29 And A Half NBA Predictions

I used to really like basketball. At some point between when I stopped playing basketball and Jordan's awful Wizards comeback, which I still think we can erase from history if we all just pretend it never happened, I completely stopped caring. Over the last few years, I've been dipping a toe back into the NBA waters. This year, I'm going to try to pay attention. So here's my NBA preview with a prediction for each team, in order of how good I think they'll be.

30. The Sacramento Kings will be the worst team in the NBA. Name a player on the Sacramento roster, go ahead, I dare you.

29. Sometime in January, the Milwaukee Bucks will play a home game on the same day as a Packers playoff game and become the first team in history to record a zero for attendance.

28. The Timberwolves will sign Brett Favre to play point guard, that guy can do anything, he's just having so much fun out there. I don't think the T'Wolves get enough uncredit (what's the opposite of getting credit, probably not that) for the Ricky Rubio debacle. What was the thinking there? "Hey, this guy isn't sure he'll sign with the team that drafts him." "Oh yeah, well wait until he finds out he's moving from Spain to Minnesota, who could say no to that?"

27. The Memphis Grizzlies will start playing hockey. This team left a nice Canadian city for a second rate U.S. city that barely notices them. Sounds like a hockey team to me, it's only a matter of time, I say the time is now. (I really wish Allen Iverson had gone to a decent team. I was all set to say he was ready for a big comeback year. I still think he starts strong, but it's hard to see him keeping it up all year on a bad team that has him coming off the bench behind guys who aren't nearly as talented as he is. I hope he gets another shot after this year, I'd hate to see Iverson go out this way)

26. The Clippers will find a way to be terrible. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had the Clippers 10-15 spots higher, going to the playoffs, and being surprisingly feisty when they got there. Then Blake Griffin broke his kneecap before the season even started. I actually don't think they'll miss him that much on the court, I was never sold on Griffin, but this incident reminded me that the Clippers are still the Clippers. So, while I still like the Clippers' talent, I'm picking them for 25-30 wins until they prove they can do something different.

25. The Knicks craptastrophy will continue unabated. I only need to know two things about the Knicks. First, their big off-season addition seems to be Darko Milicic. Joe Dumars was once a savvy and respected GM, then he drafted Darko, I can't think of a good move he's made since. So Knicks fans, congratulations, your big off-season acquisition is the guy who, through his sheer lack of basketball ability, broke Joe Dumars. Second, I've seen a lot of Knicks commercials this month. The player that's highlighted most often is Danilo Gallinari. This can't end well. I'm starting to wonder if Mike D'Antoni took this job for the degree of difficulty.

24. Stephen Curry will spend most of the year looking like the next J.J. Redick. I hope this one turns out to be completely wrong, but the Warriors look like a mess and every Curry highlight I saw this pre-season involved him missing a shot and looking confused.

23. The New Jersey Nets will...(editing note: I couldn't get through typing a whole sentence about the Nets without falling asleep, so we'll just have to move on). Except to say this, if you merged the Knicks and Nets, I'm pretty sure you still wouldn't have a playoff team.

22. The Indiana Pacers will throw out a legitimate whitewash (trademark Bill Simmons) on more than one occasion this year. Diener, Dunleavy and any combination of Foster, McRoberts, Hansbrough and Murphy get it done.

21. Michael Jordan will see a Charlotte Bobcats game this year. I'm almost positive this one will happen. I actually think there's a chance this team overachieves a little this year and finds the playoffs, thanks to Larry Brown. But when your team president seems to care about your team roughly as much as I do, that's not a good starting point.

20. The Houston Rockets will not miss Yao Ming. He's a giant stiff. They will, however, miss Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest (who was a much better fit in Houston than he will be in L.A.).

19. This will definitely be Chris Bosh's last year in Toronto. Look, I've been to Toronto, it's an awesome city if you're a hockey star, or a hockey fan, or just an ordinary citizen looking to live in a nice clean city, or a Bison meat enthusiast (I had my first Bison burger in Toronto, it was fantastic, I've never had another one that good, like when I had my first Heineken in Ireland). But it isn't where I'd want to be if I were a big time basketball player, and this team isn't good enough to make him stay.

18. The 76ers aren't a playoff team. I just looked at their roster, I feel like the random Cleveland citizens at the beginning of Major League ("who are these guys?") and Elton Brand is Jake Taylor:
Sixers coach Eddie Jordan: "I wish we'd had him two years ago"
Sixers GM Ed Stefanski: "We did"
Eddie Jordan: "Four years ago then"
(OK, they didn't exactly have him two years ago, but it still almost works, you get my point)

17. The Detroit Pistons will make a bad trade, barely make the playoffs and then get destroyed by the Lebrons. Sound familiar? I think this happens every year until Joe Dumars has an exorcism to get rid of whatever it is Darko did to him.

16. Anyone who doesn't already know about Kevin Durant will find out about him this year. This guy is a superduperstar. If I was on a basketball team, and I saw Durant warming up on the other end of the court, I'd pretend to be injured. Unfortunately, he plays in Oklahoma for some reason, no playoff heroics in his immediate future, but I think he single-handedly gets his team very close to the post-season, and I'm not that sold on the next couple of western conference teams. It could happen, and if I'm the Spurs or the Lakers, I want no part of this in a first round series.

15. The mystery of Andrei Kirilenko will continue to go unsolved. I know this is lower than most people have the Jazz, but I can't put them any higher until someone explains to me what happened to AK-47 and why we're sure it won't happen to other Jazz players. I bet the mormons had something to do with it.

14. Phoenix Suns ownership will sell Amare Stoudemire for a couple of draft picks (which they'll later sell for cash) and some magic beans (NBA magic beans being whatever group of awful players they get back from Desperate Team X at the trading deadline). It's a shame this Suns team never even made the finals. Where I work, we had to recently screw some windows shut to keep them from falling out. That's how I feel about the Suns, their championship window isn't just closed, it's screwed shut.

13. The Miami Heat will continue to be unwatchable, at least for me. I think they have to change their uniforms. Every time I see them, I just think of awful Heat-Knicks games. Also, Dwayne Wade could be the MVP this year. I think Kobe should be the MVP every year, but the people who vote on these things seem to disagree.

12. Chris Paul will completely lose his mind, soon. It's like the Hornets are trying to surround him with as little talent as possible. I think the Sixers did the same thing with Iverson. If the Hornets don't get their act together soon, this story ends with a 34 year old CP3 limping around Madison Square Garden with a tattoo on his neck. Don't say I didn't warn you.

11. The Atlanta Hawks will continue to work with the other Atlanta teams to give Atlanta fans what they deserve, painfully mediocre sports. I recently read something on ESPN.com that said the Hawks are now clearly the fourth best team in the east thanks to adding Jamal Crawford and Joe Smith. Seriously?

10. Even after losing Iverson, the Denver Nuggets will continue to lead the league in tattoos. I like the Nuggets (I liked them more when they had Camby), but this season could go horribly wrong for them. Something just doesn't feel right here.

9. Derrick Rose will prove last year wasn't a fluke. Is it possible for a talented and smart point guard to completely cover for an almost comically overmatched head coach? We're about to find out.

