2006 NFL DRAFT!!!!!!

Before we get to the NFL Draft… what up with the UN cutting aid to Darfur?  Why is this happening?  Why doesn’t someone (CUE: President Freedom, Christianity, and Liberty) step to the plate and say it’s time to not only save these people but also fund them.  The fact we are allowing the mass killings that are taking place is bad enough, but now the little support we have been showing is going to be scaled back?  I don’t get it.  Meanwhile, people are upset about paying $3.25 for a gallon of gas… I say it’s semantics.  There were some positive signs today; five members of congress were arrested today in front of the Sudan embassy.  Of course all five were Democrats (could you ever see a GOPers being arrested for something other than corruption or insider trading?).  We here at VFLOAB salute James McGovern and John Olver of Massachusetts, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, Jim Moran of Virginia, and Tom Lantos of California.

Also, we support the US National Anthem being sung in Spanish… read about it here… why not?  Who cares?  It’s the friggin’ National Anthem, it’s not like it’s a good national anthem.  In 1999 did anyone really care about the National Anthem besides giving it some lip service?  And then after 9/11 and the ‘patriotism’ that arose we saw people suddenly taking the National Anthem serious again (we also recognize there were people who always did take it serious, but you catch my drift).  It’s the US National Anthem… not the flag, not baseball, not apple pie, just a few words that F. S. Key set to the tune of a BRITISH song… that’s right the tune isn’t even American… it’s British.  So much for that, eh?

Okay the NFL Draft… we love the NFL Draft.  It’s always on some lazy late April weekend, TV heads and NFL GMs take themselves way too seriously and treat it like it’s the Congress of Vienna, and it gives us the one and only Mel Kiper, Jr.  And the other great thing about the NFL draft is that people read WAY too into it forgetting that pretty much every team drafts players that they could use.  So when we poured though those mock drafts, we were left scratching our heads most of the time.  I know it seems like everyone and their mother has a Mock NFL draft, some are good, some are clueless, and others are so lame that we shouldn’t even link them.

(btw, the fact that Easterbrook got his column back on ESPN.com just goes to show that even a babbling say nothing can make it in this world (I HAVE HOPE); what’s really funny is that when I was looking for Easterbrook’s say nothing, I came across Skip Bayless who not only hates black people, but also is so Friggin’ stupid that there is no logical explanation to why he has a job.  How this man has a job is beyond me; his ‘Devils Advocate’ columns are incredibly lame and everything else is Skip saying nothing… he’s the worst sports writer out there and he’s never said anything even somewhat intelligent.  Just take this piece of absolute hack crap ‘journalism’. Jay Marroitti is probably suing Bayless as we speak for plagiarism purposes… AND speaking of plagiarism, are we at the point where if I just copy and paste a John Irving novel say I went to Yale and handed it to a publisher that I’d become a millionaire and then three years later be ‘found out’?  And would it be worth it?)

Anyway, we should just get to our ‘mock’ draft… remember we did it last year! We were five for five at least… almost six for six.  Almost.  Then the Vikings ruined everything and the Lions really screwed everything up. OKAY…

1. Houston Texans – Reggie Bush – I don’t care if he can’t run between the tackles, Reggie Bush is just so amazing, seriously… I love this man.  Watching him at USC was like watching a cat toy with a mouse, or Superman fight crime, or Bill Clinton address a group of undecided voters.  It just wasn’t fair.  And I’m not going to say anything new or exciting on him, so just enjoy him.  Let’s all enjoy the Reggie Bush Era and just be ready for whatever he’s going to do next.  Seriously, we could see one of the All-Time Greats when it’s all said in done.  Enough said.

1. New Orleans Saints – D’Brickashaw Ferguson – This is where the draft starts to drive me nuts.  Everyone has the Saints taking Mario Williams, and that makes sense expect… the Saints have two good young D-Ends!?!?!  This draft is so insane right now that anyone could go any where… for all I know this is where Leinart ends up also.  It appears that D’Brickashaw would be the pick here since the Saints could use an offensive tackle.  But everyone loves Williams… but the Saints have to young ends (even though Charles Grant had a bad year last year).  So even though we know this will KILL our mock draft since the Saints will probably take Williams, we say they take D’Brickashaw.

1. Tennessee Titans – Matt Leinart – We know, word on the street says that they’ll take Vince Young.  But I’m not convinced that’s the truth.  This is just a ‘gut’ feeling.  

1. New Jersey Jets – We don’t even know what the Jets will do at this point.  We had them taking D’Brickashaw in our mock draft, so now that we’ve got D’Brickashaw going #2… we’re a little confused ourselves.  Why did we do that?  Okay, Jets take Mario Williams because they could use a D-End more than a linebacker and they’re too stupid to take Vince Young.  The Jets are one of the worst run franchises in the NFL but they seem to be able to get away with not being very well run.  Sort of weird.

1. Green Bay Packers – A.J. Hawk – After completely botching the draft last year, the Packers need something, anything from this year’s draft.  They’ll get some guys back from injury, they’ll be able to move the ball, and they could plug in a few guys on D and be decent next year.  Oh wait, Favre is coming back.  They’ll be lucky to win six.  But they need help on D.  Hawk is it.

1. San Francisco 49ers – Vernon Davis – Hey look! It’s the pick that everyone and their mother has!  Davis to the 49ers!  Fear the Turtle!  BTW, don’t you think the 49ers could return Alex Smith for Vince Young right now?  We think so too.

1. Oakland Raiders – Vince Young – Vince Young on the Raiders has endless possibilities… seriously he could become the greatest QB of all time or be a total flop.  I like Young; he’s a great player and won the National Title by himself last year and that alone says a lot.  But we’re worried.  We’ve all seen what the NFL has done to Michael Vick, basically locking him in the pocket and throwing a way the key for some unknown reason.  Hopefully the Raiders realize they should let Vince be Vince and let him win football games.  Only in the NFL, the system is more important than the win.  That’s why we hate the NFL because it’s all about the system, not the team or the players or the win… it’s about the system.  Hopefully the Raiders won’t keep Young locked in a pocket in some West Coast Offense hybrid… hopefully they’ll let him play football and completely confuse the other team and win games.  Seriously don’t you think a creative offense that’s different and somewhat unpredictable would dominate the structured, we counter every move that you make, near war like strategy that takes place on defense?  Why is the NFL so uncreative?

1. Buffalo Bills – Brodrick Bunkley – This was one of the worst teams in the NFL against the run last year.  They’re taking Bunkley even if he’s from Florida. (that’s right we read one ‘report’ saying the Bills may pass on Bunkely because he’s from Florida and they’re worried about how he’ll adjust to the weather.  WE ARE NOT MAKING THIS UP; and you were wondering why I compared the NFL draft to the Congress of Vienna… this is why).

1. Detroit Lions – We’re all hoping its Chad Jackson just so we could see the Lions take a wide out in the top ten for the fourth year in a row.  Gosh this would be the greatest moment of our life… you don’t realize how badly I want to see this.  But it’ll be Mike Huff or whatever his name is… I guess its Michael Huff, that’s good Mike Huff was a little too close to Mike Hunt for our liking.

1. Arizona Cardinals – Winston Justice – Again another pick that can go a few different directions.  The Cards could use a quarter back, so is there where Cutler lands?  Their D-line isn’t in the greatest shape… so Ngata or Wimbley?  But we say they go with Justice just to piss off Andy Reid in case he reads this blog.

1. St. Louis Rams – Jay Cutler – Just seems like the right place for him to go.  I have no opinion on him, even though Skip Bayless claims he’s seen him play SIXTEEN times in the last two years!  We’re calling bullshit on that one.

1. Cleveland Browns – Kamerion Wimbley – Seriously does anyone care about the New Browns?  It’s been seven years or something, and they’ve been totally boring and completely uninteresting.  Maybe it was better they didn’t have a team.

1. Baltimore Ravens – Haloti Ngata – Ray Lewis’ swan song draft pick.  Ravens are one of those teams that aren’t that bad btw.

1. Philadelphia Eagles – Ernie Simms – They should take a receiver but they won’t.  I don’t think they want to take Simms, but he should help them.  BTW, can you tell we’re running on steam?  One quick thing on the Eagles… I think we’re a 7-9 season away from Andy Reid being fired.  The guy has made some really, really bad decisions in the last few years, either being too aggressive (the Monday Night Game vs Dallas) or too conservative (any NFC Championship game)… he hasn’t had a good draft since 2002, and has seemed to forgotten how to coach.  I’m not sure why I just wrote all that, but I did.

1. Denver Broncos – Chad Jackson – Seems like it makes sense.  Has it been said that the Broncos are one of the more underrated franchises in the NFL?  They just seem to get overlooked.  They always are pretty good and always seem to have good drafts and plenty of options during the off-season.  I sort of wish I rooted for them.

1. Miami Dolphins – Jason Allen – We figure between his ability to play safety and cornerback with the fact that he’s an SEC guy has Nick Saban taking him.  Dolphins are pretty good aren’t they?

1. Minnesota Vikings – Laurence Maroney – Viking reach a bit for a guy who played his college games in the HHH Dome… that’s right the Gopher himself, Maroney.  Running back makes sense since well, they could use a running back with Bennett leaving and all.  I guess they could take DeAngelo Williams but I’ll be honest… I don’t care any more.

Okay that’s all we got… this took all the life we had in use and zapped it up… on the plus side we finally downloaded firefox.  You should too.  And of course, we’ll miss you Mr. Tony.  Come back soon and be claaaahsic on Monday Night Football.  

Oil, Ethanol, and the Hill's long tradition of Dropping the Ball

Vinod Kholsa writes a though provoking piece on how we don’t need oil or hydrogen, what we need we have plenty of: ethanol. It’s an interesting read and thought provoking [Read it here]… and it triggered some thoughts and here is what we came up with at VFLOAB.

This oil stuff is just so bizarre right now. People complain but I don't see them changing in their ways or the price of oil coming down. It's sort of a shame that Americans got so 'lazy' and began to feel that driving any where and every where was within their rights as red blooded Americans.

It's a total mess that's for sure. It's obvious that the years and years of allowing Big Oil to do what they will, getting around taxes (Kholsa raises a good point when he said that taxing Brazilian ethanol and not taxing imported oil is nuts), and allowing them to write many if not all of the laws on the books right now is absolutely killing us. At some point this has to start hurting the US economy right? But it seems like we've been saying this for years. Yet at the same time, I bet a lot of these rosy numbers we keep seeing are just a few individuals and individual companies creating a bubble and making the economy look unnaturally stronger than it is. The more telling figures are the ones that show the gap between the rich and middle class is growing and has been growing since 2001 or so. That's probably a better 'example' of our current economic situation in this country than anything else. Since if the economy really is doing better, then everyone should be better off.

