I am now posting and receiving comments at http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/
The original Kelso's Nuts blog, however, remains open and while I may at some time in the future cross-post my work there over here, for the time being I wish to repay the kind demons by bringing all the traffic and commentary I can in their direction. I'm pretty serious about this and don't want to dilute that effort with this site.
There's a time for vanity and a time for respect.
If for some reason, you'd prefer to comment to on anything up to the meaning of life or down to traffic and weather here as opposed to there, this space is open to you. I would prefer all comments to me to be left there, however.
So, consider this kind of an open Kelso's Nuts bulletin-board for pass-notes, etc.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Life In HELL
The accord reached between my agents Scott Boras/Jeff Moorad with PAIN and Ser Cavalor, giving me the title of Contributing Editor, is held in the deepest bowels of Santa Monica and in the office of the Hellac recorder of deeds. It is never to be quoted aloud.
It is hoped, however, that Kelso's presence as contributing editor would bring some more traffic to points South. Ironic, considering my great lament was how little traffic I got over here, but I take it as a great compliment. Kelso, a rain-maker? That'll be the day! But don't be afraid. http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/
After all, we're all going to the same place. Or so the artist said.
Kelso's Nuts love you
It is hoped, however, that Kelso's presence as contributing editor would bring some more traffic to points South. Ironic, considering my great lament was how little traffic I got over here, but I take it as a great compliment. Kelso, a rain-maker? That'll be the day! But don't be afraid. http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/
After all, we're all going to the same place. Or so the artist said.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Monday, April 07, 2008
Reed Johnson & Me
Reed Johnson was released by the Toronto Blue Jays at the end of spring training this year. He was signed by the first team to make him an offer, the Chicago Cubs.
I have one degree of separation from Reed Johnson. That fact in and of itself is meaningless. If anybody wants to get his balls in an uproar than my best friend is close to Reed and that somehow is reflective of me trying to play a blog trump card, he is free to get those huevos in as big an uproar as he likes. Having an indirect connection to a reserve outfielder in the major leagues is as of much value to me as having known the Duke of Northumberland (R.I.P.) It fits well in a blog concept. A couple of ibuprofen and some ice wrapped in a wash cloth applied to the tender area will reduce the swelling.
As a baseball fan I've always appreciated Reed's ability and felt bad that he's never gotten the multi-million dollar career his skills predicted. There's a reason for this. He's been very brittle physically. His yahoo and baseball-reference entries follow:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7118
http://www.baseball-reference.com/j/johnsre02.shtml
A far more detailed analyst, Mike Gimbel, proprietor of Mike Gimbel's RPA (tm), tells a rather different story. According to Mr. Gimbel, Johnson was going into spring training this year the 6th best left-fielder (inclusive of hitting and fielding) in the American League, the 20th best outfielder overall in the American League, and the 40th best overall in major league baseball on a per plate-appearance at-bat and in the field basis. He's a pretty good hitter: has a little power but maybe lacks some patience. He makes up for that by having the bizarre ability of being hit by pitches.
As a fielder alone, he's worth 1 3.4 wins per season above the median. He and his friend Eric Byrnes are the two finest defensive LFs in MLB.
He's a small man physically (much smaller than the 5' 10" 180 lbs in his media guide listing). He is a bright guy with a wry sense of humor and is as brittle personally in ways as he is physically. This has prevented him from capitalizing on the whole "gritty-team-first-White-guy" image which sportswriters and fans love and has kept far too many undeserving White players in the bigs at the expense of superior Black talent.
Nobody thought I wasn't going down fighting, did they? Very little has changed since Jim Bouton in Ball Four (1969) made the observation that Black major leaguers don't have the "luxury" of being just OK. It's star or goodbye. And "star" itself is kind of weird, too. Far too many White fans and sportswriters have convinced themselves that Barry Bonds is somehow NOT A GOOD PLAYER, nevermind NOT THE DEFINING PLAYER OF HIS GENERATION. I cannot tell you how many arguments I've had with guys who'll go to their graves preferring to have Mark Lemke to Barry Bonds at bat for all the marbles!
So, the one unearned advantage Reed has, the color of his skin, he can't use. Major League Baseball is a very conservative sport and is not marketing any small White guy who doesn't use the cliches and play the role. Reed Johnson, I think, paid a little too much attention in class when a scholar-athlete at Fullerton State.
He'll be the 4th OF with the Cubs this year. He's a little ouchy right now and although I hope things break right for him, I'm resigned that this may well be his last go round. It's a shame.
With Kelso Junior's organzied baseball life having begun yesterday, I can't help but think of Reed. Junior's a little White kid but he's got a lot of talent but he knows it. He's got a big, sarcastic personality and is very very hard on himself sometimes.
He gets his athletic ability from his grandfather and his personality from his father.
So, with all of that in mind, in homage to Reed Johnson, Kelso has signed on as a free-agent 4th outfielder with an actual blogging team! For real. Pinocchio, you're a real boy, now.
Negotiations apace.
Details to follow.
[UPDATE: THE DEAL IS DONE. KELSO'S NUTS HAS BEEN SIGNED BY http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/ KELSO'S AGENTS MESSRS BORAS AND MOORAD REPORT EVERYTHING WENT SMOOTHLY AND THAT THEY WISHED EVERY OWNER AND GM WERE AS SPORTING AS PAIN AND SER CAVALOR. DETAILS OF AGREEMENT WERE NOT DISCLOSED. SER KELSO'S ONLY COMMENT WAS AN IMPRESSION OF LUIS TIANT'S OLD TV COMMERCIAL FOR OSCAR MEYER: "IT'S GREAT TO BE WITH A WINNER!"]
Kelso's Nuts love you
I have one degree of separation from Reed Johnson. That fact in and of itself is meaningless. If anybody wants to get his balls in an uproar than my best friend is close to Reed and that somehow is reflective of me trying to play a blog trump card, he is free to get those huevos in as big an uproar as he likes. Having an indirect connection to a reserve outfielder in the major leagues is as of much value to me as having known the Duke of Northumberland (R.I.P.) It fits well in a blog concept. A couple of ibuprofen and some ice wrapped in a wash cloth applied to the tender area will reduce the swelling.
As a baseball fan I've always appreciated Reed's ability and felt bad that he's never gotten the multi-million dollar career his skills predicted. There's a reason for this. He's been very brittle physically. His yahoo and baseball-reference entries follow:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7118
http://www.baseball-reference.com/j/johnsre02.shtml
A far more detailed analyst, Mike Gimbel, proprietor of Mike Gimbel's RPA (tm), tells a rather different story. According to Mr. Gimbel, Johnson was going into spring training this year the 6th best left-fielder (inclusive of hitting and fielding) in the American League, the 20th best outfielder overall in the American League, and the 40th best overall in major league baseball on a per plate-appearance at-bat and in the field basis. He's a pretty good hitter: has a little power but maybe lacks some patience. He makes up for that by having the bizarre ability of being hit by pitches.
As a fielder alone, he's worth 1 3.4 wins per season above the median. He and his friend Eric Byrnes are the two finest defensive LFs in MLB.
He's a small man physically (much smaller than the 5' 10" 180 lbs in his media guide listing). He is a bright guy with a wry sense of humor and is as brittle personally in ways as he is physically. This has prevented him from capitalizing on the whole "gritty-team-first-White-guy" image which sportswriters and fans love and has kept far too many undeserving White players in the bigs at the expense of superior Black talent.
Nobody thought I wasn't going down fighting, did they? Very little has changed since Jim Bouton in Ball Four (1969) made the observation that Black major leaguers don't have the "luxury" of being just OK. It's star or goodbye. And "star" itself is kind of weird, too. Far too many White fans and sportswriters have convinced themselves that Barry Bonds is somehow NOT A GOOD PLAYER, nevermind NOT THE DEFINING PLAYER OF HIS GENERATION. I cannot tell you how many arguments I've had with guys who'll go to their graves preferring to have Mark Lemke to Barry Bonds at bat for all the marbles!
So, the one unearned advantage Reed has, the color of his skin, he can't use. Major League Baseball is a very conservative sport and is not marketing any small White guy who doesn't use the cliches and play the role. Reed Johnson, I think, paid a little too much attention in class when a scholar-athlete at Fullerton State.
He'll be the 4th OF with the Cubs this year. He's a little ouchy right now and although I hope things break right for him, I'm resigned that this may well be his last go round. It's a shame.
With Kelso Junior's organzied baseball life having begun yesterday, I can't help but think of Reed. Junior's a little White kid but he's got a lot of talent but he knows it. He's got a big, sarcastic personality and is very very hard on himself sometimes.
He gets his athletic ability from his grandfather and his personality from his father.
So, with all of that in mind, in homage to Reed Johnson, Kelso has signed on as a free-agent 4th outfielder with an actual blogging team! For real. Pinocchio, you're a real boy, now.
Negotiations apace.
Details to follow.
[UPDATE: THE DEAL IS DONE. KELSO'S NUTS HAS BEEN SIGNED BY http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/ KELSO'S AGENTS MESSRS BORAS AND MOORAD REPORT EVERYTHING WENT SMOOTHLY AND THAT THEY WISHED EVERY OWNER AND GM WERE AS SPORTING AS PAIN AND SER CAVALOR. DETAILS OF AGREEMENT WERE NOT DISCLOSED. SER KELSO'S ONLY COMMENT WAS AN IMPRESSION OF LUIS TIANT'S OLD TV COMMERCIAL FOR OSCAR MEYER: "IT'S GREAT TO BE WITH A WINNER!"]
Kelso's Nuts love you
Sunday, April 06, 2008
THE OFFICIAL RETIREMENT OF KELSO'S NUTS
A silly blog polmeic turned ugly. I have no room for stress in my life. I hope people involved make wise choices.
See Jonestown post "No Mall For Old Men" for details. But this has put me in the mind of my oldest friend, Gabe Isaacs. We were seniors in HS and were playing hooky at Aqueduct and losing money. Come the 6th race and there was a 4/5 favorite named Roman Coffee than looked unbeataable. I suggested we just bet the rest of what we had on him, win a little and hope to build up. He said "Roman Coffee isn't worth laying a price...let's find something more interesting...if we're going to go down, let's go down fighting." We played small on some lightly-raced 10/1 shot who finished 4th. Roman Coffee finsihed 2nd. We didn't do any good that day at all, but Gabe's words have always stuck with me. To that end, I reprint the greatest hits of THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST's insults with no editing. And my final response. It's the Roman Coffee response. The reprint of the insults is what Gabe would have done. His words in bold rust.
"At one time, I thought you were slightly intelligent, though too dumb to know that you bore the fuck out of people.
Where have I EVER said anything that would indicate that I am corporatist in any way?
Not white, not fully. And if you weren’t so stuck on yourself, maybe you would already know that 1 out of nine people in New Mexico are indians. That’s registered with a tribe. Lots more like me that are mixed or unregistered.
I don’t give a damn about KU. I like the people, not their sports teams. There’s a difference, ya know.
Either study some business, finance, law, and interntioanl politics…You’re a fool Kelso.With this statement, you said it yourself.
Learn to read before flapping your gums. You are empty wind, with a foul smell.Where I come from, we have a name for that.
Progressive Traditionalist said this on April 5, 2008 at 1:41 "
"Alright.
I just called Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove and spoke to someone at the management office there.I was told that they don’t have an Armani’s there, and that the nearest one is at Roosevelt Field Mall in Cedarhurst.
So I called there and spoke to the lady at AX Armani Exchange at Roosevelt Field. I asked if there was another Armani’s around that would be closer to Lake Grove.I was told that the only other Armani’s on Long Island was in Walt Whitman.
So post a case number, if this is something real.Because nobody else has ever heard of it.
Peerhaps it was that fabrication was your specialty in your study of business, finance, and law.
Progressive Traditionalist said this on April 5, 2008 at 2:41 pm "
Impresionante, si o no? I would like to draw attention to the fact that THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST is also a part-blooded Indian (sic). So much for Manifest Destiny!
Some choice tidbits were excised by proprietor, unfortuantely. If he would be so kind as to post the excised comments on my comments section, I would be in his debt. You can't buy this kind of stuff for love or money, Fairlaem, man, give me the unexpurgated version.
And now, my final offering to THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST (in bold)
"Prog/Trad: You win, buddy. I’m wrong and I’ve taken your harsher remarks about me to heart. There’s merit in them. I would only beg everyone’s understanding that I cannot help myself from being boring because I don’t speak much English anymore. A lot of thoughts, ideas, concerpt in English build up while I’m speakng Spanish.
For better or worse Spanish is my language now and that’s not going to change anytime soon. Best to set the English aside for times when I really need it.
Congratulations, Jonestown. Keep up the good work.
Congratulation, Prog/Trad. Ring up a winner for yourself. Put it in the books, buddy. You got the best of it. Your logic was superior, your stylistics better, and you fought your corner more bravely. No one can say you’re boring or are of limited intelligence.
Me, on the other hand, well….I got a problem or two in both those areas. Should have known I was overmatched.
Thanks for being a good sport. If you are ever in Panama City, be sure to look me up and we’ll knock back a beer or ten and settle the world.
Once again. Mazel tov, mi brother. Well done."
Kelso said this on April 6, 2008 at 12:21 pm
For the record, I think THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST is a blogger with a big future and huge trajectory. This is a BLOGGER, friends and neighbors, in the sense that Rickey Henderson was a BALLPLAYER. He's got the entire toolkit: logic, style, command of English, scholarship, a common touch, widsom, sensitivity, and a wit I haven't read since Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde. I think I may have been a bit stingy with my praise, but Parker and Wilde have to be in anybody's top 10 list of great wits. I have no doubt that should he switch to the spoken-word format, Spalding Grey would soon be forgotten and should he make the obviously forthcoming move into big-time journalism, Matt Taibbi can get out out town, because here's the real new Hunter Thompson.
I cannot recommend the man's work more highly. Run, don't walk, to his blog. I could not recommend a better replacement for myself upon my retirement than THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST .
Apologies to my generous guest bloggers: Gary'sBoner, Spartacus and DistributorCapNY. Nice try, guys. But nuts to you. Though I'd love for any or all of you to take over for me, you are overmatched here by a professional. Your shit is good, no knock. But this dude is PRICELESS. I have no hope of getting him to fill in, but having posted these pearls, I don't think you guys really want to try to compete. I'm going to have to leave it vacant.
It's been a pleasure and a privilege doing this for the last 2 1-2 years. But, shit, when you see the next Rickey Henderson coming into camp, you just hope they release you and you can sign on as an outfielder elsewhere.
Kelso's Nuts love you
See Jonestown post "No Mall For Old Men" for details. But this has put me in the mind of my oldest friend, Gabe Isaacs. We were seniors in HS and were playing hooky at Aqueduct and losing money. Come the 6th race and there was a 4/5 favorite named Roman Coffee than looked unbeataable. I suggested we just bet the rest of what we had on him, win a little and hope to build up. He said "Roman Coffee isn't worth laying a price...let's find something more interesting...if we're going to go down, let's go down fighting." We played small on some lightly-raced 10/1 shot who finished 4th. Roman Coffee finsihed 2nd. We didn't do any good that day at all, but Gabe's words have always stuck with me. To that end, I reprint the greatest hits of THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST's insults with no editing. And my final response. It's the Roman Coffee response. The reprint of the insults is what Gabe would have done. His words in bold rust.
"At one time, I thought you were slightly intelligent, though too dumb to know that you bore the fuck out of people.
Where have I EVER said anything that would indicate that I am corporatist in any way?
Not white, not fully. And if you weren’t so stuck on yourself, maybe you would already know that 1 out of nine people in New Mexico are indians. That’s registered with a tribe. Lots more like me that are mixed or unregistered.
I don’t give a damn about KU. I like the people, not their sports teams. There’s a difference, ya know.
Either study some business, finance, law, and interntioanl politics…You’re a fool Kelso.With this statement, you said it yourself.
Learn to read before flapping your gums. You are empty wind, with a foul smell.Where I come from, we have a name for that.
Progressive Traditionalist said this on April 5, 2008 at 1:41 "
"Alright.
I just called Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove and spoke to someone at the management office there.I was told that they don’t have an Armani’s there, and that the nearest one is at Roosevelt Field Mall in Cedarhurst.
So I called there and spoke to the lady at AX Armani Exchange at Roosevelt Field. I asked if there was another Armani’s around that would be closer to Lake Grove.I was told that the only other Armani’s on Long Island was in Walt Whitman.
So post a case number, if this is something real.Because nobody else has ever heard of it.
Peerhaps it was that fabrication was your specialty in your study of business, finance, and law.
Progressive Traditionalist said this on April 5, 2008 at 2:41 pm "
Impresionante, si o no? I would like to draw attention to the fact that THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST is also a part-blooded Indian (sic). So much for Manifest Destiny!
Some choice tidbits were excised by proprietor, unfortuantely. If he would be so kind as to post the excised comments on my comments section, I would be in his debt. You can't buy this kind of stuff for love or money, Fairlaem, man, give me the unexpurgated version.
And now, my final offering to THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST (in bold)
"Prog/Trad: You win, buddy. I’m wrong and I’ve taken your harsher remarks about me to heart. There’s merit in them. I would only beg everyone’s understanding that I cannot help myself from being boring because I don’t speak much English anymore. A lot of thoughts, ideas, concerpt in English build up while I’m speakng Spanish.
