Little Green Futbol [III]: In the wake of last week's bombings, British authorities fear this alliance, between soccer hooligans and anti-Muslim hate groups. Of particular concern to authorities is the opening-day match in England's Championship (ie., AAA-livel minor) League between Millwall, which is notorious for its racist, out-of-control fans, and Leeds. [link via OffWing Opinion]

Claiming that he could run for reelection and defend his honor, but not do both at the same time, Randy "Duke" Cunningham announced this afternoon he would not seek another term. I suppose the next question is whether he will resign before his current term expires.

Ziffel's on the Take: Meanwhile, back on Planet Hollywood, the LA Times is reporting that the Governor of California, the man who holds what is arguably the Second Toughest Job in America, agreed to become a paid consultant for a number of fitness magazines. In exchange for his consulting, the governor is set to receive up to $8 million, firmly cementing his place in the party of Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham.

More suspiciously, Ahnolt vetoed a bill last year that would have regulated the prescription of "dietary supplements" to high school athletes, which would have directly impacted the business of the principal advertisers to said magazines:

Schwarzenegger's two muscle magazines are crammed with ads for performance-enhancing dietary supplements promising chiseled bodies and surges of energy. The 257-page August issue of Muscle & Fitness contains 110 pages of ads for supplements, from creatine ethyl ester to anabolic/androgenic "absorption technology."

The governor used his regular column in the June issue of Muscle & Fitness to defend the supplement industry. He vowed to oppose any effort to restrict sales of the products in California, writing that he is "so energized to fight any attempt to limit the availability of nutritional supplements."

An article in the August issue of Muscle & Fitness said Schwarzenegger had "lent his support" to a new lobbying group that would work to promote nutritional supplements. "The governor also made it clear that he will remain a phone call away as the coalition progresses," the magazine said.

Gives a new meaning to the phrase, "pay to play"....

Good primer on the underlying story in RoveGate, ie., the accuracy of the conclusions drawn by Joe Wilson following his trip to Niger, from Bloomberg News.

Among the rhetorical excesses in our current politics that I find most annoying is the habit of calling people you disagree with "liars". A lie is an intentional or reckless misstatement of fact, made in an attempt to mislead or deceive others. It is not simply making a false statement; the liar has to either know that the statement was false, or be indifferent to its accuracy (in fact, it's even theoretically possible to "lie" when making a true statement). Scott McLelland stating that Karl Rove was not involved in the Plame leak two years ago is only a lie if he had reason to know, at the time he said it, that Rove was the leaker. Joe Wilson denying that his wife recommended him to her superiors at the CIA is a lie only if there's proof he knew at that time she had done so.

Et tu, Rupert?: Even FoxNews hasn't bought the latest spin about Karl Rove being an intrepid whistleblower. {link via AmericaBlog}

From the Beeb:

The NHL and the players' union say they have struck a deal in principle that will finally end their labour row.

"Labour row", eh?

Prothonotary Warbler Revisited: Are the various apologias by GOP spindoctors and their acolytes in the blogosphere for Karl Rove beginning to sound nauseatingly similar? Maybe that's because those are actually real-life, honest-to-goodness "talking points" they're parroting...btw, is there any evidence that Joe Wilson has ever claimed he was personally sent to Niger to investigate by Dick Cheney or the V.P.'s office? The original N.Y. Times column that he wrote (ie., the column at issue at the time his wife's position was betrayed) asserts that he went to Niger at the behest of the CIA. Josh Marshall and Tim Grieve also answer no, while professional media scourge Bob Somerby says, well, maybe, kind of, he did.

Much of the talking points center around the argument that what Mr. Rove told Time Magazine (and possibly others) was true, and/or that he was motivated by the desire to dissuade them from publishing an inaccurate story. Such an argument does Mr. Rove no favors. In cases involving espionage, treason, or the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, the "truth" is not a defense; in fact, it happens to be an element of the crime. If Alger Hiss or Aldrich Ames had knowingly passed on information to the Soviets that was false, it is highly unlikely that they would have been prosecuted for anything. If Ms. Plame had never been employed by the Company, Karl Rove would still be resting on his comfortable perch, regardless of what he leaked.

