SB Late Report

Well, at least football season is over. We still have two months of hoops, but the lesser sports will soon be done for the year. Thank God.

There were really only two exciting plays- the Randle El pass and the Ward catch at the 3. The long run to start the second half wasn't that exciting; he simply ran through the hole. At least the officiating was a non-factor. Aside from the missed holding calls (not that many), no major screwups.

After the seeing the Seahawks' last two drives, I don't EVER want to hear anyone tell me that football players are smarter than baseball players. Yes, David Justice was a moron; yes, Bob Brenly and Tim McCarver exist; but man, that was a comedy of mental errors. I did appreciate the Steelers taking a time-out and giving them an extra play.

To celebrate the end of football season, TheMattie9 will look at the 2006 Indians. I will skimp on the sabremetrics and replace it with my jaded, cynical approach to baseball. We start with the Rotation tomorrow.

Early SB notes

David finally called about an hour before the game. I was glad he called to let me know he was alive, and to check in. It would have been even nicer to have actually been able to talk to him, but such is the wonder of the cell phone.

Most of the day was spent eating some delicious salsa made for me by a friend from church. She is of Mexican origin, and, while she said she made it less spicy, whoa. It is really quite delicious, but my sinuses have been completely and totally cleared. I did take her advice and heat the chips (briefly) prior to eating, and left the salsa at room temperature, but, phew...

I guess I like a beer once in a while, and it may be a Bud Light, but does anyone really like it THAt much?

One more...

Took the niece to the Barons game today- the top minor league affiliate of the San Jose Sharks. As you may know, the Barons, due to a lack of fan interest (or poor marketing) and profitability, will be moving to Worcester, MA after this season. As we also know, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL may be moving after 2007. I would think it would be nice if an effort could be made to move the team here. Yes, having the Pittstucky leftovers here would be like marrying the town whore- you are happy she knows what to do, but don't want to ruminate on how she got the knowledge. While Mayor Slumlord prolly has other plans, an NHL franchise would fill downtown on 40+ nites, improve the city image, and provide scores of new "customers" for the traffic cams that are such the cash cow for the city. I meant, um, safety cams.

I see the Muslims have reacted quite well to the caricatures of Mahomet. One would think some publishing wag in this country would have a contest to make some truly offensive pictures. It would prolly be a success here, since Americans have less tolerance for Muslim rage than Europeans, and most Americans would get a chuckle out of it.

I was going to make a jello for the Valentine's Day party at work, but will now try to make a Danish recipe in honor of our new friends in the War on Terror. Anyone with ideas?

Random Thoughts

Yesterday was James Joyce's bday. I will not honor him by descending into crappy writing, shitty grammar or any other of the "innovations" to literature he brought about. Any wonder his daughter went schizo?

Boehner was elected House Majority leader. While he is not as reformist as Shadegg, he is also less of an insider than, say, Blunt. This is a compromise victory for the GOP. Boehner gets credit for never having written an earmark into a budget, and for being a reliable conservative. More reforms will be enacted by reducing spending and the culture of greed in Washington.

I do find the contretemps in the Muslim world over the offensive cartoons originally published in Danish newspapers fascinating. One would think images of planes crashing into landmarks, beheadings, car bombs and abuse of women would be more offensive to Muslims and the Prophet than some drawings. Why haven't American newspapers printed these images? I would think that the right of free speech would trump the religious concerns, especially given the secular and liberal slant of every newsie in America. Granted, these images (they are funny, but not terribly so; think The Simpsons on a really good day) are of Muslims; if they were slamming Christians, Bob Herbert, Maureen Dowd and Krugman would be racing to finish their masturbatory odes...

SOTU, Part II

It was about where I left off that I began to realize we had not yet had our Santorum sighting. Very sad.
9:39 Tax cut time. Rousing applause from the right about the $880 billion in tax cuts (and from myself). I was not as impressed by his call to halve the deficit by 2009. This is nice, but... we can do better.

9:41 I thought the Rise of the Dems when Bush said we couldn't save Social Security reform was funny, followed by boos. But...a commission? We have had one every administration!!! They say the same thing. Here is what we should have said. "Not everyone can inherit wealth." (Cut to Rockerfeller, Kennedy.) "Not everyone can marry into it." (Kerry.) "Nor can we expect unnatural means of preserving the system." (Chappaquiddick.) "Privatize now." (GOP rises in applause.)

9:43 D, the attorney, laughed when he heard that W wanted to bring back the line-item veto, since it has been decidedly (wrongly) by the Court that it was unconstitional. McCain's emphatic cheering...nice. I told D we had a new Court, to which he concurred. Do your jobs, John and Sam.

9:46 Not enough was said on health care, in my opinion. What was said was good. More HSAs. I am not a fan of malpractice reform, since shitty doctoring is shitty doctoring.

9:48 Energy efficiency. Very interesting. Clean coal and nuclear? I like it. Ditto for wind and solar. Like Thomas, I'll believe it when I see it. The "car talk" part of the speech....well, this is good, but 75% by 2025? Not soon enough. Nor did the President mention recycling. One should we should mention is that in America's largest cities (all of which are run and populated by Democrats), recycling rates are 5%. But they are the environmental party.

9:50 Education. Somewhere, old-school GOPers who wanted to eliminate the department of education are choking on their scotch. I had sort of figured his speech would go here- as Governor of Texas, he made his mark in that state with education. Where they will get the teachers, beats me. Do we want 30,000 more unionized employees?

9:53 First Santorum sighting at the end of his back-end pro-life paean. Good to mention welfare reform. Would have liked more about culture- especially activist judges and marriage. We have elections in ten months, and we need to remind people which party is the pro-marriage one, W.

9:55 Roar of GOP about Roberts and Alito. And rightly so.

9:57 Not nearly enough was said about reforming Congress. Yes, it affects mainly the GOP, but the Dems have had their hands in the til as well, and it would have been a perfect time to take the moral high ground and say what types of reforms are needed. That these reforms would coincidentally include much less spending...

10:00 Had a laugh about the ploy to use African-American churches to fight HIV/AIDS. Considering all the press the church gets about bigotry against homosexuals...I don;t think so. Maybe W is making inroads here. Maybe Rove has some nice commercials for the SF market.

All in all, not a homer, but a solid double to the wall. I suspect the Dems will muck most of it, and W will be afraid (being an election year) to push them...but the issue will still be security, and if we stick to that, we should be fine.

I am sure my friend WWE (http://worstweatherever.blogspot.com/) fully concurs.