For better or worse Spanish is my language now and that’s not going to change anytime soon. Best to set the English aside for times when I really need it.
Congratulations, Jonestown. Keep up the good work.
Congratulation, Prog/Trad. Ring up a winner for yourself. Put it in the books, buddy. You got the best of it. Your logic was superior, your stylistics better, and you fought your corner more bravely. No one can say you’re boring or are of limited intelligence.
Me, on the other hand, well….I got a problem or two in both those areas. Should have known I was overmatched.
Thanks for being a good sport. If you are ever in Panama City, be sure to look me up and we’ll knock back a beer or ten and settle the world.
Once again. Mazel tov, mi brother. Well done."
Kelso said this on April 6, 2008 at 12:21 pm
For the record, I think THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST is a blogger with a big future and huge trajectory. This is a BLOGGER, friends and neighbors, in the sense that Rickey Henderson was a BALLPLAYER. He's got the entire toolkit: logic, style, command of English, scholarship, a common touch, widsom, sensitivity, and a wit I haven't read since Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde. I think I may have been a bit stingy with my praise, but Parker and Wilde have to be in anybody's top 10 list of great wits. I have no doubt that should he switch to the spoken-word format, Spalding Grey would soon be forgotten and should he make the obviously forthcoming move into big-time journalism, Matt Taibbi can get out out town, because here's the real new Hunter Thompson.
I cannot recommend the man's work more highly. Run, don't walk, to his blog. I could not recommend a better replacement for myself upon my retirement than THE PROGRESSIVE TRADITIONALIST .
Apologies to my generous guest bloggers: Gary'sBoner, Spartacus and DistributorCapNY. Nice try, guys. But nuts to you. Though I'd love for any or all of you to take over for me, you are overmatched here by a professional. Your shit is good, no knock. But this dude is PRICELESS. I have no hope of getting him to fill in, but having posted these pearls, I don't think you guys really want to try to compete. I'm going to have to leave it vacant.
It's been a pleasure and a privilege doing this for the last 2 1-2 years. But, shit, when you see the next Rickey Henderson coming into camp, you just hope they release you and you can sign on as an outfielder elsewhere.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Notes On A Remote Control
These past three weeks have been very demanding of me work-wise. I've averaged well over 100 hours each week and my favorite unwinding mechanism has been watching movies on the Chilean cinephile channels which have movies from all over with Spanish subtitles.
Sometime early this morning I saw something that I think is called "Domino," at least that was what it was called in Spanish on on-screen cable info guide. It is a Tony Scott film and is one of these post-modern film-within-film conceits about this plucky, inter-racial band of tech savvy bounty hunters who sell the idea of a bounty-hunting reality show to an avaricious producer played by Christopher Walken. There is also a matter of a robbery they commit, $300,000 of the proceeds of which are ear-marked to pay for the medical care of an ill nephew of one of the team (sniff, sniff). Oh, the money is stolen from someone drawn to represent Carl Icahn.
The show is a runaway success and becomes married to the federal law enforcement apparatus in some way. The feds in this movie are sympathetic to the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters, with whom the viewer is supposed to identify and for whom the viewer is supposed to root.
With apologies to the Progressive Traditionalist whom I took to task at Jonestown for taking the side of a mall-owner over that of an old dude who got hassled for wearing an anti-Iraq War t-shirt, let me say that I was rooting agaisnt every single one of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters throughout this movie, knowing in vain that I would be disappointed with the ending.
The sympathetic characters in the movie to me were, one supposes, the villains in the script. There was the Carl Ichan character, a casino-owner who wasn't the friendliest guy in the world (what casino owner is?) but not a creep certainly and he had $10mm stolen from him by the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. The $10mm belonged to the guy, not the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. Gee whiz.
The other characters who seemed sympathetic to me but were supposed to be villains to the audience were this mafia capo, his wife and their two sons who lived at some frat-house in some "exclusive" college, the kind one assumes that would not accept any member of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. With the assent and aid of the FBI, the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters torture and murder the boys, leaving both parents grief stricken (yay! fuck whitey!) and the father out for old-country revenge, which, sadly, he doesn't get. Instead he gets blown to smithereens by the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters (yay! fuck whitey!) for his troubles.
I guess I kept waiting for an Amy Goodman or Greg Palast kind of character to come in as a deus-ex-machina and save the day. Christ, I would have settled for Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan!
There's one last sympathetic character in the movie, Tom Waits klnd of playing himself, but sort of a villain, as kind of an angel of death who warns the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters that they have sinned and will face the fury of hell one way or the other, which does indeed happen to all but the title character, played by Keira Knighley who emerges from the wastage without a scratch on her.
Aside from being preposterous, the movie troubled me on a lot of levels. First of all, I realized exactly how much of an old fogey I've become, no matter what my personal politics are. Christ, who roots against the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and for the casino owner and the mafia family with their two over-privileged frat-boy sons? What a disappointing ending. I was hoping some kind of sanity would kick in and the capo would avenge his sons' torture/murders by halving the Keira Knightley character with an AK-47!
Yes, friends and neighbors, I'm sorry to report following that movie I took a look in the mirror and saw a racist and class-ist looking back. That was kind of a depressing realization. Even though I suspected it all along about myself, I still needed two valium to get past the moment.
The ship got righted a little as the following movie was something called Pierrepoint starring Timothy Spall about Britain's finest executioner (as a trade) who late in life comes to realize the uselessness and immorality of capital punishment. I certainly agree with that.
There's no getting around the earlier movie, however. Even though the casino owner and the mafia family were not presented in a particularly bad light, the whole vibe of the union of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and the Feds troubled me. But that's no excuse. As stupid as that movie was, I really, truly disliked the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and felt quite a bit of sympathy for the capitalist and the capo.
I guess I have to accept the truth and nail my colors to the mast: I am a racist and a class-ist and I guess I'll always be that. Or maybe an old fogey is just and old fogey. Maybe given this post and the last one, I'm in this brooding, anti-kneejerk liberal mode I get from my left-wing father -- a mode of thought FAIRLANE and I share from time to time, as well.
At any rate, a truly minimalist youtube fuck-you to the conceit of that wretched movie and to plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, bands of bounty hunters everywhere by a class-conscious old-fogey folkie, Patrik Fitzgerald.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Sometime early this morning I saw something that I think is called "Domino," at least that was what it was called in Spanish on on-screen cable info guide. It is a Tony Scott film and is one of these post-modern film-within-film conceits about this plucky, inter-racial band of tech savvy bounty hunters who sell the idea of a bounty-hunting reality show to an avaricious producer played by Christopher Walken. There is also a matter of a robbery they commit, $300,000 of the proceeds of which are ear-marked to pay for the medical care of an ill nephew of one of the team (sniff, sniff). Oh, the money is stolen from someone drawn to represent Carl Icahn.
The show is a runaway success and becomes married to the federal law enforcement apparatus in some way. The feds in this movie are sympathetic to the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters, with whom the viewer is supposed to identify and for whom the viewer is supposed to root.
With apologies to the Progressive Traditionalist whom I took to task at Jonestown for taking the side of a mall-owner over that of an old dude who got hassled for wearing an anti-Iraq War t-shirt, let me say that I was rooting agaisnt every single one of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters throughout this movie, knowing in vain that I would be disappointed with the ending.
The sympathetic characters in the movie to me were, one supposes, the villains in the script. There was the Carl Ichan character, a casino-owner who wasn't the friendliest guy in the world (what casino owner is?) but not a creep certainly and he had $10mm stolen from him by the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. The $10mm belonged to the guy, not the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. Gee whiz.
The other characters who seemed sympathetic to me but were supposed to be villains to the audience were this mafia capo, his wife and their two sons who lived at some frat-house in some "exclusive" college, the kind one assumes that would not accept any member of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. With the assent and aid of the FBI, the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters torture and murder the boys, leaving both parents grief stricken (yay! fuck whitey!) and the father out for old-country revenge, which, sadly, he doesn't get. Instead he gets blown to smithereens by the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters (yay! fuck whitey!) for his troubles.
I guess I kept waiting for an Amy Goodman or Greg Palast kind of character to come in as a deus-ex-machina and save the day. Christ, I would have settled for Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan!
There's one last sympathetic character in the movie, Tom Waits klnd of playing himself, but sort of a villain, as kind of an angel of death who warns the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters that they have sinned and will face the fury of hell one way or the other, which does indeed happen to all but the title character, played by Keira Knighley who emerges from the wastage without a scratch on her.
Aside from being preposterous, the movie troubled me on a lot of levels. First of all, I realized exactly how much of an old fogey I've become, no matter what my personal politics are. Christ, who roots against the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and for the casino owner and the mafia family with their two over-privileged frat-boy sons? What a disappointing ending. I was hoping some kind of sanity would kick in and the capo would avenge his sons' torture/murders by halving the Keira Knightley character with an AK-47!
Yes, friends and neighbors, I'm sorry to report following that movie I took a look in the mirror and saw a racist and class-ist looking back. That was kind of a depressing realization. Even though I suspected it all along about myself, I still needed two valium to get past the moment.
The ship got righted a little as the following movie was something called Pierrepoint starring Timothy Spall about Britain's finest executioner (as a trade) who late in life comes to realize the uselessness and immorality of capital punishment. I certainly agree with that.
There's no getting around the earlier movie, however. Even though the casino owner and the mafia family were not presented in a particularly bad light, the whole vibe of the union of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and the Feds troubled me. But that's no excuse. As stupid as that movie was, I really, truly disliked the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and felt quite a bit of sympathy for the capitalist and the capo.
I guess I have to accept the truth and nail my colors to the mast: I am a racist and a class-ist and I guess I'll always be that. Or maybe an old fogey is just and old fogey. Maybe given this post and the last one, I'm in this brooding, anti-kneejerk liberal mode I get from my left-wing father -- a mode of thought FAIRLANE and I share from time to time, as well.
At any rate, a truly minimalist youtube fuck-you to the conceit of that wretched movie and to plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, bands of bounty hunters everywhere by a class-conscious old-fogey folkie, Patrik Fitzgerald.
Kelso's Nuts love you
How Cool Is It That Spitzer's Main Girl Is Also Jewish?
Really double-plus a lot is the answer. I'm absolutely loving that There are a million bad things I can say about Eliot Spitzer and this whole situation but I give him and her a hell of a lot of credit for changing our image in America. Horny fucking bastards we are, every single one of us, men and women, straight and gay. From now on when you think "Jewish guy" don't think Joe Lieberman, think Ron Jeremy. When you hear "Jewish broad," don't think Dianne Feinstein, think Spitzer's Twister. Tired of this shit.
And now that I have everyone's attention it's time to ponder emigration, immigration, lamebrains and brain drains and Spitzer is as good a jumping off point as any.
He got caught by the same Patriot Acts he favored, those which compel banks to provide the government with SARs (suspicious activity reports), meaning any transaction they feel like reporting. Every single phone call to or from overseas is recorded. Every cell phone call at all is recorded. Every American's picture is taken by stationary cameras 50 times a day. Something called "Real ID" will function as an internal passport. Very soon if not already, any American planning a trip outside the United States must provide the Department Of Homeland Security with an itinterary.
Let me pause here for a second. I don't censor comments EVER on this blog. But if anyone writes in anything to the effect of "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about," I will write a comment in response that will hurt that person's feelings in a profound way. My response will neither threaten, harrass nor break any law. I merely promise to insult that person in a truly ugly fashion.
The truth is that everyone is doing something wrong every minute of the day according to the Patriot Acts, the companion Executive Orders, and Mukasey's interpretation of sedition (yes, he interprets "expression of dissatisfaction with the United States of America" as sedition).
I had my own less political, more practical reasons for emigrating, basically having to do with my work, whicn had poltiical overtones but that's another story. I considered myself a very good citizen, definitely a net plus. I didn't break the law. I paid my taxes. I served jury duty. It is extraordinarily unlikely that I will live in the United States again. It is not likely I will visit terribly often nor terribly soon. I live in one city in South America. In the same city, there are hundreds just like me. Self-employed folks who make money in speculative markets who are able to speak Spanish and are holders of at least a BA or BS from a top U.S. university. Gallows humor amongst us is the order of the day and you'd best believe the stuff we joke about when we're together would make Reverend Wright's "God Damn America" sound like "God Bless America" by comparison. Oh, for example, we make some jokes about Bill Frist that I wouldn't even retell in this open forum. When Barack Obama campaigned against gambling in Nevada, you can bet some tasty Obama jokes were flying around the various VIP rooms here. The Bush and McCain jokes are cruder still!
One city in one country in South America. 50 or so educated guys. Multiply that by a lot of cities all over the world and what you have is a brain-drain of the equivalent of the Republic Of Ireland in the early to mid 1990s. The agricultural and fishing sectors were dying, there was a huge problem with alcoholism, young people were sick and tired of having no opportunities, and most of all were sick and tired of letting a strong central authority, the Roman Catholic Church, do their thinking for them. The Irish Republic until the formation of the EU could not keep its brightest young people in the country.
Sometime around October when the polling shows a close race between Obama and McCain, many of you will hear some of your contemporaries absolutely declaring that if McCain wins, they're leaving the United States. They are poseurs and that line is horse-puckey. No middle-aged farts are moving anywhere because a Crazed-Up White Fascist beats an Indifferent Black proto-Fascist.
Leading that charge will be usual suspects like Katrina vanden Heuval and Katha Pollitt of The Nation. Expect Cornel West to chime in. Expect some of your friends and neighbors to do the same. Think about the reality, though. What are vanden Heuvel, Pollitt and West really going to do? Come down to Panama to play 50-100 No-Limit Omaha for a living? Write for La Prensa? Teach at the University Of Panama? They fuck they are. McCain and war are not just great business for the right. They're great business for name-brand liberals, too. Nobody cares about vandenHeuvel or Pollitt's schtick on South American TV. What's West going to do teach African-American studies at a university that doesn't have an African-American studies department and even if it did would only pay him $50,000/year? But their schtick plays super in the USA no matter who's president.
There's nothing so special about name-brand American liberals in South American, Europe, Canada, Oceania or anywhere else. Katrina vandenHeuvel and Katha Pollitt and their ersatz progressivist feminism wouldn't really excite anybody who can't understand English yet is a resident of a country whose last president was a center-right woman and whose next president will be a center-left woman. What else can West do? Say "Allah akhbar, my brother" to his "brother", Representative Roberto "Chama" Butcher? Butcher may be an African-American by ancestry but he can't speak English and would have no time for a funny little goofball with a beard and glasses who speaks this odd patois that doesn't even sound like the English "Chama" hears on TV. Butcher's got local projects to get through council. Unless, Dr. West can throw some money around the district, the "allah akhbar, my brother," would just be a clanger. As in "crickets." As in "disculpame, senor, no entiendo." That settles that.
Your friends and neighbors who make the idle threat are just showing off. They'd sooner cut out their own livers with a pen-knife than leave the States. Be sure to remind them of that a year or so into McCain's presidency. If I seem a little gratuitous and "unfeeling" on this subject, excuse me. I kind of thought I'd be watching my son's Little League opener on Sunday. And poseurs suck. Donkey dicks.
Middle-aged farts like me only did it because we had to. Young, college educated people, however, WILL leave that because of a simple economic principle called "switching costs" -- theirs are low -- and that's the problem.
There will be efforts to halt the exodus of talented American youth -- the aforementioned REAL ID, the DHS itinerary lists, no-fly lists, very strong visa and passport controls...I could go on. But the young want a chance to do something with their lives other than die in Repulbicrat Wars or work at Starbucks.
The lamebrain American leadership and press, however, have mistakenly bought into a bad framing of the immigration issue. The reality is that liberal immigration laws would cushion the damage of the coming brain-drain. The way the "immigration problem debate" is framed is binary and both options suck. There is John McCain and George W. Bush's "liberal" plan to punish as many immigrants as possible, place them under a mountain of debt via federal fines, and then create a huge class of minimum-wage indentured servants. Tom Tancredo and Joe Biden's plan -- the more popular -- "consevative" one, is maximum punishment and maximum deportation. Any other idea, like just letting well enough alone, is considered "amnesty" and is much poltical poison as "affirmative action" is. Clinton and Obama lean to the McCain viewpoint and both are clearly very, very bad on this issue.
With a declining replacement birth rate and such stringent immigration controls, how exactly do America's leaders and their press think that the country will sustain itself? Who'll do the work? Who'll go to college and grad school? Who'll reproduce? I know the answer the leaders and I do include Clinton and Obama in this. The plan is for PHYSICAL EMPIRE, of course. Neither Clinton nor Obama are leaving Iraq? Are you crazy? Both would aggress on Iran if given a chance. They are only better than McCain because McCain is so angry and psychopathic he has no plan even for PHYSICAL EMPIRE. Global thermo-nuclear war will work just fine for him.
Because America has been so hard-hearted on immigration over the past 7-years and probably will continue to be this bad or worse for the foreseeable future, you will notice that most countries have made the immigration rules on Americans tighter and tighter. If an American doesn't have pre-arranged work or cannot invest a rather large amount in most countries, they cannot get legal residency. Political asylum? After years of McCarran-Walter and various other laws which only allowed asylum to immigrants from communist countries, there are very few countries on Earth in a big hurry to grant asylum to any American immigrant.
