Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Awareness

Thanks to my cousin for bringing this to my attention today.

From Bombers Beat at the MLBlogs Network:

70 years ago, a dying Lou Gehrig stood on the field at Yankee Stadium and said goodbye to baseball, making what can only be considered the most memorable and greatest speech in the game’s history.

Today, this Fourth of July, every Major League team playing at home will conduct a special on-field ceremony to commemorate his farewell. The Yankees are hosting a special “4-ALS Awareness” ceremony on the field this afternoon at 1 p.m. and will recognize Michael Goldsmith, a lifelong baseball fan who contributed to the development of the “4-ALS” initiative.

In addition, to honor Gehrig, a “4-ALS” logo will appear on top of first base in every ballpark around the Majors. All on-field personnel will wear a patch honoring the initiative, and Yankees players will help recreate Gehrig’s speech in a video tribute.

There is a great display inside Gate 4 at the Stadium which has a large photograph of Gehrig speaking on July 4, 1939, accompanied by a continuous loop of the audio. Today would be a great day to stop in and check it out if you’re headed here.

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky.

When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift – that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies – that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed – that’s the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

233 Years Today

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

My 2009 All Star Ballot

American League
1B: Justin Morneau. Youkilis currently leads in the voting but he doesn’t quite approach Morneau or Teixeira in power and run production. Miguel Cabrera’s .330+ batting average puts him in the discussion but the other three are much more complete players while Cabrera is really just a hitter. There’s some temptation to attempt a case for Teix on the grounds that Morneau has been slumping in the past month but Teix’ production seems ultimately tied to ARod and how well he’s producing behind him, so I’ll stick with the clearer choice.

2B: Very tough decision. I think Aaron Hill edges Ian Kinsler. Very similar power production and both are excellent defensive players. But I think Hill’s superior batting average (.301 to .263) trumps Kinsler’s 16 – 3 advantage in steals. Kinsler is currently just edging out reigning MVP Dustin Pedroia (who might not even belong in the top 5) followed up by Cano and Hill in a distant 5th place. Notable mention to write-in candidate Tampa utility player Ben Zobrist who has started 32 games at 2B (more than any other position for him) and has put together a stat line comparable to Kinsler and Hill.

SS: Jason Bartlett has been absolutely raking since early April and shows no signs of slowing down. From a Yankee fan perspective it’s terrific to see Jeter leading all American League players in votes, assuring his 10th All Star game. But Bartlet, in distant second in the SS voting (with fewer than half of Jeter’s votes) is the more deserving player. Fortunately, Bartlett is a lock to be selected for the bench by Tampa manager Joe Madden.

3B: Evan Longoria. Nice to see the fans getting one right. Interesting question on whether ARod deserves second-place honors here. Obviously his production this season doesn’t warrant any consideration, but he is Alex Rodriguez and he appears to now be playing very near the level we expect of him.

C: Joe Mauer. Another strong fan consensus for the correct selection. Mauer is third in AL votes at any position after Jeter and Longoria. Kind of annoying to see Varitek and his .234 batting average in second place, especiallu with such strong seasons so far from Victor Martinez and Mike Napoli.

OF: Carl Crawford and Torii Hunter are the easy choices for the first two OF slots. Ichiro Suzuki beats out the rest of the pack, notably Nelson Cruz, Johnny Damon, Bobby Abreu, Jason Bay (the current AL RBI leader and leader in voting among American League OF).

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National League:
1B: Albert Pujols leads all MLB players in All Star votes – and deservedly so. Prince Fielder has been pretty awesome this year, but there’s no comparison.

2B: Chase Utley is second among all MLB players in All Star votes. Head and shoulders above his competition in the National League.

SS: Hanley Ramirez is another easy choice for the fans. Rollins, Reyes and Furcal just aren’t getting it done this year. So far, National League fans seem to have much easier selections.

3B: And I can also go along with the fans’ choice of David Wright. With batting average and steals both near the top of the league, I can forgive his dearth of home run power this year and mediocre defensive play. Helping him is that his best competition is Mark Reynolds, who’s defensive play could be flatteringly described as “clunky”.

C: With no clear standout, I’ll go with Brian McCann over the fans’ choice of defensive stud Yadier Molina. Not a very exiting group to select from.

OF: The NL fans get it right here as well with their selections of Raul Ibanez, Ryan Braun and Carlos Beltran. However, Beltran’s injury will keep him out of action through the All Star Game. So my vote for the third NL outfielder goes to Justin Upton, with respectful nods to Brad Hawpe and Michael Bourn.

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Feels kind of strange not voting for any Yankees, but in my best effort to be as objective as possible, this is what I come up with. If fans voted on pitchers I’m sure I’d vote for Mariano Rivera and perhaps I could make a case for CC Sabathia. It’s interesting to note that (this year, anyway) the American League is much more of a popularity contest with players like Youkilis, Jeter, Varitek, Dustin Pedroia and Josh Hamilton amassing vote totals far beyond what their production should warrant. Some might argue that the National League simply has fewer stellar players to choose from. Whatever the case, the National League voting far better reflects the best of the league at the mid-point of the 2009 season. Whether this will translate into better than recent success for the senior circuit remains to be seen.

Re-creating The Gap That Gave Us The Great Depression

(click the image for the full-sized chart)

Click the image for the full-sized chart.

Pulled from the June 30, 2008 issue of The Nation

Meet the New Boss… Same as the Old Boss?

Washington Post Saturday:

Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the prison by the president’s January deadline.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order.

“Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order,” the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.

The president introduced his “prolonged detention” policy in his May 21st speech announcing his plans for closing the military prison in Guantanamo Bay. At the time, however, he explained:

In our constitutional system, prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man. If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight. And so, going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution.

As egregious a civil rights violation the concept of indefinitie detention without trail might be, the notion of such laws being set in motion outside of the legislative process has a distinctly Cheney/Rove sensation to it.

Glenn Greenwald was typically thorough in his criticism, including knocking the linked Washington Post article:

Anonymous trial balloon articles like this one are difficult to comment on because it’s obviously designed to announce that a certain policy is being considered before it’s actually written, and so none of the key details is known. Would Obama’s new detention powers apply only to current “War on Terror” prisoners at places like Guantanamo and Bagram, or would they also apply to future, not-yet-abducted detainees as well? Would these powers apply to detainees picked up anywhere in the world, far away from “war zones”? Would there be any judicial review or other meaningful oversight provisions so that — even in theory — this was something other than the unilateral, unchecked presidential power to detain indefinitely without charges? None of these important details is known (though the article notes that, under one White House proposal, “ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review”; the Emperor, sitting alone, will decree once a year whether they must remain in a cage).

This specific article is even worse than the usual one of its type, since it’s particularly uncritical in passing along administration claims without any skepticism…

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Worse, the article does not provide any information about the Obama officials whose mission the reporters are dutifully carrying out, so there’s no way to assess their motives.

Those journalistic practices produce egregious sentences like this: “‘Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order’, the official said.” I’d love to know which so-called “civil liberties groups” are pushing the White House for an Executive Order establishing the power of indefinite detention. It’s certainly not the ACLU or Center for Constitutional Rights, both of which issued statements vehemently condemning the proposal (ACLU’s Anthony Romero: “If President Obama issues an executive order authorizing indefinite detention, he’ll be repeating the same mistakes of George Bush”).

Greenwald also linked the following Rachel Maddow commentary, which aired at the time of Obama’s speech last month. Since this blog was not active at the time, I’ll embed it here, as I think she effectively captures my impression of the policy (be it encated by executive order or through Congress):

“That Way Lies Madness”

CNN’s “GPS” with Fareed Zakaria featured an economics discussion with Paul Krugman vs John B. Taylor on . Normally I’d embed the video here but apparently CNN video is not currently compatable with wordpress.com blogs.

If you prefer to read through the interview, here’s a transcript of the show.

Iran as a Propaganda Tool in American Politics

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, of course. And my biased and surely predictable perspective is that the hawkish right is using the current events in Iran to criticize the Obama Administration for appeasing or legitimizing the oppressive regime there.

And there has been no shortage of critics. On Friday, Charles Krauthammer could not have been more scathing, attacking Obama for everything from his initial reticence to his cautious optimism over Khamenei’s initial reaction to his referring to Khamenei by his official title, supreme leader:

Where to begin? “Supreme Leader” [notice Krauthammer's capitalization -joe]? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator who, even as his minions attack demonstrators, offers to examine some returns in some electoral districts — a farcical fix that will do nothing to alter the fraudulence of the election.

Of course Krauthammer’s outrage was rather curious, published six days after he explained to the panel on Special Report;

Look, these were sham elections from the beginning. In a real democracy, you can have a change of power as a result. That was not going to happen in Iran. The mullahs are in charge. Khamenei, the supreme leader, remains in charge. Nuclear and foreign policy will remain exactly as is.

It’s not hard to understand why Krauthammer would slip into such blatant hypocrisy; it has been clear that since his election, it has served the interests of the American political right and the American mainstream news media to focus on President Ahmadinijad as the face of the Iranian leadership, rather than Ayatollah Kahmenei. Ahmadinijad’s aggressive rhetoric, holocaust denials and other hostile and dramatic displays are a gift to the hawkish right’s case for a more aggressive stance against Iran and Islamist states in general and sells newspapers, TV ratings and web hits in the process.

