The big sports story of the week was a Detroit pitcher, Armando Galarraga, getting the final out of a perfect game only to have the ump call the hitter safe. It was an out although not as clearly as some say. He did sno-cone the ball meaning it could have appeared to be juggling. But the umpire admitted after seeing a replay later that it was an out and cost a relatively unknown pitcher a very rare feat. The Tigers still won as the next batter was out. Which has led to the usual caterwauling from the peanut gallery. To begin with, this was a bad call, but not the bad call to end all bad calls. After Don Denkinger blew a call in the World Series in the ninth inning, the Royals came back and beat the Cardinals to later go on and win the Series. That's a bit worse. But this just looks worse because it was the last out. If it happens earlier in the game, you can argue that you never know how the game would have unfolded with that base runner. And you feel bad because Galararaga most likely will never be close to a perfect game again, and the umpire was clearly torn up about his call. Even worse, Galaragga has to live in Detroit. But I can't believe how many people think major league baseball should retroactively declare it a perfect game. Yes, it wouldn't make a difference in the game, but you can't set a precedent based on such an extreme example because where do you stop? Baseball is incredibly stupid about their stats. If you change a statistical achievement after the fact, you have to do it every time. Unless there is there is evidence of fraud, the result must remain the same after the game is over.
So what should baseball do? Two things. First, change the rule that says umpires must ask for help from another umpire before they say anything. That's just dumb. An umpire may have a bad angle or sight line and not even know it. So even if the third base umpire knew it was an out, he has to go along with it unless he's specifically asked for help. Second, use instant replay for these calls. They already allow it for disputed home runs. It's ludicrous to think that only a blown home run call can affect the outcome of a game. The main arguments that I hear against replay in baseball is human error is part of the game and it will increase time to the game. Well, just because human error is part of the game doesn't mean you have to accept it. Isn't getting the call right the most important thing? As for time, give me a break. If they make it like football, ultimate judgment calls (balls and strikes) can't be replayed. Whether the ball beats a runner or a catch was really made or if the ball was fair or foul will. And don't review every play. Give managers three challenges. Trust me, they won't be used. There just aren't that many disputed calls (except balls/strikes) in a baseball game. But replay could save time. Look what happened after the Galarraga call. The manager comes out and bitches for 10 minutes at the umpire. This is routine in a baseball game. What takes less time? An official running to a sideline monitor to look at the play again? Or a manager like Lou Pinella screaming obscenities, kicking dirt, throwing third base into the outfield and peeing on a ballboy? Baseball is stupid.
A woman (of course) is suing her cell phone company for consolidating all the family bills into one. Which led to her husband finding out about her infidelity. Which led to her husband to divorcing her. So, she's blaming the phone company for her divorce. I take a different view. Her inability to keep her legs shut to men other than her husband led to her divorce. So, she's now claiming that her husband leaving made her so unhappy that her work suffered leading to job loss and doctor visits. Which means she's claiming to be a victim. Seriously. I might point out that her husband was the one cheated on.
But not the dumbest lawsuit recently. David Carradine's wife is suing over his death. You might remember this. He died because he was spanking the monkey with a rope around his neck. So, who is the wife suing? The movie production company because his assistant went to dinner without Carradine. Apparently they should have known that Carradine couldn't be left alone during dinner without dying from a freak masturbation accident.
Big news recently is the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. A deep water rig blows up and begins leaking oil into the Gulf in an environmental disaster that will most likely lead to the end of life on the planet as we know it. I give us about two more years of human life on this planet before we're overwhelmed by the oil from this leak. Yes, that is absurd but I'm finding it rather funny to see the Obama administration being castigated for a slow response. Is it Obama's fault they can't plug the leak? Of course not. Like I said after Katrina - if you expect the federal government to respond quickly to something big like that, you will end up disappointed. In Katrina, federalism means there is no first response force from the government since FEMA only writes checks and posse comitatus laws restrict the civilian use of military who essentially are the only first responders under federal control. And now Obama has discovered that there is no Department of Oil Leaks. But since the his political allies made such political hay over the "slow response" to Katrina, it's funny to see them take a beating for an occurrence that they can't control. And to be honest, the administration has looked rather buffoonish in all this. I mean really. They actually invited James Cameron to brainstorm how to stop the leak because obviously a man who films underwater documentaries would know more than someone specializing in underwater engineering. But Obama can't say he didn't bring a lot of this on himself. Because when they thought BP was going to get it fixed, he was claiming his people were in charge and directing everything. After it failed, suddenly it was all BP's doing. Strange. But, I'm sure Obama really cares and is entirely focused on this problem. Or not. It doesn't really help when you're asked about the first appointee from your administration fired over this and you just aren't sure if she was fired or resigned. Pardon me if I think that might be something to know before talking to the press. But, at least his people care. And isn't that what competant government is all about.