Young. educated Americans are resourceful, however, and will find ways legal and illegal to get out, make their way in the world, start families under less restrictive social conditions and live the lives they want.
Meanwhile, as the US keeps adding more wars to its portfolio, taking on more debt, maintaining global instability to ensure high commodity prices and an ever falling dollar, there will come a point of inflection. The price of oil will get so high that at Purchasing Power Parity there will be no reason for any Caribbean and certainly no Mexican (which is very rich in crude oil but has no war burdens) to WANT TO LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES. And then the "immigration problem" will go away in the press. The U.S.'s "dirt cheap standard of living" will, future U.S. leaders hope, indeed draw by the millions those same awful brown people they now want to keep out.
Those of us who've left will be grandparents whose grandchildren WILL NOT BE AMERICANS. They won't speak English. They won't give a rat's ass about the fabulous American flag, unless it's for a geography project or something. Their flags, their anthems, their cultural signifiers will be those of the countries of their birth, from Panama to Lebanon, Argentina to Kazakhstan.
Our grandkids will be laughing at our funny accents and our odd interest in news from that big dictatorship no one wants to live in anymore.
And we old men will probably still meet at the 24-hour cafeteria pa' una Coca-Cola en lata un cubano bien planchado y un orden de alitas "Buffalo" picante afuera, porfis, after playing cards. I'm sure we'll be telling the same old crude jokes about Bill Frist, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain, four forgotten villains of a forgotten war.
Kelso's Nuts love you
And now that I have everyone's attention it's time to ponder emigration, immigration, lamebrains and brain drains and Spitzer is as good a jumping off point as any.
He got caught by the same Patriot Acts he favored, those which compel banks to provide the government with SARs (suspicious activity reports), meaning any transaction they feel like reporting. Every single phone call to or from overseas is recorded. Every cell phone call at all is recorded. Every American's picture is taken by stationary cameras 50 times a day. Something called "Real ID" will function as an internal passport. Very soon if not already, any American planning a trip outside the United States must provide the Department Of Homeland Security with an itinterary.
Let me pause here for a second. I don't censor comments EVER on this blog. But if anyone writes in anything to the effect of "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about," I will write a comment in response that will hurt that person's feelings in a profound way. My response will neither threaten, harrass nor break any law. I merely promise to insult that person in a truly ugly fashion.
The truth is that everyone is doing something wrong every minute of the day according to the Patriot Acts, the companion Executive Orders, and Mukasey's interpretation of sedition (yes, he interprets "expression of dissatisfaction with the United States of America" as sedition).
I had my own less political, more practical reasons for emigrating, basically having to do with my work, whicn had poltiical overtones but that's another story. I considered myself a very good citizen, definitely a net plus. I didn't break the law. I paid my taxes. I served jury duty. It is extraordinarily unlikely that I will live in the United States again. It is not likely I will visit terribly often nor terribly soon. I live in one city in South America. In the same city, there are hundreds just like me. Self-employed folks who make money in speculative markets who are able to speak Spanish and are holders of at least a BA or BS from a top U.S. university. Gallows humor amongst us is the order of the day and you'd best believe the stuff we joke about when we're together would make Reverend Wright's "God Damn America" sound like "God Bless America" by comparison. Oh, for example, we make some jokes about Bill Frist that I wouldn't even retell in this open forum. When Barack Obama campaigned against gambling in Nevada, you can bet some tasty Obama jokes were flying around the various VIP rooms here. The Bush and McCain jokes are cruder still!
One city in one country in South America. 50 or so educated guys. Multiply that by a lot of cities all over the world and what you have is a brain-drain of the equivalent of the Republic Of Ireland in the early to mid 1990s. The agricultural and fishing sectors were dying, there was a huge problem with alcoholism, young people were sick and tired of having no opportunities, and most of all were sick and tired of letting a strong central authority, the Roman Catholic Church, do their thinking for them. The Irish Republic until the formation of the EU could not keep its brightest young people in the country.
Sometime around October when the polling shows a close race between Obama and McCain, many of you will hear some of your contemporaries absolutely declaring that if McCain wins, they're leaving the United States. They are poseurs and that line is horse-puckey. No middle-aged farts are moving anywhere because a Crazed-Up White Fascist beats an Indifferent Black proto-Fascist.
Leading that charge will be usual suspects like Katrina vanden Heuval and Katha Pollitt of The Nation. Expect Cornel West to chime in. Expect some of your friends and neighbors to do the same. Think about the reality, though. What are vanden Heuvel, Pollitt and West really going to do? Come down to Panama to play 50-100 No-Limit Omaha for a living? Write for La Prensa? Teach at the University Of Panama? They fuck they are. McCain and war are not just great business for the right. They're great business for name-brand liberals, too. Nobody cares about vandenHeuvel or Pollitt's schtick on South American TV. What's West going to do teach African-American studies at a university that doesn't have an African-American studies department and even if it did would only pay him $50,000/year? But their schtick plays super in the USA no matter who's president.
There's nothing so special about name-brand American liberals in South American, Europe, Canada, Oceania or anywhere else. Katrina vandenHeuvel and Katha Pollitt and their ersatz progressivist feminism wouldn't really excite anybody who can't understand English yet is a resident of a country whose last president was a center-right woman and whose next president will be a center-left woman. What else can West do? Say "Allah akhbar, my brother" to his "brother", Representative Roberto "Chama" Butcher? Butcher may be an African-American by ancestry but he can't speak English and would have no time for a funny little goofball with a beard and glasses who speaks this odd patois that doesn't even sound like the English "Chama" hears on TV. Butcher's got local projects to get through council. Unless, Dr. West can throw some money around the district, the "allah akhbar, my brother," would just be a clanger. As in "crickets." As in "disculpame, senor, no entiendo." That settles that.
Your friends and neighbors who make the idle threat are just showing off. They'd sooner cut out their own livers with a pen-knife than leave the States. Be sure to remind them of that a year or so into McCain's presidency. If I seem a little gratuitous and "unfeeling" on this subject, excuse me. I kind of thought I'd be watching my son's Little League opener on Sunday. And poseurs suck. Donkey dicks.
Middle-aged farts like me only did it because we had to. Young, college educated people, however, WILL leave that because of a simple economic principle called "switching costs" -- theirs are low -- and that's the problem.
There will be efforts to halt the exodus of talented American youth -- the aforementioned REAL ID, the DHS itinerary lists, no-fly lists, very strong visa and passport controls...I could go on. But the young want a chance to do something with their lives other than die in Repulbicrat Wars or work at Starbucks.
The lamebrain American leadership and press, however, have mistakenly bought into a bad framing of the immigration issue. The reality is that liberal immigration laws would cushion the damage of the coming brain-drain. The way the "immigration problem debate" is framed is binary and both options suck. There is John McCain and George W. Bush's "liberal" plan to punish as many immigrants as possible, place them under a mountain of debt via federal fines, and then create a huge class of minimum-wage indentured servants. Tom Tancredo and Joe Biden's plan -- the more popular -- "consevative" one, is maximum punishment and maximum deportation. Any other idea, like just letting well enough alone, is considered "amnesty" and is much poltical poison as "affirmative action" is. Clinton and Obama lean to the McCain viewpoint and both are clearly very, very bad on this issue.
With a declining replacement birth rate and such stringent immigration controls, how exactly do America's leaders and their press think that the country will sustain itself? Who'll do the work? Who'll go to college and grad school? Who'll reproduce? I know the answer the leaders and I do include Clinton and Obama in this. The plan is for PHYSICAL EMPIRE, of course. Neither Clinton nor Obama are leaving Iraq? Are you crazy? Both would aggress on Iran if given a chance. They are only better than McCain because McCain is so angry and psychopathic he has no plan even for PHYSICAL EMPIRE. Global thermo-nuclear war will work just fine for him.
Because America has been so hard-hearted on immigration over the past 7-years and probably will continue to be this bad or worse for the foreseeable future, you will notice that most countries have made the immigration rules on Americans tighter and tighter. If an American doesn't have pre-arranged work or cannot invest a rather large amount in most countries, they cannot get legal residency. Political asylum? After years of McCarran-Walter and various other laws which only allowed asylum to immigrants from communist countries, there are very few countries on Earth in a big hurry to grant asylum to any American immigrant.
Young. educated Americans are resourceful, however, and will find ways legal and illegal to get out, make their way in the world, start families under less restrictive social conditions and live the lives they want.
Meanwhile, as the US keeps adding more wars to its portfolio, taking on more debt, maintaining global instability to ensure high commodity prices and an ever falling dollar, there will come a point of inflection. The price of oil will get so high that at Purchasing Power Parity there will be no reason for any Caribbean and certainly no Mexican (which is very rich in crude oil but has no war burdens) to WANT TO LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES. And then the "immigration problem" will go away in the press. The U.S.'s "dirt cheap standard of living" will, future U.S. leaders hope, indeed draw by the millions those same awful brown people they now want to keep out.
Those of us who've left will be grandparents whose grandchildren WILL NOT BE AMERICANS. They won't speak English. They won't give a rat's ass about the fabulous American flag, unless it's for a geography project or something. Their flags, their anthems, their cultural signifiers will be those of the countries of their birth, from Panama to Lebanon, Argentina to Kazakhstan.
Our grandkids will be laughing at our funny accents and our odd interest in news from that big dictatorship no one wants to live in anymore.
And we old men will probably still meet at the 24-hour cafeteria pa' una Coca-Cola en lata un cubano bien planchado y un orden de alitas "Buffalo" picante afuera, porfis, after playing cards. I'm sure we'll be telling the same old crude jokes about Bill Frist, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain, four forgotten villains of a forgotten war.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Thursday, April 03, 2008
"Bowling" For WWIII? Little Leaguer For Governor in 2038?
I had hoped to write an emigration and immigration piece today but conditions are lining up a little too quickly for a possible WWIII and as Einstein said he didn't know how WWIII would be fought, WWIV would be fought with sticks and stones.
This bastard McCain must never become president under any circumstances.
While Obama was bowling for Polish-American votes in Pennsylvania, this is what was happening in Polish-Poland.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080403/ap_on_re_eu/bush
Neither Obama nor Clinton are particularly "good" on the subject of world peace, but neither are they insane. Both have toyed with Christian Rapturist Zionists -- Obama: Robertson, Warren; Clinton: "The Fellowship Of The Ring (tm)". One hopes that given both candidates' formidable brains and basically neutral-to-benign approaches to life that these alliances are a useful fraud in the style of the Ohmert government of Israel's picking McCain spiritual advisor Hagee's pocket. There's a great pun here because the Spanish and Italian word for "pick-pocket" is "carterista." And what do we have here in Obama's foreign policy circles? Why none other than one of the great (Jimmy) Carteristas, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082402127.html
This is bad and good. Zbig's a cold-warrior and I doubt anyone who was deeply involved in that experience shucks it off lightly. Russia will always be "the enemy," even if it is now a capitalist country while the USA heads to a form of fiscal and monetary (National) Socialism. So, Zbig has to like what's happening in Poland and with NATO adding former Soviet satellites. Doing this is the equivalent of Russia putting a "missle-defense shield" in Nova Scotia and I WILL go down to the felt with that opinion.
McCain is very much in favor of aggression everywhere even thought -- especially because! -- Putin, Medvedev, whoever don't mess. They were willing to muscle Bush off Iran once before and they'll do whatever it takes to protect themselves up to and including joining OPEC, burying the U.S. economy or nuking them all and letting God sort it all out. Russia has it too good economically right now and they're not about to let U.S. jealousy mess anything up. One only hopes that Lake would be a counter-weight to Zbig in an Obama presidency on reviving the old Cold War.
Brzezinski's a good presence in an Obama Administration with regard to the Middle-East because he has been an opponent of Iraq II, and because of his being a Carterista. While Obama has flirted with both pro and con positions, he has positioned himself as the Iraq dove in the race and may stick to it. He'd better. He's probably a one-term president because of the economy, anyway. There's no reason to make that a certainty by switching to Iraq-hawk in office.
There are, however, other influences on Obama that give one pause concerning the Middle-East. Joe Lieberman is one. While, Holy Joe has thrown in with McCain here but he is very close to Obama as well and unless he does something terribly offensive to Obama during the campaign, he will come sniffing around for something in an Obama administration. Lieberman cannot beat either of Blumenthal or Lamont or Gjedenson or DeLauro for Senate in 2012. Lieberman wants Holy War and if he can't get it with McCain, he'll try to get it with Obama.
There's Colin Powell. He is sort of a mellow Lieberman. He's a loyal soldier, so he'll back McCain in the campaign unenthusiastically, but there have been rumors all along that he's been a back-channel foreign policy advisor to Obama. He merely has military ambitions in the Middle-East. He wanted and wants to win and knows that we all know his "doctrine" is not exactly Ghandi-esque. One can hope that if he's part of an Obama presidency, he'll weigh it up and decide another soldier's life isn't worth any of it.
There may well be a "folk" argument to include Rice somehow. We all know where she is on Russia and the Middle-East and everywhere else. Rice is just awful. She's essentially the foreign policy equivalent of a not too bright 11-year old who can't win at the game of Risk for lacking knowledge and brains but can't resist the losing strategy of placing a few soldiers everywhere and attacking blind.
But the wild-card in the Obama deck is Pat Robertson. How much Obama owes this guy is anyone's question. The circumstancial evidence is this. They are friendly. Obama gave his first interview following South Carolina to Robertson's network and it was not a hard-hitting one to be sure. It's hard to believe that Obama has had such success in courting the White Male Christian Right without Robertson's help. Robertson hates both Clinton and McCain and is the hawk's hawk. And boy does he have a hard-on for the potential third-front of WWIII, South America. It's no fun to read that, I realize. Nobody wants to think of Obama as being in Robertson's pocket. I doesn't seem to make any sense. We want to think of Obama as something different. But at least in my twisted mind Obama's "Reverend problem" isn't Wright, it's Robertson. Just as his Slavic-American problem isn't Tony Rezko. It's the bowling.
Obama's Slavic asset, however, could be Zbig. Brzezinski as a Carterista was never into the "war on drugs," but was an advocate of The Carter-Torrijos Accord. Most of Reagan's Latin American policy was a reversal of everything Carter had either done or ignored. It's good that Brzezinski and possibly Lake have advocated a diplomatic approach to South America which has included a willingness to set aside differences with Chavez and Correa and, perhaps, try to get Colombia resolved peacefully, meaning multi-lateral negotiations with the FARC or at the very least, not taking a side. Things are on the knife-edge there right now and with the release of Ingrid Betancourt perhaps the key to the Nobel Peace Prize thrown into the pot along with the oil, cocaine, and banking, a new malign presence, Nicolas Sarkozy, has joined the game with who knows what intentions.
With Obama, it may come down Powell having achieved his military "comeback" (following the years of the Calley disgrace) in Panama with Operation Just Cause and Robertson versus Brzezisnki, Lake and Gregory Craig (Perez-Balladares's attorney and advisor). While Obama has said he'd speak to Chavez, he's also said (albeit with some prompting by an NPR reporter) that the presence of more USD on account in the Caribbean and South America than in US banks is a "problem in fighting the war on terror."
I've focused on Obama's advisors and not Obama himself because so far Obama has shown as much interest in any of this as he has in ornithology. He's a cipher. We know he's a very bright guy. We think his default goals are peace and prosperity. We know he's basically a good guy. If his foreign policy instincts match the power, realpolitik, sensitivity and sophistication of his race speech, he'll be a comforting presence. But we really don't know what decision he'd make at 3AM and whom he trust most to help him make it now, do we?
Which brings us to Clinton. It's just as much of an open question with her despite all of the history we really do know! This has been her problem throughout. She's had to be on all three sides of every issue at least since she became a public figure. If we go by her rhetoric of right this minute, we have to worry. She has to differentiate herself from Obama and has decided to use a hawkish foreign policy approach to do so, because for some reason the "dovish" approach of a month ago, "Iraq withdrawal begins in 60 days," allowed Obama to run off a big string of wins with the lion's share of Republican cross-overs, independents, the Democratic Right and White Men in general. See what a puzzle this is?
Most of what she was a party to during the Clinton/Gore years was pretty good if we think about the hot spots. The dissolution of the FSU in a peaceful way accelerated following George H.W. Bush's decision to let things work themselves out in the USSR in the fall of 1991 was definitely a success and Senator Clinton would know better than to reopen any wounds there, we hope. Kosovo can be read too many ways. I don't have an opinion other than stopping ethnic cleansing even when there are no goodies at stake is a worthy goal. She does have another potential Brezinski problem there herself in Madeleine Albright.
Bill Clinton's failed effort to get an Israel-Palestine accord was an honest effort at least as opposed to the joke summit Bush put on last fall. Containment of Saddam was better than this shit but the sanctions and sorties weren't exactly "holistic." Bill Clinton's final affirmation of Carter-Torrijos in 1999, his ability to get along with Chavez and hands-off policy on the rest of Latin America including letting the Peruvian people dump Fujimori when the time came all must have had an effect on Hillary Clinton. How could she not have been affected positively by what her husband achieved in Northern Ireland with, again, no goodies on the table, just a shot at a peaceful resolution of a conflict?