But I have my doubts… we use oil because it's the most efficient means of getting around. Just look at what Kholsa has to admit: "ethanol offers somewhat lower mileage per gallon hence the need for an "equivalent mileage" price per gallon" Why would I drive a car that gets worse mileage? Sure at 4.00 a gallon I might switch, but when gas was at 1.50, driving an ethanol fueled car made no sense. But even if this is the markets way of creating change, it's still going to need a kick in the arse from the government and I don't see that happening.

Is BigOil evil? Yeah, I'm sure they've pulled every trick in the book to keep prices higher than their actual market value. There's documentation that they limited refinery output to keep prices high (for the record, this was back in the mid 90s). As I said, they've written a bunch of the laws on the books that govern oil and they didn't pay a cent for much of the offshore drilling.

Personally I think the best alternative is much of what they have in Europe: high gas taxes, better public transportation, and encouraging people to walk four blocks for once in their lives. I know that urban America and urban Europe looks very different (we have less public transport and people live in the 'burbs); but if we wanted to we could pull something like this off. Of course that means further subsidizing public transportation so that it covers more areas, but we already have much of the infrastructure to do something like this, especially along the coasts and in the Midwest. There's no reason to believe we couldn't build a 'state of the art' infrastructure in the booming cities of the South and Southwest (though it might be difficult in Atlanta and Phoenix at this point). It's a real shame that it's hard to find a public transportation system south of DC or west of Chicago (San Fran I believe is the notable exception).

Of course this costs money and no one in this country wants to pay taxes. I'm not sure if this is because of greed, a lack of trust in the government, or just what every human 'feels'. But we're going to have to face some 'hard' decisions in this country, decisions that my generation will have to deal with more so than the Boomers. We're at the point where not only are we probably going to see high gas prices for good, but we will also have to deal with healthcare, pensions, and other infrastructure issues. I think these are much more pressing needs than what the market has oil priced at.

But I do find it 'ironic' that many free market conservatives are calling for the government to 'find a solution' to the problem the 'market' and Big Oil has created. And now the GOP wants to send every American 100 bucks… lol. This is funny because… the GOP is more in bed with Big Oil than the Dems AND it goes against everything the GOP stands for, or at least claims to stand for. But the moment you ask the government to get involved in healthcare, they're throwing shit fits. But oil? Well in that case ‘we have to do something about it! It’s in the Consititution that gas cannot be more the 2.75 a gallon!’ (meanwhile 40 million Americans don’t have health care… talk about not having your priories in order). I just don't think you can have it both ways. I'd love the government to take the horns on this bull, but they won't until their jobs are at sake. There's too much money on the line. And many of these guys are on either ego or power trips, so they're not going to make hard decisions or do anything constructive because it might cost them their seat. Congress has spent the last thirty years or so slapping band-aids on every issue that comes up instead of getting stitches that we're nearing the point where it's all going to explode and bleed uncontrollably. Expect the same here with the gas stuff: we’ll get a lot of talk and rhetoric about how they need to change things, very little if any action at all, and huge contributions to the Hillers campaign funds from Big Oil. And we’ll do the same song and dance again in five years… I mean who can forget the summer of 2000 when some states suspended their gas taxes?

So I have little hope. Call me cynical, but the actions of the government in my life time have been small and some what insignificant outside of say Welfare Reform, the 2001 tax cuts, the Patriot Act, Iraq, and a few other things I'm forgetting. And let's be honest Iraq and the Patriot Act didn't really 'solve' anything, but there were actions that Congress undertook so I need to give them credit. But they'll wait and wait and wait until it's too late and then slap some band-aid on it. Right now they're all talk, awaiting the next contribution from Big Oil and remembering those guys in Houston or Dallas at the end of the day.

Khosla I don't think realizes that even if ethanol makes sense today and tomorrow, Big Oil is calling the shots. They're the ones that wrote the laws and give money to the politicians. That's a big obstacle to over come. And if you've followed this Jack Abramoff stuff at all, you can sort of get a feeling for how 'tight' these guys become, corruption or no corruption.

And let's not forget the people really getting screwed over by the high gas prices are the working class. That's the real shame.

If people don't like the price of oil, then find another means of transportation and getting around. I guess that's my point in all this. This is the ‘price’ you pay by being a capitalist nation…

iPod 25!

We haven’t done this in a while… a long while. ANYWAY, that’s right… it’s time for the iPod Top 25! But before we get to that, let’s let you in on one of the cooler websites we’ve seen since that myheritage site we ‘discovered’ a few months ago.

This one is called last-fm… basically it tracks the music you listen to on your computer and then keeps stats for you. It tracks the songs by week, overall, and also what bands you listen too. It’s pretty cool. Here is our own personal little page [RIGHT HERE]. Not sure what you’ll see when you hit the link, but right now, it says that we just listened to The Hold Steady – “Charlemagne in Sweatpants” which is a kick ass song. So check it out, sign up for it, and make us your friend so we can check out what songs you listen too. Also note our ‘tracker’ right now listed at the very bottom of these posts. So you can see our top ten songs or something any time you like… plus if you hit the box it will send you to our page. Eventually Newsweek will do a short blurb on this site, and it’s gonna be big like yourtube or myspace or gmail or blogs or any other of the Web2.0 stuff that’s so big right now.

Okay, on to our iPod top 25… that’s right the top listed tracks on our iTunes. Obviously the longer I have and like a song, the more likely it is to make the top 25… so if I’ve had a song since last April, well it’s gonna have a much better chance to be on this list than say, “The Big Guns” which is probably the most listened to song on our iPod at the moment… but it’s not making the list since we’ve only had it like a month. Who cares though, let’s get to the action, but first check out previous iPod25s! April 2005 and July 2005!

1. Speed of Sound – Coldplay – We did name this the best song of 2005 remember. We like it… a lot.

1. Whatever Happened – The Strokes – True Fact, we’re seeing the Strokes on April 26th. Another true fact, this song has been known to rip my heart out at times “You don’t miss me/I know”. And we love the ring composition of it all too.

1. Heartbeat – Annie – There isn’t a better weekend/half drunk song out there.

1. 11:11 – Andrew Bird – We love Mr. Bird, and we aren’t saying that because he’s from Chicago. We like him because he’s a good musician. While even we here at VFLOAB can’t get beyond the pretty bad lyrics here, we love how this song is arranged, and it reminds us of our favorite season, fall, for various reasons.

1. Letter from an Occupant – The New Pornographers – We’ve talked about our love for this song and Neko Case’s voice half way though man a time. Things haven’t changed.

1. Shiver – Coldplay – The best song Coldplay’s done must find it’s way on the list… and it does. This really is such a great song.

1. Knock Yourself Out – Jon Brion – I’m not sure how to really describe how much I like this song… it sounds so happy. And we love last few lines of the song, “Why were put in this mess/Is anybody’s guess/It might be a test or it might not be anything/You need to worry about/But if you’re still in doubt/Go and knock yourself out” I like to think of it as the “Don’t worry, be happy” of the 21st century.

1. Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand – Wow this is still on the list? We don’t really listen to this song all that much any more it seems like. Maybe we do… who knows. It’s fine.

1. Never Never – The Libertines – For some reason this song reminds us of that scene in “Outside Providence” where the kid and Amy Smart are falling in love in an extended scene or whatever they call them in Hollywood, and we always think, ‘man wouldn’t it be great to find a girl like that? A girl who would love and seen the ‘awesomeness’ of this song?’ Okay we sound like a girly man and we just said awesomeness…

1. The Laws Have Changed – The New Pornographers – I’m trying to think of reasons not to like this song.

1. Waltz #1 – Sam Phillips – If we need a ‘good mood’ quick fix, we find Ms. Phillips ditty that’s off of Gilmore Girls and then we’re happy. Lorelei makes us happy.

1. Meet Me in the Bathroom – The Strokes – Just… great… imagery…

1. Crown – Mason Jennings – Such a sad song… another one that rips our heart out at times. We love it anyway “but I don't wanna be together/I don't wanna be apart/I don't want none of this love for you honey/deep, deep down in my heart”

1. Big Sur – Mason Jennings – His new album comes out in a few weeks. Pick it up.

1. Someday – The Strokes – Still the greatest drinking song of all time.

1. Nothing – Mason Jennings – We do like him remember. This is always a great moving/next chapter in life song though. BTW we hate the ‘next chapter in life stuff’ but used it anyway, we also used awesomeness. We need to find new words.

1. Dedicated – The Amps – Kim Deal rocks. This song always puts a hop in our step.

1. Where is My Mind? – Pixies – “With your feet in the air and your head on the ground”

1. You Can’t Hurry Love – The Concretes – We’ve got to give a shout out to Ms. Ross of course. But this isn’t a cover btw, it’s just a good song that we like.

1. So Says I – The Shins – I’m happy this song made the list. This song should make the list.

1. Maps – Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s easy to forget how hard it must to be to right a kick ass song when you hear something like this.

1. Change Your Mind – The Killers – We’ve soured on the Killers. They were fun for a while, but the whole New Wave/Duran Duran/bad lyrics things got old after a while. This shouldn’t be here if we ever do this iPod 25 again.

1. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) – The Arcade Fire – Like So Says I, I’m happy this song made it.

1. Red-Eyed And Blue – Wilco – I’m going to be honest, I’m shocked only one Wilco song will make this list… btw this is an absolutely fantastic song. In fact, just thinking about this makes us mad, Wilco, in our eyes, is one of the five best American bands of all time, yet you wouldn’t know it if you listened to the radio, MTV, or read pretty much any music mag out there. Sure they get their press, but people either don’t realize how great there stuff is, or get annoyed with the ‘lack of pop’… I’m not sure. But seriously, I’m not sure there is a better American band at this second. And I’m the biggest Strokes’ apologist there is.

1. If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, then Surely I can Win Your Heart – Beulah – Yes it’s as good as it’s title suggests.

The Beatles!

The Beatles!