8. Mark Cuban will say something stupid (I wanted to make sure I got at least one right). I'll be honest, I've never liked the Mavs and I've really never liked Dirk. If I could trade one U.S. pro sports franchise to another country for one of their franchises, I'd trade the Mavs to England for one of their soccer teams. Then, the English soccer team could dominate MLS until the league had to fold. This is currently my best plan for ridding our lives of soccer in the U.S., if you have a better one, let me know.

7. Everyone will finally figure out that Greg Oden just isn't that good. Portland, on the other hand, could be pretty good and a little dangerous to the top western teams. I've always liked Portland as a basketball city. Also, Oden fouled me twice while I was typing this paragraph.

6. Gilbert Arenas will be an all-star and lead the Wizards pretty deep into the playoffs, I'm thinking a surprisingly tough 7 game loss in the second round against Cleveland. I have Washington way higher than I've seen them anywhere else, but Arenas seems to have committed himself to giving a crap and not acting crazy this year. This could go either way, but he's a top talent and I'm on board for now.

5. Lebron will not be the MVP this year. I don't know why people like the Cavs so much this year, but at the moment, the Hype King has as many championship rings as I do and the rest of that team doesn't look all that exciting.

4. The Boston Celtics will scare small children. The constant chest bumping, the screaming at the ceiling, the crazy eyes, if you're four years old, this team is legitimately frightening. I'm a Celtics fan, I'd like to pick them to win it all, but I don't see it happening. This team is old, Paul Pierce put a lot of mileage on his body carrying bad teams early in his career. The rest of the guys are even older. I see a conference semis lost to the Magic happening again. Also, if things really go south for this team, we could get Rasheed vs. KG on pay per view, I'd watch that.

3. Ron Artest will do something inexplicable (this isn't entirely true, you can explain pretty much anything Ron does by saying "hey, he's Ron Artest") and people will find a way to blame it on Kobe Bryant. Part of me wants to pick the Lakers to repeat. But repeating is hard, Bynum can't finish a season healthy and I don't like the off-court combo of Artest and L.O. I'm a huge Odom fan, I believe in Lamar Odom, but he seems like the kind of easy-going guy who would follow Artest to Tijuana one weekend just for laughs. I don't see the Lakers repeating after two key guys spend a few weeks in a Mexican prison.

2. The last great year of the Spurs dynasty will come up just a little short. A typically savvy Spurs off-season made them a favorite to win the title, I don't think it happens, but I think they get to the finals after a well-coached 7 game conference finals with the Lakers. I just don't think they match up well with my number one team.

1. The Orlando Magic will win the NBA title. I don't think they can beat the Lakers, but I don't think they'll have to, and the Magic match up really well with the Spurs. Dwight Howard can dominate, and I mean dominate the Spurs front line (that includes Duncan, he doesn't have anything for Howard, maybe five years ago, not now). And then there's Vince Carter. Listen, I don't think you can get as good at something as Vince is at basketball without some part of you caring, and I think that part comes out this year. He's got a legit big man to protect him on defense and shooters all around him on offense. This is Vince's year, and I think he has a big one. Also, Dwight Howard is just a man. Honestly, if he ever learns some offensive moves, they may have to kick him out of the league after he averages 60 points a game one year.

Magic over the Spurs in six. I should send this blog to David Stern and give him eight months to find a way to make this not happen.

I'm Not An Idiot, I Just Play One On TV

My world has recently been shattered, reality has come crashing down around me. Why? Did you know that some of the people on TV aren't who they claim to be? It's true. The doctors on Grey's Anatomy, their medical credentials are, at best, questionable. Same thing with the people on House. CBS has 43 different versions of CSI, I can't find any record of the people on any of the CSI's working for any police department. Jack Bauer isn't a government agent, Jack Bauer isn't even that dude's real name. According to IMDB, one of my chief investigative websites, that guy's had over 70 aliases. I could go on and on, it's shocking.

I'll give you a minute to digest.

Now, I could break this amazing news story and call it a blog, but I'd like to talk a little about what lead me to this horrifying revelation. What prompted me to do, literally, seconds of exhaustive research into our favorite TV personalities? Well, I recently found out(and you found out too if you read my blog a couple of weeks ago)that the White House has declared war on Fox News. How do I know this? Because Glenn Beck told me so, that's how. One of the many things I thought when I heard this was, is it possible that Glenn is stupid enough to compare the White House saying mean things about him to war, when our country is actually at war, in two places? I mean, I saw him do it, he had a map and little toy tanks and everything. Hmmm.

Around the same time, I was watching the Sean Hannity show, which now claims to be "not white house approved"(I'll give Sean credit for this, it may be childish, petulant and goofy, but it's all of those things in a clever sort of way). Anyway, Hannity was talking to Michael Moore, who was there to talk about his movie, but was off on some kind of tangent (that's sort of his thing) about the things that have been done in America's name recently. I don't really want to get into it, but he was talking about Iraq and saying we invaded a country that never attacked us. Moore pointed out that we now know that Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. Sean's response was "well, none that we saw, none that we found." So, essentially, Sean believes that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but when we invaded his country, he decided to hide them all where we'd never find them, as opposed to, I don't know, using them. Is it possible for anyone to be that much of a complete moron? Hmmmmm.

Recently, I heard Bill O'Reilly tell me that saying Rush Limbaugh engages in race bating(not even that he's an actual racist, just that he makes race bating comments) is nothing more than a racial witch hunt. Do I really believe that someone could be that oblivious to reality? Hmmmmmmm.

The truth is, I watch a lot of Fox, because it's just so damn entertaining. There are many times when someone on that network says something that leaves me thinking "he can't possibly believe that." Why would an entire "news" network run itself this way? How can they be an effective PR arm for the shrinking Republican party when only people who already completely agree with them would believe anything they say? How did they let themselves get to the point where the Obama administration sees them as the annoying, irrational, crying children of journalism, trying to get a seat at the adult table?

Well, after my ground-breaking research, which I covered at the top, I have a theory. These guys aren't really idiots, they're just playing TV characters. OK, not all of them, have you ever watched Fox and Friends in the morning? Those people are actually morons, we don't have actors that good. But the rest of them, just characters on shows.

Glenn Beck is the quirky, eccentric, quite possibly insane neighbor. Like Cosmo Kramer. Sure, he gets himself into some hot water sometimes with his wacky ideas and his occasional disregard for reality. But at the end of the day, you like him, because he's amusing, and you feel a little sorry for him.

Bill O'Reilly is the old, crusty, Irish dad. Like Red Forman (I don't know if Red was Irish, I didn't really watch that show, but I know Bill is, so there). Sure, he's mean, often when you least expect it, and he says things that you wouldn't let other people get away with, and he yells a lot more than anyone really should, but that's all part of his charm. He's just a guy who wants the world to be the way he remembers it, before all these hippy kids came along.

Sean Hannity is your drunken Irish uncle, like, um, I can't really think of another TV character like this, maybe I should write my own show about a drunken Irish uncle. He'd be crazy and incoherent and a little racist, but that's just the beer talking, deep down, he'd be a great guy.

If you saw Hugh Laurie walking down the street, would you give him a hard time because Dr. House is mean to people? Would you hire Craig T. Nelson to coach your college football team? If you saw Claire Danes in a mall, would you ask her if she ever hooked up with Brian Krakow? (some of these references are just for me, but if you get this one, good for you). If you were on a plane with Dick Cheney, would you..(wait, you're telling me Dick Cheney isn't a fictional character? No, that can't be right, get your facts together and we'll talk more about this later).