So it did seem odd a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that so acknowledging Khamenei’s position had suddenly became convenient for the political right during the buildup to the Iranian election. But there was Krauthammer, John Bolton and plenty of others, pointing out the Ayatollah as the top authority in Tehran, in their transparently hypocritical attempt to head off and counter any praise they feared Obama’s foreign policy outreach might receive for possibly influencing the Iranian vote.

While the usefulness of that particular tract dissipated the moment the uprising became something greater than a reaction to a fraudulent election, the disingenuous use of Iran as a propaganda assault on the president from the political right has not ceased. By the Sunday morning after the election, the talking points had formed and hardened. Mitt Romney on This Week:

Well, first of all, the comments by the president last week that there was a robust debate going on in Iran was obviously entirely wrong-headed. What has occurred is that the election is a fraud, the results are inaccurate, and you’re seeing a brutal repression of the people as they protest.

The president ought to come out and state exactly those words, indicate that this has been a terribly managed decision by the autocratic regime in Iran.

It’s very clear that the president’s policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren’t working.

Statement Issued by Republican Whip Eric Cantor on June 15th

“The Administration’s silence in the face of Iran’s brutal suppression of democratic rights represents a step backwards for homegrown democracy in the Mideast. President Obama must take a strong public position in the face of violence and human rights abuses.

“We have a moral responsibility to lead in opposition to Iran’s extreme response to peaceful protests. We stand with the people of Iran in their struggle to participate in a democratic election and who deserve the right to freely assemble and voice their opposition to its questionable outcome.”

“In addition, Iran’s clerical regime has made clear that its nuclear program will move forward. The United States cannot trust the aspirations of a nation that is a state-sponsor of terrorism, and the Administration must work with Congress to do everything in its power to deny Iran nuclear weapons.”

John McCain on the June 16th Today Show:

“He should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights,” McCain said. “We support them in their struggle against a repressive, oppressive regime and they should not be subjected to four more years of Ahmadinejad and the radical Muslim clerics.”

It is true that the president chose to remain silent in the days following thje Iranian election. His first statement on the topic after the election was during Q&A in a press event with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi on Monday, June 15th:

Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football — or discussions with the United States.

Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process — free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent — all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they’re, rightfully, troubled.

My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can’t state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election. But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it’s important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.

Now, with respect to the United States and our interactions with Iran, I’ve always believed that as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad’s statements, as deep as the differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a range of core issues, that the use of tough, hard-headed diplomacy — diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the nature of the differences between our two countries — is critical when it comes to pursuing a core set of our national security interests, specifically, making sure that we are not seeing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon; making sure that Iran is not exporting terrorist activity. Those are core interests not just to the United States but I think to a peaceful world in general.

We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we’ll see where it takes us. But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we’ve seen on the television over the last few days. And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.

And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.

While the gesture was by no means an appeasement, it hardly satisfied the political right’s dominant bend toward neoconservative foreign politics. Fortunately, the appeal of Obama’s ‘anti-meddling’ policy was not lost on some members of the GOP’s old guard, who are not under pressure to strike just the right obstructionist chord against the party in power, and therefore free to apply logic unencumbered by concern for how their soundbites will play in the next election cycle.

The typically earnest and elegant response from Peggy Noonan in her column last week:

America so often gets Iran wrong. We didn’t know when the shah was going to fall, didn’t foresee the massive wave that would topple him, didn’t know the 1979 revolution would move violently against American citizens, didn’t know how to handle the hostage-taking. Last week we didn’t know a mass rebellion was coming, and this week we don’t know who will emerge the full or partial victor. So modesty and humility seem appropriate stances from which to observe and comment.

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(If you don’t understand who the American people are for, put down this newspaper or get up from your computer, walk into the street and grab the first non-insane-looking person you meet. Say, “Did you see the demonstrations in Iran? It’s the ayatollahs versus the reformers. Who do you want to win?” You won’t just get “the reformers,” you’ll get the perplexed-puppy look, a tilt of the head and a wondering stare: You have to ask?)

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To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week. John McCain and others went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn’t know whose side America is on. “In the cause of freedom, America cannot be neutral,” said Rep. Mike Pence. Who says it’s neutral?

This was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else’s delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech.

Mr. Obama was restrained, balanced and helpful in the crucial first days, keeping the government out of it but having his State Department ask a primary conduit of information, Twitter, to delay planned maintenance and keep reports from the streets coming.

How some modern Republicans are able to look themselves in the mirror after being so thoroughly pummelled by no less than the muse of their own Saint Ronald will baffle me for as long as Peggy continues to work. I may not always agree with her, but she represents the GOP that I long to see return to American politics.

Anyway, conservative stalwart Pat Buchanan, a throwback to a time when the American political right adhered to conservative foreign policy ideals, predictably put his principles before his party and stood with Peggy:

My view is that it was very, very irresponsible for John McCain to say some of the things he said so early. It was very hot-headed in my judgment. It was impulsive. Can you imagine if the crowds in the streets suddenly were told, ‘Look, the Americans are with us. They’re behind us 100 percent. Let’s try to overthrow the regime,’ and then they were cut down by these Revolutionary Guard and their thugs? I think we would bear moral responsibility for having done that, and it would be a disaster. … I think they’ve done the right thing.

And on Sunday’s This Week, George Will was similarly critical of the response from the political right:

The president is being roundly criticized for insufficient rhetorical support for what’s going on over there. It seems to me foolish criticism. The people on the streets know full well what the American attitude toward that regime is, and they don’t need that reinforced.

But neoconservative obstructionism does not yield so easily. This past Sunday morning, the chorus from the usual crowd was just as predictable as the week before:

“The president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday. “He’s been timid and passive more than I would like.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and others noted that Western leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have demanded a recount or more forcefully condemned the government crackdown.

“I’d like to see the president be stronger than he has been, although I appreciate the comments that he made yesterday,” McCain said. “I think we ought to have America lead.”

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Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said a slow or muted U.S. response risks undermining the aspirations of Iranian voters to change or question their government.

“If America stands for democracy and all of these demonstrations are going on in Tehran and other cities over there, and people don’t think that we really care, then obviously they’re going to question, ‘Do we really believe in our principles?’” Grassley said.

In his interview last night with Jon Stewart, Iranian-American author and CBS News Middle East Analyst, Reza Aslan was bold in his response to the president’s critics:

Update
Sorry about the blockquote problems. It appears wordpress has some automated system that indents only the first paragraph of quoted text. I think I’ve fixed everything, and also corrected a few grammar errors as well.

Underground Iranian Newsletters Being Distributed by Protestors

The L.A. Times reports that The European Photo Agency has posted a photo of an underground newspaper circulating among protestors in Iran.

Fellow WordPress blog, Iran In the Gulf, has linked a PDF file of the paper and has published some English translations.

Maziar Bahari

The same contact that has provided me with the Facebook updates I’ve posted here tells me that his associate is also a friend of Maziar Bahari, a Newsweek reporter who has been detained in Iran.

Newsweek reported yesterday evening:

Among the dozens of people arrested overnight in Tehran was NEWSWEEK reporter Maziar Bahari, who has covered Iran for the magazine for over a decade. Bahari was home asleep at 7 a.m. when several security officers showed up at his Tehran apartment. According to his mother, who lives with the 41-year-old reporter and documentary filmmaker, the men did not identify themselves. They seized Bahari’s laptop and several videotapes. Assuring her that he would be their guest, they then left with Bahari. He has not been heard from since.

In a statement, NEWSWEEK magazine has strongly condemned the detention of Bahari and called for him to be released immediately. Bahari is a dual Canadian-Iranian citizen. According to the statement, “His coverage of Iran, for NEWSWEEK and other outlets, has always been fair and nuanced, and has given full weight to all sides of the issues. He has always worked well with different administrations in Tehran, including the current one.”

NEWSWEEK Editor Jon Meacham said, “We are deeply concerned about Mr. Bahari’s detention. As a longtime NEWSWEEK reporter he has worked hard to be balanced in his coverage of Iran. We see no reason why he should be held by the authorities. We respectfully ask that they release him as soon as possible.”

According to Reporters Without Borders, over 20 Iranian journalists and bloggers have been detained since the disputed presidential elections on June 12. In its statement, NEWSWEEK condemned the seizure of innocent journalists as a violation of the right to a free press in Iran, and called upon world governments to use whatever influence they have to make clear that the detention of Bahari is unwarranted and unacceptable, and to demand his release.

Here’s a link to Bahari’s last published article in Newsweek, dated June 17th.

Another Personal Account From Iran

The same 3rd hand source as in the post below:

Iran June 20, 2009 – a friend’s account
We went today, all the routes were closed but we made it to about a km away from revolution square but at every intersection they had riot police dispersing us, wouldn’t let us get through.

We managed to get some further , my guess is on the northern pavement of enghelab street to enghelab square something like 50,000 people were trying to get through, they were using watercanons at the gate of the Tehran university.