I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do this… but I’m going to try.  We really should not even try to do this because I’m sure this is the kind of thing that gets leaked to the press right when you’re about to hit the big time.  You know, when you’re going though your fifteen minutes of fame that’s when something like this comes out.  “Back in April of 2006, Mr. Otter attempted to put together his 12 favorite Beatle songs…” and then laughter would ensue and I’d feel like a TV character from any sitcom made over the last thirty years besides Mork from Mork and Mindy.  But why not, it’s Friday, it’s April (I’ll just use the T.S. Eliot excuse), and we’re waiting to leave for the “Nats” game… so here we go.  Our all time, very best, I will not debate this, you’re wrong; I’m right top 12 Beatle Songs.  Not to quote Marvie Gaye, but let’s get it on…

Honorable mention:
I’m a Loser
It's Only Love
Blackbird
Everybody's Got Something To Hide Expect For me and my Monkey
I Am the Walrus
I Need You
I'll Cry Instead

I’ll admit this is a nice little list right here, but none of them are cracking the top 12.  They’re all flawed at some level compared to the other 12 songs on this list… I’m a Loser is too depressing and John doesn’t seem to believe what he’s singing, It’s Only Love loses it’s ‘flair’ when you realize it isn’t Paul singing, Blackbird doesn’t seem to go anywhere for some reason, EGSTHEFM&MM is too chaotic in the end, I am the Walrus leaves you empty at some point, I Need You doesn’t try hard enough, and I’ll Cry Instead… we’ll it’s too early Beatles for it to be great.  Of course, the songs that really got ‘shafted’ are I’ve Just Seen a Face and You’ve got to Hide Your Love Away but you know what… it’s not about what we all think it’s about me so there.

12) And Your Bird Can Sing – This song works because of the bass line, its very unBeatle like, almost Motownish in fact.  Listen for it if you don’t know what I’m talking about.  It’s reaching for places the Beatles never go in terms of bass lines.  Anyway, yeah then there is George’s fun little guitar work and the perfectly harmonized, “You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is” part.  John hated this song for the record.  It’s a weak inclusion if you ask me… but I always come back to that harmonized “You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is” part and I just love it.

11) She Loves You – I’m fully aware that this is sort of a cheesy inclusions, but 1) you’ve got to have one of those early Beatle songs because the hook in those songs are out of this world.  Divine like in many ways.  We could argue what song has a better hook, “I want to Hold Your Hand” or “She Loves You” until Kingdom come, but “She Loves You” gets the not because the four do a much better job playing their instruments than in “Hand”.  For instance, who doesn’t love George’s guitar work in this song?  Just fantastic.  I’m not a huge fan of the chorus, but then John breaks into “With a love like that” with its simple da/da/da start and stop… just a fantastic song one so many different levels.  The fact that the lyrics in this song are so bad that even I can’t over look them, goes to show how well written this song is.

10) Wait – I’ll be honest; even I am surprised this cracked the top 12, but here it is.  I just couldn’t cut it.  Maybe its George’s guitar work again, simple yet effective, especially in the chorus… then again I’m a sucker for the tambourine.  Or maybe it’s the fact the song just sort of starts… and ends.  There’s not a real intro or outro.  And then there’s the bridge where John hands off to Paul and he nails it by keeping it simple (this would be the last time we’d see Paul just do what he should do instead of trying to do too much and nearly ruining a countless number of Beatle songs and eventually giving us crap like “Let It Be”, “The Long and Winding Road” and “Oh! Darling”)

9) In My Life – Yeah, this song isn’t too cutting edge, nor does it feature the hooks and/or rifts that you’d expect.  Musically, it’s a straight forward, if not simple, song.  But the lyrics do sort of cut to the bone don’t they?  If Paul had written this would it even crack the top 100?  Doesn’t this song seem more important and powerful because John did it and not Paul?  I don’t know.  It’s on the list… I’m moving on.

8) Cry Baby Cry – No Beatle song builds on itself better than Cry Baby Cry.  Starts off with just John and a guitar, then comes the piano, suddenly there are drums, a bass line, more instruments, a second guitar, back ground vocals… and all the while John is weaving these instruments and sounds in and out, here and there, following the simple four line verse, into the chorus, back to verse telling the story of a royal court recalled from his youth.  In many ways this song should work so well, but the story is intriguing.  I’ll never forgive or understand the Paul reprise of I Will thrown in at the end, but whatever.  We’ll live with it.  And by the way, how many times have other bands attempted to write this song?

7) For No One – Paul at his most mellow!  And he does such a fantastic job with this song (if you haven’t noticed by now, I’m not a big fan of Paul’s over-the-top arrangements and singing), this is a really sad song and he lets the song not only tell the story but just be what it is.  A sad song about a relationship that should have worked, but didn’t, and he’s not sure why.  He lets his voice tell the story, and you can feel his pain.  And the French Horn… just a touch of genius.  It adds to the loneliness of the song, a single French Horn somewhere in the distance.  I also like the simple, but necessary bass line/notes that hold everything together.  This is an underrated song and the fact that it came from Paul makes it all the more interesting.

6) Two of Us – Paul and John have never sounded so good together.  The song is so mature too… it’s amazing how in eight years they went from Love me do to Two of Us.  What a great love song.  Just sounds like two lovers not only deep in love, but also having fun being in love.  Oh wait that was Paul and Lina were… but don’t you get the feel it’s more about John and Paul in the end?  

5) I’m Happy Just to Dance With You – I’m not sure when I realized the absolute genius of this song.  I’m not kidding, little Georgie Harrison, the Scouser just singing his heart out in a near perfect song.  Of course, it’s written by Lennon, but Harrison sings the song perfectly. The hook in this song is just killer… and we all sort of hope that love is like this and isn’t it sort of like this?  And of course this song isn’t necessarily about love (more like songwriting itself), but hey it’s what’s the kids want.

4) I Will – The greatest ditty of all time.  It’s such a sweet song, such a lovely love song… I’m sounding like a girl or something… but who doesn’t love the “do do do dodo” human bass that Paul puts down for this one?… just puts this song on a level that is so fantastic.  And honestly, the lyrics aren’t that bad.  I’m not kidding.  Paul at his finest?

3) A Day In A Life – Where to start?  The fact that this might be one of John’s finest moments as a lyricist?  That the image of “how many holes it takes to fill the Royal Albert Hall” is one of those great images in all of music.  And it also replays in your head over and over again whenever you’re even near the Royal Albert Hall in London?  Was the guy from the House of Lords?  And what exactly is the point of the ‘bridge’ where Paul actually describes a “Day in a Life”?  Is there some sort of connection to Ulysses in the song?  Is the song a dream?  How unbelievablely awesome are the chords in this song?  Hasn’t every band with any ambition tried to write this song all over again?  Isn’t it almost unbelievable to hear the Who, Radiohead, and Wilco all in one song?

2) I Don't Want to Spoil the Party – Simply put the most underrated Beatles song out there.  Not only is the rift in this song out of this world, but the chorus is pretty much on the same level.  And of course if you went back and looked really hard, you could say, this is the first case were John was trying something else, saying something more than what he was saying… or at least I like to believe that.  That he was exploring his ability and also what he was saying.  I’m not so sure this song is as cut and dry as it appears to be.  I don’t think John was completely talking about ‘heart break’ in this song.  I think the key is in the title, he’s trying to come to grips with his new found fame.  It’s a theme that all four would have to face over time, but John obviously faced it first.  We’d get bits and pieces of this for a few years, and then they’d really throw it at us on Revolver.  But here, on this record, we see John starting to question and realize his fame and existence.  But let’s face it, it’s about that rift and chorus.

1) Something – The greatest love song of all time.  It’s so unassuming… something, there is just ‘something’ about her.  I’m not sure what it is, but it’s something.  And at the end of the day, isn’t that what love is?  It’s something that we can’t really describe and we can list all these things trying to explain what that something is… but we can never fully describe it.  It’s just something.  But the song also throws a little Sonnet 116 in there… George is unsure about his love at the same time.  He just doesn’t know.  But the easy bass line, beautiful strings, and aspiring chords make this song probably as close to perfection as we’ll get.

Yeah, Someone Get on this

We're going to be honest, this is too good not to post. Don't show the kids. And remember when you're not showing them to tell them that it's better to kill thousands of people and totally mess up the economy for future generations while driving oil prices to all time highs meanwhile corruption goes on like crazy a few blocks from your office than it is to get a blowjob. God save the Queen or something 'ironic' like that. We aren't jaded... of course not... jaded is for those people that think Rumsfeld is doing a good job.

Oh My Gawd

Oh… My… Gawd…

A few things before we get on to things.  We’re not sure more than five people actually read this thing, and to be honest, we don’t care all that much because this is just a hopefully ‘fun’ little place for us to express some opinions and get some ideas out there.  We don’t consider ourselves wantabe journalists or anything of the sort.  We’re not one of those people that hope or think we’re the next Bill Simmons or Markos Moulitsas.  We’re 99% sure that this isn’t going to lead any where career wise.  We do this for our own personal reasons, mainly so we can look back in twenty years and say “We were right!” or “Boy were we nuts…” That’s the reason.  And for a quest of knowledge.  Oh, and for the kids too.

But that said we’d like more than five people to read this blog.  Call us egotistical if you will, but ‘dem the facts.  So we’re going to be doing some things to attempt to make this more ‘readable’ and ‘internet friendly’ and other made up phrases that make no sense.  Hopefully this leads us to something bizarrely famous… actually we could careless, but it’d be fun some day to e-mail everyone and be like “Lookie here!  John Mulaney isn’t the only quasi-famous Class of 2000 St. Ignatius graduate!”

So what does that mean?  We’ll for starters; we’re going to have links.  We’re going to have a new ‘template’ eventually.  We’re going to post less frequently hopefully improving the quality of our writing.  We haven’t figured all this out and our lives are constantly changing… blah blah balh… and yes I’m sure no one cares at this point, but shockingly we’re saying all this for us.  So we’ll stop.  Peace.

Thoughts while wondering how Donald Rumsfeld still has a job…

• It is official; I’m excited about the World Cup.  Only 50 days or something.  We like the English at the moment, but that’s only because we know they won’t win because well… they’re England.  England never wins these things just like the Dutch and baseball teams that are named after colored socks... wait, maybe there is hope for the English.

• Am I the only American male under the age of 40 that would love to live in France?  Why do we hate on France?  Because they are our mirror image (each country prides itself on its own ‘brand’ of liberty, freedom, and acceptance)?  Then again, we should also ask why the French hate on us.  For two countries that have never been to war, it is all very odd isn’t it?  Maybe we Americans don’t like red wine all that much and the French don’t like MickyD’s all that much… oh wait that’d be wrong.