See, my point is, the White House shouldn't badmouth Fox. Because Fox isn't actually a hate-mongering, fear-mongering, fact denying, corporate shilling, lying garbage dump of a news network. It's actually the best show on television.

Fixing the Baseball Playoffs

I really like baseball, always have. So, a few weeks ago, when I heard a story about how Fox was complaining about how the baseball playoffs kill their ratings, and they'd rather be showing new episodes of House in October, I wanted to be outraged, but I wasn't. I want new episodes of House too. Even tonight, while the Yankees have been trying to clinch a world series birth, I've spent most of the night watching Flash Forward, The Office and 30 Rock, and now, as Nick Swisher slowly makes his way over to a ball hit to right field(he does everything slowly), I'm only half paying attention, because I'm also writing this. In contrast, a few years ago, when the hockey playoffs were still on my TV, I would have skipped the pilot episode of a new show written by and starring me to see a hockey playoff game, and if you read last Friday's blog, you know I didn't even have a hockey team to root for until last Friday. Obviously, there's a problem, but I'm a solutions guy. So, here are my top ten ideas for fixing the baseball playoffs.

A couple of quick notes before we start. First, I'm not suggesting we use all ten of these ideas at the same time, I'm not insane. Try two or three, if they don't work, try a couple of the others, mix and match, find the right balance. Second, baseball can use these ideas during the regular season if they want, that's up the commissioner, I'm just the idea man.

Number 10: Umpire Idol

Just to be clear, I hate American Idol. If I could close my eyes and wish it away, you'd better believe it would already be gone by now. But there's no ego here, I'm writing for the greater good.

Baseball umpires drive my crazy. They're the only officials in the four major sports that get to do most of their job while standing still, and they still can't get it right. So here's the idea. During the regular season, Fox runs an American Idol style show where ordinary Americans can audition to be baseball umpires. I like crazy former players and managers with reputations for terrorizing umpires as judges. Bobby Cox is retiring next year, he's in. At the end of September, they pick 16 winners to make up four crews of four people each who get to work the playoffs.

Also, people who are paying close attention to the playoffs might say, "hey, playoff crews have six umps!" Not under my system they don't. I always thought this was a stupid idea, and if you read all the way to the end of this, I think you'll see I'm an expert on stupid ideas.

Number 9: Hot Dog Cannons

They probably already have these somewhere, it sounds like the kind of thing they'd do, say, at a minor league hockey game in Milwaukee. So baseball really just has to get its hands on the technology.

The idea is simple. You've seen the t-shirt cannons they use to give away prizes at sporting events, I saw them at Islanders games when I lived on Long Island. Just keep the cannons, and put hot dogs in them. The big downside here is that this is only for the live crowd, so it doesn't really help ratings, but I think the live crowd deserves something. As I understand it, playoff tickets now cost somewhere in the eleventy billion dollars range, free hot dogs is the least we can do.

PS...there could be mustard hoses involved in this idea, I haven't decided yet.

Number 8: Lights Out

The crowd at the game gets night vision goggles. The TV cameras have night vision lenses. But all the players see are glow in the dark balls, glow in the dark gloves and glow in the dark bases. We only do this in one game per series, but nobody knows which one until the game starts and the lights go out. Would you watch that game? Hell yeah you would! Case closed.

Number 7: Booby Traps

Two hours before each game, an independent grounds crew, not affiliated with either team, digs a big hole somewhere in the outfield, which they then cover with a thin sheet of grass, like a bear trap. Obviously, the hole would be filled with pillows or something so no one gets hurt.

The big question here is, do we tell the TV audience where the hole is, so they can watch and get excited whenever someone runs near it? Or, do we keep it a secret so the home audience is just as surprised as everyone else? Tough call.

Number 6: Four Words
No more Tim McCarver. Seriously. Please.
While we're here Fox, no more pre-game show. Fox's playoff baseball pre-game is officially the worst pre-game in all of sports, nobody should be subjected to it.

Number 5: Adjustable Walls
Picture this. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, man on first, home team down by one. The batter hits a long fly ball to deep right field, it's going..going..g...oh!..wait!..a 75 foot wall just shot out from inside the usual 8 foot right field fence. It's a long single for the shocked batter and the visiting team gets one more chance to put the game away.

Here's how it works. Each manager has a set of buttons in the dugout. One for each segment of the outfield fence. Once a game, he gets to press one of the buttons and 75 feet of extra wall shoots up from inside the original wall, presumably stopping a home run. It would be like challenges in football. The manager would have to be smart about when to use it. Too early and you don't have it late, wait too long and maybe you never get to use it. I also like this idea because it would give the managers something to do. Baseball manager may be the easiest job in sports. You fill out the line-up card and then you watch baseball for a few hours. Sure, you have to take the pitchers out, but you've got a pitching coach to tell you when to do that, you really just have to take the walk.

Number 4: Dugout Moats
I think this one might just be for me. I just find the idea of them having to lower the drawbridge whenever players or coaches have to leave or come back to the dugout hilarious. This has advertising potential though. You could fill the moat with Tostitos salsa or Budweiser.

Number 3: Audience Participation
You could take this one in a lot of different directions. Fan voting on pinch hitters, or when to bunt, but here's my favorite. I'm a Yankees fan. I should have a button I can press whenever it looks like Joe Girardi is about to put Damaso Marte into the game. If enough of us press that button, Joe gets a noticeable, but non-life threatening, shock. Some details to work out here. We'd have to make sure only Yankees fans can shock Joe, and the same goes for all the other teams. Also, we'd need the guy actually in charge of the juice to know enough about baseball to know when the shocks make sense and when people are just pushing the button for fun.

Number 2: Public Stonings
Not actual stonings. When I was a kid, we used to play this game. I don't really remember anything about it except, at some point, someone stood against a fence and the rest of us threw tennis balls at him. So, if a team gets knocked out of the playoffs at home, 10 fans are randomly chosen from the crowd. These 10 fans have to A) pick the guy on the home team most responsible for the loss (not just the last game, but the whole playoff elimination) and B) have him stand against the outfield wall while they throw baseballs at him.

Same rules as when I was a kid. No head shots and the guy can use his hands to protect his groin.

Number 1: Rally Monkeys
Not the stupid dolls they sell in Los Angeles of Anaheim. Actual monkeys. Each stadium would have a troop of about 75 or so monkeys that they keep somewhere in the stadium. Once a game, the home team manager (by the way, this would be a home field advantage thing, only the home team controls the monkeys) can have the monkeys released for 10 minutes while the game has to continue.

So much to like with this one. When, strategically, would be the best time to release the monkeys? While your team is hitting or pitching? Would the monkeys steal hats and gloves from players? Probably. Maybe if a player loses his hat to a monkey, he has to sit out the rest of the game. I know, we've got some tough logistics on this one. We'd have to find a way to keep the monkeys out of the crowd. And kids are watching, so the monkeys would have to be wearing pants. And there would probably need to be some kind of monkey insurance for players and umpires. Still, I love this idea.