By her Senate voting record, however, none of that meant shit. She's always been a Middle-East hawk and her vote in favor of Kyl-Lieberman was the single worst vote she's ever cast. That time, she had all the information. To be fair, I really don't yet know where Obama, the person, stands. Madeleine Albright will continue to be a strong Zionist influence on Clinton as will all the AIPAC money. "60 days" is a joke. I don't know enough about either Richard Holbrooke or Dennis Ross to offer an opinion that means anything but my guess is that they lean 60-40 hawkish on the Middle-East. Joe Wilson's endorsement of Clinton is certainly a plus in my book, however.
It really is a toss-up with her on both Russia and the Middle-East.
She hasn't said much about Northern South America and she does have a lot of powerful friends here on the "peace and prosperity" side of things, so I don't expect her to be aggressive. That said, if she wins the nomination and the presidency and feels that her "War-On-Terror" position won it for her, then the usual conflation of the "War On Drugs", excuse me, "Narco-Terrorism," with the "War On Terror," she may well be more aggressive than even Bush has been. Christ, aside from sending Rice and Brownfield to wag fingers, he really has been pretty mellow.
So, above you find few wooden nickels from here about your Democratic candidates on foreign policy. These are the only two people who could stop McCain from doing a really naughty thing.
Kucinich's plan for a cabinet level Department Of Peace was bad because, why, again? Last I checked Kucinich was a Democrat and believed in capitalism and his views would fit somewhere in the center of any other country's main center-left parties.
There are young people in Colombia who like a "peace and prosperity" model instead of the PARA-or-FARC violence. This was a cri-de-coeur in 1979 in Belfast but something of a reality following the efforts of President Bill Clinton. Utimately, some combination of Kucinich, fungibility of assets and privacy wins. They just don't win the moment you want exactly. We think of Northern Ireland as a mere langiappe now. But....
Sue me. I watched a Northern Irish movie last night and. I watched CARACOL this mornng and saw Sarkozy and Ambassador Brownfield getting a little hot and bothered over Ingrid Betancourt. That led to my thinking that Sarkozy is kind of a nut-ball and it's a good thing that he can't do too much without EU and NATO approval. I started thinking that if Al Gore were president she wouldn't be a FARC prisoner today. And then I got to pondering NATO and other stuff as well. And reading some US headlines and worrying that WWIII is not likely but not an impossibility by any means.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
But to whet your appetites for the immigration/emigration post, here's some good news: Kelso-Jr will play short and bat leadoff but may move to cleanup (depending on whether they lack for getting hits or for power) for his GVLL team "The Rangers" in the so-called "juniors" division (ages 8 & 9) which opens its season on Sunday. His mother forgot the name of the team's sponsor and they don't get the unis until Saturday. I hope it's something super-cool like "Faicco's Pork Store," "A. Zito Bakery," or "Murray's Bagels."
His mother tells me he has been the feature attraction at every practice and every open session of the Chelsea Piers baseball clinic because he his at least two inches shorter and 15 pounds lighter than the next biggest kid but is far and away the best player in his age bracket. My father's been practicing with him every weekend since I decamped and has been working on lots of fundamental stuff, so he hasn't seen Kelso-Jr play yet. Down here, I caught him for 50 pitches every day from 60' 6" and he throws about 35 strikes for every ball. Very good speed and good movement because his hands are so small he has to grip with all four fingers. I won't let him throw breaking balls and he won't be able to throw a changeup until his hands get bigger, but no matter. They don't let the kids pitch until the "minors" (10 & 11-year olds) level.
He gets it all from Grandpa who play a season in the minors for the Yankees in the early 50s. The ability skipped a generation with me! I'm the worst. But just to know this is happening makes everything tolerable. He's a little guy with a huge personality, too, so maybe I'm writing about a future Governor of the State of New York.
How in the world am I missing that? Every father's dream come true? Some discussion next post and I guarantee it will be about emigration and immigration and will be bathos-free.
Kelso's Nuts love you
This bastard McCain must never become president under any circumstances.
While Obama was bowling for Polish-American votes in Pennsylvania, this is what was happening in Polish-Poland.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080403/ap_on_re_eu/bush
Neither Obama nor Clinton are particularly "good" on the subject of world peace, but neither are they insane. Both have toyed with Christian Rapturist Zionists -- Obama: Robertson, Warren; Clinton: "The Fellowship Of The Ring (tm)". One hopes that given both candidates' formidable brains and basically neutral-to-benign approaches to life that these alliances are a useful fraud in the style of the Ohmert government of Israel's picking McCain spiritual advisor Hagee's pocket. There's a great pun here because the Spanish and Italian word for "pick-pocket" is "carterista." And what do we have here in Obama's foreign policy circles? Why none other than one of the great (Jimmy) Carteristas, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082402127.html
This is bad and good. Zbig's a cold-warrior and I doubt anyone who was deeply involved in that experience shucks it off lightly. Russia will always be "the enemy," even if it is now a capitalist country while the USA heads to a form of fiscal and monetary (National) Socialism. So, Zbig has to like what's happening in Poland and with NATO adding former Soviet satellites. Doing this is the equivalent of Russia putting a "missle-defense shield" in Nova Scotia and I WILL go down to the felt with that opinion.
McCain is very much in favor of aggression everywhere even thought -- especially because! -- Putin, Medvedev, whoever don't mess. They were willing to muscle Bush off Iran once before and they'll do whatever it takes to protect themselves up to and including joining OPEC, burying the U.S. economy or nuking them all and letting God sort it all out. Russia has it too good economically right now and they're not about to let U.S. jealousy mess anything up. One only hopes that Lake would be a counter-weight to Zbig in an Obama presidency on reviving the old Cold War.
Brzezinski's a good presence in an Obama Administration with regard to the Middle-East because he has been an opponent of Iraq II, and because of his being a Carterista. While Obama has flirted with both pro and con positions, he has positioned himself as the Iraq dove in the race and may stick to it. He'd better. He's probably a one-term president because of the economy, anyway. There's no reason to make that a certainty by switching to Iraq-hawk in office.
There are, however, other influences on Obama that give one pause concerning the Middle-East. Joe Lieberman is one. While, Holy Joe has thrown in with McCain here but he is very close to Obama as well and unless he does something terribly offensive to Obama during the campaign, he will come sniffing around for something in an Obama administration. Lieberman cannot beat either of Blumenthal or Lamont or Gjedenson or DeLauro for Senate in 2012. Lieberman wants Holy War and if he can't get it with McCain, he'll try to get it with Obama.
There's Colin Powell. He is sort of a mellow Lieberman. He's a loyal soldier, so he'll back McCain in the campaign unenthusiastically, but there have been rumors all along that he's been a back-channel foreign policy advisor to Obama. He merely has military ambitions in the Middle-East. He wanted and wants to win and knows that we all know his "doctrine" is not exactly Ghandi-esque. One can hope that if he's part of an Obama presidency, he'll weigh it up and decide another soldier's life isn't worth any of it.
There may well be a "folk" argument to include Rice somehow. We all know where she is on Russia and the Middle-East and everywhere else. Rice is just awful. She's essentially the foreign policy equivalent of a not too bright 11-year old who can't win at the game of Risk for lacking knowledge and brains but can't resist the losing strategy of placing a few soldiers everywhere and attacking blind.
But the wild-card in the Obama deck is Pat Robertson. How much Obama owes this guy is anyone's question. The circumstancial evidence is this. They are friendly. Obama gave his first interview following South Carolina to Robertson's network and it was not a hard-hitting one to be sure. It's hard to believe that Obama has had such success in courting the White Male Christian Right without Robertson's help. Robertson hates both Clinton and McCain and is the hawk's hawk. And boy does he have a hard-on for the potential third-front of WWIII, South America. It's no fun to read that, I realize. Nobody wants to think of Obama as being in Robertson's pocket. I doesn't seem to make any sense. We want to think of Obama as something different. But at least in my twisted mind Obama's "Reverend problem" isn't Wright, it's Robertson. Just as his Slavic-American problem isn't Tony Rezko. It's the bowling.
Obama's Slavic asset, however, could be Zbig. Brzezinski as a Carterista was never into the "war on drugs," but was an advocate of The Carter-Torrijos Accord. Most of Reagan's Latin American policy was a reversal of everything Carter had either done or ignored. It's good that Brzezinski and possibly Lake have advocated a diplomatic approach to South America which has included a willingness to set aside differences with Chavez and Correa and, perhaps, try to get Colombia resolved peacefully, meaning multi-lateral negotiations with the FARC or at the very least, not taking a side. Things are on the knife-edge there right now and with the release of Ingrid Betancourt perhaps the key to the Nobel Peace Prize thrown into the pot along with the oil, cocaine, and banking, a new malign presence, Nicolas Sarkozy, has joined the game with who knows what intentions.
With Obama, it may come down Powell having achieved his military "comeback" (following the years of the Calley disgrace) in Panama with Operation Just Cause and Robertson versus Brzezisnki, Lake and Gregory Craig (Perez-Balladares's attorney and advisor). While Obama has said he'd speak to Chavez, he's also said (albeit with some prompting by an NPR reporter) that the presence of more USD on account in the Caribbean and South America than in US banks is a "problem in fighting the war on terror."
I've focused on Obama's advisors and not Obama himself because so far Obama has shown as much interest in any of this as he has in ornithology. He's a cipher. We know he's a very bright guy. We think his default goals are peace and prosperity. We know he's basically a good guy. If his foreign policy instincts match the power, realpolitik, sensitivity and sophistication of his race speech, he'll be a comforting presence. But we really don't know what decision he'd make at 3AM and whom he trust most to help him make it now, do we?
Which brings us to Clinton. It's just as much of an open question with her despite all of the history we really do know! This has been her problem throughout. She's had to be on all three sides of every issue at least since she became a public figure. If we go by her rhetoric of right this minute, we have to worry. She has to differentiate herself from Obama and has decided to use a hawkish foreign policy approach to do so, because for some reason the "dovish" approach of a month ago, "Iraq withdrawal begins in 60 days," allowed Obama to run off a big string of wins with the lion's share of Republican cross-overs, independents, the Democratic Right and White Men in general. See what a puzzle this is?
Most of what she was a party to during the Clinton/Gore years was pretty good if we think about the hot spots. The dissolution of the FSU in a peaceful way accelerated following George H.W. Bush's decision to let things work themselves out in the USSR in the fall of 1991 was definitely a success and Senator Clinton would know better than to reopen any wounds there, we hope. Kosovo can be read too many ways. I don't have an opinion other than stopping ethnic cleansing even when there are no goodies at stake is a worthy goal. She does have another potential Brezinski problem there herself in Madeleine Albright.
Bill Clinton's failed effort to get an Israel-Palestine accord was an honest effort at least as opposed to the joke summit Bush put on last fall. Containment of Saddam was better than this shit but the sanctions and sorties weren't exactly "holistic." Bill Clinton's final affirmation of Carter-Torrijos in 1999, his ability to get along with Chavez and hands-off policy on the rest of Latin America including letting the Peruvian people dump Fujimori when the time came all must have had an effect on Hillary Clinton. How could she not have been affected positively by what her husband achieved in Northern Ireland with, again, no goodies on the table, just a shot at a peaceful resolution of a conflict?
By her Senate voting record, however, none of that meant shit. She's always been a Middle-East hawk and her vote in favor of Kyl-Lieberman was the single worst vote she's ever cast. That time, she had all the information. To be fair, I really don't yet know where Obama, the person, stands. Madeleine Albright will continue to be a strong Zionist influence on Clinton as will all the AIPAC money. "60 days" is a joke. I don't know enough about either Richard Holbrooke or Dennis Ross to offer an opinion that means anything but my guess is that they lean 60-40 hawkish on the Middle-East. Joe Wilson's endorsement of Clinton is certainly a plus in my book, however.
It really is a toss-up with her on both Russia and the Middle-East.
She hasn't said much about Northern South America and she does have a lot of powerful friends here on the "peace and prosperity" side of things, so I don't expect her to be aggressive. That said, if she wins the nomination and the presidency and feels that her "War-On-Terror" position won it for her, then the usual conflation of the "War On Drugs", excuse me, "Narco-Terrorism," with the "War On Terror," she may well be more aggressive than even Bush has been. Christ, aside from sending Rice and Brownfield to wag fingers, he really has been pretty mellow.
So, above you find few wooden nickels from here about your Democratic candidates on foreign policy. These are the only two people who could stop McCain from doing a really naughty thing.
Kucinich's plan for a cabinet level Department Of Peace was bad because, why, again? Last I checked Kucinich was a Democrat and believed in capitalism and his views would fit somewhere in the center of any other country's main center-left parties.
There are young people in Colombia who like a "peace and prosperity" model instead of the PARA-or-FARC violence. This was a cri-de-coeur in 1979 in Belfast but something of a reality following the efforts of President Bill Clinton. Utimately, some combination of Kucinich, fungibility of assets and privacy wins. They just don't win the moment you want exactly. We think of Northern Ireland as a mere langiappe now. But....
Sue me. I watched a Northern Irish movie last night and. I watched CARACOL this mornng and saw Sarkozy and Ambassador Brownfield getting a little hot and bothered over Ingrid Betancourt. That led to my thinking that Sarkozy is kind of a nut-ball and it's a good thing that he can't do too much without EU and NATO approval. I started thinking that if Al Gore were president she wouldn't be a FARC prisoner today. And then I got to pondering NATO and other stuff as well. And reading some US headlines and worrying that WWIII is not likely but not an impossibility by any means.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
But to whet your appetites for the immigration/emigration post, here's some good news: Kelso-Jr will play short and bat leadoff but may move to cleanup (depending on whether they lack for getting hits or for power) for his GVLL team "The Rangers" in the so-called "juniors" division (ages 8 & 9) which opens its season on Sunday. His mother forgot the name of the team's sponsor and they don't get the unis until Saturday. I hope it's something super-cool like "Faicco's Pork Store," "A. Zito Bakery," or "Murray's Bagels."
His mother tells me he has been the feature attraction at every practice and every open session of the Chelsea Piers baseball clinic because he his at least two inches shorter and 15 pounds lighter than the next biggest kid but is far and away the best player in his age bracket. My father's been practicing with him every weekend since I decamped and has been working on lots of fundamental stuff, so he hasn't seen Kelso-Jr play yet. Down here, I caught him for 50 pitches every day from 60' 6" and he throws about 35 strikes for every ball. Very good speed and good movement because his hands are so small he has to grip with all four fingers. I won't let him throw breaking balls and he won't be able to throw a changeup until his hands get bigger, but no matter. They don't let the kids pitch until the "minors" (10 & 11-year olds) level.
He gets it all from Grandpa who play a season in the minors for the Yankees in the early 50s. The ability skipped a generation with me! I'm the worst. But just to know this is happening makes everything tolerable. He's a little guy with a huge personality, too, so maybe I'm writing about a future Governor of the State of New York.
How in the world am I missing that? Every father's dream come true? Some discussion next post and I guarantee it will be about emigration and immigration and will be bathos-free.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Insufficient Prizes Haven't Brought Out Placard Contestants, So...
...we're going to spice it up a bit. Kelso's Nuts have joined with the fine folks at Hummel to create a one-of-a-kind porcelain diorama depticting the most courageous year of Senior Senator Patrick Leahy's inestimable career. Yes, that would be U.S. Senator Pat Leahy (D? What-Is-This-Some-Kind-Of-Sick-Joke? VT).
The diorama, the fawning blog-roll and the endorsement to be awarded to the most creative final four placard. For those of you who were disappointed that I didn't mean Pat Leahy, former New York Jets placekicker, I'm sorry. The Hummel people wanted too much to do his diorama.
It really is a beautiful piece, though. It's a triptych, actually.
FIRST PANEL. There's all of the world laughing at Leahy when Dick Cheney curses him out publicly and Leahy -- instead of telling Cheney "Fuck myself? Yeah, Dick, I'll 'fuck myself' right here and now, jerking off with the fantasy of pissing on your grave and raping your monstrous wife and unusual daughter you evil cocksucker!" -- starts crying like a baby. Boo-hoo. As Carville sez, the aggrieved party never wins these things; the aggressor always does.
SECOND PANEL. Pink (his skin color, not his sexual nor political orientation) Pat congratulaing Torture Czar II, Michael Mukasey, upon allowing his appointment as Attorney General while signing order permitting Harriet Myers and Joshua Bolten to continue to defy Congressional subpoena instead of sending their sorry asses to Marion Federal where they belong.
THIRD PANEL. Pat in tears once again at the sad fact that the far more masculine Junior Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and DNC Chairman Howard Dean have completely passed his pinkness as the political power in the Green Mountain State, expressing his frustration by whining that Hillary Clinton not be allowed her constitutional right to have at least one ballot taken in Denver. Does Pink Pat think that he might have a place in an Obama cabinet? Or as an Obama appointee to the Supreme Court. Obama isn't stupid. He knows a limp piece of shit who's completely useless when he sees one. Obama himself has asked Leahy to shut the fuck up and to let the process work itself out.
Yes, Senator Leahy has followed the fine examples set by Reid, Pelosi, Daschle and 1000 other fake Democrats. Junior U.S. Senator Howard Dean (D-VT) has a nice ring to it. As does Senior Senator Sanders. But the sweetest sound is "The Honorable Patrick Leahy, University Of Vermont adjunct professor on Constitutional Law."