• Rummy… we’ve been asking ourselves this question for almost 24 months now but how the hell does this guy have a job?  What does he need to do to get fired?  Seriously, he makes any bad CEO (Ken Lay) or coach (Mike Martz) look like successful guys.  It’s just unbelievable that he still has a job.  Bush just won’t fire him which only continues to fuel our theory that “a few GOPers got together - mainly Rove, Cheney, and some rich CEO types fat cats – in Texas back in 1997 and decided that Bush was going to be their man to run for President in 2000, but they were going to tell him what to do.”  It’s more than clear that it’s time for Rummy to step down, yet Bush won’t fire him.  Why?  We’re at the point were you really can’t defend Rummy any more because there’s nothing to defend, unless of course you’re a fan of piss poor planning, chaos, and lack of progress.

• Wait?  What’s that?  Could it be the… no way!... it is!  It’s the Democrats who FINALLY decided to start asking questions about Rummy and why he hasn’t been fired yet.  If we were having a fantasy football draft, and the Democrats were in the league, they’d draft Marshall Faulk in the First round, Brett Favre in the second, and TO in the third round. Has there ever been a party who’s been a ‘day late and a dollar short’ more often than the Dems in the last three of four years?  I’m not sure there’s been a worst four year political performance in this country since the Whig Party back in the 19th century.  Things are such that the Hill should be the Dems to lose, but of course it’s going to be hard for them to pull that off since they just flat out suck right now.  Taking back the House might be tough since that shite is gerrymandered to the point where even the Soviets are envious of House elections, but odds are they won’t take back the Senate even though everything politically points to the GOP losing power.  The GOP has so mishandled everything in the last three or four years, that we should see the Dems rout them come November.  But of course, the Dems are more useless than the Torries at this point, but for all the wrong reasons.  The Dems are useless not because the GOP has stepped on their toes (like Blair and New Labour basically taking a Torrey platform back in 1997), but because they’re just flat out useless.

• Fidel turns 80 this year, along with the Queen, and here is an extremely interesting article on Castro, Cuba, and Cuba’s future.  Cuba’s been recently ‘bailed out’ by Venezuela and the oil windfall that Chavez and the country has fallen into over the past few years (once again, thanks in part to the Iraq War).  And the country has also had to change, which is unsurprising.  And before anyone makes a smug “communism doesn’t work” comment (which we agree, it doesn’t btw); remember that capitalism doesn’t work either.  But more on that another time.  I high recommend it no matter if you hate his guts, admire his beliefs, think he’s the greatest political leader of the 20th century, a total moron, are lukewarm on him, an oppressive dictator, or think he’s just aiight.  Read it, seriously and the comments at the end are more than thought provoking.  

• We don’t want to point fingers or accuse people of something, especially when we have next to no information, but we would like to say a few things about this Duke lacrosse case.  It’s pretty obvious something happened that night; just what it was is what we’re trying to figure out and why this will probably go to trial.  But this is also becoming a classic rich privileged, and yes, white kids getting away with acting like jagbags.  Who knows what really happened, maybe these guys are innocent.  Maybe they’re guilty.  But one thing is for sure… most, if not all, these players on the lacrosse teams are assholes.  And what’s really, really annoying is because they’re most likely from rich familes and go to Duke; they can get away with being assholes.  Life’s not fair, we know.  And too bad we can’t throw assholes in jail for being assholes.  Oh yeah, and for those who say this will ‘ruin’ these kids reputations… I bet most of these kids, the innocent kids at least, will end up with cushy jobs making more money than most people we know and continue to be assholes.  And next time, if you don’t want your ‘reputation’ to be ruined, don’t be assholes.  It’s that simple.

• Okay if you point a gun to our head, we’ll take the New York Times over the Wall Street Journal.  But let me tell you, if the “Journal” ever decides to put there content on the net, the Op-Ed pages will be the only reason we’ll go with the NYTimes.

• First it was Jerry Porter. Then came Jerome McDougal. Now it’s Julius Hodge. What do they all have in common? They’ve been 50Cented in the past few years, but all lived to tell (RIP Fred Lane and Ivan Calderon). So who’s the next pro-athlete to be Harry Whittingtoned?  We’ll take Curt Schilling on a hunting trip with you know who.

• We were eating cereal while watching Spanish TV this morning trying to figure out what they were saying and we started thinking “Why don't we call cities by their actual names?” For instance, they were saying Nueva York on the TV and we say Rome instead of Roma.  So why do we Anglicize or Espanolize etc, everything?  Why call it Rome when we can easily say Roma?  Why say Nueva York when you could say New York?  We also decided that we really really need to learn Spanish just in case we do find ourselves in a situation with beautiful Lantio women.  “Te amo Peru” can only get a man so far.

• (image placeholder) Seriously, forget left handed reliever, we’re coming back as a footie star.  Italian or French or Swedish just because it’s Sweden… we could careless. (We’d say Brazilian, but considering we might end up look like Ronaldinho, we’ll pass).

John Mulaney

We’d be fools (and a bad friend) if we didn’t link our favorite comedian John Mulaney; whose video and appearance on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham website is linked HERE. We think John is pretty funny and he made us laugh here and back in the day. His ability to link the Iraq War to modern art is pure genius in our eyes, but we’d expect nothing less from John. Yes, we’ll also be so bold to say John is someone to ‘watch out’ for in the future and maybe, just maybe if you click on that link, you can say, I heard and knew of him when… and then you can thank me for trying to make the world a somewhat hipper place.

John and I met in high school, he a Cub fan from the North Side who always had something funny to say, me a Sox fan from the southwest ‘burbs who started to learn that he makes a much better straight man than funny guy. It’s a story that hasn’t been told enough, how to boys from privileged house holds over came their geographical and rooting interest differences to become science partners, Pete Townshend junkies, and friends. We were also lucky enough to go off to college in the same town (DC) where I got to watch John begin to practice his craft doing Improv shows and the such. (we don't know why the font changed for the record... and we don't feel figuring it out and fixing it).

So to make a long story short… John is funny and you should watch this and enjoy it. Also check out the “I Love the 30s” Stuff he’s done/wrote. It’s pretty great.

Also of note, a former high school crush makes an appearance in the crowd… I think the St. Ignatius College Prep Class of 2000 set a record for ‘most appearances on a “Live at Gotham” clip’. So we’ve got that going for us… along with this blog. Hardy, har, har.

And we realize we're just beating around the Bush here, that isn't a picture of John, it's Pete Townshend one of our heros back when we were 17, and yes we're ending this right about... so just watch the clip… will ya?

Home and Lazy

I'm home for the first time in three months and I went into lazy mode just... like... that... I'd love some coffee, but no one is up to make coffee so I'm waiting until someone wakes up and makes me coffee. Basically I'm waiting for my mom, who since it's 8, I assume is excising or something. So I'm waiting... and now wondering... is this what we dream that wife's will become? Like mothers, if you ask for coffee they'll bring coffee. And as girlfriends they bring coffee but as wife's they don't right?

If I get the mumps while I'm here, I'm gonna be pissed.

Iraq, Feb. 2003

We drove over 1,100 miles this weekend (and the reason why we’ve been in hibernation since Wed) and to be honest… not many interesting thoughts or things of note. Sure Pittsburgh’s a great town, all roads lead to New York just so they can charge you five bucks to cross the Hudson, and Connecticut is awesome, but we don’t feel like it because they aren’t that interesting. So instead of filling you with tidbits like that or that one should never drive 700 odd miles on a Friday during Lent because it’s just temptation after temptation and you end up eating crap pretzels and JUST a biscuit from McDonald’s, we’re going to do in another direction, what we’re not sure but we’ll think of something. We’re good like that and we did have a good idea in the shower, but we aren’t in the shower any more. Damn it.

So instead of letting Paul Krugman lay out the odds that Bush will attack Iran for political gain, we’re going to go back in time. A time when we were a wee-little intern in London for a Member of Parliament (remember that’s just how we roll). A time when Iraq was in mass chaos and we debated how much power Saddam really had (remember he didn’t control the northern or southern third of the country). A time when we were putting together a little report for our MP on Iraq back in the early days of 2003.

Let the record show this is not the best thing I’ve ever written, it’s pretty dry. I’ve tried to clean it up a bit but we left the British spelling and dates just for the full effect. But also let the record show that in the mist of all the details and happenings of those weeks leading up to the US invasion of Iraq, the words “democracy”, “liberty”, and “freedom” weren’t uttered that often. It was mostly “WMDs” or “Al Qaeda”. This idea of freedom and liberty was all, let’s be honest, bullshit that they used after the fact. These guys [aka the White House] were going into Iraq for their own reasons… we’ll let the readers decide, but here are the options we see looking back:
1) Weapons of Mass Destruction
2) Saddam’s ‘ties’ Al Qaeda
3) Oil
4) To ‘cover up’ the, pardon our French, fuck up that was Torra Bora which allowed bin Laden to escape the US military. Toppling Saddam and taking control of Iraq became the political gain for Bush.
5) They really are warmongers

Personally… we think the right answer is #4. And that’s why these early rumors of Iran worry us… the invasion of Iraq started much the same way. Very quietly, little by little, things built up, ‘evidence’ was shown, cases made... and then we were at war. Fool me once… shame on you. Fool me twice…

No matter, what we’re saying is that this was never about freedom or liberty or democracy… that was just a byproduct, the plan M if plans A though L failed. Okay without further Freddy Adu:

The United States and Iraq
13 February 2003
In 1990 after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the United Nations placed economic sanctions on Iraq. A year later the United States and allies attacked and defeated Iraq in a short war (the Gulf War) that liberated Kuwait. After the Gulf War, weapon inspectors were sent to Iraq and to made sure that Iraq complied with the UN rules of disarmament. This process continued until November of 1998, when the United Nations ordered all its weapon inspectors to leave Iraq, fuelling speculations that a military strike against Baghdad may have been imminent.

In August of 1998, Iraq banned further inspections by UNSCOM, a commission of the UN Security Council that oversees the dismantling of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In July of 1998, it broke off relations altogether. Baghdad said it wanted a clear timetable for the lifting of sanctions, imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War.

The report from the United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix that was released and presented on 27, January 2003, was a broadly negative report on Iraq's cooperation during the inspections for weapons of mass-destruction. "Iraq appears not to have come to genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out win the confidence of the world and live in peace," Mr Blix reported in his 15 page report.

For President George W. Bush the news was unexpected support from Mr. Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector. Blix's report gave the president the support, but not all the support necessary, to go to war. It raised more questions concerning the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction than answered them. The report also failed to produce a “smoking gun”. The question over where the stores of these weapons are only grew; VX, anthrax, illegal missiles and chemical weapons, all are either unaccounted for or differ with Iraqi documents and reports.