So there you go. I think we can save the baseball playoffs from eventually being relegated to TBS full time. These ideas would hurt the integrity of the game, you say? Maybe, but are any of them worse than interleague play? I say no.

Hoping For Change

About five and a half years ago, I was watching the 2004 Democratic National Convention and trying to decide which country to move to if John Kerry won the election. It wasn't that I thought he'd be a completely awful president, it was just that, the president gets to be on TV a lot and I always had the urge to slit my wrists whenever John Kerry started talking. It was really more of a safety issue.

Anyway, I was watching and up for the keynote speech comes this young candidate for Peter Fitzgerald's Illinois Senate seat. He already had that election in the bag. His opponent, Jack Ryan, had completely self-destructed (something about 7 of 9 from Star Trek Voyager and sex clubs, sometimes it's better to just forget things). Also, we'd later find out that his new Republican opponent would be Alan Keyes. Seriously. Apparently, this was the Republicans' first try at their "Hey, we know a black guy too" strategy for taking on Obama. If you've seen Michael Steele lately, you can see they're still working out the kinks. My point is, he was basically Senator Elect Obama at that point. And by the middle of Senator Elect Obama's speech, I was thinking what most people watching were probably thinking, "this guy can be the first black president".

Almost three years later, I saw footage of the same guy, who had become Senator Obama, announcing his candidacy for the presidency outside of the old Illinois state capitol. It seemed 8 or 12 years early, presumptuous, even arrogant, I loved everything about it. He talked, among other things, about a "future of endless possibility stretching before us." I thought, "I really like this guy, I'm in". I also thought "anyone but Hillary Clinton, I'm double in".

By the way, has any politician ever gotten more mileage out of not being other people than Barack Obama. That's not a knock on the President, he had the skills to play the hand he was dealt. John Edwards and Bill Richardson were also not Hillary Clinton, how'd that turn out? Al Gore and John Kerry were definitely not George W. Bush, it didn't seem to do them, or anyone, any good.

After almost two years of hope-mongering, Senator Obama won a resounding victory and was to be the next President of the United States, and I was pretty psyched. Almost a year after that, I'm not too psyched anymore, I'm actually becoming a bit disappointed, and I'm not the only one. My first question today is this, a lot of us who supported the President are a little disappointed, but should we be?

Disappointment is, in general, the marker that indicates the gap between expectations and reality. President Obama came into office with sky high expectations. You could point to a great number of events in the two year presidential campaign and say "that's when Obama won, that's when it was over", including the moment when the McCain campaign became, as George W. Bush put it, a "five spiral crash". (I had to mention this because I couldn't agree more and I don't think I could fashion a better description, and that makes me wonder if something terrible is about to happen to me, and possibly the world, and I think it's only fair to warn you).

For me, I believe the President won pretty early. Political campaigns are, more than anything else, a fight over what we're going argue about. As in, if the campaign is about national security, guy A wins, if the campaign is about health care, guy B wins. Good politicians already know where they're strong and where they're weak, winning is about focusing the campaign where you know you're strong. I think the President won when he successfully made the campaign about hope and change. The President framed the argument, soon Hillary Clinton was talking about being "ready for change, ready to lead" and later, John McCain, a man who started in the House of Representatives in 1983, was saying things like "the do nothing crowd in Washington is in for a change". In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious how that story was going to end, doesn't it?

The problem? Hope is a lot like faith. Once you put some hope in people, they start to believe, not just in your ideas, but in you. This is what happened to the President. Some voters, voters who care deeply about one particular issue, started believing in Barack Obama, hoping that he would do the one thing they most wanted to see happen, hoping that he'd change that one big problem they cared most about, even if he never really said he would. People stopped being unbiased observers of the Obama campaign and started hearing what they wanted to hear, and rationalizing what they didn't.

Presidential campaigns are long, really really long. Candidates get put in front of hundreds of different audiences, all wanting to hear different things. To understand what a candidate will actually do in office, you really have to watch the whole campaign, get a sense for the general tone of the campaign on any given issue, don't focus on any single quote or speech. Hope makes it hard for people to do that, and leads to disappointment. Here are a few examples.

Gay rights activists are pretty disappointed with the President. A lot of people hoped this president would be a real champion for GLBT rights. And, at times, in front of certain audiences, he made it sound like he would be. But, looking at the campaign as a whole, here are the two things I took away. First, the President was always a lot more comfortable saying he didn't agree with "don't ask, don't tell" than he was with saying he'd repeal it. That doesn't exactly sound like someone who's ready to boldly take on the establishment. Second, the President never missed an opportunity to pander to so-called values voters by saying he doesn't believe in gay marriage (I always laugh when I hear someone say this, it makes gay marriage sound like Tinkerbell, if enough of us just believe in it and clap our hands, maybe it'll come to life). How hard will someone fight for your rights when he's elected if he makes it clear that he doesn't see you as equals?

I know that last thing sounded harsh, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about it. If the President thinks he can get married, and he thinks I can get married, but he doesn't think you can get married, that doesn't really sound like equality to me. So gay rights activists are disappointed, should they be?

Here's another example. This is part of a quote, "the war must be ended...it must be ended honorably, consistent with America's limited aims...". Would you believe me if I told you I pulled that from an Obama campaign speech about Iraq? Probably, right? That quote is from Richard Nixon, about the Vietnam War, in 1968. I'm not comparing Obama to Nixon, I honestly believe the President would end both current wars if he could. I'm saying, it's easy to talk about ending a war during a campaign, most people are generally anti-death and anti-explosions, but the politics of ending a military operation that simply can't end well are a pretty heavy lift for a president, and this is something we kind of already knew.

Listen, I think the U.S. military will pull off whatever missions they're given in Iraq and Afghanistan, they're that good, but it'll never be the kind of ending people get excited about, like when we learned about World War 2 in school, everyone surrenders and America takes a victory lap, Iraq just isn't that kind of operation (at least not anymore, the Iraqis already surrendered, and hung the guy who used to be in charge), neither is Afghanistan.

On top of that, candidate Obama was always pretty clear that he'd be willing to do whatever it took to win in Afghanistan. So, now we've still got plenty of troops in Iraq, and we're getting ready to send more to Afghanistan. Anti-war activists are disappointed, should they be?

One more. The President talked a lot about health care, in the primaries and the general election. He argued he had a better plan than Hillary, I liked that he wasn't for an individual mandate, which he now appears to be all for. I understand why, but I still don't like it. Then he argued he had a better plan than John McCain, which wasn't hard. Like most of John McCain's plans, I still don't really know what it was, except that it started with "my friends..." and ended with him looking at Sarah Palin with a certain level of contempt.

Candidate Obama actually made some pretty explicit promises about health care, if health care is a main issue for you, it was really easy to believe an Obama victory meant big time health care reform. But there's one big problem, we're seeing it now, but we knew about it last year. Congress writes the laws, the president lobbies like everyone else and then signs them. The President made a promise he couldn't keep on his own. I think he wanted to keep it, and maybe he thought he could shame Congress into doing the right thing (HA!), but he probably should have known better, and we probably should have too. It looks like whatever health care bill comes out of Congress, it will be something that gives health insurance companies lots of new customers without really doing much else. So people who wanted serious health care reform are disappointed, should they be?

I could go on like this, apply it to a dozen other issues, but I think I made my point.

