorkers have gotten used to Rudy Giuliani's repudiation of his work in The City. To gain the acceptance of conservatives, he has campaigned largely on a rewritten account of his mayorality that includes new, improved stances on Republican favorites like immigration and gun control and a "nuanced" (to use a campaign spin word) take on abortion.

By and large, we've been pretty happy to let him spew whatever lies he chose. Everyone in New York knows that Giuliani is running on his record from 9/11/01 to 12/31/01, not his record from 01/01/94 to 9/10/01. Its ok for us to hear that he was ardently opposed to illegal immigrants when he was getting them jobs and benefits, or that his law suit against the gun industry in 2000 has no bearing on his current support for the NRA. New Yorkers are just happy he's not our problem any more. He's not so bad that liberal New York wouldn't wish him on its worst enemies, but just bad enough that it would. Take that, Republicans. No give backs.

Everything was fine until Rudy crossed the sports rivalry Mason/Dixon line.

Now he's gone and done it.

Listen Rudy: You grew up in New York, so you know the drill. Yanks/Sox is an either/or situation with no exceptions. None. You also know how seriously New Yorkers take baseball, so if you wanted us to sit back and remain silent while you made up stories about our time together, you should have at least kept this one thing sacred.

I might be going out on a limb here, but it seems like he's trying to ingratiate himself to the voters of New Hampshire, who will soon help decide his fate. Even still, any primary voter who cared enough about his stance on the World Series 1) already knows he's a Yankees fan and 2) would be pissed off at this blatant example of sports bigamy. I never understood why politicians can't just choose a team and stick with it. Aren't voters looking for decisive leaders anyway? Don't the candidates realize that pandering for the sake of pandering is offensive?

I'm not going to go all New York Post on hizzoner, but I do want to give all future candidates for elected office a primer on playoff loyalty so that this never happens again. Follow these pander-proof steps to avoid awkward situations such as this:

Step 1. Root For Your Favorite Team:

This means you must have a clearly stated favorite team. You can not have a favorite team for every city you've ever lived in (I'm looking at you here, Hillary) and you can not wait until election time to choose one.

Step 2. Root Against Your Favorite Team's Arch Enemy:

This one pretty much speaks for itself. If you have trouble determining who the bad guys are, ask someone or read a local paper.

Step 3. Anything Else is Pretty Much OK:

This includes rooting for a league, a city, or a team with which you have had a passing fascination. Some people like to apply this rule by rooting for the team that beat theirs, figuring that it hurts less to be beaten by the best. Others like to wish death upon that team. Whatever. So long as you follow rules one and two, you have a lot of lattitude with rule three.

So I'm personally going to give Rudy a pass on this one. He violated an unwritten rule which has now been written. It could have happened to any politician looking for political gain at the expense of his long held beliefs. Besides, I'm a Mets fan.

But seriously, Rudy, this is your last chance. I want to see more ownership of your actual stances and accomplishments as Mayor of New York. If not, I think New Yorkers have every right to tell the Republicans of Iowa and New Hampshire the truth: that your ideal constituent is a gay, heavily taxed illegal immigrant without a gun who may not have had an abortion, but definitely could have if she wanted to.

Also, we'll show them this:

Strike-ish

So here's the question:

If a union calls a strike and significantly more members break the strike than don't, who are the scabs?

Taxi drivers are unhappy with the City's decision to equip cabs with credit card machines and GPS devices. The City says the two sides have already agreed on the issue and that the two fare hikes drivers have received in the last 2 years were part of the deal. Unable to get the City to renegotiate, taxi drivers decided to strike...sort of. Newsday.com reported:

While a report from the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade estimated that
more than 95 percent of yellow cabs were on the road, strike organizers
touted the work stoppage as a success. From the looks of it, though, it
wasn't too hard for anyone to get a cab.

Meanwhile, Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the Taxi Worker's Alliance (TWA), which claims to represent roughly a fifth of the city's 44,000 taxi drivers, also claims that 75% of all taxis were off the streets yesterday.

She has every right to claim whatever she wants. Union negotiations with the City have a long history of being played out in the press. Unfortunately, she looks pretty stupid claiming a massive disruption in New York City life when the reaction of the average person on the street is more like, "There's a taxi strike? Where?"

I didn't realize at first, but The City's decision to implement the contingency plan was a genius move. According to the Post:

Thanks to flat per-person fares, the average 2.8-mile taxi ride, which
normally costs $9.60 will earn a driver who picks up four passengers $60 - a
525 percent increase. The idea is to minimize the impact of the one-day
strike by making drivers an offer they can't refuse.

During the last strike, drivers who worked reported making triple and, in
some cases, quadruple their normal income. "I did the strike last time,
but I cannot afford to do it again," one driver told The Post. "There is too
much money to make."

So the contingency plan is pretty much a super strike breaking tactic/powerball jackpot, but the TWA thinks its a good thing. The best thing, actually.

Many organizers said success could not be judged by how many cars were
on the road or even if the taxi commission buckled under their demands."If
the mayor has to put in place a contingency plan, then the strike was a
success," said cabbie Billy Acquaire.

This seems like a pretty sneaky union if its real goal was to pretend to strike so that 95% of its members could pull in 4 times their normal daily wage. The only other possibility is that the strike was an unqualified failure. But that can't be the case, since Desai claimed the strike a success, proclaiming that, "Despite those poor, pathetic scabs, the streets were empty this morning."