But I'm sure big decisions will be made soon. The administration has already put a moratorium on deep sea drilling. Because there's nothing better in a bad economy than to enforce job killing measures. Hey, if BP was negligent, punish them for that, but tearing down our own economy is stupid. I hate seeing something like this happen. As one who rehabbed animals as a teenager, I especially hate seeing wildlife suffering. But the fact is the world economy runs on energy, and replacing oil and coal with "alternative energy" has been an elusive (and very expensive) pipe dream. And as quaint as the notion of cutting back is, there are too many of us to go back to subsistence farming. Yes, this is a big problem, but there have been bigger spills than this one. The environment managed to survive. Actually, the US policies on drilling are actually making spills more likely. To begin with, we won't drill in a barren Alaskan wasteland which would mean less drilling in water. And the reason they began doing the much more dangerous deep water drilling was because so much of the shallow areas are off limits. So how will that make spills more likely? If we restrict domestic oil consumption, we'll have to import more. Take another look at the list of worst spills. The majority of them were from tankers, not from rigs. Put even more tankers on the ocean and you'll increase your chances for one of them to spill.
Oh, and boycotting BP won't do much good. Gasoline at BP stores could have been from many companies, so you're really just sticking it to some local retailer who signed a contract with BP when they were still viewed as a good corporate citizen. But good luck harming BP with that Facebook boycott. As Penn Jillette said,
Now, that is a sinkhole.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the present administration really thought raising oil prices would be good for the economy. Obama actually plans to campaign in the fall on economic issues. Is he kidding? Let's look at his economic policies. A bloated stimulus plan that hasn't really stimulated anything. Except government hiring which is the only job creation the government can really do. Oh, and a massive health care plan that anyone with common sense knows will increase costs. Pretty much like Europe and Canada. Brilliant thinking. Greece tried the high deficit/too many worthless government employee model. They're basically bankrupt and looking for handouts from the rest of Europe. Other European countries are in almost as bad shape. Oh, and Canada as the model for health care? They're going broke. And wanting to cut back on their health care spending. Whoops. They're managing to go broke, and that's with a smaller population and a larger neighbor to subsidize their price controls. Get ready for rationing. But it is egalitarian. Instead of some people having good medical care and some having substandard, we'll all have substandard.
A woman who used to work for Citibank is suing her former employer. Because of that "former" part. She's claiming that she was given the boot for being "too hot". So, obviously I was interested and low and behold, there were pictures. Frankly, I don't believe her story for a minute. She's attractive enough. I'd certainly do her, but that's not really setting the bar very high. If she'd just stuck with the story that they made inappropriate comments, I might believe her. But not that they told her to change her dress because it was giving her male co-workers perpetual woodies. Or that they told her the other women were too ugly to wear those type of cloths. She's simply not enough of a hottie to get that worked up about. Surprisingly, men can make it through a workday without feeling the need to touch themselves inappropriately over someone who looks like her. But I do think they may have wanted her out of there for safety reasons. Look at that nipple. She could put an eye out.
So what should baseball do? Two things. First, change the rule that says umpires must ask for help from another umpire before they say anything. That's just dumb. An umpire may have a bad angle or sight line and not even know it. So even if the third base umpire knew it was an out, he has to go along with it unless he's specifically asked for help. Second, use instant replay for these calls. They already allow it for disputed home runs. It's ludicrous to think that only a blown home run call can affect the outcome of a game. The main arguments that I hear against replay in baseball is human error is part of the game and it will increase time to the game. Well, just because human error is part of the game doesn't mean you have to accept it. Isn't getting the call right the most important thing? As for time, give me a break. If they make it like football, ultimate judgment calls (balls and strikes) can't be replayed. Whether the ball beats a runner or a catch was really made or if the ball was fair or foul will. And don't review every play. Give managers three challenges. Trust me, they won't be used. There just aren't that many disputed calls (except balls/strikes) in a baseball game. But replay could save time. Look what happened after the Galarraga call. The manager comes out and bitches for 10 minutes at the umpire. This is routine in a baseball game. What takes less time? An official running to a sideline monitor to look at the play again? Or a manager like Lou Pinella screaming obscenities, kicking dirt, throwing third base into the outfield and peeing on a ballboy? Baseball is stupid.
A woman (of course) is suing her cell phone company for consolidating all the family bills into one. Which led to her husband finding out about her infidelity. Which led to her husband to divorcing her. So, she's blaming the phone company for her divorce. I take a different view. Her inability to keep her legs shut to men other than her husband led to her divorce. So, she's now claiming that her husband leaving made her so unhappy that her work suffered leading to job loss and doctor visits. Which means she's claiming to be a victim. Seriously. I might point out that her husband was the one cheated on.