They kept breaking us up. The regular riot policemen were generally ok but then the riot police with army fatigue came and started eating people, they were hitting people on the head, one young womn’s head was broken in front of us, we all jumped in the gutter and some of the men protected us from the batons, the girl was in bad way, we dragged her out and then they just kept shouting. One of them had really red eyes and was screaming from the bottom of his lungs, then the tear gas came and we kept running, but then re-grouping, at some point the younger men started chasing them saying death to basiji.

But then more tear gas and batons.

Along the road running nrth don’t know the name but near the university there were basijis mingling with the army types in yellow lacoste etyle tshirts and they all had caskets.
We lost some of our friedsn on the way.

We managed to get to laleh park and there was lots of riot olice there.
At the cross section of fatemi and kargar the robocops were waiting the ones in black with the rubberised gear.

We gave up and tried to get back home the streets were jammed, in one of the alleys running parallel to amirabad which is the main road running to the uni dormitories there was a commtion ,we could see the smoke of tear gas.

They were out in force, even had communication officers with their boxes on their backs.
Now they say someone was shot there, in amirabad.

We heard on the way, when mobiles came back to life that they have exploded two bombs in the shrine of Khomeini.

Don’t know what will happen next, only news from CNN and aljazeera. BBC Persian is out, most people can’t even get on the net.

There were lost of people lingering around the park and the streets for miles off asking whats’ going on and how they shd proceed.

One of us went further east and tried to get into azadi street from the west , west of Navab highway, but the same dipreesing of crowds.

One of our friends was hit on the knee, another was run over by car. She says the hospital was full of people coming in with broken heads and limbs.

We are home safe but apparently it’s going on in vanak square we know that amirabad ws in turmoil.

There were all kinds of people there not just rich westernised people, they have always been there in all the marches, the difference today we were not marching in peace, they were out to get rid of us. I still think some of the forces there were not realy into hurting us, it was the basij and the military fatigued riot police. Still some people say that these guys don’t speak Persian, I don’t know, I didn’t hear any Arabic spoken, some people belive most of these people are brought in from client states.

We were scared, but we went. We don’t what will happen next but if they organise it we have to go again, there’s no other way. We can’t let the extreme elemnets turn this into another Lebanon or Palestine. There is no way but to go out.

The bombing ofkhomeini’s tomb though is bad. They will balme it on the protestors. But we all feel this is their own work. The protestors don’t even have batons, just their fists and they are not yet using them. The bombing will give them a chance to declare martial law.
They are trying to create something bad here; civil war, military takeover…. I can’t believe they were so stupid as to do all this without knowing.

Let people know whatis happening here.

I wonder if the young girl we dragged out will live, there was so much blood.

Thanks to my online acquaintance who provides these accounts.

Children Among the Goons

Yesterday afternoon Nico Pitney posted an email he received from a contact in Iran:

You couldn’t imagin what I saw tonight, I walked down many streets(Vali asr, keshavars, amir abad, Fatemi, Shademan, Satarkhan, Khosro), and I was injured by tears gas, but the main thing : The big killer group, called “Basij”, weared our special military service group -”Sepah”- dresses and they were all armed , I saw by myself one of them had only around 15 years old!!!! and he had the shot order! I saw a girl injured by gon shot (in Amir abad St.)! and there weren’t enough ambulances . I walked through Shademan St. they start shooting , a young boy in front of my eyes murdered , and 3 other people were injured , there were also a big fight between people and Basij at Tohid Sq. 7 people was murdered there, I walked from my company to my home , It was taken 4 hours and I couldn’t be able to make a video , cause I was in the middle of war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The use of young teenagers in the Basiji was corroborated in a Facebook post which I received 3rd hand:

On Yadegar Freeway to Azadi Junction around 4 PM – there were people moving in small groups, and there were Basiji and riot police in full body armor walking through the people.

In every street leading to Azadi Square there were many police waiting for the protestors, and keeping them from emerging onto Azadi Street.

The strategy of the police was to prevent the protestors from coalescing into a large group.

The people were being forced into the alleys by riot police, who then fired teargas canisters into them.

When large groups of people were forced into an alley and encountered lone members of the Basiji or riot police, the crowd protected them, making a shield around them, and allowed them to escape back to the main street.

Some of the Basiji forces looked quite young, even 14 or 16 years old. Many of them were clearly brought to Tehran from the villages.

Old women spoke to them, saying “You are like my child.” or “You are Iranian – these people are your brothers and sisters.”

Some of the riot police had tears in their eyes.

Many of the Basiji said things to us, such as “We are here to protect you from the foreign enemies who are making these disturbances. The people who have made these disturbances are not pro-Mousavi, they are against the Islamic government.”

At times, when the police or Basiji became too violent with the protestors, the protestors fought back with sticks and stones.

Many of the riot police and Basiji seemed more afraid of the crowd of protestors fighting back than the protestors were of them. They had fear in their eyes.

Anyone seen taking pictures, even with a mobile phone, was immediately arrested.

The crowd chanted slogans – the most popular was “God is Great!”

There were also cries of “Death to Dictatoriship!”

At one point, when the Basiji had shot and killed one of the protestors, the chant changed to “Death to Khamenei!” This was in Sattar Khan neighborhood.

Reports were coming from other places that more protestors had been killed by police.

In some places the police became outnumbered and stood together in groups on the street corners.

The crowds of protestors gathered around them and chanted “Don’t kill your brothers!”

Alley after alley it was a similar story.

In some streets the people had control. In others, the riot police and Basiji dominated.

Walking through some areas you would encounter a cloud of nearly invisible tear gas. Suddenly your eyes and throat are burning. Constant crying, eyes reddened.

In places even middle aged women could be seen breaking paving stones to hurl at police.

“Student Alley” where the dormitories of Tehran University are located, was blocked by a line of riot police.

There were fires burning on the street behind them, and people running along the street in both directions.

You could see the clashes and people running along the alleys and side streets – moving higher into Tehran as night fell.

The people were saying to each other as they passed by: “This is only the beginning. We will not stop.”

Tonight on the streets of Tehran, people are on their balconies, windows and rooftops, chanting “God is Great! God is Great!”

It is not clear what will happen tomorrow.

Kiwi!/Jules Mashup

Kiwi! was an animated short that went viral fairly early in the era of Youtube.

I’d never seen this version until someone brought it to my attention very recently, but the short was set to Gary Jules’ cover of Mad World only a few months later.

Probably old news for most but I loved it and had to share:

International Solidarity

A few photos making the rounds on Twitter:

Sacramento, CA

San Francisco, CA

Austin, TX

New York, NY

Paris, France

London, UK

Copenhagen, Denmark

Hamburg, Germany

Frankfurt, Germany

A Hat Tip to Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney

Today was his 6th consecutive day of live blogging the Iranian election fallout. He’s been invaluable in assembling order to the chaotic stream of information coming thorugh. Earlier he linked an excerpt from a Council on Foreign Relations interview with Carnegie Endowment Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour:

The weight of the world now rests on the shoulders of Mir Hossein Mousavi. I expect that Khamenei’s people have privately sent signals to him that they’re ready for a bloodbath, they’re prepared to use overwhelming force to crush this, and is he willing to lead the people in the streets to slaughter?

Mousavi is not Khomeini, and Khamenei is not the Shah. Meaning, Khomeini would not hesitate to lead his followers to “martyrdom”, and the Shah did not have the stomach for mass bloodshed. This time the religious zealots are the ones holding power.

The anger and the rage and sense of injustice people feel will not subside anytime soon, but if Mousavi concedes defeat he will demoralize millions of people. At the moment the demonstrations really have no other leadership. It’s become a symbiotic relationship, Mousavi feeds off people’s support, and the popular support allows Mousavi the political capital to remain defiant. So Mousavi truly has some agonizing decisions to make.

Rafsanjani’s role also remains critical. Can he co-opt disaffected revolutionary elites to undermine Khamenei? As Khamenei said, they’ve known each other for 52 years, when they were young apostles of Ayatollah Khomeini. I expect that Khamenei’s people have told Rafsanjani that if he continues to agitate against Khamenei behind the scenes, he and his family will be either imprisoned or killed, and that the people of Iran are unlikely to weep for the corrupt Rafsanjani family.

Whatever happens, and I know I shouldn’t be saying this as an analyst, but my eyes well when I think of the tremendous bravery and fortitude of the Iranian people. They deserve a much better regime than the one they have.

I Wouldn’t Call Them Prodigies

In fact after listening to samples from the Tiny masters Of Today’s earlier releases, I’m not convinced that young man could play his guitar at all prior to the recording of their current album, Skeletons.

Regardless, there is something to a child act that can achieve credibility in so rich an indie punk scene as Brooklyn’s. The Beastie Boys (who received a major nod in the video above) would seem like the obvious comparison. They also started as a NYC punk act, getting their first taste of local notoriety at 14 and 15 years old. Ada and Ivan were 10 and 12 years old when Newsweek picked up on the home-made music tracks on their Myspace page going semi-viral.

At 13 and 15, they’ve now released two full length studio albums and also two EPs, and will be performing at this year’s Siren Music Festival on Coney Island.