So why be disappointed so early? The President has four years, maybe eight. Technically, this is true, and if he does win a second term, it could get really interesting. But consider that next November, the entire House of Representatives and 35 Senators (we'll actually have 36 Senate races, but one won't have an incumbent) are up for re-election, and those campaigns will be underway by the summer. As soon as the midterms are over, it'll be time for the President to start running again. The window for the President to do big things, things that might be a little controversial, things that make Senators and Congressmen earn their salaries, things you can't do with an election looming, is closing more quickly than you think.

Should we all lose hope now and give up? No. President Obama is the smartest guy in the room, his campaign was always one step ahead of everyone else, he's a good politician, he's got a lot of smart people around him and I still believe he wants to do a lot of good with his presidency, or at least try to. This time next year, I could be lauding the President for how much he got done since I wrote this, and complaining about the things he did that I didn't agree with. We'll see. For now, I'll wrap up with my second question.

Should you stop hoping for change? Not necessarily, but if you don't want to be disappointed, maybe it's time to change what you're hoping for.

Picking A Hockey Team

Last Friday I did a thing about the Yankees. So I thought, why not make Friday sports day for my blog. Done and done. This week, I'm picking a hockey team.

When I was very young, I was an Islander fan. The Islanders were great back before I knew how to talk or eat solid food, but it wasn't long after I figured out that people playing peek-a-boo with me weren't actually disappearing that the Islanders began their slow, agonizing decline. Normally, I'd say you should throw apples at anyone who abandons their team just because it got bad, you have to stick by your team. But, I've got a good reason (aka, lame excuse). The Islanders changed their uniforms. I've decided, whenever your favorite team changes their uniforms to something decidedly worse, that's a one time get out of jail free card. You can leave, never look back, no hard feelings. And that's what I did.

Side note: I think marriages should have a clause like this, a mutual option after a certain number of years, so if it isn't really working out, both parties can just walk away, no messy divorce, no crying, just poof and it's gone. And people wonder why I'm single.

So I've removed the Islanders from my life, like an exorcism, but I still love hockey, so I need a new team, watching a sport without a rooting interest just isn't the same. I think the best way to do this is by process of elimination. Hopefully, anyone reading this who has a sport they love but no one to root for can find some guidance.

One important ground rule. The current, on-ice, state of the team doesn't matter. This is a lifetime commitment, any team I pick has some good years and some bad years coming.

First Out - Carolina, Colorado, Phoenix and Dallas
Boooooooooo! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
These teams were stolen from Canada or demonstrably better and more logical U.S. hockey cities. I'd never root for them and they belong in the 9th circle of hockey hell.

Next Out - Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Jose, Florida, Atlanta, Nashville and Tampa Bay
If a city is way too hot for me to even consider living in, I'm definitely not getting behind its hockey team. Move one of these teams to Winnipeg and we'll talk.

Next Out - Minnesota, Columbus and Ottawa
Since expansion basically murdered the NHL, recent expansion teams are out. Also, who would want to root for a team from Columbus? Not me, no not me.

Next Out - New York (both teams), New Jersey and Philadelphia
The Islanders are obviously out, but just to make it official. And the rest? Chief geographical rivals of the team I'm abandoning, just wouldn't be right.

Now we're down to the top twelve: Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

Vancouver's out. Crappy uniforms=not for me.

Montreal's out. There's a lot to like in Montreal, but they're also in the French part of Canada, so you never know when they might surrender, no deal.

Calgary's out. They get some credit for being a Canadian team stolen from an American city that has no business having hockey, but they're still a stolen team, with a name that doesn't make any sense (Flames? I've never been to Calgary, but I doubt fire would be the first thing to come to mind when I got off the plane). Plus, I'm not wild about what they've been doing with their uniforms lately.

Detroit's out. Lots to like here too, but everyone's a Red Wings fan, I want a bit more of a "little guy" team. Come to think of it, that eliminates Toronto too.

Buffalo and Washington are out next, both for the same reason. First, they had awesome uniforms, but then they changed to terrible uniforms. Now, they've both changed back, but it isn't quite the same. Lack of foresight=lack of me as a fan.

Boston and Pittsburgh are out next. These were the first two real tough eliminations, but the yellow and black color schemes did them in. I HATE BEES!

2nd Runner Up: St. Louis
The Blues are great, right down to the team name, and I was a huge Brett Hull fan as a kid, but they fell short in a few key areas. First, St. Louis is right on the border of being way too hot for me to live in. Second, I don't see much of a tradition of winning, that's important. Third, I'm not sure how much people in St. Louis care about the Blues, they've got the Cardinals and the Rams. I wouldn't want to join the ranks of Blues fans just to find out that I'm alone.

1st Runner Up: Chicago
The Blackhawks were right there. Great uniforms, great name, excellent food in Chicago. Unfortunately, it was the paltry three cups in over 75 years that put them just below the winner...

My New Hockey Team: The Edmonton Oilers
Edmonton's the best hockey city you could find. It's freezing cold, they don't have any other good sports, and it's in Canada, eh? Add five Stanley Cups, Gretzky, Messier and the fact that I've already decided Edmonton is where I'm going if I ever move out of the U.S., and this is the perfect fit. It's even enough to forgive their occasional uniform transgressions.

So that's it, I'm an Oilers fan. Now I just have to figure out how I can ever see an Oilers game.

Cable News Time - Part Two

Back for part two. First up, the 8PM hour with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly. As usual, I'll be ignoring CNN, because, well, they're no fun. I still go to CNN whenever anything big is happening internationally, but if you're looking for political bickering and general ridiculousness, they don't bring much to the table.

If you've never seen Bill O'Reilly, here's what you need to know. If you just watch Bill on his own, he seems like your typical arrogant, disingenuous, pompous jerk. But if you put him in context with his Fox colleagues, he actually comes off as pretty reasonable. This is because Bill's world revolves solely around Bill, he is 100% narcissism. This trait actually helps him here, because he winds up being less married to the Republican talking points than the other Fox guys.

Keith's a little harder to get a read on. Sometimes he's really on target, like last week's hour long special comment about health care. Other times, I have no idea what he's getting at. He's an enigma wrapped in a riddle encased in a ridiculously large cranium.

uh oh, I may lose you here, I'm about to enter the no spin zone.

Bill's mad at Europe and Russia. He thinks the Obama administration should be more honest with the American people about this and tell us how much Europe and Russia suck. I guess Bill thinks the Bush foreign policy strategy just didn't have enough time to work, just give it ten or twenty more years, the world will come around if we just keep insulting them.

Oh! Oh! Dick Morris is on with Bill. Sorry Keith, I'm not going anywhere until Dick leaves. Dick starts off by agreeing with Bill about Europe and Russia, then a quick shot at Hillary Clinton (he can't help himself), but he's on to talk about health care. Dick's father is 99 years old, and Dick states, as absolute fact, that his dad would be dead already under "Obamacare". Bill says this is only true if the government completely takes over health care (that's fair and balanced for ya). This whole conversation was almost surreal because this whole new political strategy of just making something up and calling it the truth, instead of at least trying to work with the actual truth, seems to be attributable to Dick Morris, and now he's using it. It was like watching Van Gogh paint, only if it was a painting of a giant turd and, instead of Van Gogh, it was actually a troll without a conscience.