Any Democrat with the integrity to grant super-constitutional privilege to Bush Administration officials, yet urge the denial of a prominent fellow Democrat not only her DNC trade-association priviliege of receiving at least one full delegate vote but also her constituitional right to continue her campaign having complied with all the rules involved is exactly the kind of man "we" need in a leadership position.
Somehow, I doubt you or I could get away with not answering a Congressional subpoena without expecting to enjoy a few months of bologna sandwiches and cling peaches in heavy syrup. But gotta love statesmen like Pat Leahy. What really has this guy done for the Democratic Party other than sitting on his ass? Has Leahy as Chairman of the Judiciary committee done anything other than help the Republican party? So, here's proposal. Shelby of Alabama switches back to the Democratic Party. Leahy switches to the Republican Party and we'll see how he does against Dr. Dean.
This from Marie Cocco of the Washington Post: "Leahy was particularly odious when, after declaring Clinton had 'no way' to win the nomination, he offered her a very warm seat. It happens to be one she already holds and it is, of course, comfortably below the glass ceiling. 'Frankly, I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate,' Leahy declared.
Once I start reading some of the articles, I really get obsessive, so please tolerate some more American politics.
If anybody had any doubts by the way that the MSM would drop Obama like a bad habit when McCain began to gain some momentum, those doubt should be gone by now. Obama has been "outed" by those able neo-cons at Politco for being -- gasp! -- a liberal.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9269.html
I don't think that's bad at all. I like it. It will make it easier for me to root for him to beat McCain. I understand why Obama would want to position himself differently for the race for the nomination. It's worked until just a little while ago. And if this particular story gains any traction, Obama may have to crank it up again for a speech on ideology which, I have no doubt, will be equally good if not better than his race speech, equally intellectual, and equally a brick for the average voter. Oh, well. I am also encouraged to see that one of the big-boys, Atrios at Eschaton, convened some other well-knowns for stratgies to fight the MSM in the fall.
http://www.attytood.com/2008/03/udated_liberal_bloggers_say_me.html
I'm pretty sure Obama will be the Democratic nominee, but there are plenty of scenarios in which she runs the table from here -- certainly PA, WVA and PR look like gimmes. I would guess he'll win North Carolina, but take a look at the John Heilmann piece in New York Magazine.
http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/45604/
If there's anything that might create the upset victory for Clinton in NC and perhaps a subsequent call for Obama to lay it down (which he shouldn't), it's in the Heilmann piece. A big endorsement for Clinton from Edwards and she could win it. It would not be a terrible idea for Obama to go back to Edwards and say "sorry, man, I goofed, but we all do during any campaign and maybe I wasn't at my best following South Carolina."
And I thought that The Hungry Mother was making an April Fool's Day joke about Obama bowling a 37 in Altoona. I looked it up. It's absolutely true. A reasonably-coordinated 9-year old child can break 37 EVERY TIME! This had to be some very weird, deeply-finessed, joke on Obama's part. Maybe he was making fun of bowling to hold the Katha Pollitts and Katrina vanden Heuvels in the flock or something. But Obama's a pretty athletic guy. He'd pretty much have to try to make less than 80! I wasn't kidding about the bowling at all. That's serious business anywhere in PA outside of Phildelphia and it's wealthier suburbs. Anywhere there are large populations of Slavic-Americans, there's bowling and it's no kind of joke.
He's also going to have to sit down privately with Clinton, well before June, with no aides or reporters around for a totally honest, off-the-record discussion in which he says to her "you were right, I had a helping wind from the MSM most of the way...I think we should both fight this hard to the bitter end but you know you can count on me if you beat me in Denver and I want to know I can count on you if I do...If it's me, I'm going to need your advice on how to handle a media that's out to get me and if it's you, I'll give you some names of TV folks and reporters I depended on and some tips on what they're looking for to get them to tank...Most of all, we have to keep fighting each other because the McCain media and some of our own party leaders who are scared of us want us to stop...let's both show them they don't own us even if we piss each other off a little in the processs."
Clinton's got to respond by agreeing and saying she'll help him fill in the blanks on all the Armed Services bullshit.
That would take a tremendous amount of finesse on Obama's part which he really hasn't shown yet, but he seems to have soaked up a decade's worth of savvy in a few months, so there's no reason he can't do it when the time comes. And if you delight in seeing the MSM befuddled and embarrassed and pissed-off as much as I do, you'll really enjoy it when they see the two united not in fear of criticism but in strength and sportsmanship.
I just know he can get off this idea that he's Jesus Christ's younger brother and she can get off this idea that she's General Patton. Things look bleak now but there really is no reason either of these two flawed as they are can't beat that fucking putz McCain.
U-C-L-A. Fight-fight-fight.
Kelso's Nuts love you.
The diorama, the fawning blog-roll and the endorsement to be awarded to the most creative final four placard. For those of you who were disappointed that I didn't mean Pat Leahy, former New York Jets placekicker, I'm sorry. The Hummel people wanted too much to do his diorama.
It really is a beautiful piece, though. It's a triptych, actually.
FIRST PANEL. There's all of the world laughing at Leahy when Dick Cheney curses him out publicly and Leahy -- instead of telling Cheney "Fuck myself? Yeah, Dick, I'll 'fuck myself' right here and now, jerking off with the fantasy of pissing on your grave and raping your monstrous wife and unusual daughter you evil cocksucker!" -- starts crying like a baby. Boo-hoo. As Carville sez, the aggrieved party never wins these things; the aggressor always does.
SECOND PANEL. Pink (his skin color, not his sexual nor political orientation) Pat congratulaing Torture Czar II, Michael Mukasey, upon allowing his appointment as Attorney General while signing order permitting Harriet Myers and Joshua Bolten to continue to defy Congressional subpoena instead of sending their sorry asses to Marion Federal where they belong.
THIRD PANEL. Pat in tears once again at the sad fact that the far more masculine Junior Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and DNC Chairman Howard Dean have completely passed his pinkness as the political power in the Green Mountain State, expressing his frustration by whining that Hillary Clinton not be allowed her constitutional right to have at least one ballot taken in Denver. Does Pink Pat think that he might have a place in an Obama cabinet? Or as an Obama appointee to the Supreme Court. Obama isn't stupid. He knows a limp piece of shit who's completely useless when he sees one. Obama himself has asked Leahy to shut the fuck up and to let the process work itself out.
Yes, Senator Leahy has followed the fine examples set by Reid, Pelosi, Daschle and 1000 other fake Democrats. Junior U.S. Senator Howard Dean (D-VT) has a nice ring to it. As does Senior Senator Sanders. But the sweetest sound is "The Honorable Patrick Leahy, University Of Vermont adjunct professor on Constitutional Law."
Any Democrat with the integrity to grant super-constitutional privilege to Bush Administration officials, yet urge the denial of a prominent fellow Democrat not only her DNC trade-association priviliege of receiving at least one full delegate vote but also her constituitional right to continue her campaign having complied with all the rules involved is exactly the kind of man "we" need in a leadership position.
Somehow, I doubt you or I could get away with not answering a Congressional subpoena without expecting to enjoy a few months of bologna sandwiches and cling peaches in heavy syrup. But gotta love statesmen like Pat Leahy. What really has this guy done for the Democratic Party other than sitting on his ass? Has Leahy as Chairman of the Judiciary committee done anything other than help the Republican party? So, here's proposal. Shelby of Alabama switches back to the Democratic Party. Leahy switches to the Republican Party and we'll see how he does against Dr. Dean.
This from Marie Cocco of the Washington Post: "Leahy was particularly odious when, after declaring Clinton had 'no way' to win the nomination, he offered her a very warm seat. It happens to be one she already holds and it is, of course, comfortably below the glass ceiling. 'Frankly, I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate,' Leahy declared.
Longer than yours, scumbag, longer than yours. I'll be "Frank," Leahy. You be Shirley.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Once I start reading some of the articles, I really get obsessive, so please tolerate some more American politics.
If anybody had any doubts by the way that the MSM would drop Obama like a bad habit when McCain began to gain some momentum, those doubt should be gone by now. Obama has been "outed" by those able neo-cons at Politco for being -- gasp! -- a liberal.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9269.html
I don't think that's bad at all. I like it. It will make it easier for me to root for him to beat McCain. I understand why Obama would want to position himself differently for the race for the nomination. It's worked until just a little while ago. And if this particular story gains any traction, Obama may have to crank it up again for a speech on ideology which, I have no doubt, will be equally good if not better than his race speech, equally intellectual, and equally a brick for the average voter. Oh, well. I am also encouraged to see that one of the big-boys, Atrios at Eschaton, convened some other well-knowns for stratgies to fight the MSM in the fall.
http://www.attytood.com/2008/03/udated_liberal_bloggers_say_me.html
I'm pretty sure Obama will be the Democratic nominee, but there are plenty of scenarios in which she runs the table from here -- certainly PA, WVA and PR look like gimmes. I would guess he'll win North Carolina, but take a look at the John Heilmann piece in New York Magazine.
http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/45604/
If there's anything that might create the upset victory for Clinton in NC and perhaps a subsequent call for Obama to lay it down (which he shouldn't), it's in the Heilmann piece. A big endorsement for Clinton from Edwards and she could win it. It would not be a terrible idea for Obama to go back to Edwards and say "sorry, man, I goofed, but we all do during any campaign and maybe I wasn't at my best following South Carolina."
And I thought that The Hungry Mother was making an April Fool's Day joke about Obama bowling a 37 in Altoona. I looked it up. It's absolutely true. A reasonably-coordinated 9-year old child can break 37 EVERY TIME! This had to be some very weird, deeply-finessed, joke on Obama's part. Maybe he was making fun of bowling to hold the Katha Pollitts and Katrina vanden Heuvels in the flock or something. But Obama's a pretty athletic guy. He'd pretty much have to try to make less than 80! I wasn't kidding about the bowling at all. That's serious business anywhere in PA outside of Phildelphia and it's wealthier suburbs. Anywhere there are large populations of Slavic-Americans, there's bowling and it's no kind of joke.
He's also going to have to sit down privately with Clinton, well before June, with no aides or reporters around for a totally honest, off-the-record discussion in which he says to her "you were right, I had a helping wind from the MSM most of the way...I think we should both fight this hard to the bitter end but you know you can count on me if you beat me in Denver and I want to know I can count on you if I do...If it's me, I'm going to need your advice on how to handle a media that's out to get me and if it's you, I'll give you some names of TV folks and reporters I depended on and some tips on what they're looking for to get them to tank...Most of all, we have to keep fighting each other because the McCain media and some of our own party leaders who are scared of us want us to stop...let's both show them they don't own us even if we piss each other off a little in the processs."
Clinton's got to respond by agreeing and saying she'll help him fill in the blanks on all the Armed Services bullshit.
That would take a tremendous amount of finesse on Obama's part which he really hasn't shown yet, but he seems to have soaked up a decade's worth of savvy in a few months, so there's no reason he can't do it when the time comes. And if you delight in seeing the MSM befuddled and embarrassed and pissed-off as much as I do, you'll really enjoy it when they see the two united not in fear of criticism but in strength and sportsmanship.
I just know he can get off this idea that he's Jesus Christ's younger brother and she can get off this idea that she's General Patton. Things look bleak now but there really is no reason either of these two flawed as they are can't beat that fucking putz McCain.
U-C-L-A. Fight-fight-fight.
Kelso's Nuts love you.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sports Monday Including Kelso's Nuts Placard Contest And Some Strategic Sports Politica
2008 MLB PREDICTED ORDERS OF FINISH AND A MUCH HOPED FOR WORLD SERIES
AL EAST
I was never the world's biggest fan of the last White hero of Youngstown, Ray "Boom-Boom" Mancini, in fact I always liked Bramble's win not just because of the money, but because Bramble was a troubled soul (being one myself, I indentify with them) and the press was just cruel about it: "Bramble hits like a woman...arrogant...druggie..." and so on. But this is the vibe Obama needs to tap into to make this Pavlik shit happen and win himself PA and OH versus McCrazy
AL EAST
- Rudy Gialiani's Girls
- Sawx
- Tampa Bay
- Toronto
- Baltimore
AL CENTRAL
- Cleveland
- Detroit
- White Sox
- Kansas City
- Minnesota
AL WEST
- Angels
- Oakland
- Seattle
- Texas
Wild Card: Detroit
Division Series: Rudy Giuliani's Girls over Detroit; Cleveland over Angels
Pennant: Rudy Giuliani's Girls over Cleveland
Possible surprises: Oakland, Tampa Bay
MVP: David Ortiz (DH), Boston
CY YOUNG: Jamie Shields, Tampa Bay
Rookie Of The Year: Daric Barton (1B), Oakland
NL EAST
- Mets
- Philadelphia
- Atlanta
- Florida
- Washington
NL CENTRAL
- Cubs
- Pittsburgh
- Milwaukee
- Houston
- St Louis
- Cinncinnati
NL WEST
- San Diego
- Arizona
- Dodgers
- Colorado
- San Francisco
Wild Card: Pittsburgh (also the "surprise")
Division Series: Mets over Pittsburgh. Cubs over San Diego
Pennant: Mets over Cubs
MVP: David Wright (3B), Mets
CY YOUNG: Johan Santana, Mets
Rookie Of The Year: Geovany Soto (C), Cubs
WORLD CHAMPION: THE NEW YORK METS IN STUNNING FASHION OVER RUDY GIULIANI'S GIRLS, PRESAGING A DEMOCRATIC WIN IN NOVEMBER
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
CONTEST
An overwhelmingly fawning blog-roll plus the endorsement of the politician of your choice for any office anywhere in the world by Kelso's Nuts for coming up with the words on the best needling placard of the opposition before the first of the NCAA Men's semi-finals. Two favorite real-life examples: the Cavalier fan who upon Sam Cassell's fouling-out held up the placard reading "SamIWas"; the Nacional (Colombia) fan who, upon red-card given to best striker on Once (11) De Caldas, held up the placard reading "Diez (10) De Caldas."
SPORTS POLITICA
Bowling alone. How long will AP show Obama bowling in Pennsylvania, exactly? If this is part of the cut into Clinton's base effort along with Casey endorsement, unless Obama and Rezko logged some serious time together on the lanes in the Slavic neighborhoods of Chicago, it's Dukakis-in-a-tank stupid. Pennsylvania has four sporting obsessions: Football, Baseball, Hunting and Bowling and I can't tell you which of the four is the most popular. A good recommendation for candidates looking for blue-collar votes in Pennsylvania: if you can't bowl, DON'T. If he can't make 160 -- at least -- with any consistency, just forget it. I never noticed how he did. If made 200 or better a couple of times and averaged around 170, he could TIE Clinton in PA. Otherwise, Clinton by 18.
Assuming that Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president, he's faced with a big problem. Election day is the first Tuesday in November and while Pennsylvania is key for him, Ohio is sine-qua-non. What's the most important outdoor sports day in PA and OH in the fall? If you said Ohio State versus Michigan you'd be wrong. It's the opening of deer season. Again, I have no idea whether Obama can hunt or not. For his (and the country and the worlds' sakes) I hope that Rezko had him out there a few times and that Obama's bagged at least one 8-pointer and is no stranger to the joys of venison. Somehow, Obama's result in Ohio would suggest otherwise.
There's going to be a lot of pressure on Obama, campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania against a guy like McCain, to go deer-hunting. I'd recommend he not do it for various reasons. He'll look like an idiot. It's probably not something he enjoys. And it will be a deal-breaker for a good portion of the piece of his present coaliation which he must sweep big-time in those states: college and post-graduate women. McKinney could get every one of those votes, which is cool, but I don't want McKinney to fuck up Obama's chances at beating McCain.
There is no doubt that the sports thing is going to be very important for Obama in those states against McCain. White male Democrats are crucial. If I were advising Obama on how to handle that without looking silly hunting or bowling, I'd look to focus on the Eagles, Steelers, Browns, Ohio State, Penn State and Pitt football associations if it's possible to make any. I think Axelrod is sharp enough to get that done. College football is especially important because McCain has such a weird obsession with college sports. On the one hand, he has a virgin-whore thing about the gambling. He can't stay away from it but he feels so guilty that he proposes ever more punative measures with regard to fans' gambling. And he's over the top about college athletes and education, even though he himself scraped by Annapolis by the skin of his teeth. If Obama were to get some high-profile coach's endorsement (forget Paterno; he's as nutty as McCain is), it would drive McCain even more loco.
[nb: I'm neutral on hunting. I've been twice in my life and didn't enjoy it. I have no real problem with deer-hunting because generally speaking hunters clean, cure and eat the venison. Similarly, fowling if you eat the kill doesn't really bug me. Sport-hunting for drugged prey a la Dick Cheney is worse to me than dog-fighting, cock-fighting or hare-coursing is, none of the latter I mind at all. That's my point of view, however, and I'm really not in the mood to argue it. I felt like offering it, however. I will not respond to any comments about my view of blood-sport. FYI.]
Even if Obama stays away from the deer-hunting, which I think he should, there's a way to out-macho and out-White and out-Slavic and McCain in the sporting realm and make McCain more crazy than you've ever seen him. If Axelrod can pull this off, he can win Obama the election.