Still, despite the report from Mr. Blix, countries such as France, Germany, and Russia, are not convinced that war is a necessary option. They are in favour in giving the inspectors more time. Yet, Mr. Blix's report was extremely critical and forced the doubting Council members to confront Iraq's attempts to delay and stop the inspectors from doing their job.

Also on the 27, January the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iraq had not resumed its nuclear program, one of the Bush administrations main arguments for taking military action. This summer's accusations by the Bush government claiming that Iraq was attempting to restart its nuclear program have proven to be false. "We have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapon program since the elimination of the program in the 1990's," Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the agency, told the UN Security Council.

Intelligence officials have said in recent months that they have found no conclusive evidence of links between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. "At the same time, there has been a continuing debate within the intelligence community about possible connections between Iraqi and a northern IraqiIslamic extremist group known as Ansar al-Islam. It has been affiliated with Al Qaeda, and some of its Iraqi members trained in Al Qaeda's Afghan Camps. American officials say Iraq may provide Ansar al-Islam with some support, but it does not appear that the group controlled by Baghdad." (28 January, 2003, Michael Gordon and James Risen, "New York Times" Report's Findings Undercut US Argument.)

With it appearing that Iraq does have weapons of mass destruction that they are hiding from inspectors and have had these weapons for 12 years, but no evidence of Iraq rejuvenating its nuclear program or any connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and still no 'smoking gun', the question now becomes, 'Why attack Iraq now?'

The concerning question of 'Why now' is a question that Bush has yet to fully answer. The State of the Union was an opportunity for him to do so: "The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the UN Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about. Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups." - President George W. Bush, 28 Jan. 2003

On Wednesday, 5 February US Secretary of State Colin Powell went in front of the United Nations Security Council with super-secret intercepts of conversations between Iraqi officials and information concerning Iraqi deceit. Still without a smoking gun, Powell's presentation did strengthen the Bush administration's case that Iraq has sought to deceive the weapons inspectors.Powell provided new details concerning Iraq's effort to develop mobile laboratories to make germ weapons, had developed a technique for making dry biological agents, and went on to say that Iraq attempted to hide missiles in the western desert. He also provided intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein authorized the use of poison gas if the United States invades.

Mr. Powell was still unable to make an 'airtight case' that Saddam Hussein and Iraq is plotting with Al Qaeda to attack the US. This has been the argument coming from the White House, but the evidence is shaky at best. Powell cited information from foreign intelligence reports that Osama bin Laden had met with senior Iraqi officials. He went on to say that 'extremists' affiliated with Al Qaeda had taken up residence in Iraq and Baghdad. "But a senior State Department official stressed after the speech that the Bush administration was not asserting that Saddam Hussein was "exercising operational control" of Al Qaeda." (New York Times, 6/2/03)

But it was reviled that some of the sources that Mr. Powell used in his case for war against Iraq were actually not as he presented them as. Powell used "chucks of British "intelligence" that he invoked were copied verbatim from an old article by a young academic." (The Times, 7/2/03). This realization was a set back to Powell's and the White House's case for war with Iraq since it appears that some of their information may not be what it seems.

While British Prime Minister Tony Blair has pressed for a second resolution, Bush has resisted this. He appears to have realized that a second resolution is necessary, which is why Powell went in front of the Security Council on 5 February. Britain has also expressed support of the German proposal that the inspectors report back to the Security Council again on 14 February. But whether the United States supports this is in question. But such a date would allow the US and Britain to continue to make war plans while at the same time appeasing France, Russia, and China, all skeptical allies, showing them that they are not rushing into war. Each country also has the own ideas of the action that should take place in dealing with Iraq. For instance, Russia favours allowing more time for weapon inspectors to continue their search for these weapons of mass destruction. France is at the moment against war. A veto from one of these three nations would block any UN movement in Iraq.

President Bush did announce on 6 February that he would welcome a second UN resolution authorizing war to disarm Baghdad. Also on the 6th, the 101st Airborne Division (one of the US best trained and fighting units) was ordered to the Middle East. There are already 100,000 US troops in the region, and that number may double by the end of February.
Kuwait has allowed for US troops to use their land and be station there in case there is war, and talks have also been going on with Turkey in order to use Turkish land to station US troops and aircraft. At the same time talks have been going on that would allow Turkish troops to follow US troops, fall back behind advancing US troops, into Northern Iraq if war does break out and help occupy the area.


On 10 February, Iraq began to agree to some of the UN demands, among them being allowing U-2 flights of photographic surveillance over Iraq.

But with the release of a tape that is believed to be Osama bin Laden's voice, the question of weather bin Laden and Al Qaeda has connections to Iraq have resurfaced. On 11 February, both Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA director George Tenet gave testimony linking Iraq and Al Qaeda. The tape urged Muslims to help Baghdad defend itself against an American attack. "We want to let you know and confirm to you that this war of the infidels that the US is leading with its allies. We are with you and we will fight in the name of God," the speaker said.

Mr. Powell used the tape as evidence that the Qaeda leader was "in partnership with Iraq." Mr. Tenet's testimony was especially noteworthy because some Pentagon and White House officials had privately complained that the CIA was too reluctant to conclude there was an Iraq-Qaeda link. Mr. Tenet told the Senate intelligence committee that intelligence officials had unearthedpowerful evidence showing a connection. "Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb making to Al Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gases to two Al Qaeda associates. One of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful." (New York Times, Feb. 12, 2003, Top US Officials Tell Lawmakers of Iraq-Qaeda Ties, David Johnston)

Bush officials feel that they have enough evidence to gather the necessary support for an invasion of Iraq. The evidence shows "an active pattern of defiance" by Saddam Hussein in violation of UN Resolution 1441 (which requires Iraq to cooperate with the UN in declaring and relinquishing its weapons of mass destruction) (Newsweek Feb. 10, 2003).

One answer why the United States has begun to go after Saddam Hussein and Iraq is the attacks on New York City, Washington DC, and Somerset, Pennsylvania. David Owen of The Guardian brings up an excellent point:"The fact that the US is ready to mount another military invasion, risk American lives and incur formidable costs, is solely due to what happened in New York and Washington on September 11 2001. After, Afghanistan, containing Islamic fundamentalist terrorism requires peace in the Middle East." – “The Guardian" 4, February 2003. American foreign policy has been shaped by the events of September 11th, and will do what it feels necessary to protect herself.

Questions over what should be done and how Iraq should be governed and rebuild have come into question. The White House told Congress that it would take two years for the US military to transfer control of Iraq's government to Iraqi leaders.
Threats and Supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction:
1.) VX - A nerve agent that is one of the most toxic substances on Earth
a. There are indications that Iraq has worked on the purity and weaponized this substance.
2.) Chemical Bombs - Documents found in 1998 detail the usage ofthese bombs in the Iran-Iraq War.
b. More than 13,000 bombs were dropped by Iraqi forces.
3.) Chemical Rocket Warheads - Discovered by inspectors in Dec. 2002.
c. Weather these warheads were overlooked as Iraq says, or just the 'tip of the iceberg' of the thousand of unaccounted rockets is yet to be seen.
4.) Anthrax - There have been reports of anthrax in Iraq in the past.d. There has yet to be any documentation that proves that Iraq has destroyed the deadly agent. And there are indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than declared.
5.) Bacterial Growth Material - Material capable of building stocks of deadly bacteria.
e. In its Dec. 7 report to inspectors, the pages concerning this material were omitted and renumbered.
6.) Scud-type Missiles - Iraq may have retained some of these missiles after the Gulf War.
7.) Missile development Projects - Two Iraqi projects to develop missiles.
f. Both missile systems have been tested, a range of 93 milesg. Both missiles are in control of the Iraqi Armed Forces, despite Iraqi reports that they are still in development.
8) High-strength Aluminum Tubes - Iraq attempted to obtain tubes used to manufacture nuclear centrifuges.
h. Iraq is forbidden from purchasing the tubes under a UN Security Council resolution. IAEA analysis of the tubes is not finished but the Iraqi's claim that they were needed to reverse engineer conventional rockets.
9.) HMX - An explosive that can be used for nuclear weapons or for legitimatepurposes.
i. Again, IAEA needs more time to investigate the whereabouts of missing quantities of HMX that the Iraqis claim were used for mining purposes.
10.) Uranium - Iraq has denied trying to import uranium since 1991.
j. Again, the IAEA does not have enough information on the topic. But inspectors found 2,000 pages of documents on uranium enrichment in the home of an Iraqi scientist.

Iraqi Oil and Connections to Other Members in the UN Security Council
Among one of the most talked about topics during the debate of war with Iraq has been over oil, what to do with Iraqi oil, and national interests in Iraqi oil. Russia, France, and China all have existing deals involving oil with Iraq. UN sanctions had been imposed in August 1990 and in 1995 the UN Security Council allowed Iraq to sell oil, under UN supervision, to buy food, medicine, oil equipment and a host of other goods in an effort to ease the impact of the UN sanctions.

When the food for oil deal was extended in 2000, the Security Council was also united in calling for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq. But Iraq's few council supporters, led by France, pressed for measure to ease these sanctions and the negative impact they imposed on the Iraqi people. In December of 2000, France wanted "to set aside 600 million Euros ($538 million US) for Iraq to use for its oil industry expense, but the United States and several other council members argue that any cash allocation must be available to all economic sectors." (CNN.com; 5 Dec. 2000; AP & Reuters, www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/12/05/un.iraq.oil.02)

Iraq is estimated to have 112.5 billion barrels of oil, about 11% of the world’s total, and also has immense gas fields. Before 1972, US and UK companies controlled about a three-quarters share of the Iraqi oil production, but in 1972 they lost their position with the nationalization of the Iraq Petroleum Company. As Iraq attempted to gain control of its oil resources they turned to French companies and the Soviet government for funds. While France and Russia still have major stakes in Iraqi oil today, China, Germany, and Japan all also have interests.

In the 1990's Russia's Lukoil reached an agreement in 1997 to "develop Iraq's West Qurna field." (Iraq: the Struggle for Oil, James A. Paul, Dec. 2002 www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2002/08jim.htm) Also in 1997, China National signed an agreement for the North Rumailah field. And France and French company, TotalFinaElf, held contract talks with the Iraqi government to develop the Majnun Field and other fields as soon as sanctions were lifted.

France is not alone when it comes to connections to Iraq and oil, if anything Russia has more of a stake in Iraq than any other country. Russia "which is owed billions of dollars by Iraq for past arms deliveries, has the strongest interest in Iraqi oil development, including a 3.5 billion, 23 year deal to rehabilitate oilfields, particularly the 11-15 billion-barrel West Qurna field, located west of Basra near the Rumaila field." (The Observer, Peter Beaumont and Faisal Islam, Nov 3, 2002, "Carve-up of oil riches begins").