Iran

The post-election events in Iran are probably the primary inspiration for my renewed interest in putting my thoughts in print. Much has happened, leaving an awful lot to digest. Andrew Sullivan’s work in has been simply tremendous. In fact his first post on the topic, published over a week before the election, was nothing short of prescient. He wrote on June 3rd:

I don’t know whether you have been reading the various press accounts of the election campaign in Iran. I know that the candidates’ list is fixed, but I can also see democratic spirit when it is bang in front of me. There appears to be a genuine fight for votes; and the images from the Mousavi rallies look more like Obama rallies than assemblies in a totalitarian state. Notice how young these people look, and how unafraid.

Courageous, more accurately, as we’ve come to learn this week.

At the moment I can’t help but wonder to what extent might the popular uprising against the power center in Iran have been encouraged by the American president’s diplomatic outreach to the Muslim World, specifically his speech in Cairo eight days before the election? The portion on democracy certainly expressed the ideals espoused by the Iranian protestors:

But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere. (Applause.)

Now, there is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: Governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments — provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they’re out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. (Applause.) So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

It’s hard to imagine such ideals not resonating with a such young and oppressed citizenry as in Iran, which we’ve known for some time longs for the freedoms of the west. Further, American news media from all over the political spectrum, from The Christian Science Monitor to The New York Times to even the overtly rightist Washington Times seem to acknowledge some connection between the Cairo speech and the very surprising upset of Hezbollah in last week’s Lebanese general election. Really, why would it resonate in Beirut and not Tehran?

Happy Birthday!

After the election, which was the topic that dominated my work here last year, I was feeling burned out and very much unsure about the direction I wanted to take this blog. Following current events and politics did (and still does) remain a personal pursuit, but by the holidays, the focus of the national discussion turned to economics, a subject in which (as I have acknowledged here before) I am not as well researched as and much less confident in my comprehension and opinions than I might be in various other headings in the public discussion.

Also, as I’ve explained to some people who asked why I stopped writing; a web log, unless you write for a forum with a large and active following, is mostly just a conversation with yourself. So I found myself returning to a politics forum where I was a long time contributor but had previously tired of, due to a declining quality of discourse. I’d be remiss for failing to concede that the ‘conversation with yourself’ excuse is (at least in part) also a nicer sounding way of admitting laziness. At a public message forum, there are other people there to open new discussions, breach new topics, research facts and offer ideas. One could actively contribute to the various discussions without having to work very hard at all; simply comment on the work done by others.

But of course that’s not nearly as rewarding in the long run as a personal log that is exactly what I choose it to be. I think I’ve had enough time off.

Yanks Add Mark Teixeira to the Pile

I didn’t believe the Yankees’ silence on Mark Teixeira was an indicator that they weren’t interested. Signing him made too much sense, within both the Yankees’ free-spending approach and in more pragmatic terms, as well.

Contrary to what some might think following my recent rant, I’m not generally opposed to seeing the Yankees’ sign top tier free agents. I just think they need to be much smarter about it than they have been. Their lack of long term planning often means they are forced to fill immediate holes in the lineup by taking on big contracts with players that aren’t a very good fit. For example one deal I wish they did make was for Carlos Beltran back in 2005. They knew Bernie Williams was in serious decline and that if they held off, there would not be a comparable CF available in the coming years. Indeed, the following year they found themselves in a bind and spent relatively big money on the best option available, Johnny Damon, who turned 33 that year and has been a decent offensive player when healthy but a defensive liability at the position they signed him to play. And he hasn’t been very healthy at all in the last two years, missing 40 games and nursing injuries at DH in another 70.

So, here are this Yankee fan’s pros and cons on signing Mark Teixeira (cons first):

1. Recently obtained 1B/LF Nick Swisher, whom I was excited to see receive a chance to play every day, is the biggest loser in this deal. Unfortunately, the Yankees don’t obtain players like Swisher as their first choice to start at any position. Swisher, like Wilson Betemit (who was traded to the White Sox for Swisher last month) was brought in as an insurance policy in case they didn’t obtain a more marquee player in the offseason and to step in should another starter get injured. This is only a one-year problem for Swisher. If he is able to distinguish himself in part-time duty this year, he will have more opportunities for playing time as the contracts of both Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui will expire after the 2009 season, leaving left field and designated hitter open.

2. The Yankees would be wise to leave 1B/DH/LF as open as possible in the short and long terms. They have several aging core position players with multiple years remaining on their contracts who might be able to continue to produce offensively but would have to move to less demanding defensive positions. The first issue is Posada. We don’t know whether or for how long he will be able to continue to be a viable starting MLB catcher. The official word is that the shoulder that ruined his 2008 season is responding well to rehab but the front office would never readily acknowledge that the shoulder was shot if that were the case. And even if it does heal up fine, he turns 38 next season and is signed through 2011. Next is Jeter. His contract is up after the 2010 season, during which he turns 36. Assuming he’s still producing offensively, the Yanks will probably give the modern face of the franchise (and link in the historical chain of Yankee greats) 4 years or so to wind down his career. He’s already lost a step at shortstop and however things work out, he will probably have to find another position before his tenure in pinstripes is finished. And then ARod is only 1 year younger than Jeter and is signed through his 41st birthday. Personally, I’d really hate to see Jeter or Posada finish their careers anyplace else and ARod’s contract is probably untradable.

3. The Yankees have proven with the greatest World Series dynasty of the last half century that you don’t need a major thumper in the middle of the lineup to reach the promised land, much less two. Through each of those 4 Championship seasons, no Yankee player hit more than 30 home runs. During his tenure with the Yankees, Tino Martinez hit over 30 twice, in 1997 and in 2001. Interestingly, those were the only two years during Tino’s first go-round in the Bronx in which they didn’t win the World Series. While superfluously adding power hitters to the lineup may be the modern Yankee way, it has not in any way shown itself to be a of model for success for the modern Yankees. It does, however, add legitimacy to complaints about the Yankees’ excessive use of their resources and chiding of their recent playoff futility despite the unprecedented spending.

Now the pros:

1. This is the Beltran deal they didn’t make in 2005. It’s a major signing that brings short, medium and long term benefits. While it would be nice to try to remain more flexible than locking up a first baseman for 8 years will allow, this player is a top talent who still has most of his prime seasons ahead of him. He will be 37 in the last year of the contract, an age at which he is likely enough to still be productive. Next year there will not be a better player who is a better fit who Teixeira stands in the way of. There will be no need to sign another Johnny Damon next offseason. There will be no search for an offensive boost during the 2009 season. Precluded are any trades for some other team’s midseason salary dump.

2. Thanks to the Sabathia and Burnett signings, they can’t do any more major damage to their 2009 draft. With the two new pitchers, the Yanks’ 1st and 2nd round picks are already gone. I assume they will now lose another, since Teixeira is a type-A free agent, but at this point who cares about their 3rd rounder? They might as well take advantage of the opportunity to sign a top tier type-A free agent without having to sacrifice a 1st or 2nd round draft pick.

3. Boosting the offense isn’t such a bad idea. Improved production from Posada, Matsui and ARod over last year should replace some of the production lost from Abreu and Giambi, but the Yanks were 10th overall in MLB in runs scored last year and that number could stand to improve. Adding Teixeira should also re-establish offensive dominance over the Red Sox, who were Teixeira’s most touted suitors before this afternoon. This should leave the Sox unable to add the marquee power hitter they were seeking –obviously, they can’t counter this move by siging Manny Ramirez. As their lineup now stands, Bay and Youkilis are fine middle-order hitters, but they won’t provide Ortiz with anything like the protection that Manny did. And there are questions about Ortiz’ health, to boot.

4. Team chemistry. Teix has a great clubhouse reputation, which is a factor the Yankees seem to be focusing on this offseason. There’s no denying that Alex Rodriguez is a bit of a head case who likely stands to benefit from another marquee name relieving some of the pressure he feels to carry the team.

Neglect: A History of the Yankees’ Mistreatment of their Farm System

Unlike many Yankee fans I run into these days, largely people who signed on as bandwagoners since the mid-1990s or younger fans who came of age only knowing perennial playoff appearances (until this year, at least) I have been a fan long enough to vaguely remember the 1981 World Series and acutely recall the competitive near-miss years that followed through the mid 1980s. Even though 1981 marked the last time the Yanks would see the playoffs until 1995 (that drought tragically spanning almost the entire length of the great Don Mattingly’s career) the team was quite competitive through most of the 1980s, averaging 91 wins from 1983 through 1987.

But anyone who followed the team in those days remembers a steep descent that began in the latter years of that decade, the lessons of which seem sadly forgotten by the current stewards of the franchise. It somehow escapes them that the effort to remain competitive through the 1980s was quite similar to the current approach. The Yankee braintrust in those days fell into the habit of chasing one free agent after another, each one touted as that final piece which would lift them them to the next level. In 1984 they signed 46 year old Phil Neikro. In 1985 they signed Ed Whitson. In 1986 they signed 41 year old Joe Neikro and 43 year old Tommy John. In 1988 they signed Jack Clark and John Candeleria. In 1989 they signed Steve Sax, Mel Hall, Dave LaPoint and Andy Hawkins.