Yes, I'm talking about a photo shoot with the pride of Youngstown, Ohio. Today's finest pound-for-pound fighter, the best Middleweight and likely the best Super-Middleweight in the world, Kelly Robert "The Ghost" Pavlik. McCain despises boxing. Probably for the same reason he hates/loves college sports. If Obama gets that image of him with Pavlik buried deeply into the consciousness of Western NY, PA, OH, and WVA, the race for president is OVER and Obama wins.
Kelly Pavlik is so much more important to Barack Obama's chances than Pat Leahy's whining is that it's a fucking joke. If I'm David Axelrod, I'm letting the rest of the team handle the Pennsylvania effort -- it's good practice and it's a lost cause anyway -- and focus on establishing a relationship with the Pavlik camp not for an endorsement of Obama versus Clinton, but for an endorsement down the road of Obama versus McCain.
[nb: I like boxing very much. Again, I won't respond to any comments critical of my likes or dislikes. I will be happy as always to respond to any opinions I've offered that don't have to do with me. Agree, disagree or whatever. But don't make judgements based upon how I label myself. Baseball, football, bowling, hunting, boxing...alone or with regard to the politics...If you have opinions, please offer them but don't try to psychoanalyze me.]
I was never the world's biggest fan of the last White hero of Youngstown, Ray "Boom-Boom" Mancini, in fact I always liked Bramble's win not just because of the money, but because Bramble was a troubled soul (being one myself, I indentify with them) and the press was just cruel about it: "Bramble hits like a woman...arrogant...druggie..." and so on. But this is the vibe Obama needs to tap into to make this Pavlik shit happen and win himself PA and OH versus McCrazy
This would drive McCain absolutely beyond loco. I'd say that it would drive McCain so batshit that if there were a debate sometime soon after, McCain would self-combust like that guy in the movie Scanners. He'll say something crazy. There's no telling what McCain would do. I could see him advocating nuclear war. I could see him hurling a REAL racial epithet at Obama, none of this pretend Lyndon Johnson v MLK, Jr., Civil Rights Act bullshit, which was merely an effective canard anyway. The day that Bill Clinton is a racist is the day dogs and cats can produce off-spring.
I mean McCain will be nasty, and on TV, in front of the world. And that plays into Obama's greatest strength -- his public calm.
Kelso's Nut's love you
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Back To Mellow Stuff...NCAA
Other than Davidson over Whiskey, everything according to Hoyle all around. UCLA, NC are through to 4. Kansas -10 over Davidson looks like a perfect price. Kansas should win but maybe Davidson's got like a 15% chance to keep the story going. They've priced the Memphis-UT game wrong but not crazily wrong. I make it UT-1 over Memphis flat. You can take UT+3 1/2 -106. If I were more into this than I am, it would be a play on UT for me. Instead, I'll root for Memphis.
Had I bet the women, I would have split, winning with Maryland -7 1-2 and losing with Oklahoma State +some big number whatever it was.
I really don't see much to do here with the wallet, so I'll watch as a fan, rooting for UCLA in men's and Rutgers in women's.
I'm in the mood for Johnny Cash, so Johnny Cash it shall be.
The last big push of this extended finals week for me either ends today or I've failed. So, I'm counting on Kris Kristofferson's words and Johnny's music to keep me going.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Had I bet the women, I would have split, winning with Maryland -7 1-2 and losing with Oklahoma State +some big number whatever it was.
I really don't see much to do here with the wallet, so I'll watch as a fan, rooting for UCLA in men's and Rutgers in women's.
I'm in the mood for Johnny Cash, so Johnny Cash it shall be.
The last big push of this extended finals week for me either ends today or I've failed. So, I'm counting on Kris Kristofferson's words and Johnny's music to keep me going.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Saturday, March 29, 2008
(For Now) Cynthia McKinney (G) For President, And For My Next Trick, I'll Need A Volunteer...
...but I'll have plenty.
[nb: THIS IS A VERY LONG POST, BUT PLEASE STAY WITH IT IF YOU CAN. I PUT SOME EFFORT INTO IT. ]
I'm just guessing here but I imagine that a guy's going to write in calling me crazy or claiming I'm joking about this because McKinney's an "anti-Semite."
Well, first of all that would be incorrect. Second of all, Cynthia McKinney has the same view of US Middle-East policy that the center of the Israeli Labour Party does. Third of all, to be "anti-Semitic" one must HATE Arabs and Jews. If there's one thing in American politics I do know, it's how the gears grind and mesh in Atlanta and there's no way in the world she holds that House seat that long without significant Jewish and Muslim support. Oh, but those are "self-hating Jews," you see. Yeah, right. I got your "self-hating Jew" right here (grabs crotch). So, "self-hating" as to live in Buckhead or even on West Cross Paces Ferry whatever street. Guy like that really, really HATES himself!
What happened was an intra-Jewish fight between those Jewish Democrats who liked her and wanted influence on one side and AIPAC on the other who didn't like her views on Bush. She lost round one to Majette, the pure-AIPAC candidate. Won round two. Lost round three to Hank Johnson, a Bush-impeachment advocate, in a normal bare-knuckles political fight.
That's the magic trick part of the post. Now, the point of it. I have my ideological and practical reasons for preferring her to the rest. There are also Game Theoretical reasons why in certain circumstances, if one is disappointed with C, Mc and O, McKinney is the best choice even though you know that she doesn't not have a ghost of a whisper of a false rumor of a chance of winning the presidency.
Simply put, on matters of importance to me, not necessarily to you or you or you or you, McKinney's voting record in the House has been excellent. The practical Kelso appreciated how she opposed every House companion measure to the Kyl anti-gambling stuff. The libertarian in me appreciates her record on privacy. Overall, she was a Democrat. Not a DLC Democrat or a New Democrat. Just a Democrat. The normal kind of Democrat whose views were common in the party I joined at 18.
It's not the same party. I know that. There are the remnants of the old party to be found in the Deans and in the CPC and CBC. There's the DLC, which Clinton is running away from but is still velcro-ed to. There's this "kinder, gentler" DLC Obama is putting together. There's moveon.org which is trying to strike a balance between Dean and Obama. And there are "Blue Dogs" who are noses to be counted in the caucus but are reliable Republican votes on all matters, not just those concerning the Middle-East. It's a coalition and a fractious one.
These have been a terrible, terrible last 10 days for both Clinton and Obama. Clinton has made an absolute ass of herself, not in pledging to continue to Denver. It would be silly for her not to because she can't ipso facto lose before at least one ballot is taken in Denver. OK, she get drunk and plow into a school-bus, I suppose. No, Clinton has made an ass out of herself by doing this insane "Commander-In-Chief" number to the point that she was willing to pretend she was in a fire-fight in Bosnia! As Fredrick Schwartz over at Hell sez "to tell a fish story, you have to at least go fishing."
Obama. Oh, man what a tits-up this has been. I really feel bad for the guy. In a way.
Up until Cllinton won Ohio easily and the primary portion of Texas, Obama had run an excellent campaign under the conditions that prevailed. He had been able to run to Clinton's right and left at the same time, sell some themes that were thin gruel indeed, and managed to get extremely lucky in the run-up to South Carolina. For some bizarre reason, Clinton never made an issue of the Reverend Donny McClurkin which left the Obama campaign poised to make ANY word out of ANYBODY into a "racist" statement. To that point, Clinton had a substantial lead with African-American voters, with Edwards running second. The selling of the "Clinton-racist" theme cost Edwards his shot and put Clinton where she is now, slightly behind. It did make her campaigning job easier, however, as she had a narrow coalition to herd.
I congratulate the Obama campaign for cleverness here. Once she signalled that Obama wasn't going to have to deal with McClurkin as a distraction, he was freed to make his move. He did and it worked a charm. This is how well it worked. For the first time in his big-league political career, Bill Clinton's approval ratings went deeply below 50%. Bill Clinton. Not Hillary. Bill.
Now, why do I feel sorry for Obama? Because Obama's campaign was always half about being a Christian. There was the mega-Church tour with Rick Warren and some "less-enlightened" Fundmenatalists. There was McClurkin. There was the whole "Jesus" bit at the tail end of the South Carolina debate. And how does anyone imagine Obama won Wyoming and Idaho? By accident? Clinton was not going to make the McClurkin mistake twice. Or, perhaps, she didn't consider it a mistake because she always felt Wright was the better card to play and maybe she didn't want to play both so as to see anti-clerical. Whatever.
Personally, I think she would have gotten more value out of making McClurkin the issue from a Machiavellian standpoint. McClurkin is a homosexual who is a rabid homophobe. Clinton makes him the issue, she'll get every White male voter, half the Black male voters and every liberal. Wright is much more of a mixed bag. He's used outrageous language at times but a lot of what he's damned for made sense to me and he's obviously a bright guy and compelling speaker. McClurkin couldn't figure out a ballpoint pen. Whatever.
She made Wright an issue and Obama buckled. At first. Obama came out initially with some cock-and-bull story about "not having been in church" when Wright said this that or the other. Too weak a response, too late a response, too incredible a response. This is trouble for him.
So, Obama waits two days and throws the miracle touchdown pass. The best political speech I've ever heard in the moment. The most sophisticated. The most elegant. The most inclusive. The most progressive. A speech showing the greatest mastery of history and sociology I'd ever heard. A+ doesn't do it justice. For a week, I thought maybe Obama is all-that and kasha knish. I called my father that night, a man who is quite possibly the most left-wing anti-clerical person I know. And is no Obama fan at all. I asked him his opinion of the speech. He said "Great speech but it was too intellectual and went over everyone's head." Well, I thought, if the Old Man liked the speech and he is very hard to please, this truly was the moment Obama stepped forward and took command. Here's the sad part. The speech for most Americans was a brick. The Old Man was right. Even Obama's most ardent African-American supporters on TV didn't get the true brilliance of it, how it showed that the guy really is what he says he is. Hearing the speech, I thought with a little bit of focus on the details, Obama could blow McCain away and be a great president.
Obama should have taken a leaf out of McCain's book and stayed steadfast and strong. As the problems mounted and the endless Wright tape-loop superceded the speech, he should have shown the same tenacity that McCain showed vis-a-vis the war: "I don't care what you think; this is what I think." Instead, he buckled again. Another cock-and-bull story about his having told Wright that either Wright quit the church or he would. Manure. Wright was a close friend and a great help to Obama in a lot of ways poltically. So, the apex of Obama's candidacy got sandwiched between two arrant lies. And a betrayal. Watch how this campaign is panicking. It's all about how she has to get out of the race now or destroy the party.
That is not the sound of confidence. That's a man hearing Clinton, McCain and Gore's footsteps.
And all the rivalries are showing. Leahy knows he's been a weak leader and no matter what happens, Dean is gone as head of DNC and wants to be Junior U.S. Senator from Vermont and if he can't be, he can cause Leahy a world of hurt. Casey, Jr., endorses Obama. Big, big gamble by Obama. He's got to take enough Catholics away from Clinton to offset the liberals, progressives and young women he loses. And make no mistake about it, Ed Rendell is the power in PA, not Casey. If it works, Obama's a genius. If it fails, he's an idiot. Neither is the case. It's a high volatility move in state he's losing badly.
And quite apart from Clinton's GI Jane routine, she's got some goof-ball religious problems of her own. See DistributorCapNY's post on this one at Jonestown http://fairlane.wordpress.com/
"The Fellowship Of The Ring". I can't quite do it justice, but add these tidbits to GI Jane and you've got quite something there in a panicky Clinton campaign. Read D-CAPny's stuff and you'll see how it's all of a piece with her: the Iraq vote, the Iran vote, the "if-but-maybe" position on choice. I don't think she's a religious freak. Nor do I think Obama is. They are both too smart for that. But in America a big-league politician MUST have freaky Fundamentalist ties. Just like in Panama nobody wins any elections campaigning against boxing! It sucks, but it's smart politics. McCain's got them with caviar on top. The worst of the worst: Hagee and Parsley.
At least, I hope neither Clinton nor Obama are religious freaks. McCain? What difference does it make?
Yes, McCain. Old and insane. Not quite right in the brain. Gets off on giving pain. The thought President McCain makes me want some white, clean works and a fresh vein!
The press adores him but was complicit in buring Max Cleland's career. Go figga.
Quite a trio for President Of The United States: Mr Gutless, Ms Stubbornness and Herr Heartless.
Perhaps, some kind of deal like Gore gets drafted, runs with Obama and Clinton gets to cherry-pick whatever goodies are left could work. Other than that the drafting of Al Gore, who 7 years ago cast off the DLC racist crap he carried his whole career, could start a worse racial balkanization than anything the "old" Gore might have liked!
This brings us full-circle to Cynthia McKinney, Green Party nominee for President. Though I am disenfranchised as a foreign resident alien, I support her because of her ideas and personality, because unlike Cobb, she fits well into a Green Party in it's larger international understanding, and because a strategic vote for McKinney does a voter a lot of good for himself or herself even if one is a Democrat.
Make no mistake about this. I hope the Democrat beats McCain. But the electoral college so horribly favors Republicans and the realities of the electoral map give swing state votes so much more power than votes in Red or Blue States, that a vote for a legitmate Green like McKinney gives a big state Democrat the kind of power that a Red State voter or Swing State voter has, because she's not in this to win. She's in this to build a Green Party and merely needs to hit certain vote thresholds. She doesn't need 80,000,000 votes. She barely needs 1,000,000.
So, if you're a Democrat (or a Republican) who thinks a live Green Party is a good idea and has some respect for McKinney, get together with some friends and agree that a couple of you will vote for her.
Those of you who vote for McKinney will have given your vote way more oomph than your vote for Obama (or Clinton) or even McCain would have had.
The math behind all this vote value stuff is by Lloyd Shapley and goes back to 1953, actually. He's worth googling. Here are some links. The math is a pain but the ideas are worth understanding.
http://rufasto.tripod.com/a01shapley.html
http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/POWER/wtvoting.htm
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2336586
Here's the wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley-Shubik_power_index
Kelso's Nuts love you
[nb: THIS IS A VERY LONG POST, BUT PLEASE STAY WITH IT IF YOU CAN. I PUT SOME EFFORT INTO IT. ]
I'm just guessing here but I imagine that a guy's going to write in calling me crazy or claiming I'm joking about this because McKinney's an "anti-Semite."
Well, first of all that would be incorrect. Second of all, Cynthia McKinney has the same view of US Middle-East policy that the center of the Israeli Labour Party does. Third of all, to be "anti-Semitic" one must HATE Arabs and Jews. If there's one thing in American politics I do know, it's how the gears grind and mesh in Atlanta and there's no way in the world she holds that House seat that long without significant Jewish and Muslim support. Oh, but those are "self-hating Jews," you see. Yeah, right. I got your "self-hating Jew" right here (grabs crotch). So, "self-hating" as to live in Buckhead or even on West Cross Paces Ferry whatever street. Guy like that really, really HATES himself!
What happened was an intra-Jewish fight between those Jewish Democrats who liked her and wanted influence on one side and AIPAC on the other who didn't like her views on Bush. She lost round one to Majette, the pure-AIPAC candidate. Won round two. Lost round three to Hank Johnson, a Bush-impeachment advocate, in a normal bare-knuckles political fight.
That's the magic trick part of the post. Now, the point of it. I have my ideological and practical reasons for preferring her to the rest. There are also Game Theoretical reasons why in certain circumstances, if one is disappointed with C, Mc and O, McKinney is the best choice even though you know that she doesn't not have a ghost of a whisper of a false rumor of a chance of winning the presidency.
Simply put, on matters of importance to me, not necessarily to you or you or you or you, McKinney's voting record in the House has been excellent. The practical Kelso appreciated how she opposed every House companion measure to the Kyl anti-gambling stuff. The libertarian in me appreciates her record on privacy. Overall, she was a Democrat. Not a DLC Democrat or a New Democrat. Just a Democrat. The normal kind of Democrat whose views were common in the party I joined at 18.
It's not the same party. I know that. There are the remnants of the old party to be found in the Deans and in the CPC and CBC. There's the DLC, which Clinton is running away from but is still velcro-ed to. There's this "kinder, gentler" DLC Obama is putting together. There's moveon.org which is trying to strike a balance between Dean and Obama. And there are "Blue Dogs" who are noses to be counted in the caucus but are reliable Republican votes on all matters, not just those concerning the Middle-East. It's a coalition and a fractious one.
These have been a terrible, terrible last 10 days for both Clinton and Obama. Clinton has made an absolute ass of herself, not in pledging to continue to Denver. It would be silly for her not to because she can't ipso facto lose before at least one ballot is taken in Denver. OK, she get drunk and plow into a school-bus, I suppose. No, Clinton has made an ass out of herself by doing this insane "Commander-In-Chief" number to the point that she was willing to pretend she was in a fire-fight in Bosnia! As Fredrick Schwartz over at Hell sez "to tell a fish story, you have to at least go fishing."
Obama. Oh, man what a tits-up this has been. I really feel bad for the guy. In a way.
Up until Cllinton won Ohio easily and the primary portion of Texas, Obama had run an excellent campaign under the conditions that prevailed. He had been able to run to Clinton's right and left at the same time, sell some themes that were thin gruel indeed, and managed to get extremely lucky in the run-up to South Carolina. For some bizarre reason, Clinton never made an issue of the Reverend Donny McClurkin which left the Obama campaign poised to make ANY word out of ANYBODY into a "racist" statement. To that point, Clinton had a substantial lead with African-American voters, with Edwards running second. The selling of the "Clinton-racist" theme cost Edwards his shot and put Clinton where she is now, slightly behind. It did make her campaigning job easier, however, as she had a narrow coalition to herd.