They've been talking about killing old people and punishing doctors for treating sick people for a few minutes now. Dick's whole life is some sort of acid trip. I'm surprised Fox hasn't given him his own show yet. Bill and Dick agree that, whatever form "Obamacare" takes, the government will be deciding who lives and who dies(as opposed to now, when the health insurance companies decide. I know I may be the one millionth person to make that point, but it's still a good one). Time for a commercial, but next, Bill's going to tell us why Rush Limbaugh isn't a racist. It's like he's writing the jokes for me.

Keith is talking to Howard Fineman about health care. Guests, by the way, are one of the most interesting features of Keith's show. I can't remember the last time he had someone on who disagreed with him. He has this sort of rotating group of about 10 guests who come on and tell him how right he is. Tomorrow night, Keith's hard hitting interview with a mirror!

Bill has audio of Rush Limbaugh denying he ever said anything offensive about slavery. OK, it seems clear the Fox talking point will be that Rush has never said anything racist in his glorious life. They know people tape his radio show, right?

Keith is plugging his effort to get people to donate to the national association of free clinics. Good for him. This is a good cause, if anyone is reading this, you can donate at freeclinics.us.

Bill is in the middle of his second segment defending Rush. He's got two lawyers on arguing over whether or not Rush should sue over not being allowed to buy an NFL team. Curiously, neither one of them is saying that this is a ridiculous idea, they both agree he'll obviously win, but one of them doesn't think it would be worth the bad publicity, since he doesn't really need the money.

Next, Bill has Hannah Giles. She pretended to be a hooker in some ACORN offices and her friend, while pretending to be a pimp, secretly video taped it (that's called multi-tasking). Interestingly, Bill only has her on. Bill never misses an opportunity to have a very young, attractive woman on the show, it's sort of one of his things.

Keith has some really good town hall footage of crazy people yelling at Lindsey Graham for not being conservative enough because he's willing to talk to Democrats on some issues. So they basically want him to do nothing until the Republicans are the majority again. The Senator tried defending his pro-life voting record, which prompted some woman to yell "god does not compromise". I know I saw that in the bible somewhere, I just can't remember where.

Bill has Dennis Miller on. What happened to Dennis? He used to be smart and funny, I loved his HBO show. It's like someone stole his brain. Dennis is defending Rush too, other people who own teams have said insensitive things. This is true, but how many of them made a career of it?

Keith is doing his worst person's in the world thing. Some nights, this is the best 3 minutes on TV. One of my favorite parts, he does genuinely funny impressions of people, tonight's worst person is Glenn Beck, Keith does a solid Beck impression. It must have been hard for Keith to pick just one reason to make Beck the worst person, so many to choose from.

Keith spends his last segment with the Monty Python guys. Yawn. Sometimes I think Keith has a show for the same reason I have a blog, just to entertain himself.


Back to Bill, he's showing a video which the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee posted a link to. In the video, an actor playing Hitler is yelling quite a bit in German, and the subtitles are suggesting that Hitler is a big fan of universal health care and Nancy Pelosi, but he's disappointed in the President, who he thought was with him. Bill and his guest explain that this is a clip from a 2004 movie with Hitler in his bunker, and people have been adding whatever subtitles they want to make it funny and posting it on youtube. Bill calmly suggests that it may have been a "mistake" for the RCCC to embrace this video. Five minutes later, Bill was rambling about Halloween candy and was clearly more bothered by candy corn than he was by the Hitler video. It's hard to make fun of Bill sometimes, he takes care of so much of it himself.

Bill always ends the show with a word of the day. I think the word of the day everyday should be smug.

9PM is Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow. Rachel isn't there today, was isn't so bad because Rachel is actually pretty reasonable, bright and generally likable. I don't always agree with her, but I don't really have anything bad to say about her.

Then there's Hannity. Here's a good drinking game to play with the Hannity show. Take a drink every time Sean says something that is true. By the end of the show, you'll be buzzed, but still functional for the rest of the night. This is important, DO NOT take a drink every time Sean says something that is not true, this may sound like more fun at 9PM, but you'll be in a coma by 9:30.

Hannity picks up where Bill left off, defending Rush. He's got two guests. One of them is Steven A. Smith. I did this twice and I got a double dose of Steven A., I'm psyched. I'm also hoping Steven punches Hannity by the end of the segment.

The other guest is an African-Amercian guy who agrees that people shouldn't call Rush a racist. This is a key Republican strategy since Obama got elected. "Hey, look, this guy's black too, and he agrees with us, checkmate!"

Hannity denies that Rush has ever engaged in race baiting, the look on Steven A.'s face after that one was priceless. Steven A. just learned an important lesson, if you think you're going to come on the Hannity show and win an argument with facts, think again.

Quick fun editing note: Seven paragraphs in my notes on the Hannity show started with "Hannity is very angry..."

Sean's got Mitt Romney on now to talk about health care. This whole thing was a debacle, I'll make two points. First, if anyone wanted Mitt Romney's health care plan (or his economic plan, or any of his plans), they would have voted for him when he ran for President. Instead, he finished third in a craptastic Republican primary field. It's quiet time for him now. Second, if you look up "empty suit" in a dictionary, you'll find a picture of Mitt Romney. He's like Reagan without the charisma, and if you take the charisma away from Reagan, there ain't much else to work with, ya know?

Also, Mitt doesn't think the President should take any time to think about how to handle Afghanistan. I know Republicans aren't used to the President thinking before he does stuff, but that's actually how it usually works.

Sean is talking about Chuck Schumer, Chuck thinks insurance companies should be subject to anti-trust laws (they've been exempt since 1945, I'm not sure I knew that, but it explains a lot). This is best idea I've heard in quite a while, of course, Hannity hates it and he's got Michelle Malkin on to talk about why. Michelle is as crazy and unlikable as anyone you'll see on TV, including the bad guys on fictional shows.

A little back story here, Monday, the health insurance industry put out a "report" which basically threatened to raise everyone's premiums if health care reform gets passed. Michelle and Hannity think Chuck's idea is "Chicago-style" retaliation for this industry funded report that, surprisingly, made the case against any kind of reform

Michelle just said something is "clear to most sane Americans", I guess she knows one. Anyway, the great great great great American panel is next. That's what Hannity called it.

Time for Hannity's panel, and back to defending Rush. Ohhhhh, now i get it, this whole Rush thing is about Barack Obama. I'll let you figure out how. Also, Rush's only crime is giving "conservative commentary". Kudos to Hannity for admitting racism now falls under his definition of "conservative commentary"(the first step is admitting you have a problem).

Hannity wonders aloud why there's a double standard regarding what people are allowed to say about race. In response, Juan Williams just pointed out that black people have a slightly different history in America then white people do, Hannity's not buying it (seriously).

More nonsense with Hannity, I'm getting a little punchy, I don't think I've ever just watched him for an hour straight before. The panel, by the way, are all people who agree with Hannity. This is actually unusual, he usually has one token liberal to yell at.

Hannity's last segment is with Donald Trump's daughter, and I couldn't be less interested. Sean also enjoys any excuse he can find to invite pretty ladies onto the show.

So that's it, I'm done. What did we learn kids?