I can’t find a record of how many or which of those players were class-A or class-B free agents, but most of them likely fell under one of those categories, which means those names represent an awful lot of draft picks sacrificed in exchange for supposedly established (and almost always grossly overpaid) players who never had any significant positive impact on the team.

Further sabotaging the stock of young talent in those years was the working philosophy that developing players are less reliable than established veterans and therefore are best used as bargaining chips for obtaining players who are proven assets. Prior to the 1987 season, they traded Doug Drabek (who would quickly become one of the better starters in the NL over the next 8 years) for Rick Rhoden. Later that year they traded Bob Tewksberry (who later blossomed and had some pretty good years for St. Louis in the early 1990s) for Steve Trout. The next year they famously traded Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps. Then in 1989 they traded Al Leiter for a broken down Jesse Barfield. And then in the following offseason they traded Hal Morris (who would establish himself as a career .300 hitter over the next 11 seasons) for Tim Leary.

Looking back on those free agent acquisitions and trades is a study in the futility of that philosophy. The result of this indifference to “unproven” talent and thorough undermining of the developmental system turned those yearly contenders into the doormat of the American League East. The team’s plunge in the standings was accompanied by the usual disarray and dysfunction that often surrounded the Yankees in the old Steinbrenner days, with various scandals and reports of infighting torturing the remaining faithful fans from the back pages of the newspapers. In 1990, they hit bottom, winning only 67 games. Their .414 winning percentage that year was the lowest in franchise history since 1908, when the team was still called the Highlanders and Babe Ruth’s New York debut was more than a decade away.

But for once their dysfunction served them well; in the middle of that terrible 1990 season, meddling owner George Steinbrenner was banned from baseball and forced to relinquish control of the team. And the Yankees were lucky enough to have a highly competent general manager in Gene Michael who was ready to take over the reins. With the freedom to rebuild the farm system without interference from the owner, it only took Michael several years to construct the best minor league system in MLB. His work during that period – top-rate scouting and drafting, nurturing that young talent into a an all-star core that would become heart of the team for years to come and having a solid stable of veteran role players in place as they emerged – yielded nothing short of the greatest postseason dynasty of the last half-century.

Steinbrenner’s lifetime banishment lasted three years, though even he couldn’t deny Michael’s success in his absence and the glory years of the middle and late 1990s came and went before he eventually settled back into the old way of doing business. During the championship run, signing and trading for veteran players such as David Cone, Tino Martinez, David Wells and Roger Clemens seemed like reasonable measures to maintain the team’s dominance. The young core was in place and producing at the highest level and the future was now. But Steinbrenner’s old tendencies and the annual ritual of chasing top established stars at the expense of developmental talent became the norm again and eventually took its toll.

Admittedly, the renewed disregard for player development of this decade didn’t appear to have the same detrimental effect that we saw in the 1980s. Thanks to the new big money era, 2/3 of MLB teams don’t have the budget to make competitive offers to top free agents or to make trades in which they would take on large salaries. Further, more and more small market teams began using trades for the purpose of dumping salaries and rebuilding from scratch, hoping the next crop of young talent will collectively blossom before they are eligible for free agency and mesh well with whatever marginal players they can afford to retain.

So thanks to the narrowed field of teams to compete with for established players, they managed 7 consecutive playoff appearances since the end of the glory years and the last World Series title, despite the active depletion of the developmental system. But in reality, the decline has just been slower this time around. Consider, the last World Series title was in 2000. The last World Series appearance was in 2003. The last time they won a playoff series was 2004. The last time they finished the regular season at the top of their division was 2006. And the record-breaking playoff streak that began with the Gene Michael-built team in 1995 was finally broken this October. Indeed, without a robust farm system to rely on as a source of developing young players, we watch a team that has become increasingly committed to aging and/or injury prone players with diminishing skills and ever more obscenely bloated contracts.

In September, ESPN’s Buster Olney chronicled the downfall of the Yankees’ amateur drafts of this decade. Money quote:

Consider that in the drafts of 1997-2005:

The Yankees produced a total of 10 position players who have appeared in a major league game; that is the fewest of any team in the major leagues, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The 10 position players drafted by the Yankees had accounted for a total of 888 career at-bats as of Sept. 9, which means that not only have the Yankees generated few major league position players, but they have produced no stars, and just a handful of journeymen. The draftees of the Toronto Blue Jays from the same time frame, by comparison, have combined for 27,427 big-league at-bats; the Mets, 11,469.

The Yankees drafted and developed 20 pitchers, which is tied for the 12th-most among the 30 major league teams. However, those 20 pitchers selected by the Yankees have amassed 1,852 2/3 innings in the majors — the fewest innings for any group of pitchers drafted by any team. The Oakland Athletics’ draftees rank first, at 9,686 innings, according to Elias.

Looking at the past decade more closely, the list of free agent signings since the last World Series title looks only a little better than the list from the late 80s: Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, Steve Karsay, Rondell White, Tom Gordon, Paul Quantril, Jaret Wright, Tony Womack, Kenny Lofton, Carl Pavano, Kyle Farnsworth, Johnny Damon, Gary Sheffield and Roger Clemens (in 2007). And while the young players they traded away in this era haven’t proven to be significant sacrifices like we saw in the 1980s (largely because the Yankees’ developmental talent of the past decade has been so poor) the excessive contracts they took on to obtain players such as Javier Vazquez, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown, Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Abreu have combined with those free agent signings to send the team payroll soaring to staggering levels, making their diminishing rate of return (in terms of playoff success) all the more plain to see.

As Olney noted in his column, things began to look up for the Yankee farm system in 2005 when GM Brian Cashman successfully negotiated in his new contract the freedom to run the team without interference from the Steinbrenner-controlled Tampa office. The surprise emergence earlier that year of second baseman Robinson Cano and starting pitcher Chien-Ming Wang (both players were called into action when “proven” talents Tony Womack and Carl Pavano showed themselves to be anything but) provided Cashman with the argument to convince the brass to allow him to restock the eroded farm system. In 2006, left fielder Hideki Matsui’s wrist fracture led to the emergence of fan favorite Melky Cabrera, who in the following year would take over centerfield from big-time 2006 free agent signee Johnny Damon, who’s declining defensive skills had become a noticeable liability by the end of the first year of his 4 year contract.

Cashman made good on his pledge to nurture the team’s developmental talent right away. Promising young players would not be used as trade bait to acquire aging stars. The #21 overall 2006 draft pick lost to the Red Sox for signing Johnny Damon was replaced by the #18 overall pick obtained from the Phillies when they signed Tom Gordon. Gary Sheffield was traded for a trio of minor-league pitching prospects. And with the exception of Damon and Kyle Farnsworth (for whom the Yankees lost their 2nd round pick in 2006) the Yankees did not commit to any more free agent signings that required the sacrifice of draft picks through the duration of Cashman’s 3 year contract.

But the commitment seems to have ended with Cashman’s last contract. He negotiated a new deal after the 2008 season but this time (following the Yanks’ first playoff absence since before the strike of 1994) with no promise of freedom from Steinbrenner (now George’s son, Hank Steinbrenner) and no pledge to commit to the farm system. The young pitchers whom Cashman refused to trade for stud starter Johan Santana last year were supposed to usher in the new era of home grown talent. But they proved still unready for the big show while Santana was traded instead to the cross-town rival Mets.

The remedy was not hard to predict. In the past week the Yankees awarded a record-breaking $161 million over 7 years to gifted but morbidly obese starting pitcher CC Sabathia and 5 years and $82.5 million to sometimes dominant but often injured starter, AJ Burnett. Both pitchers are listed as class-A free agents, which means the Yankees will sacrifice their 1st and 2nd round draft picks in the 2009 amateur draft. This news came in the same week that the Yankees lost 4 more minor league players in the Rule 5 Draft. 3 of them looked like they might have had some promise:

2B/SS Reegie Corona hit .274 and stole 24/28 bases in AA last year. He was the 2nd player taken in the draft, by the Mariners.
Lefty relief pitcher Zach Kroenke struck out 44 in 43.2 innings with a 3.09era in AA and was promoted to AAA at the end of the year, where he struck out 10 with a 1.80era in 10 innings. He was the 12th selection.
RHP Jason Jones was 13-7 with 91 Ks in 143.1 innings and a 3.33era for AA and was promoted to AAA at the end of the year where he was 0-1 with 11 Ks and a 2.38era in 10 innings. He went #14.

Further, the Yankees chose to not offer arbitration to Bobby Abreu, who’s contract ended at the close of the 2008 season. This means that if another team signs Abreu, the Yankees will not be compensated with their 1st round draft pick. Presumably the thinking was that they did not want Abreu back and wanted to avoid the unlikely event that Abreu might accept the one-year arbitration offer. This was unlikely because Abreu is 34 years old, coming off a solid offensive season and there is a market for him. He’ll be looking for what will probably be the last big contract of his career and it would be quite a gamble for him to put off free agency another year on the wrong side of 30. And even if he did accept arbitration, the Yankees would simply have had to eat a few million dollars to move him to the team offering the best package of prospects. For a team that just gave nine figures over 7 years to a player they’ll be lucky to get 4 good seasons out of, a $3m or so investment in developmental talent sounds like a bargain.