While France has never signed a deal, unlike Russia and China which both did in 1997, all three countries have clear and great interests in Iraq and Iraqi oil. War with Iraq, and thus bring in a new government that would be friendly with the United States, would damage these countries interests in Iraqi oil. James Woolsey, the former CIA Director said at a congressional hearing last September: "If the French and Russians, especially, believe that they can oppose steps to destroy Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and change the regime as necessary and still be favorably treated of have their oil companies favorably treated in a newly liberated Iraq, I believe we should give them something else to think about."

In other words, if the UN supports a war, UN members like France and Russia might have a voice in how the oil fields are administered afterward, but if the US attacks alone, they'll have no voice.

But while France has been the most vocal voice against war with Iraq, it may be oil that they are thinking about. Oil Analyst Raad Alkadiri said on NPR (National Public Radio in the United States): "I think France has been acting unbalanced on the basis of its broader strategic interests. And I think those obviously include political, commercial and otherwise. They have a very, very large Muslim population that they're obviously concerned about, the repercussions of the war on. So I think they're pulling all of their thinking together and coming up with a policy that best suits their national interest very much in the same way as the Bush administration is following its own. It may be the case that for the French stepping back and not participating in this war, particularly if it's a narrow-led US war, will enhance their commercial interests in the rest of the Arab world and in the rest of the Middle East." (NPR, All Things Considered: Jan 25, 2003.)

Mr. Alkadiri went on to say that the same may be true for Russia too.

General Iraqi Information

Iraq it self is 437,072 sq. km, with Baghdad being the capital (population of 3.8 million in a 1986 estimate). A 2001 estimate of the population was 23,331,985, with 75% of that population being Arab, anywhere from 15-20% being Kurdish, and Turkman, Assyrian, or others making up less than 5% of the population. Religiously Iraq is divided between a 60% Shia Muslim and a 35% Sunni Muslim population, there is also a 5% Christian minority and less that 1% Jewish population. Almost 75% of Iraq's population lives in the flat, alluvial plain stretching southeast toward Baghdad and Basrah to the Persian Gulf. The most common language is Arabic, but Kurdish is spoken in the north.

Politically the Ba'ath Party controls the government and is the only recognized political party in regime-controlled territory. The Iraqi regime does not tolerate opposition.

The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iraq; however, it does have an Interests Section in the Polish Embassy in Baghdad. Iraq, likewise, has no diplomatic relations with the United States; it has an Interests Section in the Algerian Embassy in Washington, DC.

This is the Shit We should be Doing…

Who Doesn't Love Patchy Skin?

It’s coming hard, it’s coming fast, and it’s coming at you now. This is blogging at its finest, someone call Jim Nantz.

We were able to attend the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department conference yesterday where Senator John McCain addressed its members. While the Post article here over glorifies McCain almost leaving the podium, there was no doubt that these fine union gusy almost booed him off the stage. But we’ve got to tip our hat to McCain since he handled the tough crowd extremely well even taking questions from the crowd at the end. By the end, most of the union guys around us had tuned out McCain and were ready to hit the bar (it was after all, 11:30am), but McCain was able to dance around the questions fired at him, make a few jokes, and at least get everyone to listen to him for a while. He gets an A for effort. The speech itself? We’re not sure taking on union members is the best idea; McCain’s sort of lucky someone didn’t knock his block off after telling them when it comes to picking lettuce, "You can't do it, my friends." Plus if farmers were really paying workers fifty bucks an hour to pick lettuce, I’m pretty sure about ten people in this country would be eating lettuce and Bill Gates and the Google guys would be three of ‘em, plus half my friends would be down there right now collecting the cool two grand a week they’d be making. Blah, blah, blabh, McCain was going on about Iraq and the terrorists someone shouted “BULLSHIT!!” to which most people slowly nodded their heads. I’m still trying to figure out why the GOP is trying to fool the country; most people have seen right threw this crap/mess that’s called Iraq, why not just give it up and hope it sort of goes away? Sort of amazing that everything they bring it up they’re shooting themselves in the foot yet they keep bringing it up. Let the Dems do that, since they look sillier every time they bring it up. Anyway, McCain only gets a C- for the speech, mainly because he wasn’t very convincing in anything that he said.

But then again, after watching the disaster that was McCain’s appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday, simply showing up was an improvement. It’s becoming painfully obvious that McCain is turning into a flip flopper and trying to figure out what he stands for is difficult. One day he’s promoting a more open immigration policy, the next he’s off to speak at Liberty University. All we can say is “Go figure”. But if we could, we’d put money on McCain’s Presidential dreams being over in about 730 days.

There is such a thing as running for President too long, and John never really stopped running after the spring of 2000. He’s been on the trail for seven years now and his act is wearing thin. Plus since he’s been on the front lines for the past six or seven years, all the statements he’s made all the things he’s stood for are coming back to haunt him. We just can’t see McCain getting the nod from the GOP at this point. He’s just been around the block too often and in the public eye far too long.

Who didn’t love Starting Lineup? And can you believe that they made a Candy Maldonado one? And when I found out three or four years ago that these things, unopened, were worth hundreds of dollars I had a nervous break down. I loved these things growing up… plastic statues of athletes. Threw them out ten years ago, and five years later learn that they’re worth half a year of grad school. On the plus side, at least I’ve got my baseball card collection. Great investment that was. It’s a shame I didn’t save the thousand bucks I probably spend on baseball cards and put it into a hedge fund in 1993. I’d be a millionaire by now. Damn you Upper Deck!

I’m convinced Hell is/was watching the 1995 White Sox, coached by Terry Bevington, at the NEW Comiskey circa 1996 on a cold, damp, April night against the 2006 Royals, seven people in the stands and everywhere you look you see Rhibbie and Rhubbard or Andy the Clown. Scott Ruffcorn is pitching to Fisk and is eventually gets a visit from Nardi Contreras and is lifted for Jamie Navarro. Between every inning DJ Joe Stephen does his thing and of course Hawk is the GM. That would be Hell.

When will Dippin Dots stop being the Ice Cream of the Future? It’s been like ten years… has the future not arrived?

Opening Day really is just great. We enjoyed pretty much every second of Monday just because it was Opening Day. Just a great day and always, and I mean always, underrated.

This is sort of cool, I just realized that my high school science partners have become bizarre google searching clebs… one was drafted in the seventh round of the MLB draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The other is a stand up comedian based in New York who now has his own IMBD page. How cool is that? Does this mean I’ll become a totally minor internet cleb in the next few years?

Anyway, check out John who is/was?/will be? a good friend back in the day/on Sunday/three years from now. He’s smart. And maybe because he’s smart he’ll make you laugh.

Maybe if I get some gumption I’ll figure out html and link some shite up on the top and this could actually turn into a good blog. But considering I’m too busy most days retracing the steps of Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir, well work with we (I did the we just for alliteration, I felt the need to tell you).

Okay off to ‘celebrate’ the Terps national championship in woman’s basketball. Fear the Girdle. How great is that the good kids of College Park are equal opportunity… they burn crap when the men AND women win it all. Anyway, everyone have a good day.

Tired Monday

We feel the same way...

We hate day light savings or whatever it's called... but jumping foward stinks since it throws everything off. We were eatting lunch at 11:45 yesterday... but it was really 10:45 and my body didn't like it. And it was dark this morning. So that stinks.

And we don't feel like writing 4,500 words on the Western divisions, so we aren't today. And nothing eles has caught our eye... we'll leave you with this:

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. -- P. J. O'Rourke

NL East and Central

It's long... and who knows if I'll get to the West... but here you go...

National League East
5) Florida Marlins (Win range: 59-64)
Why they’ll stink: Oh… my… Gwad. I’m not sure words describe how bad this team is. I’m just looking at their roster right now… I’ve heard of four position players and four pitchers. I’m not kidding… Reggie Abercrombie? Dan Uggla? Mike Megrew? No clue who those guys are. On top of that, they’ve put together half of the Cubs brutal bullpen by signing Borowski and Sergio Mitre. This team sucks so much. They might be worse than the Royals. I can’t get over the fact that there is a guy named Reggie Abercrombie on this team? He might make my all name list next year.
Silver Lining: That they’ll be in Vegas soon? Why didn’t anyone support this team back in the day?
Best Pitcher: Dontrelle Willis
Best Player: Miguel Cabrera, I’ll say this, they might only have 8 guys that I’ve heard of, but they’ve also got Cabrera and Willis who are studly
Wild Card Chance?: None. Then again the NL is so bad… nah, they can’t do it.
Key to Season: …that they figure out what’s the next step with this organization. It’s clear that they won’t be in Miami much longer… I’m not sure what the next step is so hopefully they get on that this year.
Random Thoughts: This team was gutted [GET IT?] after last year which is sad to see. They had a lot of talent and now they’ve got next to nothing. I’m not sure why baseball failed so badly in south Florida. I know it’s a crappy sports area, but you’d think that they’d have a little more passion and commitment from the fans. Oh well. This team stinks and I have nothing to add. I love Miguel Cabrera, there that’s something.