But not the dumbest lawsuit recently. David Carradine's wife is suing over his death. You might remember this. He died because he was spanking the monkey with a rope around his neck. So, who is the wife suing? The movie production company because his assistant went to dinner without Carradine. Apparently they should have known that Carradine couldn't be left alone during dinner without dying from a freak masturbation accident.
Big news recently is the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. A deep water rig blows up and begins leaking oil into the Gulf in an environmental disaster that will most likely lead to the end of life on the planet as we know it. I give us about two more years of human life on this planet before we're overwhelmed by the oil from this leak. Yes, that is absurd but I'm finding it rather funny to see the Obama administration being castigated for a slow response. Is it Obama's fault they can't plug the leak? Of course not. Like I said after Katrina - if you expect the federal government to respond quickly to something big like that, you will end up disappointed. In Katrina, federalism means there is no first response force from the government since FEMA only writes checks and posse comitatus laws restrict the civilian use of military who essentially are the only first responders under federal control. And now Obama has discovered that there is no Department of Oil Leaks. But since the his political allies made such political hay over the "slow response" to Katrina, it's funny to see them take a beating for an occurrence that they can't control. And to be honest, the administration has looked rather buffoonish in all this. I mean really. They actually invited James Cameron to brainstorm how to stop the leak because obviously a man who films underwater documentaries would know more than someone specializing in underwater engineering. But Obama can't say he didn't bring a lot of this on himself. Because when they thought BP was going to get it fixed, he was claiming his people were in charge and directing everything. After it failed, suddenly it was all BP's doing. Strange. But, I'm sure Obama really cares and is entirely focused on this problem. Or not. It doesn't really help when you're asked about the first appointee from your administration fired over this and you just aren't sure if she was fired or resigned. Pardon me if I think that might be something to know before talking to the press. But, at least his people care. And isn't that what competant government is all about.
But I'm sure big decisions will be made soon. The administration has already put a moratorium on deep sea drilling. Because there's nothing better in a bad economy than to enforce job killing measures. Hey, if BP was negligent, punish them for that, but tearing down our own economy is stupid. I hate seeing something like this happen. As one who rehabbed animals as a teenager, I especially hate seeing wildlife suffering. But the fact is the world economy runs on energy, and replacing oil and coal with "alternative energy" has been an elusive (and very expensive) pipe dream. And as quaint as the notion of cutting back is, there are too many of us to go back to subsistence farming. Yes, this is a big problem, but there have been bigger spills than this one. The environment managed to survive. Actually, the US policies on drilling are actually making spills more likely. To begin with, we won't drill in a barren Alaskan wasteland which would mean less drilling in water. And the reason they began doing the much more dangerous deep water drilling was because so much of the shallow areas are off limits. So how will that make spills more likely? If we restrict domestic oil consumption, we'll have to import more. Take another look at the list of worst spills. The majority of them were from tankers, not from rigs. Put even more tankers on the ocean and you'll increase your chances for one of them to spill.
Oh, and boycotting BP won't do much good. Gasoline at BP stores could have been from many companies, so you're really just sticking it to some local retailer who signed a contract with BP when they were still viewed as a good corporate citizen. But good luck harming BP with that Facebook boycott. As Penn Jillette said,
Now, that is a sinkhole.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the present administration really thought raising oil prices would be good for the economy. Obama actually plans to campaign in the fall on economic issues. Is he kidding? Let's look at his economic policies. A bloated stimulus plan that hasn't really stimulated anything. Except government hiring which is the only job creation the government can really do. Oh, and a massive health care plan that anyone with common sense knows will increase costs. Pretty much like Europe and Canada. Brilliant thinking. Greece tried the high deficit/too many worthless government employee model. They're basically bankrupt and looking for handouts from the rest of Europe. Other European countries are in almost as bad shape. Oh, and Canada as the model for health care? They're going broke. And wanting to cut back on their health care spending. Whoops. They're managing to go broke, and that's with a smaller population and a larger neighbor to subsidize their price controls. Get ready for rationing. But it is egalitarian. Instead of some people having good medical care and some having substandard, we'll all have substandard.
A woman who used to work for Citibank is suing her former employer. Because of that "former" part. She's claiming that she was given the boot for being "too hot". So, obviously I was interested and low and behold, there were pictures. Frankly, I don't believe her story for a minute. She's attractive enough. I'd certainly do her, but that's not really setting the bar very high. If she'd just stuck with the story that they made inappropriate comments, I might believe her. But not that they told her to change her dress because it was giving her male co-workers perpetual woodies. Or that they told her the other women were too ugly to wear those type of cloths. She's simply not enough of a hottie to get that worked up about. Surprisingly, men can make it through a workday without feeling the need to touch themselves inappropriately over someone who looks like her. But I do think they may have wanted her out of there for safety reasons. Look at that nipple. She could put an eye out.
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