The Yankees also chose to not offer arbitration to class-a free agent Andy Pettitte and class-b free agent Ivan Rodriguez. The markets for these players are not at certain as that for Abreu, so those decisions are not quite as easily scrutinized.

At some point you have to look at the data as a whole and acknowledge that there are several very obvious trends. The most important being that the Yankees have a history of unparralled success when they keep their farm system stocked and healthy, and that the team faces a long slow decline when they neglect the farm and enter the ugly cycle they seem destined to loop themselves back into with this off-season’s activity: sign veteran free agents who don’t live up to their billing which depletes the farm system which leaves them desperate for talent in the short term which they appease by signing free agents who don’t live up to their billing which further depletes the farm system which will again leave them desperate for talent in the short term which they appease by… etc.

A close friend and fellow Yankee fan who disagrees with me insists that such is simply the Yankee way. The only “Yankee way” that I care about is winning. The established way to accomplish that has been triumphantly displayed like no other professional American sports team has ever managed: by building from within.

The 2009 MLB Hall of Fame Ballot

Player	Years on the Ballot	2008 Vote %	2007 Vote %	2006 Vote%
Jim Rice	15	72.2	63.5	64.8
Tommy John	15	21.9	22.9	29.6
Dave Parker	13	15.1	11.4	14.6
Bert Blyleven	12	61.9	47.7	53.3
Dale Murphy	11	13.8	9.2	10.8
Jack Morris	10	42.9	37.1	41.2
Don Mattingly	9	15.8	9.9	12.3
Andre Dawson	8	65.9	56.7	61
Alan Trammell	8	18.2	13.4	17.7
Lee Smith	7	43.3	39.8	45
Harold Baines	3	5.2	5.3	n/a
Mark McGwire	3	23.6	23.5	n/a
Tim Raines	2	24.3	n/a	n/a
Jay Bell	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Ron Gant	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Mark Grace	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Rickey Henderson	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Greg Vaughn	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Mo Vaughn	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Matt Williams	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
David Cone	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Jesse Orosco	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
Dan Plesac	1	n/a	n/a	n/a

Players need 75% of the vote to get inducted and 5% to remain on the ballot for next year. After 15 years on the ballot, they are dropped from consideration.

My ballot:

Rickey Henderson had the most impressive MLB career in my lifetime, hands down. Not only should he receive the honor of being inducted on his first ballot, but the vote should be unanimous. Let’s see whether the baseball writers will be able to put aside the man’s personality and keep it to baseball.

Jim Rice is in his 15th and final year of eligibility. It would be criminal if the man who spent a decade as the most feared hitter in the American League was shut out. Stringing him along all these years is cruel punishment for a surly attitude and the unlucky timing of playing during a pitcher’s era.

And it’s time to induct Lee Smith. He broke the career saves record before Hoffman’s and Rivera’s MLB careers began. He’s still 3rd behind only those two, with no one even close behind. Hopefully Goose opened the door for him in 2008.

Maybe next year:

Tim Raines will hopefully get a big boost this year, setting him up for induction in 2010 or 2011. He was easily the best leadoff hitter in the NL through the first half of 1980s, among a group that includes Vince Coleman, Lonnie Smith, Willie McGee and Steve Sax all in the primes of their careers. Then he was the second-best leadoff hitter in the NL through the later 80s, after Tony Gwynn, still better than all those other guys. 808 career steals is 5th all-time, 3rd among players who retired after 1930.

Don Mattingly. The responsible disclosure here is that I’m a Yankee fan. So in the eyes of most people reading this, that confirms that I’m a homer. Donnie Baseball was regarded as the best player in the game for about 6 years. Isn’t that all Sandy Koufax ever did? He also sports the highest fielding percentage in the history of the game. He’s at least a borderline player. Comparing career numbers, it’s simply insane that Kirby Puckett was a first-ballot guy and Mattingly languishes barely above the minimum % to stay on the ballot.

Blyleven is 5th in career strikeouts. I guess I’d say he’s a borderline case. Looking at his stats, he was usually among the top 6 or 7 pitchers in the league. He played in an historically favorable period for pitchers as his career ended just as the juiced-ball era began. He never felt like more than a middle-order workhorse type pitcher to me, rather than a guy you expect to dominate a lineup. I’m sure that’s a little unfair since I’m too young to remember him in his prime, but looking at his stats, he seems like a classic compiler to me, like Phil Neikro, who I don’t think belongs in the Hall of Fame despite his 300 wins.

Out:

Tommy John. Again, I have no sympathy for stats compilers. And the fortune of having Tommy John surgery named after him fails to impress me. I’m tempted to acknowledge a more personal bias against Tommy John and Phil Neikro. I remember well both players (along with Phil’s brother, Joe Neikro) starting for the Yanks on very competitive teams from 1984-1987 which always fell just short of the playoffs. The problem was always the lack of pitching and while John and the Neikros weren’t the problem, the vision of these old guys in their 40s who couldn’t fill out the seat of their pants seemed emblematic of the team’s narrow shortcomings of that era. Of course the real failure was in letting go of good young pitching talent like Jose Rijo, Doug Drabek and Bob Tewksberry before they blossomed. Anyway…

Andre Dawson. Just short of borderline. A player I remember well enough, I always thought he was a over-rated, Very inconsistent counting stats despite playing in decent enough lineups. More often than not he was a run-of-the-mill middle-order power-hitter.

Jack Morris. He’s one of the great World Series starters in recent history and he managed to hang around a bit longer than a lot of the other good pitchers of his day but there’s just a few too many mediocre years mixed in there.

Mark McGwire. 580 career home runs and shattering Maris’ single season mark (and briefly holding the record) shouldn’t be enough for a 1 dimensional slugger who’s career defines the juiced ball era. This line must be drawn. In two years, Rafael Palmeiro will become eligible. Two years after that, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds (if both stay retired). In my opinion, none of these men deserves enshrinement.

Gallery of Obsolete PCs

There are a number of cool novelties at the Obsolete Technology Website, including a collection of old computer ads. I wasted a bit of time today on the archive of old PCs.

Who would have known that the laptop is almost as old as the pre-assembled personal computer? The GRiD Compass 1101 debuted in 1982, weighed 10 lbs and sold for $8150.00.

H/T: Boing Boing

Plugging the Leadership Void

NYDN’s Michael Goodwin chronicles the events of our national leadership relevant to the economic crisis this month

the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism

From Tom Friedman’s column yesterday:

‘We always asked the same question,’ says Eisman. ‘Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I’d always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.’ He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S.& P. couldn’t say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. ‘They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,’ Eisman says.”

That’s how we got here — a near total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain, and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash. These are the wages of our sins. I used to say our kids will pay dearly for this. But actually, it’s our problem. For the next few years we’re all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services — if we’re lucky.

Those Damn “Love Thy Neighbor” Christians

The Onion at the top of their game

H/T: Sullivan

How they conduct a post-Official Governor’s Turkey Pardon interview in Wasilla

You can’t make this up.

More Advice for the GOP

Looks like there’s no shortage of it these days. This piece from Karl Rove endorses a cooperative and respectful opposition while sticking to conservative roots on homeland security, defense and social issues and moving to a more hispanic-friendly immigration policy in the name of returning some of that demographic to their constituancy. And he wisely urges that Republicans keep their 2012 field wide open:

Let every 2012 presidential prospect run free; there is no need to throttle anyone ‘ s candidacy. Republicans believe in markets, so why not let the marketplace of ideas, performance and persuasion naturally winnow the field? Gov. Sarah Palin will be held to a higher standard than she was during her nine-week vice presidential campaign; voters want to see if she can improve her game. She’s smart, but it’s unclear she can attract to Alaska advisers who will make her into a durable player on the national scene.

Regardless, a consensus about who should be our next standard bearer should develop organically, not be forced by public intellectuals intent on smashing a candidacy this instant, as some are with Palin. We need more people, not fewer, to take the stage for tryouts. Rather than declaring a prospective candidate unacceptable, what about bolstering people who would be attractive?

Sound Advice for the GOP

From Jesse Walker at Hit & Run:

Expel your base or retreat into an echo chamber: If those choices seem dispiriting, Republicans can take heart. They’re the same false alternatives that the Democrats allegedly faced four years ago. Then a politician who hadn’t fallen behind the bipartisan Iraq war — but, unlike Howard Dean, actually wanted to be president — came out of nowhere to beat his party’s establishment and take the White House.

There’s a lesson there. If I were a Republican, I’d ignore the inane Palin debate and start looking around for a politician who had the good sense to break with the bipartisan consensus and oppose the bailout bill before it passed. Then I’d start planning an insurgency.

H/T: Sullivan

Sneak Peek at the Next Presidential Limousine?

Brenda Priddy & Company thinks they caught a test drive.