Well, as usual, we didn't learn much. I learned that Fox is much better at staying on message from show to show than MSNBC is, which is a pretty good reflection of the respective parties they represent. I learned that watching TV and typing about it at the same time is actually easier than I thought it would be. But, more than anything else, I learned that, at some point, someone at Fox figured out that while the truth may sometimes be stranger than fiction, it's rarely more entertaining.

Cable News Time - Part 1

When I decided to get my very own blog, this is one of the things I knew I wanted to do. I already said I watch way too much cable news, so for a couple of nights this week, I'll be watching cable news and keeping sort of a running commentary.

Before I start, let me say this. If you aren't watching the Glenn Beck show whenever you have time, you really should be. Now, some people will say you shouldn't watch Glenn, they'll say something like "he's a paranoid lunatic with, at best, a casual relationship with reality." Listen, if that doesn't sound like something you'd want to watch, you may be misusing your television machine.

Wednesday night I'll do the 8-10 block featuring the two largest heads on television, Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity. But tonight, it's the 5PM hour. In the blue corner, the fightin irishman, the pride of Pennsylvania and quite possibly the loudest man on TV today, MSNBC's Chris Matthews. In the red corner, the mormon mauler, the self-described rodeo clown, Fox's Glenn Beck. The extra N stands for non-sequitur. Seriously, last week I was watching and Glenn was talking about SEIU and who would benefit from universal health care (spoiler alert: according to Glenn, it's definitely not the people who would get health care), I changed the channel for like 3 minutes. When I came back, Glenn was defending the 3/5 compromise because, according to him, it was the founding fathers' secret plan for ending slavery faster (and don't start with me about this, I know what he was saying, but if you're starting a new country and you have slaves, and your best idea for what to do about it is to count them as 60% of a person so that the slave holders have some extra power, but not too much, you may need to think a little harder, and people in the future certainly shouldn't talk like you had a brilliant idea). Honestly, on the Glenn Beck crazy scale from 1 to 10, that was only like a 4.

I have to mention this. Neil Cavuto is Glenn's lead in on Fox. He's reading viewer e-mails. Someone thinks we're making god angry by shooting rockets at the moon to test for the presence of water. I hope Neil will be dispatching a psychiatrist to that person's house.

Anyway, obviously, I'm starting with Glenn. Here we go. 3...2...1...Beck!

Apparently, the White House Director of Communications said something mean about Fox News today, so this should be fun. If House wasn't on tonight, I might switch the 8-10 block to tonight, just to see what Hannity and O'Reilly have to say about this, but they'll probably still be hyperventilating about it on Wednesday.

Glenn is showing us where Fox's offices are on a map of NYC, because he says the White House is at war with Fox, and if you're covering a war, even a fake one you just made up, you need maps. He's got a jar of M&M's and some toy tanks, and he's yelling pretty loud now. I'd describe this as a full scale tantrum from anyone else, but it's pretty standard for Glenn. And now we're talking about Barack Obama's secret evil plan to redistribute wealth. All roads lead here for Glenn. I can't type fast enough to mock all the stupid things he's saying, so let's see what Matthews is doing.

Matthews is talking about Rush Limbaugh trying to buy the St. Louis Rams. He's got Steven A. Smith as a guest. If there was a show with Chris and Steven screaming at each other, I'd never turn it off, even after my ears started bleeding. This morphed into a good debate between Steven and Kevin Blackistone (another sports writer) about athletes standing up for social issues they believe in. These sports guys didn't get the memo that Chris' guests are supposed to either agree with him or shout at him, not make their own insightful points. Then Chris says if they don't let Rush buy the team, Rush'll be happy because he gets to play the victim. Good call there by Chris. Back to Glenn.

Glenn's at the blackboard. This is one of his favorite things, he loves to use a blackboard on his show. I've often seen him preface this by telling the audience that Washington may think they're stupid, but he knows better. Then he conducts a segment of his show like he's teaching second grade. He's the best.

Beck's talking about SEIU again. He's criticizing President Obama because he consults SEIU leadership on issues that concern them. This would be a fair point, except that Glenn can't stop begging "Washington" to listen to "the people". Unfortunately, when Glenn references "the people", he's only talking about the people who agree with him. This isn't really Glenn's fault though, the voices in his head tell him everyone agrees with him.

Glenn hates Barney the dinosaur. Am I going to tell you how that came up? No, it's more fun if you use your imagination.

Glenn says Fox is representing you, and he's meeting the President and his Communications Director on the battlefield of ideas everyday at 5 o'clock. Um, OK.

Matthews is talking about Obama's Nobel prize with Christopher Hitchens and Mark Green. Green says the Nobel prize represents the world embracing Obama's approach to diplomacy, Matthews says it's more of a rebuke of George W. Bush (sometimes everyone gets to be right). Hitchens is talking about Ronald Reagan for some reason, but then he goes on to say the President hasn't done anything to earn a Nobel prize yet. Hitchens says Obama deserves a Nobel prize if he can turn Iran into a democracy in the next seven years. Oh, is that all?

Side note: I actually like Christopher Hitchens. It's either because he's a pro gay rights Republican or an atheist Republican, I can't remember. Unfortunately, when he's not talking about the thing I agree with him about, he's actually pretty hard to listen to and he never shuts up. It's like he was filibustering Mark Green.

Beck seems to be zeroing in on a new message, President Obama's administration is just like the Nixon administration, only much much worse. Glenn is gleefully pointing out that lots of democrats watch Fox too, someone should tell him that's because they find it hilarious. The other guy on with Glenn just said "you don't persuade with threatening". That's right! You persuade people by invading their country, everyone knows that.

Time for the Hardball Sideshow. Barney Frank said yesterday's gay rights march was a waste of time, writing letters to Congress is more effective. Couldn't agree more, and neither could Chris. Hillary Clinton says she's never running for president again. If I ever believed anything she said, I'd be relieved.

Fox just reported that May 22nd will now be Harvey Milk day in California, and the anchor didn't even say anything sarcastic about it, but Glenn couldn't help himself. He's annoyed that we have a Harvey Milk day but no more Columbus day (isn't today Columbus day? Apparently it's called Fall day now, this is the kind of breaking news you only get on Fox. Tough break for Columbus).

Glenn's having his daily panic attack about the impending collapse of the US dollar, but his guest's audio wasn't working for a minute. Glenn was happy to keep talking himself, but now the guest is back. Glenn says the Republicans did just as much damage to the dollar as Obama is doing. This is a Beck speciality, he'll spend all day hammering Democrats, but, at least once, he throws in a little "Republicans are bad too". That's how you know he's balanced.

They're talking about how gold is so valuable now and you should probably invest in gold. On a completely unrelated topic, since Glenn lost a bunch of sponsors due to his racism (sorry, I mean, um, bold truth telling?), half the commercials on his show are people trying to get you to buy gold. Also, we're headed toward being Zimbabwe. I'm getting a headache, back to Matthews.

Ahhhh! Jim Cramer is on Hardball now. This won't help my headache. Jim says unemployment will be below 7% by 2012. I like Jim Cramer a lot, but he doesn't exactly have a long record of being right about stuff, so I'm a little nervous. Matthews wants to know where the stimulus money went, why no infrastructure jobs? He mentioned all the stupid things Democrats did with the stimulus package, but he didn't call out the Republicans for those useless tax cuts they put in. Good thing too, because my extra $36 a month is really stimulating the economy.