YBK [Part 10]: U.S.A. Today has an interesting primer on how the changes in the bankruptcy law effect the ability of businesses to seek Chapter 11, along with the now-routine prediction that we will see a greater increase in such filings as we draw closer to October 17. To put it simply, the new law imposes mandatory time limits for compelling a company to assume or reject leases, and allowing a debtor to propose a reorganization plan, which will necessitate almost immediate access to credit post-petition. Actually, these changes, which aren't all that bad, as a whole, have little to do with the YBK problem, which deals with the unholy conjunction of increased consumer filings with the collapse in the housing market, but it is yet another worry for the economy as the fall months draw nigh.

Vote of Confidence: Turd Blossom is toast....

Terrific column denouncing racial discrimination at the college level, concerning the lack of black coaches, by former Auburn head coach Terry Bowden:

There are 117 colleges participating in Division I-A football and there are only three black head coaches. You don't have to be too smart to know how stupid this looks.

Let me lay it out for you:

Fifty percent black athletes leads to 25 percent black assistant coaches leads to 3 percent black head coaches.

Fifty percent white athletes leads to 75 percent white assistant coaches leads to 97 percent white head coaches.

A profession that so desperately seeks a level playing field offers nothing close to one for the black athlete who aspires to rise to the pinnacle of the college coaching profession.

Plainly and simply, folks, this is discrimination. More precisely this is one of the last and greatest bastions of discrimination within all of American sports.

In college football, we are winning games, building programs and making millions of dollars with the sweat and blood of African-American athletes. I should know. In the last dozen years, my family alone has made more than $30 million as Division I-A head football coaches.

At least once a day, I get asked, "When are you getting back into coaching?" Heck, schools don't need to hire me. They need to hire from the untapped talent that exists within the pool of black assistant coaches.

[link via Salon]

It now appears likely that none of the London bombers last week got out alive.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

To paraphrase Mr. Rove, liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers; conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared to ruin the career of one of the country’s spies tracking terrorist efforts to gain weapons of mass destruction -- for political gain.

Politics first, counter-terrorism second -- it’s as simple as that.

--Keith Olbermann

Fire Rove: The groupings for the first-ever Baseball World Cup have been announced. The U.S. is paired together with Canada, Mexico and South Africa (!) in the first round. Still up in the air is whether Japan and Cuba will participate.

UPDATE: Not up in the air is whether Gary Sheffield will participate:"My season is when I get paid," Sheffield told the New York Daily News. "I'm not doing that. ... I'm not sacrificing my body or taking a chance on an injury for something that's made up." Damn--I'm sure every American baseball fan wanted to see the colors represented by the likes of Sheff.

A defense of Malcolm Glazer, from the editor of World Soccer magazine. He, too, is somewhat confused about the animosity surrounding the Bucs owner, and asserts that the pathetic efforts to boycott the club by various Man United fanclubs are motivated by "pure xenophobia" against a "funny-looking septuagenarian".

A Cold One: Along with the very helpful tips at the end of this post, I would add that one should never drink Anchor Steam from the tap after partaking of Sierra Nevada, or any IPA. Lets just say the hoppiness doesn't contrast well....

"...Four small bombs....": Thanks for putting last week's attacks in perspective, Mr. Samgrass. What a dick.

Operation Yellow Elephant: First of all, it's not true that every Young Republican (or hawk) of age to serve his country is sitting this one out. I had the privilege of eating lunch last week with a beautiful and courageous attorney, Natalie Panossian, who is very active in local GOP politics (she volunteered for Bush-Cheney in New Mexico last year), has formed a Federalist Society branch out in Ventura County, and still has found time in her schedule to enlist in the Army Reserve. If the war in Iraq continues, she will likely be sent over there (as a JAG, of course), probably not on the front lines, but it seems that won't make much of a difference when you're fighting a non-conventional war. What I found to be most interesting about her is that she is not a hawk; she thinks the President should come up with an exit-strategy, pronto, and that it's time for the Iraqis to defend their own freedoms. She supports the mission, but her qualms are that of a serious person. Her courage and integrity make a mockery of my own.