H/T: Sam Smith

Why Senate Democrats Should Welcome Back Lieberman

This is a topic that I’ve refrained from weighing in on because, despite my generally leftist political leanings, I really don’t identify with the Democratic Party. Or the notion of party politics at all, frankly. In fact, as with Senator McCain, I’ve actually admired Lieberman’s tendency to occasionally challenge his Democratic Senate colleagues on matters where his principles did not align with theirs.

Of course I understand the priority of establishing a strong sense of party loyalty. But from the perspective of this outsider, the Democrats have before them the opportunity to achieve an era of government dominance comparable to the Reagan Revolution. During that time, the Republicans controlled the Oval Office from 1981 through 1992 and the Senate from 1981 through 1987. It was a period that left a powerful and lasting impression on our government. Five Supreme Court Justices were nominated and confirmed and one Associate Justice was promoted to Chief Justice of the United States in that time, by Republican President Ronald Reagan and his Republican successor, George H.W. Bush. Four of those five justices remain on the bench today.

Instructively, the GOP built and maintained this era of dominance by establishing itself as a big-tent party. Some might take exception to the use of that term to describe the Republican party in the 1980s, since it was mostly dominated by conservatives from the beginning of that era and since. But the term applies (even if somewhat loosely) because notions of conservatism and liberalism are highly varied from issue to issue, so much so, some might even argue, as to render the terms meaningless in some cases. I don’t think they’re meaningless, at least not yet. But they sure are misused an awful lot.

Anyway, the GOP in those years managed to pare off many traditionally Democrat voters by appealing to their more socially conservative views on such matters as crime and pornography. And it didn’t hurt of course that the economically lean years of the Carter Administration had weakened the argument for liberal economic policy. These typically northern, working class and often union member voters hardly fit the traditional mold of American conservatives and came to be known as Reagan Democrats. But they were essential to the Republican dominance of the era.

If the modern Democratic Party is to achieve a comparable era of dominance with a similarly lasting impression on government, it must establish a similarly broad appeal. And Senator Joe Lieberman’s popularity with the American political right provides the Democrats with what appears to be an ideal opportunity for outreach to the right. But to cash in on that opportunity, they must sacrifice their pride and display – as the party in power – their intentions in building a diverse governing coalition that focuses on the broad collective goals of the various factions instead their finer differences. So I believe they would be wise to allow him to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and to welcome him back to the Democratic caucus in the 111th Congress.

One of Barack Obama’s philosophical convictions (at least rhetorically), has been the necessity of cross-party cooperation. Adopting the axiom of bipartisanship, especially at a time when the GOP controlled the White House and both houses in Congress and often actively shut the minority party out of the process, was highly sentient of him. It now affords President-elect Obama a credibility which he would be smart to bolster into real political capital (not like the kind that some might claim from a narrow election majority). And he is clearly sensitive to the notion. Along with a promise to look across the aisle for candidates to fill out his cabinet, Obama has also supported Senator Lieberman’s return to the Democratic caucus. If his Senate colleagues care to retain the control they have won in the past two elections, seeing this issue his way is a good place to start.

Have I Been too Hard on Ed Morrissey?

More than once at this site, I’ve taken considerable issue with blog entries written by Ed Morrissey at Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air. Prior to joining Hot Air in March, Morrissey ran his own highly popular and well-respected conservative blog, Captain’s Quarters. Back in February when he announced that he would move his full-time efforts over to Malkin’s blog collective, I wrote the following:

As far as I’m concerned, Ed Morrissey is the gold standard for rational political commentary from the right. He’s not a political insider and might not be among the right’s shrewdest thinkers or highly accomplished writers but his genuine willingness to put aside his personal bias in approaching a topic is a rare treasure in the blogosphere.

Most recently I was particularly ill-researched hyperbolic entry from late September in which he disingenuously blamed the “current collapse” on Democrats in the House of Representatives. In my response at this site, I wrote:

For anyone unfamiliar with Captain Ed Morrisey, there used to be a day when he ran his own highly respectable conservative blog Captain’s Quarters. I often listed Captain’s Quarters among my favorite conservative blogs and respected Captain Ed’s opinions as thoughtful, researched and even handed. Sadly, since joining Malkin’s team of subordinates at Hot Air, Ed has given up command of not just his personal forum, but his integrity. I don’t believe the sense of diligence possessed by the Ed Morrissey I used to respect and read regularly would ever have allowed him to post this video and claim:

In 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten regulation and oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress was told yet again that disaster loomed. The Democratic response is instructive to seeing who really sat back and allowed this collapse to occur

…much less throw around such sloppy hyperbole as:

Democrats distorted the market through the CRA and through Fannie and Freddie’s massive securitizing of bad debt, and then blocked regulators from doing their jobs. That’s the real story of this collapse.

Earlier today, Scott Martin, from Conservatism Today forwarded this blog post from Morrissey to me with the suggestion that the objective Captain Ed I used to respect still makes his presence known. In that post, Captain refers to Jake Tapper’s criticism of what he calls “Obama derangement syndrome” as he (on cue from tapper) rails against Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-Georgia) abjectly hyperbolic public concern that Obama seeks to usher in a “philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”

Perhaps Scott is right. I don’t read Captain Ed as avidly as I did before his move to Hot Air so it’s possible that I’ve simply not caught his more objective posts. Of course there’s no questioning this new tendency for the Captain to stray from his former standards of integrity at his new gig. But perhaps I was a touch rash in stating, as I did in reply to Scott in the comments section of the “Addressing Blatant Dishonesty” post, that…

When he went to work for Malkin, the blogosphere lost one of it’s most valuable voices.

Jets Destroy the Rams

It’s been a while since I’ve written any posts about sports. In fact, I think several months may have gone by where I didn’t write about anything that wasn’t in some way tied to the election. Now that the election is over, I might find that I still haven’t quite defined the extent to which I’ll cover non-political topics here. I don’t really know the answer, except that I’ll continue to write about what happens to be occupying my thoughts at the moment. Right now, they’re occupied by the greatest margin of victory in NY Jets franchise history, which I was lucky enough to witness first-hand from the very top of the north corner of Giants Stadium.

I was reminded of a hullabaloo from last season in which the Patriots were accused of unsportsmanlike behavior for unnecessarily running up the score late in blowout games in which the outcome had already been determined. The most offensive example came in the week 8 blowout against the Redskins. In that game, the Pats got the ball back with 2:02 remaining in the 3rd quarter and led the Skins 38-0. Any NFL fan knows that a head coach lucky enough to be in that position will normally play out the game as conservatively as possible. He’ll sub in as many of his reserve players as possible to eliminate the risk of key injuries. He’ll call mostly simple running plays, to keep the clock running and eat up as much of the remaining time as possible while he has possession of the ball, and to limit the likelihood of turnovers.

But this was not the approach that Coach Belichick employed in the 4th quarter of his week 8 game last season. Instead, the Pats ran an offensive assault with Tom Brady in at QB. They ran 10 passing plays, all of them from the shotgun. The drive took 17 plays and ate up 8 minutes because of two penalties called against the Pats, the fist of which sent them back to their own 13 yard line on the 6th play of the drive. On the 15th play, a 4th and 1 on the Redskins 7 yard line with 11:02 left in the game, they ran a QB sneak to get the first down! This set up the touchdown pass two plays later with 9:09 remaining. 45-0 Pats.

The Skins promptly went 3 and out and New England got the ball back at the Washington 45 with 8:30 to play. Would they now win graciously, let the clock wind down and go back to the locker room and celebrate another blowout? No. They ran it up to 52-0 with the backup QB on 6 plays (2 from the shotgun) including a pass on 4th and 2 from the Washington 37 with 7:16 left to play. The drive took all of 2:40 off the clock.

Compare that with the final 17 minutes of yesterday’s Jets/Rams game. The Jets also got the ball with just over 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter with a huge lead (40-3). They orchestrated an 8 play drive with 6 running plays that ended in a touchdown, eating up 5:30. The Rams then went 3 and out and the Jets got the ball back on their own 22 with 11:09 left in the game. The Jets brought in backup QB Kellen Clemens and ran 12 straight running plays, getting them 4 first downs and 70 yards and eating 9 minutes off the clock. So they came out of the 2 minute warning with first and goal on the Rams 8 yard line. With a cinch field goal and the opportunity for their second 50 point game of the season (not to mention Clemens’ first touchdown opportunity of the season) staring them in the face, he took a knee on three straight plays and let the clock run out. With a division showdown looming this Thursday against the hated Patriots, Coach Mangini made exactly the opposite statement that Belichick chose to go with 54 weeks earlier in almost exactly the same situation: a display of sportsmanship.

A Gesture of Respect from the Right

Paul Mirengoff at the rightist Powerline suggests conservatives take an even-tempered approach to the political opposition:

Almost by definition, Barack Obama’s election meets with the approval of a majority of American adults. Many are wildly enthusiastic about the prospect of an Obama presidency. More probably reside somewhere between cautiously optimistic and indifferent.

But this column is addressed to politically active conservatives who fear the worst and are now wondering how to cope. The key, as always, is to maintain one’s equilibrium. To this end, I offer, unsolicited, the following suggestions:

Pray that President Obama achieves greatness in office.
Don’t assume that Obama is always wrong.
Be loyal in your opposition.
Be patient in your opposition.
Be persistent in your opposition.
Be fair in your opposition.
Be skeptical in your opposition.
“Secede” from the mainstream media.
Support fledgling conservative institutions.
Don’t hate.
Don’t obsess.