Glenn's got Vince Flynn on, he wrote a book. All I need to know about this book is that it's got a chapter 50, needless to say, I won't be picking it up. They're talking about Obama's Nobel prize. Glenn thinks he got the prize for "dismantling the United States one piece at a time" and that it's "the first Nobel prize given for attendance". I'm usually a pretty rational and quiet guy, Glenn's one of the few people who can get my to yell at the TV. If George W. Bush had won a Nobel prize (do they give a Nobel prize for brush clearing? What about one for folksy talkin? I'll have to look this up) Fox would have thrown a week long party and they would have destroyed anyone who said anything bad about it.

The author thinks Obama should give his Nobel prize money to the Wounded Warriors charity. I like this idea, Glenn takes a second to agree but then, instead of elaborating on why this would be good and possibly directing his minions toward a good cause, he makes a stupid joke. Can I get my own TV show?

Matthews is talking about health care with his "politics fix" panel. He points out that most of Congress' stance on health care has to do with wanting to get re-elected. Then he points out that politicians would rather vote against something that passes or vote for something that fails, so they never have to be held accountable for anything. Lots of good points from Chris tonight, he's on his game.

Beck's still talking to the author, they're talking about torture and they say we're selling out the CIA. I mostly agree with this argument. This is what you get sometimes when you compromise. Democrats want to prosecute Bush administration officials who authorized torture, but they're Democrats, so anything that involves some political courage is a non-starter. Republicans would rather pretend nothing ever happened, but they're out of power, so too bad. So the compromise is we hassle the CIA guys who were following orders. I'm not really a fan.

Glenn's back to this idea that Barack Obama is indoctrinating children. He's got footage of people protesting outside of a school. I'm sure this is really helping the kids learn. He also runs the footage of the kids singing the "Mm mm mm Barack Hussein Obama" song. By the way, this happened in February, but we're protesting it now, you never know when kids might start singing again. Ya know, there are a lot of bad public schools in this country, a guy with an hour long TV show five days a week could maybe take a night to spotlight this a little, talk about all the stuff teachers need but don't have, but no, we have bigger problems, the kids are singing about the President. Once again, can I please have my own TV show?

Matthews is talking about Limbaugh again. Liberals are obsessed with this guy, or maybe they just really care about the future of the St. Louis Rams. Rush lives on attention, I say we ignore him for a while and see if he goes away.

Beck wraps up by holding a sign that says "I have a right to be heard". He says Fox has a right to be heard. I agree, as long as the rest of us have a right to not listen, or, in my case, listen and then mock.

Alright, I'm done for tonight. I could spend the next hour making fun of the 6PM guy on MSNBC, but Family Guy is on another channel. Back for two hours Wednesday night.

Finally Picking the Yankees

Two Things. First, I'm a pessimist. Some see the glass as half full, some see it as half empty. I say I don't care how full or empty the glass is, because it's probably filled with prune juice or some terrible Belgian beer and I'm not drinking it. Second, I'm a Yankee fan, always have been, always will be. I owe this to my grandmother (come to think of it, I probably owe that first thing to my grandmother too, some might say I got it from my mom, but where do you think she got? Did I just blow your mind a little? Hell yeah I did). Anyway, my grandmother started getting me on the Yankees, along with the Islanders and Celtics, before I can even remember. So, putting these two things together, I don't think I've ever actually said out loud that I was picking the Yankees to win the world series, until now.

Write it down, the Yankees are leaving with the big trophy this year. A couple of days ago I would have said they were going to beat the Cardinals for it, but the Cards seem to have gotten bogged down in LA. I guess the baseball gods have decided to give us the sports media apocalypse of a Yankees vs. Joe Torre world series, I'm so thrilled.

So why am I picking the Yankees? Two main reasons.

Reason number one, they put together a good team in a great off-season. A lot of people talk about Sabathia and Teixiera. Not interesting to me, the Yankees used their financial advantage to make the two most obvious signings, exactly what they should do with all that money, but not really worth talking about. Some people talk about Swisher, and I will a little bit. This guy plays at least 3 positions (none of them all that well, but whatever) and he hit 29 home runs. Brian Cashman stole him from Kenny Williams (a solid GM, by the way) for Wilson Betemit. Seriously, I'm not making that up. Swisher is good for 20+ home runs, high OPS and defensive flexibility, and they got him for Wilson Betemit. So that's sort of interesting, but that's not what I really want to highlight.

I'd like to talk about A.J. Burnett. Why? Because A.J. and the Yankees were the perfect fit. This was such a good signing for both sides. A.J. has ace stuff. He's a number one guy when he brings his A game, which he's usually happy to do about 6-8 times a year when he's healthy. Beyond that, you get 16-18 pretty average starts and 6-8 unmitigated disasters. Of course, it was the 6-8 dominant starts a year that he was looking to get paid for. So, he needed a team with the following qualities:
1) Enough money to pay number two starter money to a guy who is actually average or below average most of the time.
2) Enough offense to win most of his average starts.
3) Enough talent to overcome his disasters and still win enough games to make the playoffs.

Does that sound like a certain franchise with 26 world championships? I think it does.

Reason number two, this Yankee team has a different feel then the 2001-2008 teams did, and I think I know why. I watched all the walk-off celebrations, all the dugout goofing around, all the Nick Swisher hair styles, and I kept thinking the same thing. This isn't Jeter's team anymore. He's still the captain, and they still respect him, but something has changed in the leadership.

Before I move on, I should admit that I don't like Jeter nearly as much as I'm supposed to as a Yankee fan. I know he's a excellent player, and sometimes he'll do something (like the home run in the third inning of game one against the Twins) that I have to admit was pretty great. In general, though, I don't think he's everything Yankee fans and the baseball media make him out to be. I think if he played for the Texas Rangers, he'd be Michael Young. Baseball fans know what I'm talking about, people who don't really follow baseball have no idea who Michael Young is, and that's sort of my point.

This isn't Jeter's team anymore. It's almost like he's moved on to a higher position. They'll still look to him when they need something big, but the other guys are running the day to day now, Swisher and Teixiera, Sabathia and Burnett. Why is this good? This team isn't chasing the old dynasty anymore, they're starting a new one. Alex Rodriguez isn't the sullen outcast who can't measure up to the champions he plays with anymore, he's just one of boys. The young kids, like Cano and Cabrera and Joba are having fun without having to worry about getting a stern lecture about professionalism, because they're following the lead of veterans who are having fun.

Sure, when the series is over and they're mopping up the champagne, the Yankees players will talk about Jeter's leadership and how he was their MVP, and that'll be true. Maybe he'll even get his own trophy to prove it. But think about all those Yankee teams since 2000 that came up short. Didn't they look bored? They did their jobs with the same amount of joy as the guy who cleans the bathrooms at your office. You could blame some of this on Torre, but he wasn't there last year, and they looked worse than ever.

This team is having fun, it's because they brought in some new leadership, and it's why you can put the 27th world title in the bank.

Of course, now that I wrote this, it almost certainly won't happen. I'll spend the last week in October watching the Angels and the Dodgers play the least cared about world series in history. That's what I get for trying to be optimistic for once.