4) Washington Nationals (Win Range 70-75)
Why they’ll stink: This team will finish 4th only because the Marlins are so bad. I don’t like this team at all. Jim Bowden traded for Soriano even though he’s got an All-Star at second in Jose Vidro when healthy. This of course lead to Soriano telling the Nats that he’s out of there at the end of the season and refused to play left for a few days. That was fun. Nice job Jim. Just awesome. You ran the Reds into the ground and now you’re doing a damn fine job making the Expos/Nats worse. It’s going to be so much fun watching Soriano dog it in left, missing cut off men, misplaying balls, and probably cost them a few games in left. And have I mentioned that they’ll struggle to score 700 runs? And that there is no way they allow only 673 runs this year? This team played way over their heads last year and are about to come crashing down to Earth.
Silver Lining: The stadium deal is finally done so they don’t have to worry about that any more. Maybe they’ll have an owner soon. Maybe.
Best Pitcher: Livan Hernandez just because he can throw like 400 innings if need be
Best Player: Jose Guillen, but he usually goes insane in his second year on a team, so who knows.
Wild Card Chance?: I guess if they get pitching like they did last year from guys that weren’t on the team last year and they find a way to score 100 more runs they could do it… but Zimmerman and Soriano aren’t going to add 100 runs.
Key to Season: It’s going to be interesting to see if they can get anything for Soriano at this point. What a bad trade that was. Have I mentioned that their short stop is either Cristian Guzman who stinks or Royce Clayton who sinks? Vidro needs to stay healthy, same with Nick Johnson… there are too many guys with long injury histories on this team.
Random Thoughts: They have the dumbest name in baseball. I hate their name… what the hell is a Washington National? Why not call the Giants the San Francisco Nationals? And I love when people in DC get upset and say things like “What else are they going to call them?” since the Capitals and Senators are already taken… and I like to point out that’s how boring and brutal DC is… there is nothing, NOTHING, to name your sports team after. I like the Washington Grays personally… Playing a big park like RFK helps this team, but they’ve got next to nothing coming up the pipeline after this Zimmerman kid… Their pitching can’t be as good as it was last year and that’s going to hurt them since they didn’t score any runs last year either… This team is OLD, they’re average age is almost 30 and only this Zimmerman kid is under 27… Ugh, what a bland team with bland uniforms and a blander name. Something needs to be done quickly to make this team more interesting… Oh and Jim Bowden is the worst GM in baseball now that Chuck LaMarr was finally fired. I think the only person who’s proud of this Soriano deal is Isiah Thomas…

3) New York Mets (Win Range: 81-86)
Why they’re overrated: Because they’re the Mets and everyone loves them every year and they’re never as good as everyone thinks they are. It’s like a rite of spring at this point along with everyone wanting to kill Billy Packer, the random Kerry Wood injury, and flowers. They made a lot of moves over the winter to make their offense better, but what about the pitching? Tom Glavine is fifty-three, Pedro has a bum toe plus always breaks down in late July, and then it’s the 35 year old Steve Trachsel and Victor Zambrano… that’s not a playoff rotation. And that bullpen isn’t anything to get excited about either… Juorge Julio is going to drive Mets fans crazy.
Silver Lining: Billy Wagner at the end of the line should close out a few more games and they should score more runs this year, but I don’t think they’re pitching will be as good so everything will balance out. And who doesn’t love Jose Reyes?
Best Pitcher: Come on, it’s Pedro, who’s gotten to the point where we only call him by his first name. He’s like a Brazilian football player.
Best Player: I know everyone and their mother apparently wants to make babies with David Wright, but I’m not totally sold on this kid. I’ll take Jose Reyes getting on base and doing annoying things on the basepaths.
Wild Card Chance?: Pretty good. The NL East is the best division in the NL so they’ll be around. I just don’t think they have enough to beat out the Phillies and Braves. It’s going to come down to injuries in this division, and who ever stays healthy should be set.
Key to Season: They’re pitching can’t fall apart. They just can’t. As a team they’re old (average age over 30) with young kids Wright and Reyes and a lot of these guys have injury problems as it is. And not underachieving would be a good idea too.
Random Thoughts: This team wastes so much money it’s not even funny. If you’re going to over pay for a guy, make sure he isn’t a three month wonder (read: Carlos Beltran and Kaz Matsui) or over the age of 33 (read: Tom Glavin, even Cliff Floyd, Jose Valentin, Billy Wagner, and Paul Lo Duca…)… Good too see that they have Julio Franco and his 47 year old body at first base… I will say this, they put together more okay outfielders than any other team in the majors, Floyd, Nady, and Beltran are all okay, cool, type ball players; except the Mets pay these guys like 30 million dollars to chill out there… I’d hate being a Mets fan if for no other reason than those ugly black hats. The sooner they switch to blue the better… Why did they spend all this money on back up players like Valentin and Franco?... If Mets fans could kill anyone, would anyone else besides Kaz Matsui receive a vote?... I can’t get excited about this team, trust me they’re way overrated… again.

2.) Philadelphia Phillies (Win Range: 83-88)
Why they’ll “surprise” everyone: Let me get this out of the way first, I want to pick them first, but I’m not going to since the last time the Braves didn’t win this division I was in like second grade. I’m two years out of college. I’m not stupid, you stick with the goods. The Braves are the goods...But moving on, I sort of like this team. They’ll score runs. They’ve got a little pitching, and while their bullpen isn’t that great, I have faith in Pat Gillick who’s done some interesting things with this team. He’s not building for a one year run, he’s looking toward the future a bit.
Silver Lining: They can score runs and they’ll score a lot of runs. Chase Utley is the best American second baseman and Ryan Howard, aka Lil’ Papi, looks like he’s something special. And for as bad as David Bell is, he’s the type of guy that can surprise you at the plate and is a great clubhouse presence. You can’t over look role players like that. Okay I just said that to piss off my Philly friends.
Best Pitcher: Brett Myers
Best Player: This is sort of a tough one, if Bobby Abreu pulls his head out of his ass, he’s probably the one, but don’t forget about Jimmy Rollins… but we’ll take Chase Utley who looks like, dare we say, a lefthanded Ryan Sandberg…hummmm…
Key to Season: Pitching… they need someone, anyone to step up and produce with Myers and Liber. You know what you’re getting with those two… so can someone (Ryan Madson? Gavin Floyd?) step up and post some decent numbers until Randy Wolf gets back to round out everything? They’re going to have to make a deal for another arm in the pen, but that could be said about everyone in the majors.
Wild Card Chance?: We think they’ll win the Wild Card.
Random Thoughts: It’s always dangerous to back a Philly team since the city can turn on them. I hate picking Philly teams for this very reason, I’m not sure anyone ‘torpedoes’ their teams more than Philly fans, even during the ‘Nova/BC game the other day you could year everyone in the Philly region saying, ‘they’re going to blow it’ in every corner of the country. And this actually happened last year to the Phils, but then they got hot and made a push coming up just short (of course this was after everyone had given up on them and losing all those games to the Astros killed them in the end)… We loved the Thome for Rowand deal for everyone, the Phillies also picked up two nice young arms that are at least a year a way, but something to watch for… Is Jimmy Rollins the Ray Durham of short stops?... This team reminds of the Chicago White Sox around 2002/2003. Lot of young arms that haven’t stepped up besides Myers/Buehrle, corner outfielders who are All-Stars/borderline All-Stars but can’t help them win for whatever reason (Abreu/Burrell::Maggs/Carlos Lee), mangers named Manuel… Mike Liberthal blows… How great is name Rheal Cormier? Why can’t we have more French names in sports?... Weird team, they’ve got talent and if they can find ways to win close games, they’ll be much better than everyone realizes. They make the playoffs because the NL blows.

1.) Atlanta Braves (Win Range: 85-90)
Why they'll cruise: Because they’ve finished in first since 1991… that’s right 1991, think about that for a second. I was nine… I’m now two years out of college. That’s amazing. I’m not going to be stupid; I’m sticking with the Braves. Plus they always, always, have someone come out of no where and ‘save’ their season. It’s unbelievable the number of players they’ve had though the years that have become so good… Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Marcus Giles, Javy Lopez, Andres Galarraga, Fred McGriff, Ryan Klesko… to go along with all those pitchers who one would think are washed up, turn their careers around, and then let the Yankees sign them for four years and 35 million and they throw maybe 230 innings over those four years. For instance, does anyone doubt that Renteria will hit .310 with 27 home runs and 107 RBIs? Or that Horacio Ramirez will win 14 games? Or that they’ll have some kid in AA come out of no where and be the difference come August and September. Just an amazing franchise that we too often over look because they’ve only won it all once in all those years.
Mitigating Factor: I loved the Renteria deal, he’ll bounce back this year. If Francoeur would ever learn to take a few pitches, he’ll be great. Hudson and Smoltz at the top of the rotation is better than anyone else in the division.
Best Pitcher: Tim Hudson had a ‘down’ year last year. He bounces back this year.
Best Player: If Andruw Jones wore a cape… he’d be Superman!
Key to Season: That they keep doing what they do. They’ve got bullpen questions again, but they’ve had bullpen questions for like 11 out of the 14 years of this little run they’ve had. I don’t see it being a deal breaker.
Random Thoughts: You’d be an idiot not to pick them first. People have been saying ‘this is the year the Braves don’t win the division’ since 2000… we’re still waiting. I see no reason why they can’t keep winning this year. They’re a solid team with some veteran presence along with some nice young players who should continue to grow. I also have nothing that funny and interesting to say about them so I’m stopping. Though, how great are July Brave games on TBS?

National League Central
6) Cincinnati Reds (Win range: 72-77)
Why they’ll stink: Because they are a fire sale waiting to happen. The pitching on this team isn’t that good, and even though they picked up Bronson Arroyo, I can’t see it being much better than last year. Sure Milton can’t be any worse, but who is Dave Williams? Brandon Claussen anyone? They also won’t score as many runs this year because I said so.
Silver Lining: It’s hard to find… Griffey’s swing? Dunn’s home runs when he connects? Felipe Lopez seems like he might be a nice player, but other than that this team is at a crossroads.
Best Pitcher: We’ll take Aaron Harang just because he didn’t stink last year.
Best Player: Can Felipe Lopez throw some leather? I honestly don’t know… We’ll say Griffey even though he’s not who he was. Dunn just strikes out too much.
Wild Card Chance?: In a NL Central where everyone is on about the same level talent wise after the Cardinals, I’ll give them a chance. But they need Arroyo to be a Cy Young candidate, Milton to figure out how not to give up home runs, and Encarnacion Kearns, and Lopez need to all improve. That’s not going to happen.
Key to Season: I’m not sure… this is a weird team. Trying to win now is going to be tough since they don’t have a ton. It’s a mix of older guys and young guys… not many ‘middle of the road’ players on this team. I guess developing some pitching? Getting new uniforms? Who knows.
Random Thoughts: Another bland, blah, whatever National League team! I think this is going to be a trend. This team may surprise people, but I bet they get off to a slow start, trade a few of these older guys, and get ready for a run in 2008. That’s just my guess… Cincinnati is a good baseball town right? Like that’s their thing correct? I forget these things. I’m moving on. I have nothing to say about these guys either expect that I hope that Dunn his a 600 foot home run this year. That would be cool.