And her qualities certainly make a mockery of these chickenhawks convening this weekend at the Mandalay Resort in Las Vegas. The issue, of course, isn't whether people need to enlist to have "the right" to opine about U.S. foreign policy; the First Amendment protects saints and assholes alike, and therefore allows all people within its borders the right to make whatever political statements they want. The issue, instead, is whether anyone who parades in front a banner "Supporting our Troops, Honoring the Fallen" at a desert resort and argues that this war is the paramount battle of our generation, but does nothing to take part in said battle, can ever be taken seriously. To put it another way, it's like being counseled by Ben Affleck on how to vote in an upcoming election, only to find out that he has not bothered to register.

Ms. Panossian has earned the right to be taken seriously when she discusses her feelings on the War on Terror. The assembled Dekes and Tri-Delts in Vegas, like their many comrades in the blogosphere, have not.

Reading this article is sad for those of us who grew up admiring Joe Morgan. It's also puzzling to me, since I could swear I read a profile in People fifteen years ago on Bill James, which included a quote from Little Joe praising baseball's Galileo. [link via Hit&Run]

UPDATE: I was right; Joe Morgan has flip-flopped on the issue of sabermetrics and its most famous practitioner:

"One of the problems in baseball is being able to judge a guy's value to the team," says Joe Morgan, the Hall of Fame infielder now broadcasting for ESPN. "A .260 hitter can be more valuable than a .300 hitter. A player who hits 35 home runs may not drive in 100 runs. All those things were brought into focus by Bill James."[emphasis mine]

"Holy R.B.I. -- It's Statman!; Super stastician Bill James has baseball's numbers", People, June 3, 1991.

Warped Priorities: In the day following the worst terrorist attack in English history, only hours after the G-8 Summit concluded, and in the middle of what may be the most important Supreme Court confirmation battle(s) in history, can you believe that not a single question was asked by the White House press corps this morning about the IOC's decision to discontinue our national pastime as an Olympic sport? Or about Karl Rove, for that matter?

When George Bush was first told about a plane crashing into the WTC on September 11, supposedly his first thought was about the type of moron who had been allowed to fly that plane. A lot of people had hissy-fits about that, and the deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression he had immediately thereafter certainly didn't help, but that was always one criticism of the President that I couldn't buy, since I had the exact same reaction. When I logged in to the 'net on 9/11, and saw the headline, "Plane Crashes Into Twin Towers", my first thought related to the recent deaths of JFK II and Payne Stewart, and was along the lines, "dammit, when are they going to ground these amateur pilots anyways?", and not, "oh god we've been attacked by an Islamofascist terror network based in Afghanistan--The Battle is Joined, at last--Let's man the barricades, and keep the aspidistra flying !!" Maybe that wasn't the classiest sort of thought that a President needed to share with the American People during a time of war, even one engaged against a metaphor, but I could appreciate the sentiment.

So let's just say that I'm not going to join in the public condemnation over Brit Hume's remarks yesterday morning. He probably would like to rephrase what he said, but admitting that you briefly thought about how this would impact investments on Wall Street, immediately after you've been asked a question about how the stock market reacted in the wake of the bombings, is quite human. A lot of the things I thought about yesterday (as well as on 9/11) were selfish and petty as well, and if you don't live in the immediate vicinity of such a tragedy, I expect that the same was true with most of you.

That's why days like July 7, 2005 are such terrible days for blogging; one of our more annoying habits as a species is the attempt to cram events into little pigeonholes of our own devising. We bring certain beliefs to the table, and then when a traumatic event happens, we immediately attempt to shape the contours of that event to fit our world view. It takes time to reconsider our positions, but blogging is a craft that rewards snap judgments, harsh (even violent) rhetoric, and a manichaen, polarized mindset. So why should Brit Hume have been any different than you or me?