Big News Stories

When the screenwriters went on strike, I really didn't care. To begin with, I really don't watch much scripted television or first run movies. Having the Golden Globes canceled was actually pretty nice because they could have aired something better, like a test pattern. Plus, there are some really lousy TV shows out there. Consider the fact that Cavemen got on the air this year. How bad could the shows that didn't get green-lit be? There's been a lot of concern about movies making less money every year and Hollywood types wondering why. Here's why - people pay to have garbage taken away. They don't like paying to watch it. So, I think it's obvious that too many people are stealing money with their writing.

However, something happened that made me take sides. The writer's guild came off like a bunch of douchebags when they made a separate deal with David Letterman so that his writers went back to work. Seems a bit strange to me that you would stop striking one person while continuing to strike another. When a coal mine strikes, I don't hear that one section gets to go back to work because they are such fine fellows. This whole interim deal is completely bogus. The argument is that Letterman could make the deal because unlike Jay Leno or Jimmy Kimmel, Letterman's production company owns the show. However, the interim deal says they'll agree to the writer's guild's demands, but (and this is a major but) this deal will be supplanted by whatever agreement the guild makes with the studios because CBS actually owns the rebroadcast rights to Letterman's show. So, essentially, Letterman's writers get to go back to drawing a paycheck even though their eventual agreement will be the exact same one the others will get.

Now, why would this tick me off? The writer's guild is shafting their own members. First, Letterman's writers will get the benefit of the strike without having to suffer the same financial consequences as other writers. So, why is the guild so willing to do this even though the interim agreement is a fraud? Apparently, CBS isn't a big player in the negotiations, but NBC is. Helping Letterman would hurt NBC if he takes away Leno's audience. Not only would Letterman have his own writers, but people from the other douchebag group, the Screen Actors Guild, won't cross the lines to go on shows with striking writers. Now, the writer's guild is bitching about Leno writing his own monologues. Why? Leno (and Kimmel and Colbert and Stewart) is a member of the writer's guild. That is what is pissing me off the most. The people signed a garbage agreement with Letterman to kill Leno's ratings to force NBC's hand in their negotiations. So, basically, the WGA is stabbing certain members of their guild in the back by trying to destroy their shows, but it wants to sanction Leno for trying to save it? What a bunch of douchebags.

Speaking of douchebags, I was hoping that Roger Clemens would just fade away after his name came out on baseball's steroid report with the accusation from his former trainer, Brian McNamee (I hate spelling his name so he will be known only as The Trainer), that he was injected with HG and steroids.. But he's decided to make the whole thing even more bizarre. First, his only defense was a Youtube video that claimed The Trainer never injected him with anything. By the time he did a 60 Minutes interview, he was only injected with Lidocaine (a local painkiller that would not be injected into your ass for an arm problem) and vitamin B12 (which is what Jose Conseco claimed in his book was baseball players' code for steroids). Finally, Clemens had a follow-up press conference where he played a taped phone call between The Trainer and himself where Clemens denied using steroids. Then Clemens filed a defamation lawsuit against The Trainer (which conveniently may give him an out from testifying before Congress under oath).

So, did he convince me? Hell no. The taped call played at the press conference was useless. It was made after the report came out, and Clemens was making the tape so of course he was going to deny steroid use on the tape. However, The Trainer never said he lied about giving Clemens steroids, and when he asked Clemens what he wanted him to do, Clemens told him to tell the truth. But Clemens never said that the truth he wanted him to tell was that Clemens didn't do steroids. The feds don't really like it when you suborn perjury of their witnesses. The 60 Minutes interview was a joke as CBS News was so intent on getting the interview that they capitulated to every demand. It was done at Clemens' home and by a 90 year old Mike Wallace who considers Clemens a personal friend which explains the less than hard hitting interview. Wallace pretty much let Clemens get away with some fairly ludicrous stuff.

Let's take a close look at what Clemens said in the interview. I knew he was full of crap when he used a straw man argument as proof that he couldn't have been injected with steroids. He said he would have grown a third ear and had injury problems. Well, since no one has ever claimed steroids lead you to grow extra body parts, saying the lack of an extra ear is proof you aren't roided up is garbage. As for injuries, steroids do cause some players to have some injury problems, but it's almost irrelevant for Clemens because he's not an every day player (36 starts in one season was a career high) and the past two years, he showed up at midseason. His argument that he wouldn't use something bad for him is undercut by his admission that he popped painkillers like candy. Oh, and no reason to take a lie detector test because no one would believe him anyway.

And the logic just keeps getting better. The fact that Andy Pettite admitted to using HGH is separate from Clemens situation. Just because Pettite was Clemens' close friend and workout partner who was accused by the same person of doing the same thing as Clemens is no reason to think that they are in any way related. And I loved Clemens' argument that The Trainer was lying about Clemens' steroid use to stay out of jail. Let's see. The Trainer has rolled to the feds about his steroid dealing. They tell him that he can talk to the baseball investigators on the condition that his testimony matches what he told them because if it doesn't, he perjured himself. So, either the feds are out to get Clemens (that's the follow-up question that a non-senile, competent interviewer would have asked) or they reward perjury by reducing prison time. Now, how can I possibly believe Clemens is lying?

I've mentioned before how meaningless the Iowa caucus is. Yet, people began reading a bunch into Barak Obama's win there. Sure, it showed he was a viable candidate (but that should have been common sense), but people got so stupid to the point there was real speculation (by people who should know better) that Hillary Clinton was going to drop out and predictions of a double digit win in New Hampshire for Obama although that was based on polling. That double digit loss actually became a three point win for Clinton when votes there were actually counted. I'm not real clear why polls are still taken as gospel since they've had a tendency to be horribly inaccurate in several recent elections. My theory is that a lot of people now use cell phones exclusively which cannot be cold called by pollsters.

But I digress. Thinking any of the early votes mean much is foolish. It's not even a small state thing. Michigan's a big state, but it just had one of the most pointless primaries of all. To begin with, the Republicans have an open primary which means anyone can vote in it. Democrats have a tendency to muck things up by crossing over for laughs. More could do that this year since most of the Democratic candidates dropped out because the Michigan delegates won't count due to a snit with the party. In fact, Florida was stripped of their delegates, too. That means the Democrats will not be seating delegates from the 4th and 8th largest states out of deference to Iowa and New Hampshire. Friggin' brilliant. Wait for Super Tuesday when lots of delegates are at stake.

Now, that's not to say the primaries aren't interesting. On the Republican side, you wonder if Mike Huckabee will ever come out with a policy position that he actually thought about for more than 30 seconds or will John McCain began to take a giant cross on the road to hang from when he begins to feel especially persecuted. Then the Democratic race got cute when race became a factor. You know it wasn't that long ago that THE BLACK LEADERSHIP was questioning whether Barak Obama was "black enough" due to not having risen through the ranks of the mainstream civil rights movement and probably because he was raised by his white grandparents. Now, they've apparently noticed that's still blacker than a white woman from an affluent Chicago suburb. Supposedly race wasn't going to matter after Obama won the very white Iowa Caucus, but then accusations flew that he lost New Hampshire because voters there had the anonymity of the voting booth so they could let their inner racism flow and pull the lever for the white candidate. In Iowa, you vote by standing under your candidate's sign. On the flip side, that could mean Obama's Iowa numbers were inflated because in a fit of White Guilt, many caucus goers were afraid they would be considered racists if they stood under someone else's sign. After all, it is the Democratic caucus. Of course, Hillary's surge of support came almost exclusively from single women, so that must mean single women are inherently racist.