5) Chicago Cubs (Win Range 75-80)
Why they’ll stink: Warning! This team might be really, really, bad. This team might be okay. This team will not be good. Why? For the fifth year in a row, they go into the season saying “If Wood and Prior are healthy…” You know what? If I went to Yale I might have a really kick ass job right now. So I don’t want to hear it. Wood is next to useless at this point and they should have dumped him two years ago. Prior is a egotistical jagbag. And have you seen their line up? Thank the Lord for Derrek Lee because he’s all they have.
Silver Lining: Carlos Zambrano… I’m telling you, people with mental problems taking the ball every fifth day is always enjoyable to watch. We’re never going to see another Carlos Zambrano so let’s enjoy him while we can, because honestly, I’m not sure how long he’ll pitch. If I wake up tomorrow and read that Zambrano got in a bar fight with four women from Argentina, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m not sure what time of shelf life we have here, so let’s just enjoy his pointing to the sky, cup adjustments between every pitching, screaming, and glove slapping. Thanks.
Best Pitcher: Our man Carlos!
Best Player: Derrek Lee who was the best player in baseball last year. Just an amazing year.
Wild Card Chance?: I actually think the Reds have a better chance… but year if Priors and Woods don’t stay on the DL, Zambrano doesn’t kill anyone, Maddux can continue to hold it together, and Rusch stays solid they could make a run… oh and they need Pierre to not be bad, figure out this Todd Walker crap, Lee can’t regress, and Jones needs to be better than he was in Minnesota. Keep dreaming.
Key to Season: Probably Juan Pierre… if he can bounce back to be a decent lead off hitter, they’ll win 81 games.
Random Thoughts: Trust me on this one… the Bud-Lite Bleachers will become the most annoying thing in Chicago by April 18. I can here the Trixies now… “Let’s go to the Bud-Lite Bleachers this afternoon!”… Cub fans think this team will win, I’m not kidding… What if Juan Pierre really does stink now?... I’m I missing something with Jacque Jones?... Did you know that they have a kid named Matt Murton playing left? And Ronny Cedeno playing short? Why do Cub fans even bother? I know Murton is a young player, but I’ll tell you right now he’s no Carlos Lee let alone Austin Kearns… This team struggled to score runs last year and unless Pierre isn’t that bad and the bottom of their order doesn’t completely suck they’ll still struggle to score runs. And they’re pitching isn’t very good but we knew that… Get off the bandwagon right now! I’m telling you this thing is going to crash and burn and if the White Sox win 95 games it’s going to get really ugly on the North Side.

4.) Pittsburgh Pirates (Win Range: 76-81)
Why they’ll be better than anyone realizes: This team is going to start slow, and then around June start putting everything together and by the end of the year become the team no one wants to play. I loved the Sean Casey pick up, Jason Bay should blow up this year, and say what you will about Burnitz and Randa, but they will help this team. And they’re pitching is pretty good with a bunch of young arms coming up. A team on the rise.
Silver Lining: This team has young left handers coming out the wa-zoo and that’s a good problem to have. Be interesting how these guys develop, but I think they’re going to ‘find’ another Zack Duke as the year goes on. They’ll score more runs this year and that should be good for a ten game swing in the standings.
Best Pitcher: Zach Duke looked like a future star last year.
Best Player: Jason Bay, who’s also the best Canadian in baseball! I think he’ll have a ‘big’ year.
Wild Card Chance?: Aiight… not that good, but if Maholm can pitch like he did at the end of last for the full season, Duke continues to impress, and Oliver Perez can find whatever he lost last year they’ll make a run. They probably don’t have enough offense in the end, but a team to watch for as the season goes along.
Key to Season: The development of these young pitchers. They’ve got some really nice arms. If Perez can find his 2004 form and they’re able to find another bat as the season progresses… who knows.
Random Thoughts: I really like what they’re doing in Pittsburgh. They’ve developed what looks to be some solid arms and now the key is to keep them healthy and gain some experience. Then next year find another bat and make a run at the Central with the Brewers… They play the best stadium in baseball… Isn’t it sort of disappointing that their big moves this off-season were Burnitz and Randa?... This team is a year away, but if they could win 81 games that would be huge for them. It seems like we’ve been saying this for a while, but I think finally they’ve got things figured out and are on the verge of something here in the next few years… If they had a few more young position players that were going to get some time this year, I’d say watch for them to make a “2005 Indians” like second half move, but I just don’t see the young guys on the field to make a move like that. They need another bat… oh well, next year. Should be a fun year at the ball park for the people of Pittsburgh… And best of luck and a healthy recovery to Kip Wells.

3) Houston Astros (win range: 79-83)
Why they’ll finish third: I have no clue where this team is going to finish… they could win 90 games or they could win 70, I just can’t get a feel for them, so third place seems like a good place to put them. Obviously if Clemens comes back and pitches for them, they’ll be closer to that 90 win figure, but if he doesn’t, and we don’t think he will because for this ‘roid stuff, and some of these guys get hurt… well that’s a 70 wins team. This team didn’t score runs last year and got into the playoffs because the Phillies can’t beat them. If Pettitte gets hurt, Backe doesn’t step up, and Clemens doesn’t come back it’s going to be a long summer in Houston.
Silver Lining: This team did win the 2005 NL pennant… and maybe they won’t play those buzzing bee noise any more.
Best Pitcher: Roy Oswalt, this guy saved their season first by pitching well the whole year and then by winning Game 6 of the NLCS
Best Player: Lace Berkman because he’s the only bat that would scare us in this line up… yes Morgan Ensberg you’re overrated.
Wild Card Chance?: They are the defending NL Champs, so it’s not like their talentless, but I think the Brew-Crew pass them by. That said… they could.
Key to Season: They need to find ways to score more runs, I think they’ll struggle to score runs again this year. And if Clemens doesn’t come back they’re in big, big trouble. Too many question marks and too many old ball players on this team.
Random Thoughts: Hey! What’s that?!?! Is that Reggie Bush!?!?!?!... I hate this team just because I don’t think they’re that good and they’re no fun to watch, they play in a bullshit ballpark, and Phil Gardner is an asshole (and that’s being kind)… Raise your hand if you think Brad Lidge’s career is over? [Hand in air] Do people realize this guy gave up a 976 foot home run to Albert Pujols in the 9th inning while being one strike away from the World Series? Got bailed out by Roy Oswalt two days later, and then three or four days after than gave up a walk off home run to a guy who hadn’t hit a home run during the regular season to lose Game Two of the World Series? Stick a fork in the Domer... I hope Clemens come back and then gets busted for ‘roids. That would be great… Their line up 5-8 is brutal… This might be the year where the wheels come off for Biggio and they look for excuses to not play him, he’s had a great career and done so much for this team, but the end is nearing and quickly… They have the worst fans in this division and that’s saying something since the Cubs are in this division.

2) Milwaukee Brewers (Win Range: 81-86)
Why they’re the trendy pick: You know they won 81 games last year right? And that they’re pitching is pretty good? They upgraded themselves at third and probably first during the winter, and Rickie Weeks should be better this year too hitting in the two hole. I like this team; they’re fairly balanced and should take advantage of a very average National League.
Silver Lining: They play in Miller Park! Also known as the craziest ballpark in the majors and they’ve got a lot of young talent.
Best Pitcher: Ben Sheets, though he’s starting to become the ‘Sconie Mark Prior, stay healthy and win more than 12 games one of these years, man.
Best Player: Carlos Lee, which when you think about it isn’t a good thing.
Wild Card Chance?: They’ve got a good chance to be honest, but I like the Phillies more in the end. But they should be there the last weeks of the season.
Key to Season: Their pitching is able to do what they did last year, they score a few more runs, and Ben Sheets isn’t on the DL too long. Also Rickie Weeks hitting higher than .239 would help.
Random Thoughts: I’ve got a buddy who’s a catcher in their system, Bernie Dennis, which is pretty cool… I love Miller Park because it’s so bizarre… After pulling Scott Podsednik out of no where, they pulled Brady Clark out of no where, are they going to be to centerfielders what the Braves are to starting pitchers?... I love the first names on this team: Brady, Rickie, Carlos, Geoff, Corey, Prince, Damian, and J.J. those are eight great first names, it’s the little things I tell you… Where did this quality pitching come from? And if you saw Doug Davis on the street, would you know what he looked like? The guy had a 3.84 ERA with 11 wins and he’s a lefty… I’m extremely excited about the Prince Fielder era… For some reason they remind me of a European soccer team, I’m clearly insane right now… Is it wrong that J.J. Hardy makes me think of “Good Times”?... How great is Wisconsin? I love Wisconsin… I’m happy there is a team named Brewers in baseball, it’s just so appropriate: beer and baseball.

1) St. Louis Cardinals (Win Range: 92-97)
Why they'll cruise: Because they have Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter, and Mark Mulder… and just watch, they’ll turn Sidney Ponson into a 15 game winner. Plus they won 100 games last year and while they’re not as good, they’re still better than everyone else. They’ll make a move in the middle of the year to get that bat they need to but the distance between them and everyone else and then drive home safely.
Mitigating Factor: They have the greatest regular season manager of all time in Tony La Russa! That alone puts them in the playoffs only to watch TLR over manage and blow it come October. Does La Russa ever pull a double switch with his wife and neighbor? Plus I think Rolen stays healthy this year and saves their asses.
Best Pitcher: Chris Carpenter
Best Player: Albert Pujols… come on
Key to Season: I’ll make a list for them:
1) Stay healthy, ie Rolen and Edmonds and Carpenter/Mulder
2) Find a left fielder before So Taguchi is murdered by some enraged dude from Peoria
3) Release Junior Spivey
4) Make a trade with Jim Bodwen… actually wouldn’t this be a perfect fit for Soriano?
Random Thoughts: I took April 5th in the “Day Jim Edmonds slows up only to speed up at the end and make a ‘great’ diving catch that makes SportsCenter”… I hate Jimmy Edmonds for this reason alone… I’ll admit it, one of the best parts about the White Sox World Series DVD is getting to see Albert Pujols home run not once, but TWICE. And yes that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. If I’m ever in a bad mood I should just watch that… The real question is how does La Russa blow this postseason? And how does he keep getting free passes in the media for blowing these series year after year after year? Seriously, take a look at his playoff record, he’s made it to October 11 times and has won one World Series, only Bobby Cox would be proud of something like that… and among the mangers that he’s lost too? Bob Brenly and Dusty Baker; and I don’t think I’m breaking news here when I tell you Brenly and Baker are horrible managers. I mean did you hear Brenly in the booth for the Cubs last year? I think I could manage a baseball team after listening to Brenly off and on for the year. And let us not forget that a bad Mets team beat the Cards in 2000 managed by none other than Bobby Valentine (I’ll be kind and not mention that Cito Gaston once out managed TLR because those Jays teams were really really good). He was out managed by Phil Gardner in 2004 and 2005, only the Cards were too good to lose to the Astros in 2004… but then he just absolutely blew it to Terry Francona who couldn’t pull of a double switch if his life depended on it… don’t get me started with this La Russa crap… he blows. I should go before I swallow my tongue.