I congratulate the Obama campaign for cleverness here. Once she signalled that Obama wasn't going to have to deal with McClurkin as a distraction, he was freed to make his move. He did and it worked a charm. This is how well it worked. For the first time in his big-league political career, Bill Clinton's approval ratings went deeply below 50%. Bill Clinton. Not Hillary. Bill.
Now, why do I feel sorry for Obama? Because Obama's campaign was always half about being a Christian. There was the mega-Church tour with Rick Warren and some "less-enlightened" Fundmenatalists. There was McClurkin. There was the whole "Jesus" bit at the tail end of the South Carolina debate. And how does anyone imagine Obama won Wyoming and Idaho? By accident? Clinton was not going to make the McClurkin mistake twice. Or, perhaps, she didn't consider it a mistake because she always felt Wright was the better card to play and maybe she didn't want to play both so as to see anti-clerical. Whatever.
Personally, I think she would have gotten more value out of making McClurkin the issue from a Machiavellian standpoint. McClurkin is a homosexual who is a rabid homophobe. Clinton makes him the issue, she'll get every White male voter, half the Black male voters and every liberal. Wright is much more of a mixed bag. He's used outrageous language at times but a lot of what he's damned for made sense to me and he's obviously a bright guy and compelling speaker. McClurkin couldn't figure out a ballpoint pen. Whatever.
She made Wright an issue and Obama buckled. At first. Obama came out initially with some cock-and-bull story about "not having been in church" when Wright said this that or the other. Too weak a response, too late a response, too incredible a response. This is trouble for him.
So, Obama waits two days and throws the miracle touchdown pass. The best political speech I've ever heard in the moment. The most sophisticated. The most elegant. The most inclusive. The most progressive. A speech showing the greatest mastery of history and sociology I'd ever heard. A+ doesn't do it justice. For a week, I thought maybe Obama is all-that and kasha knish. I called my father that night, a man who is quite possibly the most left-wing anti-clerical person I know. And is no Obama fan at all. I asked him his opinion of the speech. He said "Great speech but it was too intellectual and went over everyone's head." Well, I thought, if the Old Man liked the speech and he is very hard to please, this truly was the moment Obama stepped forward and took command. Here's the sad part. The speech for most Americans was a brick. The Old Man was right. Even Obama's most ardent African-American supporters on TV didn't get the true brilliance of it, how it showed that the guy really is what he says he is. Hearing the speech, I thought with a little bit of focus on the details, Obama could blow McCain away and be a great president.
Obama should have taken a leaf out of McCain's book and stayed steadfast and strong. As the problems mounted and the endless Wright tape-loop superceded the speech, he should have shown the same tenacity that McCain showed vis-a-vis the war: "I don't care what you think; this is what I think." Instead, he buckled again. Another cock-and-bull story about his having told Wright that either Wright quit the church or he would. Manure. Wright was a close friend and a great help to Obama in a lot of ways poltically. So, the apex of Obama's candidacy got sandwiched between two arrant lies. And a betrayal. Watch how this campaign is panicking. It's all about how she has to get out of the race now or destroy the party.
That is not the sound of confidence. That's a man hearing Clinton, McCain and Gore's footsteps.
And all the rivalries are showing. Leahy knows he's been a weak leader and no matter what happens, Dean is gone as head of DNC and wants to be Junior U.S. Senator from Vermont and if he can't be, he can cause Leahy a world of hurt. Casey, Jr., endorses Obama. Big, big gamble by Obama. He's got to take enough Catholics away from Clinton to offset the liberals, progressives and young women he loses. And make no mistake about it, Ed Rendell is the power in PA, not Casey. If it works, Obama's a genius. If it fails, he's an idiot. Neither is the case. It's a high volatility move in state he's losing badly.
And quite apart from Clinton's GI Jane routine, she's got some goof-ball religious problems of her own. See DistributorCapNY's post on this one at Jonestown http://fairlane.wordpress.com/
"The Fellowship Of The Ring". I can't quite do it justice, but add these tidbits to GI Jane and you've got quite something there in a panicky Clinton campaign. Read D-CAPny's stuff and you'll see how it's all of a piece with her: the Iraq vote, the Iran vote, the "if-but-maybe" position on choice. I don't think she's a religious freak. Nor do I think Obama is. They are both too smart for that. But in America a big-league politician MUST have freaky Fundamentalist ties. Just like in Panama nobody wins any elections campaigning against boxing! It sucks, but it's smart politics. McCain's got them with caviar on top. The worst of the worst: Hagee and Parsley.
At least, I hope neither Clinton nor Obama are religious freaks. McCain? What difference does it make?
Yes, McCain. Old and insane. Not quite right in the brain. Gets off on giving pain. The thought President McCain makes me want some white, clean works and a fresh vein!
The press adores him but was complicit in buring Max Cleland's career. Go figga.
Quite a trio for President Of The United States: Mr Gutless, Ms Stubbornness and Herr Heartless.
Perhaps, some kind of deal like Gore gets drafted, runs with Obama and Clinton gets to cherry-pick whatever goodies are left could work. Other than that the drafting of Al Gore, who 7 years ago cast off the DLC racist crap he carried his whole career, could start a worse racial balkanization than anything the "old" Gore might have liked!
This brings us full-circle to Cynthia McKinney, Green Party nominee for President. Though I am disenfranchised as a foreign resident alien, I support her because of her ideas and personality, because unlike Cobb, she fits well into a Green Party in it's larger international understanding, and because a strategic vote for McKinney does a voter a lot of good for himself or herself even if one is a Democrat.
Make no mistake about this. I hope the Democrat beats McCain. But the electoral college so horribly favors Republicans and the realities of the electoral map give swing state votes so much more power than votes in Red or Blue States, that a vote for a legitmate Green like McKinney gives a big state Democrat the kind of power that a Red State voter or Swing State voter has, because she's not in this to win. She's in this to build a Green Party and merely needs to hit certain vote thresholds. She doesn't need 80,000,000 votes. She barely needs 1,000,000.
So, if you're a Democrat (or a Republican) who thinks a live Green Party is a good idea and has some respect for McKinney, get together with some friends and agree that a couple of you will vote for her.
Those of you who vote for McKinney will have given your vote way more oomph than your vote for Obama (or Clinton) or even McCain would have had.
The math behind all this vote value stuff is by Lloyd Shapley and goes back to 1953, actually. He's worth googling. Here are some links. The math is a pain but the ideas are worth understanding.
http://rufasto.tripod.com/a01shapley.html
http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/POWER/wtvoting.htm
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2336586
Here's the wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley-Shubik_power_index
Kelso's Nuts love you
Friday, March 28, 2008
Clearly, Not My Cup Of Tea At All, But I Was Just Saying...
...having proven my point that the issue of so-called "reparations" really makes some folks batshit loco just to have the discussion, when billions of dollars in shrink-wrapped hundred-dollar bills just get pulled of a pallet in Iraq and that's called "patriotism", there's something rotten at the core.
When Obama decides that having a spine wasn't so much fun after all, when Clinton continues to run for Audie Murphy instead of the Demoratic Nominee for President of the United States, when "Toys In The Attic" McCain is probably going to first snowball the election and then turn the Middle East into a sheet of glass, no matter how poor a college hoops handicapper I am, I'm sticking with my promise.
A glance at the Women's NCAA round of 16.
For 8: Pretty straight forward. UCONN easy over Old Dominion, Rutgers easy over GW, Maryland easy over Vanderbilty, Stanford easy over Pitt, NC easy over Louisville, LSU likely over Oklamhoma State, Tennessee easy over Notre Dame, Duke by a whisker over Texas A & M.
The possible bets here are laying Maryland -7 1/2 flat and taking Oklahoma State +10 1/2 flat.
For 4: UCONN easy over Rutgers. Maryland and Stanford is a pure coin-flip. NC easy over LSU, Tennessee easy over Duke.
For 2: UCONN easy over either MD or Stanford, NC maybe by a whisker over Duke which will have had a tougher assignment against Texas A &M previously.
For the Championship: If it comes down to UCONN v NC, I'd make UCONN a -$1.73 favorite. Figure 4 points or so.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Disenfranchisement has it's virtues, and last night's fight card at Atlapa was no exception. I went as a guest of the PRD regulars and Roberto "Arana" Vasquez, who finally made the wise decision to move up to super-flyweight, having failed to make 113 last fall causing a whole to-do. He made short work of Jesus Lora and came back completely sound without a scratch or a bruise even. Lora's not the great super-fly in the world but Arana's performance was dominant, a second round TKO which he could have phoned-in is not going to hurt his ranking at all and should place him about the #5 Super-flyweight in the world and as your top #4 right now are:
1 Alexander Munoz 1243 32 (27) - 2 (0) - 0
1998 29 orthodox Venezuela
2 Cristian Mijares 1216 34 (14) - 3 (0) - 2
1997 26 southpaw Mexico
3 Fernando Montiel 965 36 (27) - 2 (0) - 1
1996 29 orthodox Mexico
4 Jose Navarro 799 26 (12) - 4 (0) - 0
2001 26 southpaw United States
The plan from what I hear is to have a two-fight tournament with Vasquez against three of the above 4 for the belt which would have to include Munoz, I suppose.
Good decision all around as otherwise, the road to the flyweight-belt necessarily leads through Nonito Donaire who could be the best pound-for-pound fighter going right now. It would be hard to put Donaire too far behind Mayweather, Jr., and Pavlik.
The full results of the card were:
Thursday 27 March 2008
Centro de Convenciones Atlapa, Panama City, Panama
Light Middleweight Nilson Julio Tapia 8 (7) - 1 (0) - 1 W Milton Nunez 11 (10) - 1 (1) - 0 TKO 1 10
~ time: 1:44 ~
~ WBA Fedelatin light middleweight title ~
Super Flyweight Rafael Concepcion 10 (6) - 2 (1) - 1 W Jean Piero Perez 12 (9) - 3 (1) - 0 TKO 3 10
~ time: 0:48 ~
Super Flyweight Luis Concepcion 11 (8) - 1 (0) - 0 W Freddy Canate 4 (1) - 8 (3) - 0 TKO 1 8
~ time: 2:16 ~
Super Flyweight Roberto Vasquez 25 (18) - 2 (0) - 0 W Jesus Lora 6 (3) - 4 (4) - 0 KO 2 8
~ time: 1:52 ~
Light Welterweight Edwin Gamboa 5 (3) - 2 (0) - 0 L Nestor del Cid 5 (1) - 12 (2) - 1 SD 6 6
Super Featherweight Jorge Samudio 16 (7) - 2 (1) - 1 W Omar Jimenez 3 (2) - 12 (4) - 0 UD 4 4
Light Flyweight Luis Alberto Rios 4 (3) - 0 (0) - 0 W Erick Flores 3 (0) - 2 (0) - 0 UD 4 4
Super Flyweight Ricardo Nunez 10 (9) - 1 (1) - 0 L William De Sousa 15 (13) - 10 (3) - 1 TKO 1 4
~ time: 0:37 ~
Bantamweight Shantel Martinez 4 (0) - 2 (1) - 0 W Kathia Montuto 1 (1) - 4 (1) - 0 UD 4 4
Super Bantamweight Marcos Sune 1 (1) - 1 (0) - 1 L Isaac Montenegro 2 (0) - 2 (1) - 1 SD 4 4
The horrible shocker of the night was Ricardo "El Matematico" Nunez's loss to DeSouza in all of 37 seconds. DeSouza had been ranked somewhere near 700 and El Matematico at 19 was considered by many to be the most promising fighter here since Roberto "Arana" Vasquez. Luis Concepcion, a 21-yo super-flyweight was again impressive over a much weaker Colombian, Freddy Canate, at 2:37 of r1. He'll probably move up to around #70 in the world after this one but at a super-flyweight at 21 will probably settle into the bantam or super-bantam weight class but he's got a lot of time to improve.
Look close enough at today's left-wing tabloids and you may see your Uncle Kelso at the the Vasquez table, with a bunch of notable stars and pols. Christ you have to be like Jack Nicholson or Brad Pitt to get to do this in the USA! And Kelso, who's barely a gnat on dog's shvantz, gets to do this stuff all the time. Which was the "greatest country on Earth" again? I'm not saying anything, just saying, you know...
Other than from Diane Tomlinson, I get two kinds of comments about my boxing posts: (1) No Comment (2) A Do-Gooder's lecture. What's cool about boxing down here is that light-weight boxing is to Panama what prime-time TV is to the USA. Panama has the largest per-capita proportion of champions of any country in the world. This is see-Jane-run stuff, but every culture is different, and while I recognize that it's probably "good", Balinese shadow-theater just doesn't give me the enjoyment on any level that the sweet-science does.
An autogrpahed Arana Vasquez t-shirt has just been hung up on the wall of Kelso Jr's room here.
Kelso's Nuts love you
When Obama decides that having a spine wasn't so much fun after all, when Clinton continues to run for Audie Murphy instead of the Demoratic Nominee for President of the United States, when "Toys In The Attic" McCain is probably going to first snowball the election and then turn the Middle East into a sheet of glass, no matter how poor a college hoops handicapper I am, I'm sticking with my promise.
A glance at the Women's NCAA round of 16.
For 8: Pretty straight forward. UCONN easy over Old Dominion, Rutgers easy over GW, Maryland easy over Vanderbilty, Stanford easy over Pitt, NC easy over Louisville, LSU likely over Oklamhoma State, Tennessee easy over Notre Dame, Duke by a whisker over Texas A & M.
The possible bets here are laying Maryland -7 1/2 flat and taking Oklahoma State +10 1/2 flat.
For 4: UCONN easy over Rutgers. Maryland and Stanford is a pure coin-flip. NC easy over LSU, Tennessee easy over Duke.
For 2: UCONN easy over either MD or Stanford, NC maybe by a whisker over Duke which will have had a tougher assignment against Texas A &M previously.
For the Championship: If it comes down to UCONN v NC, I'd make UCONN a -$1.73 favorite. Figure 4 points or so.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Disenfranchisement has it's virtues, and last night's fight card at Atlapa was no exception. I went as a guest of the PRD regulars and Roberto "Arana" Vasquez, who finally made the wise decision to move up to super-flyweight, having failed to make 113 last fall causing a whole to-do. He made short work of Jesus Lora and came back completely sound without a scratch or a bruise even. Lora's not the great super-fly in the world but Arana's performance was dominant, a second round TKO which he could have phoned-in is not going to hurt his ranking at all and should place him about the #5 Super-flyweight in the world and as your top #4 right now are:
1 Alexander Munoz 1243 32 (27) - 2 (0) - 0
1998 29 orthodox Venezuela
2 Cristian Mijares 1216 34 (14) - 3 (0) - 2
1997 26 southpaw Mexico
3 Fernando Montiel 965 36 (27) - 2 (0) - 1
1996 29 orthodox Mexico
4 Jose Navarro 799 26 (12) - 4 (0) - 0
2001 26 southpaw United States
The plan from what I hear is to have a two-fight tournament with Vasquez against three of the above 4 for the belt which would have to include Munoz, I suppose.
Good decision all around as otherwise, the road to the flyweight-belt necessarily leads through Nonito Donaire who could be the best pound-for-pound fighter going right now. It would be hard to put Donaire too far behind Mayweather, Jr., and Pavlik.
The full results of the card were:
Thursday 27 March 2008
Centro de Convenciones Atlapa, Panama City, Panama
Light Middleweight Nilson Julio Tapia 8 (7) - 1 (0) - 1 W Milton Nunez 11 (10) - 1 (1) - 0 TKO 1 10
~ time: 1:44 ~
~ WBA Fedelatin light middleweight title ~
Super Flyweight Rafael Concepcion 10 (6) - 2 (1) - 1 W Jean Piero Perez 12 (9) - 3 (1) - 0 TKO 3 10
~ time: 0:48 ~
Super Flyweight Luis Concepcion 11 (8) - 1 (0) - 0 W Freddy Canate 4 (1) - 8 (3) - 0 TKO 1 8
~ time: 2:16 ~
Super Flyweight Roberto Vasquez 25 (18) - 2 (0) - 0 W Jesus Lora 6 (3) - 4 (4) - 0 KO 2 8
~ time: 1:52 ~
Light Welterweight Edwin Gamboa 5 (3) - 2 (0) - 0 L Nestor del Cid 5 (1) - 12 (2) - 1 SD 6 6
Super Featherweight Jorge Samudio 16 (7) - 2 (1) - 1 W Omar Jimenez 3 (2) - 12 (4) - 0 UD 4 4
Light Flyweight Luis Alberto Rios 4 (3) - 0 (0) - 0 W Erick Flores 3 (0) - 2 (0) - 0 UD 4 4
Super Flyweight Ricardo Nunez 10 (9) - 1 (1) - 0 L William De Sousa 15 (13) - 10 (3) - 1 TKO 1 4
~ time: 0:37 ~
Bantamweight Shantel Martinez 4 (0) - 2 (1) - 0 W Kathia Montuto 1 (1) - 4 (1) - 0 UD 4 4
Super Bantamweight Marcos Sune 1 (1) - 1 (0) - 1 L Isaac Montenegro 2 (0) - 2 (1) - 1 SD 4 4
The horrible shocker of the night was Ricardo "El Matematico" Nunez's loss to DeSouza in all of 37 seconds. DeSouza had been ranked somewhere near 700 and El Matematico at 19 was considered by many to be the most promising fighter here since Roberto "Arana" Vasquez. Luis Concepcion, a 21-yo super-flyweight was again impressive over a much weaker Colombian, Freddy Canate, at 2:37 of r1. He'll probably move up to around #70 in the world after this one but at a super-flyweight at 21 will probably settle into the bantam or super-bantam weight class but he's got a lot of time to improve.