Rhetoric-wise, that totally beats Bloomberg's, "We made a deal and we're going to stick to the deal."

So I'd say the scorecard is pretty squarely in the TWA's favor. If you can claim any number of strikers you want, ignore the fact that your strike was largely ignored, and set the bar for success so low that the City's outright bribery of your "scabs" counts as a victory, its pretty hard to lose.

Joe Torre should have taken a lesson from the TWA. If he had claimed that the Yankees had won 105 games and the AL pennant, and then said that being lowballed was really Steinbrenner's way of showing his appreciation, maybe he'd still be the Yankee manager.

So who are the scabs here? I've got it narrowed down to either the people of New York, who callously played into the hands of "Big City Government" by not realizing there was a strike going on, or Bhairavi Desai herself, who seems to be using this as an opportunity to shed her 12 year old girl persona and reinvent herself as a tough as nails union head. Too bad for her nobody noticed, not even her union.

Desai, right, just after rolling down taxi

window to avoid car sickness

All those who still work at AOL, step forward. Not so fast...

AOL is having some trouble keeping itself together. I think we all saw the signs. For instance, when was the last time you got a tin of AOL cd's in the mail? Exactly.

I think that being the last to realize that mailing Internet capability was not exactly the hallmark of a successful Internet company might have directly lead to their most recent, massive round of layoffs this past Monday.

My friend has worked over there for about three years. When he started, AOL had, by his estimation, somewhere between 15,000 and 18,000 employees worldwide. Three rounds of layoffs later, they are down to 8,000. I can't imagine a company letting go of 2,000 people and having that be the third largest layoff in three years. I also can't imagine the incredible amount of ass-kissing that goes on in an organization where thousands of people lose their jobs every year.

The ironic thing is that I think that the dearly departed were actually the big winners here. According to my friend, their severance package will consist of 4 months salary, plus unused vacation days, plus unpaid bonuses, plus assistance finding a new job. Redundant executives will do even better. They can pull in anywhere from 6 months to a year of salary while sipping margaritas on a beach in the Dominican Republic. The part about the DR and the margaritas is actually in their contracts. I think.

Former AOL exec mulls career move

Meanwhile, there is a transition team of laid off employees who will be paid twice their salary for the privilege of continuing to work for AOL until the end of the year. After that, the regular severance package kicks in.

And the losers? I guess that would be the loyal AOL employees who avoided judgement day only to take on 25% more work. Also the Starbucks on the corner. Economic data shows that a layoff of this size will reduce latte sales by over 35,000 a year. That says nothing for frappucinos.

A recap:

Redundant AOL workers: Free money for doing nothing. Paid vacation for 4 months or so, frosty beverages in near future.

Remaining Staff: More work, slight pay increase, organizational morale similar to that of German army as American and Russian troops raced to liberate Berlin in final days of WWII, crazy tie Thursdays (new initiative).

I wish someone would fire me so nicely.

unleashing my subconcious on the world

oh. I've started a blog.

I still need to work out some kinks. I missed the mark with my hypertext in the first post, linking to "this" rather than "the following," but I suppose my aim will get better. Also, it seemed a lot longer than I remember it in my head and it wasn't as interesting.

eh.

It should be noted that the title came from a random title generator, so I take no credit, but, more importantly, will tolerate no criticism.

an unprecedented beginning to a blog

I have many problems with the way people use the English language, but one in particular was brought to my attention today. I think its time to retire the use of the word "unprecedented" for non-legal purposes.

The following, taken from a criticism of an interview with disgraced Senator Larry Craig, brought this to my attention:

"his repeated use of the phrase, 'I’m in the middle of an unprecedented media firestorm' show an inflated sense of self-importance which still has the power to shock.
'Unprecedented?' Compared to what - Nixon’s resignation? The murder of JFK? September 11?"

Its probably safe to say, with very few exceptions, that almost every experience of the human condition has pretty much been done to death. The only real differences are matters of scope. I guess a nuclear holocaust could cause death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, but that's just because we have more people packed into less space than ever before. Numbers aside, it would still have both nuclear attacks and regular old holocausts as precedents.

Politicians, news reporters, and, worst of all, sports broadcasters are guilty of making the event at hand more important than it is by declaring it to be a singular event in recorded time. But what, after 200,00 years of human history, can actually be said to not have a

1pre·ce·dent (n)
(an event that is) prior in time, order, arrangement, or significance ?

Certainly not political scandals, or the aforementioned death and destruction, or large business transactions. Actually, a business transaction might lack precedent if we transitioned our entire economy into one based on sexual favors.

For an event to lack precedent, it would have to be wholly unique. For instance, the following:

An unprecedented attack on earth by an alien species
An unprecedented spontaneous freezing of all the earth's oceans
An unprecedented discovery of disembodied, beating human hearts living happily in the amazon rain forest.

And such.

Rather than being in the middle of "an unprecedented media firestorm," perhaps Larry Craig just meant that he certainly wasn't used to all the attention. Perhaps he could have qualified his statement to make it more accurate. A media firestorm unprecedented in the annals of closeted Idaho Senators stupid enough to solicit gay sex in an airport bathroom might work, but something tells me that Craig would rather err on the side of inaccuracy than get too caught up in the details.

Either way, I think its pretty fair to ask that we all stop saying unprecedented when we really mean "new to me."