Please click through. Each item in the above list is elaborated upon in some detail. I don’t agree with every word, but the approach is honorable.

Hat tip goes to Conservatism Today.

Authority Gone Awry

I held off from writing about this local story because it was just one man’s claim that he’d been assaulted by police. There was no evidence to support him, aside from his wounds, which could have been self-inflicted. But now that the grand jury testimony of another cop on the scene has substantiated his claims, it’s worth noting. NY Daily News Friday:

Talking to investigators and the grand jury, Maloney gave this version of the Oct. 15 incident:

Maloney, 26, said he spotted cops chasing Michael Mineo and subduing him in the Prospect Park subway station.

The young cop said he was cuffing Mineo when Officer Richard Kern, 25, unfolded his NYPD-issued baton and poked Mineo on the left buttock, sources said.

As Mineo struggled, Kern then maneuvered the baton between Mineo’s buttocks, the officer testified, according to sources.

The baton is about 2 feet long and 1-1/4 inches in diameter. Until now, it was believed Mineo had been assaulted with the antenna of a police radio.

Mineo’s pants were riding low from his struggle with cops, but his underwear was on, sources said. Maloney could not see if Kern struck Mineo’s pants or underwear, sources said.

When the baton came out, witnesses said Mineo screamed, “What are you doing? Sticking a radio up my a–?”

The entire incident took seconds, but once the cuffs went on, Kern; Police Officer Alex Cruz, 26, and Officer Andrew Morales, 26, hustled Mineo upstairs, Maloney said, sources said.

As the Daily News noted the previious day, New York City has had to settle two previous excessive-force federal lawsuits involving Officer Richard Kern.

Palin Aide Challenges Some of the Criticisms

ABC

A longtime aide to Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is lashing back at anonymous critics within the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, telling ABC News they are attacking the former vice presidential candidate with distortions.

Meg Stapleton offers an explanation of some of the more stinging criticisms that have come out in recent days since the McCain-Palin defeat.

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Regarding another stinging criticism, Stapleton claims that the Fox News report Thursday — that quoted unnamed sources inside the now defunct McCain campaign, saying Palin didn’t know Africa is a continent — was taken out of context.

Stapleton says that during a briefing session, someone asked Palin to explain the McCain-Palin stance on an issue, and as she was responding, “in the middle, she said, ‘country of Africa’ and somebody instantly wrote it down, and said, ‘Oh, my God, she thinks it’s a country.’”

But Stapleton insists, “She knows it’s a continent. It was just a human mistake, just like Obama saying 57 states. I don’t think anyone ever doubted that Obama knows there are 50 states.”

Stapleton adds that a McCain-Palin campaign speechwriter was flown in to write a speech for Governor Palin to deliver Tuesday night after the election results were in. But after a discussion, aides decided Palin would not give a speech that evening — only McCain would speak.

Stapleton says Palin didn’t understand why they would bring in a speechwriter and then not use the speech they wrote for her which was complimentary of McCain.

Stapleton’s accounts sound more likely than the claims they challenged and it seemed clear enough that much of it was exagerated.

Bloomberg’s “Plastic Bag Tax” Proposal

NY Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg wants to nickel and dime you at the grocery store – taxing you an extra 5 cents for every plastic bag you take home.

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New Yorkers use an estimated 1 billion plastic bags per year. City officials aren’t sure what bags they plan to tax, or how they’d collect it – though they’re considering allowing merchants to charge an extra penny per bag, giving them an incentive to track it.

“They’re charging sales taxes already. There’s not some massive new overhaul or bureaucracy that’s needed,” said Rohit Aggarwala, Bloomberg’s head of environmental affairs.

“We are hoping that at 6 cents a bag, people would change their behavior.”

San Francisco bans plastic bags unless they are biodegradable, while a proposed 20-cent fee in Seattle is on hold pending a challenge. In Ireland, a 33-cent fee pushed plastic bag use down 94%.

New York considered a plastic bag tax earlier this year but settled for a mandatory recycling program, figuring most stores would just switch to paper, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens) said.

Ikea tried charging customers a nickel per bag, but when demand for its 70 million bags a year dropped 92%, the chain just eliminated them.

Personally, I take no issue with this. The fact is that double-bagged plastic bags are durable enough for multiple uses even for peopel who walk home with their groceries. The cost to consumers who refuse to use cloth bags or re-use plastic ones won’t be terrible, a few dollars a month. And it’s an expense that is easily reduced by 80% or more.

In Contrast to How Real Americans Celebrate an Election…

From what Governor Palin might call one of the not-so-pro-America parts of the country, Manhattan’s East Village:

Update
Forgot the H/T: Eric Martin at Obsidian Wings

Will There be a Renewed Respect for Dissent?

One cue I fear the left will take from the past eight years of the right’s dominance of our government is the tendency of many to kneejerk chastize any and all dissent as unpatriotic.

Palin and the Furure of the GOP

Several weeks ago I asked,

“If John McCain loses this election, will the conservative base continue to be willing to sacrifice their ideals to the evangelicals for no better than another semi-conservative lesser evil every four years”?

It seems natural that rifts on possibly several fronts would develop as the GOP seeks to modernize (redefine?) itself in the wake of this harsh series of political losses. And it appears, at least for now, that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be the focal point. In my opinion, this is a significant hurdle for the party since I just don’t see how, after the statements of some McCain aides yesterday to FOX News’ Carl Cameron and Newsweek, Palin can continue to be taken seriously by the electorate. Cameron’s report to Shep Smith yesterday evening is in the previous post. Here’s Cameron’s report to O’Reilly last night:

If these McCain aides are even partially honest, shouldn’t that automatically disqualify her for any future consideration for public office, particularly in the minds of philosophical conservatives? Sure, she can learn that “Africa” isn’t a country, for example, but shouldn’t such a displayed utter lack of intellectual curiosity just outright eliminate her? I’ve seen posts at numerous rightist blogs insisting that such things can be forgotten in four years and I saw Bill Kristol and Gretchen Carlson this morning on FOX & Friends upset with the disloyal and disrespectful statements from McCain aides. If Palin does become a primary fault line across the Republican Party, it will be instructive to note which big names within the camp fall on the side of favoring her, although I don’t think it’ll be difficult to guess. Given the look we’ve taken into AK politics during her terms as mayor and governor, Palin’s conservative bona-fides should be strongly questioned. For example, when a natural resource is owned by the state, that sounds very much like a communist ideal. I understand that it works for AK and that the arrangement was in place long before she took office but she expanded on it. Wouldn’t a real economic conservative be just itching to privatize those resources and let the free market have at it? Anyone think Reagan wouldn’t have tried to deregulate AK’s oil industry? And we know a good number of her pet projects as both mayor and governor were actually very economically liberal endeavors, and not necessarily good policy at that. Particularly the bridge to nowhere which, despite all her backtracking on the stump, she very much did support.

Cameron reported that McCain’s numbers started trending down right after the Couric interview. What would have happened if McCain had named a running mate with solid economic conservative bona-fides who knows her stuff backward and forward, say, Kay Bailey Hutchinson? She wouldn’t have been protected from the media for fear that she didn’t know which nations made up NAFTA, for example. She would have aced interviews and probably would have taken the lead on the ticket with regard to the economy. Yes, it might have looked bad for McCain to have his running mate outdo him in that field, but the economy is widely regarded as the primary issue that McCain lost the election on. So someone better equipped than him to publicly respond to the crisis could only have helped, especially if it were someone who out performed Obama on the issue as well.

If I were a philosophical conservative, this would be the last embarrassing straw for me. I understand the strength of her charisma and the appeal of her faith. But faith isn’t rare under the GOP tent and charisma is something you can find in any empty shirt news anchor or game show host. Frankly, I think it’s time for the conservative wing of the GOP to stand up to the religious wing. No one can deny that the rise of the evangelicals to power in the GOP has coincided with it’s downfall. That’s not to say of course that I think they must abandon the principles of faith, just that real conservative principles aren’t necessarily a priority for many Republicans who focus heavily on their faith. Bush, Huckabee and Palin are all strong examples. The George Wills and Peggy Noonans of the party recognize this and I believe are getting tired of seeing the conservative base compromise itself to appease the Evangelicals. The GOP is a political party, not a church or a religious club. The party runs best and (I believe) best serves it’s country when it is committed to advancing established conservative political principles. Try as some might to squeeze Christianity into that box, it isn’t always an ideal fit. The left vs right political paradigm is an invention of man. The Christian God I was raised to know probably doesn’t care much about liberal vs conservative. He measures ideals on an entirely different scale.

Country First?

Sullivan:

I took a lot of grief for my pretty instant realization back in August that the Palin candidacy was a total farce. But when you cop to the fact that the McCain peeps knew most of that too very early on after their world-historical screw-up, you’ve got to respect and be terrified by their cynicism. I mean: country first?

And they only lost by a few points?