Look close enough at today's left-wing tabloids and you may see your Uncle Kelso at the the Vasquez table, with a bunch of notable stars and pols. Christ you have to be like Jack Nicholson or Brad Pitt to get to do this in the USA! And Kelso, who's barely a gnat on dog's shvantz, gets to do this stuff all the time. Which was the "greatest country on Earth" again? I'm not saying anything, just saying, you know...
Other than from Diane Tomlinson, I get two kinds of comments about my boxing posts: (1) No Comment (2) A Do-Gooder's lecture. What's cool about boxing down here is that light-weight boxing is to Panama what prime-time TV is to the USA. Panama has the largest per-capita proportion of champions of any country in the world. This is see-Jane-run stuff, but every culture is different, and while I recognize that it's probably "good", Balinese shadow-theater just doesn't give me the enjoyment on any level that the sweet-science does.
An autogrpahed Arana Vasquez t-shirt has just been hung up on the wall of Kelso Jr's room here.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Thursday, March 27, 2008
You Think "Reparations" Is Controversial? It's NCAA Time!
A pretty competitive round of 16 from the looks of it. A lot of glamour is left and one "story," Davidson. The "story" could continue although it's not likely to. Generally speaking, Wisconsin is favored by 4 1-2 and you have to pay a little extra (-$1.10) for the privilege of laying it. To be expected, I made Wisconsin -6.
UCLA and Kansas have the easiest draws in Western Kentucky and Villanova, respectively. UCLA -11 1/2 and Kansas -12 are right on the button.
Memphis gets Michigan State and is favored by 4 1-2 -$1.09. My read is insignificantly different. I make Memphis -3 1-2 flat. That is an upset possibility but not a compelling one. I'd rather see Memphis win.
More or less a dice roll with LOU v TU, WVU v XU, STANFORD v UT.
The interesting game for me is Washington State v North Carolina. I make it NC -2 1/2 but can take +8 1/2 with WSU, which I've done in small size because this isn't really my specialty. So, my opinion is not worth that much.
Guessing on a bracket of 8 going forward, I'd make it: Washington State v Tennessee, Kansas v Wisconsin, Memphis v Texas, and UCLA v Xavier.
For 4, I suppose: Washington State (the reality is NC of course!) v Kansas, Memphis v UCLA.
For 2, Kansas v "it's-a-coinflip-and-i-don't-want-to-jinx-UCLA"
For the title: Kansas, though I'm not happy about it.
Or maybe something really freaky happens like Washington State or Davidson win it. How funny would that be?
I'll review the Women's NCAA tomorrow.
Kelso's Nuts love you
UCLA and Kansas have the easiest draws in Western Kentucky and Villanova, respectively. UCLA -11 1/2 and Kansas -12 are right on the button.
Memphis gets Michigan State and is favored by 4 1-2 -$1.09. My read is insignificantly different. I make Memphis -3 1-2 flat. That is an upset possibility but not a compelling one. I'd rather see Memphis win.
More or less a dice roll with LOU v TU, WVU v XU, STANFORD v UT.
The interesting game for me is Washington State v North Carolina. I make it NC -2 1/2 but can take +8 1/2 with WSU, which I've done in small size because this isn't really my specialty. So, my opinion is not worth that much.
Guessing on a bracket of 8 going forward, I'd make it: Washington State v Tennessee, Kansas v Wisconsin, Memphis v Texas, and UCLA v Xavier.
For 4, I suppose: Washington State (the reality is NC of course!) v Kansas, Memphis v UCLA.
For 2, Kansas v "it's-a-coinflip-and-i-don't-want-to-jinx-UCLA"
For the title: Kansas, though I'm not happy about it.
Or maybe something really freaky happens like Washington State or Davidson win it. How funny would that be?
I'll review the Women's NCAA tomorrow.
Kelso's Nuts love you
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Buckle Up, Kids, This Is A Rough Ride: REPARATIONS
I've heard the endless tape loop of Reverend Wright, and I can't help but come back to one thought: I really haven't done enough reading or research about AIDS to know its origins and I'm not one for conspiracy theories although they are entertaining, but a lot of Wright's other laments some sense to me. A few others struck me as over-the-top[, but so what? He preaches. He's not an electrical-engineer. Or a judge. It damned well isn't "fair" in America. I realize that while it's not "fair" anywhere at any time -- you're at Stanford, I'm on the street corner...I get it -- with regard to other forms of colonial slavery, most other Western nations were far, far "fairer" than the USA/CSA was and thus the aftermaths outside the US have not been as toxic.
While a relationship with Wright is tactically bad for Obama in retrospect now, it might have been morally, strategically and tactically correct at the time. I also see no advantage for Obama now to do the immoral thing and cast Wright away in the hopes of regaining a fawining media which is not coming back if he stood on his head and spit nickels, to quote a favorite expression of Kelsos-mere et pere.
This is going to be a rough ride and is going to piss a lot of people off so I'm going to ease gently into the subject.
Affirmative-Action is a perfect jumping off point. Personally, I favor a slave-descendent reparations program (I'll get to that) and a strong need-based affirmative action hiring model. But affirmative action makes the goyim and toomany of my folk absolutely crazy. I don't get that at all. Even if there were a hard-quota system in higher education, and you were a White middle-class middle-American college bound HS student there's a very simple way to equalize any disadvange to you of a race-based quota system: APPLY TO ONE MORE COLLEGE. That's it. Statistically and stochastically you have solved your problem. But Bakke ensures that there's no hard-quota system anyway, so what is everyone so uptight about?
For middle American white families who worry about the economic effects of any affirmative action in hiring or immigration problems, and whose kids may or may not be on a success track, I have another very easy and inexpensive way to solve that problem: if you have young children STOP ABUSING THEM AND START READING TO THEM AND PLAYING BOARD GAMES AND SPORTS WITH THEM. The results are amazing with no more than 20 minutes per day effort.
But I really have no desire to defy STARFLEET'S PRIME DIRECTIVE. I am afraid that American culture is going to have to figure this out on its own.
In for a penny. In for a pound. Reparations. Unthinkable, right? Wrong. The Swiss paid the Jews cash money and those other assets which could be found. The Russians paid the citizens of the FSU and statellite states in real property. Are the Swiss and Russians so much more advanced and humane than White America is? Scratch that. That was stupid.
The reparations argument is a fairly straight forward one. Let's keep the math really simple. Assume since the formation of the Union there have been 5mm Afrian and African-American slaves working an average of 125 hours per week for an "average" of 90 years. And everything became perfectly "fair" by 1870. And that that they were paid 50c/hr in 2008 USD with no interest.
Do you realize how large a number that is? It is $10.25 trillion dollars. Yes, more than the entire debt of the USA.
I've left out compound interest, the externalities of free-labor and technology, a more realistic wage, a larger slave population.
I've left out the Jim Crow laws. I've left out segregation. I've left out health, wealth and punishment disparities that linger.
I've left out taxes and torts.
I've left out the possibility of Black wealth accumluation and investment.
I've left out about 20 other things.
The right number is not one you can even conceptualze. The present value of 40-acres-and-a-mule is an astronomical figure.
Yet, affirmative action is political suicide. And all three major political candidates believe that "welfare reform" and the "mending not ending of affirmative action" has been completed and we're all square. Amazing.
I do understand that neither the Swiss nor Russian solutions were anywhere near complete and those were way easier problems to confront. Germany is a whole other story -- a lot more like my reparations argument but we'll pick that one up at a later date.
So, no I have no fantasies that anything like reparations of slave descendents will ever happen in the USA, but I have some ideas on how to pay for it. A VAT and a flat-tax with Northern and post-1870 immigrant exclusions, perhaps. A sharp cut in Imperial, I mean, defense, allocation. A dismatling of the national security state. A demilitarizaiton of law enforcement, prosecution, and corrections. Perhaps, some new PRIVACY laws that might encourage financial institutions to WANT to pay a corporate tax surcharge. That's all political poison, too. I'm dreaming aloud.
At least maybe America's goal in exchange for not doing anything I've proposed is to at the very least cease making its citizen's lives worse.
Thanks, Doctor. You got me away from fretting about Tampa Bay baseball.
Maybe some NCAA stuff tomorow to lighten things up?
Kelso's Nuts love you
While a relationship with Wright is tactically bad for Obama in retrospect now, it might have been morally, strategically and tactically correct at the time. I also see no advantage for Obama now to do the immoral thing and cast Wright away in the hopes of regaining a fawining media which is not coming back if he stood on his head and spit nickels, to quote a favorite expression of Kelsos-mere et pere.
This is going to be a rough ride and is going to piss a lot of people off so I'm going to ease gently into the subject.
Affirmative-Action is a perfect jumping off point. Personally, I favor a slave-descendent reparations program (I'll get to that) and a strong need-based affirmative action hiring model. But affirmative action makes the goyim and toomany of my folk absolutely crazy. I don't get that at all. Even if there were a hard-quota system in higher education, and you were a White middle-class middle-American college bound HS student there's a very simple way to equalize any disadvange to you of a race-based quota system: APPLY TO ONE MORE COLLEGE. That's it. Statistically and stochastically you have solved your problem. But Bakke ensures that there's no hard-quota system anyway, so what is everyone so uptight about?
For middle American white families who worry about the economic effects of any affirmative action in hiring or immigration problems, and whose kids may or may not be on a success track, I have another very easy and inexpensive way to solve that problem: if you have young children STOP ABUSING THEM AND START READING TO THEM AND PLAYING BOARD GAMES AND SPORTS WITH THEM. The results are amazing with no more than 20 minutes per day effort.
But I really have no desire to defy STARFLEET'S PRIME DIRECTIVE. I am afraid that American culture is going to have to figure this out on its own.
In for a penny. In for a pound. Reparations. Unthinkable, right? Wrong. The Swiss paid the Jews cash money and those other assets which could be found. The Russians paid the citizens of the FSU and statellite states in real property. Are the Swiss and Russians so much more advanced and humane than White America is? Scratch that. That was stupid.
The reparations argument is a fairly straight forward one. Let's keep the math really simple. Assume since the formation of the Union there have been 5mm Afrian and African-American slaves working an average of 125 hours per week for an "average" of 90 years. And everything became perfectly "fair" by 1870. And that that they were paid 50c/hr in 2008 USD with no interest.
Do you realize how large a number that is? It is $10.25 trillion dollars. Yes, more than the entire debt of the USA.
I've left out compound interest, the externalities of free-labor and technology, a more realistic wage, a larger slave population.
I've left out the Jim Crow laws. I've left out segregation. I've left out health, wealth and punishment disparities that linger.
I've left out taxes and torts.
I've left out the possibility of Black wealth accumluation and investment.
I've left out about 20 other things.
The right number is not one you can even conceptualze. The present value of 40-acres-and-a-mule is an astronomical figure.
Yet, affirmative action is political suicide. And all three major political candidates believe that "welfare reform" and the "mending not ending of affirmative action" has been completed and we're all square. Amazing.
I do understand that neither the Swiss nor Russian solutions were anywhere near complete and those were way easier problems to confront. Germany is a whole other story -- a lot more like my reparations argument but we'll pick that one up at a later date.
So, no I have no fantasies that anything like reparations of slave descendents will ever happen in the USA, but I have some ideas on how to pay for it. A VAT and a flat-tax with Northern and post-1870 immigrant exclusions, perhaps. A sharp cut in Imperial, I mean, defense, allocation. A dismatling of the national security state. A demilitarizaiton of law enforcement, prosecution, and corrections. Perhaps, some new PRIVACY laws that might encourage financial institutions to WANT to pay a corporate tax surcharge. That's all political poison, too. I'm dreaming aloud.
At least maybe America's goal in exchange for not doing anything I've proposed is to at the very least cease making its citizen's lives worse.
Thanks, Doctor. You got me away from fretting about Tampa Bay baseball.
Maybe some NCAA stuff tomorow to lighten things up?
Kelso's Nuts love you
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Welcome To Durham, Evan Longoria
This post is guaranteed to be 100% free of religion, race or elections. It is about baseball, business and people nobody really cares about. The larger point if there is any is about businessmen who are pennywise and poundfoolish and fans who seem to root harder for team owners' wallets than they do for their favorite teams. I really don't know why this is, but I can speculate. Jealousy. Every American man thinks but for a break here or a break there he could be playing major league sports. It's bullshit. The average American man has a much bigger chance of having a leading role on a TV show than he has of playing a major league sport.
The funniest part about all of this is that while fans seem to hate the players so much and love the owners so much, from my experience getting autographs with my son at spring training the players are pretty nice with the kids. I've dealt with a few team owners in finance and they were assholes, every one of them. And I was making them money. Imagine how they feel about Joe Public and his kids.
Here's some background before you read the blog. Evan Longoria was drafted #3 in the nation two years ago. He breezed through all levels of the minors leagues last year and is the best 3B prospect in baseball since David Wright and Miguel Cabrera, both superstars. If anything, he's a little ahead of both when they were Longoria's age.
Sing no sad songs for Evan Longoria. He'll be rich and famous and adored by millions of fans. Sing sad songs for the fans of the Tampa Bay Rays who this year had one of the top 5 teams in terms of talent in the American League and are keeping Longoria in the minor leagues so as to deprive him of a year towards arbitration and free-agency rights. Read the blog. A fan named "Gerry" and I ("Maybe They Should Trade Longoria for Kevin Stocker") are the only baseball fans who apparently would like to see the team win. This year. [NB: Before they played their first game the Devil Rays traded Bobby Abreu who is likely to make the Hall-Of-Fame for a weak hitting SS named Kevin Stocker whom they released the following year.]
http://mvn.com/mlb-rays/2008/03/21/longoria-should-start-in-triple-a/#comment-5504
Please only read this if you are interested in baseball or business. I really don't want to deal with any comments about how absurd this is when teachers only make da-da-da. Or cancer researchers only make dee-dee-dee. I understand. A society rewards that which it prizes most. If education and cancer research were as important to the USA as baseball is, the workers would be paid commensurately.
I'm really only interested in pondering the baseball, business management and brand development aspects of the story. And a little of the fan psychology of course.
UPDATE: MADAM Z made a point in her excellent comment which I was too spaced-out I guess or something to consider. These are Z's words not mine, but I'm taking partial credit because it's my blog! Her words here in colorful, bold and large type. "A society rewards that which it prizes most." I would add that The average American man has a much bigger chance of" being a teacher or a cancer researcher "than he has of playing a major league sport."
The rest of Z's comment is great too. I suggest reading it.
Kelso's Nuts love you
The funniest part about all of this is that while fans seem to hate the players so much and love the owners so much, from my experience getting autographs with my son at spring training the players are pretty nice with the kids. I've dealt with a few team owners in finance and they were assholes, every one of them. And I was making them money. Imagine how they feel about Joe Public and his kids.
Here's some background before you read the blog. Evan Longoria was drafted #3 in the nation two years ago. He breezed through all levels of the minors leagues last year and is the best 3B prospect in baseball since David Wright and Miguel Cabrera, both superstars. If anything, he's a little ahead of both when they were Longoria's age.
Sing no sad songs for Evan Longoria. He'll be rich and famous and adored by millions of fans. Sing sad songs for the fans of the Tampa Bay Rays who this year had one of the top 5 teams in terms of talent in the American League and are keeping Longoria in the minor leagues so as to deprive him of a year towards arbitration and free-agency rights. Read the blog. A fan named "Gerry" and I ("Maybe They Should Trade Longoria for Kevin Stocker") are the only baseball fans who apparently would like to see the team win. This year. [NB: Before they played their first game the Devil Rays traded Bobby Abreu who is likely to make the Hall-Of-Fame for a weak hitting SS named Kevin Stocker whom they released the following year.]
http://mvn.com/mlb-rays/2008/03/21/longoria-should-start-in-triple-a/#comment-5504
Please only read this if you are interested in baseball or business. I really don't want to deal with any comments about how absurd this is when teachers only make da-da-da. Or cancer researchers only make dee-dee-dee. I understand. A society rewards that which it prizes most. If education and cancer research were as important to the USA as baseball is, the workers would be paid commensurately.
I'm really only interested in pondering the baseball, business management and brand development aspects of the story. And a little of the fan psychology of course.
UPDATE: MADAM Z made a point in her excellent comment which I was too spaced-out I guess or something to consider. These are Z's words not mine, but I'm taking partial credit because it's my blog! Her words here in colorful, bold and large type. "A society rewards that which it prizes most." I would add that The average American man has a much bigger chance of" being a teacher or a cancer researcher "than he has of playing a major league sport."
The rest of Z's comment is great too. I suggest reading it.
Kelso's Nuts love you
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